Chapter 3: Other Financial Support After EU Exit Section 16: Support for rural development
Section 16 provides the Secretary of State with the power to modify or repeal retained EU legislation relating to rural development in England. The power allows some existing rural development agreements to be extended with fewer restrictions, to be shortened and for agreements to be converted or adjusted into new agreements set up under Chapter 1 of this Act. It also allows the duration of the current Rural Development Programme for England to be extended and its budget to be increased and expressed in a currency other than Euros in the retained EU legislation. This section will not be used to introduce any new schemes, as they will be covered under section 1.
Box 3: Pillar 2
Pillar 2 of the CAP is implemented through Rural Development programmes in each devolved administration.
Rural development programmes provide rules and financing for grants and other forms of financial assistance and procured services for the farming, forestry and food sectors and to rural businesses and communities.
The objectives of Rural Development programmes include improving economic performance, promoting economic development and improving the competitiveness of primary producers (through socio-economic schemes) and protecting and enhancing ecosystems relating to agriculture and forestry (through agri-environment schemes).
The European Commission formally adopted the Rural Development Programme for England covering the 2014-2020 CAP round ("the RDPE") on 13 February 2015.
	Subsection (1) enables the Secretary of State to modify the Rural Development basic act and retained direct EU legislation made under it for the purposes specified in relation to England.
	Subsection (2) defines the "core contribution," which is referred to in subsection (1). It should be noted that there is currently no reference in the Rural Development basic act to the "core contribution". This will be inserted by the Rural Development (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which are currently due to come into force on the Implementation Period completion day pursuant to paragraph 1 of Schedule 5 to the EU (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020.
	Subsection (3) enables the Secretary of State to modify any retained direct EU legislation relating to support for rural development in England so that: the initial period for a commitment can be less than 5 years; restrictions on extending commitment periods can be removed; commitments can be converted or adjusted into new commitments under section 1 of the Act and; legislation can cease to have effect.
	Subsection (4) gives a non-exhaustive list of the restrictions that may be removed in subsection (3)(b) in relation to extending commitments.
	Subsection (5) enables the Secretary of State to modify the Common Provisions Regulation and retained direct EU legislation made under it to allow the payment deadline to be extended so that commitments can continue to be eligible for rural development support.
	Subsections (6) provides definitions for terms used in subsections (1) to (5) in this section whilst subsection (7) provides a non-exhaustive definition for "the legacy regulations" which is referred to in subsection (6).
	Subsection (8) states that regulations made under this section are subject to the negative resolution procedure, unless section 50(5) applies, in which case the procedure is affirmative.