§ 8. Mr. OppenheimTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will list all of the subsidies and import barriers affecting food products.
§ Mr. GummerThe European Community agricultural policy, in common with similar policies in the United States and elsewhere, supports agriculture; in that sense, therefore, most of the food that we buy has had the benefit of that support.
§ Mr. OppenheimAs a member of a Government who believe in open markets and freedom of choice, is my right hon. Friend not a little ashamed to preside over a regime with so many impediments to choice in trade that he cannot read them all out during Question Time? Is not one of the most pernicious aspects of that illiberal regime its effect on eastern Europe, particularly the strict import 1139 quotas and restrictions on imports of soft fruit from Poland, Bulgaria and Hungary? How can we expect the eastern European countries, to which we have for so long preached the benefits of free markets, to reform themselves successfully when we cold shoulder the very products that they can successfully sell to us?
§ Mr. GummerI am proud that the farmers of the Amber Valley and elsewhere are able to get a return on their hard work which keeps our land looked after and home-produced food supplied. I do not believe that it is possible to run a system which does not give support to those farmers. As for strawberries, I am pleased that farmers who are producing raspberries and other soft fruit, especially in Scotland, have fair competition within a sensible regime, rather than finding themselves unable to produce at all.
§ Mr. Campbell-SavoursDoes the Minister accept that the cost of bringing milk across the channel acts as a non-tariff barrier for imports of raw milk into the United Kingdom? If so, does he accept that to talk about a free market in milk, after the wind-up of the milk marketing scheme, is something of a nonsense?
§ Mr. GummerWe have the natural advantage that those who wish to export products such as milk and potatoes to us have to pay the cost of transport. We also have the natural disadvantage that if we wish to export to others we have to pay the cost of transport. I find it difficult to equate that with a non-tariff barrier: it is a geographical fact of life and even the Opposition have to accept such facts of life.
§ Mr. Bill WalkerIs my right hon. Friend aware that the raspberry growers of Tayside believe that he and his team have introduced measures which have given them the opportunity to compete in the marketplace in a way that did not exist before? In addition, they have been able to improve substantially the way they market their products, which has had a remarkable effect on the economy of north Tayside.
§ Mr. GummerI thank my hon. Friend for that question. There is a balance to be achieved. I want there to be as much opportunity as possible for eastern European countries to sell in this country and in the rest of the European Community, but that must be consonant with the retention and expansion of a healthy British agriculture, if it is to be able to look after the land and to produce the food that we need. As my hon. Friend says, one cannot do that without some protection for our raspberry growers.