House of Commons Hansard Debates for 4 Dec 1991

Mr. Gummer : I dare say that if I give way to the hon. Gentleman I shall hear the alternative Labour party policy.

Mr. Home Robertson : I wish that the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food would stop trying to trivialise these debates, which are very important to many people who work for the industry in rural areas all over Britain. These are not petty party politics. We are dealing with the future of the countryside. I wish that the Minister would bear that in mind. Has he been able to put a figure on the number of farm workers' jobs that would be threatened by the proposals?

Mr. Gummer : I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is right. The MacSharry proposals affect not only farmers and large landowners but employees. They affect all sections of the community and treat farm workers as though they do not count. They regard only landowners as being suitable people to be looked after. The British farmer often employs up to three people, who have families. He is often in partnership with his brother, son or daughter, so together they look after a number of families. Yet the headage limits to which they are subject do not take that into account.

I am sorry that the hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) feels that my mentioning an official Labour document, which I think was published last Friday and which accepts that Mr. MacSharry's plan will be accepted, is trivialising the subject. I am highlighting the seriousness of the situation. Any party that cares about the future of British agriculture would not put that in a document. It would say : "The Labour party wholeheartedly supports the Government in their battle to ensure that Mr. MacSharry's plan is not accepted."

The fact that that does not appear in Labour's document reminds us how uninterested in agriculture it is. I exempt the hon. Member for East Lothian from that criticism. It is a pity that he is not on the Front Bench, as in his previous incarnation, when we knew that Labour had at least one person who understood the problems experienced on a farm. He knew about the problems of quite large farms, I admit, but we miss his contribution.

Mr. Alex Carlile (Montgomery) : Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Gummer : No, I must get on. The hon. and learned Gentleman has plenty of time to make his speech.

I shall give the House the details of the proposals to show what we are up against. Farmers in the United Kingdom would have to set aside 14 per cent. of their arable land. The average for the rest of the European Community would be 9 per cent. In the rest of the Community, almost 70 per cent. of set-aside will be paid for, but only 40 per cent. in the United Kingdom. United Kingdom sheep producers would have 15 per cent. of their eligible animals excluded from the ewe premium,

Column 290

compared with a Community average of 3 per cent. They would bear 60 per cent. of the impact of the new headage limits, although the United Kingdom breeding flock represents only 28 per cent. of the European Community flock.

It cannot be argued that the United Kingdom flock has caused market problems in the sheep sector. Between 1984 and 1990, claims for the ewe premium in the United Kingdom grew by 36 per cent. The comparable figure for Germany was 72 per cent., for Ireland 114 per cent., for the Netherlands 170 per cent. and for Italy 746 per cent. Countries that have caused the problems in the sheep industry would barely be affected by the MacSharry plans, but this country--the traditional supplier of sheepmeat for the Community--would be almost uniquely affected. That is why the subject is serious and why I am not being trivial in showing how dangerous it is to give aid and comfort to those who propose this preposterous plan.

Mr. Alex Carlile : Will the Secretary of State give way on that point?

Mr. Gummer : I must get on. Many hon. Members wish to speak.

Mr. Carlile : On that point.

Mr. Gummer : As long as the hon. and learned Gentleman understands that I am not giving way again, I will give way to him.

Mr. Carlile : I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I agree with everything that he said about headage limits. When he is negotiating, will he make it clear to his European colleagues that a British farmer's wife who is in partnership with her husband plays a genuine role in the farm, because in many continental countries English, Welsh and Scottish partnership law is not properly understood? We must protect our partnerships.

Mr. Gummer : Not only will I, but I have done so. I made the Commission change its proposals on that basis. The hon. and learned Gentleman is perfectly right and I shall put it clearly to Mr. MacSharry that it would be outrageous if it were possible to have a partnership with one's mistress that one could not have with one's wife. I would find it particularly difficult to propose that to the British people.

The extension of headage limits to the suckler cow premium would exclude about 8 per cent. of suckler cows in the United Kingdom--twice the Community average--and I point out to Scottish Members that the figure would be nearly 30 per cent. in Scotland.

The proposals, therefore, are unacceptable and unnecessary and do not meet the real issues. We cannot accept them because they discriminate not only against the United Kingdom but against efficiency, speciality and excellence. They make it imposssible for Europe to compete with the rest of the world, they make a distinction between northern farming and southern farming and they discriminate against particular kinds of southern farming. For example, extensive farming is necessary on the poor ground of some parts of Portugal. Is it reasonable to discriminate against that?

Mr. Kiechle, the German Minister, recently made a speech saying how much he supported the British position on non-discrimination. That is another reason why the suggestion that we shall accept Mr. MacSharry's scheme

Column 291

as a whole is rather wide of the mark. Mr. Kiechle said that he accepted our position on discrimination. I know why. How could the system discriminate against the poorest farmers in eastern Germany who have large farms, low productivity and a sad history? There is natural concern among farmers which I share. We are faced with great uncertainty ; we have not yet reached a solution on GATT ; and we have not begun the first round on many dossiers in the discussion on CAP reform. That is another reason why I find it difficult to say that the MacSharry proposals will be accepted by the Council of Ministers. The hon. Member for South Shields cannot say that when some of the proposals are not even in written form yet. The idea that anybody could have decided to accept them or not surely is wide of the mark.

The problem for farmers is that they cannot judge where they should invest, how they should prepare for the future and what they should take into account until those decisions are made. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan has left the Chamber, but perhaps his two hon. Friends would be kind enough to tell him my additional answer to his question. One reason why it is impossible to quantify the results of the negotiation is that the negotiation has not been completed. I would not wish to mislead farmers when the current uncertainty is causing much difficulty.

Mr. Andrew Welsh : Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Gummer : No, I will not give way again.

The only thing that would be worse than uncertainty would be to be given duff information. I certainly will not do that. However, I can tell the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan what I am seeking to achieve.

I wish to remove the proposals that discriminate against larger farms, against the United Kingdom, against northern farms, against specialists and against the position in, for example, Spain, Portugal and eastern Germany. That is the first area that must be put right. Secondly, all the members of the Community have agreed--I think without exception--that there will be no agreement on anything until there is agreement on everything. It would not be proper to start talking about such matters in their final form until we know about olive oil, sugar and wine and the other products about which there are real issues to be raised.

Thirdly, there is a concern to explain to the Community that if there are to be compensations, we cannot create a whole new system of compensatory payments which will last for ever at a price which will never be able to be paid. I am sure that the hon. Member for South Shields will be pleased to hear that I agree with him on that. In a document which contained precious little about what he would do for the future of British agriculture, he had one crumb of comfort for the farmer. I point it out because it is hidden away in a lot of business about freedom of information and other issues about which he is so keen. In the middle of the document, he says that if the MacSharry proposals were accepted--he says that they would be--they would not last very long because they would be too expensive. That is why they must not be accepted. They would cost far too much and would be impossible for the future. That is why many countries, including, for example, Italy, are so deeply opposed to the proposals.

Column 292

Of course, I cannot go into detail about what we would seek to do, but I shall give one or two indications because that is only fair to the House. In the arable sector, it is clearly important to reduce the end price and to ensure that farmers are able to continue to look after the land. That means that we must have a set-aside system. However, it would be wrong to have a system which meant that some countries set aside land so that other countries could produce more. Therefore, we seek a system which will share out the burden of set-aside between the major producers in particular and will not exclude some countries while laying the burden on others. It is also important that we do not allow many farms to be excluded on the ground of their size. To have a set-aside system which applied only to farms in the north of Europe would discriminate considerably. I am happy to have a de minimis figure which would avoid the bureaucratic nightmare that we do not want. However, it would have to be a de minimis figure and not one inclined to exclude very large numbers of producers to the small number.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman : When considering the regulations for set-aside, which is a very valuable tool in the present negotiations, will the Minister make them rather more positive by enabling farmers who have land set aside--especially, perhaps, for one year--to use the year to clean the land rather than merely to cut it? In that way, when the land eventually came back into production farmers would use fewer chemicals which would be even more environmentally friendly.

Mr. Gummer : I am certainly open to my hon. Friend's suggestions. I am not keen on one-year set-aside schemes. I do not think that one can be sufficiently environmentally friendly from one year to another. The longer scheme is widely thought to be better and I should like it to be more at the centre of the proposals, as I want the environment as a whole to be at the centre. However, I shall certainly consider whether her suggestion could be included and I am sure that she is right to suggest the positive rather than the negative.

As for the beef regime--a second area that we have not yet discussed--there is another reason why it might be thought that the hon. Gentleman was a little premature in suggesting that we had already agreed these matters. We are about to have our first discussions. The Commission's proposals on beef are absolute nonsense. They do nothing to solve the problem. Indeed, they do not begin to face the problem. They only make the problem worse in certain areas, not least in Scotland. I do not understand how we are supposed to have a system which deals best with the most difficult parts of the Community but which makes matters worse in Scotland and Wales, but that is what the scheme does. It does not work because it does not meet the problems of intervention. We must reduce the degree to which intervention plays a part and increase that to which the premium plays a part, and I am negotiating along those lines. I hope that we can find an answer.

The spokesman for the Liberal Democrats will probably agree that to go into further detail could make it less easy to get the type of consensus that we want. It will not be perfect, it will not be what I should like, but it will be better than what is before us--better in terms of our particular problem--and I hope that it will deal entirely with the discrimination.

Column 293

It is unacceptable to have headage limits for sheep--I do not mean new headage limits, but the present ones--because they do not deal with the problem. It is not the number of ewes that a particular unit has which causes the problem ; it is the increase in the production of ewes generally. That is a wholly different argument and it is therefore important to concentrate on it.

My priority is to get rid of discrimination and we shall have to find out which of the various possibilities will be the best alternative to that which is now proposed. I should not like to commit myself too closely to any one of them because my priority--in negotiating one must be clear about one's priority--is to get rid of discrimination. That is the one thing that really matters in the House and we must not undermine it in our negotiations.

On the cost to the European Community budget, I do not believe that it is sensible to have a system that costs more. We must have a system that uses what we spend more effectively. If, for example, we reduce the share of the system taken up by intervention in beef, we should be able to get that money more directly to the farmer. Locking beef up in a cold store, paying the storage man to look after it and then paying more to export it is not a sensible use of Community money and it does not reach the farmer. That type of change would enable one to say honestly that a redirection of the money already spent could do a great deal to improve the situation of farmers. Mr. Eric Martlew (Carlisle) rose--

Mr. Gummer : I am sorry, but I shall not give way. I must end because other hon. Members wish to speak.

We are determined to ensure that--

Mr. Martlew : It is important.

Mr. Gummer : There is a great deal that is important, but the hon. Gentleman may catch your eye later, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

In trying to negotiate we must give considerable credence to the particular problem of the most difficult areas. Therefore, I commit myself in the negotiations to support the special financial help for farming in the less- favoured areas. Even though hon. Members disagree on many issues, I believe that the House will agree that I have tried to make that a priority within the narrow band of the 17 or so per cent. of my budget which I control directly. I have tried to do that year in, year out because I believe that in environmental terms--if in no others--keeping people, their sheep and their cattle in the hillsides is essential if the hillsides are to be kept as they should be. I am sure that hon. Members will have noticed that in the recent announcement of environmentally sensitive areas--especially those in the Lake district, Exmoor and Dartmoor--I have clearly taken that view, with regard to not only hillsides but moorland areas. I shall continue to do that.

I also believe that the common agricultural policy must be much more centred on the environment. It is not satisfactory to change a policy such as that which we have at the moment, and to have add-ons for the environment. That is not sensible and I seek to move the Community in the appropriate direction.

In the negotiations, as in so many other matters, the British attitude is in advance of others. We are the most

Column 294

environmentally friendly Agriculture Ministry in Europe and we continue to bring others behind us. They are copying our proposals and schemes. I hope that we shall be increasingly successful. It would be possible and proper to provide aid for people who are especially disadvantaged by the changes--for example, the very small farmer in Portugal who wants to get out and to join his land to that of his neighbour. I want to help him to do that. I see no reason why we should not have a pension scheme connected to restructuring, but the aid is supposed to affect the very small farms directly. It would obtain to the person who had gone out and not to his heirs and successors and it would involve his going out and someone else taking on his land. That would be a restructuring aid.

It is also important to ensure that attention is paid to other areas. We cannot have a discriminatory system in milk which works so badly against the British dairy industry. We do not need the new cow premium. It would be better to operate on the present system and to get that right than to have a discriminatory cow premium. It is important to ensure that, whatever happens, it applies throughout the Community. The tobacco regime should be properly restricted. I cannot believe that it is sensible to spend as much as we do at present per hectare on tobacco. I find it odd when it is suggested that it would be better for other people to grow the tobacco and for us to import it--as though that would help the health of the Community. I do not accept that, but we should look more carefully at the way in which we spend money on tobacco.

It is important to ensure that the negotiations take account of the whole Community and not simply the northern products that have been put on the table first. To accept those when we do not have a deal on a range of other things would not be a satisfactory result for those of us in the north.

I wish now to consider the timetable for negotiations. It is difficult to see how a sensible start can be made on the discussions if we do not know the outcome of the GATT round. If we do not know what we have committed ourselves to in the GATT round, it is difficult to know how to decide the reforms.

Signore Goria, the Italian Minister, has shown a remarkable grasp of those issues throughout the debate. He made a powerful intervention claiming that we must know where we are before we can take decisions, or we shall be paying twice--once in respect of the negotiations and then for the GATT round. That would not be satisfactory.

I cannot tell the farming community that this will be a short negotiation. Some Opposition Members might claim that the negotiations have already ended. I would love to have short negotiations because I am deeply conscious of the serious position in which the farming industry finds itself because of its lack of knowledge of where we are going. However, to pick the wrong answer--even if it was a quick answer--would be devastating for British agriculture.

We cannot agree to something which starts off by being so fundamentally discriminatory that, year by year, it becomes even more discriminatory. What begins by looking just a little off parallel might become wildly different. Anyone who considers what has happened with regard to the sugar and milk quotas or to anything else about which we felt that we should have had a different

Column 295

package but could not achieve it will be aware of how dangerous it is to allow the negotiations to proceed quickly when a longer discussion might result in a better solution.

I do not claim that the outcome will be perfect. However, it is the duty of the United Kingdom Government and the Minister responsible to argue the issues one by one until we reach an acceptable answer. The answer will not be perfect, but it must be acceptable.

I regret that I cannot spell out part by part and line by line exactly what I want to achieve. However, I do not believe that any hon. Member would expect me to do what no other negotiating Minister has done, is doing or will do. Can anyone expect Mr. Kiechle to stand up and explain everything that he is looking for? Would Mr. Mermaz do that? Of course they would not, because just like me they are trying to find an answer that is as close as possible to what is best for their nations and for Europe as a whole.

I hope that the House will support the motion. That would help to show the universal determination of all parties in the House to achieve an answer that will provide a proper future for British agriculture and enable me at least to be able to tell my companions in the negotiations that there are things that matter so much to us that we will sit there until we achieve them, even if it means that we will sit there for many more months to come.

5.14 pm

Dr. David Clark (South Shields) : As always, the Minister tried to be statesmanlike, but ended up being his usual partisan self. He accepted very little responsibility for the state of British agriculture. While we would not want him to show his full negotiating hand at this stage, he gave us very little information. The Minister's speech was one of little substance--

Mr. Home Robertson : And of great triviality.

Dr. Clark : Indeed, and one of great triviality, as my hon. Friend has said.

Listening to the Minister today, it was hard to appreciate that the Conservatives have been in government for 13 years. He tried to say that Labour would not negotiate. Tragically, we cannot negotiate at the moment, but that will be put right before too long.

It is rather disingenuous of the Minister to extrapolate the logic that, because someone has described a situation, that means that he necessarily agrees with it. Whether the Minister likes it or not, I believe that it is probable that MacSharry's notions will be accepted. That does not mean that I or the Labour party agree with those proposals. We do not and I hope that the Minister will accept that we have stated repeatedly that we do not believe that the MacSharry proposals are good for British or European agriculture.

Mr. Gummer : If that is the case, would it not have been better for the hon. Gentleman to keep his own counsel when he stated publicly that we were bound to fail in our negotiations? Would it not have helped British farmers if he had said that he was determined to support us and ensure that we succeeded? That is not being disingenuous : that is asking for the kind of conduct that used to be normal on both sides of the House.

Dr. Clark : I made it plain that we oppose the MacSharry proposals. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will accept that. That does not mean that we

Column 296

accept all the Government's negotiating stances. We believe that the negotiating position has not been particularly clever. Contrary to the Minister's partisan approach, I want to begin by taking a consensus view. British agriculture is in crisis. That is argued by the National Farmers Union, the Farmers Union of Wales, the National Farmers Union for Scotland and all informed farming opinion. The Minister said nothing today that will reassure the farming community.

We need only consider the scene. The Minister avoided all the details. Every day last year, 19 farmers and 14 farm workers left the land. Nineteen farmers voted with their feet every day last year and left their occupation. That is not a happy position. Farmers' incomes are at their lowest level, but the price of food to consumers is not falling.

Modern agriculture requires investment to survive, but investment has fallen by more than half since the Government took office. The Minister made great play of environmental issues. However, the Government's own Institute of Terrestrial Ecology produced figures in October which show that

"hedgerow removal between 1984 and 1990 is greater than that in the period 1978-1984."

In addition, as much as 10 per cent. of our total stock of hedgerows was destroyed between 1984 and 1990.

So, the economy of agriculture is in dire straits and the environment is suffering, but I am afraid that the position on animal health is even more dire. In September the Minister's own chief veterinary officer painted an optimistic scenario of the problem of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, with the result that the farming press ran the banner headline,

"Goodbye to the BSE scourge".

Tragically, I have to wish that that was the case because today's figures do not give us much ground for comfort, but, as long as the Minister continues his present style of trying to hype up and to trivialise every issue, that is what will happen to our agriculture. Far from the BSE scourge easing, exactly the contrary is happening. The number of confirmed cases of BSE until November of this year totalled 15,698, whereas for the whole of last year they amounted only--I use the word "only" relatively--to 14,322. The total number of confirmed cases of BSE is now in excess of 41,000, despite the Government's estimate in 1989 that the cumulative total would peak at 20,000 cases. We still await the peak. It does not do any good to try to run away from reality or to trivialise these issues.

Blue ear disease in pigs has been allowed to run unchecked by the Government who in September closed their veterinary investigation centre in Lincoln, which is where work into that type of disease was carried out.

Sheep dipping has been decontrolled by the Government and self-notification has been introduced. The result is that farmers are not dipping their sheep. Scab will increase.

It is not really surprising that animal diseases are increasing when we consider the Government's deliberate run-down of their veterinary service. In 1979, 580 veterinary officers were employed by the service, but there are now only 337. That is a decline of 42 per cent. As a result, we had to import 402 vets last year. I repeat that, as a result of the Government's policy, we had to import a vet every single day of last year to try to keep on top of animal diseases.

Column 297

The legacy for agriculture of 13 years of Tory government is little short of disastrous in the economic, environmental and animal health areas.

"Never have I known a time when farmers were more fearful of the future, and never has that fear been more justified."

I thought that those were wise words when I read them and was delighted to find that they had been written by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) in The Lake District Herald only this week. He was right. There has never been a time when our farmers have been more fearful of the future. I found it strange that those words had come from the Parliamentary Secretary because, when I read them, I thought that they had been written by the Labour candidate, John Metcalfe, because there was no other indication that that article had been written by a Minister of the Crown who is responsible for this country's agriculture. When Ministers are faced with such unpalatable facts--and they are facts--they tend to blame the common agricultural policy, but those are domestic decisions. Every one of those decisions affecting British agriculture was taken by the Government.

At the EC level, and after 13 years in power, the Government cannot escape responsibility for the operation of the CAP. After all, the Minister is always returning to the House to tell us what a wonderful deal he has got for the British farmer and consumer. He has done it time and again--

Mr. David Nicholson (Taunton) : Yes, my right hon. Friend has got such deals time and again.

Dr. Clark : I hear mutterings from the Conservative Back Benches to the effect that the Minister does return with good deals, but if one asked the British farmer, that is not the message that one would hear.

Mr. David Nicholson : Before the hon. Gentleman gets stuck into the CAP, on which matter I hope that he will be as robust as my right hon. Friend in defending the interests of the British farmer, may I advise him that I was interested to note that he began his speech by talking about animal diseases and BSE? Does he think that he is helping our farmers in their genuine plight by highlighting such diseases in this debate? Although the beef market is now in a better position, does not the hon. Gentleman realise the damage that he has done to beef consumption and to our farmers in the past year by constantly highlighting that issue on radio and television?

Dr. Clark : We do not solve problems by refusing to acknowledge them. Indeed, if the Government had faced up to the reality of BSE earlier and had accepted the Opposition's proposal for 100 per cent. compensation for suspected cases instead of being dilatory for 18 months, the problem would have been contained much more quickly. I must advise the hon. Gentleman, however, that the phrase in Big Farm Weekly,

"Goodbye to the BSE scourge"

was not mine, but that of the chief veterinary officer. If the hon. Gentleman is seeking to make a charge against me, he must make that charge equally against the chief veterinary officer for raising that issue in the first place.

Column 298

I should appreciate being allowed to return to the issue of the CAP. I begin by reminding hon. Members of the reforms that the Minister has brought back to the House. It is because of those reforms that it is right for us to be sceptical about some of the claims that the right hon. Gentleman has made today. I recall that in February 1988 the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher), went to Brussels to discuss agriculture and returned to the House trumpeting the reforms that would radically change the CAP. In our debate on that, the hon. Member for Wealden (Sir G. Johnson Smith) challenged me for daring to challenge the Prime Minister about whether the system would work. I expect that not only can the hon. Gentleman remember that, but that he will recall that we warned at that time that the reforms were illusory and would not work. We have been proved right. The reforms have failed. The CAP still takes up two thirds of the EC budget, but only £1 in every £3 gets through to the farmers.

The whole point of those reforms was to get rid of the food mountains. Conservative Ministers told us that they would disappear, but they have not. Indeed, those mountains of food are continuing to grow. At the end of October, there were 494,000 tonnes of skimmed milk powder in intervention ; 446,000 tonnes of butter in intervention ; 850,000 tonnes of beef in intervention--the amount is growing--and 15.5 million tonnes of cereals in intervention. The overall position now is worse than in 1988, yet we were assured by the Government in 1988 that we should leave it to them. They said, "We have got you a good deal. The problems will be solved." Those problems have not been solved--just as we said that they would not be-- because the Government did not take the issue seriously enough and did not press as they should have pressed for the substantial reforms that were needed. Furthermore, the right hon. Member for Finchley had the opportunity to do just that because at that time she had the right of veto. I am afraid that the right hon. Lady sold this country short on that occasion.

Mr. Gummer : How does the hon. Gentleman square his enthusiasm for the right of veto on that occasion with the decision of the leader of his party that he would give way at Maastricht on all the issues that are now being discussed? Is it still true that the hon. Gentleman is an anti- European although his party is now pro-Europe? The House must ask that question, given that the hon. Gentleman is asking about vetoes while his party is in favour of lying down and being rolled over.

Dr. Clark : It is no good the Minister, whenever he is found to be wanting and to be wrong, starting to hurl abuse across the Chamber or making allegations that have absolutely no substance. My right hon. Friend the leader of the Labour party has never said what the right hon. Gentleman has suggested--and the right hon. Gentleman knows that that is the case.

One of the key mechanisms of the Conservative party's CAP reforms was set- aside. At the time we warned that it would not work. It has not worked. When the Minister announced the scheme I described the measures as

"no more than damage limitation measures. They seek merely to tackle the effects of surpluses, not the causes."--[ Official Report, 4 June 1988 ; Vol. 135, c. 182.]

That is what the Labour party said in 1988 and we have been proved right.

Column 299

The mere concept of set-aside is wrong. Even though land has been set aside, production of cereals has increased. It increased by 2 per cent. last year, even though over 131,000 hectares have been set aside in the United Kingdom. The simple reason for that is that farmers put their most marginal and least productive land into set-aside. One has only to travel by train from the north-east of England to see the land which has been set aside, squeezed between the railway lines, to realise what the farmers are doing. Last year in its official report the EEC confirmed the failure of set-aside. It said :

"the land left fallow in almost all Member States was of very low productive level."

Yet, in spite of that, set-aside is one of the key points of the MacSharry proposals.

The operation of set-aside is even worse than the concept. In a parliamentary answer to me the Minister told me that he

"had identified 18 serious irregularities and a number of additional cases involving minor breaches of the scheme rules. Payments were withheld or recovered in full or in part in 39 cases."--[ Official Report, 18 November 1991, Vol. 199, c. 1. ] The Minister's Department now concedes that it cannot check every farm in every year. The problem that we identified is only the tip of the iceberg. They were only the cases that have been uncovered. We do not know the extent of the abuse or misuse.

I fully accept the point that the Minister made about The Sunday Times. I accept his statement as the word of a right hon. Member of this House. He said that The Sunday Times journalist made a fraudulent claim and forged the heading of a Ministry letter. The matter is serious because if one inspects the photocopy of the letter one sees that he forged not only the heading but the "Dear Dr. Rufford".

Mr. Gummer : I made the matter clear and I do not want anyone to misunderstand. I explained exactly what happened. The letter was the standard letter that would have gone out if the claim had been entertained. The letter was prepared but would not have gone out until the land had been seen. Therefore, the letter was on plain paper. What has been added is the heading "Ministry of Agriculture". [ Hon. Members-- : "Ah!"] No, I made it clear. Hon. Gentlemen should be clear about it. I made no claim other than that. It is a serious matter to add a letter heading because it hides the fact that the document was a draft letter which was ready to go out if the claim was entertained. The claim was not entertained. The land could not be inspected because Dr. Rufford did not own it so he made sure that the land was not inspected.

Dr. Clark : I am grateful to the Minister for that intervention. This is a serious issue. I hope that, if there was a fraudulent claim, the Minister will prosecute. If he does not, he will bring the scheme into disrepute. May I check with the Minister his actual words, which I have in front of me? He said :

"That letter was reproduced in The Sunday Times under a faked Ministry letterhead."

The Minister agrees that that is what he said. If the letterhead was faked, surely, as he says, not only was the story fabricated but the application was fraudulent. I hope that the Minister will take the necessary legal action. Certainly, the Opposition will be only too pleased to support him in that respect.

The reason why I take such a strong line on the set-aside scheme is not merely that it is right so to do. It worries us that many farmers appear to be paid for doing nothing.

Column 300

The public are worried about that. They regard it as a racket. How can we justify rich landowners taking public handouts while making their farmworkers redundant? It has been estimated that one farmworker loses his job for every 750 acres of set-aside. The farmworker receives only a pittance in pay-off--perhaps £2,000 in redundancy pay--whereas the owner of the land may receive thousands of pounds for several years. That does not seem equitable.

The list of those who receive set-aside payments in The Sunday Times article reads like the pages of "Burke's Peerage". Will the Minister confirm that at least one Government Minister receives money from the set- aside scheme? Was The Sunday Times right in that assertion? That part of the story, not the fake letters, is the key point.

Many regard set-aside as an alternative form of social security for the landed gentry, yet the workers who are made redundant receive very little. But the problem with set-aside is not only those who receive it or the fact that set-aside does not reduce production. Has the Minister seen the excellent work of the Council for the Protection of Rural England? It uncovered the fact that 60 per cent. of non-agricultural use of land set aside in the EEC is in Britain. Does the Minister have any comment to make on the reference by the CPRE to the EC Commissioners on the issue?

From the Government's own figures, the CPRE seems to have a justifiable case. Does the Minister recall that in an answer to me on 17 January this year he said that 536 undertakings for set-aside related to horse-based activities ; 46 were for golf courses ; 24 were for sports grounds ; and 15 were for recreational facilities including camping sites. That was in only the first two years of the scheme. We worry about farmers getting paid set- aside and then using their land for other commercial activities. That is not fair to other business men who are not farmers.

Many of the non-agricultural uses for set-aside land require planning permission. The Minister is coy on that point. I asked him to clarify how many applicants had applied and obtained planning permission for non- agricultural use. He said :

"Applicants for set-aside are not required to give this information."--[ Official Report, 1 March 1990 ; Vol. 168, c. 330. ]

However, the Minister should look at his own form. I have a copy here. Question 3 says :

"Have you applied for or obtained planning permission for this use?"

Yet the Minister will not supply Members of Parliament with the information and says that applicants are not required to give it. The Minister does not even know the details that are requested when people apply for set-aside. He does not want to know because he does not want the public to know the extent of set-aside.

In view of all the publicity, will the Minister carry out an inquiry into the operation of the set-aside scheme? After all, in this financial year he anticipates that he will spend £27 million on it. Will he also recall that in an answer to me this summer he said that he would publish the report by Reading university on set-aside before the end of the year? May I remind him that there are not many weeks of this year left? Will the report be published before the end of the year, as he promised?

The Minister was right to spend some time on set-aside, because it is one of the main planks of the MacSharry proposals. But this time it is to be compulsory and not voluntary. The Minister has made it plain in the past that

Next Section

Home Page