Calls for resignation over farm payments crisis

Concerns over the delayed support payments to farmers continues to grow, with a former president of the National Farmers Union of Scotland calling for the resignation of rural affairs secretary Richard Lochhead.

Jim Walker said, despite backing independence, he “could never support a party, a minister or a government who have been quite so incompetent and frankly naïve”.

At First Minister’s Questions yesterday, Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson claimed that one of the reasons the SNP has been so slow to act on the CAP payments crisis was because it only affected rural Scotland.

Had the IT system failure – which has cost the taxpayer an additional £75 million and left thousands of farmers severely out of pocket – been an urban problem in the central belt, the SNP “would be all over it”, she said.

Meanwhile, Northern Isles MSPs Tavish Scott and Liam McArthur called on the First Minister to step in to end the “debacle” of the delayed payments.

Mr Scott and Mr McArthur said: “The First Minister must step in and deal with the incompetence of her government.

“It is a scandal that only one quarter of the £400 million that should be circulating in the rural economy has been paid out to date. Crofters and farmers in the Northern Isles and across Scotland are desperate for their CAP payments.

“Nicola Sturgeon promised the majority of payments would be made before February. That did not happen, despite spending £178m on an IT system that doesn’t work. Today she could have told Parliament that she is stepping in to make sure these problems are sorted out. Instead, she claimed that she has until the end of June to get payments out.

“Crofters and farmers will have been appalled by this response and the complete lack of urgency on the part of the First Minister to deal with the mess created by her government on this issue.”