SMALL family farms in Cumbria will lose out on Government cash for nature-friendly farming, MPs have warned after the closure of a flagship payments scheme.

Described as "another shattering blow' Defra announced without warning that it was no longer accepting new applications for the sustainable farming incentive (SFI) scheme as of Tuesday, because it had allocated its budget for this year's scheme.

Several MPs, including Labour backbenchers, called for “reassurance” that Defra would continue to financially back farmers who use nature-friendly methods, including insecticide-free farming, wildflower strips and managing ponds and hedgerows.

Cumbrian MPs argued it would be the smaller farmers in the county who will be hardest hit - especially hill farmers, and those on significantly less than the minimum wage.

Labour MP Markus Campbell-Savours, whose Penrith and Solway constituency covers part of the Lake District, asked Food Security Minister Daniel Zeichner “to provide some reassurance to my farmers in Penrith and Solway that we are going to deliver”.

He added: “And can he also explain a little more about how we ensure that more of my hill farmers get into the SFI scheme which the last government failed to deliver on?”

The minister said that the Government would be “working with farmers and organisations to redesign the scheme”, with work “taking place over the summer this year and, obviously, once we’ve had those conversations, we’ll be able to announce exact timings”.

Julie Minns had earlier said it was “extremely welcome that under this Government, more money has been spent on schemes and more farms are in schemes than was the case under the last government”.

The Labour MP for Carlisle later continued: “However, there are smaller farms like those in my constituency of north Cumbria who would not have had their plans as far advanced as their larger neighbours along with their consultants.

“Can I ask him to outline what support will be available to those small farms going forward?”

Mr Zeichner replied: “The schemes we inherited had no way of prioritising properly – it was a first-come, first-served scheme, so the kind of farmers that she’s describing were disadvantaged.

“Now, we’ve had to work with a scheme that we inherited.

“We were very clear when I took over that we were not going to immediately overturn the existing system. We wanted to give people confidence about the future.

“But when we come to redesign the scheme, we can design it better to address the issues that (Ms Minns) has raised.”

Liberal Democrat environment, food and rural affairs spokesman Tim Farron, whose Westmorland and Lonsdale constituency also lies in Cumbria, told MPs that of 6,100 new SFI entrants this year, only 40 were hill farmers.

He asked: “Doesn’t this prove that because of the failure of the Conservatives in the last administration, the big landowners and the corporates are already comfortably inside the tent but the farmers who are outside are now locked out without warning, are Britain’s poorest farmers in Britain’s most beautiful places like mine in the Lakes and the Dales?”

Mr Farron also said the scheme’s closure would “outrage everyone who cares for our environment, for our upland nature and landscapes – it will outrage everyone who cares about food security, it will outrage everyone who cares about our tourism economy”.

In his response, the minister replied that this year “the full budget is being actually spent and that should be celebrated”.

The National Farmers Union (NFU) is bringing into question the department’s transparency and its ability to deliver the agricultural transition promised following the news.

NFU President Tom Bradshaw said the news was “another shattering blow to English farms delivered, yet again, with no warning, no understanding of the industry and a complete lack of compassion or care”.

NFU Carlisle Group Secretary Ian Mandle said “The fact that ministers are actually trumpeting this as good news shows how desperately detached they are from the reality on the ground and how little they understand this industry.

The awful dilemma now faced by many North Cumbrian farmers is whether to turn their backs on environmental work and just farm as hard as they can to survive. This is a loss to both farming and the environment and cannot be what was intended."

Cumbrian beef and sheep farmer and interim chair of Red Tractor, Alistair Mackintosh, said this latest move was "ridiculous and beggared belief.' "SFI has not a roaring success for some farmers, particularly those in the uplands, but to stop and deny access at the same time as taking away farm payments is absolutely ridiculous."

Martin Lines, CEO of the Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN), said: "With so much focus on SFI to deliver public goods compared to other parts of the Environment Land Management scheme (ELMs), it has become increasingly difficult for farmers to understand what they should do and where they fit in. Many farmers have been waiting months for the RPA to update applications and enable the annual declaration so that a new application can be stacked on top.

"Even worse, it is now clear that the new SFI offer will not be available until spring 2026. This leaves most farmers facing an 18-month gap before fresh SFI payments arrive, which is going to leave some of them in a really difficult financial position.

"This has left many farmers feeling frustrated and let down, with no clear opportunity to be rewarded for delivering public goods in the near future."