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Uplands Entry Level Stewardship Scheme

Volume 479: debated on Monday 21 July 2008

We announced in December 2006 that uplands support will be integrated into environmental stewardship from 2010, replacing the Hill Farm allowance. At that time we said we were minded to do this through a specific uplands strand to the entry level stewardship (ELS) scheme but that further analysis was needed to ensure that this would deliver the fullest environmental benefit.

Work since then with stakeholders and Natural England has shown this approach to be the right one and I am pleased to confirm that Natural England will implement Uplands ELS in 2010.

Our objective for this new strand of environmental stewardship will be to maintain and improve the biodiversity, natural resources, landscape and historical value of England’s uplands, and to contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation, by supporting the land management practices which deliver these benefits.

We want to secure public goods on a landscape scale, additional to those delivered by ELS, by supporting large numbers of upland farmers and land managers in delivering simple yet effective environmental management in the uplands. This is in recognition of the significance of the uplands in delivering a wide range of public benefits, and of the critical role that farmers and land managers play (particularly through extensive livestock grazing).

Uplands ELS will be open to all upland farmers and land managers—providing they can meet the requirements—and will be targeted at those carrying out the land management. We want it to be sufficiently flexible to allow farmers to adapt to future policy and market changes, whilst still delivering environmental and landscape benefits. We have also listened to pleas from farmers and other stakeholders to keep it simple.

We have worked closely with Natural England and stakeholders in developing the proposals, including through advice from a hill farmers' panel. We will be seeking views from the wider hill farming community over the summer, and testing the proposals with a range of hill farms so that we can ensure they are practical for the farmers involved, and achieve our objectives. We will also explore possible transitional arrangements for farmers and land managers in other closed agri-environment schemes. I will make a further announcement on the final scheme later this year.