The TFA has asked the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons to scrutinise DEFRA’s £1.94 million grant commitment towards The Wildlife Trusts’ purchase of the Rothbury Estate in Northumberland. In a letter to Committee Chair Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, the TFA has asked the Committee to engage with DEFRA to establish the basis for the award, the safeguards attached to it and the evidence that it represents value for public money. The TFA’s concern is to establish whether DEFRA rigorously tested this intervention against other uses of public funds, including further funding for the Sustainable Farming Incentive Scheme.