There are rather a large number of questions there, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I will do my best to answer as many of them as I can— subject to your wish to make progress.
First, yes, I am embarrassed and dismayed by the issue of the newsletter to which the hon. Gentleman referred. There is no doubt that when it was produced we were on track, payments were being produced on the date that we had been told—20 February—and validations were being issued to farmers, just as had been foreseen. It was anticipated, and continually reported to Ministers, that once that process had begun it would be speedily ramped up. Of course, that was the part that was not fulfilled.
I cannot give the hon. Gentleman answers on time lines and dates at the moment, but I assure him that I will keep Front Benchers and the House as informed as I can with reliable information. I am sure that the whole House will recognise the strong wish of the new acting chief executive not to be pinned down to proposals for the future until he has more information, because he does not wish to repeat what he views as previous over-promise and underperformance. The hon. Gentleman will know, as will the House, that the payment window ends at the end of June 2006, but I cannot give him a pattern of payment between then and now.
The hon. Gentleman asked about non-validated interim payments. We are looking at that whole issue. We are not ruling out the potential for interim payments, but we are reluctant to make interim payments if there is any possibility of their jeopardising the time scale for making full payments. I think that the whole House will understand that, and understand, too, our wish to keep the rest of the scheme on track.
The hon. Gentleman said that the situation was obvious to all. I genuinely think that he was quite unjust to my noble Friend Lord Bach, who has spent not just hours but days working on this over many, many months. [Interruption.] I say to the hon. Gentleman, and to the House, that when the scheme was initially being considered and the arrangements were being put in place, a substantial contingency of time was of course built in to allow for any hiccups and difficulties. Over time, that contingency was gradually whittled away. My noble Friend has maintained the closest possible interest, and I, like him, continue to reject any charge that there was complacency on the part of Ministers. Ministers are dependent, as is everyone in the House, on the information that they are given and the confidence that they can place in it. [Interruption.] I simply repeat to the hon. Gentleman what the proposal to us was. We published this more than a year ago; I cannot now recall exactly when, but it was a long time ago. The proposal to us was that the first payments would begin to flow in the week of 20 February, and they did. It was after that that the scheme began to break down.
There were repeated challenges by Ministers, and repeated demands for harder information about the number of payments that had been made. As a result of those challenges and demands the chief executive conveyed to me, on the evening of Tuesday 15 March, that he could no longer say that the bulk of payments would be made by the end of March—although he continued to insist that 96 per cent. would be made in the payment window, by the end of June. That is why we took the steps that I outlined. We will continue to keep hon. Members and the industry as fully informed as possible, and I anticipate a further report on the situation later this week.
Rural Payments Agency
Proceeding contribution from
Baroness Beckett
(Labour)
in the House of Commons on Monday, 27 March 2006.
It occurred during Urgent question on Rural Payments Agency.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
444 c544-6 
Session
2005-06
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Subjects
Librarians' tools
Timestamp
2023-11-25 20:05:00 +0000
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