§ 9. Mr. Andrew Reed (Loughborough)What estimate he has made of the proportion of farm income derived from subsidies and price supports under the common agricultural policy. [107888]
§ The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Ms Joyce Quin)The overall value of direct payments and price supports received by UK producers in 1998–99 represented 230 per cent, of total income from farming.
§ Mr. ReedDespite the enormous subsidies that go to farmers, we recognise that they are in crisis. However, does that not show that we are not getting good value for money from the common agricultural policy and other policies? Will the Minister ensure that we work harder to get much more of that money into things such as rural development plans to allow those farmers to convert, 398 and so that farmers are eventually paid for the work which they do but are not paid for—country stewardship and such things—rather than the Government interfering in the way they work on their farms?
§ Ms QuinI welcome the broad thrust of my hon. Friend's remarks. We want a new sense of direction in agriculture. That is precisely what we are trying to achieve through the rural development regulation. The way the CAP has developed in recent years has distorted payments throughout the agriculture sector. Often, it has been difficult to support the sectors that we have wanted to support. At the same time, money has been spent through the CAP in a distorting way. We have made an imaginative start with the rural development regulation. I am glad that certain other European countries are taking a close interest in what we are doing.