§ Mr. AspinwallTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was the outcome of the Council of Agriculture Ministers meeting on 18 and 19 January in Brussels; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. MacGregorDiscussion at the Council concentrated almost exclusively on mechanisms for stabilising expenditure under the common agricultural policy and on new Commission proposals for a wider scheme for taking land out of agricultural production. Both would form part of the package of issues on the future financing of the Community that will be before the meeting of Heads of Government on 11 and 12 February. No conclusions were reached and the Council will resume on Saturday.
Considerable progress was made on working out the details on a satisfactory scheme for the set-aside of agricultural land, but there is still some work to be done to achieve a satisfactory scheme. I had to express my deep concern at some suggestions floated during discussion in relation to expenditure stabilisers. The German presidency will be producing new proposals for discussion at the weekend.
1984 1985 1986 Number £ million Number £ million Number £ million United Kingdom 46 0.3 59 0.7 68 0.5 Rest of EC 321 5.4 444 7.6 352 18.6 The vast majority of these irregularities relate to failures to meet conditions of scheme where fraud was not suspected. However, it seems likely that the relatively small number of likely frauds accounted for a significant part of the money.