HC Deb 14 July 1944 vol 401 cc2094-101

The Herring Industry Board shall within six months on the passing of this Act reconstitute the Advisory Council as recommended in the Report of the Committee on the Herring Industry (paragraph 150, page 32) and the Advisory Council shall meet not less than twice in each year.——[Mr. Loftus.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Loftus

I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."

The admirable Report on the Herring Industry recommended that the advisory council should be reconstituted forthwith, and it went on to recommend that, in order to ensure confidence, the members of the council should be so appointed that only one-third retired annually and that they should be eligible for re-appointment. The object of my Amendment is to carry out that recommendation in the Report. It is advisable that the Herring Industry Board should have an expert technical advisory council, composed of those engaged in all the branches of the trade. Such an advisory council was appointed by the last Herring Board, but unfortunately it never actually met. Therefore, I have added to my new Clause a provision that it shall meet not less than twice a year. The uses of such a council are obvious. As regards granting loans to fishermen to acquire boats, shares in boats, and so on, the council can help not only to protect the Treasury but to protect the new entrants to the industry or those who are requiring boats. We want the right type of skippers chosen. We do not want unqualified men putting their money into this industry in the way that so many ex-Servicemen after the last war put their money in smallholdings and poultry farms and lost the lot. The council could help to choose the right type of man who would make a success. The council ought to be consulted whenever there is a question before the Board of minimum prices, of pooling schemes, and of buying and selling boats. There are various other matters which it would be most helpful in advising upon.

Mr. Boothby

I do not want to support this new Clause until I have heard the Minister's reply, but I am sure that my right hon. Friend will agree that an advisory council is essential and that the sooner it is set up the better. I would add the export trade to its functions, as well as those mentioned by my hon. Friend. The advisory council in the old days did more important work on the export trade than in any other direction. It is vital that the council should be set up and that it should meet at regular intervals. Whether it is necessary to have a new Clause to effect that, I rather doubt.

Mr. Johnston

With the idea behind this new Clause the Government are in entire sympathy, but may I remind my hon. Frend that in 1935 power was taken in the Herring Industry Act to empower the Board to make a scheme for reorganisation and so on, and that under the 1938 Act the appointment of the Herring Industry Advisory Council was provided for. There was in fact no meeting of the council set up under the Act because the board was appointed only on 1st December, 1938, and by the time it was getting into its stride the war had broken out, and long before the war broke out, conditions in the fishing industry were such that everybody knew that it would be impossible to get the industry to function during the war. Therefore, the advisory council never met; indeed, by Defence Regulations the powers of the Board were put in suspension. I can give the hon. Gentleman the most explicit assurance that the advisory council, plus the ideas which he has put forward, will be set up again in accordance with the terms of the Act of 1938. It will be a strong and effective advisory council to ensure that this Bill will work. The Government are putting a lot of money into it, they have pledged their reputation on the Bill, and they have the whole- hearted concurrence at this moment of all sections of the industry. We have had a unanimous report presented by my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot), and we start off with good will. Most assuredly, at the earliest possible date, a strong advisory council will be set up, but it would be inadvisable to specify in this Bill at what period of time the council should meet. The greater the flexibility which can be afforded to the advisory council in this matter and the board the better. If my hon. Friend, or any other hon. Member, should ever have occasion to complain of delay in the setting up of the advisory council, he has his remedy in this House against the Ministers concerned. I trust, therefore, that he will not press this matter.

Mr. Loftus

After the very encouraging assurances given by my right hon. Friend. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

Schedule agreed to.

Bill reported, with Amendments; as amended, considered.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."

Mr. Boothby

I would like to extend my hearty congratulations to the Secretary of State for Scotland and to my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot). Between them they have done a great job for the herring fishing industry and have produced a Bill which is warmly welcomed by the industry as a whole. It has been passed through all its stages with unexampled rapidity and with the good will of every quarter of the House. I am sure that the House will wish the industry well in the difficult days that lie ahead. The industry has a very important job to do in fulfilling our own requirements, and it may also be called upon to save the half-starving populations of Europe. I am sure it will do so and, as I said on the Second Reading and repeat now, my only regret is that it was not passed 15 years ago.

Mr. R. J. Taylor

I want to add my congratulations to the right hon. Gentleman on the Bill, which will, I believe, open a new era for the herring fishing industry. The right hon. Gentleman is to be congratulated on the easiest passage that a Bill has ever had in this House. That is very largely due to the excellent work done by the Committee presided over by the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot). I am glad that it has the acceptance of all branches of the industry and I am sure, as I have said, that it opens a new era, in place of the dark, sad days that are gone.

Mr. Loftus

I would join the general chorus of congratulation to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries and my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot). It is, indeed, a comforting reflection to us who have been through so many dark days in connection with this industry, to realise that, at a moment when the Government are overwhelmed with the urgent needs of immediate war, and are organising and planning colossal schemes for the future, they have found time to introduce this excellent Bill, which is so full of hope for the herring industry. This trade will be of enormous help in feeding the semi-starving people of Europe when they are liberated. I do not know whether hon. Members realise that the annual catch by the Scottish and English fleets is about 1,250,000 cran, which equals 250 herring per head of the population of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, men, women, children and babies. It is a colossal catch. That is magnificent food, and the Bill will prevent its being wasted in future as it has been in the past.

My final reflection is about the men and their fishing fleets who have served us so well in the last war and in this war. We hope the Bill will keep the industry prosperous and encourage the sons of the fishermen of to-day to continue the avocations of their fathers and grandfathers, so that, if the time should come in the future—and we cannot deny the possibility—when once again we have to call upon the fishermen of our country to man the boats and help to get food to prevent our nation from starving, these younger generations will be ready because the industry will have been placed in a prosperous and stable condition by the Bill introduced by my two right hon. Friends, after the most excellent Report of the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove.

Mr. Jewson (Great Yarmouth)

This is evidently one of the rare occasions when we have a Bill on which all concerned can be congratulated, and particularly my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot). I would add my word of congratulation. There is only one thing I should like to add, and that is to urge that the grants made under the Bill should be as free from restrictions as is possible. Restriction of some sort there must be, but I hope those who have to decide will remember the point I am making. We know the predilections of the Civil Service for checks and counterchecks; I ask that those predilections shall themselves be kept in check in this matter. If that is done, I am sure that a great deal of good can be effected under the Bill, and that we shall see men coming into the industry who would not otherwise have been able to do so, and that will be to the great advantage of the nation. I expect much from the Bill, though that is notoriously a dangerous position to take up. Nevertheless, I hope and believe that I shall not be disappointed.

Mr. Petherick (Penryn and Falmouth)

I certainly should not wish to strike a discordant note in this most agreeable orchestra on the Third Reading of the Bill. I am not one of those who expect too much to be done for industry by an Act of Parliament, but none the less I believe that the Herring Bill may have, and I hope will have, a very good effect. As I think I said, on one of the previous stages, a lot will depend on how, the Herring Board administers the Bill. I know that it would be completely out of Order to refer on Third Reading to anything which is not in the Bill and consequently I cannot refer to the fact that the pilchard industry has been left out. It is merely another branch of the drift fishing industry. I hope the Bill will do everything that it is possible to do by an Act of Parliament.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot (Glasgow, Kelvingrove)

I am sure that my Committee will be more than grateful for the tributes which have been paid to it through its Chairman on the occasion of that no keener Committee, and no Corn-the Third Reading of this Bill. I am sure mittee better fitted to do its work, has ever been set up. I think the proof of that is in the reception which the Report had, not merely from this House but also from the trade. May I say in one word that the task is not at its end? It is now at its beginning. We have got authority from Parliament to proceed, but the rehabilitation of the industry still remains to be done, and it lies in the hands more particularly of the consumers of this country. The production end can be looked after, but it will lie now with the consumers to take advantage of the great gifts which are available to them and they can do that by giving a remunerative price to the producer for the fruits of his labour. All these devices—credits, loans, organisation—are only a means to the end, which is that the producer should have a just reward for his labour. In that I am agreeably encouraged by the fact that we have obviously had no divisions of parties during the discussions on this Bill, and no division between the Scottish and English industry. I am more than happy to find English Members taking, as they ought and should, a prominent part in the discussions on this Bill. It is a great English, as well as Scottish, industry, and one which neither part of the island can prosecute entirely on its own. The consuming end in particular must be shared, and the export trade also is not a matter merely for Scottish or English producers.

For the moment the responsibility for markets lies in the hands of the Minister of Food, whom I am glad to see on the bench here to-day. He has already shown a practical interest in the industry, and has come to one agreement of great advantage to the industry. I trust that he will be able to put it on such a footing during his term of office that the trade will be able to go on by itself in future years and that the depression of past years will be conjured away in the only way it can be—by finding a market for the fruits of the sea once the fishermen have brought them ashore.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. T. Johnston)

May I express behalf of the Government our great satisfaction at the way Parliament has received this Bill? I think this shows Parliament at its best, not looking on it as an economic Measure in any partisan spirit, but regarding the Measure Clause by Clause as an economic proposition. We have here sought by agreement and concurrence to secure the rehabilitation of a great industry, and to ensure an economic future for a very worthy and deserving section of our population. But more than that, we see here opportunities of providing great nutritional advantages for our own people. I have never been one of those who regarded the primary need of the industry as being the foreign market. It may be that we require to look after foreign markets here—we must —but our primary duty is to provide this most nutritional food in its earliest and most attractive stage for our own people. As my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) has just said, we are all exceedingly grateful to the Minister of Food for the initiative and prevision he is showing in his great experiments now going on at Torry, Aberdeen, in dehydration. I am sure we all wish him success. At any rate what we are determined to do is to show one piece of food production in which there will be no waste, no food produced and then destroyed. That is criminal in this age, and we must ensure that the last ounce of this perfect food is adequately marketed in the most appropriate place where it can be marketed, that is in the stomachs of our people.

May I say one further word, that I hope that future Parliaments, future Governments, future Ministers will tie up our domestic science courses in our schools with our primary produce. We are doing it now tentatively. We have begun in Scotland, and I hope to see this developed in England and Northern Ireland. I hope to see it go on everywhere. I trust that our domestic science courses in schools will be so organised that our primary products will be attractively cooked and attractively presented to our own folk. That has already been begun with most remarkable success in so far as some of our primary products are concerned. I hope that in the days that are to be, as we organise producers and stop waste at the production end, so we will ensure that the nutritional food the consumers need will also be adequately treated, and. we must begin by seeing that food of this first- class value which we can produce from our own seas is nutritionally presented to the people of this country. If we can manage production and consumption, if we can supply the product where it is needed—if we can show how we can do that with herring and go on industry by industry, a broader and better future for every section of our community dawns upon us.

Motion, "That the Bill be now read the Third time," put, and agreed to.

Bill read the Third time, and passed.