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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the time taken to process rural payments.

The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) understands the importance of cashflow for farmers and rural businesses. It makes payments for schemes and grants against published performance indicators and continues to look at opportunities to issue payments as promptly as possible.

Performance in relation to the financial year (1 April to 31 March) is reported each year within the RPA Annual Report and Accounts and will be published in the summer.