The government’s goal to restore the natural environment within a generation, coupled with its proposed reforms to public payments to farmers after the UK leaves the EU, have created the possibility of a radically different policy framework for managing land and water.

This policy insight demonstrates that, to save the government unnecessary spending and keep water bills down, the UK’s new post-Brexit farm subsidy scheme, aimed at environmental restoration, should be better aligned with companies’ environmental spending.

We make recommendations including making sure existing legal commitments for water standards are transposed in the Environment Bill and designing the new farm support scheme to allow public and private co-investment.