§ Mr. Hicksasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he expects to be able to confirm the amount of secondary milk quota allocations to individual milk producers and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. JoplingThe work of the local panels in England and Wales was completed by the end of December apart from a very few cases where there are special problems. The tribunal has around 4,500 exceptional hardship and appeal hearings to be heard during January. By 21 January 2,710 will have been heard leaving 1,790 to be dealt with. Most of the tribunal's work will be completed by the end of January or early February. When this work is complete we shall be able to assess the total amount of secondary quota awarded and calculate any scaling down that may be necessary in the case of development awards.
§ Mr. Spellerasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will estimate how many litres of milk production will be available for redistribution as secondary quota if larger producers, who originally applied for the outgoers scheme, are now allowed to participate.
§ Mr. JoplingI will reply to my hon. Friend as soon as possible.
§ Mr. Teddy Taylorasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement outlining the progress made by the United Kingdom and other members of the Common Market in implementing and applying the agreement on milk quotas.
§ Mr. JoplingIn the United Kingdom allocation of quota to special cases is continuing, with local panels having completed their work by the end of December apart from a very few cases where there are special problems. Most of the tribunal's work will be completed by the end of January or early February.
The Agriculture Commissioner told the Council on 11 December that all member states had made individual 28W quotas known to their producers, with the exception of Luxembourg, where there are administrative difficulties, and Italy and Greece, where no levy is liable until after the end of the marketing year. The extent to which special cases and other administrative details had been completed varied considerably, but all member states still had some problems to resolve.
As my hon. Friend the Minister of State explained in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Devon, North (Mr. Speller) on 17 December, at column 37, it became clear from the Council discussion that there were differences in the interpretation of the rules and uncertainty about the amount of levy due. While maintaining our full commitment to the supplementary levy arrangements, we therefore suspended action for the time being, as did certain other member states. In any event only Germany collected levy by the due date in mid-December.
§ Mr. Teddy Taylorasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if it is the policy of Her Majesty's Government to seek measures to enable milk quotas to be transferred from one producer to another and for payments to be made for such transfers.
§ Mr. JoplingIn the Government's view the present Community rules regarding transfer of quota are too inflexible. I have recently issued a discussion document (copies are available in the Library of the House) which considers the scope for quota transfers under the present regulations and the options for changes to the regulations. One of these options is that quotas should be freely marketable. I have sought the views of interested organisations in the farming industry and professional bodies on this document and I shall decide on our objectives in Brussels in the light of the comments I receive.