Common Agricultural Policy (Hansard, 6 February 1992)

§ 9. Mrs. Gorman
To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the progress made so far in reforming the European Community's common agricultural policy.

§ Mr. Gummer
Discussions on CAP reform in the Agriculture Council are continuing. The next meeting of the Council is on Monday.

§ Mrs. Gorman
What does my right hon. Friend think that people would say when they got their weekend grocery shopping if there was a little item on the end of the bill which read, "This bill includes £18 hidden subsidy, the result of the CAP"? Will he be having any talks with the Cairns group of countries, which involves major food producers such as Australia and New Zealand and is dedicated to getting rid of all subsidies, tariffs and quotas which put extra costs on food, and getting good-quality, cheap food back on the shelves—policies from which our farmers have absolutely nothing to fear?

§ Mr. Gummer
If such an item were included on the bill, the customer could take the salesperson to the courts for 447 misuse of trade descriptions. Such a bill would be entirely fallacious. It is entirely based upon the fraudulent suggestion that, if we did not support agriculture, the prices now obtaining in the world at large would be our prices. Of course they would not; they are dumped prices as a result of support, and they would not obtain. Therefore, any housewife who receives such a bill should complain to the courts.

Mr. John D. Taylor
Does the Minister agree that, if the general agreement on tariffs and trade talks are concluded successfully and there is subsequent reform of the common agricultural policy, there is a great chance for an increase in production in the intensive sector in the pig and poultry industry once we gain access to cheap grain from the United States?

§ Mr. Gummer
All kinds of suggestions could be made as to what would be the effect of the major changes which GATT and the CAP reform would bring about. I am not sure that what the right hon. Gentleman says is true. The way to deal with the international support system at the moment is to reduce it right across the board—for all support systems to be reduced at a speed which farmers can bear and which bears on different types of farmers equally, both within the Community and as between the Community and our competitors in the United States. What worries me at the moment about the proposals is that there is discrimination not only against the United Kingdom but against Europe in the way in which the Commission is carrying out the negotiations with the United States.

§ Sir Donald Thompson
Farmers in Calder valley need continuity, as do farmers all over Europe. Will my right hon. Friend and his Department therefore spend a great deal of time in the next six months talking to our friends the Portuguese through the Portuguese presidency, so that they may adopt a sensible policy which we can then follow?

§ Mr. Gummer
As Britain will assume the presidency next, we are carefully discussing with the Portuguese how we should proceed with common agricultural policy reform. We cannot bring that about successfully until we know what is to happen with the GATT agreement. It must come first, and then we can implement it through a sensible reform policy that encourages farmers to get closer to the market, helps them with environmentally friendly farming, does not discriminate against the United Kingdom, helps those in the less-favoured areas and gives early retirement to those who are prepared to restructure their farms.