See Defra's principles for payment rates across future environmental schemes

06 July 2021

Environment and climate

Defra has developed payment principles to inform the development of payment rates across environmental schemes, including the Environmental Land Management scheme (ELMs).

There are four key principles to set payment rates that:

Encourage wide participation
Recognise environmental outcomes
Value natural assets, supporting on-going delivery
Encourage a public private market.

What is the NFU’s analysis of these principles?

The principles align with the NFU’s call for schemes that encourage wide participation, reward maintenance of existing delivery, recognise the delivery of multiple outcomes and enable private funding on land in ELMs agreements.

Many of the key issues raised by the NFU have been acknowledged in the principles. These include the need for a fair and consistent approach to payments across all the schemes, regular reviews of payment rates, and the challenges facing tenants. It is clear there is a lot of work to do to transition to new payment approaches across the environmental schemes.

For more information on the principles, and some outstanding policy questions, read our briefing for members: ELM Payment Principles

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