Oral Answers to Questions

Steve Barclay Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

May I remind the House that topical questions and answers to them should be brief? Perhaps we can do better in this part of the proceedings than we did in the first part.

[Stephen Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)]

DEFRA is doing everything to seek to boost growth in the rural economy, improve the environment and safeguard the health of our plants and animals. I have this morning published our interim control plan for Chalara and the interim report of the expert taskforce on tree health and plant biosecurity, copies of which can be found in the Library. Our recent focus has, of course, been on the floods and the efforts to protect people’s lives, homes and businesses. I would like to place on record my condolences to those who have lost loved ones and my praise for the response of the emergency services, Government agencies and local authorities.

[Stephen Barclay]

Given the challenging weather conditions experienced by farmers this year and the shocking performance of the Rural Payments Agency under the last Government, can my right hon. Friend reassure me that there will be no unnecessary delays regarding single farm payments?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the chance to put straight the current record. He is right that the performance of the RPA was a real failure in previous years. As of 4 December, however, 96,037 customers with claims or 92.3% had been paid £1.4 billion. That is comfortably the RPA’s best ever performance and we will see it deliver its December payment targets by the end of this week, providing certainty to farmers at a very difficult time.