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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to ensure that support payments are paid by the Rural Payments Agency in a timely manner, in light of the dry weather in summer 2018.

The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) is fully focused on getting Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) 2018 payments issued promptly. Given the prescriptive EU requirements in making advance payments, the RPA will concentrate on making payments from the opening of the payment window in December. In addition we are reviewing options, such as bringing forward bridging payments, for those BPS claimants who will not have received their BPS 2018 payments in December.