§ Colonel Glynasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will give particulars, to the latest convenient date, of the response received to the assistance schemes for small farmers.
§ Mr. John HareThe response has been excellent. Between 15th January, when application forms were first made available, and 27th February, 9,154 completed applications for assistance were received in England and Wales. About 90 per cent. of these applications appeared on initial scrutiny to be from eligible small farmers. Seven thousand and ninety-eight applicants applied for assistance under the Small Farmer Scheme and 752 under the Supplementary Scheme. The remaining 1,304 applicants did not indicate their wishes and are being treated for the time being as having applied under the Small Farmer Scheme. We are thus within the first six weeks already about half way towards the total of 15,000 applications under the Small Farmer Scheme which we expected to be able to deal with in England and Wales in the first year.