HC Deb 21 February 1991 vol 186 cc422-4
5. Mr. Win Griffiths

To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he will next meet EC Agriculture Ministers to discuss EC agricultural reform.

Mr. Gummer

At the Agriculture Council on 4 and 5 March.

Mr. Griffiths

When the Minister goes to Brussels, will he bear in mind the urgent need for change, given that the GATT round has restarted? Will he consider the information, which I imagine was passed to him by the director general of the Nature Conservancy Council, that 80 per cent. of damage to sites of special scientific interest in Britain is caused by bad farming? Will he make it an urgent priority in the reform of the common agricultural policy to introduce green premia along the lines advocated by the Labour party?

Mr. Gummer

The Labour party's proposals have not gained much support outside the Labour party. They would certainly not be acceptable in the European Community and do not meet most of our requirements. However, at the National Farmers Union I spoke about the environmental changes that we should make and which I consider a necessary part of CAP reform. I hope that we shall reform the CAP to make it better. Some of the suggestions that have been made would make it decidedly worse. We need to ensure that farmers can do their two jobs—produce the food that we need and look after the land that we care about.

Mr. Marlow

Given that within the European Community Britain is one of the least self-sufficient countries in terms of food and agricultural produce, I wonder whether my right hon. Friend would be kind enough to give a simple undertaking to the House today that he will not agree to anything coming out of Brussels which will reduce still further our self-sufficiency in food and agricultural produce?

Mr. Gummer

My hon. Friend is both a farmer and someone who takes a great deal of interest in farming, but it is an odd view of our membership of the European Community—or of the world community—that we should be self-sufficient in everything. The German Government took such an autarkic view in the past. It would not commend itself to democrats or anyone with a liberal view of trade.

Mr. John D. Taylor

In the ongoing debate on common agricultural policy reform it has been suggested that only large farms are economic and efficient. Will the Minister take this opportunity to refute that suggestion? Does he accept that many smaller farms in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are equally efficient? Is not there something wrong with the CAP when 80 per cent. of funds available are directed to only 20 per cent. of farmers?

Mr. Gummer

I do not know of many farms in the United Kingdom that could not be classified as family farms. The idea that a family farm must have less than about 30 acres is nonsense. Some family farms hold and look after four or five families and that is how British agriculture has generally developed. The real distinction to make is between farms of a realistic size that are able to support a family and farms that we know perfectly well cannot produce an acceptable income as standards rise in countries such as Portugal, which traditionally have had tiny farms. We want to help such farms to reach a more sensible base so that they can support the people who run them.

Farming in this country is efficient and very much able to compete. I am determined that it should be able to continue to do so. As 80 per cent. of production is achieved by 20 per cent. of farms covering nearly 70 per cent. of the land area, it is not surprising that they receive 80 per cent. of the support.

Mr. Ralph Howell

I was most disappointed with the reply from my right hon. Friend to my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) about self-sufficiency. Would not it be in the interests of this country and every other to be as self-sufficient as possible in the production of food? Will my right hon. Friend undertake a study to find out the rate of self-sufficiency in Britain and Europe and compare it with American self-sufficiency? It seems that the GATT round is all about the United States hogging world trade.

Mr. Gummer

My hon. Friend produces wheat, a product which we could go on producing in such amounts only if we were able to export a large proportion of it. I am sure that my hon. Friend would not want his wheat production to be cut because other countries wanted to be self-sufficient in its production. The economic base that he proposes is one that I should not like to be applied throughout the industry. Would he suggest the same for coal or computers? That would destroy any progress and prosperity in the world.

Dr. David Clark

May I state the Labour party's agreement with the Minister's objectives for CAP reform as outlined in his answer to Question I? However, we believe that the reform must be cash-limited. It is absolutely indefensible that the British taxpayer and consumer currently pays £13.5 million a day to support the common agricultural policy. Why is the Minister so dismissive of the suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths), along Labour party lines, for the payment of a green premium? I know that the Minister likes the idea—why will not he discuss it with us and acknowledge that the green premium not only gives us environmentally sensitive farming, but provides us with a sensible agricultural support system and is more economical to the consumer and the farmer?

Mr. Gummer

I happen to think that the policy as outlined is not as good as a range of other policies that we have adumbrated and that is why I do not wish to implement it. I am pleased to hear what the hon. Gentleman says about supporting our policy. I hope that that means that he will tell his Front-Bench colleagues that it is no longer Labour party policy to support the MacSharry plans.

Mr. Moate

How can my right hon. Friend, of all people, be so non-communautaire as to attack the hon. Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark) for not eating British sausages? Will my right hon. Friend follow the logic of his remarks and urge the reform of the CAP so that production policies are at last returned to a national basis and the role of the European Commission is reduced to ensuring fair trade between member states? Does he agree that we are now paying £25,000 direct agricultural support for every full-time farmer and that we could get much better results on a national basis?

Mr. Gummer

I am happy to say that the CAP is a basis of our membership of the European Community. I am wholly in favour of that membership and I support the CAP. I intend to get it reformed so that it does more good for Britain, for British farmers and for the farmers of the rest of Europe. I do not find it uncommunautaire to say that as British sausages are the best in Europe, they should be eaten by British people; I am sorry that the Labour party spokesman for agriculture says that he will not eat them.