§ 2.41 p.m.
§ EARL ST. ALDWYN rose to move, That the Draft Ploughing Grants Scheme, 1958, be approved. The noble Earl said: My Lords, this Scheme, which is the eighth to be made under the Agriculture (Ploughing Grants) Act, 1952, in effect re-enacts the previous scheme. The only change is the necessary advancement of dates. Your Lordships will remember that the Scheme was modified last year in two respects. First, grass was included as a crop which could be sown without permission; and secondly, the qualifying date for old grassland under Part II of the Scheme was brought forward from 4th May, 1939, to 1st June, 1946. No further changes are called for this year, and we wish so far as possible to avoid successive changes in a Scheme which is by now well known to farmers. It would, moreover, be premature to make further changes in the Scheme until we have received the Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Grassland Utilisation, which was set up last year, under the chairmanship of Sir Sydney Caine, and will report later this year.
It is rather early to assess the effects of the modifications which were made last year. There has been no marked change in the amount of old grassland coming forward under Part II of the Scheme; indeed the very slight decline confirms the necessity we recognised last year of reducing the qualifying age of old grassland from eighteen to twelve years. The abolition of the reseeding proviso has, as one would expect, led to some switch from tillage to temporary grass in 1957 as compared with 1956, and this no doubt reflects in part the fact that we had been granting reseeding certificates freely for some time. The abolition of the reseeding proviso has, however, undoubtedly contributed to one of the major objects of the Scheme, which is to encourage the practice of ley farming.
In general it may be said that we are maintaining a reasonable degree of stability in the area under crops and grass. This is a fundamental objective of our agricultural policy and there is no doubt that the ploughing grants are a major instrument in achieving it. My Lords, I beg to move.
552§ Moved, That the Draft Ploughing Grants Scheme, 1958, be approved.—(Earl St. Aldwyn.)
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.