HC Deb 08 December 1938 vol 342 cc1352-3
46. Mr. De la Bère

asked the Prime Minister whether he will find time for a discussion of the Motion standing in the name of the hon. Member for Evesham relating to comprehensive long-term policy for agriculture?

[That this House urges on the Government the necessity for a comprehensive long-term agricultural policy, as the makeshift arrangements for dealing with this great national problem are inadequate and dangerous, and a permanent agricultural policy is imperative if the industry is to survive; is apprehensive lest under cover of the comprehensive economic study all private enterprise will be destroyed; notes that this socialising of private businesses is being and will continue to be resented by housewives throughout the country; while not making any claim for self-sufficiency of food in this country, urges the Government to increase the internal food production, which would not seriously affect the industries depending on export trade; deplores the fact that the standard of living is reduced in the rural areas owing to the fact that farmers and producers cannot afford to pay decent living wages owing to the uncertainty of the present markets in which they are often unable to find a market for their produce at all, and that this fear of their produce being left on their hands harasses their lives from January to December every year, and is of the opinion that as one of the remedies, the Government should introduce a sound basis of price insurance with a level of prices to permit of farmers paying a fair wage to their workers and to give and maintain to them a fair return coupled with the reservation to home producers of an ever-increasing share in the home market.]

The Prime Minister

I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer which I gave to him on Monday last, in reply to a question which he addressed to me.

Mr. De la Bère

Does the Prime Minister realise that one of the vital requirements of the agricultural community is a standard price; and that that standard price should be such as will enable the producer to live?