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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 1250-iv

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

ENVIRONMENT, FOOD AND RURAL AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

 

 

THE UK GOVERNMENT'S

"VISION FOR THE COMMON AGRICULTURAL POLICY"

 

 

Monday 16 October 2006

MRS MARIANN FISCHER BOEL, MR KLAUS-DIETER BORCHARDT

and MR JOHN BENSTED-SMITH

Evidence heard in Public Questions 243 - 298

 

 

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Oral Evidence

Taken before the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee

on Monday 16 October 2006

Members present

Mr Michael Jack, in the Chair

Mr David Drew

James Duddridge

Lynne Jones

Mrs Madeleine Moon

Mr Dan Rogerson

Sir Peter Soulsby

Mr Shailesh Vara

Mr Roger Williams

________________

Witnesses: Mrs Mariann Fischer Boel, European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr Klaus-Dieter Borchardt, Deputy Head of Mrs Fischer Boel's Cabinet, and Mr John Bensted-Smith, Director, Economic Analyses and Evaluation, European Commission's Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development, gave evidence.

Q243 Chairman: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this further evidence session on the Committee's inquiry into the future of the Common Agricultural Policy. May I extend particularly warm greetings to Commissioner Fischer Boel who has very kindly come to give evidence to the Committee. When we visited Brussels earlier in the year we talked to Mr Bensted-Smith when he was there and others and expressed a wish and a hope that the Commissioner would come personally to talk to us. We are delighted, Commissioner, that you have been able to accept our invitation, particularly as we know that you genuinely do have a very mobile diary. Some of us had the pleasure of seeing and hearing you in Helsinki last week when parliamentarians from throughout the Community had an opportunity of debating a similar subject to the one that we are going to be putting questions to you on this afternoon. You spoke with clarity and you answered with clarity so I look forward very much to what you are going to say. For the record, in addition to the Commissioner, Klaus-Dieter Borchardt, the Deputy Head of her Cabinet, is with us and, as I mentioned a moment ago, John Bensted-Smith, the Director for Economic Analyses and Evaluation in the Commission's Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development, is also here. He has been a longstanding friend of the Committee. Every time we go to Brussels he makes himself available and he is always candid and straightforward with his views, for which we are very grateful indeed. Commissioner, we know you have a limited amount of time with us. Our words are being broadcast and will be recorded and those insomniacs on a Saturday night with nothing better to do will be able to watch you on national television, but in the meantime you are available on Parliament's intranet. Without further ado I would like to put a question to you. As you know, the United Kingdom Government, and I should emphasise that this Committee is independent of the Government, did publish a paper at the end of last year on the subject of its vision for Common Agricultural Policy reform. I got the impression when we came to Brussels that it had not exactly gone down a wow with your good self and your officials. I know you have to be diplomatic about what individual governments do and you will no doubt tell us, amongst other things, that it was a very important contribution to the debate, but now you have had a chance to chew it over perhaps you could start our proceedings by giving us your assessment as candidly as you can about what it has to say.

Mrs Fischer Boel: Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for giving me this opportunity to appear before this important Committee and give you my view and, I must confess, some criticism of the paper on the UK vision for agriculture in future. To begin with, there are things in this paper that I can agree with. Regarding the broad objectives outlined in chapter one, I think that many across the whole European continent could agree with seeking, for example, international competitiveness, market orientation, respect for the environment, animal welfare standards and non-distortion of international trade. However, I sincerely hope that all of us in Europe will rally round these objectives since, with one important exception, they completely correspond to the principles endorsed in the recent reforms, notably the big reform carried out in 2003 and the European model of agriculture approved by all Member States some ten years ago. The important exception to which I refer is that the UK paper refers to international competitiveness without reliance on subsidy or protection. Overall in the vision paper assumptions are made and conclusions drawn which I have difficulty agreeing with, which have not been fully thought through and which are not coherent when we take them as a whole. I think there is a complete lack of analysis behind this paper and I would like to encourage analysis that can support the views of the paper. I think it would be important, for example, to know which effects on the environment are attributable to the Common Agricultural Policy as opposed to the commercial pressures of the modern or more liberalised farming. If it is a catch-all then why are some of the areas where we have the biggest environmental problems essentially unsupported areas? Here I would target specifically the pig sector and the poultry sector which are non-supported areas. More fundamentally, there are various estimates given of what is the price of the CAP. The clear and unavoidable conclusion to be drawn from these estimates is that if we should be in a position to get completely rid of the direct payments, of price support, of import duties, then European agricultural production would remain unchanged in quantity and prices would be completely in line with the prices that we see on the world market. No other outcome can be reconciled with these figures. My analysts tell me that we cannot be so categorical about what will happen under a liberalised situation. We do know now that there are regions in Europe which, in a situation where they had to be able to produce at world market prices, could not cover production costs, not even if the land were given for free. In this situation we would clearly see land abandonment; that would be the result. In a situation where we had no direct payment then we would have no cross-compliance and this would not even be the requirement to maintain good agricultural and environmental conditions, so we cannot put pressure on the farmers to comply with these good environmental rules if there is no direct payment; this is clear. In that case how much should we then spend on the Second Pillar if we did not have cross-compliance and if we wanted to avoid set-aside land becoming completely scrubland, which in my view would be the result? On the other hand, if we had land abandonment in some regions then we must expect dramatic structural changes and intensification of farming where production would be viable from an economic point of view. I do not think you could draw any other conclusions on the estimates of costs. But then, in those areas where it would be profitable to produce in the future, you would face the environmental effects of such production, so I think you have to go through all the calculations. As I said, we need some impact assessments on all these different scenarios.

Q244 Chairman: Commissioner, you will, I am sure, have communicated this line of thinking to the United Kingdom Government. Have you had any reaction from them in terms of your observations and have they committed themselves to undertaking the work streams that you have just outlined with such clarity?

Mrs Fischer Boel: If you want to defend a paper that has such dramatic consequences then you need to be able to sustain it with impact assessments, with calculations, with studies that show that this is right and that you can document that this will be the outcome and the consequence. Here I think there is a lack of impact assessments to be able to say that this would be the effect of a system where you liberalised completely. I doubt whether this is what will be coming out of an impact assessment or an analysis of the consequences but that will be up to the UK Government, to get these analyses done within due time.

Q245 Chairman: Is Britain on its own at this stage in putting forward a visionary document about the future, and I put aside for a moment the response paper that the French produced in, I think, March this year, because some have suggested that Britain was a bit quick off the mark with this paper and they have damaged its position rather than improved it? What is your assessment?

Mrs Fischer Boel: I think it is very important. We saw that in Finland last week. We saw that in the informal meeting for the agricultural ministers in September, now that we have launched this discussion: what is the agricultural sector to be like in future? I welcome all contributions to this very important discussion. We say we have one vision for the future but two steps, and I might come on to that a bit later.

Q246 Chairman: We will touch on a number of the things that you have kindly talked about today, but let me ask you a very simple question. It is one which I raised in Helsinki but which we seem to walk past in discussing reform issues. Let us go back to Article 33 of the treaty which lays down the objectives of the Common Agricultural Policy. In the light of the future challenges and demands on Europe's farmer what do you think the purpose of the Common Agricultural Policy should be now we are in 2006, health check time 2007/2008, possible consideration of reform 2013? What do you think the purpose of the CAP should be?

Mrs Fischer Boel: First of all I am very happy to hear that you listened carefully during my speech in Finland because it is very important that you explain these two steps, and I think it is very important to send a clear signal that there is not going to be a new reform in 2008. We implemented the 2003 reform in 2004, and I think the farming sector now needs to adapt to this new situation and then, during the discussions that we will have on the mid-term review on the financial perspectives, it is important that we give clear signals to the farming society on where we are going, because what farming society wants and needs is predictability so that they can plan their investments. If you have a sector with no investments you will not have any future, so I think this is desperately important, but when I look at the agricultural sector and what I should personally want it to look like in future, it is first of all a sector that can produce a high quality product for the European market and for markets where I am quite sure we have a future even in a situation where we have a European high cost area, high environmental costs, high animal welfare costs. I am sure that there will be countries, especially maybe when we look east, that will be willing to pay a high price for our high quality products, because you have an emerging middle class in those countries where we can see that already they are looking for the reputation of the high quality products that we can deliver. Then I want a farming sector that can take care of the rural areas. I do not think, if we asked throughout Europe, that anybody would be interested to see a situation where we have abandoned land, as I mentioned earlier, where we have only forests. I am quite sure that people want a situation where they can go out into the rural areas and have a nice look at well-kept areas. It is quite clear that with the cross-compliance system you have an obligation to keep the land in a good environmental condition. Then I want a situation where there is space for the big, efficient producers and also for the small farmers that might have difficult production facilities in, for example, the mountain farming areas. I do not want a uniform agricultural sector in Europe. I think there should be space also for the family farm, knowing that it will be important to have a decent living. I do not think that the young farmer will manage to find a wife if he is working 365 days milking his cows. I think that modern young people want to have a holiday now and then, so therefore it is important that they can live a normal life.

Q247 Chairman: Does this imply that as part of the eventual process of considering reform you will re-write Article 33 in some terms other than currently stated?

Mrs Fischer Boel: I think that the 2003 reform was a major step in the direction where you set farmers free to produce what the market wants and I think we should go in that direction. I think it is desperately important that we have a discussion in 2009. Do we have to increase our modulation to have a much stronger rural development budget? Should we have a discussion on set-aside, which from my point of view will be outdated in future where we have a decoupled system. Can we imagine that the intervention system can survive in future? We have a very good example on the abolition of the intervention system for rye in 2003 where the result was that, if you compare the rye price in 2003 and the price for rye this year, it has been going up because suddenly it was a question of finding an outlet and if there was not an outlet you tried to produce something else. This is a discussion that we need to have. In the dairy sector the quota system from my point of view is old-fashioned and there are other areas where we have quota systems where I think it is old-fashioned, but this will all be for discussion so that the sectors have time enough to adapt to a new situation.

Q248 Chairman: So will you be producing some form of evaluatory document where you will look at the current definition of the objectives of the CAP as laid down in Article 33 to tell us whether what has happened to date, including the reforms that you have outlined, has achieved what this part of the treaty says or whether there is a need for reform in the words in Article 33? Will that be part of the process?

Mrs Fischer Boel: Of course the world has changed since 1957. It was tried in the discussions before the final papers were drawn up to introduce competitiveness and respect for the environment into the treaty text but it was not possible and therefore it is still the old definition that is on the table. I do not know why it was not possible to find wording that could be a bit more modern than 60 years ago.

Q249 Chairman: I am going to take it as implicit that you might like to see some better, more modern, words.

Mrs Fischer Boel: Yes, but after the Second World War it was a question of supply for the domestic market so that nobody would see a repetition of the period after the Second World War where there was a lack of food. I still remember that to get sugar or to get butter you had to present some stamps.

Q250 Chairman: Coupons, rationing. Some of us remember it.

Mrs Fischer Boel: Yes, there was limited production and nobody wanted to go back. We have been so successful, almost too successful, and then we started to reorganise our agricultural sector back in the eighties when we introduced the quota system for dairy, and now in the 2000 and 2003 reforms we are aware of the fact that of course we want a national, domestic, within Europe production of agricultural products, but I think that we have to realise that it is not the same situation now as it was in 1957.

Q251 Mrs Moon: I want to raise very quickly, and to an extent you brought it in right at the end there, that Article 33 does not talk about environmental protection or biodiversity. How critical a role do you think in rewriting those should play in being added to the role of the Common Agricultural Policy?

Mrs Fischer Boel: I think nobody today would consider an agricultural sector or an agricultural policy without taking into consideration the consequences for the environment. It is clear that it is part of the basis on which you produce in the agricultural sector. Animal welfare and biodiversity is a very well known basis of the discussion so we will never step back on this, not even if it is not in the original text from the 1957 treaty.

Q252 Lynne Jones: A few moments ago, Commissioner, you were talking about the fact that there needs to be space for the big producers and the small farmers. When we went to Poland and Romania they felt that they were being treated as second-class citizens. We visited some farms and we have a lot of small subsistent farmers there. How can we have a Common Agricultural Policy that suits the needs of both the large industrialised farmers in the north and the small subsistence farmers in the accession countries?

Mrs Fischer Boel: When we opened our Community for ten new Member States in 2004, one of which is a big agricultural producer, and I of course think of Poland, the situation was in a way completely different from the situation in many of the old Member States. The average size of the farms in Poland at that stage was very low. There were a lot of subsistence farmers, and therefore you need, of course, some sort of adaptation of the structures of the farming sector, but you cannot do that overnight. If you imagine that the average size of the agricultural sector in Poland or in Romania and Bulgaria will be tripled within a very short period, then you will face other sorts of problems in the rural areas. I think you should try to find a balance, and you have done so by introducing the direct payment, not at the full speed from the very beginning but starting with 25 per cent and then increasing by five per cent a year up to 40 per cent and then by ten per cent, so at a certain stage you reach the same level as the 15 old Member States.

Q253 Lynne Jones: Would not the UK Government's vision do that, of an EU framework that is there to ensure that there is no distortion of markets but that then essentially it is up to each individual country to support farming as they see fit?

Mrs Fischer Boel: To me this step is a very dangerous one. If you imagine that you have a re-nationalisation of the common policy then, of course, there will be no common policy any more. Secondly, I think that farmers in different Member States will face completely different production possibilities because then it will be a competition between ministers for finance more than a competition between agricultural ministers on how much to subsidise your farming sector. I think this would be devastating for the possibility of maintaining a common policy and trying to find the right balance in the support for the agricultural sector.

Q254 Lynne Jones: Do you think it is possible to have that kind of policy, with just a broad framework and deal with market distortions?

Mrs Fischer Boel: I think we have managed quite well, actually.

Q255 Lynne Jones: I meant to go down the route of having a much looser CAP as the British Government advocates because the Government line is that they want to see market forces working and an effective market at the same time as they want to repatriate large elements of the CAP. The question is, are those two objectives compatible?

Mrs Fischer Boel: I think we all want an effective market. The 2003 reform gave this possibility of de-linking the direct payment to the farmers from the production, so that farmers now can shift from one year to another where they see there is a demand for products and they can move easily because it will no longer influence the direct payment from the Community. I think this was a huge step that facilitated a much more market-oriented agricultural policy than you have seen ever before. I am in favour of a Common Agricultural Policy which I think you can only maintain as long as you can orchestrate a way to do it in all the different Member States.

Q256 Lynne Jones: So people move simultaneously?

Mrs Fischer Boel: Yes.

Q257 Mr Drew: If we could move on to decoupling, which is one of the areas where the British Government tends to differ from other countries within the EU, and obviously it has a major part to play in the vision statement, I just wonder where you see the British approach fitting with regard to the train of thought, given that you have said that you do not see any major renegotiation of agricultural policy for the foreseeable future. How is it possible to fit Britain's approach, which is for decoupling, with those of other countries who would be much more reserved in how quickly they wanted to go in that direction?

Mrs Fischer Boel: On fuller decoupling, this is clearly the target that we are heading towards because the Member States in 2003 got this possibility to implement different systems for decoupling were they, for example, to maintain 25 per cent in the cereal sector in some Member States and then the beef market you could also link a part of the direct payment to a continuous production. I want 100 per cent decoupling. What the UK paper wants is a situation where the farmers have to compete at world market level without any direct payments. Here it is quite clear, and that is why we need some impact assessment on the paper, that if farmers have to compete without any direct payments and in a market where you have zero tariffs worldwide, then farmers in some parts of Europe simply will not be able to continue production because even if they have the land for nothing they will not be able to make a profit for living.

Q258 Mr Drew: What about this idea of some form of support to farmers in a different way? The Dutch have talked about this idea of a bond scheme whereby people would be guaranteed payments for being on the land, but I know, having talked to some of our tenant farmers in the last week that they are attracted to it because, one, it gives stability, and, two, it gives value to the land but not to what the land is being used for, so it cuts away that dependence upon production and upon, as you have already said, following up whatever next year's whim is in terms of whatever someone says you should be planting. Is that a viable and sensible way forward?

Mrs Fischer Boel: When we have this mid-term review of the financial perspectives in 2009 let us put all the ideas on the table and have a discussion on what will the future be looking like, but today with the 2003 reform we have this decoupled system where farmers can produce whatever they want without taking into account the change in the value of the cheque that they get from Brussels. When I look into the future, and the future for me is after 2013, it is quite clear that we will not have the same funding available after 2013. There will be, as far as I can look into the different messages that we get from the political level, a cut in the budget available for agriculture. That is the reason why I say let us have this discussion in 2009 and let us send the signals through the farming society about what they can expect to be the future for them so that they can adapt. In the farming community in Europe they have always been very good at adapting if they have a certain period in which to do so. As I said previously, I am very much in favour of a big purse for rural development policy. That is the reason why I say let us continue with a transfer of money from the First Pillar to the Second Pillar as we started in 2003, but we could only agree on five per cent, which is the reduction in direct payment in 2007, but let us have a discussion. I should like to see this increasing but it has to be compulsory for all the Member States so that you have equal opportunities.

Q259 Chairman: But it will not come from an equal base, will it, because Britain regards itself as the poor relation when it comes to rural development budgeting because in previous times we have not perhaps taken it as seriously as we could have done. I presume that that is also open for debate in the process in 2008/2009 that you described a moment ago.

Mrs Fischer Boel: The way that we distribute the rural development funding has always been according to historical figures and then it is quite clear that some Member States have been more skilful, I would say, because that would be the wrong -----

Q260 Chairman: That could just be absolutely right.

Mrs Fischer Boel: I try to be very polite here today. I could give you examples of Member States that have been using to the full the possibility of the rural development schemes. Austria is a very good example because they have had very little direct payment because of their previous contributions to the output from the agricultural sector and therefore they had to do something else and they targeted from the very beginning the rural development policy. Because I think the rural development policy is so important and because I feel that nobody disagrees with me, I was so disappointed when I experienced last December that the heads of state had decided to cut €20 billion off my budget for rural development policy. Obviously they did not have any other good ideas for savings than the rural development policy but I think this was a wrong signal to send. Therefore we need to continue this transfer into the Second Pillar.

Q261 Mrs Moon: I would like to pick up the issue of food security. The Vision document is putting up the argument that we do not necessarily need direct payments to bring food security standards to European citizens. Where do you stand on this? Do you think we need direct payments to farmers to ensure food security and safety for the European Union?

Mrs Fischer Boel: In the present stalled WTO negotiations we had discussions with some of the members of the WTO on the specific costs that we have in European agriculture, the so-called non-trade concerns. The wages are higher, our care for the environment is considerably higher than some of those countries with whom we will have to compete, and animal welfare is a completely unknown factor in some of the countries that can produce at a very low price. Therefore, I think that one way or another we might need a certain level of direct payments to finance these so-called non-trade concerns, and then maybe have building blocks from the rural development policy to build on top of the direct payment but at lower levels than we know it today, that is obvious to everybody, and that is what we need to convey to the sector, that there will be changes after 2013.

Q262 Mrs Moon: I wonder how much you feel that the Commission does and should involve itself in non-food production issues such as logistics and the actual moving around of food throughout the European Union. Is that something that the Commission should become further involved in and should take an interest in?

Mrs Fischer Boel: It is quite clear that the whole possibility of agriculture to contribute to the renewable energy production has been highlighted much more efficiently than we have ever seen before after the situation last winter where there was suddenly a shortage of energy in Europe. We have had this discussion previously with the Biomass Action Plan that was published last year and within DG Agriculture we have launched a plan for bio-ethanol production where we will push this production to see whether it is possible to make it more interesting for farmers to produce renewable energies. We have a scheme of €45 per hectare available for farmers that want to go into renewable energy production. On bio-diesel we are at this stage competitive with oil. We can produce bio-diesel at about $60 per barrel but when we talk about the first generation of bio-ethanol produced on cereals we cannot compete with the present price. The calculations that we have made estimate about $90 per barrel for bio-ethanol but we are investing heavily in research in this area as well. I can only support the possibility of agriculture to be deliverable for renewable energies . We have some targets for mixing into the transport sector with two per cent to be part of the fuel mix in 2005, last year, and a target of 5.75 per cent in 2010, and then I think eight per cent in 2013, but we are not at all there. The only Member State that has really been pushing this is Germany. We are now discussing at the end of this year whether we will make these targets mandatory and if this is the final solution then we will really boost the production. If we should meet 5.75 per cent mix in renewable energies from agriculture in the transport sector we would need 80 million hectares out of 104 million which is the total amount. I do not think this is possible and therefore we have to rely to a certain extent on imported bio-ethanol from some of the big suppliers, very competitive suppliers. I think it would be a mix of domestic production and imports. Then we have to make specific efforts in the second generation of bio-ethanol where you can produce ethanol on waste, on slurry, on manure, on straw, all these products that are not used specifically nor of high value today. Yes, there are possibilities and I encourage the sector to produce, and, of course, on the condition that the Member States support it, but at this stage you cannot produce ethanol without a willingness from the finance ministers.

Q263 Mr Williams: You quite rightly identified the extra costs that European farmers suffer as a result of society's expectations in terms of environmental protection and animal welfare and the direct payments they receive mitigate against those extra costs, but European farmers also have extra costs in comparison with other producers in the southern hemisphere as a result of climatic and geographic disadvantages. It does seem that post-2013 if they lose the direct payments and also lose the protection of tariffs the outlook for European agriculture is going to be particularly difficult. Beef tariffs at the moment still run, I think, at £1.70 a kilo plus ten per cent of the value of the product. Has any work been done about the outlook if both those forms of protection are removed in terms of food production?

Mrs Fischer Boel: But that is exactly what I miss in the UK paper. There are no background explanations of how you conclude as you do in this paper. That is why these impact assessments will be from my point of view needed, because with the estimations that we have on the consequences of a totally liberalised situation with no direct payments, with zero tariffs, most European farmers will be kicked out of the market.

Q264 Mr Williams: Most reform of the Common Agricultural Policy has taken place as a result of international trade negotiations, internal budgetary pressure from the EU itself and enlargement. At the moment the Doha Round has stalled, the budget has been fixed to 2013 and with Romania and Bulgaria coming in that will be the end of enlargement in the very near future. What pressure exists, do you think, for fundamental reform from some of the nation states? Some nation states would like to see a fundamental reform in the 2007/2008 review.

Mrs Fischer Boel: First of all, on the stalled Doha Round, I hope that we will manage after the mid-term elections in the United States to bring these negotiations back on track. I think it will be to the benefit of the European Union as a whole. We have agriculture but we have services and we have industrial products as well, so clearly a balanced outcome is to be preferred. If we do not take this window of opportunity which might be seen after the new year for a fairly short period, I think, then we will face a situation where the next possibility will be when the next administration in the United States takes office and that is 2009. The world is not standing still. Even if there is no reform I am quite sure that we will face problems in Europe and in the United States from meeting panels from Member States. There will be extreme pressure on our export refunds to be phased out anyway, and then in 2009 it will be a completely new reform because I am not sure we will manage to sell the CAP reform from 2003 again in 2009 and export refunds. If possible, therefore, we should take advantage of finalising these negotiations at this stage. On the mid-term review of the financial perspectives, yes, I am sure there will be pressure on reforming agriculture again, but I remember clearly 2002 when heads of state agreed on a budget for agriculture in Brussels. They set a limit on the expenditures. Actually, it is a decreasing ceiling because the inflation rate is calculated at one per cent and as it is two then it is a natural decrease and we finance also Romania and Bulgaria underneath this ceiling. I think that if we cannot stick to an agreement by heads of state it will be difficult to plan anything for the future. We need to have a political discussion on that occasion on the future to send clear signals: yes, there will be cuts in the direct payments but this is not going to take place until after 2013, so let us have a fair planning period and let us put on the table and discuss the consequences of all these ideas: the intervention system, the quota systems, more rural development policy, et cetera. I think this will be a huge opportunity, to take this discussion in due time and not at five minutes to 12.

Q265 Mr Williams: I am sorry to press you on this, but in Finland you made it very clear that you see 2007/2008 as a review rather than a major radical reform, and I think you said it would be a health review, not an amputation, which I thought was a very good way of looking at it. Yet when Commissioner Fischler, your predecessor, introduced the mid-term review, we did not expect such a radical reform as we received and there is concern that there will be a radical reform, the outcome of which is unclear at the moment. Perhaps you would like to reaffirm your commitment to a lighter touch rather than a more radical approach.

Mrs Fischer Boel: I was very careful when I chose the name of this health check because I had memories of being a minister in Denmark at the time when this mid-term review became a completely new reform, which was good, but nobody had prepared themselves for such radical reforms. Therefore, yes, let us have a discussion on the health check but it is not a new reform. We have to digest the 2003 reform with the possibilities of simplifying. I think we are all interested in making things more simple without losing the idea behind cross-compliance, for example. Yes, it is a health check and you were in Helsinki so you know why I called it a health check. It is not because you are sick; it is because we all need sometimes to have a check of our blood pressure and whatever to be sure that we are completely fit for the future. That was the reason for choosing that name.

Q266 Chairman: But I suppose if the check revealed that there was something wrong with the patient you might be forced to take rather quicker action than to send the patient on their way with a pat on the back, saying, "Everything is okay till 2013", so how fundamental is the analysis going to be when you do the health check into how healthy the CAP is? Are you going to produce a document that, if you like, is a review of the state of the health of all or parts of the CAP because you are already agreed, for example, to reassess the dairy regime, the implementation of the single farm payments and certain other specific items, but it would not take much more work to go and do a complete check on how the whole thing is working? How far is this check going to go?

Mrs Fischer Boel: We committed ourselves in the reforms to making these health checks on specific areas such as the cross-compliance and the decoupling, and we can add a number of the items that we want to look into as well, simplification, for example. It is not a one-off discussion; I think it is an ongoing exercise, how can we make things more simple. Then I said, "Let us look at the set-aside. Is that interesting or important or necessary in the situation where you have the decoupled system?". They are two separate exercises but they are running in parallel and back-to-back if possible, but that depends on the discussion on the treaty. Will we have a discussion on the treaty in 2008 or, if this discussion on a new treaty is running into the mid-term review of the budget, then I think it could be difficult to have a serious discussion on specific issues. I think that if you have good ideas on the health check do not hesitate. I have invited all the European young farmers to a conference in Brussels next May to hear their views on what needs to be done now and what is the view for the future because they are very entrepreneurial and very ready to face the challenges for the future.

Chairman: We are glad already that we have sold at least one copy of the report that will come out of these discussions.

Q267 Lynne Jones: How is the notion of a health check compatible with the wide-ranging financial review?

Mrs Fischer Boel: On the health check it is based on the commitments that we made on the reforms - on the reform in 2003, the big one, on the Mediterranean products in 2004, we made a sugar reform in 2005, and we will look into how does it work, how does it function, where do we need to change.

Q268 Lynne Jones: At the same time as a wide-ranging review that affects the CAP is there not going to be pressure for more major reforms than are implied by a health check?

Mrs Fischer Boel: Of course, from some Member States and others there will be a huge resistance, a horror of touching the ceiling of the 2002 agreement and sticking to the fact that yes, we committed ourselves to a reform on the condition that we had this planning period up till 2013 on the budget. We need to send clear political signals in 2009 on what the future will be like. They are two different exercises and that is why I say one vision but two steps. They might be going back-to-back but they are two different steps. If we do not introduce our ideas for the future, and the future again is 2013, then others will decide for us. I feel more competent than some others to have ideas and to send clear political signals. Then these will be discussed in the Council because I do not decide; I can just propose ideas to be discussed and then the majority in the Council decides at the end of the day what is going to happen. It is clear when you look into the Council meetings that there are huge differences of opinion on what needs to be done. There are some Member States that are very reluctant to discuss anything and there are others that are very open to having a new reform in 2009. Therefore we have to find the right balance. This is the obligation from the Commission, to present something that is long-lasting (and long-lasting is until 2009) with the necessary changes because if we send signals in 2009 that there will be no prolongation of the quota system in the dairy sector the value of these quotas will be decreasing over the period. If farmers know that there will be fewer direct payments available after 2013 then you can imagine that the value of the land will be decreasing, not dramatically, I think, but you adapt to a new situation because you have had the capitalisation of the direct payment more or less into the value of the land, so nobody would be taken by surprise but they can adapt their investments, their considerations for the future, in a decent way.

Q269 Lynne Jones: I understand all those arguments but if at the end of the day there is a fundamental review of the budget, unless it is going to agriculture, agriculture being the biggest area of expenditure, it is inevitably going to have a knock-on effect. You are determined to resist such pressure, I gather, and you would hope that the outcome of the review would not bring in any major changes to your budget.

Mrs Fischer Boel: But would you expect me to lie down on the ground and say, "Yes, I am willing to give 50 per cent of my budget to reduce the British rebate"? That is what we are talking about.

Q270 Lynne Jones: How do you see the balance moving though in the next couple of years? Where does the power lie within the Commission?

Mrs Fischer Boel: It is two years since I took office and I feel a much more open mind to discuss changes in the agricultural sector than I did two years ago, and I think this is a huge positive approach, that you do not say, "No, we do not want to discuss it". Yes, Member States want to discuss it in a much more open and transparent way than previously because I want to give this predictability to the sector and not decide or keep my cards so close to my body that nobody knows what I intend to do. You could feel in Helsinki and during the informal meeting that there was not the automatic pilot resistance to discussing changes, and that I think is very positive.

Q271 Mr Drew: But there are those who have to undergo much more radical surgery and they are the new entrants and the potential new entrants. In what way are we looking at quite a difficult process in as much as you cannot pretend that the existing Community can do things by apparently trying to rationalise what it has done in the past and change because there are those new countries that are going to find that very difficult to encompass?

Mrs Fischer Boel: We have now introduced a new rural development policy for the next period up till 2013 and there is a variety of different possibilities compared to what you saw previously. You have this different axis of rural development policy where we are much more diversified than ever before. We have now introduced innovation into the rural development policy to give clear signals that this is very important for the future. Let us continue to make things more simple. We have a SAP system in the new Member States, a simplified system, which I think they should keep because it is the simplest way for paying money that you link the same payment to all the hectares, the same level. This is crucial.

Q272 Mr Rogerson: Commissioner, you have said that you put simplifying the policy at the top of your agenda. Do you think that the universal adoption of a flat rate system and a moving away from a historic based payments system is part of that simplification process?

Mrs Fischer Boel: Trying to imagine a situation in 2017 where you are going to explain why there are entitlements of different value because the former owner of this farm occasionally had a dairy production in 2001 I think will be difficult. Therefore, one of the discussions that we should have on the mid-term review of the budget is, should we be targeting a much more flat rate system with our payments, and I presume it would be very well accepted everywhere to try and make things more simple. There will, of course, be a resistance to this discussion because simplification sometimes means that all the privileges that you have been putting into some areas once upon a time, historical based from 2000 to 2002, will disappear and they are not very fond of getting rid of their specific profitable rules linked to a previous production but I think we need to have this discussion, so yes, I am in favour of having a discussion on whether it is possible to go towards a more flat rate system and that is the reason why I have been very willing to prolong the possibilities for the new Member States to keep their SAP system, their simplified direct payment system.

Q273 Mr Rogerson: Do you think that a logical extension of that would be to move towards a common hectare payment across the Union ultimately?

Mrs Fischer Boel: Across all the European Union. But then you would make it even more difficult. If you could make a flat rate system, a single farm payment system, within the Member States linked to the original calculations on the output then I think it would be a huge step forward. It is too early to imagine that you could have the same flat rate all over Europe. If we can just make it a flat rate country by country it would be a huge contribution to the simplification.

Q274 Chairman: But how are you going to answer those Danish farmers that we met who said, "Please do not forget it is more difficult to farm here. The costs are higher than in the easier areas of other parts of the Community" with a flat rate scheme?

Mrs Fischer Boel: You must know that now I am the Commissioner for the European Union and not the Danish Minister.

Q275 Chairman: I should have said Finnish farmers. You heard them at the meeting. I apologise; it should have been Finland.

Mrs Fischer Boel: I am also very cautious when you mention Danish farmers.

Q276 Chairman: You carry on being cautious, but let us move a bit north; I got it wrong. Finland - they made that point very clearly, that they believed that they had special circumstances which merited additional support, so a flat rate scheme would not be easy as soon as you have a long queue with exceptions.

Mrs Fischer Boel: With a flat rate system you would need a rural development policy to facilitate the specific difficulties that you might face, for example, in the very northern part of Finland where it is quite clear that the summer is very much shorter than you see in other parts of the European Union, but, of course, there are differences in production. If you ask a Portuguese farmer he will say, "Of course you have difficulties up in the northern part of Finland but I have difficulties here. I have no rain, I have droughts, and therefore my production facilities are very difficult and very different from the major part of Europe". You need one way or another to embrace these very diversified possibilities for production within the European Union. A rural development policy targeted to the specificities of different Member States could solve these problems, I am quite sure.

Q277 Sir Peter Soulsby: Commissioner, can I return to the issue that you touched on earlier amidst concerns about land abandonment and related environmental issues? There was something that we heard very strongly from Commission officials in January when we visited and heard subsequently when we visited both France and Germany, and no doubt you have heard it elsewhere as well. Am I right in understanding that this is a very specific concern that you have about the UK Government's vision for the future, that there are issues there that perhaps have not been adequately thought through?

Mrs Fischer Boel: If you try to make an impact assessment on the consequences of the UK paper with no direct payment, with zero tariffs, free access, then I am quite sure we would see a situation where first of all the least developed countries would face huge difficulties. Sometimes you think that you solve their problems by reducing tariffs within the European Union, but the fact is that the least developed countries in the world, the 50 poorest countries in the world, today have free access to the European market, zero tariffs and no limits on quotas, so they can sell today. The more you lower the tariffs the more they will say, "We face erosion of preferences". I am so sure that Benin will never be able to compete with Brazil in a situation where you lower the tariffs. Therefore you have to be a bit careful when you say, "Lower tariffs. It is always better for the developing countries". Yes, for the most developed developing countries it is, but for the poor countries they can today produce whatever they want and sell it into the European Union. By the way, Europe is today by far the biggest importer of agricultural commodities from the least developed countries. We are bigger than Canada, the United States, Japan, Australia and New Zealand all together. We have shown that trade is a possibility to increase the standards of living for these poor countries. If we look internally at what will be the consequences for European Union agriculture with the calculations that our economists have made, it will not be possible in some areas of the European Union such as mountain farming to compete at zero support, at zero tariffs in the future, and that is the reason why if we do not want abandonment of land we need a level of, as you say, direct payment. I have said that we will have a discussion on how low can we go, but if you have no cross-compliance you cannot ask the farmers to keep their land to good environmental standards. I think we should try to find a decent balance and then give time for the farming society to respond to the new situation.

Q278 Sir Peter Soulsby: to what extent do you think that properly targeted agri-environment schemes under Pillar 2 will have the potential to prevent land abandonment and mitigate environmental consequences?

Mrs Fischer Boel: If we try to imagine that there is no direct payment then the million dollar question is how much do we need in rural development funding to compensate or to secure that farmers will not leave the most vulnerable areas in Europe? This calculation has never been made but I think you have to face the fact that considerable funding would be necessary in the rural development policy. Therefore, let us have these calculations that I hope have been the basis for these fairly far-reaching proposals. I am clearly in favour of changes. Do not look upon me as a person that does not want to change anything.

Q279 Lynne Jones: A conservative!

Mrs Fischer Boel: I am trying to be careful and not offend anyone. You need to be aware that you will be facing changes, so let us decide in due time.

Q280 James Duddridge: Can we turn to the issue of capping? Your predecessor seemed to be very much opposed to capping. You seem warmer to the idea. Could you give us more details of the type of capping that you are considering and the justification for using that particular tool?

Mrs Fischer Boel: Capping was introduced at the end of 2000 in the CAP reform 2003, where there was no support, including from the UK, to introduce a capping on the direct payments. I think it could be valuable to have another discussion again, again, again, on this issue and I have not said anything about where you could eventually cut, at which level you could cut. I think we need further calculations because I am not interested in a situation where the only result you get from capping is a split of farming into different production areas or different units, so I am very open to having this discussion. I think it is worth it and I am quite sure that with the transparency initiative from my colleague, Commissioner Slim Kallas, there will be increased pressure on direct payments.

Q281 James Duddridge: If one of the reasons behind capping is to look at the social security elements of CAP to help those that most need the help, would another alternative be rather than capping to have a more fundamental reform of that social security element of the Common Agricultural Policy?

Mrs Fischer Boel: It is not a question of who needs the help the most. In the 2003 reform we introduced a clear franchise which means that all farmers receiving less than €5,000 will not participate in the modulation. Here you send a clear signal that there are farmers of a certain level who need not contribute to the modulation but they might be beneficiaries of the Rural Development Policy.

Q282 James Duddridge: The Agra Europe Journal reported when you were asked about the UK support for the Common Agricultural Policy that you said with a smile you hoped the UK would support the proposals over time. What laid behind that smile?

Mrs Fischer Boel: Normally by nature I am a very positive person! The reason for this smile could have been that when we discussed the capping in 2003 the UK did not support the proposal to cap the direct payments.

Q283 Mrs Moon: I would like to go back to my colleague's question in relation to Pillar 2. To what extent is there now a consensus that a move towards Pillar 2 is appropriate for a future Common Agricultural Policy? If we are saying that the 2002 deal is not going to be changed and is not going to be altered until 2013, at what point do you see us being able to raise Pillar 2? What are the other ways that we can make that move before 2013?

Mrs Fischer Boel: I think we should take the opportunity in the health check to have a discussion about whether we could continue before 2013 on an increased modulation from the five per cent. I think this could be worth exploring whether in the Council there could be an interest in having this discussion. I must say that of course it is not really supporting my views that heads of states cut our Rural Development Policy because it might be more difficult to find support for this transfer of money from the first to the second pillar. If there is a risk of being punished later on in a cut of the rural development pillar, then it is in vain or savings on the first pillar via the backdoor, which I think nobody at this stage would like to do unless it is with open eyes. I hope we can have a discussion. I think we could be a bit more aggressive on the five per cent figure. As far as I remember, the proposal in the 2003 reform was 20 per cent and we ended up with five per cent, so let us give it another try.

Q284 Mrs Moon: You said earlier that you were concerned at the watering down of a Common Agricultural Policy and allowing Member States to develop their own interpretation of agriculture. Can I ask you how you feel about the concept of voluntary national modulation in the absence of matched funding? Could individual states choose to increase their move to Pillar 2 individually?

Mrs Fischer Boel: It already has been a possibility or it will be a possibility by the voluntary modulation up to 20 per cent. Here Member States can choose whether they want to co-finance or not. It was on the basis of the discussions in the European Council last December that this idea was introduced to have a voluntary modulation, and it will be valid when finally accepted from 2008. I am not in favour of voluntary modulation, I am in favour of a compulsory modulation at a higher level than we have today. I think it is more decent that we have the same possibilities all over Europe to increase our second Pillar Rural Development Policy. I hope the ground will be prepared to have this discussion to continue in 2008.

Q285 Chairman: Can you explain a little more clearly why you are against the kind of voluntary modulation which the United Kingdom Government faces? Do you think, going back to your earlier comments, this is a potential area for distortion between Member States?

Mrs Fischer Boel: I think if you have two farmers at either side of the border line, it could be the Netherlands and Germany, if you imagine that one of those countries decided on a 20 per cent voluntary modulation and the other decided on zero, then the fairness between those two farmers might be difficult for them to find. That is the reason why I am very much in favour of an increased compulsory modulation.

Q286 Chairman: Let me press you about this term "Rural Development Programme" because I just happen to have sitting on my desk a copy of the annual report that Defra produced for the England Rural Development Programme. When you actually get into what we mean by this term, it is a combination of environmental programmes, programmes concerned with forestry and programmes concerned directly with the economic development of the rural economy. That is not a single programme, it is a very diverse programme. What work is the Commission undertaking to evaluate the worth of the different elements of what we call, at the moment under this one label, the "Rural Development Programme"? Going back to your original argument, you could argue that the penalty of the Member State who went for zero modulation is that a range of programmes in their rural economy would not happen because there would not be any money for it, but for the one who went for a higher policy, because they perhaps had a more diverse view of what money should be spent, they might get a better return for the rural economy because they could do more things, either environmentally or economically, to generate activity. Going back to the question of the well-off farmers, you could argue it is a way of taking money from those people in a greater amount to compensate for the areas which were more difficult to farm in. That is an argument. I wondered how much internal analysis and debate was going on within the Commission to evaluate more carefully what we mean by rural development?

Mrs Fischer Boel: It is quite clear that you have a specific situation in the UK because of the fact that from the very beginning you have not been very interested in using the Rural Development Policy.

Q287 Chairman: We are getting more interested.

Mrs Fischer Boel: Yes, I know that, and that is the reason why you asked for voluntary modulation. Other Member States have been much more targeted on the Rural Development Policy from the very beginning and, therefore, they have had a tradition of spending money in rural development. At this stage we are looking into all the national programmes to see how they want to spend money because we have this toolbox with our framework for rural development where Member States can pick and choose what they consider to be the most suitable for their specific situation. Here I am really looking forward to seeing how the Member States spent the money. We introduced these different axes because we did not want Member States to target all their money on one of these areas, so we have the competition area where you have to spend ten per cent, the environment where you have to spend 25 per cent, land management where you have to spend ten per cent and then you have got the leader axis as well. Apart from these figures, there is complete freedom to do whatever you want. We are looking into all the different programmes that we will get in soon. I try to encourage Member States to come forward with their programmes, with great interest to see how the ideas can flourish in the programmes. Usually I will take any opportunity to say that rural development is where the music will play in the future.

Chairman: We heard that very clearly in Finland, so thank you for saying it again here.

Q288 James Duddridge: The Single Payment Scheme really had an unprecedented level of discretion in terms of how the Member States implemented, and we have heard and have experienced that various members did it better than others, and I think there are lessons to be learned on our part. From the Commission's viewpoint was too much discretion given to individual Member States in implementation? Will that diversity make it more difficult for you going forward in bringing forward the next stage of the reform proposals?

Mrs Fischer Boel: I would be desperately in danger if I expressed my specific views on the programmes implemented in different Member States, therefore I will resist doing so, especially in the UK. It was clear that to make a common reform supported by the major part ‑ I think only one Member State voted against the 2003 reform ‑ it was necessary at that stage to give certain freedom to implement in different ways. I think we should give the possibility at a certain stage in the different Member States to review whether there are other possibilities of making things simpler.

Q289 James Duddridge: There would not have been a possibility of a deal going back if there was not that flexibility given?

Mrs Fischer Boel: In 2003 it was necessary to give this flexibility to have a political compromise on the 2003 reform; it was obvious.

Q290 Lynne Jones: Are you able to comment on the Danish system which you have set up?

Mrs Fischer Boel: No.

Chairman: That is a very clear answer.

Lynne Jones: Why not?

Chairman: I think the Commissioner made it clear earlier why she could not. I want to go back to an earlier point because I think Madeline has a point she wants to make in addition.

Q291 Mrs Moon: I wanted to ask you, in terms of the Commission's role, whether you thought it had a role, whether it should have a role, in relation to food logistics in terms of food miles and food distribution and whether that should become part of payments so that, in fact, what we do not end up with are particular animals being moved large distances to markets so that there is encouragement, a financial incentive, to sell locally?

Mrs Fischer Boel: First of all, I have always been in favour of a very high level of animal welfare during the transport of live animals. My personal opinion is clearly why do you have to move live animals around Europe, can you not move animals killed in a way that we would avoid those very unhappy situations that we always see at prime time on television which gives the agricultural sector a very bad image. There are always transport companies that do not apply to the ruling and this is falling back on the agricultural sector. I think that is a very unlucky situation. In the future, if we want to compete and be strong in the market I think one of the reasons for targeting our customers is to have the possibility of telling the story behind the product. That is one of the marketing promotion tools that we can use because we cannot compete on bulk production with Brazil - I am sorry to mention Brazil again but they are so strong in agricultural production - so we need to do something else. We need to present a higher quality, we need to say that we are better at delivering animal welfare, that our food safety is extremely high and that we take care of our environment at the same time as trying to produce high quality products. This promotion should be much clearer from the consumer's point of view because at the end of the day it is the consumer who decides what is in the basket in the supermarket. If we do not tell them that there is a difference or a reason for paying a higher price then we will be worse off.

Q292 James Williams: Again, coming back to simplification, which we were talking about earlier on, you have already referred to how you could see the quota system coming to an end. Can you tell us any more about how you see that process taking place?

Mrs Fischer Boel: With the present reform the quota system will expire in 2013, so if we do nothing there will be no quota system. If I look at the dairy sector in Europe, in the Netherlands the price for the right to produce one litre of milk is two and a half euros. I think it must be very difficult to make a calculation where it pays off after ten years to write down the value. In other parts of Europe, in Ireland you have 12 cents, and in the UK it is very cheap as well, as far as I know. When you have a situation where you want to keep prices high the quota system could be useful, as it was back in the 1980s, but I think it is outdated now so let us get rid of it. If we send a clear signal that we will not prolong the quota system after 2013 you will see a decrease in the value of the quotas.

Q293 James Duddridge: I am struggling to understand why the UK Government produced the Vision document when it did. Did they explain to yourself, as Commissioner, why they were producing the Vision of the CAP reform at that specific time?

Mrs Fischer Boel: It could be for internal reasons.

Q294 James Duddridge: Following on from that, has the crass and past simplistic nature of the Vision document fundamentally damaged the UK's position for 2009 and 2013 potentially irreparably?

Mrs Fischer Boel: I do not think you can say that this Vision paper has damaged the situation; I think that is too strong. There are different papers on the table from different Members States and there are different reasons for publishing those Vision papers, so I do not think we should be too dramatic.

Q295 James Duddridge: Whatever the UK Government has done for internal domestic reasons has not been damaging to our position in Europe over the Common Agricultural Policy?

Mrs Fischer Boel: I have very good co-operation with all the ministers in all the Members States. I think we have a common goal, one way or another, to have a sustainable, competitive, environmental, responsible agricultural sector in Europe. With this goal in front of us, of course there are differences in approach but, no, I have excellent co-operation with your new Secretary of State, David Miliband.

Q296 Chairman: Commissioner, one of the factors we touched on earlier in our questioning was about food security, and it is an issue which is dismissed out of hand in the Vision document. The argument from the Treasury, Defra analysis, is that the world has got plenty of supply and if in any area Europe ran into problems somehow somebody else would be able to provide us with the missing food stuff. One of the justifications for the Article 33 version of the CAP was, as you yourself remarked earlier on, post-war shortage and, therefore, to try and make certain that Europe not necessarily was self-sufficient but had a security of food supply. In terms of looking to the future, if we took time horizons of ten, 20 and 30 years, what risks does the Commission analyse as being potential dangers which Europe has to respond to in terms of its supply of basic food stuffs?

Mrs Fischer Boel: I think with an agricultural sector where production can adapt quickly to demand, taking areas into production that had previously been used for products where the demand has not been strong enough to maintain a decent price level, the agricultural sector will be able to adapt immediately. The biggest risk I see is animal diseases in different parts of the world with the damaging consequences that you see not only with supply. I think we have the avian flu in mind, not in the UK but in other parts of Europe, the consequences of production for consumption. Here I see a future where we would have to adapt immediately. With the rapid alert system that we have in Europe for animal diseases, I think we are very well equipped to handle situations like this. The action taken in the BSE crisis in the UK was bringing it back to I would not say the normal level of production and consumption but it was less dramatic than we should have expected, and now we have been abolishing the over-30 month scheme without any drastic or dramatic drop in prices. I think we are now back to normal. Animal diseases are always a risk and we should be fit and able to handle these. I think we are quite well off.

Q297 Mr Vara: A brief question on animal diseases. Certainly the European Union is very strict with its Member States in terms of prevention of diseases but to what extent is there monitoring of diseases in other countries, not Member States, which are imported into the UK and other countries and those diseases can then be passed on? Particularly I think when we have foot and mouth in this country there is a very rigorous process but there are other countries, Argentina, South Africa, where perhaps things are sometimes put under the carpet and as a consequence the world meat market can suffer if there is not proper policing?

Mrs Fischer Boel: First of all, we have control on imports of all our agricultural products coming across border from outside the European Union. We have invested specifically in the two new Member States, Romania and Bulgaria, to secure the border eastwards to avoid a situation where we have imports of live animals without any controls. I think we are fairly well off. With the avian flu, we face this challenge every six months when the migratory birds are going north and now they are going south again. I think we are much, much better prepared this time to avoid a situation where we have another avian flu crisis within the European Union.

Q298 Mr Vara: Certainly you speak of control at our borders, but are you trying to encourage those countries to rectify the problem in the first place so that we do not have to police it at our borders as rigorously?

Mrs Fischer Boel: We need to have this border control to avoid any imports of any animal disease which might come from outside the European Union.

Chairman: Commissioner, again, may I first reiterate my thanks for your coming here today. I think we got a flavour of the amount of travelling you have been doing around the European Union and we very much appreciate you having spare time to come to this Committee. I think we also appreciate your candour and indeed the openness with which you are approaching the forthcoming debate, both about the terms of the health check and eventually what may emerge between then and 2013. We hope very much, as you are going to be talking to many groups over this period of time, the Commission might themselves think of inviting members of national parliaments to come to a meeting so we too might be able to present our views to you along with other colleagues because clearly what happened in Helsinki in Finland was limited by virtue of those who attended. We will be producing a report on the Government's Vision for CAP reform in due course and we will be very happy to send you a copy of that and discuss our findings with you. May I again thank you and your two colleagues for coming this afternoon and giving so fully of your time and your answers. They have certainly helped us a great deal in the report that we are writing. Thank you very much indeed.