THE Duke of Westminster received £799,000 in farm subsidies in the last two years.

Said to be worth £5bn, the duke receives the subsidy on his 1,200-hectare farm near Chester.

The farm subsidy figures published this week show for the first time exactly how much taxpayers' money rich landowners and members of the royal family are receiving from the public purse via the European Union.

It shows that large landowners receive hundreds of thousands of pounds from the taxpayer, while small farmers get very little. The 100 farmers at the bottom of the league received less than £25 in subsidy last year. The lowest was 31p, paid to a farmer known simply as M Kelman.

For decades, campaigners have pressed the government to publish details of how the subsidies - worth £1.7bn last year - were distributed to farmers.

The payments to the farmers have been defended by the Country Land and Business Association (CLA), which was set up 100 years ago to protect the interests of rural landowners.

The CLA said the public receives cheap food as a result of the payments which are needed to support farmers.

Mark Hudson, the CLA president, said: 'The Government should be proud of the benefits our farmers and land managers deliver to the country - in terms of landscape, producing good quality food and supporting rural jobs and businesses.'

He added: 'This payment is only part of the overall income and expenditure of a family business. The bigger estates receive bigger payments because they farm and manage more land with the larger costs in terms of employees and contractors that this involves.'

The figures were published despite opposition from farmers and the Conservatives, who claimed the privacy of farmers would be infringed.