Ahead of a debate on rural affairs in the Scottish Parliament today (Wednesday), the Tories have been accused of \u2018spectacular hypocrisy\u2019 on farm support \u2013 after lodging a motion on the issue which fails to explain how they would guarantee support for farmers if the UK votes to leave the EU.<\/p>\n
Tory Farming Minister, George Eustice, has announced that he will vote for the UK to leave the EU \u2013 effectively campaigning for an end to all EU support for Scotland\u2019s farmers and rural communities.<\/p>\n
CAP support in Scotland is worth around \u00a34 billion in the period from 2015 to 2020 \u2013 and the Scottish Government has invested \u00a320 million in a new hardship fund to help farmers receiving late payments.<\/p>\n
Commenting, SNP MSP Angus MacDonald said:<\/p>\n
\u201cOur farming industry is a vital part of our economy and our society \u2013 and it is right that they get the support they need to thrive. \u00a0And while the complications of a new IT system have led to regrettable delays \u2013 the fact is the SNP in government is taking real action to protect farmers with a new \u00a320m hardship fund.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever it is quite spectacular hypocrisy from the Tories to try and score political points over farm support \u2013 when their own Farming Minister is set on seeing the support abolished in its entirety by dragging Scotland out of the EU.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe truth is that the Tory Government has refused to give our farming communities any information about the future of the support payments they\u2019ll receive if we\u2019re out of Europe \u2013 the Tories in Scotland should come clean on their own Farming Minister\u2019s plans.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe SNP in government will continue to do everything we can to protect and support farmers \u2013 and to maintain vital CAP support by keeping Scotland in the EU. \u00a0It\u2019s time for the Tories to commit to doing what is in the best interests of our farmers \u2013 rather than launching partisan attacks to hide their own complete disarray on farming support.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ahead of a debate on rural affairs in the Scottish Parliament today (Wednesday), the Tories have been accused of \u2018spectacular hypocrisy\u2019 on farm support \u2013 after lodging a motion on the issue which fails to explain how they would guarantee support for farmers if the UK votes to leave the EU. Tory Farming Minister, George Eustice, has announced that he will vote for the UK to leave the EU \u2013 effectively campaigning for an end to all EU support for Scotland\u2019s farmers and rural communities. CAP support in Scotland is worth around \u00a34 billion in the period from 2015 to 2020 \u2013 and the ScottishRead More →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[213,56,161],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1270"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1271,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270\/revisions\/1271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scotsindependent.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}