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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much the UK paid to the European Commission on disallowance penalties for Common Agricultural Policy payments which did not comply with regulations in each year since 2010.

As from financial year 2010/11 Defra has accrued £402m for disallowance following the conclusion of EU audits, broken down by financial year as shown in the table below. This relates to a number of different Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Schemes over a number of historical scheme years as disallowance is paid in arrears.

(*) Reflects the sums the European Commission have ruled cannot be reimbursed (i.e. the amounts they have “disallowed”).