Single Farm Payments

Bill Wiggin
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many single farm payment (SFP) claimants in England have been fined for errors found within their completed (a) 2005 and (b) 2006 SFP forms; what the total sum is of these fines; and if he will make a statement.

Barry Gardiner
The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) does not fine farmers. However for a variety of reasons penalties can be applied to a Single Payment Scheme (and associated schemes) application.

As at 15 November 2006 25,551 penalties have been applied to 2005 scheme year claims, affecting 19,673 Single Business Identifiers, equating to deductions of £15,090,280. In addition a further 1,823 claims were penalised owing to non-compliances found during inspections.

For the 2006 scheme year the RPA has only made a small number of payments and a figure of the number of penalties applied is not available.