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Written Question
Agriculture: Subsidies
Friday 16th October 2015

Asked by: Nadhim Zahawi (Conservative - Stratford-on-Avon)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what progress has been made on (a) processing farmers' 2015 Basic Payment Scheme applications and (b) tackling the challenges of getting information supplied by farmers in paper form back onto an online validation process; and what resources have been committed to carry out this work to date.

Answered by George Eustice

Good progress is being made on processing Basic Payment Scheme 2015 applications including capturing changes that were made on the paper forms along with any new requirements of the scheme onto the Rural Payments IT system. We currently have access to around 800 people to perform this processing work.


Written Question
Agriculture: Subsidies
Friday 16th October 2015

Asked by: Nadhim Zahawi (Conservative - Stratford-on-Avon)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what effect the switch to a paper-based application system for the Basic Payment Scheme has had on (a) claim validation and the verification of claims and (b) the delivery of timely payments from 1 December.

Answered by George Eustice

The move to the paper based application approach for the Basic Payment Scheme 2015 has not had an impact on the validation and verification of claims and the Rural Payments Agency remain on track to make the majority of payments in December.


Written Question
Sheep: Disease Control
Thursday 12th February 2015

Asked by: Nadhim Zahawi (Conservative - Stratford-on-Avon)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what proportion of sheep movement returns have been made (a) electronically and (b) on paper in each month since online returns were introduced.

Answered by George Eustice

The Animal Reporting and Movement Service (ARAMS) was launched on 1 April 2014. The Government’s target was to capture 70% of sheep/goat movements electronically within the first year of operation and to increase the proportion of electronic movements recorded (the date the movement was recorded on ARAMS) to 80% within 5 years.

The proportion of paper vs. electronic moves recorded each month so far on ARAMS is:

Percentage recorded on the Animal Reporting And Movement Service (ARAMS)

Month

Year

Paper %

Electronic %

April

2014

69.97%

30.03%

May

2014

79.10%

20.90%

June

2014

69.44%

30.56%

July

2014

47.48%

52.52%

August

2014

40.38%

59.62%

September

2014

40.45%

59.55%

October

2014

45.57%

54.43%

November

2014

36.52%

63.48%

December

2014

31.93%

68.07%

January

2015

29.52%

70.48%


Written Question
Sheep: Tagging
Thursday 12th February 2015

Asked by: Nadhim Zahawi (Conservative - Stratford-on-Avon)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many people and organisations have registered online for the sheep electronic identification database.

Answered by George Eustice

As at 6 February 2015 (10.30 am) the following registrations to use the new Animal Reporting and Movement Service (ARAMS) for England have been made:

Assembly Centre Portal

1

Animal and Plant Health Agency

10

Abattoir Portal

134

Abattoir Third Party

11

ARAMS Bureau Admin

17

ARAMS Bureau Operator

73

Collection Centre Portal

17

Collection Centre Third Party

2

DEFRA

13

Farmer Portal

7456

Farmer Third Party

455

Local Authority Super User

282

Market Portal

2

Market Third Party

78

Rural Payments Agency

55

Show Portal

9


Written Question
Sheep: Tagging
Thursday 12th February 2015

Asked by: Nadhim Zahawi (Conservative - Stratford-on-Avon)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many sheep farmers in the UK have the ability to read sheep electronic identification tags.

Answered by George Eustice

There are a range of options available to sheep keepers to manage individual recording. Electronic tags can be read by eye (manually recording the visible individual animal number) or electronically using an electronic reader. Keepers may also choose for electronically identified sheep, which must be individually recorded, to be read on their behalf at central point recording centres (CPRCs).

It is not possible to say how many sheep farmers in England have the ability to read electronic sheep tags electronically as this is dependent on the number of keepers that have purchased EID readers. Defra does not hold this information.