Over a quarter of all Common Agricultural Policy subsidy for Scotland comes to rural communities in the North East, Mike Rumbles MSP has reported.
Following a year of Scottish Government bungling and delay in CAP payments for farm businesses, Mr Rumbles tabled a question with the Minister earlier this month to assess where the damage would be felt most.
Figures show that £95million of the of the £343million available through EU funding was provided to farm businesses based in the North East.
Mr Rumbles said: “What these figures show is that these payments bring an absolutely essential boost to our rural communities in the North East.
“The Scottish Government still has no idea of how these payments will be delivered once it becomes their responsibility entirely in 2020, or that they will continue at current levels. I have repeatedly asked the minister to set up a team of experts to look into the matter and he has swivelled on every occasion.
“We now have the opportunity to deliver a system of payments that works to the strengths of our agricultural sector in Scotland, but the Scottish Government seems to be burying its head in the sand.”
ENDS
Notes for editors:
- The total amount of CAP Direct Payments (Basic Payment Scheme/Greening/Young Farmer and Voluntary Coupled Support) paid by the Scottish Government to businesses in the North East Scotland parliamentary constituency is £94,971,486.39 as of 10 October 2016.
- The Scottish Government is obligated to comply with the requirements set out in EC Regulation 1307/2013 regarding the publication of beneficiaries. Those requirements mean that we are publishing, as figures become available: the name of the person or business the location by postcode, the details of amounts under each scheme and a description of those schemes. The EC requirements include publishing information on a single website per member state: details from the Scottish government to date can be found by using the following link: http://cap-payments.defra.gov.uk/
- Update on Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) Payments as of end of business 15 October, 2016 (published 20 October, 2016):
BPS claims |
|
||
Total number of eligible BPS claims
|
18,327 |
||
|
|
||
BPS, Greening and Young Farmers payments |
|
||
Total amount by value processed for payment to end of business on 15 October, 2016. |
|
||
|
|||
Total payments |
|||
Number of eligible businesses of the estimated total of 18,327 that we had processed payments to (1) by end of business on 15 October, 2016.
|
18,281 |
||
|
|||
Total full payments |
|||
Number of businesses that have now received their full payment to end of business 15 October, 2016. |
18,268 |
||
|
|
||
(1)Includes all payments that have been submitted into the banking system. The majority will have arrived in customers’ accounts but some may still be working their way through the banking system.
|
|||
|
|
||
National BPS Support Payments |
|
||
Total number of payments Payments, valued at almost £91 million, have been initiated to over 5,250 farm businesses in Scotland.
The number of National BPS payments may be lower than the total number of National BPS offers due to farmers choosing to opt out, or who have already received their first BPS payment. |
5275 |
||
Scottish Suckler Beef Support Scheme |
|
||
Total number of payments |
7,314 payments to a total of £30.3m |
||
Scottish Upland Sheep Support Scheme |
|
||
Total number of payments
|
1099 payments to a total of £5.6m
|
||