| Reform of the Common Agricultural Policy
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Mr. David Borrow (South Ribble): I am becoming increasingly puzzled. The farmers whom I have spoken to about the CAP complain about the inefficiencies in small family farms on continental Europe, and they point out the efficiencies of British agriculture. They say that there should be a level playing field and that we should perhaps move in the direction that the hon. Gentleman described. Farmers have compared the small, inefficient family farms in continental Europe with the larger, more efficient family farms in this country. Mr. Gill: I understand the hon. Gentleman's comments but he must appreciate that the block on any serious reform of the CAP will come from other countries where there are more farmers farming small acreages than there are in this country. The gist of my remarks is that it is all very well to talk about reform, but how on earth will it be done? The second part of my thesis is that it is not clear why we should inflict that inefficient and expensive system on other countries. Do we have a policy of inflicting equal misery throughout the whole of Europe in response to the misery that farmers in this country are demonstrating about this week? Extending the CAP eastward will involve extra costs, but it will not add value. There is little evidence to suggest that the CAP has added value. It is the role of the commercial sector to add value; it is not the role of government, whether here in Parliament or in Brussels. Inevitably, the effect of government from those two centres has been to add cost rather than value to agricultural products. The relevant papers talk about adding value, but that is wishful thinking. Extending the CAP eastward will lead to higher levels of public expenditure and greater bureaucracy. I am sure that the hon. Member for South Ribble (Mr. Borrow) agrees that one of the most common complaints from farmers today is about bureaucracy. Many farmers in my constituency complain to me because they have made a mistake while filling in a form. Some years ago, I could have gone to the relevant Minister and said, ``Look, my constituent, Mr. Giles, made a mistake on his form. Will you please put it right?'' Years ago, that Minister would have said, ``Yes, I shall investigate the case and, if what you allege is true, I shall put the matter right.'' That is more than the Minister dares to do today. He is hidebound by the CAP regulations, which means that he sticks rigidly to the rules. Why does he do so? Simply because if he does not do so, and if the European Commission can demonstrate that the rules were broken in the UK, the British taxpayer will face a massive fine, as was recently imposed for failure to adhere to the rules of the common agricultural policy. Mr. Rooker: I am reluctant to intervene, but I want to confirm precisely what the hon. Gentleman is saying. I have visited two regional service centres of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, so I know just how much paperwork farmers are required to fill in--they are completing it at midnight, not in usual office hours--and there is incredible rigidity in the system. We are duty-bound to take such a firm approach simply because we are at the mercy of Brussels. Where opportunities arise in the negotiations and reform programme to alleviate that, we shall take steps to do so. I pay tribute to a MAFF project under the previous Government to cut bureaucracy, but we still have a long way to go. Mr. Gill: That brings me neatly to my final point. What we are witnessing today is quite unprecedented and novel in my lifetime--and I was born before the second world war. Out of sheer desperation, farmers are going to the barricades because they feel--although they may not have diagnosed the problem in the way that I am diagnosing it now--that politicians of all parties do not have the power to solve their problems. They are absolutely right. I no longer have any power in this place and I have little influence. The Minister does not have much power, and he has only such influence as he can exert in Brussels along with 14 other Agriculture Ministers. The farmer has reached the point of desperation. He feels that he cannot get satisfaction through the traditional, historic, democratic process of Parliament. I seriously warn the Committee, and anyone else who will listen, that if we continue to hand over responsibility for agriculture, fisheries and other matters to people who are unelected and unaccountable, the events of the past 10 days will be repeated and the UK will descend into anarcy. I do not want that to happen, which is why I warn Ministers and the Committee against extending this policy eastward. That would put millions of people in eastern Europe into a situation in which they, too, would find that the democracy that they were starting to enjoy--having broken away from Russian domination--was short-lived because they would have substituted the control of Moscow with the control of Brussels.
12.18 pmMr. Keith Simpson (Mid-Norfolk): This has been a rural and agricultural morning because some of us started the day by attending the Adjournment debate on the rural economy raised by the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Sir R. Smith). Interestingly, he was answered by the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith (Mr. Chisholm). In Committee, we have debated agenda 2000 and reform of the CAP. Many hon. Members--Opposition Members in particular--have raised problems connected with that. Indeed, the Minister has admitted that there are problems. My hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill) highlighted the problems relating to enlargement, especially if Poland and Hungary are in the first wave of countries that come into the European Union. Like many of us, I was speaking to farmers in my constituency last weekend. When I mentioned that I was a member of European Standing Committee A and that the Committee would be discussing the CAP, there was hollow laughter. It seemed to the farmers to be an unreal world. Many people think that farmers are always moaning about their lot and always taking from the taxpayer, but although those farmers had not gone out to demonstrate, they felt that they understood those who had done so and that they would not get to 2000. The Minister should leave this meeting aware of an enormous feeling among farmers, who are not exaggerating, that the industry has never been in such a state of crisis. That crisis is related not only to the narrow issue of beef, but to a raft of issues--some of which predate the Government; I am not enough of an idiot to think that problems were not created in the past. However, many people feel, unlike the Minister, that actions taken by the Government--in the Minister's Department and in the Treasury--have imposed major stresses. Those people are not exaggerating when they say that they will not be there in 2000. Many normal, placid farmers in my constituency feel so strongly that they may demonstrate publicly. That fact should bring home to the Minister how strong public opinion is. It is no good his saying that he is under duress. My right hon. Friend the Member for Fylde has made the point that we do not support illegal action or violence. Nor do the majority of farmers, but some feel that they have no choice. If I were the Minister, I would find that point important. He and his colleagues must make a practical difference to farmers in the short term, as well as up to 2000. There is an irony in the decision made last week by MAFF to ban beef on the bone. That was a difficult decision. Ministers have a responsibility to make judgments about loss of life. That decision was almost the final straw for many farmers, but what is remarkable is the clear public opinion that the decision was not right. The Minister can test reaction by going to any supermarket in London or to the local butcher in my constituency. The shelves are bare. One cannot find an oxtail or a T-bone steak because they have been bought by people who have put them in their freezers. That action is not irresponsible, but it signals the public's opinion that the Government probably made the wrong decision. We--the previous Government and particularly the present one--have already lost the confidence of farmers, and the Minister may be about to lose the public's confidence too. In the fundamental area of health, the public believe that he got it wrong. There are major problems with agenda 2000 but the wider farming community and much of the public wonder whether we will ever get there. Without being xenophobic or ultra-nationalist, farmers who trade with our European neighbours are suspicious that the British beef industry simply will not exist. Average farm incomes have fallen 37 per cent. this year. What income will there be by 2000? Mr. James Gray (North Wiltshire): I hope that my hon. Friend will not mind if I correct an inaccurancy. Farm incomes have fallen not by 37 per cent. this year, but by 47 per cent. Mr. Simpson: I am obliged to my hon. Friend who merely reinforces my point. The Government must act quickly.
12.24 pmMr. Owen Paterson (North Shropshire): Having, in my previous incarnation, travelled widely in Europe, including eastern Europe, I wholeheartedly welcome the extension of the market and the Union further east to the new countries. They were bombarded for half a century with propaganda to come and join the free world and I welcome their entry. However, we are faced with an abomination against God and man in the CAP. I shall give a few examples of how outrageous it has become. In 1995 the European Union spent £802 million on tobacco subsidies and then introduced the current campaign on tobacco advertising with crocodile tears. An incredible 657,000 tonnes of Greek peaches were ploughed into the ground in 1995. The CAP is in breach of the treaty of Rome because the three pillars of intervention--tariffs, barriers and subsidies--all contravene the treaty; that was confirmed by the House of Lords in a report a couple of years ago. I would like the Minister to explain the Government's opinion on that. My farmers bitterly resent the absurd bureaucracy which has reached Kafka-esque levels. In Denmark, 29,000 officials look after 29,000 farmers, which is absurd. The CAP ignores the fact that there is a daily market for food. It is totally production oriented. It is a ghastly parody of Gosplan and the COMECON and has failed. The CAP does not respect the fact that there is a daily market, which should be left to decide price and production. We have heard much about BSE. At the height of the BSE crisis last year, large exporters of beef who buy from my constituents were being rung every day by customers supplying the highest quality restaurants in France, Italy and Belgium asking if they could get round the ban. The amount of meat was significant--five to seven truckloads a week to France and Italy and three or four truckloads to Holland and Belgium. It should be left to people and the market to decide whether something is healthy. I wholeheartedly welcome the Minister's criticism of the CAP, but the Government's record in the past few months does not suggest that they understand that the market should be left to decide. Instead, we have seen panic reactions oriented to placating bossy media personalities who have significant radio and television time. Two weeks ago we debated the absurd burdens imposed on abattoirs by requiring them to remove the spinal cord and special offal from sheep meat. There is absolutely no justification for doing that on health grounds.
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| ©Parliamentary copyright 1997 | Prepared 10 December 1997 |
