How should the potential £24m slipper farmer money be re-distributed? What better ways are there for encouraging Scottish land users to re-stock with livestock?

ACCORDING to cabinet secretary Richard Lochhead, £1 to a slipper farmer is £1 too much - and many of Scotland’s hard working farmers might agree with that sentiment. But only if the monies taken from these so called slipper farmers were to be re-distributed throughout Scottish farming.
But that is now patently not the case, industry bodies - with the exception of the Scottish Beef Cattle Association -  have meekly welcomed this turn of events.
This is nothing short of a disgrace - £1 taken out of rural Scotland and returned to the coffers of Brussels is definitely £1 too much; but for up to £24m to be removed at one stroke beggars belief!
This turn of events must not be allowed to happen! The money, if removed from inactive farmers, must be kept within the Scottish farming industry. Nothing else is acceptable.
It is also completely unacceptable for the Scottish Government to simply through up its hands, and claim that, as the payments would be seen as cross compliance penalties, then they must be returned to Brussels. Even the most dim witted must see that the status quo is preferable to that.
Yes the current system is far from perfect, but it is unarguable that a proportion of the slipper farmer payments remains circulating within the farming sector, with 90% plus certainly kept within rural Scotland. That money - all £24m of it - cannot be allowed to disappear in a political whim.
The Scottish Government must be prepared to set out in great detail out all the reasoning behind this move - and then it must be debated fully with the industry and in parliament if necessary before further implementation takes place.
Making a hasty announcement of such magnitude at a regional cattle show - no matter how worthy an event Keith Show is - smacks of a knee-jerk reaction to a problem which has not been properly seen through.