CALF REARING SCHEME (ENG-LAND, WALES AND NORTHERN IRELAND) (VARIATION OF PAY-MENT) ORDER, 1950 (Hansard, 28 November 1950)

§ The Earl of LISTOWEL
My Lords, I beg to move that this scheme, which has also beer approved by the Special Orders Committee, be approved.

Lord RAGLAN
My Lords, I should like to congratulate the noble Earl on his new office. I should also like to ask him whether it is not possible to reduce the amount of red tape used in the administration of this Order. I have a farm and we sometimes apply for a grant under this scheme. We fill in the proper form, and we nearly always get it returned. The first time we wished to rear a bull calf, and under the column headed "sex" we put "B", for bull calf. We thought that would be all right, but it was not. We should have put "S" for steer calf, so we received the form back. Another time we had a batch of calves from Cornwall. We did not know the exact date of their birth, so we put down about April 1, or whatever it was. We were told that we must put the exact date. We said that we did not know it, and we were told that we must put the exact date whether we knew it or not. On another occasion we had twin calves, and we entered them together. Again we had the form back, because we should have entered them separately. This 526 kind of thing is very irritating and it wastes a great deal of time. I hope the noble Earl will be able to do something about it.

§ The Earl of LISTOWEL
My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, for his kind references to myself? It is a great honour and privilege to be in the service of the House. I have taken careful note of what the noble Lord has said, and I will convey his remarks to my right honourable friend the Minister. We certainly do not want any unnecessary formality in the administration of this scheme, and if it can be proved that any of these formalities is redundant and unnecessary, I am quite sure that my right honourable friend will be the first to see that the machinery if altered.