Agriculture and Horticulture Grant (Variation) Scheme 1983

HL Deb 30 March 1983 vol 440 cc1581-4

4.18 p.m.

Earl Ferrers rose to move, That the scheme laid before the House on 2nd March be approved.

The noble Earl said: My Lords, in November last year my right honourable friend stated his intention to make grants available for a five-year period for the replanting of our apple and pear orchards. The three orders before your Lordships today allow for these to be paid under the existing capital grant arrangements from 1st April. The printed order, the Agriculture and Horticulture Grant (Variation) Scheme 1983, is an amendment to our national scheme. The two other orders—the Agriculture and Horticulture Development (Amendment) Regulations 1983 and the Farm and Horticulture Development (Amendment) Regulations 1983—are draft orders for your Lordships' approval and they amend the European Community schemes.

My Lords, our apple and pear industry began its recovery with the introduction of the Kingdom marketing scheme some 2½ years ago. This is the premium pack which was first recommended in a penetrating study of the British apple and pear industry which was carried out by my noble friend Lord Selborne and his colleagues on the industry's Top Fruit Working Group. The success of the Kingdom scheme has shown that our growers can be viable and can compete with the best imported produce provided that they organise themselves and produce good quality, properly graded fruit, which is properly and professionally marketed.

What is needed now is a greater supply of this produce. A third of our orchards have become too old to produce top quality fruit and a number of varieties which are grown merely have a local demand. The orders before your Lordships are designed to back up the Kingdom scheme by encouraging growers to plant with varieties of fruit which are in popular demand. It is estimated that, over the five-year life of the scheme, this additional aid will amount to some £5 million.

Grants for grubbing trees are already available under the grant schemes. These new orders will enable grant to be paid towards the capital costs of replanting apple and pear orchards which are grubbed up after 7th November 1982. The rates of grant will be 22.5 per cent. under the Agriculture and Horticulture Grant Scheme and 32.5 per cent. under the Agriculture and Horticulture Development and Farm and Horticulture Development Schemes.

For too long the rewards of apple and pear growing have not been adequate enough to encourage the planting of new young trees. As a result, the trees have grown old and both the quantity and the quality of the fruit which they produce has suffered. They need to come out and to be replaced with fresh, young trees, capable of providing good quality fruit. There is still too much poor quality fruit on the market, but these grants will help apple and pear growers to modernise their orchards.

The industry has been consulted on the varieties which are considered to be commercially viable, both now and in the future, and which are considered to have a reasonable storage and marketing life. Those named in the orders are Cox's, Bramley and Spartan apples and Conference and Comice pears. Growers might wish to plant other varieties to meet, for example, a local market demand, and the orders therefore provide for the aid to be given on a restricted proportion of other varieties of trees for pollination purposes. Up to one in four trees to be planted may be of a variety which is not mentioned in the order. In order to qualify for grant, the stock planted will have to be certified under the Ministry's Plant Health Propagation Scheme or be of a comparable health standard. No problems are anticipated over the availability of healthy stock to meet the demand created by the grants.

I hope that your Lordships will agree that these grants should give our apple and pear industry further encouragement. I beg to move.

Moved, That the scheme laid before the House on 2nd March be approved.—(Earl Ferrers.)

Lord Bishopston

My Lords, I should like to thank the Minister for his explanation of these orders and to give a welcome to them, because they substantially help British agriculture which over the years has made a very substantial contribution to our own food needs and to vital United Kingdom exports. Productivity in our food and agricultural industries has been extremely good and has been an example to other industries. As I have said before, if only the productivity of other industries had matched that in the agricultural sector there would be fewer problems. But in order to maintain such a record, the pursuit of excellence must be a continuing objective, especially in competition with the EEC producers and in particular the French and other growers.

Apples and pears are the concern not only of the Apple and Pears Development Council, the Ministry and other bodies, but also the concern of every grower and producer and, indeed, of the consumer, who must see quality and prices as being competitive. Marketing is also important in ensuring that the fruit on offer is of the finest quality and presentation. The measures do help us to maintain the high standards of production. Coming from Nottinghamshire, as I do, I have a particular interest in the Bramley, which originated in that area.

Good marketing, which is the concern of the Apple and Pear Development Council and the Ministry, will not be helped if the fruit is substandard so these measures will be helpful here. The aim of the orders, as the Minister of State has said, is to improve the stock, and they are to be welcomed. I hope that consumers will also be aware of the very great effort being devoted to ensuring that our food products are competitive. In last year's report of the Apple and Pear Development Council a few points were made which are obvious to many of us but which should not be forgotten. They referred to the fact that: Substantial amounts of concentrate are produced in countries that have lower costs than the U.K. in terms of both processing and raw materials. This, together with good world-wide apple crops in most years, has tended to maintain prices at a relatively low level. They go on to say: A preliminary financial appraisal indicated that it would be difficult to set up a plant in the U.K. and process apples into concentrated juice at a cost low enough to compete effectively with imported juice". Therefore, although it is very important, as the Minister has said, to ensure that our producers have this kind of aid to ensure the maintenance of the very high quality of their produce, it is also important to recognise that they are in great competition with imports from other countries and therefore this aid is doubly welcome. The apple juice market is important and it is vital that the product should be such as to enable it to capture a greater share of the market. I understand there is spare production capacity in the apple-processing industry so that there is still great potential for further quality production.

With those few words, may I say again how much we value the aid given by the Government to the industry. We hope that our industry can remain competitive both in quality and price.

Lord Mackie of Benshie

My Lords, I, too, should like to welcome the order. I think it is awful that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, is not in his place to welcome this order, because the last time we spoke about Cox's Orange Pippins in this House he was absolutely lyrical about the pippin, and that must have done a great deal of good in the country. I hope he will take an early opportunity to repeat his marvellous comments on the pippin and do some more good.

I should like to ask the Minister whether he thinks the one in four will be enough to take care of a number of rare varieties which are useful and which will have a limited market. May I also ask him why we have not included the main competitor, which I understand grows here quite well; that is, Golden Delicious! That is the apple which is indeed taking much of the market and I should have thought we might have encouraged somebody to try to beat the French at their own game and perhaps grow a tastier form of the apple in this country. Perhaps the noble Minister could tell us why this was not included.

Earl Ferrers

My Lords, the whole purpose of the scheme was to encourage the planting of those varieties which are in popular demand. In fact, Cox's make up about 60 per cent. of the national dessert apple area, and Spartan about 5 or 7 per cent. Bramleys are 85 per cent. of the culinary apple area. While a number of other varieties are grown, it is very difficult to market those adequately or on a national scale, although there may be some local demand, as I suggested earlier. It is possible to allow for that by planting these additional trees which anyway have to be planted in order to act as pollinators.

We have, of course, to encourage the apple industry to grow those varieties which sell best, and while it is perfectly true that Golden Delicious have a certain market it seems to be the case that those from overseas happen to get priority of publicity, as opposed to the English variety. For those reasons, we decided on the three apple varieties I have referred to; but of course if circumstances change and other varieties come up in interest and demand then they can be added to the list of apple varieties which can attract grants.

On Question, Motion agreed to.