§ Mr. SteenTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment she has made of the effect of delays in her Department in payments to beef farmers in the South West who have prime organic cattle condemned as a result of the unavailability of abattoirs to slaughter under the Beef Assurance Scheme; and if she will make a statement. [89683]
§ Alun MichaelI assume that the hon. Member is referring to payments for cattle that are slaughtered voluntarily under the Over Thirty Month Scheme (OTMS). The Scheme is open to cattle that are prevented from entering the food chain because of the Over Thirty Month rule, but which are otherwise fit for human consumption.
During the life of the scheme up to the 2002–03 year the published timeliness target in respect of OTMS has been to make 98 per cent. of compensation payments to collection centres within 21 days of receipt of all correctly completed documentation establishing the claim.
The target has been changed to making 85 per cent. of compensation payments within 28 days and is consistent with the new targets for all non Integrated Administration and Control Schemes (IACS) payments. The RPA's 2002–03 Business Plan includes its new performance targets. There is no change to the requirement for collection centres to pass on compensation payments to producers within 14 days of receipt.
The new timeliness target reflects the RPA's budget allocation for 2002–03. RPA has been given more headroom in its targets to allow it to respond flexibly to the situation and to deploy its resources by means of a risk based approach which seeks to maintain vital scheme controls.
368WTo help offset the impact of the tighter budget allocation RPA has introduced an initiative to import data electronically from collection centres. Most abattoirs are already submitting kill data electronically and work has started on introducing mechanisms by which data can be submitted electronically from both liveweight markets and casualty centres. This initiative will greatly reduce the manual inputting of data currently undertaken when claim paperwork reaches Reading and will, depending upon take-up, realise staff savings which will to some extent reduce the full impact of the budget cuts.
RPA will continue to make payments as quickly as possible within its resource allocation. In the 2002–03 year to date 98 per cent. of payments have been made within 28 days.
Regarding the unavailability of abattoirs to slaughter under the Beef Assurance Scheme, all licensed abattoirs are permitted to slaughter Beef Assurance Scheme over thirty month cattle, provided they are willing to facilitate their testing for BSE. On receipt of a negative test result, the carcase must be sent to a licensed cutting plant that is separately licensed to remove the vertebral column and dorsal root ganglia before the meat is released for human consumption. All licensed cutting plants are free to apply to the Food Standards Agency for an additional licence to remove vertebral column. It is a simple process, no fee is charged, and all have been encouraged to apply. None have done so in the south west peninsular.