HL Deb 09 May 1967 vol 282 cc1320-3

3.0 p.m.

LORD WALSTON moved, that the Draft Ploughing Grants Scheme 1967, laid before the House on April 12, 1967, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I trust that it will be convenient, when dealing with this Order, to deal also with the Ploughing Grants (Scotland) Scheme 1967. This Scheme is somewhat different from previous Schemes. Your Lordships will remember that, going back quite a long way—25 years or so—it was necessary to introduce specific incentives to encourage farmers to follow what was then thought by many established farmers to be bad farming practice, but which leaders of agricultural thought realised was good farming practice; that is, to plough up old grassland, to take the plough round the farm.

In this context we all think of the name of Sir George Stapleton, one of the great pioneers in these matters. As a result of his work, of the work of many of his colleagues, and of the incentives given by successive Governments, advisory services and others, rotational farming has now become an accepted pattern of British agriculture. The benefits are very widely realised. There is scarcely a farmer to-day who does not know when it is profitable for him to plough up his old grass or his old short-term leys so as to cash in on the fertility of the land by growing other crops.

It has now been decided that it can safely be left to the farmer himself to decide whether it would pay him to plough a particular piece of grassland or whether he would prefer to keep the grass for grazing, for hay or for silage. That being so, there is no longer any need for the payment of a specific incentive by way of ploughing grant for ploughing up leys. But there is one exception to that; that is, the ploughing up of really old grass—the type of grass which is extremely expensive to plough; the sort of grass which has previously come under the provisions of Part II of the previous Schemes. Not only is this sort of grassland particularly expensive to plough, but it is becoming increasingly advisable in certain cases that it should be ploughed, because to some extent it counteracts the loss of land which is taking place year by year to urban development. So it is becoming increasingly necessary for farmers to bring in an increasing amount of land which was formerly considered uneconomical and which, because of its particular condition, costs a great deal to plough. It is therefore proposed that the £12 ploughing grant, which is for land of this sort, should be retained.

One minor change is proposed which is in effect the widening of a clause introduced last year to allow approvals given under the 1965 and 1966 Schemes to remain valid for the current Scheme. This is a convenience both to the farmer and to the Department, and involves no loss whatsoever of financial controls. I hope your Lordships will agree that even though the need for ploughing grants on what I may describe as the ordinary type of grassland is no longer necessary, there is still a place in our agricultural economy for the £12 grant. I beg to move.

Moved, That the Draft Ploughing Grants Scheme 1967, laid before the House on April 12, 1967, be approved.—(Lord Walston.)

LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD

My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord. Lord Walston, for moving this Statutory Order and telling us its purpose. May I also tell him that to this Order I can give a warmer welcome. I have no wish—in fact probably a good deal less wish than he has—to dictate from Whitehall what a farmer should do, but there are certain specific aids to farming which experience has proved to be valuable, and we should not lightly reduce them unless we are prepared to see consequences which may be unwelcome. But in this case I feel that the substantial removal of the ploughing grant is something which we can contemplate now, because times have changed. Although I feel a slight nostalgic pang at seeing it go (because it stems from the Agriculture (Ploughing Grants) Act, 1952, which my noble friends Lord Crathorne and Lord Carrington and I together put on the Statute Book; I think it was the first piece of legislation we put on the Statute Book in the 1951 Parliament), I think it is right that it should go and that it is also right, as the noble Lord said, that we should keep the special £12 per acre grant for ploughing out old grassland.

As the noble Lord said, this grant was introduced originally as an incentive to rotational farming, and for that it was very valuable. The grant was kept on, first in its £2 or £3 an acre form, and then its £5 an acre form, because the general view was that the establishment of the three-year ley system was a valuable rotation on farms which were growing corn, but that in areas where for one reason or another they could not grow root crops, either sugar beet or potatoes, the three-year ley made a good break in the cereal rotation because the land could be restored in its fertility and the weeds could be brought, at any rate to some extent, under control. This problem, of course, is still very much with us—in fact, in some areas it is rather worse than it was. But there are now other ways of dealing with it, and I therefore think it is quite right to get rid of the rigidity of the three-year qualification.

The fact is that most land cannot be kept in continuous cereal production without running into serious problems of loss of fertility, on the one hand, and proliferation of weeds, on the other; but one can use such devices as the one-year or two-year ley, and also the kind of break crop for which the Government have introduced a subsidy in this Price Review—that is, the bean crop. It is in this particular context that I congratulate the noble Lord on choosing the right moment psychologically for removing this particular subsidy—because he is beginning to put something else in its place. There must be a break in the cereal crop. In areas where root crops cannot be grown then something else must be grown, and the bean crop is such an alternative. I would only ask the noble Lord that he should do even better and consider at the next Price Review including rape seed as a further crop which might be used as a break crop, and give a subsidy there as well. There are certain marketing problems, but I believe that they could be overcome; and this would introduce a little more flexibility into a picture which has considerable difficulties.

But the point I would make to the noble Lord is that he is sweeping away a system which had a certain specific value, apart from its original incentive, and he therefore has a particular responsibility to put something else in its place. He has begun to put something else in its place with the subsidy for the bean crop, but it seems to me that he must go rather further than that, and I look with confidence to him to see that this is done in the next Price Review. With those few comments, I have much pleasure in supporting the Order.

On Question, Motion agreed to.