HC Deb 22 February 1951 vol 484 cc1470-82

(1) From and after the commencement of this Act every person dealing in salmon or trout, whether by wholesale or retail, shall keep or cause to be kept a register, in the prescribed form, of all purchases, receipts, sales, and disposals in any manner, of salmon or trout by him, and shall enter or cause to be entered in such register forthwith the prescribed particulars (which shall not include any particulars as to price) of such purchases, receipts, sales and disposals.

(2) Any person authorised in that behalf by the Secretary of State, and any constable may inspect any register kept in pursuance of this section; and it shall be the duty of the dealer and of every person keeping such register to produce for inspection by such authorised person or constable such register, and also all salmon and trout on the premises, together with all invoices, consignment notes, receipts and other documents (including copies thereof where the originals are not available) which may be required to verify any entry in such register, and to allow such authorised person or constable to take copies of such register or documents or extracts therefrom.

(3) Any person dealing in salmon or trout, whether by wholesale or retail, who fails to comply with any provision of this section, and any person who obstructs any person entitled under this section to inspect any register or document in the making of such inspection, or who wilfully or negligently makes or causes to he made in such register any entry which is false or misleading in any material particular, shall be guilty of an offence under this Act.

(4) For the purposes of this section:

  1. (a) the expression "prescribed" means prescribed by the Secretary of State.
  2. (b) a demand for inspection of a register or other document shall be deemed to have been duly made to the person dealing in salmon or trout if such demand is made verbally on the premises of such person to any agent, employee, servant or member of the family of such person thereon.—[Mr. Gage.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

4.0 p.m.

Mr. Gage

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

The object of the Clause is to make an attack upon the market which has existed for the sale of poached fish. If hon. Members will look at the Clause—I am sorry to say that it is rather long—they will see that the means by which it is intended that the attack shall be carried out is, first of all, to provide a register which has to be kept by persons who deal in salmon or trout.

It would have been simpler if the Clause of my right hon. Friend relating to licences granted to dealers had been accepted, for then this Clause would have been easier to administer. However, I have drafted it in such a way as to overcome that difficulty and have described these people as persons dealing in salmon or trout. The register which under this Clause will have to be kept by the dealers is one which can be inspected from time of time by any police officer. The last part of the Clause provides that it shall be an offence for any person to give false information upon that register.

We have been told repeatedly that the object of this Bill is to prevent large scale commercial poaching. In those circumstances I have no doubt that the only way to prevent it is to try to get at the markets which undoubtedly exist for such fish when they are poached. I do not believe that by merely increasing the penalities for poaching we shall ever eradicate it, and I do not think for a second that by dealing with the matter in that way we are going the right way to protect the salmon and trout in our rivers. The proper way to do it is to get at the places which are supplied by the poacher. That has been our experience in Northern Ireland, where we have found that the only way to stop poaching on this scale is to make all dealers keep a register which can be inspected by the police from time to time.

I have tried to find out from the appropriate departments in Northern Ireland how this matter works over there, and I have some valuable information on the subject. I have been given the views of one of the police officers who was a member of the small committee which advised the Northern Ireland Home Office upon this matter. What he said is exceedingly instructive. Here perhaps I should tell the Committee that there is one thing on which he is very insistent, and with which we shall all agree, that the police should not be used as game keepers for the protection of private rights. The police are there to enforce the law as it is, and unless there is a provision like that, it makes it exceedingly difficult to enforce the law without appearing to act as game keepers. My correspondent says: There is no doubt that the provisions of Section 3 of the 1928 Game Act "— which is a Northern Ireland Act— when enforced by the police under the provision of Section 6 of the same Act, have brought the illegal sale of game under control. That was first provided in an exactly similar Clause to this designed to prevent the poaching of game— The clearest illustration of this is, I think, the fact that the recent Wild Bird Protection (Amending) Act, 1950, has extended the register to the sale of wild birds, and powers have been given to the police to enforce the new Act on the lines of the 1928 Game Act. We did have difficulty over wild birds when we had not the powers to enforce the law adequately,"— because there was at one time indiscriminate slaughter of wild birds for the purpose of selling them to dealers as food— but I believe the new amending Act will put an end to the heavy slaughter which has been going on. The 1928 Fishery Act, Sections 5, 7 and 13 give the police practically identical control and powers for salmon and trout. Since that Act came into force, I cannot recall any suggestion of poaching on a large commercial scale in Northern Ireland. There we have the views of an experienced police officer whose duty it has been to deal with this matter and he gives it as his opinion that the way to stop large-scale commercial poaching is not by increasing the fines, and so forth, but to get at the markets to which the fish is sent. The Home Office there endorse this view, and say that since they have had this Act they have been able to prevent this kind of poaching. The way in which it works is that a police officer from time to time inspects the register, gets to know the sources from which people are obtaining fish and whether there are any large illegal sales to such people.

I know quite well that the objection which will be made to this Clause is that there is not a similar Clause for England, and that in view of the thin dividing line between Scotland and England, it would not be easy to enforce it in regard to fish sold in this country. I think there is a fallacy in that argument, because any- one who has had to deal with criminals of any kind will know that when a thing has been stolen or taken illegally, their first objective is to get rid of it as quickly as possible.

Except perhaps on the Tweed or some of the more southern rivers of Scotland, I do not think that the actual poachers of the fish are the people who sell it eventually to centres in England. One can be fairly certain that it goes through several hands. Indeed, the Committee might be surprised at the respectability of many of the people through whose hands this kind of trade passes. The only way to prevent that is to make it difficult and dangerous for these people, who can buy it without risk to themselves at present. I am quite certain that the experience in. Scotland will be the same as the experience of Northern Ireland.

We had no doubt that our game and fish were being poached on a commercial scale not for sale in the North of Ireland but for sale in England. We also found that the person who had contacts in England went through an intermediary in Northern Ireland to whom that Section of the Act applied. In that way this was stopped. I am certain it will be the same in Scotland, for there are large centres in that country which might well provide a ready sale of fish of this nature.

Mr. Snadden (Kinross and West Perthshire)

Would the effect of this Clause be that hotel keepers who might be living in a black market area, would be compelled to keep registers?

Mr. Gage

As the Clause is drafted, I do not think so. It would be much better if we could devise a Clause by which hotel keepers had to do so, but I had of necessity to put in "any person dealing in salmon or trout." The Lord Advocate will be able to advise on that point, but I do not think that would cover hotel keepers. The misfortune here is that the complementary Clause in regard to the licence for dealers in game which was moved by my right hon. Friend, would have made this quite simple. In those circumstances the hotel which wanted game would have needed such a licence. However, as that Clause was not accepted, I have had to draft mine in this way.

It is a fallacy to say that everything which is illegally poached in Scotland naturally goes to England. I understand that there was a case of burglary quite recently where the object which was stolen avowedly went to Scotland, and it may well be that the right hon. Gentleman does not take the right view in thinking that all this fish goes to England. But whether it does or not, the Clause will provide a protection against that. If there is not an analogous Section in the English Act, then Scotland is setting a very good example to England. We may hope that England will fall into line with Scotland and Northern Ireland in this respect, provided it works efficaciously. I have no doubt whatever that the Bill without a Clause such as this in it will not achieve its object, and in those circumstances I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will agree to accept the Clause.

Mr. Boothby (Aberdeenshire, East)

I only want to say one word about the Clause, and it is not a very favourable word. Here we have a proposal for a whole lot of new restrictions, new lists, new licences—

Mr. Gage

No licences

Mr. Boothby

Yes—new licences, new penalties, new forms to be filled up, lists of purchases, receipts and sales and of the disposal of this, that, and all the rest. I imagined that the intention behind the Bill was to try to put a stop to the wholesale poaching now going on in the rivers of Scotland, but not to impose a new penal code fortified by an immense mass of regulations, licences, forms to be filled in, and heaven knows what else. Before it is finished, this country will sink under licences and forms and all these things that have to be filled up. Some of us in the House—I do not care from which side—must begin to protest against any more forms being filled up and any more penalties being imposed, otherwise this country will become almost uninhabitable. I strongly oppose the Clause and hope that the Lord Advocate will resist it.

Mr. Gage

How will the country sink because a person who deals in game has to enter his sales in a book?

Mr. Boothby

There is quite enough entering to be done without adding this particular additional entry. I do not honestly think that it will do anything further to achieve our objective in the Bill, which is to stop wholesale commercial poaching.

Mr. Rankin (Glasgow, Tradeston)

The hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Boothby), has indicated that the adoption of the Clause would result in a whole lot of orders, forms to be filled in, and so on. That is a difficulty which arises directly from the fact, which many of us on this side have tried to force upon the Committee as one of the weaknesses of the Bill, that the right to fish for salmon is under private enterprise and is privately owned. The solution of the difficulty which faces the hon. Member is the nationalisation of these rights. He refuses to face that difficulty and opposes this attempt of his hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Gage), to strengthen the Bill, by riding off on the criticisms which he made—

Mr. Boothby

Why should it be more difficult for a poacher to poach a nationalised river than a private one? The salmon are just the same. There is no difference.

Mr. Rankin

That argument was fully met in an earlier debate on the Bill. I do not want to cast any reflection on the hon. Member, because I do not think he was present at the time, but it was pointed out that if there was a sense of national ownership, then from that would develop a sense of national protection, and that—

Mr. Boothby

Like the railways.

4.15 p.m.

Mr. Rankin

The hon. Member must not seek to bring me into conflict with the Chair.

Commander Galbraith (Glasgow, Pollok)

rose—

Mr. Rankin

I am not giving way, because I only want to say, very shortly, a word of support for the Clause. I welcome from the Opposition this attempt to regulate, to control and to plan this fishing. It is the sign of a developing consciousness, which we want to encourage, and we hope that it will develop along major lines and not along minor lines. In the attempts that have been made to strengthen the Bill, we have been met with the challenge that so far as one or two suggested Clauses at any rate were concerned, they were outside the scope of the Bill. We accepted that criticism, but in this instance I think that my right hon. Friend would agree that the Clause at least comes within the scope of the Bill and for that reason, cannot be neglected.

The chief argument which occurs to me is that if the Clause were added to the Bill, it would mean the possibility of more salmon coming into the homes of the ordinary people. At present the only method whereby the ordinary person has a chance of getting salmon is out of a tin. For the great majority of my constituents, when it does come it comes out of a tin—and then it is Grade 3—it is dog fish, and not salmon at all. The acceptance of the Clause would, I hope, result in a greater chance for the ordinary person to share in the spoils of the rich.

Mr. Spence (Aberdeenshire, West)

I support the Clause and I ask the Secretary of State to give it very careful consideration before he makes up his mind to throw it out. I do not know which way his mind may be going, but I beg of him to look at the record of poaching in Ireland before and after the institution of the regulations referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Gage). There is no doubt that the introduction of those regulations, which keeps a check on the sale of salmon, either at the wholesale or retail stage, has had the effect of cutting out the black marketeer and making him liable to prosecution. The black marketeer is more worthy of punishment than is the poacher, because he is the man who provides the incentive for the poacher to take salmon illegally.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Boothby), referred to the additional forms and regulations that might be involved, but the honest man in the wholesale or retail business already keeps such records.

Mr. Boothby

He cannot do anything else.

Mr. Spence

Therefore, the man we want to get after is the dishonest man, and all we need is an enabling Clause to allow us to stamp out the black market and to make the Bill fulfil the purpose for which it was drafted.

Mr. Emrys Hughes (Ayrshire, South)

I agree with the hon. Member for East Aberdeenshire (Mr. Boothby). I believe this is a step towards the police State in the villages. The hon. Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Gage), usually exercises meticulous care in drafting new Clauses, but I suggest that this is rather wide. For example, it states: Any person dealing in salmon or trout. That does not define whether the salmon is in tins or not. If he is a person dealing in tinned salmon—

Mr. Gage

The hon. Member is wrong. This refers to people "dealing in salmon or trout" and if it had included tinned salmon it would have said so.

Mr. Hughes

It is loosely worded. I could not understand why the hon. Member could not define what kind of salmon he means. Under this Bill the local policeman will be able to deal with unfortunate people who may have tinned salmon. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] The middleman may be a small shopkeeper. In my constituency he may be the local postmaster and he is to be called upon to keep invoices, consignment notes, receipts and other documents (including copies thereof where the originals are not available). I wonder that we did not have the birth certificates and marriage lines as well. This will impose an unnecessary amount of clerical work upon people who are regarded as dealers. If we want to track down the illegal poacher it would be far cheaper, instead of using all this clerical work, to employ the expert in telepathy.

Brigadier Thorp (Berwick-upon-Tweed)

I want to support the new Clause. The hon. Member for Ayrshire, South (Mr. Emrys Hughes) seemed to be supporting the "legal" black marketeer and last week, or the week before, he was supporting the "legal" poacher. What my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. Spence) said just now about registers is perfectly true. Those who deal in salmon naturally keep books showing what salmon they buy or sell, but people dealing in the black market do not keep such books and we want to make certain if such people are breaking the law.

In conclusion I must make my usual remark that as the Clause is drafted—and I hope it will be accepted by the Government—on Report Stage I shall have to put down an Amendment that this does not apply to that part of the River Tweed outwith Scotland.

Mr. William Ross (Kilmarnock)

I think the aim and purpose of this Clause is very good. It follows more or less the line taken by the Maconochie Committee—

Mr. James Stuart (Moray and Nairn)

But the hon. Member did not support the Amendment in favour of the Report of Maconochie Committee which I moved on the first occasion.

Mr. Ross

I think the right hon. Member might wait until I have finished speaking before he presumes to discover whether I am going to support the new Clause. 1 feel that the purpose is good but to my mind it does not go anywhere near far enough. It still leaves wide open the door for the black marketeer. I am not convinced that commercially poached fish goes through any wholesaler or retailer. When one considers the parts of Scotland in which this practice has been extended over the years, one finds there are many suitable hotels with a nice, handy, ever open back door—and clubs also—ready to receive the poacher. That is not only so in the country districts, but in the cities as well, and probably the commercial markets are in the cities. It is not necessary to come to England.

If we take no action at all to stop the black marketeer getting directly at his markets in the hotels this proposed new Clause would create a lot of work but to no purpose. I would not object to that clerical work like the hon. Member for East Aberdeenshire (Mr. Boothby) if it were effective. I am sorry he has delayed his interest in this Bill. He declared his opposition to new penalties and so on. I wish he had been here earlier.

Mr. Boothby

I was here the whole time on the last occasion, from first to last.

Mr. Ross

That may be true of the last occasion but this is the third day and we did not have the benefit of the hon. Member's views on matters relating to poachers as a whole. As the proposed new Clause fails to get at the black marketeer, which to my mind is the. source of this commercial poaching, I do, not think it is really worth having.

Mr. Gage

Would the hon. Member agree to support the new Clause if I looked into the complaint he has made and considered whether to add on the Report stage, "and hotel keepers"?

Mr. Ross

I will look at that, yes.

Mr. Pryde (Midlothian and Peebles)

I have considerable sympathy with the new Clause and I am shocked at the amount of opposition among the representatives of the North of Scotland because we were told stories of railway wagons full of poached salmon from the North but now that we have the Bill we find it is aimed at the River Tweed where such conditions do not obtain.

A great Irishman once told me that Englishmen were always bound to be the dominant race of the four because, he said, they set the Gael to fight the Gael and we have been doing that throughout the Bill. With the support of representatives of North Ireland. the Welsh and the Scots, I am sure I should have got my way and the Bill would have been dropped because no one wants it, except for a few Edinburgh drapers, absentee landlords, certain expatriated Englishmen who have fallen down on their job, and descendants of William the Conqueror. I suggest that the Committee could be employed listening to the ex-Secretary of State for Scotland.

To the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Gage), I say the Clause emanates from a situation different from that in Scotland. In Ireland there is no private ownership of fishing and, as far as this Bill is concerned, the hon. Member is a trifle premature. He will have to wait until we have a similar position to that which exists in Ireland and the Commonwealth countries.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. McNeil)

I am in some considerable difficulty. I am very appreciative of the good intentions of the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Gage), who from time to time during these discussions has bent over to help us even when not completely assured of the wholehearted support of his colleagues, and he may be in that position today. But I am reinforced in my inclination to resist the Clause because I find myself so wholeheartedly supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Ayrshire. South (Mr. Emrys Hughes) and the hon. Member for East Aberdeenshire (Mr. Boothby). In such a combination it is exceedingly unlikely that I am wrong.

Mr. Boothby

The lunatic fringe?

Mr. McNeil

I thought there might be a more complimentary word since I was in agreement with the hon. Member.

There are three groups of reasons why I must resist the new Clause. First, we are not quite in the comparative seclusion enjoyed by Northern Ireland. The hon. Member for Belfast, South, has already indicated the difficulties in the disposal of fish there. We are not in that position. I am relatively certain from inquiries and experience that a great deal of the fish obtained by the most violent and illegal methods is sent very far south, and we should therefore be making no attack upon that traffic by the proposed method.

4.30 p.m.

Second, we should be in a very odd position indeed if we had a system of registration which confined itself to Scotland and did not extend to this market where there is a great amount of activity. Third, if the Committee had felt inclined to accept a system of licensing, the natural corollory would have been a system of registration, but for reasons already debated, the Committee declined to agree that there should be a system of licensing.

There is no doubt, and the hon. Gentleman does not deny it, that a very considerable part of the market for illegally obtained fish, particularly salmon, is provided by hotels and doubtful restaurants. My own conclusion is that there are doubtful restaurants to be found within a comparatively short radius of this House. There are doubtful restaurants and hotels who have paid the price and made agreements to take illegally obtained salmon. This Clause would not touch them at all, and I hope, therefore, that the Committee will agree with me in resisting it.

Mr. J. Stuart

I am in sympathy with the object which my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Gage), has in view. But the fact is that there are already licences in connection with game. One of the main difficulties of the gang poacher with a big haul of fish is the disposal of the haul. Our object was not to increase form filling and controls at all, but to try to stop poaching and part of that process concerns the disposal of the haul. It was for that reason, and after discussion with my hon. Friend, that most of us on these benches after considering the matter, decided to support the Maconochie Committee's Report and moved an Amendment to that effect, because Sheriff Maconochie and his Committee were strongly in favour of that system.

That has been dealt with, and I will not repeat it. But I am in sympathy with my hon. Friend because he has the same object in view; and the Secretary of State, as a member of the Cabinet, could no doubt influence his English colleagues to see that they, not immediately perhaps, but in due course, came into line with a view to stopping this traffic in illegal fish. That was our sole object. It is of course entirely for my hon. Friend to say how he wishes to handle the matter, but I feel that the views of the Committee have been tested on this occasion and therefore I, personally, do not wish to pursue the matter further.

Question put, and negatived.

The Deputy-Chairman

The next five proposed new Clauses on the Order Paper are out of order.

Mr. Manuel (Central Ayrshire)

Do I understand you, Sir Charles, to rule that the proposed new Clauses—(Prosecutions), (National Coal Board Rights), (Protection of Fishing Rights), and (Rights of Anglers)—are not being called?

The Deputy-Chairman

No, they are out of order.

Mr. Manuel

While not questioning your right, Sir Charles, to adjudicate in these matters, but merely for my own education, may I point out that we debated at length the question of a new Clause proposed from the Liberal benches on the last occasion we sat, which went very much further than anything I suggest.

The Deputy-Chairman

I will tell the hon. Member why they are out of order so as to put his mind at rest. The first one—(Prosecutions)—is out of order because these cases go before a Sheriff Court and not before a Justice of the Peace. The next one—(National Coal Board Rights), and the one after—(Protection of Fishing Rights)—are inconsistent with decisions already reached by the Committee. The last one—(Rights of Anglers), is out of order because this is a Bill for the protection of salmon and not for the protection of anglers. Does that satisfy the hon. Member?

Mr. Manuel

Yes, Sir Charles, I would merely comment that the Bill is, in my opinion, more for the protection of the landlords.

The Deputy-Chairman

The hon. Member used the term "Rights of anglers." I was merely using his own words.

Mr. Emrys Hughes

On a point of order. I should like to ask you, Sir Charles, whether you ruled out of order the first proposed new Clause—(Amendment of Salmon Fisheries (Scotland) Act, 1868)—because it is meaningless? I understand you ruled the next four out of order because they are too full of meaning.

The Deputy-Chairman

No, I gave my reasons to the hon. Member for Ayrshire, Central (Mr. Manuel), and I think he understood me. Perhaps he will explain them to his hon. Friend.

Mr. Henderson Stewart

Would it be in order to offer respectful congratulations to you, Sir Charles, for having broken all the rules by explaining why you refused to select the proposed new Clauses?

The Deputy-Chairman

On the contrary, I quite expected to be asked to explain why they were out of order which it is my duty to do.

Mr. Manuel

May I ask, Sir Charles, if the hon. Member for Fife, East (Mr. Henderson Stewart), who has been longer in this House than I, is not entirely out of order in attempting to instruct you?