AGRICULTURE (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) BILL (Hansard, 9 April 1963)

EARL ST. ALDWYN
My Lords, I have it in Command from Her Majesty the Queen to signify to the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, has consented to place Her Majesty's interest, so far as it is concerned on behalf of the Crown, the Duchy of Lancaster and the Duchy of Cornwall, at the disposal of Parliament for the purpose of the Bill.

THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (LORD ST. OSWALD)
My Lords, as this Bill has been very fully debated in your Lordships' House in its previous stages, I feel there would be little demand for a lengthy speech from this Dispatch Box to-day. A brief valedictory would seem more in keeping and, I trust, more acceptable. There has been a broad 922 body of approval from your Lordships' House for nearly all the provisions in the Bill. As might be expected, some noble Lords have had misgivings or reservations about particular clauses, but this is scarcely surprising in a Bill which contains nearly two dozen quite separate proposals.
Here and there we have been asked to add to the Bill, and here and there to subtract from it. For example, the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh, and his noble friends opposite would clearly have liked to exchange the clause abolishing the Land Commissions for a new provision which would give a further lease of life to land improvement schemes in the hills. I am sorry that we have been unable to accommodate the noble Lord on either count. But, as I explained at the time, we are dealing here with mechanisms that have been valuable in the past. They have served their purpose and served it well—and, indeed, this fact was repeated on both sides of the House by various noble Lords—but, having served their purpose well, we feel they are passing into the history of the industry rather than meeting its present-day needs.
I shall carry with me inevitably a sense of regret in one respect. In three debates on Clause 25 I have signally failed to persuade my noble friends Lord Milverton and Lord Merrivale that what the noble Lord, Lord Champion, and I see as the correction of "another injustice to Ireland" is not, as they see it, a deliberate injustice to the sugar refiners of England, Scotland and Wales: nor will it prove to be an involuntary injustice. I hope that when the Irish Sugar Agreement has been implemented, and has had a year or two to run, my two noble friends will be as satisfied of that fact as we are ourselves.
The noble Duke, the Duke of Atholl, wanted us to bring in a special and lower fee for licensing pony stallions. Although we have been unable to do this, my noble friend's views have not passed unnoticed. They have strengthened us in our resolve to minimise our costs, and therefore our fees, for stallion licensing as a whole. When we come to announce the new fees, after consultation with the various interests, I hope that my noble friend will have no occasion to quarrel with them.
But it would be out of keeping with the friendly reception which your Lordships have accorded to this Bill as a whole 923 if I were to dwell unduly upon the few clauses that have proved controversial. The Government are here introducing a spread of proposals from which benefits will flow far and wide. Much of the financial assistance, adding up to some £78 million, goes to the industry at large and should, we hope, strengthen its competitiveness. But some of the funds are earmarked for particular classes such as the special provisions for hill farmers; for those who practise self-help through machinery syndicates or other joint ventures; or for specialist producers like poultry keepers and mushroom growers.
The Bill is contemporary, indeed topical, in its provisions for technical advances, whether in breeding standards, in fertiliser spraying or in market research and development. It brings in new safeguards for farm animals and its protective arm stretches variously over landlord and tenant, buyer and seller, and taxpayer and consumer. I am vastly relieved that we have done something for the consumer, if only in the matter of fresh eggs; otherwise I could scarcely have survived a pincer movement from the two noble Ladies, Lady Burton of Coventry and my noble friend Lady Elliot of Harwood. This is the first opportunity I have had of congratulating her on her appointment to her new and benignant office. My Lords, I submit that when this Bill came to us it was a good Bill. We made some modest improvements as we went along, and I hope that we can now return it to another place as a still better Bill. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to our examination of the Bill, and I now beg to move that it be read a third time.

§ LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGH
My Lords, a very revered old leader of mine at one stage, about thirty-two years ago, tried to teach me that repetition was the law of propaganda in both politics and advertisement. As I do not want to be political or to advertise I shall content myself with saying that this is a modestly good Bill. It is so because it is extending several schemes that I had the privilege of starting in another place. Therefore I do not intend to detain the House longer than to express a hope that 924 all the schemes, old and new, will succeed in the coming years.

THE DUKE OF ATHOLL
My Lords, I should like to thank my noble friend very much for the immense trouble he took about Clause 16 and say how pleased I am to hear that at any rate my words have not fallen on entirely deaf ears. He promised at the Committee stage of the Bill to write to me about my idea of promissory notes for hill farming schemes which could not be prepared in time for the November 5 deadline laid down in Clause 1. He has done this, and while he did not exactly agree with my idea—which I cannot say entirely surprised me—I think there is still some hope that the Ministry of Agriculture will not take too firm a stand on what one puts in for one's schemes before November 5, and will allow one a certain latitude in alterations when the time comes to undertake these schemes. I hope I have not misunderstood him in any way when I say this.