§ Mr. Spellerasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) if he will change the method by which he assesses farm income to one using as a base an average of the first three years of United Kingdom membership of the European Economic Community;
(2) what are the reasons for the current method used by Her Majesty's Government for calculating the base period upon which all annual reviews of agriculture are founded.
§ Mr. JoplingIndices and constant price series appearing in annual review White Papers from 1978 to 1983 were based on 1975 in order to conform with the national and European Community accounts. They are rebased on the year 1980 in the 1984 White Paper for the same reason except in the case of one new index which was based on 1977–78 to ensure comparisons could be made with a previous series. The change suggested by my hon. Friend would be out of line with our general practice and would not in my view be justified.