MILIBAND'S U-TURN SHOULD HAVE BEEN MADE SOONER - HUHNE

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Thu 22nd Feb 2007

The Liberal Democrats today welcomed David Miliband's U-turn on the use of Treasury contingency funds to cover the cost of his department's botched implementation of single farm payments.

Just months ago, David Miliband told Parliament he would not "go running to the Chancellor for funds every time there is a problem", yet his department has now announced an extra £305m from the Treasury to cover the likely costs of the farm payment shortfall.

Mr Miliband has been pressed before by Liberal Democrat Shadow Environment Secretary, Chris Huhne MP to fund one-off overruns from the contingency reserve.

Commenting, Mr Huhne said:

"David Miliband's U-turn is good news for the environment, farmers and other agencies such as British Waterways who feared yet more Defra budget cuts.

"Why didn't the Government take this step when the budget crisis first emerged, rather than making sweeping cuts to other Defra agencies, such as British Waterways?

"Other European countries manage to pay farmers on time, but Defra's insistence on an overly complex model has hit services hard.

"This sort of one-off overrun due to a botched IT introduction is exactly the sort of problem that should be funded from money set aside by the Treasury for contingencies."