Updates for 2022
This section provides updates to the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) rules for 2022.
There are updates to the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) rules for 2022. Some of these changes will affect the information you need to give us in your application. These are outlined below with more detail provided in this guidance document and the ‘Basic Payment Scheme: rules for 2022’.
These updates apply from 2022 onwards. They do not apply to any previous BPS claims that you have made.
We have begun to progressively reduce Direct Payments.
As in previous years, your BPS 2022 claim value will depend on the number of entitlements, with eligible hectares, you claim in 2022 and on whether you claim the young farmer payment.
Progressive reductions will be applied to your total claim value (after any other reductions or penalties). You can read more about this in the ‘Basic Payment Scheme: rules for 2022’ in the ‘Progressive reductions to BPS payments’ section.
A Lump Sum Exit Scheme is being introduced this year for farmers in England who wish to leave the sector.
You may wish to apply for BPS in 2022 as well as applying for the Lump Sum Exit Scheme. This will protect you if you then find that you are not eligible for the lump sum or cannot complete the transfer of your land in time.
If you receive a BPS 2022 payment and later meet the rules of the Lump Sum Exit Scheme, the value of any BPS payments made will be deducted from the lump sum due.
Read more information about the Lump Sum Exit Scheme on GOV.UK.
We plan to replace BPS in England with delinked payments in 2024. This means BPS will end after the 2023 scheme year. We plan to make delinked payments in each of the years 2024 to 2027.
When payments are delinked, you won’t need any land or entitlements to receive the payments. This will simplify the payments as we phase them out by the end of 2027.
You cannot apply for delinked payments if you have received a payment under the Lump Sum Exit Scheme.
Delinked payments will be based on your BPS payments in a reference period, which is the BPS 2020 to 2022 scheme years.
Your delinked payments for 2024 to 2027 will not be affected if your farm size changes, or if you change what the land is used for after BPS 2022.
You can receive delinked payments even if you choose to stop farming. However, you must claim, and be eligible for, BPS payments in the 2023 scheme year to receive delinked payments for 2024 to 2027.
You can also apply for any other scheme you are eligible for, including our environmental land management schemes.
When the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) is launched later this year, farmers who are eligible for BPS will be eligible to apply for SFI. This covers most farmland in England. In later years we will remove the BPS eligibility requirement, so a wider range of farmers will become eligible for SFI. We do not expect to do this before 2024.
You can claim BPS and SFI on the same land parcel, provided that land parcel meets the relevant eligibility rules under both schemes.
The rules for young farmers and new farmers applying for new entitlements in 2022 have changed. These new rules mean that any land acquired after 17 May 2021 (the 2021 BPS application deadline) will not be taken into account when we calculate the number of new entitlements for 2022.
Young and new farmers will therefore only be able to apply for entitlements if they had already taken on land by midnight on 17 May 2021.
You can read more about this in the ‘Basic Payment Scheme: rules for 2022’ in the ‘Young and new farmer’ section.
New farmers in the New Forest, who started commoning in 2021 and will claim BPS on the New Forest for the first time in 2022, will be allocated a reference amount based on their marking fees paid for 2021.
However, this allocation is subject to a threshold of 20 Livestock units and you will not be allocated more than this.
If you claim BPS on the New Forest for the first time in 2022, you should use your BPS application to declare an interest in the common rights you have in the New Forest and under the ‘Number of rights of this type’, enter ‘9999’.
You may notice that parts of the summary have been removed, covering currency, EFA greening, land in more than one part of the UK, and organic land status. This is because we removed the need for these requirements from 2021.