More than half of Welsh farmers to receive CAP payments in first week

Deputy Minister for Farming and Food Rebecca Evans says CAP Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) part-payments will start to be paid to Welsh farmers tomorrow (Tuesday 1 December).

The reform of the CAP, a wholly new payments system, Greening and other complex elements, alongside a legal challenge and period of unprecedented pressure on public spending have all impacted on our efforts to make payments.

Nevertheless, the Deputy Minister today confirmed, that despite these pressures, Welsh Government will make BPS part-payments of approximately eighty percent (80%) of their full payment value to the majority of customers throughout December, with the vast majority of remaining part-payments made as early as possible in the new year. The balance, or final 20%, payment will be made to farmers next April, although a minority of payments – probate cases for example – will take longer.

Rebecca Evans said,

“I am very pleased to announce that farmers in Wales will start to receive their BPS part-payments from tomorrow – the first date on which payments are allowed to be made under European Commission rules. In fact, over 50% of our farmers’ claims have already been processed and their part-payments should be with them within the first week.

“This has been helped by the fact that 72% of applications were submitted using our online service which cuts down on mistakes and consequential delays.”

The Deputy Minister praised the continued hard work of Rural Payments Wales (RPW) staff, and urged farmers not to call in to check the progress of their claim.

“I am very grateful for the hard work of RPW staff who have been tirelessly processing these payments, foregoing their evenings and weekends to maximise the numbers of payments we can make to our farmers as early as possible.

“I strongly recommend farmers who have signed up to our new RPW online payments system to use it to check whether they have any outstanding queries, rather than call the RPW Call Centre in Caernarfon, or our Divisional offices, or Farm Liaison Staff.

“Calling RPW staff will simply take them away from validating further claims for payment. I appreciate farmers will still have queries of a non-BPS payment nature but our well-respected Farm Liaison Service will be on-hand throughout this period, including on our stand throughout the Winter Fair, to provide their usual first class service.”