Rural Payments Agency

My Lords, I have answered the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, on compensation. I am afraid that it is not an answer that the noble Lord will want to hear: we are still waiting to hear what has stopped it being possible for the bulk of payments to be made by the end of March. It clearly has something to do with the validation of claims. It certainly had something to do with authorisation of claims. As I have already said, the new chief executive has acted on that. It is clear that Ministers should have been told earlier that the RPA was not likely to meet its target of making the bulk of payments by the end of March.