The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) plans to replace the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) in England with delinked payments in 2024. Below is a summary of their latest update explaining how delinked payments will work.
The 2023 scheme year will be the last year of BPS, with delinked payments then being made twice yearly from 2024 – 2027. Delinked payments will also be subject to progressive reductions each year.
To be eligible for delinked payments you must claim BPS payments in the 2023 scheme year and have a reference amount to base the payments on. Reference amounts will normally be an average of the BPS payments made to your business in the 2020, 2021 & 2022 scheme years. If you did not claim BPS in the reference period, you will only have a reference amount if BPS reference data has been transferred to you – this could have been through inheritance, business structure changes or change of legal status/ownership of your business.
Key points:
– You will not need to apply to receive delinked payments
– Your BPS 2023 claim does not need to be for the same amount of land, or for land in the same part of England, as you claimed in the reference period
– Your BPS 2023 claim needs to be for at least 5 eligible hectares, with 5 BPS entitlements in the same BPS payment region as the land
– So long as you are eligible for delinked payments, the value of your payments for 2024-2027 will not be affected if your farm size changed, if you changed what the land is used for or if you chose to stop farming, after BPS 2022
– If you received a payment under the Lump Sum Exit Scheme, you are not eligible for delinked payments
– 50% will be paid in August and the remainder in December each year
– A reference statement will be provided to all eligible claimants towards the end of 2023
– A transfer window for reference amounts will open in 2024
