Subsidiarity Assessment: Food Distribution (EUC Report)

Lord Roper Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2010 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Roper]

To move that this House takes note of the Report of the European Union Committee on the amended Commission proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Regulations (EC) No 1290/2005 and (EC) No 1234/2007, as regards distribution of food products to the most deprived persons in the Union (COM (2010) 486, Council Document 13435/10) (2nd Report, Session 2010-11, HL Paper 44).

[Lord Roper]

My Lords, with your Lordships’ leave I shall also speak to the second Motion in my name.

Your Lordships will recall that two weeks ago on 20 October the House was first asked to consider a report from the European Union committee with a reasoned opinion to the effect that in its view a European Union legislative proposal did not comply with the principle of subsidiarity. Our second report of this Session, which is the subject of these Motions, relates to a proposal concerning the distribution of food products to deprived persons in the European Union and contains the recommendation that the House should issue a reasoned opinion on it and on its subsidiarity. Our sub-committee on agriculture, fisheries and environment initially considered the proposal before it came to the Select Committee. The noble Lord, Lord Carter of Coles, the chairman of that sub-committee, is present today, but we have agreed that I should move these Motions.

I do not need to set out again today at length the legislative background, but I stress that through the second Motion today this House is again being asked to exercise new powers under the treaty of Lisbon that became available only on 1 December 2009. The deadline for submitting such a reasoned opinion to the authorities in Brussels is on this occasion 15 November, so we are in plenty of time to get it in.

I turn to the proposal assessed in our report. There is some history which I shall deal with briefly. The food distribution programme, to which the proposal relates, was introduced in 1987, and at that time its primary purpose was to help reduce stockpiles of basic commodities that had been purchased and brought into public intervention stores under the common agricultural policy in order to support prices on the European Union market. Stocks of butter, milk powder, beef, sugar, rice and cereals were released to charitable organisations in participating member states on an annual basis to distribute to the poorer sections of the community.

As your Lordships will know, successive reforms of the common agricultural policy in the 20 or more years since then have greatly reduced the level of intervention stocks, combined of course with the improvement in world commodity markets. As a result, the nature of the scheme has altered, with an increasing focus on purchasing products on the open market.

The current proposal, amending the regulations previously agreed for the scheme, has several objectives. These include formalising the provision for common agricultural policy funds to be used to purchase goods not just from intervention stocks but also on the open market: widening the range of goods that can be purchased in order to take into account nutritional balance; allowing member states also to give preference to food products of union origin; establishing three-year programmes instead of the current annual rounds in order to allow longer-term planning by member states and charities; introducing co-financing by participating member states, generally at a minimum of 25 per cent of eligible costs, with an annual ceiling of €500 million for co-financing from the European Union budget; and enhancing reporting obligations, both for participating countries and for the Commission.

In putting the proposal forward, the Commission has offered a number of justifications for it. They include addressing the problems of hunger, deprivation, poverty and social exclusion in the spirit of the treaty, which states that the Union’s aim is to promote,

“the well-being of its peoples”,

and,

“solidarity among Member States”,

and to contribute to meeting the CAP’s objectives of stabilising markets and ensuring that supplies reach consumers at reasonable prices.

The participation by individual member states in the scheme has always been on a voluntary basis and it will remain so under this proposal. The United Kingdom has not participated in the scheme since the mid-1990s and, in their Explanatory Memorandum to us, the Government have said that this has been because of dwindling UK intervention stocks and the bureaucratic overhead associated with ensuring compliance with the scheme rules in order to prevent fraud. They have also said that they are unconvinced of the merits or appropriateness of the revised proposal. In the Government’s view, the European Union should act only where there are clear additional benefits from collective efforts.

As regards the Commission's justification that addressing problems of hunger, deprivation, poverty and social exclusion can be considered to be in the spirit of the treaties, we comment that the spirit of the treaties can be perfectly well respected without European Union action and can, in any case, be promoted by the Union without following this legislative route. Member states are capable of acting individually to address the issues highlighted.

As regards the Commission's assertion that purchases from the market contribute to the objectives of the common agricultural policy, we see this as questionable, as the extent of such a contribution must depend on numerous factors, including the quantity of food purchased from the market, any reduction in purchases by deprived persons who become eligible for the scheme and the price paid. We see no reason at all why the Union is better placed to organise the purchase of products from the market than member states. We comment as well that the failure of member states to act is not in itself a reason for the Union to act. In any case, the voluntary nature of the scheme suggests that there is no demonstrable need for action, particularly at the Union level. We conclude that there appears to be no compelling argument to suggest that the Union is better placed than member states to ensure a food supply to its most deprived citizens.

We have ensured that the assessment that has been set out in our report has been communicated to national parliaments in other European Union member states. At present, we have heard that only the Swedish parliament may be considering the proposal from a standpoint that is close to ours. Unless several other chambers make similar moves in the next two weeks, the threshold for reaching the formal yellow card is, unfortunately, unlikely to be reached. In my view, that will not prevent the opinion of this House from having a political impact. I am glad to see the Minister nodding at that remark.

Let us be clear; the burden of our report is not to stand against measures to help the neediest members of our society, if appropriate, by providing them with food. We recognise that there may well be a need for such action, but we consider that any such action is best taken by national, regional or local governments, who can best assess the needs of their own populations and can also best design measures to meet those needs. The European Union scheme, which is the subject of this proposal, was devised more than 20 years ago in a very different environment, primarily as a channel for siphoning off surpluses from the common agricultural policy. Now it has largely lost that rationale, and the justifications which the Commission is advancing for its continuation seem to us to be ill founded and unconvincing. We see no necessary role for European Union action in this area and, accordingly, we see this proposal as incompatible with the principle of subsidiarity. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Henley]

As I understand it, the European Parliament has not yet considered the stage that we are currently at. It might be that it considered earlier examples of it. At the moment we are at the stage where it has been through the Agriculture and Fisheries Council, which talked in September about co-financing at the 25 per cent or 10 per cent level, but that has not yet gone on to the European Parliament. If I am wrong, I will write to the noble Baroness to correct it. My point is that we still have quite a way to go before any of this gets through, which is why it is important that the views of this House and another place—and those of 26 other parliaments and all the Houses in them, should they wish, although we understand that only Sweden is likely to do this at the moment—should come forward so that we can reach various red lights, green lights or whatever, as appropriate.

I return to the concerns of the member states. First, I was talking about the legal basis. The new proposal is made under Articles 42 and 43(2) of the treaty on the functioning of the EU. This is similar to the existing scheme. These articles would be appropriate if the predominant purpose of the scheme was the supply of food from intervention. However, given the expected focus of the revised scheme on the purchase of goods on the open market, it is very difficult to argue that its predominant purpose is in line with the use of these articles as the legal base. A number of member states share our concern about that.

Secondly, the concept of cofinancing, which I referred to earlier, is strongly opposed by a number of currently participating member states that believe that the scheme, quite naturally, should be wholly community-financed. The Government believe that, were the revised scheme to go ahead, cofinancing would be very important to ensure that each participating member state reaches an informed judgment on how best to support its deprived communities, and because it would likely improve the governance of the scheme.

In conclusion, I emphasise that Her Majesty’s Government have not taken part in the existing voluntary scheme for many years and have no intention of taking part in the revised scheme if it were adopted. Given that there is presently no qualified majority on paper in the Council, there seems little immediate prospect of the proposal—at least in its current form—progressing that far. The effect would be that the existing scheme would continue to operate. I understand that there is a challenge before the European Court of Justice on whether the legal base for the operation of the 2009 programme is appropriate. That has yet to be heard. The point remains that it is not an activity that is best undertaken at EU level or, in our view, an appropriate use of common agricultural policy funds. Therefore, I stress that I welcome the committee’s report and support the Motion on the reasoned opinion.

[Lord Roper]

My Lords, I can be rather brief in replying because all those who have taken part in this debate have supported the report and the Motion that I have moved. I was particularly glad to hear from the three members of the sub-committee, their chairman the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, and the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, who were able to add on the general question. In the case of the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, we were reinforced with her knowledge of local social projects. We were also very much helped by the fact that three Members of this House had been involved in the scheme at earlier stages. Therefore, the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, with his fascinating aperçu of acting as Father Christmas, and of the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, were particularly useful in giving us the background to the scheme. I was glad to have the support on this occasion of the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon. I hope he notes that this is one of the benefits of the Lisbon treaty that, as well as other sections, should be taken into account.

I was asked a couple of questions. Before coming to them, one thing that has not been stressed sufficiently is that, although we do not participate in the scheme, the UK contributes to the €500 million that comes from the European Community’s budget. Therefore, that should not be overlooked when we consider this matter.

The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, asked me whether the arrangements were satisfactory. The procedure in this House has been satisfactory. We have been found a date relatively promptly so that it can be debated in good time. I will say one thing that I did not mention initially. On this occasion, we consulted our colleagues in the committees of the devolved Assemblies and asked them whether they had any comments, because some of this is the responsibility of the devolved Governments. We have not had a response on this occasion, perhaps because of a shortage of time, but it shows that we feel that we have that responsibility in matters that are not a reserved responsibility for the UK Parliament.

On the consideration in other parliaments, we have communicated with them. In the 19 countries that are participating, people may not wish to upset a continuing Father Christmas role for their countries and might consider themselves rather unpopular if they were to raise issues of subsidiarity on something that might be seen locally as beneficial. I do not know. However, I believe that we were right—as has been shown by this debate—to put forward our reasoned opinion on this particular measure. I beg to move.

Motion agreed.