TORIES SHOULD GET REAL ON CAP REFORM - HUHNE

12.00.00am GMT Wed 4th Apr 2007

Liberal Democrat Shadow Defra Secretary, Chris Huhne MP has written to Tory Shadow Chancellor George Osborne attacking him for calling the Common Agricultural Policy 'an unreformed EU programme' in a press release.

Commenting, Mr Huhne said:

"The CAP has been reformed beyond all recognition with a final break between subsidies and production so that farmers increasingly decide on what to produce according to the market, not government diktat.

"The CAP reforms ensure that farms no longer get more subsidy for more production, but instead get money based on their historic payments and environmental stewardship. As a result they decide on what to produce according to the market price.

"Moreover the farm budget has fallen from more than three quarters of the EU budget in the seventies to less than half now.

"If this is 'unreformed' Mr Osborne is living in a dream world of Europhobic nonsense detached from the realities of rural Britain."