Loan Interest (Hansard, 8 February 1990)

§ 8. Mr. Home Robertson
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the burden of loan interest which is being carried by the agricultural industry.

§ Mr. Curry
We do understand the problems of farmers facing difficulties, but I must point out that the total income from farming increased by 11 per cent. last year, after the effect of interest payments had been take into account. The fight against inflation must remain the major priority for the Government and is very much in the interests of farmers.

§ Mr. Home Robertson
The Minister has conveniently avoided explaining exactly how much the industry is paying in interest rates at the moment. However, I am grateful to him for confirming in a written reply earlier this week that the industry is paying out as much in interest rates as he is paying into it for market regulation and price guarantees in the current year. Will he acknowledge that the £1,000 million cost of interest to farmers this year is more than five times what it was when the Labour Government left office? How can the industry adjust to its changing priorities and invest for the future after 1992 if the Government continue to maintain the highest interest rates in Europe?

§ Mr. Curry
The hon. Gentleman was highly implausible on the subject of interest rates when he spoke in the debate two days ago and he has got worse since. No farmer listening to those remarks is likely to conclude that a Labour Government would be of any benefit to him. Indeed, once farmers have listened to the remarks that the Leader of the Opposition is likely to make to the National Farmers Union next week, I am sure that they will conclude that they are entirely right to vote Conservative and that they will continue to do so.

§ Mr. Quentin Davies
Does my hon. Friend recognise that high interest rates are only one of the burdens that farmers face at present, the others being the overvaluation of the green pound and falling real output prices? Does he further recognise that the improvement in farming incomes to which he alluded was largely the result of good weather last year in both the drilling and the harvesting periods and that, in the nature of things, one cannot count on the weather for ever? When he is next contemplating moves, whether in an environmental context or in relation to straw burning, that would place additional burdens on the farming industry, will he consider very carefully this complex of burdens that the farming industry faces?

§ Mr. Curry
It is a fact that high interest rates create problems for all people in the business community. In that regard, farmers are no different from other business people. We are certainly at pains to minimise unnecessary burdens on farmers. That is why we are going to Brussels determined to achieve a green pound devaluation that will represent a substantial boost to the prices received by farmers in this country.

§ Mr. Wilson
Does the Minister recognise that high interest rates force people in rural communities to find other means of earning a living and that in many rural areas, particularly in Scotland, a traditional way of ekeing out a living is by catching wild fish, including salmon? Does the Minister realise that many people in Scotland have never accepted, and will never accept, the ludicrous proposition that wild fish that swim the Atlantic become private property the moment they enter a river system? In that spirit, will the Minister accept my congratulations on the Government's humiliating climbdown this week when they finally abandoned the salmon dealing licensing scheme and the absurd idea—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. Does this relate to loan interest?

§ Mr. Wilson
Yes, Sir.
Does the Minister accept that having wasted the time of Parliament for two years and the time of civil servants for four years in their attempts, at the bidding of landlord interests, to create this scheme, they have finally admitted defeat and abandoned it?

§ Mr. Curry
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will wish to congratulate the Government on taking an extremely sensible decision not to erect a vast bureaucratic apparatus which would not work. That is a matter for congratulation, and I accept the hon. Gentleman's congratulations with pleasure.

§ Mr. Speaker
I still think that that has nothing to do with loan interest.