§ 4. Mr. Ian Bruce (South Dorset)What action his Department is taking to assist farmers who are affected by the fall in the value of the euro. [127033]
§ The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Nick Brown)The Government have undertaken a range of measures to help farmers through what I freely acknowledge are difficult times. Farm incomes have been depressed for the last three years. On the specific question of the euro's fall in value, the principal instrument that the Government can use is agrimonetary compensation. Up to the end of 2001, we will have paid some £595 million in agrimonetary compensation, which is broken down as follows: £22 million will have gone to dairy producers, £235.4 million to beef producers, £82.4 million to sheep producers, and £254.9 million to arable producers. Small amounts are also paid to farmers under agri-environmental schemes.
§ Mr. BruceI am grateful for that full answer, which contrasts with many answers that we currently receive from the Dispatch Box. Will he confirm that the saving to Her Majesty's Government in agrimonetary compensation is £110 million, despite all the money that has gone into it? More importantly, will he take the Chancellor by the hand—if one can do that—and get him to go to the European central bankers and protest about the fact that our European partners are deliberately devaluing the euro to give themselves a competitive 1031 advantage, and are not sorting out their own economies? Our farmers may be the most efficient in the world, but that is unfair competition.
§ Mr. BrownThe hon. Gentleman is right to point out that macro-economic policy has an impact on agriculture, as Ministers have previously acknowledged in the House. We can only make so much use of the instrument of agrimonetary compensation. The Government are making proportionate use of it, but it is wrong to encourage British agriculture to look to supply side measures as a solution to their problems. The solution must be closer market orientation.
§ Charlotte Atkins (Staffordshire, Moorlands)My local farmers have been helped by the countryside stewardship scheme. However, have the Government not been hampered in their efforts by the previous Government's neglect of the rural environment, which has led to a low allocation of EU funds for environmental development?
§ Mr. BrownAlthough I secured a 30 per cent. increase in the funds made available to this country from central European funds, I was handicapped by the low starting point in the negotiating base that I inherited from the previous Government, which means that we still do not get what I believe is our fair share of central European funds for these measures. I set great store by the second pillar of the common agricultural policy, and believe that we shall make more, not less, use of it in future.
§ Mr. William Thompson (West Tyrone)When the traditional arrangements run out, will agricultural compensation cease completely? If the differential between the euro and the pound continues, will the Minister seek to make new arrangements?
§ Mr. BrownI was in Northern Ireland yesterday, and met, I believe, some of the hon. Gentleman's constituents, and had a good exchange with them on a range of issues. The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the future of the agrimonetary compensation scheme, as other member states of the European Union will not have such a close interest in it in future, as they move to the single currency. No final decision has yet been made about the future of the agrimonetary regime once the two years that it still has to run have elapsed.
The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the matter now. The long-term future of agriculture lies not in supply side measures from the EU or the UK Government, but in a liberalised world market, in which the industry can earn its living in the marketplace.