§ 2.44 p.m
§ LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGHMy Lords, I beg leave 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 will state what were the numbers of farms in Great Britain at the last survey, from one to fifty acres, from fifty to one hundred acres, one hundred to two hundred and fifty acres and farms in excess of two hundred and fifty acres.]
| NUMBER OF AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS IN GREAT BRITAIN | ||||||
| Crops and Grass Acreage—June, I960 | ||||||
| 1–49¾ acres | 50–99¾ acres | 100–149¾ acres | 150–299¾ acres | 300acres and over | Total number of holdings | |
| England and Wales | 210,851 | 57,621 | 29,605 | 33,010 | 13,849 | 344,936 |
| Scotland | 38,453 | 8,581 | 5,201 | 6,365 | 2,708 | 61,308 |
| Great Britain | 249,304 | 66,202 | 34,806 | 39,375 | 16,557 | 406,244 |
§ LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGHMy Lords, on the assumption that this country goes into the Common Market, and assuming also that the cereals scheme of the Six European countries continues, may I ask the noble Lord whether he has made any estimate of how many of those 310,000 farmers with farms between 1 and 100 acres will go bankrupt because of the colossal increase in the price of feeding-stuffs?
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (LORD ST. OSWALD)My Lords, I regret that it is not possible, without considerable expenditure of time and labour in research, to provide the exact figures required by the noble Lord, but on the basis of crops and grass acreages as at June, 1960, there were approximately 249,000 holdings under 50 acres, 66,000 from 50 to 100 acres, 35,000 from 100 to 150 acres, 39,000 from 150 to 300 acres, and 17,000 of 300 acres and over. By no means all these holdings are full-time farms, and particularly in the smaller sizes there are many part-time and spare-time holdings of various kinds. Of the 345,000 holdings in England and Wales, about 180,000 are full-time.
With your Lordships' permission, I will circulate details in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
§ Following is the information referred to in Lord St. Oswald's Answer:—
LORD ST. OSWALDMy Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord will take satisfaction from the fact that my advisers and I sought diligently to find what supplementaries might emerge from the noble Lord's Question, and that we did not foresee that he would introduce this particular subject of cereals. However, in answer to his main supplementary, I would say that a precise comparison is not possible because of differences 883 of definition between ourselves and the Continent; but, in general terms, the relative average sizes are roughly as between 70 acres for Great Britain and 25 acres among the countries of the present Community.
§ LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGHYes; but since the small farmers are wholly dependent upon feeding-stuffs and the livestock and livestock products they must produce to keep alive at all, is it not a racing certainty (in Doncaster language) that the small farmers who have not a large enough area to produce cereals will be hard put to it to avoid bankruptcy?
LORD ST.OSWALDIn the noble Lord's own terms, I should have thought that, having shown that our farms were on average larger than those in the Common Market countries, any extent to which our farmers were affected in the matter of feeding-stuffs would therefore still more, and still more gravely, affect those on the Continent of Europe. Our competitiveness will not be unhappily comparable there.
§ LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGHBut surely the noble Lord does not take pleasure from the fact that perhaps more Continental small farmers will go out of production than our own.
§ LORD OGMOREMy Lords, will the noble Lord give us an indication as to how this number of small farmers is divided up between England, Scotland and Wales? Secondly, would he agree that what the small farmer requires is subsidised services, rather than subsidised fertilisers? Thirdly, would he not also agree that the small farmer plays a most important part in the social and economic life of his community—for I take it that he does not agree with the views expressed on May 2 last in this House, by both Conservative and Labour Backbenchers, that the small farmers ought to die out?
LORD ST. OSWALDMy Lords, working steadily backwards through the noble Lord's supplementary questions, I would agree with the first part of his third question, that the small farmer does, in fact, play an important part in the life of the farming community. I think he will be satisfied by the circulation of the figures in the OFFICIAL REPORT that we have studied and done our best to provide the answers to his first and second questions.
§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGHMy Lords, did not the last question seem to make it fairly clear that, as the Liberal Party have never been very enthusiastic about either the 1947 Act or the 1957 Act, they have no real plans for assisting the fanning industry?
VISCOUNT STONEHAVENMy Lords, could the noble Lord give any assurance that the standard of living of the small farmer will not be reduced towards the standard of living of the small Continental farmer? That is the point which worries many people in the farming community.
LORD ST. OSWALDMy Lords, apart from the fact that that question is very well outside the scope of the Question, I hope the noble Lords and all other noble Lords are aware that all the efforts of our negotiators in Brussels are being bent to the end of ensuring that none of our farming community, on whatever scale they farm, shall be sufferers.
§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGHHow can you win a gamble?
§ LORD CHAMPIONMy Lords, could the noble Lord tell us if the latest researches assume a considerable number of amalgamations of small farmers, which I gather is part of the Government's policy in this connection?
LORD ST. OSWALDYes, such reductions as have taken place in the number of small farms are largely the result of amalgamations.