The SNP has demanded answers from the UK Agriculture Minister, claiming the UK Government has £160 million of EU payments "owed" to Scottish farmers.
Robert Goodwill has been pressed for an explanation ahead of his visit to a farm in Aberdeenshire on Friday.
READ MORE: AHDB launches first strategic dairy farm in Scotland
The SNP and Scottish farming organisations argue Scotland is owed the £190 million of EU convergence uplift payments to the UK for the period 2014 to 2020.
The convergence cash was triggered due to the low rate of Common Agricultural Policy payments given to Scottish hill farmers.
Aimed at distributing the subsidies more fairly based on average euros per hectare, the UK only qualified for the payments through Scotland, as England, Wales and Northern Ireland were all above the threshold.
By May 2018, the UK Government had allocated around £30 million of the uplift payments to Scotland, with the rest being distributed around the UK, leading to allegations the money has been "stolen" from Scotland's farmers, which the UK Government denies.
READ MORE: Twitter storm as Jacob Rees-Mogg says UK 'should be difficult as possible' to EU if Brexit delayed
Stewart Stevenson MSP, who sits on Holyrood's Rural Environment and Connectivity Committee, said: "The only reason the UK qualified for this funding is because of Scotland - therefore, the only fair solution is that Scottish farmers and crofters receive the £160m in convergence funding due to them in full.
"Anything less is completely unacceptable. Scottish farmers have been owed this money since 2013, however, the Tories continue to withhold the cash that is rightfully theirs.
"Successive Tory government ministers have let Scottish farmers down on this issue - promising review after review, but never getting round to it. They need to get serious about the missing millions.
"That money was earned in Scotland and should be returned to Scotland."
Last year, the UK Government announced an independent review of how EU farm subsides are distributed across the UK from Brexit until 2022 but it is not looking into the disputed cash.
Terms of reference for the review, which aims to ensure the subsidies are "fairly split", were set in December and it is expected to take six months.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel