Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions she has had with the European Commission on cane sugar imports.

My Right Honourable friend, Elizabeth Truss MP, has not had any discussions with the Commission to date. However, since agreement was reached on the Common Agriculture Policy in June 2013, the Right Honourable Owen Paterson MP, the former Secretary of State, exchanged letters with the Agriculture Commissioner on the needs of the cane refining sector. My Right Honourable friend’s letters, sent on 22 July 2013 and 8 January 2014, stressed the importance of competition in the sugar market and the need for a reduction in tariff barriers for raw cane sugar in order to maintain this. In his replies, the Commissioner promised to take these issues into account.