RPA to get ‘additional capacity’ to make no-deal support payments

Asked by independent MP Angela Smith about whether no-deal support payments were deliverable during the Efra Committee meeting, Defra’s permanent secretary Tamara Finkelstein said: “We are specifically taking action to ensure we have additional capacity available in order to do such an intervention, if such an intervention was required.

“The last thing you want is not to get some basic payments out, which would mean people were suffering in other ways.

“We have taken that action already in order to be in the best position and with the capacity to do what is needed.”

Defra is not believed to have shared the details of how much extra staffing or contractor capacity the RPA will receive with industry.

Welcomed

But Guy Smith, deputy president of the NFU, told Farmers Guardian he welcomed the reassurance.

“We are pleased to hear the permanent secretary recognise it is crucially important the RPA is given additional capacity so any emergency mitigation payments in the event of no-deal do not compromise the smooth roll-out of timely and accurate BPS or agri-environment payments,” he said.

“Too often in the past we have seen payments delivery sent close to meltdown due to additional pressures and workload on the RPA.

“This simply must not happen in the event of a no-deal Brexit.”