Common Agricultural Policy

It is a pleasure to speak in the debate, Mr Weir, particularly under your knowledgeable chairmanship on this subject. I pay tribute to the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), for obtaining the debate. I do not wish to go over ground already outlined by hon. Members this afternoon. They have made many serious and important points, most of which I agree with. I want to restate a few basic facts, however, and €57 billion is one of them—40% of the entire European Union budget. This is a fix such as no heroin junkie has ever been on, and it is difficult, in the words of the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), to wean farmers off it, sometimes for the good reasons that he outlined. The CAP provides support in three distinct elements to agricultural producers and rural areas. We should not forget that we are talking about not just farmers, but other land managers and the whole rural community. The three elements are direct income support, market measures and the rural development programme. As we have found, the key point is that the RDP must be co-financed, and we will return to that bugbear. Given the enormous subsidy, is it not appropriate to consider what the CAP's objectives are? Our Committee heard five objectives, the first of which should be"““to maintain or enhance the EU capacity to produce safe and high-quality food.””" The second objective should be to enhance"““the competitiveness and viability of the EU agricultural sector””" because a"““competitive and viable EU agricultural sector is the key to producing more while having less impact””—" detrimental impact—"““on the environment and to reducing farmers' reliance on income support from taxpayers in the long-term.””" The third objective should be"““to ensure the sustainable management of the EU's natural resources, biodiversity and landscapes, recognising that farmers are the managers of over half of the…land area””" of Europe. The fourth objective"““should be to help to maintain agricultural activity in areas where it delivers significant public benefits, such as the maintenance of biodiversity and cultural landscapes””" such as those that were mentioned earlier. However,"““the CAP should not aim to deliver an acceptable standard of living to every farmer in the EU through income support alone””—" that was a key finding by the Committee and is in the report—and"““farmers should be encouraged to look to the market for their””" fundamental returns. The aim of this CAP reform should be to enable farmers to achieve the sustainable intensification that is required to meet the global challenge of feeding a world population that will rise from the 7 billion that it reached just a month ago to the 9 billion that it will reach in 2050, but to do so without destroying the very things that it is predicated upon: our biodiversity and our natural landscapes. The Government's position on CAP reform must be coherent in its strategy for ensuring food security, and DEFRA must decide—I am keen to hear from the Minister on this point—whether and, if so, how it intends to implement the previous Government's ““Food 2030”” strategy, taking into account the recommendations from the Foresight report on ““The Future of Food and Farming”” by John Beddington and co. and the UK's position on the future of the common agricultural policy. In the interests of fair trade and the long term, the EU should argue more strongly for a recognition of standards of production in trade agreements, including animal welfare, the use of water and greenhouse gas emissions. That is essential to achieve the global shift towards sustainable intensification that ““The Future of Food and Farming”” report recommended. The Commission's proposals to green pillar one have been at the heart of the discussion throughout Europe and our debate today. There is a suspicion that that was a sop and a way to try to justify the subsidy and support. The proposals did not receive strong support from any of our witnesses. There was concern that they would make the CAP more complicated to administer, as other hon. Members have said, and that they would confuse the logic of the two-pillar structure. [Jim Sheridan in the Chair] Several witnesses expressed concern about expanding pillar two, and that is DEFRA's alternative to the expansion of pillar one. The central issue seems to be the difficulty of achieving political support in Europe, and I want to tell a story about what happened when I was in Europe just last week. I had gone over there, as had the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton, to join in the parliamentary debate that the Commissioner with responsibility for reform of the common fisheries policy had called. I spoke to several members from throughout Europe and tried to persuade them of the UK's good ideas on CFP and CAP reform. I was told universally that although some of those ideas were good, for God's sake, I should not let the British Government suggest them because they are the most toxic brand in Europe at the moment and suggestions will not garner political support if they come from the UK. We must consider seriously how the Government have engaged in Europe, and how they have got themselves into a position when even good ideas will not be accepted because we suggest them. Perhaps we should get other people to suggest our good ideas, and then take a back seat.