European Community Ministers (Hansard, 20 July 1978)

§ 8. Mr. Canavan
asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he expects next to meet his EEC counterparts.

§ Mr. John Silkin
When I next attend a meeting of the EEC Council of Ministers on 24th and 25th July.

§ Mr. Canavan
When my right hon. Friend meets his Common Market counterparts, will he reject utterly any 775 proposals, such as the insane policy just mentioned by the SNP spokesman, for a further massive devaluation of the green pound, which might put more money into the pockets of rich farmers such as the hon. Member for Banff (Mr. Watt) but would have a disastrous effect on family budgets by pushing up the price of food to ordinary housewives?

§ Mr. Silkin
I do not expect to quote the hon. Member for Banff (Mr. Watt) when I meet my fellow Ministers in the Agriculture Council on 24th and 25th July, although if it is necessary I shall put my hon. Friend's point to them. It is a point that needs to be made over and over again—perhaps very slowly—to the Opposition, and particularly to the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton). Parity in green currencies would mean a 10 per cent. increase in the cost of shopping for every family in this country. That is the Opposition's policy and I hope that every Labour Member will make that clear.

§ Mr. Peyton
The right hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not follow him in the delicate art of misrepresentation, at which he is such an expert. May I ask him, since there is no immediate prospect of his meeting his partners in Brussels, whether he will give the fishing industry some indication of when the damaging stalemate will be finished? May I also ask him for an assurance that there is not, under wraps in Brussels at this moment, an agreement that is just awaiting its finishing touches and of which we know nothing?

§ Mr. Silkin
With regard to the first point, it is not for me to say whether Hansard has been misrepresenting the right hon. Gentleman. Perhaps if he reads his words and those of his hon. Friend he will find all that he needs. [An HON. MEMBER: "As modified."] As modified.
With regard to fisheries, I do not know of any agreement that is under wraps. I hope that a sensible solution can be arrived at by the simple expedient of the Commission issuing proposals which exactly meet the terms that we have always put on the table and which remain there. That is what I shall tell the fishing industry tomorrow, and it will remain my policy as long as I hold this position.

§ Mr. Frank Allaun
Will my right hon. Friend put it to the gentlemen in Brussels that the EEC is trying to interfere in Britain in an utterly ridiculous and humiliating way—by requiring, for example, that certain meat inspections should be carried out not as they have been satisfactorily done in Britain by environmental health inspectors but by vets?

§ Mr. Silkin
That is an old point which has arisen again. We are taking up the point in Brussels in so far as it concerns our domestic production—that which is destined for the United Kingdom market. It is a bit different when one comes to meat for export, because not only is the EEC concerned but there are a number of separate countries which insist on veterinary inspection before accepting meat.

§ Mr. Michael Latham
Regarding the common agricultural policy, does my memory fail me or was not the right hon. Gentleman a member of the Cabinet of the Government now headed by the Prime Minister—who has just come into the Chamber—who were supposed to have carried out a renegotiation in 1975, which that Government recommended to the country?

§ Mr. Silkin
If the hon. Gentleman cares to look at the statement issued at the time, he will find that reference was made to a stocktaking of the common agricultural policy, which, I believe, the German Government had promised to initiate. It was in the light of that that the renegotiation took place. [An HON. MEMBER: "Oh."] The hon. Gentleman might care to refresh his memory, as I did only yesterday. He will find in the statement a very clear reference to the fact that we did not find the common agricultural policy quite as good or effective as he and his hon. Friends found it at the time.

§ Mr. Peyton
Would not "Yes" have been a simple, honest and straightforward answer to my hon. Friend?

§ Mr. Silkin
No, it would not. I know that the right hon. Gentleman will be busy reading up his own speeches in Hansard and showing where they differ from his present position as modified, but he might find a little time to read also the statement in question.