Environment and rural: flood defences, farm support and waste

Over the longest run published: cash, real terms and per head

Source: HM Treasury, Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses (2026, 2021, 2016, 2011): table 5.2, public sector expenditure on services by sub-function, published 16 July 2026.

Farm subsidies over fifty years

Subsidies to UK farming were £3.4bn in 2025, 40% of Total Income from Farming (£8.4bn). In 2025 prices they have gone from £1.4bn in 1973 to £3.4bn. Since 2021 direct payments have been funded by the UK rather than the EU budget.

Source: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Agriculture in the United Kingdom 2025: chapter 10 (agricultural support payments) and chapter 4 (accounts) data sets, published 3 September 2026.

Farm support now: by kind, scheme and nation

In 2025 £4.9bn was paid to support UK agriculture, £3.0bn of it identifiably in England. Payments for land area, the Basic Payment Scheme and its delinked successor in England, are falling; agri-environment schemes, which pay for actions such as hedgerow management and cover crops, are growing. Each nation runs its own schemes.

Accounts record spending when it is owed: all delinked payments to 2027-28 were counted in 2023-24, so they barely appear here, and a revaluation in 2024-25 shows as negative spending. The Basic Payment Scheme ended in England in 2023; delinked payments, not tied to farming land, replace it and shrink each year until 2027.

Source: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Agriculture in the United Kingdom 2025: chapter 10 (agricultural support payments) and chapter 4 (accounts) data sets, published 3 September 2026; Rural Payments Agency, Rural Payments Agency annual report and accounts 2025-26: note 5 (schemes administered by the agency) and staff report, published 9 July 2026.

Flood and coastal defences in England

Central government spent £1.4bn on flood and coastal erosion risk management in England in 2024-25, against £509m in 2005-06. Most goes through the Environment Agency, which builds and maintains defences and runs flood warnings; councils, internal drainage boards and water companies also manage flood risk. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland fund flood defence through their own governments and councils, and their figures are in the drill-down under other environment protection.

Homes better protected (to 2020-21) and properties better protected (from 2021-22, counting businesses and public buildings too) are the Environment Agency’s modelled estimates for schemes completed in the year; the two series are not comparable. Asset condition is the share of high-consequence defences at or above their target grade, 93.0% in 2025-26 Q4; from 2018-19 the year’s last quarter.

Source: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Flood and coastal erosion risk management in England: central government funding and performance, data tables, published 15 July 2026.

Where the money goes, level by level

Search the department's payments over £25,000

Every payment of £25,000 or more the department published for the latest year, as published. See every department's spending over £25,000 for what each covers.

On the map

The map covers the whole UK. Where the nations publish the same measure, they share one scale. Where they publish different ones, each nation is shaded against its own measure on its own scale, named in its own part of the legend, and the nations cannot be compared with each other. Where a nation publishes nothing for a measure, the map says so and links to what it publishes instead. Pick an area for its figures and a link to its page.