Scottish Consultation on Direct Payments Published

The Scottish Government has published its consultation on the CAP Reform deal; it is the last of the 4 UK Countries to do so. Its consultation will be open until the 17^th March. To access the full document go to http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2013/12/5922. The key points of the consultation are;

• Scotland’s Pillar One budget has been cut by 1.6 per cent to just under €3.5 billion for 2014-2019. The Scottish Government favours having two payment regions and basing them on historical land use – one for arable and permanent grassland with the other for rough grazing.  This would create a one-off classification for all land in Scotland that assesses parcels based on their historic use. Future changes in land use would not alter the classification of a parcel or its assigned Region. The rough grazing area would be the largest and the proposal is for it to receive €20-25/ha direct subsidy.
• The Government is asking for views on how quickly it should move to average payment rates in a region.  It is considering a faster than necessary transition to the regional average payment rate or even an immediate change on Day 1.
• It proposes keeping the minimum threshold at 3 hectares to protect crofters.
• There is no proposal to add operators of other businesses to the negative list of ineligible recipients, but it does propose a minimum stocking density for the active farmer test. This would be to try to avoid the ‘slipper farmer’ which is an issue in Scotland. The proposed rate is 0.05LSU/Ha equivalent to 1 sheep per 3 hectares, with derogations.
• The Scottish Government appears rather open and un-opinionated on the subject of degressivity (capping).  Its questions consider minimal levels or total capping over €500,000, just about the highest possible.
• The Scottish Government proposes to use the windfall provision in cases where the termination or ending of a lease leads to a windfall gain for the farmer concerned. This is to avoid the concentration of entitlement values onto fewer entitlements as happened in 2005.
• There are several questions on greening, both to do with the allocation of the money, and also regarding the implementation of greening features, weighting criteria, collaboration between farmers and equivalence.
• The consultation includes a detailed questionnaire about cross compliance to the level that other consultations around the UK have not reached.
• The full 8% of coupled support is favoured by the Scottish Government to be used on a beef scheme similar to the current one, although it does canvass questions about a similar sheep scheme.