Asked by: Lord Willoughby de Broke (Non-affiliated - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Gardiner of Kimble on 17 June (HL446), why that answer did not include the information that on 8 June the EU Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Phil Hogan, announced an extension until 15 October of the payment window for the Rural Payment Agency to make payments to qualifying farmers.
Answered by Lord Gardiner of Kimble
Commissioner Hogan announced his intention to allow applications from Member States for CAP direct payments to be made after the closure of the payment window without incurring the penalties that would otherwise fall on paying agencies for making late payments. Defra and the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) noted this announcement.
Once we have received information from all UK paying agencies concerning the value of payments made by 30 June, we will be in a position to consider whether the UK should submit a request for such penalties to be waived.
The RPA remains focused on getting top up 2015 BPS payments to those that received bridging payments, out as promptly as possible.
Asked by: Lord Willoughby de Broke (Non-affiliated - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government why the announcement by the EU Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Phil Hogan, on 8 June of an extension until 15 October of the payment window for the Rural Payment Agency (RPA) to make payments to qualifying farmers is not yet available on the RPA website.
Answered by Lord Gardiner of Kimble
Commissioner Hogan announced his intention to allow applications from Member States for CAP direct payments to be made after the closure of the payment window without incurring the penalties that would otherwise fall on paying agencies for making late payments. Defra and the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) noted this announcement.
Once we have received information from all UK paying agencies concerning the value of payments made by 30 June, we will be in a position to consider whether the UK should submit a request for such penalties to be waived.
The RPA remains focused on getting top up 2015 BPS payments to those that received bridging payments, out as promptly as possible.
Asked by: Lord Willoughby de Broke (Non-affiliated - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the Rural Payments Agency expects to complete Basic Payment Scheme payments to qualifying farmers during the payments window ending in June 2016. [I]
Answered by Lord Gardiner of Kimble
The Rural Payments Agency continues to make the remaining top up BPS payments to those that received a bridging BPS payment and anticipates completing this work by the end of June 2016.
Asked by: Lord Willoughby de Broke (Non-affiliated - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether, in the light of the European Parliament's proposal to ban the herbicide glyphosate for garden use, they intend to vote for re-approval of glyphosate at the EU Council meeting on 18 May.
Answered by Lord Gardiner of Kimble
It has not proved possible to respond to this question in the time available before Prorogation. Ministers will correspond directly with the Member.
Asked by: Lord Willoughby de Broke (Non-affiliated - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the Chief Executive Officer of the Rural Payments Agency will receive a bonus payment this year before payments to eligible farmers have been completed.
Answered by Lord Gardiner of Kimble
Senior Civil Servants (SCS) who are moderated as top performers at the end of the performance management year are eligible to receive a bonus payment.
The performance management year for the SCS runs from 1 April to 31 March. Performance markings for 2015/16 will be determined by the end of May 2016. Only then will the eligibility of SCS for bonus payments be known.
Asked by: Lord Willoughby de Broke (Non-affiliated - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the Chief Executive Officer of the Rural Payments Agency will receive a bonus payment this year.
Answered by Lord Gardiner of Kimble
Senior Civil Servants who are moderated as top performers at the end of the performance management year are eligible to receive a bonus payment.
The performance management year for the SCS runs from 1 April to 31 March. Performance markings for 2015/16 will be determined in May 2016. Until this time, we will not know which Senior Civil Servants will receive a payment.
The government publishes information on the job titles and pay grades of senior civil servants on a twice yearly basis.
Asked by: Lord Willoughby de Broke (Non-affiliated - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they were consulted on the EU–Turkey deal that will allow Turkish citizens visa-free access to the Schengen area and which provided for three billion euros of aid to Turkey over two years.
Answered by Baroness Anelay of St Johns
The UK played an influential role in shaping the EU-Turkey summit on 29 November where these issues were discussed. The Prime Minister, my right Hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron), attended the summit, where the EU and Turkey agreed to step up cooperation on the many common issues that we face. We welcomed the clear message the summit sent of the importance the EU attaches to its wide-ranging partnership with Turkey. Turkey is a key partner in the EU’s response to the migration crisis and we commend its generosity in ably hosting over 2.2 million refugees from the crisis in Syria and Iraq. A funding package of €3 billion will help ease the refugee burden on Turkey whilst preventing further uncontrolled migration to the EU. Any progress in Turkey’s visa-liberalisation roadmap will not directly affect the UK as we do not participate in the immigration and border aspects of the Schengen acquis.
Asked by: Lord Willoughby de Broke (Non-affiliated - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the Rural Payments Agency will complete Basic Payment Scheme payments to eligible farmers before the end of 2015.
Answered by Lord Gardiner of Kimble
The Rural Payments Agency are on track to start making payments for 2015 BPS Claims from December. The majority of these will be in December and the vast majority in January. The payment window runs from December to the end of June.
Asked by: Lord Willoughby de Broke (Non-affiliated - Excepted Hereditary)
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.
Answered by Lord Gardiner of Kimble
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.
Asked by: Lord Willoughby de Broke (Non-affiliated - Excepted Hereditary)
Question
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact on small and medium-sized enterprises of the recent decision of the European Court of Justice in Fag og Arbejde (FOA) v Kommunernes Landsforening (KL).
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
A formal assessment of the impact of a court judgment on business is only carried out where a change in our domestic law is thought necessary in the light of that judgment. No such change is expected to arise from Fag og Arbejde v Kommunernes Landsforening (aka the “Kaltoft” case).