Agriculture

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 7:01 pm on 15 February 1988.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr John MacGregor Mr John MacGregor Secretary of State for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food 7:01, 15 February 1988

I should like to continue, because there is much that I want to say.

In a very different change from 1984, the stabilisers are now a guaranteed automatic mechanism for each commodity where there is over-production beyond a certain point, or over-expenditure. This is a major achievement. When I first became Minister and we started to talk last summer about stabilisers, it seemed to me that it would be a massive task to get the Community to sign up on stabilisers in all major commodities. That has now been achieved. That is why — [Interruption.] I shall elaborate on that later. That is why the Government's overriding concern in the many months of negotiations has been to secure effective control over CAP expenditure through the installation of stabilisers. We have stressed throughout that there need to be effective stabilisers for all major commodities— a mechanism that will automatically bring about a reduction in levels of support when production exceeds a given threshold. That automatic nature is very important in this outcome.