HC Deb 18 May 1893 vol 12 cc1256-7
MR. JEFFREYS

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture if he can now state whether he proposes to take any action in order to carry out the recommendations of the Committee on Swine Fever?

MR. GARDNER

I am afraid that as yet I can only refer the hon. Member to what I said in reply to the questions addressed to me on this subject a few days ago. I have not yet received the evidence on which the Report of the Departmental Committee is founded, but I understand that it will roach me in the course of the present week, and we shall then be able to see how far it will be possible for us to give effect to the conclusions at which the Committee have arrived.

MR. CHAPLIN (Lincolnshire, Sleaford)

Arising out of that reply, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman, as a matter of fact, whether in the Report of the Departmental Committee on Swine Fever there is any information whatever which could not have been obtained in his own Department without the appointment of any such Committee at all; and whether, under these circumstances, he cannot make up his mind to deal with this question, so important to the agricultural interest, and to carry out the recommendations of the Report without waiting for the evidence upon which the Report is based?

MR. GARDNER

I cannot admit for one moment that the Committee was unnecessary, or that I had the information in the Department already. I must refer the right hon. Gentleman to the Report. With his knowledge of public business he must know it is impossible for the Government to decide on a Report without seeing the evidence on which it is based.

MR. CHAPLIN

Well, then, I have examined it carefully, and I will ask whether the right hon. Gentleman can say what the information is in the Report which be could not have obtained in the Department? and, failing an answer to this question, I shall take the earliest opportunity of raising this question again.

MR. GARDNER

I cannot give the right hon. Gentleman any further answer on the subject.

MR. JEFFREYS

Has the right hon. Gentleman's attention been given to a Rill already before the House on this subject?

MR. GARDNER

But that Bill does not contain the provisions which enable us to deal with this question.