BACON CURING INDUSTRY STABILISATION (VARIATION) SCHEME 1969 (Hansard, 10 July 1969)

§ LORD HILTON OF UPTON

My Lords, I beg to move that this Order be now approved. I can be brief in presenting the Order to your Lordships. The Variation Scheme embodied in the Order relates to the Bacon Curing Industry Stabilisation Scheme 1969 which your Lordships approved in March this year. That principal Scheme applied only to bacon produced in the six months up to September 30. The effect of the 1205 Order now before your Lordships is to extend that Scheme to bacon produced during a further six months up to March 31, 1970.

Noble Lords will recall that the Government explained why they had introduced the principal Scheme relating to six months bacon production only. The Industrial Reorganisation Corporation is looking at the curing industry to help ensure that it is well placed to take full advantage of the opportunities open to it. At the same time, the Corporation is considering the effect on the performance of the industry of the present stabilisation arrangements or of possible alternative forms of support. The Scheme originally covered six months only in order to allow any recommendations made by the Corporation and accepted by the Government to be implemented without delay. But it was made clear when the original Scheme was before your Lordships that, if it proved to be necessary, the Government would lay before Parliament a Scheme extending the present arrangements for a further short period, pending the Corporation's final recommendations. The Corporation is engaged on its work and will complete it as soon as possible, but we can obviously delay no longer in extending the present arrangements for a further six months to March 31, 1970, which should allow time for the Corporation to complete its work and the Government to consider the need for and extent of a longer-term scheme. It will of course be possible to consider any interim report from the Corporation earlier than this, in so far as it can be implemented within the existing Scheme.

As noble Lords will be aware, owing to a rise of 50s. in the price of British bacon the Scheme at the moment requires the payment of levies by bacon curers, so that for the first time the self-balancing nature of the Scheme, to which attention was drawn when the parent Scheme was before your Lordships, has become a little more than a merely theoretical feature. How long a levy will continue to be paid will, of course, depend on how long the bacon price remains at its present levels.

The Variation Scheme at present before your Lordships' House is an extremely simple one and merely extends the operation of the present Scheme to bacon produced up to March 31, 1970. No other change is being made.

1206 During the debate on the principal Scheme the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, enjoined the Government to give the I.R.C. enough time to do its job effectively. It is to ensure that this is done that we are asking your Lordships to approve this Variation Scheme, which will extend the original Bacon Curing Industry Stabilisation Scheme for a further six months—or, more correctly, to a further six months' bacon production. I commend the scheme to your Lordships' approval. I beg to move.