HL Deb 21 July 1937 vol 106 cc737-42

THE EARL OF MANSFIELD rose to ask His Majesty's Government if they will state the reason why grants for bracken-cutting in Scotland are given only for cutting done by machines, and not for that done by manual labour; and to move for Papers. The noble Earl said: My Lords, your Lordships have a fairly full programme before you this afternoon with the consideration of the important Motion standing in the name of the noble Marquess, Lord Crewe, and the adjourned debate upon Palestine. Therefore I do not wish to take up more of your Lordships' time than is absolutely necessary before you go on to these matters of much wider importance. At the same time the question I am raising to-day is one that affects very seriously a considerable number of the smaller stock-breeders in Scotland. The position is that during the last two years bracken has been increasing in Scotland very rapidly, with the result that a large amount of good grazing land has become useless, or practically useless, and a considerably larger amount seems likely to follow suit unless something drastic is done. The causes of this large increase are somewhat obscure, but there is one which I think is pretty generally recognised as being at any rate one of the principal contributory causes. That is, that cattle no longer graze the hills of Scotland as they used to do up to, say, a century or less ago. Cattle will eat bracken with considerable pleasure, but sheep will not look at it at all.

The simplest way of eradicating bracken is by cutting it over when the young fronds appear above the ground and repeating that process a short time later. If this is done for a year or two the bracken is diminished, sometimes to vanishing point, but at least to a point at which it is no longer a serious problem. A short time ago the Government, realising the seriousness and the importance of the problem, very wisely and rightly made grants to assist this cutting. But those grants have attached to them certain conditions the cause for which no one in Scotland understands. In brief, the grants are given only for cutting which is done by mechanical means and not for cutting by scythes or other hand appliances. There are a number of mechanical devices on the market to-day, the main principle of all of them being, I believe, that a bar, either solid or else composed of several sections jointed together, is attached to chains and dragged by horses over the ground among the young bracken thereby destroying the shoots.

So far, so good. But, unfortunately, there is a large amount of bracken-infested land in Scotland on which such appliances cannot be used because in many cases the ground is too stony or else the side of the hill is too steep. Besides that, many smaller sheep owners find it a matter of considerable difficulty to purchase these machines and also find it difficult to provide a horse to draw it. Some do not own horses at all and others who do own horses have Clydesdales, which are-admirably suited for their particular purpose but not for drawing a mechanical instrument over a rough hillside. The result is that an injustice, no doubt unintentionally, is being inflicted upon many of these smaller stock-holders. No one is able to understand why there should be this differentiation. I hope the noble Lord who replies will be able to give some satisfactory reason for this apparently unjustifiable discrimination. I beg to move.

THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL)

My Lords, the noble Earl has raised a question which is one undoubtedly of great importance and interest to those of us who live North of the Tweed. The spread of what is known as the bracken pest has undoubtedly become very serious in the last few years and, as the noble Earl has explained, is a matter of concern to all sheep farmers. To that extent I have no doubt it is a serious matter in England and Wales as well as in Scotland. In this case, too, I think it is hard to resist the temptation to claim, as occurred in another instance to which some of your Lordships may have listened in the early hours of this morning, that Scotland is once again ahead of England. We, as the noble Earl has explained, have taken steps in Scotland to tackle this question for some time. The Department of the Scottish Office concerned have been considering this problem, and it has exercised the minds of agriculturists and others for many years. An investigation was commenced in 1928, and carried on for six years, which it was hoped would provide a biological solution to the problem. A fungoid disease had been found which was attacking and killing large patches of bracken. Efforts were made in this investigation, by placing diseased material and plants in healthy areas of bracken, to induce the disease to attack and destroy the healthy bracken. After some years of experiment, however, the pathologist in charge of the work reported that the attempt to spread the fungoid bracken disease artificially had met with little or no success.

Thereafter, following upon renewed representations by various associations, it was decided that the most practical way of resuming the attack on the problem was by investigation into the possibility of improving existing accepted methods of cutting bracken by hand, or by obtaining full information on the possibility of introducing other methods and by testing them. So, by a process which was slow but sure, we came to the time when the bracken cutter as a machine was introduced. The point which the noble Earl raises in his Question, of which he was good enough to give me private notice, is why the authorities concerned could not be prepared to give a grant to hand cutting of bracken in the same way as a grant is given to machine cutting.

I think the answer can best be expressed in this way. First of all, the financial cost of giving a grant for hand cutting would be very considerable, and indeed, in our consideration, highly impracticable, because it would be difficult to give a sufficient grant to cover the numerous applications that would be made for it. At least as many applicants would be dissatisfied as under the present scheme. Further, it is quite obvious that if such a grant were given for the hand-cutting of the bracken it would require an army of special inspectors to be employed to investigate applications from all parts of the country, including, of course, the Highlands and Islands. Those inspectors would have to certify that the bracken had been cut in accordance with the prescribed conditions and that a certain grant was therefore due. It is extremely doubtful if such an organisation could be made reasonably practicable, and probably the expenses of inspection would often exceed the amount of the grant. So we come to the present system whereby a grant is made for machine cutting.

About this I think there is sometimes a certain amount of misconception. This is really an educational scheme, to encourage both the creation and the production of machines suitable for this purpose, and to study the results of their work. The purpose of this financial assistance, which, as I say, is primarily educative, is to stimulate modern invention to find out reliable methods for destroying bracken more quickly and more cheaply than by the old and well-understood method of man and scythe to which the noble Earl referred. That is as far as the Government think it would be right to go in the matter at present. They have in addition an expert Committee which examines and tests methodically every year every new machine that is submitted to it. Thereafter the applicant for a machine receives a grant either for the hiring of the machine or towards the purchase of that machine. Bracken cutting by that machine has to be done under conditions prescribed by the Department. It might be of interest to your Lordships to know that last year forty-nine of these machines were purchased under the Department's scheme, by which it is estimated that about—it is impossible to be definite in giving this figure—8,000 acres were cut. In 1937 the Department had approved grants in respect of sixty-nine additional machines, and it is estimated that the area to be cut this year may be in the neighbourhood of 17,000 acres.

That is really the answer to the Question which the noble Earl put on the Paper. I would repeat that the scheme under which a grant is given for machine-cutting is really for educative and scientific purposes, and, as I have already pointed out to the noble Earl, the suggestion that such a scheme should be passed on to hand cutting is entirely impracticable on, first of all, the ground of finance and on, secondly, the ground of the difficulty of inspection. I hope that with that explanation the noble Earl will realise the difficulty which he raises in this Question, which is certainly one felt all over Scotland but one which I hope will gradually be eradicated as and when the use of machines is more commonly known and the good results produced by these machines are more commonly recognised.

THE EARL OF MANSFIELD

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord for his full and clear reply. I cannot say that I find it satisfactory, but that, of course, is not his fault. Lord Strathcona is in the unfortunate position of having to reply for a Department for which he is in no way responsible. He does it exceedingly adequately, but of course he cannot be expected to take responsibility for these decisions. Very briefly, the position is now seen, in view of what the noble Lord has said, to be quite a different one from what has been hitherto believed in Scotland. It is not a scheme, apparently, to help the ordinary small sheep-farmer; it is merely a scheme for educational purposes which I submit will be of little use other than to the makers of these implements and certain large sheep-farmers in areas sufficiently fortunate to have reasonably flat country.

That is not a position which I can regard as at all satisfactory. I am afraid that I cannot altogether agree with the noble Lord when he states that to enlarge the scope of the grant to hand cutting would be out of the question or too expensive. I shall refer to that in my concluding remarks. What I would point out, however, is that, if this scheme is to remain as an educational scheme and if the grants are to be continued for machine cutting only, it means that this aid will not be available for the greater part of Scotland in which the bracken grows. Education is no good for those areas where it is going to be quite impossible at any time to work any machine which it is likely that the ingenuity of roan can devise.

Naturally I do not for one moment contemplate pressing my Motion for Papers, but before withdrawing it I would like to ask the noble Lord most respectfully if he would convey the following suggestions to the Secretary of State for Scotland. That is to say, that he should consider once more the question of extending the grant to hand plucking, if done on a sufficiently large scale. If in each case it were insisted upon that a very considerable acreage would have to be cut twice a year for a minimum of three years it would then, I think, well pay the cost of inspection, for it is obvious that in rolling country, where a machine can be used, tile inspection there also must be a lengthy and laborious process. If the noble Lord will do as I ask, I hope that the Secretary of State and the Government will see their way to modify their decision, because although undoubtedly this educational scheme may produce some benefits for a limited class, it is certainly not going to do what the agriculturists of Scotland thought and were led to believe it was going to do—namely, to be of great assistance to the small sheep-farmer, the man who needs help more than the large man or the manufacturer, and who at the present time is not going to get it at all.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

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