Debate contribution: Farm Sustainability Payment Scheme (Eligibility etc) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2025

Debate contribution by Mr Andrew Muir on 18 November 2025.

MLA

Mr Andrew Muir

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

18 November 2025

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Farm Sustainability Payment Scheme (Eligibility etc) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2025

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5244179

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I beg to move

I am grateful for the opportunity to propose the motion. By way of background, the sustainable agriculture programme (SAP) represents a bespoke programme of farm support that is targeted to meet the needs of Northern Ireland and seeks to implement policies and strategies that benefit the environment and support our economically significant agri-food sector. The sustainable agriculture programme has been developed with a range of agriculture and environment stakeholders, including the agricultural policy stakeholder group (APSG), which has brought robustness to the development process. As part of the roll-out of the sustainable agriculture programme, the farm sustainability payment (FSP) scheme is planned for introduction in 2026 and will replace the current farm sustainability transition payment (FSTP). The FSP, which is expected to attract approximately 22,000 applications annually, will act as a balance between providing a safety net that will help a farm business to withstand shocks that are beyond its ability to manage effectively and encouraging farm businesses to become more environmentally sustainable, efficient and resilient. The introduction of FSP will see the roll-out of the following key policy changes: implementation of the historical years exercise; progressive capping; new land eligibility rules; new farm sustainability standards to replace cross-compliance; and the introduction of conditionalities. The Farm Sustainability Payment Scheme (Eligibility etc) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2025 will give my Department the legal powers to introduce the farm sustainability payment and the various elements outlined with effect from 1 January 2026. By way of background, a consultation exercise on the proposed farm sustainability payment scheme, along with other elements of future agricultural policy, was undertaken in late 2021, and the responses informed policy decisions that were announced by my predecessor in March 2022. Any decisions that I have taken subsequently in relation to scheme requirements are intended to have a positive impact on FSP applicants and the wider agricultural community. For example, one decision had been to increase the minimum claim size for FSP from three hectares to five hectares. Following further consultation with the AERA Committee and stakeholders, I decided that the minimum claim size for FSP will remain at three hectares. Applicants to the FSP scheme in 2026 will therefore need to activate three entitlements on three hectares of eligible land to meet FSP requirements. The historical years requirement was included in the Farm Sustainability (Transitional Provisions) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2025, which were made earlier this year. The regulations being debated today amend the transitional regulations and clarify that businesses that do not meet the historical years requirement will not be eligible for the FSP scheme in 2026 only and that their entitlements may be transferred only to an existing eligible farm business. The Farm Sustainability Payment Scheme (Eligibility etc) Regulations introduce progressive capping of the FSP payments, phased in over two-year period, for payments over £60,000, with capping levels increasing in bands based on the size of payments. As I stated, the policy intent of FSP is to provide agricultural support to act as a balance between providing a safety net that will help a farm business to withstand shocks that are beyond its ability to manage effectively and encouraging farm businesses to become more environmentally sustainable, efficient and resilient. High support payments can encourage unwarranted risk-taking and reduce the incentive to manage risk within a farm business. By introducing progressive capping, my intention is to strike a balance between providing a safety net that helps a farm business to withstand shocks that are beyond its ability to manage risk effectively and dampening the incentive to be efficient and competitive and to manage risk proactively. The decision to introduce progressive capping of FSP payments was announced in 2022, giving businesses time to adjust. In addition, progressive capping is being introduced over two years, with 50% of final capping deductions being introduced in the first year and full implementation in the second year. Phasing that in over two years will allow farm businesses time to adapt. The regulations also introduce simplified land eligibility rules for the FSP scheme compared with those that were in place previously. The objective of the revised rules is to establish practical land eligibility rules that complement the FSP scheme's objectives and that can be easily understood and efficiently and effectively controlled. The regulations include a list of features and land use types that will be ineligible for the FSP scheme, such as building sites, public and private gardens, public parks, golf courses and airstrips. To support the simplified land eligibility rules and mitigate any unintended consequences, the regulations amend the eligibility requirements for the FSP scheme to state that only active farmers undertaking agricultural activity are eligible to apply. They must also have management control of the land used to activate the entitlements. Consequently, the regulations require applicants to the FSP scheme to carry out agricultural activity on at least 3 hectares of land used to activate entitlements. However, where an applicant submits a claim for fewer than 5 hectares, they must carry out agricultural activity on at least 2 hectares of land. To ensure equality across schemes, the land eligibility rules introduced by the regulations will also apply to environmental farming scheme (EFS) higher agreements made by my Department before the date on which the regulations come into operation. The regulations legislate that, in order to receive their full payment and to ensure that farm businesses gain the maximum benefit from the schemes, applicants to the FSP scheme will be required to meet the following conditionalities to drive the uptake of data schemes that are critical for soil health, carbon management and genetic improvement. The conditionalities will be phased in. The first conditionality is participation in the soil nutrient health scheme (SNHS). That scheme has been developed to assist farm businesses in planning their farm nutrient management more effectively. It will help to facilitate improvements to our water environment and future platform for carbon measures. The information provided by the scheme will allow farm businesses to better target the application of crop nutrients, reduce nutrient waste and help to increase farm profitability. To meet the conditionality, farm businesses must have registered for the soil nutrient health scheme and completed the training offered to them by the close of the single application form window on 15 May 2027. For farm businesses that are not compliant at that stage, the regulations legislate that a 10% reduction will be applied to their farm sustainability payment in 2027. That reduction will be increased to 15% for continued non-compliance in 2028 and will continue to be applied at 15% until the conditionality has been met. The second planned conditionality is participation in the bovine genetics project (BGP). The bovine genetics project is of significant interest to industry and government due to the benefits of breeding animals with improved health and welfare, enhanced production and efficiency, a lower carbon footprint and lower pollution potential. Genetic improvement is identified as a key measure in the bovine tuberculosis Northern Ireland blueprint for eradication. It is also one of the measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the draft climate action plan 2023-27 and is one of the mitigations identified in the draft ammonia strategy. My Department is delivering the project in partnership with the agri-food industry through a not-for-profit company called Sustainable Ruminant Genetics Limited (SRG). SRG is providing industry leadership and is working with my Department to deliver several key functions, including the supply of industry data and the promotion and marketing of the project to producers and other stakeholders. The bovine genetics conditionality requires farm businesses with bovine animals to register for the project and complete the training offered to them by the close of the single application form window on 15 May 2028. As with the soil nutrient health scheme, there is conditionality for farm businesses that are not compliant at that stage. The regulations legislate that a 10% reduction will be applied to their farm sustainability payment in 2028. That reduction will be increased to 15% for continued non-compliance in 2029 and will continue to be applied at 15% until the conditionality has been met. The regulations also legislate that penalties for failure to meet FSP scheme conditionalities should be applied concurrently.

A third conditionality of participation in the carbon footprinting project is also planned. That conditionality is not included in the regulations as the timeline for roll-out of the project has still to be set. The regulations reset the two-year entitlement confiscation rule from the commencement of the scheme, meaning that no entitlements will be confiscated for non-activation in 2026 because the FSTP and the FSP schemes are being treated as two separate schemes

The technical changes included in the regulations define the order in which my Department will apply scheme penalties, as follows: first, the over-declaration penalty, which includes duplicate fields; then, the late claim penalty; then, conditionality reductions; and, finally, farm sustainability standards (FSS) penalties. Under-declaration and late fee penalties have been removed, and the penalty for over-declaration of land has been increased from 1·5 times the difference found to twice the difference found. Preliminary checks will no longer be mandatory. My Department retains the authority to implement other checks, as required. The mandatory, on-the-spot checks inspection rate has been removed and replaced with a requirement for my Department to define the rate, as land eligibility controls will be carried out using remote sensing techniques, thereby completely removing that requirement. The regulations remove penalties that exceed 100% of the payment due in respect of what were previously area-based payments under pillar 2 of the common agricultural policy, chiefly, agrienvironment and forestry payments. Those penalties apply to a very small number of businesses and were complicated to administer, as they involved a deduction to payments in following years. Finally, the regulations simplify the requirements regarding control reports for farm sustainability standard checks. That concludes my overview of the Farm Sustainability Payment Scheme (Eligibility etc) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2025. I thank the officials who have engaged with the Committee to date on what is a complicated area of legislation, and I am happy to answer any questions that may arise as a result of the debate.

1,693 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:52 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

Disagree with this assessment?

Classifications can be challenged. A person reads every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.

Challenge this classification