§ 2. Mr. Langford-Holtasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what advice he has given the local authorities concerning the building of housing estates on agricultural land.
§ Mr. H. MacmillanThe most recent advice is contained in Circular No. 65/52. I am sending my hon. Friend a copy.
§ Mr. Langford-HoltWill my right hon. Friend tell us whether he is prepared, in conjunction with his right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, to call a halt to the present disastrous trend whereby this country is losing something like 50,000 acres a year, from which in the ultimate we may be compelled to live?
§ Mr. MacmillanI think the fact that Questions Nos. 1 and 2 follow one another on the Paper points to the difficulty in getting a proper balance between the needs of housing and the needs of agriculture. That we have tried to do.
§ Mr. SnowIs the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that in these cases the farmer is given adequate notice of the intentions of his Ministry or of the Ministry of Agriculture? Is he aware that only recently in my division a farmer arrived one morning at his fields to find building workers ploughing up and desecrating the standing crops? Is he further aware that when I took the matter up with the Ministry of Agriculture, I was told that neither the local planning authority nor the 815 Ministry of Agriculture were responsible or had any need to give notice to the farmer in question?
§ Mr. MacmillanI find it rather difficult to answer the details in that supplementary question without the place, the period, the time or the people concerned, but we certainly do our best. On the whole I think it is primarily with the Ministry of Agriculture, representing the farming interests, that we make our arrangements, and, generally speaking, they work smoothly and pretty well between the Departments and the interests concerned.