§ 53. Mr. Patrick Maitlandasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what steps he proposes, in administering the ploughing-up grant in the coming year, to avoid the confusion arising from superfluous and changing requirements of form-filling, and to make sure that all farmers who wish to apply for the grant do, in fact, receive the appropriate application form in time.
§ Mr. J. StuartThe requirements of the first ploughing grants scheme were neither superfluous nor changing and the facts suggest that they were generally well understood by farmers. Of rather more than 25,800 applications received from farmers in Scotland, 174, or less than 1 per cent., were rejected because of receipt after the closing date, 31st August, 1952; and of those rejected only five farmers attributed their late application to confusion arising from the requirements of the scheme.
As regards the second part of the Question, the closing date for the receipt of applications under the current (No. 2) scheme is 31st July, 1953. Farmers have 97W been advised through the Press how to obtain application forms and these have been sent to all who have applied. Further publicity will be given before the closing date to remind those farmers, who have not already done so, how to obtain and return their application forms.