Rural Payments Agency

I remind the House of my entry in the Register of Members’ Interests, and I thank the Secretary of State for her answer. In a newspaper produced by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs which landed on the doorstep of every farmer in the country just six days ago, the headline stated, ““Full payments on track for farmers””. I hope that the Secretary of State is ashamed that that happened. As the Secretary of State has rightly said, the first priority in this debacle is to get the money to the farmers who desperately need it. Tens of thousands of decent hard-working family farmers were promised their payments, which in many cases cover up to one third of their income. In time they will need to stop relying on such payments to support their businesses, but this is the first year of painful transition. Will the Secretary of State tell us how many payments will now be made by the end of March? Exactly when will all the outstanding payments will be completed? What is she doing about all the non-validated entitlements, and will she confirm that they will be paid on the same time scale? Will she consider making an interim payment for everyone who cannot receive the full amount by the end of March? That could be done manually, even if the computer cannot cope. The delays are costing the industry £10 million to £12 million a month. Will the Government repay the interest on any related loan until the RPA issues the payment? Will the Secretary of State seek a derogation from the EU to delay the 15 May deadline for next year’s applications? The RPA should not be sending out next year’s forms instead of last year’s money. We also need to know how the crisis arose. Given the continuing mapping problems and other issues, the crisis was obvious to us all, yet throughout those months the Government told us that we were scaremongering and that the targets would be met. In January Lord Bach told the Oxford farming conference that 96 per cent. of payments would be made by the end of March. In the same month, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee report stated:"““The Committee is dismayed at the complacency of Defra Minister, Lord Bach, who refused to admit that any mistakes had been made or that anything could have been done differently to avoid the problems.””" Lord Bach called that report ““shoddy”” and said:"““I am deeply disappointed with the timing of this report which could create unfounded alarm and uncertainty in the farming community.””" On 2 February the Secretary of State told this House that the 96 per cent. target would not be met. Three days later, Lord Bach told me in a letter that he still expected ““the bulk of payments”” to be made, although he went on to tell Farmers Weekly that ““the bulk”” meant more than 50 per cent. Just a month ago the Secretary of State told the National Farmers Union conference:"““Having demonstrated last week that its systems are working as planned, the RPA is now in the process of authorizing payments””." That is some plan! If Ministers were misled by the chief executive of the RPA it is right that he should go, but that does not absolve Ministers from this catalogue of incompetence and ministerial denial. This House and the industry are entitled to an apology, because the chain of accountability reaches the top. It was the Secretary of State who decided, rightly, to introduce a complicated hybrid scheme, but then opened it up to 48,000 new applicants, with 360,000 new parcels of land that had not previously been receiving support. Then, to make it worse, she rammed it into place in the first year of the three-year window—and that is where the problem began. But even Germany and Denmark, which also have hybrid schemes, paid almost all their farmers months ago. Sacking a civil servant is not the end of the matter. Ministers knew that there was a problem because they reduced the targets, but they appear to have done nothing until I challenged the Prime Minister two weeks ago. What questions were asked? How many Ministers actually went to the RPA to see what was happening? Did nobody have the gumption to ask why farmers were reporting so many problems? The Government’s usual ““blame somebody else”” line will not wash. Lord Bach criticised others for saying what was abundantly clear to everybody, but he was wrong. A Minister who truly had his finger on the pulse of farming would have seen this coming and prevented it from happening. He has lost all credibility in the industry for which he is responsible, and he should go. This House and, more importantly, the farming industry deserve better.