HC Deb 17 February 1977 vol 926 cc686-7
6. Mr. Spearing

asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is his last estimate of the effects on the retail prices of butter, cheese, beef, pork, bacon and eggs, respectively, of the remaining transitional steps, as agreed by the Government, from 1970 to 1974 as part of the Treaty of Accession to the EEC.

Mr. John Silkin

Retail food prices depend on many factors, including the extent to which market prices are influenced by institutional prices and the costs of processing and distribution. The effects of transitional steps cannot, therefore, be accurately predicted. I can, however, indicate the equivalent in retail price terms of the remaining two transitional changes in CAP institutional prices. These are: butter, plus 12p per lb; cheese, plus 5p per lb; beef, plus 4p per lb; pork and bacon, plus 1p to 2p per lb; and eggs, plus 1p to 2p per dozen. The figures assume present levels of CAP prices and an unchanged green pound.

Mr. Spearing

Do not those figures show the unwisdom of tying ourselves to the European agriculture system? Will my right hon. Friend give the figures in either pence per lb or percentage terms of the cost of each of those commodities imported from outside the EEC that would be diverted to EEC taxes or levies?

Mr. Silkin

That is a rather difficult calculation to make, and I would need time to consider it. I shall certainly write to my hon. Friend about it. The proportion of retail prices represented by these transitional step increases is rather alarming. The smallest increase is 2 per cent. in the case of pork and bacon, and it goes up to 20 per cent. in the case of butter.

Mr. Marten

Has the right hon. Gentleman seen the EEC's annual report on agriculture, which has just arrived in the Vote Office and makes it quite clear that every one of the 13 major foodstuffs was more expensive in 1976, and substantially more expensive in some cases in the Common Market than outside on the world market? How much longer must we go on taking these Common Market prices and not world prices?

Mr. Silkin

It is probably fair to say, and the hon. Gentleman can make his own assessment from it, that the Commission bases its world price comparatives on the lowest offer price. That may be for a large consignment or a small one. This point seems to me to be more concerned with the question of levies than with comparatives.

Mr. Loyden

Does not my right hon. Friend agree that, in spite of the figures given today for commodity price increases, consumers in the shops are faced with prices far in advance of those he has quoted to the House? Does he accept that this leads to a demand from the consumer for a complete reappraisal of our association with the Market, because people have reached the point at which food prices are becoming absolutely intolerable and which will threaten the social contract in the very near future?

Mr. Silkin

I cannot dissemble. I have had serious doubts about the efficient working of the common agricultural policy for some time.

Mr. Farr

Is not one of the most serious effects on the price of beef the fact that it is predicted that in 1978 the Community will be half a million tons short of production? What is the right hon. Gentleman doing to stimulate production at home?

Mr. Silkin

Beef production presents a difficulty, but it is a difficulty which results inevitably from a cycle. We came out very well from a dangerous trough in the cycle in 1974, and I regard us as being tolerably on target—I stress the word "tolerably". On the supply of beef, I believe—this was one of the things which was obtained at the December meeting of Agriculture Ministers in Brussels—in a more liberal importation system.