Rural Payments Agency

My Lords, I shall ask the Minister some elementary questions. I first declare an interest in that I have been involved in agriculture. We all greatly appreciate the position in which the Minister finds himself. There are one or two things that I do not understand at all. The first is that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have managed to pay their people; why have we not? Is it just that the computer has gone phut; is the system too complicated; or are the civil servants finding difficulty with it? Or is it that people have not sent in their applications? I think that the Minister said that there are not many of those. I just do not understand how we can have got into that position. If he could give us a brief reason, I would be grateful. When the Minister says that he is doing his best to get all the payments out by 30 June, what is the inhibiting factor? Is it that the machine does not say what is the amount to be paid or that the figures are not available? If they are available, what is likely to be unpaid by 30 June? British agriculture is facing its biggest crisis since the 1930s. It is a terrible thing that this system, which is so deeply complicated, should be imposed on British agriculture. Is there any way that the Minister or the European Union can make the system easier, because it seems a perfectly absurd thing to land on the industry?