Reforms to farm funding will stop wealthy landowners getting richer, pledges Gove

MICHAEL GOVE has pledged to stop “subsidising” rich landowners when the Government introduces a new system of funding for farmers after Brexit.

The Environment Secretary said the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was “plain wrong” because it rewarded the “already wealthy, simply because of the amount of land they have”.

Mr Gove suggested the replacement system, which will be introduced once Britain has left the EU, will focus on “enhancing the environment” and “supporting innovation”.

He made the pledge as he also set out plans to increase animal cruelty prison sentences to five years for the worst cases and to consider the introduction of a plastic bottle return scheme to stop the world’s oceans from “slowly choking” on pollution.

The Government has promised to match, post-brexit, the £3billion that farmers currently receive in support from the CAP until 2022, but future funding arrangements have not yet been set out.

Mr Gove’s comments at the Conservative Party conference yesterday suggest ministers are planning a major overhaul of agriculture funding.

He said: “Outside the Common Agricultural Policy, we can stop subsidising the rich on the basis of how much land they own and instead spend money on enhancing the environment, supporting innovation, improving productivity, training a new generation of entrepreneurial young farmers and reviving rural communities.”

The CAP has long been criticised by environmental groups because they believe it incentivises farmers to use as much land as possible regardless of environmental impact because payments are based on acreage.

Mr Gove said CAP was a “failure” and the subsidy system was “environmentally damaging and socially unjust”.

He said: “The number of farmland birds has reduced by more than half, pollinators such as wild and honey bees have suffered a drastic decline in numbers, and our rivers and chalk streams have seen fish stocks decline and small mammals disappear.”

Mr Gove said the UK would keep EU rules that help protect the environment after Brexit but that ministers intend to introduce even greater protections.

He insisted the UK’S divorce from Brussels would allow Britain to “secure a special prize” in the form of a “green Brexit”.