European Union (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, I have put my name to this amendment, and I shall speak to it briefly. In doing so, I shall probe the Minister on our exchange in Committee on 12 May, reported at col. 883 of Hansard. In that debate, I asked the Government whether they had made any calculation about the suffering in the developing world that has been caused by the common agricultural policy over the years. I think I pointed out that if we are to believe the Trade Justice Movement, CAFOD and Oxfam, we are looking at large numbers of people, mostly children, who have died because they cannot sell their products in their local markets, which are flooded with cheap European produce. Have the Government made any estimate of the extent of the environmental and human disaster that the common agricultural policy causes in the developing world? Secondly, in Committee, I estimated—and I do not think the Government disagreed—that the additional cost of food to the British people is something like £1,000 a year. May we have the latest estimate of that in view of the increase in prices, particularly of milk, sugar and bread, which hit the poorest in our country hardest? Are the Government still comfortable with their estimate of £1,000 a year per family? I am taking this line because I believe that if we could reveal the true environmental catastrophe caused by these two policies, pressure for reform would grow and might become irresistible. Turning to the common fisheries policy—this is a new question that I did not put in Committee, but we have plenty of time as there is Third Reading to come—what proportion of the fish that swam in European community waters when we joined in 1972 belonged to the United Kingdom? The Eurosceptic movement in this country uses the figure of 70 per cent, I believe with good reason, but what percentage did we have before we joined in 1972 and what percentage of the permitted catch are we now allowed to land? As an obvious corollary to those questions, how many UK fishermen were employed in 1972 before we joined the CFP and how many are employed today? To rub in the scale of the waste of the common fisheries policy, do the Government agree with the figure put forward by the Fisheries Commissioner Mr Borg, who estimates that 880,000 tonnes of dead fish are thrown back into the sea every year? If they agree that figure, they must agree that that amounts to 20,000 40-tonne lorries, which are full of dead fish that are thrown back into the sea every year. Or will the Government move towards the WWF figure of 2 million tonnes of dead fish that are thrown back every year and that make a nice, round figure of 50,000 articulated lorries? Can the Government confirm the scale of this disaster? Have they estimated the damage that this may be doing to the seabed? Has anyone looked at that? In conclusion, I take up the words of the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, the chairman of your Lordships’ esteemed European Union Select Committee, and also to some extent the words of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. The noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, suggests that if we want to know the Government’s position, we should come along tomorrow and listen. The Government will spell out their position and no doubt will want more reform. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, asked how we change this. I take the Minister back to our debate on 12 May, at col. 889 of Hansard, when I pressed him—somewhat persistently, but we were in Committee—on who exactly is responsible in Brussels for the continuation of this disaster. Which countries will not change these policies? I now seek clarification from the Minister, because he would not tell me then which countries were guilty—other noble Lords implied that they were led by France—but he did tell us which countries we have vaguely on side in the reform of either the CAP or the CAP and the CFP. They are Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, Estonia, Latvia, the Czech Republic and Malta. One does not have to be a great mathematician to see that that comes to eight countries. If you add us, that makes nine. That means that only one-third of the countries of the European Union are in favour of the reform of the CAP, or is it the CAP and the CFP? In Committee, did the Minister say that those countries were on our side for reform of both these policies, or is it just one of them? My conclusion is obvious. My reply to the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, is: what is the point of coming along tomorrow and listening to the Government’s position on the common agricultural policy or the reform of both policies? If we are only one of nine out of 27, it does not matter what the Government’s position is. As usual, all this is decided in Brussels. The only solution is and will remain—at least until 2013, when the French have blocked the policies as they are and beyond—that we get out of the European Union. The only way in which we will reform these policies is via the door. I support the amendment.