§ Mr. John Wellsasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will help United Kingdom apple and pear growers to meet the cost of replanting orchards.
§ Mr. Brocklebank-Fowlerasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will introduce grant aid for the restructuring of domestic orchards; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. Peter WalkerYes. I intend, subject to parliamentary approval, to make available to growers grants for replanting apple and pear orchards under my Department's existing capital grant arrangements for a five year period as from 1 April 1983.
The Kingdom scheme has shown that our fruit growers can provide the quality and varieties of fruit required by the market. What is now needed are greater quantities of this high quality fruit. Following discussions with the NFU I now propose making the replanting grants available for five years to encourage growers to improve their orchards so as to allow them to take the fullest advantage of the Kingdom scheme.
The grant rates for replanting will be the same as those already available under the grant schemes for orchard grubbing—22½ per cent. under the agriculture and horticulture grant scheme and 32½ per cent. under the agriculture and horticulture development scheme. The capital expenditure will qualify for aid. Varieties attracting aid will be those apples and pears which are considered to be commercially viable both now and in the future and have a reasonable storage and marketing life. I shall be consulting the industry further on this and other details.
It is estimated that the aid will cost over £5 million over the period of the scheme.