HL Deb 17 April 1958 vol 208 cc780-92

3.8 p.m.

Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.

THE MINISTER OF STATE, SCOTTISH OFFICE (LORD STRATHCLYDE)

My Lords, the purpose of this Bill is to encourage and assist owners of agricultural land in Scotland to get together to carry out schemes to improve land drainage and to prevent or mitigate the hazards of flooding and erosion. I commend the Bill to the House as a practicable and realistic measure, in spite of the fact that much was said in another place about its shortcomings. There it was compared with the far-reaching recommendations contained in the Report of the Duncan Committee which was published in 1950. The Duncan Committee envisaged the giving of new powers to the Secretary of State for the carrying out of drainage schemes of a very comprehensive character, and after the publication of their Report many discussions followed with the interests concerned, on ways and means of giving effect to their recommendations. But the problem of financing land drainage operations on the scale envisaged and in the difficult conditions obtaining in Scotland proved intractable.

When it became clear that there was no prospect of overcoming these difficulties we turned our attention to what could be done to strengthen existing powers relating to drainage of agricultural land. In this we were assisted by the Scottish National Farmers' Union and the Scottish Landowners' Federation, and I am glad to tell your Lordships that they are in agreement with the broad principles of the Bill now before your Lordships. Under existing powers, the Secretary of State is empowered to make grants of up to 50 per cent. in respect of the capital costs of approved drainage works. Over the past six years about 1,000 arterial drainage schemes, mainly on small rivers and watercourses, and benefiting some 47,000 acres of agricultural land, have been carried out at a total cost of £459,000. That, I hope your Lordships will agree, represents steady and valuable progress.

Two difficulties, however, confront us at present. In the first place, drainage schemes of this nature, as your Lordships will appreciate, usually concern the land of more than one owner, and up till now the carrying out of these schemes has depended on the voluntary co-operation of all the owners concerned. In a considerable number of cases proposals for carrying out useful schemes have had to be abandoned because of the refusal of one or two owners to co-operate with their neighbours. This means that as more and more of the schemes where there is complete agreement come to an end there will be a considerable slowing up in the present rate of improvement. The second difficulty is that there is no means of ensuring that these grant-aided schemes once carried out are properly maintained thereafter; private and public money has been spent and yet, through the negligence of one or two, it may well be wasted.

The farmers' and landowners' organisations agree with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland that new powers are well justified to ensure that a majority of owners in any area are not prevented from improving their land by the opposition of a minority, and that, if it comes to the worst, some compulsion should be exercised to ensure that grant-aided drainage works are properly maintained. These, in brief, are the objectives the Bill is designed to achieve.

As to the rights of minorities under this Bill, I can assure the House that we have taken care of this matter. The Bill provides for proper notice of a draft scheme to be given to all concerned, and for a public local inquiry to be held where objections are maintained. It also provides that the majority rule will operate only where two conditions are satisfied: first, that the willing majority will together be responsible for more than half of the estimated cost of the drainage works; and secondly, that the cost is estimated not to exceed £20 per acre of the land benefiting from the scheme. This limit in the granting of compulsory powers to a willing majority of interested proprietors has, like the main principle of the Bill, the agreement of the interested organisations.

I might point out that power is taken in paragraph 8 of the First Schedule of the Bill to vary the figure of £20 per acre, but only by an order which will be subject to the Affirmative Resolution of this House and another place. I should, however, make it clear that the £20 per acre is an average figure, which means that some owners may be called upon to pay more than £20 per acre, less grant This will, however. become apparent at a stage when it will be possible for objections to be made to the draft scheme and before a majority has decided in favour of it. As I have already said, the final cost will be reduced by the amount of the Government grant. In view of this, I think it is fair to say that no undue burden will be placed on an unwilling owner. Of course, the limit of £20 per acre does not apply where all the owners concerned agree that an improvement order should be made.

I should now like to indicate briefly the general lay-out of the Bill. Clause 1 enables an owner of agricultural land to apply to the Secretary of State for the making of an improvement order. If the Secretary of State is satisfied that a worthwhile scheme can be devised, and that there is a reasonable prospect of adequate support for it by the owners concerned, he will make a draft improvement order, and the procedure set out in Parts I and III of the First Schedule will be followed; that is to say, copies of the draft order will be served on all owners and occupiers who may be concerned, and also on any local authority or other statutory body which, in the opinion of the Secretary of State, may be affected by the making of the order. A public inquiry will, if necessary, be held into objections. Thereafter the Secretary of State will proceed to make the order if the conditions which I have already described are met.

Clause 2 sets out the provisions which an improvement order must contain. Here I would draw your Lordships' attention to two details. Subsection (1) (d) enables the Secretary of State to require, as part of the scheme, the carrying out of protective works, such as floodbanks, to prevent injury to adjoining land downstream. Subsection (4) places on the Secretary of State the duty of allocating the total cost, less the amount of the Government grant, among the various owners in the proportions in which they will benefit. Under Clause 3, an improvement order may provide for the appointment of a committee from among the owners concerned to act on their behalf. The detailed management of the drainage scheme will therefore be in the hands of those affected by it. Clause 4 provides for the payment of compensation for any damage done through the execution of drainage works.

Clause 6 deals with variation of rents. Where the rental value of a farm is increased by a drainage scheme, the landlord, to the extent that he has paid for the scheme out of his own pocket, can obtain an increase in rent. Conversely, if works carried out under a scheme on land outside the area actually improved decrease the rental value of a farm, the tenant may claim a reduction in rent. The Secretary of State is empowered by Clause 7 to carry out the works if the owners so wish, and to recover the cost of doing so. Clause 8 gives the Secretary of State default powers. These are necessary to ensure that protective works are carried out, and that both grant-aided drainage works and protective works are maintained. Subsection (3) of Clause 9 provides that the Exchequer grant may be paid in instalments as the work proceeds. I do not think the remaining clauses of the Bill, which are largely procedural and formal, call for any special comment at this stage.

My Lords, we recognise that the Bill does not meet the hopes aroused by the Duncan Report, but I do not apologise for the Bill on that account, since, as I have indicated, there is really no way at present of financing operations on that scale. Nevertheless, the Bill is a useful measure, as with its aid it is hoped to increase the rate of improvement work to a level of some 10,000 acres a year. Accordingly, I invite your Lordships to give it a Second Reading this afternoon.

Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Strathclyde.)

3.18 p.m.

LORD MATHERS

My Lords, I am sure we shall all agree that in introducing this Bill the noble Lord has done the House and, I hope, the public—because I hope that the explanation he has given will be given wide publicity—a great service. As the noble Lord has indicated, the Bill was, in a sense, conceived in the Duncan Report in 1950, and that is quite a long time ago. The proceedings in another place, when the Bill had been formulated, took a considerable time, and a great deal of labour was incurred in dealing with it. For instance, two days were occupied in the Scottish Grand Committee dealing with the Bill on the basis of a Second Reading—a process that is possible under the special arrangements that apply there. Then on Committee stage there were ten meetings of the Committee between December 17 last year and February 18 of this year. That means, as I say, that the labour involved in bringing this Bill to birth was quite a long one.

On all sides of the Committee in another place regret was expressed that the Bill did not measure up to what was intended by the Duncan Committee in their Report. The noble Lord has indicated that the Bill falls short in that respect. Yet he claims—and I think rightly—that some benefit can come from this Bill. What stood in the way of making improvements in the Bill in another place was finance. If a practically unanimous Commitee in the House of Commons, where the control of finance is exercised, has failed to make any impression upon the Government in the way of extending the financial provisions, and so making the Bill more effective, it seems to me that your Lordships will feel that in this House, where finance is something that we are rather inhibited from dealing with, there would not be much reason or justification for our spending a great deal of time on the Bill. As I say, on all sides of the Committee in another place there was this feeling that the Bill should go further, but I am afraid that the Amendments that were made did not remove the feeling that the Bill still did not reach to the full measure of what was expected of it.

We have had reminders in Scotland of what this Bill seeks to deal with. Even in the lower regions of the country—and one can visualise the effects being even more heavy and severe in the more precipitous parts of the country—flooding can be a very great menace. I see here to-day many noble Lords who must remember quite clearly the flooding in Berwickshire and along the East Coast, some ten or eleven years ago, when even the railway lines were made unusable by flooding. Even the great main traffic line from Scotland to England, by the East Coast, was out of use for some time. The branch line that ran through the county of Berwickshire from St. Boswells to Reston was rendered unusable; and today no one can find in a railway passenger timetable the names of the stations that were put completely out of use by the flooding at that time. The line runs through Earlston, Gordon, Greenlaw Marchmont, Duns, Edrom and Chirnside, before it reaches the East Coast main line again. None of those places appears today in the railway timetables. That is an indication of how greatly measures of this kind are needed to protect us from the kind of devastation that came upon that countryside ten or eleven years ago.

The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, said that this Bill has been rather disparaged because it does not meet the full obligations intended by the Duncan Committee Report, but he claims—and I think quite rightly—that it is capable of doing some good, provided that agreement can be reached amongst those who are affected. That is the great thing; this is a Bill that requires co-operation among all the interests concerned if it is to be of any real value. I think I can declare on behalf of those who sit with me on these Benches that in this accouchement stage of the Bill no barrier will be placed in the way to delivery at an early date.

3.25 p.m.

LORD STRATHEDEN AND CAMPBELL

My Lords, I rise to support this Bill. It is a modest Bill, but within its small compass it has the power to do a very considerable amount of good. As my noble friend has explained, it will ensure that a number of important and badly needed drainage schemes will be carried out. It will also, I hope, ensure that these schemes are properly maintained. I was glad that my noble friend stressed that point, because the maintenance of any drainage scheme is of the utmost importance. I envisage these schemes as affecting largely low-lying and near-boggy ground; and, as your Lordships will know, it is astonishing how quickly drains in that type of land can silt up and become quite useless.

I appreciate the difficulty in specifying the actual estimated cost of the maintenance, as is done for the estimated cost of the actual improvement scheme itself in Clause 2 (1) (f). The question of maintenance is, of course, mentioned in the following pargaraph, but merely to ensure that the cost is shared equally according to the scheme laid down. But the actual cost of this maintenance will be an extremely important part of the scheme, because it is no use entering into a well-thought-out scheme if its implications are so expensive or so complicated to achieve that it cannot be maintained properly. I hope that the Secretary of State, before issuing an order, will go very carefully indeed into this question of the cost of the maintenance.

This matter is even more important because in Clause 3 arrangements are laid down for setting up improvement committees, with a secretary and a staff. This obviously forecasts comparatively large-scale schemes, which undoubtedly would be well organised and their maintenance work properly carried out; but the scope of the Bill as a whole, giving, as my noble friend said, about 10,000 acres a year (and I understand that the cost to the Exchequer is not expected to be very large, and also there is no limit to the amount of grant) seems also to envisage the possibility of a number of quite small schemes. I am thinking of schemes affecting possibly a small number, three or four, owner-occupiers who would not have the machinery to carry out careful organisation and might, although they were all willing, with the best will in the world, have physical difficulties in making labour and time available even to keep a contractor doing the work properly. These comments are not intended to be in any way against the Bill itself—I think it is an admirable Bill—but to try to make clear my feeling that its success will depend greatly on the help and sympathy with which it is put into operation by the Department of Agriculture. As I know myself, they are extremely helpful. I have contacts with them in more than one capacity, and they are an extremely helpful Department.

There is one final point—namely, the question of grants. A great deal of the waterlogged land in the country has probably at some time or another been drained. If the Secretary of State takes too strict a view in regard to these drains—that although they may have been dug and constructed a long time ago they should in fact always have been kept open—it may make it almost impossible for a grant to be claimed. I think a certain amount of sympathy will have to be shown in the marginal cases in regard to what obviously ought to be maintained and the old, long-standing drain. If some of the draining was done one hundred or more years ago and the drain has gradually silted up, something which will in effect be new work may be disqualified because there had been a drain there. I repeat that I think the Bill is an excellent Bill, but its successful working will depend largely on the sympathetic action of the Secretary of State and the Department of Agriculture. I hope your Lordships will give the Bill a Second Reading.

3.33 p.m.

THE MARQUESS OF AILSA

My Lords, in speaking on this matter I feel that I must descend from an ancient family of drainers. Four generations back my ancestors started draining the countryside in which I now live, South Ayrshire, and my earliest initiation into land usage and management was a practical demonstration of the construction of drains. This was at the age of ten or twelve. My uncle took me out on the land and pointed out the right and the wrong way to drain, and the places that needed it and those that did not. Since I have had even more time to learn about land usages I have realised how wise he was in the interest he took. I am only too pleased to welcome any movement, however small or great, that helps and encourages people to improve their land by drainage works.

There are, however, one or two points about which I should like to inquire. I want to be reassured that this Bill does not in any way hinder or oppose any of the existing regulations for grants in aid of drainage works that are being carried out at the moment. I have in mind the present scheme by which there is a 50 per cent. grant to farmers who carry out land drainage on their farms. The other point I was going to raise has been mentioned by my noble friend Lord Stratheden and Campbell; it concerns what I call the repairing of old drainage works. As he has rightly said, there are areas where works were carried out sometimes up to one hundred years ago, but which, for one reason or another, have been allowed to fall into disrepair and now need to be renovated to make them effective. I hope that the Secretary of State will give sympathetic consideration to this point, provided, of course, that if these old drains are put in order they will in fact be effective.

On some land adjoining my own and which actually belonged to our estates until about ten years ago, there is a bog. I remember that about twenty years ago there was a tremendous movement to get this bog drained, and I do not know how many thousands of pounds were spent on it. All was well until, unfortunately, the estates had to sell the farms to the occupiers. Then, for one reason or another, the drain was allowed to fall into disuse, and the bog is getting worse and worse every year. Everybody shakes his head over it; but, when these people are asked why nothing is done, the answer is, "We cannot get the money; we have not got the money." I hope this Bill will assist in encouraging occupiers to repair what was, done before, and I hope again that there will be sympathetic consideration of these cases by the Department of Agriculture.

The only other small point I wish to raise is in regard to works which go through areas of afforestation. In the past there has been a tendency by the Department to draw rather a sharp line between purely agricultural land and afforestation land. If you drain forest land, of course you come under the forestry grants scheme. Where it is a pure woodland there may be room for argument. Where you start from, say, the top of a sheep grazing on high ground, come through a shelter belt, and then down again, it is rather a different story. I hope that it will be possible for sympathetic consideration to be given to that matter. I have rather emphasised this point in view of the fact that such sympathetic consideration would encourage integration of forestry and farming into one unit, especially in the marginal areas.

I notice in the Schedule that the Secretary of State is required to publish in the local Press notice of intention to carry out any work, I think for two weeks prior to the operation. Is this necessary where the improvement is to be carried out under the ownership of a single landlord? I agree that where there are many different owners and the improvement passes through different lands, then notice is needed; but if one landlord wishes to carry out work of this nature is it necessary to go through such a long procedure before getting assent? My Lords, I apologise for taking up your Lordships' time.

3.38 p.m.

VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN

My Lords, I just want to add my voice and plea to those of other noble Lords in regard to ditches which have become obsolete. I am an interested party. I have an area of land in regard to which at this moment I am suffering from the non-approval of a drainage scheme, purely on the ground that the ditches which were dug up to one hundred years ago have silted up to such an extent that now the water is flowing over the fields and not in the course of the ditch at all. When applying for a grant in regard to this land I was merely told, "Clean the ditches out first and then we will come back and look at them." I applied for a grant to dig what is no longer a ditch. I am quite prepared to pay £12 an acre to get my own land hack into cultivation, but I cannot afford to pay £25 an acre to do it.

This situation arose from the fact that the tenant farmer gave up last year at the age of eighty-four. It may be legal or it may be many other things, but we cannot honestly expect any type of Scotsman ho calls himself a laird to go and tell his tenant to dig these ditches out. It is quite unreasonable to expect a man to do so, and all the mud that is normally flung at us lairds would be justified if we ever behaved like that. The result is that there is an area of land, and all I can do now is abandon it. It seems to me that that is a snag over which the whole of this scheme can fall down.

Then there is another point. I am not quite sure of the noble Lord's explanation, but I gather that if a tenant carries out an improvement he can then deduct the cost of that improvement from his rent. Is that not so? If it is not, I will not try to make the point. It is not a matter about which I am clear I shall have to read the OFFICIAL REPORT. But I wish earnestly to urge that the consideration which is shown frequently in England in cases of this kind should equally be shown in Scotland. I have said that I am an interested party in this particular case. Nevertheless, other noble Lords have raised the point, which I think is an important one.

3.40 p.m.

LORD STRATHCLYDE

My Lords, I thank those noble Lords who have spoken for the welcome they have given the Bill, and I thank particularly the noble Lord, Lord Mathers, sitting opposite, for the reception he gave to it. The noble Lord, Lord Mathers, was considerably concerned as to the regrets that were felt in another place, and indeed elsewhere, that we had been unable to go ahead on the lines recommended in the Report of the Duncan Committee. Perhaps it is right that I should explain more fully to your Lordships what was involved. These major drainage problems in Scotland arise mainly in the narrow valleys of very fast-flowing rivers where the cost of large-scale drainage schemes would be quite disproportionate to the agricultural benefit which would be gained. If such schemes were to be executed and maintained it would be necessary to have some source of finance on which to draw in addition to the normal 50 per cent. Exchequer grant towards the cost of capital works and the contributions which could reasonably be levied on the interests which would benefit.

The possibility of levying a general or special rate to bridge this financial gap was fully explored, but it was found impossible to devise any solution which would be acceptable to the interests concerned. The difficulty in finding a solution on the lines of a rate is in some measure due to the character of our Scottish countryside and to topographical factors. Conditions in Scotland, your Lordships will realise, are very different from those prevailing in the low-lying areas in England, where extensive communities have a common interest in maintaining drainage systems and the levying of a drainage rate is a natural and effective way of raising the necessary local contribution. If I might give your Lordships an example I would take the valley of the River Spey. We estimated in 1955 that a comprehensive scheme of drainage works there would cost no less than £1,150,000. That would benefit about 11,500 acres of land of varying quality and the cost works out at somewhere in the region of £100 per acre. One has further to consider, over and above that cost, the very large cost of maintaining drainage works in the kind of circumstances that exist in the valley of the Spey.

VISCOUNT ELIBANK

My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he can say what were the limitations? He has spoken of the valley of the Spey, but it is a very long valley.

LORD STRATHCLYDE

My Lords, it concerned the whole of the valley of the Spey. I hope that that explanation is satisfactory to the noble Lord, Lord Mathers. The noble Lord, Lord Stratheden and Campbell, expressed the hope that these schemes would be properly maintained. I do not think he need have doubts about that. The Bill provides amply to meet the need for maintenance, and I can assure the noble Lord also that the cost of maintenance will be very carefully considered, both when the draft scheme is prepared and, further, when it is considered at a local inquiry, should one be held. The noble Lord also asked what would be the Exchequer contribution, Taking 10,000 acres a year, on an estimated cost not exceeding £20 per acre it comes to about £200,000; and 50 per cent. on that would be £100,000. I can assure the noble Lord also that all the help and sympathy of the Department of Agriculture will be in favour of getting these schemes carried through, and I would thank him for what he said of the helpful nature of the Department of Agriculture. The noble Marquess, Lord Ailsa, asked me whether this Bill did anything to hinder the ordinary drainage of farm land. The Bill has nothing to do with that and in no way affects it. Grant for that comes under Section 16 of the Agriculture Act, 1937.

So far as the repair of old drainage works is concerned, if they are flooded no doubt they will be capable of being put right under this Bill. The noble Lord also raised the question of whether the procedure was not a little heavy-handed, in that notice of intention had to be given in a certain way; but the noble Lord must realise that others may be affected, besides the owner of the particular area of land which is to benefit. There may be owners of land downstream who would be affected by the alterations to a piece of land, and therefore it is necessary that the widest possible notice should be given. The noble Viscount, Lord Stonehaven, raised the point of the existing grants which are given in relation to the draining of agricultural land, with which this Bill has no concern. He mentioned the question of reduction of rent. That really arises where land which has not been improved—land downstream, for instance, may have to be used to put up flood banks and therefore the area of a farmer's land might be reduced. Naturally in those circumstances he would expect to get a reduction in his rent. I hope I have dealt with the various questions asked and I would now ask your Lordships to approve a Second Reading of the Bill.

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