Farm subsidy payment blunders cost taxpayers £600m in fines

The North York Moors has the countrys largest continuous expanse of heather moorland. Picture: Mike Kipling/North York Moors National Park Authority

“Disallowance penalties” imposed by the European Commission on payments made to farmers in England had cost £642 million since 2005, the National Audit Office (NAO) said.

Overall, it said that the UK had the sixth worst record of the 28 EU member states with £2.70 of every £100 received under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) being returned to Brussels in the form of fines.

Only Greece, Romania, Portugal, Bulgaria and Cyprus had sustained higher rates of penalties.

The NAO said the one of the biggest problems was “deficiencies” in the quality of the mapping data held in the Rural Land Register which is used to verify grant applications.

Defra is considering investing up to £45 million, which it believes could save future penalties for England of between £215 million and £370 million in the period to 2021.

However the NAO warned that a new system of CAP payments introduced earlier year was more complex than it predecessor and was expected to result in a higher rate of fines - at least in the early years.

Meg Hillier, the chairman of the Commons Public Accounts Committee which oversees the work of the NAO, said that the prospect of further fines was “frightening”.

“Complicated CAP rules don’t help but the department must get a grip to deal with these persistent problems and ensure we aren’t throwing away taxpayers’ money on financial penalties,” she said.