Past experience has shown the potential for failures in digital delivery to do real damage to farmers’ trust in Government. We recognise that Defra has decided to initially use a simplified version of existing systems rather than attempting to build something from scratch. However, the Government’s plans for ELM are far more ambitious than previous schemes, and concerns have previously been raised that it will find itself playing catch-up if it realises too late that its systems are not suitable. This must not be allowed to happen. Defra should explain in its response its approach to ensuring that it will have suitable and scalable IT systems in place to deliver the full ELM scheme from 2024.