§ Mr. Foulkesasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will set out and explain 103W the formula referred to by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Rifkind) on 23 January, Official Report, column 978, by which agriculture will progressively represent an increasingly small share of European Economic Community budget.
§ Mr. RifkindThe conclusions of the Council on the measures necessary to guarantee the effective implementation of budgetary discipline, which were adopted on 4 December 1984, provide that the net expenditure relating to agricultural markets will increase by less than the rate of growth of the own resources base which depends mainly on inflation, growth in consumption and the evolution of agricultural levies and customs duties. This means that agricultural expenditure will decline progressively as a proportion of the Community budget.