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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government why the Basic Payment Scheme was not rolled out online as originally announced: what was the additional cost to the taxpayer of returning to paper-based British Payment Scheme applications; what assessment they have made of the reasons for the failure of the online roll-out; and in the light of the date for final submissions of completed Basic Payment Scheme forms being extended from 15 May to 15 June, whether there will be any delay in making payments to farmers by the end of 2015.

While the core of the new online Rural Payments system is working well, there have been performance problems around the interface between the customer portal and the back end of the system. That one area was not consistently stable and it was having a negative effect on the rest of the service.

As a result, the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) switched the approach to delivery of the Basic Payment Scheme in 2015 to one where farmers and their agents use existing forms to complete their claims by the extended deadline.

Over the longer term we will continue to work on a user-friendly web interface - but for this claim year the priority is making sure farm businesses get the help and support they need to get their claims in on time.

We are currently assessing the additional costs from the revised approach.

The RPA will be making full payments as early as possible in the payments window, which opens in December.