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MPs demand help over subsidies

- 03 April 2001
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3 April 2001



MPs demand help over subsidies


by Isabel Davies

MPs are calling for Ministry of Agriculture officials to be allowed to offer advice to farmers and assist them in making claims for subsidies.

The Agriculture Select Committee says the ministry is too restrictive in its definition of the advice function of its staff and could do better.

Officials must recognise their legitimate responsibilities include protecting the interests of farmers and assisting them to make claims, says a committee report.

The committee admits MAFF does have other responsibilities including reforming the CAP and protecting taxpayers funds from fraud and inefficiency.

But it says too much focus on these aspects has serious downplayed MAFFs third role to ensure that farmers receive the payments to which they are entitled.

The report, which was published on Tuesday (3 April), compares how the IACS subsidy system is administered in other European countries.

It that MAFF is not uniquely stringent in implementing the rules.

The crucial difference in how IACS is implemented throughout the EU is the relationship between the national authority and the farming industry.

In all European Union member states, farmers and officials accept there is little room for flexibility in the rules themselves, says the report.

But the committee suggests countries like France and Ireland find scope to make the burden of the system more bearable than in the UK.

France may be highly bureaucratic but the structure gives farmers ready access to help in completing and understanding them, says the report.

Meanwhile in Ireland all efforts have been made to minimise the paperwork.

In the future there are measures that the UK could take unilaterally to make life easier for farmers, says the cross-party group of MPs.

It suggests forms and scheme guidance should be simplified and rules harmonised between the different schemes.

The report also recommends that MAFF conducts a full analysis of the Irish forms with a view to reducing UK IACS forms along similar lines.




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