AMENDMENT OF THE PIGS MARKETING SCHEME, 1933. (Hansard, 18 December 1935)

§ THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR, (LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL)
My Lords, I beg to move that the Special Order, as reported from the Special Orders Committee yesterday, be approved. I think it would be for the convenience of the House if I gave a short explanation of the alterations proposed in this Order. Your Lordships will appreciate the fact that from time to time Amendments of Marketing 251 Schemes have to be put forward in the light of the experience gained of their working. The Pigs Marketing Board have had two years' experience of administering their Scheme and have now submitted proposals designed to improve the running of the machine. The Amendments do not raise any new questions of principle; the main features of the Scheme remain as Parliament approved it in 1933.
The Amendments, already explained in the Blue Paper which is available to your Lordships, may be grouped into three categories. The first are those which deal with the internal administration of the Board and which primarily concern the producers' interests only—namely, the power to remove the chairman and vice-chairman from office, the payment of members of the Board and the procedure for elections. Those are Amendments 1, 2 and 9 to 13. In the second category are those that deal with the marketing provisions of the Scheme and affect other interests as well as those of the producers. These are Nos. 3, 4, 6 and 7. The third category contains those which are consequential on the above or are made for the purpose of conforming with the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1933, which became law after the Pigs Scheme was approved. Those are Amendments 5, 8 and 14.
As to the first group, it may be sufficient to say that they are mainly the domestic concern of the producers themselves. As to the second group, the main alterations deal with the sections relating to the registration and confirmation of contracts made between pig producers and curers. The machinery for the confirmation of contracts is left intact, but the procedure for registration has been improved. Under the Scheme as it stands, the Board can refuse registration if the contract was received by the Board more than fourteen days after it was made, or if it was not in the prescribed form, or if it was received by the Board after a prescribed date in the year preceding the year in which the pigs are contracted to be delivered. A further ground of refusal related to 1933 pigs only. As stated in the printed explanations, this machinery is rather out of date.
The Amendments provide that the Board shall register all contracts received 252 within a prescribed date, but they may subsequently cancel the registration if it is found that the contract is not in the prescribed form, or that either of the parties has made a "side" contract incompatible with the prescribed contract, or has defaulted in a previous contract. In the case of late contracts the Board have a discretion whether they shall register it or not, but by an agreement made between the Pigs and Bacon Boards at the public inquiry, and given effect to in the Amendment, they may not register a late contract unless they are satisfied that the bacon will be taken into account in any regulation of supplies, or the Bacon Board have agreed to the registration. An important addition to the procedure requires the Board to inform the registered producer when they have confirmed his contract, or, if they have cancelled the registration, to tell him the grounds on which they have done so. If the producer is aggrieved by the cancellation of his contract he can refer the matter to arbitration.
Amendment No. 4 deals with the power to prescribe the manner in which pigs shall be insured or transported by, or on behalf of, registered producers. The Committee of Investigation for Great Britain have considered complaints regarding the insurance and transport of pigs. They found, first of all, that a system of uniform insurance is essential for the stability and well-being of the pig industry, and secondly, that a flat-rate transport system is necessary for the operation of the Pigs and Bacon Schemes. The Amendment which rests upon Section 5 (f) of the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1931, will remove doubts as to the power of the Board to prescribe the manner in which pigs, or any quantity thereof, shall be insured or transported by or on behalf of producers. The Amendments, as modified by the Minister and the Secretary of State, and in the form now presented to the House, will, I think, conduce to the more efficient operations of the Pigs Marketing Scheme. I beg to move.

§ LORD MARLEY
My Lords, I just want to raise one point on these Amendments, because it may not be within the 253 knowledge of members of your Lordships' House as to what exactly Amendment No. 4 really means. If you will glance at Section 38 of the Pigs Marketing Scheme, copies of which are on the Table, you will see that paragraph (f) only deals with the regulation of the manner in which pigs are insured, and, by the modification of the Order which is now being dealt with in this House, there is to be added the transportation. The position is that the Pigs Marketing Board made an agreement with the railway companies, which has been in operation, whereby a flat rate for the transport of pigs exists, and what is so entirely away from common sense is that in this flat rate agreement arrangements have been made whereby money must be paid to the railway companies for pigs which are not transported. That is to say, a farmer sends his pigs to the curing establishment by his own lorry, and he has to pay the railway company 2s. 1d for every pig which is sent, less a discount of a few pence, 4d. or 5d., in addition to the cost of sending the pigs by his own lorry.
There are cases where a farmer living near a curing establishment has to send his pigs only five or six miles. It costs him 6d. or 8d. per pig to send them in his own lorry, and he still has to pay 1s. 7d. or 1s. 8d. per pig in addition, merely because the Marketing Board have a flat-rate arrangement with the railway companies to pay 2s. 1d. for every pig dealt with at the bacon factory. That is against common sense. We on this Bench are not against a flat rate, because it assists distant farmers, but why should farmers who are near to a curing establishment; have to pay this 2s.1d., less a little discount, for every pig which is not transported by the railways? It cannot be a good answer by the railway companies that they would gave to raise the price for pigs if payment were only made for those transported by them, because it costs nothing to the railways not to transport a pig. If, for example, the contract is for the transport of 200,000 pigs, and in point of fact only 150,000 are transported, it cannot cost the railway company any more to transport 150,000 than it does to transport 200,000. We should have an explanation of this particular provision. I think the facts which I have given are accurate—if they are not the noble Lord 254 will correct me—and if they are I think, as I have said, your Lordships are being asked to do something not entirely in accordance with Common sense as far as we are capable of judging in this House.

§ LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL
My Lords, the noble Lord was good enough to let me know, this morning, that he intended to raise this point, and I have looked into it. I must admit that at first sight I have considerable sympathy with the point which he raises. As he says, there are examples of classes of farmers who are affected somewhat unfairly by this Order, as, for example, farmers who are located close to bacon factories, and Co-operative Retail Societies owning their own transport, who have been able in the past to draw all their pigs from the neighbourhood; but it must not be forgotten that for every farmer who lives near a bacon factory there are a much greater number who are not so fortunately situated, and that for every bacon factory which can draw all its pig supplies from its neighbourhood there are a number, both private and co-operative, large and small, who are compelled to draw at least a part of their pig supplies from much farther afield.
This is entirely a business matter of a kind which Marketing Boards were intended by Parliament to settle, with the help of the Agricultural Marketing Acts, in such a way as to secure the greatest good for the greatest number of their constituents. Parliament recognised that in so doing the Marketing Boards must benefit some producers more than others and, therefore, set up the Committee of Investigation to investigate and to remedy complaints, and made the public interest the important test by which the Committee should be guided. Thus the producer or bacon curer who wishes to complain against the flat rate system must show not only that he individually has been injured, but that the system is not in the public interest. When the Parliamentary Committee of the Co-operative Congress complained to the Committee of Investigation on this very matter they satisfied the Committee that some curers were undoubtedly paying more for transport than previously but they did not satisfy the Committee that the system was not in the public interest: in fact the Committee found that the system was necessary for the efficient 255 operation of the Pigs and Bacon Marketing Schemes. In the course of the hearing it was claimed by the Bacon Marketing Board, which was speaking on behalf of their colleagues, the Pigs Marketing Board, that the industry as a whole was likely to benefit from the system to the extent of £50,000 a year. In view of that saving and the fact that we have to take into consideration the public interest and the general welfare as a whole, I hope the noble Lord will rest content.