Memorandum from the NFU
A SECOND PROGRESS
UPDATE ON
THE ADMINISTRATION
OF THE
SINGLE PAYMENT
SCHEME
I hope you do not mind my writing following
the SPS evidence session the Committee held with Defra and the
RPA last week. I wanted to put the record straight on one small
point made by Dame Helen Ghosh during the session.
The Committee touched briefly on the SPS implementation
model chosen by Defra for England. Dame Helen seemed to regard
this as ancient history, but the NFU remains convinced that a
great deal of the ensuing chaos and waste of public funds can
be traced back to the complex "dynamic hybrid" model
chosen by Defra, together with the decision to introduce it at
the earliest date possible.
The point I would like to pick up on is Dame
Helen's insistence, in answer to Q126 of the evidence session,
that stakeholders supported the dynamic hybrid that Defra was
proposing.
The NFU did not support it. We had based our
own proposal on four criteria: simplicity; minimising redistribution
of existing support; ensuring the payment went to the working
farmer; and market focus. Based on those criteria, the NFU's view
was that the individual historic option was the right way forward.
Our submission to Defra at the time raised concerns about the
administrative complexity of a hybrid approach. Any such complicated
system would be likely to lead to appeals, expense and delay.
That said, it is also true that we recognised
that the historic model would at some stage have to be modified;
the greater the time gap, the less justifiable a link between
current support payments and historic subsidy receipts. The latest
EU agreement on SPS now allows for a gradual breaking of the link
between a farmer's historic receipts and his current payments
in a way that does not involve the inclusion of 40,000 new "pony
paddock" claimants. If we had gone for a simpler approach
in 2005, we would now have been able to make a change that did
not involve a major re-work of the IT and mapping of new land.
I trust that sets the record straight, at least
as far as the NFU's stance is concerned.
2 November 2009
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