AGRICULTURE ACT (PART I) EXTENSION OF PERIOD ORDER, 1955 (Hansard, 21 July 1955)

EARL ST. ALDWYN
My Lords, the purpose of this Order is to extend for another year the operation of Orders made under Section 4 of the Agriculture Act, 1947. This section relates to the provision of guaranteed prices and assured markets for the products included in the First Schedule to the Act. It empowers Ministers to make, by Order, appropriate arrangements for this purpose if such arrangements do not already exist. The Act provided that the life of Section 4 should be limited to three years unless it was extended annually by an Order of this kind. Orders under this section are now in operation for three of the scheduled commodities: wool, fatstock and cereals, and your Lordships will shortly be asked to consider a new Order relating to potatoes.
Hitherto, the authority for the guarantee arrangements for all commodities except wool has derived from Defence Regulations. This was appropriate enough to Schemes which largely stemmed from the emergency buying operations of the Ministry of Food, but now that we have left those days behind and have a series of guarantee arrangements working in a free market, we think it right to rid ourselves, so far as we can, of dependence upon the Defence Regulations and look to Part I of the Agriculture Act for the authority needed to implement the guarantees. I beg to move.

§ LORD WISE
My Lords, I am afraid that in this case I shall not be quite so friendly towards the noble Earl. The Order in print is a small one, but it is of great importance. According to the records, a similar Order passed through your Lordships' House last year with little comment, but, having had another year in which 10 look at the agricultural situation, I feel, while not wishing to trespass on any agricultural debate which may take place in your Lordships' House when we return after the Summer Recess, that I should call the Government's attention to one or two points. This Order is to be considered in another place to-day, but I have no knowledge whatever of any comments that may be made there: what I want to say is entirely for your Lordships and arises out of my reading of the Order and looking into the situation in agriculture. It is admitted that this is simply an extending Order, without the passing of which, year after year, the arrangements under the Act would fall. I have knowledge of the present conditions of agriculture and at the outset I say candidly that I am perturbed at the present uncertainties of the industry and apprehensive of the future.
Part I of the Agriculture Act, 1947, provides for guaranteed prices and assured markets for farm produce. Section 1 (1) of the Act is as follows: The following provisions of this Part of this Act shall have effect for the purpose of promoting and maintaining, by the provision of guaranteed prices and assured markets for the produce mentioned in the First Schedule to this Act, a stable and efficient agricultural industry capable of producing such part of the nation's food and other agricultural produce as in the national interest it is desirable to produce in the United Kingdom, and of producing it at minimnm prices consistently with proper remuneration and living conditions for farmers and workers in agriculture and an adequate return on capital invested in the industry. That is the first task under the Act on which the Order is founded. At the moment I am apprehensive that the Government, although they agree with the term "guaranteed prices and assured markets," are not implementing the Act as it should be implemented. Conditions 959 in agriculture are uncertain and extremely difficult, in so far as marketing and kindred matters are concerned. I suggest to the Government that the Act is not being carried out as it should be, strictly according to the letter of the Act, and in my view the matter should be reviewed by the Government.
The Party of noble Lords on this side were responsible for introducing the Act. I was in another place at the time and played a considerable part in bringing it into operation. If I may speak generally for agriculture, I think it is the desire of the farming industry that some review of marketing conditions should take place at the present time. Perhaps this is a bold statement, but, as I have said, at the moment there is no guarantee whatever in prices and no assurance of markets. The noble Earl may doubt what I say, but I have in my hand a cutting from a local paper, a daily agricultural paper in the Eastern Counties, in which it is stated that in one market yesterday the price of pigs (we have talked a lot about pigs in recent months) went down by no less than 6s. a score, as against the previous week. Those connected with agriculture know that a condition whereby the price of one commodity can decline by 20 or 25 per cent. in one week is not the sort of thing we envisaged under the Agriculture Act. I could mention other produce—cattle, for example, have declined to the detriment of the producers of livestock.
This sort of thing does not appear in other industries. I do not go one day into a shop or into an industry and say "It is hot to-day and I am going to knock off 6d. a pound or 20 per cent. from what you are charging me." But that is exactly what happens in the agricultural industry. Prices rocket up and down with the uncertainties of the weather. On the other hand, we are always boand to pay a set price for the things which we have to buy. That helps to create in the industry the difficulties from which we are suffering at the present time. During the last few days the question of the payment of subsidies has been discussed in various quarters, and there is the point that the subsidy policy 960 of the Government may be enriching people of all sorts who are not supposed to gain from subsidies. Let me hark back for a moment to the question of pigs. A farmer with whom I am associated sent some pigs to market and they fetched a certain price. Within two or three weeks back came a cheque from the Government, and it was ironical that that cheque was for a larger amount than the cheque received from the auctioneer for the pigs in the first instance. In effect, that meant that not only were the Government subsidising those pigs to an extent of over 100 per cent., but the consumers, who are the taxpayers, were not benefiting by the low cost at which the first purchaser of those pigs obtained them, but were paying twice over, in taxation in regard to subsidies, and in regard to the price of the commodity in the shops. I do not want to enter into an agricultural debate, but I thought it right to call the attention of the Government to that matter, because this Order deals with the whole root of the Agriculture Act. I hope that when we are again asked this time next year to extend the Order the agricultural industry will have once again found its feet, so far as prosperity is concerned.

EARL ST. ALDWYN
My Lords. the noble Lord said he did not want to turn this into an agricultural debate, but I feel that he was getting himself warmed up for the next agricultural debate in your Lordships' House and was not, strictly speaking, keeping to the Order before your Lordships. I cannot accept a good many of his arguments. I certainly cannot accept that there are no guaranteed prices or assured markets. I know that the noble Lord would like to see a fixed price all the way through, but we on this side of the House do not happen to agree with that point of view: we prefer to have a market where a man can benefit by producing better stuff and by more careful marketing. But those political philosophies cannot be gone into to-day. I do not think there is much I can say in reply to the noble Lord, except that I shall look forward to his speech on the next agricultural debate, and I hope to have available answers to convince him.