Oral Answers to Questions

Rebecca Pow Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I have just said, I am happy to discuss that with the Chairman of the Committee when they are elected—I said appointed, but I meant to say elected by the members of that Committee, because that is what rightly happens. I am happy to do that, with the only proviso that the Intelligence and Security Committee cannot be responsible for overseeing current operations. The responsibility for current operations must lie with the Government, who have to come to the House of Commons to explain that. I am not going to contract out our counter-terrorism policy to someone else: I take responsibility for it. But it is important that after these events have taken place, the ISC is able to make investigations.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

Q3. A slight change of tack. Over past weeks, I have met farmers across Taunton Deane facing severe difficulties owing to falling commodity prices in many sectors—lamb, beef, arable and dairy. These industries are the lifeblood of my constituency. Will the Prime Minister please give assurances that all efforts are being made to help these industries through this particularly tricky time? Farmers have campaigned on the streets recently to highlight their straits.

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this, because low commodity prices are causing problems for farmers not only here in the UK but also right across the European Union. Yesterday, in the Council of Agriculture Ministers in Brussels, we led calls for urgent action, and there will be a €500 million package of measures to help farmers. Here in the UK, we have obviously taken steps to help, which include introducing the Groceries Code Adjudicator to make sure we get a fair deal with the supermarkets; steps to make sure we do more on public procurement, to make sure that, where possible, public authorities are buying British food, because it is of such high quality; and also, as the Chancellor said in the Budget, to make sure we look at the tax treatment of farmers to try to give them a better deal at this difficult time.