Cap enough for Cancun?

The Defra committee sorts the wheat from the chaff

The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has called in the Secretary of State for Defra, Margaret Beckett, to lay out her stall before she takes it to Mexico for the World Trade Organisation's Ministerial Conference in September.

Committee members focused on the EU's recent agricultural reforms ahead of the WTO's next major meeting in Cancun.

In the session Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett stood by her conviction that the much heralded EU common agricultural policy (Cap) reforms are a major step forward for trade liberalisation.

Mrs Beckett said those who were still grumbling that the EU hadn't gone far enough were just "going through the motions" and were actually "very surprised at how far the EU has been prepared to move".

"Other regions want to play down the EU reform. Privately there is a more serious acceptance," she told MPs.

Subsidy or not subsidy?

Committee Chairman David Curry, the Conservative MP for Ripon, expressed sceptism, because no reduction in the EU's subsidy ceiling has yet been agreed:

"Isn't it now just subsidy under a different name?" he wondered.

And the Cap reforms have been generally criticised for focusing on domestic support not international trade.

In the EU Commission's own words, the new Cap will be: "geared towards consumers and taxpayers, while giving EU farmers the freedom to produce what the market wants".

But Margaret Beckett was adamant: "There's a perception that the EU is in the dock. But the EU has moved dramatically, and pressure should now be put on others."

BBC Parliament will broadcast the Environment Food & Rural Affairs Committee's session on Sunday 20 July at 1500 BST.