To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps he is taking to alleviate the effects of high interest rates on small and medium-sized farms.

Policy on interest rates is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He has made plain the Government's belief that even those small businesses that are dependent on bank borrowing and are adversely affected in the short term by higher interest rates would be damaged far more by the resurgence of inflation that would otherwise occur.