Mr.
Steen: It must be extremely reassuring for the Minister to
know that the European Scrutiny Committee is at one with her on this
matter. Could she just explain, for somebody with a limited grasp of
the proposal, what would happen in respect of a country that opted into
it—if that is how they would do it—and who would do what?
How would distribution take place and to whom would the goods be
distributed? Who would determine who the goods would go
to? As
with supermarkets that are wary about allowing food that has not been
sold by the due date to be distributed to those who might want it,
there are problems in respect of insurance, negligence and health and
safety. Could the Minister give me some guidance as to how the thing
would work in countries that operate
it?
Jane
Kennedy: I have a detailed list of which countries
participate and what proportions are involved. I would need to check my
copy of Hansard—I cannot lay my hands on it right at this
minute—but I understand that the scheme is based on an
assessment of the proportion of the population in member states that
falls below the internationally accepted standard of relative poverty,
which is 60 per cent. of the mean wage. I am puzzling over how, that
being the case, Italy and Poland managed to secure such a large
proportion of the budget, given that other participating states include
Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania and others, where it might be
anticipated that a high proportion of the population would fall within
that category. The resources that have been allocated to member states
for this year indicate that, for example, Estonia gets 0.06 per cent.
of the total budget, Latvia 1 per cent., Lithuania 1.8 per cent. and
Greece 4 per cent., in comparison with Italy’s 26 per cent. and
Poland’s 20 per
cent.
Mr.
Paice: May I pursue the same line with the Minister? My
understanding is that, in five of the 10 new member states,
excluding Bulgaria and Romania, for which I do not have the figures,
the number of people who are most deprived is in excess of 20 per cent.
of their population, yet in Denmark, for example, it is only 2 per
cent. and in the worst case, which is Slovakia, it is 37 per cent.
Perhaps the Minister will concur that alongside Poland, which she
mentioned, France, Spain and Italy are the biggest beneficiaries of the
programme,
receiving, I am told, €170 million between them—a total of
60 per cent. of the budget, yet Slovakia, with more than a third of its
population in poverty, is scheduled to receive just €1.5
million. Whatever
one thinks about whether it is a social thing or a CAP thing, there is
something seriously and fundamentally wrong with such a proposal, is
there
not?
Jane
Kennedy: I absolutely agree with everything that the hon.
Gentleman has said. It is precisely those concerns that have led us to
oppose so strongly the measures in the proposal. It is useful to note
that a number of other member states are equally opposed to the
measure, including the Czech Republic, which has assumed the
presidency.
Mr.
Williams: When I leave this place fairly early in the
evening and go back to my flat, I pass a hostel for the homeless and I
see food being distributed, which I guess is past the
best—
Mr.
Steen: The sell-by
date.
Mr.
Williams: Yes, it is past the sell-by date but it is still
food that is obviously fit for human consumption. The cost of
distributing that food is fairly negligible to everybody concerned.
However, if the proposed scheme was implemented, we would all be
worried that the bureaucracy involved would be substantial and far
greater than any benefit that could possibly be received by the people
who are in need of the food. Do we know what the costs of administering
the present scheme are in relation to the amount of food that is
distributed?
Jane
Kennedy: I do not have the details of the costs
immediately to hand, but I should be happy to provide that information,
as it would be of benefit to the Committee.
I agree with
the hon. Gentleman’s concerns about bureaucracy. I have made my
own views clear. However, the UK Government are very firmly of the view
that if member states want to help the poorest people in their society,
that is a laudable objective but there are other ways of achieving it.
It is for member states themselves to determine how it should be
done.
Jane
Kennedy: Exactly. Therefore the proposal that this type of
food distribution be determined at Commission level is entirely
inappropriate.
Mr.
Michael Jack (Fylde) (Con): When I looked at the
appendices to the Commission’s working papers, I struggled to
find any form of objective analysis that the scheme would address the
source of the problems that it is supposed to address. I am looking in
particular at a table in annexe 10 that shows the percentage of people
who cannot afford a meal with meat, chicken or fish every second day.
There may be many other reasons why that situation pertains, but does
the Minister agree that such analysis alone is not sufficient to
justify a scheme such as this one?
Jane
Kennedy: I agree. As I said earlier, the UK Government and
I are resolute in believing, as do Germany, Denmark, Sweden and the
Czech Republic among others, that the scheme is not an appropriate way
for the European Community to use resources that
could be more effectively used to improve competition and enhance
markets within the EU in a more appropriate way, which would benefit
agriculture, the European Union and the societies that we all represent
within our member states. We do not believe that the measure is an
appropriate tool.
Mr.
Steen: What it boils down to is a thumbs down to the
Commission, which has spent an immense amount of time, effort, energy
and bureaucracy on coming up with the scheme. However, rather than just
being negative about it, is there a way that we can turn it round, so
that the poorest members of society can benefit from surpluses?
Furthermore, could the UK Government take a lead on getting the
Commission to rethink the scheme and come up with something that is
more suitable and attractive to the countries that object to
it?
Jane
Kennedy: I am not sure that we would be inclined to go
down that route, by virtue of the fact that we have declined to use the
scheme and not a single charity that I am aware of is lobbying us to
join it. Based on our experience that the costs of operating the scheme
outweighed the benefits and that the bureaucracy involved was too
great, the charities involved were at one with us when we decided back
in 1998 not to use the scheme any further. I would thus not be inclined
to lobby for the scheme in Europe, although we are standing firm on the
requirements that it be properly budgeted and co-financed. If the
scheme had to go ahead, and if the minority blocking the proposal were
to be chipped away, co-financing—requiring a member state to
match the spending pound for pound—would bring a certain focus
within the member states concerned so that they would start to examine
the cost-benefit ratio involved in the
proposal.
Mr.
Jack: In tackling such issues, does the Minister agree
that the Community would be better served if it achieved the objective
set out in the Lisbon
agenda?
Jane
Kennedy: I believe so.
Mr.
Steen: I thank the Minister for her extremely helpful
answer, but could she go a little further? Is there a way in which the
UK Government could turn the proposal into something else, with the
Commission being encouraged to help EU countries focus more on food
surpluses and the need to feed the hungry?
Jane
Kennedy: The hon. Gentleman’s suggestion that we
could more usefully use the surpluses is answered by the fact that
there are fewer and fewer surpluses in the so-called intervention
stocks, although I understand that there will be some sugar across the
European Union. It is because intervention stocks are declining to zero
right across the European member states that the Commission is
considering shifting the emphasis to purchase on the open market. That
is completely beyond what we think is a sensible use of European funds.
Even though we declined to participate in the scheme, our
taxpayers’ money would be used if it went ahead. We would be
helping other countries in an entirely inappropriate
measure.
Mr.
Steen: I thank the Minister for that very helpful
explanation.
The
Chairman: If no more Members want to ask questions, we
will proceed to the debate on the
motion. Motion
made, and Question
proposed, That
this Committee takes note of European Union Document No. 13195/08:
Proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EC) No.
1290/2005 on the financing of the common agricultural policy and
Regulation (EC) No. 1234/2007 establishing a common organisation of
agricultural markets and on specific provisions for certain
agricultural products (Single CMO Regulation) as regards food
distribution to the most deprived persons in the Community; and
supports the Government’s concern about the appropriateness of
the proposal as the EU should only act where there are clear additional
benefits from collective efforts as compared with action by Member
States, either individually or collectively.—(Jane
Kennedy.) 4.57
pm
Mr.
Paice: I will not detain the Committee for many
seconds as I know that there are other attractions, to which the
Minister has already referred. It is unusual for us not to have to
exhort the Government to oppose something coming from Europe, but
instead to support them in their stance. We do so wholly on this
occasion.
I
agree with the Minister that the scheme is not a suitable process to go
through the CAP, using CAP funding. As she rightly said, intervention
stocks have largely disappeared in the UK. Our view is that
intervention should exist only as a means of absorbing wholly
unexpected market shocks and should not be a support mechanism, which
is the direction taken by the CAP changes in any case. For the
Commission to translate the use of intervention stocks, which may have
been sensible at the time, albeit highly bureaucratic, into simply
buying on the open market, and doing it through CAP funding seems to be
somewhat absurd. I agree with the Minister that it should be a social
issue funded and run locally with the minimum of bureaucracy—we
all know how good charities are at doing that. There is nothing to stop
an individual member state providing funding for its own charities to
run schemes if it wants to do so.
Perversely,
we on the Conservative Benches strongly support the principle of
co-financing for the CAP in the future, and hope that it will happen.
However, if there is as much opposition to co-financing in this
relatively minor measure as the Minister suggests, it may not be easy
to achieve with the CAP. If opposition to co-financing is sufficient to
scupper the proposal, that is good enough for me, even though it might
be operating in a way directly opposite to what we want.
As I
suggested in my questions, I am extremely puzzled by the imbalance in
the potential benefit of the scheme. If it is to be done, the help
should go to those who need it the most. I am sure that everyone,
whatever their political perspective, would agree with that. To suggest
putting 60 per cent. of the funding into three of the richest member
states in Europe, one of which is a net funder of the CAP, seems
patently daft and clearly outside the objectives of the
scheme. I
support the Government strongly in opposing the measure, certainly with
the proposed legal text, and strongly hope that the blocking minority
which the Minister says exists is maintained. I encourage her to use
her charm to ensure that it is.
5.1
pm Mr.
Williams: Consideration of the scheme raises two
important issues: the number of people in the UK and across the
European Union who find it difficult to afford a decent diet, and what
should be done about that; and food that could and sometimes does go to
waste in landfill that could be put to much better use. My party
believes that EU involvement in the scheme is wholly inappropriate. It
would be costly and would add to bureaucracy but would add no value at
all to anything that we could do in this country to alleviate the
problem and to make the best use of
food. For
those reasons, we support the Government in their opposition to the
scheme, and we hope that they will be successful in ensuring that it
does not go ahead. I cannot conceive of any nation in the EU that would
benefit from it or could not put in place a scheme of its own which
would be of more use to its
people. 5.2
pm
Mr.
Steen: I want to say just a few words. I hope that the
Minister feels that the debate, although it has been short, has been
important. The European Scrutiny Committee, on which I have had the
pleasure to serve for a few years, has a difficult job wading through
hundreds of papers to choose which items should be referred to Standing
Committee. Generally, members of the Scrutiny Committee were a little
troubled by the
proposal. It
was reassuring to hear what the Minister had to say, and I hope that
she feels that it was right to bring the proposal before the Committee,
even though there is unanimous agreement on the Government’s
approach. 5.3
pm
Mr.
Jack: As a former Agriculture Minister from the old days
when the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food existed, I used to
run the scheme that was the predecessor of this idea. When I read the
papers for the Committee, I suddenly thought that I was suffering from
a time slip. I thought that I had woken up in a different time zone,
because I remembered all the submissions that used to come to me about
novel and different ways of distributing the butter, tins of mincemeat
and various other commodities that used to form part of the schemes
that I was involved in to use intervention stocks to get rid of
materials. We
cannot please all the people all the time, and the scheme certainly did
not universally tackle the problem of diet and access to food, so I
could not believe that it was resurfacing, particularly taking into
account the reference to intervention. The idea that the Community
could think, at a time when food security is also on its agenda, that
going into the marketplace and using member state funds to purchase
food for dubious reasons—
for distribution to address what are, in effect, poverty and diet issues
in member states, which are better dealt with by other
mechanisms—seems wholly inconsistent with the approach that it
has been taking on securing food supplies. Schemes such as this one,
which involve bidding for the same materials that others are bidding
for, could, at times of shortage, exacerbate the difficulties that the
food market may be facing in satisfying the food needs of
Europe. The
whole thing is totally inconsistent, and the evidence base is extremely
poor—I am thinking of some of the questionnaires attached to the
document. If one asks, “Do you think that it is a good idea to
help people out?”, everybody will say, “Yes”,
because they have not been presented with full details about the
questions. I
strongly encourage the Minister to resist the proposal. To deal with
diet, affordability and access to foodstuffs, education in the use of
lower-cost foods may be far better than simply giving away to a limited
number of people food that might have to be bought in dubious
circumstances. That is the wrong way to tackle the alleged problems,
and I wholeheartedly support the position of both Front
Benches. 5.5
pm
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