Clause 2.—(APPOINTMENT OF PANELS.) (Hansard, 29 April 1959)

§ Lord John Hope
I beg to move, in page 2, line 19, to leave out from the beginning to "may" and to insert: five persons, being a chairman and four other members, two of whom shall, in the 1305 opinion of the Commission, be representative of the interests mentioned in heads (b) and (c), and two of the interests in heads (d) and (e) of subsection (4) of the last foregoing section, and of any such panel as aforesaid three shall be a quorum. (2) The Commission". The effect of this Amendment, and the one following it, leave out lines 23 to 27 —which, again, have been put down in response to requests from both sides of the Committee—is to alter the membership of a panel from a minimum of three to the fixed number of five, to provide for the appointment of a chairman for each panel, to secure that the four other members are drawn equally from the landowning and sporting interests on the one hand and the farming and crofting interests on the other, and to fix a quorum of three. I very much hope that, again, the Committee will agree that this is right.

§ Mr. T. Fraser
Though it was right to increase the number serving on a panel from three to five. I hope that hon. Members will agree that, in the first place, it is wrong to have a Commission that is evenly balanced. It is wrong, also, that a panel should be equally balanced, as the Joint Under-Secretary has made clear it will be, as between the landowning and sporting interests on the one hand and the agricultural and crofting interests on the other.
The Government seem determined that, first, the Commission, and now a panel. will never be able to do anything because there will be an equal weight of opinion between the sporting interests, the agricultural interests— and, perhaps, the forestry interests. That is to say, the voices of those who want to conserve deer in the interests of sport will always be at least equal in number to the voices of those who want to see better use made of land in Scotland.
The committee on whose recommendations this Bill was based said that it wanted the Commission to have the power to exterminate colonised deer on land which the Commission recognised as being agricultural, and wanted it to be able to decide whether or not land was agricultural. The Government have rejected all such propositions that have conic from this side, and it is very much to be regretted. They have rejected the proposition that the Commission, and the 1306 panels, should exercise discretion as to which land should be used for agriculture and which for sport.
I think that the panels will deal, in the main, with the marauding deer—the deer that have clearly been seen to come from the proper deer forest areas and to be consuming the crops of farmers and crofters. Those animals will also be consuming the young trees publicly owned by the Forestry Commission—and it must be remembered that in recent times the Forestry Commission has spent a fortune of the taxpayers' money, as the Secretary of State himself told me in a letter that I received from him the other week. The panels should he protecting our trees from the damage done by the marauding deer.
What the Government are doing now is to make quite certain that for every voice of those people on the panels. who may want to take steps against marauding deer—the people with an interest in afforestation, or the crofters whose crops are being eaten—there will be at least one voice in support of the landowning and sporting interests. Yet the Joint Under-Secretary really went so far as to offer this Amendment to us as a good thing, and something that ought to be accepted.
We think that the whole conception is wrong. There should have been a Commission composed of people who would have applied their energies single-mindedly to dealing with the damage done by red deer; and would have undertaken the work of conservation where conservation is desirable. They should have been assisted by panels, equally single-minded in their approach to their statutory work.
The Government, however, have decided that there must be this balance of interest all along the line, with the chairman exercising his casting vote after listening to the arguments in favour of reducing the numbers of deer or exterminating the deer and to the arguments of those in favour of preserving the deer in the interests of the so-called sportsmen. I use the word "so-called "advisedly, because I do not think that the person who conserves these animals just for the joy of going out and killing them is a sportsman at all. As I say, the chairman will have to listen to the two opposing arguments, and finally make up his mind.
1307 I would rather see the panels manned by people who would apply themselves a little more single-mindedly and objectively to the tasks that lie ahead.

§ Major Sir William Anstruther-Gray (Berwick and East Lothian)
I do not think that the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) does full justice to the composition of these panels. I think that we can rely on the five persons appointed to take a general view and, although their backgrounds may be to one side or the other, we can rely on them to give fair justice. The chairman of the panel, as I understand, is to be a man who is not committed to either side.
I do not think that the hon. Member for Hamilton was correct in suggesting that while two of the members would be representing agriculture and the crofters, the other two members would be representing the sporting interest. As I read the Clause, two of the members will represent (d) and (e), and (d) and (e) are farmers and crofters and crofters and hill sheep farmers. The other two members are to represent (b) and (c) although it is the fact that (c) represents the sporting interests in deer and the representatives of (b) are drawn from nominees of such organisations as appear to the Secretary of State to represent the interests of owners of land used for agriculture and forestry.
If the hon. Member is thinking there are a number of members of that body who are infinitely keener on agriculture and afforestation than they are on sport, and in particular on sport concerned with dear—

§ Mr. T. Fraser
Did not the hon. and gallant Member listen to what the noble Lord said? In commending the Amendment to the House the noble Lord made it clear that by providing for two of the members of the panel to come under (b) and (c), and two to come under (d) and (e), he was providing a proper balance of the conflicting interests. It was the Joint Under-Secretary of State who made the point.

§ Sir W. Anstruther-Gray
I am basing my argument on the Bill and what is contained in the Amendment we are discussing. As I understood my noble Friend, he meant to ensure that all 1308 interests were represented. The hon. Member is not correct in saying that there will be two representatives for the sportsmen against two representatives for agriculture, because of the two that he is regarding as representing sportsmen he will find one who is every bit as much interested in agriculture and forestry as in sporting interests.

§ Mr. Willis
I want to thank the Joint Under-Secretary for at least having increased the numbers. At the same time, I would like to protest against the composition of the Commission and the panels. There are 20,000 crofters in the Highlands and there is no guarantee that there will be a crofter on any of these panels.
The Clause that has been moved provides that there will be two representatives of the interests mentioned under heads (b) and (c). As I read it, they both seem to be representing sporting interests. Of the two representing the interests of (d) and (e), both may be large farmers, or one may be a large farmer and the other a large hill sheep farmer.
This is really an astonishing performance on the part of the Government —the manner in which they have dodged around to ensure that the vested interests attached to this business of deer are protected. The Government have gone to enormous lengths to see that no steps are taken that will annoy the deer. I do not know why they have done this, but I have a shrewd suspicion that this is traditionally the correct position for the Government to take. We cannot allow the Government to do this without drawing attention to that fact, and I should have liked to have seen the noble Lord at least guaranteeing that on these panels there would be a crofter in crofting areas.
We seem to be ignoring the section of the population that is most numerous, and, incidentally, the section which suffers the greatest damage, because we are here dealing with people with very small acreages, where any damage at all is very serious. We are not dealing with people with large acreages who can afford a certain amount of damage, but with people who can afford to suffer no damage at all. I deplore this attitude and it is right that we should protest, though, at the same time, we can do nothing further at this stage of the Bill.

§ Mr. Maclay
I cannot let what the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) said go without some comment. The hon. Member must accept that people will be reasonable, and if there is a part of the country where there is a predominant Interest the panel will consider whether it should be a farmer or crofter who comes on to the panel.
The other point is the charge about the interests of only one section of the community being considered. This is nonsense. If one looked at this in the context of the Bill, one would find that we have set out to get the best balance and see that every section has its proper representation and that all the interests of the Highlands are looked after. I cannot accept what the hon. Member said.