Common Agricultural Policy

Kelvin Hopkins Excerpts

Tuesday 18th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I wrote my first paper on the CAP some 33 years ago. I suggested at that time that either it should be abolished or Britain should withdraw from it. I have not changed my view, even though the CAP is very different from how it was then, although it is still essentially ill designed and inefficient, and a bit of a bureaucratic monster. I was supported at that time by the Consumers Association. Having a purely urban constituency, I represent consumers rather than farmers, although I absolutely support farmers, too.

Agriculture is very different in all the member states, and in some cases the difference is quite extreme. It would be better if member states managed their own agriculture and did not rely on a supranational regime imposed by the EU. It would be better for those countries and everyone else if that happened. If we must have transfers between member states, we should run the scheme as a fiscal transfer, so that the rich pay in and the poor draw out, but not try to manipulate agriculture in the way that happens at the moment.

The report from the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs suggests:

“A one-size-fits-all approach is not appropriate,”

and that

“The CAP is complex and burdensome.”

I agree. Some of these points do not necessarily apply to the whole of the CAP, but they seem to fit in with the case for returning agriculture to member states. Much of what we have heard in today’s debate seems implicitly, if not explicitly, to support that case as well. Each member state ought to decide what it produces, how much of each product it should produce, whether subsidies are appropriate, what should be subsidised and, indeed, what that member state should import. Those things should be left to those countries.

In Britain, we very wisely intensified our agriculture as a result of being an island and being threatened in the second world war. We developed an efficient agriculture sector that is still with us today, even though it seems that we are currently importing wheat. We want to continue to have a strong agriculture sector in terms of production for strategic reasons. We do not want to become beholden to other countries to feed ourselves.

Last week I had the pleasure of visiting Lithuania with other members of the European Scrutiny Committee. I found to my surprise that 30% of Lithuania’s agricultural land is not being used for production. That was not the case before Lithuania joined the EU and the CAP. Strangely, for a small country that used to be mainly an agricultural nation, Lithuania has now become a net importer of food, which is all due to the distorting effects, apparently, of the CAP. Even in the poorer countries, things are not going well under the CAP regime. Surely Lithuania would be able to produce agricultural products very cheaply and sell to countries that want to import them, but it is not doing that and is now a net importer of food, which is nonsense.

If we want to redistribute wealth and income between European nations—there is a case for doing that—it should be above board and done by means of fiscal transfers. A key factor of any renegotiation of our relationship with the EU should be getting out of the common fisheries policy, getting out of the CAP and avoiding all contact with single currencies.