The Motion is a transparent and typically clumsy attempt by the Opposition to turn a genuine Crisis in Farming into a display of political partisanship calculated only to divert attention from the true root causes of the industry's present difficulties.

If the product of coal miners, steel workers or creamery workers is surplus to requirements, they are thrown on the scrap heap, but when there is a Crisis in Farming, all sorts of escape mechanisms are provided.

But what is worse is the prospect of untold damage being done to Scotland's rural economy if the Government continue to ignore the financial Crisis in Farming.

There is a sense of Crisis in Farming, particularly in the upland communities.

At Question Time today the Farming Crisis was referred to as a genuine crisis.

Until about seven o'clock, there will be a debate entitled "The Crisis in Farming".

This debate has been about the Crisis in Farming, and, to judge from what I hear from farmers in my constituency, they believe that the Government cannot solve their problems in that crisis.

As we have heard from other hon. Members, there is a Crisis in Farming.

They want the Crisis in Farming to be addressed.

In the light of the present headlines, it is difficult to have a debate on the rural economy without turning to the most pressing problem affecting many of my constituents - the Crisis in Farming.

As I represent a rural constituency, I want to speak about the Crisis in Farming, but that is not the only matter that I want to raise.

Members of all parties have constituents working in the rural economy, and the right hon. Lady must realise that there is a real Crisis in Farming, in south Leicestershire and elsewhere.

It is important to emphasise that the present Crisis in Farming is temporary and intense, arising from BSE and the export ban, and the strength of sterling.

The 650,000 people who signed the petition about the Crisis in Farming, which was delivered to 10 Downing street yesterday, clearly agree.

In the current Crisis in Farming, such help is required as never before, so can the right hon. Gentleman give the House a guarantee that the proposed urban-based regional development agencies will be able to fulfil those functions as well as the RDC has done?

Mr. Hoyle: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what assistance he plans to provide to those rural communities which are dependent upon agriculture during the Present Farming Crisis.

I am glad that the Deputy Prime Minister spoke about a living countryside and thriving communities in rural areas, but how does he reconcile that with the Government's apparent intention to use the current Crisis in Farming as a way to bring about a radical downsizing of employment in agriculture?

The Minister's speech was full of hand-washing phrases designed to exonerate the new Government from blame for the Farming Crisis.

The Crisis in Farming has knock-on consequences for a far wider group of people than the hon. Gentleman would imply.

It will not help the people I know in north-east Wales, who are very worried about the Crisis in Farming and about their businesses.

That is what has caused the Crisis in Farming.

We have heard a great deal in this debate about the Crisis in Farming, which is being hit by the worst slump in prices since the 1930s.

The north-west is the second most affected area in Britain as regards the Crisis in Farming.

The Farming Crisis has hit Northern Ireland particularly badly because farming is our chief industry.

It seems that they have recognised that there is a Serious Farming Crisis.

I understand that the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food will be meeting bankers to discuss the Farming Crisis, for which I am grateful.

It is surely of fundamental importance that in tackling the Farming Crisis we put it in a broader context and get across to the Government, and the Government get it across to the decision makers and policy makers at a European level, that unless something is done with even more urgency to redress the catastrophic state of income and the depressed state of morale among our fanners, we shall thwart the longer-term policy that we all think is a sensible way in which to move.

However, on 21 April 1999, during an Opposition debate on the Crisis in Farming, the right hon. Gentleman was at it again.

The Crisis in Farming has a knock-on effect on the whole rural economy, although we must be realistic and accept that farming is now a relatively small part of that economy, and we do not face a rural crisis caused by the decline in agriculture.

Our farmers have suffered grievously in the past, but is not today's Farming Crisis, the plight of farmers as individuals, and the plight of their families, on an altogether different and desperate scale?

In the Agriculture Committee's first report of this Session, published in December, we highlighted the Crisis in Farming, which was then the worst since the 1930s and was, uniquely and disastrously, affecting all sectors of farming.

I am grateful to be called to speak in the debate, in view of the Crisis in Farming, especially in the pig sector.

they have switched funds from shire to urban areas; they have largely ignored the worst Crisis in Farming since the 1930s; and they have imposed the highest transport fuel taxes in Europe, apparently not knowing that those impact more severely on the rural economy, which is already reeling from the rest of their policies.

The Government's attitude to agriculture—which has contributed to the worst Crisis in Farming since the 1930s—has meant a drop in farming incomes of more than half since they were elected.

All in all, I finish by saying that there is presently a real Crisis in Farming.

I hope that the House is already familiar with and sympathetic to the Current Farming Crisis.

] That answer points directly to the consequences of the present Crisis in Farming.

As hon. Members have said, there is a catastrophic Crisis in Farming.

There is continuing under-investment in our schools and our health services and a total disregard for the Current Farming Crisis.

The Prime Minister acknowledged the seriousness of the Crisis in Farming and conceded that the countryside without agriculture would be a contradiction in terms.

As we are all only too well aware, the Farming Crisis has concentrated every rural mind on opportunities to diversify.

However, as he so rightly said, it is no panacea in the Farming Crisis which we face at the moment.

Does the Secretary of State agree that the single most important factor in the Crisis in Farming is the high value of the pound?

Reviving the economy has an immediate echo for everyone struggling with the consequences of the Current Disastrous Farming Crisis.

In recent meetings organised by the National Farmers Union and by the Farmers Union of Wales, which I have attended, the Crisis in Farming has been clearly demonstrated.

What will happen about the high cost of petrol and the Crisis in Farming?

We face an unprecedented Crisis in Farming.

Many hon. Members have spoken about the problems in Wales, with the loss of manufacturing jobs, particularly in the south Wales corridor in the past few months, and the Crisis in Farming.

There is a Crisis in Farming.

In the case of agricultural tenants, the Commissioners fully recognise the Crisis in Farming and where there is hardship will consider how best to help.

The Crisis in Farming is one matter that has undoubtedly grieved me in recent years.

We all have the Current Farming Crisis on our mind.

They began with the Crisis in Farming, which has been exacerbated in the past few days.

As the Minister knows, the Farming Crisis also affects small businesses and tourism.

There are two separate crises hidden within the overall problem: the Farming Crisis, and the collapse of various local economies that depend on a combination of tourism and agriculture.

In the case of agricultural tenants, the Commissioners fully recognise the Crisis in Farming, and especially the problems caused by foot and mouth disease, and where there is hardship will consider how best to help.

It is not in the interests of the House that it should attempt to make political gain out of the Farming Crisis; that is wrong, and the House will not have credibility as long as it is allowed to happen.

the Crisis in Farming means that diversification is a problem.

The commissioners are fully alert to the Crisis in Farming, especially the problems caused by foot and mouth disease, and, where there is hardship, will consider how best to help.

He stated in it that he intended to introduce proposals that would helpchart a way out of the current Crisis in Farming.

It takes only a tiny midge nibble at the edge of the Current Farming Crisis.

I am never knowingly off target; the Crisis in Farming means that diversification is a problem.

In a period of steadily worsening Crisis in Farming, Labour has refused to block substandard food imports from entering Britain, even when they threaten human or animal health.

What we really need, and what was lacking in the previous Government, is the necessary political direction in particular in the midst of the Farming Crisis, to which I will return.

In the past two years in particular there has been an unprecedented Crisis in Farming.

All of us who represent such constituencies have to recognise the Crisis in Farming.

In the otherwise prosperous district of Hambleton, Thirsk and other areas have suffered dramatically from the Ongoing Farming Crisis.

International pressures have reinforced the domestic Crisis in Farming, causing people to reflect on the future.

Members from all parties have had the opportunity during the past year to discuss with farmers and others in rural Norfolk the current Farming Crisis and its effect on the county's economy.

It seems extraordinary that the Labour Party that created the epoch making Agriculture Act of 1947 now seems unable to tackle the enormous Crisis in Farming, which is at its most serious since the 1930s.

The third matter on which I want to touch is the Crisis in Farming and in our rural communities in general.

My constituency has suffered as a result of the Crisis in Farming in the past 10 years.

All this is against the background of a prolonged Crisis in Farming, when dairy farmers can no longer get a price for milk that covers their cost, supermarkets prefer to buy cheap Brazilian beef instead of high-quality British beef, and Deloitte's annual survey of farm incomes says that the only rational response for farmers to present prices should be to get out of producing food.

That is a national disaster, not just a Farming Crisis.