HC Deb 02 April 1957 vol 568 cc39-40W
Mr. Osborne

asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will give the fullest possible details, separately, of the two items in Table C, page 13, of Command Paper No. 109, under the heading Farm Expenses of Machinery, £198,500,000, and Other, £148,500,000, respectively.

Mr. Godber

The individual items comprising these forecasts are naturally open to some margin of error, but the most important components are, in the case of the machinery expenses total, about £60 million for depreciation on vehicles and machinery (at replacement cost), nearly £55 million for purchases of fuel and oil and about £60 million for repairs, replacement parts and tyres; the total for "other expenses" covers a large number of items of miscellaneous farm expenditure, but the most important are nearly £30 million for seeds (imported seeds plus merchants' margins on homegrown seed) and about £40 million for livestock (imported livestock plus merchanting charges on inter-farm sales of home bred livestock).