RPA debacle costs Britain £305m

THE European Union is to fine the British Government a massive third of a billion pounds for the debacle which left thousands of English farmers - including many right here in the Yorkshire Dales - on the verge of bankruptcy because of late subsidy payments.

Because the former rural affairs minister Margaret Beckett - now Foreign Secretary - changed the rules for single farm payments in England, some farmers have not yet received payments due in 2005. And 2006 payments have still not been made.

At the height of the crisis, thousands of farmers were having to ask their bank managers to extend overdrafts because promised cheques had not arrived - adding insult to injury, the Inland Revenue then demanded income tax payments on cash that had never arrived.

The British taxpayer will now have to find another £305 million to pay the EU fines, three times the original estimate, thanks to the chaos at the Rural Payments Agency which saw its chief executive sacked last summer.

Scottish, Welsh and Ulster farmers were paid on time under devolved powers.

David Miliband, the new man at rural affairs department Defra was forced, shortly after taking up his post, to issues an apology for the chaos.

"The fact that previous estimates of payment timetables were missed, and the problems this has caused for farmers up and down the country, are a matter of deep regret," he said.