Lords Sitting of 25 March 1964

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Bristol

MESSAGES FROM THE QUEEN
2.35 p.m.
LORD COBBOLD: My Lords, I have the honour to present to your Lordships two Messages from Her Majesty the Queen, signed by her own hand. The first Message is as follows:
"I thank you most sincerely for your loyal and dutiful Address on the occasion of the birth of my Son. My Husband and I have been deeply moved by the expression of your highest satisfaction and the assurance of your affectionate concern for our happiness."
The second Message reads as follows:
"I have received your Address praying that the Secretary of State for Education and Science Order, 1964, be made in the form of the Draft laid before your House.
"I will comply with your request."

PLAYING FIELDS AND RATING RELIEF
2.37 p.m.
LORD WAKEFIELD OF KENDAL: My 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 are now in a position to make a statement about the results obtained from the further contact that has been made with those local authorities who had previously refused to consider the granting of relief to
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football, cricket and other sporting clubs, in respect of the rates payable on their playing fields, as it was intended should be done under the Rating and Valuation Act, 1961.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, THE MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (LORD HASTINGS): My Lords, my right honourable friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government has written to four rating authorities about their alleged refusal to consider applications on merits. One authority rescinded its decision not to entertain applications; one refuted the allegation that it had not given any relief; one replied that only one sports club had asked for relief and that had been refused on merits; and one admitted refusing all applicants but explained that most would have lower rates this year than before the revaluation, and that the decision had been taken against the background of a local increase in the domestic share of the rates.
LORD WAKEFIELD OF KENDAL: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that reply, I should like to ask him whether the Government will continue to bring pressure to bear in future on those local authorities who do not carry out the intention of the 1961 Act. Furthermore, is my noble friend aware that all amateur sporting clubs who have received relief or who are in difficulties are grateful to the Government for the action they have recently taken in this matter? And will the Government be prepared to continue in future to act in this way, should it be shown to be necessary?
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his expression of gratitude to Her Majesty's Government. It is certainly to be understood, and I welcome this opportunity of making quite clear, that my right honourable friend expects every decision to be taken on merits. I welcome this opportunity of drawing attention to his view. The intention of the Act, of course, is that proper consideration should be given to all applications.

THE FOREIGN OFFICE BUILDING
2.40 p.m.
LORD BOSSOM: My 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, since the façade of the Foreign Office is an exceptional example of Victorian architecture, whether they will consider removing the interior and replacing it, and if this is not large enough to meet the requirements of the Foreign Office could not the members of the staff who do not have to meet members of the public or the senior officials be located in some nearby building; or failing this could not some smaller Government Department be located in the Foreign Office building, and the whole of the Foreign Office be transferred into different premises.]
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD CAR RINGTON): My Lords, a scheme to mod rnise the interior of the present Foreign Office was prepared but had to be abandoned because it becomes apparent that after spending at least £2 million we should be left with accommodation which still suffered from many of the defects of the present building, would be unsuitable for a modern Department of State, would be insufficient to house the staff of the Foreign Office and Commonwealth Relations Office who must be in Whitehall, and would not make the best use of this important site.
Complete reconstruction of the interior of the building would be an even more expensive operation, and would not materially increase the space available. It would not be possible to introduce additional floors while retaining the present window arrangement without spoiling the external appearance of the building and condemning staff to work in offices with inadequate natural lighting
To spend millions of pounds on trying to improve the accommodation in the present building, and to spend further millions on accommodating those staff who cannot be housed there would not, in our view, be a justifiable expenditure
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of public money. It would result in a far more expensive and far less efficient scheme than replacing the present building. As for the suggestion that the present building might be used to house a smaller Department, and the Foreign Office be housed elsewhere, there is no other building in the Whitehall area—apart from Whitehall Gardens, now fully occupied by Ministry of Defence staff—which is large enough to house the Foreign Office and Commonwealth Relations Office staff who must be in this area.
Her Majesty's Government do not share the implied doubt as to the ability of our present-day architects to produce a building that is both functionally efficient and to a design worthy of this important site.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether, when a final decision is being reached, the plans for the new building will be made available to Parliament before the actual decision is taken?
LORD CARRINGTON: Yes, my Lords; I am sure that that is so.
LORD BOSSOM: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that rather comprehensive story, with which I do not quite agree, I would say that I am afraid modern methods of construction do not justify the figures he has quoted. But surely there are methods whereby this can be done. As for getting a part of the staff to go elsewhere, this is, in fact, being done by some of the largest organisations in the world, both in this country and abroad. Why, therefore, cannot we give consideration to this matter so as to save some of our really famous buildings?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, there is no doubt whatever that part of the Foreign Office staff could be housed elsewhere, as indeed they are at the moment. But the point is not only that anybody can see that it is very desirable that the whole Foreign Office should be housed together, but that it was one of the recommendations in the Plowden Report. If the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, will read it, I think he will see why. I know that my noble friend Lord Bossom feels very strongly about this and is unconvinced by the arguments which have been produced so far. May I suggest to

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him that he comes round, at a time convenient to him, and has a look at the inside of the Foreign Office; and if he is still unconvinced and thinks that it could be altered structurally inside to accommodate the whole of the Foreign Office, he may like to write to my right honourable friend the Minister of Public Building and Works, and perhaps see one of the architects concerned.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that some time ago I put forward a suggestion that there should be a White Paper on this subject, so that Parliament should be fully informed as to the position? We are not fully informed; we do not know what the cost of alternative schemes would be. The noble Lord has explained what will be cost of carrying out the noble Lord's suggestion, but we do not know what would be the cost of alternative schemes. If we could have all this information before the Government are finally committed—the cost of carrying out the alternative which the Government have in mind as against the cost of the proposal which the noble Lord, Lord Bossom, is putting forward—we should be in a better position to make up our minds.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I confess that I did not know that the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, had made that suggestion, but I should like to consider it, if I may.
LORD SILKIN: I had been promised that it would be considered, but I had not heard the result of the consideration.
LORD CARRINGTON: I am afraid that, as the noble Lord knows, I am only a "stand-in" in this matter, and I did not know that.
LORD BOSSOM: May I accept my noble friend's invitation after Easter? We can then get together. I am certainly only too anxious to be as helpful as I can be. Thank you very much.
LORD CARRINGTON: I can assure my noble friend that the Foreign Office will not be pulled down before Easter.
THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE: My Lords, is the noble Lord not aware that many people who have it in mind that the real façade should be retained are of the opinion that the Ministry are circumscribed in the information that they can obtain from other experts, architects and engineers? And is he not aware that many people who have this matter very much at heart think that the Government are limiting themselves in the receipt of alternative information which would make them believe that what they think is now impossible is in fact possible?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I really do not think that that is so, but I hope my noble friend will feel that the inspection by my noble friend Lord Bossom will meet at any rate some of his objections.
LORD ALPORT: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether it is intended to retain in the new design, if it takes place, the Indian Council Chamber, which is one of the few features in London which has a direct association with the long period of government by this country of India, and which in itself is a very beautiful room which has historic associations?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I am afraid I do not know that, because, of course, there is no new design, but I am quite sure that those concerned will take note of what my noble friend has said.
LORD REA: My Lords, is it not the fact that there are plans afoot for reconstructing the South-East corner of Whitehall—that is, roughly, I think, from Richmond Terrace to Bridge Street, and along Bridge Street? Could the noble Lord say whether there is any intention to build more Government offices there, or what are the plans?
LORD CARRINGTON: I think that is rather a different question, but I believe the intention is that there should be more accommodation for the House of Commons, and another Government building which should be occupied by the Home Office.

THE VIEW OF ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL
2.46 p.m.
LORD WALSTON: My 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 are satisfied that the setting of St. Paul's Cathedral is in no way jeopardised by the proposed new buildings in the neighbourhood.]
LORD HASTINGS: Yes, my Lords. I assume that the noble Lord has in mind the building now being erected on the North side of Ludgate Hill. This is in accordance with the proposals of Sir William Holford, the consultant for the St. Paul's Cathedral Precinct Scheme, and the amendment of the development plan formally approved following public inquiries by my right honourable friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government on January 12, 1959.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that Answer. Is he not aware of the very strong feeling which has been aroused among very many people of widely different kinds about this proposed building and is he not also aware that only a very small alteration in the existing plans (albeit costing a considerable amount of money) would go a very long way towards meeting the major objections? Therefore, would he not consider looking into this whole matter again with the greatest possible urgency, in order to ensure that the view of one of the finest buildings left in the City of London is in no way, even minimally, impeded, so that people can enjoy to the full the façade of Sir Christopher Wren's St. Paul's?
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, I am well aware of the strong feelings of a number, possibly quite a small minority, of people who have been expressing their feelings upon this matter and writing to the Press, but I am sure that the noble Lord himself must be fully aware that this is probably the most carefully considered, the most carefully planned and the most thoroughly discussed redevelopment plan in the whole of Great Britain since the war, over a
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period of six years, starting in 1955. Everybody was fully aware at that time of what was going to happen. The scheme was fully considered, and everybody had the opportunity to express his opinions. I would draw the noble Lord's attention to the letter by Sir William Holford in The Times of yesterday explaining the scheme in great detail, and to the leading article in The Times today.
In view of all this, I must state categorically that my right honourable friend has no intention of altering the decisions already taken or of reconsidering the matter. We believe that it has been fully considered and in the great majority of cases that it is fully approved as a very fine development scheme. I would just add that the view of the West Front of St. Paul's is to be limited to only a very small extent by the building to which the noble Lord has referred. It is a question of a difference of about 35 yards between the view obtained when the demolition of the old building was completed and the view after the erection of the new building. The new building will obstruct the view to an extent of only 35 yards on Ludgate Hill.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, does the noble Lord not agree that it is unfortunate that even 35 yards—which on a façade of the size of St. Paul's, cannot be considered as entirely minimal—should be restricted in a new plan? And would he not once more undertake to reconsider some of the objections put forward by many people, including the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, and other less eminent but no less worthy people?
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, does my noble friend recall that this House debated Sir William Holford's plan for St. Paul's on April 18, 1956, and that every one of us who took part, including the late Lord Esher and the late Lord Mottistone, welcomed and praised it? Is he aware that one lover of London and of the work of Wren remains of the same opinion still, welcomes the Government's reply and greatly prefers the plan of Sir William Holford to the views of his latest critics?
LORD RATHCAVAN: My Lords, my interest in this matter is that the very next building to the building under dis-

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cussion belongs to a business of which I am the chairman, and my board and I are naturally very much concerned with the amenities around St. Paul's. I quite realise, as the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, said, that this matter was decided a long time ago by, I think the London County Council or the City of London and various high-up people.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Order! Question!
LORD RATHCAVAN: Is it not the case that this is the first occasion since this building has been started that the ordinary citizen has been able to see what is happening? It is the ordinary citizen who did not realise the position. And is it not time, in view of the correspondence in the Press and the meeting to-day outside St. Paul's Cathedral, that some notice was taken of what the ordinary citizen thinks?
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Conesford for reminding us of the full debate some years ago; and in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Walston, and to my noble friend Lord Rathcavan, I would say that this is really not a case where the public have not been fully informed of what has been happening and have not had an opportunity to express their opinion: the public have had that opportunity. Ultimately, as in all matters of æthetics, it is question of personal opinion. The majority opinion after careful consideration, seems to be that the precinct of St. Paul's—which is to become a precinct free from traffic—is better in a setting of enclosure or semi-enclosure, rather than having a wide open front whereby the West Front could be viewed at a rather greater distance. It is a matter of opinion, and I think we must say that this matter has been most carefully considered and finally closed.
THE EARL OF SANDWICH: My Lords, it is not clear from Sir William Holford's letter, but it is the case that, after this building, to which so much objection has been taken, has been put up, there will be a better view of St. Paul's from Ludgate Hill than there has been at any time since the nearby nineteenth century buildings were put
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up, except for the period after the bombing.
LORD HASTINGS: That is one of the intentions of Sir William Holford's plan, my Lords. The public will have access to the tower of this new block, which is 90 feet high, and they will be able to look in both directions, on to the West Front of St. Paul's and down Ludgate Hill itself.
LORD BOSSOM: My Lords, is my noble friend not aware that St. Paul's is internationally considered to be the finest example of the work of England's greatest architect, Sir Christopher Wren? Yet here we are attempting to obliterate its view—and if the noble Lord will go to St. Paul's he will see it for himself—by an ordinary commercial building? Can my noble friend state a single example in the world where such vandalism has been carried out before?
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, I would remind my noble friend that the view of St. Paul's has been far more greatly obliterated by buildings which were there soon after St. Paul's was put up than it is now or will be when redevelopment is carried out. The range of views will be much wider and there will be many more varied and wider views of St. Pauls within the precinct than were ever seen before.
LORD BOSSOM: My Lords, would my noble friend go down to St. Paul's and see for himself? If he were to do so he would not make that comment.

PRESIDENT KENNEDY MEMORIAL
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I should like to inform your Lordships that at a suitable moment after 3.30 p.m. the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will be making a statement on the President Kennedy Memorial.

EDUCATION BILL [H.L.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HEALTH (LORD NEWTON): My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to enable local education authorities to establish schools for providing full-time education

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by reference to age-limits differing from those specified in the Education Act 1944, as amended by the Education (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1948; to enable maintenance allowances to be granted in respect of pupils at special schools who would be over compulsory school age, or, in Scotland, over school age, but for section 38(1) of the said Act of 1944 or section 32(4) of the Education (Scotland) Act 1962; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(Lord Newton.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

NEWCASTLE-UNDER-LYME CORPORATION BILL
Read 2a, and committed to the Committee on Unopposed Bills.
BRITISH RAILWAYS BILL
Read 2a, and committed to a Select Committee.

HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES COMMITTEE
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD MERTHYR): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name.
Moved, That the Lord Strang be proposed to the House as a member of the House of Lords Offices Committee.—(Lord Merthyr.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

JUDICIAL STANDING ORDERS
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD DILHORNE): My Lords, I beg to move the first Amendment to the Standing Orders relating to Judicial Business standing in my name on the Order Paper. On February 26, 1959, your Lordships amended Standing Order I regulating Judicial Business in your
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Lordships' House so as to provide that appeals from the Court of Appeal in England and Northern Ireland and from the Court of Session in Scotland should be brought within three months of the order or interlocutor complained of, instead of within six months, as had formerly been the case. The Standing Order as then amended included a proviso that in the case of orders or interlocutors made before April 1, 1959, the period for appeal should still be six months. With the passage of time that proviso is now spent, and therefore I beg to move its deletion from the Standing Order.
Moved, That the following Amendment be made to the Standing Orders regulating Judicial Business:—
Standing Order I, leave out the proviso.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move the second Amendment standing in my name. This Standing Order provides that in appeals from Scotland the Appellants shall lay before your Lordships' House a copy of the record "as authenticated by the Lord Ordinary". The closed record is the document which contains the pursuer's condescendence and the defender's answers thereto as fully adjusted at the sight of the Lord Ordinary and which forms the pleadings upon which the subsequent procedure takes place. The Lord Ordinary is said to "close the record" when parties have completed their adjustments on the pleadings. I am informed that in fact the Lord Ordinary has not so authenticated the record for a number of years, but that this is done by the Deputy Principal Clerk of Session. This official takes charge of the Process Department of the Court of Session by virtue of an Act of Sederunt. This Amendment will regularise the present practice. My Lords, I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Standing Order VI(2), lines 3 and 4, leave out ("Lord Ordinary") and insert ("Deputy Principal Clerk of Session or a Clerk of Session delegated by him").—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.

AGRICULTURE
2.58 p.m.
LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGH LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGH rose to draw attention to the problems of Agriculture and to the Government Statement on the Agricultural Price Review, 1964; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, while we are all pleased to learn that the outcome of the recent Price Review was an agreed settlement, I doubt whether many of us were really surprised, for Review Settlements have been agreed in every Election year since the Tory Party took office, though on only two occasions during the last ten years when there was no Election was there agreement. That, of course, would be purely coincidental, although The Times political correspondent on Monday hinted that the Prime Minister may have influenced the decision.
Referring to some activities in connection with the Resale Prices Bill this writer said that, acting on the instinct of survival and self-preservation,
"Sir Alec did something of the same kind behind the scenes in the farm prices decisions."
He went on,
"But Sir Alec left nothing to chance. Very unobstrusively he intervened as the appeaser or … as the reconciler.
He made an opportunity to let Mr. Woolley and the rest know that the farmers also need not tear the Conservative Party to pieces …"
Clearly, this correspondent is much nearer to the Establishment than I am ever likely to get. He appears to know, not only what they do but also the motive that prompts the doing of it. However, the Election of this year, 1964, will at least enable the present Minister of Agriculture to depart with two agreements and two non-agreements to his credit. But I doubt whether the farmers, or even the country, could afford to trust him or his Government any more during a non-Election period.
It is interesting to note that there were no disagreements until 1956, then they came thick and fast—the disagreements of 1956, 1958, 1960, 1962 and 1963; and there was a succession of these imposed settlements which robbed the farmers of any share in the value of increased efficiency or increased production since 1951. And this, my Lords, despite the following statement, which appeared in
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paragraph 31 of the White Paper of December, 1960:
"At the same time the Government wish to assure the industry that they intend, taking one year with another, to leave farmers with a share of the gain from increased efficiency."
Of course, they did nothing of the kind. And if I were an individual farmer, doing my best on the limited acreage that I try to cultivate, I should feel that the mail-bag robbers were gentlemen compared with some members of this Government. However, this year's Price Review and Determination of Guarantees contains a certain element of justice to those who have suffered most from these faulty calculations and broken promises since 1956.
The reduction of 3 per cent. in the size of the dairy herd was a sharp reminder that something substantial had to be done, and an increase in the price of milk was inevitable if we were to stop that tendency to reduce the dairy cattle, with the risk of a shortage in the quantity of milk, which would perhaps endanger the making of cheese and other commodities that derive from milk. Therefore, the increase of price was anticipated, because it was inevitable. We hope that the beneficiaries will not take it for granted that they can afford to go to a point where the quantity of milk to be diverted for manufacturing would reduce the proper price below which they would not like it to go. It will be noted, however, that this concession to the dairy farmers was made at the expense of the housewives and not of the Treasury. I have always found that it is not too difficult to make presents with other people's money. One simple question is being asked, and I know that the noble Lord who is to reply will be ready with an answer very quickly. The question is this: the housewife is called upon to pay 4d. per gallon more for her milk. The producer is to be given 2¼d. Where does the other 1¾d. go? I am sure, as I say, that the noble Lord will have a ready answer to that question.
We regret to learn that no agreement has yet been reached with overseas suppliers of meat for voluntary restriction and phasing of exports to this country. I realise that this is no easy task, but I hope that the Government will persist until a final arrangement is

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reached in the interest of market stability. The tragedy is that there have been twelve wasted years. At any time from 1951 this Government could have done what they are trying to do now, in 1964, though so far they have failed. But for their stupid ideological and doctrinaire inhibitions, they could have done this in any one of those twelve years, with advantage to the exporters, the importers, the producers and the consumers of meat.
I should like to ask the noble Lord what the spokesmen from the supplying countries have made out of the agreement concerning bacon, which limits home producers to 36 per cent. of the quantity of bacon we consume, and whether this agreement has had any influence on the discussions that have taken place. We can only take note of what is said in paragraphs 7, 10, 11 and 12 of the Price Review White Paper concerning minimum import prices, levies, standard quantities and marketing arrangements. We are informed by the Parliamentary Secretary that the producers are in agreement with all the Government's proposals, both in principle and in detail, concerning standard quantities and import prices; but so far your Lordships have not been made aware of what these principles and details really are. I should like to know from the noble Lord when your Lordships are going to be let into the secret. It is difficult for members of the Government or of the Opposition either to argue wisely about, or to disagree with, schemes which they have not seen and know nothing about.
What we do know about import prices, however, seems to be about the craziest suggestion that has been made for a very long time. As my noble friend Lord Stonham said a few days ago, as usual, in an odd case, they are doing the right thing, but doing it in the wrong way. I wonder whether noble Lords realise what the Government are doing in their name, and what the Government intend to do, whether they agree with it or not. One simple exampiie—it was an example given by the noble Lord in charge of the Price Review White Paper a few days ago—illustrates the mechanism. Should any country or exporter want to sell to this country, say, large quantities of barley at £17 a ton, if the Minister of Agriculture thinks that £17 a ton is not enough and that we ought to be charged more
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for it, he is going to persuade this co-operating country to charge us a few pounds more per ton, and then we shall be very happy!
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (LORD ST. OSWALD): My Lords, if I may say so, that is a very liberal piece of paraphrasing of what I said.
LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGH: Well, my Lords, I asked the noble Lord to look at it on Monday, and I shall be very sorry if I have misrepresented the noble Lord in any respect. Probably it never occurred either to the Minister or to the Parliamentary Secretary that a Government buying commission, acting for the nation as a whole, could buy any such commodity at a lower price than that at which it was originally offered and market it in this country in such a manner as to avoid upsetting our own marketing arrangements, and probably make millions of pounds of profit to help the Treasury during the course of every year. But, because the noble Lord and his Government disagree with Government trading of any sort or kind, they prefer this curious, intriguing policy of limiting the lowness of the price of imported foodstuffs that we may require for man or for beast. I shall mention the reason for the extraordinary suggestion later on. With regard to increased prices for fat cattle, potatoes, sugar beet, wool and a reduction of 1d. per dozen for eggs, I think the Minister makes out a good case and comment from me is unnecessary.
As this happens to be the last Price Review before the General Election, whether that should be in June or October (it seems to me that the latter date is becoming more and more likely as the Government get into deeper and deeper cold water, with majorities of one), I propose to remind your Lordships of some of the more important incidents during the past eleven or twelve years relating to agriculture and the attitude and actions of the Government towards both the industry and farmers. But, first, I should like to say how I welcome the shift to the system of operation now embodied in the latter part of paragraph 3 of the White Paper (Cmnd. 2315), which says:

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"The system of support through deficiency payments suits us as a nation and is of very great benefit to consumers as well as producers. By safeguarding it from undue pressures in this way the Government are maintaining the system with its advantages to the community."
The safeguards referred to are in paragraph 2: control of imports or import prices, combined with the extension at home of standard quantities. This is by no means the first time that this or similar language has been used in White Papers over the last ten or eleven years. But a reference to these words was out of fashion during the 1962 period when the Government were so involved in the Common Market talks. They will be more popular in the countryside during an Election campaign, however, and that is why I assume they have been resurrected in this White Paper.
In any event, agriculture is still our largest industry. But, while it has made enormous progress since the war, in terms of both efficiency and productivity, we are still the largest food-importing country in the world. Moreover, as a great manufacturing nation, we are obliged to import most of our raw materials for industry. So agricultural policy and productivity are not only important to the farming community as such, but of vital importance to the whole nation, particularly where the balance of payments (which are referred to in "Neddy's" latest Report, published this morning) is concerned. It is true that it required decades of depression under Conservative Governments, a couple of world wars and a Labour Government to appreciate this lesson. Indeed, I am not at all satisfied that the Conservative Government have yet learned the lesson, although the White Paper (Cmnd. 2315) seems to indicate that they are now willing to move from their ancient citadel of free markets and the law of supply and demand since their humiliating experience in 1962.
We welcome this healthy sign, but I regret having to remind noble Lords opposite still further of a few more weak spots in their armour. I have been struggling to try to avoid being more political than was the Leader of the House last Tuesday, and the Chairman of the Conservative Party last
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Wednesday, but the truth must be told. The simple truth, of course, is that neither before the war nor since the war have the Government had what could be recognised as an agricultural policy. In 1939, the year of the outbreak of war, there was no such thing as a co-ordinated agricultural plan: no direction, no controls, no confidence, minimum production, and maximum of poverty in the countryside.
After the war, however, with all its physical destruction, it was inevitable that rationing of food would become general for several years. The urgent and serious question for this country was what conditions were really necessary to induce farmers to produce more food from our soil; to reduce, and finally abolish, food rationing; to make what contribution an efficient agriculture could make to our economy and to our balance of payments; to encourage large-scale investment; and certainly not to repeat what happened after the First World War. Your Lordships will remember, however, what happened in 1947, and I need not linger upon that. But, as a result of what happened in 1947, the Review White Paper for 1962–63 said that the forecast of output for that farming year was an 86 per cent. increase over and above pre-war in productivity. This year it is supposed to be something over a 90 per cent. increase on pre-war. That is an average increase in production of no less than 6 per cent.
The National Farmers' Union, in a document which, I suppose, has been circulated to every one of your Lordships, Farming Incomes and the Facts, go a little further and say that agriculture is Britain's key industry, with an output of £1,800 million a year, twice that of coal mining or the motor industry. As a customer, agriculture spends something like £1,000 million with other industries. As an import saver, the increase in home agriculture since the war is worth nearly £400 million a year. On the question of efficiency, Britain's farmers produce 2½ times as much grain as they did pre-war; 99 per cent. more eggs; 114 per cent. more sugar beet; and our dairy herds produce nearly 200 gallons of milk per cow more than the pre-war figure. Yields of wheat, barley and sugar beet have risen

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67 per cent., 62 per cent. and 80 per cent. respectively. And all this has been accomplished with 170,000 fewer agricultural workers.
But what contribution have the Conservative Party made to this minor agricultural revolution? Precious little that they can feel proud of! For, despite their lip-service to the 1947 approach, they have always been very lukewarm towards the 1947 Act; and, indeed, I am convinced that, had it not been for the possible political consequences to the Conservative Party, the remainder of the 1947 Act would have vanished long ago. Let me remind noble Lords that, within two years of their taking office, they announced their grand policy of "Set the people free!" The announcement came through the then Prime Minister in another place, and I propose to quote a short paragraph from his speech. He said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 520, cols. 26–27]:
"The House knows that it is our theme and policy to reduce controls and restrictions as much as possible and to reverse, if not abolish, the tendency to State purchase and marketing which is a characteristic of Socialist philosophy. We hope instead to develop individual enterprise founded in the main on the laws of supply and demand and to restore to the interchange of goods and services that variety, flexibility, ingenuity and incentive on which we believe the fertility and liveliness of … economic life depend."
I need not remind noble Lords where that sentence comes from. But no controls, no restrictions, no State purchase, no marketing.
There is no wonder, therefore, that the noble Lord in charge of this Price Review, and the Minister of Agriculture, are driven back to those minimum prices of imported food to which I referred earlier on. That was no sort of a policy. It was just a blind, doctrinaire onslaught on planning and controls which, if pursued, would definitely undermine the basic principles of the 1947 Act. It was typical of Conservative Party thinking on agriculture. They would sincerely, I suppose, sacrifice the tremendous gains just quoted to satisfy their ancient inhibitions and beliefs. I thought at the time—I still think—that it was a dangerous moment both for agriculture and for the nation. I described it at the time as ill-considered, half Liberal-half Conservative, and absolutely half-baked: and I am sure it was all of
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them. Instead of well-thought-out proposals for new marketing schemes to match the new productive capacity of the industry, we were presented with a grand new policy, resurrected from the 1850's.
The noble Lord the Leader of the House should remember something about the lack of controls, for as Joint Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, I think it was he who made the announcement that the country could do with 1 million more pigs round about 1953. The farmers, the boars, the sows and the gilts co-operated loyally. The pigs were here before the end of twelve months. But what the noble Lord had forgotten to do was to provide a reception committee for them. When they had the 1 million extra pigs, they did not know what to do with them. Therefore, prices slumped. The deficiency payment went up like a balloon, and the 1947 Act was made responsible for the blunders of the Ministry. After that piece of chaos, the present Leader of the House decided that there were too many economic gates wide open. He went off to the Ministry of Defence to learn how to spend more, for so little, than any other Government Department. Then he went off to Australia for a real bathe in the sunshine, and I think he was very wise to do so. He looks better for it to-day, and we are all glad to welcome him back in his elevated post.
Fortunately, however, the nation as such, and agriculture in particular, escaped the worst that might have occurred under the Conservative so-called new policy. The farming community, who hitherto dithered at the very mention of controls, were no longer afraid of them. They had already tasted such economic freedom as never existed before, and they were even having visions of a brighter future under the deficiency payment system. There were definite signs that the farming community would revolt against a reversion to the policy of the 1850's. Farmers made loud noises in the counties, and they even went so far as to pass resolutions. The Government became clearly aware that it would be politically unsafe for them to abolish all controls, and to abolish the basic principles of the 1947 Act.
That did not mean that the Government were still converted to better

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things, for when they saw a chance of joining the Common Market they tried to grab it with both hands. By the autumn of 1962 they were almost grovelling on their hands and knees to get inside. All the statements made in White Papers over ten or eleven years extolling the virtues of the deficiency payments system were forgotten or ignored. The ex-Prime Minister at the Prime Ministers' Conference in 1962 stated plainly that he preferred the European system to our own. The Deputy Prime Minister echoed those sentiments, and the Minister of Agriculture almost went poetical when he addressed the Northants. Agricultural Society's annual dinner at Kettering. There he said:
"The managed market as a system of protection for British agriculture against competition from other spheres will bring a price protection which it has never had or has never dreamed of. It would bring fundamental changes in Britain's agricultural system with producers getting the whole of their returns from the market and consumers paying the full cost."
In other words, if the present Minister of Agriculture had had his way we should have gone straight back to the pre-war conditions, plus unlimited protection against imported foodstuffs determined, not by a British Government, but by six European Governments.
That was a policy which the electors of this country refused in 1923 for the then Conservative Party. But this present Conservative Government were willing to hand over to six European Governments the power to say how much we in this country should pay for our food. Thousands of figures, one way and another, have been used to illustrate this point and that point. I shall be content to use one set of figures to show what we might have walked into if it had not been for the generosity of de Gaulle. These figures were in reply to the Financial Times, who had been suggesting that we were not competitive in our food production in this country. The editor, or sub-editor, of the Farmers Weekly said on January 17 of this year:
"I have been comparing some of our prices with those of Common Market countries. In Paris last week, sides of beef cost up to 4s. 5d. a lb. wholesale, with hinds up to 5s. 10d. Comparable qualities on Smithfield sold for 1s. 11d, to 2s. 2d. a lb. Top quality lamb (carcass) in Paris fetches 6s. 11d. a lb.
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wholesale, with legs reaching 10s. 6d. Smithfield prices—1s. 10d. to 2s. 2d. In Belgium and France, pigs have been selling at 54s.—65s. a score dead-weight against 37s. to 48s. (including guarantee payments) here.
"Unsubsidised English butter, fetching higher prices as milk supplies have run down, has been selling wholesale at 1s. 6d. to 3s. a lb. Consumer prices in the E.E.C. have been round about 7s. 6d. a lb. and up to 10s. in Germany. Belgian wheat growers have been getting £45 a ton. Here the current market price is about £24 (standard price £26 10s. 0d.)."
Those are the prices that we might have had to pay if it had not been for the stubbornness, stupidity, generosity or wisdom of de Gaulle. I will not say which it was. But, if the Conservatives had had their way, clearly the wage problem in this country would have been just chaotic. How all those with static incomes would have gone on none can tell.
I have tried to show just one or two things and no more; and that, with their ideological and doctrinaire background, although the Conservatives have been in office for two-thirds of this century, they never had a reasonable agricultural policy; that their policy of "Set the people free!" in 1953, and their efforts to join the Common Market in 1962, have proved conclusively that their only idea or policy on the subject of agriculture is protection and taxes on foodstuffs, as with their forbears a hundred and fifty years ago. For these reasons, I submit that a Conservative Government can no longer be trusted with agriculture, and the sooner the Parliamentary Election comes the better. I beg to move for Papers.

THE PRESIDENT KENNEDY MEMORIAL
3.32 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, with your Lordships' permission I should like to repeat a statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister on the Memorial to President Kennedy. These are the words of the Prime Minister:
"I have now received the report of the Committee under the Chairmanship of Lord Franks, and I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT. I have consulted the right honourable gentleman the

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Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Liberal Party. We all accept the Committee's recommendations.
"The Committee propose that the Memorial should take the form, first, of an acre of Runnymede, laid out simply, with a simple plinth and steps, which should be given in perpetuity to the United States in memory of President Kennedy. The second part of the Memorial proposed by the Committee is a scholarship fund for young men and women from the United Kingdom to go, as undergraduates or graduates, some to Harvard University or Radcliffe College, some to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"The Government are deeply grateful to Lord Franks and the members of his Committee for the care with which they have examined all the proposals brought to their attention and we feel that the recommendations taken together will provide a worthy memorial.
"Both parts of the proposal will require consultations with various authorities and bodies in this country and the United States and these will be undertaken.
"It seems desirable that the task of giving effect to the Memorial should be supervised by a small Committee. I am glad to be able to tell the House that Sir Roger Makins has accepted my invitation to be the Chairman of this Committee and that the United States Ambassador in London and Sir Humphrey Mynors, lately Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, have generously agreed to serve on it.
"I am also glad to be able to inform the House that the Lord Mayor of London has most kindly agreed to make the President Kennedy Memorial the object of a Lord Mayor's Appeal. I am sure that this generous offer by the Lord Mayor of his time and energies will assist the whole nation in raising a worthy memorial to the late President."
Following is the copy of a letter from Lord Franks to the Prime Minister dated 29th February, 1964, referred to in the statement:
"I am writing as Chairman of the Committee which you set up to consider what form
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the British memorial to President Kennedy should take. This letter contains the recommendations of the Committee.
"You told Parliament on December 5 that, while public opinion was being given an opportunity to express itself on the tragedy of the assassination of President Kennedy, you were considering how best to facilitate discussion about the form of a British memorial to him; and you arranged consultations between the parties. You also told Parliament that Her Majesty the Queen had been graciously pleased to express her wish to be personally associated with whatever proposal might be decided upon.
"You announced on January 21 the constitution of this Committee. We have held four meetings and a sub-committee has held a further two. We have received about 150 letters, nearly all of which reached us by the middle of February; few have come since then. We have considered every one. We wish to express our thanks to all who have helped us in this way.
"We have had the privilege of the interest and counsel of Her Majesty the Queen, who received me as the representative of the Committee and discussed with me a number of ideas which we had formed in the light of the suggestions before us. I have visited Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Mr. Robert Kennedy and others in the United States and have had similar discussions with them; and I have had the honour to be received by Mrs. Kennedy, whose wishes we particularly desired to consult.
"We have founded our recommendations on these consultations and on our examination of the many particular proposals before us. Trying to catch the spirit which pervaded these proposals, various though they were in content, and to interpert the general feeling of the country, we have sought for President Kennedy a living memorial in the service of men and women, including a permanent physical presence and infused with an imaginative quality which would always evoke the memory of his outlook and achievements.
"President Kennedy gave a voice to the heritage which is enshrined for us in Runnymede: we propose that an acre of Runnymede, laid out simply, with a simple plinth and steps, should be given in perpetuity to the United States in memory of him.
"This would be at the centre of our memorial. But it would not be the whole memorial. It would be completed by a link with the influences of his home country and of the world of thought and action which helped to mould his mind: we propose a scholarship fund for young men and women from the United Kingdom to go, as undergraduates or graduates, some to Harvard University or Radcliffe College, some to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. President Kennedy was particularly interested in bringing the two great disciplines of traditional humane studies and modern technology into fruitful combination and making their strength effective in the activities of Government and the direction of world affairs. The scholarships would be awarded within these fields of knowledge and thereby contribute, as we hope,

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to the advancement of his idea. The scholars would come from all over Britain, chosen on some regional sub-division of the country.
"We make both parts of our proposal as a unanimous recommendation. The first part speaks for itself. We have chosen the second part because it relates to youth; Boston was President Kennedy's home, Harvard his university; and at Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Kennedy family are providing the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library. It is a fitting tribute to President Kennedy's work for international understanding that a succession of young men and women from our country should be given an opportunity to live and work for a period in this environment.
"I enclose with this letter a list of the members of the Committee."
THE PRESIDENT KENNEDY MEMORIAL COMMITTEE
Members
The Rt. Hon. The Lord Franks, P.C., G.C.M.G., K.C.B., C.B.E. (Chairman),
The Rt. Hon. The Viscount Chandos, P.C., D.S.O., M.C.,
The Rt. Hon. The Lord Evershed, P.C., F.S.A.,
The Rt Hon. The Lord Mayor of London (Alderman C. James Harman),
The Rt. Hon. The Lord Provost of Edinburgh (Mr. Duncan M. Weatherstone, M.C., T.D.),
The Rt. Hon. The Lord Mayor of Belfast (Councillor W. Jenkins, J.P.).
The Rt. Hon. The Lord Mayor of Cardiff (Alderman Charles A. Horwood, J.P.),
The Viscount Harcourt, K.C.M.G., O.B.E.,
Sir Roger Makins, G.C.B., G.C.M.G.,
Sir Philip de Zulueta,
Dame Margot Fonteyn de Arias, D.B.E.,
Lady Jackson,
Mr. Victor Feather, C.B.E.,
Mr. John Freeman, M.B.E.,
Dr. T. Lupton.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, we are obliged to the Lord Chancellor for giving us the statement. A scheme which has been so received in the other place by all the Parties concerned is worthy of our support, and we think that a good deal can come from it in the strengthening of relationships with the United States.
LORD REA: My Lords, this scheme obviously has the support of those of all Parties and of no Party as a memorial to a great man. I think it will be very suitable to us that a bit of England at Runnymede which really saw the beginning of our independence should be dedicated to this great purpose. Of course, the interchange of young people between this country and America can do nothing but good. We welcome this scheme wholeheartedly.

3.35 p.m.
Debate resumed.
LORD HENLEY: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh, for drawing our attention again to the problems of agriculture? I think I may say in this House, without being invidious, that he was certainly the best loved Minister of Agriculture that we have had, and that anything he has to say on this subject we all listen to with the greatest of interest. He accuses the Government of electioneering in this Review. Well, my Lords, if it is electioneering, I am only too delighted that the agricultural industry is still resilient and important enough to be able to command this bit of notice.
But I wonder whether I am unique in being able to acquit the Government of electioneering. I know that a great many members of the Government's own Party think that it has been electioneering in this regard, but I wonder whether it is really true. I feel that I see the Government at last moving towards a very definite shift in policy—a policy which seems to me consistent with what our problems are. As the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh, said, something had to be done at this moment to redress the balance of the position that the farmers have got into in the last two or three years, and I, at any rate, am going to give the Government the benefit of the doubt and say that it may be a coincidence that once again this falls in an Election year but perhaps it is not electioneering and is part of a consistent policy.
After all, we are talking about the problems of agriculture, and it seems to me that the central problem of British agriculture and, indeed, world agriculture is the problem of co-ordinating imports with home production; of coordinating imports with what we ought to produce properly in this country with this kind of agriculture we ought to have. I know that there are other problems, and perhaps the most important domestic agricultural problem is that of structure: that is to say, the size of the unit in relation to the various other factors. I think we are in a better position than the rest of Europe in this respect, but, nevertheless, it is our own central internal problem.

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I do not believe that one of our major problems is that of technique. I am sure that so far as technique is concerned we stand higher than almost any other country in the world in regard to output per man and per acre, and also per unit of cost. These are domestic problems within our own industry, but the problem of agriculture as we face the rest of the world is the central problem of co-ordinating home production and imports. My Lords, how does this Price Review help towards this co-ordination? It must, of course, be seen as part of the Government's agricultural policy. Let me remind noble Lords that slightly over a year ago there was a breakdown in Common Market negotiations. I do not follow the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh, here—we do not on these Benches, as noble Lords know and as I have said before. This breakdown was followed by a statement in May last by the Minister on what he was proposing to do, which was virtually to change our whole system of support. The Agriculture and Horticulture Bill, 1963—which is still going through this House; we have not yet finished it—implements this major change of policy.
There is another thing which the Government are doing at the same time and which is worth thinking about in this connection. The Minister of agriculture has asked the landowners' representatives, the farmers' representatives and also the representatives, of the five professional bodies concerned with land to start thinking about ways in which the 1947 Act and the 1948 Act might be improved and possibly end up in an improved and consolidated Act.
I welcomed the 1963 Bill, within certain limits, as being likely to promote a solution of this central problem of home production and imports, and I now welcome the Price Review Statement similarly. I welcome it within certain limits, in the same way as I welcomed the other within certain limits. Nevertheless, it see ms to me to be part of a general policy which the Government quite clearly are following consistently, and for this reason, as I said, I acquit them of electioneering. Obviously when one accepts a thing within certain limits one may be very doubtful about details. As a matter of fact when the statement was made last Wednesday I
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immediately listed a large number of details on which I wanted to ask questions, and quite rightly was called to order by noble Lords for making too much of it at that time. Perhaps I may now touch on one or two of those details which worried me.
The first is this question of cereals, on which the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh, has already touched. I was very interested, because when I read the speech in another place of the spokesman for the Labour Party on agriculture I was not quite sure whether they were alive to this problem about asking the foreigner to increase the price. The danger, it seems to me, here is that one might be supporting, inadvertently, a foreign cereal grower; and there is also the danger of hanky-panky on the Corn Exchange, or wherever that kind of hanky-panky does take place. Obviously it lays us open to both these things, and I am glad noble Lords on my left have realised this.
The next point is the question of milk. The Minister answered me on this point. I am sorry that he could not have given a little more than 2¼d. plus the ¼d. He said he was afraid that would have two effects, the first driving up the price to the consumer too much and the second letting people come back into milk production who were better out of it. There are two answers to those two points. First of all, with regard to driving up the price to the consumer, does this really matter? It is conceivable that the price of milk is artificially too cheap. Would it not be better that a realistic price should be paid? On the second point, that a higher price might bring back into milk production more people than there should be, again I would ask: does it matter? I cannot help feeling that milk is the sort of thing that this country can produce very well, and there is no earthly reason why we should not produce more, dry it and, if you like, export it to the poorer countries. And at any rate, it seems to me a better course than bolstering up, shall we say, sugar beet—a course which I cannot help feeling is a mistake, because it interferes with what is the sole export of many countries which depend exclusively on sugar. I throw out that thought, because it is so often suggested that there is too much milk and that we must

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not produce more. I ask the question; is this, in fact, true?
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, if I may intervene, can the noble Lord explain in more detail what he is trying to tell us: that it does not matter if the price of milk goes up to the consumer, and it does not matter if we produce more milk than we require. Can he explain why? It is not self-evident.
LORD HENLEY: My Lords, I am sorry if my slightly confused method of speaking did not make this clear. The point I want to make is this. I feel that it is a mistake to be gearing prices to a subsidy price; we must get back to the idea, which seems to me perfectly reasonable, that we pay for a commodity at the price it costs to produce. I do not feel that putting up the price of milk a little matters. That is my point with regard to milk. My second point with regard to the quantity of milk we produce is this: I put it forward as a suggestion. So far from our producing too much milk, there is no reason why we should not produce more, and then dry it and export it to the poorer countries, in the form of dried milk. I said that here is a form of agricultural service, if you like, which might be more sensible than bolstering up sugar beet; that everything we grow in the way of sugar beet must affect those countries which depend only upon sugar as an export. Does the noble Lord understand what I am getting at? He may disagree, but does he understand?
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I understand what the noble Lord is trying to say. But I still do not follow him when he says that it does not matter if the cost of living goes up.
LORD HENLEY: I have tried to explain that I think it does not matter in this connection, because I am against the idea of paying for our agriculture by subsidy. I feel that we must get back to paying for commodities at market price. That is a point with which some people will agree and some will not. I hope I have made it clear.
LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGH: My Lords, the noble Lord does not seem quite to have appreciated this fact, when he says that price does not matter. It
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clearly does matter; and what the Minister must have in his mind all the time is not to fix a price which inevitably will mean a decrease in production of that particular commodity. Otherwise, the whole basis of maximum production is out of gear.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord opposite. I wonder whether I can clear Lord Henley's mind on one point. He referred to the price of milk as being artificially low. He said that he was against paying for agriculture out of Exchequer grants. There is, of course, no subsidy on milk. I do not know whether he is aware of that.
LORD HENLEY: My Lords, I was aware of that, but I still think that the whole of agricultural prices are so be-devilled by subsidies and cross-subsidies that the price of milk is not, in fact, what it appears to be. So much for milk: I think we have had enough of milk.
The next question is winter keep, which is another matter about which I am not happy. I would much rather, instead of adding £1 per acre, perhaps, work the same way by putting something more on hill cows. This winter keep scheme is going to involve all of us in a great deal of paper work, and I think the C.A.E.Cs. are already overloaded with it. With regard to fertilisers, I am sorry that the Government have taken something off the fertiliser subsidy. Is this the Government's answer to the Monopolies Commission's suggestion that something should be done about fertilisers? Because it seems to me a rather feeble way of doing it.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, the noble Lord is mistaken if he thinks the Monopolies Commission criticised the fertiliser manufacturers.
LORD HENLEY: That was not my interpretation of the Monopolies Commission—but never mind.
Then there is the mechanism of this new deficiency system. I quite like that. It looks as if it might be a help, but I think we shall have to wait and see how it works. But in spite of these details in regard to which either I am not sure how they will work or of

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which, in some cases, I slightly disapprove, I am quite certain that the major policy trends of the Government's suggestions are sound; that they do help towards co-ordination of home produce and imports, and that they do, to revert to what I was saying earlier, tend towards making price come from the market and not from subsidy. I am very pleased that the Government have secured some agreement with overseas suppliers, and I hope that it will be possible to get something for beef and lamb in the same way as they have done with cereals. I make the same proviso as I made on cereals—I do not think it matters so much in the case of meat; there is not quite the same opportunity for playing the markets. Within these certain limitations, I feel that the Price Review does help the problem of agriculture and is a major contribution to solving its problems. But I feel that it is we in this country, and only we, who can take a lead in trying to get world agreement and a world-managed market in agriculture. We are the biggest importers of agricultural commodities, and because we are in that position it is only we who can do something about it.
If I am not taking too much time, I should like to say one last thing, and it follows on what the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh, said in his intervention, as did the noble Lord, Lord Silkin—I refer to the question of a cheap food policy being abandoned as a result of the present trend in Government policy. I, for one, think it is right that the so-called cheap food policy should be abandoned, because I feel it is an illusion. We have the cheapest food in Europe, but it has been held at this figure artificially by our subsidy system. After all, the consumer still pays, whether he pays in the form of a slightly higher market price or in the form of an Exchequer subsidy. Why not? Why cling to this 19th century idea that cheap food must be to the advantage of the industrialist? I do not believe it is true. What it all amounts to is something like £6 per head per year, which is only half-a-crown per week.
It is not only there that the weight lies; it lies also in the difference between the farm-gate price and the price that the consumer pays. It lies also in the extra-
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ordinary difference between the raw material and the processed food. I wonder whether it has ever occurred to your Lordships to consider a product like crisps. The wholesale price of potatoes is well under £20 a ton, and the price of a packet of crisps, if worked out in terms of tons, is over £600 a ton. This is where the housewife is having to pay. It is not at the farm gate. It is not because of what we might say is the "non-cheap food" policy. That is where the money is going. Surely, if that is so, the market would stand a little more being put upon the price of those commodities.
Do not let us forget that this subsidy is in fact as much a subsidy to the exporter as it is to the farmer. The pound would not stand at 2.80 dollars if it were not for the system of subsidised foods which we have here. I personally think that there must be some subsidy. I am not for the moment suggesting that there should not. There must be subsidies for agriculture until we get a system of world commodity agreements. Our agriculture must be subsidised, because the whole of the rest of the world's agriculture is in the same sort of difficulty as we are. I do not think that this need lead to an international producers' cartel: and while we must have a subsidy, let it be based on the real cost, so that it can be seen and so that one can say that this bit of subsidy applies to the agricultural industry and that to the exporter.
I feel that it is unfair to the agriculturist to create an image of the inefficient and the heavily subsidised farmer when it is part and parcel of a wrong system of subsidies. If you take this apparently heavy subsidy bill, even if you say that it is all attributable to the agricultural industry and not to the consumer, or is not bolstering up the exporter or not helping the pound to stand up, it is still only of the same order of subsidy as that which the motor car industry gets in a different way through tariffs. It seems to me that even if the Government policy is tending towards cheaper food then that is all right; and within the limits of those things I was doubtful about I welcome this policy, I welcome the trend and a consistency I see in it, and I do not follow the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh, entirely in condemning the

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Government, because it seems to me that on balance it is the right policy.
3.54 p.m.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, it seems odd to think that it was nearly a whole year ago since we last had a full-scale agricultural debate. I am sure that the House is grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh, for having put down this Motion and for having initiated the debate so that once again we can have a discussion on agriculture in its widest context. On whatever side of the House one sits, one can never fail to enjoy listening to the noble Lord. He always puts his case so clearly and so wittily that it cannot be anything other than enjoyable to listen to it, even if one disagrees with what he has to say. But on this particular occasion we are glad to hear the noble Lord speak because for the last few months we have been starved not only of his opinions but also of his presence, and we are glad to see him back again. The noble Lord will not mind my saying that, however well he has put his case, we on this side of the House cannot possibly agree with all that he has said. He has, of course, accused the Government of electioneering by adding £31 million to the agricultural subsidies in the course of the last Review.
LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGH: My Lords, the noble Earl will not put those words in my mouth—I never uttered them. The only reference that I made that could perhaps be construed as being a criticism was when I quoted The Times political correspondent. I did not say that it was my view.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I stand corrected and will withdraw my remarks entirely. I can only conclude that he was using the argument in The Times as his own argument as well; but, of course, I entirely accept the fact that he does not mean that the Government were electioneering. However that may be, I have no doubt at all that some noble Lord on the other side is going to say that, because we have already heard rumbles of it from all over the place. I would only say this: that £31 million has been added to the value of the guarantees. Of that, £24 million is on milk, and noble Lords know perfectly well that the extra price of £24 million which is put on milk is being paid by increasing the price of
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milk to the consumer. It seems an odd way of electioneering if you make 50 million people pay more for the sake of 150,000 people. However, there we are, and I hope that we shall not hear any more about that particular matter, because it really does not hold much water.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, before the noble Earl talks about watering the milk, I find it extremely difficult to understand all these diffuse arguments about mathematics and milk and beef and so on. But did I not hear the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, say that there is no subsidy on milk? Now the noble Earl says there is.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, all I can say is that perhaps I have not only misconstrued the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh, but also myself spoken indistinctly. What I meant to say—I apologise if I did not say it—was that there is no subsidy on milk; that although the value of the guarantees has gone up by £24 million with respect to milk, that is coming from the consumer and not from the Government. Therefore, I conclude that as the consumer, the housewife, is going to pay more for her milk and there are 50 million consumers, it seems odd to accuse the Government of electioneering when those 50 million people are paying more for the sake of 150,000 people.
VISCOUNT STUART OF FINDHORN: My Lords, may I, while we are on the subject of electioneering, say that I nearly asked the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh, the other day, when the Price Review was announced, whether it was not the fact that he was always pleased to get an agreed Price Review, even if it was electioneering.
LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGH: But I never had a disagreement.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I think we had better leave this business of electioneering and move on to something else. The noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh, said that in the 1960 White Paper the Government said that they intended to leave a fair share of the benefits for increased efficiency within the industry, and he added that they had not done so. But taking £25 million per year as the a greed figure of increased efficiency, in the four Reviews of 1961,

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1962, 1963 and 1964 the farmers have been left with £59 million out of the aggregate of £100 million of increased efficiency. If that is not a fair share, I do not quite know what is.
LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGH: My Lords, I am sorry to intervene, and I am sure that the noble Earl will not disagree with me when I say that if he will look at Hansard of another place of April 2, 1962, he will find that the Minister, in replying to a Parliamentary Question, said in regard to prices adapted to foodstuffs and other services that the net income in 1951–62 was £314 million, but in 1961–62 it was £310 million. So that is 1961–62 the farmers got £4 million less. Ten years have expired, at £25 million a year—that is, £250 million, out of which they got nothing; and there has been a 29 per cent. increase in productivity for which they got nothing. Therefore, in ten years they got nothing out of increased efficiency and nothing out of increased production.
EARL FERRERS: The noble Lord has the advantage of me because I have not the Hansard of April 2, 1962, nor, in fact, that of May 2 or June 2, and I should find it difficult to refute his arguments without actually seeing them written down on paper. But I would add this. The Government have, of course, stood by what they have said, and if I could, just for the record, confuse the noble Lord once more with a few figures. I would say that if he looks at page 28 of the White Paper he will see that in the figures adjusted to normal weather conditions the aggregate net farming income has increased from £364 million in 1959–60 to £438 million in 1962–63.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, could the noble Earl, as a farmer, say when he has ever experienced normal weather conditions?
EARL FERRERS: That is rather like asking what is the stock size of a person who wants to get a suit of clothes. I have never yet found one; nor have I ever been stock size. Perhaps we could leave those figures for the moment, otherwise I feel that no other noble Lord will have a chance to speak other than by interrupting.
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The fact is that the results of the Annual Price Review which have been agreed by both Government and Unions, and which have just been announced, are in themselves evidence of the Government's sincere and long-held determination to provide this country with a stable and efficient agricultural policy. The changes in agricultural production and in agricultural markets over the last ten years have been immense, and it is with these changes in mind that the Annual Price Review was held. The position in regard to supply and demand for food is very different now from what it was in war time and in the immediate post-war period, when the system of guaranteed prices was introduced; and it is natural that from time to time changes must be made in order to keep our system of agricultural support up to date and efficient, and to adapt it to the conditions of to-day. In recent years experience has shown us that it is necessary, in the interests both of producers and of consumers, for us to safeguard our arrangements from unpredictable and unregulated pressures to which they are from time to time exposed, which may bear no relation to the needs of the market, and which have at times led to excessively low market prices and heavy demands on the Exchequer.
During the course of the last year the world markets for many agricultural commodities have been stronger. This has been due to the fact that in Europe agricultural production suffered from the very severe winter of 1963, and also to the fact that Russia and China have both had very bad harvests. But these are only temporary factors. On the other hand, the scientific revolution in methods of agricultural production continues at an even faster rate, and there is the underlying tendency for production in the developed countries to increase faster than the commercial demand for food. The main risks to our support arrangements have arisen on cereals and fatstock, which in the estimates for 1964–65 account for about £177 million out of the total figures of £327 million for the overall cost of agricultural support.
As your Lordships know, we started consultations on these commodities last summer with the leaders of our agricultural industry and all other interested

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people, including the Commonwealth and overseas suppliers. The object of these discussions was to secure greater stability in our market and, at the same time, maintain a reasonable balance between home production and imports. We have also been determined to provide British farmers with the opportunity of securing a fair share in any expansion in the market which will arise in the future, due to the increase in population and the rise in living standards which can be expected. We intend that these new arrangements, both for imports and for home production, will enable supplies to be more related to the needs of the market and will ensure a reasonable balance between what we can produce at home and what we have to import.
I am glad to say, my Lords, that we have been able to make good progress in this direction. Last autumn we reached agreement with our overseas suppliers about the regulation of supplies of bacon to our market, and this agreement will come into operation next week. In February we reached agreement in principle with our main overseas suppliers of cereals about our proposals for minimum import prices on cereals and cereal products coming into the United Kingdom. Subject to their final agreement, and to the passing of the Agriculture and Horticulture Bill, which is at present before your Lordships, we shall be introducing this minimum import price system on July 1. In conjunction with this we shall, for home-produced wheat and barley, introduce standard quantity and indicator price arrangements, as explained in the White Papers—which, I am glad to say, at least have the blessing of the noble Lord, Lord Henley, if the condemnation of the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh. In view of these arrangements the guaranteed prices for cereals remain unchanged.
For beef and lamb, despite an encouraging degree of progress, we have not yet been able to reach agreement with our overseas suppliers, and consequently we shall not be introducing any standard quantity arrangements for home-produced cattle or sheep in the coming year. But it is, of course, in everyone's interest to see that our market is not overloaded, and we shall be having dis-
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cussions with the main exporting countries in the coming months about the level and timing of their supplies.
To encourage our own farmers to give more attention to the state of the market when deciding when to sell their stock we are making some changes in the deficiency payments system for cattle and sheep. Within certain limits, the deficiency payments will be increased when the market is strong, and they will be decreased when it is weak. This will reward those who consider the level and trend of markets before selling their beasts and will, we hope, encourage producers to sell their beasts when the market is high and not when it is overloaded and weak. With the continued strong demand for beef, and in view of the fact that the rate of increase in home production is slackening, we have decided that some further stimulus would be desirable to maintain supplies. We have therefore, as your Lordships know, raised the guaranteed price and increased the calf subsidy for steer calves. Home production of lamb, on the other hand, is expected to increase substantially, given a good lambing season, and we have therefore left the guaranteed price unchanged. But the hill sheep farmer, particularly, will benefit from the increases which are being given in the guaranteed price for wool and, of course, also from the increased rate of the hill-sheep subsidy. Hill farmers will also be helped by the higher rate now being introduced for the winter-keep subsidy and by the fact that they will no longer have to choose between the winter-keep grant and the ploughing grant.
Looking at the prospects for cereals and fatstock as a whole, we believe that the steps which the Government have taken to regulate supplies will establish a much firmer basis for our system of agricultural support and, indeed, for the whole agricultural industry. I am glad to say that we have also reached a sounder position both for milk and for pigs. In the past, the problem of milk has been one of production rising faster than consumption. As the White Paper points out, milk output over the three years from 1958–59 to 1961–62 increased by an average of 110 million gallons. Over that same period, however, the liquid consumption increased by only an average of 22 million gallons. This

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meant that the balance which was produced had to go for manufacture, and consequently attracted a very considerably reduced price as against that which went for liquid consumption, with the result that the pool price to the farmer was lower—much lower than the farmer would have liked and much lower than the Government would have liked, as well. But it would have been totally imprudent had the Government increased the price of milk at that juncture, because all that would have happened is that milk production would have increased and the position would have worsened.
The effect of these relatively low prices, unpleasant though they have been—and no one denies it—was that some farmers decided to give up milk production, and over the last two years milk has been produced in smaller quantities. This has resulted in a far more healthy market for milk, and it is now possible for the Government to agree to a considerably increased price.
With pigs, too, we have achieved a position of greater stability. The breeding herd has beer at a steady level for about eighteen months, and the market for pork is strong. The agreement with our overseas bacon suppliers will ensure that bacon prices are not undermined by ill-timed or excessive imports. The increase, therefore, of three-quarters of a million pigs in the middle band of the flexible guarantee arrangement reflects the increased demand for pigmeat which the market can absorb at reasonable prices—and this it good. But, so as not to give an excessive stimulus to production, we have reduced the guaranteed price, leaving producers with a net improvement of 1s. 3d. a score on their present price.
However, the outlook for eggs is, unfortunately, far less satisfactory. As a nation we are already producing 98 per cent. of the eggs which we require, and the demand is inelastic. The industry continues to advance technically and to improve its efficiency through rising yields and in other ways, and there is a growing tendency for eggs to be produced in very much larger units than previously. We are now, therefore, in grave danger of over-production, and it is for this reason that it has been decided to reduce the guaranteed price of eggs by 1d. a dozen. This, we hope, will serve
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as a warning to producers and also to those who may be considering increasing their production of eggs.
As in so many instances in our commercial life, the larger units tend to be able to produce the commodity cheaper. This is so in many instances with eggs, and there has been a marked increase over the last few years in the number of large units of laying birds. In 1957 the number of birds over six months old which were kept in units larger than 5,000 was 469,000. This had increased by 1963 to nearly 6 million. Clearly, developments of this nature are to be welcomed as a sign of efficiency and alertness in the industry, but, of course, they can bring their own problems of over-production with them.
I see that the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, had something to say on this when he was reported in the Farming Express of March 12 as saying:
"A much greater difficulty we have to face is the growth of egg factories or mass production methods. It has been suggested that eggs produced by these methods cost half those from hens kept in the traditional way."
The noble Lord goes on to say:
"If the present subsidy is fair to one it is outrageously generous to the other".
I wonder what the noble Lord's remedy is. Perhaps he will tell us something about it this afternoon. Is he suggesting that there should be one price for the efficient producer and another price for the smaller producer? Is he prepared, by this method, to penalise the efficient; and is he prepared, by this method, to put a deterrent on people becoming more efficient—because, if they do, then they will receive a lower subsidy?
I would grant the noble Lord that this is a problem, but it is a problem confined not only to eggs. It is a problem that is with us in many other aspects, not only of agriculture but also of industry. If one looks at agriculture alone, one can say that there is a similar problem with milk or with grain, or with small farmers versus big farmers. I hope that the noble Lord will say something about this, because from what I read in his words I should like to know whether he is in fact suggesting a differential subsidy. If he is suggesting a differential subsidy, is that view supported by the noble Lord, Lord Walston, who speaks for the official Labour Opposition? It would be interesting to know.

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Noble Lords opposite frequently make out—and I have no doubt we shall hear it this afternoon—that the returns that farmers receive for their goods now are lower than they used to be. We have often heard this argument used, and the ironical thing about it is that it is a reflection of the immense success created by the agricultural industry. It is the Government's task—and a very difficult one it is, too—to endeavour to keep a balance between four opposing forces. First, we have got the natural increase in production from the farms due to modern techniques, modern seeds and modern varieties; the second force is the relatively inelastic demand which comes from the consumer; the third force is the reasonable and fair standard of living which the agricultural community not only demand but deserve; and the fourth is the cost to the taxpayer of the agricultural subsidies. To keep those four forces in equilibrium is no easy task, but the Government do not shirk, and have not shirked, from their responsibilities in this respect, knowing full well that if any of these forces gets out of balance then the whole ship will shudder and shake.
It is because the industry has been so successful that these problems are here. Anyone who is engaged in agriculture knows that the industry is progressive. Certainly units are getting larger, but that is a trend not restricted to agriculture; certainly there is a high level of capital investment, and that is not a sign of a defeated and defunct industry but of a prosperous and vigorous industry; certainly there have been changes, and there will be more and more changes, but is that wrong? And certainly agriculture has its problems, and will go on and on having its problems so long as the industry exists, but that, my Lords, is natural.
If agriculture is strong, modern and vigorous, it can face the future with confidence, and it is with these big considerations in mind that this Government—and, I might add for the benefit of noble Lords opposite, the Government to follow, of the same complexion—are determined to have a strong, efficient and prosperous agriculture ready to meet the challenge of the future, whatever that challenge may be.
4.20 p.m.
LORD WISE: My Lords, first of all I should like to say how pleased I am to see the noble Earl on the Front Bench opposite leading for the Government on agriculture. I do not propose to follow him in what he has had to say. I must say, however, that I thought he made a typical opening speech on behalf of the Government, trying to excuse them in many ways.
To-day is Lady Day and we are considering the problems of agriculture. To-day tenancies are ceasing and new tenancies are opening up in many parts of the country. The outgoing tenants may be going with a sigh of relief that their problems are over, and the incoming tenants may anticipate meeting many problems in the future. In fact, there are many problems in agriculture, and most of them relate to living and material things. Two of these come readily to my mind. The first is, how to make a living from the land; and, the second, how to dispose of products at prices commensurate with one's labour and costs? During the last few years farmers have not been alone in their experience of difficulties and financial stringencies, but they have had their share. These have been referred to in the Annual Review which, throughout its many pages, strives to gloss over them and to suggest some alleviation. But its very lengthy explanations show a large measure of disquietude on the part of the Government. The practical results of all these, whether they be good or bad, must be left to the future.
It has not been easy for a farmer to carry on during recent periods of unsettled weather conditions and, at the same time, to have to face unreliable marketing practices, instability in market prices, increasing costs, high rates of interest, discounts added back again on accounts for expired credit periods, lower purchasing power, unregulated imports and foreign competition. This has placed a heavy burden on his shoulders. The Government have at long last awakened to the need for some system of control of imports and import prices. This is a welcome change of front on the part of the Government, if they mean what they say. Farmers' incomes, in spite of what the noble Earl said a moment ago, have not matched those

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in the professions and in the other industries, many of which provide services at first hand and often at a high rate to the agricultural population, or make profits from the purchase of agricultural products.
To buy cheap and sell dear seems a fairly common doctrine among agricultural suppliers and dealers. There are two ends to a stick, and more often than not the farmer is at the worse end. There are no resale price maintenance possibilities for the agricultural producer. It is known that Government financial palliatives have over a number of years been inserted grudgingly into the various branches of the industry in smaller or larger amounts; but these have not been sufficient or appropriate to establish a thriving and prosperous occupation
"consistently with proper remuneration and living conditions for farmers and workers in agriculture and an adequate return on capital invested in the industry."
Those last words, my Lords, are not my own. They can be found in Section 1 of the Agriculture Act, 1947.
I am not at all in favour of a free-for-all, nor do I believe in the slogan "Conservative freedom pays". Personally, I look forward to the distant future—it may be distant—when subsidies, grants and deficiency payments instituted to augment farming income and to assist consumers in their spending for the necessities of life become things of the past; when British farming, through real beneficial Government control of imports, market prices and functions, can be assured of stability and fair rewards for its products and services to the community. It is somewhat ironical that the Government control some activities in the agricultural industry without cost to the taxpayer but are at a complete loss to institute methods of bulk purchase, resale of cereal products and more satisfactory and satisfying methods for fatstock on mere or less similar lines as were in vogue, with fairness to all concerned, not many years ago.
Our main present systems are outworn and vary in their application. What we have done with some commodities we should be able to devise ways and means to do with others. For many years now, what I have said in your Lordships' House has fallen on deaf or inattentive
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ears; but in the future someone may say that I was right in my generation. I have a friendly feeling for the small farmer, the chap who has to work most of the hours of daylight to make ends meet. The larger farmer has his own advantages and is more able to take care of himself. Government aid to him appears to be on more favourable lines. The cheques he receives are larger, and they seem to make a greater impact upon his bank balance or overdraft and perhaps help to keep his creditors in a better humour.
My Lords, I want for a moment to look at two items in the Annual Review as they affect the receipts of the small or medium-sized farm. I will deal with small quantities and acreages, and my figures can be multiplied and adapted according to individual circumstances. Milk naturally comes first to mind. The advance in price is 2¼d. per gallon, paid for solely by the consumer. In consequence, the family milk bill will rise very considerably during the course of the year in those families where there are a number of children. On a churn of 17 gallons—which was the churn in vogue when I had a large dairy herd though I do not know whether it has altered now—this 2¼d. per gallon amounts to 3s. 2d.; and, of course, the small milk producer may put less than 17 gallons on a milk lorry each day. Then, the additional receipts of the small man may be offset by additional feeding costs, since it usually follows that, if farming receipts rise, someone decides that the price of feedingstuffs and so on should rise as well. In fact, the vicious circle goes into operation. Also, what a small farmer may gain with his milk may be lost in the lower prices of his eggs.
Sugar beet is another item which plays a part in farming practice in East Anglia and other parts of the country. An increase of 3s. 4d. per ton for a 16 per cent. sugar content is proposed. This is roughly equivalent to an increase of £2 per acre. On the basis of the additional 5 per cent., for an acreage from one up to twenty, that would mean a further addition of £2 to the producer. That is not very rewarding, and I cannot imagine anyone being over-excited by reason of these increases. Ten years ago, the price of sugar beet was 125s. 7d. per ton for

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a 16·5 per cent, sugar content. In subsequent years it rose to 130s. 6d., and later dropped to 124s. 8d. It is now proposed that it should be 128s. for a 16 per cent. sugar content. I hope that the Minister will not suggest that in the past sugar beet production has been favourably encouraged. The additional price barely cancels out previous reductions, and the addition has already been swallowed up in additional costs of production and transport, which will no doubt be higher in the course of this year's operations. As a final word, I want to deal with the £7 million net increase. This works out, on an average over the whole of the farms involved, at between £20 and £25 for each farmer, soma naturally receiving more and some less. This is hardly the cost of a new Sunday suit for the farmer and a box of chocolates for his wife.
4.33 p.m.
LORD AMHERST OF HACKNEY: My Lords, I am sure we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh, for introducing this debate. I have listened to the two speeches from the opposite side of the House and there seems to be some contrast, in that the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barn-burgh, was inclined to say that we were doing a lot for the farmer because it was Election year (though he did not say so in so many words) and the noble Lord, Lord Wise, has just pointed out that we have done practically nothing at all for the farmer. There does not seem to be a great deal of consistency.
I have lived to an age when I can look back at farming before the war and during the war and in the period during which the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh, was Minister of Agriculture. As we know, it was a period of fixed prices and world shortages. Everything was sold to the Government at the farm gate. Quality meant nothing at that time and quantity was everything. But we sharpened our knives, ate it up and were duly grateful. And the noble Lord did a magnificent job. But to listen to him, you would think that from 1951 farming policy, as such, had ceased entirely.
Surely what caused the modifications was the returning ability to import larger quantities. And the policy was quite
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clear: it was to give the consumer the benefit of the low world prices and at the same time to protect the producer by subsidies and by making up his cost of production above world prices. As world supplies have increased, so has that system come under greater and greater pressure, and throughout the years it has gradually been modified. And I must say that it has been modified most ingeniously. I think we should pay tribute to the people who work out these ingenious formulae, which bring back to the producer the effect of market prices, without bringing them back too hard. For instance, when we look at the White Paper and contrast Appendix VI, Part I, which gives the simple fact of how much the price of the commodity has gone up, and Part II of the same Appendix, which shows how these alterations in the guarantee are to be implemented, we realise that the ingenuity of the scheme is wonderful.
We have to place this Review against the background of the last three or four Reviews, which have gradually put farming on a firm basis. They have gradually closed the ends of the unrestricted liability of the Exchequer and at the same time have introduced some form of standard quantity for the home producer. Now, we have the new and, I think, revolutionary introduction of some form of import control.
The Opposition pour scorn on the method of import control by minimum prices and imply that we can always get anybody to believe in a thing if we offer to pay him more for his goods. But, surely, just as the home producer is given a quid pro quo in the acceptance of standard quantities, so, to some extent, is the cereal exporter accepting a quantity limitation. If he cannot sell in this market below a certain price, then, when the market is fairly strong, he will not be able to import into it. In a way, it is the acceptance of a form of regulation, of import control, other than purely a question of the exporter getting more for his exports.
I hope we shall be able soon to come to agreements over meat, though at the moment that does not seem such an urgent problem. At the moment, the problem is one of where we are going to get meat rather than that of oversupply. I understand, for instance, that

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in Argentina the increased standard of living and the drought have caused severe shortages and it may be difficult to get all we need from that country.
I think one thing which the Review shows is that standard quantities need not necessarily be restrictive, in that they do not necessarily stop the amount produced by the British farmer from expanding as the market expands, which will enable him to get the largest possible share of that expanding market. After all, I think that the starting point for the standard quantities has been set reasonably high, and every assurance has been given that, if the industry can work competitively, they will get a larger share of the market.
To deal with the individual commodities, I welcome the increase to milk producers. But one question I should have liked to ask the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh, had he been here, is whether he would expect milk to be subsidised. He was rather complaining about the high cost to the consumer. I could not agree less with the noble Lord, Lord Henley, over milk. I think it would be quite wrong to let production go up and up and hope that one would use the surplus entirely for manufacture, because if the farmer is going to be paid the liquid milk price, either we are going to have an enormously expensive surplus, which it will be quite uneconomic to turn into butter and so on, or the price to the producer will be extremely low.
On the question of milk, I think the Government have been right to resist the temptation over the last few years. As my noble friend Lord Ferrers said, production was expanding very rapidly, and the point had come when the Government faced the industry with the choice, really, of either attrition or coming to some sort of two-tier price system. The industry and the Milk Marketing Board, I think quite rightly, rejected the two-tier system. The only other alternative was somehow to get the production of milk reduced so that there would be an economic return to the producer. I think that has now happened, and as a result we have a much more efficient milk industry than we should otherwise have had. Although some 40,000 (I believe that is the correct figure) milk producers have gone out of
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milk production, I understand from the referendum that the Milk Marketing Board carried out among those producers that profitability was the prime cause in less than half the cases, and other things, such as dairy regulations, played a big part in their decision. I am glad that the Government now, through being firm in the past, are in a position to do something about it.
As an arable farmer, I am grateful that for the first time the Government are able to do something for the arable farmer, both in the extra price of potatoes and in the small increase on sugar beet. As the noble Lord, Lord Wise, said, this will represent about £2 an acre on a fairly high-class property; it is not a tremendous lot, but it is something.
It seems to me that the structure of the industry is very much sounder. The next thing to which we have to devote our attention is the improvement in marketing. We have the Verdon-Smith Report, and no doubt very soon we shall hear what the Government are going to do about it. I understand that the Government are having talks with the National Farmers' Union on the marketing of cereals. Now that it is hoped that we shall have a more stabilised market, this should be the opportunity for the home producers to be able to set their own house in order; and there is no real reason why home-produced grain should be at such a discount as it is against imported grain. I have talked for long enough, and I would only say, in conclusion, that I think this is a Review that should be of great assistance to the industry.
4.48 p.m.
LORD ABINGER: My Lords, as a farmer, I share the concern felt by many about the conditions which have been prevalent in the industry in the last two or three years. I accept that many farmers, and particularly the smaller men, have faced extremely difficult circumstances, with falling incomes, and deserve a better deal. I also accept absolutely that there must be some limit to the amount of support the taxpayer can be asked to give to agriculture. I agree that subsidies cannot be openhanded. But what I cannot accept is that these two requirements are necessarily conflicting. I believe that the interests of the farmer and the consumer are largely mutual interests, and that,

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if we are given the right Government policy, the interests of both will be served at the same time.
To this end, my first and most urgent plea to the Government is for a much more decisive system of differentials between the price paid for quality produce and that paid for low-grade produce from the farms. One of the problems which has been facing agriculture has been this increasing tendency towards over-production of certain commodities. Agriculture has performed its rôle magnificently in the national economy over the last 20 years. It has achieved its 4 per cent. annual increase in production, and it seems to me that if this tendency continues, there is some danger that the market will not be able to take up the increased production, with possibly disastrous results either to the farmer or to the taxpayer. Surely the first thing to meet a situation like this should be a determined effort to push the lowest grades off the market altogether. This would have the effect of getting production back into line with demand, and it would steady the market for the 90 per cent. of the self-respecting farmers who grow good food; it would help the consumer, and would ease the burden on the Exchequer. It is true that the Government have paid lip service to this idea of price differentials, but my case is that the differentials are nothing like decisive enough.
Let me consider some individual commodities. In the sphere of grain, wheat is one of our most important crops. The fact is that some of the best wheat grown in the country will provide the poorest return—the lowest price—to the farmers who grow it; and, conversely, some of the more indifferent wheats grown in the country will earn some of the best prices. I imagine that the best wheats of all are those grown for seed. They are an expensive crop for farmers to grow, and if they are a winter-sown variety, in the very nature of things they have to be sold immediately after the harvest at a time when the standard price is lowest. Even if they command a small premium from the merchants, they will not give the farmer who grows them as good a return as some more rubbishy wheats
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that he might choose to sell later in the summer. This particular instance may be an anomaly, but it is the case that there is no relationship between the amount of support the Government give grain and the quality of the grain.
In the field of eggs, I think we now have a position in which there is over-production, which is not of course, the case with wheat. I believe that these egg factories, which were referred to earlier, are a rather unhealthy development in the industry. I would not complain if these factories, housing 100,000 or 200,000, or even, it is suggested 1 million birds, were sited on the edge of some large town and confined their activities to providing that town with these eggs. But they go very much further than this. The eggs from these places percolate throughout the country, right down to the most rural parts of the South-West and the remote parts of Wales. They have a tendency in those rural areas to weaken the market for the local farmer-producer. One could not complain if one were comparing like with like, but I refuse to believe that, however efficient the transport system for moving eggs from the factories is, they can really compare in quality and palatability with a locally produced farm-grown egg. I should have thought that this was a field (and this point has already been referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers) where a selective subsidy might be worked out.
In the case of milk, we have heard again that milk is not subsidised, but is price-controlled. At times of impending over-production, the control has been severe. This year the control has been relaxed to the extent that the price received by the farmer has been allowed to rise by 2¼d. a gallon. Until recently, the price control was severe, the profit margin for many milk producers fell, and a number went out of business. I think it is true that this has been followed, in certain areas of the country at certain times of the year, by a definite danger of a shortage of milk, particularly milk for the creameries for making butter and cheese. It is a difficult point to prove by statistics, because we know that there is an overall average over-production of milk, and also that at certain times of the year in certain districts

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there is a shortage. I would ask: why penalise the whole milk industry at times of impending over-production? Why not be selective with the price control, and endeavour to push the lowest grade milk off the market altogether?
It is true that the Milk Marketing Board, who handle these matters on behalf of the Government, operate a price differential system. But what an esoteric system it is! The Milk Marketing Board pay a medium-range price for the best milk; they pay a rather higher price for some less good milk, and a lower, though quite good, price for some milk which I maintain should not be on the market at all at times of over-production. That is the current price control system. What is good milk? Other things being equal, I think it depends upon the composition of the milk. When all is said and done, milk is well over 80 per cent. pure water, and it is the remaining percentage of its contents, the solids content, that is of importance in defining the quality of the milk. The fact is that milk from the Channel Island breeds has by far the highest percentage of solids. Here, I must declare an interest, because I am a Jersey breeder. I do not think I am prejudiced; I think that both the farmer and the consumer will agree that Channel Island milk is the best. It is this Channel Island milk which the Milk Marketing Board lump in the medium-price bracket when paying for milk, although this milk will have a solids content of anything from 13·6 to 14·6 per cent.
The Board pay a higher price for non-Channel Island milk in possibly the 12·6 to 13·6 per cent. range of solids content, and they pay quite a good price for milk with a solids content of less than 12 per cent. Furthermore, in the summer the Board buy without question milk having under 11·5 per cent. solids content, which is below the assumed minimum of solids content for resale by retailers to the public. That is the sort of milk which in times of over-production should not be bought at all for human consumption. I believe that it serves absolutely nobody's interests to support low-quality produce, either by a weak and faulty price differential system, or by unselective subsidy, as in the case of the much-travelled eggs and the indifferent wheat sold late in the sell-
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ing season. It does not help the consumer, who may have to pay an artificially high price for even poor food; and, in any case, I should have thought that in time of plenty the consumer deserves better food. It does not help the farmer, who may find his market weakened by an influx of low-grade produce. And it does not help the taxpayer, who may find the cost of agricultural support getting out of hand.
I would plead, therefore, for a more selective use of the subsidies, and I should like to pose again the question raised earlier this afternoon: Whom do the agricultural subsidies benefit? I do not accept that the farmers are the main beneficiaries. I think the subsidies are meant to benefit the consumer. Surely the position is this: that by making public money available to agriculture, the Government are sharing production costs with the farmer. If this support is withdrawn, surely it is the consumer who suffers most. He will either have to pay the farmer his full production costs—that is to say, increased prices for his food—or he could let the farmer revert to the dog-and-stick system of farming—a simple, unproductive, though not necessarily unprofitable, form of farming—and buy his food abroad. If he were dependent on imported food he would starve in time of war and go very hungry in time of peace during balance-of-payments crises. I do not think we can assume for a moment that in the absence of home production imported food would remain cheap. I think the consumer could be in a position where he would be held up to ransom. Whether it is the consumer or the farmer who is meant to benefit, I suspect that neither of them are doing so at the moment as much as they should.
May I illustrate what I think is going on by an exaggerated example? The Government have proposed to raise the price of milk paid to the farmer by 2¼d. a gallon. To a farmer with forty cows this might mean an increased income of £250 a year; quite a handsome increase. If he is a mixed farmer working 250 acres of corn and dairying, he could expect extra income of about £1 an acre. But what happens if this farmer's suppliers—using a phrase currently popular in manufacturing industries—

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say: "The climate is right for an increase in prices"? The fertiliser supplier may increase his prices by an equivalent of 5s. an acre; the feeding-stuffs merchant follows suit; machinery engineers increase their prices; the farm chemist and the veterinary surgeon, the electricity board and the local authority also do so; and so it goes all along the line. The outcome may well be that the farmer is plus £1 an acre in income and plus 25s. an acre in costs. The poor fellow probably will not realise that for some time, because he is not an accountant or an economist; he prefers to be out in the fields examining the more fundamental problems of life.
I know that the Ministry checks costs when negotiating the Annual Price Reviews, but these are out-of-date costs. Has the Ministry any machinery for checking current costs and cost trends? If it has such machinery, has it any machinery at all for combating unjustified price increases? If the whole essence of the support system is the sharing of production costs between the Government and the farmer, the Ministry should be very interested indeed in the whole field of production costs.
In this context I would say at once that I most heartily welcome the Government's Resale Prices Bill. I think that resale price maintenance has become an undisguised menace in the agricultural industry. It is no exaggeration, I think, to say that a farmer can hardly be considered efficient now unless he has taken steps to combat it, by dealing with either co-operatives, to some extent, or the discount houses which exist in the industry. I hope Her Majesty's Government will push this Bill through firmly, quickly, and without significant amendment. I would also ask Her Majesty's Government to take a long, cold, hard look at monopolies and mergers. We have heard this afternoon that the fertilisers industry has been looked at in this way and has been given a clean bill of health. But the fact remains that more than three-quarters of the supply of fertilisers in the country are provided by three giant firms. I can only say, as a farmer, that the prices of their products are extraordinarily similar, and I just ask whether there is full, free and fair competition between them.
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The corn and milling trade recently has been going the same way. The small country merchants are disappearing every year. Their businesses are being merged with another handful of giant combines, and I believe that this is against the interests of the consumer and the farmer and that the farmer's bargaining scope is being restricted. Too often in these days is he quoted one price—the highest if he wants to buy and the lowest if he wants to sell. My Lords, I will conclude by saying that I welcome the terms negotiated at the Price Review, but that I regret that the Government have not felt able to make the subsidies more selective. I would emphasise, too, that unless the problem of rising production costs is tackled at Government level, any benefit the farmer receives from this recent Review may prove all too ephemeral.
5.6 p.m.
LORD SAINSBURY: My Lords, in these interesting debates which we have each year on agriculture, if you come lower down in the batting order you are liable to cover subjects that have been covered by previous speakers. Therefore, in advance, I crave your Lordships' indulgence. When I spoke a year ago in a similar debate I uttered perhaps a platitude, but certainly an obvious truism, when I said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 248, col. 209]:
"Whatever evolves in future from the main political Parties in the way of agricultural policy, it will obviously be necessary to arrive at a fair and just division between what should be produced in Great Britain and what should be imported from the Commonwealth and the rest of the world."
What makes this agreed aim so difficult to accomplish are the vagaries of nature. For example, who could have foreseen the 1962–63 winter in Europe and its after effects? There is no better example of this than the supply position of milk and milk products. A year ago I wondered whether Her Majesty's Government had not been unduly optimistic in thinking that the increase of a halfpenny per gallon would not add still further to the burden of milk that could be used only for manufacturing purposes. I was wrong, and I hope that that confession is good for my soul. I notice that the Financial Times, in their leader of March 19 of this year, when referring to the recent Price Review

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expressed the same sort of fears that I expressed a year ago. I quote:
"To make so large an increase as 2¼d. a gallon is to run the risk of upsetting the balance, discouraging the growth of demand and provoking another excessive flood of milk by tempting the marginal producer back into business."
I was wrong, and I think it is quite possible that the Financial Times may be wrong, because I believe that once farmers have given up milk production—and they give up, as a previous noble Lord has said, for more than one reason—they are unlikely to resume within a short space of time; although I notice that the President of the Farmers' Union of Wales has said that in his view the increase of 2¼d. a gallon could inspire new entrants into milk and thereby cause a recurrence of the trend that was apparent two years ago. As regards liquid milk consumption in the United Kingdom, it is going up only very slightly more than the increase in population; in other words, about 1 to 1½ per cent. per annum.
As regards overall dairy policy, I think the Government have to make up their mind whether it is in the national interest to produce milk for manufacturing purposes, particularly for butter. Obviously, there has to be a reserve for the liquid milk market owing to seasonal variations in production, but surely this reserve can become too large. I am aware, of course, that there is a standard quantity, and that if milk prod action goes over the standard quantity farmers get a lower price. I am also aware that this standard quantity provides a reserve of about 26 per cent. above the liquid milk requirements. In my view, it cannot be said too often that the true cost to the nation of English butter is about double the cost of production of New Zealand butter. It seems to me, therefore, that the trend of milk production must be watched most carefully, because in my view before we know where we are we might once again, in common with the rest of Europe, be faced with the chaos of over-production.
May I next turn to a commodity where there is again the problem of balance between home production and imports, namely pigmeat. As your Lordships are aware, and as has already been stated, last week saw the publication of the Memorandum of Understanding on the Supply of Bacon to the United Kingdom
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Market, which ensures 36½ per cent. of the total target quantity for the home producer. When I spoke last week on the economic situation I mentioned that bacon prices were in the neighbourhood of 18 per cent. above prices at the same time last year. Currently pork market prices are some 25 per cent. higher than a year ago.
There are several reasons, I think, for the recent high U.K. pigmeat prices, such as the shortages on the Continent, that in turn are, in part, due to last winter's severe weather. This has led to traditional suppliers to this country diverting part of their exports to other countries—for example, Denmark exporting to France and Switzerland. In addition, high prices on the Continent have attracted exports of pigmeat from this country, mainly to France, and the quantity amounted last year to over 5,000 tons. This quantity, of course, is not big in itself, but has a psychological effect on market prices. The export of pigmeat to France has now fallen off owing to an internal drop in pig prices in France, showing once again that high prices increase supplies.
The increase of the present guaranteed pig prices to the producers in last week's Price Review by 1s. 3d. per score should, in my view, act as a moderate incentive to increased production and the overcoming of the present shortage in this country. It is, of course, only with increased production, on the Continent as well as in the United Kingdom, that the recent bacon agreement will be put to a real test.
It is probably in beef where there is the greatest contrast between to-day and a year ago, as to both supply and price. As is so often the case in these matters, several things have contributed to this change. Your Lordships will recall that a year ago two factors were operating which caused low prices. One was the volume and timing of imports, the other the effect in Britain of feed shortages on marketing. To turn to imports, your Lordships will recall that at this time last year the Minister of Agriculture sent what my noble friend Lord Williams of Barnburgh called "a couple of love letters" to the Argentine and Yugoslavia. Those letters appear to have had some effect of recent months. It has been estimated that imports of Argentine

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chilled beef have recently been running at some 40 per cent. behind those of the corresponding period of last year. In fairness to the Argentine it must be said that the British Government asked for shipments between September last year and March, 1964, not to exceed 89,000 tons with a minimum of 80,000 tons, and I am informed that in fact the Argentine have delivered about 82,000 tons.
It is not always appreciated, I think, that of the total production of beef in the Argentine, only 18 per cent.—which is a fair average figure over a period of years and is the last available figure, which is that of 1962—goes for export, and of that 18 per cent. Britain took about half. Therefore, unfavourable weather conditions, such as the drought that was experienced in the Argentine, in South America, some eighteen months ago, can have a considerable effect on the quantity of cattle now available for export. There is also what a newspaper this week described as the "beef drain". This must not be exaggerated, but it is an entirely new factor. There are now regular shipments from Britain to the Continent of live cattle, mostly cows, going on continuously. It is very difficult to obtain figures of the total volume, and perhaps the noble Lord when he comes to reply to this debate on behalf of the Government can enlighten us on this quantity.
Whatever the volume is, it is certainly having an effect on market prices, and perhaps what is most serious of all is that I have been reliably informed that if more suitable shipping space were available the number of exported animals would be much higher. The situation, therefore, over all, again in my humble opinion, seems fully to justify the proposed increase in the market price by 3s. per live cwt. and the increase in the steer calf subsidy. But it is perhaps an enigma that in endeavouring to prevent an over-supply, Governments sometimes help to create a shortage.
I now come to eggs. May I say that the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, with his customary courtesy and kindness, informed me in advance of this debate that he was, I think he said, going to "have a dig" at me about eggs, and
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he quoted a speech I made recently at the London Egg Exchange dinner. He also referred to the fact that the Government, in the light of expanding production, are reducing the guaranteed price by 1d. per dozen; and, quite rightly, he said that that increasing production was due to the increase in the average size of the laying flock and higher egg yields rather than to the number of egg producers. In point of fact, the number of registered egg producers has declined.
In the speech which the noble Earl has quoted, I said what a relatively small contribution imported supplies made to the total. I think it interesting to compare the great change between the present-day and the pre-war situation. In the period 1934 to 1938, imported eggs, including egg products, accounted for 35 per cent. of the United Kingdom supplies. In the last two years the comparable figure has been estimated at 6 per cent., and of this 6 per cent. only 2 per cent. represented imports of eggs in shells. This is a truly remarkable change. In my view it would hardly justify import quotas which have been mentioned in the past in certain agricultural circles. In my view, it is not imports which present the problem, but the varying costs of production.
I said that eggs produced by the newer methods of mass production cost so much less than eggs produced from hens kept in the traditional way. Obviously—again I quote myself—if the present subsidy is fair to the one it is outrageously generous to the other. I said that, in my view, the one thing that we must not do is to discourage improved techniques leading to lower costs. So there is a fair measure of agreement between the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, and myself.
Now I come to the point in his remarks on eggs at which he tried to sow the seeds of discord between my noble friend Lord Walston and myself. I appreciate that I am but a humble Back Bencher and that my noble friend speaks from the Front Bench; but, in spite of my humble position and his important one, nothing that the noble Earl said is going to weaken our friendship or succeed in sowing these seeds of discord between us. I am much more a shopkeeper than a politician, and I

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believe that the appropriate thing to say at this juncture is that it is not the job of the Opposition to provide the Government with the way to solve their problems.
However, I would offer two suggestions for consideration, without in any way committing the new Government that, before the end of this year, will be in power. The first of my two suggestions is consideration of a policy that was, I think, years ago, applied to milk, by which you had a graduated payment and the big suppliers received less than the smaller ones. That, I should have thought, could possibly be applied to eggs. Secondly, there are obvious variations of cost between the eggs produced a long way away from the market of their consumption, and those produced near the urban areas where they are consumed. It is possible that you could have a differential price system by which the small producers in the remoter districts received a higher price than the producers in the more urbanised areas. For what they are worth, I throw out those suggestions.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, would the noble Lord allow me to interrupt him? I am particularly grateful to him for being so illuminating about this. He said that these were outrageously generous subsidies. When I asked him what he would suggest doing about it, he said, "That is a problem for the Government." This is most interesting. It is a good debating technique if you can deflect any arrows that come across the Floor and turn them into boomerangs. But if the noble Lord is going to suggest that these are outrageously generous, then I think he has an onus to say what are his alternatives. I am glad that he has said that, in his view, it would be right to give a differential subsidy, which, in other words, would be a smaller subsidy to the big man and a bigger subsidy to the smaller man. In other words, he would discourage the smaller person from being more efficient. Is that: really what he means? If that is so, is that what the Labour Party think? The smaller man would like to know.
LORD SAINSBURY: We are back on the electioneering point.
EARL FERRERS: This is fact.
LORD SAINSBURY: I personally certainly would not agree with any policy which discouraged increased efficiency or innovation; but there are certain inescapable differential costs. I was at one time on the National Egg Packers Council. Without reference I cannot remember the date, but this principle of a differential price has been considered by the Department concerned as well as by people such as egg producers and their representatives and egg packers. So I do not claim for it any originality. I have made it perfectly clear that it is not our job from these Benches to provide noble Lords opposite with the solution.
EARL FERRERS: But then, if noble Lords opposite are going to present themselves as a possible alternative Government, it is right that the farmers should know what they should expect from those noble Lords in regard to eggs. The noble Lord has just said that there are certain inescapable differences in costs. A few minutes earlier he had suggested that the big man should get less than the small man. All that I want to find out from the noble Lord is this: is he saying that there should be a small subsidy for the big person and a big subsidy for the small person? I am not saying that he is necessarily wrong, but is that what he and his colleagues feel?
LORD SAINSBURY: My Lords, you can criticise people who will not look ahead, and, with all respect, the present Government, in agricultural matters and in other matters, have not always looked ahead. I am suggesting that unless one makes a determined effort to solve this problem in an equitable way which does not discourage efficiency, the Government of the day—which I hope will be composed, as to some at any rate, of Members from this side of the House—will be faced with a problem not of a subsidy of, say, £25 million, but of a subsidy of £40 million. So, whatever you throw across the Table at me, the problem remains and somebody will have to solve it. It is over-generous to the large-scale producer who gets a certain efficiency of production purely from size. I have detained your Lordships too long. I have enjoyed this little interchange, but, in conclusion, I would say that, however satisfactory the outcome of the

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latest Price Review may be to the farmers, many long-term problems remain to be solved.
5.31 p.m.
THE EARL OF MALMESBURY: My Lords, I should like to congratulate and thank the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh, for initiating this debate; and in doing so I add my thanks to those of other noble Lords. The noble Lord gave us a recent history of agriculture, though, if I may say so, that history was a little biased. I should like to congratulate the Minister of Agriculture and his Parliamentary Secretaries for this year's Review and Determination of Guarantees. I think it has in it something very great, in that it looks right into the future.
I know that the last noble Lord who spoke mentioned the future, and I rather think he felt it was almost the prerogative of the noble Lords opposite. But that is not so, for he has only to look at this year's Price Review to see that it definitely looks to the future. There are ideas in it, and those ideas have taken time to develop. It was not very long ago, in fact about four years ago, when agriculture was in a sellers' market. Very quickly it suddenly became a buyers' market and everyone became worried; the idea that everything which was produced was actually needed died very hard. There was also at that time a more or less free entry for overseas supplies, and a large number of people got hurt, not only in this country but in the countries from whom we were importing. The idea of standard quantities and import controls has a good deal in it, in that everybody concerned knows how he stands. He knows full well that he has to be an efficient producer.
Going back a little, I find that one of the most alarming things about open-ended guarantees was that so few producers had any idea what their costs of production really were. Starting soon after Christmas, they usually had a shot at what the thing would cost. One man would mention the figure and others would follow; but those who followed had no idea how they could apply the first man's figures to their own farm. In fact, they had no idea whether they were producing efficiently, whether they were producing a line that they ought
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not to produce, or whether they were producing too many lines and ought to streamline the whole of their farm business.
I must congratulate the National Agricultural Advisory Service. In recent years they have done a remarkable job of work and have co-operated closely with county committees and district subcommittees. They have held meetings, they have spotted weaknesses, and they have persuaded one or two farmers—this took place in my county, which I believe was a leading county on the question of costs of production—to try out some form of simple costing. What had always put farmers off was that costings seemed to become complicated, and in busy times of the year got put on one side.
Then, suddenly, the thing got going. One or two of the farmers who had started costings told their neighbours what had happened. They suddenly realised that perhaps they were spending too much on food in the production of a given quality of milk; or that the same thing could apply to meat, whether cattle or pigs. Revealing information came out, and the farmers began to realise what their costs really were. Then we received able farm management advice from N.A.A.S., and the forms were revised; and now, in this month of March, a wonderful thing has happened. In conjunction with the National Farmers' Union, the universities and all concerned, there is now produced what is known as the Farm Business Record Book. I am not advertising its sale in any way at all; I have nothing to do with it; but it costs only a guinea and is available for every farmer in the land. It is a simple book and I consider that every farmer could make use of it; and if he did, there would be a great deal less wild and inaccurate talk in the farming business. I believe agriculture has suffered from such inaccuracy in the past, and this is where so much political talk has got into the process—which probably has not done the industry itself a great deal of good.
The other point I want to bring out is that a tremendous amount of information is coming through from the botanist, the veterinary world, the scientific world, agricultural engineers, and so on. Although the Advisory Service is first-class, the information that is available

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is not coming through quickly enough. I should like to put forward the suggestion that there could be some form of abstracting or clearing house under a single heading, so that farmers could be fed with specific knowledge which they require. The trouble is that over the years the information has grown so vast and so quickly that it is difficult to get exactly what one wants.
I have rather left the Price Review, but I consider that it is a wise one. I move round the farming world a good deal, and I can say that the Review has undoubtedly given an incentive of thought and a calmness of mind to the farmer to go ahead in sorting out his own problems and to produce on each farm what that farm is most suited to do. It was only yesterday that I was given a figure by a small farmer with 30 cows, He is quite a good farmer, and he was very pleased with the 2½d. In fact, it has increased his income by just under £300. But I said to him, "What do you think of it as a whole?" He replied, "Well, it is not going to attract new people into producing milk, but it is going to encourage the man who is already in".
I should have said that that was really what was wanted, because the shortage of milk with which we have been threatened during the last two months has not, I believe, been produced because of farmers going out—and there has been a suggestion this afternoon that those farmers were not, perhaps, the most efficient ones. The shortage of milk has really been brought about by the very cold winter of 1962–63, when farmers found it extremely difficult to get their cows in calf. The result was that the milk due from those cows was late in appearing again this last winter. I think, from talking to people and going round, that that was the main cause of the shortage. That, obviously, is going to right itself, and this price seems to me and many others just about the right amount to give the necessary encouragement.
That, my Lords, is all I want to say. If I may, I should just like to mention, as my last point, the Verdon-Smith Report. There was one item in that which I know caused a good deal of nervousness, and that is the rejection of the idea of the provision of additional cold storage. Farmers feel that if there
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is a surplus of meat, additional cold storage could take up the slack.
5.43 p.m.
LORD HAMILTON OF DALZELL: My Lords, my experience, like that of my noble friend Lord Malmesbury, has been that this Price Review has been very well received in the farming industry—in fact everywhere, at any rate outside your Lordships' House. Even here, the jeremiads of noble Lords opposite to which we have become used have on this occasion been comparatively few and restrained. It has been, I think, a good Review; but to my mind the really important thing about it is that at last the Government have found a way towards a solution of what has seemed an intractable problem: how to maintain the profitability of farming without placing an intolerable burden on the rest of the community. It has been becoming clear for some time, I think, that our support system, which was devised in conditions of shortage, was becoming less and less relevant in the changing conditions of to-day. The difficulty was how to make sure that periodical, or possibly even permanent, surpluses of some commodities would not raise the cost of support to unreasonable heights, for that would not only embarrass the Government but, much more important, forfeit the good will of the general public towards the farming industry.
During the last year a pattern has begun to emerge based on the idea that guaranteed prices should be linked in some way to the quantities of the various commodities that are required. This, of course, is difficult to contrive, particularly with those commodities of which a large proportion is imported under conditions of no restriction on imports. The Understanding on the Supply of Bacon and the proposed arrangements for the control of imports of cereals will help, and these are the first instances of restriction on imports that we have had—a great and important departure from what has long been the method in this country. It is true that it has not yet been possible to reach agreement with our overseas suppliers of meat. I have no doubt that that will come in good time; but I am very pleased to see that it has been possible to devise a system by which the total price received by the farmer for

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his fatstock will now to some extent depend on the price he receives in the market. The situation hitherto had been most unsatisfactory: it was a situation in which the farmer need pay no attention whatever to the price paid to him in the market, since, however little he received from the buyer, the Government would make up the difference to the agreed amount. I think that that was exactly the opposite of what is wanted to-day, now that the farmers are being urged to pay more attention to their methods of marketing.
I find that the scheme for meat is complicated, but I am sure that the principle of it is right—and I must say that it is not only that scheme which I find complicated. Many of the schemes seem to be complicated now. I was in your Lordships' House the other day when we were discussing the minimum import prices for cereals, and I certainly had the impression on that occasion that I was not the only one of your Lordships who was somewhat perplexed. But, my Lords, any interference in the natural play of the market for any commodity is bound to cause complications; and the greater the degree of sophistication introduced into the system, the greater the complications will become.
Our agricultural support system was quite simple when it was started; but it has been going a long time now, and it has had to be constantly altered and adapted through the passage of the years to meet the constantly changing conditions. This process has now brought the system to a pitch of sophistication and complication which requires a huge bureaucratic machine to operate it, backed up by the fine array of computers which I have seen at Guildford. Of course, I accept that in the special conditions of agriculture it is necessary for the Government to interfere, to decide priorities, and, by distorting the pattern of the market, to exercise some control over production. But I must say that when I look at what all this involves in agriculture I am astonished that noble Lords opposite, as I understand it, should wish to introduce the same sort of interference into other branches of our national economy,
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where the need is by no means so obvious.
My Lords, I am not going to be long, but I should like to say something about one particular commodity, and that is milk. In passing, I should like just to take up a point that was made by my noble friend Lord Amherst of Hackney (who is not at the moment in the House) at a time when the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh, was not in the House. I was interested, as he was, in the implications of the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh, about milk. He appeared to approve of the increase in the price of milk to be paid to the farmer, but to disapprove of the increase in the price of milk to be paid by the housewife. That seems to me to imply the reintroduction of subsidies. I should be interested to know if that is the intention of noble Lords opposite. But I believe that every thinking farmer accepts that two years ago we were heading for trouble with milk unless some check in the upward trend of production could be achieved. Measures were taken that may have been uncomfortable; they were certainly effective. Production levelled off, and for the last few months it has been well below that of recent years. But I do not believe that indicates anything like a flight from milk, as has been suggested; or, indeed, that there is a danger of an actual shortage of liquid milk.
First of all, I believe, as my noble friend Lord Malmesbury and others have said, that the shortage during this winter has been largely due to climatic conditions—the cold, wet summer, which is always followed by poor milking performance in cows, and also the hard weather in the early part of last year, which made it difficult to get animals in calf and so interfered with the autumn calving programme. Certainly in my own herd the pattern of production seems to have been very similar to the national pattern, without any deliberate intention on my part. It is true that some farmers have gone out of milk, but for many reasons, as has been said, besides that of price. Some of them have been unable or unwilling to achieve the standards of hygiene which are now required of dairy farmers, and some of

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them have found the drudgery of the job too much for them.
It is also true that there has been a reduction in the national herd of about 3 per cent. which is partly due to the very high price now obtainable for culled cows. At the same time, all over the country farmers are increasing their herds and spending large sums of money on arrangements for improving the efficiency of their output. It has been noticeable that the demand for downcalvers has remained high. There has been an increase in the number of inseminations by dairy bulls. The Farmer and Stock Breeder of January 21, under the heading "Swing Back to Milk" said:
"Latest figures on cattle inseminations from Milk Board centres show a big swing back to dairy breeds … The new trend heralds a rise in milk production in something over two years' time. It is to be hoped that the dairy breed proportion of inseminations does not go on rising much further, else there will be a distinct danger of over-production of milk in 1966 or 1967."
None of these things seems to me to indicate a lack of confidence in the future of milk—and all that was even before the present increase in price which has now been given. As a milk producer, I am pleased with the increase in price; but I hope that we shall not see the cycle of over-production starting again.
Farmers grumble, of course, and a fall of £40 million in aggregate net income—which is nearly 10 per cent.—is no fun, even if three-quarters of it was due to bad weather. Certainly in the SouthEast—that part of the country where I live—I have not been able to find, even before the Price Review, this dismay and depression we have heard so much about. I have no doubt that this Review, coupled with the other measures the Government are taking, will be accepted by the industry as giving firm grounds for confidence in the future of British farming.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

ROYAL COMMISSION
6.0 p.m.
The following Bills received the Royal Assent:
Consolidated Fund (No. 2),
Rating (Interim Relief),
Married Women's Property,
Uganda,
Television,
British Nationality,
Fireworks,
Trade Union (Amalgamations, etc.),
War Damage,
Licensing,
Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Act 1923 (Amendment),
Motherwell and Wishaw Burgh Extension, &c. Order Confirmation,
Port of London (Extension of Seaward Limit),
Customs Annuity and Benevolent Fund,
City of London (Courts).
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

AGRICULTURE
6.16 p.m.
Debate resumed.
VISCOUNT FALMOUTH: My Lords, to take up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, I see from the list of speakers that I am twelfth man, batting at number eleven. I claim the privilege, therefore, to be short. Your Lordships are now well acquainted with the provisions of the Agricultural Price Review of 1964. This is a most important Review, and must be considered jointly with the Agriculture and Horticulture Bill which your Lordships' House has recently been considering. All your Lordships must surely welcome the fact that this is an agreed Price Review, and I think we are all united and desiring the welfare of this great industry.
The Government have been very skilled in steering a middle course between the four shoals of GATT and the Kennedy round, the taxpayer, the consumer and the home farmer. The marketing problems which have been to

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the fore and which are, so to speak, built in in the industry, are perhaps four in number. These problems are well-known to the House and, indeed, they must be a kind of hardy perennial at each of these agricultural debates. I hope that your Lordships will not consider me presumptuous to touch on them briefly when considering the Review. I will list these four problems as, first, surpluses at home and abroad; secondly, pressures of imports from abroad; thirdly, the natural desire for cheap food; and fourthly, the ever-increasing payments from the Treasury to agriculture to support it.
First, with regard to surpluses, the Review sets out to deal with this problem by the introduction of standard quantities for the home producer. I think this year it is 3·3 million tons for wheat and 6.5 million tons for barley. I know your Lordships will agree with me that the scheme is a clever one, and, indeed, is much simpler to operate than it looks. As your Lordships know, the target indicator price is fixed for the standard quantities at each Review. For wheat this price to-day is 20s.; that is, 6s. 6d. below the guaranteed price. This 6s. 6d. is the deficiency payment to the farmer if the standard quantity is just achieved and the average price is the same as the target indicator price. Supplies over and above the standard quantities or over and above (shall I call it?) the T.I.P. or average market price lead to a corresponding adjustment in the deficiency payment. The calculation to decide this payment is not a difficult one, as we see if we refer to page 42. I think, too, we should note that in this Price Review there is no question, so to speak, of "quota-ing" the products of individual farms, except in so far as potatoes are concerned. I hope, indeed, that the fluctuations of the English cereal market will not be great enough to disturb these arrangements.
Secondly, pressures from abroad. The 1964 Act, now in course of going through Parliament, will allow the authorities to place minimum prices on overseas cereals. This, I suppose, will be closely linked to the T.I.P., while the agreements with the main producers overseas will limit what they send. I understand that the alterations of the minimum import price can be made
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quickly so as to prevent dumping. The previous anti-dumping Acts can be slow and cumbersome, and I am sure your Lordships would agree that it is to be hoped that these provisions will be put into operation as soon as possible after the passing of the Bill, so as not to prevent the successful working of this Price Review.
Let me deal now with the desire for cheap food. One halfpenny on milk is, of course, an increase in the food bill to the housewife, but this must be looked at in the light of the £24 million increase in Treasury support for milk and the fall in the rate of increase of milk production. Lastly, the necessity to keep a firm hold on Exchequer support is, of course, to be greatly helped by preventing the entry of under-price cereals into the market from abroad.
The importance of these changes in our system are very great, and I think your Lordships must agree with me that it is a well-timed action that the agreement with our overseas suppliers has been made before this Price Review. The Price Review represents a time for thinking ahead in the industry. It is easy for us to criticise Governments for blowing hot and cold from one moment to the next by encouraging or discouraging farm produce. But, as we know from our own experience, surpluses and shortages are of the very nature of agriculture. Probably nothing will alter that, and it must be hoped that these new arrangements, if worked wisely, will work against these fluctuations.
Before I sit down, there are perhaps two practical points which I should like to put before your Lordships at this time. They follow on, I think, from the Price Review. First, there is the question of the small farm and, secondly, the spread of the increasing population into the countryside. As the noble Lord, Lord Wise, said, it is not an easy thing to get a fair living from a small farm—and I have many connections myself with small farmers. As the noble Lord opposite said, we must remember that this problem is much greater in Europe. It may well be that there are no great changes which can be made speedily. Agriculture itself is a slow business. Swift changes often do great harm, and if amalgamations come it can be only a slow process.

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Increase of the population and its overflow into the countryside mean greater markets for the home farmer. But in the regions where the population is expanding the farmer is at a considerable disadvantage in attracting the right type of young labour for his farm, especially when he is competing against such prosperous industries as the building trade. Particularly in the southern suburbs of London, excellent work is done in the primary and secondary schools in encouraging young people to take an active and intelligent interest in the land, in the hope that they may enter into this industry. I hope that the Minister, with all his responsibilities in reconciling conflicting interests, will defend the existence of good agricultural land, so far as he can, so that no more of it than is absolutely necessary can be taken for building.
6.27 p.m.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, we are always grateful to my noble friend Lord Williams of Barnburgh for debates of this kind. To-day I think we are particularly grateful to him for three special reasons. First, I feel that to-day's debate has been, if anything, even more valuable and a more informed debate than those we have had in the past. That is saying a great deal, because the standard has always been high. Secondly, this is a particularly important occasion because it seems the beginning of a new form of agricultural Price Review and price support and, therefore, it has special significance. Thirdly, it is of special importance because, in my view at least—and there are many who share this view with me—this is the last occasion for many years to come on which noble Lords opposite and their friends will have the opportunity of taking the actions they have taken. So I think that for all those reasons it is worth looking, as many noble Lords have done, not only at the immediate position of agriculture as it is to-day and the immediate impact of the Price Review, but at the rather wider context, both of the past and of the future.
So far as the past is concerned, we have, of course, heard a great deal of pleasure expressed at the Price Review today because it has been an agreed Review. As a farmer, I am delighted
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that we have got over recoupment—a repulsive word, but it is useful shorthand, and I think noble Lords know what it means. But it is always dangerous, as the Prime Minister was at pains to point out with regard to the trade figures when they were not so favourable in January, to draw conclusions from one month alone. One must look at the whole picture of our trade balance. Similarly, it is dangerous to draw conclusions from one Price Review alone, whether it happens by coincidence, as my noble friend has said, to he the Price Review in the year of an Election or not. So I do ask your Lordships to look back over the past ten years, when we are now congratulating ourselves as farmers on this over-recoupment of £7 million or so, and see what has been happening.
We know perfectly well there has been an under-recoupment in the past ten years to a total of £175 million. In other words, under-recoupment has been running at an average rate of £17½ million per annum. So, grateful though we are for this over-recoupment this year, it really is not a terribly significant figure when viewed in the light of the accumulated under-recoupment of £175 million.
There was some query about this when my noble friend Lord Williams of Barnburgh mentioned these figures, so may I just remind noble Lords of what has been happening in the past ten years, from 1951–52 to 1961–62—the last year for which I have figures available? The actual net income, adjusted for changes in the prices of consumer goods and services, dropped from £314 million to £310 million. So there can be little dispute that during the last ten or twelve years the actual position of farmers, in real terms, has been steadily declining.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, would the noble Lord mind explaining that point a little further, because if he will look at Appendix II, "Aggregrate Farming Net Income", he will see that between the years he has quoted, adjusted to normal weather conditions, total income has gone up from £331 million to £438 million—which by my calculations, means a rise of £100 million?
LORD WALSTON: That, of course, is perfectly true; and it does show how dangerous it is, if I may say so without any offence to the noble Earl, to use statistics without reading what goes before them. Of course, the actual income has gone up according to those figures. But I said adjusted to "real" purchasing power, and, as we know, during the tenure of office of the present Government the purchasing power of the pound has declined very considerably. Therefore, although you may have more pounds passing into your pocket during the present time, you can buy less with them. This answer, which was given by the Minister in another place, did make that adjustment. I am grateful to the noble Earl for allowing me to make it clear—because it is an important point—that even though the number of pounds in a farmer's account may be greater than it was before, the actual amount that he is able to buy with his pound has declined. Therefore, his absolute standard of living is lower now than it was before. I hope that makes it clear to the noble Lord.
That is not all that has happened during this time. As your Lordships know, the Government were worried a few years ago by the problems which arose with meat when the deficiency payments (and therefore the taxpayers' contribution) for meat rose to alarming proportions, but it appeared that the price in shops did not fall correspondingly with the price that the farmer himself was getting in the open market. As a result, the Government set up what has come to be known as the Verdon-Smith Committee, which made an inquiry into the marketing of meat. I share with other noble Lords (I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Amherst of Hackney who mentioned this) interest in this matter and the hope that perhaps one day we shall be able to discuss this in more detail. But I do not think the present moment is the time to do so.
But I would draw your Lordships' attention to some figures which emerged from the Verdon-Smith Report. If you refer to the profits, as ascertained by the National Farmers' Union statisticians, from 357 farms, with an average of 225 acres, concerned primarily with livestock production, beef, mutton and pigs—the farms being ide cal samples—you will
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find that over the period 1957–58 to 1961–62 their profit rose by 3 per cent. That is not a very high rise, especially considering the decline in the purchasing power of the pound; but at least there was a rise. But if you then look up some very interesting figures in the Appendix of the Verdon-Smith Report you will find that the profits of the provincial wholesalers of meat during the same period rose, not by 3 per cent., but by 51 per cent. The profits of the independent retailers, the people who come after the wholesalers, during the same period rose, not by 3 per cent., but by 36 per cent. In other words, during that period—and I use that period solely because the Verdon-Smith Committee use it, and not for any other reason—while farmers, the producers of meat, were struggling along with a 3 per cent. rise, which was far too little to make good the rise in the cost of living, the retailers were just about able to keep even with a 36 per cent. rise, and the wholesalers were able to make an increased profit of 51 per cent. I think it is worth pointing out, my Lords, that the Verdon-Smith Committee themselves say that they do not think these profits were unreasonable, and there is no reason to alter the system because of them. Surely, if it is not unreasonable for wholesalers to have an increased profit of 50 per cent., or thereabouts, in five years, and for retailers to have an increased profit of 36 per cent. in that period, it must be unreasonable for farmers to have a profit of only 3 per cent.
That is meat. Now let us have a look at arable farming. What happens there? During a similar period—and again quote the National Farmers' Union figures. The noble Lord is laughing at this; I hope he has studied them himself.
LORD ST. OSWALD: The noble Lord must quote his own.
LORD WALSTON: Unfortunately, I have not my own here; I wish I had. It is possible that if I did, some noble Lords would say that I am not entirely typical of the ordinary run of arable farmers. After all, most arable farmers do not spend most of their time sitting in your Lordships' Chamber; they are probably far better occupied. Taking the N.F.U. figures—once more of a sample of 155 farms of 196 acres, again identical

1321
samples—we find that they did rather better than live stock producers. They had an increased profit of 5 per cent.—a lordly figure of 1 per cent. per annum. Unfortunately, neither the Verdon-Smith Report nor anything of a similar kind has looked into cereal marketing, so all I could do WAS to look at Stock Exchange reports of the profits of some of those concerns most closely associated with cereal marketing and utilisation. I looked at a firm called Associated British Foods, which is, I believe, concerned with bakery in a rather large way, and I found that during the period from 1958 to 1963 their profits increased by 64 per cent. We must remember that the farmers' profits increased by 5 per cent. Spiller's increased their profits by 94 per cent.; but they were not particularly efficient compared with Rank's, whose profits increased by 103 per cent. There again, you have somewhat of a difference between the farmer, the producer, under this present system and this present Government, and the other people who come between him and the consumer.
Let us have a look at milk, about which we have heard quite a lot. Here, I must say, I have a slight difference of opinion with my noble friend Lord Williams of Barnburgh. He suggested that the housewife was now going to pay 4d. a gallon more for her milk. My calculations suggest that she is going to pay something over 5d. a gallon more, because for eight months in the year she is going to pay Id. a pint more—I hope I have these figures correctly—and for four months in the year she will pay ½d. a pint more. That gives an average, unweighted, I grant, of 5⅓d. She is going to pay 1d. a pint more for four months and a ½d, a pint more for eight months.
LORD ST. OSWALD: May I just clear my head? One penny a pint more than what is the noble Lord saying?
LORD WALSTON: I do not know if I shall be able to clarify the noble Lord's head. One penny a pint more than at the present time, under the new system. The average increase she is going to pay will be something over 5d.
LORD ST. OSWALD: More than she has done is one thing. Is the noble Lord saying more than she is doing now?—because if so he is wrong.
LORD WALSTON: More than in the past twelve months; over the next twelve months she is going to pay, on a non-weighted average basis, something over 5d. a gallon more. Noble Lords have been talking of 2¼d. to be paid to the farmer. I am not at all sure they are not being unjust to the Government. I think it may be 2·79d. per gallon more. However, I do not think we need go into these rather complicated calculations.
What has happened in the past? Between the years 1955 and 1963 the average price to the producer has declined by 10 per cent. The retail price has increased by 28 per cent. These figures are to be found in the Milk Marketing Board's latest Report. From the National Farmers' Union, and their invaluable set of statistics, we find that from 1957–58 to 1961–62 milk producers' profits, dairymen's profits, on 384 farms of 96 acres—once more identical samples—have declined by 10 per cent., which is not surprising considering that the average price has declined by 10 per cent. too. The figures go hand in hand. Take Express Dairies—what has happened to their profits? They have gone up by 114 per cent. during that time. I think that these are figures to which we ought to pay quite a lot of attention; we should study them with considerable care if we are genuinely interested in the ultimate objective of any sound agricultural policy which is to ensure that the consumer gets his food at the lowest possible price and in adequate quantities.
I think it is significant that under this Price Review, in which the milk producer has been given this lordly increase of 2¼d. or 2·79d. per gallon, the consumer, in fact, will have to pay not 2¼d. or 2·79d. more but 5⅓d. per gallon more. The noble Lord knows perfectly well, and I know perfectly well, that there are many and complicated reasons for that. I am not suggesting—it is not so—that in this case the retailer of milk is getting a higher margin. He is not. There are many complicated factors which come in between, though I will not weary your Lordships by explaining how that comes about. The important thing is that the increase to the farmer is more than passed on to the consumer, and that is something to which, as people who are primarily interested in the welfare of the

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consumer, we should be giving very serious attention.
What serious attention are Her Majesty's Government giving to this? They have introduced this grand new concept of standard quantities and agreements with overseas producers, so far, unfortunately, only for wheat or cereals. We wish them luck in pursuing this concept with other commodities and with other countries. But we do not wish them luck in pursuing it in the same way they have been pursuing it up to the present time, because what they have been doing—and I will not go over the arguments we have had in the past weeks—is to give more money to overseas producers without getting any corresponding return for it, other than the possibility of reducing the amount of deficiency payment that has to be paid. We on this side of the House are wholeheartedly behind any policy which is going to regulate markets and promote order in the production and marketing of primary commodities of all kinds. We have been prepared on occasion, as the Government have been, to pay rather more for certain commodities than we have been paying in the past. But if we are going to do that we want something in return. We want two things in return. One is that should the market turn against us, as buyers, and should there be a world shortage of the particular commodity, we shall gain some advantage from having bought rather above open market price in the past. The second thing we want is that the extra money we pay out for these essential commodities shall, so far as possible, go to the countries which need it most, and especially, so far as possible, to Commonwealth countries.
Let us look at these cereal agreements in that light. We have no long-term agreement for ensuring our supplies of cereals at a regular price if there should be a world cereal shortage—and it is not at all unlikely that that may happen in the next few years. Sometimes we are terrified of super-abundance; sometimes we are faced with shortage. Who could have foretold, a couple of years ago, that the world price for sugar would have risen from £25 to £101 a ton? Who would have dared to get up in public
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and say that the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement was good, not only because it helped the Commonwealth and the developing countries, but because it would ensure that this country got its sugar at half the world price? Nobody would have considered that. It is not altogether unrealistic to say at the present time that it may well be that the world price of wheat may rise to £28 or £30 a ton. Why did Her Majesty's Government not take this opportunity, when they were offering some of the biggest wheat-exporting countries of the world a bottom to their markets, by undertaking to pay not less than £18 a ton or whatever it was, to ensure that they, as a quid pro quo for this, would undertake not to sell to us for more than £24 or £26? That would have been sound common sense, good business sense. But the Government have thrown away that opportunity, and I think the consumer should have something to say about that.
What about these countries to which we are offering this minimum price? Two of them, admittedly, are members of the Commonwealth, Australia and Canada. But by no stretch of the imagination can they be held to be underdeveloped countries, poor countries in need of help; and by no stretch of the imagination can the United States be held to be such a country. Therefore, although I am not against the idea behind the regularisation of price and controlling of markets, I do regard it as unfortunate that the great opportunity we had for ensuring that, should world prices rise, this country would get at least a proportion of its food at relatively low prices, was missed. And we have also missed the opportunity of helping those members of the Commonwealth who most need help, the developing countries. There is a further point about this that I should like to ask the noble Lord—namely, what is the effect going to be of this floor in the price? Sometimes we are told that in fact it will make no difference at all.
LORD ST. OSWALD: I do not know who said that; it will.
LORD WALSTON: I am delighted to hear the noble Lord say that it will. If it will make a difference, the only difference it can make, surely, is that,

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instead of on occasion buying our wheat, maize or barley at £13, £15 or £17 a ton, we are going to pay more for it. If we are going to pay more for it it can only mean that the price of those commodities, when they get on to the table or into the kitchen in the form of bread or flour or breakfast cereals, or whatever it may be, must be higher; unless, of course, the noble Lord were to say that the profits of all the middlemen are already so great that they can easily absorb these higher costs without passing them on. In any case, to have allowed them to get away with this in the past is a complete indictment of the policy that he and his colleagues have been following in past years. He cannot have it both ways.
So if it is going to mean that we are going to pay higher prices even for a small proportion of our imports, and if there have not been undue profits on the part of the middlemen in the past, then the price of the food to the housewife must rise, if not much, at any rate to some extent. It means also that the price of feedingstuffs to the farmer must rise because a large part of these things are made up of imported cereals. Some of the increased cost of feedingstuffs will have to be borne directly by the farmer. The dairy farmer has no written-in clause to adjust his price of milk to the cost of the feedingstuffs. Other increased costs will be passed on once more to the consumer, because the egg and pig producers have such a clause, and the cost of eggs and pork will go up.
Therefore, it is clear that if this new system of the Government is going to mean anything at all, it must mean some increase in the cost of living. We have already seen that it is going to mean that the price of milk will go up; there is no doubt about that at all. It will probably mean that the price of cereal products will go up, and possibly even the price of eggs and bacon will go up, albeit to only a small extent. I am not saying that we are against it for that reason, but I think the Government ought to be bold enough to tell us if it is in fact so; and if it is not going to make any difference at all to the price of these various commodities, they ought to explain to us clearly how in fact they figure this out.
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Now I want to come to one other point mentioned, mainly by the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, about, I think his words were, the fair share of the increased efficiency that should be left to the farmer. I have already given figures to suggest that in the past the increased efficiency of farmers, amounting to some £25 million a year, has resulted in a very small increase indeed in the spending power of the farmer—in fact, a decline. Not only would I, but other farmers throughout the country would be extremely interested to know whether the Government's idea of a fair share of increased efficiency is exactly what it has been over the last ten years. or if they have altered their idea of what is a fair share at the present time.
There is another remark of the noble Earl, which is also in the White Paper itself, concerning the fair share of the increased market which should accrue to the British farmer. Paragraph 7 of the White Paper purports to deal with this. Discussing the standard quantities, it says that they
"will be determined at each Annual Review taking account of the growth of the demand for cereals for human consumption and animal feed"—
this is significant—
"and any changes necessary as a result of reviewing the balance between home production and imports."
I am not quite sure what those words mean. They could mean that the Government of the day will say that these changes, which are necessary, may in fact change the ratio between imports and home production in such a way that it will react adversely on the British farmer.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, would the noble Lord just indicate the passage he is referring to? I am sorry, I missed it.
LORD WALSTON: It is paragraph 7 of the White Paper, the Annual Review and Determination of Guarantees, 1964. It is perfectly true that the final sentence of the paragraph says:
"The Government intend to increase the levels of the standard quantities as required to provide this opportunity for home producers in the future."
May we take that—this is a point on which I hope we can have a categorical

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assurance from the Minister—as meaning that the Government have undertaken, not only that the standard quantities will not be reduced in the years to come, but that they will in fact be raised in successive years at successive Price Reviews?
There is one other point which was mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, that I should like to take up. He finished up his exhortatory peroration with the words "a strong, modern and vigorous agriculture can face the future with confidence." He is quite right: it can. Are the Government taking the steps that are necessary, and have they taken the steps which were necessary, to see that we have a strong, modern and vigorous agriculture? It is difficult to know that. I am not being dogmatic, but I have grave fears upon the matter.
We all know that in the last ten or eleven years the labour force on the land has declined by 30 per cent. I think that most of us have no qualms about that, because we believe that, so long as we can produce the amount of food which this country should have—I believe it should be an increasing quantity—with fewer men, so much the better, not only for agriculture but for the country as a whole. I am not complaining about the reduction of 30 per cent. in the labour force over this period, provided that it takes place, as it has taken place, without rural unemployment and without hardships to those who were formerly working upon the land. But a figure we do not hear so much about, and one which is of far greater significance, is that those between the ages of 25 and 44 who have left the land in the same period do not number the overall average of 30 per cent., but in fact 45 per cent. This in fact means that we are moving towards an agriculture without a well spread age group of young boys, old men, middle-aged men, skilled men; we are moving into an agriculture where we have a relatively large number of young boys, unskilled, who as soon as they get better jobs move on to something else, and a large proportion of elderly and old men.
We are having this serious drift of farm workers just at the time when they
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are skilled, just at the time when they are at their peak of productive capacity and efficiency. They are drifting away into other occupations. That is what these figures from the Ministry show us, and I cannot believe that an agriculture where that is happening, or indeed any industry where that is happening, can be considered strong, modern and vigorous.
I do not know whether the same thing is happening among farmers. There are no statistics to show it. I should doubt if it were at the present time, but we all know what happened in the bad old days in the late 'twenties and the late 'thirties. Very few young men of intelligence, ambition and vigour went into farming, if they could possibly go into anything else. Very few went into designing agricultural machinery or into agricultural research, all ancillary trades essential for a healthy, vigorous and prosperous agriculture. They did not do so, because the industry was rapidly declining in its prosperity. I have great fears that if this present trend goes on, we shall in the years to come find that not only our farmworkers, but our farmers too, are composed only of old and young, and that our agricultural scientists and agricultural engineers, consist not of bright young men, coming in with bright ideas, full of energy and ambition, but of old men who are there and cannot get out. This is the sort of agriculture which cannot meet the challenge of the years to come.
To sum up, my Lords, the object of any agricultural policy must be first of all to safeguard the legitimate interests of the consumer: to give him, at the lowest reasonable price, the food he requires; to safeguard the interests of the taxpayer, and see that his money is not squandered; and to safeguard the interests of the farmer and the farm-worker by seeing that the people who produce the food get a fair reward. I do not believe that even this present Price Review and the beginnings of change in the Government's policy show any glimmer of light in either of those respects. For the consumer there will be higher prices—higher admittedly for milk; higher probably for cereal products, and possibly also for meat products. For the taxpayer the White Paper itself makes it clear that the total charge on the taxpayer will be £20 million more

1329
in the coming year than for the current year. So that there can be no justification on the ground that the taxpayers' money is going to be saved by this new system. And for the farmer, although he has moved up very slightly from his place at the bottom of the ladder, he is still at the end of the queue. And I am afraid that, so long as Her Majesty's Government pursue a policy of this sort, we shall not have in the years to come the strong, modern and vigorous agriculture which we all agree is necessary to face the future.
7.2 p.m.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I am most grateful to noble Lords who have taken part in this debate to-day for their many interesting and useful contributions. I am, I suppose, inevitably particularly grateful to those who have commended the White Paper, and there have been many commendations, though not many from the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh. It is none the less always pure joy to take part in a debate with the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barn-burgh.
I thought to-day he was even more acrobatic than usual. He read out an excerpt from a newspaper naming this as an Election Review. He said admiringly that the correspondent knew more than he did and had in fact an insight into the Prime Minister's motives, a really remarkable tribute. He then contradicted my noble friend when he deduced that the noble Lord was agreeing with that sapient scribe, and I am afraid that when I heard that, an irreverent and distorted jingle came into my head, which I shall be irreverent enough to repeat. I thought:
"You are stately, Lord Williams, the younger man said,
And your hair has grown notably white, And while you consistently stand on your head,
Do you think at your age it is right?"
I assure the noble Lord that that is uttered from the purest of motives.
LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGH: My Lords, I am round to confess I am utterly lost, and I should like to know whether the noble Lord would tell us what he is trying to say.
LORD ST. OSWALD: I should have thought that I had made it clear. The noble Lord agreed with The Times article
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and then denied he had agreed with it when "smoked out" by my noble friend.
LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGH: I simply quoted it.
LORD ST. OSWALD: Quoted it, and said, if you please, that the correspondent had a remarkable insight into the Prime Minister's mind. If that is not agreeing with it I do not know what is. We also gather from the noble Lord that in his term of office he pleased everyone. He pleased the farmers, he pleased the consumer, he pleased the foreign supplier. He said this all by implication, of course—never directly. But I am bound to say a small, mischievous inquiry went through my head: did the Estimates Committee of his day really dance "Ring-a-ring-a-roses" round him when he presented his proposals?
In some communities—I return to the opening of my speech—even in some intelligent and influential bodies, in our country, it is sometimes forgotten how important a part agriculture plays in our economy. This could certainly not be said of your Lordships' House by anyone who has listened to or who reads this debate. The importance of agriculture has been witnessed by those of varying shades of political belief, all with a keen concern for its welfare.
My noble friend, Lord Ferrers, speaking earlier in the debate, devoted particular attention to the recent Price Review and to the commodity determinations which were then announced. The debate has rightly ranged a good deal wider than that subject, and I shall later be commenting on specific points raised by noble Lords in other interesting fields. But I should like to start by joining those who have set the Price Review in a broader context, and to identify, as it were, its place and function in the development of British agriculture. Your Lordships will have realised that, more so than in past years, the Price Review is tied up with outside matters. I refer, of course, to the new developments in agricultural policy which my right honourable friend announced last May in another place. As regards the present Price Review, these developments have particular and immediate meaning for cereals, where the new policy is promoted through a careful balance of interests of long-term

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benefit to the producer and his market—the introduction of standard quantities at home and restraint on import prices from overseas.
At the outset I should like to make two affirmations—one positive, one negative—both pleasing to those concerned, and pleasing, I should hope, to your Lordships to-day, at least in so far as your Lordships will accept them. The first is my belief that this policy, taken as a whole, will be of new and ever-enlarging benefit to the farming community. A measure of control over imports has been for many years an object of the Unions' policy. But in addition to this, the new arrangements will give a powerful stimulus to improve marketing; they will ensure that the industry's efforts are not frustrated by a sudden inrush of uncontrolled imports at low prices, or by the permanent threat of surpluses overhanging the market.
I recall that at this time last year one such inrush of Argentine beef had embarrassed and unbalanced the market, and the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh, made much of it. It never entered my head to criticise him at that time for seeking to embarrass me or to unbalance the debate by "plugging" this instance for all it was worth—and perhaps rather more than it was worth, to an unbiased ear. What does seem strange, or at least illogical, to me is that he should now object to our seeking and negotiating to prevent this kind of embarrassment or unbalance repeating itself, to the dismay of either the market, of individual Ministers or of the Government as a whole. It is particularly strange that he should object to our efforts when we can claim their success on cereals, and their progress towards success in meat, the two commodities which have given most trouble in the past ten years and which, but for these arrangements, would foreseeably have given still more trouble in the years ahead.
LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGH: My Lords, I think the noble Lord is committing the same error on this occasion as he has on two previous occasions when I have intervened in an agricultural debate. He is answering a speech that I never made.
LORD ST. OSWALD: No.
LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGH: The noble Lord is referring to my references to minimum prices. I did not say that the Government were doing wrong. I said they were doing the right thing in the wrong way.
LORD ST. OSWALD: Very well. What the noble Lord did was to disagree with our methods of controlling imports. I am right, I think, in that.
LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGH: Yes; but that is different.
LORD ST. OSWALD: But, my Lords, he did not specify—and I suppose he would say that it is not up to him to specify—how he would do it. But, I must say that, from what he said, it did not sound to me as if he would have been able to do it by agreement with the foreign suppliers.
The noble Lord, Lord Walston, was in a notably more peaceable mood to-day than he was in a previous debate when he spoke on this particular theme, when he advocated what seemed to me rather rough-handed methods. I do not think I am misrepresenting him—indeed, if I am, he will no doubt tell me so—in recalling his view that we were in a position to tell the foreign overseas suppliers what our terms were. It seems to me that, in an age when it is considered outre to send a gunboat up a foreign river, the noble Lord was prepared to send a gunboat into the Canadian heartland.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, there are such things as economic gunboats these days.
LORD ST. OSWALD: I was speaking about the approach. So I understand that the noble Lord would, in fact, send an economic gunboat to our overseas suppliers. I am glad to hear that, and I hope that it will be hoisted in.
So far as these arrangements for cereals are concerned, the House is relatively familiar with their provisions (my noble friend Lord Falmouth, enviably, I thought, found them easy to understand), and familiar also with the advanced point which negotiations have reached. I will, of course, try to deal with specific points raised by noble Lords in the course of the debate. My

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noble friend Lord Ferrers referred in his speech to meat, and it is true that our negotiations on this with our overseas suppliers stopped short of final success. That does not mean that they were unsuccessful. Progress was made, for all the supplying countries have come to recognise that stability in our market depends on adequate, regular and properly phased supplies. One noble Lord, I think on the other side of the House, referred to the "love letters" which the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh, had referred to in the debate on agriculture last year, and I think that at that time I corrected him and said they were not love letters but were business letters. Indeed, it was the noble Lard, Lord Sainsbury, was it not, who said that they were not only business letters but were successful business letters?
LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGH: Love letters should be.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, our market-sharing approach is now well understood, and we hope that in the forthcoming sessions of the GATT Meat Group this way of dealing with the problems of the meat trade will also commend itself. Meanwhile, we are asking the overseas suppliers of the British market to join in a consultative body to keep under review the flow of meat on to our market in the coming months. This will, I hope, cover the period until we can arrive at a comprehensive agreement on supplies. With this prospect for meat, and the arrangements for cereals which are already almost complete, the industry can look forward to a clear indication from the Government of the levels of production which are in the national interest. Above all, the arrangements will mean that the whole system of guaranteed prices and deficiency payments to which farmers rightly attach so much value can be maintained.
The second thing I want to stress is that this is not a policy which involves raising the level of food prices. On reading through the Hansard records both of Clause 1 of the Agriculture and Horticulture Bill in Committee in your Lordships' House and of my statement
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on the Review last Wednesday, I blamed myself, and I still blame myself, for not making this clearer, and for not using the openings given by noble Lords to emphasise even more strongly that we do not intend to use the new powers to jack up the general level of cereals prices. We intend to use them, only as necessary, to cut off any imports at unreasonably low prices which would otherwise disrupt our market generally. Had the sort of minimum import prices we have in mind been in operation over the past few years, the effect on the cost of imported cereals as a whole, and so on the balance of payments and on the cost of living, would have been small.
This, I think, is where the noble Lord, Lord Walston, did me the honour of misquoting me, or possibly misquoting somebody else. The levels of minimum import prices will, of course, have to be prescribed and approved by Parliament in an order, and it would clearly not be right for me to discuss the precise level at this time. But, as your Lordships know, the target indicator prices for 1964–65 have been fixed at 20s. a cwt. for wheat and 19s. a cwt. for barley, and these prices have been fixed in relation to the proposed minimum import prices after allowing for the recognised handling differentials, quality differences and marketing conditions, which must always affect any price comparisons between home-produced cereals at the farm gate and imported cereals at the port.
The Government have made it quite clear that we are certainly not intending to go over to a complete managed-market system. On the contrary—and in view of some of the remarks which have been passed during the debate, I should like to give this point very great stress—we are introducing only the minimum degree of regulation which we need in order to provide the more stable conditions necessary in present-day circumstances to safeguard the present system of support for cereals which has been the basis of our cheap food policy.
The noble Lord, Lord Walston, asked what was a fair share of increased consumption: was it the same as before? My answer must be that it never has been a rigid fraction, and we do not

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see it ever becoming a rigid fraction. He also asked: will the standard quantities be raised in future years? The noble Lord has a more vivid imagination than I, and perhaps he can foresee the British islanders losing their appetite or ceasing to have babies, or something similar, in which case, presumably, there would be less requirement for food; but I cannot see that, and therefore I tell him with confidence that, as the general consumption goes up, so will the standard quantities.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, we can take it, then, as absolutely definite that any increased consumption of cereals in this country will be shared in some proportion between the home producer and the importer?
LORD ST. OSWALD: Yes.
LORD WALSTON: But the noble Lord will not specify to any extent whether that proportion will be 5 to 95, 50–50, or how it might be? It could be only 5 per cent. for the home producer and 95 per cent. for the importer.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, as I have said, it never has been fixed at a rigid proportion, and I do not foresee its being fixed at a rigid proportion or fraction. Therefore I cannot give the noble Lord that figure.
Noble Lords on the Benches opposite—I am thinking particularly of the noble Lord, Lord Henley—have spoken about the possibility of using food surpluses for the Western nations to feed the hungry in underdeveloped areas. He specified the possibility of sending dried milk. In fact, under the World Food Plan we did offer dried milk, but the offer was not accepted. Undoubtedly, however, it must be looked on as one of the possibilities. Mention was made of the World Food Board. This, of course, is a very stimulating idea, and we sympathise with its general aim of ensuring that enough food is produced and distributed to bring the consumption of all peoples up to a reasonable standard.
Many noble Lords, quite properly, made comment about the level of farm incomes, and it might be helpful if I were to say a few words on this subject. Noble Lords on the opposite Ben-
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ches, and particularly the noble Lords, Lord Williams of Barnburgh and Lord Walston, have tried to make a case to show that farm incomes have lagged a long way behind the incomes of other sectors of the community in recent years. Recently a good deal of play has been made with the fact that farmers' costs have gone up by £188 million in the last ten years while the change from the increase in guaranteed prices was only £15 million. So the argument has been made that farmers have to find £170-odd million from their own pockets. That was not the argument presented by the noble Lord, Lord Walston, but in any case this argument omits that it is pointed out that over the same period increased efficiency has been worth something like £250 million to the industry, and that is a net gain of over £70 million. In fact, compared with similar classes of business, the incomes of farmers are shown up to advantage.
Looking at the rest of the community, we find it is the wage earners who have had the biggest increase over the period to which we are referring. But what we are talking about to-day is the increase in the guaranteed prices given under the current Review in the context of the present state of agriculture. The Government naturally welcome an improvement in farmers' incomes at any time; but we have always to bear in mind the risk of excessive production and the size of the Exchequer bill. This year, for the first time recently, the production prospects and measures taken in the Price Review to achieve a greater stability in cereals and fatstock marketing made it possible for the Government to give the industry a substantial award.
I think I ought to say a word about the gloomy picture of agriculture which was painted by the noble Lord, Lord Wise, and which my noble friend Lord Hamilton of Dalzell found strange. The noble Lord, Lord Wise, spoke of the outgoing tenants breathing a sigh of relief. I see that the noble Lord has himself become an outgoing speaker—I hope with not too happy a sigh of relief at missing my speech. What he did not mention was anything to do with those who would be taking their place. I think that anybody on the land knows that

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when a farm falls vacant, even a fairly decent farm, there is a queue of applicants. The noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh, and I, being neighbours, both read the Agricultural Supplement to one of the papers recently. I think it is fair to quote from one of the articles in that Supplement:
"Today those farmers who were fortunate enough to take a farm or buy one for those sort of figures"—
that is to say, £100 an acre for freehold arable land
"are looked upon as being fortunate people. The same type of farm today would cost between £160/£200 or more per acre and it would be necessary to offer a rent of at least £8 per acre to be in the running for a tenancy. … The old contention that farm values were being pushed up by wealthy industrialists with money to burn and a desire to farm as a hobby or to enhance their prestige no longer can be accepted. With few exceptions vacant farms are being purchased by farmers for their own or their sons' occupation and in many cases by adjoining or neighbouring owners or occupiers with a view to increasing the sire of their holding to more economic levels."
I am bound to ask, my Lords, if there is anything in the contentions of noble Lords opposite, why are farmers queueing up to buy these farms at increased prices or take them at increased rents? Farmers are not mad; they are very intelligent people; and these are the facts.
The noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, raised the question of what he called "the beef drain". Unfortunately, the Trade and Navigation Account figures for recent weeks are not available. If they were, I should be able to help him. But we know that the export of cattle beef is negligible in proportion to the total marketings. Moreover, the animals involved are, in general, not the ones on which the subsidy has been paid. I am sorry not to be able to give him a more specific answer.
No noble Lord spoke of the increase in the guaranteed price of milk as being a "panic measure" to deal with the threat of a milk shortage, although the term "milk shortage" has been mentioned. But these are terms which have been used; and very strange and ill-considered they seem to be. In the White Paper noble Lords will find that in the current year supplies of milk going to manufacture have constituted more than a quarter of the total sup-
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plies. The forecast for 1963–64 is that 1,724 million gallons will be consumed liquid while 785 million gallons will be used to manufacture. This is considerably more than the reserve margin written into the standard quantity, and there has never been any prospect of even a temporary or local scarcity of milk. I think the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, worked it out at 26 per cent. The reserve is, in fact, 20 per cent.
I do not know that I can say very much more. Although I should like to answer the questions of other noble Lords, I think the hour is fairly late. There was one other matter which seemed to me to be important and that was the question that my noble friend Lord Falmouth asked about good land going over into building land and whether we should do our best to defend the good land for agriculture and see that, where possible, the second-class or third-class land went for building. That is being done; these considerations are very much in our minds.
My Lords, in conclusion I would once again refer to the general picture. It has seemed to us, in arriving at the determinations of the recent Price Review, that for once—for the first time in several years—it is possible to give the industry a substantial measure of benefit from its ever-increasing efficiency and productivity, without incurring the danger of starting a spiral of rising production and falling prices. Some noble Lords have to-day made comment on the fact that this will be the final Price Review before an Election. I still do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh, was saying so or not. I hope he knows. My answer to that is that they should read the information in the White Paper concerning the economic background and prospects of the industry, and then compare conditions with what they have been in recent years. Being fair-minded as well as noble Lords, I think they will agree that this is a fair Review which will greatly enhance the future prospects of the industry.
My right honourable friend described our agricultural objectives in a speech in another place in May of last year. We see the main problem facing agriculture as the problem of balancing supply and commercial demand. In recent

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years there has been a tendency, as has been said earlier, for supply to outstrip commercial demand, and this has too often led to depressed markets and high subsidies. Our overseas suppliers have also been concerned at their falling returns on our market. The Government's aim, therefore, has been, and still is, to promote greater stability in the market by bringing supply and demand more closely into line. At home, we have sought to do this by extending the use of the standard quantity concept. As far as overseas suppliers are concerned, we have already reached agreement with our bacon and cereals suppliers to regulate supplies or prices. The noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barn-burgh, asked a question about this. This was a negotiated agreement, on which the various suppliers, our own domestic producers and the Government sat around the table and discussed their proper shares.
This Price Review has been an encouraging one. But it could not give us full encouragement—it could not give farmers the sort of encouragement which we think worth giving—if we saw it as standing by itself in isolation. We do not. The fact that it has been an agreed Review is, of course, a relief and a positive pleasure to an Agricultural Minister. But the best side of the agreement is that it is not simply founded and dependent upon the £31 million added to the guarantees this year. It is founded in a mutual appreciation of present conditions, and it is facing the future. It recognises as its theme the truth brought out by my noble friend Lord Abinger that the interests of the farmer and of the consumer are mutual interests.
What we hope, what we intend, is that from now production and commercial demand will march forward together. The meaning of this will be clear, and I hope more than merely welcome to noble Lords. I am no more than echoing my right honourable friend's words that if, from now on, production and commercial demand can be matched, and equated with growth, taking full advantage of growth, then the benefits of our system will at last far eclipse the dangers. Granted this victory—and one can never be starry-eyed about agricultural certainties—any future Minister of Agriculture
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will henceforward be able to give greater weight, the sort of weight he would wish to give, to the levels of farm returns, to the rewards of sweat and skill and devotion to the land. There is an exhilaration in that prospect, which many of us must feel. And though, politically, it may go hard for the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh, to advertise that exhilaration, humanly he must be sharing it with me at this moment.
LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGH: My Lords, it would be extremely ungenerous on my part to detain the House for more than a minute after your Lordships have been decent enough to stay here for so long to listen to so many of us. The only answer I would give to the series of questions which the noble Lord has put to me—Why are people willing to pay higher prices for land than hitherto?; why is it difficult to get a farm tenancy without paying £7 or £8 an acre?—is extremely simple, and one which I thought the noble Lord would have known and understood. It is, simply, the 1947 Act.
I would express my thanks to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, which I think has been extremely useful. I agree that this Price Review is very different from many of its predecessors. The Government had an experience in Europe in 1962 and early 1963 which perhaps has helped them to change their 1864 minds. That is all to the good. We welcome it and hope that during the next few weeks, at all events, they will continue with this policy. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

NEW FOREST BILL [H.L.]
Report of Amendments received (according to Order).
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 New Forest Bill, has consented to place Her Majesty's interest so far as it is concerned on behalf of the Crown at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.

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Then, Standing Order No. 41 having been suspended (pursuant to Resolution of March 19), Bill read 3a (privilege Amendment made).
LORD CRATHORNE: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill do now pass.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Crathorne.)
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, if I may say a word, my noble friend Lord St. Oswald has asked me to express his apologies to your Lordships for having to leave early, but he has been suffering from an indisposition, as some of your Lordships may have realised, and has regretfully had to leave. I only hope that, in his endeavour to be here to answer the Agriculture debate, he has not passed on his indisposition to anyone else. As I have been sitting near him all the afternoon I would reiterate this fortissimo.
He has asked me to say that the common land aspects of this Bill have, of course, been considered under the Select Committee procedure, and the Committee have recommended that the Bill should be allowed subject to certain safeguards. Your Lordships accepted the views of the Select Committee last night, and, as my noble friend indicated on Second Reading, my right honourable friend therefore has no objection, in the light of your Lordships' attitude, to the provisions of the Bill as now amended so far as they affect common land and the rights of the commoners. I would add that, from the point of view of the Forestry Commission, the Bill includes a number of provisions which they would find useful in the administration of the New Forest. It only remains for me to express the gratitude of the House
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to my noble friend Lord Crathorne and to the Promoters for their public spirit in bringing this measure before the House.
LORD CRATHORNE: My Lords, at this hour I do not think that I should continue the debate on this Bill, but I should like to express my gratitude to the noble Lords, in all parts of the House, who have made their contributions at various stages of this Bill. I would also, if I may—and I trust that I am in order in doing so—thank the Select Committee of your Lordships' House for the careful and thorough way in which they investigated the points which they had to discuss, for the Amendments made to the Bill in Select Committee, and for the admirable Report made. I have nothing further to say, except to wish the Bill well in its further stages in another place, and to express the hope that when it becomes an Act of Parliament it may be of great benefit to those who live in the New Forest, both human beings and animals.
On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

SAINT PAUL, PORTMAN SQUARE, SAINT MARYLEBONE BILL [H.L.]
Reported, with Amendments.
House adjourned at twenty-one minutes before eight o'clock for the Easter Recess, until Tuesday, April 7, 1964.