CONSERVATIVE MEP Struan Stevenson has been appointed as a member of the European Parliament's Agriculture Committee, writes Robert Ross.

Stevenson, who has family farming interests in Ayrshire, said: ''The Common Agricultural Policy swallows more than half the entire EU budget and the agriculture committee is the largest in the European Parliament.

''Even so, with 24 full members and 24 substitute members there was keen competition to be appointed.

I was very lucky to secure

one of the three seats

awarded to the British Conservatives.

''This is such an important policy area for Scotland that it was my priority choice.''

He was equally delighted, he added, to have been given a seat on the Fisheries Committee, given that 80% of all fish landed in the UK came into Scottish ports.

Scotland's other Conservative MEP, John Purvis, is to serve on the Committee for Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.

He is also a member of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee.