Farming Minister slammed by MPs for not pausing 'shambolic' SFI scheme

Stephen Morgan, who was first appointed in June under Sir Keir Starmer’s government and then has continued on under Andy Burnham, was grilled by members of the cross-party Environment (Efra) Committee.

The £253m scheme pays farmers in England for “public goods” such as insecticide-free farming, wildflower strips and managing ponds and hedgerows.

The window for the vast majority of applicants in 2026 slammed shut in less than six hours last month, after the fund was entirely allocated.

Senior Government officials told the committee that they understand around 10,000 farmers missed out on funds.

The Environment Department (Defra) farming director, Mike Rowe, said that there were 20,000 agreements expiring and only 12,200 successful applications.

“Clearly what we saw over the summer was an exceptional spike in demand,” he added.

Mr Morgan revealed that the date of the main window was only published three weeks earlier, and the time the application process opened - 10am - was not made public in advance due to technical tests that had to be run.

This led to what farmers have described as a “shambles”, with the National Farmers’ Union saying that funding was handed out based on “the speed of pressing a button”.

The Efra Committee heard that one farmer left a funeral early to try and apply.

Mr Morgan said: “I’ve committed to move away from first-come first-served.

“We refined the scheme earlier this year, you will appreciate that that was before my time in the department.

“I am very keen to learn lessons this year - I’ve heard heartbreaking stories of the impact it’s had and how stressful it has been for farmers.”

However, MPs on the committee questioned why Defra had proceeded with the process, knowing a lot of farmers would miss out.

Chair Alistair Carmichael MP told Mr Morgan: “You were briefed, you knew that there was a problem coming down the track and you decided to carry on with it nevertheless.

“It was always an option for you to turn around and say ‘this isn’t going to work, we need to pause it and we need to redesign it’.”

The Farming Minister responded: “The information about how the scheme would operate had already been published.

“I hear the message loud and clear that they want consistency from Defra.

“We understood the levels of demand, which was why I was pleased to make sure we secured the additional funding, which was the £50m the Prime Minister announced in August followed by an additional £20.”

Tory MP Sarah Boal added: “When farmers talk about wanting a consistent approach, they just want to know they can apply to a scheme and that there will be money.

“I think they would much rather of this been paused and delayed further, rather than the devastation this has caused.

“This is now shifting farm practices and this is going to have a far longer impact because they are going to have to put land back into production, they are going to have to diversify.

“The evidence was screaming to anyone that this was going to be a problem - I do think fundamentally the ministerial team need to go away a look at this.

“This cannot happen again, and it is not the first time. I have no faith this won’t be repeated in the future.”