HL Deb 17 February 1959 vol 214 cc286-310

House again in Committee.

3.55 p.m.

VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH

I listened with great interest, and great appreciation, to the speech made by my noble friend Lord Wise in moving this Amendment. I am sorry that it did not seem to penetrate at all into the imagination of the Parliamentary Secretary. I thought he might have been much more convinced by the sterling arguments which my noble friend produced. I am not going to attempt I to add to them in any detail, but I am going to make one or two comments on the apparent difference between the treatment by the Government of small farmers in this matter as compared with their treatment of large industrialists.

Perhaps one of the most outstanding cases is that in the case of the so-called denationalised steel industry. There are tens of millions of pounds of the capital of the steel concerns to-day which are owned by the Government—and, of course, the money is lent on debenture at rates such as the industry itself could not obtain by going to the market. We have the case of the more recent decision of the Government as regards the development of two huge strip steel mills where, in one case, the operations are still under nationalisation and, in the other, under private enterprise. It is specifically provided in the report that I have read that £50 million is to be loaned to a great steel company—and always on the best terms, and at the most favourable rates of interest, that the Government can obtain at the time and as the loan proceeds.

Now compare that with the quick throw-off made by the Minister and his chief adviser. Your Lordships know the attitude: "It is all very well, but these small farmers are not creditworthy" My word! they have done an awful lot, both during the war and since the war, to increase the power and production of agriculture in this country, considering the large increase of production which has taken place. Moreover, one would think from the answer that the Minister has given this afternoon that grants are the only thing because they will be so much more appreciated. I dare say they would have been much more appreciated. But the fact is that under the scheme itself, if I read the White Paper correctly, the small farmer, who still has many many difficulties, will not qualify for the grant, though he would have very worthy grounds indeed upon which he could partake, if it were available, of a Government guaranteed loan at an interest rate far below that at which he can borrow from private sources. That is the real fact. There is a very great difference, it seems to me, in the approach of the mind of the Government towards the lending of credit for development in regard to a great privately-owned steel corporation and the way in which they approach the problem of the small farmer. I think it would be reasonable for them to have another consideration of that point.

One of the other main reasons advanced by the Minister was that this is not a suitable kind of area in which they could possibly ask the Ministry of Agriculture's advisory staff to be active. Are the Ministry of Agriculture's advisory staff going to act in regard to the grants? Are they going to help and advise the farmers? Have they sufficient expertise to be able to say whether or not the particular person is likely to benefit from the grant, to advise the person himself as to how he is going to be able to use the grant to best ability in economic detail? If they are qualified to do that, why on earth should they be disqualified from dealing with the same kind of operation in the realm of loan capital instead of grant capital? I should say that that is a reflection upon the qualifications and experience of the Ministry of Agriculture advisory officers. I do not know many of them, but I have seen two or three hard at work in Essex, and I am sure that I could trust them with any administration of this kind. After all, some of them are highly educated men, especially in agricultural economy, in which they hold degrees and diplomas. I do not think that the noble Earl can rest much on that argument.

However, he has this in his pocket: he knows that he cannot possibly lose today in the discussion on this Bill. It is a certified Bill, and he knows perfectly well that, while we feel that we ought to ventilate the grievances of the farmers, we should not dream of dividing the House on a certified Bill. We are entitled to use the time of the Committee to state, and even to reiterate if necessary, the Grievances under which small farmers are still suffering. I wish that every Member of your Lordships' House could find time to go back and have a look at what has become now almost the last testament of Mr. Sidney Dye—the speech which he made in another place on the Second Reading of this Bill just before his fatal accident. My old friend was a small farmer himself, and during the periods in which he served in another place represented a constituency largely made up of small farmers. In the light of that speech, and the technical argument in it, I must say that unless the Government are willing to do something more than they have done in this Bill, they are not going to satisfy the needs of the case.

EARL WALDEGRAVE

I do not think that I could have put this matter to the Committee as clearly as I wished, because after listening to the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition, I was not sure whether he was or was not developing the argument that if we gave loans to the small farmers, it would not cost the taxpayer and the Treasury so much. Of course, that would be true, if we got the money back again. But the noble Viscount went on to say that he was airing the grievances of the small farmers in this House—and he has every right to do so; but from the argument he has aired this afternoon I cannot understand why a man should prefer to have a loan that has to be paid back rather than a free gift which he does not have to pay back. If the noble Viscount were to offer me 10s., and tell me to keep it, or 10s. which he tells me I have to give back, I know which I should prefer.

VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH

That would be all very well if all of our small farmers were going to get a grant, but they will not all be able to get grants.

EARL WALDEGRAVE

The Amendment we are discussing does not alter the limits. It simply puts forward that in place of free grants we should advantage the farmers by giving them loans. I cannot follow that argument.

VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH

Nobody can be convinced against his will. We know what the will of the Government is in this matter. They are promising something to the small farmers and taking it out of the farmers themselves, including the small farmer, in order to see that the Government do not pay anything towards it at all. As we cannot in this House oppose a certified Bill, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

LORD STONHAM moved in subsection (1) to add to paragraph (a): after taking into account reasonable earnings derived from employment on neighbouring farms or forestry plantations or rural industry: The noble Lord said: I beg to move the second Amendment standing in the name of my noble friends and myself on the Order Paper. It will be recalled that on the Second Reading of this Bill the noble Earl, Lord Waldegrave, made a reply to the debute which, in my respectful opinion, was wholly admirable and in some respects satisfactory, but there were one or two points that he did not deal with perhaps so fully as we might have wished. This Amendment deals with one of those points. During the Second Reading debute I described this as "a mean little Bill" and I think I proved my contention. Of course, that description applied to the Bill in its present form, and in my submission the acceptance of this and the next Amendment would substantially change the picture, because they would greatly enlarge the scope of the Bill and afford help to a section of farmers who, perhaps above all others, are the most deserving and most in need.

The noble Earl will remember that when I asked him whether, in considering a scheme, a divisional officer could take cognisance of part-time earnings on neighbouring farms or with the Forestry Commission, he said [OFFICIAL. REPORT, Vol. 213 (No. 35), col. 1261]: There is nothing whatever to disqualify a part-time small farmer from receiving assistance under this Bill… He is not debarred—if he works on the railways or in forestry he is not debarred— Then unfortunately came the proviso: so long as the unit he is managing builds up to the right score of man-days. Of course, that proviso makes the previous concessions utterly worthless. It makes no difference to the situation because it cuts out the majority of people we have in mind and whom this Amendment is designed to help. In any case, if a farmer satisfies the acreage and man-day provisions the question does not arise, because a divisional officer is not entitled to ask whether a farmer works part-time or full-time on some other job. It is no concern of his. All he has to satisfy himself about is whether a farm unit is viable within the terms of the acreage and man-day limitations or is the kind that could become viable after certain steps had been taken. In other words, the farm unit, and not the farmer, is the criterion. Noble Lords on this side of the House want to widen the criterion so that outside work of the type described in this Amendment can be regarded for the purpose of this Bill as part of a farm unit. I hope that on this occasion there can be no mistake about our intention.

Incidentally, I protest at the retention in the subsection of the words: "and as a full-time occupation". I am aware that the Minister in another place has explained that the words "full-time occupation", are qualified by the other words "a farm business capable of yielding an adequate return". The noble Earl has himself said that provided the man-days are there it will not disqualify someone if he can do the job in half the time. But what we have to remember is that to the small farmer who may be thinking of putting in a scheme for consideration under the Bill, the words "as a full-time occupation" will mean what they say, and he will probably be put off from submitting a scheme at all. When he sees that it says "full-time occupation" in the Bill and he is not employed full-time, he will think that it is no use putting in for the scheme. Therefore, I protest at this obscurity and at the refusal of the Government to remove it.

This Amendment gives a chance not only to make things clearer but to help tens of thousands of small farmers who are a vital part of rural Britain and without whom, in many parts of the country, the land could not be farmed at all. From recent official figures it appears that one in four of all farms in this country are part-time holdings, and the occupiers are some of the hardest working men in the country. Acre for acre they produce as much as bigger holdings over the country. In addition, they put in a lot of work on neighbouring farms. Some are employed as road workers, often in areas where other suitable labour is unobtainable. Some are part-time forestry workers, sometimes directly employed and sometimes employed as subcontractors.

This form of integration of forestry and agriculture is valuable alike to the Forestry Commission and to the country. It applies, for example, particularly to parts of Wales, where part-time holdings have been made economic and full-time in a way that would never have been possible if in the beginning the occupiers had not been able to depend in part on outside employment. There are also many cases of a farmer's son taking over a small hill farm that he develops while working part-time still for his father. These men and their farms are national economic assets and they should be encouraged and helped. They work on the land from dawn till dusk. What could possibly be more full-time farming than that? They do not necessarily work full-time on a part-time holding, but all the time they are working in agriculture on adjacent land or in an adjacent job, and that should be taken into account. They work in parts of the country on pieces of land which can often be farmed only in this way, and that is the most economical and profitable way of farming them. It is a great help to the general body of agriculture to have men like these who can work in their own holdings when work is not available to them on larger farms.

I feel that the case for helping these men is so indisputable that the noble Earl, Lord Waldegrave, will not merely receive it sympathetically but will concede it in principle. However, I ask for a good deal more than that. I ask him not to quote the White Paper to the effect that the Government will continue to study the problem of non-viable farms. That is about as much good as a sick headache, and it is an assurance that gives me no comfort whatever. I also ask the noble Earl not to tell me that these extra numbers would overwhelm the machine, and that they must await a different measure later on. I would remind him, as he is fully aware, and as my noble friend Lord Wise said earlier this afternoon, that this is permissive legislation. It is up to the Minister to approve the schemes submitted to him; and it is within the competence of the Minister and his Department to adjust the flow of schemes in order not to overload or clog the machine. What I am asking, in effect, with the acceptance of this Amendment, is to obviate the necessity of bringing in another Bill later on to help these people.

It is possible, as I can show later, to say that we want two more Bills to help two other classes of small farmer who are at present excluded from the provisions of this Bill. But I say that with this Amendment it would make a further Bill unnecessary. At the same time, it would not oblige the Minister immediately to put these men, as it were, all in the list. It is an enabling Bill, and the additional powers for which we are asking in this Amendment are permissive powers; powers to permit the Minister to recognise farms as viable by reason of the fact that the occupiers are giving essential service to agriculture off their farms in general agriculture. I say to the Minister that if he will accept this Amendment the machine need not be clogged; there will be no need for another Bill later on, and the Government will be in a position to give hope and help to thousands of the hardest-working and most deserving men in the countryside. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 1, line 20. after ("occupation") insert the said words.—(Lord Stonham.)

Lord SALTOUN

I feel sympathy with a good deal of what the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has said, and I rise in the hope that my noble friend Lord Waldegrave will be able so to explain the present text of the Bill as to satisfy my fears. I am not altogether in favour of this Amendment, because it limits the nature of the ancillary occupation which a smallholder must pursue. I come from a country where during the whole of my lifetime practically every smallholder of fifty acres and under (and many over that amount) has always been compelled to engage in some ancillary occupation. When I was a young man living near a fishing town the summer work of the crofters was always carting herrings. I mention that to show why I do not like the Amendment. There are always different kinds of ancillary occupations in every neighbourhood, and for that reason it seems to me that if the meaning I attach to the words, "and as a full-time occupation" is the correct one, it will not be possible—

LORD STONHAM

Would the noble Lord allow me to interrupt? I am grateful. Would not the words "rural industry" in the Amendment cover all the occupations to which the noble Lord has referred?

LORD SALTOUN

The words "and as a full-time occupation" seem to me to deprive smallholders in that position of any possible assistance under this Bill. I rise at this moment before my noble friend replies because I think it is possible—I am not a skilled Parliamentary draftsman or reader—that he will be able to explain my difficulties.

EARL WALDEGRAVE

I will certainly attempt to do so. In this case I quite clearly understand, as the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has moved the Amendment, what he is after, and it is to widen the scope of the Bill to include, as he says, tens of thousands more people. I do not know whether my noble friend behind me is aware that that is what the Amendment is intended to do. Perhaps I had better try to deal first with the point raised by the noble Lord opposite, and deal with the Amendment as it is; and perhaps in the words that I use the matter will become clear to my noble friend Lord Saltoun. The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, is right. I put in the proviso on Second Reading because this is a scheme not about farmers or holdings but about farm businesses. We are not concerned whether the business man who is running this small business which has to measure up to certain standards is working at carting herrings, or in the forest, or anywhere else. What we are concerned with is that here is a potential small business that could give one man a reasonable living. That is our standard.

The noble Lord opposite will know that we put through our much-criticised computing machine the sort of numbers that we think we shall have to deal with on this standard, and those numbers represent the burden that we think we can bear. We must start somewhere. We simply cannot at this stage take under this Bill and the scheme envisaged therein tens of thousands more, because the scheme would break down. The noble Lord asked me not to say that, but I must say it, because it is true. With the organisation we have got we do not want to take tens of thousands more. The noble Lord said that there are a large number of part-time farmers—I think they represent about two-fifths of the holdings in the United Kingdom—but we cannot be put off by that. We are aiming at a business capable of giving remunerative full-time employment to an average occupier, and that is what these words mean in legal language. The man does not have to be fully occupied on his farm, but this unit, which we measure by the standard man-days and acreage, is what is judged to be a full-time occupation to give a reasonable living to one man.

LORD LATHAM

May I ask the noble Earl whether a person engaged in some other part-time employment would be thereby disqualified for the grant?

EARL WALDEGRAVE

He certainly would not, as I tried to make clear on Second Reading. What we are dealing with is a notional business which can employ one man. If, for instance, the actual occupier at any one time is engaged in other occupations and can do as much as two men, so much the better for him—if he works with his wife and his children on this small holding and can measure up to the standard man-days and the cropping programme, and so on. He may work in forestry part of the day or part of the week, and there is nothing to stop that business being given this assistance.

LORD SILKIN

Would the noble Earl be agreeable to accept an Amendment at the next stage of the proceedings which would make abundantly clear what he is now saying, as it is not clear at the moment?

EARL WALDEGRAVE

I could not undertake to do that, because I am told that it is clear. If it is not clear to the noble Lord, with all his legal experience, I am somewhat i a difficulty. This Bill is drafted to mean just what I have said.

VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH

Will the noble Earl please quote the words in the Bill which make that point perfectly plain?

EARL WALDEGRAVE

These are the lines in the Bill, and we must take them slowly: … a farm business capable of yielding an adequate return to any person carrying it on with reasonable efficiency and as a full-time occupation. That is clear to me.

LORD SILKIN

It certainly indicates to me, and, I think, to anyone who understands the meaning of plain English, that the man has got to be occupying it as a full-time occupation; otherwise what is the meaning of those words in the clause at all? Why put them in?

LORD STONHAM

Before the noble Earl, Lord Waldegrave, replies, I think he should make it clear to noble Lords behind him that under this scheme as it is now no one can qualify if his farm is less than twenty acres or potentially of less than 275 man-days, even if that person does work in rural industry outside. The effect of my Amendment is that if they worked outside they would qualify if their farm was less than 20 acres or 275 man-days.

EARL WALDEGRAVE

There are two separate points. The noble Lord is trying to widen the scope of the Bill and bring in tens of thousands of other people. I say that this scheme makes it possible for anybody to get this assistance who is operating a unit which is of such a kind that it is potentially enough to give a living to a man who is working it whole-time. I must say that it is clear to me. I am not a lawyer, but I understand what it means. It is understandable by other lawyers, and I am afraid that we must beg to differ on this. I could not accept any other words because the existing words already mean what the noble Lord wants them to mean.

Below the level of farm businesses that are either full-time or capable of full-time, there are others which are obviously part-time and cannot measure up to these standards. This is the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun. We do not think that the existence of part-time farms calls for any special action. About two-fifths of the farmers in this country are doing part-time farming. They have, of course, other sources of income. That is the meaning of the word "part-time". Farming can be satisfactorily combined with all sorts of other sources of income—carting herrings and working in forestry. Those part-time farmers are eligible for all the general grants that go to all farmers in this country, large or small. But as individual businesses—we must use this horrible jargon—they are not viable, for the very fact that the man has to supplement his living by working somewhere else. We cannot take that business and give it special assistance without trying to make viable things that are not viable.

If we must go into this, I think the actual wording of the Amendment as set down would be unworkable in practice. It would permit the Minister to take into account the small farmer's other sources of income. The noble Lord would ask us to take into account a small farmer's other income when assessing whether the farm business is capable of yielding an adequate return. It is true that if a small farm business is capable of yielding £4 a week net profit, and the occupier has another job bringing in another £5 the total income from all sources would be £9 a week. But it would be absurd to conclude that the farm business was capable of yielding £9; and that is what the Amendment seeks to do. We want to give these extra grants so that it would be a viable unit to pass on to the next man to be sold or to be let. It would be completely nonsensical if we took the other income of an individual man and then made a grant to that farm business. It would not be right.

I am sorry that I have been so long, but there seemed to be difficulty about this intepretation. I think the Act is quite clear when you come to read it over several times on this point, and we could not fall for the bait so eloquently put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, that we should widen the scope by tens of thousands of other people.

VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH

There is one thing we are doing we are reinforcing the case that my Party have to put to the country about this Bill. That is the benefit to us politically which is coming out of this particular debate, although our aim is to see that so many small farmers who are ruled out of the operation of the Act-to-be may get justice.

I come back again to what I have called the last will and testament of Mr. Sidney Dye in another place. He said two things which struck me. He said that there are a large number of farmers, many of whom are farming economically. who will be ruled out by the 20-acre limit. Is that so? The noble Earl made great stress of what must be the result of the working of Clause 1 (a) of the Bill, and how it is to be founded upon a farm business. Here we had a statement made by, I suppose, one of the late-working small farmers with a great knowledge of small farms in his constituency who, before he was killed in the accident, said, "You are ruling out many small farmers by the 20-acre limit." And you are taking in the same category this afternoon farmers who may have a small acreage but who are able to fit in with that particular holding of theirs some work for forestry or fishing, as the noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, pointed out, but who however much they would be able to develop the productivity of their farm, are to be ruled out unless an Amendment of the kind we have down he admitted. Unless we get a much better explanation of that than we have had from the Minister, I think we have a very strong case in the rural areas.

EARL WALDEGRAVE

Of course we are ruling out some people and some farm businesses. This is a question, after very much thought and consideration, of limits—a bottom limit and a cop limit. It is perfectly true that we are ruling out from this special assistance (but not from the normal support that all farming in this country gets) all except the ones in this wide bracket. Everybody who is on the borderline is always worried that he is not on the right side of the line; that is inevitable. But we must start somewhere, and of course we are ruling out those too small or too big.

LORD SALTOUN

As a Member of your Lordships' House, I am not very much interested in the political implications referred to by the noble Viscount who leads the Opposition, but I should like to say, quite frankly, that when I read the Bill I shared the opinion of noble Lords opposite as to its nature. My noble friend, Lord Waldegrave, has explained that it is quite different, not the least what I thought, and therefore I am not going to oppose this Bill or support this Amendment.

LORD WISE

What I have to say is not political, but I want to refer the Minister to his remarks about the clogging of the machine by taking in thousands more applicants. I would call the Minister's attention to Clause I whereby the Minister "may by a scheme or schemes" provide grants. He can do that at any time. It is quite permissive for the Minister to make any sort of scheme at any time. He can deal with the new applicants piecemeal if he likes, trade by trade or occupation by occupation; and it does not follow, as the Minister rather suggested to your Lordships, that immediately the officers would have to deal with tens of thousands more applicants.

EARL FERRERS

Before we leave this point, may I ask the noble Earl once more to revert to this question which is troubling a number of noble Lords—and I confess that I find myself also troubled; that is, this business of the full-time occupation, although the noble Earl says that a man does not have to be a full-time farmer in order to get the grant. If he has not to be a full-time farmer what is the purpose of saying he has to be a full-time farmer?

EARL WALDEGRAVE

What he has to have is a potential full-time business.

LORD SILKIN

Is the noble Earl so wedded to these ambiguous words that he will not even give an assurance that he will look at that again? This is not a political matter. This is troubling Members on both sides of the House. Surely the noble Earl can, without betraying his side, go so far as to say that he will look at it again and remove this ambiguity at a later stage. That is a perfectly reasonable request.

EARL WALDEGRAVE

Of course I can look at this, and I will ask my right honourable friend to look at this. There will be a later stage of this Bill, probably to-morrow; we will do our best to-night. But I really can hold out no hope at all. We have looked at it and discussed it at great length. We believe the matter is clear, but I will look at this and tomorrow, when we have our Third Reading, I will see whether anything has turned up to give noble Lords comfort.

LORD SILKIN

If the noble Earl says he can hold out no hope, he can keep his reconsideration: I do not call that reconsideration. Surely reconsideration means keeping an open mind, having regard to the doubts expressed from both sides, to see whether, without altering the meaning of the clause or extending it in any way, it can be worded in such a way that there is no doubt at all in anybody's mind as to what it means.

LORD SHEPHERD

The noble Earl spoke about the clogging of the machine. I should have thought that if the clause was not clear to your Lordships' House it would be beyond the powers of the small farmer to understand the Bill, and would create even greater clogging of the machine in going to seek the advice of the Ministry's officers.

EARL WALDEGRAVE

To take the last point first, that does not seem to be the fact, because we are getting a very large number of applications coming in. I think the number is over 6,000, and there have been over 2,000 in the last fortnight. Ninety per cent. of those applications seem to be perfectly in order, and I do not think there is that particular difficulty.

With regard to this question of giving an undertaking to look at these words, the noble Lord opposite is a very much more experienced Parliamentarian than I am, but giving an undertaking to look at words is a very difficult matter. Of course I will look at these words with an open mind, but I think it only fair to say to the House that we have looked at these words, and I doubt whether anything that we have heard this afternoon—and we shall read everything that has been said with the greatest care—will give us grounds for altering our view. I cannot say more or less than that.

LORD SALTOUN

The Opposition claim that the words are clear and that they are not what they want I raised the question because the words are perfectly clear to me, and I thought at first that the Bill had a different intention. The noble Earl has now explained what the intention is.

LORD WISE

Might I suggest to the noble Earl that he looks at the proceedings in another place when he will find that his own Minister fell into the error of using the word "or" instead of "and"?

VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH

In this very indifferent lighting which has descended upon your Lordships this afternoon there is a great need for more light on this matter. However, I do not think the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry is looking very earnestly for the additional light; he thinks the Government have all the necessary light. I can assure him if he wants to get this Bill to make rapid progress through the House—I believe they wanted to get it all through in one day—he is not doing it quite the right way in giving such answers as he has just given. However, I will do my best and withdraw the Amendment, but he had better look at it in a better light on the next one.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clauses 2 to 5 agreed to.

Clause 6:

Interpretation

"small farm business", in relation to any scheme, means a trade or business consisting in, or such part of any trade or business as consists in, the carrying out of agricultural operations on land comprised in the business, where the amount of that land under crops or grass, excluding any rough grazing land, does not exceed one hundred and fifty acres and the business falls within such other limits as may be specified in the scheme in question.

4.39 p.m.

LORD STONHAM moved to add to the definition of "small farm business": any person for the time being carrying on a small farm business may, if the appropriate Minister so decides, include two or more persons carrying out agricultural operations on land as a joint enterprise. The noble Lord said: I beg to move this Amendment. I appreciate that it sounds a bit complicated, but it is, in my submission, perfectly clear. The words "any person for the time being carrying on a small farm business" occur in Clause 1 of the Bill, and these are the very people we are talking about in this Bill. The right honourable gentleman the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has at an earlier stage made it clear that the word "person" equals "persons", meaning two or more; so there is no argument about that. Therefore, this Amendment means that a small farmer can be two, three, or more small farmers, provided that they are carrying on agricultural operations on land as a joint enterprise.

An Amendment not in these precise terms but with a somewhat similar meaning has in another place been debated at quite considerable length and answered most inadequately, and I think that it would be to the advantage at least of the Bill if your Lordships would listen to a little further argument on this subject. I should like to emphasise in particular that we are dealing with small farmers, mainly a very poor section of the community—so poor, indeed, that the White Paper, in paragraph 7, refers to them in these words: At the lower end it"— that is the Bill— is intended to include those farm businesses capable of providing, for an average occupier and with reasonable management, remunerative full-time employment, that is capable of yielding a net income broadly equivalent to the average earnings of a skilled agriculture worker. That means to say that, after we have done all these things, after they have had the grant, after they have been through the mill and done the extra work, then, if we reach the peak, these people may, if all goes well, be receiving earnings broadly speaking equivalent to the average earnings of a skilled farm worker.

So we are talking about people who, in my view, are probably the most depressed industry in the country. I am not saying that farming is a depressed industry, but that this section of people with whom we are dealing in this Bill is the most depressed industry in the whole country, because only when this Bill has been implemented and proved successful will they have risen to the dizzy heights of a farm worker's earnings. Therefore, I suggest that anything that we can do to improve this Bill and to make its benefits clearly available to people to whom apparently they are not available at present, should be done.

One point where it can be improved is on the score of co-operation between two or more small farmers. The noble Earl, during the Second Reading debate, in answer to a question from me on cooperation, assured me—I quote his words [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 213 (No. 35), col. 1261]: provided there is a genuine partnership…two small people who are below the limit can bring their businesses together to form one larger business and so become eligible. But he emphasised that it must be a genuine coming together and not one merely for the purpose of getting grants under this Bill. But surely every scheme that is put forward under this Bill is put forward for the purpose of getting grants, and for no other purpose. There is nothing immoral in two or more people who do not otherwise qualify coming together for the purpose of getting grants under this Bill. Surely it is no objection. If people want honestly to co-operate together, why say to them: "You are co-operating only because you want to get a grant under this Bill"? Of course they do; that is why they are going to put forward schemes. That criticism is going to apply to everybody who puts forward a scheme under this Bill. Surely what matters is whether the scheme can be approved as one likely to serve the interests of improved efficiency and increased production. In fact, all that the noble Earl's so-called concession means is that if two or more small farm businesses become one farm business then they would be treated as one business. So the concession is entirely valueless.

If you have two small farmers who do not come above the 20 acres or above the 275 man-days, they join together in one business and they then become qualified under the scheme, provided that they have not put themselves outside it in some other way. There is absolutely no concession there at all. The right honourable gentleman the Minister has made it clear that although a legalised union, as it were, is not insisted on, it is nevertheless advisable. This union must, in fact, be an enterprise run on the same books and with a common balance sheet. Obviously, therefore, there will be few such amalgamations. Small farmers are a sturdy, independent type, or they would not be small farmers; they are not voluntarily going to sacrifice their independence in order to benefit from this scheme. There could, however, in many parts of the country be an extremely valuable opportunity for co-operation if the interpretation clause included the words of this Amendment.

Last month the Minister issued a pamphlet explaining the scheme. There had been a lot of talk about co-operation and small partnerships, and he expressed himself as very favourably impressed in saying in fact that this was a great opportunity. In order to demonstrate this great opportunity he issued a special pamphlet which, in paragraphs 27 to 29, dealt with partnerships and co-operation. On co-operation the document says this—and I quote: A form of co-operation short of a full partnership among a group of farmers, each of whom taken individually does not satisfy the conditions of eligibility, cannot make the group as a whole eligible for assistance In other words, two men who already qualify can co-operate, but two non-qualifiers cannot qualify together through co-operation. The noble Earl shakes his head, but that is absolutely so. I have demonstrated it in terms, and I shall be very pleased if he can prove me wrong. I have said that two people who do not of themselves qualify cannot qualify merely through an act of co-operation; they can qualify only through an act of union which makes the two one. If the noble Earl is able to prove that I am wrong in that then I should be very pleased to hear it.

Then this document on which our hopes rose, goes on to say: But an eligible small farmer who considers that he can improve the efficiency of his farm if he were able to use an item of machinery or equipment that he could not afford to acquire outright may well wish to join a cooperative machinery syndicate. Of course, when I read that my heart leaped again: I thought to myself "Ah, we are getting a chance under this scheme. These chaps can join co-operative syndicates and they will be able to get machinery that they could not otherwise get." But, when you read it again carefully, you come across the governing words "eligible small farmer"—in other words, he has already to be eligible in man-days and acreage before he can cooperate and take steps in a co-operative machinery syndicate. Those are the key words—"eligible small farmer". So the pamphlet and all the explanations, all the high hopes, do not add to the Bill a single scheme that was not there already; and in my view it would be less than frank for the noble Earl to pretend otherwise.

If the Minister wants to give a real opening for worth-while co-operation—and its value would be immense—he could do so by accepting this Amendment. I can think of many examples, and I have no doubt that noble Lords can think of many more in their own parts of the country. For example, in Cambridgeshire, at villages like Cottenham, Outwell and Upwell, near Wisbech, there are scores of small growers each intensively cultivating a few acres with not a hedge or a ditch dividing their land. They would not dream of surrendering the few acres which they cultivate so intensively, but they would jump at the chance of financial assistance, certainly for the purchase of machinery for collective use, both in cultivating and packing. I know of similar colonies in the Tamar Valley and many other parts of Cornwall; and, indeed, all over the country. Probably not one of these farms is big enough to qualify individually, but collectively, or in groups, they would make worthwhile units; and it would be an absolutely genuine business limited to a specified and worth-while objective, a genuine business which, by the present terms of reference, is quite debarred unless this Amendment is accepted.

There is another example which conies very near my experience, and of which the noble Lord will be aware—the willow growers of Sedgemoor and Curry Moor, where there are 1,300 acres intensively cultivated by more than 100 growers, very few of whom have more than twenty acres each, and who are now suffering severely from foreign imports. I have been told that there are new driers and other processing machines on the market which they cannot afford individually but could use collectively. Why should it not be made possible under this Bill for them to get together in groups of, say, eight or ten growers, covering 80 to 100 acres and put up co-operative schemes under this Bill? It is not the case that these farms are not viable. They are not viable within the restricted terms of the Bill, but they are viable in fact; and for this reason I submit that it is wrong to deny them help which is given to others and to which they have contributed.

Just one final example which I cannot give from my own knowledge, but which comes from a speech by Sir David Robertson, Member of Parliament for Caithness and Sutherland. Speaking on January 21, he said [OFFICIAL REPORT, (Commons), Vol. 598 (No. 40), col. 226]: In the County of Sutherland there are 362 smallholders on 1,460 acres.… These men do not come under the Crofters' Commission, because they own their land or are sub-tenants. They are now in receipt of marginal grant, I presume, but they will not be in future. Their position will be serious. The spokesman for the County of Sutherland said that they represented the finest type of agricultural stock. Most of them were working their own land…and they worked for the big farmer, too. This Amendment would make it possible for the Minister, on submission of a suitable scheme, to help these and many thousands of other small men whom we are all anxious to help. Without this Amendment we cannot help them except through fresh legislation. Here again this Amendment would obviate the need for fresh legislation and would merely give the Minister permissive powers. He could operate them if and when he wished, and only if he thought it proper to do so. I hope that this Amendment will be accepted so that the Minister will not be debarred from assisting all small farmers who show willingness to co-operate together for their mutual benefit. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 5, line 45, after ("question") insert ("any person for the time being carrying on a small farm business may, if the appropriate Minister so decides, include two or more persons carrying out agricultural operations on land as a joint enterprise.")—(Lord Stonham.)

EARL WALDEGRAVE

It has never been the intention of Her Majesty's Government that the assistance under this Bill should be confined only to businesses carried on by one person. To take an obvious example, the farmer's wife, especially in these small units, usually takes a big share in running the business, though the deeds or the tenancy of the farm may well be in the name of the husband; but there is a joint enterprise here, as there is, more definitely, if the farmer has taken his sons into partnership, even though the tenancy may still be in the name of only a single person.

I am advised that there is absolutely nothing in this Bill that in any way limits the power of the Minister to accept an application which is made jointly by two or more persons who are operating, or proposing in future to operate, a single farm business. But, as has already been said in this discussion, the whole of our limits here are the limits of the business—not the individual. So long as the Minister can be satisfied that there is one farm business within the meaning of the limits of eligibility, the persons running it need not have entered into an actual legal partnership, although of course it may be advisable from their own point of view to do so. We may examine those cases when they come up and see what they are.

I believe that the Amendment proposed by the noble Lord, far from underlining, as he seeks to do, the eligibility of partnerships or groups of farmers acting in one business, would really have an opposite effect, because it would imply that the term "person" is not to be construed in accordance with the Interpretation Act, 1889, which, as your Lordships know, says that "a person" means "persons", that "female" includes "male", that the plural includes the singular and such other legal mysteries. This Amendment would have the effect of extending the term "person" to mean "persons" only at the discretion of the Minister—which I should not have thought was at all what the noble Lord would have wished. I am advised—and this is an abstruse legal point on which I should not have personal knowledge—that this would be the effect of the Amendment. It would nullify or would take away from the ordinary usage of the Interpretation Act, which already gives the noble Lord what he wants. The noble Lord also—

LORD STONHAM

Can the noble Earl explain how the words "any person" may include two or more persons? That does not limit the numbers; it expressly enlarges them.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT KILMUIR)

My noble friend has asked me to deal with that point. If the noble Lord will look at Clause 1, he will see that it says: The appropriate Minister may by a scheme or schemes made under this section with the approval of the Treasury provide for the payment of grants to any person". That means, "person or persons" and is exactly the same as the noble Lord's Amendment, because his Amendment keeps the words: for the time being carrying on a small farm business. If one were to insert the words: may, if the appropriate Minister so decides, include two or more persons that would probably be construed as excluding the operation of the Interpretation Act from that section, because the noble Lord will have made his own dictionary upon what a person should do. It would mean that we should be derogating from the generality of the present section to the particular discretion of the Minister, which I do not think (I listened very carefully to what the noble Lord said) is what he wants to do. He would be defeating his own purpose.

EARL WALDEGRAVE

I must thank my noble and learned friend for having given us the weight of his knowledge and experience on this point, and I would move on to the next point in the noble Lord's mind—that his Amendment would cover the case of two or more persons who are co-operating in the running of their farm but have not put the whole of their business into a common pool. As I have said, this would not be the effect of the Amendment, but we could not accept a modified version. We certainly hope that the Small Farmer Scheme will give some encouragement, although indirectly, to co-operation and voluntary amalgamations. If two or more persons form themselves into a co-operative they could certainly make an application if their former individual farm businesses were now to be run as one. I must point out, however, that it is unlikely that there would be many such cases because, of course, the upper limits of acreage and, more important perhaps, of standard man-days would apply to the new combined farm business. So one would rapidly go above the limit in many cases.

The noble Lord mentioned other ways in which co-operation could be encouraged. Machinery is a very good one, and I do not quite understand his doubts about that, for it may well happen that neighbouring small farmers who are each preparing programmes for the improvement of their farm businesses may find that what they really need as part of their programmes is a share in some rather expensive machinery. In that case they will, we hope, get together and form a machinery syndicate.

LORD STONHAM

But only if they already qualify for the scheme.

EARL WALDEGRAVE

I beg your Lordship's pardon?

LORD STONHAM

Only if they already qualify for the scheme.

EARL WALDEGRAVE

Indeed. If the farmer qualifies and says, "This grant is limited to £1,000 and I should like to use a combine harvester which costs £1,000", there is nothing to prevent his saying, "To put this business on a better footing I will form a machinery syndicate and we together will get this larger machine." He can use his farm business grant in any way he likes. It is not tied, as the husbandry grant is, and he could put his grant into a pool with a neighbour's and buy a larger machine which the small unit could not have. The farm business grant will assist them in finding their share of the cost, and our officers will advise about this.

But the real point in the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, was, I believe—he was quite open—that he wants to widen the door; and that at this stage we must resist because we must have our limits. We are going to take the hard core, where we are quite clear that we can do good in the middle. It will be for another day, perhaps, to raise the limits or to lower the limits; but for the moment we have this block, and we feel we must concentrate on them and not accept the noble Lord's blandishments to keep on opening the door and so swamp ourselves.

VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH

It seems that we can argue all night, if we like, but the noble Earl has his instructions. He cannot consider or reconsider and cannot hold out much hope. It is twenty acres up to 100 that is involved. It does not matter whether it is one person or two or three persons who are concerned. We entirely accept the legal interpretation given us by the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor. But what the Government do not intend is to bring any of the other more deserving people into the realm of grants. The proviso which my noble friend was so anxious about in the speech he made in support of it is a way of getting people who deserve it, and who cannot get into it without working together, into the scheme. I am not satisfied by what the Minister says that they can so get in. It is a pity that we have not yet sufficiently educated noble Lords opposite in that formula: From every man according to his ability, To every man according to his need. It seems to me quite clear that some of the most needy small farmers are deliberately left out of the help to be given by the Government.

On Question, Amendment negatived.

Clause 6 agreed to.

Remaining clauses and Schedule agreed to.

House resumed.

EARL WALDEGRAVE

My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now received.

Moved, that the Report be now received.—(Earl Waldegrave.)

5.5 p.m.

VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH

My Lords, if we are going through the Report stage now, I wish to say that we on this side are very un- happy about this Bill, and if it is the intention of the Government to go on with all the remaining stages this afternoon it would be a most unhappy thing for my noble friend, Lord Ammon, who has brought forward his Motion from Thursday next to to-day to suit Government business. We have had so long a discussion that I hope that the Government will agree to put the later stages of this Bill down for another day. I think there are seven noble Lords who wish to speak on the next motion on the Paper, and I hope, therefore, that we shall not proceed further with this Bill now.

LORD SILKIN

My Lords, before the noble Earl replies, may I say that he has given an undertaking to consider one of the clauses of this Bill. If he were to take the Report stage now, that undertaking would be meaningless. It would be completely misleading the House to pretend that he is really going to consider something when he is at once taking it out of his power to consider. I hope that, for the good name of this House, when an undertaking has been given it will be duly honoured and carried out, and that the Report stage will not be taken now.

EARL WALDEGRAVE

My Lords, I understood that the Third Reading of this Bill was put down for to-morrow. When the noble Lord asked me to give an undertaking to consider something I was careful to say that there would be an opportunity to-morrow, on Third Reading, for me to reply. I was careful to say that. I was careful also to say, in giving an undertaking, that to do so was a matter of importance to Parliament, which the noble Lord probably knew a great deal more about than I did. I said that I would look at this matter to-night but I held out no hopes that I should be able to alter my view. The noble Lord did not like that, but I stuck to it and said it was so. In the circumstances, I think we ought, if your Lordships agree, to stick to the timetable arranged for the Third Reading of this Bill to-morrow. If that is the case, presumably the Report stage would be taken now, but I am in your Lordships' hands on this matter.

On Question, Motion agreed to: Bill reported without amendment.