Sturgeon snubbed by farmers in row over EU cash fiasco
FARMERS yesterday rejected an apology from Nicola Sturgeon after she kept them in the dark over a fresh funding crisis.
Thousands of farmers face a delay in payments from the Scottish Government following its persistent failure to process EU subsidies on time.
On Thursday it emerged the First Minister had already begged officials in Brussels for a deadline extension – but she failed to inform farmers, stakeholders or MSPs.
The deadline for payments is next Friday and, if SNP ministers fail to meet this, taxpayers could be hit with a fine of up to £60mil have lion. Addressing farmers at the Royal Highland Show in Edinburgh yesterday, Miss Sturgeon apologised for the repeated failures of her government over the payments.
But they dismissed the apology and hit out at the SNP leader, saying they ‘deserve transparency and clarity’ and should have been the first to know about any delays.
With six days left until the deadline, around 6,000 farmers have still not received their Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) applications processed by the Scottish Government.
Rural Economy Secretary Fergus Ewing yesterday admitted that only 73 per cent of payments been made – meaning a further 22 per cent must be made by Friday in order to make the 95 per cent target within the deadline.
As around 900 payments need to be processed each week, the Scottish Government seems likely to miss the target by a considerable margin.
It did not emerge until Thursday evening that the Government had asked for the deadline to be pushed back from June 30 to October 15 in a bid to avoid a penalty of up to £60million for late payments.
Miss Sturgeon repeatedly dodged questions from Tory leader Ruth Davidson in the Holyrood chamber about whether a request had been made, only for the European Commission to confirm it had been approached by SNP ministers on Tuesday.
Yesterday, Miss Sturgeon said: ‘We have already apologised and we do so again today to farmers for the failures that have been experienced in the system.
‘We have made a clear commitment to do all we can to make the 2016 pillar one payments by the end of next week, the set payment period, although we have discussed the contingency of an extension to that with the European Commission.
‘We are making significant progress now on payments and on resolving the remaining IT issues in the system. I said in parliament that we have discussed contingencies with the European Commission and that is what we have done.’
But the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) Scotland said the First Minister’s actions had done ‘nothing to restore trust or build confidence’.
President Andrew McCormick said: ‘Farmers and crofters should have been the first to know that once again there is to be a delay in payments. We have had many apologies about the system. We don’t want to hear sorry again – we want action that will ensure payments arrive in a timely manner.’
Mr McCormick insisted that farmers ‘deserve transparency and clarity’ from SNP ministers and claimed the failure to deliver payments puts Scotland rural economy ‘in jeopardy’. He said that while the extension could save taxpayers millions in fines, it does not provide farmers with any reassurance on when they will receive their much-needed money.
Mr McCormick added: ‘Some of those payments have been outstanding for 18 months. That is wholly unacceptable.’
This is the second year in a row that the failure of the SNP’s £178million computer system has delayed payments, forcing ministers to set up an emergency loan system to prevent farmers from going bankrupt. The failure contributed to former Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead losing his job and critics have now called on Mr Ewing to resign.
Tory MSP Finlay Carson said: ‘This is a stark message from the NFU and again highlights how angry they are at Nicola Sturgeon and her government. The mess they have made over CAP payments has been disastrous for our rural communities.’
‘We don’t want to hear sorry again’
‘Disastrous for our rural communities’