§ 3.48 p.m.
§ THE EARL OF DUNDEEMy Lords, with your Lordships' permission I should like to repeat a statement now being made by the Lord Privy Seal in another place on the progress of the Brussels negotiations.
"The Ministerial Meeting which began on the 20th of July was concerned with two important aspects of the development of the European Economic Community's common agricultural policy—arrangements for annual reviews and the provision of a further assurance for farmers in the Community.
"The arrangement worked out at this meeting contains the following elements:
"First, there will be an annual review of agriculture in the Community as a whole—a Community annual review. The information which member States will have to provide. to enable the Commission to prepare this comprehensive review of the situation and the economic prospects of agriculture in the Community has been agreed between us in detail. At the same time member countries of the Community who wish to do so will carry out their own annual reviews. The results of such reviews, together with any observation which member States concerned wish to put forward about them, will be forwarded to the Commission and taken into account by them in preparing the Community Review. The Commission will also carry out consultations with representatives of interested organisations, particularly of farmers.
"Secondly, the arrangement sets out explicitly what the Community annual review itself is to cover. This includes trends in the profitability of the agricultural industry, trends in prices and costs within the Community and an assessment of their implications for production, consumption, imports and exports.
"Thirdly, the arrangement covers the use to be made of the annual review when completed. The Commission must report to the Council of 899 Ministers the results of the Community Review and make appropriate proposals to the Council, particularly in the light of these results. The Council will also use the results of the annual review in taking decisions in the implementation of the common agricultural policy.
"Fourthly, the Community have accepted in the arrangement that if the annual review shows that the remuneration in the agricultural industry does not ensure for the farmers of the Community or of particular areas of it a fair standard of living, in conformity with the objectives defined in Article 39 of the Treaty, the Commission will take up the question either on its own initiative or at the request of a member State. The Commission will then submit to the Council of Ministers proposals to remedy this situation, and the necessary decisions will be taken by the Ministers.
"To sum up, an arrangement has been reached for the establishment of a comprehensive Community Review incorporating the results of those undertaken by national Governments. Those results will be applied by the institutions Of the Community in the construction of a developing common agricultural policy. The Community has also accepted that there should be a general assurance with regard to farming incomes and has agreed upon the procedure by which this assurance must be implemented.
"These are very important parts of our negotiations affecting domestic agriculture. To-morrow in Brussels we will return to other aspects of them, namely certain commodities and horticulture. The ministerial meeting will continue for the remainder of the week and will deal with other important items in the negotiations, in particular those concerned with Commonwealth trade. I expect to make a further report to the House next Monday."
§ 3.53 p.m.
§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGHMy Lords, of course we are obliged to the noble Earl for giving your Lordships' House the benefit of having the statement concurrently with the statement in another place. But I 900 must say that I think your Lordships will agree, when you read this in Hansard to-morrow morning, how remarkably little we are told upon something which apparently has been agreed as an arrangement. The language in this statement is extraordinarily abstruse, as I see it, and I am not surprised that in the newspaper this morning the National Farmers' Union President says that this is nothing at all so far as they are concerned; it is no use to them; and the charge is made by the President of the National Farmers' Union that Mr. Heath has not carried out his pledge. Has the noble Earl seen that? Does he know about that? Has he made inquiries? Can he give reassurance about this arrangement to Members of this House of Parliament as well as any statement that is made in the other? Because, so far as I can see, this is the beginning of the Tory Government's selling the farmers down the river. That is so far as I can read a meaning into this statement to-day, and the reaction of Mr. Harold Woolley, the President of the National Farmers' Union, seems to support me very strongly in this view.
What is actually going to be the position? Anybody who reads carefully Article 39 of this massive Treaty of Rome, which is concerned with agriculture, will see there the conditions which are laid down. Perhaps next week when we are dealing with the Common Market we shall be able to say a good deal more in detail. But it actually seeks a common agricultural policy for the whole community. It also makes passing reference to the standards of life of the farmer, the standards of life of the worker and so on. And here to-day we get a comprehensively abstruse statement as to an arrangement made for a whole procedure in regard to annual agricultural reviews.
First of all, it is right to point out, as Mr. Harold Woolley points out, that no other country in the Community is necessarily required to have an agricultural review. There is no guarantee at all, therefore, that there will be anything other—apart from our own—than a Community Review produced for the whole of the Six. It will be perfectly open, I know, for other members of the Six to have an annual review and report upon it, but there is no compulsion, according to this statement made to-day. Then you will have a judgment of the 901 Standard of life of the farmer and the standard of life of the worker, with its ultimate effect upon the consumers of the country, settled outside by a body which you enter and of which you become practically, shall I say, a province with a minority voice. This is the revelation and it is coming step by step. 1 hope the noble Earl will be able to tell us at any rate something more about the promise that there is to be an assurance about the farmers' position. We have heard nothing concrete yet about that, and perhaps he would give us some more information now.
§ THE EARL OF DUNDEEMy Lords, I am grateful to the noble Viscount for giving us both his own views and those of the President of the National Farmers' Union. Of course, your Lordships will realise that when a general agreement is reached upon the lines of approach to be fallowed in pursuing certain objectives it is very difficult to anticipate concrete details which have not yet been worked out by the Six themselves. The noble Viscount referred to Article 39 and asked whether I could give any more detailed information than I have done, which I do not think I can do. But the best I can do, I think, is just to remind your Lordships of what Article 39 says. The Objectives of the common agricultural policy shall be:
And it provides that account shall be taken of the distinctive nature of agricultural activity which results from agriculturist social structure and from
- "(a) to increase agricultural productivity …
- (b)to ensure … a fair standard of living for the agricultural population, particularly by the increasing of the individual earnings of persons engaged in agriculture;
- (c)to stabilise markets;
- (d)to guarantee regular supplies; and
- (e)to ensure reasonable prices in supplies to consumers."
structural and natural disparities between the various agricultural regions".With regard to this agreement which has been made between my right honourable friend the Lord Privy Seal and the representatives of the Six last week in Brussels, I think all I could say now in reply to the noble Viscount's question is that the Six have accepted, after a great deal of pressure from us, that there should be a comprehensive Com- 902 munity Review with explicit terms of reference, and we have established a mechanism whereby the Community will take account of the results of the Annual Review and make its decisions on the common agricultural policy. We have also persuaded the Six to accept that there will be a residual assurance to the agricultural population, and a procedure by which this has to be implemented. We have thus not only obtained a long-term guarantee for British farmers but have made a positive contribution to the establishment in due course of a comprehensive, long-term agricultural policy in an enlarged Community. I do not think I could be expected to prophesy the details of agricultural policy in ten years' time after the transitional period has come to an end. I do not think it would be useful if I attempted to do that, and I certainly do not object to the prophetic criticisms of the noble Viscount, which he is perfectly entitled to make and which may well be useful as a warning.
§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGHMy Lords, I must say that I am wholly dissatisfied with the comments made by the noble Earl. He started to read out the article—I saved the House from listening to it at length—but in fact he does not answer the points which have been made by the farmers themselves on this subject. Mr. Harold Woolley, the President of the National Farmers' Union, says that the Agreement would neither guarantee farmers fair prices nor maintain their standard of living, and he complained that Mr. Heath had retreated from a promise made last October that the Government would retain the right to safeguard farmers' living standards. There is no such right, according to this statement, retained by the British Government. They have agreed to this procedural arrangement. No other country in the Six is bound to have its own individual review. You can have an annual review here and it will be considered, probably under a policy approach for the year, by the Commission for the whole of the Six, or the whole of the enlarged Community. This means giving up your right in this country to deal with three points of fundamental importance to the citizens of this country—the standard of life of 903 the farmers; the standard of life of the farming workers, and the actual consumption position of the general mass of consumers in this country. You are letting that go entirely to a majority of other people in Europe.
§ THE EARL OF DUNDEEMy Lords, I do not wish to pursue an argument on what may be largely a matter of opinion. I would only point out to your Lordships that under this Agreement which the Lord Privy Seal has now made with the Six, if the annual review—that is the annual review of any special country in the Community—indicates that the remuneration of the agricultural industry does not ensure for the agricultural population of any particular area in it a fair standard of living, then, in conformity with the objective defined in Article 39 of the Treaty, the Commission will have to submit to the Council, either on its own initiative or at the request of a member, measures to remedy that situation.
§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGHYou go cap in hand and ask for a change of policy of the majority against you. I have never before in my long life seen the position of British citizenship let down like that.
§ 4.3 p.m.
§ LORD OGMOREMy Lords, I should like to welcome the statement. I believe it is an important step forward in most difficult and delicate negotiations. May I ask the noble Earl one or two questions? First of all, how did the President of the National Farmers' Union know last week what was going to be in this statement to-day? Has there been any leakage of information, and has the President of the Farmers' Union obtained information before this House obtained it? Secondly, has the noble Earl not already said that there will be a comprehensive Community annual review of these particular farm prices?
§ THE EARL OF DUNDEEMy Lords, in reply to the first part of the question, I can say I have no knowledge of any leakage, nor have I any knowledge of whether the anticipation of the President of the National Farmers' Union was correct or otherwise. The answer to the second part of the noble Lord's question is, "Yes".
§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGHMy Lords, is it not a fact that this statement was made by Mr. Harold Woolley only yesterday, but that there were already announcements on Saturday night that some agreement had been arrived at, and further expansions of that in the Press on Sunday? I have no doubt that somebody would have been present over there keeping watch on behalf of the Farmers' Union as to what was going on.
§ THE EARL OF DUNDEEMy Lords, I nave done my best to study and understand the statement of my right honourable friend the Lord Privy Seal. I am afraid that I have not given equal study to the anticipatory reports, either of the newspapers or in anybody's speeches.
§ LORD HENDERSONMy Lords, may I ask the noble Earl a question? He used the phrase that there would be an attempt made to ensure a fair standard of living. Does that mean a uniform standard, or may there be varying standards for the different countries belonging to the European Community?
§ THE EARL OF DUNDEEMy Lords, I have not been in politics for quite so long as the noble Lord, but I have been in it for about thirty years, and I do not think I have ever heard any politician in any Party define what is meant by a living wage, although one is often asked to do so; yet within the last thirty years a great many more people are receiving a living wage than was the case thirty years ago. I would make the same observation in regard to this phrase "a fair standard of living", which seems to me to connote much the same thing.
§ LORD HENDERSONMy Lords, I fully follow the noble Earl. My point was not what was a fair standard of living, but would the standard of living, fair or otherwise, be uniform across the various countries who form the community?
§ THE EARL OF DUNDEEMy Lords, that is rather like asking in one country whether the wage in one industry will be the same as a living wage in another, which is often difficult to answer. In regard to agriculture, as we know, here the standard of living of persons engaged in agriculture has advanced 905 rapidly, though not so rapidly as that of those engaged in many branches of manufacturing industry.
§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGHMy Lords, I should like just to say that I am still quite unconvinced by the nature of the statement and of the answers. But there is going to be another statement on Monday next, which apparently is going to affect certain Commonwealth matters as well. We shall be opening our debate on Tuesday week, and we snail have something more in detail to say about the matter then. In the meantime, we shall pursue our inquiries elsewhere. Perhaps they will be more able to fill in the gaps for us than the noble Earl has been able to do to-day.
§ THE EARL OF DUNDEEMy Lords, I will always do my best to place all the information I have and all the arguments I can muster at the disposal of the noble Viscount. I am glad to say that it is not an essential part of my duty to convince him, although I should like to be able to do so.
EARL FERRERSMy Lords, could the noble Earl explain one point. because these things are complicated? Why is it that the annual review of the Community takes place after the annual review of the (individual countries? One would have thought that if the Review of the Community was to have an effect on individual countries, it should take place before the review of the individual country.
§ THE EARL OF DUNDEEMy Lords, it seems to me that it should be the other way round. Surely the annual Review of the Community should take account of the various particular annual reviews of individual countries. I think that is the general idea.
§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGHMy Lords, I should like to point out that there is no compulsion upon any country to submit an annual review. There is nothing in that statement which says that all the Six, for example, are going to submit annual reviews. They are not.
EARL FERRERSI am fully aware of that, but if the Review of the Community is to have an effect on the individual countries' reviews, then surely 906 those reviews must come after the review of the Community, otherwise they will not be able to have their policies imposed upon the individual countries.
§ THE EARL OF DUNDEEI think the idea is to give individual countries the opportunity of influencing all the others, and that, if they think they want a change of policy or emphasis, they should produce their review first in order to prevail upon the Commission and the Council of Ministers to take action to dead with any special problems which are affecting them at that time.