Common Agricultural Policy

The shadow Minister is right that there is good regulation, but he must also admit that there is far too much regulation. It is not that regulation is good or bad, but that there is too much of it. The coalition Government are looking through regulation to weed out the unnecessary and keep the necessary. Over the years, we have built regulation on regulation; that has been the problem. Take farm inspections and other requirements, many of which we must comply with because of European regulation. We often have many different people on farms to inspect, so we are trying to bring in one inspectorate and not have as much duplication. We ought to move towards a strong market in agriculture and agricultural products, which is why, as we can all agree, the groceries code adjudicator is so important. That may not be a European or CAP issue, but it is very much about ensuring that agriculture can compete in the market and get a fair deal from the marketplace. The crux of my argument is that if we are to wean farmers off subsidies over the years, we have to enable them to compete in that strong market. Agriculture is important in itself—it is a huge part of the economy—but there are also 500,000 jobs in the food processing industry, and much of the food being processed comes from this country, as it should. Again, I am not exactly on the subject of the CAP, but I urge the Minister to look at how we procure food, and to ensure that all the food that we eat in this place—and everywhere else, including in Departments and in Westminster generally—is from this country. I assure the Chamber that in France people would not be eating British beef, so the last thing that we want to do here is eat French beef. That, however, is a particular pet subject of mine, so the Minister might not necessarily want to comment. In my constituency, there is a lot of grassland and livestock, both sheep and cattle, including dairy cattle. Much of the livestock is fed on grass, a lot of which is on permanent grassland, but some is on semi-permanent grassland. What I fear most about Commission proposals is that we will see agricultural grassland ploughed up unnecessarily, because of worry about the reforms. The Minister is reassuring farmers and trying to obtain the best reassurances possible from the European Commission, because such a development would be almost criminal. We need to deal with it quickly, to ensure that the Commission does not drive agriculture in the wrong direction. In the future, I want agriculture to stand much more on its own two feet. That has to be. Public support for agriculture should not distort trade between member states or with those in other parts of the world. We must not forget that one of the reasons for reforming the CAP has always been that previous policies promoted high production levels in Europe, and those products were then dumped on the open market, destroying much of the agriculture in developing countries. We have at least moved away from that, and we do not want to move back in that direction. I wish the Minister well in his negotiations with the rest of the European Union. As a Government and as a country, we must seek greater independence when it comes to how we develop our agricultural policy. The European Union must recognise that as it has grown, and will probably grow further, it must have much more flexibility when it comes to agriculture, because one size will not fit all, especially as the EU grows bigger and bigger.