HC Deb 29 February 1912 vol 34 cc1623-33

Resolution reported, "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £10, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1912, for the Salaries and Expenses in the Offices of the House of Commons."

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."

Captain CRAIG

When this Vote was before the Committee some of my hon. Friends beside me put a few questions to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury which were not, in my opinion, quite satisfactorily answered. Under Section D of the Vote a question arises with regard to the Official Reporters of our Debates, who under the new system, are to receive the sum of £2 each in respect of every sitting of the House above 150. I wish to know from the hon. Gentleman when this new scheme was first instituted—whether it came into operation at the time when the publication of our Debates was undertaken in the form in which they now appear, and when the daily record of our proceedings was sent to each Member, or whether this Grant was made prior to that particular date? I wish to know also whether this is strictly applied to each of the sittings that happens to be over 150, or whether it refers in any way to the later sittings of the House and the consequent extra, burden falling upon those who take down our Debates? That question was put to the hon. Gentleman when the Vote was before the Committee, and there was no answer given, so far as I recollect, or, at least, no satisfactory answer to explain when the increase took place, and whether it refers to each individual sitting or covers the long hours we are now almost always compelled to undertake later on in a Session.

8.0 P.M.

I would like also at the same time to have cleared up what, an actual sitting of the House means, because I think it is in the memory of the House that last year and the year before we ran into two days with our Proceedings. We went right round the clock twice. I wish to know whether, in these circumstances, £2 is the extra payment for the sitting? It seems to me rather a hard and fast rule for those who are engaged in the somewhat arduous and tedious work of taking down some of the speeches of hon. Members for the OFFICIAL REPORT, that they should be paid this sum of £2 when they have to work forty-eight hours on end, whereas a sitting of the House may on another occasion be a mere normal day, when the hours are only, say on Friday, from twelve to five. I need hardly say that I am making no objection in the world to the £2 extra per day to those hard-working officials. Yet I cannot help thinking that the pay in some instances might be much too great and in other circumstances too little. I wish to know also whether the fact of one of the officials having to be on duty on a certain occasion does not mean that it is a mere chance whether he is underpaid or overpaid? It is quite obvious to Members of the House that if there is a roster kept of the officials who have to undertake the work, it might press very hard on an individual who had to sit through the long Debates we are sure to have later on in the Session if he is only to be paid £2 for an inordinate number of hours work. Those points require clearing up, as they were passed over in rather a superficial manner in Committee.

With regard to police and miscellaneous expenses, I notice that the increase is caused by the revised pay and the effect of the weekly day of rest. The answer on this also was unsatisfactory. The hon. Gentleman led us to believe that the increase was caused by the revised pay of the police in consequence of the passing of the weekly day of rest. On the other hand, this footnote seems to attribute the mistake of the under estimate of £300 to two causes. First of all the revised pay, whatever that was, and, in the second place, to the newly instituted and well-deserved day of rest. Did the police guarding these buildings get this day of rest prior to the passing of this Bill, or is this a new institution consequent on the passing of this Bill? My recollection is that passing the House of Commons on Sundays prior to the passing of the Bill there were very few constables in attendance here, and consequently I gathered that some of them at all events appeared to have a day off on Sundays. How is it, then, that according to this footnote we appear to be making an alteration, and adopting what I think every hon. Member believed to be an institution existing prior to the passing of the Bill. If the increase is due entirely to this weekly day of rest, then I think the wording of the footnote is wrong, and that it should be the increase caused by the revised pay of the police owing to the effect of the weekly day of rest. Another matter to which attention should be directed is the great discrepancy of £940, I am glad to say on the right side, in the matter of fees. As I understand Private Bills, from which these fees are derived, have to be lodged at the very beginning of the Session. We had an Estimate of £16,500 which, I presume, was easily arrived at, because there was full knowledge as to the number of Private Bills put down for the Session, and consequently they would be able, in making an Estimate, to know exactly how much to allow for them. Then the amount springs up to £17,440, and the question naturally arises how the extra amount is derived. Are Bills lodged continually during the Session or must they not be all lodged early when the House sits? I think those were the principal points which were neglected in the Committee stage, and the House will be obliged to the hon. Member for clearing them up.

Mr. MASTERMAN

The hon. Gentleman is wrong in saying that this addition to the remuneration of the reporting staff is made by the Government. It is made by the Commission which controls these affairs, a statutory Commission. This was done in December, 1911, when the Commission authorised Mr. Speaker to pay to each reporter an additional sum not exceeding £2 for each day beyond 150. I think that in the Committee stage all the House recognised that that was a thoroughly well-earned increase to the salaries paid to the official reporters. The cause of the increase in the Police Vote is two-fold, as I tried to explain in the Committee stage. In August there was sanctioned a general increase in the rate of pay of the Metropolitan Police. Besides that there has been an increase in cost due to the fact of the police getting one day's rest in seven. Therefore part is due to the cost of one day's rest in seven, and part is due to the general increase given in August to the general Metropolitan police. The police on duty in the House of Commons have not had one day's rest in seven under the old system, but they are now receiving the one day's rest in seven, beyond the ordinary Metropolitan police, who have not yet received it, and they are receiving it because we are voting the money, which comes out of our expenditure and not out of the general Metropolitan Police Rate.

Resolution reported, "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £11,400, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1912, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, and of Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, including certain Grants-in-Aid."

Motion made and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."

Viscount HELMSLEY

This Estimate contains a good many sub-heads, and the amount of opportunity for discussion under each of these sub-heads is not very extensive, so that we have not the opportunity which we might wish for on the Supplementary Estimate for debating at large the whole question of agricultural policy. I notice that under sub-head (A) the additional sum required is put down as £500, additional salaries for staff required for work under the Small Holdings and Allotments Acts, 1908 to 1910, and in connection with the diseases of animals. It is rather unsatisfactory that the Board should not define more closely how much of the increased sum required is due to each of those two headings, because, though I approve fully of voting the money which is spent in connection with the diseases of animals, and I am very ready to give testimony to the efficient way in which the Board have taken steps to stamp out outbreaks of these diseases, I am very far from approving of the policy of the Board with regard to the extra Commissioners whom they chose to appoint under the Small Holdings Acts, and I regard those appointments as a scandalous waste of public money. The two appointments originally made were amply sufficient to administer the Act and to give assistance to the county councils when required; and to appoint six additional Commissioners was absolutely unnecessary, and indeed prejudicial rather than advantageous to the smooth working of the Act. I believe that the question will come up in Debate on a private Member's Motion later on in the Session, so I will not dwell on the matter now; but from what I have been told of their operations I am rather led to believe that in some cases they have interfered with committees of county councils who have been endeavouring to work the Act, rather than been of assistance to them. Certainly, I by no means approve of the extra expenditure which is asked for under that head.

It is rather interesting to note that although the additional sum put down in the Estimate is £500, the real amount required is £2,500. Therefore the £500 does not in any way represent the real additional expenditure that is required, because we are told that there were savings under other sub-heads amounting to £2,000. If that £2,500 had not been required for these additional Commissioners, the £2,000 savings would either have gone to swell the national surplus at the end of the year, or the money could have been devoted to other purposes under the Board of Agriculture, which I for one would consider far more valuable. Coming to Vote (F. 1), agricultural research, I should like to know to what institutions and societies that money has been paid. When the Vote was first announced to the House I think it was allocated to different societies and colleges, and I thoroughly approved of that allocation of the money. It seemed to me that this money devoted to agricultural research would undoubtedly be very well spent. But I think we might be informed what Grants it is proposed to give or have been given, and to what colleges or societies exactly and in what directions the money is being spent. We should like to be quite satisfied that the Grants were being devoted to the best possible services. There have been rumours in the agricultural world of new agricultural research organisations, and if the President of the Board of Agriculture could give us further information on that point I am sure we would be very glad to receive it.

All those who are interested in agriculture would also be glad if he could inform us what progress is being made by the Committee inquiring into the origin of the foot-and-mouth disease. In Vote (I), improvement of light horse breeding, we see that a sum of £10,000 is required for Grants-in-Aid to county committees for the encouragement of the keeping of brood mares, but that savings amounting to £9,995 are anticipated under other items of the sub-head. Therefore, a Supplementary Estimate of £5 only is put down. I think that the President of the Board of Agriculture knows very well that I have always been a great supporter of and fully sympathetic with the policy which the Board initiated last year for encouraging light horse breeding, and I am very glad to think that the scheme is on so very satisfactory a basis as I understand it is. Of course there are minor questions on which I think the Board might have improved the scheme, but I do not wish these questions to vitiate the value of the scheme as a whole. I would, however, like to know under what heads of the scheme the saving of £9,995 has been made. It is rather a large sum to have saved in one direction and to be spent in another, and it seems to me that it must involve some recasting of the Board's original scheme. I am not in the least saying that such a recasting of the scheme in some direction might not be valuable; in fact, in the first instance, when the scheme was brought forward, I made the criticism that too much was given in the case of stallions and that there was not enough encouragement given in the case of mares. If it is the case that the sum is now going to be spent towards the encouragement of brood mares I, for one, should not complain. I would like to know whether the Board of Agriculture have made any progress with the proposal that I believe was at one time contemplated, that arrangements should be made whereby thoroughbred horses of superior excellence should be reserved for this country and be purchased by the Board in order to resell them or let them out to private individuals. That was part of a scheme put forward at one time which a good many of us thought would be of very great value, in that it would help this country to preserve valuable blood which otherwise is only too apt to go abroad. If the Board has been able to make any progress in elaborating a scheme of that kind, and if this Vote represents any departure in that direction, I am sure the Committee will be very glad to hear of it from the right hon. Gentleman.

Another point of importance is the registration of stallions. The Board have undertaken, as hon. Members are well aware, to establish a register of horses which are declared by the veterinary surgeon to be sound, and that register, I think, is likely to be of very great value to this country in the future. I would like to impress upon the Board the importance of seeing whether they cannot introduce a stringent regulation which would prevent unsound horses travelling the roads. No doubt it would be considered a great infringement of individual liberty to prevent a man from keeping an unsound stallion if he chose to do it at his own place and at his own risk; but I do think there is a good deal to be said for the argument that an owner should not be allowed to parade an unsound stallion or an unregistered stallion about the country, perhaps letting it at a cheaper rate than could the owner of a sound stallion, and thus tempt breeders into deplorable paths.

Mr. SPEAKER

These matters cannot be discussed on a Supplementary Estimate. All those matters arise on the original Estimate, which included an item for light horse breeding. This sum is only required for the particular purpose of a Grant-in-Aid to county committees, and the Noble Lord must confine his observations to that particular sum and that particular object.

Viscount HELMSLEY

I may discuss under what head the saving of £9,995 has been effected in order to make the Supplementary Estimate for £5 only necessary?

Mr. SPEAKER

Certainly; I am not taking any objection to that, but the Noble Lord is going into all sorts of questions about stallions which really do not arise on this Vote.

Viscount HELMSLEY

I bow to your ruling, Sir, though I had thought I was perhaps entitled to go into the subject more largely. That being the case, I do not think I have any further observations to offer upon this particular point, but if the right hon. Gentleman can tell us what changes have been made in the scheme I shall be very glad to hear what they are.

Mr. C. BATHURST

There are two matters to which I should like to refer the right hon. Gentleman, and both of them were touched upon to a somewhat small extent when this Intimate was previously under consideration, but neither of them from the point of view to which I wish to call his special attention. First of all, we criticise the appointment of these six extra Small Holdings Commissioners without sufficient reason being given by the Board of Agriculture for their appointment. It is a rather significant fact that in the course of last summer the Annual Report of the Small Holdings Commissioners was published, and in that report they point out that under the circumstances the rate of progress in carrying out the provisions of the Small Holdings Act was all that could be desired; that county councils were doing their duty satisfactorily, that there was every reason to believe that the normal demand was being gradually satisfied, that, in fact, the two Small Holdings Commissioners were doing the work properly, and that the Board was thoroughly satisfied with that work. Two months after the publication of that document—and I may tell the right hon. Gentleman we are studying these documents emanating from the Board of Agriculture as works of authority which we may trust to contain nothing but the truth relating to his Department—in consequence, apparently, of the agitation on the part of the extreme land party in this House, and without any explanation whatever, we are told that these extra Commissioners are to be appointed in order "to speed up the work," as the expression goes—advice which apparently means to put pressure upon the county councils in regard to this work.

The policy of the Board appears to me to be wholly inconsistent in this matter. Either the appointment of these extra Commissioners was unnecessary, or the report of the Small Holdings Commissioners for the year was wholly misleading. I am entitled to ask the right hon. Gentleman to explain why, if the facts contained in that report were accurate, it was necessary to carry out this new policy, which would indicate that those facts were entirely false. The other question I want to raise has reference to the Grants which are now about to be made—of which we have the first example here—towards agricultural research. I fear very much that there is likely to be a serious waste of public money owing to overlapping. The right hon. Gentleman has assured us, and I welcome the assurance, that block Grants were intended by these Supplementary Estimates to be given to such institutions as were properly equipped for carrying out particular branches of agricultural research work. But we find in another part of the Estimate a sum for similar work to be given to the Department of Agriculture in Ireland, and before we embark upon a large national expenditure for carrying on the same class of work in exactly the same branches of agricultural research, surely we are entitled to ask that there should be something in the nature of co-operation between the two Departments which govern the fortunes of agriculture within these islands. I will go further, and ask that there should be some co-operation in these matters amongst all those who are carrying on similar work within the Empire. We heard from the right hon. Gentleman the other day that he proposed to carry out research work in connection with foot-and-mouth disease. I for one was very glad to hear it. Although I am not entitled to say at present what the Departmental Committee say on foot-and-mouth disease are likely to report, I think it must be common knowledge that we in this country are lacking very much in that specific technical knowledge which would enable us to trace with certainty the recent outbreak of that disease. We have also been told that a Grant for research in connection with swine fever has been given during the last few months to the Departmental Committee that sat in connection with that disease. The right hon. Gentleman the Vice-President of the Department in Ireland has also told us that a Grant for this purpose is being made in Ireland. Surely this is quite an unnecessary duplication of work. It cannot be necessary to spend money on research as to swine fever not only in England, but for exactly the same purpose across St. George's Channel. The same right hon. Gentleman also told us that he was going to spend money for research into red water in cattle. It is not exactly in order upon this Vote, but we have reason to believe that there is money being expended in South Africa for this purpose. Surely that is evident that there is a great waste of public money through lack of concentration, and co-operation. The right hon. Gentleman told us, when we asked for particulars as to research work, that he also intended to have an inquiry into the diseases of plants. Within two days afterwards the Vice-President of the Irish Department tells us that he also in Ireland is expending money in research on the diseases of plants. Surely it ought to be possible to avoid the evident waste upon which we are about to embark in the matter of research. There is one other matter to which I desire to refer, and that is in connection with agricultural co-operation. The right hon. Gentleman did not tell us on Monday last as to whether any portion of this Grant towards agricultural co-operation was going to be devoted to agricultural credit banks. If no part is going to be so devoted I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman as to whether he does not consider that to be an essential part of the policy of agricultural co-operation in this country as it has been found to be in all Continental countries, and whether he proposes at an early date to assign a certain portion of the Grant from the Development Fund for this purpose.

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna)

I beg to move, "That the Debate be now adjourned."

Debate to be resumed upon Monday next, 4th March.