CLAUSE 22 — (Schemes for regulating fat sheep subsidy payments.) (Hansard, 18 July 1939)

§ Sir R. Acland
I beg to move, in page 23, line 3, at the end, to insert: (4) The Scheme may. make provision for the encouragement of the sale of fat sheep by dead weight and grade including the making of payments for fat sheep so sold different from the payments for fat sheep sold otherwise. My hon. Friend the Member for North Cumberland (Mr. W. Roberts) moved an identical Amendment in Committee, which had been on the Paper for four or five days, and he asked one or two questions. The Minister asked for time to consider them and the Amendment was withdrawn in order that that time might be given. I do not think the Minister will complain that the Opposition has not sincerely and honestly done its best to improve the Bill. I believe I am correct in saying that he has not accepted a single one of the Amendments which we have submitted to him. I would appeal to him most earnestly to see whether he cannot accept this, which is merely permissive. It does not compel anyone to do anything. It merely gives to the Livestock Commission a power which the Minister may not see that he has any need to make use of at this moment but which may at some future time be very useful to him or to one of his successors. The questions that we asked, and which the right hon. Gentleman asked time to consider, were roughly speaking, What does the Government think of the sale of livestock by grade and deadweight? What progress has been made in the sale of livestock by this method, which has been several times commented upon by the Commission and by Departmental inquiries? What, if anything, does the Government propose to do to extend this method of selling livestock from its present position to a better position? There is one point on which I have a slight doubt. In the Ministry's marketing leaflet No. 75 it is said that the total number of sheep dealt with under the scheme is 178,000 odd. I cannot quite determine, from my reading of the report, whether that refers to 178,000 sheep per year or whether 178.000 is the total number of sheep sold under the scheme since 1930, when I understand it was first introduced. These are points which I hope the Minister will deal with.
326 There is another question I should like him to deal with. What does he really think of the present method by which the greater part of our sheep are marketed in quite small markets, when the buyers pass down the pens and very often decide more or less who is going to buy what and then a process of auction is gone through? Is the Minister satisfied with that method of marketing sheep? There are a great many people who feel that it is really out of date. This method of selling sheep by grade and dead-weight is a great deal more scientific. It involves that a farmer desiring to sell his sheep notifies the officer of the Ministry, with a rough description of the naimals. He receives within one or two days a cash quotation or quotations for his beasts based upon the price per pound that will be given for them at centres specified in the quotation according to the grade. The advantage of this scheme over others is that all questions of the grade and quality of the beasts are not settled by someone who takes a look at them while they are still alive and estimates what grade they will reach when they are killed out. Those questions are settled by accurate measurements after they have been killed, in the presence of the Minister's officers and, if he chooses, in the presence of the farmer or his agent, so that every one knows that the farmer is being paid more precisely for the thing that he has to sell. Also, when he receives the quotation, he can decide whether the price is worth his while to accept. He is relieved from the business of driving the beasts to market and waiting about, when he would prefer to be on the farm, and very likely at the end of the day driving them home again because he has not been made an offer which he considers reasonable.
What does the Minister think of this form of selling, and what is he going to do to encourage it? I believe it is worthy of serious encouragement as a real contribution to a problem which I believe the Minister is aware of, though in the Clauses of the Bill he does not anywhere show that he is aware of it.
I have said many things which are not popular with agriculturists, but one should say them if they are true, and I do not think that the Minister will dispute that, throughout the whole range of livestock products, there has been a steady tendency over a great many years, and one 327 which I believe is still going on, though I have not myself checked it during the last few months, for the prices of foreign and Dominion produce to overtake, and sometimes to pass, the prices for corresponding British produce. Upon what is that based? This is a thing which is unpopular, but is the truth. It is based upon quality, suitability of the market, and upon the fact that our foreign and Dominion competitors, unfortunately, are learning and have learnt the art of presenting their produce onto the market standardised, month by month, the same, each item in a large delivery as near as possible similar to, or identical with, another, and they have learned the art of putting upon the market precisely those sizes, qualities and kinds of goods, and joints of meat which the market really demands.
Here is a Bill in which the taxpayer is asked to pay money. We have approved of that principle from these benches, but how long can that go on, particularly if we come to a period of financial difficulty, if the taxpayer sees that the industry under the leadership of the present Government and the present Conservative agricultural Members of Parliament is not making the necessary effort to catch up with the Dominion and foreign producer in learning what are, after all, nothing more or less than the twentieth century methods of salesmanship.
I would remind the Minister and hon. Members opposite that I am not here proposing some freak method of selling livestock or something of which we have had no experience, because we have had very considerable experience. The farmers of this country have had considerable experience of selling by grade and deadweight, and on the whole they are not displeased with that part of their experience. I refer to selling pigs under the factory schemes in which farmers are to-day paid on the basis of grade and dead-weight. They dispatch their pigs to the factories not knowing precisely to which grade they will be found to belong, and the prices they receive are worked out and ascertained after very accurate measurement. I believe it runs into one-eighth inches after they have been killed out.
Many complaints have been made of the pig scheme, and as far as I know the complaints have not centred around the idea 328 that that scheme of selling is in itself a wrong or unsatisfactory one. On the whole that system of selling has been proved, and it has produced the most remarkable effect. It has introduced into this country, it is not unfair to say, a revolution in the methods of breeding and of feeding pigs. One finds all over the country far more of the scientific pig houses springing up, and being demanded by farmers from their landlords, and being built by the more progressive fanners where the most up-to-date methods of breeding pigs take place. The Minister will not claim that anything of the same kind takes place under the cattle scheme. The fanner is pleased if his beast achieves the 7s. 6d. grade and he is disappointed if it achieves only the 5s. grade. The Minister cannot claim that there has been any revolution in the methods of breeding, feeding and fattening cattle corresponding to the revolution that has taken place in the methods of producing pigs in this country, which has arisen out of the grade and dead-weight system of buying pigs in the factory. Therefore, an encouragement of this scheme would be likely to produce the very same result in regard to sheep as has been produced in regard to pigs.
If the Minister cannot accept the Amendment I invite him to say what proposals he has in mind for encouraging this method of selling. It requires only a very little encouragement to make it go. I believe that farmers who take up this method of selling find that they receive in very many cases higher prices, after having deducted all the charges and after having taken everything into account, than they were getting in the local markets. If the right hon. Gentleman asks why it has not made headway before, my reply is that there is a good reason for it. Earlier this evening I referred to the position of indebtedness of farmers which makes it difficult for the farmer to select from which source he will purchase his raw materials. In exactly the same way I believe that very frequently the position of indebtedness among farmers makes it difficult for them to select the channel through which they will market their produce. That is very largely an obstacle standing in the way. A very small financial stimulus to back up this method of selling would have the effect of spreading it a very long way, so that we could introduce into our 329 marketing of sheep something that would have about it a real breath of the twentieth century method of salesmanship, something that would introduce into sheep marketing an element of the scientific and give us a chance of producing in this industry precisely what the market really requires. Therefore, I commend the Amendment to the attention of the House, and I beg the Minister, if he possibly can, to accept it.

§ Mr. W. Roberts
I beg to second the Amendment.

§ The Minister of Pensions (Sir Walter Womersley)
I am sure the House will sympathise with me in the fact that I am making my maiden speech in this House as assistant to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries. I wish it had been on fishing that I had to speak to-night. My hon. Friend the Member for Barnstaple (Sir R. Acland) informed us that his hon. Friend the Member for North Cumberland (Mr. W. Roberts) withdrew this Amendment in Committee so that certain information could be collected and imparted to him. The hon. Member for Barnstaple went on to make a plaintive request that, seeing that no other Amendment had been accepted during this Report stage, my right hon. Friend might accept this one, good or bad, just as a matter of good will. I should have liked, as this is my maiden speech, to have done what he suggests, but I am sorry to say that on this occasion I cannot do so. In regard to marketing, if time permitted, I should have liked to have entered into a discussion with the hon. Member.
As far as marketing schemes are concerned the Livestock Commission are dealing with that question at this moment and it is to them that we must look for advice on this matter. We must leave it to those who are experts to advise the Minister. If we accept the Amendment it means that we are introducing into a price insurance scheme an entirely new element, which in my opinion would not achieve the object which the hon. Member desires. When the Bill becomes an Act arrangements can be made in this matter under the Livestock Industry Act of 1937, but when you come to a scheme which has been in operation since 1930 there is a different state of affairs altogether. The scheme which was inaugurated in 1930 was extended to sheep in 330 1931, but on a very small scale. The figure which the hon. Member has mentioned of 178,000 is the total number of sheep dealt with since 1931. Last year the number was about 40,000. There are nine centres for sale. The suggestion is that the scheme should be allowed to stand on its own bottom. It is a question of better grading and better prices, and if it proves that it cannot be carried on successfully without a subsidy then it is for the Minister of Agriculture to suggest a direct subsidy for that purpose alone. This is a price insurance scheme which may not be running for very long— at least we hope it will not— and to attach a scheme such as that suggested by the hon. Member is to my mind to make it unworkable. If it is necessary that assistance should be given for a particular purpose let us come to the House and ask for it.

Mr. Alexander
I think the Amendment is very important because it embodies powers of the kind which we sought to obtain by a previous Amendment. Every Scottish agricultural representative who is concerned about the question of arriving at an average market price ought really to support the Amendment under which powers can be taken and I shall be disappointed if hon. Members representing Scottish agricultural constituencies, who really want to see a bottom put on the prices, do not support the Amendment. This is an opportunity which they have of correcting an injustice under which Scottish farmers are suffering.

§ Sir A. Sinclair
I should like to compliment the Minister of Pensions, who is assisting the Minister of Agriculture, on his first speech on agriculture in this House. I am quite sure that he will make many speeches, but I do not think he will make a more entertaining one. At the same time, I hope that in future he will take the precaution of reading the Amendment to which he is going to reply, and give us a more relevant speech than he has this evening. The Minister of Pensions said that we should leave it to the Livestock Commission; that the hon. Member for Barnstaple (Sir R. Acland) should not try to impose his ideas on Parliament and the industry. My hon. Friend does propose to leave it to the expert Livestock Commission. He proposes to give them 331 power to introduce this particular method into the marketing machinery.
Although I am far from saying that this Amendment would go the whole way to satisfy the fanners of Scotland and meet the demands which they have been making, I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander) for pointing out that it would at any rate do something to meet the claims which they have been making recently in resolutions and speeches. Again, I repeat the plea that I made a few minutes ago to the Minister of Agriculture and the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland to say a word or two about Scotland and the Scottish position. This Debate has been going on for the last hour and a half on two or three different Amendments and we have heard from the Government Front Bench nothing about the Scottish fanners. There have been speeches by hon. Members above the Gangway on this side, hon. Members on these benches and hon. Members opposite pointing out the anxiety of the Scottish farmers, and not a word has been said by Members of the Government in reply to those speeches. I ask the Minister to say something on this point now, for this is almost the last opportunity he will have of doing so on this Bill.

§ Sir R. Dorman-Smith
If the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair) had been in the Chamber most of the afternoon, he might have thought it was a Scottish afternoon. Both from the Government Front Bench and from other parts of the House there have been speeches having special reference to Scotland.

§ Sir A. Sinclair
On oats.

§ Sir R. Dorman-Smith
With regard to this Amendment, I think it would be unfortunate to put England on one side and Scotland on the other, but I am sure the House will agree that if we were to give something extra, as an inducement, to the people who send to the deadweight centres, it would go outside the intention of the Bill, which is to pay, not for mutton, but for fat sheep. I hope sincerely that the farmers will be able to support these dead-weight centres, and certainly I re-echo the hope that they will pay the greatest attention to meeting the needs of the market. That is most 332 important for the future. However, I do not think it would be right, under the terms of the Bill and the intention of the Government, to give any special inducement at the expense of another part of the industry to those who send to the dead-weight centres. There are very few dead-weight centres in England and Wales, and the farmers would have to send a long way. At the moment I do not think it. would be right to give that incentive at the expense of the men who have to send to the livestock market.
I have been asked to give some words of encouragement to the Scotsmen, but I find it very difficult to do so, because I am not absolutely certain that some of them want to be encouraged. The point about this scheme is that last year, throughout Great Britain, the average price for sheep was something over 8.78d. per pound, according to our determination. We are using the same determination for the future, and the price cannot be below 10d. on the same determination. If the Scottish farmers say that our 10d. means 8d., the only answer is that our 8d. last year meant 6d., broadly speaking. They cannot but be better off if a slump comes, as it did last year. There is no doubt whatever about that. I hope that will be a word of encouragement to them.

§ Mr. Gallacher
As one who is interested in agriculture and in Scotland as a whole, I want to see what the Mover of this Amendment suggested, namely, a scientific method of approach to this question of the breeding and sale of sheep—as indeed I would like to see scientific methods introduced in all branches of agriculture. I would not have intervened had it not been for the reply made by the Minister of Pensions in his new capacity as assistant to the Minister of Agriculture. He said, in effect, '" Let us try this, and if it does not work, and if the farmers make an appeal for a direct subsidy, then we will consider giving them a direct subsidy." But can we ever get anywhere by makeshift methods of that kind? I will take any hon. Member up to Scotland and show him whole agricultural areas which are in the deepest distress.

§ Mr. Speaker
The hon. Member is now going far beyond the scope of the Amendment.