HC Deb 16 February 1965 vol 706 cc1149-58

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

10.28 p.m.

Mr. Stephen Hastings (Mid-Bedfordshire)

I am raising tonight a subject which is of widespread interest in my constituency and in the whole of Bedfordshire, and I think it fair to say that concern about it goes a good deal wider than that. I refer to the danger to property from the uncontrolled burning of stubble and straw after harvest. It may be a little difficult to shift one's mind from the draughts and damps of mid-February in London to the harvest field, but this subject is at least a good deal less thunderous than the one we have just debated, some of the thunder from which is still reverberating through the doors of the Chamber. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to hear me and succeed in grasping something of what I have to say. I am most grateful to him for coming to the House this evening to reply to the debate.

There was some doubt about whether this subject fell within the responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture or of the Home Office, as it is the Home Office which is responsible for the fire service. Nevertheless, I think it right that it should be discussed in the context of the Ministry of Agriculture's responsibilities, since it is farmers who are responsible and farmers chiefly who suffer from the effects of careless burning.

Granted that last summer was exceptionally dry and hot and the harvest, therefore, early, and that this must have exacerbated the damage caused, never theless these dry seasons fall, as the hon. Gentleman, who is a farmer himself, knows, about one year in five and it is only fair that we should expect farmers to be prepared for this eventuality.

The statistics I shall quote come from my own area and they are impressive. Between late July and the first days of October in Bedfordshire alone, 120 acres of standing corn were destroyed by fire, together with four miles of hedgerow and 10 combine harvesters, while 12 fires involved Dutch barns or stacked crops. There were also a number of major forest outbreaks, including perhaps the worst fire of the year in the county.

Fire engines were called to no fewer than 127 stubble fires and, in addition, there were 30 false alarms by well-meaning persons who reported a red glow in the sky. When the fire engines arrived these fires were found to be under control already, but, nevertheless, the engines were out of commission for that time. Without prompt action and radio control the situation in Bedfordshire could have got seriously out of hand last season.

A small farmer friend of mine, for example, literally had to fight, helped by his family, almost all one night against a blaze roaring down from his neighbour's land. It destroyed a section of his standing crops, a hedge and a number of trees round his house, and even the house was in danger for some time. This fire had been caused by a young farmer next door who had been warned of the result of burning without taking proper care. The wind was straight on to my friend's land and he threw a match into the straw and went home. The result was as I have described it.

I was also a sufferer in one sense. I was in the middle of an election speech in a village hall next to a fire station. There was a certain amount of heckling but it was the fire alarm which put an end to my speech. For a time I thought perhaps the Labour Party had got possession of the fire station, but it was, in fact, another case of a stubble fire. There is nothing particularly inflammable about Bedfordshire. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will have heard reports from the country as a whole that this danger is widespread.

I have no doubt that the burning of stubble itself is justified—indeed, that it is even good farming. For instance, the long stubble left by combine harvesters is difficult to plough in, particularly on the heavy land such as we have in parts of Bedfordshire. It costs about £2 a ton to bale and cart away, and that takes no account of labour costs. It simply does not pay a farmer to bale it unless he has stock of his own, or has some other purpose for straw.

Incidentally, it would be a useful exercise for the industry to go into the possible uses of pulped straw. I am sure that, as there is such an increased quantity since combines have come into use and the acreage has gone up, this straw might be turned to a useful purpose.

Some farmers claim, with impressive evidence to support it, that land yields better crops after burning; others are convinced that it destroys weed seeds and other rubbish. I therefore have no complaint about the practice as such. Nor do I think straw burning need ever be dangerous provided that reasonable precautions are taken.

I think that farmers generally are well aware of all this and the vast majority are responsible people who take due care. Since the damage last season, local branches of the N.F.U. have discussed the matter fairly widely in my area and I think that the subject has reached headquarters and been discussed there.

The sort of commonsense precautions which I would hope would form part of the recommendations of the N.F.U. are these: first, that there should always be a good safety margin round the edge of the field, at least 10 furrows ploughed around the headland before burning takes place; secondly, the fire should always be started upwind, for, although it does not necessarily matter whether it is kept going afterwards downwind, it should be started upwind so that there is a break; thirdly, a fire of this kind should never be left unattended, and by that I do not mean attended by children, but by grownups, at least someone over the age of 18 and preferably by two people.

It is only sensible to burn in daylight, preferably in the early morning, so that the fire has the whole day to burn out. But if a night fire is inevitable for some reason or another, it is at least important, and I would say vital, that the farmer concerned should ring the fire brigade and say where he is burning. This would obviate the danger of the false alarms of which I spoke earlier.

As I have said, the extent of the damage gives cause for concern. I understand that the N.F.U. is to produce a code of precautions for farmers to observe in future. This is to be welcomed and it is not before time. I am not suggesting legislation, certainly not at this stage There are enough laws, without attempting to introduce unnecessary ones, but the careless and selfish action of individuals has undoubtedly led of late, especially last season, to considerable material loss and stress and suffering and even danger to individuals and possibly to life.

I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will take a good look at these practices and I feel confident that he will regard them in the same serious light as we in our part of the world do after our experience of last season. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for coming to listen to these remarks on a subject which is of some importance in the industry and I shall be glad of his comments upon it.

10.38 p.m.

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

I should like, first, to say that I am glad of this opportunity to speak on this subject and that I am grateful to the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Hastings) for raising it. As he said, the back end of last year was very dry and very good for burning straw. The matter has caused me concern, both as a farmer and as a member of the Government.

I was sorry to hear of the hon. Gentleman's experience when electioneering, but he got here quite safely and it obviously did not do him too much harm. He said that there was a certain amount of irresponsibility, but I do not wholly agree. I think that it is more inexperience. I am not irresponsible and yet just after the war I was out for a walk on my Lincolnshire farm one night when, without thinking, I lit a field of straw. Before my partner and I knew where we were—we had been in the shelter of a wood and had not realised that a strong wind was blowing—there was an enormous fire which alarmed the whole countryside late on a Saturday night.

The R.A.F., at Hemswell, had to get its men out of the "pubs", so that they were not very pleased with us, to help to deal with the fire. That sort of thing causes alarm to the public. A farmer might have taken all the care in the world with a field fire and yet a member of the public passing in a car will see the fire and report it to the fire brigade and a good deal of trouble is caused.

I happened to telephone my wife tonight and she told me that a neighbour of ours in Essex, who had not burned a field at the back end of last season—he had late wheat—had just set fire to the stubble and had not informed the fire brigade. The fire brigade turned up all the same. This debate is thus very apt so far as I am concerned.

The hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire nearly answered all his own points, and he did so very well, but I should like to say a few words about the reasons for this practice. Unfortunately, because things occasionally get out of hand, it has beef suggested that the burning of straw it itself is a wasteful method of disposing of it. I was interested in the point made by the hon. Member that we should look into the question of pulped straw. Much of it was used during the war, but it appears that the raw materials for paper are now cheaper and I gather that it is not easy to get rid of straw for that purpose.

Mr. Hastings

Recently, a method has been found of making pulp and paper from sugar trash. This is, perhaps, going rather in the same direction.

Mr. Mackie

It is all fibrous material of one kind or another. I should have thought that more use could be made of straw, but it appears that this is not necessarily the case.

Nobody who knows farmers well would ever believe that they would be likely to throw away a potentially valuable asset if it could be sold elsewhere. But straw or long stubble is burned probably for two reasons: because it is the only way of disposing of it economically, and because, until it is cleared out of the way, farmers cannot get their autumn cultivation started quickly. Burning is the easiest way.

There has been a considerable increase in the cereal acreage in the last few years. At the same time, the demand for straw has lessened considerably and the market is saturated. Farming, like other industries, has become more specialised. As a result, fewer cereal producers are keeping livestock and using their own straw for feeding and bedding. These two factors, with other factors such as a reduction in demand for straw for thatching or for potato clamps, which are now kept indoors, have reduced the price of straw to a level which would not repay farmers the cost of baling it at £2 per ton and stacking and transporting it. Farmers must, therefore, cope with large quantities of straw which is virtually unsaleable and must be got out of the way for the next crop. It is difficult to plough in loose straw. It hinders ploughing and represents a considerable expense—for example, £200 to £300 for a chopper on a combine—and burning becomes so obvious that we all do it.

Finally, as the hon. Member has said, the weather plays a great part in a good year. In many summers, it is impossible to burn the straw because the stubble never dries out sufficiently. Last summer was exceptional. I trust that the hon. Member and any other Members who are present will agree that it is a practical and economic method for getting rid of straw.

The hon. Member mentioned that many farmers thought that burning got rid of weed seeds. I am doubtful about that. Straw is very quick burning and if wet weather follows burning, whether before or after the land is cultivated, one sees a tremendous amount of weeds growing. I doubt whether it has a great effect in reducing weeds.

There is always a big criticism of farming that straw and stubble burning should be discouraged because it robs the soil of fertility. I do not want to go into the "muck and magic" side of farming. I do not pretend that we know all the answers. Work is still going on and there is a fund of evidence from careful experiments which have been going on for many years at the Ministry's own experimental farms and at Rothamsted and Sprowston that removing straw by burning does not lead to any great loss of soil fertility.

This is somewhat surprising, but the work has confirmed what many farmers have thought for years, that if the soil structure is right the judicious use of inorganic fertilisers will easily keep up fertility. The reasons for this are complex and I do not propose to go into them now. There are still certain aspects which, because of the long-term nature of the problem, we must continue to explore, and this we are doing.

It is the farmer's responsibility to take every precaution to ensure that no one else is in any way inconvenienced by his actions, that there are no unnecessary hazards to wild life and that no damage is done to his own property or, more especially, to other people's property. The risk that this may happen, and that unexpected consequences may arise, are obviously much greater in those years—which seem to be getting rarer as I get older—when we have a really good summer, and the late summer last year was, as I have said, abnormally dry.

Dealing with the extent of last summer's damage, there is no doubt, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out, that there was a very disturbing increase in the number of straw and straw stubble fires which got out of control during this period, and there has been a great deal of justifiable concern, which has been fully endorsed by the National Farmers' Union itself, at the number of complaints of damage to property, to wild life, of heavy calls on the fire service, and inconvenience, and, as the hon. Gentleman said, even danger, to other members of the public. The last dry summer that we had was in 1959. Specialisation has taken place over this period of five years, but the main reason for the increase in stubble burning last year was the good summer.

I wish to repeat what was said in another place in November last year, that the Government, like the last, share the concern which has been voiced at this state of affairs. The fact that the summer was so dry may serve to explain why the trouble occurred on such a scale, but it should have been obvious to everybody that in such conditions extra special care was necessary.

The impact on the general public was increased by the fact that because of the favourable conditions so many farmers seemed to be burning off at the same time, and in many cases, perhaps understandably, the fire brigade was called out by passers-by to attend fires which were not out of control at all. The figures for the hon. Gentleman's area bear out the fact that a considerable number of calls were made by anxious passers-by.

I should like to say something about the damage to wild life, which I do not think is very great. The main thing is that when hedges are burned the cover for wild life is removed. I do not think that many birds are killed by burning hedges, but it takes away their refuge during winter. By burning hedges the ground is left bare, and we strongly deplore this.

The other point, though not a big one, is the question of the look of the countryside. I know that from a train or from the road the blackened fields of Hampshire and Wiltshire look ugly, but I think that the hon. Gentleman will admit that as soon as cultivation starts the countryside reverts to its natural beauty. I do not think that we should worry unduly about the short period during which the fields look ugly.

The hon. Gentleman gave the figures for his county, and I do not want to repeat them, except to say that there were 54 stubble fires which the fire brigade attended, which had been intentionally started. That figure compares with one in 1963, and three in 1962. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the question of damage, and I agree that it was very high. It included 12 dutch barns, 10 combine harvesters, 127 acres of standing crops, and four miles of hedgerows. That is a lot of damage, for which the insurance companies have to pay, and it is to be deprecated.

Why not legislation to deal with the problem? The hon. Gentleman did not think that that was a good thing, and we are of the same opinion. There have been many suggestions from many quarters that compulsory powers should be taken to control the intentional burning of straw and stubble, in particular, but means of byelaws under Section 249 of the Local Government Act, 1933.

This has been looked at carefully by the Home Office, and I support its conclusion that at the present time statutory control, with all the difficulties which are attendant upon it, is not the best way of tackling the problem. Statutory control of stubble burning could be applied only to intentional burning, and could touch only the fringe of the problem of fires in the countryside. It would be extremely difficult to administer, so we have dropped the question of legislation.

The hon. Gentleman referred to the possibility of introducing a safety code. We think that this is the most promising approach to the problem. Such a code could ensure that farmers were aware of all the things they had to do to ensure that straw and stubble fires did not get out of control and cause inconvenience.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned some of the things which would help in this code. We warmly welcome the initiative which was taken by the National Farmers' Union last autumn in formulating such a code. It will, when issued, contain a list of all the more important points, some of which the hon. Member mentioned, which farmers should bear in mind if they wish to burn straw and stubble. The most obvious precaution is, of course, to choose the right sort of conditions and never to burn when the wind is wrong or during very dry conditions, when fires may spread very rapidly. It is tempting to burn when the wind makes the job easier, but this may be a dangerous practice. It is important to choose the time of day wisely. Fires may get out of control in the heat of mid-day or in the gathering darkness of evening.

It is essential to make sure that there are proper fire-breaks. Eight or nine furrows round the outside is best, but in view of the scarcity of labour that is not always easy to do. Another commonsense precaution which the hon. Member mentioned is to be sure that the fire is not unattended. Having near it a couple of one's children, aged 10 and 11, is not sufficient to look after a fire. It needs more than that.

Several Government Departments, including the Home Office, the Forestry Commission, the Nature Conservancy and my own Department, are co-operating in the preparation of the code. We hope that it will be a good one. The County Councils Association has affirmed its interest in the effective working of such a code, and other organisations which are being consulted include the Country Landowners' Association, the National Union of Agricultural Workers, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and the Fire Protection Association.

I am sure that with all the wealth of experience a workable and effective code will be devised, and the Government want to see it introduced in good time for the 1965 harvest. We hope that it will be a dry harvest and a good harvest—not for the reasons for which the hon. Member and I are here tonight but for other reasons. We hope that farmers will take note of the code and apply it carefully. I can assure the hon. Member that the Government will continue to keep a very close watch on the position. We must give the code a fair run. We believe that it is the right answer, but if it turns out to be inadequate we shall be ready to take a fresh look at the position.

I hope that I have said enough to satisfy the hon. Member that we are not losing sight of the problem. We are glad that he raised it, because it is a subject about which the public are worried, as the problem is so widespread. I hope that some publicity will be given to it and that the public will be reassured that we are not losing sight of what is a difficult problem, but which could be solved by use of the code which I have mentioned.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at eight minutes to Eleven o'clock.