Aristocrats top EU farm subsidy payout list

Wealthy aristocrats and a Saudi prince remain among Britain’s top earners from European farm subsidy payouts.

At least one in five of the top 100 recipients of Single Farm Payments (SFP) in the UK last year were farm businesses owned or controlled by members of aristocratic families, environmental lobby group Greenpeace has found.

They include the Queen, the Duke of Westminster, the Duke of Northumberland, Sir Richard Sutton, the Earl of Moray, Baron Phillimore and family, and the Earl of Plymouth.

Banchory farmer Frank Smart topped the list, receiving nearly £3 million for his Banchory business, Frank A Smart & Son Ltd.

Mr Smart has been heavily criticised for milking the system as a ‘slipper farmer’.

Household goods billionaire Sir James Dyson, who campaigned for Brexit, is also in the top 100 of CAP earners – gaining almost £1.5m from two large estates under Beeswax Farming (Rainbow) Ltd.

Sir James joins 16 individuals or families who feature on the 2016 Sunday Times Rich List, in receiving a combined total of £10.6m last year in SFP – and £13.4m in total farm subsidies.

Prince Khalid Abdullah al Saud, who owns champion racehorse Frankel, has reportedly described his farming interest as a hobby.

Juddmonte Farms, which he owns through an offshore holding company in Guernsey, received £406,826 in farm subsidies last year, of which £378,856 came from the SFP scheme.

The National Trust, Natural England and the RSPB were also all in the top 20.

Hannah Martin, of Greenpeace UK’s Brexit response team, said: “Some of the recipients of these subsidies are doing great work which benefits our environment – but others are not and it makes no sense that the CAP’s largest subsidy payments don’t distinguish between the two.

“It’s clear that there cannot be a business-as-usual approach to farm subsidies after the UK leaves the EU.”

Sandringham Farms, the estate owned by the Queen, received £557,706.52, while Grosvenor Farms Limited, which farms the Duke of Westminster’s estate, raked in £437,433.96.

The top 100 SFP claimants last year received £61.2m – more than that paid to the bottom 55,119 recipients combined.