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Common Agricultural Policy
4. Mrs. Ann Winterton: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the future of the common agricultural policy. [36408]
6. Mr. David Shaw: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps his Department is taking to reduce the cost of the common agricultural policy. [36410]
Mr. Douglas Hogg: As is well known, the Government consider that the CAP needs reforming to reduce its costs to consumers and taxpayers, cut bureaucracy and facilitate EU enlargement. I have frequently impressed that view on the Commission. The forthcoming Commission initiatives on reform of the beef and dairy regimes will provide important opportunities to press for changes along those lines.
Mrs. Winterton: Bearing in mind the fact that British farms tend to be larger and more efficient than their European counterparts, what reassurance has my right hon. and learned Friend sought from Commissioner Fischler to ensure that further proposals for the reform of the CAP will not adversely discriminate against British farmers as they have so often done in the past?
Mr. Hogg: My hon. Friend makes an important point. It is in fact the same point that my hon. Friend the Minister
of State made in response to the question from our hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman). It is true that UK farms on average are larger and therefore, if I might use the jargon, the policies of modulation work against our interests. I have taken every opportunity to impress that proposition upon Commissioner Fischler and the Agriculture Council in general.
Mr. Shaw: Does my right hon. and learned Friend accept that the CAP accounts for one of the largest parts of our contribution to Europe and that that net contribution each year is some £3,000 million, which every man, woman and child in the United Kingdom has to pay out to farmers on the continent of Europe? Should not we find a way of bringing that cost down? Should not we aim to bring that cost down to zero in the next five years?
Mr. Hogg: I certainly agree that the overall cost of the common agricultural policy is too high and should be reduced. I think, too, that it has a number of other long-term and structural defects that justify its substantial reform. I think further that the negotiations that we are to have in the World Trade Organisation talks at the end of the century, with the policies of enlargement to which the Government are committed, will bring such pressures on the European common agricultural policy that it will have to be modified substantially.
Mr. Foulkes: Is the Minister aware of the overwhelming feeling of dejo vu that I feel at the moment having sat on these Benches for 17 years, hearing the same moaning questions from the Euro-sceptics on the Conservative Back Benches and the same tedious replies--not always as moderately expressed as they are by the present Minister--again and again? In fact, the common agricultural policy has not changed in the past 17 years. Is not the truth that the only way that we will get real change is with a change of Government?
Mr. Hogg: Forgive me for saying so, but that is just a policy of slapstick, and I can play it as well as the hon. Gentleman if I must, but I choose not to. The truth is that we have seen substantial reform over time. The 1992 reforms are of real significance, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment has never really had the credit that he deserves for having achieved them. We are now seeing important evidence of change, for example, in the fruit and vegetable regime. Perhaps most significant was the report that Commissioner Fischler made last December to the Madrid council, when he made it absolutely plain that, for a variety of reasons--I do not have time to go into them--the status quo was not sustainable. There is now pressure for change from within, and the external factors to which I have referred will drive that forward.
Mrs. Golding: Will the Minister ask the Minister of State whether he remembers assuring European Standing Committee A on common agricultural policy compensation proposals that Britain was to have
- "a comprehensive system of animal passports"--[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 19 June 1996; c. 5.]
Mr. Hogg: It is a slightly rum procedure that I should be asked to put a question to my hon. Friend the Minister of State, but no matter. Passports are important because we want to have a proper record. The position is that cattle born after 1 July must have passports. We started to issue passports for England and Wales on 15 July and will issue them for Scotland from 1 August. What that does not provide for, of course, is a computer-based record of movements. We are considering feasibility studies for that in the hope that we can have a comprehensive computer-based record of movements in place some time in the early part of next year.
Mr. Gill: Given the substantial vested interest in the common agricultural policy by other countries that are diametrically opposed to the interests of the agricultural industry in this country, does my right hon. and learned Friend not recognise that it is a triumph of hope over experience to think that the common agricultural policy will be reformed in a radical and meaningful way, and would it not therefore be more honest to say to the House and to the British nation that one is either in the common agricultural policy, warts and all, or one is out? Would that not be a more intellectually honest approach?
Mr. Hogg: I have never tried to conceal from the House that the process of reforming the common agricultural policy is extremely difficult. It is true that there is no appetite for change within the European Council, with the possible exception of the Government of Sweden.
But--and there are two important buts--first, the Commission and, I think, the majority of its members--certainly, Commissioner Fischler--now understand, as perhaps they always did, the importance of change. Secondly, the external pressures to which I have already referred--the WTO talks, and the pressure for enlargement--will, in my view, inevitably drive the policy of reform forward. I concede all that has been said about there being no appetite for change, and about hard pounding, but I believe that reform will happen, although less fast than my hon. Friend and I would wish.
Set-aside Land
5. Mr. Flynn: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what new proposals he has to improve the scheme for set-aside land. [36409]
The Minister for Rural Affairs (Mr. Tim Boswell): Changes to the management rules for set-aside will come into effect next year to help protect wildlife in general and ground-nesting birds such as the skylark and lapwing in particular. The changes will restrict the periods in which cutting and cultivation of set-aside land can take place, while still enabling farmers to take action against weeds.
Mr. Flynn: Why is the amount of long-term set-aside so pitifully small? We are not doing much to preserve lovely creatures such as the brown hare and the skylark. The number of skylarks has declined by 30 per cent. since 1969.
Should we not concentrate on the skylark, so that we can continue to praise that beautiful bird along with the poet, saying:
"Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Hon. Members:
More!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art"?
Mr. Boswell: I have the impression that we are approaching the end of term. I am not sure that I wish to match the hon. Gentleman's rendition of Shelley; what I will say to him, more practically, is that we do not regard set-aside as more than a short-term expedient alternative to radical reform of the common agricultural policy. We wish to use it to best effect: that is why we have modified the rules after consultation this year in the way that I described in my answer, and it is why we work continuously to improve our agri-environment programmes alongside set-aside.
Hon. Members may be interested to learn that some studies have already shown that the wild bird population is 15 times as large on some of the land that has been set aside, or otherwise taken out of production, as it is on land that remains in full cropping.
Sir Kenneth Carlisle:
Although skylarks greatly like set-aside land, will my hon. Friend join me in welcoming the fact that the countryside stewardship scheme is now under the auspices of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food? It is a very good scheme, because it pays farmers to do something to help the environment and improve conservation. That is much better than paying them for doing nothing.
Mr. Boswell:
My hon. Friend is a noted conservationist. I regularly pay tribute to his interest in birds and plants. He is entirely right: the long-term answer is to emphasise the positive. That is why we not only took on countryside stewardship, but are increasing its funding this year and next to provide more viable ways of supporting the wildlife population.
Mr. Alan W. Williams:
As grain prices are very high internationally, and as intervention stocks of cereals are very low, is it not time to phase out the set-aside policy and use the cash saved either to cut the costs of the CAP or to deal with the BSE crisis?
Mr. Boswell:
As I have said, we would support a radical reform of the CAP. In particular, if set-aside were reduced to zero this year--which a number of member states have advocated--that reduction would be accompanied by a lowering of the high levels of arable payments. I should make it clear that that is for the coming crop year, not the present one. I am pleased to hear the hon. Gentleman's endorsement of our approach, which is based on a radical reform that will assist both the taxpayer and, we believe, the environment.
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