Meeting of the Parliament 09 March 2016 [Draft]
I want to make some progress. [Interruption.] If Mr Swinney wants to stand up and answer the questions that I have asked, I would be quite delighted to give way. He makes many interventions from a sedentary position.
If farmers and crofters receive their instalments in April—and it is a big if—that will be four months later than the cabinet secretary promised. He also promised full payment by the end of April, not just a percentage.
Why is it a £200 million fund? The total CAP budget for Scotland is £400 million. As of this week, the Government has paid only £103 million, so where is the other £100 million? Is the cabinet secretary telling Parliament that the busted IT system will manage to make £100 million of payments before the end of April although it has failed to do that in the past three months?
People who know have told me that the IT futures system crashed yesterday. It could not make any payments. That has happened time and again. Anyone who has been in touch with the local department offices in any part of Scotland knows the reality of what has been going on. Therefore, farmers and crofters will find it extraordinary that the Government still believes that that IT system can work. Why does the Government not just come clean with all of us—Parliament and agriculture—and admit that the computer system does not work and will never work as intended? The Government should ditch it now.
I also ask the cabinet secretary to answer the following questions for agriculture. As he said, LFASS will be paid this month. He is right to make that happen but I am told that it will be done using the old payments system. Is that the only system that is now working in the cabinet secretary’s department? Which IT system will be used to pay the beef and ewe hogg payments that he mentioned in his speech?
Crofters grants are also late. They have not been late before, but they are late now. I have constituents who have not been paid on agricultural sheds because of everything that has been going on. I can give the cabinet secretary case after case on that. When will they be paid? People who are waiting for money—it is their cash flow—want to know. Neither the local department office nor national Government can tell them. Why is all that happening?
Crofters, farmers and NFU Scotland want a full, independent inquiry and rightly so. Audit Scotland is poring over all the incompetence and chaos but will report only in May. How much money has Spectromax Solutions made in supplying staff to the Government?
Audit Scotland will no doubt be followed by the EU auditors. Penalties, I am sad to say, appear certain. Who will pay those fines? Will they come from the CAP budget or somewhere else?
Audit Scotland will also report this month on the opening of the next single application form. We will wait to see what the auditors say, but will the cabinet secretary agree now to extend the 15 May deadline for single application forms, given that most farmers and crofters throughout Scotland simply do not know what they are doing for their cash flow for next year, never mind this year, because of what has happened?
The policy questions need to be answered by a wider inquiry. I will finish with a point about the hard-working Scottish Government staff in the local department offices on whom farmers and crofters depend in my and the cabinet secretary’s constituencies. They have been let down by their superiors. If I was a senior civil servant who was responsible for the disaster, I would be apologising not only to Scottish agriculture but to my staff.
I move amendment S4M-15844.1, to insert at end:
“; notes the impact on the agricultural supply chain of the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) delays, with merchants, vets and machinery supplies also among those being financially affected, and that store livestock prices have fallen as a result of the delays causing considerable pressures on primary livestock producing areas, notably in the crofting counties; further notes delays to other agricultural grant schemes, such as the Crofting Counties Agricultural Grant Scheme and the Scottish Rural Development Programme, and recognises the hard work and dedication of local Rural Payments and Inspections Division officers across Scotland, who have endeavoured to make their part of the BPS system function”.
15:18Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.
- S4M-15844.1 Rural Affairs Motion