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European Commission

I welcome the Government's finding time for this debate, although, like my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty), I regret the fact that only three Labour Back Benchers—my hon. Friend is here in his capacity as the distinguished Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee—one distinguished Conservative Back Bencher and three Front-Bench spokespersons are here. That puts into perspective the gap between some of the hysteria about Europe that we read in the anti-European right-wing press and the actual state of public debate on and awareness of Europe. In a sense, there is some reality in that position, because, at the end of the day, the European Commission takes just 1 per cent. of Europe's gross national income for its purposes, and, of that 1 per cent., about 85 per cent. is immediately returned to national Governments in the form principally of agricultural payments and what are called structural, regional or cohesion funds. The agricultural policy is much contested in Britain, and rightly so. But if we did not have the CAP—the common agricultural policy—we would have to have a BAP, FAP and GAP; that is, a British, a French and a German agricultural policy. That is enough acronyms. Believe me, I am absolutely confident that the National Farmers Union, backed by redoubtable Conservative Members of Parliament from the rural areas, would be extracting even greater subsidies for the farming industry in this country from the British national taxpayer than what is provided through the CAP.