Single Farm payment - will Labour be late again ?

It has been suggested on "Political Betting" that Ministers have asked the Treasury to set aside £ 305 million to pay fines which the EU is expected to impose for late payments to farmers of the Single Farm Payment money.

This is, of course, the money which was paid extremely late last year, causing many farmers in Cumbria and elsewhere considerable hardship. Apparently it is expected that for the second year running British farmers will fail to receive their payments by the legal deadline.

If this is true, what on earth does it say about the New Labour government's attitudes to farmers, the countryside, and taxpayers' money, that they find it easier to budget for fines to the EU for late payment than to pay the money to farmers on time ? It certainly helps explain why we have to pay such ridiculous amounts of tax without receiving a proportionate improvement in public services.

Nobody likes paying tax, but I mind paying taxes to support our local schools and hospitals, or for that matter to help farmers protect the environment of our local countryside, considerably less than I resent paying for fines to the European Union for Labour's incompetence.

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