HC Deb 08 May 1969 vol 783 cc652-5
Q2. Mr. Peter Mills

asked the Prime Minister whether he will designate a Minister with special responsibility to promote import substitution, particularly by increasing home food production.

Q3. Mr. Jopling

asked the Prime Minister whether he is satisfied with the co-ordination between the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Board of Trade and the Treasury in implementing Her Majesty's Government's policies designed to maximise the gains to the balance of payments from increased domestic food production; and if he will make a statement.

The Prime Minister

My right hon. Friends already work closely together on these matters.

Mr. Mills

In view of the almost complete failure of present policies to deal with this problem, is not it time that the highest priority was given to import substitution, and will not the Prime Minister agree that agriculture is willing and ready to help?

The Prime Minister

Yes, this is very much our view. Indeed the question of import substitution raised in this Question goes far beyond agriculture. If there is one disappointment about the economic events of the past year, it has been that, whatever our exporting increases, industrial import substitution has not yet gone as far as it should having regard to the devaluation advantage. On agriculture, this matter was debated by the House recently.

Mr. Jopling

Did not the Prime Minister read the Report of the Select Committee on Agriculture which said that there are considerable differences of attitude and opinion between the Government Departments concerned? Will not he for once acknowledge his failure and lost opportunity and do something about it?

The Prime Minister

I did read that Report. I also read the valuable Report of the E.D.C. on agriculture. The hon. Gentleman will be glad to know that the N.E.D.C. at its meeting in April, which I was unable to attend, had a full discussion on import substitution. At its next meeting it will continue that, and it will also have a further report on the agricultural expansion programme. If the hon. Gentleman is suggesting, as was suggested in the House recently, that we shall get more agricultural production by still larger Government expenditure than was proposed in the Price Review, then hon. Gentlemen opposite had better reconcile that with their pledges to cut Government expenditure.

Mr. Hazell

Would not the Prime Minister agree that in accepting expansion to the extent of an additional £160 million produced from our own soil, the Government have, in fact, accepted the intentions of the Report of the Select Committee and that that objective is to be achieved over the next three or four years?

The Prime Minister

Yes, my hon. Friend is right, and he himself has played a large part in these matters. The next step will be the general meeting of N.E.D.C., where these matters will be considered further.

Mr. Stodart

Is the Prime Minister unaware that it is possible to get increased expansion without any additional Government expenditure? Is he not aware that one-sixth of all our imports is of food which we could grow in this country? The Chancellor said the other day that import substitution has hardly begun. Is this not indefensible?

The Prime Minister

I have just referred to our disappointment about import substitution. I am aware of the other facts and figures put forward by the hon. Gentleman, and these were central to the report of the Select Committee and the E.D.C. But import substitution in this case has to be paid for either by increased subsidies involving Government expenditure, which hon. Gentlemen opposite are pledged to reduce, or by the Conservative proposals about levies which will be paid to an unacceptable degree by the consumer and which the National Farmers' Union itself totally rejects.

Hon. Members

Rubbish.

Mr. Heath

As the Prime Minister has now firmly rejected any additional Government expenditure to agriculture to produce expansion, has firmly rejected our proposals for bringing it about without further expenditure through the levy system, but is still firmly committed to large import savings, how will he do it?

The Prime Minister

By the method described by my right hon. Friend in the debate, by what we have said in acceptance of the propositions of the E.D.C. for agriculture, which will be further discussed. If the right hon. Gentleman insists on greater public expenditure on agriculture, how does he reconcile that with all his other promises?