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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answers by Lord Gardiner of Kimble on 17 June (HL446) and 27 June (HL808), whether when providing those answers they were aware that the payment window had already been extended to October, and if so, why that was not reflected in those answer.

The deadline for 2015 Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) payments remains 30 June 2016 and as stated in the response of 17 June, this is the deadline the Rural Payments Agency was working towards for the remaining top up BPS payments. On 8 June, Commissioner Hogan confirmed his intention to extend the date by which Member States may make CAP direct payments without the usual reductions in the rate of reimbursement from the EU to the Member States concerned. This does not constitute an extension to the payment window. It means that, subject to a successful request, payments can continue to be made after 30 June without the application of the usual reductions for late payments on the Member State.

We are currently assessing the UK position in terms of the value of payments made by 30 June and the expected value of payments to be made before 15 October for each of the four UK paying agencies. Once this assessment has been completed we will be in a position to decide whether the UK needs to submit a request to the Commission for such penalties to be waived.