HC Deb 05 May 1959 vol 605 cc357-66

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now Adjourn.—[Mr. Brooman-White.]

10.22 p.m.

Mr. John MacLeod (Ross and Cromarty)

I am glad to be able to raise this evening the case of a constituent of mine who has been refused a grant under the Crofters Building Grants (Scotland) Regulations, 1956, for the sole reason, as far as I can see, that he is considered to be an incomer of professional status. By the refusal of this grant, I think the Government are defeating their own policy with regard to the Highlands.

I should first of all like to give a short résuméof the history of this case. Mr. G. W. Ginn, now a crofter at 48, Lone-lunar, Strath, Gairloch, when he had a post at Woolwich, read an address given by Sir Robert Urquhart shortly after he became Chairman of the Crofters Commission. As a result, Mr. Ginn gave up his post and decided to return to the Highlands. I used the word "return" deliberately, as his wife was a native of Ullapool, a nearby township to Gairloch, and Mr. Ginn's forebears left that area for Canada, Mr. Ginn himself having been born there.

Incidentally, a week or so ago, I visited Mr. Ginn, and I was rather moved to see on old "kist" in his house which had been taken over to Canada by his forbears and brought back again to the West Coast of Scotland by Mr. Ginn, together with sonic blankets which had been woven in that region in the last century, which Mr. Ginn had brought back with him and was using again on the west coast.

Naturally, he felt that he was no incomer, but that he was returning to his home again when he obtained a croft in that region in 1957. After all, this was one of the objects of the Crofters Commission being set up—to try to encourage people to go to live again in these depopulated areas. In August, 1957, he applied for a grant to enable him to build a steading and make improvements to the house and the craft. In the spring of 1958, after much correspondence, he again applied to the De partment of Agriculture, which was administering this matter, and was told that the delay in reaching a decision was due to a reorganisation which was taking place in the region, which of course is one of the objects of the Crofters Commission being set up. He was told that this scheme was being discussed for the Strath area and that the matter was being discussed between the Crofters Commission and the Department of Agriculture.

He wrote to me for the first time in July, 1958, since when I have been corresponding with the Scottish Office and the Crofters Commission, with very little effect. In the same month I was told by the Commission that Mr. Ginn was assigned the tenancy of this croft — and this is important—on 24th June, 1957, the Commission granting its consent under Section 8 of the Crofters (Scotland) Act, and that Mr. Ginn had applied to the Department of Agriculture for grant assistance as the Building Grants and Loans Scheme was administered by the Department of Agriculture.

In August, 1958, the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the noble Lord who is to reply this evening, acknowledged that the Secretary of State was empowered under Section 22 (2) of the Crofters (Scotland) Act, 1955, to give assistance by way of grant and loan to crofters for the erection or improvement of buildings and steadings such as Mr. Ginn was seeking.

Here I should like to quote a letter which I received from the Joint Under-Secretary of State. Having pointed out that the Secretary of State had the power, he said: The Taylor Commission, however, recommended that these grants should be made only to bona fide crofters—i.e., crofters making their full-time livelihood from crofting or partly from crafting and partly from one of the recognised ancillary occupations to crofting. As Mr. Ginn is employed at Auchtercairn school, Garloch, and his interest in crofting is incidental to his main occupation, it was considered that in the light of the Taylor Commission's recommendations it would not he justifiable to offer assistance to him. Ever since then I have been arguing this point with the Joint Under-Secretary of State. In a subsequent letter the Joint Under-Secretary stated that Mr. Ginn was not a bona fide crofter. I consider that he is a bona fide crofter and just as eligible for a grant as other part-time crofters who are recognised as bona fide crofters. In his letter the Secretary of State quoted the Taylor Commission's Report, paragraph 205. I need not read this paragraph, as the Joint Under-Secretary of State has already used it in his letter to me, but I should like him to look at paragraph 97 of the Taylor Commission's Report which reads: We recognise in the great majority of cases auxiliary employment will have to be obtained outside the croft … Anyone who knows crofting conditions fully realises that this is correct. One could put five, six or ten crofts together in poor agricultural land on the West coast and yet not obtain a suitable living purely out of agriculture on that croft.

Paragraph 97 of the Taylor Report also states: At the present time the main forms of employment, apart from agriculture, are road maintenance, the postal service, afforestation. hydro-electric development… Many of these indeed provide whole time occupation… This is the point I want to make. Paragraph 97 continues: …it is an advantage to the crofting communities to have a variety of employments which provide some diversity in the structure of the community ". Apart from these arguments, under the Crofters Act a person cannot be given a croft unless he signs an agreement that he will work it agriculturally. Not only has Mr. Ginn guaranteed to do this, but as the science master in the local school where he is teaching, which is a short distance away from his croft, he has started a crofters' club. With models, he is teaching the practical application of crofting, land reclamation and general crofting life. There is a model in his school in which he shows drainage and a model Tank where sheep are collected. He is also anxious to encourage his pupils in the school to come to see the developments that are taking place in his croft.

Could there be any more practical illustration than this of the type of education that we want to encourage in the crofting counties, where pupils are taught the practical things in their own environment? For many years, we have said that too many pupils in these schools are taught to go away; they are taught the academic things and then go away to live in the South. Here is a man who is willing to give practical education to the pupils and to develop it by showing them what is going on in the croft beside his school. Incidentally, Mr. Ginn has a boy of his own aged 15 who is interested in agriculture.

Mr. Ginn could have bought a house in the locality, because some houses came on to the market, but he was anxious to have a house that had some land with it and to put cattle on it and give his pupils this practical education. He was anxious to remain in the area.

Paragraph 76 of the Annual Report of the Crofters Commission for 1958, just published, points out that There is general concern at the shortage of men of professional status in certain parts of the Highlands and Islands. It cites examples in Shetland and in the Western Isles.

Paragraph 77 points out that crofting houses are available and that, naturally, people coming in would have to be willing to work the land properly, as Mr. Ginn is prepared to do. Paragraph 78 states that The cost of adapting the croft house and, where necessary, repairing the buildings— which is what Mr. Ginn wants to do— can be a serious item. This is a recommendation by the Crofters Commission, set up by the Government. It states: We deem it to be highly desirable, on all grounds, that such new recruits to crofting should be able to take advantage of all the benefits available for crofters, including building loans and grants under the scheme administered by the Department of Agriculture. That is what I am demanding Mr. Ginn should get.

The Crofters Commission goes on to say: We have therefore noted with some concern recent refusals by the Department to authorise assistance in a number of such cases because the persons concerned, being incomers of professional status, were not regarded as bona fide crofters. Surely, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, you will agree with me that the Government are defeating their own policy here. Here is not an incomer, as the Under-Secretary has said in his letter to me, but a man with his wife and his family returning virtually from exile to stimulate new life and ideas in the crofting area. This is the type of man we want to see in these areas.

It is very aggravating that he should not be able to get a grant such as people in other walks of life—postmen, road-men, who are working all day in those jobs—can get. I plead with my noble Friend the Under-Secretary to reconsider this case. If he does not do so, he will not be encouraging people to come back into the Highlands, which was one of the objects—and certainly one of the reasons why I supported the proposal—of setting up the Crofters Commission.

10.36 p.m.

Mr. Malcolm MacMillan (Western Isles)

I rise to give a wide measure of support to the appeal made by the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. John MacLeod)--my almost territorial neighbour in the North-West. Although our constituencies are separated by quite a number of miles of sea, conditions in the Western Isles are broadly the same as those in the croft lands of West Cromarty. I have been a little alarmed in recent months, not only by the Department's policy but by the Commission's own decisions in certain cases relating to the assignation of crofts and the granting or non-granting of loans and grants for the purpose of building croft houses and steadings.

I will say that, hitherto, the Commission has approached its very difficult problems very intelligently, and with a very sensitive regard to the traditional way of life in the Highlands and Islands, and I am sure that it has been determined not to upset the normal relationships between the crofters and their neighbours. In assigning crofts, for example, it has intruded very little into the arrangements and negotiations between the outgoing tenants and the assignees. As I say, one can only say that the Commission has hitherto acted very intelligently, and nobody has been conscious of undue influence.

There is, of course, a broad public interest in good husbandry, and the suitability of tenants going into crofts. We are all interested in that, but that is provided for in various ways—and not only by the most recent Act of 1955 but in legislation over many years. Good husbandry has always been a question of enforcement, sanctions and, if necessary, of eviction. There is nothing new in that. crofters have accepted quite a number of restrictions upon their private lives, as it were, as citizens —restrictions that other classes of the agricultural community would simply not have accepted.

For example, the crofter must live on the croft or within two miles of it. One can be a farmer and have a very extensive acreage one can have as many as five, six or even ten farms and not need to live on any one of them, or within two miles of any one of them. One can live on the other side of the Atlantic or be a London stockbroker. The only test for farmers is whether they have the money available for the purchase of the farm, though it may be deplorable that there is not a better test than that.

The crofter is different. Various people can raise objections to the incoming tenant. The landlord can object. The Crofters Commission can say whether or not, in the case of an assignation, it considers the proposed transaction is a bona fide crofting one.

Now we get this curiously contradictory policy about which the hon. Member has been talking tonight. On the one hand we are encouraging people of crofter stock, and others of new blood as well, to go to the Highlands or back to the Highlands to repopulate and bring population into the Highlands. On the other hand, people who are willing to cultivate the land, to guarantee good husbandry and develop the land, to bring in their families to repopulate the villages and to bring in professional and skilled capacity alongside crofting are being turned down or rejected.

We have to be most careful about this. There have been many cases in my constituency recently of what have seemed to me to be highly suitable tenants having proposed assignations rejected by the Crofters Commission and the outgoing tenants being told that "So-and-so is not suitable" and that it is not a bona fide crofting transaction.

In many cases that is all the explanation that is given to the outgoing tenant assigning the croft. At times, the language is highly objectionable. Some of my constituents have had letters to say, "We do not regard this as a bona fide crofting transaction." That appears to smell of all sorts of corruption and curious things going on behind the scenes. I have advised the Commission to be more careful about its language and I have said that it should send an explanation of what it means in these cases.

At the same time, I have known the Commission and the Department do some very odd things. For example, there has been case after case of the Commission agreeing to an assignation of a croft and then, when the new tenant has been fully accepted and has then asked for a grant and loan, for which he has every right to ask, he has been refused.

Why in the name of goodness does the Commission allow things to go as far as that and then stop the man equipping the croft, at the same time leaving him open to the criticism that he is not practising good husbandry—because one cannot practise good husbandry unless one has properly equipped the croft and lives on it or within two miles of it.

I know of a woman who inherited a second croft, or who had it assigned to her through the death of a relative. She wanted to pass the second croft to her son, but because he was engaged in another occupation in another locality, he was not granted a loan and the assignation was prevented. Such cases run counter to what we expected from the Crofters Commission and in many cases run counter to public policy as expressed very ably by the Commission itself and by various Government spokesmen at different times.

In correspondence, the noble Lord has quoted the Taylor Commission in support of his Department. The Taylor Commission drew attention to the fact that in one area there were a number of people who were prosperous merchants, by local standards, who bought crofts and who got grants and loans which they did not need on any financial means test and who were able to build elaborate establishments and practise good husbandry. That was not prevented and no questions were asked about that.

The Taylor Commission criticised the Crofters Commission for permitting that with these people, whose main livelihood was not crofting and who were very well able to manage without any support from the taxpayer and who were able to assign crofts at a profit even after the Crofters Commission came into being.

There is something very contradictory about that. The Taylor Commission's recommendations are being used against small people, while comfortably off, if not wealthy, people are enabled to get a grant and a loan from the taxpayer and are then able to sell the property, thus making a profit from public assistance.

It is time that the Secretary of State investigated the activities of both the Crofters Commission and his Department in relation to these assignations and the applications which naturally follow upon them for grants and loans for the building of houses and steadings, because the Commission wants to see the crofts equipped in the interests of good husbandry and good citizenship. I have no doubt that the time has come for an inquiry and that is why I support the hon. Member and hope that we shall have a full inquiry into this case as one among many which demand an investigation, by the Government if necessary.

10.45 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Lord John Hope)

It is perfectly true that until the Crofters Building Grants (Scotland) Regulations, 1956, brought into effect the revised provisions of the Crofters (Scotland) Act, 1955, building grants and loans were given in many cases to persons of professional and business status whose interest in crofting could not be said to be other than incidental and marginal. There is no doubt that, whatever the incidental factors involved in such cases, the essential interest in the croft was one of housing rather than of crofting agriculture.

The conclusion of the Taylor Commission, which my hon. Friend the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. John MacLeod) and the hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Malcolm MacMillan) mentioned, when it came to consider the situation was unequivocal on this point. In paragraph 205 of its Report the Taylor Commission said: It is possible for the holders of these plots, with the aid of grants or loans from the Department of Agriculture to build a house costing £1,500-£2,000 "— for which there would be a grant of up to £650— and to live there rate free, grazing one or two sheep, and to carry on their business in Stornoway. That is an example of the sort of thing which, in fairness to the taxpayer and to the bona fide crofter, should be considered.

In reaching its conclusions, the Taylor Commission had in mind the exclusion of the type of person whose primary occupational interest clearly lay outside crafting—

Mr. John MacLeod

Not according to paragraph 97.

Lord John Hope: That does not conflict with paragraph 205. Paragraph 97 talks about auxiliary employment to be obtained by the crofters outside crofting. That is the essential difference between the two.

It is in the light of that clear recommendation of the Taylor Commission and the principle it establishes that, with the passing of the Crofters (Scotland) Act and the 1956 Building Grants Regulations, applications from these people of professional or business status have been considered. Of course, there cannot always be very sharp, well-defined dividing lines because the types of case presenting themselves are naturally varied, but I want to give my hon. Friend an assurance that, in the consideration of these applications, if there are any circumstances which would indicate a bona fide crofting interest, even though limited, we try very hard to swing the thing in favour of the applicant.

My hon. Friend mentioned certain other forms of ancillary employment which are referred to in the Report. I want to point out to him that the essential difference between those means of livelihood which are either part-time or liable to fluctuate is that they are in quite a different category from the vocation pursued by his constituent, Mr. Ginn, who is a schoolmaster. My hon. Friend pleaded the case of Mr. Ginn with great force and eloquence. Of course, one would like very much to help in these cases, but I must make absolutely clear that Mr. Ginn, who is a regular schoolmaster, could not be classed in the circumstances as a bona fide crofter and be entitled to a house on these very, very preferential terms given by the Government.

I am saying nothing at all against Mr. Ginn, whose story my hon. Friend has told us. He has settled there and I have no doubt he is a great influence for good in the community. He is a full-time teacher, but the fact is that there is that dividing line between Mr. Ginn's occupation and what he is doing as a sideline as a crofter. Suppose at any time he were to leave the area—he may not, but suppose he did—and accepted appointment as a teacher, with perhaps a better job somewhere else. Then his landlord would be liable to pay compensation as he would be if an ordinary crofter were going. That is a consideration which in fairness we have to take into account.

Mr. Malcolm MacMillan

How does the noble Lord reconcile that with the action of the Crofters Commission in permitting people who have built, with the aid of a grant and loan, to assign the croft at a profit?

Lord John Hope: Naturally, I should need to have specific cases to argue that with the hon. Member, but in the context of the assignation of crofts, Mr. Ginn, of course, and anybody else in that position can claim and obtain, as no doubt he does, grants for the purely agricultural side of what he is doing. He is not debarred from the help which crofters get qua crofting. It is in connection with the housing difficulty that it has been decided that Mr. Ginn has not a case—

Mr. John MacLeod

He has to live somewhere.

Lord John Hope

Of course he has to live somewhere, but we have to bear in mind the crofters who want crofts and who intend to make crofting their occupation. Whatever the Commission may say, it would be a pity if we got into a state where somebody who wanted to do crofting was being debarred from obtaining a croft because somebody who was not a crofter was doing it in his spare time. It is not easy—

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at eight minutes to Eleven o'clock.