§ Mr. Joplingasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what would have been the effect on the forecast fall in agricultural net income of 11 per cent. in real terms for 1978, if the 7½ per cent. devaluation of the green pound had not been agreed by the House in January 1978.
§ Mr. BishopThe 7½ per cent. devaluation was implemented for different products at different dates and there would have been a time-lag before the effects worked through to farmers' returns. It is not possible satisfactorily to isolate from all the other factors, the effect of the green pound change during the relevant months and thus to give a reliable estimate of the effect on aggregate net income in 1978.
TABLE 1 QUANTITIES COMMUNITY INTERVENTION STORES AND AIDED PRIVATE STORAGE Commodity Public storage Aided private storage Date Cereals (including rice) … … 1.9 million tonnes Nil 30 November 1978 Milk Products— (a)Butter … … … … 217,535 tonnes 246,349 tonnes 30 November 1978 (b)SMP … … … … 744,014 tonnes Nil (c)Other … … … … Nil 40,295 tonnes 31 December 1978* Beef … … … … … 210,098 tonnes 36,000 tonnes† 30 November 1978 Sugar‡ … … … … … Nil Nil Wine … … … … … Nil 509,300 hectolitres 30 November 1978 Olive Oil … … … … 94,116 tonnes Nil 8 December 1978 Tobacco … … … … … 21,905 tonnes Nil 30 June 1978 Others … … … … … Not available NOTES TO TABLE 1:— * Except Italy, where the date is 1 December 1978. † Approximate figure ‡ Sugar eligible for storage refunds has not been included because refunds relate to an ordely marketing, rather than to an intervention buying and storage, measure.