HC Deb 04 May 1937 vol 323 cc1014-22

4.37 p.m.

Captain Heilgers

I beg to move, in page 20, line 6, at the end, to insert: none of which shall he in an area the population of which over a radius of 10 miles from the central slaughter-house is less than two hundred and sixty thousand. This refers to the proposed central slaughter-houses. The Amendment arises out of words used by the Minister of Pensions in Committee. A discussion was taking place on the extent or radius of the zone which would lie round the central slaughter-house and the Minister said: Twelve might be a proper limit in a consumer area where the centres of population are dense. It might, on the other hand, he a narrow limit in a producer area, where the object is to have a wide radius from which to draw supplies for the factory. When heckled on the subject he replied: It is perfectly possible that one may be in a producer area and two in a consumer area, or the other way about. I do not know."—[OFFICIAL REPORT (Standing Committee C), 18th March, 1937, col. 588.] The object of the Amendment is to ascertain the Minister's intentions as to whether he is going to have all these experimental slaughter-houses in consumer areas or whether he intends to put one in a producer area. So far all the opinion of the experts who have been called into consultation is against putting them in a producer area. There was a special committee set up by the Ministry of Agriculture which said that the ideal standard meat factory demanded a concentrated population of 260,000 people to consume the output. There are 12 towns with a population of over 260,000 and some of them have no slaughter-houses. The conclusion of the De La Warr Report was almost entirely against putting these slaughter-houses in producer areas. For one thing, except from Aberdeen, the freight on livestock to London was less than the freight for meat. Again, if you put them in a producer area, you are up against this difficulty, that production in producer areas is largely seasonal. You get stall-fed beasts in Norfolk corning on the market at one time, and you get grass-fed beasts in the Midlands coming on the market at another time.

Another argument which the De La Warr Report put forward is that edible offals deteriorate greatly on long journeys and, if you have it in a producer area, you are up against this, that there will be the double cost of consigning a large number of beasts to the slaughter-house and then sending them on as meat again to the consuming areas. Again, the De La Wan Committee urged that they ought to be put in consumer areas because consumption per square mile in a consumer area was greater than the production per square mile in a producer area. I move this in the hope that the Minister will accept it and will stick to the advice of the experts which his own Ministry set up, and will once and for all abolish the idea that any of these slaughterhouses will be situated in a producer area.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd

I beg to second the Amendment.

4.43 p.m.

Mr. Wedderburn

My hon. and gallant Friend says that his purpose in moving the Amendment is to extract from the Minister some idea of where he is going to put these experimental slaughterhouses. I should have thought, after all the attempts that were made to do that in Committee he would by now have been getting a little discouraged. It was pointed out in Committee that central slaughter-house schemes are not, like marketing orders, initiated by the Commission. They entirely depend on applications from local authorities or local interests which feel that it would be an advantage to their area to have a slaughter-house scheme in it. The Commission does not go round trying to impose a scheme on an area which does not want it. We anticipate that there will be considerably more than three areas from which applications for schemes of this kind will be made, and that the Commission will, perhaps, have some difficulty in deciding for what area they will make a scheme to be submitted to the Minister.

It would clearly be unreasonable to expect my right hon. Friend to say now in what kind of area he expects a scheme to be made, or which of the competing areas will be selected. It is the kind of question that the Commission, surely, must judge in the light of local representations that are made. My hon. and gallant Friend, I think, will forgive me if I do not go into the reports that he has quoted, for that reason. It is a matter for the Commission to decide, but his Amendment would positively exclude one area where we have some reason to think the inhabitants are anxious to have an experimental scheme, and that is Aberdeenshire. The terms of the Amendment would make it impossible for a central slaughterhouse scheme to be established there. That subject was very fully discussed in Committee on various Amendments and by my right hon. Friend, who went fully into the matter on the Question, "That the Clause stand part." The Committee accepted the view that we ought not to try to restrict or to tie the hands of the Commission in this way, and I hope that my hon. and gallant Friend will not think it necessary to press the Amendment on Report.

4.46 p.m.

Mr. Barnes

Are we to take it from the reply of the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland that Aberdeen is to have one of these slaughter-houses? He will remember that the Minister of Agriculture was subjected to a good deal of examination on this point, and he assured the Committee that the Commissioners would be entirely free in their choice. It is desirable that we should have it made perfectly plain that Aberdeen, because of the power of Scottish interests with the Minister of Agriculture, has not already established a prior claim.

Mr. Wedderburn

I only gave Aberdeen as an illustration of an area which would be prevented from competing by the Amendment.

4.47 p.m.

Mr. T. Williams

Now that the hon. and gallant Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Captain Heilgers) is being repulsed by the Minister, perhaps he will begin to appreciate that almost every vote he gave on Clause 20 and other Clauses up to Clause 30 was cast in the wrong direction. Particularly is that so in regard to the fundamental Amendment which we submitted to the Committee and which was rejected by the Minister. We argued that these three experimental slaughterhouses ought to be nationally owned and nationally run, since they were going to supply the whole country with the information required for the purpose of developing the slaughtering system in the future. As the Committee proceeded with its deliberations and hon. Members submitted Amendments, wanting this information to be provided, with limitations and so forth, almost every argument that was advanced went to prove the justification for the Amendment that we had originally moved, which was rejected by the Minister.

The suggested 10 miles radius can be viewed from two angles. The Commission may examine an area and provoke someone into activity to produce a scheme with the Commission either for a producer area or an industrial area. Now that the schemes are to be owned by one local authority, or a combination of local authorities, or private individuals, or utility societies, wherever they feel disposed to establish an experimental slaughter-house, if they can secure the assent of the Commission and the Minister, they can do it. That would not have been possible if the central slaughter-house scheme had been a national one, because the slaughterhouses would have been set up in the most appropriate spots in which to carry through the experiment, and the nation would have benefited as the result of the £350,000 of Treasury money which is to be contributed towards it. Now the hon. and gallant Member realises that anybody who wants to establish a central slaughterhouse scheme by getting to the Commission's early doors and obtaining the assent of the Commission and ultimately of the Minister, can have a scheme either in a producer or a consumer area. I hope the hon. and gallant Member will feel the error of his ways in the Committee stage. I am satisfied that the Ministry are doing right in rejecting the Amendment.

There is one further point. The Commission is to consist of eight persons, who are to be appointed by the Ministers. The Ministers are three Scotsmen—the Minister of Agriculture, the Secretary of State for Scotland, and the Under-Secretary of State.

Mr. Turton

What about the Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Agriculture?

Mr. Williams

I suppose that if there is any decent job going it will be held by a Scotsman. The three Scotsmen will appoint the eight Commissioners. Let us assume that they will exercise some sound judgment. The Commission in their wisdom ought not in any case to establish, and I do not think they will establish a central slaughter-house scheme in any part of the country where it is likely to become uneconomic. In Clause 28 the Minister is taking power to revoke any central slaughter-house scheme, brought into existence at a cost of many hundreds of thousands of pounds towards which they may have contributed £50,000, if it proves to be uneconomic after a fair experience. The fact that he is taking power to revoke a scheme ought to encourage him to be extremely careful before he accepts an area or a scheme in any part of the country, even Aberdeen. I am convinced that if the central experimental slaughter-houses had been nationally owned and nationally run the House need not have worried about the areas in the country where they are to be established, because they would have set out to avoid the necessity of bringing Clause 28 into being for the purpose of revoking a scheme which they themselves had promoted.

4.52 p.m.

Mr. Marshall

I am not going to discuss whether these slaughter-houses ought to be nationally owned or owned by individuals, but I am going to apply my mind to the Amendment. I am sorry that the Minister has not given some indication of his purpose in regard to these central slaughter-houses. I agree with the hon. and gallant Member who moved the Amendment that there are good and sound considerations why these places should be situated in the great consuming areas. The Bill confers many benefits on the farming industry, and to place these slaughter-houses in the producing areas would confer another great benefit upon the farming industry, to which I am not prepared to give my assent. The hon. and gallant Member who moved the Amendment put forward considerations why he thought the slaughter-houses ought to be placed in the producing areas, and I will add one or two more.

In the first place, I think the great consuming areas have a right to be considered favourably. If there has been any development in the slaughtering of livestock in this country during the last generation or so it has been due to the enterprise and vigour and the tremendous amount of money that the consuming areas have invested in this industry. I know of no case where the producing areas have benefited the industry in the same sense that the consuming areas have done. I could mention various towns which have spent an enormous amount of money for the development and improvement of slaughtering, and if the Minister contemplates going away from these areas and compelling the great industrial areas to go perhaps 50 miles to purchase their food from a producing area, this Bill will be the last thing in futility.

Let us assume that one of these slaughter-houses is placed in a producing area. There will be an enormous number of animals slaughtered there. One of the interests that I have at heart is the humane slaughtering of animals, and I contend that we can far better effect that very benign purpose by taking advantage of the splendid facilities of the local authorities as to inspection and things of that character, than is available in a producing area. The slaughtering of animals should be done as near a great consuming area as possible, because it is in those areas that the market exists for the sale and consumption of the goods. Imagine Sheffield, Liverpool, or any other great local authority having to go scores of miles to the wholesale meat market which I assume will be attached to these slaughter-houses, in order to purchase its meat. That is very far from what is desirable.

I am sorry that the Minister has not given some indication of his intentions. I do not envy him his task. Many local authorities will be clamouring that they should be the most favoured authority under this Clause. If the Minister had adopted a firm attitude and said that in the interests of the industry and of the great consuming areas, and consequently in the interests of the livestock industry, these experimental places would be established in the consuming areas, he would have done a great deal to clarify our minds and make an ambiguous part of the Bill clearer.

4.56 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel Acland-Troyte

The hon. Member opposite is very anxious that these slaughter-houses should be placed in consuming and not in producing areas. I think that many people who live in producing areas will fully agree with him. I do not want one of these places in the area in which I live. I am sorry that the Minister has not given us more indication of his intention. We do not know where the slaughter-houses are to be placed or what they are to do. I will make one more attempt to get the Minister to explain what he expects the slaughter-houses to do. We want to know where they are to be placed. When the butcher goes to the market will he have to take his animals, five, 10, or 15 miles to the slaughter-houses, and have them slaughtered and then take them back again to his shop? Or are the slaughterhouses to go into the consumer areas where the animals will be slaughtered and sold to the butcher? If they have to go to the market themselves and buy the beasts, that will eventually ruin the market, because there will be no competition.

4.58 p.m.

Mr. W. S. Morrison

If I have not come forward with information as to where the slaughter-houses are to be situated, I would ask hon. Members to believe that my secrecy has not been because I did not want to give all information in my power, but because it would be improper for me to make any suggestion on the subject at the present time. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] I will give the reason. I am asking the House to set up a Commission for the purpose of reviewing the situation and making a decision. They will have various proposals before them, and they will have to deal with the proposals on their merits. It would be against the interests of the Commission and of this experiment if I were at this stage to make any pronouncement in advance of receiving the report of this very body which is being set up to advise us.

Mr. Riley

Can the right hon. Gentleman indicate what the considerations are?

Mr. Morrison

I am proceeding to that point. Hon. Members have drawn attention to various disqualifications of certain areas. I have not the least doubt that those weighty arguments will be before the Commission, and they will be in my mind when I have to approve the scheme. Let me say a few words about Aberdeen. There is no intention to say here and now that Aberdeen is to have one of these slaughter-houses. Nothing of the kind. Aberdeen has come into the discussion in a way which I ought to make plain. The hon. Member opposite spoke of the desirability of having slaughter-houses in a consuming centre and adduced many arguments in favour of his contention. It must not be forgotten—and it has been frequently urged upon me—that the central slaughterhouse idea had its origin in exporting districts; that is to say, it is in the South American exporting districts that this particular technique has been developed. Aberdeen is one of the biggest exporting districts in this country. It has an immense long-range trade with London in meat, not in cattle, and it is in that way that Aberdeen has been brought into the discussion, because it is an exporting district of that character. The proper procedure which I have indicated and which I have advised the House to adopt is to set up this body and not to prejudge any of the decisions which it has to make in advance of its coming into existence. They are very complicated matters which the Commission will have to investigate, and every scheme will, no doubt, have good and bad points about it. Let the Commission, when it comes into being, consider each application on its merits.

Lieut.-Colonel Acland-Troyte

Cannot the right hon. Gentleman tell us anything about the functions of these central slaughter-houses?

Mr. Morrison

I have replied to that point several times. The function of the central slaughter-house is not to buy cattle at all. Its function is to do what any slaughter-house does at the present moment, and it will do it, I hope, a great deal better. The butcher, instead of slaughtering his own cattle in his own back yard or premises, may have, if he lives in the area of one of these schemes, the opportunity of taking his beasts to one of these new modern slaughter-houses and getting them treated by these new methods. It is a supply service. That is the key-note of the whole proposal. It is not a trading concern.

Captain Heilgers

In view of what the Minister has said and the reasonable explanation he has given, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.