English Entitlement Values

The Rural Payments Agency has announced Basic Payment Scheme entitlement values for 2015.  The estimated payment in the Lowland region falls by 7.3% compared to the 2014 rate under the SPS.  However, payments for the SDA and Moorland both rise compared to last year, due to the ‘rebalancing’ of funding between English BPS regions.

As most readers know by now, the calculation of entitlement values is undertaken from scratch each year and the rate can vary depending on how many entitlements are claimed in each region.  The fact that rates are slightly higher than our estimates suggests that fewer entitlements were claimed.  The raising of the minimum claim size to 5 hectares may have played a part in this, as will the cancellation of any unclaimed entitlements in 2015.  Also, quite a low proportion of the BPS budget has had to be siphoned-off to fund National Reserve claims.  This has been set at just 0.75% of the total budget.  The table below shows the published rates, our estimates and the actual payment that farmers will receive.  This is based on the 2015 conversion rate of €1 = £0.73129.

The net payments shown for 2015 are after Financial Discipline at 1.39% but this is still to be confirmed.   The rate for this year is compared to the payment for the last two years.  The final result is that payments in Lowland England end up 7.3% lower than last year and 15.9% lower than two years ago.  The change is largely down to the strengthening of the Pound and a less favourable conversion rate.