SCOTTISH MILK MARKETING SCHEME, 1933. (Hansard, 24 May 1933)

§ LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL
My Lords, I beg to move the Motion which stands in my name.

§ VISCOUNT ASTOR
May I ask the noble Lord if the Government are not going to give any explanation of this Motion?

§ LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL
My Lords, the noble Lord asks me for an explanation. I had one ready, but I understood the House was anxious to get on to other business. This scheme is one which has been approved by the Secretary of State. It was submitted to him some time ago. It is one of great importance, not only on account of the commodity with which it deals, but in respect of the number of producers who will participate in it. The scheme applies to an area covering, roughly, the whole of Scotland south of the Grampians, within which, it is estimated, there are some 15,000 to 20,000 producers of milk. There is justifiable anxiety amongst those producers regarding the present position of their industry, and they are in general agreement as to the urgent need for the introduction of a scheme to establish orderly marketing. The scheme provides for the marketing of the milk of producers to or through the agency of an Administrative Board at prices fixed by the Board. The accounts for the sale of the milk are to be collected by the Board and the proceeds will be distributed amongst the producers, after deduction of administrative expenses, on the basis of a uniform price, irrespective of whether their milk is sold for liquid milk consumption or for manufacturing purposes.
The scheme comes before your Lordships after very full consideration. It is framed in strict accordance with the provisions of the Act, and the Secretary of State for Scotland is satisfied that the proposals in the scheme are on sound lines and that it will conduce to the more efficient production and marketing of milk. There is good reason to believe that the scheme will be generally acceptable to the producers who are affected by it; but I may remind your Lordships that it will not become operative unless it is approved at a poll of the producers by two-thirds of those voting, and this majority must represent two-thirds of the producing capacity of those voting. I hope that your Lordships by passing this Resolution will enable the scheme to be submitted to the final judgment of the producers.

§ VISCOUNT ASTOR
My Lords, I do not apologise for having invited the noble 995 Lord to explain this scheme, because it affects a vast industry. Some people think it is going to bring salvation, others think that it is going to bring ruin to the industry. I think it would have been monstrous if this House had allowed this to go through without a single word of explanation, or if the Government had attempted to do in this case as they did in the case of the raspberry scheme. Your Lordships may remember that some two months ago another place passed a scheme for dealing with raspberries, and two days afterwards, without any notice whatever on the Order Paper, it went through your Lordships' House without a word of explanation. On that occasion that scheme had received a great deal of criticism in another place, but this particular scheme was challenged. There was a Division on it. Although some people claim that they will derive benefit from the only scheme which is in existence —namely, the hop scheme—I have received a letter from a large hop grower who states that, owing to the existence of the hop scheme, he himself has lost several thousands of pounds.
It does not by any means follow that this scheme is going to be a tremendous success. There are difficulties about it, and I would like to ask the noble Lord one question. Before the scheme is submitted to Parliament there is a public inquiry and examination, and as a result of that examination and as a result of taking evidence, a report is submitted to the Minister. When your Lordships are invited to pass this scheme you have no idea whatever what that tribunal of inquiry felt about the evidence and the objections which were submitted against the scheme. It might well be that whoever held the inquiry was convinced that substantial modifications ought to be made in the original scheme, and he might have advised the Minister to make substantial alterations. We have no means whatever of knowing whether whoever held the inquiry approved of it as drafted, or whether he suggested modifications, or whether, if he did, those modifications have been adopted or not. I hope very much that the noble Lord will be able to arrange that in future the results of these investigations and the reports and recommendations made to the Minister shall be made available so that we may have the benefit of the advice of whoever holds an inquiry.

THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF ONSLOW)
My Lords, perhaps as Chairman of the Special Orders Committee I might say a word upon this point. As your Lordships see from the Motion upon the Order Paper, this is a Special Order reported from the Special Orders Committee. I would like to explain that the Special Orders Committee had a difficult task to perform, because the Order came forward and had to be decided as the first of its kind, and a decision had to be made by the Examiners (in fact, I myself) as to whether it was a matter coming within the provisions as to Special Orders—the words are: would, but for the provisions of the Act authorising the making of the Special Order, require to be enacted by a Public Bill, or whether it had to be a Private Bill. It is rather difficult to decide that when there is no precedent, but your Lordships will see, as my noble friend said in his explanation, that it covers practically the whole of Scotland, but not quite all the Islands. Acting on the advice of the Examiners—the technical people—I came to the conclusion that it should be treated as a Private Bill. The reason for that is that if it were treated as a Private Bill it would be open to petition before the Special Orders Committee. No petition did come before the Special Orders Committee, but the matter was investigated by the Special Orders Committee, of which my noble friend, Lord Marks, is also a member, and the Committee endorsed the view that it should be treated in the manner in which it has been treated. There was, therefore, an opportunity for petition against the Order. I thought perhaps, in view of what my noble friend Lord Astor said, that I should mention these facts to your Lordships.