Questions being asked about Defra’s ‘missing millions’

Questions are being asked about the apparent seepage of money from Defra, following announcements in the October Budget.

At the time, it was declared that the agricultural budget for 2024/25 was being increased from £2.4bn to £2.6bn, before reverting to the long-established £2.4bn again in 2025/26 – an effective increase of £200m for the current year.

But that contrasts with figures revealed in Defra’s Farming and Countryside Programme annual report last September, which showed the department had failed to get some £358m back to farmers over the past three financial years, to March 2024.

This reflected the fact that Defra had applied cumulative cuts to English farmers’ Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) entitlements, while replacement schemes and grants were not fully operational.

See also: Monbiot criticises government for environmental grant freeze

‘Sleight of hand’

Commenting on social media platform X, South West dairy consultant Nick Holt-Martyn described the underspend as “deliberate” and “a sleight of hand”.

“It’s more politically palatable than a cut, but achieves the same ends – money to the Treasury,” he wrote.

Cumbrian sheep farmer and author James Rebanks also pointed to the past underspend on X, expressing outrage that, even though Defra had failed to allocate some £358m, the latest tranche of grant schemes is also now being put on hold.

The NFU says the failure to fully reallocate the underspend is an “ongoing concern”, complaining about the government’s lack of transparency on budgetary matters.

“This does raise some quite fundamental questions about what has happened to the unspent money,” said senior support schemes adviser Richard Wordsworth.

“We’ve always known since 2020 the rough projection for cuts to BPS, but how it was being spent has always been the mystery.”

Mr Wordsworth said, unlike when Britain was in the EU and the allocation of money was always in the public domain, that was no longer the case post-Brexit.

‘Complicated’

When Farmers Weekly quizzed Defra farming minister Daniel Zeichner about the missing £358m earlier this month, his response was that “budget lines are complicated and detailed”.

“The top-level message on this is that we have secured the biggest agricultural budget the country has ever had, including an extra £500m for the transition to environmentally friendly farming,” he said.

“We are securing the agricultural transition, and I am really proud of that.”

Others are not so sure.

Joe Stanley, head of sustainable farming at the GWCT Allerton Project, fears the recent freezing of Countryside Stewardship capital grants implies that Defra is under yet more budgetary pressure from the Treasury, and predicts further cuts to come.

“This would be in line with the fact that the £2.4bn agriculture budget for England has been reduced dramatically by inflation in the decade since it was last set,” he said.

“Although the government may claim that £5bn over the next two years is ‘the largest budget for sustainable food production in our country’s history’, in reality, that figure should be in the region of £6.5bn just to have kept pace with inflation.”

Defra comment

Despite the challenges, a government spokesperson insisted its commitment to farmers “remains steadfast”.

“We have committed £5bn to the farming budget over two years, including more money than ever for sustainable food production and nature recovery,” said a spokesperson.

“Payments to support farmers to recover from flooding are also arriving in bank accounts, with £57 million in the last two weeks.

“But with this government inheriting a £22bn fiscal hole, difficult decisions have been taken to put us back on a sustainable footing.”