A future where farmers are properly supported to farm more innovatively and protect the environment is a step closer today following the introduction of the Agriculture Bill.

The landmark legislation introduced today will provide a boost to the industry after years of inefficient and overly bureaucratic policy dictated to farmers by the EU.

It sets out how farmers and land managers in England will in the future be rewarded with public money for “public goods” – such as better air and water quality, higher animal welfare standards, improved access to the countryside or measures to reduce flooding. This will contribute to the government’s commitment to reaching net zero emissions by 2050, while at the same time, helping to boost farmers’ productivity.

This will replace the current subsidy system of Direct Payments which pays farmers for the total amount of land farmed, skewing payments towards the largest landowners rather than those farmers delivering specific public benefits.

Instead, the new measures will provide a better future for agriculture in this country, maximising the potential of the land for food production and for delivering public goods.

The reforms set out in the Bill are supported by the manifesto commitment to maintain overall annual funding for farm support at current levels for the duration of this Parliament.

Environment Secretary Theresa Villiers said:

Our landmark Agriculture Bill will transform British farming, enabling a balance between food production and the environment which will safeguard our countryside and farming communities for the future.

This is one of the most important environmental reforms for many years, rewarding farmers for the work they do to safeguard our environment and helping us meet crucial goals on climate change and protecting nature and biodiversity.

We will move away from the EU’s bureaucratic Common Agricultural Policy and towards a fairer system which rewards our hard-working farmers for delivering public goods, celebrating their world-leading environmental work and innovative, modern approach to food production.

We will continue to champion British produce and support farmers to adapt to our new pioneering approach to agriculture through a seven-year transition period in England, ensuring we unleash the potential of our farmers for the future.

The new Bill champions British food by improving transparency and fairness in the supply chain from farm to fork and through investing in new technology and research to ensure our world-renowned food producers remain competitive and innovative.

Investing in the foundations of food production, such as clean air, soils and water, will safeguard our food security and the Bill will legally require any UK government to report regularly on food security to Parliament.

By collecting data from across the supply chain, the government will also help food producers strengthen their negotiating position at the farm gate and seek a fairer return.

In order to spend more on boosting productivity and environmental benefits, Direct Payments will be phased out over an agricultural transition period, which is due to start in 2021 and run for seven years.

Later in the agricultural transition, the government plans to ‘delink’ Direct Payments from the requirement to farm the land, a requirement that currently exists under EU law. This will give farmers greater flexibility to plan for their future as these payments will be able to be used by farmers to invest in their business, diversify their activities or help new people enter the sector.

For farmers new to environmental work or hoping to do more than they currently do under the future Environment Land Management (ELM) scheme, the transition period will also allow them time to understand how new schemes can work best for their farm.

The government has already announced that the funding available for Direct Payments for 2020 will be the same as for 2019, and the Direct Payments to Farmers (Legislative Continuity) Bill has been introduced to Parliament to enable us to make Direct Payments to farmers for the 2020 scheme year– giving much-welcomed certainty to our farmers and food producers.

For subsequent years we are committed to matching the current budget available to farmers in every year of this Parliament, providing certainty and stability in advance of transitioning to the new system in England and phasing out direct payments in favour of rewarding the provision of “public goods”.

Ambitious plans to help protect England’s rare and vulnerable seabirds will today (16 January 2019) be announced by Environment Minister Rebecca Pow.

New and extended special protection areas, designated to protect rare and vulnerable seabirds from human activity, such as fishing or outdoor recreation, will be designated in the Solent and near Middlesbrough.

Close to 1,000 pairs of three species of tern will benefit from a new Solent and Dorset Coast Special Protection Area (SPA) which will span more than 891 km2, equivalent to more than 125,000 football pitches. The area is the fifth most important foraging site in the UK for little tern and seventh most important for common tern during their breeding season.

The Teesmouth and Cleveland Coast SPA will also be extended by 109 km2, bringing the total area size to more than 122 km2, which equals more than 17,000 football pitches. With the extension in place, more than 35,000 individual birds such as pied avocet, ruff and migratory red knot will be protected.

The new and extended locations join 47 existing sites in English waters.

The Environment Minister will also confirm a comprehensive Seabird Conservation Strategy, which will be published in December 2020. This will assess the vulnerability of each species in light of the pressures they are facing and will propose actions to address them.

Speaking at the Coastal Futures conference in London, she also will reiterate the UK’s commitment to strengthen protections for marine life impacted by climate change. The UK government has spearheaded international efforts at home and abroad to cut carbon emissions and in September formed the Global Ocean Alliance to push for international agreement to protect at least 30% of the global ocean through Marine Protected Areas by 2030.

Environment Minister Rebecca Pow said:

The UK continues to be a world leader in cutting carbon emissions and pushing for greater protections for marine life around our coast and in the global ocean.

As the devastating impacts of climate change are only too visible, it is vital that we take decisive steps now that make a real difference to help protect our wildlife and allow vulnerable species to recover.

We have already protected important nesting sites for seabirds, such as the little tern, and these new and additional protections to their feeding grounds, together with the development of a new strategy to protect our seabirds, will help the coastal environment recover, develop and, importantly, thrive.

Tony Juniper, Natural England Chair, said:

Many of Britain’s sea and shorebird populations are globally important and for that reason we have a particular responsibility to protect and enhance them. I am delighted that, following an extensive evidence-based assessment by Natural England, these new areas, confirmed today by Government, will help to do that. They will ensure that species of conservation concern, such as terns and waders, have access to secure food sources, including during their critical annual breeding seasons.

When it comes to the bigger picture and longer term, all of us at Natural England look forward to working together with Defra and others across government to further develop and implement the landmark Seabird Conservation Strategy. This is a vital undertaking, through which we will be better placed to understand the challenges that seabird populations currently face and consider whether further measures are needed to help their recovery.

Martin Harper, Director, Global Conservation, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, said:

Many seabird species are declining at an alarming rate, both globally and across the UK. We welcome today’s announcement by the government to reverse these declines through a comprehensive Seabird Conservation Strategy.

It will be a first step in tackling this growing problem and is something that the RSPB has been calling for. We look forward to working with the UK Government to make sure that these islands remain globally important for seabirds.

SPAs form part of the UK’s ‘Blue Belt’ of Marine Protected Areas and join 41 new Marine Conservation Zones designated in May 2019 in helping to boost resilience to human-made pressures, as well as providing space to help species to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

The UK seabird population is of global importance. The UK holds around one quarter of Europe’s breeding seabirds, with the marine SPA network being of critical conservation importance for many of the UK’s birds and protecting important breeding sites and foraging grounds that contain an estimated 70% of all UK breeding seabirds and 37% of all UK non-breeding waterbirds.

The impacts of climate change are considered to be one of the main causes of a decline in a number of species, mainly through changes to the availability of prey, rising temperatures and extreme weather events.

Regulators, such as Natural England, the Marine Management Organisation and local Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authorities (IFCAs), will be responsible for ensuring the SPAs are managed to protect their species and habitats, working with local fishing communities and other organisations.

The Environment Minister also reaffirmed support for the independent Highly Protected Marine Area (HPMA) review, which was commissioned to explore the potential of HPMAs to recover marine wildlife and habitats by applying the highest level of protection from damaging activities. The government’s commitment to marine protection forms a key part of the 25 Year Environment Plan. As part of this plan, the government has also introduced one of the world’s strongest bans on microbeads to protect our ocean, in addition to the plastic bag charge and ban on straws, stirrers and cotton buds.

The Crown Court (Recording and Broadcasting) Order 2020 will allow cameras to broadcast the sentencing remarks of High Court and Senior Circuit judges in some of the most high-profile courts across the country, including the Old Bailey.

Proceedings are currently broadcast from certain Court of Appeal cases. Extending this to the Crown Court means the public will be able to hear judges explain the reasons behind their sentences for the most serious offences.

Filming will be restricted to sentencing remarks only and no other court user – including victims, witnesses, jurors and court staff – will be filmed.

Justice Secretary & Lord Chancellor, Rt Hon Robert Buckland QC MP, said:

This government, alongside the judiciary, is committed to improving public understanding of our justice system and allowing cameras into the Crown Court will do just that.

It will ensure our courts remain open and transparent and allow people to see justice being delivered to the most serious of offenders.

Today’s legislation follows a successful three-month pilot that allowed not-for-broadcast sentencing remarks to be filmed in eight Crown Courts and has been welcomed by ITN, Sky and the BBC.

John Battle, Head of Compliance at ITN, said:

This is a landmark moment and an important day for open justice and transparency of our legal system. For the first time the public will see images of proceedings in the Crown Court on television news.

This change will help a wider audience to see and understand the criminal justice process for themselves.

John Ryley, Head of Sky News, said:

The filming of judges sentencing remarks in the Crown Court is a great day for transparency in our courts. This is a further step in helping the public to understand the constraints under which judges work and the complexities of many of the biggest criminal cases.

This has been a long campaign by the three main broadcasters working together.

Fran Unsworth, Director of News and Current Affairs at the BBC, said:

Today’s announcement comes after a great campaign by the BBC, ITN and Sky to allow filming of judges’ sentencing remarks in the Crown Court and is a momentous day for transparency in our justice system.

By opening up the courts, our audiences will be able to further their understanding of the criminal justice system and witness the judicial process for themselves.

This provision is part of the government’s wider court reform and digitalisation programme, using technology and modern ways of working to increase access to justice for people up and down the country.

Notes to editors

• An affirmative SI will be laid in the House of Commons on Thursday, 16 January. Timescales for it coming into force will depend on the passage of the legislation through Parliament. All Crown Court staff who will be involved with this work will receive training and new guidance before filming commences.
• Broadcasters will only be able to film High Court and Senior Circuit judges sitting in the Crown Court and will need to obtain permission from the judiciary in advance.
• Filming will be subject to the usual reporting restrictions and appropriately edited before leaving the courtroom. In the case where filming is to be broadcast live, there will be a short delay before broadcast to avoid any breach of reporting restrictions or any other error.
• HMCTS will retain copyright of the footage, and HMCTS, MoJ and Judicial Office will be able to access any footage taken by broadcasters.
• The full sentencing remarks of any case broadcast will be hosted on a website to which the public has access.
• Filming is already permitted in the Supreme Court, however this is carried out by the court itself and separate from this contract.

Next week, the UK is set to welcome African leaders and senior government representatives along with British and African businesses to the UK-Africa Investment Summit in London.

By 2050, over 2 billion people will live in Africa and 1 in 4 global consumers will be African. The Summit will harness the potential of the continent and create new lasting partnerships that will deliver more investment, jobs and growth and benefit people and businesses across Africa and the UK.

As the official Envoy for the UK-Africa Investment Summit I have, most recently, just visited Algeria. I met the new Commerce Minister and senior officials, the leadership of the Forum Chefs d’Enterprises (equivalent to our CBI), and members of the British business community. They were enthusiastic about the Summit and the potential for growing business partnership between the UK and Algeria, particularly following the formation of a new Algerian government focused on reform.

In this role I have also visited several other countries which will participate in the Summit. In meetings with Ministers, officials and UK and African businesses which are invested across the continent, I have explained the breadth and depth of the UK’s offer. Visits to Egypt, Tunisia, Ethiopia, Morocco and Algeria have all shown me that there is appetite for a closer partnership with the UK.

The UK is already a leading investor in Africa. In 2018 alone, the UK’s development finance institution CDC made investments supporting over 370,000 jobs across Africa. Since 2002 the UK’s Private Infrastructure Development Group has invested over £1.95bn in 146 infrastructure projects across Africa. The stock of UK investment in Africa is worth £39bn in 2018.

Investment is life-changing. It can create sustainable jobs, boost access to education, improve public services and gives young people the opportunity to shape their own futures.

We are proud to say that UK businesses are already investing sustainably across Africa. Examples include Diageo with its environmentally friendly brewery in Kenya, the solar energy provider Azuri Technologies from Cambridge, and Northamptonshire-based Blue Skies Fruit which invests in fruit farming.

We want to unlock new flows of UK investment, for example tapping into UK appetite for impact investment. We want to increase both the quantity and the quality of UK investment, and for the UK to be the investment partner of choice for African nations. The Summit will demonstrate the quality of our offer and show our partners how we can support them with our world-leading technology, innovation expertise.

Shares from more African countries are listed and traded in London than in any other international financial centre. We want to do more.

The UK is already providing crucial expertise to enable African countries to raise funds from the international markets in their own currencies. This means that they can attract valuable long-term investment while being protected from exchange rate fluctuations. Again, we want to do more.

The UK-Africa Investment Summit on 20 January will mark the beginning of a step change in the focus and effectiveness of UK-Africa partnership – a partnership which will build a better future for us all.

The Prime Minister spoke to President Bolsonaro of Brazil today.

The leaders committed to strengthening the ties between our countries in a range of areas, including trade and investment.

They also discussed climate change and agreed to continue to work together ahead of the COP26 summit which the UK will host in Glasgow in November.

Published 15 January 2020