Moray MP "pleased" with Chancellor's announcement

Douglas Ross, Moray's Conservative MP, is "pleased" with the announcement from Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sajid Javid, which confirmed £160 million will go to Scotland’s farmers to resolve a historic issue.

The UK Government will provide a one-off sum of £160 million in targeted support to farmers and land managers in Scotland in recognition of the injustice felt by Scottish farmers over the intra-UK allocations of Common Agriculture Policy ‘convergence’ funding in 2013.

This funding aims to draw a line under a long-standing disagreement over funding allocations. The Chancellor Sajid Javid today also committed £1.2 billion in extra funding for Scotland next year.

Mr Ross was delighted with the announcement. He said: "During his leadership campaign, Boris Johnson promised £160m of EU agricultural convergence funding would go to Scottish farmers. This is an issue I’ve campaigned on since my election so I’m pleased the UK government have delivered on this. The way the allocation was previously delivered was wrong, and that has now been corrected.

"The Chancellor’s move is extremely welcome and is the result of concerted pressure from Scotland’s Conservative MPs. The money will be given to the Scottish Government and I hope that they act swiftly to ensure that every penny is paid without delay to those farmers who the convergence scheme was originally designed to help.

"This spending review also gives the SNP Scottish Government a massive boost to their budget and I want to see Moray benefit from this cash injection. We have seen local services slashed recently so I hope we can now see investment in Moray to protect the services local people value so much."

Moray's SNP MSP Richard Lochhead says the money is long overdue. He added: "The UK Government’s has finally bowed to SNP and industry pressure to hand over the £160m they essentially stole from Scotland’s farmers back in 2013. Better six years late than never.

"This money was allocated to the UK through the CAP scheme due to the low level of payments in Scotland, but this cash has been denied to Moray and Scotland’s farmers by the Conservative Government for six years and has been the source of seething anger in the sector.

"The announcement to finally hand over Scotland’s money is six years too late and the UK Government should also be paying those farmers who lost out interest.

"Had the Tories done the right thing back in 2013 – rather than being dragged kicking and screaming to right this wrong – we could have avoided five years of relentless campaigning and energy sapping meetings between Scottish Ministers and farming leaders at one side of the table and tin eared UK Government Ministers on the other.

"I congratulate Cabinet Secretary Fergus Ewing and farming leaders for refusing to give up the fight."

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