THE Conservatives' rural affairs spokesman finishes a two-day tour of the North-East today.

A fortnight since his appointment, David Lidington said he had quickly recognised that the prices farmers receive from supermarkets was a key problem - as well as burdensome bureaucracy from Brussels.

"I hear time and again from farmers that they are horrified when they go into the supermarket, see the price of the finished product and then work out what they get," Mr Lidington said yesterday, as he arrived at Darlington station before heading for a farm at Thornton, Middlesbrough.

"We are not going to disinvent the supermarket, so farmers have to got to become more closely engaged with the supermarkets and the food processors."

Yesterday afternoon, Mr Lidington visited Northumberland's Coastal Grains, the biggest farming co-operative in the North, to see how the collective idea was working.

He said he was looking forward to tomorrow's announcement about the reform of the European Union's Common Agriculture Policy.

"We are expecting a shift away from direct subsidies for food production to paying farmers on environmental grounds," said Mr Lidington, the Shadow Secretary for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Mr Lidington is also meeting the Tories' new directly elected mayor for North Tyneside, Chris Morgan.

Mr Lidington said: "It's a real triumph for a Conservative to be elected mayor for an urban centre in the North-East. We have a young, energetic, high profile mayor in a Labout heartland and local victories are a springboard for national success."