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Liz LynneLiberal Democrat MEP for the West Midlands 1999-2012 |
UK GOVERNMENT MUST COME CLEAN OVER SUGAR PAYMENTS
November 8, 2007 12:00 AM
Liberal Democrat joint agriculture spokesperson in the European Parliament Liz Lynne MEP has criticised DEFRA today for claiming that it was Brussels laws standing in the way of a deal between UK farmers and British Sugar to redistribute new EU sugar compensation to growers who were forced out of production and paid a pittance for their crop under a UK Government restructuring scheme in 2006.
Liz Lynne has long campaigned for a better deal for more than 2000 farmers who were forced out of production after the closure of Kidderminster, York and Alscott refineries and yesterday raised the issue with EU Agriculture Commissioner Marian Fischer Boel.
Whilst respective payments under the new EU compensation scheme have been ruled out, the European Commission have confirmed that EU compensation could be redistributed to farmers who were forced out and offered £8 per tonne for their quota, despite DEFRA's insistence to the contrary.
Speaking from Brussels Liz said:
"Many sugar farmers in the UK were forced into accepting a rotten deal after the closure of sugar refineries, leading to a legacy of bitterness and resentment; after my discussions with the Commission and contrary to what DEFRA has been saying, I do now see some hope for all those sugar farmers abandoned by the government and I look forward to taking this forward and arranging meetings with the Commission, the national farmers union and British Sugar to thrash out details.
"As long as sugar production is closed down, compensation will be made available by Brussels and it is up to the growers and refiners to agree a deal to compensate those farmers that were badly advised at the time.
"I suspect the Government knows all too well that money could be redistributed between growers under the recently agreed compensation scheme, but it must now come clean and help to deliver some justice and an end to what can only be described as a shambolic affair and low point for British farming."
ENDS
Notes to editors
Over 2000 British farmers left sugar production just before the EU incentives were introduced and received less than a third of the level of compensation they could have expected if they would have waited.
Liz Lynne MEP has long campaigned for a clause allowing retrospective payments of the difference in the UK, owing to specific circumstances and previously wrote to EU Commissioner Marian Fischer Boel urging that retrospective payments be made available.
The new deal was apparently reached at the Agriculture summit on the 22-23 October 2007.
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