My MEP Robert Sturdy is today meeting farmers in his constituency in Norfolk and one subject will be at the top of the agenda – the shambolic handling by Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett over the new style farm support payments.

Mrs Beckett has conceded that some payments will still be outstanding when the European Union’s deadline expires at the end of June, hence the introduction of interim payments.

Incompetence by The Rural Payments Agency has been blamed, as well as a new computer-based mapping system used to validate claims.

I called the NFU yesterday and was told that the agency is currently validating 2,000 claims a week, but that 60,000 are still outstanding. That means it would take up until Bonfire Night to complete the claims under the present system. That is their pessimistic view. The new payments for 2007 are then due to be made from December.

However, a new method of validation is to be introduced to speed up the process, but how effective that will be remains to be seen as staff will have to be retrained and will still take their holidays too. Surely interim payments will involve repetition of claims and extra time spent on validation. It seems likely that several thousand farmers will not have been paid by the June deadline.

Mr Sturdy believes Mrs Beckett’s job should be on the line and is urging European Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel to put pressure on the British governemnt to sort out the fiasco without further delay.

It is causing considerable hardship to many farmers who are estimated to be spending around £10 million a month in interest charges.

From what I understand, payments are being made successfully to farmers throughout other parts of the EU – I think we would have heard about it if the French farmers were still out of pocket.