Rural Payments Agency

I assure the House, and the right hon. and learned Gentleman, that that is being carefully considered. He will understand that there is no wish to do anything that will disrupt the likelihood of the majority of payments going out. I have instructed the acting chief executive that the large number of people who have an almost minuscule entitlement—on the whole, new claimants—should not be his priority. In far as possible, he should perhaps worry slightly less about some of those for whom the level of the payment might not be a matter of immediate desperate concern. The whole focus of the RPA’s attention should be on those who need the money, about whom the whole House is concerned.