Common Agricultural Policy

Mr. Wills
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what his most recent estimate is of the cost per person per week of the common agricultural policy in the United Kingdom.

Ian Pearson
The common agricultural policy (CAP) generates costs to both consumers and taxpayers. Consumers’ costs arise because of the higher prices that prevail under the CAP. Taxpayers fund both direct subsidies to producers and the cost of operating the market management instruments of the CAP. However, the UK does not contribute to individual EU budget categories; it contributes to the entire EU budget. Therefore, in order to provide an indication of the cost to UK taxpayers we have calculated a notional UK contribution to expenditure on the CAP.

Our provisional estimate of the consumer and taxpayer cost of the CAP person per week in the UK, in 2004, is approximately £2.50.