Scottish farmers should receive an additional €60m in support payments over the next two years, but not at the expense of farmers in Northern Ireland (NI) and England, an independent review panel has recommended.

The panel, led by Lord Bew, was appointed last autumn by the then Defra secretary Michael Gove to look at how this convergence funding should be allocated in 2020 and 2021.

During a visit to an Aberdeenshire farm on Friday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that the UK Government will accept the funding recommendations of the Bew report.

It will bring a further £51m into Scottish agriculture over two years, on top of a separate £160m convergence funding announcement that was made in the Chancellor’s spending review on Wednesday.

However, Lord Bew makes clear that the funding should come from the British Treasury, and not from existing agricultural funds in other parts of the UK.

No reduction

“We cannot tolerate a reduction of funding to farmers in any part of the UK,” the report reads.

Lord Bew also makes clear that the panel’s recommendations are for the next two years only, and should not be used as a basis for allocating funding between devolved regions of the UK as part of a post-Brexit domestic agricultural policy.

“This would not be a suitable measure for a wider or longer-term agricultural funding settlement,” the report states.

Convergence background

The CAP convergence money was worth £190m to the UK over the 2014-2020 period, and was allocated to devolved regions on the same basis as historic CAP payments. It was a decision that was has been severely criticised by Scottish farmers.

The reason the UK received this extra money was because it had an average payment per hectare that was below 90% of the EU average of €270/ha.

However, Scottish farmers point out that this money only came to the UK because of its low payment per hectare (approximately €130/ha). This is because NI (€330/ha), England (€265/ha) and Wales (€247/ha) have rates within 90% of the EU average.

Bew report

The independent panel's main recommendation of the additional money to Scotland would see a dip in cash going to England of €65.91m and a fall of €630,000 to NI.

However, to prevent this the Bew report recommends the UK government increase the total farm support budget by €66.54m over the two-year period.

“Our recommendation addresses the long-standing concern of those in Scotland that an injustice had been done and, according to the analysis we commissioned, would see a modest increase for Welsh farmers, recognising that they also have not been major beneficiaries from the convergence windfall since 2014.

“Assuming our request is met, farmers in England and Northern Ireland would see no change,” the report states.

Additional reporting by John Sleigh and David Wright.