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EU Sugar Regime (EUC Report)

My Lords, I am always delighted and surprised by the ability of your Lordships to talk wisely and learnedly about a specialised subject. That has certainly been the case in this debate. Great expertise and wisdom has been shown, and I am grateful to noble Lords from all sides of the House who have taken part. I also thank the Minister for his final words about the acceptance of the need to use the final Doha development round of WTO negotiations to meet the important objectives of reducing tariffs and making access to markets more available for the developing world. I was reminded in the debate about the future of the sugar market. One of my noble friends—I think that it was the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles—said that there was little knowledge of what would happen next. Sugar, after all, is a commodity and an agricultural product. It is perhaps wise to remind ourselves of that. There was a hurricane in Australia a few days ago which is said to have wiped out Australian sugar production. That represents approximately 4 million tonnes off the export market. That will have a great effect on price and on decisions about which countries go on producing sugar. Perhaps that is a lesson that we all have to learn. I thank friends and colleagues from all sides of the House who have taken part in this very useful debate. On Question, Motion agreed to.