To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many claims for the single farm payment remain to be validated, broken down by year of application; and if he will make a statement. (159551)

For the 2005 Single Farm Payment scheme (SPS), there are 12 claims where processing is not complete. All of these claims are held up by legal issues such as probate.

For SPS 2006, there are 434 claims where processing is not yet complete. 223 of these claims have received partial payments and the Rural Payments Agency is continuing to process these claims to provide top up payments where applicable. The other 211 are claims for which a payment is yet to be made. Many of these are complex cases involving probate, business partnership changes and domestic issues. It is likely that on completion of processing, some of these claims will not be eligible for payment. Where it is confirmed that payments are due, these will be made as soon as possible.

The figures are as at 17 October 2007.