Cameron urges immediate pay-out of promised £160m
A former NFU president yesterday urged the Scottish Government to distribute the £160 million recently promised to Scottish farmers “as quickly as possible”.
John Cameron headed the union back in the 1980s but has kept a close tab on both the politics and the politicians involved in Scottish agriculture since then.
He was commenting on the unexpected or longawaited promise that the UK government would pay money, originally put into the pot in 2013 by the EU in order to bring support levels for Scottish farmers up to the average level in the UK
Earlier this week, NFU Scotland told the Scottish rural affairs minister Fergus Ewing that the money should be spread across all sectors of the industry.
This is in contrast to the views of another former union president, Jim Walker, who helped trigger the cash coming to Scotland through a long-standing business link with Prime Minister, Boris Johnston. Walker wanted all the cash to go into the less favoured areas to help sustain the Scottish livestock industry.
Cameron did not want to enter the discussion on where the cash should go saying: “The cabinet secretary will no doubt consult with all the industry interests but I believe that he himself will have a fair idea of the situation in the various sectors.”
“The critical objective must be to get this money distributed to the industry as quickly as possible. Any new agricultural resource usually has a habit of distributing itself across the board to where it is needed.”
For Cameron, the bigger issue facing farming was the consequences of Brexit: “What we also require at this time is some clarity on the action to be taken by the UK government if we end up with a ‘no deal’ Brexit.
“The industry is now suffering from a distinct lack of confidence which urgently needs to be addressed.”