HORTICULTURE (WHOLESALE MARKETS) (Hansard, 30 June 1972)

§ The Minister of State for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Anthony Stodart)
I beg to move, That the Grants for Wholesale Markets (Extension of Period) Order 1972, a copy of which was laid before this House on 16th June, be approved. For the convenience of the House, perhaps I might give merely a skeleton of the purpose of the order. If hon. Members wish to raise any questions, I shall be delighted to answer them.
The purpose of the order is to extend by two years the period in which authorities providing major wholesale horticultural markets can qualify for grant by completing an approved scheme of development. The effect of the Order would be that marketing authorities would have until 14th April, 1976, to complete their schemes.
Major redevelopments have been completed at five markets in England, at two in Scotland and at one in Wales. Work is well on its way at Nine Elms and Manchester, and five other markets are hoping to start on their reconstruction before the end of this year. But authorities are acutely aware that under presen legislation only work that is finished by April, 1974, will be eligible for grant, and some of them are far from certain that they will be able to meet that date. The 1964 Act provides for the closing date to be extended to April, 1976—that is, for two years—by order.
I hope that the House will agree that this should now be done in fairness to authorities which have been held up through no fault of their own, and in order to avoid wasting the work which has gone into some projects or seriously undermining the financial calculations on which those projects were based.
With that admittedly short explanation, and repeating my assurance that I shall be happy to answer hon. Members' questions, I commend the order to the House.

§ Mr. Eric Deakins (Walthamstow, West)
We on this side of the House are not opposed to the order. Indeed, we welcome the extension of time which is 1935 being given in accordance with the provisions of the 1964 Act. However, there is a provision in that Act which the Minister of State has not mentioned for an extra £5 million increase in the sum of money to be made available. That is Section 10(6)(b).
Will the Minister tell us, first, how much money has been paid out in the past eight years and, secondly, whether it is his intention to introduce an order, if one has not been brought in already, for the extra £5 million to be made available, bringing the total over 12 years up to the £25 million made possible in the 1964 Act?
This is particularly important because of the position of Covent Garden. It is taking a long time to resite the market. We know that building costs are rising. We also know that the grant for Covent Garden has to come out of the original £20 million laid down in the 1964 Act. If Covent Garden costs have escalated, it is only fair that the extra £5 million should be made available so that other wholesale markets do not suffer by being deprived of funds.
Furthermore, will the Minister tell us something about the present state of the distribution system for horticultural produce? Are the Government satisfied that sufficient improvements have been made and are envisaged to make our industry more competitive to meet the tougher conditions likely to be experienced if we enter the Common Market? Is the Minister satisfied that the markets which have been and are likely to be grant-aided in the next four years are being sufficiently modernised with machinery like telex to enable them to compete effectively with both home and foreign competition?
My final question concerns the position after April, 1976. Obviously, if this sort of system is to go on. new legislation will be necessary. Will the Minister tell us something about the longer-term thinking of the Ministry? Is he satisfied that by April, 1976, with the schemes which are in the pipeline and proposed by local authorities we shall have put our system of the wholesaling of horticultural produce on a reasonably competitive footing which will thereafter need no further grant-aid from the Government?

§ Mr. Anthony Stodart
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his usual set of pertinent questions on this subject. He was absolutely right in his quotation from Section 10(6) of the 1964 Act. There is provision in that section for an extra £5 million. The order provides only for an extension of the time limit and not of the moneys available. At current prices, past payment and present and foreseeable grant commitments amount to just under £18½ million. It is possible—I should not wish to rule this out—that rising costs may increase this total to something above the £20 million provided by the Act. If so, it will be necessary to introduce an order extending the money limit. At present there is no basis for saying by how much, if at all, the £20 million may have to be raised. I hope the hon. Gentleman will agree that perhaps we should see how things go, and if need be, I shall have to come back to the House and ask for a money increase as well as a time extension.
Good and constructive work is being done on the modernisation system. Although the administration is centred on my Department and on the Scottish Office in Edinburgh, we do not plan to issue dogmatic rules for the construction of markets. This is a matter that is best left to the market authorities and the traders to determine. However, when we look at the spread of markets which have already been completed—we see them as far apart as Leeds, Gateshead, Bristol, Leicester, Glasgow, Liverpool and Edinburgh, with new markets under construction, as the hon. Gentleman has said, at Nine Elms and Wolverhampton and starting shortly at Bradford, Belfast and Birmingham—it is apparent that we have good coverage of market projects, with modernisation, which will be of enormous assistance to the vitally important part of marketing our horticultural produce properly.
A considerable amount of discussion is still going on about Covent Garden. One of the conditions is that the scheme must be viable. Discussions are going on between the tenants and the authority, but all the developments asked for by the tenants have been planned. We are hopeful that agreement will be reached on such matters as rents of the holdings. Taking one year with another, I am fairly confident that the new Nine Elms project 1937 will be thoroughly viable and of great benefit to the industry.
I noticed the hon. Gentleman's slight reservation about the possibility of our entering the Common Market, but let us assume that we do. What I think may be comforting to him is that, in the absence of any differentiation in the treatment accorded to home and imported produce going through the markets, we have no reason to think that the grants which we are discussing under Section 10 of the 1964 Act will be regarded as incompatible with the Treaty of Rome or the common agricultural policy.
Having had a good indication during the last few months of the hon. Gentleman's views on this general subject, I hope that will give him satisfaction and that the House will allow us to have what I think is a useful order.