The Potato Marketing Board (Hansard, 4 May 1983)

§ Lord Mackie of Benshie
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Earl Ferrers)
Yes, my Lords.

§ Lord Mackie of Benshie
My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for his reply, which was both brief and probably some unkind people might think typical of the complacency of the Government in the face of disaster. Perhaps he would care to expand it a little. I declare my non-interest. My potatoes are fetching an excellent price, except that they are a third of the price they were last year. I have no interest. I am doing it in the interests of potato growers as a whole. Is the noble Earl aware that many potato producers in Scotland have been taking as low as £32 a tonne for their potatoes, that the Government's low fall-back price is just over £43 and that this has not been realised? Is he also aware that the Potato Marketing Board has spent a great deal of money in its efforts to hold the price at a reasonable level and that it would appear that the Government have refused to give it any more to produce the sort of buying programme which would have held the price at a reasonable level? Are the Government going to continue in this policy? Will they back the Potato Marketing Board and the money they have already spent?

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, for declaring his interest. I think that he said about my answer that it showed complacency in the face of disaster. Possibly the noble Lord's interest might have been so described as well. The noble Lord asked whether the Government were going to back the Potato Marketing Board. They have done so. I would remind him that the United Kingdom cumulative average price for the season, which was £53.43 per tonne, is still comfortably above the level of the guaranteed price, which was £43.94. In that respect, the Government guarantee is working. It is impossible for the Government, or indeed the Potato Marketing Board, to predict with any accuracy the level of prices which will obtain at any one period of time.

§ Lord Mackie of Benshie
My Lords, is it not the case that the working of a guarantee which involves a very large number of producers in a loss of money should be looked at so that it may be improved?

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, of course we will always look at it. But I remind the noble Lord that the particular point of this form of guarantee is that the Potato Marketing Board can buy in up to 600,000 tonnes of potatoes at a specified price. It is only if the market price goes above that that the Potato Marketing Board will release growers from their contract. When it goes below the price the Potato Marketing Board holds to that contract. There are some growers who might have taken advantage of the contract, but did not do so. They cannot therefore blame the Government for that.

§ Lord John-Mackie
My Lords, I must declare a non-interest in potatoes. I do not grow any; I only eat them. Surely this year, when, as the noble Earl knows, we have a great scarcity of fodder, it would have been the Government's duty to help the board to buy in potatoes and release them to the hard-pressed people in the West Country, Wales and elsewhere, who are very short of fodder?

Earl Ferrers
My Lords, the Potato Marketing Board is already operating a stock feed scheme at £15 a tonne.

§ Lord John-Mackie
That is too high, my Lords.