§ Lord Mackie of Benshieasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they have studied the feasibility of having a basic milk quota for small producers to which all would be entitled if they were already milk producers.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Baroness Trumpington)Quotas were allocated to holdings occupied by producers on 2nd April 1984 and derived from production during a base period, which in most cases was 1983. In order to stay within the national quota level, which was 101 per cent. of 1981 production, and to create a reserve of quota for special cases and for those undertaking development plans, individual quotas were set at 91 per cent. of production during the base period.
In recognition of the problems faced by small producers, all those whose quotas were less than 200,000 liters had their quotas restored to their level of production in the base period. The same category of producers also received the full benefit of any development quota entitlement, without the cutbacks which had to be applied to other producers' awards.