§ Mr. Churchillasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many tonnes of European Economic Community intervention butter have been made available to general consumers at substantially below market prices in France, Germany and the United Kingdom, respectively.
§ Mr. Buchanan-SmithUnder the short-term subsidies available in France and West Germany in the current milk year, 46,400 and 70,000 tonnes of butter have been subsidised respectively, of which 15,000 and 52,000 tonnes respectively were from intervention store, and the remainder from subsidised private storage.
There are no directly comparable figures for the United Kingdom as our special consumer subsidy is not related specifically to butter in intervention or private store. However, since the current subsidy came into force on 2 July 1979, about 295,000 tonnes of butter have either received subsidy, or in the case of New Zealand butter been sold after a corresponding reduction in the import levy.