Keeping area-based payments in NI and Scotland, whilst phasing them out in England and Wales, will not create unfair competition between UK farmers, a senior government minister has said.

“We have to recognise that agricultural policy is devolved. As we depart the EU, it is up to them (devolved governments) to do things differently,” Defra Secretary George Eustice said.

In an online event organised by the Country, Land and Business Association, Eustice was asked if different farm support schemes in devolved regions would have a distorting effect on the UK’s internal market.

“Our estimate is that it probably won’t,” he responded.

The Conservative Party MP pointed out that even under the EU’s common agricultural policy, there is huge variation in how farm support payments are rolled out across member states.

Policy makers in NI and Scotland have indicated that area-based payments will still form part of new domestic farm support. However, in England and Wales, direct payments are to be phased out and replaced with schemes which are mainly for delivering environmental measures.

However, Eustice said that payments under the new environmental land management scheme in England will no longer be designed to only cover costs incurred and income foregone.

“To remove those area-based payments and to get people to take up environmental land management, you have got to be able to reward them for it and not just compensate them for their loss for doing a good turn for the environment,” he said.