Scottish Government fails hill farmers and crofters

In an exclusive interview with The Scottish Farmer, the SNP Inverness and Nairn MSP is outraged at the £46.1m ‘IOU’ published in a recent official letter from the government.

Confirmation of the ‘missing millions’ was set out in a letter to the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee from Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands, Ms Gougeon.

In the letter, the Cabinet Secretary admitted that there was still £46.1m due to be returned to the rural portfolio and that only £15m had been paid pack to date.

The cash swipe having arose following the removal of £61.1m from the ring-fenced rural budget into central government pot in the financial years of 2022-23 and 2023-24 in order to contribute to the SNP government’s Emergency Budget Review.

According to the letter ‘Bew money’ to the value of at least £25m was removed from the rural budget. This additional money had been rewarded to the Scottish rural budget from Westminster following form PM Boris Johnston implementing Lord Bew’s recommendations to redress the underfunding of Scottish hill farmers and crofters.

The cash which was announced in 2019 followed an arduous campaign led by the then Cabinet Secretary Fergus Ewing which resulted in million of pounds being sent north. However once in Holyrood all the money was not explicitly targeted at hill farmers and crofters who were the intended recipients.

In the recent letter the Scottish Government admitted that the Bew money cannot be taken in isolation but with the wider rural portfolio budget where is has been ‘alleviating the funding certainty lost due to Brexit and the impact of inflation as far as possible’.

Speaking to The Scottish Farmer Mr Ewing said: “The Bew money was hard fought for. The campaign to recover the convergence money of £160m succeeded, in my watch, and thanks to the persuasive powers of former NFUS President Jim Walker, Lord Bew was also persuaded to top this sum up with additional annual payments. It was a terrific win, and done by my working closely with Michael Gove and the UK Government in a process of serious negotiations.

“These payments at the time were obviously for farmers and crofters and only them. So it is quite disgraceful that the money has been siphoned off for other purposes. It is a slap in the face for our hard working farming sector. Public sector workers have got generous pay rises. Rural workers cash has been effectively confiscated - presumably to pay for the pay rises.

“There are a whole host of things that I would have done to help farming over the past few years. The major one was of course a new support scheme for our beef farming- the backbone of our farming sector. That was scuppered by a few senior civil servants in the fag end of the last Session of Parliament. It was to have been taken forward but instead nothing much has happened.

“But I would also have pushed for many other things; relaxed planning permission to allow farmers to use their land for much wider purposes, as well as reviving support for diversification of all sorts, such as the old ABIS and ABDS schemes. The current generation of farmers are increasingly looking to many other business opportunities.

“When I was Rural Secretary every penny of the convergence cash was returned to farmers and crofters. But the Bew money was to be a nest egg used to boost Scottish farming further. Instead it has been the victim of a kind of ‘Legal Heist’, except that, in the most famous heist of all, the Great Train robbers got away with a mere £2.6m. Farmers have lost £46m.

“If the Scottish Government want to find the money to pay farmers the money meant for them, then what about these : scrap the re-wilding cash; the peat restoration money that has dubious value, and also rein in our quangos who remain awash with cash and pointless posts, and have massive unused office buildings which should have been sold off long ago. Oh and scrap now absurd plans for an unwanted National park in Galloway… And thats just a starter for ten!”