§ Question again proposed, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
§ Mr. HoyWhat is resented by the people of Scotland, by the drift-net fishermen, whatever the rights and wrongs of the case, is that apparently 948 people come to judgment without any inquiry. They resent the frequent ill-usage of our language in suggesting that they are guilty before their trial has taken place. We must get rid of that outlook if the committee which has been appointed by the Secretary of State is to inquire into the matter without prejudice.
The Bill is a little unusual in another respect, which, I am sure, the House will have noticed. This is the first Bill that we have had for a long time that the Government have got without a Guillotine. This must be proof that there was great co-operation upstairs in getting the Bill through. The Minister will agree that, while it may have been discussed sometimes at length, it is as a result of that discussion that we have the Bill as it now is.
I question very much whether the Bill will strengthen the fishing industry in the way that the Minister has suggested. There is no doubt that it will be helpful, but I said on Second Reading that I doubted whether at the end of ten years the industry would be able to stand on its own feet. All the signs are that the middle water fleet is undergoing an extremely difficult time. If my information is correct, not only the Scottish middle water fleet, but the English fleet, is making considerable losses amounting to many thousands of pounds.
We shall look forward to the result of the joint meetings to be held, I understand, with the Scottish Office on Friday first, when the middle water fleet owners of Granton, Newhaven and Aberdeen meet the Scottish Office to discuss the problem. In the following week, the middle water fleet is meeting the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to discuss its problems. Perhaps, therefore, events already have outrun what we are doing under the Bill. It would be a great blow if any considerable section of the middle water fleet was lost to us. We will look with great interest on the outcome of those meetings to see whether anything can be done to aid this section of our fishing fleet.
I agree with the Minister that one of the answers is conservation. We simply cannot take out of the sea what is not in it. If over-fishing continues for ever, there will be the inevitable result that it makes for greater difficulty, catches are 949 impossible and people cannot earn their livelihood. That is why, when we complain, we do so in no carping spirit.
The Minister tells us tonight, however, that it is hoped that the 1959 Convention will be ratified this year—1962—and that three countries still have not ratified it. This appalling slowness in dealing with problems of this kind frightens us. We only wish that not only Britain, but every country interested in the Convention, would realise the urgency and importance of conservation, not only to themselves, but to the whole of Europe.
I hope that once the Convention is ratified, it will be found possible to carry out its provisions, because the complaint has been made on many occasions by our fishermen, and I am sure that it is repeated in other countries, that certain signatories to the Convention, or fishermen of certain countries, do not implement agreements and frequently fish unfairly with a mesh that is forbidden to them under the conventions. If we are to have conventions, we must also take powers to ensure that their provisions are carried out. It is important from all points of view that this should be done.
We have one small regret in connection with the Bill. Provision has been made to aid and sustain the whole of the white fish industry, but we regret that the Minister did not find it possible to make that small sum available for those interested in the shellfish industry. This would have involved, perhaps, an expenditure of £50,000. This was the maximum at which it could be put. We did not ask the Minister to bind himself to spending that sum. We asked him merely to take power to do it if it were found to be necessary.
The Minister disappointed the whole House by not accepting our small Amendment. We tabled it in Committee, but, unfortunately, by one of those little quirks of our procedural arrangements the Amendment was not in order. I am certain that if it had been discussed in Committee we should have defeated the Government. Indeed, if those hon. Members who voted against the Amendment had been in the House to listen to the arguments, we should have won here. It is a matter of regret that the small but important industry did not have this sustenance. I regret it 950 and I am certain that almost the whole House does.
I want to say a few words on drift netting. We look forward to the report of the Committee which has been set up. We are grateful to the Minister for providing for it to be dealt with by affirmative Resolution so that we shall be able to discuss whatever he places before the House.
Certain parts of the industry have gone through a very difficult time. I do not think that the distant water fleet has experienced the same difficulties as other sections, such as the middle, inshore and near shore fleets. I hope that the Bill will help them to get over their difficulties. The people engaged in the industry, whether they are owners or employees, have made a great contribution to our national life and our food supply. I can only hope that as a result of this Measure they will continue to do so.
§ 10.8 p.m.
§ Mr. G. R. Howard (St. Ives)I want to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Hoy) in his plea to the Government on the subject of shell fishing. Before doing that, however, I want to reinforce what he said about conservation. I agree that it seems to take a very long time for people to ratify agreements. It seems to be one of our national characteristics that we place impositions upon our own people whilst allowing others to get away with it.
There is, for instance, the question of the fishery limits. In my area Frenchmen come in and catch lobsters, even berried lobsters. Our own fishermen suffer as a result. There is also the question of the size of mesh. We shall not get any answer to this question until there is proper policing and adequate fines are imposed on those who contravene the regulations.
The case that I want to make now, and which I would have made in Committee had I not been prevented from doing so by an unfortunate accident, is one that I have made for seven years or more. I am told now that in Ministerial consultations the argument that this is a luxury fish has been given up—we have spoken year after year about the enormous imports of Russian tinned crab—but I would impress on my right 951 hon. Friend that, somewhere, someone has the figures wrong, and that if he thinks that the average fisherman, especially in my part of the country, is doing well, his information is quite wrong.
Many of these men are not making a great deal of money, but are faced with exactly the same costs as are those who are catching white fish, for they get a subsidy. I will not weary the House with the case of which I have spoken again and again, of men getting the subsidy for catching sole, turbot, plaice, and so on, while these other fishermen are denied it.
As many of us know perfectly well, it is very easy to make out a case about the big companies, and groups like the Ross Group, being assisted. We know perfectly well that those companies are probably making their profits on other sections of the business. But let any hon. Member try to persuade a shell fisherman in my area that he is not entitled to a subsidy and he will be told by that man, who sees the advertising of firms like the Ross Group and the enormous extent of such businesses, "Those men get the subsidy, and I don't." That is something—
§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir William Anstruther-Gray)I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member, but on Third Reading he may only discuss what is in the Bill.
§ Mr. HowardI am sorry, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Perhaps I dwelt too long on what is not in the Bill, but ought to be.
Be that as it may, I hope that my right hon. Friend—and I have written to him on this subject—will continue to consider these people, because they are an integral part of the fishing industry. They are essential if we are to keep the industry going, which, I believe, is the Bill's sole purpose. I hope that my right hon. Friend will reconsider this matter in the future, and will not take a doctrinaire view about these unfortunate men who are excluded at this time.
§ 10.14 p.m.
§ Mr. JegerI should like, first, to welcome back the hon. Member for St. Ives (Mr. G. R. Howard), and to say how much we missed him during the sittings of the Committee. As he says, 952 he was for much of the time prevented from being with us because of his unfortunate accident. Otherwise, I am sure that his influence and eloquence would have done something for those about whom he has spoken today, who are excluded from the Bill and whose position we cannot discuss.
This Third Reading must bring a certain gladness to the heart of the Minister, who probably feels that he will be relieved for at least another nine years from discussing sea fishing. In nine years' time we shall probably once again have to discuss the industry and, perhaps, hear arguments as to why the subsidy should be extended still further. Whether or not that is so, I am sure that he and those Ministers who, more than he, have been responsible for piloting the Bill through the Committee, must heave a sigh of relief as the last few speeches are made on this subject.
I should like to pay a tribute to the care with which the Ministers have answered our questions to the best of their ability, and to the sympathetic consideration they gave to some questions. Unfortunately, we did not get all we asked for, but we were pleased that in many cases our Amendments were accepted and that our views were listened to and given what I would call sympathetic consideration. I think that that points to the fact that, although protracted, our debates in Standing Committee were not unduly long, although they took a long time, and that they were not protracted purposely.
I would make one correction of the hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, who, at one point in the Standing, Committee, kept on referring to the T.U.C. putting forward suggestions and recommendations to the Fleck Committee. For correction and just for the record, I would point out that the T.U.C. did not put forward any suggestions or evidence. The recommendations and the evidence in all the cases referred to were put forward by the T. & G.W.U.—the Transport and General Workers' Union—and not the T.U.C.
Having got that on the record, let me say that the recommendations which were made, good though they were, were not entirely accepted, and we heard today once again the point of view of 953 the Minister with regard to welfare and decasualisation and registration. It is a pity that, running right throughout the whole of the debates, we have had the principle enunciated on the Government side that all organisation of that kind must be left to the individual ports and should not be a national concern.
We have put up the argument that the procedure at the individual ports would be vastly different, the local customs would be different, if this were a national concern. While we agree that many of the small fishing ports would not require to have the welfare organisation which the larger ones require, individual consideration should be given to them, but it should be on a national plan and not on an individual scheme for each individual port.
The Government accepted our Amendment to increase the number of members of the White Fish Authority and the Herring Industry Board, and we were very pleased about that. The Fleck Committee, to which we turn on all these questions, refers to the fact that although the Board is not without its supporters, the Committee met with
many complaints of its dictatorial manner and its failure to cultivate good public relations and engage in adequate consultation with the industry.In the discussions we had in Standing Committee about this we made the point, and it was accepted by the Government, that many of the eminent and capable gentlemen on the authorities could not really give the time necessary to the cultivation of good relations between the authorities and the trade unions and the other parties in the industry. I hope that, as a result of the Amendments which have been accepted and the decision to increase, if necessary, the number of the members of the Board and to reallocate their duties, it may be that in future there will be an expert on labour relations appointed to each of the authorities so that they may deal in a far better way than hitherto with the trade unions concerned.There has been, unfortunately, some dispute with the National Association of Clerical and Supervisory Staffs, which has been trying to speak and negotiate for and organise the executive grades of the staffs in the employ of the White Fish Authority. The White Fish 954 Authority, unfortunately, has refused to accept the assistance of the National Association of Clerical and Supervisory Staffs as representing the executive grades of workers employed by the Authority. I hope that as a result of the enlarging of the membership of the Authority there will be a better outlook in future towards trade union representation and negotiation over salaries, and so on. This would be following the lines of other Government and quasi-Government Departments and would be a great improvement.
I turn to one other matter which caused us a certain amount of concern, and still does, and that is Clause 16, dealing with increases of penalties in respect of foreign sea fishing boats. We had considerable discussion about this in Committee and we did not receive a satisfactory answer to why the fines have to be increased from £100 to £250 for a first offence and from £200 to £500 for subsequent offences. We pointed out, as a result of information supplied to us by the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, that these maxima have not yet been reached in any of the court cases in recent years. The hon. Gentleman told us in column 607 of the Standing Committee Report that in recent cases fines had ranged from £25 to £50. It seemed to us rather pointless to increase the fines When the present maxima had not yet been imposed.
How could the larger fines be reckoned to be a deterrent if the smaller fines had not yet been imposed? It seemed that the Government had given far too little consideration to this point. We pointed out, also, that in other places where British fishermen are arrested the fines imposed on them are far in excess of those which even now are suggested by the Government in this Bill.
The Trawling Times, in its April issue, reports how the "Wyre Mariner", Fleetwood's biggest trawler, commanded by Skipper Percy Bedford, was detained and the skipper fined £1,670. His gear and catch worth £625 were confiscated. He has given notice of appeal to the Icelandic Supreme Court. That was the extent of the fine imposed on a British skipper found in Icelandic waters.
§ Mr. Douglas Marshall (Bodmin)I would not have minded these fines being even higher than they are now.
§ Mr. JegerThat is precisely what I am saying.
The fines in the Bill bear no relation either to fines imposed in Britain in the past or to fines imposed on British fishermen caught fishing in foreign waters, and we have had no answer from the Government about the basis on which the fines in Clause 16 have been calculated. They should bear some relation either to fines imposed in the past or to fines imposed on our men caught doing the same sort of thing. The Government should give some indication how they arrive at figures of £250 and £500.
I should like to mention something else which has happened quite recently and which has given us cause for serious thought. This is the plea issued in the last day or two by the Yorkshire coast resorts' chambers of trade, protesting about foreign trawlers in British coastal waters which are fouling gear and riding their trawlers across lines, which, by normal sea practice, is forbidden and is regarded as an absolutely wrong thing to do, and then landing their catches in the smaller British ports to the detriment of our small inshore fishing industry.
I raised this matter a little while ago, at the request of a group of Yorkshire inshore fishermen. I was informed by the Minister that it was under review, that the Government were watching it, and that they would see what could be done. Apparently nothing has been done and the livelihood of the inshore fishermen off the coast of Yorkshire is being threatened by the continuation of this action.
§ Mr. Malcolm MacMillan (Western IslesIt is not only Yorkshire.
§ Mr. JegerThe local newspaper says:
Stop vandalism by foreign trawlers",and is also asking for a six-mile fishing limit.My hon. Friend the Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Malcolm MacMillan) says that this does not happen only in Yorkshire. I speak only of Yorkshire, because it is the only area about which I can speak from my own knowledge. No doubt my hon. Friend will say something about this from his own knowledge in due course if he catches Mr. Speaker's eye.
956 When we are calling for the conservation of our fishing grounds, how far is the Minister prepared to go in safeguarding the fishing grounds which are inshore and represent the livelihood of the men going out from the smaller ports? This calls for urgent action.
§ Mr. Deputy-SpeakerOrder. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not pursue that line of argument too far. It seems that he is asking for something outside the Bill. We are now concerned with the Third Reading of the Bill.
§ Mr. JegerI was about to leave that point, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, but I submit that it comes within the area of the conservation of fish, not so much in distant waters but in near waters, and the preservation of the industry for our smaller ports which at present are being attacked by foreign trawlers which are coming too near our shores and taking the livelihood away from our smaller fishermen.
The action which is to be taken by the Government under the Bill depends really upon the spirit in which the Government approach the task. If the Government are to say, as they said recently when we were discussing a new Clause, that it must be left to the industry itself to put its house in order, I do not think that the Bill, apart from the dispersal of the subsidies, will do much for the industry. If, on the other hand, we have been given by the Bill an indication that the Government will ensure that our fishing industry is reorganised and revitalised, then the industry can have a great future. It can bring our people good food, and can organise its marketing and distribution and handling in such a way that there will be an improvement beyond anything that we have had in the past.
I can assure the Minister that hon. Members in this House who are interested in the matter, and the men whose livelihood depends upon this industry, while praying and working hard to make the industry viable, will see that the Government play their proper part.
§ 10.28 p.m.
§ Mr. Douglas Marshall (Bodmin)The hours which the hon. Member for Goole (Mr. Jeger) and I devoted to the Bill during the Committee stage were considerable. I regret that I misunderstood 957 what the hon. Gentleman was endeavouring to say a little earlier. I thought that he was arguing that it was unnecessary to raise the penalties in Clause 16 because so far the courts have imposed smaller figures than those prescribed. I am very sorry that I misunderstood him, and I very much share his feelings. It would certainly not worry me if the fines were made even higher.
I think that, altogether, the Bill will help the fishing industry. It will certainly help a part of it very considerably, it does not really apply as much to the inshore fishing industry as to other parts of the fishing industry. I think that hon. Members have regretted that my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. G. R. Howard) was unable to join us during the Committee stage. I am certain that he would have been extremely helpful and might have enabled us to succeed on one point on which we failed.
I should like to mention—I am sure that this applies to hon. Members opposite as well—that the extreme patience and courtesy that we had from the Parliamentary Secretary and the Under- 958 Secretary of State for Scotland was something which I shall remember all the time that I am in this House. It was regrettable that, when certain right hon. and hon. Members felt so deeply and sincerely that they wanted to give the Minister more power, because they trusted him—that is to say, the Minister of Agriculture—he refused even a permissive Clause giving him this power. It might be that in that way the Bill might have helped the inshore industry more.
You will have noted, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, references to such places as the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland. These places lie at some distance from our coast. Distance from our sea shore is a matter of concern to our fishing industry. Many of us feel that, if the Minister could see fit to extend the limit to six miles, it would benefit the fishing industry as a whole, especially in the areas of which my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives spoke. I share his view about what is going on in those areas and about how protection should be given to the inshore fishing industry.
§ 10.31 p.m.
§ Mr. Malcolm MacMillan (Western Isles)Listening to the regrets, expressed by so many hon. Members on both sides, that the hon. Member for St. Ives (Mr. G. R. Howard) was deprived of the pleasure of serving on the Standing Committee during part of the Committee stage, I am a little mystified by just what he missed. Members of that Committee seem to have had a really good time and those who, like myself, the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir D. Robertson) and others who were not fortunate enough to be selected to serve on the Committee, suspect that those who did serve took all the guts, as it were, out of the discussion before it came here for Report and Third Reading.
Like every other Scotsman, I feel rather frustrated now, not having been on the Committee, by having to narrow myself wholly to what is in the Bill. I always remember the evidence given to the Neven-Spence Committee some years ago by a Shetland fisherman. He said that he had brought up his family and his brother's—two families—"on the point of a hook." That was a fine and practical, if picturesque, expression. I suspect that the Standing Committee went alike wide of the hook and almost followed the tradition of the mediaeval schoolmen in reckoning, if not how many angels, at least how many haddocks they could place on the point of a hook. I wonder if the Committee had discussion on whether "spat" was a verb or a noun. I regret that some of us at least did not have the opportunity of taking part in that happy Committee.
The Bill will not give us anything like a long-term settled policy for the industry. I do not think for a moment that my hon. Friend the Member for Goole (Mr. Jeger) was anything but facetious when he said we would not have any more legislation on this industry for another ten years. I am sure he has not accepted the Government's assurance that this Measure will last for ten years. I can see legislation coming quite soon to amend this Bill. I will not say much more about it than that. As soon as the question of the six-mile limit, which has been referred to several times in this debate, comes up seriously for practical decision—perhaps it may be a twelve-mile limit—we shall have 960 further legislation which will affect this Bill. That will happen soon after the Measure becomes law. Again, there are all the possibilities of what will happen if we enter the Common Market. New legislation in that event would certainly play havoc with this Bill and with much of the Government's policy as expressed in it.
With the hon. Member for St. Ives and almost every other hon. Member who took part in trying to persuade the Government on the point, I regret that something at least has not been done for lobster fishermen within the global sum provided by the Bill. It seems that as soon as lobsters were mentioned the Minister himself grew a shell around his heart. He showed no sign of yielding or even taking permissive power to help, which was all that was asked of him. The local lobster men will simply say that the big fellows are getting the subsidies and assistance while they are getting nothing.
§ Mr. D. MarshallI am certain that when the hon. Gentleman mentioned lobsters he also included crabs.
§ Mr. MacMillanYes, certainly. I am sure "lobsters" embrace sprats.
§ Mr. D. MarshallI said crabs.
§ Mr. MacMillanYes, I include crabs. I shall not be drawn underwater by the hon. Member on that point.
All hon. Members have been united in approving the general purpose of conservation. For many years, my party has urged upon Parliament the importance of the conservation of fish stocks and the curbing of the boundless greed of the commercial interests which for years have forced the depletion of stocks in the North Sea, the middle waters and even certain areas in the distant waters. More and more we are seeing the results of the resentment of that by other countries and seeing it expressed in the extension of the limits by one country after another—and it is coming to this country, too. To the limited extent that it serves the purpose of conservation, however, I am sure that the Bill has the support of all hon. Members.
Unfortunately, on the "Salmon Bill section", as someone called it, of this 961 double Bill, while we all agree with the Government's purpose in seeking to conserve salmon stocks and to make sure that they are not ruinously depleted, we all still have strong reservations when we come ashore and come hard up against the syndicates and the private interests whose only concern is that the salmon should be conserved for them.
When this policy of conservation is expressed in commercial terms, as it is in places like the Western Isles and the Highlands generally, one finds that as soon as one makes a speech in the House about a fishery area, one receives a protesting letter from some remote representative of a syndicate in London, and one then begins to ask whether the purpose of this part of the Bill is to preserve salmon stocks or merely to preserve the status quo and the private monopoly in this kind of fishing. I should like to see the conservation provisions administered in such a way that the true public interest would be served at all times, so that it was not only the purely commercial and private interests which were in the minds of the Minister and those administering the Bill.
I very much regret that the reaction of small fishermen, the reaction of the local angler and the reaction of the man born and bred alongside the salmon rivers and the trout waters to the claim that this is a conservation Measure will simply be to say, "Conservation, yes; but for whom?". The Bill will not in any way extend access to the waters to the ordinary person even with rod and line. It is merely conserving in terms of an appeal to the broad national interest what is in fact a private monopoly which is very greatly resented, buttressed as it is by the legislation of a century or more for a small number of individuals at one time concerned mainly with sport and now concerned mainly with profit. I should like the salmon and trout syndicates and the individual landlords to be compelled to take more serious steps to conserve the inland freshwater fisheries in general as well as the Government taking measures to conserve the salmon and the trout at sea.
Discussing this part of the Bill, we are reminded of the savage penalties already in operation for the taking of a salmon 962 by two or more people. An earlier Act provides that where two or more people take a salmon they can be fined up to £500 or be imprisoned for two years or both—for taking one salmon. At best, the two people concerned probably get only half the salmon each anyway. It is a savage penalty, and when one contrasts that with the inadequacy of the penalties proposed in the Bill against the powerful interests which come into the bays of the Hebrides and deplete the bays of fish and deprive whole communities of their livelihood, one must come to the conclusion that the Government are far more concerned with the private salmon syndicates and commercial interests than with the conservation of fishing stocks on which the livelihood of the inshore fishermen and communities depend.
Conservation has to be supported, but there is a powerful lobby in the background behind this word "conservation" of which from many years' experience we have learnt to be highly suspicious, and not without reason, because as soon as there is any interference, for however high and important a public purpose, with the salmon and trout interests, which are at one with the salmon and trout interests carried to the high seas, there are immense claims for compensation. If an attempt is made to develop a hydro-electric scheme, or to develop a hitherto under-developed area in the Highlands, the landlords leap out of the bogs and woods to claim their whack in the name of compensation for the salmon fisheries. Only they do not call it that. They call it compensation for the disturbance of the salmon and the damage to their policy of conservation. What they are conserving, of course, are their rights to continue taking profits. If anyone tries to develop something in the public interest, the nation has to pay for upsetting their policy of conserving their profits and interests.
How different it is when it comes to the Government under this Bill taking action to deal with the depredations of trawlers, whether British or foreign. And the effect is the same on the inshore fishermen within the territorial limits. How different is the policy there. When they could take effective action, they merely raise the maximum fine. I agree with my hon. Friend who asked what 963 was the purpose of doing this. If we had a high minimum fine, we might get somewhere. If we had, as in the Salmon and Fresh Water Fisheries (Protection) (Scotland) Act, 1951, penalties for two or more people acting in concert, which there must always be in the case of any vessel poaching inside inshore fishery limits, we might get somewhere. Merely to raise the maximum fine is not likely to effect any great improvement.
Three years ago I had some correspondence on this point with the Prime Minister. He was as critical as a Prime Minister is likely to be of the fact that the courts were not imposing anything like the present maximum fines. I agree with my hon. Friend that it is puzzling to see why some measures are not being taken to ensure that adequate fines are imposed, along with other penalties which sometimes could be more effective than fines, such as the detention of the vessel, the suspension if necessary of the skipper's ticket, and the appearance in court of the owners of the vessel, which is one of the things from which they escape far too easily.
I am concerned about the operation of the Bill in relation to the inshore fishermen, because we have seen not only the depletion of fishing stocks, not only the depredations of the trawlers adding to that depletion since before the war, but the startling and dramatic depletion in the number of crofter-inshore fishermen in Scotland alone from over 4,000 in 1938 to about 1,200 or 1,300 in 1962—and I think that that is overstating the present figure. If we fail to provide adequate protection, we lose our inshore fishermen and we depopulate those areas on which we depend for our supplies of inshore fish—which of course is the best quality fish that we can get—and our supplies of lobsters, crabs, and so on.
Even under the Government's own Minch fishery scheme—an excellent scheme, apart from the fact that they charge an interest rate of from 6 per cent. to 7 per cent. to ordinary fishermen, which is utterly usurious—fishermen have to find a large amount of money of their own in respect of these vessels, in addition to money for their gear, maintenance and operation, insurance, and all the rest. It is extremely frustrating for them to have to tolerate under 964 their very noses, day and night, the sight of fleets of predators and poachers from all around—not only from their own coasts but from Brittany, West Germany, France, Belgium and all over the place, and also to find that the Government's Fishery Protection Service and penalties are not adequate to give them reasonable protection.
I am not saying that anybody in the Fishery Protection Service is to blame for this; every fisherman will pay the highest tribute to the men in that Service. They are even prepared to pay tribute to the good intentions of the Minister. But it is ultimately in the hands of the Minister to ensure that the Service is adequate to conserve and preserve the inshore fisheries.
I am glad that Yorkshire has now come into this argument. I can tell my hon. Friend the Member for Goole that if he wrote some weeks or months ago, I wrote about this many years ago. I have kept writing throughout these years. But I get the same answer, wrapped up in fine slabs of marine biology, with all sorts of reasons why scientists cannot accept the view of our fishermen on the question why no fish have come into the bay in the last few months. The fishermen are concerned with only two facts—first, that trawlers have been there and, secondly, that the fish have gone, and that the two things have happened at the same time. This cannot always be a coincidence. Nothing will be done to sort out that situation merely by raising the fines under the Bill though I approve of that also. It can be done only by doing what the Minister said Should be done about the landing of salmon caught by drift netting.
It does not require any further legislation than is provided by the Bill. That is to say, we can place an overall seasonal limit on the landing of fish in certain areas by any method other than line fishing. That would possibly not require much more than local byelaws, for which permissive legislation to some extent may already exist. It is claimed that, since the last century, powers to close certain areas have existed. If a limit were imposed upon overall landings during a certain season in a given area, apart from fish caught by line fishermen, we could do quite a bit more 965 to discourage the excessive catching and landing of fish by poaching vessels and mass trawling methods.
The problem will not be solved by one Bill, or by half a dozen, or even more Bills. We are all aware of the fact that the problems of inshore fishermen are not concerned only with his fishing at sea; they are related to his whole economic and social background, and to the amenities which his village enjoys, or does not enjoy. Depopulation is not only a matter of fishing; many fishermen are also crofters. Many of them have other sorts of second jobs, and could not exist without them. Equally, many of them could not exist as crofters without also having fishing boats. The one thing goes with the other.
There are many ways in which our fishermen wild be affected once—if ever—the question of our entry into the European Economic Community is settled.
§ Mr. Deputy-SpeakerOrder. I hope that the hon. Member will not pursue that line, because it would get far outside what is within the Bill.
§ Mr. MacMillanIt is the question of national limits on which I am dwelling for one second, Mr. Deputy-Speaker—
§ Mr. WillisOn a point of order. The Bill deals, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, with subsidies to be paid to the fleets. Surely, these things might be affected by entry to the European Economic Community.
§ Mr. Deputy-SpeakerThe hon. Member and the House know the rule that on Third Reading what is within the Bill may be discussed. If, indeed, the Common Market is within the Bill, the Common Market may be discussed. I was not aware that it was.
§ Mr. MacMillanI was not suggesting, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that the Common Market was within the Bill. I am anxious about what may happen to the Bill once we are within the Common Market. My concern is the difficulty which will confront those administering the Bill, only a few months, possibly, from now. I agree that that may be hypothetical and I will not pursue the point in detail. Nevertheless, it is a practical point that will arise in, possibly, a few months' time and will affect 966 every fisherman around our coasts, from the inshore fishermen to the fleets which have to go to the distant waters. The question of the six- or twelve-mile limits and all the rest will be closely bound up with the decision to enter the E.E.C. or our failure to enter it, or, should I say, success in not entering it.
I have a final, purely administrative question to the Minister on protection. I should like to know whether under the Bill it is intended to test, and whether the Minister can test, the validity of the Charter granted on 2nd August, 1666, by King Charles II under which, at various times since 1667, fishermen from Bruges have exercised the privilege conferred upon them by the Charter to fish within British territorial waters on condition that they merely carried a safe conduct from their municipality of Bruges.
That might well be a question which ties itself closely with Brussels and the Common Market, although, perhaps, I should not mention that name again. The fact remains, however, that not only can foreign trawlers still pursue their activities, very often described as quite nefarious and predatory activities, at the expense of our fishermen in our own territorial waters. Here is a Charter, still in existence, which blatantly allows the fishermen of Bruges and that area to come and fish with our territorial waters. Will it be tested under the Bill when it becomes an Act? I hope that it may, because the consequences would be interesting and certainly would be worth discussion at Brussels, even if it would be out of order in this House.
I hope that now that the Minister has increased the fines, in the interests of the protection and the conservation—that blessed word—of the stocks of fish upon which our inshore fishermen in particular, the most helpless section of our fishing community, so much depend, he will put into full operation all the measures which it is within his power to put into operation to ensure that a continuous, preventive patrol, a pursuit and arrest service, with all the rigours of the law behind it, will do everything possible to preserve the interests of the people whom, even as lobster fishermen, the Minister has so far shown no desire, no inclination and certainly no practical 967 inclination in terms of any protection in the Bill, to help. I hope that that service will be stepped up in every possible way. It must be if the Government intend to conserve our inshore fishing and the people concerned in it.
§ 10.54 p.m.
§ Mr. TempleI am sure that the whole House has enjoyed the speech of the hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Malcolm MacMillan), but he spread a good deal of alarm and despondency when he forecast another Sea Fish Industry Bill in the comparatively near future. This is my first experience of taking part in all stages of a Sea Fish Industry Bill and I assure the hon. Member, and you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that if another Sea Fish Industry Bill comes forward as soon as the hon. Member anticipates it will have to manage without me in Committee.
My interest throughout the Bill has been in the controversial Clauses concerned with the control of salmon net fishing. I want to give my right hon. Friend the Minister some up-to-date figures from the Clerk to the Fishmongers Company of the arrivals of drift-net caught salmon at Billingsgate. In the first three months of this year nearly 60 per cent. of the arrivals of salmon at Billingsgate Market were drift-net caught salmon.
§ Mr. WillisHow many were there?
§ Mr. TempleI said 60 per cent. of the salmon which arrived at Billingsgate.
§ Mr. WillisSixty per cent. of what?
§ Mr. TempleI did not want to take up the time of the House with detailed figures, but as the hon. Member wants the exact figures I will give them to him. Out of 2,512 boxes of salmon which arrived in the first three months of this year, 1,474 boxes were drift-net caught salmon. This compares with no drift-net caught salmon arriving at Billingsgate in 1960. My point is that drift-netting is a very serious menace indeed.
The whole effectiveness of this Bill will be in the Orders which my right hon. Friends will make. I have had an assurance from my right hon. Friends 968 that consultations will take place about the contents of the Orders. I would not consider a telephone call from somebody in my right hon. Friend's Department to the Secretary of the Salmon and Trout Association to be a consultation. I hope that detailed consultations will take place on the content of the Orders.
There is no doubt that the position which has arisen in Scotland is very serious. However, we must consider England and Wales, also. I hope that my right hon. Friend will not think, just because there has not been any damage in England and Wales, that similar action should not be taken in respect of England and Wales. My right hon. Friend indicated this evening that the existing interests would not be menaced. I hope this means that prohibition Orders will be introduced in respect of England and Wales, at least until such time as the Hunter Committee has had an opportunity to produce its final report.
§ Mr. WillisThe Hunter Committee is in respect of Scotland.
§ Mr. TempleI appreciate that, but the Hunter Committee may give us some indication of the action necessary in respect of the whole of the United Kingdom. The Hunter Committee is the first committee to consider this question since drift-netting has been taking place. The Bledisloe Committee, which considered the matter in respect of England and Wales, did so at a time when no drift netting was taking place. I there for hope that the Orders will be for a total prohibition and that they will be effective in protecting the interests of the established fishermen, both rod and net, of the tourist and hotel industry, because the tourist industry is vitally affected in Scotland and the remoter parts of England and Wales, and also of the rural population in those remote parts.
I readily recognise that it has not been possible to legislate in the Bill for the total control of foreign fishermen outside territorial waters. Some of my hon. Friends have mentioned the fact that territorial limits may well be extended. I believe that this may well be so, in which case this legislation will be all the more effective.
969 I have said that the Orders will be all-important, and I forecast that they will be detailed and complicated. I trust that they will not be introduced en bloc. I hope that we shall have plenty of time to discuss and examine them. At the end of a Session there is always a rush to get the business through, but I very much hope that the Orders will be brought forward in plenty of time for the House to study them thoroughly.
The Bill has had a relatively slow passage through this House, but I hope very much that it will have a speedy passage through another place and that its various provisions will be effective in controlling this new form of drift netting and also effective in preserving our stocks of fish, both white fish and salmon.
§ 11.0 p.m.
§ Mr. CroslandTwo particularly quaint remarks have been made in this Third Reading debate. The first was made by the Minister, who said that drift netting of salmon evokes very strong feelings. Without offence to my Scottish hon. Friends, and speaking for myself and for other English colleagues, I know that the subject evokes in me a profound boredom which, as the Bill has gone on, has turned almost to a profound nausea. If I ever again hear a Scottish voice speaking on drift netting I fear I shall have to throw myself off the Westminster Bridge.
The other remark was made by my hon. Friend the Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Malcolm MacMillan), who said that he judged that we had had a very good time in Committee. That puts it slightly strongly. We were, of course, aided by a number of circumstances. We were aided by the Minister's almost total absence, since whenever he did appear, he lectured us for taking too long and so prolonged our proceedings by about four times more. We had great courtesy from the two junior Ministers; I sometimes wished that they had been slightly less courteous and rather more brief in their replies, but they were extremely courteous.
On this side, we had the leadership, at once—
§ Mr. Malcolm MacMillanMy hon. Friend refers to my comment on the obvious enjoyment of members of the Committee. I gathered that merely from the expressions of commiseration from his English colleagues on both sides with the hon. Member for St. Ives (Mr. G. R. Howard) for being deprived, by an accident, from hearing the Scotsmen on that Committee.
§ Mr. CroslandI must tell my hon. Friend that the actual attendance of the commiserators was amongst the worst of any on that Committee, and that is probably why they were able to speak commiseratingly.
I do not want to discuss drift netting, knowing nothing about it, but I should like to speak briefly on the primary purpose of the Bill, which is to provide long-term economic assistance to the major part of the industry. I very much hope that it will succeed in that purpose, but I find it harder now to take a view on the main approach of the Bill than I did when it was first introduced, because two separate things have hap-paned which pull me in two different directions.
One is that, as has already been mentioned, Sir Hugh Fraser has taken over the chairmanship of one of the largest groups, which has reported both high and rising profits fox the last year, so that it becomes increasingly clear that under efficient top management the larger integrated groups which incorporate merchanting and freezing, and so on, are perfectly able to make healthy overall profits even without the subsidy.
On the other hand—and this is what makes the picture confusing-for the North Sea and middle water fleets conditions have gone from bad to worse since the introduction of the Bill. The position in the North Sea and the Faroes has become so bad that the latest Ross Group trawler has been laid up since it was launched, because the group decided that conditions did not warrant its putting to sea and fishing. The situation around the Faroes is appalling, and the position of the small middle water firms is serious, and I hope that when the discussions take place between the Ministry and the B.T.F. in the next few weeks some answer will be found to the problems of the smaller firms in the industry.
971 It will be seen, therefore, that since the introduction of the Bill two contrary things have occurred that make it more difficult now than then to take a constructive view of whether this kind of financial assistance will be enough in the next ten years. But I am still certain that the principle of the Bill is right. That principle is to aid the industry, but to do so on the condition that it further modernises itself. That problem does not face only us. There was an article in The Times today about the fishing industry in Italy. The problem there is the same. The Italian Government want to give aid, but to give it solely on the condition that the industry modernises its techniques, and seeks new fishing grounds.
There is still a lot to be done in our own fishing industry. The Chairman of Bird's Eye pointed out a week ago that Britain's was almost the first fishing industry in the world to go into quick freezing but that, having pioneered it, it had been overtaken by a number of other countries. The proportion of our fleet able to freeze fish at sea is now probably lower than the proportion of the fleets of several other countries. So there is a great deal to be done in the way of further modernisation. The one test, in my view, of the Bill is whether the industry can use it to modernise itself and to develop new investment and new types of trawler which alone can ensure a modern industry.
I should like now to make one remark on a matter which has attracted a lot of attention this evening—the question of limits. I suppose that it is natural that so many people, no matter what their politics, whether of the Right or the Left, become so xenophobic when discussing the fishing industry of their own country. One can entirely share the feelings of a British fisherman who feels passionately when foreign trawlers come in and mess around in his waters. But one must remember that one finds the whole time exactly the same feelings being felt among fishermen of the Faroes or Iceland and among fishermen of all sorts of other nationalities, too.
It is natural enough, and it has gone on a long time and will go on as long as we have national fleets, but it makes me feel always how desirable it is, as was suggested a year or two ago, that 972 in Western Europe at least there should be an international convention under which there would be no limits of any kind and no tariffs or quotas of any kind. This might avoid the complaints which we make against others and which Icelanders, the Faroese and other fishermen are making against ourselves, and which at once express and encourage a natural but acute form of xenophobia.
There is just one other point I should like to make. I hope that the Minister's decision, which I am sure is right, to send this three-man team round the fishing ports means that he and his Ministry are to give a lot more positive leadership to the fishing industry than they have done in the past. I have very strongly the sense that an industry such as this which is subsidised by the Government and constantly getting into the Government's hair and coming to the Government for help has not had that degree of firm leadership from the Government in the past that it might have had.
I hope that this new interest, following on the Fleck Report, is a sign of a change. I think that all of us would take the view that there is a lot we should like to see changed and that there is room for improvement, certainly in labour relations and welfare. I think that the manning scales are probably wrong for the distant water trawlers and there are other spheres like that where changes might be made.
There is one point on which I would disagree with two or three of my hon. Friends who have talked about discussing another such Bill as this in ten years' time for another ten years after after that. Unless there are overwhelming social reasons for it, I do not think that a large permanent subsidy to the Whole industry can be justified. Subsidy can certainly be justified in the short term to enable the industry to set itself up and to modernise and to make itself viable, but if we were to have in ten years' time to consider a continuing subsidy for the whole industry, I would begin to have very grave doubts.
§ 11.8 p.m.
§ Mr. J. M. L. Prior (Lowestoft)Hon. Members on both sides have said how sorry they have been that my non-Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. 973 G. R. Howard) was deprived of the opportunity of sitting on the Committee on the Bill for the whole extent of its passage upstairs. No one regrets that more than I do because I took his place in the Committee. I share to the full the views which have been expressed by the hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland), because whether or not shellfish was discussed in great detail it certainly would not be true to say it was discussed ad nauseam.
The hon. Member for Grimsby made an extremely sensible speech and one which put the Bill into the right perspective. I agree with him that the distant water fleet, which is the main part of the fleet, will be able to improve its position and to modernise over the next few years and do very well without any subsidy at all.
Some of the provisions of the Bill may be a good deal more generous to distant water fishing than will be required. If Associated Fisheries, in the Ross Group, can organise its business efficiently and make good profits now, there is little reason for giving it a subsidy. One of the original reasons for giving it a subsidy was that it lost the Icelandic grounds, but that does not seem to have had the effect on distant water fishing that at one time seemed likely. As a result of the Bill, distant water fishing stands every chance of being in very good shape in a shorter period than ten years.
Now we are faced with the problem of what to do about North Sea fishing which is near and middle water fishing. This is a different problem. These fisheries are for high quality fish, of higher quality than from distant water, landed and marketed fresh for the most part. These fishermen in recent months, and in the case of the Scottish fishery over the last twelve or eighteen months, have had a very thin time indeed. I am seriously worried whether, in the next ten years, we can put that part of the industry properly on its feet. We started doing this as long ago as 1951 with the first fishing Act, but since then we have not made the progress that we ought to have made by this time in getting the near and middle water fishing industry to stand on its own feet.
On the other hand, I disagree with the hon. Member for Grimsby in that I would certainly not discard the fleet 974 although it proved uneconomic. I admit that I have a constituency interest and, therefore, my views are coloured, but these fishermen will not cost us much money. They provide a firm foundation for us, in times of war and trouble, for the manning of our minesweepers and other naval craft. They also provide a very attractive part of British society which we should discard at our peril. I hope that in the next few years we shall be able to make them into a prosperous community, but I am worried about this and I do not think that after ten years the industry will be in a reasonable state.
During recent months we have been extremely worried about the growing weight of imports which have been landed at Grimsby in particular and also at Hull which have an enormous effect on the home fishing industry. The point is that the fishing industry is not able to provide for storing its fish as other industries can make provision when there are large imports. Although fish can be frozen it cannot be stored indefinitely. This has a marked effect on the economy of the fishing industry. I therefore do not think that it would be a good thing, on the one hand, to provide a subsidy to get the fishing industry properly organised if, on the other, we allowed other fishing industries to put fish on our markets When it suited them rather than us.
The Bill has been welcomed by the industry and, on the whole, by both sides of the House. If it results in an economic fishing industry it will also be a smaller industry. I hope that the White Fish Authority will exercise its pressures more strongly than it has done up to now. The Authority has been rather too generous in its scheme of grants and loans. I hope that it will be very firm about the new ships that it allows to come into the fleet so that in a few years we shall have fewer but more efficient ships producing fish at an economic price and providing the crews who do the work with a decent return for their labours.
§ 11.15 p.m.
§ Mr. PeartI detected a measure of levity at the beginning of the speech of the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior), but I believe that this is a very important Bill and that every member 975 of the Committee which considered it did his best.
I pay tribute to the Parliamentary Secretary and the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland and would tell the Minister that he has two very courteous and able juniors who have answered our points even though we have disagreed with them. I pay tribute to my own colleagues, including my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Hoy), who spoke from the Front Bench and has continued the discussions here today. He has spoken from experience and from a desire to help the industry. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Goole (Mr. Jeger), Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) and Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis), my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes), my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Captain Hewitson), and my hon. Friend the Member for Dearne Valley (Mr. Wainwright), all of whom made distinctive contributions in Committee.
Although we have had prolonged discussions, we have, after all, been dealing with an important Bill. Apart from the controversial part about salmon, we on this side of the House approve of the Bill. I am not going to get involved in a Second Reading speech—I think that the Chair can look after that—but I have detected a tendency to lapse into a Second Reading debate. We are, after all, discussing the Bill as it is. I say only that I regret that the controversial part about salmon is in the Bill. I would rather have waited for an inquiry. However, that is history. The Bill is before us, and we are seeking to inject financial aid into an industry which needs it.
My hon. Friends the Members for Leith and Grimsby have mentioned some of the difficulties which now face the middle water fleet, the problems of the trawlers which fish in the North Sea and the Faroes, some of which are not now sailing. We hope that the Clauses dealing with subsidies will help the industry. We also expect that the industry will become a viable unit after ten years. We could be wrong. But the purpose of the Bill is good however much we may argue about subsidies and 976 their place in our economic life. So we support these Clauses and we are sorry that the powers relating to the shellfish industry have not gone as far as we would have wished.
I should be out of order if I discussed the new Clauses which we proposed, but they have been mentioned. Like the hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Marshall), I regret that one Clause in particular was not accepted. I recognise that the powers in the Bill affecting the inshore fishing industry are rather limited. I represent a constituency which has a very small inshore fishing industry. I am trying even now through correspondence with the Minister—he has kindly passed on correspondence to the Minister of Transport—to help our harbour structure in Maryport, which would, in turn, help our inshore fishermen, part time and whole time. It is a small industry, and we can see how it has faced difficulties throughout. It may well be that the Bill does not go far enough in that direction.
We have tried to improve the Bill. We have argued about marketing and distribution, also research. I could make another speech on that subject, though it would be very wrong of me to do so tonight. I may seem to be a fanatic about this, but if the industry is to be efficient I believe that this side of it has to be improved quickly. Research is important. There must be research not only in applied science, but also into the economic aspects. As we know, already much has been done at some of our fishing ports.
I promised to be brief to set an example to the Minister. I wish the Bill well. I regret the salmon controversy. I hope that the subsidies will work, that the "three wise men" will report favourably to the right hon. Gentleman, that he will act, and that he will do the things he has said he will do—improve marketing, distribution and welfare facilities for the workers in the industry.
We wish the Bill well and if, after ten years, the Minister or his successor has to come forward with another, we will look at that one. We have tried to improve the Bill, vigorously opposing those parts we dislike. We have made our contribution and we hope that the industry will prosper through this legislation.
§ 11.21 p.m.
§ Mr. LeburnPerhaps appropriately on the first day back from a Parliamentary Recess, I feel rather as if I were coming to the eighteenth hole of a rather long and exacting course. I know well that on more than one occasion I put my partner in the rough and also—if the hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) would like me to admit it—I three-putted on more than one occasion upstairs.
I thank hon. Members for the kind things they have said about my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and myself, and I would also like to thank hon. Members on both sides of the House for the contributions they made, both today and in Committee, towards improving the Bill. I cannot, perhaps unfortunately, make the same comments about the Liberal Party, for I have noticed that it has made no contribution to our affairs this evening.
I agree with the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) that this is a very important Bill which will have major consequences for the future of the fishing industry. We have given it long and exhaustive consideration. The debate today has been typical of the contributions we made during our meetings upstairs. I apologise to the hon. Member for Goole (Mr. Jeger) if at one stage in Committee I made a misleading statement about the T.U.C. I readily accept from him that it was the Transport and General Workers' Union. As one who was connected with the timber trade before I came to Parliament, I know very well all about tongues and grooves.
It is fair to say that there is general agreement on the greater part of the Bill. We have been able to improve it in detail as a result of our considerations in Committee and today, and for the most part its contents are acceptable to both sides of the House. Not unnaturally, there are some parts of it, particularly the Clauses dealing with salmon and trout, which are more controversial. In this debate the Government's proposals for drift netting have been attacked from two angles.
First, they have been criticised as being unfair to drift-net fishermen trying to earn their living while their tradi- 978 tional fisheries have been going through a thin time, and, secondly, as being too cautious and not going far or quickly enough to deal with what is considered to be the serious possibility of damage to one of our most valuable species and a very valuable Scottish asset. This seems to suggest to me that the road chosen by the Government is about right, and that view was reinforced by the discussion we had on the Amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir D. Robertson). At any rate, the Government are responsible for taking the decision here. It is a question, in a difficult and delicate matter, of getting the right judgment, and I think that we have done that.
I do not propose tonight to deal with the many points about shellfish, limits, or economic communities. I think that I was given a good lead by the hon. Member for Workington earlier. I will write to the hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Malcolm MacMillan) about his question about Bruges in the comparatively recent year of 1666.
The hon. Member for Goole referred to the increased penalties which our courts are to be able to inflict on foreign trawlers. While they do not approach the very large sums which some of our own vessels have had to pay as a result of being caught fishing in foreign waters, we must also bear in mind the difference in the sizes of the vessels concerned. The very large fines which our people have suffered were for fishing by large distant water trawlers with very considerable catching power.
If there were any vessels of this kind poaching in British waters, we might need to consider higher maximum penalties, but, in fact, the foreign vessels found in our waters are very much less formidable, mostly small trawlers and shellfish boats, and the scale of penalties provided is in keeping with their size and catching power. While we have increased the penalties, that may, although we have no jurisdiction over the courts, give some lead to the courts to impose somewhat more severe penalties.
Clearly, the principle of continuing financial assistance has been generally accepted and so are the particular measures by which we seek to do so. Stress has rightly been laid on the importance of a positive and constructive 979 approach to the industry's problems, the intensification of research and experiment directed towards placing the industry, long term, on a healthy and sound footing. The additional financial powers which we are taking, for instance, to give grants to the White Fish Authority and the Herring Industry Board for research, processing, ice-making plant, and so forth, will all make a contribution to this end.
In the last analysis, however, we shall have to look to the industry's own efforts to assure its future, but by the proposals in the Bill we have demonstrated our will and determination to give all proper reasonable help and encouragement. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Hoy) spoke of the difficulties in which the middle water vessels are finding themselves at the moment. I do not think that I can develop that now, but there is no doubt that we will have to look very carefully at the position when the time comes.
If I do not single out any of the other parts of the Bill it is not because I do not consider them important. Of course, the measures proposed for shellfish, including those concerning the control of disease and the simplification of the procedures, are important, but I feel that we have got more or less general agreement on those matters.
I did intend to discuss the question of drift netting at further length, but the hon. Member for Grimsby has said that if he hears a Scottish voice on the subject again we might lose that international good will to which he referred in another connection. Therefore, all I should like to say is that we have taken powers to introduce these Orders. If and when we do, the House will have an opportunity to discuss them. The Hunter Committee has been set up and has been invited by my right hon. Friend to try to report urgently on this specific problem and he will take into account any recommendations which it may make.
I think that that is all that I need say and it is with confidence that I commend the Bill to the House for Third Reading.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.