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Mr. Walker: I listen to the laird with great interest. As an ordinary working-class chap, I am always fascinated by what he says.
Will the hon. Lady tell the House how a Labour Government, if we ever have one, would ensure that all her proposals would be forced through the European Union--how that would be achieved? We would be interested to know how the Opposition would deal with qualified majority voting.
Mrs. Golding:
This is, of course, a typical question. When Conservative Members are in a mess, have got rid of something that they know works, and do not know what to put in its place, they ask the Opposition what they would do.
The NFU says:
It would be helpful if the Minister responded to the NFU position and to one other important point included in the NFU brief. It states:
Remember the ballot. It goes on:
Mr. Boswell:
Is that a spending pledge? If so, has it been cleared with the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown)?
Mrs. Golding:
Another Minister is looking for the Opposition to get him out of a mess. He should never have got rid of the board. If he had abided by the NFU's ballot, he would not have done so.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Raymond S. Robertson):
That is not an answer.
Mrs. Golding:
That is the answer.
Mr. Roger Gale (North Thanet):
Since I have been in the House, I have sought to represent the interests of potato growers in my constituency of North Thanet. One of the most contentious things that I am likely to say tonight is that they grow the finest potatoes in the United Kingdom and, probably, in Europe. I appreciate that my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. Harris) and hon. Friends representing the Forest of Dean, seats in Norfolk and elsewhere might find that difficult to comprehend, but we in Thanet have significant potato growers of first early and main crop potatoes.
When I first arrived in Thanet, I was most compelled by growers' concern about the damage that the Potato Marketing Board and the regime were doing to their business. They cited two counts--first, that they were subjected to quotas, and secondly, that they were subjected to a levy. The quotas were especially damaging to the crops of first early growers, who faced ludicrous competition, especially from the French growers who did not have quotas and were dumping potatoes willy-nilly in the United Kingdom. Buyers in Covent Garden were sending back locally grown and excellent potatoes on quality grounds simply because they had already committed themselves to, and had to pay for, overseas products. The businesses also found the levy intolerable. They could not understand why a Conservative Government were allowing the continuation of a regime that placed such controls upon them.
One of the first things that I had to do as the newly elected parliamentary representative was to prevail upon my colleagues in the Ministry to abolish the potato marketing regime. I am absolutely delighted that tonight we are witnessing the dying throes of a regime that placed ludicrous controls on some of the finest potato growers in the world.
At that time, the growth in the potato consumption market was, as it is now, almost exclusively in processed potatoes. Then, as now, the housewife did not wish to peel spuds. I took the trouble--which I doubt Labour Members have done--to visit the potato processing plants being established throughout Holland and northern France, where processors knew that they had access to good, reliable, cheap and abundant crops. That investment was made on the European mainland rather than in the United Kingdom, largely because of the restrictions imposed upon our growers by the Potato Marketing Board.
The growth in the potato consumption market is still in processed potatoes. Thank heavens that there is at last investment in potato processing plant in the United Kingdom. It is creating jobs. The processing business is now aware that it can rely on an unregulated crop, free of quotas, from the United Kingdom. I regard that as progress. I am sad that no Labour Member--or, indeed any of my hon. Friends--has mentioned that point.
Mrs. Ann Winterton (Congleton):
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. I shall be brief. When he went to inspect the Dutch processing industry, did he ascertain whether it received any state aid?
Mr. Gale:
I was about to deal with precisely that point. We want a level playing field. [Hon. Members: "Ah!"]
Labour Members moan and groan, but their Front-Bench spokesman made a plea for state subsidy--[Hon. Members: "No."] Yes. The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mrs. Golding) said that other countries were subsidising plant and crops and pleaded for some of that for Britain. [Hon. Members: "No."] Yes, she did. I want none of that. [Interruption.] I wish Labour Members would listen.
I did not stand here 10 years ago and I do not stand here tonight arguing for deregulation of the United Kingdom market, solely to see the imposition of regulation and subsidy in Holland and France, just 20 miles across the channel from my constituency. I agree with my hon. Friend the Minister's view of the need for a light European Union regime. Subsidy is outside European regulation--it is not permitted, nor should it be. I simply want to know that the Government will take a robust view of any hint of any kind of subsidy to our competitors on the European mainland. Having deregulated the industry in this country, having freed up our farmers to create the crop that we need, having seen the investment in plant that we wanted, I do not expect that plant to be supplied by cheap, subsidised products from either France or Holland.
Mr. Campbell-Savours:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Gale:
No, I will not give way. Stick to soup.
The signs are that the regime will be succeeded by a development council funded by a levy on producers. That is what the producers in my constituency want. Indeed, my constituent Richard Ash made that point to me only yesterday. The producers are paying the fiddler and they wish to call the tune. They want that development council to be answerable to them, the farmers, not simply to Ministers. Can we have that assurance?
Mr. Nick Ainger (Pembroke):
I speak as a Member who represents a new potato growing area in Pembrokeshire that rightly has an excellent reputation. My growers are telling me, through the National Farmers Union and the Potato Marketing Board, that the commitments that they have been seeking from the Government before winding up the marketing scheme have not been given. That has certainly been confirmed by what the Minister has said tonight.
Absolutely no commitments have been given about a fair and open market in Europe or about the reduction or elimination of state aids to growers in our competitor countries, regardless of whether they are on the Iberian peninsula, or in Italy, France or Greece. All the Minister has been able to tell us is that, on our own, the Government, with the support of the Commission, are in agreement. Every other state, which is subsidising its growers in one form or another, is opposed to the Commission's proposition for a lightweight regime.
The hon. Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) could not have been listening to what the Minister was saying, because the latter made it quite clear that there was no way in which he could give any guarantee whatever that, by the time the scheme is wound up, there will be a level playing field--as it is called--or that there will be fair competition and no state aids.
I am concerned because the new potato market is extremely sensitive to competition, especially unfair competition. New potatoes have a very short season. We already have traditional competition from the near east, north Africa and southern states of Europe. There is concern that, if the protection--admittedly, it is only in the form of support by the growers--is removed in a year or two, there will be problems. There have already been problems over the past few years. The winter might be long or the spring wet. Certain problems always arise.
Without protection, and because the Government have failed totally to eliminate unfair competition in Europe, growers will undoubtedly go to the wall. The market is incredibly competitive. All it takes is a wet week or a wet fortnight, and the window for the market of premature new potatoes is lost.
Until the Government can give the growers the assurances they are seeking, which they have certainly failed to give tonight, the growers, through the farming unions and the Potato Marketing Board, will be very disturbed about the fact that the Government are going ahead with the revocation, willy-nilly and irrespective of what is happening in Europe.
The Minister rightly praised the work of the Potato Marketing Board, and its progress since the Agriculture Act 1993. I am sure that Members on both sides have received a letter from the chairman of the Potato Marketing Board highlighting the three commitments it seeks. The first is an assurance that
The second commitment that the board seeks is a
The third commitment sought relates to the winding-up costs of the board.
"If other European producers are still in a position to receive national support GB producers will expect equivalent support."
"the PMB is being wound up purely as a result of UK Government policy."
"The majority of producer assets in the PMB are likely to be spent in meeting the wind-up costs in relation to property, redundancies and pensions. We seek a commitment from the Minister that the Government will meet a significant proportion of the costs of winding up the Board."
"British potato growers will be able to compete on even terms with their EU counterparts after the end of the Scheme".
"strong statement that the UK Government will do all in its power to ensure that EU member states are not able to provide state aids to their producers when British growers can not enjoy similar support. This should be achieved preferably by seeking the introduction of a lightweight EU potato regime".
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