Speeches by Reynolds.

“Thank you for the question. I do not agree that we are deregulating. I think we are taking a different approach to nature restoration, one that is done at a more strategic level. As I said before, I do not think that the current situation, where we have had inefficient operational behaviour with many lower-risk and low…”

“We will be opening the new SFI in June. We have done a lot of work to simplify it, to make it more accessible to smaller farmers. As you will know, we are opening it to small farms and those without an agreement from June, and then we are opening another window in September. That is a quite different approach, but we w…”

“As a Department we work across Government to make sure that concerns around nature and the environment are taken into account in the round. I think we have now protected the small farmers, given that we have increased the threshold significantly. We worked hand in glove with MHCLG on the Planning and Infrastructure Bil…”

“Certainly, in terms of the leadership of the representative organisations, I have a very good relationship with the president and the director general of the NFU, but also with Martin Lines from the NFFN and some of the other organisations. Obviously, the change on APR has hugely helped that relationship, but there are…”

“Okay. The redesign of the SFI is trying to ensure that farms can apply, with a fairer and easier process for the smaller farms. As we said in the EIP, we want to target double the number of farms that can provide species-rich habitat. I am happy to come back to you if you could send us some specifics. Thank you.”

“It depends on what the Government want to do. We have to ensure that, as the Chancellor has set out, we meet our fiscal rules—that is really important—and that as a Government we have financial discipline. We have secured a record amount for flood defences, both maintaining current defences and constructing new defence…”

“There is different funding for different timeframes. I went to see a very ambitious landscape recovery project in north Buckinghamshire involving about 60 different farmers and NGOs. Some of the longer and larger-scale landscape recovery programmes that are being taken forward are impressive. I do not know how big your…”

“I am very sorry to hear that. I wonder if there is something we can come back to you on, if we could have maybe some more detail on that.”

“We take into account what the OEP has said. We are, as I said, looking very carefully at that, and we have set out the direction of travel for SFI26, which will be open in June. We are committed to nature-friendly farming, and we are making sure that the environmental land management schemes as a whole drive better out…”

“You are right to raise this issue. I think it is very significant, as you suggest. I have heard the criticism of the water White Paper from another colleague of yours. All I would say, with respect, is that the EIP set out the targets for tackling agricultural pollution of water as well, so we are building on what we s…”

“I was not the Secretary of State at the time of the spending review.”

“That is an interesting question. I do not really see it like that. I do not have any competitive tension with my Cabinet colleague Ed Miliband. By the way, he is somebody I have worked with closely for many years in different guises. We work closely with DESNZ on offshore wind because, in order to make sure we meet the…”

“The two objectives are very clear. In order to have good, sustainable food production, you need good, healthy soils. I know there are a number of people on the Committee who are into soil, and it is a very good thing to be into. We see it as two sides of the same coin. I know sometimes it is seen as one being offset ag…”

“That is what we have in the spending review, and obviously it is on average as well. It is over the period.”

“Sorry, it is only because it is in the forefront of my mind, and I will come to it, but one of the areas where I worked across Government was on the APR issue, which was quite a big change that we were able to bring forward. We work very closely with Government Departments on planning issues. We have worked very closel…”

“There are lots of different actions in the SFI. I am happy to respond on the specifics in writing, but the broad direction of travel is that we try to take out duplication. We have also changed the rates for a small handful of the actions because, as I said in my speech to the NFU, the income forgone was slightly on th…”

“We want to ensure that more small farmers can access our schemes. One of the reasons why we have reduced the number of actions available under the SFI is to try to simplify the scheme so it is easier to apply for and easier to administer. That is something we are making progress on. We also have a new chief executive o…”

“Obviously, we are very serious about meeting the 30 by 30 commitments that we made internationally, both on land and in our seas. I would say, though, that I know the OEP did a very serious piece of work, a progress report, but that was focused on the progress up until March of last year. There has been quite some prog…”

“We had some issues last year with the farming budget and the ELM schemes. The SFI reached a point where the budget was spent, and then it was cut off very suddenly. They are tricky schemes because, for example on the ELMs capital grant, we give farmers quite some flexibility. It means that, over two or three years, the…”

“Okay. We would like to overachieve in this area. I think it is also worth saying that we are in constant communication with the OEP. It is not that it produces a huge report, as you will have seen on the EIP, and, as you say, it is already 10 months after the fact. Apart from reading that report and digesting it, we ar…”