Vol. 408 No. 9
10 Mr. Connor asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food if, in the policy preparation for the review of the community milk quota programme in March, 1992, his Department will be putting forward the proposal of detaching the quota from the farm; and if so, if there has been a full study carried out of the regional implications of such a policy.
The EC Commission is committed to examining the operation of the super-levy regime and to submitting its report to the Council of Ministers. While it was envisaged that the report would be prepared before the end of March 1991, it is now expected to accompany the proposals for the reform of the CAP. It would not, therefore, be appropriate for me to predict any Council decision on the future operation of the milk quota system.
I did, however, ask the Milk Quota Review Group to consider the possible implications of detaching the quota from the land under a revised system. The general consensus of the group, and I can accept their recommendation in this matter, is that quota should remain land-linked as a general rule but that the regulations should provide for flexibility in certain circumstances.
Can the Minister of State tell the House what they had in mind when they made the suggestion that the regulations should provide for flexibility?
As I said, the general consensus of the group was that the quota should remain tied to the land. However, they were anxious that provision be made for exceptions to the general rule. These would include, for example, the division of holdings between family members, the transfer of quotas to more efficient producers and transfers as a result of marriage and so on.
