LICENSING OF BULLS. (Hansard, 17 October 1939)

§ VISCOUNT ASTOR
My Lords, I would like to support the noble Lord in urging His Majesty's Government to reconsider the decision which apparently they have taken. As has been pointed out, milk recording is essential to anybody who wants to feed his cattle economically and scientifically. Towards the end of the last war I was for a time at the Ministry of Food, and when there I had to meet many deputations from dairy farmers in connection with the fixing of milk prices and that sort of thing. I was struck then by the fact that a large number of farmers, unfortunately, did not feed their cattle scientifically, and did not have an 1428 adequate record of the milk yield of their cows. Therefore there was a very uneconomical milk production in their case. Nobody knows the course which this war is going to take, but one must visualise the possibility of having to ration milk cows. That can only be done properly if we have a record of the milk yield. Therefore I venture to support the noble Lord in the point he has submitted.
I would also like to put another question, of which I have given him notice, to the noble Lord who is to reply. It is about the licensing of bulls. I understand that the Ministry are proposing to stop the licensing of bulls. Now this matter has been discussed in your Lordships' House very frequently in the past, and your Lordships are aware that the object of the licensing of bulls is to improve the stock and to get rid of the scrub bull. That is very necessary because at the present moment English cattle compare unfavourably with Irish cattle and with Scotch cattle, and that has been brought out quite clearly in connection with the Government subsidy on meat. The reason Irish store cattle are superior to English is that Ireland adopted a system of licensing bulls many years earlier than we did. The amount of money involved and the amount of trouble involved are very small. A small payment is made by the owner of the bull, the bull is licensed when ten months old, and not much staff is required. I would venture to press the noble Lord to reconsider this decision, if a decision has in fact been made.
I am raising the point now in order to try to get from the Government a statement of policy. When the war is over, the livestock industry in this country, which is very important, is going to have very heavy competition from the Dominions and from South America, and it is only by maintaining the standard of our livestock that we can compete successfully. Inevitably the production of cow-beef, I think, is likely to increase as our consumption of milk increases. Already quite a large proportion of the beef that is on the market is cow-beef, and therefore not of the highest grade. I venture to suggest that if my information is correct—I hope it is not—the Government should reconsider the matter because we do want at the end of the war to find 1429 ourselves in the best position for competing with overseas countries.

§ THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (LORD DENHAM)
My Lords, I am sure your Lordships will welcome the fact that this debate was initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Swaythling, who is so keen and so prominent an agriculturist. Most people know that he is a great authority on Guernsey cattle, and we know also that he has done a lot of work for the Hampshire Milk Recording Society. The noble Viscount, Lord Astor, also has a distinguished record in agriculture, if I may say so, and has taken great interest in the matter about which he kindly gave me notice this morning. It is obvious that the two questions which have been brought before your Lordships this afternoon are both worthy of the deepest and most careful consideration of my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture and of the Government, and I would like to say a word about both matters before I sit down.
With regard to milk recording I gather that there are some forty-nine societies at the present time, and the Ministry of Agriculture appreciate to the full the splendid and valuable work that has been done by these societies during the last twenty-five years. I do not know whether I heard the noble Lord, Lord Swaythling, aright, but I thought he said the scheme was started in 1917. I am informed that it was started in 1914, before the last war, and has been, in fact, in operation for some twenty-five years. As I say, the Ministry of Agriculture appreciate to the full the value of the work done by the milk recording societies, by their chairmen, by their management committees, by their secretaries, and last but not least, by their recorders. I should like to pay a special word of tribute to the recorders because their work is valuable and strenuous, and is often carried out under the most difficult and trying conditions, both as regards travel and weather. Undoubtedly it is true that under the official milk recording scheme, breeders of pedigree stock have been enabled to sell their stock to better advantage at higher prices. There has been another great advantage, that those who want to buy pedigree stock can go 1430 into the market and buy with their eyes open. The Ministry of Agriculture recognise to the full that the value of dairy breeds all over the country has been improved by this means. The place of milk recording in the activities of the dairy breed societies has not been lost sight of, and it is fully recognised that but for the interest in milk recording shown by these societies, official milk recording would not have attained, during the last twenty-five years, the usefulness that it has reached. It is true to say that not only the quality of the milk but the quantity has certainly increased.
But, in spite of all this, my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture has had to come to the decision to suspend official milk recording. This decision was reached, I may tell your Lordships, only after the most careful thought and consideration, and with the greatest possible reluctance and regret. I would suggest to your Lordships that in war time the maintenance of non-essential services, however desirable the services may be in themselves, cannot be justified, not only from the point of view of finance and economy and the need of saving, but also from another point of view—the administrative point of view—because of the fresh war duties which are being undertaken by the livestock officers. It has been found that it is impossible to spare their services to carry out their old pre-war duties. I would argue that the suspension of milk recording for the period of the war, though very regrettable, surely will not do irreparable harm. After all, we must remember that milk recording was part of the long-term policy for the improvement of livestock, and if it were recognised, as I hope it will be recognised, that this suspension is temporary, then the decision could be viewed in its true light as a war measure, which can be put aside when peace returns. Your Lordships will not expect me to give a definite promise that everything will be reconstituted at the end of the war, but it is hoped that it may be possible, when the war is over, to restart an official scheme and to resume the payment of grants to milk recording societies in the same way that they have been made before the war.
I want your Lordships, if I can make you see it, to get a true perspective of this matter. It is to be remembered that 1431 from the latest figures available at the Ministry of Agriculture there are forty-nine such societies, as I have said. They have 4,302 members with 4,792 herds, recording 133,628 cows. That figure of 133,628 cows, is just over 5 per cent. of the cow and heifer population of the country—the exact proportion is 5.2 per cent.—according to the returns which reached the Ministry as the result of the statistics which were collected on June 4 last. I would remind your Lordships that the whole purpose of this milk recording scheme was primarily an educative purpose—to teach the farmer to eliminate from his herds the unthrifty cow. Secondly, the purpose of the scheme, as both noble Lords have said, was to enable the farmer to discover the best feeding ration and the best way to ration his cows. There is nothing to prevent the individual farmer going on with milk recording, and I profoundly hope that he will do so. My right honourable friend asks me to tell your Lordships that the Government cannot reconsider the decision to suspend the scheme for the duration of the war.
But—and here I come to the topic which was raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Astor—closely bound up with milk recording is of course the great question of the licensing of bulls, and I am most grateful to the noble Lord for giving me notice this morning that he was going to raise this matter. There is no doubt that the Livestock (Licensing of Bulls) Act, which was passed in 1931, has been of the greatest value in improving and maintaining the standard of cattle bred in this country. My right honourable friend feels that this Act constitutes a really basic measure for this purpose, affecting as it undoubtedly does the standard of the whole cattle population of the country. It was therefore, as your Lordships can imagine, with the very greatest regret that the Government—mainly for administrative reasons connected with the staff that were engaged in this work at the very outset of the war—felt compelled to announce the suspension of bull licensing. While, then, my answer about milk recording will, I am sure, have disappointed many of your Lordships, I am happy to be able to announce that my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture has decided to reverse the 1432 decision that the licensing of bulls should also cease.
The licensing of bulls is to be resumed, and my right honourable friend has asked me to read the following statement: On the outbreak of war it was found necessary for administrative reasons to announce the suspension of bull licensing. It has, however, now been found possible to overcome the initial difficulties, and the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Secretary of State for Scotland have accordingly decided that it would be desirable to arrange for the resumption of bull licensing in order that the progress which has so far been achieved should be maintained, and to prevent any deterioration in the standard of cattle. This decision has the approval of the National Farmers' Unions for England and Wales and for Scotland. At the same time, in order to effect economy in expenditure on staff and to save the time of farmers in complying with their obligations under the Licensing of Bulls Act, certain simplifications in procedure will be introduced. The essential features of the Act, which are the inspection and licensing or rejection of every bull attaining the specified age and the farmers' right of appeal in the event of rejection, will be maintained unchanged, but it is now proposed that owners of licensed bulls and purchasers of such bulls shall be absolved from the obligation to notify the Ministry or the Department of Agriculture for Scotland in connection with the transfer of licences. This notice will be in the hands of the Press before I sit down, and the Press notice will contain the necessary advice as to where application forms and so on can be obtained.
There is one interesting thing about this. The Ministry of Agriculture in the last few weeks has been inundated by farmers all over the country asking that the decision to stop the licensing of bulls shall be reversed. This matter, therefore, touches almost every farmer in this country. I am sure that this announcement will be welcome to your Lordships as a whole, and certainly to the noble Lord, Lord Swaythling, in particular, because during the period that the Act has been in operation the noble Lord has put forward numerous bulls for licensing—I believe the exact number is twenty-nine—and they have been of such consistently high quality that I believe it is true to say that he has not yet had occasion to become acquainted with the procedure laid down in the Act for dealing with a rejected bull—which is a very drastic procedure. I think that is a very fine record, if the noble Lord will allow me to say so.
1433 The noble Viscount, Lord Astor, gave me notice this morning that he was going to refer to the question of premiums, and I think I ought to say a word about that, although actually he did not touch upon it. Premiums must go temporarily, in the same way as milk recording must go, and if I could say a word about the figures on this matter I should take up something which the noble Lord did let fall about the expense. Let me quote to your Lordships the grants which were included in the 1939 Estimates for these livestock services. They are of no small substance: premium bulls, £23,100; premium boars, £4,200; rams, £300; heavy horse societies, £13,500; milk recording societies, £14,000; and, if my arithmetic is correct, those figures amount to a grand total of £55,100, which it is proposed should be saved by suspending these services for the duration of the war. I suppose that most debates or most Motions in these days that come before your Lordships will advocate or connote the expenditure of more money. What I am trying to persuade your Lordships is that in this case economy is necessary, and that we should save the £55,100 to which I have referred.
I have heard in the last twenty years very many speeches upon economy, and there are of course true economy and false economy. In the main I have found that where some subject is touched upon in which either members in another place or noble Lords here have a particular interest, to cut down on that service is false economy, whereas it is true economy to cut down on all other services. My right honourable friend has taken the wide view over the whole situation. Noble Lords will appreciate that under the scheme for ploughing up, under the allotments scheme, much extra money will have to be spent by the Ministry of Agriculture. I would advocate that this is a wise course that he is pursuing in cutting down these services—not because we should not love them to continue, but because we are faced with a war emergency.
Let me sum up. I regret exceedingly not to have been able to give your Lordships a more helpful reply. On the other hand, believe me, my right honourable friend is faced with a war emergency and has taken every argument and every factor into consideration, and he does feel that he would not be justified 1434 in acceding to the request of the noble Lord, Lord Swaythling, in accepting his Motion. As some set-off to this disappointment, however, he feels that he has taken the right course in deciding that the licensing of bulls must go on. He hopes not only that this will safeguard the future of the whole cattle population of the country, but that the evil effects of any temporary suspension of milk recording will themselves be only temporary, and that the full activity and progress of the Ministry's schemes for the improvement of livestock will once more be set in motion when this deplorable and melancholy war is over.

§ LORD SWAYTHLING
My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord who has replied for the Government. I feel sure that the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, and I are very grateful for the Minister's decision with regard to the bull licensing scheme, but I should like to make one or two remarks about the milk recording scheme, which is the object of my Motion. One regrets that the percentage figure given by the noble Lord is so low compared with all the dairy cows in the country, but at the same time it would be of more value to the pedigree breeder if it could be arrived at by comparison between the recorded and the non-recorded pedigree cows. With regard to the expenditure: when the noble Lord talks about a saving of £55,000, I must point out that the milk recording scheme, about which I particularly moved my Motion, cost, as he said, only £14,000, and although he has accused me in advance of saying that it is a false economy to suspend the scheme, yet from the figure he gave I still say it is a false economy.