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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she expects all applications made before the deadline for the applications for the 2016 Payment Scheme to be paid this year.

The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) estimates that as of 5 June 2016, 86,521 (99%) claimants have received a payment on their 2015 Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) claim. Of these, 82,460 have received a claim payment; 3,936 bridging payments; and 125 a manual hardship payment. There are a number of claims where processing has been completed successfully but they have not resulted in a payment for reasons such as the claim being under minimum claim size, or the Agency awaiting information on probate cases.

The RPA will continue to make top up payments throughout the remainder of the payment window up to the end of June 2016.

While the payment window runs between December and June, the RPA expects to make 90% of payments on eligible claims by the end of December this year and all remaining payments as promptly as possible. As of 5 June the RPA had received 86,581 applications for BPS 2016.