Rachel Reeves has announced billions of pounds worth of cuts to public spending after growth estimates for the UK economy were slashed.
Cuts will be made to welfare and international aid, while Civil Service departments will have to reduce their running costs by 15 per cent by the end of the decade.
Individual departmental budgets will be confirmed at the Spending Review in June, but nature groups are already bracing for savings within the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).
Defra is an unprotected department and typically one of the first to suffer during periods of pressure on the public finances.
Earlier this week, Environment Secretary Steve Reed told MPs his department would “have to do better with less”, signalling cuts are on the way at the bodies responsible for protecting England’s rivers, farms and landscapes.
Hundreds of jobs are already being slashed at agencies including Natural England, the Forestry Commission, and the groups responsible for managing national parks.
Here’s how Defra cuts could affect the environment:
England’s National Parks, which receive the majority of their funding from Defra, say they are facing an “unprecedented” level of uncertainty as ministers are yet to confirm how they will be funded beyond next month.
According to multiple park authorities, Defra officials have indicated they are facing a nine per cent cut to their day-to-day spending, but the exact amount each park will receive has not yet been confirmed.
Some, such as the Peak District and Lake District, have already announced job losses, while some visitor centres are to be closed.
At a budget meeting earlier this week the the CEO of Dartmoor National Park, Kevin Bishop, said there will need to be a “national debate” over how the parks are funded in future if the Government continues to make cuts.
He suggested one option may have to be charging people to enter, or having a model “whereby you have to pay a hiking licence, like you have to do in some countries every time you want to go for a walk”.
Axeing hundreds of nature jobs
Many of the bodies responsible for protecting England’s environment are looking to make job cuts as their budgets are squeezed.
The i Paper revealed last week that at least 200 posts are to be cut at Natural England, which is responsible for looking after protected areas, scrutinising planning applications and supporting farmers.
Carol Donaldson, an independent environmental consultant who works closely with Natural England, told The i Paper the agency had already lost a lot of experienced staff due to low pay.
Donaldson, who works with farmers to help them access environmental schemes, expressed frustration over the high turnaround of Natural England staff.
square GREEN BELT ExclusiveHundreds of jobs protecting rivers and green belt to be axed
Read More
“These job cuts could well end up pushing some of the very few experienced advisers left into early retirement,” she said. “The young people will just leave for these environmental consultancies [that advise developers] who pay well and probably offer good career progression, but aren’t necessarily doing the right thing for wildlife and countryside.”
Around 300 job losses are also expected at the Forestry Commission, which manages England’s woodlands.
This is all before Reeves confirms departments’ future spending budgets at the Spending Review in June, meaning further job cuts are likely to be on the horizon.
Jason Reeves, head of policy at the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management, said job cuts at Natural England and other environmental bodies were a “false economy” and would put the UK’s climate and nature targets at risk.
“Budget cuts to regulators such as Natural England and the Environment Agency weaken the very institutions responsible for ensuring that nature recovery projects are well-regulated and effective, potentially deterring private sector participation,” he added.
At the Chancellor’s first Budget last autumn she sparked fury among farmers by making surprise changes to inheritance tax rules that removed the exemption for farms worth more than £1m.
In the lead-up to today’s Spring Statement, farmers were once again caught off-guard when Defra suddenly stopped accepting applications for its Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) Scheme, the main subsidy programme for farmers.
It is currently unclear what will happen with the SFI budget from next year onwards, but many in the farming and nature sectors fear the scheme could see its funding reduced.
On Tuesday, more than 50 organisations, including the National Farmers Union, National Trust and RSPB, wrote to the Chancellor to warn that “any cuts to the farming budget would massively hamper the Government’s ability to meet its legally binding nature and climate targets”.
More homes exposed to flooding
A huge chunk of Defra’s budget is spent on building and maintaining flood defences.
At the last Budget, the Treasury sparked fears that cash for flood protection could be slashed, when it was described as a “significant funding pressure” that must be “reviewed”.
square NEWS Over 3,000 flood defences in disrepair - and Reeves’s cuts could make it worse
Read More
This is despite the Environment Agency (EA) already struggling to meet its targets around maintaining flood defences. On Sunday, The i Paper revealed that more than 3,000 of England’s most important flood defences are currently in disrepair.
Emma Howard Boyd, the former chair of the EA, said the flood budget must be increased from £1.3bn to at least £1.5bn per year if the EA is to keep pace with climate change.
But given Reeves’s comments during the Spring Statement, an increase to the flood budget appears unlikely.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Hiking charges, job losses and the other ways Defra cuts could hit the countryside )
Also on site :
- Russia reliable partner to Africa in strengthening sovereignty – Lavrov
- Trump could exit Ukraine talks – NYT
- Ship carrying oil and hazardous cargo sinks off Kerala coast