HC Deb 30 January 2003 vol 398 c953W
6. Sir Teddy Taylor

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if she will make a statement on the change in the amount of food which will be produced in the EU after the expansion of the organisation. [94163]

Margaret Beckett

Accession to the EU will promote restructuring and improved productivity in the new member states. We welcome that. But it makes the need for reform of the common agricultural policy all the more critical in order to avoid stimulating artificial and uneconomic production in both the new and the existing member states.