[Stronsaylimpet] Alistair Carmichael - The Future Farming Investment Scheme

[Limpet editor]

Alistair Carmichael MP

This week the talk in Orkney has naturally centred on the mishandled 
delivery of the Future Farming Investment Scheme (FFIS).

Two weeks ago the Cabinet Secretary for Agriculture came to the Scottish 
farmers’ union annual conference with a shiny new promise of extra funds 
for the FFIS. At the time it looked like a classic SNP wheeze – tack on 
a few million pounds to get a decent press release for the day. The 
Future Farming Investment Scheme was a great idea in concept and 
everyone – myself included – was happy to welcome it in June when it was 
announced, so to bring in a little extra money ought to have been an 
easy win.

Two weeks on from that announcement, however, the FFIS funding boost 
looks less like cunning PR spin, and more like a “too little, too late” 
attempt to head off a looming PR disaster. The delivery of FFIS has 
turned out to be a shambles, as any of the Orkney farmers who applied 
and were rejected for no clear reason can tell you.

Island crofters and farmers were specifically supposed to be targeted as 
beneficiaries according to the Scottish Government. By their own words 
the FFIS was supposed to “provide priority support in a number of areas, 
including for new entrants, and young farmers, small farms and tenants”. 
In practice, however, Orkney received less than 3.5% of the funds.

Someone really ought to tell the SNP that they are at least one month 
too early to be playing the part of Scrooge. Call me picky if you like – 
but if you are going to say that this programme is aimed at small 
farmers and crofters of the sort that work across our islands then 3.5% 
for Orkney feels just a little low.

It is entirely unclear what criteria was used in granting support – or 
not, as the case has proven to be. Schemes like this must be transparent 
and that has not been the case thus far – though I am glad that Liam 
McArthur has been leading the charge this week in the Scottish 
Parliament to get answers. Anecdotally, there seem to be serious 
concerns about perceived inconsistencies in how applications have been 
assessed, and the low success rate among the purported “Ministerial 
Priority Groups”, which should have included farmers in places like the 
isles.

In the wake of all this I was somewhat surprised on Tuesday morning to 
hear SNP farming minister Jim Fairlie on Radio Orkney claiming that the 
scheme was in fact very good and well designed – it just didn’t have 
enough money in it.

Apparently the problem is because of the nasty people in the UK 
government (stop me if you’ve heard this one before). To hear it from Mr 
Fairlie – and flying in the face of the funding boost already announced 
– there is no way to put more money into the scheme or to fix the 
seeming unfairness, unless the UK government boosted the SNP’s budget in 
turn.

That is of course nonsense from start to finish. There has never been 
anything stopping the Scottish government from topping up agriculture 
budgets if they so wished. If anything the fear has always been that the 
SNP will “borrow” farm funds to pay for their pet projects, something 
that until recently they were restricted from doing by the agriculture 
ringfence.

We all know that the SNP has form on this. They raided part of the 
agriculture fund two years ago to paper over cracks in their budget. 
Given the mess they continue to make of Scotland’s finances there is 
every reason to believe they will do the same again if given the chance. 
That is why we have a right to have a sceptical eye on the reasons for 
farmers, and island farmers in particular, being short-changed again.

We have a right to ask why the SNP always seems find it so difficult to 
get money into island communities. Cock up is always more likely than 
conspiracy but the outcome is what matters. The FFIS funds could have 
made a real impact for a lot of local farmers and for the wider 
community. Instead a shiny SNP promise has turned into another missed 
opportunity.

As ever, if there are any issues that you would like to raise with me, 
please do not hesitate to get in touch. For specific casework matters 
you can contact me at alistair.carmichael.mp at parliament.uk.


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