Farming minister George Eustice has hinted that direct subsidy payments could make way for a new system in which farmers will have to demonstrate that the money they receive is being used for the public good, after Brexit.

Political responses to Andrea Leadsom’s speech in Oxford on Wednesday were critical of the Defra secretary’s failure to mention the subsidy regime, which is only protected in its current form until 2020.

Civil society groups have been mounting pressure on the government to commit to an overhaul of the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) subsidy regime, which sees farmers paid based on the amount of land they own. This has skewed the value of land and led to the development of ‘slipper farmers’, who gain subsidies for using land for grouse shoots and similar activities, but don’t actually farm.

On Wednesday, Global Justice Now and the New Economics Foundation released the latest report calling for fundamental restructuring of farm payments, which, though they make up around half of all farm income in the UK, also often result in public money going to wealthy landowners who have no obligation to use the funds in ways that would benefit the environment or the public. Area-based payments account for around £2 billion of the £3 bn in CAP funds that go to Britain’s farmers and landowners each year.

However, speaking after Andrea Leadsom on Wednesday, Defra minister George Eustice indicated that direct payments could come to an end after 2020. He said the government will have a funded agriculture policy, but added, “If subsidies equal direct payment then yes, we would like to move away from that.”

He expressed support for plans to tie subsidy payments in with environmental performance, linking funds for farmers to their ability to store soil carbon or reduce flood risk, and said money could be available for new technology to make farming more efficient or to support younger farmers.

The Scottish National Party’s Calum Kerr was skeptical of direct payments but said that farm subsidies shouldn’t be scrapped until farming is more profitable, and they don’t make up such a large proportion of farm incomes.

Discussing Brexit’s impacts on agriculture in a House of Lords debate over the summer, the majority of speakers, many of them CAP beneficiaries, acknowledged that the payment regime should at least be reformed to ensure that landowners receiving public money have to provide public goods.  

Ahead of the EU Referendum, George Eustice campaigned for the Leave camp. During the campaign, he promised that farmers would receive at least as much support funding in an independent Britain as they do in the EU. Speaking at the Royal Welsh Show less than a month after the vote, Eustice said the government could no longer guarantee that future agricultural support programmes will be as generous as current subsidies.