Cross Compliance in 2023
Join the Farming Advice service and Russell Graham, Cross Compliance lead at the Rural Payments Agency, for an update on how cross compliance rules will apply in its final year; 2023.
Covering changes in how penalties are applied and the new approaches designed to work with farmers to support compliance, as well as the rules which do still apply (GAECs and SMRs).
You can view this webinar recording with Closed Captions (subtitles) or the full transcript by selecting these options in the bottom-right of the video screen
There were a number of questions around delinking raised in our Q&A, which we were unfortunately not able to answer during the event. As promised, we have been in contact with the wider RPA team and they have provided answers where possible; please see below. Where guidance has not yet been issued (as of January 2023) we will send updates through the FAS newsletter as soon as they are available, and you can subscribe to Defra’s Future Farming blog to receive updates to your inbox.
Delinking Q&A:
- Do you have to register to get the delinked payments or will it be automatic if you apply for BPS in 2023? / Will we have to submit a BPS claim form 2024-27, or will delinked payments be paid automatically?
You must claim, and be eligible for, BPS payments in the 2023 scheme year to receive delinked payments for 2024 to 2027. We will provide more information about delinked payments later this year, including whether or not you will also need to submit an application for delinked payments in order to receive them.
- Are delinked BPS payments based on averaged eligible areas in 20-22, or the actual amount successfully claimed or paid?
Delinked payments will be based on the average BPS payment (including any young farmer payment or greening payment) made to your business for the BPS 2020, BPS 2021 and BPS 2022 scheme years. It will be the amount before progressive reductions, penalties and some other reductions were applied. More detail can be found here: Delinked payments: replacing the Basic Payment Scheme - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). Progressive reductions will be applied to the payments each year as they are phased out by the end of 2027.
- If a new client is eligible to claim BPS in 2023 and have not claimed previously, please can you confirm they will not get a delinked payment from 2024 onwards.
If a business didn’t claim BPS in the 2020-2022 reference period, it would not normally be eligible for delinked payments, even if it claims BPS 2023. However, there will be some exceptions to deal with business changes and we will provide more information on this later this year.
- If I take on more land this year 2023 should I invest in entitlements to qualify for the 2024 - 2027 period?
Delinked payments will be based on the average BPS payments made to your business for the BPS 2020 to 2022 reference period. Investing in more BPS entitlements in 2023 won’t increase the value of your delinked payments (though investing in more eligible land and entitlements would enable you to increase the value of your BPS 2023 payment). You will need to make sure you have enough entitlements (as least 5) to be able to submit a valid BPS 2023 claim, in order to be eligible for delinked payments.
- If we are splitting the farm business in 2023, how do get 2 delinked payment, one for each new business?
We will provide information later this year to explain what farmers need to do if their business has split since the start of the 2020 to 2022 reference period.
- What happens when a partnership dissolves in March this year 2023 and one partner carries on in his own right 100%, will payments come over to the continuing partner?
If one partner takes over the whole business, this would be treated as a continuing business with the same SBI. The payments made to the partnership for BPS 2020-2022 will be used to calculate the delinked payments for the partner that is continuing the business as a sole trader.
