§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Sir C. Drewe.]
§ 2.19 p.m.
§ Mr. Geoffrey de Freitas (Lincoln)By a coincidence the subject I am raising on the Adjournment, nature conservation, has something to do with the topic which has been discussed in the debate on the Second Reading of the Bill today. It should be unnecessary for me to remind the House of what the Nature Conservancy is but unfortunately I believe it to be necessary.
The Nature Conservancy was set up in 1949 and is responsible to the Lord President of the Council through the Committee of the Privy Council for Agricultural Research and Nature Conservation. Most of its members are distinguished scientists, and there are a few administrators and two hon. Members of 1560 this House. It is also fortunate in having Mr. E. M. Nicholson, a distinguished civil servant, as Director-General.
It is a sign of the need for some revision of our procedure that the work of the Nature Conservancy has never been discussed in the House and that this discussion has occurred only because a private Member had good fortune in the Adjournment Ballot. My purpose is to draw attention to the work of the Nature Conservancy and to mention one or two of the problems facing it. I shall begin by referring to some of the most recent developments, first, as concerns reserves, and secondly, as concerns research undertaken by the organisation.
With regard to the acquisition of land for reserves, when the figures are published in the next report it will be seen that there has been a great extension of the area, but it must be realised that in several cases this has been merely a transfer to the Nature Conservancy of reserves which formerly came under another body. Shortage of resources of the right type of skilled man and of money is responsible for the small advance.
I shall refer to two examples of reserves and work in the reserves in recent times which are part of the small advance. First, there is a large reserve, the Cairngorms, a true part of "Caledonia stern and wild," one of the most valuable scientific reserves in the whole of Europe. Another, which is quite different, is Gibraltar Point in Lincolnshire, which I mention not only because I know the county well but because its retention as a reserve was possible only because the very public-spirited and conservation-minded Lindsey County Council fought hard for its preservation.
As I have said, the figures will show a great extension, but analysis of the figures will show that the rise is not great in relation to the total area under reserve. The most important reason for the small advance in recent times has been shortage of resources, and one of these resources is money.
When we come to research, we are faced with the problem that ecological research is extremely complicated. It is not only difficult in itself but is also extremely difficult to explain. I could not attempt to explain here, even if I 1561 understood, most of the fundamental long-term research which has recently been undertaken by the Conservancy.
Fortunately, it has proved possible to work on certain fundamental scientific problems while using as a medium of investigation some subject which allows the results to be of real value to a current applied problem. I shall refer to two or three applied investigations. One is myxomatosis, which we have discussed earlier today; another is coastal erosion; and a third important one is the spraying of grass verges with weedkiller.
The Waverley Committee's Report on coastal flooding suggested that the Nature Conservancy should again take up its study of the possibility of vegetation being used for stabilising a shifting coastline. The Nature Conservancy has taken it up, and, in co-operation with the Somerset River Board, it has started experimenting with the stabilising of the coastline in Bridgwater Bay. Whatever part of the country we come from, we all realise what enormous potentialities this study may have for the East Coast.
The Nature Conservancy, working with its twin, the Agricultural Research Council, and a number of other learned bodies, has examined the effect of spraying the roadside to kill weeds. Anyone who has travelled along roads in the countryside during the last year or so will have noticed that certain road authorities, instead of cutting the weeds on the roadside verges with scythes or motor mowers, have begun spraying them with weedkiller.
This kills many wild flowers. It is not only scientists who are alarmed about it; ordinary men and women who have always regarded the wild flowers of the roadside as something particularly English are also concerned about it. So far as the Conservancy can judge, spraying has not even proved effective for killing the most troublesome weeds, and it certainly looks as if the indiscriminate spraying of weedkiller is doing real harm to insect life and also to small fauna.
Another example of applied research has been into myxomatosis. There has been a great deal of discussion about myxomatosis in the House today. I wish to refer to one or two points which have already been mentioned and to others which have not.
1562 It is only a year since myxomatosis broke out in this country. Six months earlier—that is, 18 months ago—as a result of what I had seen in the French countryside, I put down a Question asking what the position was in this country. At that time the word "myxomatosis" was unknown. I had difficulty in spelling it in those days, and certainly the Table Office found it difficult. At that time the answer was that research into myxomatosis was being conducted on an island off the coast of Scotland.
Just before the outbreak a year ago, the Conservancy asked Mr. R. M. Lockley, whose writings about the countryside are well known, to investigate the matter and make a survey. His appreciation of the problem and its repercussions and the progress of the disease has proved a valuable guide—there is no question about that. After consultation with scientists working in other institutions and for other bodies in the same field, he concluded that the rabbit flea was the most important transmitter of the disease.
Work is still being done in studying the consequence of the drastic reduction in the number of rabbits—it is almost the elimination of rabbits in some areas—on vegetation growth and animal life. Certain changes have already been reported from Lullington Heath. I have heard of a landowner in Anglesey—which has had severe myxomatosis—who is grazing 1,400 sheep on land which four months ago supported nothing but a plague of rabbits.
The lessons to be drawn from all these applied investigations show the important rôle of the Nature Conservancy to be that of preventing overlapping and achieving co-operation and, most important in any scientific study, comparability of method.
Turning to the problems of the future, the first is that of finance. The last Report of the Conservancy suggested that finance was the chief factor limiting the Conservancy's growth. It was not only a practical limitation of the work of fencing reserves and so on, but there had had to be a postponement of the award of research grants to post-graduate studentships for scientific research. Indeed, these have had to be not only postponed but even restricted. Apart from the work of the Conservancy, we must face the fact that, unless young 1563 scientists are given the opportunity of doing post-graduate work in this country, they will go abroad, in many cases to the United States, where there are abundant funds for post-graduate work.
It is up to us to realise the seriousness of this problem. Unfortunately, so far as the Nature Conservancy is concerned, the consequences of too little money at this period are wholly disproportionate to the financial considerations. Every year that passes, sites of scientific value disappear with road building, industrial development and even agricultural development.
There is another problem which is difficult to describe. It is the question of public relations in the case of fundamental research. If the Nature Conservancy had been set up 30 years ago, the newspapers would have had a wonderful opportunity of laughing at the long-haired professors and would have had a field day misrepresenting and distorting fundamental research. What a gift it would have been for them to find that £1,000 had been spent in counting fleas on the top of Ben Nevis. Fortunately, the newspapers of today, I think almost without exception, have a sense of responsibility when it comes to dealing with scientific problems, and there is a reasonable chance that experiments will not now be held up to ridicule, as they would have been in the less scientific age before and between the two wars. But it is an aspect which must be watched, because the country will pay dearly in the long run if public opinion is whipped up to prevent the Nature Conservancy from spending public money in sponsoring research merely because it appears useless, being long-term and far removed from practical every-day problems.
Another problem at which I should like the Government to look, and to which I wish to draw the attention of the Junior Minister who is to reply to this debate, is that of the relationship between the Nature Conservancy and certain Government Departments. First of all, the Treasury. This is the problem. Not long ago, when certain land passed to the Government or the state in death duties, the Treasury handed the land over to the National Trust. This land contained a nature reserve, and the Nature Conservancy had to lease that nature reserve 1564 from the Trust. Fortunately, there is very close co-operation between the Conservancy and the National Trust, as there is between the Conservancy and the Forestry Commission.
Apparently, the Treasury believe that there are good public financial reasons for not transferring State-owned land to a body supported out of public funds. I am not going to argue the main issue of this doctrine, but I do ask the member of the Government who is here now to request his colleagues to consider whether there is not a case for re-examining this policy of land transference in connection with the Nature Conservancy. After all, the Nature Conservancy did not even exist when this land fund was originally set up.
My second point is the relationship of the Conservancy to the Ministry of Agriculture in connection with land acquisition and use. Since the war, we have had a great deal of legislation controlling the use of land. If a piece of land is wanted for something—house-building, a dog track or an airfield—there is a long and complicated procedure to be gone through before it can be agreed to. I am not saying that the procedure is too long or too complicated: I do not believe it is, but this is the point. If the land is to be ploughed for agriculture, there is no such procedure. The owner can just go ahead and plough it. Indeed, he may even be helped by the Ministry of Agriculture with a grant for doing so, yet this agricultural use of land may be directly contrary to the long-term public interest because that land may be irreplaceable as a nature reserve or as a site of scientific value.
Many hon. Members will have read correspondence in "The Times" and other newspapers recently about the bulldozing and the ploughing of barrows. I know of cases where the unrestricted ploughing of uneconomic agricultural land has been directly contrary to the interests of conservancy. Now that the machinery of the Ministry of Agriculture is under fire, it is bound to be examined and overhauled. I hope that will be so, in order to see that public money is not being used for purposes directly contrary to the public interest.
May I give one example? A small amount of land in East Anglia—only a 1565 few acres—was worth about £8 an acre, because it was poor land, but that land was ploughed at a public cost of £10 an acre, and, in doing so, we lost for ever a small area illustrating perfectly the conditions of transition between acid heath and fen.
I am asking the Government to consider the problems of the Nature Conservancy, some of which I have brought before the House. Finance is the most important. The yardstick cannot and must never be the immediate return. In this small island, with a huge population, nature conservation is very important indeed, and it cannot be effective unless the Government have the imagination to realise that, and the willingness to provide the money—and they are small sums—necessary for it.
§ 2.40 p.m.
§ Colonel Ralph Clarke (East Grinstead)We are all grateful to the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. de Freitas) for raising the problems and difficulties that are being encountered by the Nature Conservancy. I hope he will not think I speak in criticism of him when I refer to the suggestions he made that when lands pass to the National Trust in respect of death duties they should be transferred and not just leased to the Nature Conservancy. There are arguments against that being the best procedure. We have seen in recent months what a difficult situation can arise when land passes to what I call "semipublic ownership."
On this side of the House we, naturally, believe in continuing private ownership and its being extended as widely as possible, but it would be much better to have a basis whereby the National Trust, which is an established body with an organisation for managing land, could lease land to the Nature Conservancy rather than set up a fresh land-owning body. That point is. I think, worthy of close consideration.
§ 2.42 p.m.
§ Mr. E. G. Willis (Edinburgh, East)The hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. de Freitas) has raised questions of nature conservation. One point has been causing considerable disquiet in this connection to a number of people in Scotland. I have a letter dealing with the granting of permits for shooting in conservancies. Such shooting seems quite wrong. The 1566 letter expresses very great concern about the Cairngorms Nature Reserve because shooting continues there. I will quote from the letter, which states the matter better than I could. It says:
I am not at all happy about the arrangements for the Cairngorms Nature Reserve, for it appears that the whole value of the Reserve may be undermined by reason of the fact that the vested interests of the landowners will be left undisturbed. In my view, the regulations applying to landowners and the general public should be uniform, but it appears that, for the landowners, it will be a case of grouse shooting and deer stalking as usual. In fact…a privileged class will have rights not available to the general public, which will destroy the whole conception of such a Reserve.We have a nature reserve nearer to Edinburgh at Aberlady Bay. I am sorry there are no Scottish Ministers in the Chamber at the moment, because they would be more directly concerned about this matter, although it is a question of nature conservancy. We have this nature reserve, which is administered by a management committee under the county council, as recommended by the Scottish Nature Conservancy Board. In that reserve the practice is that permits are given to shoot. When the reserve was established concern was expressed at the prospect of there being less opportunity of shooting on the Edinburgh foreshore. It was claimed that there were old-established rights which could not be destroyed. These were rights to shoot under "regalia majora."It was decided that there was no such rights in this case and that people could be prevented from shooting along that foreshore. Also, the generally held opinion at that time was that there should be no shooting in this reserve, but today permits are granted to individuals to shoot in this Nature reserve. I should have thought that that was wrong. If we are to conserve bird life and other wild life in a particular area the granting of permits for shooting seems entirely foreign to the idea.
The Government, or whoever is responsible for policy on this matter, should make up their minds about it. I am informed that in Sweden and Switzerland shooting is forbidden in Nature reserves except to wardens and people acting as wardens who wish to destroy pests. That idea should be applied to reserves in this country. The whole question of granting permits to shoot in Nature reserves 1567 should be looked at, because it seems to destroy the idea of nature conservancy, which is to conserve the wild life of the country, and to create a privileged class who can shoot in those places while other people are prevented from doing so.
§ 2.46 p.m.
§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works (Mr. J. R. Bevins)The hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. de Freitas) made a most interesting and informative speech this afternoon, and I am grateful to him for introducing the subject of the Nature Conservancy, for the first time in this House, as he said himself, and also for informing me in advance of some of the topics which he intended to raise.
The hon. Member, like my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Sir E. Keeling), is a member of the Nature Conservancy. Although the hon. Member's membership is comparatively recent, he has spoken on the subject with knowledge which I can never hope to enjoy, no matter how much I immerse myself in the reports and data from this body. The members of the Conservancy are, in the main, botanists, zoologists, geologists, and so on. The inclusion of two Members of another place and of two Members from this House was designed to make sure that the experts of the Nature Conservancy kept their feet on the ground.
A number of interesting points have been raised, not only by the hon. Member for Lincoln, but by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for East Grinstead (Colonel Clarke) and the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis). I shall take note of what the hon. Member for Lincoln said about public relations and of the comment of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East on the special problems in the reserves in Scotland.
One of the main preoccupations of the hon. Member for Lincoln was with finance. The Conservancy, as the hon. Member rightly said, is a comparatively new body. It came into being about five years ago. Its financial problems turn very largely on the rate at which the Government are able to provide public funds for building up a scientific organisation and ownership of the nature reserves.
1568 At the present time, the annual expenditure of the Conservancy is running at the rate of £200,000 a year. The Government are very sympathetic indeed to the objects of the Conservancy. I think the record shows that considering the very heavy burdens upon our public finances, the Government have treated the Conservancy with reasonable generosity since its formation. It is important to bear in mind, too, in this general context, that the Government are finding something like £20 million a year at the present time for civil research of one sort or another. That is quite a substantial slim.
The hon. Member also raised the question of land which has been designated as a nature reserve and which comes on to the market suddenly, and can only be saved for conservation by immediate purchase. My noble Friend the Lord President of the Council and the Treasury are very well aware of this problem, and, as cases of this kind arise, they will, I am sure, be given sympathetic consideration, though I am not able this afternoon to give any specific assurance in advance.
The hon. Member opposite, and also, I think, my hon. Friend, touched on the question of the use of the National Land Fund for the Nature Conservancy, and in this matter, too, I shall certainly bring the remarks of the hon. Member to the attention of my noble Friend, and also to the notice of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
The hon. Gentleman made an interesting reference to the case of the Lincolnshire (Lindsey) County Council and of the action they have taken to protect their nature reserve at Gibraltar Point. I think I am right in saying that that constitutes the only occasion in the history of the Nature Conservancy and of the bodies with which it has been co-operating where compulsory powers have been used.
It might, perhaps, be useful to the House if I were here to interpose, on the general question of compulsory purchase, that under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, 1949, the Conservancy possesses powers of compulsory purchase. I am informed, however, that those powers have so far never been invoked, and I am assured, moreover, that they will not be used at any time in the future without the personal sanction of my noble Friend the Lord President of the Council.
1569 The hon. Member for Lincoln also mentioned the ploughing up of sites of scientific interest. That is indeed a very important point, and I think he did right to raise it this afternoon. My noble Friend recognises the very considerable difficulties that face the Conservancy in this respect. They are, of course, in an even more difficult position than my hon. Friend the Minister of Works in regard to the ploughing up of barrows, as mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, and, of course, of earth works and other ancient monuments. As a general rule, these earth works and ancient monuments can be identified by the layman; but, very often, the farmer does not know what he may be destroying in the process of ploughing. I am informed, however, that this problem is being discussed between the Nature Conservancy and the Ministry of Agriculture, and also with the National Farmers' Union and the Council for the Preservation of Rural England.
As I said at the outset, and as we all realise, of course, the Nature Conservancy is still a child in years, and it would perhaps be rather premature to venture any firm judgment on its work and its future, although, of course, it has already done a certain amount of very valuable research work. But what the scope of its future researches may be and how successful they will be it is really rather too early to judge.
Its first years have of necessity been taken up in engaging qualified staff, in acquiring premises and in laying the foundations of its scientific activities. Even so, we are now getting to the time when we should expect to see some results. Its initial reconnaissance on sites of scientific importance in England and Wales is now almost at an end, although I am informed that a good deal remains to be done in Scotland.
Two research stations and two field stations have now been staffed and fitted out, and a full programme of scientific work was carried out this summer. Moreover, a number of National Nature Reserves have been declared during the past year, and we now have 20 of these reserves covering more than 70,000 acres of land throughout the country. It is 1570 very natural that the enthusiasts would like to see this acreage very considerably extended. On the other hand, and although most of the reserves are largely mountain and moorland country, there has been expressed from time to time a little apprehension by property owners and agriculturists about the projected development of nature reserves. I feel, and I am sure that this is the view of my noble Friend, that in this matter we need to keep a proper sense of proportion and of balance. There is no reason at all why nature reserves should not be expanded, as, indeed, we all hope that they will be; but we hope that it will be possible to do that without encroaching to any appreciable degree upon the agricultural resources of our country.
These nature reserves, as the House knows, serve as what I might describe as outdoor laboratories for research. This may sound slightly academic, and, of course, the aims of the Nature Conservancy are not primarily economic. However, it may well be that the continuing research on many of the matters to which the hon. Gentleman referred, on the control of animal population, coast erosion and the effects of climate, vegetation and tree growth will eventually prove of economic value to the country. I do not know, but I put forward as a possibility, which I think is well recognised in the scientific world, that these researches may, in the long run, prove of quite considerable importance to a country about one-quarter of whose surface consists of mountain and moorland.
I am afraid that I may well have omitted a number of the points raised, though not the more important ones, by the hon. Member for Lincoln, but I wish to assure the House that the feeling of the Government towards nature conservancy is sympathetic. We try to be helpful, and I will undertake to see that all the points that have been raised in the debate shall be brought to the attention of my noble Friend.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at Two Minutes to Three o'Clock.