In a statement this week following a meeting with Defra Secretary Michael Gove, Scotland’s Rural Economy Secretary Fergus Ewing has claimed that the Defra minister has agreed to an independent review of convergence funding.

It is an important issue for all UK farmers, and goes back to a decision taken in 2013 by the then Defra secretary Owen Paterson to allocate an uplift in EU direct payments on the basis of historical allocations. It meant that an extra €229m coming to the UK over six years to 2020 was divided up as previously. In NI, we get 9.2% of CAP funding, so received an additional €21m as our share of the extra money.

However, the Scots continue to argue that all of the additional €229m should have gone to them, as this money came about as a result of EU ‘‘external convergence’’. That is a process whereby member states with a per-hectare payment below 90% of the EU average would close the gap to the average by one-third by 2019.

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The UK qualified for the money because of the very low average per-hectare payment in Scotland (€130/ha). Other UK regions are actually above the average, with NI the highest at €329/ha.

According to Secretary Ewing, the review will make recommendations on what will 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,” he said.

Back in September, when asked about convergence, Defra Secretary Gove talked about how it was “very difficult to unscramble the omelette”.