EU ministers agreed last year to reform the subsidy policy

A new scheme would be based on a flat rate payment per hectare, Margaret Beckett told MPs.

Mrs Beckett said it was a "decisive and irreversible shift which offers huge opportunities to the industry".

Shadow Environment Secretary Theresa May said four different UK systems would leave farmers "shell-shocked".

Mrs Beckett said ending the link to production levels would free farmers to produce what the market wanted and benefit the environment.

Different rates would apply to land in "severely disadvantaged areas" and "less favoured areas" and the rest of England, she said.

Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland have planned to adopt three different systems.

We will see huge disparities in the continuing support that our farmers receive in the coming years Teresa May Shadow Environment Secretary

Teresa May said Tories backed the need for CAP reform, but that the government had replaced one "complexity for another".

She added: "Britain's farmers will receive different levels of support, competing in the same market place.

"We will see huge disparities in the continuing support that our farmers receive in the coming years."

Mrs Beckett denied Mrs May's claims that during the consultation exercise no one had supported the Government's plan.

Common Agricultural Policy

EU farm ministers agreed last year on the reforms of the widely-criticised Common Agricultural Policy.

That paid subsidies to farmers according to how much food they produced, but it was criticised for distorting trade and harming the countryside.

From next year, farmers will start getting a single flat-rate payment instead - but governments can introduce this gradually if they want.

Wales has chosen to give subsidies entirely as before, and Scotland is likely to do the same, while Northern Ireland has chosen a "hybrid" system.