Lords Sitting of 14 April 1954

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR On the Woolsack.
Prayers

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
EARL FORTESCUE:My Lords, I have the honour to inform you that a statement on the European Defence Community will be made between 3.45 and 4 o'clock by my noble friend Lord Reading.

KENT WATER BILL
2.37 p.m.
Order of the Day read for the adjourned debate on the Motion for consideration of the Commons Message of the 18th March last: That they have come to the following Resolution to which they desire the concurrence of this House, viz.: "That it is expedient that the Kent Water Bill be committed to a Joint Committee of Lord and Commons."
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD SIMONDS): My Lords, the Question is that the Commons Message be now considered.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF DROGHEDA): My Lords, I beg to move that this House do not concur with the Commons in the said Resolution. Your Lordships will expect me to explain my reasons for making this recommendation, and I am afraid that I must do so rather fully, because the question of sending Private Bills to a Joint Committee is both important to those concerned and somewhat complicated. The opponents of Private Bills have the undoubted right to present Petitions against such Bills to both Houses of Parliament, and normally they expect to be heard separately in each House. Moreover, it seems to be generally agreed that committal to a Joint Committee favours the promoters of Private Bills. It is therefore not surprising that Joint Committees on Private Bills are by no means frequent. There have been only about twelve of these Committees in the last
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fifty years, and they were all either on Government Bills affecting private interests or on inter-related Bills in regard to which it was Obviously desirable to secure uniformity. In two cases since 1900 a Motion to refer a Bill to a Joint Committee has been agreed to by one House and disagreed to by the other.
In 1908 this House resolved to refer three London electricity supply Bills to a Joint Committee, and this was disagreed to in another place on the Motion of Mr. Lloyd George, as he then was. I will, if I may, quote from his speech. He said:
"If these Bills go to a Committee of the Lords and are examined there carefully, I think that by the time they come down here, the parties will be in a better position—I will not say frame of mind—to consider the best way of putting something through that will ensure general consent. That is one reason why I think it will not be facilitating inquiry into this subject to have a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament. If a Committee of the kind suggested in the Resolution were set up, what would happen? The Bills would go to that Committee who would arrive at some conclusion with regard to them in the course of the next few weeks, probably before opinion has matured for the full consideration of this problem from the broader point of view."
The other case was in 1929, in connection with the London County Council
(Co-ordination of Passenger Traffic) Bill. After a Division on a Second Reading debate the House of Commons divided again on a Motion that the Bill be referred to a Joint Committee and resolved by a majority (incidentally, it was a Conservative majority) that it should be so referred. The Resolution was disagreed to in this House on the Motion of the Chairman of Committees, Lord Donoughmore, whom so many of your Lordships will remember with affection and esteem. In the course of his speech on that occasion Lord Donoughmore said:
"Your Lordships have always proceeded on very definite lines in proposing, or agreeing or disagreeing with the appointment of Joint Committees. I think I am right in saying that we never agree to a Joint Committee unless one of two conditions is present, and possibly both. Firstly, of course, your Lordships would always agree to a Joint Committee if His Majesty's Government announced that in their view a Joint Committee was desirable in the public interest. All other reasons must go in that case. I would almost call that the second condition, because it is generally the second to come before us in point of time. The other condition is that your Lordships are agreeable to appoint a Joint Committee if

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the promoters and a substantial body of the opponents are agreed in asking that a Joint Committee should be substituted for the usual procedure—namely, two inquiries, one in each House, one after the other."
My Lords, there is, I think, a third instance—namely, that Bills dealing with the same subject-matter and introduced at the same time are normally referred to a Joint Committee so as to secure uniformity of treatment. No doubt every case must be considered on its merits, but after giving the whole question much anxious consideration I now very much doubt whether the Chairman of Committees, who is an independent Officer of the House and has the duty of maintaining an even balance between the promoters and opponents of Private Bills, ought himself to move that any such Bill should go to a Joint Committee unless the promoters and a considerable majority of the opponents favour that course, even if the Government of the day say that a Joint Committee is in the public interest. But the Government can themselves, of course, move a Resolution to that effect and justify it to the House.
There is one more passage from Lord Donoughmore's speech which I should quote. He said:
"I know of no case where your Lordships have insisted on a Joint Committee in the teeth of the opposition of all or most of the opponents."
In the present case there are twenty-five petitioners against the Bill, and, so far as I know, not one of them wants it to go to a Joint Committee, while the majority strongly oppose that course. The real argument of the promoters in favour of a Joint Committee was, as I understood it, that it would save a good deal of expense. On this question of expense, I should like to say, in relation not only to this Bill but to all Private Bills, that reference to a Joint Committee would by no means necessarily lessen the cost, though it might often do so. In many cases objections are not proceeded with in the second House, either because the opposition have succeeded in the first House, or because they have realised that their point is not at all likely to be well received in the second House. In other cases the promoters, during the interval between the two hearings, offer compromises which are accepted. And some opponents wait to see what has happened to the Bill in the first House and may
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never petition against the Bill at all, although they would be almost certain to do so if the Bill went to a Joint Committee. Therefore, it would be an illusion to think that the appointment of a Joint Committee would have the cost of Private Bill legislation, or would always diminish it; and it would, I believe, be equally misleading to say that a Joint Committee would necessarily lead to greater expedition.
In the present case, after hearing fully the representatives of the promoters and of the opponents of the Bill, and with the greatest respect for the opinions of those who take a different view, I do not myself feel that the promoters have discharged the onus which undoubtedly lies upon them to justify a departure from the normal procedure. I have therefore no choice but to move the Motion which stands in my name.
Moved, That this House do not concur with the Commons in the said Resolution.—(The Earl of Drogheda.)
2.45 p.m.
LORD CAMPION: My Lords, in the remarks which I venture to offer, I feel sure that I can count on the generous indulgence which it is your Lordships' tradition to extend to those who address you for the first time. I fear that I shall need a double measure of indulgence, as I am a beginner in speaking—and a late beginner—and also, because, to my concern, I find myself in disagreement with the noble Earl, the Chairman of Committees, for whose judgment I, in common with your Lordships, have a deep respect. I suppose that a procedural Motion like the one before your Lordships usually goes through with few words, especially after a speech such as that to which we have just listened. But I beg your Lordships to bear with me if, nevertheless, I make an earnest plea for the reconsideration of the proposal contained in the Message. I venture to do so because your Lordships' House is still "the freest place in England." I shall endeavour not to abuse the opportunity that it offers.
Let me say at the outset that I am not concerned with the merits of the Kent Water Bill, but only with the question of procedure—what kind of Committee it should go to. The choice is not merely between a single Committee stage and double Committee stages: it is also between two kinds of Committee. If the

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Message from another place is not concurred with, the Kent Water Bill will go to an ordinary Private Bill Committee, which is primarily a judicial body adjudicating between private interests. The judicial nature of the tribunal is shown by the requirement that all Members hear all the evidence, and that they sign declarations that they have no local or personal interest. In contrast, the Joint Committee—that is to say, a Select Committee of each House sitting as one Committee—is organized to inquire into questions of public policy, though it can do the work of an ordinary Private Bill Committee as well. The arguments for and against the Joint Committee and the Private Bill Committee gravitate chiefly round the question of one Committee or two Committees. I will deal with those arguments first, and come back, if your Lordships will bear with me, to arguments concerned with the differences of organisation of the two Committees.
A Private Bill Committee is generally regarded, as the Lord Chairman has said, as against the interests of the promoters and to the advantage of opponents of Private Bills. For the opponents of the whole Bill there is a double chance of killing the Bill. For the opponents of particular clauses, the interval between the two stages affords an opportunity for concessions and compromises. There are also constitutional arguments, also mentioned by the Lord Chairman, that the petitioner shall not be deprived of the right of being heard by both Houses; and that, as opponents stand for private rights and the status quo, there is a strong presumption against changing the normal procedure to their disadvantage. There is another argument for the Private Bill Committee, and that is that the Joint Committee sacrifices some of the merits of the two-Chamber system. The second House—that is to say, your Lordships' House, for Bills originating in another place, and another place for Bills originating in your Lordships' House—is of great value as a Revising Chamber. This value is greater for Private Bills than for public Bills, since the Committee stage is, in practice, the only stage at which a Private Bill which is heavily amended by the first House can be tidied up and put into shape. Even at some sacrifice of flexibility, it pays, according to the orthodox view, to keep the procedure of a two-Chamber Parliament
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strictly bicameral. These are the chief arguments for the normal procedure of double Committee hearings, and I hope that I have stated them fairly.
I now pass to the arguments for a Joint Committee. Since it was re-invented ninety years ago, the Joint Committee has found wide support as a time-saving simplification of procedure. Parliament itself has incorporated the Joint Committee in the machinery devised for summary procedure in private legislation—as, for example, in the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, the Public Works (Facilities) Act, 1930, and the Statutory Orders (Special Procedure) Act, 1945. If the single Joint Committee is not a saving of time over the two Private Bill Committees, how sadly misled Parliament has been! And yet experienced persons say that the Joint Committee does not save time. This opinion has now been honoured, with qualifications, by the endorsement of the Lord Chairman.
The arguments that the Joint Committee system is no quicker than the double Committee system are based on practical observation. Partial opponents—that is to say, opponents of particular clauses—are said to be unlikely to use more than one of their two opportunities for appearing before the Committee. The figures given in evidence in 1930 to a Select Committee on Procedure in another place support this assertion. In the eleven Sessions from 1919 to 1929, the number of Lords Bills opposed in another place, acting as the Second House, was 50 out of 354—one-seventh of the whole. I have figures for a later period. In the seven Sessions from 1946–47 to 1952–53, only 17 Lords Bills were opposed out of 124, again one-seventh of the whole. Opponents of the Preamble or the Bill as a whole are naturally very persistent, and they appear regularly in both Houses. Taking opposed Bills altogether, it seems to me that the argument that there is no saving as between one Committee stage and two has been overstated. I am willing to believe that in practice one plus one does not equal as much as two—as it should on paper—but I find it hard to convince myself that one plus one equals one, or even one-minus. Probably the truth is that the Joint Committee does not halve the time of two Private Bill Committees, but still saves some time.

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Then there is the argument that the Joint Committee saves expense. This stands or falls with the time argument. It has always been a standing grievance against the Private Bill system that costs are so high. The principal opponents of the Kent Water Bill are local authorities, and all, I understand, prefer keeping to the normal double Committee procedure. On the other hand, it has been stated in another place that all the eighteen representatives of Kent there are unanimously in favour of a Joint Committee. Among the eighteen are four Ministers, including the Minister responsible for water. The conclusion I draw from the survey of the arguments on both sides is that they are strong but not conclusive. What we want is a test for deciding the sort of Bill which is specially suitable for Joint Committee. Certain sorts of Private Bill are generally held suitable—for instance, Consolidation Bills, competing, Bills and Bills (especially if pending in both Houses) which deal with single definite subjects or apply a common principle. The Kent Water Bill is not one of these.
The Lord Chairman referred to the well-known Donoughmore tests, one of which is that the Government should desire a Joint Committee. Now it is no secret to your Lordships that so great is the authority of the Government—any Government—in another place that it is inconceivable that a Message proposing a Joint Committee could have been sent from another place without at least the tacit assent of the Government. So the Government are at least neutral. But the Minister who is responsible for water was one of the eighteen Members for Kent whose support for a Joint Committee was announced in another place. Can the Member for Bromley signify his support for a proposal without committing the Minister for Housing and Local Government? If not, how is it consistent with Cabinet unanimity that the Government should reject a Joint Committee, or even be neutral? It hardly seems logical, in the circumstances, either to ignore the Donoughmore test or to use it against a joint Committee.
With great diffidence, I venture to suggest that there is a substantial reason, not yet mentioned, for sending Bills to a Joint Committee; that this reason is supported by precedent and applies to the Kent Water Bill. The reason which I
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venture to suggest is a good one is that a particular Bill raises an issue of public policy. The precedents I have in mind are the Bills of 1928 and 1929, in which the railway companies asked for road transport powers and air transport powers respectively. The question then arises: Does the Kent Water Bill raise an issue of public policy? Surely, a Bill which creates fewer and bigger units of water supply, and forces amalgamation on unwilling water undertakers, may well seem to your Lordships to raise an issue of policy. I am not informed, of course, on the point, but I should be prepared to guess that the Kent Water Bill has not reached Parliament without the Minister having considered whether he should not himself exercise his Order-making powers, rather than leave it to the Kent County Council to promote a Private Bill.
Then the question arises: Why should a Private Bill Committee not do equally well, even if the Bill does affect public policy? As I said before, a Private Bill Committee is a court for adjudicating between contending private interests represented by counsel. It is not primarily concerned with the public interest or equipped to find out what it is. No doubt on certain provisions of Private Bills reports are presented by the public Departments. But it is broadly true that such reports, and the officers who attend to explain them, deal with matters of detail and not with questions of policy. In a Joint Committee, on the other hand, the emphasis on private and public is reversed. A Joint Committee is a sort—I might call it a superior sort—of Select Committee. It is primarily organised for dealing with public matters, but it is a flexible instrument and can do all that a Private Bill Committee does as well. It is given the powers of a Select Committee to secure what evidence it pleases, whereas a Private Bill Committee is confined by Standing Order to the evidence tendered by the parties. Also, its Report is a reasoned document, often of public importance, and the evidence it takes is printed as a Parliamentary Paper and is available to the Press and the public, whereas the Report of a Private Bill Committee is a formal document of conventional pattern, and the evidence it takes is printed at the expense of the parties and is not generally available. It is the greatly superior equipment of a Joint Committee for inquiring

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into the implications for public policy of a Private Bill's provisions that makes it, in my humble opinion, the proper instrument for the Committee stage of such a Bill as the Kent Water Bill.
In view of what has been said by the noble Earl, I recognise that it is too much to hope that your Lordships will accept my plea on the present occasion. But I trust that your Lordships will seriously consider, for application to similar Private Bills in the future, the principle that Private Bills raising issues of public policy should always be sent to a Joint Committee. I apologise for detaining your Lordships at such length. I am most grateful for the forbearance you have shown me.
3.2 p.m.
EARL JOWITT: My Lords, I count myself fortunate, at any rate in this one respect, that I rise immediately after the noble Lord, Lord Campion; and so it falls to me to congratulate him, as I do most heartily, on so successfully coming through the ordeal of a maiden speech. Those of us who sat in another place knew his face well. When we were in trouble about any particular matter, we used to go to him and ask privately for advice. He always gave it most readily. It sometimes occurred to me that, when the Speaker was in a little difficulty as to what ruling he should give, there was a hurried whispering going on between the noble Lord and the Speaker. The Speaker then gave his ruling which was, of course, always right, no doubt in part due to the advice of the noble Lord.
Having said that, and being fortunate in that respect, I must confess that I am unfortunate in another respect. I had intended to say, when I rose, that this House always accepted the advice of its Lord Chairman, particularly this Lord Chairman, who has obviously given most judicial consideration to this matter. I felt that there was no more to be said. Now, I confess, I am a little embarrassed at the fact that these two great pundits on this matter take different views. When these two great men differ, what line shall very ordinary people, as most of us are, take? Speaking for myself, I confess, without claiming any expert knowledge, that I am sorry that the Lord Chairman has felt it necessary to give us the advice which he has given us. It is
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The fact that all the Kent Members of another place, on both sides, have expressed their views that we ought to have a Joint Committee. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Campion, that there are rather strong reasons, in that this is a matter of public policy, why there should be a Joint Committee; but the Lord Chairman thinks that the claim that expense is saved by a Joint Committee is, to a large, extent, or at any rate sometimes, illusory.
It is difficult for me to say. I once had a considerable practice before these Committees, and I am hound to tell your Lordships that I used to receive briefs, not inadequately marked—not sufficiently marked, but not inadequately marked—when I used to have to appear before the Committee in another place; and then, when that was all over, I used to receive another corresponding fee to appear before the Committee in the House of Lords. I can only say that this proposal for Joint Committees is received with absolute horror by the Bar. I am surprised to hear that a Joint Committee does not mean a considerable saving of expense to the promoters, but certainly I can say that, so far as legal expenses are concerned, I am quite sure that it would mean a considerable saving, which perhaps is a matter for regret—but that is a matter of opinion.
It seems to me that this Bill does raise a question of public policy. That question of public policy, broadly speaking, is this: since Kent is in some difficulty about its water supply, the proposal is that the various water supplies should be taken into one central body, rather than that there should be a lot of competing authorities. That I understand to be the broad outline of the Bill. All I would say is that that seems to me to raise a matter of public policy. If I am right on that, it commands my general support and assent. I do not propose to ask your Lordships to divide against the Lord Chairman—I have much too much regard for him to do that—but I confess that I rather regret that we are taking a view against the Commons in this matter. I like, if I can, to agree with them. Of course I realise that having one Committee halves the chances of the objectors. Under the suggested system they would have one right to object instead of two, but I hope that we shall have great regard to what the noble Lord, Lord Campion,

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said in his most interesting speech. If we can, in any way whatever, lessen the expense of this Private Bill legislation, I feel sure that we ought to try to do it, although I believe that our system, both of ordinary law and of this Private Bill legislation, is better than that, to my knowledge, in any other country. Yet, equally, both systems are very expensive, so I feel quite sure we should do anything we can to lessen the expense. The Joint Committee procedure seems to me a method which, at any rate—I do not think the Lord Chairman would dispute this—may tend to lessen the expense. Therefore, in view of the unanimous opinion of all the Kent Members, on both sides of the other House, and the recommendation of the Commons, I concur only with very great reluctance in this Motion.
I do not know whether the Government will say a word on one other point. The noble Lord, Lord Campion, pointed out—and I think it is a fair assumption—that the Government must have known what was going on, and it is hardly conceivable that this proposal for a Joint Committee was put down without their tacit approval. The noble Lord also pointed out the odd consideration that arises from the Minister concerned being one of the Kent Members. I do not say that the Government apparently are not prepared to assert that it is in the public interest that this Bill should go to a Joint Committee. If the Government have that responsibility then, as the Lord Chairman pointed out, as I understand, they would move appropriate Motions and then, I presume, the House would carry it as a matter of course. The Government do not go to that length; at any rate, it is pretty obvious that they did not dissent from this proposal being made. That is another reason why I personally am sorry that we are not going to oblige the Commons in what seems to me to be the reasonable request, having regard to the nature of this Bill, of having a Joint Committee.
3.8 p.m.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, I should like to associate myself with the noble and learned Earl the Leader of the Opposition in congratulations to my noble friend Lord Campion on his maiden speech. As the noble and learned Earl who has just spoken has said, we who served in another place owe
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Much to Lord Campion's knowledge, to his wise guidance and to his help, extended to us on every occasion on which we asked for it, over many years. The noble Lord, Lord Campion, said that he was a beginner in speaking. I can only suggest to your Lordships that, having listened for many years, he learned much in silence.
Unlike the noble and learned Earl who has just spoken, I am glad that the Lord Chairman of Committees has moved this Motion. Two weeks ago on the Order Paper, your Lordships had a Motion, "That this House do agree with the Commons." The Motion is now, "That this House do not concur with the Commons" in their Resolution. It is not for me to express any views, because I have no knowledge of what deliberations have gone on during the last two weeks. I would only say that, in my view, reason and fairness have triumphed. The noble and learned Earl who has just spoken, and the noble Lord, Lord Campion, made something of the point that all the Kent Members, including four Ministers, had agreed to the proposal for a Joint Committee. I have no knowledge of the representations which were made to, and the replies which were made by, the Kent Members of Parliament, but as one who represented part of East Kent for sixteen years I have been approached by the local authorities of my old constituency—and indeed by local authorities in other parts of Kent outside my own Division—in the strongest terms to object to the proposal for a Joint Committee.
The noble Lord, Lord Campion, said that he was not concerned with merits but only with procedure. With respect, I suggest that he must consider merits as well as procedure. This is a Bill promoted by the Kent County Council. It compulsorily amalgamates thirty-nine water undertakings, reducing the total to fifteen. Here I would interpose to say to your Lordships that, like so many of these Bills, it contains no provision for more water, and it contains no indication of any economy in the water rate for the ratepayers of Kent. It is an administrative measure, and Thanet towns object strongly, in that they have been able, with great success, for fifty years and more, to meet the peculiar needs of the water supply for fluctuating populations in holiday resorts, while one of the

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local authorities—namely, Sandwich—has for over 600 years been able successfully to supply the water needs of its population. There are twenty-five Petitions against this Bill— thirteen by local authorities, ten by water companies, and two by other bodies. It was conceded in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Campion, that undoubtedly a single Committee gives an advantage to the promoters over the objectors. Therefore, I submit to your Lordships that, in justice and fairness to this great number of Petitioners, there is a strong case for not penalising them by having a single Committee. As your Lordships know, the second Committee gives, as it were, a second ballot; it gives time for consultation between the various interested parties during the interval between the two Committee stages. I submit to your Lordships that the mere thought of there being two Committees tends to bring the parties together to reach a compromise on matters where there are differences.
The noble Lord, Lord Campion, said that this matter had been considered on various occasions. I would remind your Lordships that the Select Committee on Private Bills in 1930 went into this question, and I will read to your Lordships but one paragraph of their summary. It is this:
"Your Committee conclude that in the main opponents are satisfied with the treatment they receive both from promoters and from Committees in the First House, and do not usually need to incur further expenses, to both sides, by fighting again in the Second House. In view of this your Committee cannot feel that any advantage would be derived from an attempt to extend tie system of Joint Committees."
The question was examined again more recently, in 1945,when, in the White Paper on local government in England and Wales during the period of reconstruction, the Committee came to the conclusion that a Joint Committee was applicable where there had been a previous inquiry by a Government Department. That provision does not, of course, operate in this particular case, where there has been no inquiry by a Government Department. I am not competent to say anything on the ground of the claim of economy, but I would reject the simple proposition that two Committees mean double expense and one Committee half the expense or that two Committees
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mean twice the time, and one Committee half the time. Your Lordships' House, of which I am a comparatively recent Member, has a great reputation in its Committee work for judging these issues fairly. This is not a case, I submit, which should be, to use the words of the noble Lord, Lord Campion, a test case for a Bill to go to a Joint Committee. This is essentially a case where there are powerful minorities objecting. It should therefore not be made the subject of an experiment but should have the full advantage of the judicial review which your Lordships always give to Private Bills. For that reason, I am glad that the Lord Chairman of Committees has put down this Motion, and I hope that your Lordships will support it.
3.16 p.m.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, I should like to associate myself with what the noble and learned Earl who leads the Opposition has said about the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Campion. I bring before your Lordships only one consideration, which has not so far been mentioned. The experience of the long years that I spent living in the country has taught me one thing: that about half the quarrels, and almost all the bitterest quarrels taking place in the country, take place over the question of water. That being so, and water being such a difficult and thorny question, I think it would be a great mistake if, on this occasion, any objector were allowed to feel that all the resources which he thought he had at his disposal to enable him to be heard were not at his disposal. Therefore I hope your Lordships will support the Lord Chairman of Committees.
3.17 p.m.
LORD MILNER OF LEEDS: My Lords, I regret that I have not heard the whole of the debate, but I should like to join with those who have paid a tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Campion, with whom I was associated in another place for so many years and for whose opinion I have the greatest regard. I gather, however, that the noble Lord, Lord Campion, was himself of the opinion that it was perhaps not desirable to make a change from the normal practice in this particular instance, but that the matter might well be considered in

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The future I am sure all your Lordships would agree that some form of inquiry might certainly be set up into future procedure in connection with private Bill Committees, but your Lordships may not think this is a case where the advice of the Lord Chairman of Committees should be disregarded. It seems to me that the normal practice of having an opportunity of appearing before a Committee in both Houses has worked exceptionally well. I know, from my occupancy of an office in the other place, that there was very little difficulty, and I have yet to hear of a single really valid reason why the normal procedure should be departed from on this occasion.
The noble Lord, Lord Campion, gave as a reason that here there was a question of public policy. Well, in my experience there is hardly any Private Bill dealing, as most of them do, with lands, properties, works, waterworks, and extensions and so on, which does not in some degree involve questions of public policy, and I have no reason to think that any special question of public policy is involved here. I express no opinion on the merits. If I had to do so I imagine that most of us might think it was probably a good thing to join together a number of waterworks undertakings and to have one large undertaking in lieu thereof. But I am speaking purely on the procedural aspect.
There is one very strong argument for two Committees, and that is that most frequently it is not until the matter arises in the first House that the full arguments for a particular course or proposal are disclosed, and it is often difficult at short notice for the petitioners or objectors to provide the arguments or the evidence to deal with that particular question; whereas if there is the opportunity of going before another tribunal, the petitioners can have no complaint—they have every opportunity of preparing their evidence, and there should not be any bitterness or feeling such as has been suggested, and as we know exists, by the noble Lord who has just spoken. The petitioners might, if the normal procedure were departed from in one special instance, have some complaint. That seems to me a fairly good reason for proceeding with the normal course of business. I express no opinion what ever
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On the merits of the case, abut I would submit to your Lordships that it is not desirable, in this single instance, at comparatively short notice, to depart from the normal procedure. But at an appropriate time some steps might be taken, if so desired, to set up some form of inquiry into Private Bill procedure, and to reconsider the question of Joint Committees. So far as the present matter before the House is concerned, I hope that the Motion of the Lord Chairman of Committees will be supported.
3.21 p.m.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY): My Lords, it is with considerable trepidation that I enter into this contest of giants. The noble Earl, Lord Drogheda, and the noble Lord, Lord Campion, are neither of them men with whom one would easily disagree on matters of this kind. Certainly, I who sat for so many years in the House of Commons have a long recollection of the wisdom and the learning with which Lord Campion used to advise those who went to him in the other place, and we are very happy to have him here with us now. But I think I must say something because the House will, presumably, expect some view from these Benches on the interesting and important issues which have been raised by this discussion. No doubt, in all cases of this kind we have to come to our conclusions on a balance of considerations. The arguments are seldom all on one side. Therefore, I do not suppose that there is any of us who would complain if certain differing views have been expressed to-day.
As already stated earlier in this discussion, the decisions we take on questions of this kind, here in this House, have been governed for a considerable time now by what is known as the Donoughmore rule or the Donoughmore test—I think Lord Campion said that—which has been expounded by the Lord Chairman of Committees. I must confess that when I first looked at this question, I thought there was a comparatively even balance of considerations, but further examination of this particular Bill and further examination of Lord Donoughmore's tests have convinced me that a case for a Joint Committee of both

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Houses—which is, after all, an extremely exceptional and unusual procedure—has not been made. It would be, I think, necessary for us to accept the view that it is in the public interest that a Joint Committee should be appointed. I cannot regard that view as having been proved by anything which. I have heard this afternoon.
Lord Campion undoubtedly adduced important arguments. He used what may be called the time argument and what may be called the money argument. Both of those, of course, have great substance—everyone wants, so far as possible, to save the time of Parliament and to save money—but I do not think we can regard those two arguments as conclusive. Our main concern in this House, as I see it, is that there should be, and should appear to be, justice for all concerned. That ultimately overrides every other consideration. Anything that could appear to impair that justice ought to be eschewed. As pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, and others, I think it is generally agreed that two Committees are regarded as giving a fairer chance to the petitioner than one Committee.
Nor am I entirely convinced—though I say this with very great deference—by the arguments of Lord Campion, that this Bill raises questions of public policy. I think that is probably true. But that is true of a great many Private Bills. Yet it does not seems to me that that is an issue we have to decide. We have to decide the issue whether, looking at it in the broadest sense, it is to the public interest to have a Joint Committee on this Bill; not merely whether a question of public policy is raised, but whether it is to the national or the public interest to have a Joint Committee. And, for the reasons which I have already expressed, I would not accept that contention. Therefore I say that, in spite of what has been said with such great authority by Lord Campion—and, of course, we must respect any views which he expresses—I feel bound to concur in the views expressed and the decision announced by the Lord Chairman of Committees. I believe that in the difficult circumstances with which we are faced it was the right decision.
3.24 p.m.
THE EARL OF DROGHEDA: My Lords, if I may say a word or two, I do not think that, as Lord Balfour of Inchrye said, there was on the Order Paper a Motion that this House should concur with the House of Commons in the Resolution. I do not think that that was ever on the Order Paper. What was down was merely that this House should consider the Commons Message. I should like to thank the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, for what he said. I do not think I said it was an illusion to say that the cost would be diminished; what I did say was that it: was an illusion to say that it would be halved. I do not think he would say that it was for the Chairman of Committees to say that a Bill was in the public interest, because I do not believe the Chairman of Committees would have the knowledge. May I conclude by saying how much I regret having found myself in this case in disagreement with Lord Campion, whose maiden speech we were so glad to hear.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, before the House makes a final decision on this question wish to say that I thoroughly agree with the argument raised by my noble and learned Leader as well as by Lord Campion, but I am certainly not going to try to prevail: a decision at which clearly the majority of your Lordships want to arrive. I will only say, for the purposes of the record, that when the vote is taken on the matter of dealing with this Message from another place, I make vocal utterance that I am against it.
On Question, Motion agreed to; a Message ordered to be sent to the Commons to acquaint them therewith.

SHREWSBURY ESTATE BILL [H.L.]
Read 3, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
INSTITUTION OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERS BILL
Read 3, and passed.
HOUSING REPAIRS AND RENTS BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1, and to be printed.

CHINESE ATTACK ON BRITISH LAUNCH
3.29 p.m.
LORD VANSITTART: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the Peking Government has yet paid any compensation for the murder of a number of British sailors by the crew of one of its vessels on September 9, 1953.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, FOREIGN OFFICE (THE MARQUESS OF READING): My Lords, the answer to the noble Lord's Question is, "No." Her Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires at Peking delivered a further note to the Chinese Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs on February 10 maintaining our strong protest and our claim for compensation. No reply has yet been received.
LORD VANSITTART: My Lords, I shall not press the matter further to-day, but if no satisfaction has been received by the end of the Conference at Geneva—whenever that may be—I may raise the matter in a more pressing form.

REDUCTIONS IN CIVIL STAFFS
3.30 p.m.
LORD BROUGHSHANE: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government—

(1) What further progress may be expected in the reduction of the civil staffs employed in Government Departments, in view of the fact that the latest available figures indicate that the reduction which has taken place since Her Majesty's present Government took office amounts to little more than 4 per cent.;

(2) What proportion of the reduction which has already taken place is attributable to the denationalisation of the iron and steel and transport industries.]

THE PAYMASTER GENERAL (THE EARL OF SELKIRK): My Lords, there will be further reductions this year in the civil staffs employed in Government Departments, largely owing to the cessation of food rationing this summer. If
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the Post Office is excluded, since January 1, 1952, there has been a reduction of about 26,500 in the number of staff employed. This represents a reduction of over 6 per cent. For the Civil Departments, again excluding the Post Office, the reduction is nearly 10 per cent. The contribution made to this reduction by the denationalisation of the iron and steel industry is 17. The operation of the Transport Act, 1953, is not yet sufficiently far advanced for an accurate figure to be given in respect of the transport industry.
LORD BROUGHSHANE: My Lords, while thanking the noble Earl for his reply, may I ask whether it would be true to say that the figure of these staffs in the immediate pre-war period was something in the order of 250,000 smaller than the present figure?
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, I regret very much that I have not checked that figure, but I dare say the noble Lord is correct.

AFRICAN DEFENCE CONFERENCE
3.33 p.m.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have any statement to make on the recent African Defence Conference at Dakar.]
THE MINISTER OF DEFENCE (EARL ALEXANDER OF TUNIS): My Lords, the Conference was held at Dakar from March 11 to 18, 1954, to discuss West African defence facilities. In addition to delegations from the two sponsoring Powers, France and the United Kingdom, the Conference was attended by delegations from Belgium, Liberia, Portugal, South Africa and the British West African Territories, and by observers from the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland and the United States. The French delegation was headed by M Mon's, Secretary General of the French Ministry of Defence. The British delegation was correspondingly headed by Sir Harold Parker, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Defence.
The Conference was called to reach common agreement on the use, in time of

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war or international emergency, of existing and projected facilities for communications and the movement of military forces and supplies in the Western Territories of Africa South of the Sahara. In its general aims, it was complementary to the Conference held at Nairobi in 1951 on the initiative of the United Kingdom and South African Governments, which made a similar study of movement facilities and communications between the South of Africa and the Middle East. On that occasion, the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, led the British delegation and was elected Chairman of the Conference, and he will remember the great variety of subjects discussed arid agreed so successfully under his chairmanship. It should suffice for me to say, therefore, that the Dakar Conference was equally successful. The recommendations of the Conference are now being studied by Governments.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and gallant Earl for his full and explanatory reply and I am grateful to him also for suggesting that our Conference in 1951 may have been successful. I always thought it had been. May I ask the noble and gallant Earl whether the loose ends that may exist between the two Conferences are now being tied up and whether he envisages the possibility of holding any further Conference on the important subject of African defence facilities?
EARL ALEXANDER OF TUNIS: My Lords, until this week not all the countries attending the Conference of which the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, was Chairman had accepted the recommendations. It was only last week that the last country accepted those recommendations, hut now that they have all done so, action has been taken to devise the best measures for implementing them. As regards the present Conference, we shall have to wait until the countries concerned have accepted the recommendations made, of which there are quite a number, and when we receive these acceptances we can again see how those recommendations can best be implemented. As regards a third Conference, I would not say it has been thought of. I have not immediately thought of it, but I am obliged to the noble Lord for having suggested it, because I think these Conferences can do nothing but good. A good deal of information has been
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Gained, useful recommendations have been made, and, if we can implement them, a great deal will have been done. Therefore we will bear in mind the noble Lord's suggestion about a third Conference.
EARL JOWITT: My Lords, I am sure the noble and gallant Earl will agree with me about the advantage of selecting as Chairman of such a Conference a well-known public figure such as, for example, my noble friend Lord Ogmore. If there is to be another Conference at Dakar at a suitable time of the year, perhaps the noble and gallant Earl himself will go out to represent us.
EARL ALEXANDER OF TUNIS: My, Lords, I am much obliged for the compliment.

REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE (SCOTLAND) REGULATIONS, 1954
3.35 p.m.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Lloyd, if it is convenient to the House, I will move the approval of these Regulations together. They refer to the same subject but to different parts of the country—to England, Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively. They are consequential on the Electoral Registers Act, 1953, which was an agreed measure and which had a speedy passage through your Lordships' House last December. By amending an earlier Act, that Act brought forward by one month the date of publication of electoral registers and the qualifying date for those registers. By amending earlier Regulations, the present Regulations make corresponding adjustments to the dates of the various stages in the preparation of the registers. The differences between the Regulations for England and Wales and those for Northern Ireland are due only to differences of detail in the procedure for preparing the registers. The purpose of both sets of Regulations the same. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Representation of the People Regulations, 1954; the Representation of the People (Northern Ireland)

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Regulations, 1954; and the Representation of the People (Scotland) Regulations, 1954, reported from the Special Orders Committee on Wednesday last, be approved.—(The Earl of Selkirk.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

EUROPEAN DEFENCE COMMUNITY
3.36 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: My Lords, with the permission of the House, I should like to make what I am afraid is a rather long statement on the European Defence Community. The discussions with the European Defence Community Powers have been completed. An agreement on co-operation between the United Kingdom and the E.D.C. was signed, and a statement of common policy on military association between the forces of the United Kingdom and the E.D.C. was agreed in Paris yesterday. Her Majesty's Government have also communicated to the E.D.C. Powers a Declaration, signed by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, about our policy towards the E.D.C. and N.A.T.O. These documents, together with an unofficial translation of the E.D.C. Treaty itself, are now available to noble Lords in White Papers.
As the House knows, the Treaty which we signed in 1952 with the E.D.C. Powers established a close relationship between the United Kingdom and the Community. The purpose of Her Majesty's Government now has been to make this as practical and effective as possible. First, a United Kingdom Minister will attend meetings of the Council of Ministers of the E.D.C. A permanent British representative will conduct day-to-day relations with the Board of Commissioners, which is the executive body of the Community. Second, Her Majesty's Government have undertaken to continue to maintain on the mainland of Europe, including Germany, such armed forces as may be necessary and appropriate to contribute a fair share of the forces needed for the joint defence of the North Atlantic area. Her Majesty's Government have also stated that we have no intention of withdrawing from the Continent of Europe so long as the threat exists to the security of Western Europe
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and of the E.D.C. Thirdly, Her Majesty's Government have agreed upon certain military arrangements. These are set out in the second document in the White Paper. Our aim has been to confirm that British forces will be present in strength on the Continent before, and not after, any aggression begins. These arrangements will ensure the integration of British with E.D.C. forces within N.A.T.O. In particular, I would draw attention to the clause which provides for the inclusion of British Army and Air Force units in European formations and vice versa under the command of the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe.
I now desire to tell the House the steps which Her Majesty's Government propose to take to fulfill the purpose of this clause. Her Majesty's Government are ready to place a British armoured division within an E.D.C. corps. This will be one of our armoured divisions now in Germany. General Gruenther has been informed that we will do this as soon as the corps is ready to receive it. As regards air co-operation, the Second Allied Tactical Air Force in Germany at present comprises United Kingdom, Belgian, and Netherlands squadrons. When the European Air Forces have been formed it is our intention that Royal Air Force units shall participate with European units in each N.A.T.O. air unit. They will be controlled by a single integrated headquarters. These arrangements are designed to last as long as they are desired by the Supreme Allied Commander. They reinforce and fulfill the assurances and guarantees which Her Majesty's Government have previously given to their European partners in the Tripartite Declaration and the United Kingdom-European Defence Community Treaty of May 27, 1952.
The partnership which we are building up between the United Kingdom and the E.D.C. will lie within the wider N.A.T.O. framework. So long as the threat to the Western world remains, we and our partners must be prepared to keep in being over a period of years forces and weapons capable of deterring aggression and of providing effective security. Her Majesty's Government regards the Atlantic Alliance as fundamental to their policy. They can conceive of no circumstances in which they would wish to modify this policy or to denounce this Treaty. They regard N.A.T.O. as of

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indefinite duration and are confident that it will develop as an enduring association for common action between the member States. The arrangements made public to-day complete the policy followed by successive British Governments. They fulfill the pledges contained in the Washington communiqué of September, 1951. Our intimate relations with our Western European neighbours, which found formal expression in the Treaties of Dunkirk and Brussels, are now extended and reinforced. To her old and new partners alike the United Kingdom will be a loyal and resolute Ally.
EARL JOWITT: My Lords, I think that before we can express an opinion on this matter it is desirable that we should "read, mark, learn and inwardly digest" the White Papers, which we have not yet seen but which, I understand, are now available. N.A.T.O. is to be of indefinite duration, we are told. I hope that does not mean that the noble Marquess has given up all hopes of coming to some disarmament agreement, unlikely though at the present moment it may seem. To say that N.A.T.O. is going on for ever, like the brook, does seem to presuppose that there is no possible chance of our ever coming to an agreement at all—which I think is a gloomy view and, I hope, an unnecessarily gloomy view, though I recognise the difficulties. I understand that there are still two European Powers, France and Italy, which have not yet ratified the E.D.C. Does this agreement apply even though the E.D.C. Treaty is not ratified? Perhaps the noble Marquess will tell me.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: My Lords, in regard to the first point which the noble and learned Earl put concerning the indefinite character of N.A.T.O., it is not, of course, intended in any way to deter us from corning to any arrangement with regard to disarmament that we can properly and helpfully make. The noble and learned Earl will remember that N.A.T.O. is actually much wider than a mere military defence agreement; it includes economic and social provisions and various aspects of that kind. As to the second question put by the noble and learned Earl, I may say that these arrangements will come into force only when the E.D.C. agreement itself comes into force.
LORD LAYTON: My Lords, I should like to express on behalf of the Liberal Peers our appreciation of the fact that this statement has been made. It is a statement, obviously, of the highest importance and, incidentally, it is one for which most of the countries of Europe have been waiting, because it is bound to have a decisive effect one way or the other on the course of events. It involves a very big commitment by this country. The statement under the second heading that Her Majesty's Government have undertaken
"to maintain on the mainland of Europe, including Germany, such armed forces as may be necessary."
and so on, is a commitment of enormous importance. It is not one which would be disputed in this House, as was evident in the debate on Defence. It commits us to a link with the Ministerial Council which will govern the defence forces and the executive side—in other words, it provides for two of the three areas in. which it was suggested originally two years ago in the Eden plan that there should be a link between this country and Europe.
Clearly this is not the moment to discuss details, and, like the noble and learned Earl the Leader of Opposition, we must wait to see the White Paper before expressing an opinion; but we can, at least, agree on the two aims of this general policy. One of them is the security of the free world and the second is at least as important: the bringing about of a possible reconciliation of Germany and France. Whether this particular agreement will serve that purpose it would be very rash indeed to attempt to forecast. I myself think that it might have been desirable to go a little further than the noble and learned Earl the Leader of the Opposition—and debates in this House in the past have rather indicated that general trend. But if noble Lords on these Benches have taken the line that something more even than is set out here should be done, it is mainly because the second purpose to which I have referred is one of the two main diplomatic developments of this century. The other is the emergence of the United States from isolation in its international policy. But it is appropriate on this occasion only to express the hope that the agreement that is now being signed will serve to permit France to take the grave decision which is so important to all of us.

AGRICULTURAL POLICY
3.48 p.m.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL THE EARL OF LISTOWEL rose to call attention to agricultural policy, with special reference to the Annual Review and Determination of Guarantees,1954 (Cmd. 9104); and to move for Papers. The noble Earl said: My Lords, we are starting to deal with this Motion probably rather later than some noble Lords who came here to speak on it had expected, and I shall therefore try to be briefer than I should otherwise have been. I am sure your Lordships will agree that publication of the White Paper that followed the Annual Price Review is a very good opportunity for us to consider the importance of agriculture in the past year, to try to assess its prospects and to discuss—I hope with the minimum of Party prejudice—the merits, and possibly even the demerits, of Government policy. Last year was a bumper year for agriculture: there was an increase of production of 4 per cent, over the year before. It was, I imagine, by far the best year we have had since the war. Of course, everyone will agree that this was not entirely due to the efforts of the farmers or the support they received from the Government. The winter weather had a good deal to do with it, and we cannot count on the same luck in an average year. All the same, it was a really remarkable achievement, of which the whole industry and those officials who served it can be justly proud. But in spite of this fine all-round record, there are certain trends in production which cause some degree of anxiety about the future. I am thinking particularly of the slowing down of tillage and beef production, to which reference is made in the White Paper.
The increase in tillage last year was only 43,000 acres, as compared with about 140,000 acres the year before. When allowance is made, as allowance should be made, for probably about 50,000 acres (the noble Lord opposite will correct me if I am wrong in that figure) taken away by the floods, the annual rate of increase since the downward trend was reversed has fallen sharply. Your Lordships will remember that we lost rather more than 1 million acres of arable land after the war. Then, in 1952, the present Government told us that we needed to recover this loss, and to get a higher
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yield, to reach their then production target of 60 per cent, over the pre-war level by 1956. The ploughing-up subsidy was introduced and has had an excellent effect. I hope that it will be continued, otherwise I am quite sure that there will be a rapid deterioration. But unless there is some improvement on last year's rate of increase, we shall not get even 500,000 extra arable acres within the next five years.
I wonder whether the Government could give us a little more guidance about the future of our tillage acreage. They say in the White Paper that we no longer need the 1 million acres for which they asked in 1952, provided that there is a steady increase in crop yields. I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, these questions, of which I have given him notice. Can he tell us how much additional tillage the Govern-men now want, and what they would regard as the minimum tillage acreage for a balanced agriculture under the normal peace-time conditions to which we look forward? Can he also say what further increase in crop yields they think good farmers could get, especially in view of the excellent increase in yields which has already taken place, and how this future increase will compare with the actual increase since 1952? What I fear is that, unless something can be done to reassure farmers about the future—and there is a great deal of uncertainty at the present time—tillage will start to go back again. The easiest way for farmers to save money is to switch from arable to grass, or to leave under grass land which should be ploughed up. The change from a guaranteed price, calculated to cover the costs of the individual farmer, to a standard price for all farmers, has made arable farming more speculative, and the arable farmer has not benefited like the livestock man from the fall in the; price of feeding-stuffs. It is in the Mid-lands and the Southern counties that the battle for our tillage acreage will be decided. I hope that the Government will do everything they can, through the county committees and the Advisory Service, to strengthen morale in all vulnerable areas.
It is also a little disturbing to hear that beef production is going more slowly than was hoped for in 1952. After meat rationing ends in July, the day when the Sunday joint will not be rationed by

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price will depend on how quickly we can get a lot more home-killed beef. That happy day looks even further off after one has read the White Paper. I wonder whether the noble Lord could explain why the pace is slackening, and at what point, or points, in the livestock production cycle things are not going as well as he expected. In 1952, he told us that he was hoping to have 400,000 more calves annually for rearing within four years—that is to say, by 1956. Can the noble Lord say what the increase in calves for rearing was last year, if possible distinguishing between dairy and beef animals; and whether he still thinks that an annual increase of 400,000 calves can be reached in two years' time? A further question I should like to ask about beef is this—it bears on other aspects of livestock rearing, too, but that is the main point I am on. Is the noble Lord satisfied that farmers are still taking full advantage of the assistance offered by the Livestock Rearing and Hill Farming Acts to increase the number of the store animals kept by farmers in the upland areas? Can he tell us how much money was spent in grants last year, as compared with the previous year, and how many new schemes were approved under those two Acts? We shall not get the beef we want, and to which we are looking forward, unless farmers make better use of marginal land in the upland parts of England, Scotland and Wales. This, of course, is only supplementary to a larger number of calves kept for rearing, and a much larger number, and better quality, of bullocks that are kept by farmers in the Midlands on their rich pastures.
Before I leave the subject of livestock, I would also ask whether the noble Lord can say anything more about marketing arrangements. We have all read something in the Press on this subject, but noble Lords are probably as uncertain about the arrangements as I am. We shall not reiterate the view we have already expressed, that the return to the pre-war system of local auctions is extremely unfortunate because it exposes the farmers to rings, and the taxpayer to an unlimited liability; but for this reason, any alternative method for the farmer to sell his animals is desirable. I have seen in the Press that the National Farmers' Union are considering setting up a company which will operate to purchase
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animals before the longer-term scheme of a Livestock Marketing Board has been approved and applied. Can the noble Lord give us any more details about how soon this company will be in a position to purchase livestock; how wide an area of the country its activities will cover; and, particularly, whether it will be available as an alternative to the private auction system by the autumn, when so many animals will be sold off the Farms?
With your Lordships' permission, I should like to pass on to make a few comments about milk The decision in the White Paper to reduce the price of milk by ld. a gallon, and to limit the guarantee to an amount not exceeding last year's output, will obviously put the brake on dairy farmers—and that, clearly, was the intension. As we all know, there are many small men in the dairy business who came into dairy farming during the war, and many of these should be encouraged to change over to rearing livestock. Again, unless a great many more people can be induced to drink a much larger quantity of milk, any increase in supply will add considerably to the Treasury subsidy in milk sold for manufacture. Both these reasons, I think, are valid reasons for halting production, as the Government wish to do, at somewhere near the present level.
The Milk Marketing Board, however, appear to disagree with the Government, and to take art opposite view. The Chairman of the Board has said publicly that sales of milk off farms could not be stabilised—and here I quote the words used in the White Paper—"at somewhat below the present level." Of course, we all agree that it would be an excellent thing if people would drink more milk, and up to a point this is not inconsistent with Government policy. But the Milk Marketing Board seem to be lining up with the nutritionists who want a monthly supply of something like 200 million gallons, which is enormously in excess of present output. This indicates a sharp conflict between the advice of the Ministry and that of the Milk Marketing Board. I cannot help feeling that such a conflict of opinion between two authorities to whom farmers look for guidance is bound to cause confusion and uncertainty among dairy farmers. I should like

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to ask the noble Lord whether his officials and those of the Milk Marketing Board could not get together to try to work out a common policy for milk production. This effort may already have been made, and it may have failed. Clearly, the independence of the Milk Marketing Board must be respected, but I hope that, if this scheme has not been tried, it will be tried. Perhaps the noble Lord can say something on that subject.
Finally, I should like to ask the Government whether they can clarify their intentions in regard to the much more difficult and, in the long run, more important matter of the spending of public money on agriculture. This, I think, is of vital importance at a time when farm prices are falling. Whether production is maintained at the present level will depend very largely on what the Government are prepared to give by way of support to the price structure. It is evident that the Government regard the present Treasury contribution of about £200 million per annum as too high, and that they do not mean to wait until rising prices or increased efficiency reduces the burden. As farm prices in a free market cannot be settled in advance, the Exchequer liability can be controlled—not wholly, of course, but in part—only by limiting the amount of a particular commodity for which the guarantee will be paid. This has already been done in the case of milk. It has been suggested, both in the White Paper and in the Budget, that other farm products which are in danger of becoming rather more plentiful will be treated in the same way.
This is put clearly in the White Paper, one passage of which says:
"Further consideration will be given to means of limiting the dependence of the industry on Exchequer assistance; for example, relating guarantees to levels of output of particular commodities as in the case of the new financial arrangements for milk."
The imminence of these further economies was underlined in the Chancellor's Budget speech. Here perhaps I may be allowed to quote two sentences from it. He said (OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 526, No. 90, col. 209):
"I am sure…we must establish…some limit to the open-ended Exchequer liability. Of this we shall hear more during the year."
It may soon be said of Mr. Butler, as Lewis Carroll said of the Walrus and the
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Carpenter, in their treatment of the oysters, that
"With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size."
This, I suppose, was the first instance of what Mr. Butler would call the quantitative limitation or quantification— I am not quite sure whether he said "quantitative limitation" or "quantification." However, what matters, from the point of view of farmers, is that, if the Government feel that they must save money immediately in this way, the farmers should know as soon as possible which other products besides milk are on the list. Can the noble Lord say whether consideration is already being given, or will shortly be given, to other foodstuffs such as eggs or pig meat, and whether, in this event, the National Farmers' Union will be consulted before any final decisions are taken?
I should like now to make two general comments about this policy. It may be necessary, of course, from the standpoint of national finance, and of that only the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Government of the day can judge. But for agriculture a policy of retrenchment adds to uncertainty, because no one knows where the axe will fall next. Its effect on production is bound to be restrictive, as farmers will not want to bring down prices by exceeding the guaranteed output. The noble Lord opposite will, I am sure, understand if I say that on reading the White Paper I could not help feeling at least a pang of regret for his owl earlier policy as set out in the White Paper of 1952. Those were the days of high hopes for the further expansion of British agriculture. We were to increase agricultural output by 1956 to at least 60 per cent above the pre-war level. But we are now told that the increase will be unobtainable in two years' time, and that it will not be within the grasp of the industry—to use the words of the White Paper—until two or three years after that.
The Government have now acquiesced in a slowing down of our magnificent post-war expansion program. No one would, of course, ask farmers to do the impossible. But is it true that the 1952 expansion program which, after all, requires only a further 2 per cent annual increase for the next two years, is no longer possible? The Minister of

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Agriculture, at any rate, still believed in the late autumn of last year that this program could be carried out. In a newspaper article on the aims of agricultural policy, the Minister wrote, on November 30:
"The Government's objective is to continue this advance. It hopes to see production rise a further 9 points, so that it reaches 60 per cent. above pre-war by 1956."
What has happened in the last four and a half months to make the Minister change his mind? It cannot have been the fall in world food prices, or the approaching end of rationing and market controls, because obviously the Minister was fully aware of these matters at that time. Perhaps the noble Lord can solve this mystery. For my part, I cannot imagine a spirit of defeatism in the Ministry of Agriculture.
Whatever the explanation, I am sure that the noble Lord will agree that the country's need for more home-grown food is no less urgent to-day than it was last year. The Minister himself put this admirably as recently as last November, when he described the main reason for the production drive as "economic and strategic." Who would say that our economic and strategic requirements of agriculture have changed since then? Home-grown food is becoming, if anything, of greater importance to our balance of payments. It has been calculated that the increase in food production since the war is saving the country £600 million a year in food imports. Agriculture is our greatest import saver. The recent Economic Survey shows how precarious our trade balance was in 1953, and how far short it fell of the £300 million safety margin desired by the Chancellor. If the terms of trade should turn against us, as may easily happen after the United States has pulled out of its present recession, we shall need every ton of grain and meat that our farmers can give us to stave off another sterling crisis. If we relax our efforts to grow more food this year, we shall lose an invaluable safeguard against the growing danger of an adverse trade balance.
I cannot help feeling that the White Paper—I hope that I am not doing it an injustice—pictures the farmer rather as a sort of Benthamite man, actuated only by motives of self-interest, of profit and loss. But we all know that farmers are net made that way. If they are asked to do
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something for the country, as the noble Viscount, Lord Hudson, asked them during the war, they respond magnificently; and to-day they are giving a large part of their time to unpaid public work. We all recognise that the risks of farmers in a free economy, competing very often with cheaper or subsidised foreign producers, will obviously be much greater than they were while the British farmer was sheltered by the State. But these risks should surely be regarded as a challenge to greater effort, and not as an obstacle to the advance on which we had counted. I had wondered whether the Prime Minister might not be asked to send a personal message, drafted by himself, to every person working on the land, landlords, farmers and farm workers, telling them, in his own inimitable language, what the country expects in the difficult times ahead. I hope that the noble Lord will consider this suggestion. I beg to move for Papers.
4.12 p.m.
VISCOUNT BLEDISLOE: My Lords, we must all welcome the fact that the noble Earl has taken an early opportunity to seek the views of this House in regard to the recent Review of farm prices, as set out in the White Paper. I, for one, welcome, and welcome heartily, the fact that, generally speaking, in both Houses of Parliament there is a consensus of view as to the vital importance of home food production and no appreciable tendency to make British agriculture the catspaw of Party politics. It would appear to me that, after the experience of two world wars, no Government of any complexion will dare to let down agriculture in this country—at least, for another twenty years. But ours is a predominantly urban population, some of it remarkably ignorant and extremely sensitive on the subject of the increase in the cost of living. We naturally want to evoke and maintain on the part not merely of the taxpayers but of the food consumers of this country all possible sympathy in regard to our operations on British soil.
The noble Earl did, not in so many words tell us whether he approved, on balance, of the White Paper, or whether he had any serious criticisms of it in detail. I should like to say frankly that I welcome the White Paper. I do not welcome to the same extent some comments that have been made upon it by

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some leading agriculturists, to the effect that the reduction in the price of certain important commodities is the "thin end of the wedge." We are passing through an interim period, a period of transition from a high system of protection to one of a freer economy. The task of any Government in relation to agriculture during this period must be a difficult one. I, for my part, sympathise very much with both the Minister of Agriculture and the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the enunciation of a policy which necessarily must evoke certain anxieties and fears for the future.
But do let us, as farmers, do all in our power not to open our mouths too wide. Let me give a simple illustration. Two of the main commodities the prices of which have been reduced in the new Review are milk and pigs. Can anyone truly say that, subject to foodstuffs being available, pig producers in this country are not making a good margin of profit? And, when we come to milk, which has been called in war time the A.1 priority food of the country, can any of us seriously say that, if our dairy farms are efficiently conducted, a penny reduction per gallon of milk at a time when the winter price is no less than 3s. 6d. or 3s. 8d. a gallon is really any great hardship? Incidentally, I should like to ask the Minister who is to reply whether it is true, as stated in certain organs of the public Press, that this reduction, and possibly further reductions in the price given to the farmer in the future, will not affect the price that the consumer has to pay. I do not know upon what ground that statement has been made but I sincerely hope that there is no foundation for it.
As I ventured to point out on January 20 last in the debate in Committee on the Food and Drugs Bill, the urban housewife is paying a high price for milk which is not always of a high standard of butter fat or of solids which are not butter fat. I then pointed out that statistics show that in those two respects the average quality of the milk is lower today than it has been for the last twenty-five years. I am not sure that I agree altogether with the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, in his criticism of the Milk Marketing Board. I am inclined to share the view of the Milk Marketing
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Board that we want more milk for liquid consumption, especially when we bear in mind that in comparison with many countries in Europe, notably Sweden and other Scandinavian countries, our per capita consumption of milk is less than half. Even though it has improved during the last six or seven years, it is less than half the consumption in those countries; and they put down their remarkable physical stature and well-being to their high consumption of milk These are not days when we ought to consume less milk; to my mind, we ought to consume more milk, so long as it is of a reasonably high quality.
When the noble Earl speaks with sadness (there may be some reason for it) about the loss of tillage and the tendency to let a certain amount of land 20 down to grass, I feel inclined to make two observations in reply. One is that that is largely compensated for by the far more intensive treatment of herbage in this country and the fact that we are producing a much larger proportion of our animal foodstuffs from our own land than we used to do in days gone by. The second point I should like to make is that in my long experience I have always found a reduction in the tillage area when there is a growing lack of confidence on the part of the agricultural community. If we can only build up—and all three Parties in the State can do a great deal in this connection—a feeling of confidence that no Government is going to let down agriculture, I am sure that that will do as much as anything to maintain the tillage area and to produce the largest possible amount of food from our own soil.
The noble Viscount, Lord Hudson has just been elected President of the British Friesian Society. I am not sure, but I think he claims to have the Friesian cow with the largest milk yield in the country. I confess that in days gone by I have been rather a critic of some, at any rate, of the Friesian cattle breeders, because of the production of what we farmers used to call "blue" milk with a low proportion of butter fat. However that may be, I notice with much interest and delight that at the annual meeting of the British Friesian Society last week it was said, not merely that the liquid output of the breed was greater than that of any other breed (in fact I think they boasted of owning a head of cattle more than twice

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that of all the other breeds in Britain put together) but that during the last year the average butter-fat content of Friesian cattle had risen to over 34½per cent. I only hope that within the ranks of the Friesian breeders there are not many who indulge in the "appeal to the cow" because their milk does not reach the minimum legal standard of 3 per cent. butter-fat.
But what I really wanted to refer to to-day is the position of the small farmer. I think the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, who represents the Ministry of Agriculture, will agree with me when I say that, apart from the very small number of incurably inefficient farmers for whom none of us has any respect, who are curiously difficult to deprive of their holdings, even when they are offered an old age pension or a cottage as their future home, the great problem is the small farmers, of whom there is a preponderance in this country. I believe I am right in saying that something like 88 per cent. of the farmers of this country have no more than 100 acres each. If that is so, it would appear to me that all this much criticised subsidisation of the agricultural community is clue to difficulty on tae part of any Government in keeping these small men commercially and economically alive and able to pull their weight in providing a due proportion of the nation's food from their land.
In that connection I want seriously to suggest that in the matter of Government assistance a premium ought to be given to those small farmers upon their belonging to a co-operative society. In every agricultural country in the world except this country co-operation is the economic salvation of the small farmer. It is true that it has grown to some small extent during the last fifty years, but to nothing like the extent that should prevail for the benefit of the smaller food producers of this country; and if it were possible I should like to see a special premium in the matter of Government assistance provided for those farmers who conduct a local co-operative system, bosh in the matter of the purchase of their raw materials and to some extent in the sale of their produce.
There is one further suggestion I am going to make which may be a little more difficult to carry out. Apart from the British Friesian cattle owners and the encouragement that hay noble friend Lord
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Hudson gives to them, we have nothing much to boast about in this country regarding the yield of our dairy cattle compared with that of other European countries. It is lower than the yield in most of the dairy countries of the world—substantially lower than that of Denmark, Holland, New Zealand, Sweden and other countries I could specify.
As regards those small men who, in the main, are not self-contained in the provision of feedingstuffs for their stock, I venture to suggest that a discount in Government assistance should be made in the case of those farmers whose mature cows, within a period of five years, yield less than 700 gallons each a year. I suggest that at the present cost of labour and of purchased feedingstuffs the 700-gallon cow is not an economic proposition. If it were possible to limit Government assistance given to those small farmers who are not members of a co-operative society and do not keep cows giving reasonably large yields, and who in consequence require much more Governmental support at the expense of the taxpayer, one could look forward to the future with greater confidence. There would not then be this unfortunate dependence upon subsidies and uneconomic measures that evoke the criticism of our taxpayers.
To show that I am not speaking "with out the book," I want to say one word on the matter of co-operation. Exactly fifty years ago I founded in my own area a farmers' co-operative society. We held our fiftieth meeting five days ago and we were able to show that 90 per cent. of the farmers within ten miles of us, and spreading into three counties, belonged to our society. The present turnover amounts to no less than £300,000. This compares with the position sixty years ago, when three cut of four farmers in that area were financially in the pocket and at the mercy of the local dealers. Many of the farmers then became insolvent and suffered bankruptcy. From the moment that that co-operative society was formed the farmers became, to an increasing extent, financially free, independent citizens; and they form to-day a very prosperous little community. That is largely, if not mainly, owing to that co-operative society whose jubilee is to be celebrated next month, and which I founded with the guidance of Sir Horace Plunkett, that great Irish co-operative authority.

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I am going to add one further fact. In the report which was adopted unanimously at the fiftieth annual meeting, there was a notable paragraph to the effect that we, at any rate, the members of that farmers' co-operative society, so far from fearing that we should fail to reach during the next three years the target of a 60 per cent. increase of output over that of pre-war days, hope and believe that in our district there will be a substantial improvement upon that target. I say these few words only in order to impress upon your Lordships the enormous importance of this point: that rather than let agriculture amongst what I may call the 100 or 50-acre group become a mendicant industry, more and more dependent—some would say permanently dependent—upon Government subsidies, we should encourage that group to do all they can to establish themselves by co-operation, by efficiency, by growing crops of a reasonably remunerative kind and particularly by keeping livestock of as productive a character as possible. That will save our industry from the continuous criticism of the taxpayer and from greater and greater dependence upon the public purse and the Government, rather than upon our own efficient efforts.
4.36 p.m.
LORD WISE: My Lords, I am very glad indeed this afternoon to follow the noble Viscount who has just resumed his seat and to say, I think on behalf of the whole House, how pleased we are to see him on the occasions when he does come to talk agriculture to us. Nobody can speak with greater knowledge of our industry than the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe. I want, before I make my ordinary little speech, a short one, to agree with him on the great need, the urgent need, at this present time to keep agriculture in this country alive, virile and flourishing. We depend, as we have done so much in the last few years, upon the output of our home farms, and it does not behove any of us to take any action, whether political or otherwise, to bring any sort of depression whatsoever into our agricultural industry again. The noble Viscount said that he realises the difficulties of the Government at the present time. Well, we all do. We rather look upon this White Paper as the outline
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of what may mean, in agriculture, a new experiment. It may succeed; for the benefit of the industry, we hope that it will. On the other hand, it may not. At any rate, at this particular time I do not think any of us should be too critical. The Government have instituted this policy; the farming industry are asked to carry it out, and time will show whether a change of policy at this time is a right one or is detrimental not only to the industry itself but to the economics of the nation.
We realise, also, the difficulties of the farmers at the present time. They are now asked to enter into something totally different from what they have been used to in the last few years. I hope in the course of my remarks to deal with some of those difficulties as outlined in the White Paper. The noble Viscount mentioned milk. We on these Benches, I think, heartily agree that the consumption of milk should not be allowed to decline but should increase. There have been many slogans in the past—"Drink more milk" and such like. I understand that shortly (I believe I am right) a campaign will be launched to try to encourage a higher, in fact the greatest, consumption of milk among our families in this country. I am rather afraid, however, that the decrease in the consumption of milk in the last few years has been an economic one. So that, if a penny a gallon, or whatever it may be, can be taken off the price of milk at one end, something may happen at the other end also, as the result of proper planning and organisation. I congratulate the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, on the huge success of the co-operative effort which he started fifty years ago. It is a wonderful achievement, and I think, with him, that possibly we may be able to find in British agriculture some means whereby the smaller farmers can be encouraged to join in disposing of their products on a co-operative basis, and to increase not only the basis of co-operation within the country but also its scope.
As I said a moment ago, the Government have brought in this new policy, and it is up to all of us to say, quietly and without any antagonism, without any heat, where we think there may be a mistake. We may be wrong. We have recently come through a period of

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marked success in agriculture. During the last few years, the industry has been reasonably profitable; our production has increased; we have been able to feed the people to a greater extent, and vie have, as a farming industry, I think, received the commendation of the nation in regard to what we have tried to do and what we have done. And I personally do not want to see anything put into operation, by this Government or arty other Government, which is likely again to brine depression, as we knew it years ago, into British agriculture. And whatever we may say, whatever may he the outcome of the policy, I am certain that we all, on both sides of the House, wish the British farmer, and British agriculture generally, well.
I am a little puzzled (perhaps the noble Lord who is going to reply for the Government will explain this to me) to know why the White Paper's title on this occasion is the Annual Review aid Determination of Guarantees.I think if the previous White Papers are referred to it will be found that the title was The Annual Review and Fixing of Farm Prices.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (LORD CARRINGTON): We are not fixing prices this time.
LORD WISE: You are not fixing prices—that is the explanation. I was wondering whether it meant a different emphasis as regards the guarantee and the prices. It is of course significant that there is a change. For instance, in the third paragraph on the first page these words creep in:
"They must, however, give a somewhat less accurate picture of future prospects as these now depend less on guarantees and more on the market than hitherto."
That passage covers the opening of the markets to free enterprise and different trading operations.
The White Paper has had a mixed reception—reference has been made to it to-day. Some of the remarks which have been attributed in the papers to various persons may be unfortunate, but generally I think I should be right in saying that the reception accorded to the White Paper has not been over-enthusiastic. Generally, the farming community is suspicious; it is always suspicious, and in
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this case I think it is uncertain of the future. We have had a very happy experience in recent years. As said a few moments ago, we have had a fair measure of prosperity. We have come through a very progressive era in regard to the application of new mechanical and scientific processes. We have been able to improve the standard of life both for farmers and their workers. And we have, by improving supplies of home grown foods, not only satisfied ourselves but satisfied the nation.
We now have to face new conditions of market and prices in the name of freedom from control. We have once again to meet, in a very high degree, the renewal of a scramble in the corn and stock markets for powers to purchase the commodities of the farmer at remunerative prices. I am rather uncertain in my own mind as to whether, unless we are very careful, we shall not drift back into the state of affairs which existed in the old days which many of us knew, when the market was uncertain and when conditions were difficult, when we took our stock and our corn to many dealers before we were able to sell them. Anti it may be that, by losing, as we do lose, the Ministry of Food as a very beneficial customer of British agriculture, our sales may be retarded or expedited, as the case may he, not by any Government operation but by the operation of outside interests. That used to happen in the past, and I think it was in those days very detrimental to the interests of the British farming community. It might be detrimental again if it were allowed to come into operation.
In present circumstances, there are only three commodities—wool, potatoes, and sugar beet—which will have the benefit of fixed prices. No doubt, it will be argued, as indeed it has been argued, that the other commodities will gain by the distribution by the Government of additional payments to the producers. That may be so; but the cost to the Exchequer, according to the White Paper, cannot be estimated with any reliability. It may be so heavy that after a year or two of its operation the Exchequer may seek to relieve itself still further of the burdens upon it, so far as agriculture is concerned, with the result that prices will drop still further. The White Paper throws out such a hint, and, as my noble friend on the Front Bench

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has said, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in a statement last week, mentioned the possibility of that happening.
I want to deal with two specific points. The first is the lessening of income of farmers by approximately £30 million, which I believe is the reduction envisaged. If the farmers are not able to make up any portion of that £30 million to be retained by the Treasury, that reduction in income will be of tremendous importance, not only to the agricultural industry but to the general community living around the farms. According to the White Paper, a sum of £30 million is about 10 per cent. of the net income of the industry, and I doubt whether the industry can make that up to any marked degree by any of the suggestions which the Government make in their White Paper. The methods suggested appear simple in print, but in reality the farmer's costs are governed by matters outside his own control. If he reduces his labour bill, his production is likely to suffer; and of course he has no control over the prices he has to pay for commodities, except possibly in regard to certain feeding-stuffs. In other respects he has to meet rising prices, and he has to pay for articles required prices which are in no way fixed by himself. He has to pay for services rendered to him by other people; and their charges have to be met, whatever they may be. He has to pay for artificial manures, seed corn, young stock, machinery, petrol and oil, transport and bank charges, and repair bills, all of which remain at a high level. Unless he dispenses with some of these, to the detriment of his efficiency and productive efforts, he remains powerless, in existing conditions, to make a substantial reduction.
In my view, the White Paper does not over-encourage the farmer. It tells him that much is expected from him but the lead which the Government give is not very helpful. Milk has already been mentioned. The farmer is told in black and white in the White Paper to reduce his milking herds. I think that is detrimental and a mistake. It tells him to be careful about increasing his cereal acreages; that the production of potatoes is already up to consumption level (and not only next year but also, I believe, in the years which follow, prices will fall); that
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no additional rye is required from the rye-growing lands; and that the quantity of sugar beet which the factories can deal with economically has been reached and that the surplus will not be absorbed. It is true that the farmer is told that the nation requires more and better beef and encourages him to achieve that in the course of years. Yet the Government are not quite certain whether or not they require additional mutton and lamb. That is a point which strikes me as peculiar. In the White Paper the word "perhaps" creeps in: it says, "perhaps more mutton and lamb." In my view, we want an increase of sheep production. We have been very short. A few days ago, when in Devonshire, I was pleasantly surprised to see so many lambs and sheep grazing in the pastures. I thought that at long last, as a nation, we were getting back to the old days when sheep, and the benefit of sheep on the land, were a standby for British agriculture.
That is the problem which confronts the farmer; and it is small wonder that, with the change in the marketing arrangements and the reduction in producers' prices, he is in a state of bewilderment. It is necessary to plan future farming arrangements on reasonable lines, but in existing circumstances of possible fluctuations in markets and in prices, it is not at all easy for the farmer to budget ahead, and to budget so that he can increase his production at reduced costs. The emphasis which is now to be placed on livestock has been already mentioned. It may well be that in increasing livestock the acreage under corn will decrease. I do not want to detain the House much longer, but there is one point I want to put specifically to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington. Many people think that the reduction in the pig price is heavy. Three shillings a score works out roughly at £1 a pig. A difference in turnover of £1 a pig on bacon and other pigs which are brought to maturity is a high sum for the pig-breeders to bear. Of course, I understand that the cost of production may have come down, but the fact remains that there is this loss of price of more than £1 a pig. I want to ask the noble Lord who is going to gain by that reduction?
I have in my hand the annual report of a bacon factory. In that particular bacon factory last year about 120,000 pigs were handled. That bacon factory

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showed a reasonable profit, and far higher than was necessary to pay the fixed dividend on the shares. The pigs handled totalled about 120,000. On the face of it, the saving to that bacon factory by 3s. a score, or just over £1 per pig, was in the region of from £120,000 to £130,000. It may be said by the noble Lord opposite that the subsidy paid to that factory on the difference between the cost of the pig and the receipts for the bacon may be lessened. But if that is not the case, is that £120,000 going to relieve the bacon factory of its costs, or is it, in any shape or form, going to be handed to the consumer by lowering the price of bacon? That is one small point, and possibly the noble Lord can deal with it when he comes to reply.
I will conclude by saying this—it has been referred to by the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, and I do not entirely agree with what he says. In many paragraphs of the White Paper the word "efficiency" occurs. I think that at long last we ought to call a halt to the charge of inefficiency in the farming industry. This word "inefficiency" is thrown at the industry by all sorts of people outside, and it sticks to small farmers, large farmers, good farmers and inefficient farmers alike. In my view, with the record of the industry over the last few years—production increases, improvement in methods and improvements all along the line—the term "inefficiency," as applied to British farming should at long last be dropped.
5.3 p.m.
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELL: My Lords, I rise in great trepidation to speak for the first time in your Lordships' House, particularly when the subject is one of which so many noble Lords have personal expert knowledge. I hope that your Lordships will extend to me the forbearance usually shown on these occasions. As a farmer myself, and one who moves among farmers, I would say that the general reaction to this Price Review has been one of relief—relief that it has not been found necessary to make more drastic cuts in prices. Farmers realise that conditions have changed. Not only are many of our products now available on the world markets at prices much lower than we have been receiving, but for the time being, at least, the country seems able to spare the foreign currency
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with which to buy them. Under these conditions, there may be a few farmers who wish that we had in Parliament a Farm Lobby, such as they have in the United States, where they seem to be able to induce their Government to give almost unlimited support to the main farm products at remunerative prices. There can be no question of the farming community ever being able to exert that sort of pressure here. But even if there were, I think it must be clear to most people that great difficulties would soon arise, and that it would not be a good thing, either for the country or, in the long run, for the farmers themselves.
What I think farmers can reasonably ask of the Government is, first, some degree of cushioning against the violent changes in world prices which seem to afflict not only agricultural but all primary products, and which seem to result from relatively small surpluses and shortages of these products, Over a period, it should be possible to do this without serious cost to the country, since there is no reason to suppose that from now on all world prices will always be below ours—many were higher quite recently, and may well be again. The second thing which I think farmers can fairly ask from the Government is protection from dumping, either by supporting prices, or by duties on the commodities being dumped. I have been told by my feeding-stocks merchant, and I have also read in the farming Press, that some commodities, particularly cereals, which have lately been imported at low prices, have been heavily subsidised by their countries of origin, and that the farmers who grew them have, in fact, received prices as high as, or higher than, those paid to farmers here. I cannot enlarge on the point, because I do not know the details—perhaps other noble Lords can; but if that is so, then I should have thought that it provided a good answer to the charge of "feather-bedding" in these cases, and I cannot think why more has not been made of it by those concerned with publicity on behalf of the Farmer.
I feel it is quite understandable that during the past year or so there should have been considerable uneasiness in the minds of many Farmers. The change of circumstances came very suddenly and, I think, much sooner than was expected. There were fears that the Government's

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reactions to the change were in some directions too hasty, and in others too slow, or inadequate. But as it gradually becomes clearer that the Government do not intend to let the farmer down, and are taking reasonable steps to keep the industry on an even keel, confidence is returning, and I believe that the Price Review has been generally accepted as fair and appropriate.
As regards the future, the whole emphasis of the White Paper is on increased efficiency, since, clearly, if our costs of production could be brought down to a competitive level the whole problem would disappear. I believe there is no doubt that there is room for increased efficiency in British agriculture, in spite of what the noble Lord, Lord Wise, has said; and the reason for this flows naturally from the way the industry has been treated during the last fifteen years. I feel that most people will agree that the most efficient, and, in the long run, the most successful farmer is the one who decides what type of production best suits himself and his farm, and sticks to it, come what may. In the course of time he perfects his technique and his equipment, and almost inevitably he becomes efficient. When, in the course of normal price fluctuations, his products are up, he is able to take full advantage from the start, and does very well; when they are down, his efficiency enables him to keep his head above water until the next time.
Since the beginning of the war, not many farmers have been able to conduct their affairs in this way. The compulsion, first of war, and then of economics, has forced successive Governments to demand of agriculture the greatest possible production of whatever from time to time was needed most. High-pressure publicity, price incentives, even at one time the force of law, have been used to induce farmers to embark on lines of production about which they knew little, and for which their farms were often not suitable. Production under these conditions has not been economic, and prices have had to be high to allow for that. No doubt, also, these high prices have given rise to a certain amount of complacency among some farmers who would, in any case, have been producing the commodities in demand, and who
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therefore managed to do very well without much effort. That policy was inevitable at the time, and it was highly successful in raising production; but it was not conducive to efficiency or to high quality. Now we have suddenly once more to face the fierce competition of the specialist overseas producers and also to meet the more exacting requirements of our own market. I am afraid that we are caught rather at a disadvantage.
I am not one of those who take the line that "the Government got us into this mess and it is up to the Government to get us out." As I said before, I think we can expect the Government to ensure a reasonable degree of stability and to protect us from dumping. Beyond that I think it is up to the industry itself. The two needs are, first, for farmers to get back to producing whatever they can produce most efficiently—for example, for some of the less suitable dairy farms to return to stock raising, as suggested in the White Paper; and, second, to increase efficiency by such means as pig recording and progeny testing, the eradication of cattle diseases, the better use of grass, more use of fertilisers, better marketing, co-operation, as suggested by the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, and so on. I believe that by these means it should be possible to bring our production more in line with the requirements of our market and, at the same time, to reduce costs and keep a reasonable level of profit for the farmer.
5.12 p.m.
LORD ARCHIBALD: My Lords, I am fortunate this afternoon in having the opportunity of congratulating the noble Lord who has just sat down on the eminent success of his maiden speech. I hope that I may say that it is a speech with the content of which we all agree in large measure, and the manner of which we all most heartily admire. We hope to hear the noble Lord again on other occasions and on other subjects. Like the noble Lord, I am a farmer, and also like him I have not previously taken part in a debate on agriculture in your Lordships' House. If I may, I would disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Dalzell, on one small point, and that is with regard to the reception which the White Paper has had in farming, circles. There, of course,

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one's experience is limited by the contacts that one has with farmers. But my general impression is that it has not been received with relief—unless by "relief" we are to accept that there was great alarm and apprehension and that there is now less alarm and apprehension.
On the whole, I think a fair description was that given by the National Council of the Farmers' Union, who said that they regarded the Review as having placed an undue burden on the agricultural industry. As the county branches of the Union are meeting, I think the National Council attitude is being endorsed almost without exception. Unlike the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, with whose speech one was in general agreement, I do not welcome the White Paper; nor do I view it with marked and outstanding hostility. I think it is open to criticism in a number of directions. There is one particular point to which I wish to refer in some detail, not necessarily because of its intrinsic importance but because of its importance by way of illustration. Practically every speaker has emphasised the need for the farmer to be able to look ahead and make plans with the knowledge that conditions will be reasonably stable, I am not suggesting by that—nor would anyone else—that he should be guaranteed high prices for everything that he can produce for all time to come, but simply that changes should be gradual; that he should have warning of them, and that he should have reasonable time in which to deal with them. In other words, he is entitled, as the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Dalzell, has said, to a certain amount of cushioning when conditions change.
When we look at what has happened in this Review—not of "Prices" nowadays, but the Determination of Guarantees with regard to pigs—I think we get a good example of just how not to do it. May I remind your Lordships of the background to this? Here I may interpolate that my noble friend who moved the Motion to-day suggested an appeal to farmers signed, I think, by the Prime Minister. I can assure him that no such appeal is necessary in order to secure higher production. May I point out to him that the noble Lord who is to reply to the debate to-day, speaking in Nor-folk, in, I think, February of last year, made an appeal for increased production of pigs. When he was asked how many,
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naturally he did not want to put too narrow a figure, and said, "About one million." By the end of the year the pig population had gone up by 600,000. When we see a response like that, it will be obvious that no higher appeal is necessary than that made by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington. But what happens when there is an enthusiastic response like that? Without waiting for the one million, down comes the price by 3s. a score. That is rather like a famous occasion when an admiral was shot, "pour encourager les autres." This, no doubt, is to encourage others, who might be tempted to increase production in response to appeals.
Not only is there this 3s. reduction. In addition, the price had already been fixed in relation to a sliding scale of feeding-prices, coming down (I think I am right in saying) a penny a score for each penny per cwt. drop in the price of feeding-stuffs. But A is not based on the price of feeding-stuffs bought by the farmer. It is based on what I believe are called port prices. As indicated by the port prices of feeding-stuffs the price of pigs has come down by 4s. 6d. a score, in addition to the 3s. cut under the Price Review. In other words, it is not, as my noble friend Lord Wise said, a reduction of 3s.—it is a reduction of 7s. 6d. a score; not about £1 a pig, but, on the average bacon pig, about £3 per pig. That is a considerable, indeed, a savage, amount.
If the Government, embarrassed by the prompt and enthusiastic response to the appeal of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, had said to the pig producers, "Now go easy; you are going too fast. We shall have to cut down the price, but we will give you six months in which to adjust yourselves to this further reduction," one would not have grumbled. But whereas in the Review the reduction in cereals of £1 a ton applies to the 1955 harvest, the reduction in the price per score of pigs came into operation as of March 29. Therefore, every pig producer with his pens full of pigs coming up towards bacon weight has had a considerable amount wiped off the value of these pigs practically overnight. I venture to suggest that that is not the kind of procedure calculated to inspire confidence and stability in the agricultural industry. I should like to emphasise again that I have not vet met a single farmer who has found that

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the price that he pays for his feedingstuffs has come down by the amount that is indicated by the index of port prices; so that in fact he is being penalised doubly, in not having a reduction in feedingstuff prices, as he is supposed to have, and in having a reduction in the price of his finished product.
There is one other point that should be made. One knows that the appeal for increased production had meant that those who responded had to buy more breeding stock, in some cases more equipment; in some cases they had to provide additional accommodation. In other words, one does not get an increase of 600,000 in the pig population without some investment. Those who made that investment are penalised for doing so. It is a too sudden reversal to say now that the emphasis is on quality and not on quantity. It is a reversal almost without warning. I say "almost without warning" because it is fair to mention that the Chief Scientific Officer to the Ministry, speaking at a conference, did give some indication that perhaps pig herds should not be increased in number. Unfortunately, although the Chief Scientific Officer is also Director General of the N.A.A.S., the N.A.A.S. still went on holding conferences urging farmers to increase their pig production right up to within almost days of the Price Review. I attended one of these conferences, so I am not speaking from hearsay or report. I think it is a very good example of the Ministry not letting its left hand know what its right hand is doing.
The only encouraging thing in this respect in the White Paper is that on page 5 it says:
"In order to assist producers in improving the quality of their stock and raising the efficiency of pig production, the Government are considering proposals for the introduction of a Pig Recording Scheme and for the extension of the arrangements for progeny testing at present conducted by the National Pig Breeders' Association."
May I beg that there will be as much speed applied to this consideration as there was to the cutting of the price of pigs? We do not want a long-drawn-out consideration. There is actually not very much to consider. What is needed is a decision to set up these progeny-testing stations, to get them in operation so that the farmers of this country who are pig breeders may at an early date be in a somewhat comparable position to
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that of the pig breeders of Denmark in having some scientific guidance as to their breeding and general policy. My last point—and the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—is that I understand that something like 60 per cent. of our bacon is still imported, so that there would appear to be ample room for improvement in both quantity and quality. Therefore, both from a balance of payments and from an agricultural point of view, the limit of expansion in that particular field has not yet been reached.
The White Paper indicates that further production of beef is desirable. In raising this point about pigs and giving the Minister an opportunity to say something which I hope will be encouraging, I would point out that this sort of thing in regard to pigs is not likely to be encouraging to beef producers. They are bound to have the fear that in three or four years, when they have extended their beef production and have their bullocks ready for the market, there will be a price review of this kind, and a sudden, unexpected and without-warning cut. They will say: "If it can happen to pigs, it can happen to beef. We must go easy and not get ourselves in too deeply." In other words, a hasty decision without due warning, without what the noble Lord called any "cushioning," is apt to spill over into other sections of agriculture and create that uneasiness which it should be the purpose of the Government to avoid.
There is one other aspect of agricultural matters to which I wish to refer, a point to which reference has already been made—namely, the Chancellor of the Exchequer's statement that some limit must be set to the "open-ended Exchequer liability." Noble Lords will remember that, when last year's White Papers on cereals and de-control and marketing came out, there were storms of protest from branches of the National Farmers' Union all over the country. In the main, the storm of protest was not, I think, due to any feeling that the deficiency payments were inadequate; it was really due to the fear of what the deficiency payments were going to cost the Treasury and to the realisation that, if they cost the Treasury too much, they would not be continued. That was really what was behind it: the fact that there was no kind of guaranteed market. It was, in fact, what the Chancellor of

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the Exchequer has now called an "open-ended Exchequer liability." The older farmers remembered that the Agriculture Act, 1920, was repealed in a year just because it put too heavy a liability on to the Treasury, and they were afraid of that happening again.
Their fear was heightened by what The Times agricultural correspondent described in the issue of February 15 as "disturbing talk." He wrote:
"But there is disturbing talk about the intentions of the millers and feedingstuff manufacturers after next harvest. Some are boasting that they will be able to play the market down to slump prices by holding off buying home-grown grain in the weeks after harvest when farmers will urgently want to sell."
These fears have been heightened further for farmers who have heard the millers talking about the various wheats that they will not be willing to buy at the next, or subsequent harvests. The farmer who had responded to appeals to increase wheat production by growing the higher yielding French soft wheats are naturally very much concerned as to what their position is to be. They were told—I have heard them being given the assurance—that, although there was no guaranteed market, there was virtually a guaranteed market because they could always sell at some price. That just accentuated their fear, because being able to sell at some price means an enormous deficiency payment and an enormous burden on the Treasury which obviously could not go on year after year. So the farmers were not concerned about the effect on themselves for the coming, harvest or possibly the one after, but the: long-term effect because of the Treasury position.
Now their fears are heightened still more by the fact that we are to hear more of this during the year in relation to the open-ended Exchequer liability and that there is some prospect of "quantification"—another horrible new word. I think it is quite unnecessary, as unnecessary as it is horrible, because it means either limitation of output or reduction of output. Why cannot we have it put in ordinary terms? Is it limitation of output, or reduction of output? Why talk about "quantification"? I do not think that limitation or reduction of output should be the remedy. It may be the only remedy if the Government's policy with regard to agriculture is to be determined only by narrow Tory
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doctrines and not by a realistic view of the actual situation. If their policy is to be based entirely on ideological grounds, and if agriculture is to be the only industry without protection and open to all the winds of free competition, all right—then probably "quantification" is the only remedy; the remedy is as horrible-sounding as it will prove to be in fact.
Surely, however, the common-sense method is some reasonable control over imports. Last year, the Government gave open licences for the import of grain, with the result that this country was flooded with imported grain just at the time when our harvest was being gathered. Surely a little reasonable regulation should correct that sort of thing. I would plead, even at this late hour, that there should be the retention of the Ministry of Food as a potential buyer if and when the price falls below some agreed minimum. It is only by such a method that one can ensure that the deficiency payments do not become an intolerable burden. I said at the beginning that I did not approach the White Paper with any great degree of hostility. If I had, and if we had in your Lordships' House the custom which I believe they have in the Parliaments of America, of reading things into the record, I would have read to your Lordships the article in this week's Farmer and Stockbreeder by Sir Rupert De La Bère, who I believe is a Conservative M.P., a farmer and former Lord Mayor of London. He says, much more savagely than I would venture to say in your Lordships' House, what he thinks of the Government's agricultural policy. I will do no more than read the final paragraph:
" I have said that the Government's present agricultural policy must result in a ghastly muddle. One of my constituents then retorted Don't be beastly to the Government, Sir Rupert! Why not say that the Government's agricultural policy is unfortunate in the extreme?' Unfortunate it certainly is."
May I suggest that there is still time for the Government to improve that unfortunate position?
5.34 p.m.
LORD JEFFREYS: My Lords, may I, in the first place, join with the noble Lord, Lord Archibald, in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Dalzell, on his maiden speech? I am

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sure that none of us has heard a clearer or better expressed speech than the noble Lord gave us to-night. To hear him gave great pleasure to those of us who knew well his father and his uncle, and I hope we shall often hear him again. Next may I say that I very much enjoyed the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, in opening this debate. Although I may not agree with him on every point, I think he put his points extraordinarily well and said many things with which many of your Lordships will agree. If I understood him aright, he said, amongst other things, that it was necessary to clarify the spending of public money on agriculture. I believe that that is very important, because some of the Government's policy has not always been easy to understand, whether or not it is considered sound. Then, in one of the last passages in his speech he suggested that the Prime Minister should write to farmers a message of encouragement, a message promising to keep farming in the favourable eye of the Government. In his own inimitable style the Prime Minister might do a great deal of good by sending such a message.
Now as regards the Motion, it seems to me that the policy outlined in the White Paper of November, 1953, and amplified in the White Paper referred to by the noble Earl, has been rendered necessary by the decision to end rationing and consequently to end trading (that is, buying and selling) by the Government, and, in fact, to end controls by the Government as soon as possible. So far, I believe the vast majority of the people, both farmers and consumers, will agree with the Government's decision; but that decision leaves the Government with the liability under the Agriculture Act, 1947, to secure to the farmers guaranteed prices. Adequate guaranteed prices are indeed necessary in view of the ever-increasing expenses, and especially in view of the greatly increased farm wages. In connection with producing the money which is necessary to implement the guaranteed price, whatever it may be, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Archibald, hat we ought not to rule out import duties. We have had them in the past—we had them before the war for certain purposes—and I believe that, suitably used, they provide the means for raising the money
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required to give the necessary prices to farmers for their produce.
The plans outlined in the White Papers, whatever they are considered to be, are not simple or easy to understand; but they have the advantage that, with the system of auctions, good quality products will command better prices. I believe that is an important matter. We heard a good deal last autumn about the indignation of farmers at the proposals in the White Paper. This may have been correct as regards some prominent and vocal members of the National Farmers' Union, but, in my county at any rate, my impression is that most farmers have received these proposals with equanimity even if not with enthusiasm. I doubt whether there is any very general feeling against them, though there are doubts as to how the meat-pricing scheme will actually work in practice. Meat is to be de-rationed and State trading is to end. But how the arrangements for the new guarantees are to work is not clear and, I think I may say, is not understood by most farmers.
The conditions of buying and selling by auction or otherwise have changed since pre-war days. Then, most butchers bought on the hoof, and, with their own men, killed animals in their own slaughterhouses. Now, in most towns there is only one slaughterhouse where all the killing takes place, and even if they were allowed to make use of them, very few butchers nowadays have their own slaughterhouses or any men who can slaughter. I believe that much clarification of the arrangement and procedure in this matter is required. Some are asking whether, now that milk marketing boards are to be revived, meat marketing boards might not be the means of solving this difficulty. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, can throw some light on this matter when he comes to reply. Paragraph 17 of the White Paper seems to suggest the possibility of such a course. Apart from the obligation about guaranteed prices. I wonder whether a new Agricultural Bill is not now needed. Much of the 1947 Act is intricate and involved; moreover, it perpetuates the system of controls and places additional functions on the successors of the war agricultural committees, the county agricultural committees, through which the Minister exercises his powers. The Minister has

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immense powers of control. He can authorise; he can refuse; he can direct; he can veto. All of these powers may have been necessary in war time, and some may be necessary in peace; but the degree of controls in the Act of 1947 is, I suggest to your Lordships, unnecessary. And while the return for controls—that is, guaranteed prices and assured markets—is, rightly, given to farmers, no return whatever, for all the controls they have to submit to, is given to landowners, who in very few cases get a reasonable return on their capital investment in land, and who are left with only a very small degree of control over their own property. The efficient farmer gets security of tenure—some people think that in these days he gets too much security. Sometimes that security is given to the inefficient farmers, and even to the positively bad farmers; and often keen young farmers cannot get farms because older men just sit tight, doing just as much as they must and no more. There is no such guarantee for the efficient landowner, and I submit to your Lordships—though I think many of you know it well—that there are many efficient landowners who cannot get one of their own farms for themselves, or their sons, because of the complete security of tenure given to all farmers, good, bad and indifferent, by the Act of 1947. To get rid of the bad farmer means long and expensive proceedings.
Everything in the 1947 Act (this was said by the Minister when introducing it) stands or falls by first-rate committee. And to be first-rate, they must be composed of good practical agriculturists. In many cases they are good; in others, they are less good. But however good they are, there is a limit to the amount of work that they themselves can do efficiently. And if the work is not done by the members of the Committees it is done by officials. I submit that that is thoroughly undesirable. The fact that officials have to do much of the work has resulted in increasing numbers on the staffs of committees, and that means increasing expense—that expense which the Chancellor of the Exchequer is looking at so carefully. It has resulted in increase of staff and increasing expense. Then, nowadays, there are quite a number of junior officials who are recent products of agricultural colleges. Largely because of the difficulty in getting farms, instead
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of gaining practical experience on farms which might make them really capable farmers, they go, after their course, as officials of course agricultural committees. And as such they are less good because they have had no practical experience of farming themselves.
My Lords, I doubt whether it is necessary or desirable that county agricultural executive committees should be responsible only to the Minister and should not be responsible to any local body, nor have to submit locally any report or statement of accounts. Such reports and statements should, in my submission, be rendered to county councils. County council agricultural committees which were practically abolished should be reconstituted, and should take over much of the work of county agricultural executive committees—if not, indeed, take their place altogether. The Status, though not the methods, of the county council agricultural committee might be comparable to the status of the county education committees. These committees also work under Government Departments, and also receive grants of Government money, but are composed partly of members of the county council and partly of those who have a special knowledge of education. I suggest that something very much on the same lines might be adopted with county agricultural executive committees. Or they might be compared to county police authorities, who administer the forces serving under Home Office regulations. In any case, their report and accounts can be discussed in the county council. Local criticism and local questions are of very great value; but at present there is none, because the county council do not get the opportunity.
Not enough is known of the doings of the present committees. Moreover, there is not sufficient uniformity of procedure in these committees. Some are far more open, and their activities far more widely known in their counties, than others. Some conduct inquiries without all the parties being notified or being given the chance to be present or represented. None of the committees, in fact, is subject to local criticism or local inquiry. I well remember some Members in another place, at the time when the war-time scheme was before that other place, urging strongly this suggestion which I have made. I recall that the noble Viscount. Lord Hudson, who is

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now a Member of your Lordships' House but who was then Minister of Agriculture, saying, No; that he must have these councils responsible to him and to the Ministry. I have no doubt that in war time he was perfectly right, but I suggest that the circumstances are quite different in times of peace. I remember, too, that at that time we were fortunate enough in my own county to have as chairman of the war agricultural executive committee the chairman of the county council; and to begin with, at any rate, he used to read to the county council a brief summary of the doings of the war agricultural committee. That was of the utmost value. It told people what was being done. There was no discussion on it; it was not a matter for the county council to discuss; but we did hear what was being done by the county committee. I suggest that something of the kind would be valuable at this time.
We are told, and we know it is a fact, that more home production is required, and home production has, in fact, increased. But in far too many cases there is toleration of the work of the indifferent farmer, the farmer whose farming is not good, whose land is none too clean. I do not wish to give the impression that they are in a majority or anything like a majority, but there are such farmers. I myself have seen noxious weeds—docks and thistles—growing in far too great profusion on farms which are apparently not frowned upon by the agricultural executive committee, and that is because officials of that committee have not walked right over the land. They go along the roads in motor cars, and what they can see from the roads is all right. If they went a field or two away from the roads they might see a good deal which they do not otherwise see. Those farmers whose land, as I say, is none too clean, whose stock is mediocre, who just pass muster with the local committees, are allowed to go on producing less in quantity and lower in quality than they should produce. Then there is the question of supervision. If farming is so bad as to call for supervision, ought not the tenancy to be ended and the farm re-let? I would say that in no circumstances ought committees to do—in fact none of them undertake such liabilities nowadays—what they certainly
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did do at one time, and that is take over the farms themselves. Nor ought they to spend our public money on stocking these farms. It would, I think, be a good thing if the committees' functions were more advisory and less executive than they are.
I greatly doubt whether the system of subsidies—and here I am well aware that I shall be in disagreement with many people—can really be justified; and I was interested to note that the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, to some extent criticised the system and suggested that a co-operative system would be much more efficient and much better for small men. I feel certain that that is a sound doctrine. I believe that subsidies are bad in principle. I think we ought not to spend money on such things if we can help it. And they are certainly expensive in practice. They mean more officials to administer them—and they cost money, apart from the money grants which, of course, are considerable. With adequate guaranteed prices it is better for farmers, generally speaking, to stand on their own feet rather than to be bolstered up by subsidies. I very much doubt the value of the calf-rearing subsidy. I very much doubt the value of the ploughing-up subsidy. I believe it has resulted in some cases in people ploughing up land which it would have been better not to plough up—good old pasture for instance. I am not sure about the value of the lime subsidy. I certainly know some people who have misused it. They have used it where it was not required. The only subsidy which I think is really useful—though not good in principle—is the fertiliser subsidy. In view of the price of fertilisers, a subsidy for the assistance certainly of the smaller farmers is of value.
For all these reasons, and, not least, with the object of reducing expenses, I believe that the 1947 Act should be replaced by a new one, and that the new Act should give more freedom to good farmers and to good landowners. The county committees, I believe, ought to be reconstituted as county council committees. Their functions ought to include county agricultural education, which is the only thing they do not control now—it is controlled by the county council. Their reports and accounts ought to be rendered to county councils, and everything possible should be done to reduce their expenses, including reduction of officials and office expenses.

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Agricultural land tribunals, which are complementary to the county committees, should be retained, and should be made use of to deal with bad and indifferent farmers. As I have already declared, I am far from saving that the number of these is large, but there are a good many of them and they ought to be dealt with. The procedure of these land tribunals ought to be speeded up and simplified. It is far too slow and cumbrous nowadays. I believe it is on these general lines that the 1947 Act should be improved and, in fact, replaced by a new Act more suitable to the conditions of peace, progress and economy and less based on war-time experience, which is a thing by itself.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

ROYAL COMMISSION
6.0 p.m.
The following Bills received the Royal Assent:

Cotton,

Pensions (Increase),

British Industries Fair (Guarantees and Grants),

Judges' Remuneration,

Dover Harbour Consolidation,

Towcester Rural District Council (Abthorpe Rating),

Wear Navigation and Sunderland Dock,

Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

AGRICULTURAL POLICY
6.28 p.m.
Debate resumed.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, despite the fact that my name is on the list of speakers, I had not intended to speak in this debate to-day, but I am inspired, perhaps I should say, to get on my feet for a brief moment by the loud and repeated blasts blown on what I might call a black and white trumpet, by the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, who I am sorry is not in his place at the moment. I note that the noble Viscount, Lord Hudson, who we are informed has assumed Presidential office over the
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Society of the British Friesians, is here, and no doubt I shall be "seen off" by him in due course. My purpose is to draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that there are breeds of milking cow in this country 'other than British Friesians. These, despite the improvements, remain the breed with the lowest butter fat average. Take the Guernsey breed, for instance, the breed which I know best. It is authoritatively considered that it is possible to keep five Guernseys on the amount of feeding-stuffs required for three and a half Friesians. If these Figures are related to the national milk production averages of the two breeds, there can be no doubt at all which is the mere efficient producer. I submit that the trumpet blast might better have been a small toot on a small flute.
6.30 p.m.
VISCOUNT HUDSON: My Lords, far be it from me, as temporary President, at all events, of the largest dairy breed society in the country, to indulge in any recrimination with owners of other breeds. I think the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, was wrong in the figures he quoted when he compared our lactation yields in this country with overseas, possibly with Denmark. If he had read the Annual Report on Production for 1953 of the Milk Marketing Board, he would have learnt that over the last ten years the average increase in yield per lactation is no less than 140 gallons in this country, which I venture to think is a remarkable tribute to the efficiency of British cow-keepers as a whole. It is quite true that rumour has it that the Friesian breed is perhaps not as popular as it might be with the Milk Marketing Board, because there is no doubt that, were it not for the large number of Friesians and for their remarkable annual production of milk, there would be no problem of surplus milk production in this country. But, having said that, I venture to disagree with the Government and to support the Milk Marketing Board in this question of milk production.
Frankly, I do not believe that there is any need to reduce production of milk in this country. The real problem before us is to increase its consumption. I am bold enough to prophesy that, provided we can institute a really effective milk publicity campaign, not only for the consumption

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of full milk but also, following the American example, for the production of a large number of milk by-products, we shall be able to sell the whole of the milk production of this country without having substantially to pay any rebates for the manufacture of milk into products such as dried milk powder. One of the main difficulties with which we, as a milk industry, are faced to-day, is the fact that, for reasons into which I need not go—and I do not propose to apportion blame—the Ministry of Food have accumulated stocks of many tens of thousands of tons of dried milk powder for which, at the moment, there is no market at all. That is hanging over the whole milk industry and is providing certain portions of the manufacturing part of the dairy industry with an excuse for saying that the residue of the production of cream has virtually no value at all.
As undoubtedly your Lordships know, skimmed milk happens to contain the whole of the nutrients of milk with the exception of fat. I have every reason to believe that, if we follow the American practice, where they have developed a market in what they call "cottage cheese," we can produce at home a rather better and better-keeping article than they have. Cottage cheese is probably the cheapest article of food, from the nutritional value point of view, that exists in the country and it ought to be possible to sell it at prices well below that of margarine. I suggest that your Lordships consider the value to the industrial portion of the inhabitants of the country—that is to say, to people in Liverpool, in the East End of London or in parts of Birmingham—if the housewife can be provided with a spread that is both attractive to eat, and, above all, of extreme nutrition. Therefore. I believe that the future of milk depends largely on the invention by our scientists and our creamery proprietors of a whole series of milk by-products, as one may call them, and on getting them eaten and drunk by the population as a whole. If we can do that, I am certain that it will be unnecessary to give any rebates for milk for manufacture. I do not say it is going to happen to-morrow, because obviously there is unfortunately, a great prejudice at present against skimmed milk. But of its nutritional value there is no doubt at all.
LORD SILKIN: Would the noble Viscount agree that skimmed milk is of great value, at a price, in pig feeding and that, if the price could be related to what the, pig feeder could pay, it could be of immense value?
VISCOUNT HUDSON: Yes; but surely, from a national point of view, with the present high cost of living to an enormous number of the human inhabitants of this country, it is fantastic, if I may use the word, to give pigs a product of extreme nutritional value. I produce pigs and I agree that I could use skimmed milk for improving their quality, but I would much sooner feed skimmed milk to Members of Parliament in another place. But I am literally stopped from doing that by their prejudice. It is unbelievable.
Now may I turn to the debate as a whole. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, has asked a number of questions of my noble friend on this Bench, but it struck me, if I may say so without offence, that the right thing would be for us to ask him questions, to ask him what his remedy and the remedy of his Party is for the existing state of affairs. We heard from the two noble Lords behind him who have now left, Lord Wise and Lord Archibald, a destructive criticism from a purely Party point of view, as I thought, of the Government White Paper. I should like to ask the noble Earl—and I hope he will not be too shy to answer—what his policy and the policy of his Party is. He talked about the spending of national money. If his Party were in power, or if they ever come back into power, are they going to spend more money or less?
The noble Lord, Lord Archibald, said he was in favour of limiting the imports of food, but have we heard the last of the "Cheap food" cry from the Party opposite? That is what it involves. The noble Lord, Lord Wise, in a speech which I can only describe as an apologia beforehand for every poor farmer in this country so that he can be provided with excuses for not producing the maximum of which he is capable, suggested a number of changes. Are they approved? He criticised what we are doing. Does it mean that he approves of the opposite? I hope the noble Earl is not going to be too shy to answer, because I am sure that we, and the country at large. should in the light of all these criticisms know what the alternative policy is.

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The noble Lord, Lord Jeffreys, criticised the 1947 Act for giving excessive security to the poor farmer. As I have indicated before, the real gravamen against the 1947 Act, whatever its authors may have wished it to do, is that over the years that it was in operation it led both sides of the industry to believe that it did not matter what costs were incurred or how inefficient the industry was; they would always be met and made good in the subsequent Price Review. Despite that incentive to less efficiency, one of the interesting problems that we are met with today, certainly in the white countries of the world—I hope to develop this point later when, on April 28, we debate world problems in this connection—is the quite unprecedented or, at all events unforeseen improvement in production, in productivity and in efficiency that has taken place both in this country and in the United States. I was in the United States in October of last year, and it is really astonishing to see the progress that agriculture has made there since the days when I used to know it in the First World War and between the wars.
I do not think there is any doubt but that one of the reasons for the apparent surplus which is overhanging the world to-day is that the farmers of this country, and for that matter of Europe and of the United States, have made progress in efficiency and production away beyond anything that we thought possible. Therefore I believe that the problem is really one of consumption. I think that over a comparatively short period, as time goes on we shall find that the increase of population will take care of a great deal of this increased production. I do not know whether your Lordships have, as I have, always thought that India presented the classical case of a very rapidly increasing population outstripping the food supplies that could be cultivated. I was very astonished last October in New York to be told by a member of the Food and Agriculture Organisation who happened to be there that the population of the United States per thousand is increasing appreciably faster than that of India, and that the population of Canada, quite apart from immigration, is increasing over twice as fast. I have forgotten the exact figures, but they were of the order of 13 per thousand annually for India, 17 per thousand for the United States, and no fewer than 28 per thousand for
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Canada. Therefore, in face of increases in demand of that kind, and provided that there is a rise in the standard of living, I personally am not afraid that the problem of surplus will become unmanageable. Certainly so far as this country is concerned, in regard to milk, I believe that we ought to be able to solve the problem without too much difficulty.
VISCONT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I should like to know, in connection with that conversation in the United States, whether those comparative figures, which are most interesting, relate to birth rates, or to the increase of population including immigration?
VISCOUNT HUDSON: So far as India and the United Slates are concerned, the figures are net increases per thousand. So far as Canada is concerned, they are net increases per thousand apart from immigration, which makes it really an impressive figure indeed—28 compared to 13, apart from immigration. I ventured to suggest just now that, whatever the authors had intended, the 1947 Act—and I must accept some responsibility for it, as one of the earlier authors—as it has been administered has resulted in a decrease of incentive to efficiency, because everyone knew that, however large the costs were, they would be more or less covered. Therefore, I think that one of the most hopeful things that has happened for agriculture has been that, for the first time, in the 1954 Review prices have been reduced.
I do not in the least agree with the Jeremiad of Lord Wise, in saying that, because prices have been decreased, the ordinary farmer is not going to work hard and increase his production. On the contrary, in my opinion, broadly speaking, we divide farmers into two classes. There are the good ones, who, as I have said previously, farm because they love it and want to do their farming really well; and there are also those (I should hesitate to say their numbers or proportion) in this country, as in other countries, who have adapted themselves to a comparatively low standard of living. An increase in price does not, in the case of these people, increase production; it does not increase their incentive. On the contrary, if the price they get for their products is increased, in my view it makes

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it easier for them to live at the low standard to which they are accustomed. I believe that in many of these cases the biggest incentive to increased production would be the reduction of prices, because then they must either improve their methods and increase production or go bankrupt. I think the recent reductions in price that were announced in the last Review will not affect the good farmer and may well have some effect in trying to stir up the poor farmer.
The noble Lord, Lord Wise, quoted a case which illustrates, if I may say so without offence, the appalling innate suspicion of members of the Party opposite. He talked about the £120,000 less that a bacon factory somewhere was going to give for the pigs that the farmer produced; and he assumed—goodness knows why, unless it is because of his native suspicion—that that £120,000 was going into the pockets of the shareholders of the factory. I am not at all sure that he is as naïve as all that. Of course, what will happen is that that money will go into the pockets of the taxpayer, because the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be able to reduce the subsidy which he would otherwise have to pay. I do not know whether Lord Wise realises that at the present moment the annual subsidy on British bacon is of the order of £25 million sterling. That seems to me to be an excessively high subsidy. I hope that everyone agrees with me on that. By bringing prices down, and by cutting out the indifferent bacon pig producer, improving efficiency to the extent that we are going to cut down the money given to the pig producer and still leave the efficient producer with an adequate return, we are saving money for the Exchequer and the taxpayer. Perhaps the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, will tell me whether he disapproves of that. It would be interesting to know, because the assumption underlying Lord Wise's statement was that on behalf of the farmer he disapproved of this reduction in the price that he was getting for his pigs.
My Lords, I think I have dealt with Lord Bledisloe's observations. My final word would be this. The unfortunate Minister of Agriculture, Sir Thomas Dugdale, has been widely criticised and abused over the last year or so. Perhaps
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even the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, has suffered in his turn. But I think that Sir Thomas Dugdale now deserves a word of praise from us all. In very difficult circumstances he has produced a White Paper which has met with general acceptance from the farming community. The contents of the Paper have met, or they should have met, with considerable praise from the taxpayer via the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and, quite frankly, I think that the reception that the Minister has had so far has been rather mean. I have not seen any word of praise for him, and I think we might well conclude this debate by giving him a word of praise for his activities, for the way he has behaved and for the success that he has had so far.
6.49 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I should be the last person to refrain from giving a word of praise to a Minister, of whatever Party he is, if he has been successful in regard to agriculture, one of the great industries of the country. It seems to me a little significant that the noble Viscount, Lord Hudson, has to get up on that side of the House and say that he has seen no word of praise, and that he is the first to give it. If he has found something to praise I should be the last to deny him the gratification of doing so. Probably what he means is that the White Paper is perhaps not quite so bad for farmers as the farmers expected it to be, because the Minister of Agriculture fought a great fight against other members of the Government who were intent upon pressing a more deflationary policy on him.
VISCOUNT HUDSON: I hope the noble Viscount will answer the question that I put to him—namely, do the Labour Party approve or disapprove of the reduction in prices that have been given to the farmers?
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I am very critical of the Review of prices which has taken place, not so much because of the individual items but because it is an indication of what the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, referred to as "the thin edge of the wedge." I say that any fair reading of the White Paper would reveal that the whole gist of the Government's intention

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and policy is to be found in Paragraph 13, and I think that is perfectly plain. That paragraph says:
"Further consideration will be given to means of limiting the dependence of the industry on Exchequer assistance; for example, relating guarantees to levels of output of particular commodities as in the case of the new financial arrangements for milk."
I would also criticise the Review from the point of view of the complete misconception which the Government evidently have about what farmers ere thinking. In Paragraph 11 they are trying to get away with the statement that:
"In future, home agriculture cannot be asked to produce a given amount of a particular commodity irrespective of cost. To do so in present circumstances would place an undue strain on the national economy and would handicap our competitive power in world markets."
VISCOUNT HUDSON: I am most grateful to the noble Viscount. Presumably then, the opposite is true and the Labour Party are in favour of allowing agriculture to dip to an unlimited extent into the national till.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: It is not the slightest use the noble Viscount trying to put words into my mouth. I shall make my own speech and argument, and I will reply to him in due course.
Let us take the last quotation I made; that really has been the main burden of the noble Viscount's speech. Taking his argument to its logical conclusion, it means the more prices to the farmer are reduced, the more production he will be persuaded to put before the country.
VISCOUNT HUDSON: I hope the noble Viscount will persuade them of that in every rural constituency in the country.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: That is confirming what is in the White Paper.
LORD CARRINGTON: No, it is not.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: Let us see if this view is confined to myself. Let us take a very fair umpire on it, the agricultural correspondent of the Conservative weekly, the Essex County Standard, the newspaper that has the largest circulation in my Parliamentary Division and the largest circulation in the constituency of the
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Chancellor of the Exchequer. What does that say? Under black type, with the heading "A False Implication" it says this:
"The White Paper says: In future, home agriculture cannot be asked to produce a given amount of the particular commodity, irrespective of cost.' The implication here it utterly false. Home agriculture has never been asked to do any such thing.
"What the Minister really means is: In future home agriculture cannot be asked to produce a given amount of a particular commodity, if we can get it cheaper somewhere else.'"
That is a notable continent to come from a Conservative weekly newspaper from the constituency of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. There is one other point I want to mention before I give a final answer to the noble Viscount's urgent question—that is, the way in which the difficulty is switched, concerning the money that is spent. It is no longer a consumer subsidy which has been reduced as far as possible: it is put down as a sort of grant in aid to the farmer. Two hundred million pounds is supposed to be a direct aid to the farmer. It is an unfair position and greatly resented by the National Farmers' Union.
Let us take another passage from the same Conservative source, the Essex County Standard. It says:
"The Ministry Press notice says that the cost of supporting home agriculture is now of the order of £200 million a year. This has been widely commented on, with varying degrees of understanding in the Press and on the air. There are several things which the amateur economists choose to ignore, if indeed they are aware of them."
The noble Viscount, Lord Hudson, should especially listen to the next part, because it actually agrees with the policy which he instituted in 1940–45:
"The first is that though this support is costing £200 million a year now, last year was the first, and could possibly be the last, for this degree of support to be given. It was due largely to an exceptional harvest in this country, overshadowed by good harvests in most of the main grain exporting countries …."
Then the writer goes on to point out that in fact most of the supporting money has been given for most of the period to farmers when, if they had been able to have a free sale in oar own country at world market prices, they would have been better off than with the support. That is the actual position; they were getting this money and control on top of it although they were not allowed to

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sell at the highest prices ruling in the world market.
The real position is that the Government are steadily running away from their published promise, as contained in the Act of 1947, to guarantee prices. They intended to begin, in my judgment and opinion, from the moment they refused to sign any longer the International Agreement on Wheat. That was one of the major Government actions in the beginning of this policy, and its effect upon confidence, as well as upon prices to British farmers, has been evident ever since then. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, does not seem to want to hear this, but if noble Lords want to see how that was followed up they have only to look at the manner in which the winding up of food controls has led to the Minister of Food dumping stocks on to the market at the very time when farmers were trying to market their produce. And not only were quantities of their stocks marketed; the Government also granted more and more import licences for barley to be brought in from Iraq and all sorts of other odd places, in order to make it much more difficult for the farmer. If Ministers do not really understand the situation, let them go down to the districts in my part of Essex and talk to the farmers, who still have last season's corn stacked because they could not sell it.
LORD CARRINGTON: I should not like that statement to go out uncontradicted. Any farmer can get his corn taken by the Ministry of Food within twenty-eight days of offering it.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: He can get it taken at a price, but farmers complain to me that they have offered grain again and again—
LORD CARRINGTON: I do not want to interrupt the noble Viscount again, but I should not like it to go out that this is the correct situation, because it is not so. They get it taken at the correct price offered last year by the Ministry of Food. It was a fixed price, and all farmers who offered corn received the fixed price which was agreed at the Annual Review made the year before last. And all corn offered to the Ministry of Food was taken off the farms within twenty-eight days.
VISCOUNT HUDSON: The noble Viscount might also explain how, if corn was still stacked, it could be offered to the Ministry of Food. That defeats me, as a farmer.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I should not think it is unusual in the case of many farmers who have been holding their grain to get the benefit of a seasonal change in the price. They offer it for a certain date, and arrange to get it threshed for that date. I have discussed this with many farmers. The noble Viscount probably did not hear the talk given on television the other night by a very reliable man, Alderman Cobbold of Suffolk. He explained how much grain he had still in his store because of the effect of the policy of the Government.
VISCOUNT HUDSON: All I can say is that these people seem to have been very successful in pulling the noble Viscount's leg.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: The farmers' legs have been pulled by promises to maintain the 1947 Act which the Government are certainly not doing. Let me add one other comment about the noble Viscount's attitude to this matter. It is not true to say that money has been paid out unnecessarily at any time in order to induce production. A responsibility has always been laid upon those in the farming industry to show that the prices they were asking were justified by their costs. Even under the Act as administered by the Labour Government, as the noble Viscount knows, they did not always get what they asked in that respect; it was based entirely on guarantees. I say that this kind of policy—though I hope that it will not prove so—may well be the thin edge of the wedge leading to a renewal of the policy of 1920–21.
The noble Viscount spoke rather slightingly of some farmers who, he said, would be squeezed out by reason of their own inefficiency and would become bankrupt. If you take note of the bankruptcies of farmers between 1921 and 1925 you will find that their number is legion. Farmers were squeezed out from the beginning, as a result of the process whereby the farming industry was the first to be attacked under the economy proposals of 1920–21. As the noble Viscount, Lord

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Bledisloe, pointed out, it is a fact that 88 per cent. of the farmers in this country are farming one hundred acres or less. When you make an attack upon those farmers' prices, you are making an attack virtually on their wages. Directly that becomes the case with the small farmer it begins to spread to the others.
VISCOUNT HUDSON: A large proportion of the small farmers do not pay any wages. They depend entirely on their family labour to run their farms.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I should have thought that the noble Viscount would have understood the point I was making—that is, that when you attack the prices paid to these people you attack the actual wage which the small farmer has to spend on himself. Directly that becomes the case with regard to the small farmer the same attitude begins to spread to the workers employed on other farms. Let us look at how it worked in the period 1920–21. By 1919, after a lot of struggle, the agricultural labourer had got his wages raised to 46s. a week. When I went to the Board of Trade as Parliamentary Secretary in 1924, I found the agricultural worker's wage already down to 24s. a week. That had come about within three years. The noble Viscount knows that a policy of deflation proceeding at that rate is likely to affect the whole country. It immediately affects other industries, just as it did in 1920–21. We should be sufficiently intelligent to understand that. It was the agricultural worker who was first placed out of work in 1921, and this had its effect on the rest of the community.
Let me see what support there is for my argument. There is a gentleman with whom I do not very often agree, either as a broadcaster or in his rôle as correspondent of the Farmer's Weekly—Mr. A. G. Street. I see that in the issue of the Farmer's Weekly for April 2 he draws attention to a query he received as to the reason why British farmers' purchases of cement and other building materials have been diminishing since the last harvest and are still continuing so to do. He then writes:
" It seems to me that the answer is fairly obvious—it is because they are pursuing a policy of caution."
I would put for "caution" there "because of lack of confidence." Mr. Street goes on:
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" After farming for more than a dozen years on a certainty, being now faced with a question mark, that policy was Inevitable…One result of the loss of £30 million in farm income must be that farmers will spend approximately that much less in purchases from their town cousins,"
This kind of approach to a policy for agriculture is not going to get the country out of its difficulties. Just consider the extent to which machinery and better buildings have contributed to the improved efficiency and increased output of the farming industry, and have also, at the same time, contributed a large amount to the prosperity of industries generally in this country. In the last few years since the war, I think that something over £250 million has been spent by the farming industry in general in machinery alone. To hear the criticisms by economists and people who support this particular Conservative policy, anyone would think that all this money had gone into the pockets of the farmers. Nothing of the sort. It has been a part of the maintenance of the national economy of the country, and a very important one indeed during a period of difficulty. I suggest that what the Government need to do at the present time s to make it clear whether they are going to carry on the Agriculture Act, 1947, or not. The noble Viscount knows—the question put by my noble friend himself has made it clear—that he does not want the 1947 Act continued.
The Sunday newspaper, the Observer, made it perfectly clear on the first issue of this White Paper that it was decidedly pleased with the Government. Of course, it thinks the Government have not gone nearly far enough yet in the direction of deflation. There are a lot of people like the noble Viscount and the editor of the Observer who feel like that. But I can assure your Lordships that the agricultural worker does not feel that way at all. He, like the farmer, has no confidence in the future whilst this kind of policy is being pursued. As my noble friends have pointed out, there is every indication in the White Paper that this policy is going to be pursued, even in the current financial year, in further downward directions. That has also been indicated by the statement, which has already been quoted, in the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Appeals have been made to keep agriculture out of the arena of Party politics. I must say that, having

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listened to the noble Viscount, I did not see why I should specially keep it out of the realm of Party controversy. Certainly it is going to be controversial.
I could engage in almost as great controversy with the noble Viscount on his pet subject of Friesians and other forms of dairy cattle, but I do not think there is time enough for that. I will say only that I felt a good deal of sympathy with Lord Chesham in his challenge to the noble Viscount on that point. What is needed especially is to give confidence to the farmers. The noble Viscount says that they accepted the White Paper last year. Did they? We have been waiting for a long-term policy on agriculture from the Government for more than two years. It is nearly two years since the Minister of Agriculture told an audience up North that he hoped to be able to publish it very shortly. We have not had it yet. There was a series of temporary measures forecast in the White Paper last November. I shall be interested to hear whether the answers the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, may give to my noble friend who opened the debate will confirm my impression, because they will be a pretty good answer to the question. Let me emphasise this point about British agriculture. I live and farm a little in a district in which the rainfall is not so much as in the area in which the noble Viscount, Lord Hudson, farms. Our rainfall last year was 16·7 inches. I expect that down in the area of the noble Earl, Lord Fortescue, the average rainfall is about 40.
EARL FORTESCUE: Sixty.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: When we are talking about agriculture, we must have some regard to the many different conditions of the various areas with which the Ministry of Agriculture has to deal. I am sure the noble Viscount has had experience of that. Rarely do we have two or three successive summers like last summer, followed by an autumn so mild that farmers were able to do many kinds of work they could not do in previous seasons. When we have to deal with areas which had little rainfall during the summer and then had rains in the autumn, we have an entirely different picture and an output altogether different. What we want to
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get from the Ministry is enough confidence for the farmer. We shall not get that by vague talk about support prices but by implementing, in fact, the 1947 Act, so that prices in the Review are fixed in accordance with the costs, leaving a margin of the price to be made up by increased efficiency. That would give confidence not only to farmers but also to the workers who at this moment are suffering from other decisions of the Government. Too often we overlook the fact that the removal of subsidies so quickly has such reverberations upon industry that the cost of nearly everything the farmer has to buy goes up. If the Government deal with actual costs in the Price Review, instead of letting people remain in a kind of Alice-in-Wonderland state of wondering what is going to turn up, they will have some chance of maintaining the great progress that has been made in the last fourteen years as the result of the policy of the Coalition Government and the Labour Government.
7.14 p.m.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, we have frequent debates on agriculture in your Lordships' House and, looking round the House, it may seem to some noble Lords that they are perhaps too frequent. Certainly I can say that in the sphere of home affairs the agricultural situation has been changing rapidly. I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for raising his Motion this evening. If I may say so, he introduced it in his usual very agreeable way, and he was at his most courteous and most inquisitive. I hope that I shall be able to answer his questions, of which he has given me notice, as I go along. Having regard to the speech from the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, to which we have just listened, I am very glad I have this opportunity of once again making clear the Government's agricultural policy.
For some time past we have been in rather a difficult position. The industry has been undergoing changes which are of great importance and interest to farmers, but, while the changes were being made, and while the negotiations were going on with farmers and other interests concerned, we have been able to give the farmers very little definite information about the future. Most of the time, when questions have been

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asked we have been able to say little more in reply than that negotiations were proceeding and we promised that we would not let the industry down. The process of change is not yet complete but we have reached a significant stage, because I think your Lordships—with the exception of the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough—will agree that the main pattern for the future has emerged. A change of the kind which the Government are making, a change from the rigidly controlled economy of war time and of the Socialist Government to the economics of free markets and free enterprise, cannot be accomplished all at once. Much hard work has had to be done to ensure that the new arrangements which would take the place of war-time controls would be both workable and acceptable to those who are most affected by them.
During the past two years the results of this work have been announced by degrees, and by now I think that enough information has been put out to enable your Lordships to see clearly the shape of things to come. Our policy is clear. It now remains for us to make sure that this policy is properly understood and vigorously applied by the farming community. Perhaps I may just remind your Lordships of the essential steps in the development of this policy and in this process of transition from scarcity to plenty, from controls to freedom. First of all, after the 1952 Annual Review, the Government announced an expansion programme which would raise net output to 60 per cent. above pre-war. This goal is now well in sight—we have reached 56 per cent. above pre-war. But this year we have re-defined the means of getting to the 60 per cent. under present conditions.
During 1953 we announced our proposals for ending war-time controls, State trading and rationing, and we outlined long-term guarantee arrangements and marketing structure. The noble Earl will recall the White Paper of November of last year. Now, in 1954, we have filled in the picture by setting out the redefined production policy, by linking this with decontrol, with marketing policy, with a progressive reduction in agricultural subsidies, and with a harder drive for higher quality and lower costs. We have fixed guarantees that are in line
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with this policy of adjustment to the new conditions but maintain the principles of the Agriculture Act, 1947. Our conclusions and our aims are set out in the 1954 White Paper on the Annual Review which we are discussing this evening. In general, they have been accepted by the leaders of the National Farmers' Unions.
These are the most important developments of policy which are set out in the White Paper. Most important of all, we have considered the future shape of farming in this country. We have again declared that it is possible—and not only possible but desirable—to raise net output to 60 per cent. above pre-war. But we have accepted some slowing down in the rate of expansion towards this objective. This is for two main reasons. First, on the production side, we must recognise that the rate of expansion in the tillage area and in beef production, to which the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, drew attention, is slower than we expected, and we do not now expect to see an increase in tillage of as much as a million acres—the tillage objective that we suggested in 1952. As I shall explain in a moment, we shall try to achieve the same thing in a different way.
Secondly, on the marketing side, we must recognize—and this, I think, completely escaped the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough—that we can do with more milk, pigs, and, possibly, eggs only if we can get down costs of production and widen our markets. So we cannot make up for the lack of tillage and beef by going out immediately for still more milk, pigs and eggs. Nevertheless, we shall expect to get our net output up to 60 per cent. above the pre-war figure by 1957 or 1958. We should then be producing in this country at least half the food that we consume, as compared with about one-third before the war. The directions in which we shall have to look for this are set out in Paragraph 42 of the White Paper. Perhaps f might reiterate them. They are: more beef, and perhaps more mutton and lamb—"perhaps," because the question of cost comes into it—a continued steady improvement in crop yields; and the saving of feed imports by more ley farming, by improved management and use of grass, and by skill and economy in the use of concentrated feeding stuffs. I need hardly

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say that to extend and increase ley farming means farming by the well-tried rotational principles, and not "dog and stick" farming.
The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, asked me what we thought about tillage, and what we thought the optimum tillage acreage should be. As we have said in the White Paper, the Government are not fixing targets. It would be wrong, and I think misleading, for us to attempt to do so under the freer conditions into which we have moved. We are merely suggesting the general lines on which we think production should develop. We do not want to see less, and we should certainly like to see more. We do not say that 60 per cent. above the pre-war level is the limit, but in present conditions it will take us all our time to reach this figure by 1957 or 1958; and after that further expansion must depend on reducing costs and improving quality. We certainly hope that our farmers will be able to achieve that reduction in costs and improvement in quality. This is facing up to the facts, and giving to the agricultural industry a challenge which we expect them to be ready to take up—which, it seems, is more than the noble Viscount expects. In the freer economy we cannot lay down the precise production targets that can be set by planners in a world of scarcities. Nevertheless, we have gone a long way in the White Paper to give general guidance about all the main commodities. We have given, commodity by commodity, the Government's views on market prospects.
However, it is up to each farmer to decide for himself what adjustments, if any, he should make to his farming system. We want him to go on observing the rules of good husbandry, but in so doing he will be free to produce what best suits his pocket and his farm. I might add that in carrying out this policy the county agricultural executive committees and their district committees have an important part to play in giving local leadership and guidance to their fellow-farmers and landowners. We hope that their help will be freely called on by the farming community in their areas, for they are in a position to suggest how methods of farming can be adapted so as to make full use of modern techniques and to secure the wise management of all available resources. I know that I
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am speaking for all your Lordships in saying how much we appreciate the valuable work which these committees have done in the past, and how we know we can rely on them to carry on in these new conditions. As I have said, we have given our appraisal of the outlook of the situation, commodity by commodity, and I do not intend to go through it again—it is all set out in the White Paper.
I should, however, like to say a few words on the subject of milk, because the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, asked me a question about what he thought was an apparent conflict of policy between the Government and the Milk Marketing Board. On milk, the main difference is that, instead of accepting the results of the increased yield per cow on top of the production we now have, we need to offset in some way these increased yields (which are desirable because they mean lower costs per gallon) so as not to increase the total output. The best way of doing this seems to be to reduce the total number of dairy cows a little, and that is the adjustment that we have suggested. We hope that it may be possible to combine this with the production of more beef. I know that the Milk Marketing Board hope to be able to push up consumption of liquid milk and to find the most profitable outlets for manufacturing milk; and they hope in this way to be able to get a good market for all the milk that is likely to be produced.
We expect that the restoration of marketing powers to the Milk Marketing Boards will help considerably with future marketing problems; but there are some very real and serious problems before them. Liquid milk consumption has been going down in the last two years at the rate of about 2 per cent. per annum, though there is some evidence that this trend may be levelling out. Milk for manufacture next year is likely to be well above even this year's gallonage and more than in any peak year before the war. At the same time, the manufacturing milk market for some products is not strong at present, owing to stocks that have been built up, and in other cases the possibilities of finding a remunerative outlet are limited. We know that a campaign is being launched by the Boards and the milk trades to stimulate consumption, but this will take time to have effect. We fully agree with the Milk

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Marketing Boards and the trades in wanting to see an expansion in the liquid milk market, though the first step will be to recover the 4 per cent. fall in consumption that has taken place over the last two years—and I am afraid that even this would not make a very big impression on the manufacturing milk supplies.
So it seems to us that, if the Milk Marketing Boards are to have a manage-able problem, it is desirable at least to stabilise milk output, and we cannot really afford to let it go on increasing, in the hope that the Milk Marketing Boards will be able to solve these problems very quickly. On the other hand the stabilisation, or slight reduction, that we have advised does not 'mean any drastic change when one considers that the total output is of the order of 2,000 million gallons a year.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I am rather disturbed by one thing, and I do not want to go away with a wrong impression, The noble Lord said that the Government could not afford to allow this to go on for a long time. Does that mean that they contemplate a further change in milk prices in the current financial year?
LORD CARRINGTON: Of course it does not mean that we contemplate further changes in milk prices in the current financial year. As the noble Viscount knows, the milk price has been settled for next year in the Annual Review. What I am saying is that now that the Milk Marketing Board have been given back their powers, they are faced with a great problem. Liquid milk consumption has been going down, although, quite rightly, they are hoping to expand milk consumption. We felt that it would be wrong if we handed them a problem which seemed to us unmanageable. Therefore, we have taken the steps we have. The stabilisation, or the slight reduction, we have advised really does not mean any drastic change. I hope the noble Viscount will agree with that. That, as I have said, is our advice, though at the same time we wish success to the Milk Marketing Boards and the milk trades in their efforts to expand the liquid milk market. If the noble Viscount looks a t paragraph 35 of the White Paper, he will
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see that we say that any further expansion in output seems to us to depend on the extent to, which the market for liquid milk can be expanded.
These adjustments on pigs and milk are examples of the modifications that must be expected from time to time. But whenever such changes are made, we shall, of course, give as much firm guidance as possible, and we will allow time for farmers to adjust themselves. I hope that every farmer will study carefully the guidance we have given, and will decide for himself the part that he and his farm can best play. The prices for next year have been clearly set out in the White Paper, and I do not intend to go through them. It is difficult to make any precise forecast of the elect of this settlement on farmers' incomes. The market will be the main determining factor. In the case of net income, much will also depend on movements in costs and improvements in efficiency. But it is possible that gross incomes may fall by about £30 million in a full year. But as regards net income, this may turn out to be lower next year than it has been this year. That is very uncertain, because it depends on a great many other factors, quite apart from the level of the guarantees. For instance, just to give one example, a rise in efficiency at the rate of recent years is worth about £20 million. Taking all these factors into account, we think that this is a fair and a just settlement and will ensure farmers a reasonable return. It has, as your Lordships know, the agreement of the three unions. The effect on the Exchequer liability will be a reduction of about £30 million in a full year.
We have also reached an important stage in the development of marketing arrangements to suit the new conditions. By 1955–56, only wool and sugar beet will be subject to fixed prices. The restoration of the Milk Marketing Board's powers is going smoothly, and I have already explained what the Board's objects will be. The Farmers' Union proposals for a voluntary Fatstock Marketing Board have now been formally submitted and will be put through the statutory examination as quickly as possible. We have also welcomed the Farmers' Union's enterprise in forming a marketing company in the meantime. if cannot give the noble Earl many details about this company because. of course, that is a matter

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for the National Farmers' Union, and not the Government. I think it is understood that the company will be ready to start operations as from the date of decontrol, and, so far as one can see, the operations will be widespread throughout the country.
The Government have put before the unions definite proposals for the way guarantees could be worked through an Egg Marketing Board. The way has been cleared at the Annual Review, ill agreement with the unions, for a Potato Marketing Board, and I understand that a scheme is likely to be put forward in the near future. The deficiency payments arrangements for cereals have been worked out and made public, and we shall be giving the fullest possible publicity throughout the countryside to the detailed arrangements, particularly for cereals and fatstock, so that farmers may have all the advice they need about the working of the new arrangements. My noble friend Lord Jeffreys said that many farmers were a little uncertain about the way in which this fatstock marketing scheme would work. We have already put out a certain amount of propaganda, but we intend to have another leaflet ready shortly with the full details clearly set out.
The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, asked me about the number of beef calves. It is impossible to separate from the June returns which are beef calves and which are dairy replacements, but I think it can be fairly assumed that any increases in numbers are increases in beef, because the dairy replacements, if anything, tend to go down rather than to go up. This is a bad time to ask this question, because we are just coming up to another June 4 return. The last full figures we have are for June 4. 1953, which is quite some time ago, but the figures are these. In the year ended June, 1952, we estimate that 2,141.000 calves were reared in the United Kingdom, and in the year ended June, 1953, the figure was 2,283.000, which is an increase of 142,000. As I say, I am afraid it is impossible to distinguish between beef and dairy calves, but it certainly looks as if we shall take a little longer than we thought to reach the extra 400,000 calves per annum which we originally said we wanted by the end of 1956. The noble Earl also asked me, and gave me notice of his ques-
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tion, about the progress of the Hill Farming and Livestock Rearing Acts. There are quite a few figures, and I do not know whether the noble Earl wants me to read them now or whether he will be satisfied if I send them to him.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: I leave that to the noble Lord's judgment. If he feels that the House might find it rather burdensome to sit longer, I should be perfectly happy, for my part, to receive the information by post.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: Could it not be done as it is done in the House of Commons—circulated in Hansard?
LORD CARRINGTON: I think that can only be done in reply to a Question, but I may be wrong. I can assure the noble Earl that the schemes are going well and that we have approved a great many this year. May I give him just one figure? The estimated cost on March 31, 1953, was £18,400,000 and on March 31 this year, £23,300.000. I think that is fairly satisfactory. The noble Earl and other noble Lords have talked about the limitation of Exchequer liability. Perhaps I may be allowed to say a word about this. What the Chancellor of the Exchequer said in his speech on the Budget followed very closely the line which was taken by paragraph 13 of the White Paper. The new financial arrangements for milk provide an example of the way in which the effect of changes in market prices may be shared between the Government and producers. The milk arrangements, as the noble Earl knows, provide for a profit and loss sharing arrangement on a proportion of the milk sold off farms. This is part of the arrangements for limiting the amount of Exchequer help. How far it will be possible to apply similar arrangements to other commodities is a question which is now being studied, and there will, of course, be consultation with the farmers' representatives in due course. It will be desirable, as, indeed, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said, to reach some conclusions on this problem during the year.
The figure of £200 million which the White Paper gives as a rough estimate of the total cost of agricultural subsidies is a very large figure indeed. It is obviously in the interests, not only of the taxpayers but of the industry, that the figure should

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be got down, and that when fixing guaranteed prices the Government should have a clear idea of what their implementation is going to cost during the coming year. This, I emphasise, does not necessarily mean that producers' incomes win have to be cut. My noble friend Lord Bledisloe asked whether the penny reduction on milk will be passed on to the consumers. The short answer to that is that there is a large consumer subsidy on milk—something in the region of £40 million—and the penny will be spent in reducing the Exchequer subsidy. I should like to join with other noble Lords in congratulating my noble friend Lord Hamilton of Dalzell on his maiden speech, to which I am sure your Lordships listened with interest. My noble friend Lord Jeffreys raised the large topic of the amendment of the 1947 Act. I do not suppose he would expect me to go into it this evening. All I can say is that the 1947 Act has not been working very long. It was an agreed measure between all Parties, and I think it true to say that, by and large, it is working very well. We should think carefully before we start making drastic amendments. Lastly—and I am afraid that he has just left—I come to the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: Perhaps the noble Lord would allow me to say that my noble friend asked me to apologise for him as he has to catch a train to the country.
LORD CARRINGTON: I really cannot let some of the things that the noble Viscount said go by unanswered. I wish he were here, because I wanted to say some fairly strong things about what he said. It seems to me—and I hope he will forgive me when he reads this in Hansard to-morrow—that his speech was singularly ill-informed about what is going on in the agricultural world. May I just pick up two points, and only two, since he is not here? He criticised paragraph 11 of the White Paper. He said that he could not understand what it means, and did not agree with the sentence:
"In future, home agriculture cannot be asked to produce a given amount of a particular commodity irrespective of cost."
I cannot understand what the noble Viscount finds to disagree with in that. The
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only thing I can think of is that he believes it is right to ask agriculture to produce any amount of a commodity irrespective of the cost to the Exchequer.
LORD ARCHIBALD: I think my noble friend Lord Alexander expressly excluded that interpretation in what be said. What he did say was that the implication of this is that agriculture has in the past been asked to produce vast quantities, irrespective of cost, and he disagreed with that implication.
LORD CARRINGTON: Really, the noble Viscount should not read implications into White Papers. What the Government mean is quite clearly stated. We mean what we say. It seems to me such an obvious and proper thing for a Government to say that nobody could conceivably object to it. The last thing the noble Viscount said, and he repeated it over and over again in his speech, was that the Government had broken their pledges and had let down the farmers by scrapping the principles of the Agriculture Act, 1947. I wish the noble Viscount were here, because I would challenge him to produce one single occasion on which the Government have broken their pledges or not adhered to the principles of the Agriculture Act, 1947. He cannot do it. There is no occasion on which we have not done everything which we said we would do. I am only sorry that he is not here to hear me challenge him in the remarks that he made.
I have spoken for too long, but I should like to sum up. I claim that the industry now has before it a sound and constructive long-term production, marketing and financial policy, which is suited to the freer economy that we are creating. So far as production is concerned, we say that in future the reduction of costs and the improvement of quality will be just as important as the expansion of physical output. By better production, better management and skilful marketing, farmers can help to reduce the calls on the Exchequer and increase the independence of their industry. At the same time, the Government undertake—and we have clearly shown by our actions that we mean to fulfil our undertaking—that the industry will continue to be given reasonable protection against sharp price changes, so as to allow it enough time to adjust farming practices to changing market conditions. The new price

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determinations make a beginning with the applications of these principles, and the new marketing arrangements are in keeping with them. We have reached this point with a very large measure of agreement amongst all those many interests concerned. This has taken time, but I am quite certain that the results have been worth the price we have paid.
Nothing that I have heard any noble Lord say in your Lordships' House this afternoon has made me feel that the Government's agricultural policy in the last two years has not been absolutely right. We have not heard in one single speech any constructive alternative to what we are doing. We have heard no real complaint as to the provisions we are making. We think that our policy is comprehensive, just and workable. It offers freedom and stability. It offers reasonable rewards and incentives to still greater efficiency, and a chance for the farmers to run their own marketing schemes in suitable cases. In the past fifteen years, the farmers have done a great job in expanding output and speeding up technical progress. The job in front of them now is to increase net output still more, through lower costs, higher quality, improved management and skilful marketing. We in the Government will do everything in our power to support them.
7.44 p.m.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I should like to express my thanks to all the noble Lords who have taken part in this debate for their contributions which, I am quite certain, will be carefully weighed by the Government. They will show the farming community that their welfare is a matter of deep concern to your Lordships. At this late hour, I should like to make only one or two additional comments. We were all delighted to hear the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe. A debate on agriculture without him would be like Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. We also enjoyed the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Dalzell. I can remember the noble Lord's uncle speaking in your Lordships' House from the Liberal Benches. I believe that he was a colleague of the present Prime Minister in one of the Liberal associations before the war. It is nice to know
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that the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Dalzell, is carrying on the Parliamentary tradition of his family.
I certainly cannot omit a reference to a challenge made by the noble Viscount, Lord Hudson. He reproached me for not expounding Labour agricultural policy. I take the view that one of the advantages of your Lordships' House is that matters of agriculture can be discussed on their merits, and without reference to Party policy. Other noble Lords take a different view. Another of the merits of your Lordships' House is that noble Lords have independent minds. I am sure that the interventions of the noble Viscount, Lord Hudson, and of my noble colleague, are equally refreshing as a contrast to the contributions of other noble Lords in this debate. I should like to conclude by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, for the way in which he has submitted to an unusually long, and possibly painful, interrogation, for his willingness to give every scrap of information he could, and for the equal facility with which he explained the administrative intricacies of his Department in reply to points made by noble Lords in the course of the debate. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

SLAUGHTERHOUSES BILL [H.L.]
7.46 p.m.
Read 3 (according to Order); Amendments (privilege) made; Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS
The LORD CHANCELLOR informed the House that he had received from the Senior Registrar in Bankruptcy of the High Court of Justice a certificate that on the 7th day of April, 1954, the Viscount St. Davids had been adjudged a bankrupt.
The same was ordered to lie on the Table.
House adjourned at thirteen minutes before eight o'clock.