On the menu was lamb, and it was also our main topic of conversation. The Prince of Wales had recently been to Yorkshire and wanted – as I did – to gauge the Danish Eurocrat's commitment to hill farming, and
also to promote his own enthusiasm for mutton.

Like me, the Prince has an emotional feel for the hills. In my case, because I come from a long line of sheep farmers in the Scottish Lowlands, in his because he owns large tracts of uplands.

I met Mariann Fischer Boel again this week in Strasbourg to press the case for more support for hill farmers. This time not only out of emotional commitment but also because they provide fine food, preserve our unique environment and provide a healthy resource for tourism which
is quite literally without parallel
in the world.

This week, the European Parliament has been debating the Health Check on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). This was billed by Tony Blair as a major review, but to most Europeans – and especially to Irish politicians who are holding a referendum on the EU's controversial Lisbon Treaty in June – it is not so much a check, more about the continuing health of the CAP.

The intention is to answer three main questions: how to make the EU's direct aid system more effective and simpler; how to make market support measures more relevant in a globalising world and how to confront new challenges such as climate change and water management.

Coinciding with the debate in Strasbourg on the Health Check was a celebration of the European Parliament's 50th birthday. During all that time, the CAP has been the glue which held the Common Market – now the European Union – together.

Agriculture is the largest remaining subsidised industry in Europe. From the '50s onwards, coal and steel were also recipients of EU largesse. Indeed, the Selby coalfield was built with major support from Brussels.

Now, these traditional industries have declined in significance in Britain and France but farming is still there to challenge us by its pure visibility, especially our glorious
Dales and Moors.

But the physical beauty of our hills disguises a real crisis of existence. Recent studies into the incomes of hill farms in England have suggested an average loss of £2,000. My own visits to upland farmsteads confirm a real financial headache for those struggling to make a living, especially with the impact of foot-and-mouth disease and bluetongue.

Speaking in the European Parliament on the CAP this week, I quoted this newspapers's recent article headed "Hill farmers are urged to come up with survival ideas" – a bleak report on the recent visit to Westminster by Yorkshire campaign group Food&Farming4Real.

Most hill farms are having to supplement their meagre earnings with alternative activities in tourism, catering or caring.

When it comes to subsidies, they are anxious about the current review of the Hill Farm Allowance, which will be gone in two years. Anything which replaces it will be another bureaucratic nightmare, more forms to fill, more jargon to understand, more arbitrary demands for information.

Brussels is not seen by our hill farmers as a friend, but nor is Whitehall, which not only embellishes EU bureaucracy, but also pays our uplands the lowest subsidy in the EU after Spain, because it has the discretion to do so.

Decision-making on agriculture in the EU has until now been a stitch-up between farm ministers. The new treaty will change all that. One aspect which many have overlooked is a new role for MEPs.

At present the European Parliament's agriculture committee is a powerless sounding board for farmers: indeed the report debated this week largely reflects their interests, and especially of the
larger farms.

A visitor to Strasbourg for the parliament's 50th birthday was
Henry, now Lord Plumb. A former president of the NFU, he is also the only British president of the European Parliament so far.

He told me that the Lisbon Treaty may suffer a check when it gets to the House of Lords but the assumption everywhere else is that eventually it will come into force. At that point the so-called "co-decision" between MEPs and ministers representing the 27 EU countries will be introduced in a range of new areas, including agriculture.

The discretion as to who gets what in terms of subsidies will remain to some extent with national ministries, but the overall legislative and financial framework of the CAP will be subject to direct democracy through the European Parliament.

When this overhaul of the CAP is completed, will our green and pleasant land still have a place for viable hill farms? Whatever else is decided, I am determined it will.


Edward McMillan-Scott is Conservative MEP for Yorkshire and The Humber and Vice-President of the European Parliament.