HL Deb 28 November 1983 vol 445 cc434-5

2.47 p.m.

Lord Belhaven and Stenton

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what was the average annual increase in the cost of food between 1975 and 1979 and between 1979 and 1983.

The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Lord Belstead)

My Lords, food prices in the retail price index increased by an average of 14.4 per cent. per annum between 1975 and 1979 and by an average of 7.7 per cent. per annum between 1979 and the first 10 months of 1983.

Lord Belhaven and Stenton

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that extremely encouraging reply. I wonder whether he could give the House comparable figures for Ireland, which used to be linked with sterling, and for France, West Germany and Japan?

Lord Belstead

My Lords, I could not have done so unless my noble friend had warned me, but as my noble friend warned me I can. Between 1975 and 1979 the average annual increases in retail food prices were as follows: France, 10.1 per cent.; West Germany, 2.7 per cent.; Japan, 5.4 per cent.; and Ireland, 14.3 per cent. The average annual increases between 1979 and the first eight months of 1983—I am afraid I have figures for that period and not for the first 10 months—were: France, 10.5 per cent.; West Germany, 4 per cent.; Japan, 3.7 per cent.; and Ireland, 10.3 per cent., respectively. The figures for Japan, unlike those for the other countries, include meals eaten out of the home.

Lord Bishopston

My Lords, will the Minister accept that our membership of the CAP means that we pay much higher prices for food within the Community than do people outside? Will the Minister urge his ministerial friends in the Government to show a little more fight to keep prices down within the Community than they have shown in relation to the situation regarding the milk regulations?

Lord Belstead

My Lords, I do not accept that the common agricultural policy has the effect which the noble Lord, Lord Bishopston, ascribes to it. It directly affects only about one quarter of the cost of food in the shops. Of course, we always negotiate robustly on behalf of Great Britain.

Lord Mackie of Benshie

My Lords, will the Minister confirm or deny that the retail price index as a whole has risen by more than the price of food?

Lord Belstead

My Lords, that is right. The all-items retail price index increased by an average of a little less than the first figure I gave in my reply—namely, 13.5 per cent.—between 1975 and 1979; but it increased by a good deal more between 1979 and the first 10 months of 1983; namely, by 10.5 per cent. For the 12 months to October of this year, the rate of increase in the retail price index was 5 per cent. It might interest the noble Lord to know that the increase in the annual food price index for the first 10 months of this year compared to last year is only 2½ per cent. higher.

Lord Bishopston

My Lords, will the Minister take a little wider look than at the cost of food to the consumer?—because the consumer, as a taxpayer, has to pay hundreds of millions of pounds for storage, for getting rid of surpluses, for intervention and for all the other matters which, after all, have to be added to the cost of our food in this country.

Lord Belstead

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord; and if we had a different system it would presumably be deficiency payments, and one would find the taxpayer paying for that.