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Newbury MP against cap on farming subsidies





A BBC Panorama programme broadcast on Monday night (March 5) reported that some of the UK’s richest landowners, including the Queen and locally, Sir Richard Sutton’s Settled Estates, were paid six-figure sums as part of a £3.5bn cash pot, meant to help out poor farmers.
The EU’s agriculture commissioner Dacian Ciolos has called for a cap of some £250,000 per farmer and for steps to be taken to ensure that the land was being farmed and was not dormant or being used for some other purpose. However, Defra, of which Mr Benyon (pictured right) is a minister, is against such a move.
He said subsidies had been reformed from being in favour of production which had resulted in butter mountains, to benefit individuals, which was a much better way.
“Should there be a cap? The implementation of a cap would create a more favourable system for lawyers who will be seeking to put farms under different ownerships and create the highest level of payments possible.
“We don’t want to line the pockets of lawyers, we want to help out the poorest farmers.
“To say I am in favour of these payments, I am not at all. I would much rather we were at a point where farmers did not need such handouts.
“We would like to get British farmers in the position where they do not need subsidies to survive.”
A statement released by Defra said: “Successive UK governments have been opposed to capping payments. This is because, to avoid losing subsidies, bigger farms would restructure and the only gainers would be lawyers.”
The Government department added that some charities such as the National Trust or the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, which are large landowners, would be harmed as a result.
Accusations of a cover-up followed a European court decision in November 2010 to stop publication of data concerning the private individuals who received the subsidies, but to keep on publishing data related to companies.
Mr Benyon said that Defra was trying to overturn the ruling.
“We are in favour of full disclosure of who the payments are being made to. We think this is right and that the taxpayer should be made aware of where their money is going. We are very much in favour of more transparency,” he said.
Privacy rules forbid the release of the names of the recipients, but details were given to Panorama showing how many landowners across the UK received more than the proposed £250,000 cap.
The data from England, Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland showed that 889 landowners received more than £250,000.
Of those, 133 were given more than £500,000 and 47 of those were given more than £1m in subsidy.
Englefield Home Farms, Mr Benyon’s family farming business, has received subsidy payments from the EU, but he ceased to be a partner in the business when he became a Government minister.



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