Joining the call for payments inquiry

SIR, – D-day for the Scottish Government's rural payments has come and gone. Even with the extended deadline for completing all 2015 Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) payments it is highly unlikely everyone will have been paid in full.

I fully agree with your farming editor Gemma Mackenzie when she says “a full parliamentary inquiry should be held into this fiasco". In a “normal" year and with a competent government, this subsidy support would have been paid by December and not now some 10 months later.

It is very clear that Ms Sturgeon needs to focus on the job of running the country at this difficult time rather than focusing on another independence referendum. Our economy is heading for crisis. It is nearly a decade in power now where Holyrood has been in charge of our NHS, our schools, our railways and infrastructure, our policing and other public services. A decade of broken promises, budget cuts and backward steps.

The Holyrood government's traditional response has always been to blame the Tory government at Westminster.

However, as I like to deal in facts rather than unsupported political rhetoric, it is the UK, rather than Scotland that is viewed as the member state, and with regards to these BPS payments, it is expected that as a whole, the UK will pay the minimum amount of farmers needed to avoid a substantial fine.

It will be interesting to see if any credit is ever given to theWestminster Government for saving further Scottish embarrassment. Jim Bruce, Edinmore Drive,

Daviot, Inverurie.