Scottish Conservative rural economy spokesman Peter Chapman has sought clarification from the Scottish Government on when CAP payments will be delivered in full after continued delays.

While the Government has escaped fines so far after the European Commission extended the deadline for 95 per cent of payments to be made, figures released so far indicate that the Government failed to meet their own target of payments to be made by 30 June.

Figures released by the Scottish Government show that only 89 per cent of full payments had been made by 13 July – nearly two weeks after their end of June deadline.

To make matters worse, farmers still awaiting payments have not been told the reason for the hold up.

In the same statement the cabinet secretary responsible, Fergus Ewing said the money paid so far was a “real boost” to farmers without acknowledging the unprecedented delays in making these payments.
Peter Chapman said:  

“The Scottish Government has to come clean over their mistakes in this matter.

“While I welcomed Mr Ewing’s desire to get payments out by the original deadline, he has failed to do so and one in ten

farmers are still waiting for their full payments.

“I have asked the Scottish Government to announce when these payments will be completed by because farmers need to know how much longer they will be kept waiting.

“To add insult to injury the SNP are now spinning that while six months behind schedule in distributing EU money that this is some sort of success story.

“I find it hard to believe that farmers across Scotland would see it in quite the same way.”