After years of political pressure, UK Secretary of State Michael Gove and Scottish Cabinet Secretary for the Rural Economy Fergus Ewing have agreed to carry out a review of the convergence issue.

“Clearly, we are still some way off from having the £160m due to Scottish farming, returned – that remains my objective,” Ewing said after a meeting with Gove .

“Mr Gove and I agreed to establish an independent review of convergence funding, to make recommendations on what should happen in the future.

“We also committed to agreeing the review’s remit, timescales, process and personnel by the end of the year. I welcome this much-needed progress. Without it, we risk this long-standing injustice once again being kicked into the long grass.”

The news comes after Scottish Conservative MPs wrote a joint letter to Michael Gove appealing for the issue to be addressed.

The review has been welcomed by NFU Scotland president Andrew McCornick. He describes the allocation of the UK’s convergence uplift four years ago as “critical to the interests of Scottish agriculture”.

“There was no objective justification for the UK Government decision to share the convergence uplift across the whole of the UK based on historic allocations, and this approach was always out of line with the European Commission’s rationale for the uplift,” he said.

However, the liberal democrat opposition spokesperson believes that focusing £160m of convergence money is less important than the bigger issue of farm support into the future.

“Convergence really is a secondary issue,” Mike Rumbles told Farmers Journal Scotland. “I believe that it’s party politics interfering in good government. I just want to make sure that we get the right system in Scotland in the future.

“I am particularly critical of the Scottish government blaming the UK for everything and not getting on with their job.”