David Harvey, professor emeritus at Newcastle University, proposed the plan at a conference on the future of farming in Durham.

He said: “One very simple way of handling our environmental policies and giving control back to the citizens, which is what Brexit appears to be about, is to say to those environmental charities – you negotiate with your farmers locally, nationally, regionally, the sorts of things they need to do to conserve and preserve the environment.

“I recognise not everybody will contribute voluntarily to this. There will be a free-rider problem, so for every pound the charitable trust raises, the Treasury will kick in another 50p. We will let a quasi-market decide what sort of environmental policies we need.”

Tapered off

Professor Harvey also recommended smaller charities have their money matched pound for pound by the Government, but bigger NGOs such as the RSPB should have Treasury contributions tapered off to 25p in the pound.

Conservative peer and former MEP Lord Callanan was not impressed with the suggestion.

“I cannot imagine anything worse than handing over environmental policy and public subsidies to the big environmental NGOs”, he said.

“Most of their income comes already from public subsidies, whether it is UK subsidies or European Commission subsidies. If taking back control involves anything, it is politicians at Westminster and in the devolved administrations being responsible for the decisions they make and accountable to the public.

“Many of these big environmental NGOs are accountable to no one. Politicians should have the courage to take the difficult decisions if that is what is required and be accountable for them.”

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