Louise Haigh – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Louise Haigh on 2015-12-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate she has made of the number of farmers who received payments under the Environment Stewardship Scheme in October rather than August 2015 as a result of the withdrawal of online applications for such payments.

George Eustice

Environmental Stewardship (ES) claims are administered by Natural England. Historically, about 60% of advance payments have previously been paid in August.

All ES and Basic Payment Scheme claims have to be cross-checked before payment can be made in line with European regulatory requirements. This year, due mainly to the extension of the claims deadline, it was necessary to delay ES advance payments until they could be cross-checked. From 2018, new European rules will prevent any payments from being made before 16 October each year.

Natural England had paid 28,523 (60.24%) of advance payments by the end of October. Ninety-two percent of ES advance payments have now been made, and Natural England aims to pay the remainder of advance claims by the end of December.