HC Deb 23 February 1944 vol 397 cc942-50

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Captain McEwen.]

Mr. Loverseed (Eddisbury)

Some time ago I raised with the Ministry of Agriculture the case of a farmer in my constituency, Mr. Thomas Hughes, of Gorse-field, Broxton, involving certain principles on which I would like the opinion of this House. Mr. Hughes has been farming at Broxton for a good many years, and his father before him. He is a tenant on the Egerton Estate, an estate on which many farms are in a disgraceful state of repair, and he has been farming under exceptionally difficult circumstances. Some three years ago he was anxious to produce accredited milk, and he approached the landlord with a view to getting him to erect on the estate shippons in order that he could do so. The estate agent entered into a verbal agreement with him that these shippons would be erected in consideration of the payment by Mr. Hughes of an increased rental of £18 a year. This was a verbal agreement, and it is noteworthy in this particular case that the agreements of every tenant on the estate mentioned are verbal agreements. In no case have I been able to find a tenant who has a written agreement with the landlord.

Mr. Hughes has honoured his part of the agreement faithfully by the payment of that increased rental of £18 per year. He has proved himself a good farmer in that he has received from the Minister of Agriculture certificates for increased milk production of over 20 per cent. Despite that, within the last three years, he has not had built on that farm the shippons for which he paid the increased rent. Thereupon, early this year, he intimated that he would not pay any further rent until those shippons were erected. I believe that on this particular point he was ill advised in the course he took, but that is unfortunate. Nevertheless it is a fact that the agreement, from the point of view of the landlord, had not been honoured, and Mr. Hughes had been paying this increased rental for three years without effect. The landlord thereupon took a case against Mr. Hughes and obtained an ejectment order.

I took the case up with the Minister of Agriculture and my case is this, that since the Minister of Agriculture has the power to evict a farmer who is guilty of bad husbandry, then equally so he should have the power, through his war agricultural executive commitees, to prevent the eviction of a farmer who has been doing a good job of work.

Mr. E. P. Smith (Ashford)

Did the landlord take action of ejectment without previously asking for payment?

Mr. Loverseed

I believe that a request was made that the rent should be paid, but Mr. Hughes, as far as I remember, clung to his part of the agreement and refused to pay until there was some evidence that the landlord intended to honour his agreement. That was not done, and I therefore wrote to the Minister of Agriculture and suggested that he should exercise the powers which he possesses under Defence Regulation 51 to take over that farm and to let it back again to Mr. Hughes. The Minister replied that he could only do so if he was satisfied that such action was necessary or expedient in the interests of the public safety, the defence of the realm, the efficient prosecution of the war, or for maintaining supplies and services necessary for the life of the community. My case is this, that the disturbance of a provenly good farm, in order to place in the tenancy a farmer who is unknown, is likely to prejudice the supplies and services necessary for the life of the community. The insecurity of tenure which Mr. Hughes has experienced during the last two or three months has already resulted in the interruption of those supplies of milk and dairy products which are so vitally necessary today, and I feel that any further disturbance would further prejudice the flow of those supplies.

There are other points which should be raised in this case. The landlord, throughout the term of Mr. Hughes' tenancy, has not spent a halfpenny on the farm or buildings. I myself have seen the farm, and my first inclination on doing so was to send for the sanitary inspector and have the whole lot pulled down. Had it not been for the fact that Mr. Hughes himself has spent some hundreds of pounds on the farm and buildings they would have fallen down themselves some time ago. Mr. Hughes has been doing a grand job under simply terrific difficulties, and the fact that he has, despite all this, been able to increase his milk production by over 20 per cent. is itself a tribute to the efficiency with which he has conducted his business.

Mr. Hughes also owns a few acres—I think about 17—of land on which it might be suggested he could carry on milk production. Unfortunately, he has no farm buildings at all on that land and there has been difficulty in getting any because it comes under the provisions of the Town and Country Planning Act. I understand that it is now possible for Mr. Hughes to get the authority to erect all the buildings he requires on his own land, but, here again, another point arises in that whereas those buildings some three or four years ago would have cost about £500 to put up, the present estimate from the builder amounts to something like £11,00. I feel it is grossly unfair that Mr. Hughes should be called upon to provide this amount and I would be grateful if the Parliamentary Secretary could give some undertaking that any claim by Mr. Hughes in respect of new buildings which it is proposed to erect would be looked upon sympathetically and that perhaps some assistance would be given to him.

The present position is that the landlord has taken possession of the farmhouse itself, but that Mr. Hughes has possession of his farm buildings and the land until the 28th of this month. I feel that it is still not too late to ask for a direction to be made under Defence Regulation 51 to retain Mr. Hughes in his tenancy by taking over the farm and reletting it to Mr. Hughes. On that I rest my case.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture (Mr. Tom Williams)

This is an ordinary tenancy under the Agricultural Holdings Act where, of course, either the tenant can give 12 months' notice to the landowner or the landowner can give 12 months' notice to the farmer. In neither case has the Minister any power to intervene except, of course, as has been said, under Defence Regulation 51. Apparently, the landlord served notice on Mr. Hughes on the ground of arrears of rent, but it is also true to say that he was very dissatisfied with the way that this land was managed by Mr. Hughes. The Minister, I repeat, has power to intervene only under Defence Regulation 51, and in that case could only intervene if he were satisfied that it was necesssary to do so for maintaining supplies and services essential for the life of the community. That means that the Minister must ask himself this question: Is this notice to quit likely to result in any material impairment of the food production campaign? On such a question the Minister must necessarily take local advice. This was sought and given and it was found that the local war agricultural executive committee have been extremely anxious from time to time about the 17 acres which were under the tenancy of a Mr. Hughes, junr. They were not, in fact, satisfied that he was farming the land to the best advantage or that a great improvement would not take place by putting in another tenant.

Mr. Loverseed

If that is so then, despite the fact that in the opinion of the war agricultural committee the land was not being used to the best advantage, how is it that Mr. Hughes was granted a certificate for an increase of 20 per cent. in his milk production? Further, would the Parliamentary Secretary accept my assurance that Mr. Hughes himself was not consulted at all, and that presumably the war agricultural committee made inquiries only from the landlord? The District Land Commissioner, a Mr. Rowell from Liverpool, came down and consulted Mr. Hughes for rather less than five minutes. He came in, said he had a train to catch and that he must be off, and did not make any inquiry from Mr. Hughes.

Mr. Williams

If my hon. Friend will contain his soul in patience for a few moments I intend to refer to the milk certificate. I do not want to say anything that would be injurious to the tenant farmer. As I was saying, the war agricultural committee had been anxious about this particular farm and my hon. Friend will remember that the landlord gave the tenant notice in February, 1942. He did so so that he could replace him by a new tenant, who was known to be a very good farmer. In the meantime the 12 months' notice expired in February, 1943, but still the tenant persisted in carrying on. The war agricultural committee, not wishing to intervene between tenant and landowner, allowed the law to take its course. The landlord went to court and secured a verdict in his favour for the dispossession of the tenant farmer. As regards the milk production it is true that the tenant farmer did secure a Ministry certificate for an increase of 20 per cent. in his milk production, but my hon. Friend must know that it was a 20 per cent. increase on an extremely low, production.

Mr. Hughes has, in fact, eight cows. He declares that his present production is seven gallons per day, which includes the 20 per cent. increase for which he has obtained his certificate. I am sure my hon. Friend would not suggest that with eight cows, seven known to be of a very inferior quality, an output which, with the 20 per cent. increase, only reaches seven gallons is really anything to write home about. That production surely could be and ought to be increased, whoever the tenant farmer happens to be. It is distinctly low, and I do not think any reference to the certificate is helpful to him. The war agricultural executive committee, composed mainly of practical farmers, have examined the farm and considered it very carefully and they see no reason at all why the Minister should interfere with the course of events between landlord and tenant. The Land Commissioner also saw the farm buildings and the eight cows, and he was not at all convinced that it was the best farm in the world.

This is rather a complicated case. The son of Mr. Hughes is the nominal tenant of the 17 acres, but he actually works full time as a farm labourer on another farm and displays little or no interest in these 17 acres. The father has Gorsefield farm, of 40 acres, and cultivates the whole 57 acres, but even then the father is dependent upon a son-in-law who lives two miles away for all cultivation and harvesting of the crops of these 57 acres. There seems no evidence at all, therefore, that if the sitting tenant departs at the end of this month and a new tenant, known to be a good farmer, takes possession, food production will be decreased. The chances are that it will not only not be decreased but will actually be increased. In any case the Minister would not be justified in taking any step under Regulation 51 to preserve the present tenant on that farm, and I hope my hon. and gallant Friend will see that to magnify the value of a certificate is not to do the tenant farmer any good, because to increase production from, it may be, six gallons to seven per day, is no gigantic undertaking and, indeed, to advertise those figures at all is really not to help the tenant farmer but to have an adverse effect upon him. The actual tenant is an agricultural labourer who has no interest in the 17 acres at all but works full time on another farm. The son who has been given notice to leave the tenancy is a person who does not farm at all. There is nothing to prevent the father from taking away any of the barns or buildings, which he erected himself, to Gorsefield farm, if he feels disposed to do so. With regard to the verbal agreement into which landlord and tenant had entered, the Minister has no power to interfere with that. With these facts in mind I think my hon. Friend is bound to agree that the Minister would not be justified in using Regulation 51 to interfere in a case of this kind.

Mr. Kendall (Grantham)

How long has the father been farming?

Mr. Williams

I have no means of telling exactly how long the father has been farming these 17 acres.

Mr. E. P. Smith

Is it a fact that the tenant paid this £18 a year extra rent for two years? Was this denied by the landlord and yet the landlord never put up shippons?

Mr. Williams

The tenant declared that some sort of agreement was entered into verbally, but the landlord's present agent denied any knowledge of it. In the meantime, apparently, the landlord's previous agent has passed away.

Mr. Granville (Eye)

We have all had cases similar to this in our constituencies. What we are concerned about is whether there is any real contact between the Ministry and the local war agricultural executive committee. I think there is a tendency for the Ministry to take for granted every report they receive from every committee from every remote district. The members of these committees are themselves farmers, but there is no real right of appeal behind all this. Has the Ministry of Agriculture ever received complaints from its local committee that this farmer was not fit, in the interest of the war effort, to continue farming the holding? Also, is the right hon. Gentleman really telling us that under these various Regulations, including 51, the Ministry of Agriculture takes all these powers to dispossess tenant farmers but has no power at all to preserve in his holding a tenant farmer who has carried on production under the war programme if the landlord comes along and says he wants the holding? If that is the case, the sooner this is raised in the House of Commons and it is made fair to tenant and landlord the better.

Mr. Williams

I have stated that the Minister has no right to interfere with a contract between landlord and tenant unless it is proved to his satisfaction that food production is bound to suffer. In this case he has no proof, either from the war agricultural committee who are on the spot, or the Land Commissioner who visited the place to satisfy him that food production would suffer if this tenancy were determined. The war agricultural executive committee do not periodically report to the Ministry of Agriculture what they think of every farm in the county. If a farmer is not making the best use of his land he is warned and directions are issued to him The committee keep a note of every farm which they think is not pulling its full weight, and it is only after a year or two of warnings anti directions that the committee take action and report to the Ministry.

Mr. Loverseed

Is it not a fact that the increased rent was paid for two years and that it was only because the agent who entered into the verbal agreement died that this dispute arose? In view of the statement which the Parliamentary Secretary has made about the low production of milk from this farm, is it not a farce to issue certificates of merit if production is so low in the first place? May I take it from the right hon. Gentleman that Mr. Hughes will be in order in. moving the buildings which he has erected at his own expense to the 40 acres which he owns?

Mr. Williams

I can only say, in reply to the latter question that, so far as we are informed, the agent acting for the landowner has no objection to the farmer removing what actually belongs to him in the form of any wooden buildings he may have planted on that 17 acres.

Mr. Loverseed

Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that there are certain difficulties under the Town and Country Planning Act with regard to the erection of buildings on the 40 acres?

Mr. Williams

I am afraid that I am not conversant with the legal powers under the Town and Country Planning Act as applied to a case of this description. I can only say that, as far as we understand, the attitude of the agent is that he has no objection to the farmer taking away any wooden buildings he may have erected.

Mr. Jenninģs (Sheffield, Hallam)

I was struck by two things in the description given by my right hon. Friend of the buildings in which the cows are housed, and also by the fact that the farm is to be let to a new tenant. Has the Ministry no power to force a landlord to bring his buildings into a decent condition, so that decent cows can be housed in them? If I were a farmer I would not take any good class cows into the buildings described by the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Williams

That is the sort of observation I used to make frequently when I sat on the other side of the House.

Mr. Kendall

Is it a fact that this farmer has farmed the land for 50 years, that during the war-time period the executive committee has never complained about him, and that the thing only came to light because the landlord wanted the land? The committee has made no complaints about him and a certificate of merit has been awarded.

Mr. Williams

I think that discussion of the certificate of merit ought to be dropped. If the Ministry are appealing to dairy farmers to increase their milk output and grant certificates of merit to those with a certain percentage increase, they are bound to issue them on a uniform scale. In this case the person who increased his milk production from perhaps six gallons a day to seven did increase it by 20 per cent., but it is really not the sort of thing that would convince anyone that that milk output was on a large scale. The other question—

It being half an hour after the conclusion of Business exempted from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House), Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order, as modified for this Session by the Order of the House of 25 th November.