Rural Payments Agency

But the Secretary of State designed the scheme herself; she did not have to introduce it. She announced it more than a year ago. Now she is saying that it was not until 14 March that she was aware of how badly wrong it was going—although many of us had been writing to her for weeks telling her that exactly this was going to happen. If she thinks that her Minister has been doing a good job she had better get a grip on the issue personally, or the payments will not even be made by the end of June. May I ask the Secretary of State specifically whether the Government will compensate farmers who have had to incur loans and pay interest because of the late payments? May I remind her how fast the Government are to extract interest from their debtors when they are late in paying their taxes?