Last year England's farmers and their families suffered incredible hardships when DEFRA and the RPA failed to deliver full payments to them on time. Having promised that farmers would be receiving their 2005 full payments in February and March, they let them down again and some have still not received their money.

While farmers in other EU countries and across the borders to Scotland and Wales were being paid, farmers in England were not.

Computer problems, mapping errors and wrong payments affected tens of thousands of claimants. The European Union will be fining the British Government for failing to make the payments by the end of June 2006.

At Make Them Pay By Christmas Day we want at least 80% to be paid so that for farmers the Single farm Payment "is for the many and not the few."



The Story So Far

• In February 2004 the DEFRA Secretary of State announced that the new Single Farm Payment (SFP) would be implemented in England at the earliest opportunity during the 2005 CAP year.

• Throughout summer 2005 farmers in England were already experiencing problems with their SFP claims.

• By October 2005 it became clear to all – except to DEFRA – that the SFP would not be delivered to England's farmers and that the RPA would not be able to meet the target of 96% payment by March 2006.

• By January 2006, while 80% of Scottish farmers had received 75% of their total claims, almost all English farmers had yet to receive a penny. It emerged that the RPA had spent £37.4 million on a computer system that was not working and cost twice as much as originally estimated. Still DEFRA insisted that the majority of payments would be made as promised in February and March.

• During February some farmers began to receive their entitlements but the vast majority were still awaiting their payments. On 16 March the Government finally admitted that there was a serious problem. They blamed the RPA and replaced its Chief Executive, Johnston McNeill, with Mark Addison.

• A year earlier DEFRA had promised England's farmers that they would receive the bulk of their SFP in February and March 2006. Now Defra changed its position and instead said that it would try to make payments by June 30 2006, the EU deadline.

• By April only around 20% of claims had been paid because of a computer error which had left approximately 95% of claims 'un-validated'.

• In May the DEFRA team was re-shuffled. While England's farmers were suffering a financial crisis, Margaret Beckett was promoted to Foreign Secretary.



Miliband's Millions

• The Rural Payments Agency has about £1,500 million of English farmers' money available to pay to over 115,000 English farmers by June 2007. This is their 2006 Single Farm Payment.

• Last year England's farmers were left without their money at the time they had been promised. DEFRA and the RPA were warned in advance but did little to help.

• Failure to pay the 2005 SFP means that our Government will be fined by the EU. Let us make sure we do not get fined for the 2006 SFP.

• At Make Them Pay By Christmas Day we want DEFRA to ensure that RPA pays England's farmers so that they can have their money before the end of this year.