HC Deb 02 November 1978 vol 957 cc1-2W
Mr. Frank R. White

asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was the outcome of the Council of Ministers (Agriculture) meeting in Luxembourg on 30th and 31st October.

Mr. John Silkin

Together with my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, I attended the meeting of the Council of Ministers in Luxembourg on 30th–31st October.

As expected, the council formally agreed to arrangements for the payment of an additional butter subsidy in the United Kingdom at a rate of about 6p per lb on 51,000 tonnes of Community butter, together with a reduction on the import levy on 17,000 tonnes of New Zealand butter. This is a very satisfactory outcome which will be of help to consumers here.

The council reached provisional agreement on the technical details of three measures for the development of Mediterranean agriculture. The largest of these dealt with reafforestation and in line with our policy that such measures should be cost-effective we negotiated a significant reduction in the scope and cost of this proposal and agreed that it should be reviewed after three years of the five year programme had passed. We also secured reductions in the cost and scope of schemes for flood prevention in the Herault region of France and for irrigation in Corsica.

There was a first discussion of Commission proposals for changes in the EEC wine regime which will include structural measures aimed at reducing surplus production. Discussion of these items was not completed but pending agreement it was decided to extend the current ban on new planting of vines.

I raised with the Commission the recent change of practice which had deprived United Kingdom compounders of subsidy on purchases of skimmed milk powder. I received assurances that the Commission still intended the subsidy scheme to be effective and I expect to see this reflected in future Commissions decisions.

In view of the complexity of proposals for regulations to implement the changes in the market organisation for olive oil agreed earlier this year, the council decided to extend the current marketing year for two months to 31st December. The regulations implementing the new olive oil regime will be put to the council for decision at its November meeting.