EFRA Select Committee Inquiry on ELMS: Progress update

ClientEarth submits that while ELMS has potential, it cannot replace mandatory agri-environmental regulations. The organization warns that withdrawing 'cross compliance' without a successor framework will create significant protection gaps in soil and water quality, as the voluntary nature of ELMS and the poor enforcement record of the Environment Agency are unlikely to maintain basic environmental standards.

• ELMS and the Sustainable Farming Initiative (SFI) are currently viewed as insufficiently ambitious to tackle diffuse agricultural pollution, with agriculture responsible for approximately 40% of Water Framework Directive Reasons for Not Achieving Good Status (RNAGS) failures in England.
• The Wye catchment serves as an example of where ELMS may fail to deliver necessary changes, as the area has a phosphorus surplus nearly 60% greater than the national average, requiring livestock reduction and manure processing that ELMS may not provide.
• There is a lack of clarity and prescription regarding how ELMS will achieve climate goals, specifically noting that the SFI agricultural and horticultural soils standard leaves implementation and soil testing to the discretion of individual farmers.
• The planned withdrawal of 'cross compliance'—which applies to upwards of 85,000 farms in England—threatens to create significant environmental gaps in soil protection (GAEC 4), watercourse protection (GAEC 1), and hedgerow protection (GAEC 7a).
• The removal of the Rural Payment Agency (RPA) as an enforcement body for cross compliance is a major risk, as other regulators like the Environment Agency have shown extreme inefficiency; for 2020 and 2021, the Agency applied only one civil sanction or penalty despite identifying 1,021 breaches of agricultural pollution control regulations.
• ClientEarth suggests that the Government's target of 70% farmland coverage for SFI is likely to be missed and is insufficient to address nature loss, air pollution, and water quality, partly because industrial farmers may avoid the schemes to eliminate inspections.
• The organization argues that public funds should only pay for ambitious measures above a mandatory baseline, adhering to the 'polluter pays' principle as intended by the Environment Act 2021, rather than using subsidies to replace basic regulation.

APA

ClientEarth (2022). EFRA Select Committee Inquiry on ELMS: Progress update. https://www.clientearth.org/media/zl1kt234/efra-select-committee-inquiry-on-environmental-land-management-scheme-august-22-ce-submission.pdf

Chicago

ClientEarth. EFRA Select Committee Inquiry on ELMS: Progress update. 2022. https://www.clientearth.org/media/zl1kt234/efra-select-committee-inquiry-on-environmental-land-management-scheme-august-22-ce-submission.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |author=ClientEarth |title=EFRA Select Committee Inquiry on ELMS: Progress update |date=August 2022 |url=https://www.clientearth.org/media/zl1kt234/efra-select-committee-inquiry-on-environmental-land-management-scheme-august-22-ce-submission.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{clientearth2022efra, author = {{ClientEarth}}, title = {{EFRA Select Committee Inquiry on ELMS: Progress update}}, publisher = {ClientEarth}, year = {2022}, month = aug, url = {https://www.clientearth.org/media/zl1kt234/efra-select-committee-inquiry-on-environmental-land-management-scheme-august-22-ce-submission.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }