MP for Wellington, Gideon Amos is demanding urgent support for farming and rural communities after a system failure left many without vital funds.

He has slammed government ministers over the ‘shambolic’ rollout of the Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme that opened in late September with virtually no notice and closed just six hours later as the money had run out.

The abrupt closure left farmers across the Wellington area without access to a universal baseline payment for the first time since 1945.

Speaking in the House of Commons, the MP said: “Farmers in Taunton and Wellington have been hit incredibly hard by this debacle.

“For residents, farmers and visitors to my part of Somerset alike, the hedges, field margins and wildflower meadows funded by the sustainable farming incentive are the very fabric of the countryside that we know and love, from the Quantocks to the Blackdown hills and across my constituency.

“Yet all of that has been put under threat simply because of a badly mismanaged system that this Government could and should fix.

“I recently met local farmers in my constituency, and I want to thank them for the work they do 365 days a year, putting food on our tables, caring for our countryside and bringing employment to our rural areas.”

Mr Amos said that local farmer James Hebditch’s fields have been registered with the Rural Payments Agency for years.

Yet on September 22, a glitch on the Government portal suddenly rejected one of them. He was faced with an impossible choice: apply without it or try to amend and resubmit his application.

By the time that he could navigate the error that the portal had made, the whole thing had closed, and his application was lost.

Now James fears that the hedges and habitats he has maintained for years under previous schemes will likely have to be ripped up just for his farm to remain viable and profitable.

Mr Amos said that farmer Tom Pope had told him: “With no replacement scheme we will be forced to consider ploughing up some of our environmental areas … to return them to arable production.

“Some of these areas have a huge variety of wildflowers and provide a brilliant habitat for insects and birds. It will break our hearts.”

Mr Amos told the Commons: “This is not a serious way to run a £930 million public programme.”

The MP backed a Liberal Democrat motion which called on Ministers to guarantee long-term funding for all eligible applicants, reverse the Family Farm Tax, and commit an additional £1 billion annually to agricultural and environmental land management.

It was voted down by 279 votes to 57 with all Conservative MPs abstaining from the vote.

Mr Amos said afterwards: “I was proud to vote for our Liberal Democrat motion demanding immediate funding guarantees for locked-out farmers and won't stop holding both parties (Labour and Conservatives) to account.

“It is an absolute disgrace that farmers in Taunton and Wellington, working tirelessly to keep food on our tables and protect our countryside, are being failed time and again.”