UK Environment Secretary Andrea Leadsom has been criticised by the SNP over her call for agriculture subsidies to be abolished.
The party said she should retract the statement – made in a 2007 blog post – and give a cast-iron commitment to protect farmers’ incomes.
The Nationalists also claimed the Fresh Start project, which Mrs Leadsom helped found, had recommended that direct payments to farmers under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) should be phased out.
SNP MSP Gail Ross said: “The fact that Theresa May has put someone with these views in charge of agriculture in the current climate is ludicrous.
“It’s clear that farmers simply cannot trust a word the new Tory minister has to say.
“And after playing a major role in the Brexit campaign which threatens to see Scotland dragged out of Europe against our will she now has a duty to give certainty to our farmers and publicly retract her previous comments.”
The Caithness, Sutherland and Ross MSP’s intervention came just days after the UK Government pledged to match EU direct subsidy payments after Brexit, up to 2020.
The current level of basic CAP funding (Pillar 1) will be met for the next four years as part of the transition to new domestic arrangements.
It means that – with the government covering the shortfall when Brexit actually happens – farmers will not lose out.
Chancellor Philip Hammond also set out assurances that all structural and investment fund projects – including agri-environment schemes – signed before the forthcoming Autumn Statement would be fully funded, even when they continue beyond the UK’s departure from the EU.
The government confirmed this included CAP funding to promote rural development (Pillar 2).
Additionally, the Treasury will put in place arrangements for assessing whether to guarantee funding for specific projects which could be signed after the statement, but while the UK remains in the EU.
Longer term, a British agricultural policy will have to be devised, which Mrs Leadsom will have the task of implementing if she remains in her current role.
During the EU referendum campaign, she said cash for farmers should continue “in the short term whilst we think about what makes sense”.
A Defra spokesperson said: “The Environment Secretary has always been absolutely clear in her support for UK farmers and how central they are, both to our economy and our national identity.”
