§ Mr. Spearingasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will tabulate in the Official Report figures of 594W the outturn, or estimated outturn, of the Common Agricultural Guarantee Fund for 1977 to show for each of the categories in his Written Answer, Official Report, 19th May, column 355–6 the amounts spent in £ sterling equivalent on: food aid, export refunds, other sales subsidies, and other costs, together with the respective totals, and notes on each of the above headings.
§ 2. Mr. John SilkinThe information requested is set out in the table. The figures are provisional and are drawn from an EEC Commission working document giving the position as known at 31st March 1978. The following notes should be read in conjunction with the table.
1. The Milk Coresponsibility Levy gave rise to receipts of £9.1 million during 1977 which are available for expenditure in 1978 or subsequent years. These are not reflected in the table.
Intervention purchase and storage includes both public and private storage. Purchase costs of intervention stocks are carried in the first place by the intervention organisations. The EEC pays interest on the capital involved and takes or reimburses gains or losses on sale or revaluation. Costs of purchase, withdrawal, treatment, insurance and storage are not separately available.
Export refunds (food aid). With food aid, only the cost of refunds (i.e. broadly the difference between the world price and the Community price) falls to the EAGGF: the cost of the commodity at the world price was allocated to Chapter 92 of the EEC budget, not the EAGGF.
Subsidised sales includes all forms of aid to sale or processing.
Monetary expenditure is not divided by commodity. The total is made up as follows:
Monetary compensatory amounts Intra-community trade £270.9 million Extra-community trade £87.4 million Expenditure arising from the application of different exchange rates to the Guarantee Section of the EAGGF £212.3 million 3. It should be noted that the sugar regime provides for levies as well as payment the levies appear as revenue in Chapter 11 of the EEC budget.
4. Expenditure on accession compensatory amounts amounting to £72.9 million in 1977 is not included in the table because this figure cannot be broken down by commodity.
595W
EAGGF GUARANTEE SECTION 1977 PROVISIONAL OUTTURN £ million Intervention purchase and storage Export refunds Export refunds {food aid) Subsidised sales Other Total Cereals (including rice) … … … 8.8 116.3 25.1 6.6 93.4 250.3 Milk products (a) Butter intervention … … … 92.9 — — 37.1 — 130.0 (b) Other … … … 110.4 452.9 62.5 311.1 2.6 939.7 Beef … … … 99.8 47.6 — — 23.8 171.2 Sugar … … … 0.7 151.1 0.3 0.2 71.4 223.6 Wine … … … 15.5 0.5 — — 21.9 37.9 Olive oil … … … 3.8 — — 3.1 85.5 92.3 Tobacco … … … 3.0 1.9 — — 80.7 85.5 Other … … … 48.3 94.8 — 12.4 55.7 210.9 Totals … … … 383.2 865.0 88.0 370.5 434.9 2,141.5 Monetary Expenditure: £570.6 million.
Conversions to Sterling have been made at the budget unit of account rate of 2.4u.a. = £1, applicable in 1977.
596W