HC Deb 10 November 1964 vol 701 cc981-92

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Lawson.]

10.32 p.m.

Sir Henry Studholme (Tavistock)

The House has spent some time today in the rather heated atmosphere of the debate on the Address. I now ask hon. Members to turn their attention for a few minutes to the more peaceful climate of the uplands of Devon, where, however, considerable controversy has been aroused by the review of the hill cow subsidy.

First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Hoy) on his new job as Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. I hope that he will have a happy but not too prolonged term of office.

The hon. Gentleman knows, though I do not think he was in the House at the time, how towards the end of the war, when the late Lord Hudson—Mr. Robert Hudson as he then was—was Minister of Agriculture, committees for England. Wales and Scotland were set up to look into the question of how to improve hill farming and to make recommendations. From their recomrnendations was born the 1946 Hill Farming Act from which the hill cow subsidy derives, and it was amended by the Livestock Rearing Act, 1951, which defined land eligible for subsidy as Land in an area of mountain, hills or heath, which is, or by improvement could be made, suitable for the breeding, rearing and maintenance of sheep and cattle, but not to any material extent for dairy farming, the fattening of sheep or cattle, or the growing of crops for sale. Subsequent legislation has merely extended the period of the subsidy without altering the basic conditions for eligibility.

In Devon, at first, it was only farms in the Dartmoor and Exmoor areas which were considered eligible, but subsequently, when Sir Thomas Dugdale, as he then was, was Minister, certain parts of the Holsworthy area, where much of the land is difficult, wet and rushy—though not technically mountains, hills or heath—were included.

It would, of course, have been much easier and much more agreeable for everyone if it had not been necessary to review the hill cow subsidy. But the Minister could not help himself. He is under a statutory obligation to review these subsidies from time to time to ensure that public money is not being spent on land which is not eligible. Moreover, the Public Accounts Committee and the Comptroller and Auditor General, those watchdogs of the public purse, were insistent that this should be done and therefore, in 1962, a review throughout the country was started.

Of the 923 Devon farms then eligible it was considered that 433 needed to be reviewed. This was by far the largest number and the highest proportion of farms reviewed in any county in England and Wales. Of these 433 farms, 209—nearly half—appealed against the decisions to exclude them. I understand that 36 appeals have been allowed wholly or in part and that the remaining 173 farms are confirmed as ineligible.

The fact that it was proposed to exclude such a large proportion of farms seemed to point to two things, either that the agricultural executive committee had judged these farms incorrectly in the first instance, or that a different yardstick was now being used to determine eligibility.

The Ministry, however, has officially denied both these suggestions, pointing out that there are bound to be, as it said, slight differences of judgment between committee and committee and that, owing to modern techniques, some farms have so improved as to make them no longer eligible for the subsidy. This was stated in a letter from the Ministry to the Devon C.L.A.

This explanation has satisfied neither the Devon County N.F.U. nor the C.L.A. nor the Devon M.P.s concerned. Rightly or wrongly, the impression has been created that the review in Devon has been carried out with undue severity. Judging by the half dozen or so of the farms struck out in the Tavistock area which I have inspected, I am most unhappy about the decisions arrived at.

The farms I am talking about are at about 600 or 650 feet above sea level, rather exposed and very close up against Dartmoor. They get the cold wind from the moor and a lot of rain. Grass does not usually start growing there much until May. I do not believe that the land could be considered suitable to any material extent for dairy farming, fattening or the growing of crops for sale, which, of course, is the criterion for ineligibility.

The crops they grow are poor. The corn is only sown for rotation. Often, it has to be fed in the sheaf because it is not worth threshing when it does not ripen. Pasture needs heavy manuring or it reverts to what I call the "hairy" grass of these hills. I cannot imagine any farmer in his senses going for anything on these farms except livestock rearing, which is what they have always done.

The sole object of the improvements recently carried out on their farms, at considerable cost to the occupiers and through Government grants, was to make the land more suitable for livestock rearing. In each case, the occupiers have undertaken comprehensive improvement schemes for which they have received grants from the Ministry. They have altered or reconditioned farm buildings to provide suitable accommodation for suckling calves which are reared and sold for stores; they have also built barns and fodder stores and have taken up bracken, scrub and stone which got in the way of fertilising and improving grazing. Now they are told that they are no longer eligible. There is no sense in suggesting that farms such as these should turn over to milk after having been specially adapted recently for livestock rearing. Besides, in most cases the water supply is not up to standard.

Nor is there any sense in these farmers being told, as I gather they have been told, that if they liked to let their cows remain on the eligible common grazing attached to the farms, they could then get the subsidy. That would be quite contrary to good animal husbandry and merely encouraging farmers to overstock the commons. Moreover, the cows kept on these farms are used for multiple suckling in buildings provided partly by Government grant, with the result that many more cows are reared than if the cows are kept out on the moors and only single suckled calves are kept. In the national interest we need greater production today to save imports and this will be obtained by multiple suckling of well managed cows properly housed, and in the interests of the cattle overstocking of commons ought to be discouraged.

The exclusion of these farms does not make sense and one can only conclude that someone must have drawn an arbitrary line excluding farms below a certain contour, whereas, of course, the decision whether a farm should be in or out ought to rest on the land itself and not upon the precise district in which it is located.

I have, naturally, taken a great interest in the subject of the hill cow subsidy, because a number of these farmers with hill farms who have been disqualified live in my constituency and I have frequently made my views known to the previous Minister of Agriculture, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Soames). I therefore all the more resented a letter written jointly by the hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) and the Liberal candidate for Torrington which appeared in the Western Morning News during the election. It was written with the sole object of smearing West Country Conservative Members and denigrating their work on behalf of their constituents. I consider that a dirty trick, or, in more Parliamentary language, I would say that that sort of thing reflects no credit on the hon. Member for Devon, North and his friend.

In their letter, these two gentlemen implied that I had done nothing for my constituents about this hill cow subsidy. Unlike some other people, I do not blow my own trumpet, but for the sake of the record it is only fair to state that it was thanks to my representations last year, backed by Mr. Percy Browne, that the Minister agreed to give special treatment to the Holsworthy area, as a result of which farms were inspected individually parish by parish instead of, as was originally intended, the whole area being automatically struck out.

Earlier this year, at the request of Conservative Devon Members, my right hon. Friend the then Minister of Agriculture gave an undertaking that after all appeals had been heard by the A.E.C., he would be prepared to discuss with any Devon Members concerned, together with the Chairman of the Devon N.F.U., any of the firms which had been excluded. I trust that the present Minister will fulfil that obligation entered into by his predecessor. I understand, too, that the Minister has recently sent an official to Exmoor who has put one farm back into the scheme against the judgment of the original inspector and the appeal committee. This surely indicates that there ought to be a reappraisal of the whole thing using this farm as the yardstick. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be able to assure me that these things will be done.

I also ask that the Minister should consider in what other way he can help these farmers who have been excluded from the scheme, as after this year they will not only no longer be eligible for the hill cow subsidy, but also automatically excluded from the benefits of the new winter keep scheme. They will thus suffer a severe drop in income which they had been looking forward to receiving, and I ask the hon. Gentleman to consider whether these people could not even now be included in the winter keep scheme.

10.45 p.m.

Mr. Jeremy Thorpe (Devon, North)

Perhaps I might deal, first, with the subject matter of the debate, which is the more important issue here. The position is that there are more farmers adversely affected in my constituency than in any other in Devon, and, as the hon. Member for Tavistock (Sir H. Studholme) said, Devon is more affected than any other county in the United Kingdom.

The hon. Gentleman speaks publicly with great enthusiasm now that it is not his own Minister whom he is attacking. I have always maintained that this has not constituted a review, but that it has constituted turning the scheme upside down on its head. There is a farm on Exmoor, 700 feet up, which, in 1952, out of 255 improvement schemes for marginal farms in the county, was regarded as a typical example of a farm which should receive a £ for £ grant under the livestock rearing Act. That is a hill farm within the purest meaning of that Act. It is a farm such as that which has been pushed outside the scheme and the farmer's appeal has been turned down.

If one goes up to Blackmoor Gate on the edge of Exmoor, and stands on the bank, one can see four farms, one of which is in, one of which is out, another of which has not been reviewed at all, and another in respect of which an appeal is pending. It is almost impossible to see any geographical differences at all.

I know that the Minister has inherited the position, and that it is not of his making, but I ask that he give sympathetic consideration to giving assistance to these hill farmers, many of whom cannot turn over to any other form of husbandry, and who face a loss in income of hundreds of pounds as a result of this arbitrary act of revision.

The hon. Gentleman thought that I was unduly severe. He may take the same view of what the electorate did to his majority, but that is another matter. All I suggested was that when the hon. Gentleman spoke in this House, faced as he was with the fact that many small farmers were going to face bankruptcy as a result of this revision, all that he felt moved to say was: I sincerely trust that in any marginal case where there is doubt, the farmer will be given the benefit of the doubt and treated as generously as possible."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th June, 1964, Vol. 697, c. 1031.] I do not think that that was a clarion call.

Sir H. Studholme

The hon. Gentleman's party has been out of office for so long that he does not know that when one is in office it is often better to go and talk to the Minister, which I did on many occasions. In this debate I asked that when there were marginal cases they should be given the benefit of the doubt. Surely that is only right.

Mr. Thorpe

It is not for me to question the working of the Conservative Party behind the scenes. I, too, happened to go to the Minister, with the hon. Gentleman, but it is here in this House that we make known the views of our constituents, if one has any respect for this Chamber, which I have, and I would not have thought that to say, in a situation in which men were facing the possibility of going out of business, that one hoped the Minister would give them the benefit of the doubt in marginal cases, was exactly a clarion call. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that his was a clarion call, and that he has been looking after these farmers adequately, I disagree.

I hope that the Minister will be able to give consideration to these hill farmers. Many of them have put their land into good heart. It is very difficult land, and many of them are contributing to the beef herd of this country and doing a very valuable job of work.

10.49 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. James Hoy)

I thank the hon. Member for Tavistock (Sir H. Studholme) for half the kind things that he said about me. He apparently welcomed me here, but hoped that my stay would not be for long. This does not surprise me too much, because I remember the last occasion on which this subject was raised, and I remember, too, the paeans of praise which he poured forth on the right hon. Gentleman who was then the Minister in charge of this Department. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman likened the Minister to the Archangel Gabriel, and I remember he did it to the detriment of the Archangel. I could never aspire to reach those tremendous heights, but I hope that with a little honest endeavour we might be able to do something for the farmers whose plight has been referred to tonight.

First of all, I think that I ought to take this single case that was raised, about the recategorising of one particular farm. Let me say quite categorically that in that case the decision was not reversed by the Director of the Land Service. He, in fact, upheld the decision that had been arrived at by the agricultural executive committee. I think that that ought to be clearly understood so that hon. Members will realise that all this thought was given to it, that the A.E.C. on examination of the case made a decision and that the decision was upheld by the Director.

I accept some responsibility. May I say right at the beginning that I have taken part in many agricultural debates, usually either opening or winding up from the Opposition Front Bench. The only change is that I am on the Government side tonight. It is true, too, that on the Public Accounts Committee I also played a part, and I accept my responsibility, along with the Comptroller and Auditor General and the members of the Public Accounts Committee, for working not only on this scheme but on the other schemes which are to be re-examined. I repeat what I have often said, that one's job as a member of the Public Accounts Committee is to look after the public purse and to ensure that the money is wisely spent in the best interests of the country.

However, I want to say that I am grateful to the hon. Member for Tavistock for raising this matter tonight because many hard things have been said about this scheme, not only by the farmers but by the Press. In my reply—because the hon. Gentleman went wider than the hill cow subsidy scheme—I would also like to cast my net a little wider and deal with the subject of hill farming as a whole, one reason being that this difficulty does not only arise in connection with the hill cow subsidy scheme. Indeed, as the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) will bear out, many times I raised with him the question of these subsidies for certain farms both in this respect and also in regard to the winter keep scheme. When one seeks to put farms into different categories this difficulty will inevitably arise. So I fought this battle before, from the other side of the House.

Labour Governments, as the hon. Gentleman conceded, have always recognised that hill farming is one branch of the industry where special measures are necessary. The hill farmer has many problems to face. Primarily, there is the land which is incapable of any agricultural enterprise other than livestock rearing and is often unsuitable for afforestation. Climatic conditions are generally rather rugged, as the hon. Gentleman said, in the hills, and in winter they can be appalling. The hill farmer benefits only indirectly from the livestock guarantees, producing as he does mainly store and breeding stock for other farmers' use and having to sell them in the autumn at the end of the grazing season when the market may well be depressed.

It is a matter of history that the first comprehensive legislation to assist the hill farmers was introduced by the Labour Government. I know that preparatory work had been done before 1945—I was not here at the time but was still in the Army—but it was Mr. Torn Williams, the Minister of Agriculture in the Labour Government, who introduced the Hill Farming Bill in 1946, the first Bill to give assistance to the farmers. This is all I am saying on that point.

The 1946 Act recognised that hill land had become run-down during the war period, and it introduced special grants for the rehabilitation of hill farms. It also renewed the hill sheep subsidy and the hill cattle subsidy, both of which had been introduced as war-time measures to encourage the grazing of sheep and cattle on the hill land to maintain the breeding flock and to compensate in some measure for the loss of demand from lowland graziers caused by the ploughing-up campaign.

Aid to the hills was further widened by the Livestock Rearing Act, 1951, which extended the areas for which the rehabilitation grants were available by bringing in the land lower down the hill. In 1953, the Hill Cow Subsidy Scheme was introduced in England and Wales to encourage the establishment of regular breeding herds on such land and the improvement of the pastures. This is the scheme we are supposed to be discussing tonight, although we have ranged a little wide.

Also under the last Government we saw the end of the power to approve rehabilitation schemes, and the introduction of grants to assist in the growing of winter keep. Through these subsidies and the rehabilitation schemes, no less than £82 million have been paid to the hill farmers of the United Kingdom in the past 18 years.

The hon. Member for Tavistock dealt at some length with the recent review of hill cow land. I am bound to acknowledge that on the last occasion this was raised—I think much more forcefully—it was raised by the hon. Member for North Devon (Mr. Thorpe) in a debate at which he and I were also present. I will look carefully at this matter. I make that promise, but I am bound to say at once that under existing legislation there is very little than can be done. The definition of eligible land which Parliament approved makes it abundantly clear that, regardless of its present management, if land is suitable for improvement to such an extent that the farming enterprise could become one of dairying, fattening or cash cropping to a material extent, it cannot qualify for this special subsidy.

One thing that is clear to me is that the review itself was carried out with a considerable amount of sympathy and commonsense. The view taken by those carrying out the review was that it would obviously be unrealistic to expect a farmer to carry out uneconomic improvements to his land. I am thinking, in particular, of course, of such matters as extensive drainage schemes which could not be carried out at a reasonable cost. On the other hand, where improvements could and should have been carried out as part of good management to bring out the natural potential of the land, these were taken into account as dictated by the statutory definition I have already quoted.

Some areas were undoubtedly more affected than others by the review. Here, I should give some figures. The hon. Member for Tavistock mentioned Devon, where 39 per cent. of those eligible for the subsidy in 1963 were affected. I cannot say that I have seen anything that leads me to believe that the Devon farmers were treated any less fairly than those in other parts of England and Wales. Indeed, one fact which struck me most forcibly when I inquired into the conduct of the review was the extreme care with which it had been carried out, and the fair manner in which the agricultural executive committee had considered farmers' representations.

The review procedure used in Devon was no different from that used elsewhere in England and Wales. Under the overall control of the Ministry's headquarters and with the help of two colleagues from other regions, the Regional Land Commissioner for the South West Region identified the fringe areas of Dartmoor and Exmoor to be reviewed against the national standard of eligibility. After that, the land was carefully considered.

With appeals the A.E.C.s. independently went to great trouble to do this—not having a cursory glance, but walking the land, each farm individually, just to make absolutely certain that justice was done. That is why I should like to put on record, in view of the criticisms that have been made, the very high regard we have for the people who did this job and for the tremendous trouble they took to make sure that justice was given to each farmer.

I had hoped to say very much more, but I gave way to the hon. Member because I thought that he had better get his little quarel settled and then get on to the business which mattered. But, in conclusion, the House will be interested to know that my right hon. Friend the Minister has asked me, as a matter of urgency, to look at the present pattern of hill subsidies to see whether they could be rationalised or modified in any way to assist this important branch of the agricultural industry, and I hope to obtain through the members of the Hill Farming Advisory Committee the views of a good cross-section of the hill farming industry. When we come up with any proposals we shall, of course, be consulting also the associations representing the various branches of the industry.

Needless to say, I shall also be keeping in close touch with my colleagues in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, because I finish as I began. This problem affects farmers in all parts of the country. But I hope that with the assurance which I have given the hon. Member, the House will accept that we shall give this matter special and urgent attention. We know what it means to this large section of small farmers. I can give an assurance that we shall lose no time in dealing with the problem, because we know how keenly it affects these people. Their very livelihood depends on it. I assure hon. Members that we shall lose no time in dealing with the—

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 one minute past Eleven o'clock.