OUTRAGE AT 'SECOND CLASS TREATMENT' FOR CORNISH FARMERS

4.01.00pm UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 16th Jun 2008

Cornwall's MPs say local farmers are getting a 'second class service from a third rate Government', following a ministerial announcement today.

Jonathan Shaw, Minister for Marine, Landscape and Rural Affairs, has set targets for the Rural Payments Agency, which will allow it to deprive at least one in five farmers of their full 2008 SPS payment by the end of the year. A full 10% of 2008 SPS payments will still not be made by March 2009.

The Welsh Assembly Government, meanwhile, has already succeeded in paying 97.7% of eligible 2007 SPS applicants, and met an EC target of 96% payment in 2005 and 2006. The UK Government is likely to fall short of that target for England for 2008.

Commenting, Dan Rogerson, who is a member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee, said:

"If the Single Payment Scheme can be properly administered in Wales, why does the UK Government find it so difficult to give farmers the service they deserve this side of the border?

"Cornish farmers will be baffled that Ministers can be so brazen in admitting that a substantial number of SPS claims will again be bungled this year.

"Meanwhile, the Government has set a further target for the Rural Payments Agency to make 'efficiency savings'. These will surely cause further problems, since the Agency is clearly already overstretched.

"It cannot be right to ask a failing organisation to cut yet more corners."

Julia Goldsworthy, MP for Falmouth and Camborne, added:

"The Rural Payments Agency may think that getting 80% of the Single Payment Scheme grant through on time is an improvement on the lamentable service they have offered in the past, but for farmers at the sharp end, it's simply not good enough.

"Today's announcement will be a hammer blow to Cornish farmers, who now know that even if things go well, more than one in five of them could face another year without their full SPS payment."