To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make it his policy to bring forward from February 1991 the date of payment of the special £3·10 ewe premium.

As part of the price-fixing arrangements earlier this year, the EC Council of Agriculture Ministers agreed that sheep annual premium payments should be supplemented by a payment of 4 ecu per eligible ewe for producers in less-favoured areas. The agreement provided that the supplement should be payable from the 1991 sheepmeat marketing year which begins on 7 January 1991. There is little prospect of any change in timing, which would require a proposal from the European Commission and agreement by the Council of Ministers.