§ Mr. Nicholas BrownTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if she will state(a) the price at which British wholesalers buy tobacco per tonne, (b) what she estimates the price of tobacco per tonne would be in a free market without European Community price intervention, (c) the levels of European Community production and consumption of tobacco, (d) the level of common agricultural policy expenditure on tobacco subsidies and (e) the cost to the British Exchequer of European Community intervention in the tobacco sector.
§ Mr. JackThe answers are as follows:
(a)(b) It is not possible to give a representative wholesale price for tobacco, since values vary significantly in relation both to variety and quality. Neither is it possible to make precise estimates of a potential free market price, without a large number of assumptions about current price levels on world markets and how they would react if circumstances were to change.
(c) The latest Commission estimate of EC tobacco production from the 1993 harvest is 364,219 tonnes. Community consumption amounts to some 630,000 tonnes per annum.
(d) The provisional outturn for Community expenditure for tobacco in 1993 is 1,165 mecu—£915 million1.
(e) The United Kingdom contributes to the EC budget as a whole, which funds the cost of tobacco support in other member states.
1£1=1.2729 ecu.