§ 4.5 p.m.
§ Mr. Paget (Northampton)I am very grateful indeed to be given this opportunity to raise the question of cattle breeding. It is a matter of great importance to the agricultural industry. It is indeed of such importance that it appears to have attracted a single hon. Member to the Opposition Benches, and I would like to congratulate him on being there.
During the last 20 years there has probably been some improvement in the production records of our dairy herds. Feeding methods have been improved, veterinary methods have been improved, and, most important of all, during the war years, owing to shortage of food, there has been much more vigorousculling. But in spite of that, I am reasonably confident, and I think most farmers will agree with me, that the average dairy herd of today is worse bred than it was 20 years ago. There are more mixed lots, more mongrel lots. It is not an easy matter to show this by statistics, but if one goes to the average market, and to the ordinary commercial herds, one will find there a more mixed and more mongrel lot than there used to be. If that is so, there can be no question that our cattle-breeding policy over the period of 20 years has not been a success. Twenty years ago, when the district breeds were better established, it was a good deal easier to anticipate what performance heifer calves would give when they grew up. Now they have become so mongrel that it is very difficult to have any idea in these mixed herds as to what the produce are going to do.
As to the causes of that situation, the one I would put first is the homelessness of the British Friesian. We have introduced in large quantities the great milking 1454 breed of the British Friesian, but it is not indigenous to any particular district and the result is that Friesian herds are dotted about all over the country. Their bulls have been introduced in a haphazard way in every district. They are admirable cattle, but a little dash of British Friesian blood introduced into other breeds is a very bad thing indeed, because it mon-grelises the local breed.
Another difficulty is the highly unsatisfactory method of bull licensing. We have introduced the licensing of bulls to get rid of scrub bulls, but the main ground on which licences are granted or refused, is the appearance of the bull. Appearance gives very little guide as to the capacities of a dairy bull. We can get very little idea from its appearance. Further, and this is a by-result, in order to get the licences and to sell yearling bulls, they are grossly and extravagantly over fed. They are filled up with milk in order to make them attractive and are forced, at the expense of their later years. I could show hon. Members three young bulls on my farm which are looking magnificent. They are being prepared for sale. I could show them next door an animal of the same age, but smaller and thin, which looks all head and horn. That is the bull I am keeping, because I know that four or five years hence that will be the best bull of the four. The way to bring up a young bull is to hold it back and not let it get too fat but to let it develop gradually. But one cannot sell bulls that way. In many herds one cannot get them licensed in that way. One has to force them at an. early age. It is a great waste of milk. It is true that recently some provisions regarding the performance of immediate ancestors have been brought into the bull licensing system,; but that is not enough. One cannot tell what sort of progeny a bull will have, merely from seeing his immediate ancestors. One needs to know a great deal more about the back pedigree than that. One cannot tell if he will carry on his characteristics purely by looking at the performance of his dam and his sire. In the question of bull licensing, breeding should be considered far more and appearance and immediate performances far less.
Far more serious, in the bull licensing system of today is the fact that a bull, once licensed, may go into any herd. One can have the best bull in the world but if he is 1455 put in some herds he will breed mongrels and bad stock there. One does not get good stock by having good bulls. One gets good stock by getting good matings. A bull has to be selected which is suitable for the herd, and licensing does not help in that. Bulls should only be licensed for a specific herd, where they are likely to fit in with the herd characteristics, and if it is wished to move them to another herd, a licence should be necessary for that purpose. Finally, I would say that 90 per cent. of our bulls go to market and are slaughtered before they can be progeny tested. The ordinary procedure is to buy a young bull, keep him until he is about three or four, and then send him to market. The result is that the bull is slaughtered before one knows how his daughters will milk. That is not sense. It means that bulls which are most successful by the only real test, which is the test of the dairy qualities of their progeny, have generally been slaughtered before one knows what those progeny are like.
I suggest that if these criticisms are well founded, and I think most farmers will agree they are, there is a case to appoint a Commission, which is why I have raised this subject, to consider this question of cattle breeding and see if we can make some improvements. I will make a suggestion or two, one of which will doubtless appeal to the hon. Member for South Edinburgh (Sir W. Darling) whom I am very glad to see here. I think our bulls would work better if they were nationalised.
Sir William Darting (Edinburgh, South)Naturalised or nationalised?
§ Mr. PagetNationalised. I thought that suggestion would appeal to the hon. Gentleman. Let me apply the test suggested by the Lord President, in a speech which is often misquoted, in which he said we should prove our case. The first thing one has to consider is whether private enterprise has failed. Of course, in many respects in this breeding question it has done very well. The pedigree breed societies are doing an admirable job, as they are also doing in grading up herds where they are working. There are a few herds where they have established breeding methods of their own and while not entering their cattle in any register they are, in fact, breeding very pure stock. Let 1456 us leave our breeding societies members to carry on and select their own bulls. In the case of a few exceptional non-pedigree herds, where they have an established breeding method which is a success, let them carry on too. But I would say, as to the others, these people who are not prepared to take the trouble to join a breeding society and upgrade their herds, that they regard a bull merely as a means of getting a cow in calf, that in the flying herds which represent the majority of our dairy population, they are utterly indifferent to what they breed, and I suggest that, in regard to these herds, the owner should not be allowed to own a bull, but that the bulls for the commercial herds should be owned by the Ministry and leased to commercial farmers. The Ministry would have a monopoly of the bulls, and they would lease them to the farmers. That would enable the following advantages to be derived: Local breeds could be built up, that is to say, the Government could take a large area covering a large number of markets, say the Midland counties, and stipulate the breed which they were going to build up as the dairy breed. It might be the dairy shorthorn.
§ Mr. PagetI am just taking an example of an area. I know the hon. Gentleman's interest in Ayrshires. Possibly, in Cheshire and Lancashire we would establish a home for British Friesians. In these areas, the Government would release only dairy bulls of one breed. Therefore, the stock that was going to market in that area would be the products of bulls of that breed, and we should begin to get purity in the local breeds again. In the sub-divisions of these areas, we could draw the bulls from single herds breeding to line. In the days of Bates and Collins, whole districts were influenced by the presence of these men and what their herds were doing. If we took a pedigree herd and distributed their bulls in the area of one market, the influence of that pedigree herd would at once begin to be felt in the district, and the district would gain, in effect, by line breeding, while the breed in the larger area would tend to establish the purity of local breeding.
The second great advantage would be that we should establish what is lacking 1457 at the moment, a home for the Friesians. We should have all the Friesian bulls in one area. Finally, there is one other thing which is extremely important, and that is the question of distinguishing between our dairy breeds and our beef breeds. At the present moment, the beef bulls which are recommended are those which give a colour, such as the Herefords and Aberdeen Angus, to the exclusion of the beef Shorthorn bulls. If that goes on, the beef shorthorns will be ruined, because the production for the Argentine market can only be supported if there is a middle market for the commercial bulls in England, and that middle market has been killed by this policy of recommending only the Herefords and Aberdeens. In a district where the dairy shorthorn had been chosen as the dairy breed, for beef, we could establish Hereford or Aberdeen Angus, and, in other areas, where we had Friesians or Guernseys for milk, we could have shorthorns for beef, and so make good use of shorthorn beef bulls with magnificent results, without confusing them with our dairy herds. It would give the Ministry a general control over the breeding policy within the commercial herds. Of course, this is not worked out in detail and, if it were, I should not have the time to describe it. These are merely the sort of suggestions which could be considered by a commission. I hope the Minister will be able to tell us, in his reply, that he will consider the appointment of a commission to go into the whole question of cattle breeding.
§ 4.20 p.m.
§ Major Wise (King's Lynn)I want to support the practical basis of the speech of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget). I want the Minister to turn his attention, as soon as possible, to the long-term policy which we must initiate in regard to livestock and cattle breeding. At present, under force of circumstances, we are thinking only in terms of cereal production. Most of the speeches I have made in this House have been upon that subject. The time will come within the next three or four years, when we must consider seriously the question of our livestock. No doubt, we shall switch back to livestock production, and it is necessary for the Ministry to take appropriate steps. They may have taken steps already, but, if not, they should begin to think in terms of the betterment of British stock.
1458 A few moments ago, I looked up some figures. The June figures were not available, but the March figures show very plainly that there is a tremendous wastage, either by sale or disease, in our young stock. It is a fact that the figures, for March, 1946, for young stock alone, are down by about 100,000 head. The wastages which the farming industry suffer must be made good. Therefore, it behoves the Ministry to think in terms of licences and the improvement of stock, so that farmers can be assured not only that our dairy herds are kept up to a high standard, but that our other cattle breeds are also maintained upon a high level. British stock have in the past occupied a high place so far as quality is concerned, when compared with international stock. We want to make it a primary duty on the part of the Ministry to uphold that position. There is one warning which I wish to give. I want the Ministry to cater for the needs of the ordinary farmer. We hear a lot about pedigree stock. The high grades of pedigree stock are not available to the ordinary farmer. Prices are too high. In my view, they are much too high, and I hope that we may be able to devise ways and means, whereby the small farmer, the farmer with say 100 or 200 acres, may have access, not only by artificial insemination but in other ways, to these high grade stocks, which I hope it will be possible for the industry to produce. I suggest that out of this very small Debate this afternoon some policy may be forthcoming, which will assist British farming in the future.
§ 4.25 p.m.
§ The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture (Mr. Collick)We have had a most interesting contribution today from my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) on this question of cattle breeding policy, which is so important both to the livestock industry of this country and to the agricultural industry in general. I was glad, at least, to hear him pay tribute to the quality of our pedigree stock which, I think, is unrivalled. Because it is unrivalled, our pedigree stock has taken its part—and a very useful part—in the export trade which I hope will be developed. The criticism that he makes is essentially in relation to the commercial herds, and I want to tell him here and now that very full consideration will be given to some of the suggestions that he has made. Some, 1459 I thought, were novel; some, I thought, were at least worthy of very serious consideration, and I want to assure him that we shall give consideration to those questions.
But let it not be thought that little or nothing has been done in this matter, because quite the contrary is the case. The bull licensing scheme which this House approved in the early 1930's, was, of course, intended to eliminate the scrub bull, and in that it has been largely successful. Constant improvements have been made in that scheme, and as recently as last year, for example, there were added to that scheme three distinct categories of licence—the dairy licence, the beef licence, and the general licence. That system has been operating only for a relatively short time. I am sure that everybody who is interested in this matter will appreciate that we must be guided largely by experience, and since that scheme has only come into being recently, we must allow it to have a little time in which to work. We ought not to lose sight of the fact that the Bill which this House passed has helped considerably the development of artificial insemination centres in the country. In those artificial insemination centres, only bulls of the highest quality are being used. Quite obviously, the smallish farmer—and experience testifies to this again and again —is now getting considerable advantages from the use of these centres.
My hon. Friend went on to suggest that Friesian cattle are, as I think he put it, "homeless." It is an interesting suggestion. This is only a tiny island, but its soil, climate and other conditions vary considerably from county to county. As he says, it is a fact that Friesians are fairly widely distributed today. I thought he might fight shy of saying this, because he is a very bold person who will say today that any particular breed of cattle should find a home in one particular county or another. If we were to adopt such a course, it might be said that we 1460 should confine the Galloways to Galloway, and I can see the hon. Member for Galloway (Mr. McKie) having a little to say about that. I imagine that if we argued likewise about the Ayrshires, we should certainly have a most interesting Debate. We might even have the hon. Member for South Edinburgh (Sir W. Darling) taking part in the discussion if we proposed to restrict the Ayrshires to Ayrshire. This Debate has opened up a. number of most interesting suggestions, and in the minute that I have left I wish to say one thing. My hon. Friend has thrown out the notion of having a commission.
The answer to that suggestion is this. We have at the Ministry now working on this matter a Livestock Improvement Committee, composed of practical people, including representatives of the important breed societies, scientists and specialists in this matter, of which I know my hon. Friend has some knowledge. We have those people working on this Committee with the broad aim of directing special attention to these questions. I would not like the House or the country to imagine that nothing is done about this very important matter. I do not subscribe to the view which my hon. Friend put forward that we have made no improvement in relation to the question of mongrelisation. That is taking it rather too far. I agree that during the war, for reasons that we well know—the emphasis on milk production, and all that followed from that— there was a little indiscriminate breeding, but I would not go as far as my hon. Friend did. Let me assure him, while thanking him for his contribution, that everything that has been said in this Debate will be most carefully considered in order to get the utmost advantage in the development of our livestock policy.
§ It being Half-past Four o'Clock, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order, till Tuesday, 8th October, pursuant to the Resolution of the House yesterday.