HC Deb 06 December 1955 vol 547 cc342-50

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Godber.]

10.50 p.m.

Mr. H. A. Marquand (Middlesbrough, East)

It is my opinion, which I have expressed before in this House, that the war upon want which is being conducted at present by the United Nations Organisation, by the Colombo Plan, by our own Colonial Development and Welfare Fund, is by far the most worth while of all the efforts that Governments are making at the present time. I believe it is of great importance to the political well-being and to the future human well-being of the whole of mankind that those efforts should be fostered and encouraged.

Among the agencies which are engaged in waging the world war on want at the present time, none is more important than the Food and Agriculture Organisation. Her Majesty's Government are a member of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, and have been since it started. That body undertakes for the information of its member Governments most valuable studies in the relationship between population and food resources in all parts of the world, seeks to forecast the movements of populations and the demand for food, and thereby enables the nations to formulate plans in this great war to which I have referred.

It also provides, not only for nations outside our Commonwealth, but many nations inside our Commonwealth, a service of technical assistance. It is from the Food and Agriculture Organisation that the Technical Assistance Board of the United Nations gets its men; and the value of those men has, I suppose, really to be seen to be appreciated. Having seen so many of them at their work, I am profoundly convinced that the value of their work cannot be over-estimated at present.

I am pleased to see the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food present. The right hon. Gentleman went to the eighth session of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, and made a speech in Rome on 8th November. That speech was widely reported in the Press of the world, and I am told by those who heard it that it made a bad impression in Rome. That is what I have been told by one or two persons who were there with whom I have been able to make contact. The reports of the speech in the newspapers here and in the American newspapers made a bad impression also. I am seeking tonight to give the right hon. Gentleman an opportunity to tell the House exactly what the policy of Her Majesty's Government is in regard to the Food and Agriculture Organisation.

He may be inclined to say that I am unduly suspicious, but we cannot ignore the fact that in regard to the S.U.N.F.E.D. project, the Special United Nations Fund for Economic Development, the Government have undoubtedly dragged their feet. When we read in our newspapers a speech by the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that the Food and Agriculture Organisation might now reduce its projected budget, we cannot help asking ourselves whether the same attitude of feet-dragging is prevailing again, as it has prevailed throughout discussions on S.U.N.F.E.D.

The right hon. Gentleman was kind and courteous enough—as he always is—to send me a copy of his speech. There is of course no time now to go into it in detail. Perhaps it will suffice if I read the conclusion which he reached. He said: I am concerned to state our broad general conclusion, and it is this. We are convinced that there is still sufficient need, and scope, for economies and savings in the programme as a whole to justify the view that the level of budget finally adopted should be substantially below the proposed 7 million dollars. The rest of his speech was full of excellent sentiments with which I do not propose to quarrel, but the gist of it lies there as he himself said. The Director-General of the Organisation had proposed a budget that for the coming year of 7 million dollars, and the right hon. Gentleman said that in his view it should be substantially below that figure.

It was his attitude to that matter which caused consternation to many nations in that meeting. So much so that we read in the New York Herald Tribune of 14th November, 1955, that the Director-General of the Organisation, Mr. Cardon, "offered to resign yesterday if the anniversary session of the F.A.O. meeting at the organisation's headquarters here did not approve his proposed 7 million dollar annual budget for the next two years. Despite his appeal, delegates, by a narrow 24–23 vote, cut the 1956 budget to 6,600,000 dollars and that for 1957 to 6,800,000 dollars."

That cut was undoubtedly instigated by the lead given by the United States Government and by our own Government. When the United States, with its enormous surpluses of food, constitutes one of the main economic problems of the world at present, when Great Britain is beginning to find its own farmers grumbling about the import of foreign foodstuffs into this country, and asking the Minister what he is to do about it, it looks as if these two comparatively well-off nations, with their large surpluses of food and great ability to import food, were proposing to reduce the activities of the Food and Agriculture Organisation at a time when, despite all these surpluses, we all know well that the total world need for food is not abating and is still increasing, and the population is increasing so fast that these surpluses are, as it were, almost temporary.

Whether or not it was the result of this, and of the attitude of the British and United States Governments. I hesitate to say, but Great Britain lost her seat on the governing body of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, which seems to us a most regrettable result. It may be said that, after all, we cannot expect to be on the governing body for ever. I wonder. As the right hon. Gentleman has told me, in answer to Questions, we are the second largest contributor and it looks as if the other nations of the world were so dejected by the attitude he took that they proceeded to throw him off the governing body. I hope that tonight he will be able to say that most of my suspicions are quite unfounded; that he believes in the F.A.O.; that he believes in the technical assistance and the statistical and economic services which it provides for its member nations, and that he is as determined as I am to wage the world war on want.

10.58 p.m.

Mr. E. G. Gooch (Norfolk, North)

I want to say a few words in support of what my right hon. Friend has said. A number of Questions have been addressed to the Minister lately, with the object of securing clarification from him on what he said, and, what is more important still, on what he sought to convey by his recent speech at the F.A.O. Conference, in Rome. I almost regret that I did not accept the nomination to attend the conference this year, because if I had been there I could have formed my own opinion on that part of the Minister's speech which has given rise to Questions in this House.

I regard the F.A.O. as one of the most valuable specialised organisations of the United Nations, and I have had the privilege of attending most of its conferences. I accept the Minister's declaration in the House on 24th November, in answer to Questions, when he said that we had been completely loyal to the organisation, and had taken and were taking a most active part in its operations.

Part of the Minister's Rome speech, however, was most disturbing to those who want to see the F.A.O. further expand and to give more assistance to the under-developed countries. I regarded the right hon. Gentleman's speech at the conference as amounting to an ultimatum to the Director-General—in company with the United States, Australia and Canada—that the Director-General must spend less and not more.

Of course, the Express Newspapers and the Evening Standard are delighted with the trend of events, notably the failure of Britain to retain its seat on the Council of the organisation. I understand that that was due to the ganging up of a number of other countries. I want to quote from the Evening Standard, because it is important that it should be realised that this Organisation can be kept flourishing and intact only if it is supported financially as well as morally. This is what the Evening Standard said: The organisation has outlived any useful, ness it may ever have had. Its main task now is to maintain almost a thousand men and women in luxurious employment at the Rome headquarters … Britain has been thrown out of the F.A.O. Council. It should be duly grateful and walk out of the organisation for good. F.A.O., with which are associated 71 nations, has done and is continuing to do great work for hungry people in many parts of the world. In doing that it is helping towards the establishment of permanent world peace. To attempt to belittle an organisation doing that kind of work is a crime against humanity, for the F.A.O. is seeking to raise nutrition and living standards in countries which are woefully behind in that regard.

This country is spending millions of pounds on arms and defence; surely we can afford a few thousand pounds on an organisation busily engaged in making one of the "four freedoms"—the freedom from want—an accomplished fact. I am appalled that the advocates of economy were led by the United States and Britain. I want to support the view expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Orr, the first Director-General of F.A.O. when he said that war could be made inconceivable within twenty years if the nations spent a fraction of their war budgets to help under-developed countries to produce the food that they needed. I hope that we shall have from the right hon. Gentleman a clear explanation of his intention and purpose during his speech in Rome, and I hope that he will be able to allay the fears of my right hon. Friend and myself when he said at the Rome conference that we ought to give not more support to F.A.O., but less.

11.3 p.m.

The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. D. Heathcoat Amory)

I do not at all dissent from what the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand) or the hon. Member for Norfolk, North (Mr. Gooch) have said about F.A.O. I agree that the F.A.O. is working in a very important and fruitful field of international co-operation. It is in practical fields like those of agriculture and food where most useful work can be done, and I have paid tribute—in the speech to which the right hon. Member has referred—to the valuable work that F.A.O. has already done in that field. A copy of my speech has been laid in the Library of the House.

Having said that, I do not feel that I have any reason to be at all apologetic for what I said on the budget of the F.A.O. It is a fact that the United Kingdom is the second largest contributor to the funds of F.A.O., contributing 11 per cent., but it is our clear duty to satisfy ourselves that existing expenditure is used to the best advantage before we vote additional money. It is a mistake to think that merely by voting additional money one necessarily makes the work of an organisation more effective.

I should like to make it clear, however, that all along we have been taking the line that some additional funds were required. At the risk of boring the right hon. Gentleman, who has already read my speech, I want to repeat two or three paragraphs, because they summarise my view of this particular matter. I said in that speech: We have given the most careful consideration to the admirably full and informative programme of work and budget. We have also carefully considered the comments made on the programme by the Co-ordinating Committee, the Committee on Financial Control, and at the 21st session of the Council. Our observations in detail, as a result of this review, will emerge in the discussions with the various technical panels. I am concerned here to state our broad general conclusion, and it is this. We are convinced that there is still sufficient need, and scope, for economies and savings in the programme as a whole to justify the view that the level of budget finally adopted should be substantially below the proposed 7 million dollars proposed. At the same time, we are persuaded that, if the Organisation is to continue to consolidate its successes and to tackle the problems which still face it, there must be some increase in the present level of its budget over and above the increase necessary to meet automatic increments. I confidently believe that within these limits a satisfactory figure can be found—a figure which will enable the Organisation not only to continue its work but to develop still further along the practical lines that I have indicated. The figures themselves are not of important size; indeed, the relatively small difference that a budget of 7 million dollars as opposed to one of 6.6 million dollars would make to the United Kingdom contribution is evidence that we were guided not by an attempt to save every pound we could but by a desire to ensure that efficiency in economy and expenditure should be applied to the whole budget. The differences are very small indeed. I have the figures, if the right hon. Gentleman wants them.

We felt that a bigger proportion of the income should be spent on work in the field as against what one would call academic exercises and studies, to which no term can be set and which, in our opinion, promised no very practical results in the short term. The budget approved for next year was 6,600,000 dollars, and 70 per cent. of that—5 million dollars—is absorbed by headquarters expenditure, and only 1,600,000 dollars on work in the field. I know that, in addition to the regular budget of F.A.O., there is the Expanded Technical Assistance Programme, upon which we are particularly keen, and that amounts to 8 million dollars. Of that programme 82 per cent. represents work in the field.

What the United Kingdom delegation has tried to do is to stress the importance, both under the regular programme and under the Expanded Technical Assistance Programme, of the greatest possible proportion of expenditure being spent upon practical projects, such as locust control, irrigation, plant protection, animal disease eradication, fish breeding, the improvement of the genetic stocks of seed, milk and nutrition. That was the line we were plugging the whole way through the Conference.

I should like to tell the House, briefly, what happened. The Director-General asked for an increase of 1 million dollars—from 6 million to 7 million. During the first week of the Conference member countries expressed their views in a general way about the level of the budget, and the majority, including most of the undeveloped countries, were willing to accept the Director-General's suggestion of 7 million dollars. The United States started by explaining the difficulty it had in accepting more than 6,400,000, or possibly 6,500,000 dollars. The United Kingdom said that it thought that some such figure was the correct one, and suggested that the Technical Committee should look into the possibilities if the expenditure was fixed at about that figure.

Between ten and fifteen nations favoured a budget lower than the Director-General had suggested, among them Australia, Canada, Now Zealand and South Africa, in addition to the United States—the bigger proportion of the "giver" countries. In the event, there was a vote upon what provisional figure should be decided upon in the early days of the Conference as a basis for further study. Twenty-four nations voted for a budget of 6,600.000 dollars for 1956 and 6,800,000 for 1957, and 23 nations voted against. So opinion was very evenly divided.

Eventually, towards the end of the conference, the figures which I have just quoted were agreed upon, by general consent. So it would really seem that the United Kingdom's attitude was justified by the results. I would emphasise that, all along, we agreed to the necessity for an increase in the budget, but our whole energies were devoted to trying to ensure that that budget was considered as related to a series of practical projects which could be fitted within the rising budget.

The right hon. Gentleman commented upon the fact that the United Kingdom was not re-elected to the Executive Council. I should like to tell him, and the House, that I have made a very careful study of the circumstances, and that I have talked to several people about it, and I am satisfied that our attitude to the budget played a relatively small part in that event. I should like to give two reasons which, I think, were really instrumental in the occurrence of that result.

First, the method of voting this year was changed from what it had been in the past. Vacancies had hitherto been filled seat by seat; that is, when a member retired, his seat was filled, and the Conference then passed on to decide about the next seat; but on this occasion, the seat was "detached," as it were, from the retiring member, and all seats were made available for each regional group and put up as separate lists. That change was made with the declared object of having a wider effect given to the principle of rotation, and I might say that a large number of countries wanted that change-round. That clearly, I think, worked against us.

The second reason was that that at the Conference—and this was widely noted—more of a political attitude was adopted towards questions previously largely decided on technical grounds. That manifested itself by a certain impatience on the part of a number of the smaller and less well-developed countries with what they regarded, rightly or wrongly, as the preponderating influence which some of the larger countries exerted in the affairs of F.A.O.—even although those larger countries were naturally much larger subscribers.

I think that those are the two main reasons why the United Kingdom was not re-elected; but, after the election was over, there was something approaching consternation among most of the member countries with the result, which seemed to be deplored, and there was a wave of regret and apology to the United Kingdom which was almost embarrassing. Furthermore, at the end, the chief delegate, Sir Donald Vandepeer, was appointed chairman of an important ad hoc committee set up to improve the structure and functioning of the Council. Another delegate was elected to the Coordinating Committee, and others of the United Kingdom delegation were also appointed to different posts, so that, in the final result, there was certainly no apparent sign of a complete lack of confidence in the United Kingdom, as has been suggested in some quarters.

So far as elections to the Council go, the United Kingdom has never claimed any prescriptive right to representation on the Executive Council. We regret that we were not re-elected, especially since we are, and have been, the second biggest contributor, and since we have always played a full and active part in the affairs of the F.A.O. We shall continue to exert ourselves, and continue to play an active part in F.A.O., in which we believe. We shall continue to do our best to ensure that the activities and efforts of this cooperative organisation are devoted with the greatest possible efficiency to the promotion of practical projects in a field in which, I agree, there is an enormous amount of useful work to be done.

Adjourned accordingly at a quarter-past Eleven o'clock.