HL Deb 05 June 1945 vol 136 cc376-98

2.38 p.m.

Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.

EARL OF ROSEBERY

My Lords, when the subject of post-war forestry was raised in this House on 20th February by the noble Lord, Lord Bingley, reference was made to a statement which had just been made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in another place promising the introduction of a Bill designed to secure more complete and more direct Ministerial and Parliamentary control of forestry. The course of the debate demonstrated the very great interest which your Lordships' House takes in the subject of forestry and the wealth of knowledge and experience which they bring to discussion of forestry matters. It was clear that noble Lords were impressed with the urgency attaching to the formulation of a comprehensive forestry policy and that they were anxious to have further clarification of the Government's intentions as soon as possible.

This Bill represents the first step, but only the first step, towards the implementation of a post-war forestry policy. It is on this basis that I would commend the Second Reading of the Bill to your Lordships to-day. This Bill is a machinery Bill and, very briefly, it confers Ministerial responsibility for forestry policy and administration on the Minister of Agriculture and the Secretary of State for Scotland. If and when these new responsibilities are placed upon us we shall be able to address our minds to the wider issues of forestry policy. I hope therefore that we shall be able to secure the passing of this Bill during the remainder of this Session. I do not think I need argue the case for a larger and more comprehensive forestry policy in this country. Your Lordships are familiar with the checks which interrupted the smooth development of the State forest programme in the years between the wars and with the vast inroads on our limited resources of growing timber which the necessities of the present war have dictated. To-day, with our timber resources in this country cut almost to the point of exhaustion, the task of rebuilding these resources takes on a special urgency.

The Government have given the most anxious thought to the question of the best machinery for tackling this most important task. They have come to the conclusion that the Forestry Commission should be retained as the executive body charged with the task of carrying out the State afforestation programme and administering any measures that may be decided upon for the encouragement of private planting. Despite all difficulties the Commission have done excellent work during the 25 years of their existence and we could not afford to lose the advantages which their organization, skilled staff and experience provide. The Commission themselves have been looking ahead as is shown by their Report on Post-War Forestry Policy published in 1943 Whether or not your Lordships agree with all the proposals made in that Report. I think you will agree that it provides striking evidence of the Commissioners' constructive outlook on both State and private forestry in this country.

In considering this question of machinery, the Government have endeavoured to retain the advantages of the Commission's organization unimpaired. In some quarters there was a desire that there should be a separate arrangement for Scotland. At one time I also held that view, and about two years ago I wrote a letter which The Times published to that effect. I would not bother your Lordships by recalling that letter if it had not been that in a subsequent debate the noble Duke, the Duke of Sutherland, quoted fairly freely from it. Since that time I have had several informal discussions with my predecessor in this office, Mr. Tom Johnston, and came to the conclusion some time ago that the Government opinion, which is that it would be a mistake to set up two forestry services, is the right one, the most potent argument being that a unified service provides better prospects of advancement for efficient officers and facilitates the handling of such common problems as research, experiment and education.

From what was said in the last debate in this House on the subject I feel confident that your Lordships will recognize the desirability of instituting Ministerial control, as is proposed in this Bill. Such divergence of view as there appeared to le on that occasion was on the question which Ministers should assume control. The conclusion reached by the Government was that this control should be vested in the Agricultural Ministers as agriculture and forestry are so closely connected. This is clear in the case of the private estate and it is equally important from the national viewpoint. Large areas of land will need to be acquired for the new State forests. This cannot be done except at the cost of some disturbance of agricultural production. Our land resources in this country are limited and there are many competing claims. The interest of the Agricultural Ministers in the question of acquisition of land for afforestation was recognized in the Forestry Act, 1919, by the inclusion of a provision requiting consultation with the Agricultural Departments before land was acquired.

I see no justification for any fear that forestry will be in any way subordinated to agriculture if both are put under the same Ministers. Given responsibility for both agriculture and forestry, the Agricultural Ministers would be bound to view their problem as one of co-ordination— co-ordination of forestry plans and agricultural plans, whereas if agriculture and forestry were under separate Ministers there would be the danger of constant friction and the natural effort of each Minister to use the land for their respective requirements. In brief, then, this Bill seeks to conserve the position of the Forestry Commission as a tried and tested instrument for executing forestry policy, but to strengthen the Government machinery for dealing with this vital industry by placing specific responsibility for it directly on the shoulders of Ministers of the Crown responsible to Parliament.

I now come to the details of the Bill. The first clause provides for the reconstitution of the Forestry Commission. The Commissioners will continue to be appointed by His Majesty. It is provided that at least three of them shall be persons having special knowledge and experience of forestry and that at least one shall be a person who has scientific attainments and a technical knowledge of forestry. It is the Government's intention to include in the Commission persons with experience of forestry in each of the three countries, England, Scotland and Wales. The second clause of the Bill provides for the general control by Ministers of the Commission's activities. The third clause provides for the appointment of Committees for England, Scotland and Wales. These Committees will consist partly of members who are Commissioners or officers of the Commissioners and partly of others, not exceeding three in number, specially appointed. Power is taken for the delegation of Commissioners' functions to these Committees. This will enable a good deal of the day-to-day work to be decentralized. It is of particular importance that we should have the right machinery for dealing with private woodlands. It is the timber produced from private woodlands which has met our necessities during the present war and even with a great expansion of State forests in future, private woodlands will remain a mainstay of our forest resources.

Clause 4 transfers the power to acquire land from the Commission to the Agricultural Ministers acting separately. Future purchases of land for forestry purposes will be made by the Minister of Agriculture in England and Wales and by the Secretary of State in Scotland. As from the date of the passing of this Bill into law the lands now owned by the Commission in England and Wales would be vested in the Minister of Agriculture and the lands owned by them in Scotland would be vested in the Secretary of State. Each Minister will place at the disposal of the Commission the land required for afforestation purposes and the Commission will have all the necessary management powers to deal with such land. The clause also confers management powers on each of the Ministers. These will enable the Ministers to manage through the agency of their Agricultural Departments such agricultural properties as they consider can most efficiently and conveniently be managed through these agencies, either because they are properties which ought not to be used for afforestation purposes or because they will not be needed for planting for some considerable time. In this connexion I should like to draw attention to the analysis of the Forestry Commission estates giver in their Post-War Report. This showed that of the 1,144,000 acres under the Commission's charge at September 30, 1939, only 434,000 acres were then under plantations, 370,000 acres were classed as unplantable and 43,000 acres were classed as agricultural. The detailed arrangements will, of course, be worked out with three things in mind: the necessity for facilitating the orderly development of planting operations, the proper care and utilization of agricultural subjects, and convenience and economy in administration.

Clause 4 also transfers to the Ministers the existing power to acquire land compulsorily. Certain restrictions on this power are made by Clause 5. Apart from these, Clause 4 itself contains the general safeguard that where objection to a Compulsory Acquisition Order is maintained, the Order shall be provisional only and shall not have effect until it is confirmed by Parliament. It is right in my opinion not only that Ministers should assume direct responsibility but that the final word should rest with Parliament. The remaining clauses of the Bill make the necessary financial and administrative arrangements and I do not think I need refer to them in detail.

In commending the Second Reading of this Bill to your Lordships I do so in the belief that it provides the best machinery that can be devised for dealing with the large developments in forestry which we all hope to see in the years ahead. I am sure that your Lordships will agree that forestry has a great contribution to make towards the enrichment of our countryside, towards the employment of our people, and towards our national security, and that no time should be lost in constructing the machinery to frame and implement a forward policy. I beg to move.

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

2.52 p.m.

LORD ADDISON

My Lords, I am glad to have the opportunity, although a little later than my noble friend, of congratulating the noble Earl upon his accession to office, and of expressing the sincere hope that his tenure of it will be as useful as that of his predecessor, to whom he has paid such generous tribute. I know that he was exceedingly interested in this Bill, and for my part, as one who has been interested in the subject since the very beginning— the first Forestry Commission emanated from a Report made to me as Minister of Reconstruction 1918— I come the essential purpose of this Bill, which is to transfer the administration of this great and growing affair to a Minister responsible to Parliament. That is the essential feature of the Bill, and I think it is right that that should be done.

One can say that without in any way minimizing the tribute of appreciation which we should all wish to pay to the valuable work of the Forestry Commission, who have been progressive and forward-looking so far as they have been allowed to exercise their functions. Their last Report, indicating that they are now holders of more than a million acres of land, shows that we have arising amongst us the biggest landowner of all; and it is clearly not right that authorities of that magnitude should not be held responsible to Parliament by means of some machinery. The right Minister to be responsible is undoubtedly the Minister of Agriculture, because those of us who have studied these acquisitions know that it is inevitable that a considerable amount of land should be acquired which is not plantable, and which ought to be used for agricultural purposes and which would be wasted if used for planting. More and more the Forestry Commission, as it were by accident, have been growing into an agricultural authority with regard to a considerable part of the land that they own, and clearly the exercise of that function should be guided by the Minister responsible for agriculture in the country concerned. That is the best reason of all for the transfer of functions to that Minister.

I must say that it requires someone who is accustomed to studying Acts of Parliament to discern the revolution effected by this Bill, owing to the skilful and artful way in which it has been concealed. We are told that the Forestry Commission is to be appointed by the Government, and so on, as before, and then, almost as an aside, we are told in Clause 2 that: The Commissioners shall, in exercising their functions under the Forestry Acts…comply with such directions as may be given to them by the Ministers. That is where it comes in, almost as an aside. It means that the Forestry Commission, instead of being an independent body on their own apart from a nominal adhesion to the Treasury become subject to the directions of a Minister. It is quite right that that should be so, and comment only on the artful way in which the revolution is concealed, because it is not until you come to the last full page of the Bill that you find out who the Ministers are. Then you find that the Ministers who are to give all these directions and who are to be generally in control of the whole affair are, quite rightly, the Minister of Agriculture and the Secretary of State concerned with agriculture in Scotland. I can hardly describe this as a piece of camouflage, but it is a most skilful, artful and kindly way of exercising revolutionary powers. I have no doubt that the example will be studied, and perhaps made use of, in the future by those who follow the noble Earl.

It is right that I should give this Bill my hearty support, but in doing so I should like to say that I am sure we recognize the importance of the noble Earl's observation that this is only a machinery Bill. That is true. What we should like to have— I quite agree that at this stage in the life of the present Government they would probably be chary about giving such an undertaking— is a much bolder and more progressive forestry programme, a programme of development. We wish that we could have that from this Government, or from their successors. We are given to understand by the noble Earl that that will follow in due course, and we hope it will. Many of us have been hoping that for a long time.

I cannot but remind your Lordships, however, that, useful though the machinery of this Bill is, it provides no guarantee against the future exercise of another Geddes Axe. I have painful recollections of what happened when that fell and foolish instrument was applied to forestry some twenty odd years ago; and there was a slight repetition of it a little later on. The Forestry Commission had just got well started when down came the Geddes Axe, which was applied by the very simple and efficient process of cutting down the Treasury grant. If the Commission had no money to buy trees or to cultivate land they could not get on with forestry, so that was a very effective though desolating method of bringing their operations to a standstill. There is no guarantee that that will not happen in future. I wish there were Your Lordships may remember that the last time this procedure was applied the Forestry Commission had to burn millions of seedlings which they had raised with the intention of planting them, because they had no ground in which to plant them when those seedlings became of proper plantable age. I think we have now reached the stage where all Parties would agree that that disastrous performance should not be repeated. This is a long-term business. The Forestry Commissioners must have a proper programme and they must be able to get on with it in a proper scientific, businesslike way. I hope sincerely that that programme will be forthcoming in due time, and before long.

Finally, I have just one quite trifling observation to make. Hitherto members of the Forestry Commission might be Members of Parliament. I believe at the present moment two of them, if not more, are, but for some reason or other in Clause 1 (3) it is stated that A person shall be disqualified for being appointed or being a Commissioner so long as he is a member of the Commons House of Parliament. You will notice that your Lordships are not excluded.

NOBLE LORDS

They do not get paid.

LORD ADDISON

It may be some comforting reflection that your Lordships are not excluded, and if you are not excluded I suppose you would receive whatever remuneration might be attached to the Forestry Commission. I do not know that that would be anything wrong. At any rate, as I say, it is a comfort for members of your Lordships' House that they would not be excluded from the Commission. But what virtues do we in this House possess which entitle us not to be excluded whereas members of the House of Commons are? I know that we are very admirable persons and all that, still I cannot see why we should be let in and House of Commons members excluded. That is discrimination between the two Houses.

But why exclude the members of the House of Commons? If a man is a good man, if he understands the business, if he has the right type of mind and experience I do not see why he ought to be prevented from being appointed a Forestry Commissioner simply because he has been elected by the people to represent them in the House of commons cannot see that that is any reason at all; in fact, I should have thought it was a reason why he should be a Forestry commissioner. It is a strange and mysterious, disqualification, entirely new.

THE EARL OF ROSEBERY

I think it is regarded as an office of profit under the Crown, but I am not sure. I did make some inquiry myself, and I am almost sure.

LORD ADDISON

But great is the power of Parliament. All that would be necessary would be to add a few words at the end saying "Notwithstanding the something-or-other Act members of the Commons House of Parliament shall be entitled to receive any remuneration attached to the office." That would be perfectly in order. Parliament can make it all right if it wants to do so. However, the point I am on is that if a man is a suitable man, with the requisite knowledge, it is rather unnecessary and a bit of an affront that he should be excluded from being allowed to be a Commissioner because he happens to have been elected by the people to represent them in the House of Commons. The master was the subject of considerable discussion in Committee in another place. I think it is a mistake, and I really do not see why it should be persisted in. We are not going to make that a matter of great importance, however. Apart from that, I want to give the heartiest support I can to the Bill and to wish the noble Earl success in furthering it.

3.5 p.m.

LORD HASTINGS

My Lords, may I be permitted the luxury, although distinguished members of the House have already voiced their feelings on the subject, of myself adding my welcome to a life-long fiend whom I find sitting below me in the important office of Secretary of State for Scotland. Particularly is it agreeable to me to think that he is going to have the conduct through this House not only of this Bill but of the Bill which must necessarily flow giving effect to the conditions and terms of this Bill, and that he will bring to it the great knowledge of forestry which is in his possession.

My particular purpose in rising is to draw attention to a clause in this Bill to which I think attention really must be drawn, and I hasten to say that I am not opposing the general principle of he Bill at all. I am in agreement with almost all that has been said on both sides of the House in support of it. But if your Lordships will be so good as to Look at Clause 4, subsection (2), which is to be found on page 3, it will there be found that The appropriate Minister may by agreement acquire, whether by way of purchase, lease, or exchange, or may purchase compulsorily, any land which in his opinion is suitable for afforestation… It can he conceived that a large area of semi-waste land eminently suitable for afforestation is withheld from that purpose by a landowner who is not so public spirited as one might wish. The powers to be given to the Minister are of a kind which will be very necessary, but there are a very few restrictive qualifications to these great powers. These restrictive qualifications are to be found in Clause 5. There is excluded

any land which forms part of any park, garden or pleasure ground, or which forms part of the home farm… That is a restrictive qualification. There is, too, the one to which my noble friend referred, that an order for purchasing compulsorily must receive the assent of Parliament if the owner objects. That is in a sense a powerful restriction, but only once, and I will proceed to explain why it will be only once.

There will be many noble Lords here who will bear in mind that large areas now occupied by the Forestry Commission were acquired in the ten years succeeding the last war entirely on a voluntary basis. A great deal of timber was felled in the last war. Landowners found themselves unequal out of their own resources to the task of replanting the whole of it. They were attracted by the new idea. They did not like their land to remain waste. They could not plant it themselves. A new statutory body had been created. They invited the statutory body to come and look at their land and see what could be done about it, and a private agreement was arrived at. That land was in the main hired at long leases at the exceedingly low rent of half-a-crown an acre. That was made the more attractive to the landowner because it was before the Derating Act on agricultural land and forestry land, and therefore by letting his land at half-a-crown an acre, which was an absurd rent in the ordinary way, he also excused himself from paying a very high rate, and of course he got it double. That is a mere statement of fact: it made the proposition less unattractive than it would otherwise have been.

Much of that land is interwoven with other parts of the estate, it might be a large woodland estate. The owner did not see himself able to plant the whole of it, and he off-laid a considerable portion of it to the Forestry Commission. He reserved for himself the rights of access, and that added to the amenity of the estate as a whole. He reserved for himself the sporting rights, and in certain parts of England the sporting rights were of very high value. They are not to-day, but there is no telling that they may not become so again. This land has been let to the Forestry Commission voluntarily, and for the reasons given under the system arranged with the landowner the landowner has not felt the loss of it. He has reserved the sporting rights and his rights of access, and for all purposes except felling it is his own land. This clause gives power to the Forestry Commission to acquire that land compulsorily.

Why I said before that this safeguard of an appeal to Parliament would only happen once is that it only requires one landlord to present a petition to Parliament and to say "The foreclosure upon my land is not fair; I did not let it with that in view at all;" it only requires one decision by Parliament saying that the Act must overrule him to make it impossible for any other landowner to make the same application. Therefore each case will not be determined on its merits; one case will determine the whole. I think that is a proper statement to make. It will be so because it will be a matter of principle.

Now this clause gives unrestricted power to the Minister directly this Bill is passed into law to foreclose upon his leaseholds. Unquestionably it does. He can say: "We have scores of thousands of acres which we leased on 98 or, in some cases, 198-year leases. This is tiresome, and we will purchase that land." And he will purchase the land on a capitalized value of 2S. 6d. per acre. The landowner will lose the amenity value of the land, he will lose the sporting value of the land, and he will no longer be able to have any access to the land except by the good will of the Forestry Commission. He will, in effect, have his estate cut up, whereas what he did was to hand over this land because it was pro bono publico. Advantage of that fact will be taken to take it away from him— or it can be done. The Ministry of Agriculture will say: "We cannot have any of these ridiculous leaseholds; we will have the freeholds." And they will foreclose upon the land and purchase it, because its area is very small and has a capitalization of only 2s. 6d. an acre.

What protection can the landowner have in the matter? It seems to me to be a grossly improper thing to allow, and I do not suppose for a moment that when this Bill was drafted that was the intention. The intention was to bring in these large areas of waste land with which a recalcitrant landowner did not wish to part and which the State wanted. But how about those lands which had been leased voluntarily in the years immediately succeeding the last war— those bits and pieces of land? I know of one Forestry Commission area which embraces four or five different estates and where the Commission got 200 or 300 acres from each one. That area is replanted and looking very healthy. The owner does not know he has parted with his land; he has the sporting rights. All that he has lost has been the right to plant the land and fell it when the trees have grown to maturity. But here he can have it taken away from him.

Now if your Lordships will look at page 4 you will find that the Minister, having acquired the land, is given the power to sell any land vested or acquired by him which, in his opinion, is not needed or ought not to be used for the purpose of afforestation. By that astonishing power the Minister can, in the first place, foreclose upon the leasehold, acquire it for a song, and then sell it for any purpose he thinks best for any good price which he can get, and plant into inconvenient places in the estate some form of activity— industrial, perhaps— which the landowner, when he originally leased the land to the Forestry Commission, never contemplated at all, and which may, in fact, destroy the value of the estate as an agricultural property.

These are the very large powers which are given to the Minister, and I am going to repeat that the safeguard of going to Parliament before this power is given effect to is likely to apply only once. I do not see how, under the wording of the Bill, once that decision is given, the matter can possibly be raised again, and I do not see how the decision can be given in any but one direction. You cannot say that it is improper, under the terms of this Bill, for the Minister to acquire the leaseholds. You cannot say that the land is not suitable for afforestation, because it is clearly already afforested. What arguments can the owner bring forward in opposition to compulsory purchase? I do not see what argument he can raise. Some of us have fertile brains, but I must say I am defeated by it. I cannot see what I should say, and the very fact that I do not know what I should say makes me feel it is not fair that I should be called upon to say it. That is the position.

I do not want to quibble, but this, I think, is a point which has probably not been taken into consideration. Here is an opportunity given to a Ministry— and we know that all Ministries like pigeon-holes and that something outside the pigeonhole is anathema to them. There will be these things outside the pigeon-holes— different sorts of leases, each one of which has to be dealt with on its own merits. "What a nuisance," the bureaucrats will say. "Let us have them all in orb: pigeonhole. We will compulsorily purchase all these: miserable leaseholds and put them in one pigeon-hole, so that we ran deal with them all on the same footing." That will be the great temptation to them. And the landowner will be "landed," having originally tried to do its best, because— and I make no apology for saying this— originally he said: "I cannot replant all this land, I am not well enough off. A great deal of my woodland was felled in the interests of the country in the last war and I cannot afford to replant it all. I can replant some and I will let the Forestry Commission into the other, so that it shall not go to waste." It is not fair that the landowner should be bitten like this later on by a clause in the Bill which enables the Minister of Agriculture to foreclose on the land and, having foreclosed and having found that he does not want it, to sell it to somebody else and introduce some extraneous activity into the estate which will be injurious to the landowner and depreciate the value of his property.

I hope this appeal has not fallen on deaf ears— I have the ears of two noble Lords in front of me who will be jointly responsible for this affair. I do not believe this matter has been considered by either of them before and I do not believe it is the intention of the Government to do what I say they can do. It will be some time before they wake up to their powers but, having awakened to them, somebody will do it for a certainty. I want this power to be taken out of this Bill and a restrictive clause put in, excluding leaseholds already held by the Forestry Commission. That is all I want to say, except to give what blessing my words are worth to the Bill as a whole; and I thank your Lordships for having listened to me for so long on a minor point.

3.18 p.m.

THE EARL OF MANSFIELD

My Lords, greatly to my regret, I was unable to arrive here this afternoon in time to hear the noble Earl, Lord Rosebery, introduce this measure. I hasten briefly, but warmly, to congratulate him on being in a position to do so, and to congratulate the Government on the wisdom of their choice. There are two further words of congratulation I should like to address to His Majesty's Government which are not altogether without relevance to the present Bill. The first is that they have broken down the ridiculous idea that some people appear to have begun to hold, that the Secretary of State for Scotland could at no time sit in your Lordships' House; and secondly, that they have realized the great importance of this Bill and, despite the vast pressure of business that the impending Dissolution has forced upon us during the last few days of this Parliament, they have found time for this measure, which really is one of much greater importance than the average citizen realizes.

The woodlands of this country to-day are in a parlous state. Most of them no longer exist save on barren ground, and even now the Timber Control are requisitioning portions of such small fragments as still remain. I would, as an obiter dictum, beg His Majesty's Government to do all in their power to put an end to this particular aspect of the Timber Control's activities by increasing imports from abroad and by taking steps to recover the vast amount of timber which has hitherto been required by the Armed Forces, particularly the Army, much of which is at present hardly utilized at all or is, indeed, lying in clumps. Trees, of course, are slow things to grow and if another crisis comes upon us within the next two generations our timber resources will be very slight indeed. It is very urgent not only that we should conserve what we have, particularly that very small quantity that is approaching maturity, but also the large number of young plantations.

At the same time, it is essential that the largest possible planting programme should be begun at the earliest possible I moment and, while not wishing to display to your Lordships too often my forestry King Charles's head, I would once again urge upon your Lordships and the Government the vital point that the most difficult part from the point of view of the private landowner is the finding of the initial capital for the planting or replanting of the woods and also for their maintenance during the first twenty years of their existence. Once more I would stress that in my view it is not subsidies in the form of out-and-out grants that are required but rather loans, and I am convinced that it would pay this country to grant loans even to the extent of £20 an acre. That would not cost very much per annum and it would certainly bring a quicker result than to-day is achieved by any other method.

This Bill, as has already been said, is really only an enabling measure and has to be followed by another Bill in which these financial provisions must be embodied. There is, however, one point of administration to which I would like to draw your Lordships' attention if it has not been already mentioned. In Clause 1, subsection (2) says: At least three of the said Commissioners shall be persons who have special knowledge and experience of forestry and at least one of the Commissioners shall be a person who has scientific attainments and a technical knowledge of forestry. I submit that with a maximum of ten Commissioners it is quite unreasonable that we should have only four of them who are really versed in forestry affairs. I suggest that that figure of three ought to be increased to six, so that seven out of ten at least can be persons who do know the root of a tree from its branches. The noble Lord, Lord Addison, inquired why your Lordships' House should be put rather at an advantage over another place in regard to membership of the Forestry Commission. One very good reason, although I do not think it is the one with which we have to deal now, is that there is at all times in your Lordships' House a much vaster amount of really expert knowledge on the problems of forestry than can be found in another place. That I think goes without saying.

This Bill, the first stage on the way to building up a vast forest area over suitable land in this country, is indeed a vital one. There is much land, particularly in Wales and the north of England and over very large portions of Scotland, which is to-day hired out, being used for no purpose at all or else supporting a very small stock of sheep. All this land would be far better under timber. It is true that there have been in the past, and there doubtless will be again, protests from sheep farmers against this diversion of land from agricultural purposes, but I would suggest that possibly a greater measure of tact should be shown in future in regard to the acquisition of such land as can strictly be called of sheep-farm character, and that no tenant should at the end of his lease be asked to leave merely because it is considered the land ought to be afforested at an earlier period. But apart from that, there is no reason whatever against, and a good many reasons for, putting millions of acres, literally millions of acres, under timber which today carry an agricultural stock so small as to make it hardly worthy of being termed agricultural land. In common I think with all your Lordships I welcome this Bill and I repeat that I am very glad the Government have seen fit to give time to put it on the Statute Book.

3.26 p.m.

VISCOUNT BLEDISLOE

My Lords, I too welcome this Bill, although at the same time entertaining some of the apprehensions which have been expressed by my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition. There is one contention which the noble Earl who has just sat down has put forward which I most heartily endorse and that is the contention that there ought to be more than three members of the Commission who have scientific and technical knowledge of sylviculture and the production of timber for economic requirements. We are fully aware that in most Government Departments, as has been emphatically demonstrated during this war, the scientist has to play, or has had to play, second fiddle to the administrator. His status has not been equal to that of the administrator and he has not been so well remunerated. We are hoping that something very different is going to obtain in the future and I venture to express the hope that in regard to forestry it will be as important a consideration as in any other field of departmental activity.

Before we say goodbye to the Forestry Commission I for my part would like to pay a very sincere tribute to the work of my old friend and colleague, Sir. George Courthope, who has acted as Chairman of the Commission, and indeed to his colleagues of different political attachments who have, I think your Lordships will admit, carried out a difficult task with considerable vision and with a considerable amount of technical knowledge and experience. In spite of many handicaps, especially during the war, they did good constructive work. I have to admit, perhaps with some reluctance, that if forestry is once more to be put under a Minister who is to be responsible to Parliament, probably the Minister of Agriculture in our country— of course in Scotland it means the Secretary of State for Scotland— is the right person to select. But I have recollections of the old Woods and Forests Department, which was nominally in the old days under the head of the Board of Agriculture. This suffered considerably at the hands of the Treasury owing to the lack of specialized knowledge or any emphatic interest on the part of the head of that Department in regard to afforestation. I live on the borders of a Government-owned forest and, in illustration of my tribute to the now moribund Forestry Commission, I should like to say that in that forest there has been most emphatic and obvious improvement in timber production, and that there have been far greater zeal, enterprise and knowledge behind the work that has been done than obtained in the old days when that area was under the Woods and Forests Department.

Of course, we have got to be more self-contained in the matter of both food and timber production. I am for my part a little apprehensive about what my noble friend Lord Addison has adumbrated, that the Geddes Axe may fall upon the programme of afforestation which has to be developed in the interests of the security of this country. The noble Earl who so ably presented this Bill to your Lordships' House used the words "Our timber resources have been cut almost to the point of exhaustion." That is a somewhat alarming statement, but I think it is fully justified by the facts. I am told that there are only about 1,000,000 acres of woodlands left in this country to-day after the depletion of timber that has taken place during the present war. As was pointed out in another place, our pre-war area of timber was deplorably small. One quarter of the whole of France, one quarter of the whole of Germany, one quarter of the whole of Belgium, at least one quarter of the whole of Czechoslovakia, half of Norway and three quarters of Sweden are devoted to timber production. Our proportion before the war was one-twentieth only.

It is perfectly true that we are a relatively small country, and we must be extremely careful in the future that a sufficient area of Britain is devoted to food production, but in a very able speech delivered about a month ago when this Bill took its Second Reading in the House of Commons Mr. Tom Brown, who represents Ince, stated— I do not know whether his figures are right— that there are 7,500,000 acres of waste land in Great Britain unwanted for agricultural purposes which with proper treatment could be planted with trees. I would like very much to know if that is true, because the great problem is going to be whether it is really necessary to impinge upon our agricultural area— which should be devoted, of course, primarily to food production— in order to provide the required area for afforestation. I may say in passing that I have a good deal of sympathy with the views put forward by Mr. Philips Price in another place, where he represents the area in which I myself live. He made an earnest plea for the preservation and continued development of a sufficient area of woodland. He not only asked that there should be two separate Departments, one of forestry and one of agriculture, but particularly asked that the land which is now in the hands of the Forestry Commission but not yet planted should not be taken from the Forestry Commission without due consideration of the ultimate requirement of that land for the purpose of afforestation. It is apparent from what the noble Earl who introduced the Bill has said that that, speaking generally, is the policy likely to be adopted.

It has been pointed out that afforestation is a long-term policy, whereas agriculture treated competitively is a much shorter-term policy. Unfortunately, the general public have little interest in forestry and consequently those who represent them in Parliament reflect to a large extent that ignorance or apathy. On the other hand, of course, food production, particularly after the experience of two wars, is a matter about which the general public, at least to-day, are very much alive. I cannot help feeling myself that there is a real danger in days to come that under political pressure, possibly the result of the ignorance of the proletariat in regard to the enormous importance from the point of view of national security of producing enough timber, there will be a short-sighted bias against a programme of afforestation, whatever it may be, that the Government will shortly announce to us. If that is so, surely there is some merit in the Commission which has existed for the last quarter of a century, with representatives upon it of the different political Parties, because it was able to entertain a long view and not tempted to make forestry a matter for partisan political differences.

When this Bill was in Committee in the House of Commons Mr. Philips Price submitted certain amendments which he ultimately withdrew. Those amendments, which were along the line which I have vaguely indicated, were met by an assurance— a personal assurance— on the part of the Minister of Agriculture and by the representative of the Secretary of State for Scotland that his fears were not well founded— that in the first place the interests of forestry would be fully safeguarded by the Minister; and secondly, that a reasonable area of land would be retained by the Forestry Commission, particularly for the formation of much desired forestry holdings which would enable the working forester to have a more or less independent existence on his own small holding during the portion of the year when he was not employed in forestry. That is a personal assurance; it is not in the Bill. What is the value of the personal assurance of a transient Departmental Minister? I have listened in two Houses of Parliament during the last thirty years to many personal assurances, but they have not always been implemented in the subsequent history of the matter. I only hope that my fears in regard to the operation of this Bill will not be realized but I am not wholly satisfied with Ministerial assurances. They do not entirely arrest fears we may have, particularly about the continuous development and full implementation of a now to be announced sylvicultural policy.

I want in conclusion to ask three questions. The first is, what is the forestry programme? The second is, what is the task to be allocated to private owners? We have been told by the noble Earl that private woodlands will remain the mainstay of our forestry policy. I should like to know what is the task which ism going be left to us who are owners of woodlands. If the Government will be good enough to tell us I am perfectly sure we shall endeavour to play our full part, but we are entitled to know what is expected of us. Lastly, what is the minimum area of woodlands that the nation needs for its basic timber requirements and its security? After all, it is going to be much easier to stick to the post-war forestry programme if we know beforehand exactly what that programme is, and what is the minimum area of woodlands which the nation requires for its full security. With these few words, I cannot say that I enthusiastically support this Bill but, at any rate, I do not propose to oppose its Second Reading.

3.40 p.m.

THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (THE DUKE OF NORFOLK)

My Lords, it may prove of advantage to the House if I say a few words, in winding up this debate on the Bill, before the House, as I hope it will, gives it a Second Reading. I should like to do so for more reasons than one. My noble friend the Secretary of State for Scotland has had three Bills this afternoon, and it is only right that the Department of Agriculture in England should have a short say on this very important matter. This Bill, I think the House will agree, has had a good reception. I do, at the outset, want to make it quite clear, and to emphasize again, that it is only a machinery Bill. Many of the suggestions and ideas that have been put forward in debate, together with the questions which have been asked— particularly those put by my noble friend Viscount Bledisloe just now—cannot possibly be answered or considered by the Secretary of State for Scotland or the Minister of Agriculture until this Bill has, in fact, passed and become law. But I am only too pleased to say that I have no doubt whatever that they will consider everything that has been said, and, I hope, will— at a very early stage after this Bill has passed into law— be able to give a policy to your Lordships which will answer the questions put by my noble friend in his speech. That, I think, also covers the remarks made by my noble friend the Earl of Mansfield.

THE EARL OF MANSFIELD

My Lords, would the noble Duke be good enough to say whether the Government will consider the advisability of increasing on the Forestry Commission the proportion of persons possessing forestry knowledge?

THE DUKE OF NORFOLK

I am afraid I cannot give any undertaking on that matter. The Bill says that it is not a matter that comes under the Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, but that it comes under the Minister of Agriculture. Therefore, I am afraid I cannot give any assurance on the point.

My noble friend Lord Addison raised the question of members of the House of Commons being Forestry Commissioners. I understand that the reason for prohibiting members of the House of Commons from being members of the Forestry Commission has materialized from the fact that a Forestry Commissioner will now— or rather he will when the Bill is passed— be responsible to the Minister, and the Minister, in turn, will be responsible to Parliament. It is for that reason that the provision was introduced.

VISCOUNT MERSEY

Can the noble Duke say whether there will be a representative in this House?

THE DUKE OF NORFOLK

There is nothing in the Bill to say that there will not be a representative here.

LORD ADDISON

My Lords, may I invite the noble Duke to repeat again the reason which he has just given as to the prohibition relating to members of the House of Commons? It seemed to me a complete non sequitur. I would appreciate his courtesy if he would kindly repeat the alleged reason.

THE DUKE OF NORFOLK

I will try to explain the matter, if possible, more lucidly. What I was trying to say was that, at the moment, the Forestry Commissioners, as I see it, are not responsible to Parliament, but it has happened that a member of the Forestry Commission who was a Member of Parliament also has answered for forestry in another place. If this Bill is passed, the members of the Forestry Commission will become responsible to the Minister of Agriculture or the Secretary of State for Scotland, and those two Ministers, themselves, are responsible to Parliament. It was not considered to be appropriate that Commissioners in the future should also be members of the House of Commons. That is, as far as I know, the same explanation as I gave before.

I now come to the speech made by my noble friend Lord Hastings. He raised a point, in his usual genial manner, and I want— in spite of what Viscount Bledisloe said just now—to give another assurance on behalf of His Majesty's Government; one which is supported by my noble friend the Earl of Radnor, who is a Forestry Commissioner. I am informed that nearly all the leases held are for 999 years, and that neither the Government nor the Forestry Commissioners have ever had any intention of converting existing leases into freeholds. I do not know that there are any other specific points which I may have failed to answer.

I am allowed to say, on behalf of my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture, that he agrees with what has been said by the Secretary of State for Scotland and other people— as I do myself— that this Bill will place forestry in that position in this country which it deserves to hold, and that, because it is a question whether so many of the broad acres of this country should be either planted with trees or planted with food, it is felt that the broad acres will be best used to the right advantage if the people responsible for the one are also responsible for the other. After all, forestry and agriculture surely must be very closely related. It may take only a few months for a field of wheat to grow, and we know that it takes many years for a forest to grow and mature, but both need skill and knowledge in their cultivation and maintenance. I believe that if your Lordships will do as you have been asked to do to-day and give this Bill a Second Reading, we shall— in spite of the fears which have been expressed concerning the Geddes Axe— at least see the introduction of a policy which will place the land of this country in an even better position than it is to-day.

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