HL Deb 30 April 1925 vol 60 cc1104-15

Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.

THE PARLIAMETARY SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (LORD BLEDISLOE)

My Lords, I feel that I almost owe your Lordships an apology, in moving the Second Reading of this Bill, for submitting for the third time to your Lordships' notice its very simple provisions. It is a Bill which came in practically the same form before your Lordships in 1923, being then brought forward by a Conservative Government, and last year it was presented to you in a very similar form by a Labour Government. Accordingly I hope that your Lordships will not require to have any detailed explanation of it. The Bill is short and very simple. It merely provides for a compulsory Return being made annually by all occupiers of agricultural land, setting out the area of their holdings, the acreage of the different crops upon them, the nature and numbers of their livestock and, finally, the number of the employees whom they employ. This information is purely for statistical purposes and, as provided in subsection (2) of the first clause, it will not be disclosed in any circumstances without the authority of the person who furnishes it.

The term "agricultural land," which is the term used in the first clause, your Lordships will find defined in subsection (7) as including not merely cultivated land, but land used as grazing, meadow, or pasture land, or orchard, and any land used wholly or mainly for the purpose of the trade or business of a market gardener or nurseryman. I ought incidentally to mention that in the case of Scotland the same definition applies, but there is added to it another class of land—namely, deer forests. I may say that the form which it is contemplated to use is practically that which is in present use and is voluntarily filled up now by the greater number of agricultural occupiers in this country. All those farmers—and they are in a majority—who recognise the importance of accurate and complete information on these subjects do at present furnish very good and reliable Returns. There are a certain number who are not so ready and willing to supply the information required, and who give the Department which I have the honour of serving a certain amount of trouble in obtaining it, but very often it is ultimately obtained after repeated applications. There are, however, a few who decline to give any information at all.

I am sure your Lordships will agree that, if these Returns are made, then it is very essential that they should be complete and accurate. In this connection, as I have reason to know, many countries are ahead of us. Agricultural Returns, for instance, furnished in the United States of America, in Scandinavia and in Germany are more reliable and more complete than those which we are able to obtain here. Lord Banbury regarded this Bill, on the last occasion when it was submitted to this House, with a certain amount of suspicion and as covering up some rather sinister purpose. I should like to assure him, and any one who may sympathise with the views which he then expressed, that it is really for the benefit of the industry, and not in any sense to its detriment, that this very full information is desired.

I do not know that I need remind your Lordships, because my noble friend Lord Parmoor gave a very interesting description of the history of agricultural Returns when he submitted this Bill to you a year ago, but there were similar statistics furnished even at the time when the Board of Agriculture was constituted in 1889. The Board of Agriculture Act, however, for some reason, although it required the continuance of the furnishing of these statistics, provided no means by which they were to be furnished and indicated in no way the form of the Return which should be made. It was on a voluntary basis up to the time of the passing of the Corn Production Act that these Returns were made. For five years the Corn Production Act was in operation. The Returns were compulsory and it was only by the repeal of Part 1 of the Agriculture Act which, as your Lordships know, embodied the provisions of the Corn Production Act, that the compulsory requirements in relation to these statistics ceased.

We do want, and I am sure your Lordships realise we want, particularly now, the most reliable information, if we are going to have, at any given time, a really adequate estimate of the economic condition of our oldest industry, and I think, for that if for no other reason, I should be justified in asking your Lordships to approve the Bill in its present form. It is supported by the National Farmers' Union, by the Advisory Committee of the Ministry, on which there are selected representatives from the two National Councils of Agriculture for England and Wales, and by the Councils of Agriculture themselves. I imagine that my noble friend Lord Banbury will again raise the point which he raised a year ago in reference to the provision that the persons employed shall be included in this Return. This is a provision upon which we lay considerable store and we consider that the Returns will not be of complete value without this item being included. I think you will probably agree with me when I remind you that the only information we have at the present time regarding the employees on agricultural land is in the occupation census, taken every ten years, and even this is not issued until some time after it is taken. The result is that at no time have we any really adequate information as regards employment upon agricultural land, of its occasionally very shifting population.

I do not know that I need say anything else with regard to this Bill, but I hope your Lordships will give it a Second Reading. If I may say so, I hope you will not find it necessary to incorporate in it the two Amendments—and all the Amendments you made are incorporated in the Bill—to which particular exception was taken by the Ministry of Agriculture when the Bill was last submitted to your Lordships. I beg to move that this Bill he now read a second time.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Bledisloe.)

LORD PARMOOR

My Lords, as the noble Lord has indicated, this Bill was introduced on behalf of the Labour Government last year, and it was not then introduced for the first time. It was very carefully considered in this House in order that it should not be in an inquisitorial form. A reduction of the penalties originally introduced was made and new definitions, to meet certain fears expressed by certain of your Lordships that the Bill might extend in a direction in which it was never intended to extend, were included. I understand that it is now in the same form and substance as it left your Lordships' House last year, and therefore it is not necessary that I should say more than that we on this side give it our most hearty support.

LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM

My Lords, I think the noble Lord who has just spoken is mistaken in saying that this Bill is in the same form as the Bill which left your Lordships' House last year. It differs in three particulars. In the Bill of last year the time in which the farmer was to make his Returns was fixed at 28 days. That is left out, and the farmer will be obliged to make his Returns at any time which the officials of the Board of Trade may consider right. They may say to him: "You are to make your Returns within a week"—or ten days, or any time that they may think right. Last year your Lordships thought it was best that Parliament should decide the number of days which should be given to the farmer in which to make his Returns, and I propose to move to reinsert the period of 28 days.

Then there was considerable discussion last year as to whether or not the number of men employed should be included in the Returns, and your Lordships came to the conclusion that it was not necessary to include the number of men employee], and that possibly the inclusion might lead to unfortunate results. In addition, I am sure that my noble friend Lord Bledisloe knows that farmers at the present time are not in a very fortunate position, that they have a great deal to do to look after their farms, and do not want to be continually filling up forms and answering all sorts of difficult questions. As my noble friend is aware, the number of men employed on a farm differs at different times. There are a certain number of men who are employed permanently, and there are a certain number of men who are brought in at odd times: for example, at the hay harvest and the corn harvest and in the winter for hedging and ditching. How is the farmer to say how many men are employed? Has he to look back to his wages sheets and take out the number of men employed for a short time in the hay harvest, and for hedging and ditching, and put down the number of days they are employed and add them to those of the permanent men?

It is all very well for my noble friend to say that these Returns are valuable. They are valuable to the Ministry of Agriculture in keeping it occupied, and preventing the dismissal of a certain number of officials who would not be required if all these Returns had not to be made. I cannot for the life of me see what the object is of asking new many men are employed. I can understand a Labour Government asking it, because they would, no doubt, bring in a Bill to say that every farmer was to employ a certain number of men per acre. But I cannot believe that my noble friend has any such idea in his head. Therefore I hope that he will accept the Amendment which I shall move to leave out this obligation which it is proposed to place upon the farmer.

There is another alteration in regard to the provision for Orders lying on the Table, but I do not know whether it is very important. That has been slightly altered. The old Bill said that if the. Regulation should be objected to by either House it should be void but without prejudice to the validity of any-thing previously done thereunder. The new Bill says that no further proceedings shall be taken thereunder, but without prejudice to the making of any new draft regulations.

LORD BLEDISLOE

The words of the present Bill are: "without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done thereunder."

LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM

I see I have reversed it. The new form is, I think, the better of the two.

LORD BLEDISLOE

Hear, hear.

LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM

I shall not move an Amendment there then. May I ask my noble friend if he will give a few days before the Committee Stage in order that, we may consider Amendments that we want to put down?

LORD STRACHIE

My Lords, as regards what the noble Lord said about this Bill being practically the same Bill as that introduced by the Labour Government, I suppose that is the reason why he has only given us two days' Notice of the Second Beading. At the same time, when this Bill was being discussed in another place, a great many suggestions were made. Has the Minister, Mr. Wood, any intention of doing what he rather indicated in another place that he might do and turn this into a survey? It was suggested from the Opposition Benches that there might be a survey of the whole country, but that was rather modified, and the idea was put forward by Mr. Lloyd George that you should take samples of different parts of the country. I think-that would be very unsatisfactory indeed, because different parts of the country differ enormously I should imagine, however, from the present state of the Bill that it is not contemplated to have such a survey. Mr. Wood, on the Third Reading of the Bill, said that he would take this matter into consideration and that he might be asked about it later. So far as I am aware, he has not been asked about it. My noble, friend would, no doubt, be able to tell us whether any- thing further has been done. Such a survey would bring a large body of officials into the Department. From what has lately been said by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he, apparently, means largely to reduce the swollen ranks of the Civil Service. I hope, therefore, that we shall be assured that there will not be a general survey and a largo horde of officials appointed.

I hope the noble Lord will consider also whether the fair, course would not be that, instead of a farmer having to prove his innocence as regards neglect in the making of a Return, it should be the duty of the Ministry to prove that he has been negligent in not making it. I think the noble Lord might also consider Clause 1 (6) and whether these notices might not be seat by registered post, because in these days letters are constantly being lost. I notice that Lord Banbury complained—and I think very rightly of subsection (8) with regard to the annulment of the Regulation. A very much better form has been adopted up to now by the Ministry in the Corn Production Act, and I shall certainly put down an Amendment under which the Ministry would revert to the better course there followed, which left it entirely in the hands of either House of Parliament, if they thought fit, to declare that the Orders are null and void, but without prejudice to what had happened previously under them.

LORD OLIVIER

My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Bledisloe, will be able, in his reply, to dispel some of the mists of apprehension which clouded our debate, on this Bill last year and which apparently threaten to cloud it again this year. I know quite well that anything that has passed through the hands of the Labour Government raises in the minds of one or two noble Lords in this House a kind of nightmare as to what may be intended, but I should like to give the noble Lord, Lord Bledisloe, one or two leads which perhaps might assist him to deprecate the further raising of these chimeras when this Bill goes into Committee.

First of all, there is this idea of the creation of a horde of officials. We heard that last year under the Labour Government. I should like to ask the noble Lord: Is it the case that this Bill will add a single official to the staff, since the work will be carried out, as it is carried out now, by the collectors of agricultural statistics—that is to say, collectors of agricultural statistics who now procure the voluntary Returns from farmers? At present they invite all farmers to send in these Returns, but they do not get them from all. The only difference which this Bill makes is that power is given to the Ministry to secure that the very men who are now supposed to collect these statistics shall get them from all, instead of from a proportion, as at present, which necessitates the Ministry of Agriculture adding to the Returns in order to make its estimates.

Then there is this question of the inquisitorial investigation as to what men are or are not employed on the land. The noble Lord, Lord Banbury, last year made the same suggestion as he has made to-day—namely, that it was intended by the Labour Government, having got these Returns, to bring forth a scheme for agricultural employment which would secure the employment of a certain proportion of men on all the farms in the country. It was with some surprise that I heard him refer again to that idea this afternoon. In the first place, I have had some connection with the persons who are interested in the collection of these statistics. I know-to a certain extent what is going on, under direction of the School of Agriculture at Oxford, with regard to the collection of statistics of employment at certain selected farms in the County of Oxford, and I do not think it will be found that farmers have any very great difficulty in giving a fairly approximate indication of the number of casual and extra-harvest hands which they employ. It is no particular hardship upon a man to do that, and if he cannot do it he will not do it. But I do not think that many farmers will make much trouble about it. They will give you the number of their regular men and will say that at harvest time they employ so many extra men at such and such rates.

LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM

The noble Lord will forgive me for interrupting him, but may I point out that this Bill is compulsory, and farmers will be obliged to return whatever the officials tell them to return? When it was not compulsory to do so I made a Return of 651 acres one year and of 650 the next year, and I was asked by an official what had become of the one acre. That is the sort of thing that will happen if one has to make a compulsory Return.

LORD OLIVIER

I leave the noble Lord, Lord Bledisloe, to say whether he is going to make farmers return whatever he tells them to return; that is his responsibility. Coming now to the real intention of this Bill, some noble Lords in this House, and I suppose some gentlemen in another place, seem not to apprehend at all the real necessity for this information. For quite a number of years there have been continual controversies as to the condition of the agricultural industry, as to what is happening in it, as to whether there was enough arable land in cultivation, as to whether arable land had or had not been increasing in quantity, and as to whether the agricultural population was being more and more, or less and less, employed.

Some eighteen months ago, when the Conservative Government was going out of office and was suddenly faced with the question of preparing a programme which would attract, or, I will say, would benefit agriculture, they had to prepare that programme based upon such inadequate statistics that nobody knew what the result would be in regard to particular items. The proposal to give a subsidy of £l an acre to every farmer on condition that he employed his labourers at not less than 30s. a week—as to the merits of which I say nothing-was made entirely in the air as to what its effect was to be in different districts, and it had a very mixed reception. It was better received in some districts than in others.

Speaking with all good will to that policy. I believe the Party would have been better advised had they had more of the statistics which this Bill, had it been in force, would have given them. Those statistics will give the authorities in the country some kind of idea as to what is happening in agriculture in this country, as to what progress it is making, what class of crops are suitable in one district and not in others, what is the condition of employment in the agricultural industry, and so on. Those are the very healthy, necessary and useful purposes which this Bill is intended to subserve.

LORD BLEDISLOE

I think that I may thank your Lordships for the favour you have extended to the Second Heading of this Bill and that I can dispel without much difficulty some of those mists which appear to obfuscate my noble friend Lord Banbury, and others possibly who share his views. It is not proposed to add any additional officials whatever. As the noble Lord, Lord Olivier, has pointed out, there are crop reporters in various parts of the country, who are very hardworking and industrious men, with plenty to do. I may say, incidentally, that until I entered the Ministry of Agriculture I had no idea that any Government Department possessed such an extremely industrious staff, and I am bound to say that, if I could construe my noble friend Lord Banbury's remarks as in any way a reflection upon the staff of the Ministry of Agriculture, I should certainly like to enter a protest.

LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM

No.

LORD BLEDISLOE

In any case I want to point out that these gentlemen who are already employed are fully occupied in doing the work, that they do it extremely well, and that no further persons are contemplated to carry out the work which may result from the passing of this Bill.

There is another point which I should like to impress upon the noble Lord, Lord Banbury. At present the employee describes himself and his occupation in the Decennial Census Return and very often that description is most inaccurate. Under the system in the Bill the employers of men will supply lists of those men and describe them with much greater accuracy, so that we shall get very much more reliable estimates of the number of employees on agricultural land than we have had in the past. At the present time all farmers of any standing and repute actually make these Returns. Therefore it is only the slack, the indifferent and, in fact, the obstructive farmer who does not. I do not want in any way to make unfriendly parallels, but it is that type of man who alone stands in the way of a perfectly accurate and complete census of the agricultural population and of agricultural production. I hope my noble friend Lord Banbury will not any longer entertain a grievance in relation to the friendly advice which one of our officials appears to have given to him because by some lapsus calami he omitted one acre in entering up no fewer than 651. I have no doubt at all that it was with a desire to assist the noble Lord, and not with any ulterior motive, that the change was suggested.

Turning to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Strachie, and his criticism of subsection (8) in regard to the procedure after Regulations have lain upon the Table of both Houses of Parliament. I should be prepared to consider his proposed Amendment without committing myself to acceptance at the present moment. As regards his comments upon the procedure in the event of inaccurate information being given, I am advised that the procedure set out in this subsection is in accordance with the ordinary legal practice and there seems no particular reason to alter it. In reference to the proposal to send notices by registered post, that also is a proposal which I shall certainly most sympathetically consider if the noble Lord will kindly place an Amendment on the Paper to that effect.

On the more important question which Lord Strachie has raised—that of a proposed survey, which was also raised by Mr. Lloyd George and others in another place—I am unable to say anything at present. The matter is under the serious consideration of the Minister and his advisers, and I have no doubt that in due course some statement will be made in another place upon the subject. The certificate that was proposed was apparently with a view of setting cut what was well-cultivated land and what was under-cultivated land, and I have no doubt whatever, if such a proposal were incorporated in this or any other Bill, that my noble friend Lord Banbury of Southam would have a great deal to say about it. In any case, it requires further legislation, for it certainly would not come within the scope of the title of this Bill: therefore it could not be incorporated by way of amendment.

There only remains one matter to refer to and that is the 28 days. I hope my noble friend will not press that. As the Bill stands there is no doubt, as he has discovered, it is for the Minister to prescribe within the four corners of his notice within what time the Return shall be made. As a matter of practice, at the present time these Returns do come in from all reputable persons within about a fortnight, and if you specify in the Bill a month all the occupiers of agricultural land will deem the proper date to be that monthly date, and not the date we want and have always had—namely, June 4. At any rate, it is bound to put a premium upon delay, which I am sure your Lordships would not desire.

On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.