HL Deb 29 June 1939 vol 113 cc848-75

Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.

4.28 p.m.

THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (THE EARL OF FEVERSHAM)

My Lords, in moving the Second Reading of this Bill I should like to refer briefly to the importance of the industry with which it deals. It is not so widely recognised as it should be that the value of the annual production of the poultry industry amounts to some £26,000,000, or over 10 per cent. of the total for the agricultural industry in Great Britain. As for the number of producers, it is so great as to defy exact calculation, because, as your Lordships know, nearly every farmer and smallholder keeps poultry, and in addition there are thousands of "specialists," as well as cottagers and retired professional men who keep poultry as a part-time occupation. Marketing and distribution must necessarily account for a further large number of persons who will certainly be affected by the provisions of this Bill.

In view of the fact that this Bill, which concerns such a large industry as I have indicated, has come to your Lordships' House before going to another place, perhaps I may be permitted to give a somewhat fuller account than I would otherwise have done of the way in which the provisions of this Bill affect the various sections of the industry. I do not propose to go far into past history, but I think the House will agree that the most appropriate starting-point is the Commission presided over for a large part of its deliberations by the noble Lord, Lord Addison, in 1934. This was a Reorganisation Commission for England and Wales, appointed under the Agricultural Marketing Acts, of which Acts the noble Lord was the parent. Its task was to prepare a marketing scheme for eggs and poultry which producers could adopt or not as they chose; and under the guidance of Lord Addison—though circumstances compelled him to relinquish the Chairmanship before the Report was signed—it used its opportunities to present the industry and the country with a picture of the poultry industry, of its accomplishments as well as of its weaknesses, which, if I may say so, provides an excellent foundation for a study of the industry's problems. A corresponding Commission dealt with the industry in Scotland, and it was the Reports of these two bodies that threw a spotlight on the two outstanding problems of the poultry industry—the serious losses due to debility and disease, and the need for improvements in marketing.

On the marketing side the Commissions drew our attention to the very rapid expansion of the home poultry industry between the years 1924 and 1934. They pointed out that marketing methods had failed to keep pace with this expansion and with the demand from the towns for regular supplies of standardised goods, and suggestions were made for remedying this situation. But the Commissions came to the conclusion that marketing improvements, important as they were, would not of themselves solve the whole problem. I believe the noble Lord opposite will inform the House that the Commission for England and Wales were deeply impressed by the evidence as to the losses from disease suffered by the poultry industry, and following a recommendation of that Commission a Committee was appointed, known as the Poultry Technical Committee, under the Chairmanship of Sir Duncan Watson, to whom we owe a heavy debt of gratitude. The proposals contained in the Report of the Technical Committee, which was published last year, were welcomed by the industry as a whole and have been closely followed in that part of the Bill which deals with stock improvement. As no doubt a number of your Lordships will know, since 1934 the economic position of the industry has become weaker, and the number of poultry kept on holdings of one acre or more in Great Britain has fallen from 69,000,000 to 59,000,000. At the same time the position in regard to mortality has certainly not improved. The losses due to disease have been estimated at more than £4,000,000 per annum. The Government have, therefore, brought forward legislation to deal with these problems under the two main heads—the heads of stock improvement and marketing—and it is proposed that the task of giving effect to the proposals on both sides of the industry should be entrusted to a single independent Commission.

Clause 1 accordingly provides for the establishment of a Poultry Commission on lines similar to those laid down in the Livestock Industry Act. Its membership will consist of a Chairman, and not more than eight members. The Commission will be assisted by two Advisory Committees, which will advise on stock improvement and marketing matters respectively. In each case the Advisory Committee will consist of members representing the interests of all classes of persons affected, together with a few independent members. The provision for these Advisory Committees will be found in Clauses 6 and 11 of the Bill, and also in the Second Schedule. The Livestock Act has in this case also set a precedent for the establishment of the Advisory Committee system, for it has been proved since that Act was passed that such a system works smoothly and well.

Clauses 2 to 5 contain the stock improvement provisions. The conclusion reached by Sir Duncan Watson's Committee was that disease and low vitality had become so serious that the situation was one of emergency, and that nothing short of control of stock distribution could bring about that substantial improvement which was necessary within a reasonable period. The first step in the control proposals is registration. Every distributor of poultry stock, whether in the form of adult birds, day-old chicks, or hatching eggs, will be required to register with the Commission. But the Commission will have powers to grant exemption from this obligation to register, so that it will be possible, if thought desirable, to leave free from control those small poultry keepers who may from time to time dispose of a few birds. The Commission will, no doubt, proceed at an early stage to lay down certain simple regulations which would be within the competence of any distributor to comply with. These preliminary regulations would enable the Commission to deal with the more blatant malpractices. Later the Commission may be expected to formulate more detailed regulations, designed to bring about a steady improvement in the standard of poultry-keeping generally throughout the country. The Commission will not, of course, be able, as it were by a stroke of the pen to eliminate disease and remove debility from our poultry flocks. The process is bound to be a slow one, but one effect of the Bill will be of course to encourage all who are concerned to pay greater care than perhaps they have done in past years to the question of stock production.

Clauses 4 and 5 of the Bill deal with voluntary accreditation schemes for breeders and hatcheries aiming at the production of healthy and high quality foundation stock. The Government have accepted the view that under existing conditions breeders are not in a position to maintain such high quality in their stock as is thought to be desirable, and it is therefore proposed to compensate them in a measure for the extra time and labour that will be required for record keeping, elimination of unsuitable birds, and so on, by the offer of Exchequer premiums. A total limit of £,250,000, spread over not more than seven years, is laid down, and the premiums are to be on a diminishing scale.

The marketing provisions are contained in Clauses 7 to 10. The main objective is the proper grading of home - produced eggs and poultry according to quality and according to size or weight. This grading will put the home producer in a better position in relation to his foreign competitors, and should help him to get a real footing in the larger urban markets, which to-day cannot depend upon odd lots of produce of mixed description. The requirement of testing and grading is also bound to lead to an increase in the practice of packing and grading at central points, and will therefore improve the machinery of assembly and distribution, so helping to solve the problem of local gluts, which cause great hardship among egg producers. Every retailer will be required in due course, subject to such exemptions as the Commission may decide upon, to sell eggs and poultry according to prescribed grades laid down by the Commission. But it would not be economical or reasonable to require every retailer himself to grade the eggs and poultry he sells.

In order to ensure that the produce reaches the retailer properly graded, it is proposed to register wholesalers and to require them to observe regulations which would be fitted to the circumstances of their own particular branch of the industry. The task of making regulations fitted to each of the branches of the wholesale trade will of course fall upon the Commission, which will be assisted by the Marketing Advisory Committee. Clause 7 contains the general prohibition of sales of ungraded produce produced in the United Kingdom but, apart from the Commission's general power to grant exemptions, certain forms of sale are specially excluded in the Bill itself. Wholesale sales by the producer which are in effect his final act in the process of production are excluded, as also are sales by the hotel and restaurant trades. The local authorities responsible for the administration of the Food and Drugs Act will co-operate by enforcing the grading provisions among retailers in their areas, but on the other hand the supervision of the wholesale trade will rest with the Commission.

Five clauses, Clauses 12 to 16, deal with the marking of preserved eggs. The present position is that home-produced eggs which are cold stored or chemically stored have to be marked as such, but for reasons of difficulty of enforcement there has been no corresponding requirement for imported eggs. There is a strong case for removing this discrimination and the case will, I believe, become even stronger if in future steps are taken by the industry to store eggs on a large scale in order to reduce the seasonal variation of supplies and prices. The principal new provision in this Bill is that by Clause 15 all eggs imported into the United Kingdom will have to be marked before arrival as having been preserved, unless they are exempted from that requirement by order or licence issued by Ministers. In practice these orders will be issued only if Ministers are satisfied that in the country in which the goods were produced there are satisfactory arrangements in force for marking preserved eggs as such before exportation. The Government will of course seek the co-operation of exporting countries in giving full effect to this new provision, and time will be required for the necessary negotiations to take place. For that reason these clauses will not come into effect immediately but, like a number of other clauses in the Bill, on a day which is to be appointed.

I now come to that part of the Bill—Clauses 17 to 19—dealing with quantitative regulation of imports which is designed to give effect to the proposals outlined in the statement made by my right honourable friend the then Minister of Agriculture on July 11 last. The provision follows the lines of that already adopted in the Livestock industry Act, and it is proposed to confer on the Board of Trade powers to regulate by order imports of eggs and egg products, and live and dead poultry, so far as may be necessary in order to secure the stability of the market. This is a necessary corollary to the measures of reorganisation provided for elsewhere in the Bill. The Government feel that if the task of establishing the poultry industry on a firm foundation is to be undertaken with energy and confidence, it is imperative that the industry should be adequately safeguarded against possible dislocation or deterioration of the market resulting from arrivals of eggs and poultry from overseas. At the same time there is no intention that quantitative regulation should be used as an instrument to raise prices above normal levels and so encourage an unhealthy expansion of the home industry.

Your Lordships will be aware that under Section 3 of the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1933, an independent body—the Market Supply Committee—has been appointed whose duty it is to review generally the circumstances affecting the supply of agricultural products in the United Kingdom, and in particular to advise Ministers on questions of import regulation either generally or in connection with marketing schemes. The Government propose to invite the Committee to keep under close review the market for eggs and poultry, so that there may be no delay in determining whether or not conditions are arising likely to endanger the stability of the market. It is also proposed to suggest to the Market Supply Committee that there would be advantages in setting up a fully representative Trade Committee to provide them with expert advice in carrying out this duty. Provision is further made, in accordance with the policy statement, for the regulation of imports in conjunction with and in support of any organised arrangements that have been or are being undertaken by the industry, for the storage of eggs during the spring flush with a view to modifying the extreme seasonal variations of supplies and prices, should such regulation appear to be necessary to secure the effective operation of such arrangements.

Storage schemes may be promoted under the provisions of the Bill dealing with service schemes or may perhaps be promoted independently of the provisions of this Bill. In any case it is clearly undesirable that any substantial efforts the industry may make by storage, in order to secure a more even distribution of supplies, should be jeopardised by excessive supplies of imported eggs. It is accordingly proposed that if the Board of Trade are satisfied that these storage schemes are sufficiently comprehensive and are effective in taking supplies off the market during the flush season, and that such a measure is necessary to secure their successful operation, the Board will be enabled, with the affirmative approval of Parliament, to take steps to regulate imports by order. The Market Supply Committee and the proposed Trade Committee will also be available for advising upon the operation of this aspect of supply regulation. Clause 18 of the Bill provides ample powers whereby the Board of Trade can ascertain the quantities of eggs put into storage, and can thus gauge the effectiveness of any storage operations undertaken by the home industry. The exercise of the powers to regulate imports for both these purposes is subject to the usual condition—namely, that due regard is to be paid to the interests of producers and consumers alike and to our commercial relations with other countries. Provision is made in Clauses 20 to 23 for service schemes on much the same lines as in the Livestock Industry Act. The underlying principle is to put the industry in a position to help itself.

I do not think I need detain your Lordships at length with the remaining provisions of the Bill, which are for the most part concerned with general and supplementary matters, such as the power of the Commission to obtain information and conduct inquiries. I should perhaps mention that in Clauses 28 and 29 the opportunity is taken to amend certain provisions of the Merchandise Marks Act of 1926. Under that Act the penalties for removing the indications of origin from imported eggs are a fine of £5 for the first offence and £20 for the second or subsequent offence. It has been felt that these penalties are not sufficient to meet a case of deliberate fraud, and the new penalties, which follow those laid down in the recent Food and Drugs Act, are £20 for the first offence and £100 or three months imprisonment, or both, for a second or subsequent offence. The officers of food and drug authorities are also given greater powers of entry, and these powers are extended to the officers of the Commission.

In conclusion, I should like to say that my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture and his predecessors have had lengthy consultations with representatives of all sections of the poultry industry in framing these proposals, and my right honourable friend is most grateful to these organisations and to the individuals who have given their advice and assistance. While there are still points of difference, as is natural in so extensive a measure, the Government believe that the Bill presented to your Lordships' House will have the substantial agreement in all its major principles of the interests concerned. There is no need for producers or wholesalers to fear any sudden imposition of arbitrary regulation. Before any regulations are issued, ample opportunity must be given for discussion and the consideration of objections both by the Commission and by Ministers before confirming them. In any case, the main provisions of the measure will come into operation only after appointed days, which may be different for each class of product and for each particular purpose. I commend this measure to your Lordships' House as one calculated to raise the standard of efficiency of the industry, and to bring about valuable and lasting improvements in our marketing methods and in the health and quality of our poultry stock. I beg to move.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Earl of Feversham.)

4.56 p.m.

LORD ADDISON

My Lords, I am sure we are indebted to the noble Earl for bringing before us, so simply, this highly complicated Bill. I thank him, in the first place, for the very friendly and appreciative reference he made to my colleagues and myself who studied this problem at the invitation of the Government in 1934. I am only sorry that successive Ministers have found themselves, as I know, between then and now, confronted with a good many difficulties and many rival interests in fashioning their proposals. That certainly must be taken into account when we look at the exceedingly complicated proposals now before us. But I wonder if your Lordships have apprehended from the description given by the noble Earl what the proposals are.

It is fair to assume that, seeing we have got 150,000 or more—probably more—egg and poultry producers in the country, they will not in the mass be very good hands at filling up forms. We cannot expect them to take a keen interest in regulations. Anything which is going to serve their interests must be simple. They must be able, I suggest, to understand it reasonably well. In this Bill, I see, there are at the start five or six different registers of various classes of people. There is a register of stock suppliers, there is a register of wholesale traders, and there is a register of licensed importers. There may be three different schemes, each of which will have its own register, so that there will be six registers of one sort or another open to the industry.

Then when you come to consider how many schemes the Bill provides for, there is one called the breeders' accreditation scheme—that is for accredited and expert breeders and suppliers of hatching eggs and so on. There is another and separate scheme for those who run specialised hatcheries—that is a hatcheries' accreditation scheme. There is another scheme for the sale and marketing of breeding fowls and hatching eggs. There is also another scheme, which is the only one with which the rank and file of the producers will be concerned: that is the scheme for the marketing of poultry products, which include chickens and eggs and ducks and so on. Finally, there is another scheme for market research and intelligence. So that there are no fewer than five separate schemes.

There are a great many producers up and down the country who have to carry on different sections of this business. The most successful and the most efficient, so far as we found them, are those who sell a lot of day-old chicks and hatching eggs, and, over and above that, have a large number of eggs to be sold in the ordinary way. Sometimes, instead of selling all their day-old chicks, they let a lot of them grow up; they become young cockerels, and have to be sold for the market. That is one section. Just see what this man is going to be landed with by this Bill. He will be registered on three separate registers. He will be on the register for the service scheme for poultry products; he will be registered for selling breeding fowls and hatching eggs; and then, I suppose, if he is an enlightened person, he will be on the register for market research and intelligence; in addition to which, if he is an accredited breeder, he will be a member of the breeders' accreditation scheme. If he has a hatchery, he will be in another scheme, the hatchery scheme. So this unfortunate man will have to make returns for no fewer that five separate schemes, and he will be on the appropriate register for each. I hope he will have a big enough business to be able to afford to employ a clerk. If he has not he will be in a very bad way. It is a bewildering business, and I am quite sure the rank and file of the producers have not the faintest idea of what is in front of them if they give a welcome to this part of the Bill. Happily, as one might say, the vast majority of producers will be concerned oily in the scheme for the sale of poultry products. I know something that lies behind these complexities. I am not altogether wishing to blame the Ministry, but this, unfortunately, betrays a surrender to all kinds of conflicting vested interests. It is market specialisation run to seed.

When I come to make one or two further criticisms, that comment is one of them; but first let me say a word about the noble Earl's remarks about the losses from disease. I entirely agree with everything he said. It could not be exaggerated, and I am sorry that one of the schemes, as it seems to me at all events, fails to deal with one of the most important contributory causes of the spread of disease. The first of the schemes under Clause 20 will be for people who are engaged in the production and marketing of day-old chicks and hatching eggs and so forth. The board can do various things. It can arrange for insurance; it can arrange for advertisements and measures calculated to improve conditions of sale by auction, and so forth. We found, and I am sure the noble Earl knows it is so, that one of the most important contributory causes of the spread of disease was really the publication of what can only fairly be described as dishonest advertisements. Advertisements are published widely saying that the advertiser undertakes to supply this, that and the other kind of stock, and a lot of producers, who have no special facilities for investigating the bona fides of the advertiser, buy stock and find themselves landed with a lot of weakly stock, often with disease breaking out quite soon after that stock has been bought. The stoppage of that is one of the most important things that ought to be done.

I hope that the necessity of making every breeder an accredited breeder, bringing him on to the register, making conditions and all that, will gradually weed out these very undesirable persons, but there is no doubt at all that one of the most important functions of a board dealing with the sale of this type of product should be to secure improvements in the conditions of sale in all forms, including the sale by advertisement, which is often the most poisonous and misleading of all. I cannot imagine why the Government have restricted the power of this board to an improvement of sale by auction. I hope it does not mean that they have surrendered to the interests which are pretty powerful in the industry and which flourish on the continuance of this kind of practice. I am using fairly strong language, but it is nothing like as strong as my colleagues on the Commission used, and nothing like as strong as has been used by other persons who have investigated this aspect of the question. That is the serious weakness of the Bill. The mischief can be stopped by not allowing these people to sell at all unless their premises are of a proper kind.

I remember one case we investigated where a man had most effective advertisements and, as far as we could find, he had no hens at all. All he had was an office, and he used to send round when he got an order and collect chickens and eggs from farmyards, where cockerels were running with hens, and send them. There might have been some that were good ones, but what he sold was not what he had purported to supply. I urge that this sort of undesirable method of supply should be most firmly prevented if we are going to eradicate disease from the industry. I agree with the noble Earl that it will be a considerable time before much progress can be made, and I wish the Minister and those responsible for these schemes every success in eradicating disease, but it appears to me that they have made it needlessly complicated.

May I come to another point? I see that there are provisions relating to importation in Clause 17. It is quite evident that you must be able to manage your importation. Apparently the method to be employed is contingent upon there being organised some comprehensive arrangements for the storage of eggs. And here is a serious deficiency in the Bill. The producer wants something that is simple. He wants something that will prevent the spring slump in prices. It often happens that prices drop to nearly one-third, or at all events to less than half what they were in the previous November. Prices suddenly drop when the hens begin to lay more eggs in the spring. There may be only a trifling excess on the market, nevertheless you get a precipitous fall in price. The sensible thing to do would be to have an arrangement whereby a percentage of these glut supplies could be taken off the market and properly stored. But who is going to be responsible? The noble Earl said that there might be various storage schemes. At least I understood him to say so. I say quite confidently that that happy-go-lucky way of dealing with storage is doomed to failure. If you are going to have an intelligent system for taking off a percentage of the surplus in any given week, so as to steady the precipitous fall in prices, it must be done by one body of persons who have the whole thing under review. It must be done by one board who have all the intelligence at their disposal and who have control over the distribution of eggs somewhere or other.

So far as I can understand the Bill, there may be piecemeal operations for the storage of eggs. There may be an organisation in Worcestershire and nowhere else, or there may be one in Norfolk and not one in Suffolk, and so on. It is completely impracticable. It will not in any way whatever steady the precipitous fall in prices, and I am surprised that a proposal of this piecemeal character has been introduced. Of course we have a Government that rather likes to proceed by piecemeal methods—they are rather in keeping with their character—but still it is hopelessly illogical. Apparently the organised control of importation is to be dependent upon the Board of Trade being satisfied that organised and comprehensive arrangements for storage have been set up. Who is going to set them up? Now I have a very grave criticism, and I hope that when the Bill gets into Committee your Lordships will be willing to look at this purely from the producers' point of view and will not support the Government blindly every time in the Lobby.

The rank and file of producers, who are not specialists, will be concerned with how they can get a decent market for their eggs and chickens. Everything depends upon the machinery whereby a sale is effected. Under Clause 20 (2) it will be seen that a marketing scheme may be prepared by persons engaged in the production of any poultry products or in the marketing of any poultry products. What does that mean? The whole purpose is that we should get a marketing scheme that will be helpful to the producers. That is what it is meant to do, I suppose. I suggest that it is completely alien to the purpose of the Bill that wholesale distributors, for example, should be entitled to set up a scheme which will become an approved scheme and which will cut out the producers from having a scheme of their own at all. That is entirely wrong.

As the Bill stands, a scheme may be prepared by either of these two parties. It will be much easier for the highly-organised marketing firm to prepare a scheme. They could do it easily, and they certainly will, and we shall have a repetition of what has happened under the Bacon Board. There what happened was that the factory interests produced a scheme—they called it a bacon scheme—and the sale of pigs by the producer was not regulated in the interests of the producer but in the interests of the factory part of the business. The result was that very soon the farmers found that the price had slumped. They did not see why they should supply pigs to the bacon factories when they could make a better price for pork, and the whole thing, I believe, is still in the melting pot. The purpose should be to have a scheme operated by and on behalf of the producers. It should be limited to that purpose. If it is not, I am quite confident that the interests of the producers will be sacrificed as they have been in the case of pigs. When the Bill goes into Committee I shall move the omission of the words in line 27 on page 24, and I hope your Lordships will support me in that in the interests of the producers, regardless of the exhortations of the Government Whip, because this is a serious defect in the Bill.

Your Lordships will observe that the Government propose to make grants in aid of what are called packing stations. That comes as a sort of afterthought in Clause 36. That clause provides that if the Ministers are satisfied that satisfactory arrangements have been made there shall be a packing station. But that is an essential ingredient in the whole thing. You cannot work organised marketing at all—unless you deliver yourselves bound into the hands of the wholesalers—except through the medium of some kind of packing station where eggs pass through a channel over which control can be exerted. Packing stations should not be a sort of sideshow. They are an essential ingredient in the logical working of a scheme. In my opinion it should be provided that all the packing stations should be under the direction of the board which operates the scheme for the sale of poultry products—the whole lot—and that they should be operated by and on behalf of the producers only. I am quite at a loss to understand why this sort of afterthought is inserted as placing some premium upon the establishment, here and there, I suppose, of packing stations, for the packing station system is essential to the successful working of the scheme.

There is one other criticism I have to make, and that is with regard to the third class of scheme. I hope I am not confusing any of your Lordships, but the Bill itself is confusing. There is a third class of scheme dealt with in Clause 20, on page 25, for the encouragement of market intelligence and research. Why should there be a separate scheme for market intelligence and research? It means, I suppose, a separate register of all the producers contributing in whatever way may be chosen to this scheme, and a separate board—a separate everything. Why? The other boards, whether they like it or not, will have to have a system of market intelligence. They cannot work without it. The Poultry Products Board, the Hatcheries Board, all of them, must of necessity, if they are going to do their business, have a market intelligence service. I cannot imagine why one should be divorced from the other. Therefore I hope your Lordships will be willing to insert power to provide market intelligence in both the other schemes, and delete the provision for it in Clause 20, because it is an essential part of every scheme. I am glad that some contribution to research is forecast, but the very efficient Committee to which the noble Lord refers have the matter in hand, and I am inclined to think that they will manage it better than this piecemeal business.

After all, this Bill contemplates that there may be a separate scheme for market intelligence and research. Well, there may not; but as a matter of fact research into the prevention of disease and the improvement of stock is one of the most important services we can possibly render to the industry, and it should not be dependent in this way upon a board or a scheme being set up or not. I think it is the duty of the State, just as we do in other directions, through this appropriate and excellent Committee to foster research schemes, to secure their proper direction, and so on. It is not the business, as such, of one of these separate little boards; it is a highly specialised business requiring the best scientific service that we can command, and I suggest that it is the wrong approach altogether to research to put it into the hands of a separate board which may or may not be created. It is the duty of the Government to see to it, and to make good grants for it.

I should like to pay tribute to what the Ministry has been doing in this respect. I remember that we were confronted with the shameful fact that, while the industry was suffering a loss of from three to four million pounds a year from disease, the total that we were contributing as a nation to research on those dis- eases was, as far as I could ascertain, £10,000 a year; that was all. I do not know how much it is now; perhaps it is very much more, perhaps it is a little more. But it is a disgraceful position, and I think it is the business of a State Department to deal with this matter. It may be that when the producers' schemes are running well a very small levy may quite properly be made in aid of research; still, the direction of research, the conduct of it and all the rest of it should be under the charge of a national body, and it should be a State body, as it is already in medicine and in other branches of agriculture.

Then there is one thing omitted, a power which these boards should have and which I should like to see inserted: that is in regard to the supply of feeding stuffs. One of the biggest drawbacks of the small producer is the high price he has had to pay for his feeding stuffs. I do not know what percentage they now form of the price of a dozen eggs, but it is very considerable, and it is quite evident that the service of assisting the producers to get their feeding stuffs and their rations well mixed at cheaper rates is one of the most important services a central board could render. I should like to see this power of a central board incorporated in the Bill. It is really unfortunate that the Minister has not gone for the establishment of one central board to deal with all these various matters, but has allowed himself to be persuaded into introducing this exceedingly complicated and, I am afraid, rather bewildering set of proposals. I hope they will succeed, but I am very much afraid that once they begin to be understood by the rank and file of producers, the producers will get horrified at the prospect of the forms, returns, reports and all the rest of it that they may be called upon to provide and which may greatly prejudice the success of the measure.

LORD HARMSWORTH

My Lords, I should be very glad if my noble friend below me would explain one point in connection with this Bill. Under the terms of this Bill it is obviously going to be an exceedingly hazardous risk and laborious form of employment to keep a fowl. May I ask him whether bantams are included in the Bill?

LORD STRABOLGI

Or fighting cocks!

5.26 p.m.

LORD REA

My Lords, I have no desire to raise any objection to the main principle of this Bill, which seems wholly admirable as an effort to improve the quality of poultry and of eggs. I am, it is true, a little concerned lest inadvertently it should add still further to the cost of living by putting up the price of a very cheap and wholesome imported food. But to-day my principal reason for troubling your Lordships is that I am afraid that, unless attention is drawn to the point in good time, there is a serious chance that quite unintentional injury may be done to a trade which at first sight appears to have nothing to do with the poultry or egg industry. I am referring to that Cinderella of British trade, the shipping industry. Your Lordships may perhaps be surprised to find that this industry is in any way concerned with this Bill, but when I inform you that the imports of eggs from overseas amounted last year to no less than £12,500,000 sterling, and that much of this, particularly of the eggs from the more distant ports, is carried in British ships, you will see that it is of really vital interest to a much distressed industry that it should not be inadvertently interfered with. I might point out that from China alone the import of eggs to this country amounts to nearly £3,000,000—that is, about one-third of the total imports from China. And, what is important in these days, when we are considering how we can help Chinese trade, that import alone is sufficient to pay for half the whole of the exports we send to China. Therefore I submit that it is worth while for your Lordships' House to spend a few minutes considering how you can avoid a hardship on a trade which in other debates has been admitted to be of the most vital interest to this nation in the most dangerous times through which we are passing.

This trade happens to be a very highly organised one, for which almost special ships and certainly special refrigerating machinery have to be built. They take years to build, and the trade, carried on as it is under somewhat complicated conditions, has to be organised a long way ahead. What I am really afraid of is that we may once more experience difficulties that have occurred under previous legislation of this kind. It is perfectly true that the Bill does not in specific terms prohibit the importation of eggs, but it empowers the Board of Trade by order to regulate importation into the United Kingdom of poultry and poultry products. I am very much afraid, especially after the very candid statement made by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack last week, that when regulations come to be considered by this House we may be told that even if they are not drafted with the care that some of us desire, they must be accepted in the form in which they stand—

THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD MAUGHAM)

I never said that.

LORD REA

Very well; I am far from being able to enter into controversy with the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, but some of us were a little concerned at the way in which regulations, no doubt of vital importance, go through this House at rather shorter notice and with less examination than some of us would desire.

LORD STRABOLGI

The noble Earl, Lord Stanhope, said that on the last occasion.

LORD REA

I beg the noble and learned Lord's pardon; the remark to which I referred was made by the noble Earl the Leader of the House. That, however, was a mere illustration of the point that I am desiring to make. Both here and in another place these regulations, though they have to be confirmed by both Houses of Parliament, come up at inconvenient times and cannot be amended, and therefore the only way in which we can safeguard interests which might unwittingly be interfered with is to see that proper safeguards are put into the Bill when it passes through Parliament. That is my excuse for, at this early stage, drawing attention to a danger, which may occur, of serious interference with trade by regulations put into force at very short notice without proper consultation with those concerned, with the possibility of producing the almost scandalous state of affairs that we have found under previous regulations, where shipments have been legal at the time they were loaded, but illegal and not allowed to be landed when the ship arrived at its destination. I am sure it is nobody's intention that that should take place. This Bill provides specifically for consultation with all classes of persons concerned, whether producers or consumers, and I venture to submit to your Lordships that there are others concerned—namely, the carriers. Those engaged in the trade have very vital interests, and I would like an assurance from the noble Earl in charge of the Bill that this comparatively small, but very important, point may be considered, so as to safeguard those interests when we come to a later stage of the Bill.

5.32 p.m.

LORD PHILLIMORE

My Lords, the noble Earl in charge of the Bill paid a very proper tribute to Lord Addison, than whom no one has been more deeply immersed in the complexities of agricultural legislation, but I must say that I received some of Lord Addison's remarks with a certain amount of sardonic satisfaction. I was delighted to find that even he, who was the originator of the first Marketing Act, was somewhat troubled at the complexities introduced in the life of the producer by such interference with industry. That was an admission which I took to be a very valuable one as coming from Lord Addison's side of the House. Also I was not displeased to find that the noble Lord's opinion as to tariffs had so radically altered since 1931, when I, amongst others, in vain recommended that no marketing scheme was worth anything unless a certain amount of protection against foreign producers was coupled with it. Now I find the noble Lord saying that it is quite necessary to have State management of importation.

LORD ADDISON

I am sorry to interrupt, but management of importation is not necessarily the imposition of a tariff.

LORD PHILLIMORE

I quite admit that. It is, however, a form of protection. It is also true, I think, that all these Bills of this nature do introduce great complications into the work of producers, but I submit that it would be a mistake to fall upon this Bill because it covers, under various headings, various specialised sides of agriculture. Agriculture is in its nature so diverse an occupation that it is impossible to treat it in such a wholesale way as the noble Lord suggested. I think that from his admissions made at other times he would himself have drawn attention to the complexity of the industry with which we are now dealing.

This Bill, to which I and those for whom I am speaking accord a very hearty welcome, does deal with many sides of poultry production and marketing, and deals with them, as I see, in a practical, close and well-considered way. It was not possible, I submit, if a satisfactory result was to be obtained, to throw all these various complicated sides of the industry together, and make one sweeping recommendation with regard to the whole. It was absolutely necessary to go into detail, and to divide up the various functions of the producer and marketing, and so on. I personally, and those for whom I speak, are very grateful for the Bill, and particularly for the recognition that disease has been the worst injury to the poultry industry during the last few years. The noble Lord, Lord Addison, and I are both working on a scheme which involves the purchase of hundreds of thousands of young stock or eggs, and the greatest difficulty of that association has been to obtain healthy stock. I venture to say that no-one will, in the end, be more grateful for the Bill than the Durham miner, whose keen interest in poultry has been so greatly and recently developed. In particular, he will have cause to be grateful for the provisions as to disease.

The noble Lord, Lord Addison, if I may return to him once more, for he is a formidable and well-informed critic, wished to complicate the Bill still further by adding foodstuffs for poultry to the many other functions which the Bill sets going. I submit that that is far too difficult and different a side of the question to include in a Bill of this character. There is only one suspicion that I have as to the Bill at present, and that is that the grading of eggs provision may let slip through certain categories of persons, and certain categories of trades, which it will be desirable to rope in. I notice that already the direct seller is very properly exempted from the grading provisions. I think it will probably be necessary, as the Bill goes through the House, to look further into that point, and see whether such bodies as the Wholesale Co-operatives, and so on, are clearly within the Bill, as they should be. With these few remarks I beg to give the Bill a hearty welcome.

5.38 p.m.

THE EARL OF RADNOR

My Lords, I also, like Lord Phillimore, welcome this Bill, because it deals at last with a problem which has been exceedingly complex, and it deals with a section of the agricultural industry which has been crying out for something of this nature for a very long time. I also welcome the Bill for the reason given by Lord Strabolgi on the First Reading in this House—namely, that at long last the Government have seen fit to introduce a major measure in the first instance in your Lordships' House. I hope that the precedent will be followed more frequently in future. May I also say that I hope it will not in future be done in quite the same way? I think it was generally understood, originally, that the Bill was going to be introduced in another place, and consequently those organisations that are interested in the details of the Bill took steps to get their points of view represented in the other House. At the last moment things were switched over and the Bill was introduced in this House, and so far as one organisation is concerned, which is actively interested in the Bill, it has been unable to find anyone who has the time to represent its point of view. It is most desirable that the view of those interested should have an opportunity of being put forward for discussion when a Bill is before Parliament, and I put that point to the noble Earl in the hope that on future occasions there will be a better opportunity for those people to put their views forward.

This is a very complex Bill. In the main it is on the same lines as the marketing schemes with which we are familiar, but it does depart in one major respect from marketing schemes that have hitherto been put into operation, in that the Commission which does all the work is not democratically elected. The noble Lord, Lord Addison, knows a great deal better than I that it was very difficult—I believe he found it impossible—to devise a satisfactory scheme of election for a Commission to deal with the poultry industry; there are so many concerned in it, and so many of them are small people. But I do not know that it is not a good thing that it should be so. I speak from perhaps rather bitter experience of the activities of the democratic principle in connection with the Pigs Marketing Scheme, in that I was defeated in a democratically run election, and perhaps my views have been coloured somewhat by that event. But I then came to the conclusion that the farmer is by nature an autocrat, and is not an entirely suitable medium for the democratic principle.

Well that is the only major point of difference between this and any other marketing scheme. Apart from that, it has the usual complications of many different possibilities of schemes, a multiplicity of committees, both advisory and other, all to be set up to harry the unfortunate producer. But it has worked in other schemes, and presumably it will work under this scheme; though I must confess that I have some sympathy with Lord Addison is his complaint of the number of possibilities of different schemes which may affect any individual producer. In that connection I would draw your Lordships' attention to the two schemes contained in Clauses 4 and 5, the breeders' accreditation scheme and the hatcheries accreditation scheme. It is true that they have one major difference, which is that in the case of the breeders' accreditation scheme there is a certain amount of money made available to assist them; but I really do not know what hatching is but breeding poultry in some form or another, and equally I do not think you can breed poultry without hatching eggs. I cannot see, after a study of both those clauses, why those two schemes should not be run into one. It seems to me that these two classes of people are exactly the same.

On that point, and particularly on Clause 4, dealing with the breeders' accreditation scheme, I would like to echo what has already been said regarding the importance of improving the health of our poultry. It is well known that generally speaking it has deteriorated very seriously for several years past, largely, I think, owing to the desire on the part of producers to get a hen which will produce more and more eggs. The result has been that the stamina of the poultry generally has gone down, and they are therefore less resistant to disease. But that, I believe, will be dealt with under the scheme which is to be set up by the Commission under this Bill. I hope that in course of time it will succeed in improving the quality of our poultry, and that the industry will therefore be better off economically. Your Lordships will note in subsection (6) of Clause 4 that this scheme has to be confirmed by a Resolution of the Commons House of Parliament. That is, of course, because there is finance in it. There is a great deal besides finance in it (or will be) but it has to go to the Commons, otherwise presumably it would not be confirmed by anybody. It seems to me that this might well go through the same process as other marketing schemes, and come before both Houses for confirmation and criticism; because, so far as I can see, in the whole of this Bill there is no means by which the aggrieved producer, or the producer who has any objection to the scheme, has a chance of voicing his views publicly, and if the scheme came before both Houses of Parliament there would be an opportunity for careful consideration.

There is only one other matter to which I want to refer, and that is that in Clause 6 you have a Stock Improvement Advisory Committee, and in Clause 11 a Marketing Advisory Committee. I would ask your Lordships to look at the composition of those two Committees side by side. The Stock Improvement Advisory Committee is to consist of "the producers in Great Britain of such fowls or eggs as aforesaid," while the Marketing Advisory Committee consists of "producers in Great Britain of poultry products." Those are, as far as I can see, the same. Then, in Clause 6, "persons who carry on in Great Britain the business of supplying such fowls or eggs," and, in Clause 11, "persons who carry on in Great Britain the business of selling poultry products, whether by wholesale or by retail." Those people are very much the same. Then, in both clauses you have "(c) local authorities in Great Britain," and "(d) such other persons.…", and they are both the same on these Committees. Would it not be possible for the two Committees, which are identical as far as I can see, to be run into one? It is a multiplicity of committees which sometimes frightens people off these schemes, and it would, I believe, help generally if the procedure could be simplified in some such way. These criticisms that I have made are really only very minor criticisms, and virtually on Committee points. I hope that your Lordships will give this Bill a Second Reading and that it will pass into law substantially in the form in which it is now and will give that assistance to the poultry industry which is so much required.

5.48 p.m.

THE EARL OF FEVERSHAM

My Lords, I think it has been agreed by all those who have taken part in the debate that this Bill is of a complicated character, but it is not nearly as complicated as the noble Lord, Lord Addison, would have the House to believe. The noble Lord suggested that under the Bill there will be so many schemes of one kind or another that it would be possible for one producer to have to submit himself to a register six times. With regard to Clauses 4 and 5, to which my noble friend Lord Radnor drew attention, they deal with voluntary schemes, and therefore there is no compulsion on those who have breeding establishments or hatchery undertakings to join such a scheme. The noble Lord, Lord Addison, very properly devoted many of his remarks to Clause 20, which is the first clause dealing with service schemes. I would remind the House again in respect of those service schemes that they are not compulsory. They follow the precedent which was set in the Livestock Industry Act, whereby a scheme cannot come into operation unless a preponderating number of those connected with that section of the industry vote in favour of it.

LORD ADDISON

With great respect to the noble Earl, there is no provision for voting in the Bill.

THE EARL OF FEVERSHAM

If the noble Lord will turn to Clause 22, and also to the Third Schedule, he will see that exactly similar provisions rule in regard to the confirmation and publication of service schemes as appear in the Livestock Industry Act, which means that the Minister cannot sanction a service scheme unless the majority of those connected with that branch of the industry are in favour of such a scheme being instituted. I hope, by bringing those two instances to your Lordships' notice, it will be appreciated that although the complexity of the provisions for the various schemes is necessarily great, it is not by any manner of means implied that every producer or distributor has to submit himself to the regimentation of marketing restrictions and regulations.

The noble Lord, Lord Addison, has referred to the fact that the Reorganisation Commission envisaged a Marketing Board for both eggs and poultry. Under that scheme the country would be divided into areas, with a single packing station for each area, and the board would have power to fix minimum prices and prescribe selling grades. It is important that the House should appreciate that whether the proposals of the Commission should be adopted or not was a matter for the producers themselves. In actual fact, the producers of eggs and poultry have not adopted these proposals. The reasons are well known. They derive from the character of the poultry industry, to which Lord Addison made some reference. It is, as is generally recognised, a large and important industry, but it is one composed of an enormous number of units of varying sizes, many very small, and therefore is difficult to organise. The register of stock suppliers and wholesalers proposed under this Bill will not affect the ordinary producers of eggs and poultry for consumption, nor will the accredited schemes, which concern only those breeders or hatcheries, as the case may be, who care to join them. Service schemes are not compulsory under the Bill. The industry can utilise that clause of the Bill if it so desires. On the other hand, if the proposals contained in the Report of the Reorganisation Commission, of which Lord Addison was an eminent member, were brought into effect, every producer would have to register and send in returns. As it is, ordinary producers—that means those who are not producing stock birds—will not have to register at all unless they choose of their own accord to set up a service scheme. It is unnecessary to point out that ordinary producers far outnumber the breeders.

My noble friend Lord Radnor asked a question as to why the Bill had to be made, in his view, unnecessarily complicated by a similar provision being included for both breeders and hatcheries. My noble friend failed to draw a distinction between these two sections of the industry. Clause 5, which deals with the hatcheries accreditation scheme, applies primarily to undertakings where a large quantity of eggs—say 30,000 or 40,000—are hatched by scientific processes and where the eggs for that purpose are bought from breeders. That is quite a different section of the industry from the breeders' side, which may concern a much smaller unit that does not buy any eggs from exterior sources but relies upon its own stock for breeding and hatching purposes. Therefore it was felt that it would be more effective if there were two separate schemes whereby, on a voluntary basis, the persons engaged in, say, hatcheries would be able to formulate their own scheme and most probably buy their eggs in large quantities from the breeders' accreditation scheme which had been set up.

THE EARL OF RADNOR

Surely there is bound to be a lot of overlapping in that case. It is not every hatchery that keeps a chicken, nor is it every breeder who sells all the eggs he produces for hatching purposes.

THE EARL OF FEVERSHAM

There are a few instances of undertakings which could be described, for the purposes of this Bill, as both breeders and hatcheries; but, by and large, it is correct to say that hatchery undertakings are that side of the industry which concentrate upon the purchase of eggs in very large numbers for hatching, whereas the breeders' undertaking is often not on such a large scare and is more self-contained. I am assured that it is necessary, as the Technical Committee recommended, that this distinction should be drawn.

My noble friend Lord Harmsworth asked whether the bantam was included in the provisions of this Bill. I can assure the noble Lord that the bantam, for the purpose of this Bill, is defined as a fowl. The noble Lord, Lord Rea, together with the noble Lord, Lord Addison, raised an important issue with regard to import control. Import control by order of the Board of Trade is not dependent upon a storage scheme being in force. Without any such scheme the Board of Trade can control imports if desirable in order to secure the stability of the market. The noble Lord, Lord Addison, made some reference to the question of storage. As regards storage schemes, the Board of Trade has to be satisfied that a scheme is sufficiently comprehensive before it will be accepted as the basis for import regulation. It will be appreciated that every section of the industry must have its interests properly safeguarded, and although the ultimate objective is to get, in effect, something of the nature of that which has been out- lined by the noble Lord, it is, as I have indicated, necessary that considerable time should be taken in the process of building up such a scheme.

I should like to assure my noble friend Lord Rea that, as regards import regulation, the Bill provides for consultation with all parties that are concerned. It is suggested that regulation of imports should take place after consultation with the Market Supply Committee, and that Committee should set up a Trade Committee which would be an expert consultative committee, and that all sections of the industry, including the distributive interests, should be able to give their advice and to make their views known. Regulation under the Bill will not, of course, necessarily be continuous as is the case with a number of other commodities to which he referred. As I have indicated it will be applied in order to safeguard the stability of the market, which is obviously in the interests of all parties—producer, consumer, wholesaler and importer. It will be necessary, as I indicated in my earlier remarks, for the Board of Trade to give some indication to the country of origin when such regulation is to take effect.

My noble friend Lord Addison referred to the important question of research. I wish to say now that, apart from the provision for a service scheme under this head under the Bill, which is voluntary, the Government already make a substantial provision, as he will well know, for poultry research. The announcement which was made in July last on the poultry policy of the Government included a statement that the Government would facilitate the establishment of a special research station for the investigation of poultry disease, and also that the Commission to be set up under this Bill would be asked to formulate a scheme for the establishment of a progeny testing station. I would like to inform the noble Lord that actually, at the present time, proposals for the research station are under consideration. I am afraid I have not dealt with all the points that have been made, but, as my noble friends Lord Radnor and Lord Addison have intimated to your Lordships, some of the questions raised in the course of this debate are essentially Committee points, and I shall have the opportunity of further looking into them after reading the Report of this debate.

LORD ADDISON

May I intervene for a moment, with your Lordships' permission, to ask the noble Earl, in making the inquiries that he has just promised, to inquire into the accuracy or otherwise of two statements he has just made. I do this now so that he can give the answer when we come to the Committee stage. I understood him to say that as far as the average producer is concerned the producer will be a voluntary participator. As I read it, the Commission have to be satisfied by persons substantially representing all interests. There is nothing to say how that is to be ascertained, but I take it that the scheme may then be imposed on all producers, whether they like it or not, and that it is not a question of whether they can voluntarily participate. I am only asking the noble Earl to look into it. It is not provided for in the Schedule or anywhere else.

THE EARL OF FEVERSHAM

I should like to assure the noble Lord that in respect of the approval of such schemes, the majority concerned in that section of the industry must be preponderatingly in favour of the scheme.

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