SCOTTISH Secretary Alister Jack has been accused of “immoral and offensive” behaviour for saying the Universal Credit uplift had “run its course” - despite himself taking almost £100,000 in subsidies last year alone.
The Tory Cabinet minister lists Courance Farms on his Register of Interests - along with a raft of others including investment holding firm Atlantic Solway Holdings Ltd, and hydro-electric power company Mollin HEP Ltd.
Official figures from the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) show that Courance Farms was handed £96,353.28 in handouts as part of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in 2020 alone.
In previous years, the grants handed to Jack’s Courance Farms were still higher, reaching almost £200,000 in 2014 and 2015, Defra figures show.
Jack was elected to represent Dumfries and Galloway for the Tories in 2017.
The amount handed to his Courance Farms from the EU’s public purse since 2014 is as follows:
2014 - £194,557.65
2015 - £195,322.61
2016 - £74,792.11
2017 - £83,552.63
2018 - £91,945.68
2019 - £99,762.11
2020 - £96,353.28
This comes to a total of £836,286.07 over seven years, an average of £119,469.44 per year.
According to figures from farmsubsidy.org - a project of the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany - Jack also took more than €600,000 from the EU’s Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) between 2001 and 2009.
Defra data from 2013 was unavailable, while Courance Farms does not appear in the data from 2011 or 2012 - where it may have been redacted. Nor does it appear in the data from 2010.
READ MORE: These graphs show how damaging the Tory Universal Credit cut will be for Scots
SNP MSP Neil Gray, the convener of Holyrood’s Social Justice Committee, accused Jack of having different views of the public funds he “gleefully pocketed” to those handed to people on Universal Credit.
Gray (below) said: “Alister Jack has said the critical need for the £20 a week uplift for the poorest households had ‘run its course’ - that is wilful deceit.
"He admits he personally does not know anyone who relies on Universal Credit yet, with this cut, this Tory Cabinet has condemned thousands of desperate families to a miserable winter of poverty.
“Unsurprisingly, Jack will not harbour the same opinion of the fortunes in EU welfare his businesses have gleefully pocketed down the years.
“As a millionaire, he has absolutely no experience of living in poverty. His callous disdain for those who will pay the biggest price for his Government’s obscene policy decisions is sickening.
“This is the hallmark of every Tory Government - they deny society’s poorest an adequate welfare safety net by hoarding the nation’s wealth so they and theirs can divvy up their ever-increasing slice of the pie.
“It is immoral, it is offensive, but the Tories just don’t care.”
Gray has also invited Jack to meet some Universal Credit claimants together in order to see what "life is like on the poverty line".
Jack was criticised on Thursday (October 7) for having ignored an invitation to a meeting with the Poverty Alliance.
The charity had requested a meeting with the Scottish Secretary on September 30 to discuss the then imminent cuts to Universal Credit - but as yet have still received no reply.
The Tories removed the £20-a-week “uplift” from the benefit system on October 6 in a move which campaigners said risked plunging almost a million people into poverty.
A spokesperson for Alister Jack said: "Every penny of EU subsidy supporting Courance Farms is entirely legal, above board and properly declared.
"Mr Jack has never taken a salary from his farm business. Money is reinvested in the company to continue to provide jobs for local people and support the local economy.”
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