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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment she has made of the value for money of payments to farmers under the Common Agricultural Policy.

The following documents have been placed in the Library.

In October 2013, alongside the public consultation, Defra published an evidence paper which assessed the impact of the new Common Agricultural Policy and the costs and benefits of payments made to farmers.

https://consult.defra.gov.uk/agricultural-policy/cap-consultation.

Since then a number of more technical implementation decisions were announced and on 11 December 2014 the Common Agricultural Policy Basic Payment and Support Schemes (England) Regulations 2014 No. 3259 were laid in Parliament. Included in the explanatory memorandum to the legislation is a further evidence paper updating some of the analysis and providing further analysis of the impact of some of the more technical decisions.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/3259/memorandum/contents

In addition, an impact assessment of the new Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE) was published in June 2014 setting out the evidence base on the costs, benefits and value for money.

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/strategic-environmental-assessment-of-the-proposed-new-rural-development-programme-in-england