Lord Stoddart of Swindon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Stoddart of Swindon on 2015-10-27.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the European Union policy of requiring farmers to erect notices advertising the European Union if they receive grants; whether such notices require planning consent; and whether they will require that all such advertising notices should also indicate information about the ratio of United Kingdom contributions to the European Union budget and the sums returned by way of grants to farmers and others.

Lord Gardiner of Kimble

EU regulations require any business who receives over €500,000 for capital items to display a billboard setting out:

• The name of the project
• A description of the activity supported by the project
• The name of the funding stream: ‘European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development: Europe investing in rural areas’
• The full relevant EU logo

We expect less than 1% of all agreements will be large enough to meet this requirement.

However, the Minister of State for farming, food and marine environment will be considering how this requirement might be removed in future CAP regulations.