Natural England confirms changes to Environmental Stewardship penalties

The changes will see Natural England relax the rules which previously penalised farmers for failing to meet the full requirements of their management options.

Under the old system, if farmers failed to meet the requirements of one of their chosen ES options, they would receive no points under the scheme for that option.

However, the changes to the rules will see points deducted on a more proportionate basis meaning fewer farmers will receive points penalties.

For example, if an option to maintain 50 metres of hedgerow is breached because the hedge is found to be five metres short, farmers will only be deducted points for the missing five metres.

Under the old scheme farmers would have lost all points relating to the hedgerow option and CLA conservation advisor Claire Collyer said the new system would be ‘more favourable’ to farmers than the system in place before.

Although under the scheme farmers will still be deducted points, the total deducted is expected to be less and for a vast majority this is likely to be off set by surplus points on other management options which will ensure they remain above the overall points threshold for their ES agreement.

Natural England’s director of business systems improvement Paul Egginton said the changes to penalties would only affect ‘a small number’ of farmers.

He said: “A financial penalty would only apply if this reduction reduced the overall points value of the agreement below the qualifying threshold for an agreement.

“Our aim is to ensure that we afford agreement holders the flexibility of offsetting whilst ensuring that the environmental benefits set out in the agreement are secured. 

“Natural England will continue to work with farmers to advise on the best possible agreement for both the farm business and the environment, it is not our aim to penalise farmers financially or to make it difficult for them to sign up to ES.”

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