Beef Special Premium Scheme (Hansard, 29 October 2002)

§ Mr. Steen
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on what basis penalties are applied to claims under the Beef Special Premium Scheme 2001; and whether these penalties are equally applied to farmers in other countries within the Common Agricultural Policy. [77526]

§ Alun Michael
The Integrated Administration Control System sets down the penalties to be applied to the 2001 Beef Special Premium Scheme. These penalties are detailed in Commission Regulation 3887/92 (as amended). This regulation applies equally in all member states and compliance with it is monitored closely by European Commission auditors.

§ Mr. Steen
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on the appeal procedure regarding the Beef Special Premium Scheme in 2001; under what legislation it operates; and if she will list the names and legal qualifications of those who hear the appeals. [77527]
727W

§ Alun Michael
There is not a formal appeal procedure for the 2001 Beef Special Premium Scheme. The Integrated Administrative and Control System Appeal Procedure, which was introduced on 1 April 2002, applies only to decisions made for the 2002 and subsequent scheme years. An internal customer complaints procedure is operated by the Rural Payments Agency, which is responsible for operating the scheme.

§ Mr. Steen
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many appeals have been made regarding the Beef Special Premium Scheme 2001; and how many were(a) successful and (b) unsuccessful. [77529]

§ Alun Michael
There were 3,544 total refusals and 7,203 partial refusals of claims out of 102,495 which were submitted for Beef Special Premium Scheme 2001. Of these a small proportion have made representations to their rural payments agency processing site. A further 47 have made representations via their MP, and 55 have made customer complaints. In the majority of cases the original decision has been maintained because the European regulations governing the scheme do not allow for discretion to be applied where the conditions for claiming aid have not been met.