AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION (Hansard, 17 October 1952)

§ Mr. Archer Baldwin (Leominster)
Shortly before the economic debate the Chancellor of the Exchequer, speaking in his own constituency, stressed the need for increased agricultural production in order to help to close the trade gap. Members representing agricultural constituencies thought that that statement might be enlarged during the economic debate, but only a few statements were made. Agricultural Members endeavoured to catch the eye of Mr. Speaker, but without success. My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Baldock) called attention to declining agriculture, but the best of the references to agriculture were mainly of a critical nature.
I propose to mention one of them. The right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), in comparing agriculture with other industries, said: The fact is that we go into an engineering shop and we stand over the engineer with a stop watch, we clock him in and clock him out, we have time and motion studies in order to see how much more use of his manpower we can make and how much machinery we can get out of him in the shortest possible time, and yet we subsidise the man in the agricultural industry who is idle half his time."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th July, 1952; Vol. 504, c. 1539.] I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman will go and tell that to the farm workers. I suggest to the hon. Member for Norfolk, North (Mr. Gooch) that he write to his right hon. Friend and invite him to go down there and address a meeting of agricultural workers. Farmers do not stand over their men with stop watches. They take off their coats and work beside them. The right hon. Gentleman said "We stand over them." I do not know whom "we" refers to. We do not do it in this country. They might do it in Moscow. As for the time and motion studies, I would like to take a time and motion study of the right hon. Gentleman in the harvest field. I guarantee there would be more time than motion. That is the kind of thing we have to undergo from people who are completely ignorant of the agricultural industry and who look upon subsidies as agricultural and not as food subsidies.
654 This afternoon I propose to say many of the things I had intended to say if I had been called in the economic debate. The Minister who is to reply will have to sit and listen to what I have to say, but I am speaking not so much to the Department of Agriculture as I am to the Cabinet. Incidentally, it is strange to find that the Conservative Party, who rely on the rural constituencies for such a lot of support, do not have their Minister of Agriculture in the Cabinet. I want to make it plain that I am not making a plea this afternoon on behalf of agriculture but am raising an issue which I think is of national importance.
In a speech to the Press Association during the summer, the Prime Minister made the following observations: In all history, there never has been a community so large, so complex, so sure of its way of life, at such a dizzy eminence and on so precarious a foundation. How true that statement is. What steps are the Conservative leaders taking to strengthen these foundations? So far as agriculture is concerned, I think they are entirely on the wrong road and the steps they are taking should be retraced and a start made on the right road. This "precarious position," is largely due to the fact that the nation is refusing to face up to the changing times. A revolution is in progress, and if we do not face up to the revolution disaster will come.
The people of this country must forget the 19th Century when we were the workshop of the world and commanded food from all over the world at prices lower than the cost of production. It is the duty of the Government to make clear to consumers that the day of cheap food has gone and never will return. Today we are the greatest debtor nation in the world; formerly we were the greatest creditor nation. On all sides we hear complaints about the rising costs of food. No notice is likely to be taken of what I as a back bencher will say, but if only some Government spokesman would point out that we are being fed at a lower rate of cost than in any other country of the world, it might be of help.
In a recent answer in Parliament it was shown that this country is the largest buyer of food in the world and is trying to feed its people at the lowest rates. I want to give two or three instances of that. I will take the average of six 655 Continental countries and given in answer to a Parliamentary question show what prices here are compared with there. Bread is 4½d. a lb. here, but in the six countries it averages 5½d.; butter is 2s. 6d. here and 5s. abroad; ribbed beef is 2s. 4d. here and 3s. 3d. abroad; while cheese is 2s. here against 3s. 9d.
It is about time that the consumers of this country were made aware of those facts, because they do not know them. I am going to suggest, therefore, that the price of food should be allowed to rise to an economic figure. If necessary raise wages and pensions and assist those people who will be injuriously affected by the rise in the cost of food. This is a sounder economy than having penal taxation for food subsidies. I want to congratulate my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on his courageous Budget when he tackled the question of food subsidies and reduced them. But it was rather astounding to me that, although the Chancellor of the Exchequer recognises that subsidies are wrong in principle, we in the agricultural world are to have subsidies re-imposed on us.
In my opinion if wages do rise and subsidies are done away with the result will be just the same. Whether it is wages or taxation it has got to be paid for by production in this country, and it would be better to raise wages and increase pensions and reduce taxation than do the things we are doing at the present time.

§ Mr. George Brown (Belper)
But what about the people with small pensions and incomes?

§ Mr. Baldwin
In the economic debate the Chancellor spoke about the outstanding task of the necessity for an increase in our export earnings. Yet in winding up the debate my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade said that the daily rate of our exports had been falling. Does the Chancellor really think we are going to increase our exports sufficiently to close the gap? Let us realise that the day of indiscriminate exports is finished. A shortage of raw materials in this country and the high cost of buying them from abroad, plus the high cost of conversion 656 in this country, must mean that our exports now should be directed to those countries which have to sell something which we want. Exporting tinplate and coal to the Continent as we did last year to bring tinned plums into this country when our own plums were rotting on the ground for want of a market is the economy of a mental institution.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Marcus Lipton (Brixton)
Hear hear.

§ Mr. Baldwin
That was last year.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Lipton
What time last year?

§ Mr. Baldwin
July and August.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Lipton
It was the same this year.

§ Mr. Baldwin
It was not. The President of the Board of Trade imposed a quota of restrictions on the importation, but we were suffering from what happened last year.

§ Mr. Brown
Will the hon. Gentleman allow me——

§ Mr. Baldwin
No.

§ Mr. Brown
He must know that is quite wrong.

§ Mr. Baldwin
Quota restrictions may be useful for an emergency, but for a long-term policy they are not. We must enter into discussions with our friends in the United States of America for a modification of the G.A.A.T. proposals. If we are to assist agriculture, and especially horticulture, in this country we must make use of tariffs. I ask the Cabinet to give this matter their urgent consideration so that a sensible system of tariffs will be ready for imposing next year when our horticulture comes on to the market.
The step the Chancellor is taking is affording a breathing space for the country, but the fort cannot be held indefinitely by restricting imports. The trade gap will continue and is likely to increase. If that happens there are two alternatives: either we have to beg or borrow more money from our friends, or we have to produce more food at home. The former is degrading and unthinkable. The latter course is possible, but it will not be attained unless we get dynamic action on the part of the Government.
Many of our leading papers and people studying our economic problems have 657 been insisting recently that action should be taken. I would refer the House to the articles written in the "Observer" over a period of five weeks under the heading of "What Britain must do to live." They should be studied not only by the Government but by all the community. If my hon. Friends think I am criticising unnecessarily——

§ Mr. Brown
No.

§ Mr. Baldwin
—I would remind them that papers not particularly critical of the Government have been saying something of the same kind recently. One of the agricultural papers which is a supporter of the Minister and seldom reports what I say if I criticise, said this: But it might well be asked whether the Government has given us a sufficiently dynamic and forthright lead.

§ Mr. Brown
Which paper was that?

§ Mr. Baldwin
"The Farmer and Stockbreeder." Then there was a leading article in the "Sunday Times" on the Scarborough conference. Congratulating the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the steps he had taken, it quoted him as saying: If you are to have big economies, you can only get them by big changes of policy. It went on to say: That is true, but it is no excuse for inertia; big changes of policy are precisely what the country needs, and are the task of a Conservative Government. "The Times," which is not often very forthright against the Government, on 15th September made this remark: Good might come of a conference bringing together the various farming organisations to clear their minds and the public mind on what is really needed. … A responsible review now by the industry itself of achievements since the Acts and the essential requirements of further progress would be timely. That is all I am asking the Government to do, to make an investigation and take the steps which I think are necessary.

§ Mr. Brown
They are too busy on the brewers' Bill.

§ Mr. Baldwin
The Minister has stated that we are aiming at an increase of 60 per cent. over pre-war, but I say that the steps which are going to be taken are completely ineffective. In any case they are not sufficient. If we were to set about the job with dynamic action we could increase production in this country in three years by 25 per cent., which would 658 amount to £250 million. That would be a worthwhile contribution towards closing the trade gap.
I cannot understand why we are going on with subsidies and with production grants. They will be no more effective under this Government than they were under the late Government. Calf subsidies have been paid for the last four years, yet the White Paper points out that calves on the farms declined by 300,000 from December, 1949, to December, 1951. Why, therefore, go on with the calf subsidy? Ploughing-up grants have been in operation off and on for the past 10 years, and yet between June, 1948, and June, 1951, the tillage acreage declined by a million acres—and yet we are still going on with ploughing grants.
As the right hon. Member for Belper has declared, those pump priming methods were not effective. I cannot, therefore, understand why a Conservative Government should paddle along the same path which has proved ineffective during the last six years.

§ Mr. Brown
They are always six years behind.

§ Mr. Baldwin
If any confirmation of what I am saying is necessary, I refer the Minister to the comments of a former Minister of Agriculture, who said, in another place, that a return to subsidies is not a policy of realism, but is a policy of living in cloud cuckoo land. I am not alone, therefore, in what I say.
I say to the Minister that we should pay the farmer an end price for the commodities he is producing and pay a proper price to the men who are producing it, and not have this fictitious method of getting production. For instance, an answer given two days or so ago by the Ministry of Food shows that they bought something like 1,500 tons of barley from the farmers of this country in July, August and September at £23 10s. a ton, when they were paying £30 a ton for barley from abroad. I should have thought it would be better to pay the home farmer £30 a ton for his barley, and then he would plough up his land without the need for any ploughing up grant. If we were to pay the end price and give an incentive to the farmers, they would plough up the land.
I went amongst the farmers during the Recess and I found that the vast majority 659 of them were in complete agreement with what I say. I do not allude to those who get up at meetings and do a lot of talking. I went among what I like to call the working type of farmer, who does not often get up to talk. It is their reactions and opinions which have impressed me so much.
The time has come when we should do away with rationing and subsidy on feedingstuffs. It is costing the taxpayers something like £30 million a year. In my opinion, the grade trade should be passed over to the traders of this country, who would provide the feeders with their feedingstuffs as cheaply as they are getting them today. To those who might reply that the price would go sky high, I say that prices cannot go above the figure at which a farmer who manages his job economically can afford to convert them into bacon or eggs; there comes a consumer resistance which keeps prices at an economic level. If prices do get too high, however, the answer is to plough up more land. For heaven's sake let us get rid of this idea of blood transfusions. Let the industry return to its former business activity and do not treat the farmer like a child in a kindergarten.
The refusal to pay a fair price is not the only reason for a declining production. There are three other principal causes: shortage of labour, shortage of capital, and inefficient farming. To retain labour on the land, there should be an all-out forthright policy of building decent cottages at a rent which farm workers can afford to pay. They should be built on the job, instead of putting the farmworkers into villages miles away from their place of work.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Lipton
What about the call-up?

§ Mr. Baldwin
I am coming to that. In addition, we must stop closing the village schools, because the women will not allow their men to go to work or to take a job miles away from the school which their young children have to attend. Let us have the village schools back which have been closed for infant children. Pay wages to the farm worker that are comparable to the highest rate for any skilled industry. Get away from the idea that the farm worker should always be on the lowest scale and be regarded as being on the lowest form of life. Pay them 660 the right price, because we have to keep those men if we are to get the necessary production.
Stop the call-up of the young men. I hate to think of the industry being looked upon as a funk hole, but at the same time——

§ Mr. Speaker
The hon. Member must be very careful, on the Adjournment, not to advocate or to suggest measures which would involve legislation. He has been perilously near the bounds of order several times, and I issue this general warning.

§ Mr. Baldwin
I bow to your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, but I think I have made my point, that it is a waste of manpower. Let us have these men in the Home Guard or Civil Defence where they will be doing more good, because they will not have to be called up if war comes.
Another important thing is the shortage of capital. I hate the idea that we should have cheap capital made available to the industry. Do not treat the farming industry any differently from any other industry. We do not want cheap money, but we want to be allowed to keep some of the money, if we can make any, so that we have a surplus to put back into building and so on. Half the farm buildings in this country need razing to the ground, but that cannot be done unless more money is left in the industry to rebuild them. If we had reduced taxation we might be able to do that.
Alternatively, I make the suggestion that any profits ploughed back into the industry should get the benefits of Section 33 of the Income Tax Act, 1945.

§ Mr. Speaker
That would involve legislation.

§ Mr. Baldwin
The third point is the question of inefficient farmers, which is painful, but needs facing fearlessly. As the "Observer" said, there must be incentive for good farmers and a deterrent for bad.
I do not know what the instructions are which are given to C.A.E.C.'s, but I think it would be a good plan if the Minister made public what those instructions are and let the country know what is expected of them. The 1947 Act was passed to give security to good farmers, but it has been used as a shelter for the 661 inefficient. No farmer graded C should have that protection for more than a reasonable time to reach grade B. As a one-time tenant farmer, I do not like saying this, but it is in the interests not only of our nation but of the efficient farmers of the country.
I want to refer again to the waste land of the country. I see no dynamic effort being made to deal with this problem. I know all about the Hill Farming Act, marginal land grants, and the Livestock Rearing Act. Those are all right, but there are still 17 million acres of rough grazing which remain constant. What is to be done about those 17 million acres of land some of which 100 years ago were producing hardy stock and hardy men and women? Let us get that land back into production. There are hundreds of thousands of commons not worth a shilling an acre to anyone. I cannot suggest legislation, but there is land lying completely idle and we are a nation rationed for food.

§ Mr. Brown
What are you doing about it?

§ Mr. Baldwin
The right hon. Gentleman asks "What are you doing about it?" We should deal with the matter in the same way as the Danes dealt with their country 90 years ago when they were impoverished and war worn and when their principal resources were practically nil. They had a climate which was infinitely worse than the climate of this country but, by a great effort, they raised themselves from destitution and bankruptcy to become a rich food exporting country and one of the richest countries per head of the population in the world.
I do not know from where my right hon. Friend is getting advice, but recently he appointed 13 liaison officers. Many of them I know personally. They are good practical men, and I suggest that my right hon. Friend should form them into a committee of investigation with power to co-opt and to take evidence and decide what is the best way of running the farming industry in this country in order to grow more food. My time is getting short, but I do not expect much of a reply as my right hon. Friend has had to face this once before. I do not want to weary him by having to take up too much time. But I do think it is time that we got back to the situation 662 when our hills and dales were populated with hardy, thrifty people who are the lifeblood of any nation.
I have been critical; it may be said I have been disloyal. This is the last time I shall be critical on this matter as a Conservative. I shall place myself in the hands of my executive and, if they think I have done something which is not worthy of me as a representative of the Conservative Party, I shall bow to their decision. I have been here for many years and I feel that possibly my time has been wasted. This may be the last time that I shall take up this attitude in the House, but I feel so strongly on this matter that I have felt compelled to adopt it.

§ The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture (Mr. G. R. H. Nugent)
I have only a few minutes in which to reply to the long catalogue of criticisms which my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Mr. Baldwin) has made and, therefore, I shall not be able to deal with many of them in detail.
While there is much of the criticism with which I do not agree I sympathise with my hon. Friend's anxiety in this matter and his desire to see an increase in food production. When he tells the House that if we follow the right course we shall have an increased production of £250 million worth of food in three years' time he takes upon himself a heavy responsibility to come forward with a plan as to how we are to do it, and that he has certainly not given to us.
As to the value of subsidies about which my hon. Friend feels most strongly critical, subsidies have been used in agriculture now for many years and have proved most helpful. The first subsidies I recollect came in the 1937 Act, when I believe you, Mr. Speaker, had some part in the matter; and those subsidies, which assisted the use of lime, land drainage and water supplies have been of the greatest value.
The fact is that subsidies have certain specific purposes. They can be used to encourage use of fertilisers, to encourage certain developments like land drainage and water supplies and to encourage particular production like tillage, or livestock by means of the calf subsidy, and 663 so on. I ask my hon. Friend to give objective consideration to the point that they have a specific value in this respect in helping the small farmer.
First of all, they have a value in helping him to finance the process by giving him part of the financial return at the beginning of the process. Secondly, they help him by giving him a greater share than he would receive otherwise if he obtained the increased amount by way of an increased end price. This is so particularly with the calf subsidy. If the price of beef were increased by the total amount of the calf subsidy, by means of an increase in the end price of beef, the amount which would get down to the actual calf rearer would be greatly reduced because of the many hands through which it would have been—the dealer's, the store-rearer's and so on, all through the chain.

§ Mr. G. Brown
Is not this anticipating Monday's debate?

§ Mr. Nugent
If I am giving some insight into the argument on Monday the right hon. Gentleman should be grateful.

§ Mr. Brown
But I want to use some myself on Monday. The hon. Gentleman must not give all his answers.

§ Mr. Nugent
I am not able to go into the question of subsidy in further detail or into many of the subjects which my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster has raised. But I should like to say to him that we all recognise the importance of home agriculture in feeding the nation and in helping to bring about the improvement in the balance of payments which we so badly wish to see. We all wish to see a steady increase in production, but there is no single dramatic action which will achieve it.
We shall bring about this increase in production only by applying a fairly large number of small measures, patiently and steadily. Dramatic changes of any kind are more likely to do harm than good. My hon. Friend must remember that the available national resources are not unlimited. We have the demands of rearmament on one hand and the demands 664 of the export industries on the other. We, in agriculture, can only have our share, and the biggest problem is how to get increased production without greatly increased national resources of capital and labour. In agriculture, the increased production that we need must be got largely without calling upon further resources of labour and capital, because they simply do not exist.
The fact is that we want an increase in net production, and the leaders of the industry have accepted the target which my right hon. Friend has put before them as being fair, reasonable and possible. Our task is to get it over to the rank and file of the farmers and in so far as my hon. Friend is anxious to see this increase in production achieved and will use his endeavours to get over to the farming community and the community as a whole the great urgency of the need, to that extent he will be helping to bring about what he so earnestly desires, and I hope that he will do it.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Marcus Lipton (Brixton)
In introducing this debate the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Baldwin) did not refer to the fact that urban development is absorbing 80 square miles of farm land every year. That is a point which the Government should bear in mind, because this vast amount of land is equivalent to something between 500 and 600 average-sized farms a year. What that means in food production was effectively brought home recently when, in the course of an address by the President of the Chartered Auctioneers and Estate Agents' Institute, it was pointed out that this amounted to a loss of 2 million loaves per year; 5,300 tons of cereals; 9,500 tons of potatoes; 600 tons of sugar; 600 tons of beef and veal, and 150 tons of lamb and mutton——