Rural Payments Agency

My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on getting things moving but, as I am sure he knows, his inheritance in this matter is absolutely dire. This Statement proves it. The situation has, no doubt, improved since the end of March, but there is still a long way to go. We know that it is not the Minister’s fault, but the operation of the RPA has been totally unsatisfactory—and that is putting it mildly. The Statement covers a number of important points. I am particularly concerned about the effect on England. From what I can see, of the approximately 10,500 eligible hill-farm claims 5,000 have been paid in full and a further 900 authorised for partial payments. Am I correct in extrapolating from this that approximately 4,600 hill farmers are still waiting for any payment at all? If that is the case, when will they receive the payment that they are due? I agree with the Opposition spokesman that one per cent plus interest rate is totally inadequate. A headline in the Farmers Guardian about two weeks ago said that payments were being conducted by hand. Is this still going on, or was that an inaccurate report? The Statement addresses the 2006 claims. What proportion of the 2006 claims have been made by the deadline? There were 120,000 claims made for 2005, which were submitted to Defra in spring 2006. Roughly how many have been received for 2006? I noted that Defra had actually put some quite effective advertisements in the agricultural press urging farmers to get their applications in on time. How successful has this campaign been? The Minister’s department may have some idea about the number and nature of complaints made by members of the farming community to the Parliamentary Ombudsman. What is the scale of that, and is it being pursued? I realise that he cannot make a transparent statement on this, given that they have gone to the Parliamentary Ombudsman, but he may know the volume of complaints made. It will take considerable time to clear this up, even in the current payments year. Yet I am pleased that Defra has gone ahead with negotiating the possibility of partial payments in 2006. That is a realistic assessment. Also, the tone is radically different from the statements made in March, particularly the RPA’s amazing claims on when it would settle the problem. We know now that that was absolute fiction, though we thought so at the time. At least now this measured Statement lays bare the height of the problems confronted by the Rural Payments Agency. I sincerely hope that, when the future of the RPA is examined and reported on, there will be radical improvements to how it operates. It is possible that some totally new organisation will do its job in the future.