We're demanding urgent support for farmers

Taunton and Wellington MP, Gideon Amos, is demanding urgent support for farming and rural communities after a system failure meant many were left without vital funds.

He raised the issue during a debate in Parliament, citing the issues being faced by local farmers such as James Hebditch and Tom Pope.

He has slammed government ministers over the "shambolic" rollout of the Sustainable Farming Incentive.

The funding scheme opened in late September with virtually no notice and closed just six hours later when money ran out. The abrupt closure left farmers across Taunton and Wellington without access to a universal baseline payment for the first time since 1945.

Gideon told the Commons: “Farmers in Taunton and Wellington have been hit incredibly hard by this debacle.

“For residents, farmers and visitors to my part of Somerset alike, the hedges, field margins and wildflower meadows funded by the sustainable farming incentive are the very fabric of the countryside that we know and love, from the Quantocks to the Blackdown hills and across my constituency.

“Yet all of that has been put under threat simply because of a badly mismanaged system that this Government could and should fix.

“I recently met local farmers in my constituency, and I want to thank them for the work they do 365 days a year, putting food on our tables, caring for our countryside and bringing employment to our rural areas.”

Gideon said that James Hebditch of North Curry was not a “last-minute farmer” - his fields have been registered with the Rural Payments Agency for years.

“Yet on 22nd September, a glitch on the Government portal suddenly rejected one of his fields. He was faced with an impossible choice: apply without it or try to amend and resubmit his application.

By the time that he could navigate the error that the portal had made, the whole thing had closed, and his entire application was lost.

He was caught out by the Government’s own system on land that the RPA already had on its books.

When farmers are fighting a failing portal, they do not have time to sit on hold for hours. The consequences of that failure are devastating.

The hedges and habitats James maintained for years under previous schemes will likely have to be ripped up just for his farm to remain viable and profitable.

Gideon said that Tom Pope of Staple Fitzpaine had told him: “With no replacement scheme we will be forced to consider ploughing up some of our environmental areas… to return them to arable production.

“Some of these areas have a huge variety of wildflowers and provide a brilliant habitat for insects and birds. It will break our hearts.”

Gideon told the Commons: “This is not a serious way to run a £930 million public programme.

“At least if people do not get Glastonbury tickets, they are not required to plough up a wildflower meadow afterwards.”

He also backed a Liberal Democrat motion which called on Ministers to guarantee long-term funding for all eligible applicants, reverse the damaging Family Farm Tax, and commit an additional £1 billion annually to agricultural and environmental land management.

It was voted down in the House of Commons by 279 votes to 57 with all Conservatives abstaining from the vote.

Gideon said afterwards: “I was proud to vote for our Liberal Democrat motion demanding immediate funding guarantees for locked-out farmers and won't stop holding both parties (Labour and Conservatives) to account.

"It is an absolute disgrace that farmers in Taunton and Wellington, working tirelessly to keep food on our tables and protect our countryside, are being failed time and again.”