§ Mr. Spearingasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will provide in the Official Report the assumptions and calculations on which he bases his estimate of a 1.25 per cent. increase in retail food prices consequent on the recent overall common agricultural policy support price increase of 3.5 per cent. and the cessation of accession compensatory amounts prior to April 1978.
§ Mr. John SilkinMy estimate covers the effects in the period up to 1st April 1978. It takes account of the butter88W subsidy and it also includes for individual commodity sectors, the 2.9 per cent. devaluation of the green pound, together with the changes in institutional support prices and of phasing out transition compensatory amounts. These effects are aggregated to produce an increase of some £245 million on the value of expenditure on the foods affected, of which some £175 million arises from the transitional steps which we are due to take under the Treaty of Accession. By relating this figure to total expenditure on food of about £19,500 million an increase of some 1¼ per cent. is indicated.