 The next item of business is a statement by Fergus Ewing on common agricultural payments. The cabinet secretary will take questions at the end of his statement, therefore there should be no interventions or interruptions, I call on Fergus Ewing. First, I pay tribute to my predecessor Richard Lochhead. For nine years, he served rural Scotland as its champion, tireless in his work in promoting our high-quality food and drink and in standing up for Scotland's interests in fishing and farming here in London and in Brussels. I and the whole chamber will wish him and his family well. Let me say at the outset that the cap payment scheme has caused among the farming and crofting communities and businesses in Scotland anger, frustration, hardship and cost. As some who has represented for 17 years a constituency with vital farming and crofting interests, I am very well aware of that. I want to start off with three simple words addressed by me on behalf of the Scottish Government to all farmers and crofters who have suffered as a result. We are sorry. Let me follow it up with four further words. We are fixing it. Progress has been made and now, Presiding Officer, I can say that most farmers and crofters should have received most of their due payment. By the end of April past, all eligible farmers should have received a substantial payment from the Government unless they chose to opt out of the nationally funded loan scheme. That payment will have been worth around 80 per cent of the estimated entitlement. We recognise the industry's need for cash flow. We did not meet our targets and we accepted that and created problems for businesses. We were determined to get cash out to farmers and crofters and for that reason we put the nationally funded loan scheme in place. However, if any member's constituents believe that they are eligible for the basic payment scheme and have not received a payment, please ask them to contact their area office and we shall ensure that we establish what the position is with their claim. We paid out over 5,000 national BPS loans in April worth over £90 million. Over 40 per cent of those have been repaid already, as the main EU-funded payments have been processed. At present, we have made main EU-funded basic and green payments to over 15,000 businesses, which is more than 84 per cent of eligible farmers and crofters. Payments have been made totaling almost £200 million. Those farmers will be due further payments when we have finalised their entitlements worth around £50 million. A further £3,000-plus farmers and crofters who have already been offered national loans need to receive their main payments totaling up to £95 million. We also expect soon to start payments under the coupled support scheme for sheep and to complete payments under the two schemes for beef cattle, pillar one schemes, which are also subject to the EU's direct payments deadline. The Government is doing everything possible to get those payments out before the end of June. The Auditor General's report was published a week past Thursday, and we accept that it contains very serious criticisms. This, the Audit Scotland's third report, sets out recommendations that we are considering very carefully and to all of which we shall in due course respond. The resolution of the CAP problems will not be achieved overnight nor by any single or simple set of actions, but I believe that we shall substantially resolve those difficulties and pledge to all that this will be my first and foremost priority in my new role to bring about that resolution. Commissioner Hogan confirmed that a number of member states across Europe are facing problems with the ambitious timetable for the new common agricultural policy. The Audit Scotland report noted that this timetable presented a challenge along with the complexity of the European policy and the additional features requested by the Scottish farming industry. That has lain at the heart of the difficulties that we have faced. Payment performance this year has fallen short of the very high standards that the Government has delivered in recent years. Of course, the Government had already acknowledged the difficulties to Parliament. As long ago as autumn 2014, in evidence to the Public Audit Committee, the Government had accepted that the size of the task was massively underestimated at the start. The time needed to recover from the start had left the Government with a huge challenge in meeting the CAP deadlines. However, as I have already said, we are fixing this. I have three objectives. First, to complete the £215 payments so that farmers get their money as soon as possible. Second, to deliver compliance and minimise any financial penalties. Third, to see the £216 payments placed on a proper footing. I am pleased to report that there are positive signs within the programme. Area office staff reported to me that they are making better progress. We have reduced costs since January. We have saved over £1.2 million on contractor reductions. That remains a key priority to deliver further savings. We have improved IT delivery. However, we must be realistic. I am determined that, for the £216 payments, we make clear to Parliament and to the farming industry what the likely timescales really look like. The farming industry needs to have confidence in the payment timetable and that we will do what we say. There must be no repeat of the problems that are faced in 2015-16. I am also conscious that the Auditor General raised concerns about the budget for the programme. We accept that there are risks but we are bearing down on all aspects of the spend and taking every opportunity to mitigate that risk further. I am determined that the Government will learn the lessons from the future programme, not just for the remainder of the programme but also for our wider portfolio of IT programmes. However, I do not wish to detract from the clear and present task of getting the last of the payments out to farmers and crofters. Now is the time to focus on that and on meeting the payment deadline successfully. However, I can tell you now that there will be a process to learn lessons from this experience. I will return to Parliament in the autumn with more details on our progress on the three objectives that I have outlined. From day one in the job and for the foreseeable future, the resolution of the cap payment issues are my top priority as Cabinet Secretary. I want to assure members and all listening in the rural communities of Scotland of this. The time will devote all necessary time and attention to that task. It is my number one priority and let me give the chamber this category assurance. I am determined to oversee and drive forward the work that is necessary to bring this payment regime back on to an even keel. I am intending to allow 20 minutes for questions to the Cabinet Secretary. Would members who wish to ask a question please press their request to speak button first? I call on Peter Chapman to ask the first question. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am grateful to the minister for making this statement to the chamber today and for providing an advanced copy of his statement. However, those apologetic words do nothing to make up for the months of chaos and heartbreak in our rural economy that his department has caused. Time and time again over the past six months, Government ministers have had to come to this chamber and explain that they need more time to get payments out. That simply is unacceptable and it has completely eroded farmers' trusts in this Government. In order to regain that trust, I hope that the minister will today commit to all payments being with farmers and crofters by the end of June. This deadline is important not only because of how vital the money is to farmers but because, unless 95 per cent is paid by this date, the Government will be liable for fines from the EU of up to £125 million. Will the Government commit to getting those payments out in time? I can assure the member that I appreciate the serious consequences that have been caused by this matter and I alluded to that and accepted that in my statement. I provided absolute reassurance that everything possible being done to make in full the 2015 payments as quickly as possible is being done. At present, we have made payments equivalent to 84 per cent of the applications under the basic payment scheme and greening. As the member will know, there are pillar 1 and pillar 2 payments, and the pillar 2 payments, many of which are not actually to be completed by the end of June anyway, are not subject to the same deadline. It is not with respect quite as simple as saying that every single payment will be made by 30 June, as the member will know very well. There are other aspects of it that do not comply with that deadline. However, so far as that deadline is concerned, having visited two of the area offices last Monday, having spent three hours this morning before Cabinet in detailed discussions and meeting with the teams who are dealing with the farmers, I know that many of the people in that area office are off and from the farming community. They have the respect and trust of the farming community. They are part of it, and therefore we want to support the excellent work that they do and boost their morale at this time, and not to subject them to undue criticism when they are busting a gut to complete the job, Presiding Officer, and I fully support them in the work that they are doing. Rhoda Grant, to be followed by Michael Russell. Can I thank the Cabinet Secretary for the Early Site of the Statement and also congratulate him on his new post? This whole scheme has been shambolic and there has been a lack of information and many missed deadlines. In the run-up to the election, we had a Cabinet Secretary that spent his time trawling his old personnel files rather than ensuring that our farmers and crofters were being paid. Therefore, priority must be given to getting the correct payments to them, those that are still waiting, because there has been genuine hardship caused by those delays and it needs to be dealt with. Given his answer to the last question, can he now give a realistic timescale for full payment? He will also be aware that people have received payments that they are not entitled to and others have received payments that they declined. Will individual circumstances be taken into account when this money is being clawed back? I can assure Rhoda Grant that the whole efforts of everybody in the department are devoted to the task of timest payment of the remainder of the payments. Having devoted some of my own time over the past day since my appointment to updating myself, I can assure the member that a huge amount of work is being done and that substantial progress is being made week on week. That figure of 84 per cent is much higher than it was a couple of weeks ago. Week on week, considerable progress is being made. The absolute priority is not to be distracted by other matters at the present time, not to be distracted by recriminations or the right need to learn lessons at some time in the future, but to allow the people who are doing the job to complete their job and to do that job with the confidence of their elected representatives. I would make a plea to Ms Grant and to all her colleagues, because she mentions problems in relation to payments. As she knows, it is not new. It is a systemic problem in respect of the CIP system, where some of the penalties that are exacted for relatively minor errors seem to be pretty swinging in relation to the individual cases that we have all seen as MSPs. I would make a plea to Rhoda Grant and all other members. If there are any individual cases facing hardship or who feel, as Ms Grant has alluded to, that mistakes have been made they should contact their area offices forthwith. I will write to each member with full contact details of each of the 16 area offices in Scotland and of the helpline staff, whom I spoke to this morning and who were busily handling inquiries from farmers at that time. I hope that members will focus not on recrimination but on the implementation of the system, supporting the excellent work of hundreds of people around this country that are determined to do right by the farming community. Michael Russell will be followed by John Lamont. I am sure that everybody will welcome the work that the cabinet secretary has been doing to take forward this issue and to ensure that the hard work that is being done in the area offices is paying fruit. I will address two very simple questions to him. First, in terms of future practice, what work is being done to ensure that payments can be made in the next round without undue delay, particularly at the start of the opening of the payment window in December? Secondly, what thoughts has he given to the type of investigation that will be required at some stage in the future to ensure that this cannot happen again and to give confidence to the farming and crofting community that the lessons have indeed been learned? I want to take the second question first. As I stated in my opening remarks, it is essential that we learn lessons. Therefore, I stated that it is my intention, with permission of the appropriate authorities, to come back to this chamber to provide an update in the autumn, after which, of course, the deadline of the 30th June will pass. We will have had the opportunity to carry out all relevant analysis as to how matters are at that point. I undertake that when I come back to Parliament, I will set out in detail the response to the member's question in relation to how best we learn lessons so that we do not see a repetition of the problems that have arisen. Turning to his first question, the difficulties with the 215 payments have had a knock-on effect with the 216 payments. Indeed, those who have read Carolyn Gardner's report will have noted that. One of the obvious difficulties is that time spent, for example, right now outdoing inspections for 216 applications in the fields is being spent in the office dealing with the 215 payments. However, on a positive note, I can reassure the House that the process involved in the processing of the 216 applications has gone pretty well, and it has gone much more smoothly and with much less IT difficulty than the 215 application process had at this time. In other words, progress is being made, but there are still a large number of practicalities to answer Mr Russell's question that we have to deal with. To allow us to do that is partly why I think that it prudent to state that I come back to give more precise details about the 216 payment profile in the autumn. John Lamont, to be followed by Graeme Dey. The Scottish Borders normally receives some £50 million of CAP payments. This money not only benefits farmers, but it filters down to many other businesses and the delays are causing problems for the whole rural economy. Cabinet Secretary, can you tell me what percentage of the total money due to Borders farmers has been received to date? That is not regionalised information such as that information that I have before me. I had the pleasure of visiting the Dumfries area office last Monday, which administers a huge part of the south of Scotland. I am not certain that the information can be readily provided, but I undertake to write to the member on that matter. I am not sure that I recognise the figure of £50 million as not being paid to Borders farmers. Perhaps he could send me a computation of how that is made up. I would reiterate that we have made payments of 84 per cent of applications amounting to nearly £200 million. I want to stress this, because it is not the case that we have made zero payments and all farmers are waiting for the money. That is the opposite of the case. Most farmers have received most payments. That is in no way to say that it is acceptable that farmers are waiting for payments in many cases, but the position is that we have seen 84 per cent of applications having been dealt with and nearly £200 million paid. If I may say so, a loan scheme that was operated from information that I got this morning with great success very efficiently. I commend the public servants in this country for the excellent work that they are doing. I hope that that is the sentiment that other members will start to echo. Graham Deyde, followed by Claudia Beamish. Cabinet Secretary, constituents of mine have highlighted to me an issue that appears to have contributed to the delay in their receiving payments, which was the identifying of very small parts of their land as region 2 when the rest was entirely region 1. In one case, a constituent had a tiny section of wood deemed to be region 2 when the remainder was region 1. Can I ask whether that sort of experience was widespread and how it will be resolved ahead of the 2016 payments? Yes. I am very happy to look at that individual case. If Mr Deyde wishes to raise it with me, I understand from his description that in region 1 there may be arable land and in region 2, in this case, rough grazing. That means that in an individual application there can be a number of complexities. It illustrates the challenges that the system faces. For example, there are 4 million hectares, subject to the basic payment scheme in Scotland, 400,000 fields. Each field is on average four or five times the size of a football pitch. The degree of accuracy that the EU requires for audit purposes is the size of a goal mouth. If you think about it, there are 400,000 cheques, 400,000 fields, a very small margin for error, you start to appreciate the mammoth task that was faced in converting a manual system to an IT system. That is not in any way to write off or minimise the difficulties. It is a matter of fact. It is perhaps why down south in England and in France they have had many, many of similar difficulties. Claudia Beamish, followed by Mark Ruskell. Scottish Labour has called for a review of the payment process. Will this be forthcoming and with maximum transparency? Will the cabinet secretary be able to guarantee that applications for next year will meet the appropriate timescales with some additional support for farmers in view of the debacle of this year? The payment window in 216 is 1 December to 30 June. Obviously, we want to make time as payment. I have already said in response to Claudia Beamish in respect to her second question that I will come back in the autumn and, at that point, give us precise information as I can in response to her first question, where she used the word review. I have already said also, I believe, to be fair to myself that I will come back again and set out in detail what we propose in order to ensure that we learn the lessons. I assume that Claudia Beamish is pleased with that forthright answer. Mark Ruskell, followed by Stuart Seymson. Can I thank the cabinet secretary for advance sight of the statement? I was thinking about Robert Burns, of course, as your farmer, who said that there is no such uncertainty as a sure thing. It is the role of government here to provide certainty, particularly for a sector that is dogged by uncertainty from year to year. That is not to say that things cannot go wrong, clearly something has gone catastrophically wrong with payments, but communication is absolutely key. Can I ask the cabinet secretary, will he ensure that the chamber is given weekly updates, along with key stakeholders, about the remaining process for 2015, including information about the applications that are made, the mapping process that backs up the applications process, the regionalisation process, the work that has been done on the entitlement rate and the payments that are being made under the national reserve? When Mr Ruskell was saying that he was going to quote Burns, I was a bit anxious that he may quote from to a louse, but, fortunately, he did not go down that particular road. I think that the request for information is perfectly reasonable. We want to be transparent and open. I will reflect on his question. I think that a weekly schedule would be a bit much, frankly, and it would impose too much of a burden on the very people who are leading the task, but, in principle, his view is correct. It is also one of the leading points in the NFU manifesto, so I think that I am in favour of that in principle. I will write to the member once I have given thought to what further information is available. With that letter, I will, of course, pass on the details of each of the area offices, which I hope all members will use to pass on inquiries from constituents who may have concerns in order to ensure the swiftest possible resolution of them. I draw members' attention to my joint ownership of a registered agricultural holding, which is let to my neighbour for rough grazing. I receive no financial reward for so-doing. The cabinet secretary will be aware, having sat on the parliamentary committee that looked at the IT difficulties in the SQA programme under the Labour Liberal Administration in 2000, who will be aware perhaps of the London Ambulance Service IT failures in 1992 under the Conservatives. We are now dealing with a project that has significant IT failures associated with under this administration. Can he indicate how the public sector in general can raise its game in the way that it uses IT for public benefit? I am not responsible for all IT systems across the Government. That is a somewhat pleasing reflection to offer in the chamber. He is perfectly right to say that, and I am sure that he is referring to this, that Caroline Gardner, in her third report on the cap payment system, said that she is reflecting on general lessons to be learned and will let us have our views shortly. In that respect, perhaps the most sensible answer that I can give to Mr Stevenson—I did not appreciate it now—was a farmer amongst his many other occupations, but not a huge surprise, I have to say, Mr Stevenson. I will reflect on his remarks and urge him to await the publication of the further thoughts of Caroline Gardner on the matters. Douglas Ross, to be followed by Mike Rumbles. The cabinet secretary said in his statement that he will return to Parliament in the autumn. That is simply not good enough. The farming community cannot wait that long. He has said that he will reflect on weekly updates. If the cabinet secretary will give an assurance to return to this chamber on 30 June, the EU deadline date and our last sitting day before the recess, to update Parliament on whether any farmers or crofters in Murray, Highlands and Islands or across Scotland are still waiting any of their entitlement, the Parliament and rural communities deserve to know if the Scottish Government will miss the EU deadline and if taxpayers will have to bear the brunt of a fine of up to £125 million. In response to Mr Ross, let me say that where I to say that I will come and make a statement on the 30 June, that is the day of the deadline. In order to make that statement, Mr Ross hasn't been in this place for long. What it would be necessary to do would be to disrupt the work of officials just at the very time when they are trying to complete the task that we all want them to do. Of course I will update this house as soon as I possibly can, but what I will not do and what I may say, Presiding Officer, I do not think that farmers want us to do is A, play a blame game prematurely and B, detract our attention from the object of getting the final payments out to them. That is what farmers want at least the ones that I have spoken to. I have already met the NFU president and had a visit to John Cunair's farm, a recently former NFU president. Farmers want to get it sorted out. They do not want to see a game of political partisan blame ascription. They want to get it sorted out and put on an even keel, and that is what I have committed to do. That is what this Government will do. Mike Rumbles will be followed by Ian Gray, Mr Rumbles. I thank the minister for the advance notice of his statement and also indeed for the briefing last week for Opposition spokespeople on this. I have no doubt that it is clearing up the mess of his predecessor is indeed his number one priority. However, at that same briefing, his civil servants said that they had far from given up hope of completing the necessary payments to our farmers by the end of June. That, to me, does not sound reassuring, despite what the minister has already said to many members this afternoon. If the minister fails to complete the payments, as Douglas Ross said just a moment ago, we face £125 million fine in non-compliance fines. I want to ask him how confident is he that he will meet those deadlines and not be hit by the fines? Mr Rumbles found the briefing that I provided for Opposition MSPs useful. It is incidentally the way that I try to do things and provide to Opposition MSPs access to an informal briefing, including with lead civil servants, so that they have an opportunity to inform themselves of the issues. That is the normal practice that I seek to follow, Presiding Officer. To answer his question, I am absolutely confident that everything possible is being done to meet the 30th of June deadline. The whole of my efforts are devoted to securing that objective. Iain Gray, to be followed by Bruce Crawford. I appreciate the cabinet secretary saying that he is doing everything possible to get the payments out the door. However, he cannot escape the fact that, if he does not achieve 95 per cent of the direct payments out and compliant before the deadline, he does face financial penalties that are estimated by Audit Scotland at between £40 million and £125 million. So, what contingency has the cabinet secretary made and from which budget would any such penalties have to be found? Obviously, our efforts are devoted entirely to minimising any conceivable penalty. The member is quite right in the figures that he has quoted from the Auditor General's report. I have already made public the fact that my predecessor, Richard Lochhead, made extremely substantial efforts in carrying out sensible and helpful work in making representations to the European Union Commission to allow the deadline of 30 June to be extended. I think that it is right that Richard Lochhead should get some credit for the work that he actually did. He did that work. It was good work. It was sensible. I remain hopeful that the European Union Commission, as a result of Richard Lochhead's sensible, worthwhile and detailed and protracted negotiations, might still provide us with more time than on 30 June. However, it is certainly a challenging deadline. I have made no bones about that. In relation to financial contingencies, I have already explained that the national loan scheme that we instituted has been tremendously successful. If you think about it, loans paid to more than 5,000 people in April paid to the extent of 50 per cent by now is a tremendous effort. I expect that it will be a very successful and professionally conducted exercise when I come back to the house in the autumn and report further. I may also say that down south in England, it has used a loan scheme as well. I should add that in other EU states, including France, which has been published and many other states whose names have not been published, perhaps out of understandable reticence, there have been similar difficulties. That is not unique to Scotland. Lastly, in relation to penalties, which was the main thrust to Mr Gray's question, over a 10-year period, I am informed that the payments in England have sustained or resulted in penalties approximating to more than £600 million. We will look at the issue of contingencies as and when required. I have already had detailed discussions with the finance secretary in relation to the overall financial consequences of the scheme. However, it is fair for me to say that we will come back and answer questions such as that if they arise, and most certainly by the autumn. Could the cabinet secretary outline what discussions he has had with farmers and other stakeholders involved in the workings of the cap payment schemes in his appointment? In the future, he would make the dairy industry a priority on the matter, given that the great price of milk continues to fall in the hard-pressed sector. I am glad that Mr Crawford mentioned that. I am well aware of the pressures on farming in general and the dairy sector in particular. In response to his question, I did have the pleasure of meeting in my new official capacity with Alan Bowie, the president of the NFU and Scott Walker, the chief executive. I also had a very enjoyable visit to a Johnnie Kinaird's farm last week, and tomorrow I look forward to spending several hours at ScotSheep.