Foodstuffs

HC Deb 02 April 1969 vol 781 cc473-4

28. Mr. J. E. B. Hill

asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what further steps he is taking to encourage the replacement of imported foodstuffs by increased home production; and what extra sum he estimates home agriculture will save on imports in 1969–70 over 1968–69.

42. Mr. Charles Morrison

asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what proportion of temperate zone foodstuffs he estimates the British agricultural industry will produce in each of the next five years.

Mr. John Mackie

Home agriculture now meets some two-thirds of our needs of temperate type foodstuffs. Because supplies and prices are subject to so many variable factors in the short-term, it is impracticable to give a meaningful estimate of import savings or of the proportion of home production to total supplies in individual years over a period.

We are confident, however, that this year's review will give the impetus needed at this stage to achieve our import saving objective of £160 million a year by 1972–73.

Mr. Hill

Surely the Minister, in fixing a figure of £160 million as a four-year target, must have some idea of the time-scale of achieving that objective. Is it to be £40 million a year, for example, or a rising curve? There must be some kind of time-scale to which he is working.

Mr. Mackie

I agree that it will be a rising curve. The hon. Gentleman will remember that last year we were nearly one million tons short on cereals because of the bad weather. We could be a million tons out next year. Obviously, it varies over the years. Many factors are involved—bad lambing and bad calving, for instance. However, these are our predictions for 1972–73. Of course we could give the sort of figures for which the hon. Gentleman asks, but they would hardly be meaningful since they could so easily be put astray by the weather, for example, as the hon. Gentleman himself well knows.

Mr. Wellbeloved

Does not my hon. Friend agree that imported foodstuffs provide the British housewife with a wide variety of goods and, in the case of imported meat at low prices, help in stabilising the price of the weekend joint? Will he exercise caution and not give way to silly pressures from the N.F.U.?

Mr. Mackie

Apart from being a little careful about the last part of my hon. Friend's supplementary question, my reply is, "Yes, Sir".

Sir G. Nabarro

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the all-pervading gloom among farmers found expression last week through Worcestershire farmers demanding the resignation of the Minister and through Devon farmers demanding the resignation of the Prime Minister? How does he expect his policies to succeed when no farmer anywhere in Britain has any confidence in any of his policies?

Mr. Mackie

Time will tell.