§ Mr. Campbell-SavoursTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many applications for subsidy or grant made before 11 February remained unpaid on 11 May in the region of the United Kingdom covering the north of England.
§ Mr. CurryThe processing of claims under many MAFF schemes follows an annual cycle. On 11 May, the position at the northern regional service centre at Carlisle was as follows:
244WSince it opened on 26 January, the 1993 hill livestock compensatory allowance scheme had attracted 4,562 claims of which 4,000 had been paid. Of 3,411 claims for suckler cow premium submitted by 15 December, 2,962 had been paid. The remainder were subject to outstanding inquiries. A total of 7,200 claims for sheep annual premium submitted by 5 March 1993 awaited processing.
A total of 609 applications to participate in the Lake District environmentally sensitive area had been received since its launch on 22 January and were with ADAS for the preparation of detailed agreements.
In the month of April 157 applications for capital grant schemes or payments were received and 178 were processed. The number in course of processing on 30 April was 227, of which 11 had been received before 11 February.
We have made clear in our service standard publication, "Commitment to Service", that applications for grants and subsidies will be dealt with as swiftly as possible and we set out our targets under a number of schemes. We are currently extending our monitoring systems so that we can check more closely performance against these targets.