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Subsidiarity Assessment: Food Distribution (EUC Report)

I should declare an interest as a member of the EU Sub-Committee D, which has brought forward this opinion. It has now considered this and similar proposals from the Commission on three occasions. On all three, it has taken the view that the proposal has little justification now that intervention stocks have more or less disappeared. Redistribution to deprived groups within society to relieve their poverty is essentially, we maintain, a matter for member states, not for the Union, and it is really ridiculous that CAP funds—€500 million—should be used to buy foodstuffs on the markets for such redistribution. If anything, such purchases would tend to drive prices up and exacerbate food poverty rather than the reverse. As we have seen, however, the Commission is very persistent. In its explanatory memorandum it justifies its actions on the grounds that in March 2009, the European Parliament strongly advocated the maintenance of the full Union’s funding scheme, which amounts to €500 million, and that this opinion was reinforced in January this year by the European Economic and Social Committee. In addition, it points to the current economic crises and suggests that certain member states that have benefited in the past might not be able to meet the co-financing proposals that were put forward last year and that this justifies dropping them. As for the European Court of Justice’s opinion that the justification for the scheme under Articles 42 and 43—the agricultural articles—could support the scheme only when it was redistributing surpluses acquired through intervention powers, the Commission now comes back to justify it under Article 157(3) as helping to promote economic, social and territorial cohesion. I join others in thinking that the opinion that this House came to last year still stands: purchasing food from the market and distributing it to deprived people is a matter for local decision. At present, 20 member states, including it would seem both France and Germany and some of the richest countries within the Union, benefit from the scheme. Perhaps that is one reason why the Commission can claim that it is backed by so many member states. Breaches of the subsidiarity rules are justified only where action by the Union would, by reason of its scale or effects, produce clear benefits which would not be available if similar action were taken by member states. In this debate last year, the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, who is also a member of our committee and was at one time chair of the Food Standards Agency, spoke about various local schemes that had been set up in the UK to relieve food poverty. She said: "““Food networks are local, direct and know their communities. They are not overbureaucratic and, consequently, are flexible in responding to need. Above all, they are transparent. We should leave them uncluttered by intervention by the Commission, however well intended””." She concluded 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””.—[Official Report, 3/11/10; col. 1684.]" I concur entirely with what she said this time last year. Nothing has changed since then to alter the conclusion. I fully endorse it and, in so doing, support the Motion to issue another reasoned opinion of the same ilk.