Farm fines damage Wales

Responsibility for virtually all Welsh farming issues has been devolved to the National Assembly but I still felt compelled to write to the Prime Minister recently to express the union's "extreme concerns" about the impact this side of Offa's Dyke of cuts amounting to hundreds of millions of pounds to Defra's budget.

The FUW had already made strong representations, but it is obvious that responsibility for implementing these cuts ultimately lies with Gordon Brown.

I stressed that although the industry's concerns are related to the administration undertaken by Defra, the Welsh Assembly Government, local authorities and other bodies, the overall budgetary restrictions are placed on those bodies by the Treasury.

The proposed cuts are closely related to Defra's expected fine from the EU for failing to properly implement the English Single Payment Scheme.

But it seems FUW members with land in England, having already suffered due to the severe failures of Defra and the Rural Payments Agency since 2004, will now suffer further, as they will effectively be handed a proportion of the fine for the failures that have already affected them.