§ 10. Mr. Mackieasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will now consider allowing the importation of Charollais females into this country.
§ Mr. SoamesNo, Sir. I have nothing to add to the reply I gave the hon. Member on 6th November. 1961.
§ Mr. MackieCould the Minister give the House one valid reason why this particular breed has been singled out for so much attention and prohibition of breeding in this country? There are Danish Reds, Dutch Friesians, Landrace pigs, American Polled Shorthorns, Canadian Holsteins, Polled Ayrshires—practically the lot—brought to this country for breeding, why pick on Charollais? Can he give any valid reason for this, other than that of sheltering behind the Terrington Report which, as he knows, is completely out of date?
§ Mr. SoamesIf the hon. Member goes back over the centuries he will be able to find all sorts of breeds of cattle which have been imported to this country. I see no reason why he should say that the Terrington Report is out of date. I know his interest in this breed of cattle. He is anxious to get them established in this country. The Terrington Committee had been asked to look into the question of the importation of Charollais and advised us as a first move that we should import a number of bulls to see whether crossing them with our dairy cattle was likely to improve the standard of our dairy herds. This, I should have thought, would have pleased the hon. Member. What he is trying constantly to do is to jump beyond this and to say that before we have done this test we should straight away import females. As we have imported these bulls and they are in this country, we wish to see the result of this test before taking further decisions.
§ Mr. MackieThe right hon. Gentleman must have seen that the Secretary of State for Scotland was attacked from all sides by people who gave evidence 8 to the Terrington Committee. They did not want these cattle, but the moment the bulls came to this country they demanded that they should come to Scotland. So the evidence was not worth the paper it was written on.
§ Mr. SoamesThe fact that the Secretary of State was attacked by certain individuals does not lead me to the conclusion that the importation of Charollais bulls is out of date.