UK Rural Development Funds Cut

There looks set to be less money available for UK Rural Development programmes over the next seven years.  This could impact on environmental schemes like the ELS, HLS and Glastir, and also other support including the Less Favoured Area Support Scheme (LFASS) in Scotland.

A draft breakdown of the total EU ‘pot’ of Rural Development (Pillar 2) money from February’s EU Budget Deal (see Bulletin 02(13)) has now been provided to MEPs.  This sees the UK’s share for the years 2014 to 2020 put at €2,294m.  This compares with €2,426m for the current 2007-13 period – a fall of 5.5% (all at 2011 prices).  The UK is set to get a minuscule 2.7% of the total EU funds available – Italy, for example, gets almost 11%.

The breakdown is only indicative at present, but it seems highly unlikely that there will be a substantial shift.  it was one of DEFRA’s stated negotiating aims in this round of reforms to get a better deal in terms of RD funds.  This appears tohave been sacrificed to wider government aims such as protecting the UK Rebate and reducing the size of the EU Budget.  Once the UK allocation is confirmed then there will need to be an apportionment between the four devolved parts of the UK – likely to be another source of argument.  

The figure of 5.5% will not be the full reduction in Rural Development spending.  As set out in our February Bulletin, the relaxation of the matched-funding rules means that the UK Governments’ contribution could be much lower in the upcoming period.  Whether additional national funding will be forthcoming is presently not known, but certainly in England we would believe that little extra will be made available.  This means that total funding for the RDPE 2014-20 could be up to 20% lower than present.  All this points towards a fairly radical review of current schemes, including the end of the ELS in its present form.