§ 62. Sir Waldron Smithersasked the Minister of Agriculture if he will state by counties in tabular form the number of farmers who have been dispossessed since the war ended, the acreage involved, and the profit or loss on the holdings of those dispossessed on an annual basis.
Mr. T. WilliamsIt would involve disproportionate expenditure of time and manpower to provide the information asked for, and not all of it could be obtained in any case.
§ Sir W. SmithersAre the farmers under the control of the Ministry or the agricultural executive committees running at a profit or at a loss? May I have an answer? If we have to lose money on nuts in Africa, why lose money on farms in Britain?
§ 64. Sir W. Smithersasked the Minister of Agriculture if, in view of the fact that members of the Land Board are appointees of his Department, he will revise with retrospective effect the present system so as to allow dispossessed farmers to appear before a judicial committee with the right of appeal.
Mr. T. WilliamsNo, Sir. I see no reason to alter the appeal procedure set up by the Agriculture Act, 1947, and I would remind the hon. Member that the agricultural land tribunals, to which I presume he refers, are constituted under the Act with a legal chairman appointed 595 by the Lord Chancellor and two members selected from panels nominated by the National Farmers' Union and the Central Landowners Association.
§ Sir W. SmithersWill the Minister be so kind as to read the four lectures by Lord Justice Denning on "The Law," in which he suggests the right of appeal to these tribunals; and will he introduce legislation on the lines of those lectures.