Financial aid for farmers: are you eligible for delinked payments?

The Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) has ended and ‘delinked payments’ will follow on from 2024-2027 for those who are eligible.

The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) has now sent communications to all those eligible unless they have received a lump sum exit payment. If you have not received this communication and think you should have done, make sure your contact details are up to date.

Amongst the detail there are two critical points:

You must have applied for BPS in 2023 to hold delinked payments

It is important  to note this means that if anyone does not meet that requirement, they cannot receive delinked payments in future. So, anyone new to buying or renting land or that did not apply for BPS in 2023, will not be able to receive the payments. If those people take on land, it will be best leaving the payments in the hands of a person who is eligible and do some sort of deal as to value (if appropriate).

If your business has changed and received a new SBI number after 15th May 2023, then payments will be made to the business that claimed for 2023.

There is an exception if someone has died: anyone inheriting land after 15th May 2023 need not have applied for BPS in 2023. Executors or administrators of a deceased sole trader are also treated as the same business as the deceased.

Your payments will be calculated on the ‘reference data’ arising from the payments from 2020-2022

The RPA will shortly be writing out to those eligible to tell them what this looks like for each business. Note you only have until 29th February 2024 to challenge incorrect information.

It will then be possible to transfer the reference data across to another eligible business to allow that other business to use the data to make a claim. The time to do this for the next year will be 15th February – 10th May 2024. Note a transfer of land between 2020-2023 is sometimes required and there are helpful rules governing business alterations. Those rules allow for inherited land (this time after 15th May 2020).

If you are concerned by these issues, get in touch with our agriculture team for expert guidance and support.