BRITISH WOOL MARKETING SCHEME 1950 (Hansard, 17 May 1966)

§ THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD CHAMPION)
My Lords, I beg to move that the Draft Amendment to the British Wool Marketing Scheme 1950, laid before the House on April 21, 1966, be approved. It is designed to improve the arrangements for appeals by registered producers against valuation of their wool and so to strengthen the statutory safeguard provided by the Scheme.
Under the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1958, a marketing scheme may be amended at the instance of the Board concerned, if the Ministers give their approval, unless it has been necessary to hold a public inquiry in consequence of objections to the proposed Amendment, in which case an Affirmative Resolution of both Houses is needed before the Amendment may be approved. The present Amendments to the Wool Scheme, submitted by the British Wool Marketing Board, were the subject of one objection and a public inquiry was held. The Report of the Commissioner was published on April 21, and copies are available in the Library. My right honourable friends accepted the Commissioner's conclusions, and the Amendments before the House includes modifications to which the Board has assented based on those conclusions.
As I have said, my Lords, the Amendment is needed to make good a defect in arrangements for appeals against wool valuations. To explain it I must describe how the relevant part of the Scheme works. The Scheme requires that practically all wool producers must be registered and must sell their wool exclusively to the Board which arranges for its assembly, grading, bulking and disposal by public auction. The grading is done by merchants acting as the Board's agents. The grades, of which there are some hundreds, are published annually by the Board in a price schedule, together with 888 the maximum prices fixed for them by the Board in the light of the Government's overall price guarantee for fleece wool. When a producer's clip has been graded, a statement giving the weight of wool in each grade is sent to the Board's headquarters, where the total valuation of his clip is calculated and notified to the producer.
Generally the producer receives the valuation and his cheque within a week after grading. Under the Scheme as it stands, a producer is entitled to appeal against the valuation within ten days of receiving it. The appeal is heard by a tribunal which the Board is required to appoint under Section 91 of the Scheme and which consists of two nominees of the farmers' union in the country where the producer farms, two nominees of the merchants' organisations and one member of the Board. At present the Scheme does not require the wool in question to be available to the tribunal, and appeals may be heard by the tribunal without any possibility of their examining the wool. This is a weakness of the appeal arrangements which has been criticised but which, it is only fair to add, the Board itself has recognised and taken steps to mitigate. I understand that in practice the Board has granted requests from producers to have their wool set aside after grading for the purposes of an appeal, and that since 1963 it has invited producers, through a notice in the annual price schedule, to take advantage of this arrangement if they so desire.
The present Amendment is designed to give the producers a statutory right to have their wool produced for examination by the appeal tribunal if they have duly made an appeal; and if, in addition, they have already demanded the segregation of their wool at the time and under the conditions specified in the Amendment. The Amendment provides that, in order to have his wool kept separate, a producer must in the first place attend, or be represented, at the grading of his wool. The Board is required to give the producer a reasonable opportunity to attend the grading if he so requests in advance. Secondly, the producer must request the separation of the wool during or immediately after such grading and before the wool is dispersed to bins or piles. Finally, the Amendment provides that if a producer does not take advantage of the right to demand the segregation of his wool 889 in this way, and subsequently appeals against the Board's valuation, the appeal tribunal may decide the value of the wool upon such evidence as it may deem proper. It would not be practicable to allow a prolonged period during which any producer was entitled to decide whether to demand to have his wool kept separate. This would mean that every producer's wool would have to be kept separate for some time after grading, and the result would be severe congestion at grading depots, with consequent difficulties from the Board's marketing arrangements.
Under the Amendment a producer has a reasonable amount of time to decide whether to ask for his wool to be kept separate. He can do so immediately the grading begins, if he thinks it at all likely that he will wish to appeal subsequently to the tribunal. This does not mean, of course, that he is bound to make an appeal, and he has ten days after receiving the valuation of his wool in which to decide whether to appeal. The number of appeals against valuation is at present very low. This suggests that producers generally are reasonably satisfied with grading arrangements. It is thought unlikely, therefore, that the proposed changes in procedure will lead to any significant increase in the number of appeals or to any serious inconvenience to the Board's grading depots.
I commend the proposed Amendment to your Lordships as a reasonable compromise which will give producers a necessary statutory safeguard, and thereby conduce to the more efficient operation of the scheme.

LORD INGLEWOOD
My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord one question about the Wool Marketing Scheme? The amendment that is most important to farmers, particularly this year, is the Government's decision to reduce the price of wool. I notice the noble Lord has not referred to that. I know that it is not specifically referred to in these paragraphs, but surely it is an important matter in the marketing of wool. Can the noble Lord tell us the reason for that before we leave this Order?

EARL FERRERS
My Lords, before the noble Lord replies to that question, I wonder whether I may express to him the gratitude of noble Lords on this side of the House for the way in which he has so carefully introduced and explained this Scheme. So often Schemes are fairly straightforward, but this one is not straightforward. Indeed, I think it would be fair to say that it is one which has been born out of frustration and argument on all sides by a number of people. It is one that originated a very long time ago, for it was as far back as August, 1964, that the British Wool Marketing Board published a proposed amendment to the British Wool Marketing Scheme; and since then the original proposal has been subjected, as the noble Lord has pointed out, to argument, objection, public inquiry and modification by the Minister. While we cannot help being amazed at the length of time which it has taken since the original proposal was made, I think we may take some comfort from the fact that at least the processes of democracy and objection have been used to their limit to make quite certain that the resulting Scheme is as fair to all sides as could be expected. I very much hope that those who now sell their wool will feel that they have a better right of objection and a fairer deal than they might otherwise have had. I hope that this will prove an improvement to the British Wool Marketing Scheme, and I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Champion, very much for the detail to which he went to explain precisely what it does mean.

§ LORD CHAMPION
My Lords, the noble Earl has thanked me for the trouble I have taken to explain the scheme to the House. I would thank him for explaining to the House the democratic processes through which this has gone, and pay tribute to those processes, which I think are absolutely right. So far as the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, is concerned, I am bound to say that the present price of wool does not arise out of this Scheme. We shall be having, I imagine very shortly, a day for the discussion of the Annual Price Review, or the Annual Review as it is called, and I imagine that the noble Lord will then have an opportunity of putting this point, 891 which is of some importance to wool producers. I hope that your Lordships may now accept this Order.