EC Food Aid: Administration (Hansard, 16 December 1986)

§ Baroness Elliot of Harwood
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

§ The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Young)
My Lords, the Council of European Development Ministers reached agreement on 11th November on a new regulation on food aid policy and management. This was subject to conciliation with the European Parliament, whose opinion differed on two institutional issues. The conciliation was successfully concluded today in Brussels and the new regulation will enter into force before the end of this year. This will allow food aid to become more responsive to the needs of developing countries, and give both the European Community and aid recipients better value for the large amounts of money we spend on food aid.

§ Baroness Elliot of Harwood
My Lords, I thank my noble friend very much for the reply, which was most encouraging. I have always found the slowness with which aid is delivered to the people who are starving difficult to understand. Under these agreements can my noble friend say whether aid will move more rapidly so that we shall be able to help people more quickly than we have in the past? As she rightly says, the money is very good.

§ Baroness Young
My Lords, the new procedures which are to be introduced by the Commission will speed up the provision of food aid at all stages, and emergency needs are to be given priority.

§ Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos
My Lords, we welcome the arrangement which the noble Baroness has just announced. Can she say what effect this will have on food surpluses in the European Community?

§ Baroness Young
My Lords, the features of these reforms are not in themselves designed to reduce food surpluses, which is a separate matter and separately under consideration. As I indicated in my original Answer, the object of these reforms is to meet the needs of developing countries rather than for the system to become a means for the disposal of surplus food and so that food aid should be better integrated with other forms of community development assistance.

§ Lord Blyton
My Lords, does not the Minister consider it disgraceful and disgusting that mountains of food are stored in England and all over the Continent, and that we sell cheaply to Russia while we spend billions to build Trident because we are all afraid of Russia, yet we sell them this food at very fancy prices? Why can we not give it to the British poor, the poor on the Continent and the poor in the Third World, instead of storing it at the expense of the taxpayer?

§ Baroness Young
My Lords, the noble Lord makes an important point about food surpluses. I am sure he will be aware that within the European Community we have been a leading nation in trying to get a reform of the common agricultural policy, which, among other matters, leads at the present moment to the creation of these large surpluses.

§ Lord Blyton
My Lords, will the noble Baroness tell me why the French Government and our Government are doing nothing about French farmers destroying British lamb in vans on the Continent?

§ Baroness Young
My Lords, that may be a very interesting question but I believe that the noble Lord will agree that it is wide of the Question on the Order Paper. If he cares to put down a Question on that subject I shall do my best to answer it.

§ Lord Mackie of Benshie
My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that there is a great difference between food aid and famine aid, and that food aid wrongly applied can destroy agriculture and the social structure in many of the countries to which it may be sent?

§ Baroness Young
My Lords, the noble Lord makes a very important point. On balance we would agree that the existence of surpluses may damage agriculture in developing countries. There are mitigating factors; for example, importing to developing countries food at cheap prices. However, the surpluses can do economic damage to producer countries, as the recent World Bank studies have shown.