8. Will the Minister make a statement on the farm business grant? OAQ54071

Diolch. The farm business grant is one of the Welsh Government’s 'Taking Wales Forward' commitments. To date, 2,970 farmers have had applications to the farm business grant approved, worth £20.6 million of support. This on-farm investment supports the improvement of the technical and financial performance of farm businesses in Wales.

Thank you. The Farmers Union of Wales contacted me on behalf of one of their members a few weeks ago because an application from a constituent for a grant had failed because he'd failed to provide a letter from his accountant to confirm that the turnover of his business was below £1 million. Now, I should say that his turnover is way below £1 million, and I should add that virtually every farmer in Wales has a turnover of less than £1 million. But the decision meant that he had lost out on £5,000, despite having provided a letter once it became known that that was a requirement. I appealed directly to you—thank you for your response—and officials have now changed the letter in the application pack to highlight the need for this evidence. I welcome that, but that does suggest to me, as I know is the case, that it wasn't sufficiently clear that this accountant’s letter needed to be included in the first place. I do understand that there are many similar cases across Wales that have now emerged, with an average loss around £5,500, which is a significant sum for small farms. According to your own figures, only one in 100 farms in Wales has a turnover of over £1 million. Shouldn't you therefore review this issue, as it is clearly a more general problem than just affecting my constituent? I want you to look again at the applications that have been rejected for this reason and I would appreciate it if you could tell us how many applications have lost out because of this reason.

Thank you. Obviously, I am aware of your constituent. As you say, you and I corresponded, and also the FUW and I corresponded. You'll be aware I'm unable to comment on that specific one due to the appeals process. I think the farm business grant was very well received. The idea was that we made it as simple and easy as possible to use for ourselves and also for applicants. There is a small number of people whose applications were unsuccessful, and I will certainly—. I thought I had the figure here, actually, but I can't find it at the current time. But I think it is—. Oh, sorry; 688 businesses were written to retrospectively to request an accountant's letter, and fewer than 1 per cent of beneficiaries had payments recovered as they failed to provide an accountant's letter before the deadline. But I think you're right; it needs to be very much upfront, and we certainly have reviewed that, and, as you say, we have changed that. I'm very happy to look, if we can review the applications—I don't know if it's too late. But you will appreciate we obviously are audited and we have to make sure it is effective use of public money and we have to have some criteria. But we have tried to make it as simple as possible.

I declare an interest, obviously, being a partner in a farming business. Minister, one of the things that is so frustrating, very often, is the complexity around, in particular, the woodland grant schemes that have been made available. Given that there's been much conversation in this Chamber tonight—this afternoon, I should say—about increasing woodland uptake, can you commit the department to look at how that scheme could be simplified to make it far quicker in its turnaround of applications so that it does encourage greater participation rates? I know you opened a new window back in April for this, and I appreciate it's public money and the auditing and the accountability have to be robust, but when businesses have small windows to, obviously, plant up trees, they need to have confidence that the grants they're applying for can be turned around in a timely manner. Certainly, I've had constituents coming to me saying it's very cumbersome, it's very bureaucratic, and it puts them off actually applying.

You make a very good point. Obviously, this question was specifically about the farm business grant, and as I said in my answer to Rhun ap Iorwerth, the whole point of this scheme was that we made it as easy and simple as possible. I thought we really had succeeded with that. Clearly, the issue that Rhun raised shows that it wasn't quite as simple and easy as I would have hoped for. Certainly, other grants, now—we need to look at making them as easy and simple as possible. And if Brexit provides any opportunities, obviously as we have our own agricultural policy and we're revising the payments system, I think it's certainly something that we can look at. Because as you say, if it's a very small window at a particularly busy time of year, we need to ensure that everybody can apply for it as simply as possible. I'm glad that you echoed the point I made around the most effective use of public money.