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Brexit Daily Mail

Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre was given £88,000 in EU subsidies in 2014

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By Rebecca Stewart, Trends Editor

March 31, 2016 | 3 min read

The Daily Mail's longstanding editor Paul Dacre received £88,000 in EU subsidies in 2014, according to a report filed by BuzzFeed news.

Dacre is said to have been given the subsidies for his country houses in Sussex and Scotland, with the former apparently earning him £29,118.76 during the year, and the latter £59,534.85.

The payments were made to a P Dacre under the common agricultural policy (CAP); one of the EU institutions regularly criticised by the Daily Mail, which called it "cripplingly expensive" in a January editorial.

The editor's 20,000-acre Langwell Estate in the Scottish Highlands was purchased by Dacre and his wife for £2.45m six years ago according to public documents. Since then he has claimed EU subsidies on the plot, including the above £59K sum – which included £3000 for the “encouragement of tourism activities” on the estate and £7,000 designated for “farmers in areas with handicaps," said BuzzFeed.

Dacre is thought to have received at least £460,000 in EU farming subsidies since 2011. Separately, he has set up a business to develop renewable energy, with plans to build a hydroelectric power station on his Scottish land, which could see him receive government green energy subsidies – a policy that has also been attacked by the Daily Mail.

A Langwell spokesperson told the Guardian: "The agricultural subsidies you refer to were available to every farmer in Britain and, in the case of Scotland, included reimbursements for extensive woodland planting schemes (native – not commercial trees) to improve the ecology of this wildly beautiful and remote area.

"In their determination to make Langwell economically and environmentally sustainable, the owners are spending considerable sums of their own money on developing the farm, estate and its buildings. Despite this, the business runs at a loss."

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