Our Environmental Land Management schemes do not include support for abattoirs or food processing hubs. However, the Government recognises the important role local abattoirs play in supporting rural economies and maintaining a robust and competitive sector. The first round of the Farming Investment Fund opened in 2022. This offered access to financial support to establish new producer led abattoirs through our Adding Value offer. We have previously offered support for a mobile abattoir through the Rural Development Programme for England. In February 2023, Mark Spencer, Minister for Food and Farming, announced the launch of a new smaller abattoir fund to help drive productivity, add value, promote innovation and utilise new technology and enhance animal welfare. Defra is working closely with the sector on the design and content of this fund and full details of the funding package will be announced later this year.

With regards to other support for farmers, we have committed to spend around £600 million on grants and other support for farmers to invest in productivity, animal health and welfare and innovation over three years and paid out over £30 million so far in grants for technology and equipment. We have also provided 10,000 farmers with help and advice through the Future Farming Resilience Fund, which provides farmers with free advice to help farmers work out what to do for their business. Finally, we are looking at how we can support new entrants into the sector and those looking to grow their farming businesses by developing their entrepreneurial capabilities through a pilot scheme being run in conjunction with Harper Adams and Landworkers’ Alliance.

As set out in our payment principles document published in June 2021, we aim to support the stacking of multiple public schemes and public and private finance so long as schemes are compatible, pay for different or additional outcomes and do not pay for the same action twice.

On 6 January 2022 we published further information on both Local Nature Recovery and Landscape Recovery.

This included the broad themes that Local Nature Recovery will pay for and more detail on how it will work. This publication also confirmed that we will continue working with stakeholders to develop the detailed scheme rules for Local Nature Recovery. We will finalise and publish these as soon as possible to allow people to plan their participation in the scheme.

The publication also included initial information on the criteria for the first round of Landscape Recovery pilot projects. It confirmed that we will launch the application process shortly including publishing full guidance for applicants. This guidance will cover detailed information on how bids will be assessed and how the scheme will work for the selected projects. Projects will have 16 weeks to prepare their applications before the application window closes. Applications will then be assessed against our selection criteria and we will confirm the chosen first round pilot projects this summer.

Now we have left the EU, we have taken back control of our waters, and we will always work hard to deliver sustainable and viable fishing opportunities for fishers across the UK.

We have greater shares of fishing quota, and the total value of UK-EU fishing opportunities for the UK in 2021 is approximately £333 million – an increase of £27 million on last year.

We have agreed a quota exchange mechanism and recently announced the first investment from our £100 million UK Seafood Fund to boost science and innovation in the industry.