§ Mr. WilsonTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was the cost of maintaining the wool guarantee in each of the past 10 years.
§ Mr. CurryThe wool guarantee is designed to operate as a price stabilisation mechanism on the basis of advances to, or receipts from, the British Wool Marketing Board. Net expenditure (or net receipts) over the past nine financial years was as follows. The information for earlier years could be obtained in the form requested only at disproportionate cost.
£ 1983–84 602,882 1984–85 17,838,406 1985–86 1,458,753 1986–87 8,082,047
Total arable area (thousand ha) Total estimated SA (thousand ha) Total estimated SA converted to thousand acres As a percentage of national arable area As a percentage of total EC SA area Belgium 326 27 67 8 1 Denmark 1,909 226 558 12 5 Germany 8,218 915 2,260 11 21 Greece 1,523 27 67 2 1 Spain 8,978 764 1,887 9 17 France 11,859 1,463 3,614 12 33 Ireland 359 33 82 9 1 Italy 5,429 236 583 4 5 Luxembourg 33 1 2 3 — Netherlands 226 22 54 10 1 Portugal 833 34 84 4 1 United Kingdom 4,396 634 1,566 14 14 Total 44,087 4,381 10,821 10 100 Note: Minor discrepancies in totals are due to rounding.
Source: Commission statistics.
70W
Estimated reductions in production Cereals (million tonnes) As percentage of total reduction Protein (million tonnes) As percentage of total reduction Oilseed (million tonnes) As percentage of total reduction Belgium 0.1 1 — — — — Denmark 0.8 5 — — 0.1 8 Germany 3.8 24 — — 0.2 17 Greece 0.1 1 — — — — Spain 1.3 8 — — 0.1 8 France 5.9 38 0.4 80 0.5 44 Ireland 0.2 1 — — — — Italy 0.7 4 — — 0.1 8 Luxembourg — — — — — — Netherlands 0.1 1 — — — — Portugal — — — — — — United Kingdom 2.7 17 0.1 20 0.2 17
£ 1987–88 11,942,751 1988–89 13,267,593 1989–90 2,180,700 1990–91 18,191,215 1991–92 40,841,371 1 = receipts.
§ Mr. WilsonTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make it his policy to retain the wool guarantee after 1 May 1993.