LORDS AMENDMENT. (Hansard, 28 July 1931)

§ EARL DE LA WARR
My Lords, I beg to move that your Lordships do not insist upon the said Amendment.

THE EARL OF BREADALBANE
My Lords, since this question of sheep stock valuation was first raised in your Lordships' House I see that this Amendment has been represented as an attempt to break a contract by altering leases. I feel sure that I should not have been asked to move the Amendment which stood in my name, but for the words of which I am not personally responsible, if this were so. But if, by any possibility, your Lordships are of the opinion that this really is the case I should like to say at once—and I hope this will be reported 1239 as publicly as possible—that I would be the first to crave the permission of your Lordships' House immediately to withdraw it. I would like to dissociate myself as completely as possible from any such suggestion. Of course there can be no question of breaking a contract which has been legitimately and honourably entered into, and I submit very strongly that that view is a travesty of the true facts. I have followed as carefully as I could every argument put forward on both sides of the case and I suggest that it is the present custom which is completely and seriously departing from the spirit in which those leases or contracts were made.
The original bargain, as I understand it, was that the landlord should take over the sheep stocks at the valuation of two arbiters and an "oversman," on the assumption that the price they fixed for the landlord to pay would be the true value of the sheep on the ground. The arrangement was made in days when roads were bad and transport facilities very poor. An outgoing farmer was thereby saved the risk and loss of moving his sheep to market. But it was never intended as a means of securing to the fanner an unearned profit or of mulcting the landlord of large sums for no possible or logical reason. Valuations under the original leases were to be made by neutral men; not by farmers who were themselves personally interested in maintaining a high nominal price for sheep. That is the gravamen of the injustice. I submit that the panel of arbitrators, whether three or one or thirty, should be impartial. They should give the figures on which they work and the price they fix should bear a very close relation to the real value of the sheep.
I quoted a large number of instances in your Lordships' House to show that this is frequently not the case. I have not seen a single concrete argument produced by those opposing the Amendment to dispute the veracity of the facts I gave; merely a general plea to leave things as they are. We are told that the Farmers' Union are opposed to any change. Of course they are. But let us suppose that the current practice were to appoint a landlord as "oversman" and suppose that he habitually fixed a price much below that obtainable in the market. 1240 This might perfectly well be done without departing one iota from the exact terms of the present leases. Would farmers think that logical or fair? Would they then wish to leave the question un-investigated? Of course they would not. Nor would it be reasonable that they should. Yet it is exactly analogous to the present procedure. If a farmer's valuation is to be accepted, why not take the highest price offered by an incoming tenant? Let the outgoing farmer be paid the full value that the incoming tenant, himself a farmer, is willing to give. The present valuations are unreal. If a man has a hunter worth £300 and if, when he goes to sell it not at a forced sale but after proper advertisement, he can only get £100 for it, then the value of that horse is £100 and not a penny more. I submit that it is a flagrant injustice that a landlord should be compelled by a panel of farmers to pay 100 shillings for a lamb and ewe when a farmer will only give sixty shillings for them.
There is another aspect of this matter, which I venture to remind your Lordships is a serious question in Scotland. The Amendment came up for discussion in another place at four in the morning. Personally, I have always understood that to think about sheep at that time was a first-class way of inducing slumber, and I would associate myself with the protests that were raised at this important Scottish question being relegated to the small hours of the morning. There is a genuine and honest criticism of the present valuations that are being made, and I submit that if the demand for an impartial investigation for which I pleaded is turned down by the Government it will have further and more serious repercussions than at first sight appear. As your Lordships are well aware there is a considerable body of opinion which has grown up since the War, which has lost faith in Parliamentary procedure and which believes that the Parliamentary machine is too overloaded adequately to deal with all the difficulties and complexities of modern life. I submit that if this question is brought before your Lordships' House and then, when your Lordships' House has seen fit to approve of the Amendment without a Division, it is 1241 cursorily dismissed in another place at four o'clock in the morning it is, to say the least of it, a most regrettable result.
I pleaded originally for an impartial panel and a fair valuation just to landlord and tenant alike. If the present system gives this result why should the Government appear anxious to avoid a thorough investigation? If there is nothing to conceal I should have thought they would welcome it. It would be a most helpful solution of a difficult matter if they would undertake to appoint a committee or conference at which all parties interested could be represented. It would be of assistance to Hear the views of the Forestry Commission and of the Scottish Board of Agriculture. I would ask why they are so silent seeing that they, too, are largely affected. It is not by any means only he private landlord who is being unfairly hit. The long-suffering taxpayer is also penalised; perhaps he is regarded as being inured or, one might say, acclimatised to this process. I would once more ask the Government to appoint a committee to go into the whole matter.

§ EARL DE LA WARR
My Lords, this matter was vary thoroughly discussed before and I think it would be very difficult for me to re-argue the case without repetition. All I can say is that the Government have considered this matter very thoroughly. that they retain their original opinion that it would be impossible to introduce legislation in this or in any other Bill affecting existing contracts without legislating for the breach of contract, and that there is nothing in the existing law to prevent new contracts being drawn up on a different basis. On the point as to whether or no there should be an inquiry, I am afraid I cannot say anything except that the matter has been gone into thoroughly and I really cannot see at the moment that there would be any case for recommending my right hon. Friend to have an inquiry. Most certainly if the noble Earl or any other noble Lord or anybody else makes a recommendation for an inquiry and can support the case by giving examples demonstrating the need for such inquiry, I can give him the assurance that my right hon. friend will consider the matter. I am afraid—

VISCOUNT ELIBANK
Will the noble Earl say in what way the matter has been enquired into up to the present? The noble Earl said it had been enquired into.

§ EARL DE LA WARR
The matter has been before His Majesty's Minister and the Minister's advisers, and the matter has had considerable discussion as the result of that consideration.

§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAM
My Lords, I rise with some hesitation to interfere in a matter of Scottish law of which I confess that I am profoundly ignorant, but I have listened with considerable attention to the speech of my noble friend this afternoon and I also remember the discussion which took place in your Lordships' House when the Amendment was originally introduced. I do not think—the noble Earl will forgive my saying so—it is quite fair to say no case has been made for an inquiry. My noble friend did on the last occasion, and again to-day, on this point out in what ways he suggested that the law was working unfairly—that an injustice was being done; that a sum was being extracted from the landlord in many cases and from other persons who had to pay by reason of the fact that the tribunal was, as I understood him, not satisfactory in its composition and biased in its nature, and that a wrong basis of valuation was often adopted. Those are rather serious complaints. He gave actual instances of the way in which it worked. While I am not in the least suggesting that we should differ from the Motion which has been proposed by the noble Earl who speaks for the Government with regard to this Amendment, I would ask him to persuade his right hon. friend the Secretary of State to be a little more sympathetic to the request for an inquiry which, after all, can hurt no one, and, even if it shows there is not a grievance, will do a great deal of good by relieving a sense of grievance which certainly exists at present. I hope, therefore, he may see his way to be a little more sympathetic in the way in which he represents the matter to his right hon. friend.