WINTER KEEP (SCOTLAND) SCHEME 1969 (Hansard, 16 December 1969)

§ LORD HILTON OF UPTON
My Lords, I beg to move that the Winter Keep (Scotland) Scheme 1969, a draft of which was laid before your Lordships' House on November 27, be approved. I need not take up much time in commending this Scheme to your Lordships. The Scheme applies only to Scotland. It will enable us to continue to pay grant during the next five years to Scottish hill and upland farmers for growing crops for the winter feeding of their livestock. The present Winter Keep Scheme, which will expire on December 31, has allowed cropping grants to be paid to Scottish hill farmers for the last three years, and the Scheme now before your Lordships differs in only two minor respects from the present Scheme, apart from having a duration of five years instead of three years.
In the first place, we have provided that an applicant shall, on request, give us such information as we may require to verify his application, which is a provision common to subsidy schemes. This is intended to give statutory support to the practice of asking an applicant for winter keep grant to provide us later in the year with a statement of the crops he has harvested.
Secondly, we are extending the provision of the present Scheme which enables us to restrict grant where land has been improved with a grassland renovation grant, to land which has been improved with hill land improvement grant. I commend this Scheme to your Lordships.

§ LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON
My Lords, we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hilton of Upton, for his explanation of this Order which, for someone like myself who lives in Scotland is well understood to be very needed. We know that the climate in Scotland is not so clement as it is down here. As the noble Lord has said, the Order provides that grant should be paid in respect of livestock, rearing land and for growing specified crops for the winter feeding of livestock.
The Order makes basically three changes, and the first question I want to ask the noble Lord about this Scheme is this. Although it is welcome, can it fit in with the E.E.C. agricultural rules? We understand that it is to run for five years, and we have been told that within these five years we hope to make further advances in this field. I should be grateful if I could get an answer to my question.
It must also be pointed out that the rates which are laid down, £5, £3 10s. and £2 10s. per acre for the different classes of land are hard and fast. Is that actually the case; or, if this Order is for five years, can we take into account the extra cost of fertilisers, seeds, wages, fuels and so on which will put up the cost? I do not think it is unreasonable with a five-year scheme to ask the noble Lord whether there is to be a little flexibility here, because the farmers are working to a very small margin of profit.
The next point which I should like to raise relates to the question of forms. As I think all noble Lords know, whether they farm or not—and those who have not farmed know from those who do—filling up forms is a bugbear. None of us likes filling up forms, farmers even less than most, because they have to toil with their hands. We have to make statutory returns twice a year, and the point which we are making is that the farmer's holding of fertilisers is not shown on the statutory returns and nor is the quantity of barley sold. It is on such points as these that the farmer could be—I put it not higher than that—involved in a lot 1093 of extra work. These figures are not normally asked for. They are not asked for, we know, on the statutory return. Is this going to mean a new form? We all want to help the farmers, and if their work can be made easier in some way we should be grateful.
The provision for the restriction of grant, as shown in page 3 of the memorandum, is obviously correct, and I could not approve of it more. The next point is on the question of the crops which are listed in Schedule 1. Most of these crops are decreasing in production. As the Order is to last for five years, I do not think it is particularly unfair to ask whether the developments in livestock feeding in this period have been considered. What crops are going to make the most significant contributions to this Scheme? One new crop, as has been said in another place, the fodder radish, was added in 1956. Can the noble Lord give me any figures for the production of this crop? I think he will find that his right honourable friend said he would do his best to supply this figure. It may be too soon for the noble Lord to answer this question, but if he could do so we should be grateful.
Lastly, the grant is a grant which can be given or not given. That is perfectly fair. All things have their rights and their wrongs. But if it is to be withheld, we must know on what grounds the judgment is going to be given. I can only suggest this to the noble Lord. Supposing that an area has particularly bad weather and the crops in that area appear to be totally inadequate compared with what appears to be adequate in other areas: what would the result be in the noble Lord's mind? What would the view of the Minister of Agriculture be? I think we should have a little give and take. Farmers can cope with many things, including the almost impossible, but they cannot cope with God completely, and we should like just a little help on that point. If the noble Lord can give me any help on it, I shall be grateful. Having said that, I would add that, in general, we are grateful for the continuation of this measure.

§ LORD HILTON OF UPTON
My Lords, I must thank the noble Lord for the general welcome he has given to this 1094 Scheme. He knows, as one living in Scotland and one who knows the farmers in that country, that for the past three years this Scheme has been a very great blessing to many farmers in Scotland; and we are now anxious to extend it for a further five years, as against the three previous years that it has been running. Naturally, the noble Lord must ask a few questions on the Scheme, but I think the fact that not one of the many expert farmers and landowners, especially from the other side of this House, is present to criticise any aspect of this measure, must mean that it is pretty welcome among the people for whom it is intended.
Fortunately, the noble Lord and I had a discussion on this Scheme some time ago while we were waiting for it to come forward. I took note of the questions he asked and I am very grateful for the advance notice he gave. It gave me the opportunity of making a few notes, and I hope that I can give him the answers for which he has asked. The first question he asked was whether this Scheme would fit in with any E.E.C. rules. While I take the point the noble Lord has made about whether the grant would be retained if we went into the Common Market, I do not think that he will expect me to discuss it with him at this juncture, interesting though it may be. He also pointed out that the rates of grant—of £5, £3 10s., and £2 10s. per acre, for the three classes—have not been changed. He is worried about possible increases during the next five years. On that question I would say that winter keep grants are relevant production grants for the purposes of the Annual Price Review, and the question of the appropriate level of grant falls to be considered in that context.
The noble Lord is also worried about farmers having to fill in forms. This is a real bugbear, as all of us who have to fill in various forms know. However, on this question of forms, barley is not an eligible crop for the purpose of the Winter Keep Scheme, although it can be, and is, used as a fodder crop on farms where it is grown. It is substantially a cash crop, unlike oats, which are almost entirely used for winter feeding. It would be wrong if the winter keep acreage grant encouraged the growing of barley (which has the benefit of the cereal 1095 deficiency payments scheme) on unsuitable farms—and in general these are unsuitable farms. Fertilisers are not the subject of grant under the Winter Keep Scheme, grant towards their cost being provided under the Fertiliser Scheme. I can, however, assure the noble Lord that the provision in the Scheme that an applicant shall, on request, give us such information as we may require to verify his application does not mean extra form filling. As I said when introducing this Motion, this is simply to give statutory backing to the declaration of harvesting which is already in use.
The noble Lord then reminded us that on this occasion the Order is for five years. He said that developments in livestock feeding must be taken into account; also which crop made the most significant contribution, and how much fodder radish was grown. During 1968, the latest year for which complete figures are available, grant was paid on a total of 196,000 acres of crops. I have the breakdown of a good many, but on the particular one that he inquired about—how many acres of fodder radish were grown in the last year for which we have records—the figure was 27½ acres during last year.
The last question asked by the noble Lord was whether Her Majesty's Government had any information about judgment on inadequacy of crops. For example, when generally bad weather exists everywhere, how in practice would this work out in the withholding of this grant? This Scheme gives us discretion to take into account the weather and other natural conditions which may affect the yield of a crop, and grant would not be withheld for these reasons. In assessing the adequacy of the yield of an individual crop on a particular farm all the relevant circumstances have to be taken into account. As these circumstances may vary considerably from one farm to another, it is difficult to make generalisations, but the noble Lord may be assured that the farmer will not be penalised for a crop failure caused by circumstances outside his control.
1096 These, my Lords, are the answers to the questions put to me by the noble Lord, and I hope that when we read them in Hansard to-morrow they will make better reading than they have sounded as I have been speaking from this Box.

§ LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON
My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down may I thank him very much for what he has said, but I am not quite clear on one question. I asked him in particular whether this new Order would fall within the rules of the E.E.C. I am not quite clear whether that is the case. The guarantee that the grant will be looked at in the light of the general Annual Review I accept, and I am grateful for that information. But I should like a little elucidation as to the E.E.C.

§ LORD HILTON OF UPTON
My Lords, I am sorry but I really cannot go into detail about this. The noble Lord will realise that nobody yet knows what the rules are going to be. Therefore it is obviously impossible for me at this moment to go into further detail on this point.