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positively to the support placed on food production which, in a way, has caused some of the problems that we face today. However, it is worth recalling that, as a result, this country has a supply of temperate foodstuffs available to housewives and consumers that is second to none in quality, price and choice. We have not seen a queue for bread for many years. Further vicious reductions in production will only exacerbate the problems, as farmers desperately try to produce more to maintain their incomes and remain in business. At the same time, they are thwarted by the fact that they must operate under a handicap of monetary disadvantage.The European Commission's proposal to reduce the remaining United Kingdom monetary compensatory amounts by only one third is unacceptable and discriminatory. British farmers are being prevented from competing equally with other member states.
The livestock sector, too, is in a fragile state. Its predicament will be exacerbated by the weakening of support for beef and sheep. We have already suffered directly because of the reunification of Germany and the developments in eastern Europe. The beef industry would welcome like a hole in the head a 2 per cent. reduction in the milk quota and the resulting cow and heifer cullings.
A little has been said about the cost of German unification that is being borne by the whole Community. Will the Minister deal with that issue and say why, in the 1988 Budget, provision was made for the cost of reunification? It would have taken a wizard with a magic ball to foresee precisely what the costs would be. We know only too well that this country and others are bearing more than their fair share of that cost. Why did not West Germany pay for the cost of reunification? That is the right and proper course. It is what should have happened but, sadly, has not. We are suffering because of it. The long-term reform of the CAP, particularly the MacSharry proposals, exercises everyone's mind. As a member of the Agriculture Select Committee, I recently went to Brussels with my colleagues to meet Mr. MacSharry as part of our inquiry into animals in transit and to discuss the future of the CAP and his proposals. He reacted in a combative and competent manner to questions put to him. He will not easily be moved from his proposals, which are fatally flawed from the point of view of agriculture in Europe as a whole and this country in particular. It makes no sense to fossilise agriculture by subsidising the inefficient at the expense of the efficient ; nor does it make sense to move to a centrally controlled system of food production. We have seen that in the Soviet Union and know how disastrous it would be and to what it may lead in a few years' time.
It is important to grasp the nettle once and for all and to change from a system of support for food production to one of support for the land and the environment. The farmers who husband our greatest national resource, the countryside, need a period of stability to plan their individual businesses and to look to the future with confidence. The changeover in support should be phased in over perhaps a decade, as it has taken that long for our present problems to develop. There should increasingly be a move towards an awareness of the marketplace, with a positive attitude to the quality of production and food marketing.
We in this country produce some excellent quality food. We have proven management techniques. But we fail miserably on promoting and marketing. I am longing for
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the day when, for example, English or Welsh lamb is sold as a sought-after, high-value commodity in its own right in the shops and supermarkets of Europe. I am longing for the day when British farmers are rewarded directly for responding to the disciplines of the market while maintaining their land in the way that is best for future generations.Let us face up to the fact that the CAP is based on politics and has little to do with agriculture or what is best for agriculture and its most important ancillary industries. One thing is certain : any reforms must be fair across the Community as a whole and must be seen to be fair. I suggest that any cuts in production should be equal across the Community and that national Governments should decide how to implement them in their own countries. Instinctively, I wish to go one step further, but I suspect that at this stage that will not happen. I should like national Governments to take the responsibility, once again, for their own agriculture. In the long term, that is the way forward.
9.1 pm
Mr. Malcolm Moss (Cambridgeshire, North-East) : I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Mrs. Winterton) that this has been an extremely good debate. I am sorry that the time available to me and to other hon. Members has been cut because the Front Benchers need to wind up, and I shall be as brief as I can.
Despite the fact that this year's EEC price review takes place at a time of falling farm incomes, the United Kingdom has had a significant trade deficit in food and drink--therein lies a glimmer of hope for our hard- pressed agriculture sector. The obvious conclusion is that United Kingdom producers are less successful than their European and other counterparts in the world in marketing their products in this country. That problem must be addressed from two angles.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill) that our farmers should get together in co-operatives, as their French counterparts do so successfully. In Wisbech, in my constituency, there is a successful co-operative in the fruit-growing area. That is a way forward. Economies of scale can be gained by co-operation. The Government have a role to play in ensuring that they promote British products and encourage the British public to buy British. They are right to be concerned at the frightening increase in the proportion of the Community budget spent on the CAP and are rightly proud of initiating the CAP reform and proper budgetary discipline. The Government would have more support from farmers in my constituency were it not for the grievance at the fact that they are not allowed to compete fairly and equally with their European competitors. The playing field is certainly not level.
United Kingdom arable farmers must work under two major disadvantages, and I was delighted that my right hon. Friend the Minister recognised them. First, for years the green rates have put Britain at a disadvantage. They subsidise imports and penalise exports. The green money system is not compatible with the single market, but our farmers cannot wait until 1992. Furthermore, the third cut that is offered in the present price review is not acceptable.
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The second disadvantage is that the co- responsibility levy penalises the larger and more efficient British cereal grower. The Government say that they are completely opposed to that, but in this year's price review they propose to double the levy from 3 to 6 per cent. The Minister has an important task on his hands in ensuring that he delivers on both those counts.It seems that the price reductions in the current review will hit arable farmers in north-east Cambridgeshire harder than most. They crop sugar beet, wheat, oilseed rape, some flax, peas and, of course, potatoes. Sugar beet will face a 5 per cent. cut in support ; oilseed rape, flax and peas will each be cut by 3 per cent.; and, as I said a moment ago, wheat growers face a doubling of the co-responsibility levy from 3 to 6 per cent.
There are few alternative crops for the growers in my area. The harsh cuts in support for oilseed rape and flax will force more land back into cereal production. The cuts in sugar support prices seem unjustified since it is the growers and processors who pay levies to meet the cost of the EC regime. The only other cash crop that forms a significant proportion of many of my constituents' farm incomes is potatoes. Currently only those destined for starch come under the EC budget proposals, but that may well change post-1992.
A major problem with potatoes has only just come to light but it will affect the farm incomes of my constituents. The source of much of our seed is Scotland which, with its harsh climate, has produced excellent seed potatoes for many years. The Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland operates a classification system which complies with the EC requirements. It guarantees the buyer of the seed a virus-free and disease- free product. Last year the potato crop of one of my constituents failed totally. When he tested it, he found high levels of virus. His loss amounted to £40,000 or £50,000. As a result of the publicity that we gave to that incident, 80 farmers in my constituency tested the seed that they received from Scotland before setting it this year. Of the 80 who tested the seed at the National Institute of Agricultural Botany at Cambridge, eight had samples with virus levels of between 30 and 40 per cent. That seed is worthless and, luckily, has been replaced by the merchants. That incident raises a number of important questions, such as who is responsible for the seed being so far removed from its classification and certification, and who is responsible for informing the farmers who have taken delivery of seed which might be infected? I have a particular case in mind. I have with me the register of last year's Scottish seed potato crop from which one can locate every farmer, every producer and even the fields in which the potatoes were grown. Two farmers in my constituency took delivery of 24 tonnes from a grower in Scotland. We estimate that his total tonnage is 621 tonnes. Where have the other 537 tonnes gone? It is likely that if 24 tonnes are infected, the whole crop will be infected.
What is happening in Scotland? There seem to be three possibilities. First, the last two mild winters may have led to the aphids which carry the virus over-wintering, but surely the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland realised that and should therefore have introduced more rigorous testing. Secondly, the problem may be well known to growers and to DAFS and they may hope that a climatic change in the next few winters will mean that it will go away. Thirdly, perhaps there is fraud and corruption in Scotland and tickets of certification are
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being attached to bags of seed potatoes which are ordinary wares and not the true Scottish seed which has been properly inspected and passed.I urge the Government to conduct a thorough inquiry into that incident in Scotland. I hope that they will liaise with the National Farmers Union and the National Association of Seed Potato Merchants to examine the sale agreement that farmers undertake because current levels of compensation are derisory. We must also examine the level of legal protection for farmers who face large losses. I ask the Ministry to use all available channels to alert all potato growers to the problem.
CAP reform is vital. We need reforms which satisfy certain conditions. Any price reductions and cuts in quotas should apply to all farmers in all areas equally--there should be no special deals for those in the Mediterranean areas. Set-aside should be used more in the arable sector. Goodness knows, my own fenland landscape could do with a few more trees, but the rate of set-aside, and the money paid, must be at the right level to encourage farmers to take land out of production. The present figures are far too low.
Environmental issues should enter centre stage. Britain wants a framework in which each country selects its own priorities. I congratulate the Minister on his forthright and robust appraisal of the problems facing the industry, and I also thank him for his positive proposals in regard to CAP reform.
9.10 pm
Mr. Ron Davies (Caerphilly) : I apologise for my husky voice. I have overused my vocal cords in the past couple of days in the cause of defeating the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill. I am sure that the Minister will be pleased to learn that I shall not speak for as long tonight!
The hon. Members for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) and for Dorset, West (Sir J. Spicer) and the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) paid special tribute to the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell- Hyslop), who said that his speech tonight might be the last one that he would address to the House. Let me add my tributes to theirs. The hon. Member for Tiverton, with his hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Boscawen), has been a regular attender of our agriculture debates over recent years, and they have both contributed regularly. I have not always agreed with what they have said, but I have come to respect them as Members of Parliament who have served the House with diligence and loyalty. They have served their constituency interests to the best of their abilities, and according to their lights. I am sure that the Minister will acknowledge, when he replies to the debate, that his party will be the poorer for losing their services.
Today's debate has revealed the state of flux in which agriculture finds itself. Despite the apparent differences between the two opening Front- Bench speeches, I believe that there is a large measure of agreement between them about the essential problems of the industry. The debate was, however, given a certain spice by the hon. Member for Suffolk, Central (Mr. Lord)--a Tory Member--who suggested that his party should adopt a policy abandoned by the Labour party after the 1987 general election. Similarly, the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr.
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Wiggin) suggested that the Government adopt a policy rejected by the Liberal party after their defeat, on policy grounds, in the 1983 election.The debate has certainly been well informed, and, with the exception of the apparent disagreement between the Minister and the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery, good natured. I was, however, reassured by the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill), who told me that the Minister's comments had been "restrained".
There is a growing consensus in Britain about agricultural politics, which must be good. If there is one thing that the agriculture industry needs, it is stability and long-term confidence. We believe that, if the growing consensus helps to bring that about, we shall all have served our country and industry well.
There is agreement about three of the principal matters that have been debated this evening. First, on the question of budgetary limits, the Minister, in his typically robust way, made it clear that he intends to resist any breach of those limits in Europe. My hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark) said that the Minister would receive our support. With one or two exceptions, the House believes that the Minister is following the right cause and we wish him well in defending those budgetary limits.
Secondly, there is agreement that there must be reform of the common agricultural policy. We all recognise that and many of us believe that it is desirable. Thirdly, there is largely agreement that we must now try to change the direction of agricultural support away from commodity price support and redirect it into environmental and countryside payments. That case was put effectively and persuasively by the hon. Member for Congleton (Mrs. Winterton). I was pleased to hear that she now accepts the policies that the Labour party has advocated, at least for the previous couple of years. If there is a disagreement between the two principal sides in the debate it is a difference in the mechanism that we think is necessary to ensure that the changes take place in an orderly way. It appears that the Government are relying over-heavily on the application of market forces. They will seek robustly--as is the Minister's way--to secure price cuts in the belief that the cuts will lead to a restructuring of British agriculture.
My hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, South-West (Mr. Jones), the hon. Member for Ynys Mo n (Mr. Jones) and the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery made it clear that that process would have a devastating effect on the rural communities that they represent. It will mean farm mergers and bankruptcies. It will also mean that farmers will continue to leave the land in large numbers and that the rural communities in their constituencies--and in many constituencies in the north and west of Britain --will be impoverished. We believe that the change must be a managed change, which takes account of the real needs of the British countryside, of the British consumer and of British farmers. We are not prepared to rely to the same extent that the Minister appears to do on the mechanism of the market. In opening the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields pressed the Minister for details of the alternative policy that he wishes to adopt to redirect the payments for countryside management and environmental purposes. The Minister was untypically reserved in offering the House details of his policy. I was reminded of a report that I read of an address by the hon. Member for
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Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry), the Under- Secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, to the Oxford farming conference this year. He began with the memorable words :"What I say neither is nor isn't Government policy".
To judge by the Government's response to the Commission's proposal, it neither was nor was not Government policy as the Government do not have a policy for it not to be.
If we are unable to judge the Government's position from their policy for the future, we can at least examine their record over the recent past, and it is a pretty miserable record at that. Last year British farming sank further into unprecedented indebtedness now totalling £7 billion. The farmers who continued to struggle were forecast to earn real incomes only half of the levels of those in the early 1980s. In response to that domestic catastrophe, the Minister talks continuously about the importance of restructuring agriculture in other EC states. We know what he means by restructuring : he means throwing farmers off the land. It must be said that it is a subject on which he is well qualified to speak as he knows a lot about it. During the 1980s--10 years of Conservative Government--we lost farmers at the rate of six each day. However, since the present Minister was promoted to guard our agricultural interests at Cabinet level, that steady flow has turned into a flood. Not six but 16 farmers a day go out of business. Wales and Scotland both have a higher proportion of the work force who are still involved in agriculture than has England. In Wales, we had a recent report from Professor Midmore of Aberystwyth university which warned that a further 11,000 jobs might be lost in the next two years. Two weeks ago, the Scottish agricultural college warned that half of Scotland's farm workers will be redundant by 2015.
If the Government's record is one of a huge decline in the United Kingdom's agricultural work force, can they claim that at least it has benefited the consumer? Not a bit. We all now know the figure used by the National Consumer Council in its 1988 paper, in which the cost of the common agricultural policy was identified as £14 a week for each family of four persons. The financial costs of agriculture are conventionally denominated in ecus and the inappropriately named green currencies.
Costs are also paid in environmental terms. If we were to add the environmental to the financial costs of the common agricultural policy, we should find that the true figure was far higher. There has been some tinkering at the edges in an attempt to reduce environmental damage, and some of the schemes, although limited, have been successful. Others have so far failed, largely because of the Ministry's mismanagement and lack of urgency. An example was the farm and conservation grant scheme payments for pollution control which were promised but never came. Over most of the country, we still have an agricultural policy that encourages environmental destruction--the same policy which has ruined so much of our landscape, polluted our water and destroyed our wildlife habitat.
It is also a sad fact that British farmers, by and large, are held in low esteem by many members of the public. A notable exception is the hon. Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North (Mr. Howells). Let me hasten to say that
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I do not blame the farmers for that state of affairs. They are in the same position as the publicans of biblical times. I should add--and I am sure that the Minister will appreciate the analogy-- that the biblical publicans were the equivalent of today's revenue men. Asked to do unpopular things, they do them as best they can. However, as they can survive only by practising a policy that is universally derided, they are bound to be criticised by the public who pay their wages. Farmers are certainly not assisted by a Ministry which is widely disbelieved by the public and which has shown itself to be incapable, as currently structured, of taking an independent regulatory role to ensure at least the safety, if not the financial well- being, of the consumer.If the Ministry's record is pretty dismal--and I am sorry that the Minister finds it a source of amusement that 70 per cent. of the British public believe that his Ministry cannot be believed when it talks about food safety--can we at least pay tribute to the fact that the industry is prepared for the challenges of the single market? I am afraid that we cannot. United Kingdom farming is singularly unprepared to face 1993 with confidence. Investment levels are pitifully low. The National Farmers Union briefing on the Government publication"Agriculture in the UK : 1990" said :
"Over the five years to 1989 farmers' annual investment in fixed capital fell by 40 per cent."
Our own estimates suggest a further fall of about 15 per cent. in 1990. That slump in investment is additional evidence of the gravity of agriculture's economic crisis. It is especially worrying as 1992 and the single market approach. If private sector investment is low, can we look to the Government to provide assistance? Again, unfortunately, we cannot.
Let us consider the question of the slaughtering industry, which was raised by the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery and is of great concern to us in Wales. Last December, I asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what assistance he had given to help slaughterhouses in the Province reach European Community export standards. The reply was that, over the five years to 31 March, £4.5 million had been paid for improvements to slaughterhouses in Northern Ireland. Encouraged by this, I tabled a similar question to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Back came the answer that the Department does not provide any special financial assistance for compliance with EC standards in slaughterhouses. Ditto Wales ; ditto Scotland.
In Northern Ireland, thanks to its relatively progressive policy of encouraging private investment, 74 per cent. of slaughterhouses meet European export standards. In Scotland, the figure is 35 per cent. ; in England it is 7 per cent. ; and in Wales it is a miserable 5 per cent. How on earth does the Minister expect British agriculture to compete with European agriculture and Northern Ireland agriculture in the years following 1 January 1993? Last month's excellent report on the slaughtering sector from the Farmers' Union of Wales should dispel any complacency still lingering in the Minister's mind. We have also seen the survey of all British slaughterhouses by the Meat and Livestock Commission, which showed a hidebound industry with very low investment. According to the commission's chief economist, "Some abattoirs are not sure what is required of them, and some do not see 1992 as a reality."
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What kind of preparation for 1993 is this? What kind of lead are the Government giving to ensure that agriculture is fit to face the challenges of the single market?I suppose that the slaughtering sector should heave a sigh of relief that all that it has suffered is malign neglect. Not so the state veterinary service. Hon. Members will be familiar with the disaster that has befallen the veterinary investigation service, involving the recent closure of another seven centres, with the loss of 52 posts--an act that the Minister describes as
"improvements in the quality, efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the service".
It is a view that is not shared by the practitioners. Mr. A. J. C. Parker, secretary of the Cornwall Veterinary Association, writing in the Veterinary Record, said of the closure of the Truro centre : "The chief veterinary officer is now expecting the profession in Cornwall to provide material for their nearest investigation centre, Starcross, which, for some areas of Cornwall, represents a 300-mile round trip. He must be joking."
I do not think it is much of a joke, and I do not think that British agriculture will find it much of a joke. That is just the veterinary investigation service. Other aspects of the state veterinary service have been cut, with staffing levels now down 20 per cent. on the figure of 10 years ago, at a time of unprecedented public concern about food quality and safety--not to mention animal welfare.
Research and development has gone the same way. Just over a month ago, the Ministry issued a press notice which said :
"Baroness Trumpington urges food industry to invest in R and D"-- and I am surprised that the notice did not have a sub-text saying, "because the Ministry of Agriculture certainly will not do it on your behalf". According to the Agriculture and Food Research Council officials, 300 further jobs in agricultural research and development will go this year.
In the Ministry's own directly-provided service--the Agricultural Development and Advisory Service--a crisis is building up. According to its director-general, Peter Bunyan, the farm and countryside service, which is responsible for the very service that the hon. Member for Congleton thinks will be at the heart of our system of agriculture,
"is down to a level where it is difficult for those who remain to cope with the current workloads."
We have looked at the dismal state of the agricultural infrastructure in the United Kingdom. What about marketing? The difficulties here were vividly illustrated by the hon. Member for Ludlow. Last year, the food and drink sector of the United Kingdom economy had the largest deficit of all sectors. Why should this be so when the lion's share of the deficit was with countries that have climates similar to, or worse than, our own? Could this, as was suggested by the hon. Gentleman, be related to the fact that our own marketing and promotion organisation--Food From Britain--has a budget one seventh the size of that in France or Germany? Or could it be that the confidence of British consumers in domestic produce is diminished by their inability to trust the Ministry to safeguard their welfare and safety?
However, there is hope for the industry. That hope is to be found in reforming agriculture policy away from overwhelming reliance on price support as the mechanism for maintaining farm incomes. It must go towards the concept of environmental management, or green premiums.
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As we refine and hone our policy, it is increasingly clear that the Labour party is a source of inspiration for the Government's position on countryside management via agricultural policy. It is a policy that we advocated two years ago. It is a policy now belatedly being accepted by this Government. The trouble is that, even though the Government are adopting the policy, they are not doing much at the moment about implementing it.Let us look at the Government's claims about their achievements in this area. The Minister wrote in The Times on 1 April--April fool's day, quite appropriately--as follows :
"Support through payments linked to production must fall and there must be more emphasis on direct payments for custody of the countryside. Britain",
he proudly proclaimed,
"has been the leader in this change."
Later in the same article the Minister wrote :
"We must also begin to bring agricultural prices up to a more realistic level."
That is an odd position to take if one believes that farmers should be paid more for countryside management and less for crop production. It is also somewhat inconsistent with the Minister's self-proclaimed pre-eminence among the price cutters in the Council of Ministers. Perhaps he can explain how higher food prices can be reconciled with food surpluses and the need to liberalise trade and reduce the gap between world and European Community prices. Nor am I sure how this fits in with the Government's proclaimed view of reducing inflation as its central economic objective.
As for the claim that Britain is in the lead in introducing environmental criteria into agricultural policy--precisely the point developed by the Minister in his opening speech--let us turn to a more impartial source than The Times. We could not have one more impartial than Agra-Europe, which commented thus three weeks ago on the same subject :
"The Dutch and the Danes have already agreed agricultural environmental legislation which is far in advance of that in other EC countries."
So much for the Minister's claim.
The specific areas in which the Minister boasted so much for Britain were as follows :
"Our schemes for Environmentally Sensitive Areas set the pattern for Europe, as have our encouragement of farm woodlands and broadleaf planting, our establishment of nitrate-sensitive areas, our aid for diversification and our support for organic farming."
Let us consider those points individually.
ESAs have been a success, I acknowledge that, as we have acknowledged it continually since they were adopted. However, the payment levels were fixed and have not been reviewed, and in the period since they were fixed they have been effectively devalued by 23.4 per cent. The Government have refused to maintain their value--some commitment to ESAs.
The Ministry makes great claims for farm woodlands and broadleaf planting. They are admirable schemes, but his target is 12,000 hectares per annum. The latest figures from the Forestry Commission show a planting total of barely half the target. In Wales, where we have particular problems as a result of the decline in farm incomes, we have had a grand total since the scheme has been implemented of 93 hectares over three years under the farm woodland scheme. For diversification, one of the Minister's own schemes for the maintenance of farm incomes by encouraging
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alternative enterprises, the story is pretty much the same. Expenditure during the first three years of the scheme's operation totalled less than £5 million and, according to recent Ministry figures, during that period farm incomes fell by a massive £152 million.The most ridiculous claim is the one that the Minister makes for his assistance to organic farming. He has been promising us year after year that he will shortly be announcing his organic conversion scheme. It appears to me that the Government still hold the view of the right hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley), who described organic farming as "a way to rip off the customer". We have never had a repudiation of that view from the Ministry of Agriculture. Now that the right hon. Member has forcibly left the Government and decided to spend more time with his family, perhaps the Minister would take this opportunity to repudiate that view and assert that organic farming does have a role to play.
I can imagine the Minister making that announcement, kitted out in a purple track suit. Hee would be the Government's own Mr. Green--the David Icke of the Tory party--though it would require some nimble footwork to accommodate Mr. Icke's bizarre spiritualism into the Minister's High Church Anglicanism.
I said at the outset that we had shared objectives. But our means of achieving them are very different. We agree on the necessity to redirect support away from production and towards environmental goals. We recognise that we shall in future operate within international trading constraints which may make even the regular EC budgetary wrangles seem easy and harmonious. Where we differ is in our approach to the type of assistance to agriculture which is measured not in ecus and aggregate measures of support but in our commitment to the agricultural infrastructure, to investment, to training, to research and development, to adequate veterinary manpower, to food safety measures and to marketing.
Those matters are not the subject of GATT negotiation or EC legal cases on unfair competition. Neither GATT negotiators nor EC Commissioners care two hoots about how much we support those aspects of our agriculture industries --except, in the case of the latter, the other EC members probably support the British Government's destructive line on the ground that it benefits their national agricultural industries. After all, the more damage the British Government do here, the less other member Governments have to invest to continue out-competing us.
It is in the interest of us all--farmers, consumers and environmentalists-- to get our agriculture policy right. We have shared objectives on the central thrust of agricultural restructuring. But the Government must recognise that there is a role for the public sector. They must restore the cuts that they have made in investment in that infrastructure. Only by doing that shall we be in a position in 1993 to compete on a level playing field with our trading partners in Europe.
9.36 pm
Mr. Gummer : I shall reply to what has been a valuable and interesting debate. It was marked on the Government Benches by a degree of realism which was not always heard
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in some speeches from Opposition Members, and it was certainly not heard in the speech of the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies). That hon. Gentleman, like the hon. Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark), wants to have the argument both ways. On the one hand he demands that we have considerable reductions in spending through the common agricultural policy. On the other, he bemoans the fact that British farmers have lower incomes. The hon. Member for South Shields chided the EC for not accepting the American proposition, as he put it, of a 75 per cent. cut in support. Clearly, he wants a 75 per cent. cut in support. How he ties that in with the kind, sweet remarks he makes for the farmers I do not know.It is clear that the hon. Member for South Shields wants to have it both ways. Half his speech was aimed at farmers while the other half was aimed at consumers. The first half was designed to say how nice it would be if farmers had bigger incomes and the second half was based on the principle of how nice it would be if consumers got lower prices and taxpayers paid less taxes.
My hon. Friends and I have been honest enough to say that one cannot square that circle. We must face the fact that if we are to bring the budgetary arrangements of the CAP under control, we must move to more realistic prices, at a pace that the industry can accept. The hon. Member for South Shields proclaimed today his conversion to the market. His phrase about the market will be quoted against him in every debate in which Labour Members take part, for if only they had been converted to the market in all other respects, what a different nation Britain would have been.
I hope the hon. Gentleman does not mean by his references to the market that farmers should be deprived of all support. I hope that at least he accepts my statement that there is a continuing need for support for agriculture because we cannot ask British and European farmers to produce food under conditions which are severely more onerous than conditions that apply elsewhere in the world, and not expect to give them some support. My hon. Friends have clearly pointed out a number of areas of which that is true.
The hon. Member for South Shields discussed what he called the paltry amount of my budget that I spend on the environment. In doing so he did himself the disservice of using the figures. He mentioned 7 per cent. of the budget. It is strange that he did not mention the fact that 80 per cent. of the budget is dictated from Brussels, so the 7 per cent. of which he spoke represents well over a quarter of the budget over which I have control. When it comes to setting an example to the rest of Europe I can thus claim to be the only Minister in Europe who can point to the part of the budget over which he has control as evidence of his concern for environmental health--
Mr. Allan Stewart (Eastwood) : More than a third of the budget, in fact.
Mr. Gummer : Indeed. I was being too generous to the hon. Member for South Shields, perhaps. We in Britain are setting an example that has been increasingly followed by other countries in the Community--
Dr. David Clark : Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Gummer : On this one occasion.
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Dr. Clark : I shall be brief, but it is important to clarify this matter. What I said was that over a period of years farmers should come to rely primarily for their income on the market, but that we believe that they need support. That is why we have advocated a green premium for positive management of the environment and to develop less intensive farming. If we ask them to look after the countryside, we must admit that farmers still need support.Mr. Gummer : I remind the hon. Gentleman of his speech, in which he lauded the American proposal of a 75 per cent. cut in support over the next 10 years. With all the green premiums in the world, I do not believe that British farmers can achieve such a cut at that pace. It is not humanly possible for them to do that ; and if the hon. Gentleman did not mean that, he should not have chided the Community for not agreeing to the 75 per cent. cut. The hon. Member for South Shields cannot have it both ways. If he looks at the record, he will find that what I say about his speech is correct.
I have a great deal of sympathy with and respect for the hon. Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North (Mr. Howells). He is a working, practical farmer who always addresses the House with the charm and wit that we have grown to love. His speech today, however, did not meet his usual standards. It is not possible to be a member of a party that is wholly committed to our membership of the European Community and at the same time to pretend that we can run an agriculture policy in Britain different from the common agricultural policy. It was not good enough for the hon. Gentleman to say, in response to a seated intervention that should not have been made, that the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was responsible for everything : 80 per cent. of my budget is decided in Brussels. I happen to think that that is right. I support the common agricultural policy, and I wish to reform it. In that I differ from some of my colleagues, whose views on repatriation are at least credible. But the hon. Gentleman neither wants repatriation nor is prepared to accept the inevitability of a common agricultural policy, and that is not a tenable position. Never before have we accused the hon. Gentleman of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. One reason why I was so sharp with the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) was that it is my experience that his party is extremely good at saying what sounds right locally, knowing that it will never have to carry out its proposals anywhere else. I absolve the hon. Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North from doing that in all circumstances except this evening's debate. I hope that he will read again what he said. He cannot tell the people of Wales or of the United Kingdom that the Liberal party now favours a policy that denies the realities of the Common Market which he sought to join and of which he is a supporter. As such, he must accept its inevitable results, which are that the Community makes these decisions. If we want those changes, they have to take place within the Community.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Selby (Mr. Alison) put those points very clearly and I was pleased that he drew attention to some of the minor irritations--some of them caused by Government--which add together to the feeling in the farming community that people outside do not respect or understand them sufficiently. There is a real problem in Britain where the links between town and countryside are much less strong than they are in many
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other countries. Those of us who represent agricultural constituencies and who love and care for the countryside recognise that it is often difficult to explain even to some of our fellow Members of Parliament who represent urban areas quite what the problems of the countryside are. I said in response to a question in the Select Committee that there is a curious view in the House that poverty is all right so long as it comes thatched. There is a much sharper attitude towards urban poverty than towards rural poverty. Similarly, people are less interested in the difficulties of the countryside because the vast majority of people are urban and suburban. We have to find a better way of explaining to them what they need and how they depend upon those who live in our rural areas.I know that the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) disagrees with my views on the European Community, but some of the points that he made today were extremely valuable and I shall be watching them with great care.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop), in what he told us might have been a valedictory agricultural speech, was particularly forceful. I join others in congratulating him on a long service to the House and a particular quality and directness of speech. There are few hon. Members to whom one is more careful to listen and to reply for he has a reputation which is second to none for guarding the interests of his constituents. I do not agree with him about quotas. They are the means of depriving British agriculture of its major advantages of competitiveness. I do not think that they can be borne either by the industry or by the public. They would fossilise the industry and they would be impossible for the public to accept. I know that my hon. Friend disagrees with me and I believe that we will continue disagreeing on that issue, but I honour him for the clarity and the way in which he put that forward.
I have to say to the hon. Member for Ynys Mo n (Mr. Jones) that it would be of benefit if he were to look carefully at the figures and the facts before suggesting that the proposals would mean cuts for sheep producers in the hills. One reason why the Government have been prepared to accept the Commission's proposal of a 2 per cent. cut in the sheep price is the extra help that will go to sheep producers in the most difficult areas. That is why we support it. Yet the hon. Gentleman was saying that it would cut the incomes of people in those same less-favoured areas. The whole process is to try to help those in most need and that is why I increased the HLCAs by 14 per cent. and increased the suckler cow premium to the highest possible rate in those areas where it is most difficult to produce animals. That is why I have consistently supported the means by which we have helped farmers in the most difficult areas of the country.
One thing that farmers and Members of Parliament should do occasionally is show some gratitude on behalf of the industry for those things that we get right. The public as a whole react better if they feel that taxpayers' money is welcomed instead of always being asked for more. We have to get the tone right if urban and suburban people are to continue to support us.
My hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Central (Mr. Lord) spoke about egg producers. I still think that he is not entirely right. If our egg producers really stamped all those boxes with, "Eggs produced in Britain" and really showed that British eggs are more safely produced than other eggs,
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and got the Labour party to stop bashing British food, we could make our higher standards into a marketing advantage. We must try to improve those standards.
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