UK Parliament / Open data

Direct Payments to Farmers (Legislative Continuity) Bill

I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention and agree wholeheartedly with him.

Direct payments have made some really important environmental projects happen across Northern Ireland—projects that probably would never have seen the light of day and that tie into the Government’s policies on the environment and climate change. As I said to the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) earlier, it is not possible to stop those environmental schemes, especially where tree-planting is involved, because it is important that a number of organisations continue that work over time. The National Trust has made a commitment to plant trees in 500 of the properties for which it has responsibility. The Ulster Farmers Union and the National Farmers Union are encouraging their members to do likewise. It is vital to ensure that those schemes continue. We cannot remove a tree-planting scheme and turn the land back to agricultural land; it is not possible.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
670 c706 
Session
2019-21
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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