Rural Payments Agency

If that was five years ago, it was long before the negotiations on CAP reform, for a start. Once the decisions had been made about the form and nature of the scheme, Ministers and stakeholder representatives of the industry spent time with the RPA seeking information and assurances on whether it could indeed handle the scheme within the time frame. Those assurances were given, and given categorically—to the extent that stakeholder representatives and Ministers came back immensely reassured and full of confidence that the RPA could handle the issues. That was the position at the start. It has to some extent been asserted that the Government were warned from the beginning that the RPA could not handle the scheme. No, we were not: the RPA gave every assurance that it could indeed handle it. As for whether Ministers take responsibility, I am taking responsibility, which is why I removed the chief executive.