HC Deb 20 May 1958 vol 588 cc1247-53

11.15 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. J. B. Godber)

I beg to move, That the Pig Industry Development Authority Levy Scheme (Approval) Order, 1958, a copy of which was laid before this House on 30th April, be approved. The House will recall that provision for the creation of the Pig Industry Development Authority was made in Part III of the Agriculture Act of 1957. The Reorganisation Commission for Pigs and Bacon recommended that such an organisation should be set up. The functions to be undertaken by the Authority, which are specified in the Agriculture Act, can be summarised as the promotion of technical developments in the production, processing and marketing of pigs and of pig meat. The Authority has been set up and the need for it to get ahead with this task is fully recognised in the industry. To do this needs money, and the purpose of this Order is to provide the Authority with the means of obtaining it.

The Reorganisation Commission recommended, and the Agriculture Act provided, that the Authority's funds should be raised by a levy on the industry. The Authority has been created to serve the whole industry, and it can be argued that, in fairness, contributions towards the cost of the Authority's work ought to be made by all sections of the industry. In seeking a practicable scheme, however, the Authority was faced with three main problems.

The first is that the industry is a very complex one, and that to collect equitable shares from all the producers, dealers, processers and others concerned

Committee report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow.

in it would be a formidable task. The second is that until it has an income, the Authority cannot set up an organisation which would be necessary to negotiate and implement any complicated scheme. Thirdly, and perhaps most important, any such negotiation would inevitably take a long time and would seriously delay the Authority in getting on with its job.

The Scheme set out in the Order has the special virtue of being simple in its essential features and in its administration. If the Order is duly approved, the Authority will start to accumulate income at the beginning of next month. The Scheme provides for a charge to be payable to the Authority by every person who presents a pig for certification under the Fatstock Guarantee Scheme—in other words, every person who is eligible to receive a payment under the price guarantee arrangements for pigs. This person may be the man who actually reared the pig, or he may be somebody else—for example, a butcher or the Fatstock Marketing Corporation—who has bought the pig at a price including the amount of the guarantee payment which will be made on the pig.

With the number of pigs on which guarantee payments are now being made, the proposed rates of charge would give the Authority about £470,000 a year. This is rather less than the Reorganisation Commission thought would be necessary for the discharge of all the functions which it recommended the Authority should undertake. But the Authority considers that income at this rate will be sufficient for the first year or two of its existence, and I have no reason to dispute its assessment. It may be that more money will be required as the Authority extends its activities, and I know that it intends to examine the possibility of alternative methods of collection for possible adoption at a later stage.

The amount, therefore, is 2d. a score, of which the share will be 1d. a score paid by the producer and by the processor. That is the rough way in which it it is shared, and I think that is a reasonable basis on which the Scheme should start. Some may think that in the light of what was said by the Reorganisation Commission these figures should be increased, but I think it is important that the scheme should start on a sound basis and that it should be introduced at an early date.

If there are any points which arise from what I have said, I shall be happy to deal with them.

11.21 p.m.

Mr. A. J. Champion (Derbyshire, South-East)

On this side of the House, while not thinking for one moment that the Act of 1947, particularly the Sections dealing with this industry, will provide—[HON. MEMBERS: "The Act of 1957."] I beg hon. Members' pardon. I have got the Act of 1947 so much on my mind as a result of discussions that we have been having on a Bill in Standing Committee, that I find it difficult to remember that we had an Act of 1957 under which this Order is made.

As I say, we do not regard the Act of 1957 as providing the final answers to all the problems of this industry. We recognise that this Authority may be able to do some useful work, and we do not propose to oppose this Order, which may give some satisfaction to those who are now waiting to go home.

We recognise that to carry out the functions under the 1957 Act it is necessary that we should pass this Order and give the Authority the money with which to do the tasks which have been laid upon it. I must say that I have some doubts about the amount which the Joint Parliamentary Secretary mentioned. It seems to me that £470,000 in the first few years is not enough to perform a task which has to be urgently tackled, as this has to be.

I want to know whether the Parliamentary Secretary has consulted the Authority and is able to assure us that this will be enough for the Authority to enable it to get down immediately to what I regard as one of the biggest tasks facing it, namely, large-scale progeny testing. This is one of the first things that must be tackled, and it should be done on a fairly large scale for it to be of benefit to the industry within the immediate foreseeable future. It is a function which, if properly and urgently done, can lead to early results in the industry, and I urge the Parliamentary Secretary to assure himself that the Authority is getting enough money to enable it to get on with this function, and if not, to come back soon with another Order.

I am wondering, too, whether this is an adequate amount to enable the Authority to do something about the marketing and distribution of pig products, one of the items mentioned in the Third Schedule to the Act of 1957, which is of tremendous importance. The sooner this is tackled by the Authority the better it will be for the industry.

I should like the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to say how the Authority will avoid overlapping in the spending of moneys from the £470,000 in research. Has the Authority assured him that there will not be any overlapping with the research already being undertaken under the auspices of the Agricultural Research Service? Clearly, we do not want to waste any money on either side. We do not want to waste the money of those engaged in the pig industry and, certainly, we do not want to waste the taxpayers' money by overlapping with the Agricultural Research Service, which is also doing something about research into the pig industry.

Another question that I should like to ask is whether the money that we are now authorising will be sufficient to enable the Authority to apply the results of more fundamental research which is being undertaken elsewhere. In the business of agricultural research, it seems to me that we are extraordinarily good, as we are in some other directions, in pure and fundamental research, but are lacking in the technological side in the application of the results of fundamental research. Obviously, I cannot go into this deeply, but I should like to know what the Authority will do, and do fairly soon, with this money that we are granting to it in connection with the application of research to the industry that we are considering tonight.

It is neither the time nor the occasion to go deeply into this aspect tonight, but the Select Committee on Estimates, in 1954, said that agricultural research was the result not of conscious policy, but of historical accident. What I am asking is whether by the granting to this Authority of power to raise money we are not adding another accident to agricultural research. Has this been properly thought out? Will the research that is conducted by the Authority fit into that conducted by the Agricultural Research Service?

I have read the Schedule, but I must admit that I do not pretend to understand the machinery for collection which it provides. That is nothing new to me in reading Orders and Schedules of this nature. In fact, that is my feeling about most of the Bills which I have to try to understand and assimilate. I hope that somebody understands them. By his explanation tonight, the Joint Parliamentary Secretary must have had an inkling of the meaning. Unless we have someone who understands it, there will be an unholy mess somewhere along the line of collection.

We on this side do not have much to say at this stage. We argued the matter fully when discussing the Bill which became the 1957 Act. We agree to give the Authority the money for the task which it has to perform and we wish it well in performing it.

11.28 p.m.

Mr. Godber

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South-East (Mr. Champion) for the way in which he has approached the Order. I believe that I understand how it works. It is, in fact, relatively simple, so much so that I am sure the hon. Member need not be so modest.

Briefly, the deduction will be made from the deficiency payment on the pigs at the rate of 2d. a score deadweight. That deduction will be made by my Ministry and be forwarded to P.I.D.A. That, however, will mean 2d. a score deadweight being deducted from the producer. To balance that, an additional 1d. will be added on to the price which the producer receives from the purchaser. So the producer will have 2d. knocked off and then receive an extra 1d. In fact, in the end he will have paid 1d. and the processer, or whoever buys the pig, will have paid the other 1d. That is really almost as simple as it could be, and the Schedule, I hope, makes it even simpler than my explanation.

The hon. Gentleman asked me particularly about progeny testing. The Authority is taking over the work of progeny testing which was started by my Ministry, and it estimates that its expenditure on existing work which it is taking over on progeny testing, pig recording, and premium grants, will amount to about £186,000—a considerable sum of money. This follows the expansion which my Ministry had initiated before P.I.D.A. was set up. This is a useful stage in the process, though I agree with the hon. Gentleman that there may well be justification for expanding. We should not belittle the work which is already being done, and I am sure he did not wish to do so.

There is, clearly, still scope for increases, and, as and when the occasion arises, there may be a case for increasing the levy. At the present time, however, on the estimates which the Authority has, it has available for additional functions it is planning to carry out—according to the budget it has prepared and on the rates proposed—another £180,000 or so for expansion in various directions. I think that it is adequate for the initial stages of the Scheme.

The hon. Gentleman referred to marketing and distribution, relating his remarks to the Third Schedule to the Act. He said that it seemed a little ambiguous, but I am sure that the hon. Gentleman realises that the Authority will not itself take part in marketing and distribution.

Mr. Champion

In research.

Mr. Godber

Research into those problems, certainly, yes; but if it were to go into marketing and distribution, it would need far larger sums. It certainly will go, as the hon. Gentleman rightly suggests, into research in that very important subject.

As to overlapping with existing research services, I am confident that that will not take place. There is the closest possible liaison in these matters. The Authority has not yet taken over any of the actual physical research work going on, and it will keep in the closest touch with the A.R.C. in relation to the fundamental research which the hon. Gentleman referred to, and it is very important that it should. I think it right that the A.R.C. should continue in its fundamental research work but that P.I.D.A. should be very closely in touch. We shall certainly take heed of the hon. Gentleman's wise words in saying that there should be no overlapping.

I have sought to answer the points which the hon. Gentleman made. I am grateful to him for the welcome he gave to the Scheme. I believe that it is largely welcomed by those concerned in the industry, who all realise that a great deal of work has to be done. I hope the House is willing to approve the Scheme.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved, That the Pig Industry Development Authority Levy Scheme (Approval) Order, 1958, a copy of which was laid before this House on 30th April, be approved.