Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew George Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paice]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I welcome her to this question session. She is absolutely right and, as part of our overall review of all arm’s length bodies, we are looking for the sorts of efficiencies to which she has referred. However, I can tell her that the AHA has already instituted a road map for change that should deliver a significant tranche of savings, and a much more efficient business as well.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

16. What plans she has for the future of the Rural Payments Agency.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr James Paice)]

An independent review of the Rural Payments Agency, commissioned by DEFRA last autumn, has recently concluded. We will publish the recommendations of the review and our response to it shortly.

[Andrew George]

I am grateful to the Minister for that reply, and I wish him well in his work. As he knows well, each claim to the RPA costs £1,700, and the RPA has been characterised by mistakes and inefficiency throughout its years of operation. What reassurance can he give farmers in my constituency and throughout the country that those problems will improve?

[Mr Paice]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I think he knows that the impossible we can do at once, but miracles take a little longer, and putting the RPA right probably comes within the last part of that saying. I assure him that I am extremely determined to get a grip on the problems at the RPA; I am conscious, as I have made clear over recent years, of the problems and the service to many farmers, and we have to get it right. When I publish the review I will also put forward the measures that we propose to take to address them.