Mr Speaker, with your permission, I will answer questions 4 and 9 together.

As announced in March 2022, the new farm sustainability payment, which is planned to replace the basic payment scheme, will provide a balance between providing a safety net that will help a farm business to withstand shocks that are beyond its ability to manage effectively and encouraging farm businesses to be sustainable, efficient, competitive and able to manage risk proactively.

A public consultation on the policy proposal to increase the minimum claim size to 10 hectares took place in December 2021. The proposal in the consultation to increase the threshold to 10 hectares generated significant stakeholder concern. On the basis of the consultation responses, the decision was announced in March 2022 that the minimum claim size would increase to 5 hectares. I am not currently planning to reverse the decision to increase the minimum claim size. Work is progressing to ensure that the secondary legislation requirements will be in place by the autumn.

On the basis of the 2023 basic payment scheme application data, the number of farm businesses that may be impacted by the move to 5 hectares of eligible land for the farm sustainability transition payment and farm sustainability payment is around 1,400. All land managers with 3 hectares or more of eligible land and who meet the scheme requirements will be able to participate in the farming with nature package when it comes on stream.