Cap C A P

[Quicken]

The benefit cap is set at £500/week for a couple or single parent, or £26k/year.

I thought it would be instructive to look at CAP payments in this light using the handy search tool provided by DEFRA:

http://cap-payments.defra.gov.uk/

Using Amount Received greater than 26000 in total gives 5,972 hits for a total of £715,895,138.99 (£716 million). That's an average of 120k per recipient over the cap level, but 12 pull down over 2 million each.

1. £7.8 million - National Trust
   
2. £5.8 million - Berry Gardens Growers Ltd
   
3. £5.2 million - Norfolk County Council
   
4. £3.9 million - G'S GROWERS LTD
   
5. £3.6 million - Duchy Rural Business School c/o Cornwall College
   
6. £3.2 million - LANTRA
   
7. £2.6 million - Fruition PO Limited
   
8. £2.6 million - Frank A Smart & Son Ltd (S)
   
9. £2.5 million - HEREFORDSHIRE COUNCIL
   
10. £2.2 million - HYBU CIG CYMRU MEAT PROMOTION WALES (W)
    
11. £2.1 million - CADWYN CLWYD CYFYNGEDIG LTD (W)
    
12. £2.0 million - PUFFIN PRODUCE LTD (W)
    

So, the National Trust are clear winners, but Berry Gardens Growers and Norfold County Council are strong challengers.

Of the 5972, 4506 are paid by the Rural Payments Agency, 1014 are paid by the Scottish government, 256 are paid by the Welsh Government, and 196 are paid by the NI DARD.

Those Scottish CAP recipients must be worried about the independence vote.

[bambam]

Hmm, those Berry people say they make sales of £200million a year.

http://www.berrygardens.co.uk/Pages/default.aspx

The £5.8 million CAP payment is relatively chicken feed.

Still I know we are paying much more in CAP to the EU than we get from it.

[Quicken]

Hmm, those Berry people say they make sales of £200million a year.

http://www.berrygardens.co.uk/Pages/default.aspx

The £5.8 million CAP payment is relatively chicken feed.

Still I know we are paying much more in CAP to the EU than we get from it.

Yes, but the 'we' who are paying are not the same as the 'we' who are receiving.

[The Knimbies who say No]

Yes, but the 'we' who are paying are not the same as the 'we' who are receiving.

Quite. It might explain why some berry producers were so sanguine about letting crop rot in the fields rather than pay enough to attract workers to harvest it a few years back. Food industries are often very slim margin affairs so the CAP payment may be a significant chunk compared to net profits from £200m of headline sales.

[bambam]

Maybe the margins are slim, but British strawberries fill the shops in season. They could bump the price up a few p.

And the competition is CAP-subsidised Spain.