Common Agricultural Policy

Give me a minute. I see that the hon. Gentleman is anxious to leave. I am sorry if I have bored him already. Frankly, what he was saying about engagement is, I am afraid, nonsense. He obviously has a very selective group of people to whom he speaks in the European Parliament, because the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and I have spent a great deal of effort over nearly the past two years developing relationships through the European Council, the Commission and the Parliament. As I said to the hon. Member for Ogmore in our earlier debate, nowhere is there a better example of that than fishing, which has been mentioned. The Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), who has responsibility for fishing, visited Brussels four days after the Prime Minister executed—I mean exercised—his veto. He executed the issue, but exercised his veto. Yet my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary came away from that Fisheries Council having made a superb step forward in terms of the overall EU fisheries policy, which demonstrates that the British voice is still being listened to. Frankly, as the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins), who has left his place, said, the previous Government's attempt to renegotiate the CAP did not exactly put them in a good position from which to criticise others.