§ Mrs. Kellett-Bowmanasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how much quota has now been surrendered under the milk outgoers’ scheme; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. MacGregor[pursuant to his reply, 16 May 1985, c. 202]: At 7 June, some 265 million litres of quota had been bought in under the outgoers scheme. Although we have now achieved the two principal objectives of the scheme — to help small producers (those with under 200,000 litres) and to make exceptional hardship awards in full for 1985–86 — we have not yet achieved our overall target of 289 million litres of outgoers’ quota for England and Wales. We have decided therefore that the scheme should be re-opened to enable our target to be reached.
The scheme will also now be open to producers who were not themselves in milk production on 2 April 1984 but who have subsequently purchased land with quota and who do not wish to produce milk.