Lords Sitting of 16 January 1974

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock: The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Saint Edmundsbury and Ipswich.

UGANDAN DETAINEES
LORD BROCKWAY: 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 how many persons originating from Uganda have been detained since August, 1972, in (a) Harmondsworth Detention Centre; (b) Pentonville Prison, and (c) Canterbury Prison respectively; how many have been detained without charge for one month, two months, three months and five months; what is the total period of these detentions; what has been the daily cost to public funds of each person for such detention and the total cost; and how far these costs have been recovered from the carrying aircraft and shipping lines.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS): My Lords, the records kept in the Department are not such as would enable the particulars requested by the noble Lord to be extracted without disproportionate effort. I can however, as a representative example, give your Lordships' House information about people in custody on January 4 this year. On that date, 7 people of Ugandan origin were detained at Harmondsworth, 9 at Pentonville and one in Canterbury Prison. Two were United Kingdom passport holders, 10 were citizens of Uganda and 5 were Stateless. Two had been detained for less than one week, 9 for between one and two weeks, 5 for between two weeks and one month and one for more than two months. The cost of detention varies, depending on the place of detention. The costs of detention are recovered from the carrying company which brought the passenger to
948
the United Kingdom if the passenger is refused leave to enter and removed from the country, unless he arrived holding an entry clearance, certificate of patriality or work permit.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, while appreciating that Answer and recognising that I asked the noble Viscount for a great deal of information, may I ask him this question? Is he aware that I have in my hand a long list of those who were detained in Pentonville for up to 97 days without charge, and were subsequently released as entitled to remain in this country? Is there not some quicker way by which these cases may be considered? Is the noble Viscount also aware that I have a long list of others who have been in Pentonville or Canterbury prison for between 30 days and 53 days, against whom no charge has been made and whose cases are still under consideration? Can the noble Viscount do something to prevent the detention of people in prison, without charge and without trial?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, the answer is, No; I was not previously aware of any of those matters because the noble Lord did not show me any of those lists beforehand. I should be delighted to see them if he would be so kind as to give them to me. As part of the answer to that supplementary question, I ought to say that I do not think there is any quicker way of dealing with these cases, taking account of the extreme thoroughness with which they are investigated. I have recently been looking at some of them myself, as my honourable friend is in the sub-Continent of India, and I am very satisfied with the extreme thoroughness and care of the investigation to which these cases are subjected, and it is quite right that they should be.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I say to the noble Viscount that I did not mean any discourtesy. Is he aware that I have supplied the Home Office with details of each of these cases, which I know intimately? Will he consider the case of a family who are to be deported tomorrow to Rome? They have six children in this country who are prepared to provide them with accommodation and finance. Is he aware that there is a man of 58 who is old and frail, a wife who is suffering from skin complaints because of

949
nervous tension, and a son who is handicapped in speech? These are refugees from Uganda, and tomorrow morning they are to be sent back to Rome; but when they get to Rome they will be re-shuffled back here. Will the Minister look into this case very urgently before that deportation takes place to-morrow?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I do not think I can give an undertaking of that sort. The noble Lord cannot raise without any notice whatsoever the question of an individual case of this sort, and expect me to give an answer about it. If these people are to go, it is only at the end of a very long and careful process of examination either by one of my colleagues or by myself. I do not think that this is a case which I have considered, so it must have been looked at by one of my colleagues, and I cannot undertake to reconsider it before tomorrow morning.
LORD GEORGE-BROWN: My Lords, what bothers me is not whether the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, has been courteous or discourteous. If there are people who have been held in gaol for 70 days or 50 days, surely the Minister must know. He must get his own information and he does not have to get it from the noble Lord, Lord Brockway. He said that he did not know because the noble Lord had not told him. What some of us who are not wholly committed will be happier to know is that Ministers are regularly told how many people they are holding in gaol without charge for more than the period allowed by British law. If they are holding anybody for 50 days or 70 days, Ministers should know and should tell this House. Will the Minister please be a little less facile, a little less brassy, and tell us if he knows whether people are being held in British gaols for much longer than British law allows?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Yes, my Lords; I know very well that they are not. I have given some examples of the lengths of time that certain people in these three places—one detention centre and two prisons—had been there, as on a particular date in January. These were given as examples. I am aware, and my honourable friend
950
the Parliamentary Under-Secretary Is aware, why these peole are there, who they are and the lengths of time they have been there. I am also extremely well aware of why they are there; and these are matters which I really do not think I can go into in general because they depend on the facts of each individual case.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, we fully appreciate that there has to be careful examination of these difficult cases, but would not the noble Viscount agree that there must be concern if there are people held in prison for some 90 days who are then released to join the community? Could the noble Viscount say whether there are procedures for the review of a person's case so that if, after (shall we say?) 30 days, it appears that there is a reasonable prospect that a person will remain within the law and that his whereabouts will be always ascertainable, that person could be released from prison while that review is concluded? Is there a machinery by which a decision can be made for these people to be released if there is a feeling that this would be a right course to take?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I do not think there is. The reason why they are in custody in the first place is because it is considered that if they are not kept in custody while their case is being considered they may very well disappear again, as in many cases hitherto they have done for a long period. It is not lightly that people are put in custody. The length of time they remain there depends upon many factors. It so happens that I was looking at a case the other day in which a particular gentleman told a series of totally mendacious stories, each one differing substantially from the last; and the length of time he remained in custody depended solely upon the series of lies that he himself told to the immigration authorities. He stayed in prison for a very long time, but it was entirely his own fault, because he would not tell the truth in the first place. As it so happens, I have some reason to believe that he may stay here; but, nevertheless, it takes a very long time to find out the facts. This is why I say that it is not very easy to generalise about the reasons or the lengths of time that people stay in custody. But we are not inhuman about this: we do try not

951
to keep people in prison for any longer than is absolutely necessary.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I fully accept that, but would the noble Viscount undertake to consider whether there should not be some means by which these cases can be reviewed, so that a person could be released if, in the judgment of the Minister or of the authorities, it would be fair and reasonable for that person to be released from prison while his case is considered?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I cannot resist an appeal like that from the noble Lord. I will certainly consider it, though I must say, having looked at a few of these cases myself, that I cannot do so with any great promise that anything will be successfully achieved.
LORD WADE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Viscount whether he is in a position to say how many of these people are bread-winners, with families in this country?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: No, my Lords.
LORD HALE: My Lords, can the noble Viscount say what happens if we deport a Ugandan to some place within the E.E.C. and he is then deported back here? What happens to such a person when he arrives here; and why has not the whole of this problem been considered by the Brussels Commission?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I was looking at the terms of the Question set down by the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, and I think that I may justifiably say that that is another question. If the noble Lord will put it down I will seek to answer it.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, is the noble Viscount aware that I did not mean any discourtesy to him in not giving him notice about this particular case? Is he also aware that my difficulty was that I have only just heard from the Home Office that this family is to be deported to-morrow morning? I agree at once that he cannot give a definite answer on this case at once, but would it be possible for me to see him this afternoon in order to consider the details of it?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Yes, my Lords.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, can the noble Viscount say how long a period of notice was given to this particular family that they would be deported to-morrow?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, it would help me greatly to answer that question if I had the faintest idea what family it was.

EAST GERMANY AND REPARATIONS TALKS
2.48 p.m.
LORD JANNER: 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 what steps are being, and have been, taken to ensure that reparations shall be paid by the German Democratic Republic to the victims of Nazi persecution for the material losses which they sustained in East Germany.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE): My Lords, Her Majesty's Government proposed to the Government of the German Democratic Republic in August that there should be a preliminary round of talks on the whole range of claims questions in the near future. We now expect to hold these talks in April.
LORD JANNER: My Lords, while thanking the noble Baroness for her reply, may I ask her whether she does not agree with me that this should be one of the important topics to be discussed, not only at that conference but also with the E.E.C., as so many of their nationals are involved, and with the Americans, in view of the fact that it is really a scandalous thing that people living in East Germany, and the East German Government, are benefiting from the horrifying events that took place when the Nazis were in power, and that they themselves were involved in the whole of the thing? Will the noble Baroness please emphasise this particular point in the negotiations?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government have been pressing for these talks since August, as I explained; but our responsibility is naturally primarily to our own nationals, and our recently appointed Ambassador has been instructed to pursue this matter.
LORD SUDELEY: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether the Question tabled by the noble Lord really is any business at all of Her Majesty's Government?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: Yes, my Lords, it is.
LORD JANNER: My Lords, I am very much obliged to the noble Baroness. I should have thought it was perfectly obvious that it is the business of any civilised Government in any part of the world. I should further like to ask the noble Baroness: will she realise, please, that it is not merely a question of our own nationals but that the E.E.C. is involved, and that we are part and parcel of the E.E.C.? Certainly we are part and parcel of the whole civilised community of the world, and this is a very serious thing from the point of view of the civilised community of the world.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I quite recognise the noble Lord's concern, but I think it would be wise that we should have bilateral talks in the first place.

TRAFFIC-FREE AREAS AND THE PHYSICALLY HANDICAPPED
LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU: 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 will ensure that local authorities will consider the needs of physically handicapped persons and their vehicles when planning traffic-free precincts in city centres.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, the Department's Circular Roads No. 13/71 drew the attention of local authorities to the
954
special needs of the disabled in pedestrianised areas. It also welcomed the suggestions in Planning for the Disabled in the Urban Environment, an excellent publication of the Central Council for the Disabled. A new Departmental bulletin in course of preparation will give even greater emphasis to this subject.
LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply. Is he aware that there is considerable concern among disabled people that, as the number of pedestrian precincts in shopping centres increases in this country, unless special facilities are provided they will be denied some of the best shopping facilities? Perhaps the Department could suggest to local authorities special parking places, and perhaps the provision of wheelchairs in precincts could be considered.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I take note of what the noble Lord has said. The important matter is to get it in at the beginning of a planning stage and that we are trying to do.
LORD AIREDALE: My Lords, did the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, use the expression, "pedestrianised areas"? If so, is he proud of that piece of English?
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I am never proud of new technical jargon but it does express what one is trying to say.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, in roads where the traffic is restricted to buses and taxis could special consideration be given to granting permits also for motor vehicles owned by physically handicapped persons?
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I will certainly consider the point, but I think it is a little wide of what we are discussing.

E.E.C. FOREIGN MINISTERS' MEETING
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, with the leave of the House, at a convenient moment after 3.30 my noble friend Lady Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie will be making a Statement on the recent meeting of the Council of Ministers in Brussels.
CHARLWOOD AND HORLEY BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and referred to the Examiners.

HILL FARMING: AID AND POLICY
2.53 p.m.
LORD MAELOR LORD MAELOR rose to call attention to the plight of hill farmers and to ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they propose to take, both at home and in the Common Market, to relieve the situation; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, as stated on the Order Paper, I wish to call attention to the plight of hill farmers and to ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they propose to take, both here at home and also in the Common Market, to relieve the situation. As is generally my custom when speaking in your Lordships' House I shall speak mainly as a Welshman and this afternoon I have the Welsh hill farmers in mind. But what I shall say applies also to all the hill farms of Britain. In Wales we are confronted by the problem of the constant depopulation of the uplands. The reason why depopulation has become so rampant is the simple fact that the farmers on the hills cannot make a living and are seeking employment elsewhere. The question to be answered is whether the hill farmers can possibly secure a decent living and abide on their farms. Can productivity somehow be increased on these hills? The answer has been, "No" for the simple reason, as it was argued, that the climate of the hills was responsible for low production. And as no one knows how to change the climate, what can be done to change hill farming?
This seems to explain the pragmatic approach that has pervaded all policy pursued by successive Governments, Labour as well as Conservative, in respect of hill farming. With the depopulation of the hills and the lowering of the purchasing power of those left, an economic blight has seeped into the villages and the market towns of Wales. Services in the countryside have fallen away and local industries have completely collapsed. The population of the hills is an ageing one, for the simple reason that the children have to leave in order to look for better prospects. The schools have
956
emptied and they are being closed. We should ask ourselves whether it is by chance or by casual relationship that all the depressed areas of the country, especially the depressed industrial areas, have as their hinterland a vast area of debilitated hill land gripped by proverty. We know from hindsight that Carthage collapsed when farming failed in the area, and before pouring millions of pounds into the depressed industrial areas of the country should we not find out how much the failure of farming in the region has contributed to the situation?
We know that poverty produces poverty. Can we afford to treat with equanimity the contagion that is poverty in our hills? What is the real origin of the poverty of the hills? Climate as the culprit was put there on a purely subjective assessment, and we know how wrong subjective assessments can be. So it has proved in this case. In 1964, the Welsh Plant Breeding Station set up an experimental farm in the hills of Radnorshire. Three years later, in 1967, it issued this statement:
"Contrary to the general belief it is not climate that is responsible for low production in the hills but soil poverty."
If we take the growth of good grass in good soil at sea level as 100, the same grass in the same soil at 1,000 feet elevation will yield 66. The climate of the hills reduces the growth of grasses by 33 per cent. If, however, we measure the growth of the grasses in hill soil at 1,000 feet elevation the production is only 5 to 10. The poor hill soil and the poor hill grasses reduce production from 66 to 10 or even to 5. It is the poverty of the soil that is basic to the whole problem of hill farming. This fact was stated by the late Lord John Boyd-Orr in his book, Minerals in Pastures, published in 1929. It has taken us nearly fifty years to rediscover the truth.
The hill soils of Wales are among the poorest in Britain. They were formed largely from the underlying slate rocks. These slate rocks are themselves deficient in minerals needed by plants and by animals. Adding to this deficiency is the fact that the minerals have been washed out of the soil by high rainfall since those soils were formed. The worst hill soils are now so depleted that only plants which are specially adapted to poverty soils can grow there. The yield of such plants is scant. The quality is poor, and

957
many are so unpalatable that animals will eat them only when there is nothing else. Growth is slow in spring and the quality deteriorates very rapidly in autumn, so that only a short grazing season at the height of the summer is available. The long-term effect of these poverty soils on the grazing animal is clear. The horses have become ponies, as exemplified by the Welsh ponies, the Shetland ponies and the Dartmoor ponies. I do not think God ever created ponies; they have deteriorated from horses as a result of the problem I have mentioned. The hill breeds of sheep are only half the size of lowland breeds. Hill cattle are always stunted. The Aberdeen Angus is losing favour as a beef animal because it is dwindling in size. This has happened to such an extent that some of the original stock exported to Canada are now being reintroduced into Scotland to improve the size.
The present-day effect of these poverty plants growing on poverty soil on the economy of animal production in the hills is just as striking. Under the worst conditions only half the ewes can produce lambs. What sort of economy can we expect when two ewes have to be kept in order to produce one lamb? It is laughable to find that official publications of the Ministry of Agriculture warn hill farmers against feeding their ewes too well immediately before tupping because they might in consequence produce two lambs, and two lambs are too many in the hills. The two could finish the year only two-thirds grown and therefore be unmarketable.
After listening to these facts, you may well wonder why there is a single farmer left in the hills. Even under the appalling economic conditions, the area is so vast that 500,000 head of cattle are produced each year and a third of all the lamb and wool production in Britain comes from the hills. This sort of production is of such importance to our food needs that we cannot afford to be without it. Successive Governments, by introducing various forms of special hill farming subsidies, have succeeded in keeping the farmers going. Without the subsidies, hill farming would have totally collapsed long ago. But these subsidies are not a total blessing; they tend to encourage over-stocking, which results in
958
lowered production due to the deterioration of the vegetation.
This brings me to the main point of my argument. While it was generally believed that climate was responsible fox low production in the hills, it was difficult to conceive of any pragmatic approach, other than subsidies, to keep farming going in the hills. Now we have been told by the scientists that climate plays only a minor role in hill farming, a rational rather than pragmatic approach is possible. Soil poverty is the major issue. We cannot change the climate—thank God for that!—but we can cure the poverty of the soil. It needs three tons of lime and one ton of basic slag to correct the deficiency of most hill soils over a given area. The grazing ratio can then be hoisted from the low level of 5 to 10 to as much as 66. A five-fold increase is generally possible in the grazing available for animals on hill farms.
There is a complication inasmuch as the natural vegetation, as adapted to poverty soil, does not respond to the added minerals. To cash in on the added minerals, grasses and clovers akin to those grown in the Lowlands have to be introduced in the hills. The combined effect of adding minerals and introducing suitable grasses and clovers is to transform the whole scene. The cost of adding the minerals needed and of introducing suitable grasses and clovers is assessed to-day at £25 per acre. This outstanding fact should interest the Government. The additional production resulting would recoup the capital cost improvement in three years. It would take only three years for the Government to get their money back. The rate of stocking can be pushed from one ewe per 1½ acres to 4 ewes per acre. The ewes respond by producing more lambs. Instead of 10 ewes producing 5 to 7 lambs, they could then produce 11 lambs. The grazing would be so plentiful and palatable and of such good quality that larger lambs could be produced by crossing the hill breeds with Lowland breeds to give ten-fold increase in weight of lamb.
I have to ask myself why this revolutionary possibility of transforming the hills has not been shouted to the four corners of the world. That it is practical has been proved by the Ministry's experi-

959
mental farm in Cardiganshire. At Pwllpeiran farm the improvement has been found possible at 2,000 ft.—and this is 500 ft. higher than has been thought possible up to now. This fact alone adds millions of acres to the area that can be improved in Britain. Anyone with interest in hill farming should visit the research farm at Pantydwr in Radnorshire and also the experimental farm at Pwllpeiran in Cardiganshire. If they go by helicopter they will need no directions. The two farms are like two oases in a desert. If, in flying over the hills of Wales, you spot a tiny area of verdure, you can be sure that a hill farmer with a little cash to spare—a rare phenomenon—has tried out the system of improvement on part of his farm. The system of improvement has passed every test with flying colours and it is now ripe for general application throughout the hill areas of Britain.
What prevents this green revolution from being carried out? The answer is simple, and in the economic interest of the nation the remedy should be put in hand at once by the Government. At the moment, the Government are offering one-half of the cost of improvement. The tragedy is that the hill farmers cannot take advantage of this offer simply because they are too poor to provide the other half from their own resources. It is no use offering half the grant if the farmer is unable to meet the other half. The other day I saw a man buying a ticket at the railway station. The ticket cost £1 and he had only 50p in his pocket. What a gloomy and helpless look was on his face! Then a friend offered him a 50p piece to make up the full amount. What a changed face he had then! That is exactly the position with hill farming. The hill farmer should, and must, have a 100 per cent. grant. Such a grant would automatically bring to a halt the depopulation of the hill areas. Capital will have to be given to achieve the green revolution that I am talking about. The other day in the Guardian, which I have here, there appeared a letter from a widow, a hill farmer. I will quote one paragraph from what she wrote:
"We must choose between growing two blades of grass where one grew before or being hungry. The hill farmer is a dying race and he will have few successors."
960
That is the view of an experienced hill farmer.
I was encouraged by the Statement which the Minister of Agriculture made in another place and which was repeated in this House on November 22, which warranted that the Common Market will make a grant of 25 per cent. towards the cost of aid for improvements under the development plans. The remaining cost will be borne by each individual Member State. With this aid from the Common Market fund the Government should now be encouraged to give the whole 100 per cent. grant that I have asked for.
In conclusion, I would say that as a good Welshman I read my Bible. When reading the 72nd Psalm the other day I came across this verse. This is what David says:
"There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon:"
In other words, King David, thousands of years ago believed in the green revolution of which I am speaking this afternoon. I am not so modern as I thought I was. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.12 p.m.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: My Lords, we are all indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, for introducing the subject of hill farming. I take part in the debate because I am an active hill farmer, not in Wales, about which the noble Lord has spoken, but in Scotland, and if I speak this afternoon to your Lordships about hill farming, it is from a very long experience of hill farming in Scotland. I may say that I do not follow exactly in the footsteps of the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, because my experience, which dates from 1934—that is some 40 years ago—is rather different, or at least my views to-day are rather different from those of the noble Lord, Lord Maelor.
I have lived as a farmer through a long period of farming when prices have been up, although when I started off in 1934 prices were very low indeed, far lower than they are to-day; and wages, of course, were what we should call infinitesimal. I have lived through periods of fluctuation, when prices have been high and then low, and then high I and then low; and to-day they are all

961
rising again. One has to view the activities of hill farming on a fairly long basis over a number of years. It is no good looking at it for a short period because it takes a long time for many of the experiences and the work to have any effect. I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Maelor—at least it does not happen in Scotland—that we are now in a very poor situation as hill farmers, that people are leaving the land, and that hill farmers are a dying race. My Lords, I can tell you quite a different story.
Hill farming to-day, in Scotland anyway—and I think also in the North of England since I know a little about what happens in Northumberland and Cumberland—is at this moment having a very considerable recovery. It must have a very considerable recovery because between 1958 and 1967 we were really in the doldrums; the prices and the effects of the poor returns on sheep farming and cattle farming in the hills were very bad and disastrous from the point of view of the farmer. But to-day the situation is different and I am glad to say that it is different. I would say that the difference comes about not entirely from the policy of Her Majesty's Government to-day but also because when the Labour Party were in power, and particularly when the late Tom Williams was Minister of Agriculture, a great deal was done to help farmers, and hill farming in particular. What I say to-day is not something which applies only to what is taking place under the present Government: there were times when the Labour Government, under the late Tom Williams as Minister of Agriculture, did a tremendous amount for agriculture. So my speech to-day is not entirely a Party speech. It is as a farmer, as a hill farmer of some 40 years' standing, that I address your Lordships.
First, I should like to say that this Report, Hills and Uplands (I do not know how many of your Lordships have seen it), is a Report by the Economic Development Committee for Agriculture on United Kingdom Farming and the Common Market. It has some extremely interesting figures and reflections on policy which I would recommend to all your Lordships who are interested in farming. The importance of hill farming may be appreciated from the fact that in the United Kingdom alone 14 million acres are covered by hill farming and upland
962
farming. There are 26,000 farms in the United Kingdom, and one-seventh of those are hill farms and rank for the hill farming grants and hill farming subsidies. Fifty per cent. of the sheep and wool output in this country comes from the hill farms, and 20 to 25 per cent. of the cattle output comes from upland and hill farming. Those are very important figures, my Lords, particularly to-day when we are so anxious to increase the amount of meat, lamb and mutton that is provided for the consumer in the United Kingdom.
The main output of the hill farms is store sheep and store cattle, and these, as many of your Lordships will know, are sold to farmers in the lowland areas for fattening. That brings vital supplies to the agricultural land, the land that grows barley, wheat and crops of all kinds, and on the aftermath of those crops they can feed the store sheep and store cattle. This combination of hill farming and lowland farming, therefore, is vital to a proper economy in farming. The Government to-day are supporting all farming to the tune of about £200 million. That is in my view a handsome subsidy for the farmer. Of that sum £30 million goes to the upland and hill area farmers and enables them to continue and increase the essential production of cattle and sheep for home consumption. The subsidy represents 17 per cent. of the total United Kingdom product and in Scotland it represents 32 per cent., while in Northern Ireland 50 per cent. of the amount of subsidy goes to those areas. I should like to quote one paragraph of the Economic Development Committee's Report.
"The E.D.C. considers that without the current level of hill grants increase"—
that is the increase of production—
"in recent years would not have been sufficient to maintain present production or to provide for and encourage the additional investment and increase in output that future market trends seem likely to justify."
That is a great justification, in my view, for the support that is given to hill farmers.
Wool is another commodity which is important to the consumer in this country, and 10 per cent. of the income of hill farmers comes from wool. The wool is marketed through the Wool Marketing Board, a successful and important organi-

963
sation for selling wool throughout the country and the E.E.C. Rising prices of cattle and sheep have been greater than the price rise in wool but it has also risen some pence per pound to the producer in recent years. I am not speaking for Wales—Lord Maelor may well have more information than I have—but I would say that to-day the hill farmer is on rising prices and is batting on a far better wicket (if I may use another metaphor) than we have had for many a long day. It is very important that it should be so, otherwise the production, so vital to our economy, cannot increase.
There are many suggestions for improving the income of the hill farmer by developing other kinds of industry—tourism and so on. As a hill farmer, I should prefer to increase the production and income of hill farmers by agriculture rather than other means that are subsidiary to agriculture. There is of course the great development of forestry. In your Lordships' House we have debated this subject many times and it is one on which I hold slightly less enthusiastic views than many of your Lordships, since I have seen so much excellent land in the Border country go to forestry for the simple reason that in the years before 1970 hill farmers could not make hill farming pay. Prices were so low and it was impossible to get a proper return. But to-day the position is different. In those days when hill farming was so bad small farmers who could not afford losses sold their land to the Forestry Commission and to private forestry, and there are hundreds, thousands, of acres which have gone into trees and which to-day could be producing mutton and beef. I am not arguing the case between the two, because that is something which we should work out in co-operation with the Forestry Commission. But when it comes to producing edible food the fact is that you cannot cat trees, but you can eat mutton and beef; and therefore I think their production has a priority. I know that those views are not those held entirely by your Lordships, but I am not pressing my point of view to-day.
To-day we are in a different position—and I think it is a very good thing—and we should encourage hill and up-
964
land farming as much as we can. If you study, as I hope some of your Lordships will, this very interesting Report you will see that in one of the tables, Appendix C, there is a list of decreases in prices between 1964 and 1971, and that from 1971 prices started to rise. There were some extremely bad years, 1966 and 1967, when it was practically impossible to make any profit, and costs and wages continued to rise all that time. That was the reason why many hill farmers went out of business. But in 1971, my Lords, things began getting better and 1972 and 1973 have continued the upward trend. Of course costs are rising, wages are rising, but nobody grudges the agricultural worker the wage that is being offered to him to-day because no worker in the community, in my belief, is more loyal or works harder than the agricultural worker. Therefore the rises which we are offering are entirely justified; and, speaking as a farmer, I am delighted to pay them. The difficulty arose earlier when farmers were asked to pay rises when they were getting very much less money for the product. On one occasion, I was selling draught ewes in the market in Hawick for the same price as I had sold them in 1937. That is a long time ago, and the wages were six, eight or ten times as great. It is impossible to make things pay in those circumstances. But to-day that is not the case at all.
But there is one vital point which I hope the Government will realise in this matter—and I am making this somewhat optimistic speech on hill farming at the moment because I believe it to be the truth that to-day we are very much better off than we have been since 1967. But we must continue with the same treatment in the line of subsidies as we have had to date, and we must get from the Common Market the kind of regional policy which the Government are fighting so gallantly to get for us.
I could not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, that we ought to be given 100 per cent. subsidies. I do not think that would be right from the point of view of the general public. We are all taxpayers, we are all consumers, and subsidies are paid to the producers with a particular object. But it would be very hard to justify 100 per cent.grants for

965
one type of industry, admittedly a skilled industry and one which has many risks—climate, soil and so on. Nevertheless, it is up to us farmers to improve our production and our land with the amount of subsidy that has been given to us. I hope the subsidy will not go down. It is 50 per cent. now, and that helps enormously with things like drainage, and with buildings, in order to be able to house more animals so that in winter time we can keep them in better conditions than out on the hillside in weather such as we have to-day and have had during the winter. But, as I say, I do not agree that we should ask for 100 per cent. subsidy; I do not think that would be fair.
We do want the Government to fight the battle in the E.E.C. to continue the regional policy and continue the grant. There must be millions of acres in Europe where the same type of hill farming is carried on, and I hope very much that our European colleagues in the Common Market will get the same treatment as we in Scotland, Wales and the North of England get from the Government to-day. So I would urge the Minister and the Foreign Secretary, and the other people working for us in Brussels, to carry on with their activities to get as much money as we can for the regional policies for agriculture. This is most important.
On the subject of prices, naturally one wants to get a fair price but one wants also to see that the consumers, the man and woman who go into the market and buy our products, get proper value for their money. I do not want to see prices outstrip the earnings of people for whom mutton and beef are essential products. I want the situation to be fair all round: the farmer to get a proper return on his labour; the agricultural worker to be properly paid and have good conditions in regard to housing and work, and the consumer to have good value. I think that the policy of the Government, so long as they stick to it and do not give way to people who suggest that we should get less, is the right one. I hope that they will continue to support the hill farming industry, wherever it may be, because I believe it to be in the interests of agriculture in general and in the interests of this country as a whole.
3.30 p.m.
VISCOUNT THURSO: My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, I, too, am a hill farmer. I have been a hill sheep farmer since 1949. I think I can say we are now striding as far North as we are likely to go in this debate; having started in Wales and then striding to the Borders in one step, we find ourselves in the next step on the shores of the Pentland Firth. This in itself is a significant fact because what we should do first in this debate is to identify in our minds what we mean by a hill farmer and a hill farm before we go on to discuss anything else in relation to it. I submit first of all that latitude has as much bearing upon the difficulties of the type of farm we are talking about as does altitude. In my estimation what we are talking about are those farms which, by reason of soil, altitude, latitude or other natural causes, are so placed that there is a limit to the agricultural activities which can take place upon them. One of the biggest problems which faces the hill farmer is the limitation on the types of farming which he can under, take. On most hill farms, if things turn against sheep and cattle rearing he cannot turn readily to the cultivation of a crop or the keeping of other forms of farm livestock or to intensive methods. So I am taking a hill farm to be similar to the category which receives the hill farm subsidy, and not necessarily relating hill farming to altitude or to steep ness of ground, or anything of this sort.
In my part of the world, in the county of Caithness, on the farms which I farm, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, who is keeping one ewe to one and a half acres, I can count myself happy to keep one ewe to 100 acres. The maximum altitude to which the ground rises is approximately 1,100 feet, and it goes right down to sea level. At sea level we have poor soil which, in combination with our climatic conditions and with our distance from the market and other adverse factors, puts us not only below the noble Baroness, but also below almost any farm in the green hills of Wales. In considering this point we are really considering a category of farm which has natural disabilities which will never enable it to break through in any form into general agriculture.

967
What are the alternatives that we can consider for land of this sort? Is there any alternative? Should we plant trees? Should we clear the land altogether and leave it as desert, or should we say that we are going to endeavour to keep people on it to farm it? Before considering which of these alternatives we might accept, we ought to look at what this land can do as farming land. We have been told by the two previous speakers of the importance of hill farms in general to the sheep and cattle industries, the number of sheep and cattle they produce, the amount of wool they produce and of their importance to farming in general. I should like to underline this point. I agree with what has been said both by the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, and by the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot, that we cannot afford to lose many more of our hill farms if we are to supply low ground farms with the store-stock they require. When there was a recent outcry at the rising cost of meat and shortage of meat, one of the reasons why there was a shortage of beef and mutton in the market and for the housewife to buy was because of the depressed state which the big hill farming areas of Scotland, England and Wales had gone through in the late 1960s. I know in Scotland, in the hill areas of Ross-shire, Sutherland, Caithness, and Inverness-shire there are large areas, large hirsels, which have been cleared altogether of sheep, not by any sporting landlord but simply because people were going bankrupt and were unable to keep sheep on that ground; the hirsel could not pay the wages of a shepherd and maintain him in a job any longer.
On my own farming operation I am employing one man and a Landrover where previously I employed three shepherds. If I had not had the advantage of farming a fairly large operation I should not have been able to do this, The set-up would have consisted of three people, two of whom would have gone bankrupt and the other would have taken them over. That is the plight which has faced and is facing large parts of Scotland and, I would guess, England, Wales and the Borders, too.
What are the alternatives to this? Is forestry an alternative? I ask your Lordships to realise that not every hill sheep farm could be used for forestry. I
968
offered the Forestry Commission 2,000 acres for nothing, if we could agree on the location. I spent three days walking over the hill with the conservator and one of his men. At the end of the three days' walking they agreed that the areas I pointed out were the most likely places on which trees might grow. They commented sadly, "We have been offered poor land for forestry in our time, but never so much so poor." It was so poor they would not take it as a present.
LORD HOY: It must have been poor !
VISCOUNT THURSO: It was indeed. Some years later, they got in touch with me again. They said, "Our new techniques and types of tree, our new provenances of seed, of lodgepole pine and sitka spruce have made it possible for us to think in terms of using some of your ground. We should like a piece of wet ground. Can you provide us with it?" I said, "Yes, how wet do you want it?" They replied, "As wet as you have got." I took them to a nice flow, the kind of ground which, if you bounce up and down on it it continues to shake for quite a while afterwards. I said, "Is this wet enough?" In a crestfallen tone of voice they said, "No, it's a bit too wet." I took them back to one of the areas I had offered them before and I said "Will this do?" They said that it would do nicely.
This was one of the areas that the previous conservator had agreed was one of the best. This they were considering, with the latest of techniques, to be worth doing a planting experiment upon. They have taken 100 acres of it as an experiment. They are using it as a tree bank because they do not think any other trees are likely to come near and cross-pollinate the trees that they have in this 100 acres. So you see, my Lords, forestry is not always an alternative. I think that one must try, if one is to preserve any form of use of this kind of land, to keep hill farming, hill shepherds, and hill cattlemen going. One is faced with this problem, but in return one is going to get not only a lively use of this land but a reservoir of hill sheep and hill cattle which are important to the rest of the farming industry. To my mind, this is the vital reason for preserving the hill farmer as a species.

969
In Scotland we have a very simple system of farming sheep which has gone on for many generations. On the harder hills you have your pure-breds, South Country or North Country Cheviots, Blackfaces. You cross that with something like a Border Leicester to give you a half-bred or a Grey-face; and you take the half-bred or the Grey-face down to the lower ground and you cross it again with a sheep of mutton conformation like a Suffolk or an Oxford. The result is a ewe on good ground with the hardiness and mothering qualities of her hill ancestors, the prolificacy of the Border Leicester sire, rearing two, two and a half or three lambs of good mutton conformation from their sire. This is a system which has been practised for generations in Scotland, and which eventually the scientists recognised and called stratification. It is indeed the backbone of the sheep farming industry in Scotland. I suspect that it is still the best form of sheep raising that any national farming system could undertake. Without the hill farmer, this system cannot be operated because it is the hill farmer who provides the reservoir of females from which the whole sheep industry is structured. Therefore, the hill farmer is of importance.
Finally, my Lords, we should ask ourselves what we should do about this situation; about preserving this important farmer who provides a reservoir of stock; who is keeping life going in large areas of our country so that if people want to go there for a holiday there is at least some life taking place and something to see; and who is providing the reservoir from which much of our sheep and cattle industry is drawn. What is the cure for his ills? I do not share, with the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, the optimism that one can produce this green revolution. I think it will always be a very hard row which the hill farmer will have to hoe. It will always be a very hard task; the farmer will always suffer from climate, even though climate may be only part of his problems; he will always suffer from the basic difficulties of the soil poverty which is built into his farm, the closeness of the rock to the surface, the depth of peat which lies below and so on. These will always be disadvantages from which he will suffer. He will always suffer from the difficulty that he cannot readily diversify.
970
Therefore, he is unable to build up the reserves which would enable him to go through his hard winters and come out on the other side; to go through the lean times when the market is against him and his industry, and so forth.
What we must do, therefore is support the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, in his assessment of how to help the hill farmer; that is, to see that he gets the capital grants, because he will always be working at a slightly lower level than the rest of the farming industry; always working at a slight disadvantage compared with everybody else engaged in the same occupation. Therefore he will always be less likely to be able to accumulate the strength, the capital and the reserves to modernise, to move forward with the times and that sort of thing. This is where I disagree with the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot. I am sure that in her heart of hearts she would agree, not to giving him a 100 per cent. subsidy—this is not it—but in making capital available to him. This may well be in the form of a 100 per cent. grant for some things if a crash programme is needed. It might be similar to what is offered to the fishing industry, a mixture of grant and loan. Why should we not consider a mixture of grant and loan to the hill farmer? By that I mean a loan at low rates of interest, because he is dealing with a very long-term form of industry.
LORD HOY: My Lords, will the noble Viscount allow me to intervene? I am not objecting to what he said, but I think it ought to be clearly understood that in the fishing industry they do not get cheap loans. They have to find their capital, and they have to pay for it. Provision is made for loans, but I can assure him that it is not done cheaply.
VISCOUNT THURSO: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hoy, for reminding us of this. I am saying that in the case of the hill farmer, he may very well not have the capital at all. We are talking about the fellow who, far from having the 50p to go with the other 50p, may not have the 50p at all. He may well require a loan to go with his grant. If he gets a grant and a loan it could be either a 100 per cent. loan or a 100 per cent. grant, or a 50 per cent. grant with a 50 per cent. loan, or however you like to look at it. But it is a help

971
to him to get a loan that will enable him to take up the grant. The problem is that sometimes people cannot take up grants at all. I feel that in addition to a grant or loan, one should consider the possibility of giving him farming loans at advantageous rates of interest, because this is very often a difficulty when you are taking on a loan for a very long period of time. It is difficult to take on a loan at high rates of interest. This is why the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation at the moment is not doing as good a job as it might otherwise be able to do. I think this is the primary way in which to help him.
Also, one has to see that the hill farmer forms part of a prosperous agriculture, and a prosperous agriculture where the end product, which he is producing, is required and for which he is receiving a proper return. Because the hill farmer depends upon the prosperity of the low-ground farmer to whom he sells his stock. If they have a bad harvest in the Lothians or in the North of England, the Thurso lamb sales are depressed; the farmers who would buy the store stock at Thurso are not coming to bid because they are fighting with their harvest problems and have not the cash. So, my Lords, to sum up, we need to ensure that the hill farmer has capital available to him through grant and, if necessary, loan; that he is part of a prosperous farming industry; and that we recognise his importance to the rest of the farming industry and to the country as a whole.

E.E.C.: FOREIGN MINISTERS' MEETING
3.50 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE): My Lords, I should like, by leave of the House, to repeat a Statement that is being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster on the work of the Council of Foreign Ministers this week. The Statement reads as follows:
"The Council of Foreign Ministers met on Monday and Tuesday and was concerned primarily with regional policy and energy policy. Once again
972
it did not prove possible to reach a unanimous conclusion on the Regional Development Fund. Recognising the urgency of reaching a conclusion it was agreed that there would be a further Council meeting on January 30 to deal with this subject. We will continue to press vigorously for a satisfactory outcome. Her Majesty's Government attach the greatest importance, as agreed at the Paris Summit, to the establishment of a Fund of substantial size and applied to the needy regions of all the Community countries.
"The House will be aware that progress on regional policy is linked with the adoption of a second stage of economic and monetary union and a Community energy policy. The Community decided however to accept President Nixon's invitation to a meeting of the major oil consuming countries.
"Finally, I should mention that the Council of Agriculture Ministers, meeting on Monday, did not agree to a French proposal that there should be an immediate 10 per cent. increase in the Community guide price for beef and a ban on imports from third countries."
My Lords, that is the end of the Statement.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, of all the reports the Government have given us on the work of the Council of Ministers, this must be the most unsatisfactory. Despite that, however, we are grateful to the noble Baroness for having repeated it. We must sympathise at least with the officials in their negotiations, because the Government are in fact negotiating from a weak position, not only with the monstrous balance-of-payments deficit but with, in particular, the deficit that is now arising between this country and the other Eight within the Community.
The Government say that they attach great importance to the Regional Development Fund and refer to the urgency of reaching a conclusion. Would not the noble Baroness agree that the first error was the failure of the Prime Minister to obtain an understanding as to the size of the Regional Fund during the Summit Conference? Can the noble Baroness say why the

973
Government have now shifted their ground since before Christmas? At that time they thought that the Commission figure was too low. Now they say that it is "substantial". Can the noble Baroness say what, in the view of Her Majesty's Government, is a substantial size for this Fund? In regard to the French attitude on beef, and the suggested duty on export and the ban on imports, would the noble Baroness please confirm that it is not the intention of Her Majesty's Government ever to agree to such an imposition while meat is at its present high price; and will the Government ensure that there is no back-door way of circumventing their views?
In regard to economic and monetary union and a Community energy policy, I presume that the Statement as drafted is a polite way by which Her Majesty's Government are effectively blocking any further discussion in view of the attitude of the Council of Ministers to the Regional Fund. Could Her Majesty's Government say whether it is their view that it is of interest to have a common energy policy within the E.E.C., or do they now share the view of the French that it would be better to proceed unilaterally, as the French have done, and as in the case of Her Majesty's Government with Iran? Do they believe in a unilateral approach to this problem or to a common energy policy within the Community? My Lords, we believe that the decision of the Community to accept President Nixon's invitation for a general discussion on energy problems is very wise, since this is the one organisation that is in any way in a position to use effective bargaining powers with the oil suppliers.
3.55 p.m.
LORD WADE: My Lords, I should like to join in thanking the noble Baroness for repeating the Statement. It seems to me that it is absolutely essential that the Regional Development Fund should be substantial, otherwise it is not going to be possible to achieve the objects of regional policy. Therefore I hope that Her Majesty's Government will continue to Dress that particular point. It is perhaps appropriate, in view of the debate that is taking place here this afternoon, to mention the unique difficulties of Wales and Scotland, and
974
their concern about this regional policy. If there is to be a compromise at all, I should have thought it would be best in the realm of time-spread: that is to say, it may be that we should receive less in the earlier years and more later. But it is extremely important that the total should be adequate.
I note the acceptance of President Nixon's invitation. I wonder whether Her Majesty's Government have in mind ultimately a possible meeting of oil-exporting countries and oil-consuming countries. I do not think that an agreement, if reached by the oil-consuming countries, will mean the end of the road.
Lastly, I have a point to raise for purposes of clarification—it may be that the Statement is not absolutely clear. I certainly welcome the decision not to agree to the French proposal for an immediate 10 per cent. increase in the Community guide price of beef, but I notice that the Statement continues:
"and a ban on imports from third countries."
Surely the French have not gone so far as to propose a general ban on imports. That would be totally out of keeping with Community policy. I presume those words refer to a ban on beef imports. In any case, I am glad that that idea was not accepted.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I would say first of all to both the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, and the noble Lord, Lord Wade, that I am glad they welcome the decision by the Community to accept President Nixon's invitation to Washington on February 11. To the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, I would say that the current financial difficulties, not least those which have been caused by the oil question overseas, are likely to hit all Community countries, not only our own. He asked whether Her Majesty's Government had shifted their ground on the question of the size of the Regional Development Fund. We originally proposed a size of 3,000 M.U.A.s for three years, but in order to try to move and show flexibility we have said that we realise that the Commission proposal for 2,250 M.U.A.s over three years is a substantial sum. We might consider moving towards it if it would mean agreement by other members.

975
On the question of beef, I would say first of all to the noble Lord, Lord Wade, that the requested ban on imports was only on the imports of beef, because there are now heavy supplies of beef within the Community; and there is, as I understand it, no back door by which the 10 per cent, rise in the guide price could be achieved. On E.M.U. and energy policy, we already supply all the information we can to the Commission on the energy problem, and basically the Community energy policy as at present comprised is, first of all, that the Commission should draw up energy balance sheets; then it should examine all aspects of the energy situation; and then it should make proposals to ensure the orderly functioning of the common market for energy and establish an energy committee of senior officials. The E.M.U. proposals, which are long and so I will not delay the House on them, are in fact agreed but have not yet been finally approved.
Lastly, I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Wade, that in the map of the regional development areas which was proposed by the Commission and which we approved, the whole of Scotland is included, as of course are Northern Ireland, Wales, our special development areas and the development areas.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, would the noble Baroness be forthcoming in just one respect? She said she recognised that the figure of the Commission was substantial, and that it was the intention to be flexible and to move towards it. Is she saying that it is not the intention of Her Majesty's Government to accept any figure that is lower than that of the Commission?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I do not think I could possibly go into details of negotiations to this extent. I do not think it would be wise or in the interests of this country or indeed of the Community. However, the noble Lord asked me about the difference between our position and the proposals of the Commission, and that I have answered.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, would not the noble Baroness agree that amid the obscurity surrounding this subject the only light in our dark-
976
ness seems to be that there is a large measure of deadlock; and would not she agree that in order that we may all, as citizens of the Community, judge the performance of our respective Governments in this matter, we ought to have a fuller account than the five minutes or so that she has been good enough to give us? Would she assure us that our Government are prepared to press for the publication of verbatim records of what takes place in the Council, whose decisions are binding on every citizen?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I am afraid I cannot give my noble friend Lord Lauderdale that assurance because it has been felt from the beginning of the European Community that the discussions within the Community are of the greatest value where the Ministers concerned feel that they can be quite frank with each other; and therefore I could not agree to the publication verbatim of proceedings.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My, Lords, would not the noble Baroness agree that the Council's Rules of Procedure provide for a public session?
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, we cannot put up with that.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, can the noble Baroness honestly say, after the remarkable enthusiasm she displayed when the Treaty of Accession was signed, that she is satisfied with the situation? Is she satisfied with the disagreement between Germany and the United Kingdom? Is she satisfied with the readiness of her right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary—the master of appeasement—to compromise? Is she satisfied also with the attitude of the French Government, who are only too willing to take unilateral action in connection with the proposed Conference on energy? Further, is she satisfied with the attitude of the French Government in seeking to satisfy the French farmers and peasants by raising the price of beef by 10 per cent.? Is she honestly satisfied with all that?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords. I should like to assure the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, that my enthusiasm at being a member of the European Community is undi-

977
If he will do me the honour of reading back through the debates on the European Communities Act—which I am sure he will not—I think he would realise that all along I said that I felt the first few years would be very difficult. It is difficult enough for six countries to learn to work together; it is much more difficult for nine. I really must repudiate what the noble Lord has said about my right honourable friend the Secretary of State and appeasement. The fact that my right honourable friend has stood firm on wanting a substantial Regional Development Fund is a very good thing in the interests of this country. But the fact that he is not completely rigid, but he is prepared, in the interests of the whole Community, in, eluding ourselves, to get a solution to this problem by possibly moving a little from his position, I should think would be a mark of his political skill and judgment.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, if I may take the noble Baroness to the question which I asked, is it not the case that the Rules of Procedure of the Council provide for open sessions? Would she not agree that either we have open sessions or else she endorses this country's 17th century Parliamentary procedure—so successfully contested by Wilkes and then Hansard—that our proceedings should be in secret?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I think we have plenty of debates in this House on the general principle of the Regional Development Fund and on energy, the two main questions which are the subject of this Statement. It is always open to my noble friend—and indeed he often does—to put down Questions of all kinds regarding our attitude towards the Community policy. I think it is better to leave it to the Community itself to decide whether or not to have an open session.
4.15 p.m.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, while thanking the noble Baroness for the Statement may I ask whether she is aware that her noble friend Lord Carrington categorically and unequivocally said from that Bench opposite last week, when we were discussing energy, that North Sea oil was British—"and that is that". Are we now, both in the other place and in this House, being
978
forced into a position where, without the facts and on a five minutes' Statement, we are to sit back like a lot of sheep and accept facts given to us without discussion before Parliament? Finally, so far as the cost of food to the British housewife is concerned, one of the causes of our economic trouble and the strikes and the threats of strikes is the high cost of living which the European Community has helped to create.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I remember sitting beside my noble friend when he said that North Sea oil is British, "and that is that", and I entirely agree with that fact, just as German coal is German coal. On the question of the cost of food, no doubt the noble Lord will be aware that it is the price of food, among many other commodities in the world, which has risen and which is giving a better return to the primary producer. The cost of food in the index of the Common Market as applied to our cost of living is only 1 per cent. of the total.
LORD RHODES: My Lords, arising out of the reply which the noble Baroness gave to my noble friend Lord Shinwell, may I ask whether she agrees that we, as a country, should work out our own financial salvation instead of going with a begging bowl to Europe every time we want to do something for the regions?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, we are trying to reach a consensus as to how we can work out our own salvation and to get over this very difficult time in this country. Apart from what we do already to help the regions—our own State aid—we are also entitled to receive help from the Regional Development Fund of the Community as a whole.
LORD BALOGH: My Lords, how does the noble Baroness reconcile the sensible proposal in the Statement to co-ordinate the energy policy with the undignified scramble which is going on between Ministers and the Governors of the Bank, calling in Saudi Arabia and other countries of the Gulf, and trying to make a bilateral agreement to the detriment of this country? Secondly, how does the

979
noble Baroness reconcile her enthusiasm for the statement made by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, that British oil is British "and that is that" with the fact that more than 50 per cent. of the oil has now been handed over to foreign interests, and that the tax paid in this country will he less—indeed, probably one-half—of the tax that either the Arabs or the blue-eyed Arabs of Norway are taking from foreign countries?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, as the noble Lord will be aware Norway is not, alas!, a member of the Community, and we are talking about a Community energy policy. We are particularly talking about energy, not only about oil. It is perfectly understandable, if certain Arab countries are interested in their economic development, that they should ask for teams from European countries, whether members of the Community or not, to visit them to see how they can help.
LORD O'HAGAN: My Lords, would the noble Baroness accept that even those who are not wanting to dance in glee at the sight of the Community being in a temporary difficulty feel that the Government could take a closer look at the means they use to inform the people of this country about what they are doing on our behalf? Would she also accept that the work of the Commissioner in the European Commission dealing with regional policy, Mr. George Thomson, has attracted praise from all quarters in the Community, and that it would be appropriate for people in this House, whether they believe in the Community or not, to recognise that his groundwork will be a major factor in the ultimate success of the regional development policy? Would the noble Baroness give an undertaking that Mr. Thomson will be given the maximum possible chance to start as near the beginning again as possible in order to reach agreement among all the partners to achieve a Community policy on regional aid that the Council of Ministers will not allow this to turn into a national argument, but will use his good offices, especially since he has established such a remarkable reputation in his work so far?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I am sure the House as a whole welcomes the tribute
980
to Mr. George Thomson made by the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan. He has indeed worked very hard as one of the Commissioners on regional aid, and certainly we in the United Kingdom delegattion will do all we can to back him up. I would say to the noble Lord that I read with the greatest interest the debate on the report of the noble Lord, Lord Maybray-King, on a possible Select Committee of this House, and the different ways in which this House might be informed rather better of Community affairs than is done through Statements such as this. Until this really gets going, I think my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster felt it only right to keep the House informed.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that we might find ourselves in a very strong bargaining position at the Washington conference by virtue of our enormous potential resources of North Sea oil? Would the noble Baroness not agree that this position will be greatly weakened so long as the Government persists in its mistaken policy of making unilateral agreements with the oil suppliers?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, we hope that we will be in a position at Washington to help towards a solution among the consuming countries which would then lead on to larger meetings, perhaps with the producer countries, and also with those from the Third World who are in an even weaker position. Unfortunately, our oil does not yet give us a strong bargaining position. For the moment I am afraid I have forgotten the last question of the noble Lord. Would he be good enough to repeat it?
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, would we not weaken greatly our strong bargaining position as long as we persist in our unilateral policy of making bargains with the suppliers of oil?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, we have not yet completed any bargains at all with any supplier, but as the noble Lord knows, we have a normal trading position and many of the countries with large surplus funds would like to take advantage of our technology.
LORD GREENWOOD OF ROSSENDALE: My Lords, as the noble Lady's

981
enthusiasm is apparently undimmed, can she hold out any hope that in the near future the Government will issue a White Paper specifying the benefits which they believe have accrued to this country from a year's membership of the Community?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I cannot give an undertaking about a White Paper, but no doubt in the months to come there will be plenty of time in which to make public speeches about this matter.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, there is a further question, as this is an important matter. Can the noble Baroness say whether anything that has happened since the Treaty of Accession was signed which would justify her in trusting the French Government? Secondly, is she aware that there is something worse than deceiving the general public, and that is self-deception?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I am not aware that we have deceived ourselves, nor do I think it right to comment on other members of the Community.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, if this House is to be called together specially on Friday to hear a declaration about a General Election, could that day be devoted to the consideration of this matter, which obviously leaves many noble Lords very discontented?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I am most interested to hear that point of business, which I myself had not heard about, and I doubt if it is correct.

HILL FARMING: AID AND POLICY
4.17 p.m.
Debate resumed.
LORD HOY: My Lords, I think we might now resume the debate on the position of hill farming. It is true that we are running a little behind time, but at least the time we have just spent will not be taken out of the time allocated to this debate. We are extremely indebted to my noble friend Lord Maelor for introducing this debate, and I am certain that we were all interested to hear his analysis of
982
soil values in the uplands of Wales. I thought he went just a little too far when he said that the Aberdeen Angus has been coming down in size. This was not due to soil deficiency, but because certain breeders thought they had to get the animal on its knees because it might look better that way. They have now decided that it had better go up again, and this they are now doing.
My Lords, I was interested in the speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood. The two Scots who preceded me, the noble Baroness and the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, both started their speeches by saying, "We are sheep breeders". I am bound to start my speech by saying that I am not a sheep breeder. I have no land to dispose of, either in a dry, wet or fairly wet state. I have none at all, so I speak without an interest, but I have had an interest in this particular side of the industry and, indeed, for a short period was Chairman of the Hill Farming Committee. I do not agree with the noble Baroness who, I am sure, did not mean to convey that all the schemes of land drainage and that type of undertaking have arisen since 1970.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: No.
LORD HOY: My Lords, I was certain the noble Baroness did not quite mean that. A lot of it was going on in my own time, and long before that. One of my jobs in the latter years of the Labour Government was to help make these provisions. We were always very grateful for the thanks we got; they were never very enthusiastic, but gratitude was expressed. I hope that in our time we have made our contribution to the agriculture of this country.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: My Lords, I am sorry if I made that statement; it is not true at all. I thought I said that the contribution of the Labour Party through the Act which Tom Williams put forward—which I think was in 1948, but I am not sure—was one of the biggest and most important contributions to agriculture, because it brought in a capital grant scheme and all the subsidiary schemes that came or went under the grant aid schemes. I am glad to say that subsequent Governments have continued these schemes, although

983
they are apt at times to say that they will reduce the subsidies. But it was the Government of the noble Lord, Lord Hoy, who brought in these schemes under the 1948 Act.
LORD HOY: My Lords, it was a foundation and it has now been changed. That which we claim worked well was changed when we decided to join the European Economic Community. I shall say a word or two later about that, but as time is getting short I hope the interruptions will not be too many.
There are three things we have to consider in connection with hill farming. First of all, as the Report of the Economic Development Committee for Agriculture said when it was published last month—and it made this point perfectly clear—one thing we had to do in the course of looking at this industry was to maintain the population in the uplands and hill lands of our country. They are so essential to the economic wellbeing of the community that they have got to be maintained and even extended. I can speak with a little knowledge of Wales, the part my noble friend Lord Maelor comes from, and certainly with a lot more knowledge with regard to Caithness and Sutherland and Ross and Cromarty in which I spend a number of weeks each year, and certainly the Borders of Scotland where I lived for three years. So I think I have a fair idea what it is all about.
But while we have to do that, quite obviously we have to make the industry profitable for those employed in it—and I use that word in its best sense. And thirdly—and I am grateful that the noble Baroness reminded the House of this—we have also a responsibility to the consumers in this country; their interests must not be overlooked when we are discussing any industry, and particularly food. I should not like anyone in your Lordship's House to pretend that we have not been making it difficult for a number of people in this country to buy the meat we have been producing, because prices did go up, I thought rather alarmingly. It is true that they are a little on the way down. But we have to remember that there are still millions of people in this country whose wages simply do not permit them to spend very much on these lines. It is this to which I want to direct
984
the attention of the House, because we have now to work in unison with the countries of Europe. It is true that they met and issued a Directive in February of last year and it is true that we had the comments in November of last year. But I think we must note well that this paper remains no more than a Directive. I am sure I ought to congratulate the Minister on having been promoted to Parliamentary Secretary; this will be the first debate to which he has replied in his new capacity. The only thing I can say is that since 1970 the Ministry of Agriculture has increased its ministerial strength by 100 per cent.; we used to have two, and now it is four. But I do not grudge them that.
This is a Directive issued by the European Community, and it must always be remembered that even if we reach decisions in this country it is not for us to make the final decision; it has to receive the approval of the European Commission and the Council of Ministers. So to that extent we are a little more tied than we were before joining the Community. As I understand it, each State will have to designate its own areas for improvement and other grants, and having made that decision they will have to go back to the Commission and the Council of Ministers to secure approval. In other words, what this Directive does is nothing more than confirm the right of Britain to operate the grants, whether they be for land improvement or any other thing, and to continue to do so without interference. Payments of these grants, from my study of the Directives, will not differ very much, if at all. The Minister will let us know whether this is correct. The payments will not differ very much, if at all, from the present practice, because it is intended that they should be not less than 25 per cent. or not more than 50 per cent. for the livestock subsidies and 25 per cent. of aid for improvements under these development plans. This in fact is roughly the figure that we are operating on at the present time.
I think the Minister will agree that even if we get this agreement it does not mean that there will be any more money available for the farmers of this country. What it does mean is that expenditure over and above that will be met by the State concerned, but that we shall be getting a share of the E.E.C. money as

985
a supplement to what we pay. So that while we appear to be doing somewhat better by getting the E.E.C. to pay part of the moneys involved, it does not mean that there will be more money available for the farms or the farmers. If I am wrong in my analysis of this Directive, the Minister will correct me. It is to this that we have to direct our attention.
My noble friend Lord Maelor was very much on the mark when he said that we have to feed our ground if we are going to feed the cattle and the sheep that graze on it. If we cannot provide feeding-stuffs we are obviously not going to get the best return for our cash. Indeed, it was with all this in mind that I was a little surprised—I put it no higher than that—to read the speech made by the Minister of State at the Ministry of Agriculture last week when he was addressing a symposium at Kirkley Hall in Northumberland. He had some words to say on this industry and its problems. I think he very fairly summed up what had been happening. He was in fact doing a little repetition, but more up to date—and I say that in the best possible way—of the noble Baroness's outline of the history of sheep farming in this country, with all its ups and downs. He was saying that even in spite of the fact that the figures fell by 1 million in a certain period between 1960 and 1970, throughout this time our self-sufficiency in mutton and lamb rose from 38 to 42 per cent. So the potential, he was arguing, for import saving was among the highest in our list of agricultural products. He was saying that our self-sufficiency rate for 1973 to 1974—and he added that it was nothing to brag about—was at least becoming respectable at 52 per cent. I am not going to dissent from any of these figures. But then he said:
"Far be it from me to claim that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, although I am going to stick my neck out and say that we are seeing the promised land".
I can hardly believe that there is anybody who has had a look at the promised land in the last fortnight, not even the hill farmer. But I wondered what it was when he finished with another line in which he said:
"If so, the sky really is the limit".
I do not think we ought to indulge in euphoria of this kind. I think it is very good that progress has been made and I
986
would congratulate any Government who could put up production in this way. But I am certain that even the noble Baroness who very loyally and very rightly defends the Government of the day, would not say that what we were really seeing was the sky being the limit; she would not go to that length. All I would say is that despite all that, these problems remain.
What is cardinal to the whole situation is the position vis-à-vis ourselves and the European Community. I should be grateful if the Minister, when he comes to reply, will either confirm or deny what I have had to say this afternoon, because I do not think that the industry, as a result of what has happened in Europe, is going to get greater cash assistance. Indeed, we must always remember that even after we ourselves have decided which parts of the country ought to receive assistance, the final decision will lie in the hands of the Commission and the Ministers. If I am right, I should be grateful if the Minister would say so clearly and unequivocally.
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD ABERDARE): My Lords, it is my duty to inform noble Lords of the revised time by which this debate must end, taking into account the time taken by the Statement. This revised time limit is 5.48 p.m.
4.30 p.m.
LORD BURTON: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for those remarks. I am sure we are all grateful to him, and I shall try to keep my remarks down because I think we are running out of time. I would also thank the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, for introducing this debate, and I am sure that we are all grateful to him. A good deal of his speech was devoted to the poverty of soils in our hills, and he suggested that the remedy was lime and slag. This is only part of the solution. Hill farming is of course to a large extent the grazing of animals, and one should consider the long-term effects.
Deserts in the world are reputed to have been made by sheep and goats, and we must ensure that we do not allow our hill grazings to deteriorate by overgrazing. Why do we now have to stuff our sheep full of all sorts of medicines,

987
while in the 1850s, the heyday of sheep, certainly in the North, this was not necessary? Why do stock thrive so well where they can get a salt spray from the sea, or on a felled woodland? Why do grouse thrive so much better when the land has been ploughed for forestry, or roads have been bulldozed? The reason, my Lords, is that trace elements have leeched from the topsoils of our hills, and it is only when we turn the soil, or have trees putting their roots down into the subsoil, that these minerals are brought to the surface to enrich the herbage. Some of these trace elements, such as copper, may well be locked up by a heavy application of lime, so that lime is by no means the only answer. Indeed, it may do our hills considerable harm if we overdo it.
One must get away from monoculture. I am sure that this is the answer. It does not matter what sort of monoculture it is. It may be that, where the hills have been traditionally considered to be suitable only for sheep, we ought to try to get cattle on them. On the West coast of Scotland I found this to be very beneficial. Cattle can be there only in the summer months, but they have done enormous good to the hills. I believe that we are wrong in handing over pieces of land for forestry alone. There are thousands of acres which could benefit from forestry but, as my noble friend Lady Elliot of Harwood said, we cannot eat trees. I believe that both forestry and agriculture can benefit from a rotation of the cropping of trees and animals on our hills. I hope that the Government will look at this possibility, even though such a rotation would have to be long-term. Of course it would be contrary to the terms under which the Forestry Commission have been established for growing trees, but if we are going to look at the benefit to our hills we must look at the possibility of rotating these crops.
Quite rightly, a good deal of money is spent annually by the country upon research, but there is one quarter where there are large losses to agriculture every year and upon which it appears that remarkably little is being done in this respect. This is in the field of tick control. Indeed, far from assisting in the control of this vile parasite, Parliament
988
has seen fit to outlaw the best preventive measure we had when it became illegal to use certain sorts of dip on the doubtful assumption that eagles would be protected. For a long time we have suffered from tick-borne diseases, such as louping-ill in sheep, but recently there appears to have been an increase in a tick-borne disease called "red water", which can swiftly kill off unacclimatised cattle. I must declare an interest here in that I have recently suffered serious losses from this disease in my cattle. The disease was originally imported to my hill by Irish cattle, but now that the hill is infected there appears to be no method of clearing the disease from it. I hope that it will be possible to get some research going on tick control at home. Though I do not expect an answer today, I should like to know why the Irish, who, after all, export cattle to this country, are allowed to vaccinate against red water fever, and yet apparently we in this country are not allowed to use this vaccine.
Finally, I find some confusion over E.E.C. Regulations. We can apparently ban the export of live animals to fellow members, while surely what should be taking place is the improvement of livestock handling by our fellow E.E.C. members. Now the French are banning the import of dead hares from our hills, ostensibly to prevent the export of brucellosis from this country, but brucella abortus, such as we have in this country, has not been known in hares. It seems as if the free market is not working. I should like to remind the noble Lord, Lord, Hoy, since he introduced fishing into this debate when he talked about fishing boats and subsidies to them, that beef is still a cheaper commodity than cod steaks.
4.35 p.m.
VISCOUNT INGLEBY: My Lords, perhaps I can make the first English contribution to this debate, and I should like to begin by sympathising with the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, in his analysis of the soil poverty of some upland soils. I have some personal experience of this. I live in Yorkshire, on the North Yorkshire moors, and I should have thought, following what he said, that there is a much stronger case for retaining a lime subsidy in the case of the uplands than in other areas. The noble Lord, Lord Hoy,

989
mentioned the development plans that a farmer may have to fill in if he is to get grants under the E.E.C. I understand that there is a danger that these plans may in fact be so complicated that hill farmers may be deterred from getting their grants, and I would urge the Government to make the plans as simple as possible.
I am not myself a hill farmer although, as I have said, I live on top of the moors and am surrounded by hill farmers. My purpose in joining in this debate this afternoon is to ask the Minister whether he will do everything he can to encourage the Agricultural Research Council to develop a new kind of grass seed—one that will grow at a slightly lower temperature than is required at the present time. If there could be developed a seed that would grow at, say, two or three degrees lower temperature than at present, it would mean that the grass would start to grow sooner and would go on growing longer; and this would make a tremendous difference to the hills. There is a lot of poor grassland in our area, and also a lot of dense bracken land. I have had a little experience of trying to eradicate this bracken. I have been swiping at it twice a year, and this has considerably weakened it; but so far when I have been to have a look at it there is absolutely nothing growing where the bracken was. Obviously, if the Agricultural Research Council could produce a really good seed this could take the place of the bracken.
On the subject of bracken, there is also a spray which has recently been developed, though it has not yet been fully tried out. But it is not much good killing the bracken with a spray unless something useful can be grown in its place. If, as seems likely, there may be hard times ahead of us, and if we are going to have a big deficit on the balance of payments, surely we ought to do all we can to get the maximum production from our hills. During the war we had the slogan, "Dig for victory". May I ask the Minister whether he will do everything he can to encourage the Agricultural Research Centre to produce a new grass seed for victory in 1974?
4.39 p.m.
LORD LLOYD OF KILGERRAN: My Lords, may I join with other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Maelor,
990
for initiating this debate, particularly at a time when food production may be assuming considerable importance in the public interest. I propose, with your Lordships' leave, to confine my observations to the position of a typical small Welsh farmer in one of the many rural counties of Wales. But not for that small Welsh farmer the thousands of throw-away acres of the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso. His farm will be a small area of land of 100 acres, or 200 acres. Three hundred acres would be a large hill farm.
I ask your Lordships to consider the position of this typical Welsh farmer, with a devoted wife and family, who is working his plot of land and endeavouring to make his farm an efficient business organisation. What are his problems? His problems arise chiefly from the uncertainty of adequate financial returns so that he can pay his way as all businesses must pay their way. Inherent in his whole attitude to life is uncertainty about planning his future business, which arises chiefly from the uncertainty of the policies of previous Governments in regard to the production of food in this country.
It is essential that the confidence of such a farmer should be increased so that he can render his farming business viable, profitable and efficient. Therefore may I ask the Minister a few questions in relation to the activities of such a farmer? The confidence of an active hill farmer such as I am talking about would be very much restored if he could have the following simple assurances. First, can he have better assurances about the future prices of his products—sheep, wool and cattle? Secondly, can he have more advice about husbandry techniques, hill pasture improvement techniques and methods of reducing animal diseases? Thirdly, can he have better facilities for cheap credit? Those are the problems which face the small Welsh farmer when he is trying to plan his future.
First, on the question of the future prices of products, would the Government be willing to introduce a new arrangement for reviewing minimum prices every three or five years, instead of reviewing prices every year? The costs of each of these products could be adjusted each year, or arrangements for financial assistance to a farmer could be modified, with increases in basic farming costs. As regards the availability of more advice

991
on husbandry techniques, hill farming improvements and methods of reducing animal diseases, will the Government agree that more local research is necessary in the environment in which hill farmers operate? Is it possible for the Government, as a first step at least, to double the contributions made by experimental institutions in Wales and agricultural departments of the University of Wales for research into the development of hill farm production, on the lines indicated by the noble Lord, Lord Maelor?
I should like to pay tribute to the many Government advisory centres which exist in Wales, to the Welsh plant breeding research station at Gogerddan, to which the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, referred, and also to the experimental hill farm at Pwllpeirian. The latter has been in existence for some 20 years, and without the work of its devoted research workers hill farming in Wales would be in a much worse position than it is at present. I should also like to pay tribute to the valuable but very limited work of the agricultural departments of the University College of Wales, which the noble Baroness, Lady White, knows so well. Those departments work closely with local agricultural interests, and a great deal of research is quietly going on around Aberystwyth and in parts of Pembrokeshire into such subjects as land improvement strategy in Wales, hill pasture improvement, some of it in collaboration with the Potassium Institute at Henley. There is also very limited work being done on protein synthesis and the resistance of sheep to various infections.
During the past year, the agricultural biochemistry course for undergraduates at Aberystwyth has been significantly modified to include studies of soil science and animal nutrition. It is hoped that some of the persons now undertaking these courses in the University of Wales may be encouraged to take up work in agriculture in Wales. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, indicated, there are serious problems in relation to depopulation and encouraging young men and women to stay on and work in Wales, particularly on hill farms.
Lastly, are the Government prepared to offer special grants or credit schemes at
992
much lower interest rates to Welsh hill farmers, particularly those who wish to increase their production? The Report of the Economic Development Committee for Agriculture, published in December, 1973, on farming on the hills and uplands of the United Kingdom, stressed the desirability of investing in techniques to increase output. The production potential of the hills of Wales has been neglected for far too long, and urgent action is now required in the national interest to revitalise the hill farming agricultural industry of Wales, in order to secure a substantial increase in the totality of food production which is possible from those hills.
4.48 p.m.
VISCOUNT BROOKEBOROUGH: My Lords, I should like to begin by apologising to the noble Lord, Lord Burton, for possibly having infected his lands with some Irish cattle which were suffering from red water, although I do not feel that any have come from my area. But I was interested to hear from him that cattle can be vaccinated against red water and perhaps the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, can inform us whether such vaccination is possible.
One of the encouraging aspects of the E.E.C. Directive is that it showed that within the United Kingdom we shall still be able to encourage our regional farming areas with hill farming grants. Many of us were rather nervous that that would not be possible within the concept of the E.E.C. I also derive a good deal of encouragement from the fact that the Directive appears to widen the area covered to include marginal land, because I have always considered that it should be included. To the definition given by the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, I would add that marginal land is land which requires a greater input than non-marginal land and probably has a lesser output, which is more important than the geographical or climatic problems.
During this debate we have progressed from the North of Scotland, through to Wales and the Borders, and we now come to the edge of the Atlantic. In Northern Ireland, 25 per cent. of all farms are marginal or hill farms and 90 per cent. of their net income comes from subsidies. So it is very important that the E.E.C. Directive allows us to continue with this

993
form of assistance in order to increase production in those remote areas. I feel it is very important to maintain the social status of the people in these areas, otherwise we shall end up with completely unpopulated areas covering large parts of Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. For us especially, as the noble Baroness has mentioned, there is no hope of tourism because of our particular trouble.
I want now to ask the Government whether they can go a little further and accept the suggestion contained in the E.E.C. Directive that in fact marginal land that is not hill land should now be included in the grant areas. In the area I come from, Fermanagh and West Tyrone, there are some 200,000 acres of wet, poor land, and if there are 200,000 acres in Fermanagh and West Tyrone there must be many hundreds of thousands of acres in both Wales and West Scotland to which this would apply. This land is no better than hill land, and provides the same problems except in different dimensions. It is all first-class potential beef livestock land, but it requires a far higher level of input in order to make enough money for the farming of it to pay. This area was in fact included in what was called the Marginal Land Scheme during the war, and a lot of good was done on it. I feel that someone should recall the good which was done on that land and examine it to see whether we should not now cover marginal land in this way. In all sincerity, I would ask the Government to look at this matter to see whether this sort of land, marginal land, not necessarily high land, could now be covered, because it must be done on a United Kingdom basis.
4.52 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, there is one aspect of this important matter which has not been referred to this afternoon but to which I should like to direct your Lordships' attention for a very few minutes. One of the most important areas in the country for the sheep farmer is the Lake District, which has its own particular type of sheep, going back a very long way, the Herdwick, and which has a very fine historic tradition in the way of sheep-rearing and the conduct of these very difficult hill farms. Over the past generation, and more particularly
994
since the end of the last war, the Lake District has become an extraordinarily popular place for people establishing themselves with week-end cottages. They come in and pay the most enormous prices for small hill farms, which prices are really completely out of step with anything that even a local landowner, let alone a hill farmer, can afford to pay. The result is that it has become almost impossible for a local hill farmer to buy his farm. Farms which are worth £5,000 or possibly even £10,000 are going for £25,000, £30,000 or £40,000. Your Lordships can see that in effect the local man is being driven off his heath, if I may use a local expression relating to the way in which the sheep find their way about on the hills on which they are heathed.
I cannot myself quite see what the answer to this problem is, but there is no question at all that it is a very serious one indeed. The Lake District is almost ceasing to be the home of the dalesman, and has become the home of the rich businessman from Lancashire or Yorkshire, or even further South. Some method must be found, whether it is through the planning arrangements or through some other type of subsidy, which will enable the necessary farm buildings to be put up for the local man, and for them to be preserved to him, insulated, as it were, against the attentions, the very natural attentions, of the man who wishes to establish himself in a holiday home or even to come into the National Park to reside there. When we established the National Parks, at any rate that in the Lake District, I do not think we had any idea how it would cause the price of land to rocket. You cannot just walk into a National Park and build a country cottage. The planning arrangements are pretty tight, and very properly pretty tight. This leads to an exaggerated price being paid whenever any small farm buildings come into the market. I am sure your Lordships can understand that this is indeed a very difficult and very pressing problem in the Lake District. I imagine it applies to a considerable extent also to Wales, which is another very popular place for holiday homes. I wish I could see some solution to this problem. I hope the Government will look at this question and possibly

995
remit it to the next Committee which they set up to deal with this intractable problem.
4.56 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (EARL FERRERS): My Lords, I am sure your Lordships will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, for having put down this Motion and so enabled us to have a wide-ranging debate on hill farming. I do not know, but I suppose that possibly apart from the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, I must be the only person to speak in this debate who is not in fact a hill farmer. It seemed to me an unfortunate quirk of chance that my first appearance in my new capacity should require me to speak on the subject of hill farmers, in a debate introduced by a Welshman whose knowledge and love of Wales and of the hills have never been disputed, though it may have been rivalled—but even then only by another Welshman. It is to my personal regret that my knowledge of Wales and its hills cannot claim to be as great as that of the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, although I am bound to say that I like the singing that comes from there. I hope that the noble Lord will acquit me of any indifference if I tell him that the first week in my particular job has not permitted me to take a vacation in Wales to study at firsthand the problems of the hill farmers.
I am grateful to the noble Lord for tabling this Motion because it is a very important and difficult subject from a social, economic and agricultural point of view. The hills make up about one-third of the agricultural acreage of the whole of the United Kingdom, and hill farmers make a very important contribution to the output of our livestock industry. We must recognise that they continue to live and work often in remote and difficult areas, and by so doing they help to provide a secure and stable basis for the local economy and population. I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, that the health of our hill farming industry is an important matter and that is why I welcome the opportunity to discuss it.
While I accept and respect the noble Lord's intimate knowledge of Wales and
996
what goes on within it, I should have thought there were signs of a new air of confidence in the hills. This is borne out by the Report, to which my noble friend Lady Elliot of Harwood referred, United Kingdom Farming and the Common Market: Hills and Uplands. recently published by the agricultural "Little Neddy". But let us be clear at the outset and recognise, as I am sure we all do, that anyone who farms in the hills, whether they be in Wales, in Scotland or in England, faces very special problems and limitations, and a totally different set of factors from those which his lowland counterpart faces. When the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, referred to the fact that in his part of the world it is possible to have only one ewe on 100 acres, I thought this brought into stark relief the distinction between some of the more distant and difficult parts of the country as compared with the lowlands. The climate and elevation, and the soil, or indeed the lack of it, the bleakness and the fertility, and even the potential, are all factors which tend to weigh against the hill farmer, yet which precisely characterise him for what he is and the job that he does.
My Lords, despite the many handicaps and limitations which hill farmers face they have made considerable strides in recent years and, I venture to suggest, not without the support and encouragement and indeed the appreciation, of successive Governments. The figures should speak for themselves; because over the past three years, for instance, the number of hill cows which have qualified for subsidy has gone up by no fewer than 85,000, which represents an increase of 11½ per cent. At the same time, the number of hill sheep which have qualified for subsidy has gone up by 300,000, an increase of 4 per cent. So from those figures there is an indication that there is more prosperity in the hills. Of course, from the hill farmer's point of view numbers alone are not the sole criterion of achievement. The quality of the stock he produces and the price he can obtain for it are equally important. Here again, the results over the last few years have been encouraging. I accept, of course, that there are variations in quality and price from year to year, and indeed from area to area. But the overall trend has, I think, been satisfactory. This has been due partly to the three open winters we have had and

997
partly to the strong market for livestock I need not dwell on this particular aspect, but it is obvious that the general increase in livestock prices which has been apparent over recent years, and which has been conditioned by many factors outside the scope of this debate, has worked its way through to the hill producer.
The noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, said that he would like to see in future prices known in advance. That is an understandable plea, but I am sure the noble Lord will realise that it is a difficult thing to do. I suggest that what is needed is not so much knowledge of future prices as knowledge that future prices will be as stable as possible; and this is what the Government would like to see. The noble Lord said also that he would like more advice given on hill farming, and he asked that more money should be spent on research into hill farming. The problem, however, is not so much the need for more research as to communicate to hill farmers the results of research already done. There is a mass of information available but much of it is buried in technical journals and scientific papers. We recognise the need to distil this information into an easily digestible form. We have already started a scheme called the hill project areas in which, in selected areas, including one in North Wales, our advisers from ADAS will concentrate on giving as much advice as possible to hill farmers, using the latest results of their research.
Of course, my Lords, over the past few years costs have increased as well, as much, or to a similar degree, for the hill farmer as they may have for the lowland farmer. The farm accounting information which is collected from samples of farms by universities and agricultural colleges in Great Britain, and which was summarised in the Annual Review White Paper in March last year showed substantial increases between 1970 and 1971, and 1971 and 1972, in net income for the types of farming most representative of hill farms. If it is put simply, and I recognise that there are difficulties and dangers in doing so, hill farms in England, Wales and Scotland were, by 1971–72, yielding net incomes which were rather more than double the level which prevailed some two or three years earlier. During the current Annual Review we shall be seeing the results for 1972–73 and I shall be surprised if they do not
998
indicate a very substantial improvement. All hill farmers are aware of the new levels to which prices for sheep and cattle have now risen compared with those of past years. I am fairly confident that we may look for a continuation of the upward trend in hill farming income during the current year.
LORD HOY: My Lords, if the noble Earl is going to publish those figures perhaps he would publish the retail prices for 1970, 1971, 1972 and 1973, so that we may make an assessment of them.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, the figures I was quoting there been gathered by universities and various Departments and they show how the incomes of hill farmers have gone up.
LORD HOY: But, my Lords, this is not unrelated to prices.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, the income is the return after costs have been taken off the return. Subject to various adjustments, that leaves the net income, which is the figure to which I was referring. There are bound to be limitations—
VISCOUNT THURSO: My Lords, may I raise one point in connection with that matter? If the net income has gone up, can the noble Earl say whether these net incomes are comparable with any other levels in agriculture or in the Community?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords not without a certain amount of study. But I am sure that the figures are available, and if the noble Viscount studies them he could draw his own comparisons. I could not give that information to him without consideration. There are certainly limitations in the use which can be made of this type of data. There are exceptions to the trends which I have indicated. But I do not believe it can be denied that the income position of hill farmers is far better to-day than for many years past. This is why I find it difficult to accept the general trend of Lord Maelor's speech.
In the second part of his Motion the noble Lord asks what steps the Government propose to take. He made clear what steps he would favour, and he called for a 100 per cent. grant for land improvement. He made some criticism of

999
the hill livestock subsidies. I agree with much that the noble Lord said when drawing attention to the role which land improvement could play in improving the profitability of hill farming. This has been demonstrated over and over again, and I welcome, in particular, the noble Lord's reference to the work done at the two experimental farms whose names I, as an Englishman, do not propose to try to pronounce lest I should offend the noble Lord's delicate ears. But it is important to keep these matters in proportion. Land improvement must be selective because not all of the hill farmer's land is capable of dramatic improvement. The improvement cannot be carried out all at once. It must be a step-by-step operation which may well involve changes in the whole farming pattern. Great importance may be attached to the control of grazing to bring out the maximum amount of improvement in the sward; but to achieve better lambing and calving rates, as well as increased weights of stock coming off the hills, requires improvements in husbandry as well as improvements to the land.
As the noble Lord indicated, land improvement pays for itself in a relatively short period, but I am advised that results quite as dramatic as those which the noble Lord quoted are rarely achieved, and one must not underestimate the effect of the hill climate, which poses severe limitations on the use even of improved hill land. It is one thing to increase the potential of summer grazing, but frequently the hill farmer's greatest problem has been to bring his stock through the winter in fair condition. In some areas, especially in Wales, the structure of farms and the lack of sufficient acreage of in-by land are obstacles to land improvement. Often in these areas more radical structural changes may be the only proper long-term solution. But, with those general observations, I would go along with the noble Lord in his call for more land improvement; and this is backed up, too, in the "Little Neddy" Report to which I referred earlier. I am bound to say that I thought I detected a slight glint in the noble Lord's eye when he asked for 100 per cent. grant for carrying out this undertaking. The noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, also asked for the same thing.
1000
The noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, wanted cheap credit. These are all ways of trying to come to the same conclusion. There are various methods of supporting agriculture, and successive Governments have found it most appropriate to do this by means of grants and subsidies. If one looks at what is available, one realises that the present rate of grant for hill land improvement is 50 per cent.; and for hill land drainage 70 per cent. These are by any standards very sizeable rates of grants and they are substantially higher than any other capital grants which are offered in the agricultural sector.
The really determining factor in investment of this kind, which pays for itself over a relatively short period, is the underlying economic position of the hill farms, and in particular the level of their returns and income. The noble Lord, Lord Maelor, says there is not much point in having a 50 per cent. grant if you cannot provide the other half; and he instanced his friend who wanted to buy a railway ticket and had only half the fare. The noble Lord remarked at the delight and surprise on the man's face when a friend provided the other 50 per cent. that was needed. That did not surprise me at all: if anyone offered to pay half my fare at a railway station I should be equally surprised and delighted. But in fact substantial grants have been offered to hill farmers, and the evidence is that they have been used. In 1969–70 the amount of Exchequer contribution towards hill land improvement and associated works was £1·9 million. The amount rose to £6·9 million in 1972–73. The acreage of land which has been improved under the Farm Capital Grant Scheme since its introduction in 1971 is about 716,000 acres and the acreage of land which has been drained is about 190,000 acres. So use is being made of the grants available and of the Government's support for hill farmers.
I think that few hill farmers would agree with the noble Lord's criticism that the hill livestock subsidies encourage over-stocking and lead to lower production. The bulk of the farmer's return comes from the sale of his calves and lambs, and this in itself is a powerful incentive to stocking the land at the optimum level. The subsidy schemes contain provisions to prevent payment of subsidy

1001
where there is over-grazing or where the calving or lambing rate is low. There is no doubt that without the subsidies hill farming would have collapsed many years ago. The subsidies represent an element of security for hill farmers, even when times are better, and they stimulate investment both in land improvement and in technical progress. As evidence of the Government's intention to help and support hill farming, I would tell your Lordships that since this Government took office the hill cow subsidy rate has been increased by 10 per cent. and the hill sheep subsidy rate by 48 per cent. Of course, the future level of assistance to hill farmers, like all other aspects of farm support policy, is currently being considered under the Annual Price Review.
The noble Lord's Motion refers to the Common Market. This aspect was also mentioned by a number of other noble Lords, as well as by the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, who hoped that the Government would be firm in their dealings with the E.E.C. The record will show that we have used our influence and put forward our views to very considerable effect. The agricultural policy of the Community of Six which was in operation when we joined did not allow for the type of support which we have been giving to our hill farmers for a great many years. I recognise that our entry into the Community clearly entailed some uncertainty for our hill farmers, despite the general form of assurance which we received from the Community during the accession negotiations. This uncertainty has now been lifted because the Council of Ministers have agreed, as mentioned by my right honourable friend on November 22, on the framework of a Directive on aids to farming in mountain and other less-favoured areas. The main line of the Directive follows broadly the forms of support which have been covered by our own arrangements. The Council have yet to take a decision on the precise areas of the Community to be covered by the Directive and the degree of financial participation by the Community's agricultural fund. However, we are satisfied that the general effect of these decisions is to confirm that we can continue to pay grants and subsidies in hill areas on much the same lines as we are doing at present.
1002
My noble friend Lord Brookeborough referred to bad land in Northern Ireland which was not hill land. I should like to tell him that we are fully aware of the situation regarding the type of land to which he refers, and we will certainly take note of the points he has made when we consider which areas we shall put forward for assistance under the Directive. The noble Lord, Lord Hoy, referred to figures of 25 and 50 per cent. These are the figures for the Community's contribution from FEOGA to our own expenditure. The noble Lord is right in saying that the Community will reimburse the Exchequer for part of what is paid to hill farmers, but the decision as to whether we increase, maintain or reduce the level of assistance is one for the Government to take within the general limits set by the Community.
LORD HOY: My Lords, may I just say one word here? It does not need to be complicated. The noble Earl is saying that inside Europe any recommendation made by this Government, or any other Government, to the Nine must first of all have the approval of the Commission as well as the Ministers. We are not free to act on our own. I do not want to be difficult about it, but I think this is so. Secondly, moneys that are to be contributed from FEOGA will not in fact improve in any way the grants that can be made to farms or farmers in this country. In other words, while it makes a contribution, this will be to the expenditure of the Government and not to the expenditure of the Fund.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, as usual, the noble Lord is quite correct. The Government will have to decide what areas they believe should come within the jurisdiction of this particular scheme. They will then submit the information to the Community and all the other Members of the Community will do the same, so that a decision may be agreed as to which areas are to be helped. It will then be known what the amount of contribution from FEOGA will be. The noble Lord is right in saying that this will not in itself raise the level that we ourselves pay to the farmers, but it will mean a contribution to the Exchequer from FEOGA funds.
Referring to the Common Market schemes, the noble Viscount, Lord

1003
Ingleby, made a plea that they should be simple. I have a great deal of sympathy with that plea. I cannot promise the noble Viscount that they will be simple but I share his hope that this will happen. The noble Viscount also put forward quite strongly a very interesting point that there should be research into seeds which will grow at lower temperatures. In fact a considerable amount of work has been done, not only by the Agricultural Research Council but also by the Ministry, on experimental farms. A recent report from our experimental farm at Redesdale in Northumberland showed what could be done by using the right seed for re-seeding hill land after destroying bracken. I would advise the noble Viscount to contact his local agricultural adviser on this point, because there is a great deal of information available about seeds. It is really a question of selecting the right mixture to suit each type of land.
My Lords, I feel sure that this debate has been useful. It is an important subject and it is right that it should be aired. Although many people in our country may not be engaged in hill farming, nevertheless vast acres of our country are covered by it. The increase in breeding livestock numbers, the improvements in the numbers and quality of stock coming off the hills and the general increase in livestock prices have all tended to raise hill farmers' incomes significantly and they have ushered in, I would suggest, a new mood of confidence. The decision of the European Economic Community Council of Ministers on a Directive for the less favoured areas has now removed the hill farmers' doubts as to the freedom of the Government of this country to continue the support which is considered necessary to maintain their livelihood. I would suggest—and I hope that after what I have said the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, will agree—that our hill farmers have every reason to look forward to the future with confidence, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, will be able to quote from his own ecclesiastical source—not Psalm 72, but Psalm 114—and will be able to look back and say that:
"The mountains skipped like rams and the little hills like young sheep."
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, before the noble Lord resumes his seat, could
1004
he say something on the question of farm buildings, a subject which is causing a great deal of trouble in the Lake District? I appreciate that I am taking him rather out of his brief, but if he could say something it would be welcomed locally in Cumbria.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, if I may, I should like to study in detail what the noble Lord has said and try to give him a more informed answer than I could now over the specific point, which is rather wide of the original Motion. I shall certainly look into it and let the noble Lord know.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I am grateful.
5.23 p.m.
LORD MAELOR: My Lords, let me in the first place congratulate the Minister on his appointment to his new post. He told us that he had been in the post for a week. I was hoping that there would have been a slip of the tongue and that he would have added, "and of course I shall be leaving it on February 7". But that did not come off.
Perhaps I was very presumptuous in putting down this Motion, because I will tell your Lordships quite frankly that I know nothing about farming. I am sure that I should not be able to tell the difference between a ewe and a ram. I was prompted to put down this Motion because of what I have been reading in the Press of Wales particularly and in the national Press of Britain too, that there is a great urge to convert a large portion of Wales into a National Park. If it is converted into a National Park—and this will be half of Wales—no industries will be brought into that area, and consequently I was thinking. "How are those people going to live?" When I questioned them, I found that they cannot live now and that the vast majority are of course hill farmers with whom I dealt in my speech.
I thank all noble Lords who took part for a very useful debate, and I thank the Minister also for all the promises that he has made. There is perhaps one point regarding what was said by the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood. She did not agree with me that we should have a 100 per cent. grant. I think she was thinking in terms of subsidies. I was not thinking of subsidies at all; this is a

1005
once and for all grant to convert poor soil into good soil and it would be there for evermore. Subsidies must be repeated year after year, but one grant would be sufficient; and I showed by my statistics that the money could be recouped in a period of three years. I thank all those noble Lords who took part. May I say that I do not desire any Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

THE DAIRY INDUSTRY
5.25 p.m.
VISCOUNT MONCKTON OF BRENCHLEY VISCOUNT MONCKTON OF BRENCHLEY rose to call attention to the problems of the dairy industry; and to move for Papers. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I beg leave to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. My speech will be reasonably short: the facts are clear and the deductions obvious. Farmers are in difficulties but they, like all of us in this country now, realise that we have to take some reduction to our income by the very nature of things going on around us. Dairy farmers, however, are in an almost impossible position and something must be done now if the country wishes dairying to go on. My noble friend Lord Brookeborough, who has withdrawn from speaking in this short debate, has told me that the same applies to Northern Ireland. I imagine that that is the shortest speech he has made in your Lordships' House.
I must declare an interest: my wife and I are dairy farmers and we are losing money. We breed a naturally polled pedigree British Friesian cow and we are cutting our milk production and cutting the numbers in the herd. This, as I will show later on, has an effect on the beef availability to this country. Part I of the 1947 Agriculture Act stated as its aim:
"… promoting and maintaining … a stable and efficient agricultural industry capable of producing such part of the nation's food and other agricultural produce as in the national interest it is desirable to produce in the United Kingdom …".
I take it that that is still the aim of the Government's agricultural policy. In ten months of 1973, the food and feed import cost was £500 million higher than in the same ten months in 1972. Also in 1973 milk production dropped—the first drop
1006
in any year since 1964. It could come to a point where we will have to import liquid milk from the E.E.C., adding yet more fuel to our balance-of-payments trouble.
Not only milk and its products are at risk. When dairy farmers go bankrupt or move out of dairying they are not going to go back. It also means that beef is going to be short. Milking cows are now being sold for slaughter, not letting them calve on to produce the 50 per cent. of bull calves that a normal herd produces. In this same month of 1973 our own herd had 309 head, that is from calves to bulls, and in this month in 1974, 284 head. In other words, we are producing less milk and about 12 to 14 less bull calves for the beef market. From August to November of this last year there were 2,000 fewer calves that went through the market monitored by the Ministry of Agriculture. One farmer in Devon put in a Friesian bull calf—a good one weighing 112 lbs.—which was sold for auction for £12. That is for a 112 lb. calf! We sold two calves yesterday, both four weeks old, one for £23 and the other for £15. Last year they would have been £50 each for certain. So I did not quite understand this increase in the prices of livestock. With us in the dairy industry it is a decrease for the bull calves, for the culled cows and those that are being sold barren for slaughter. The margins per cow on the Milk Marketing Board figures are 60 per cent. below 1972–73. We are almost back to the depressed levels of the 1960s and in real terms the margins are the lowest since the war. In the Government figures the prices for milk were expected to be right at the 1973 Price Review when food prices were much lower, and even then expected to fall.
The food costs now are nearly double. On our own farm in January last year we paid £35 per ton for dairy cake; this month this year it was £63 per ton with 2 per cent. less protein in that cake. In other words, we are going to produce less milk, less good quality milk, and yet pay very nearly double in the cost of cake. Input costs for the industry on a full year basis at the last Price Review were £350 million to £400 million increase; that is without the increase in wages and the two hour cut in the standard week and excluding the present wage award to come this next week.

1007
Incidentally, may I say here that no dairy farmer I know grudges any increase in wages to the men working on his farm. But may I say also what a help I personally have found the National Union of Agricultural Workers in my own section in Kent, both on advice in regard to labour and indeed on advice on the farm itself. I have always tried to tell them that it was about time that the N.F.U. and the N.U.A.W. got together. Their interests are so close in our own case that this might be the real breakthrough in labour relations. Total costs, therefore, are likely to increase by the Price Review time to between £400 million and £450 million. That sum equals the total income from the dairy industry a few years ago. Of this sum, £335 million relates to feeding costs alone.
The Government guessed that income was going to be up by 26 per cent. I reckon this is rather doubtful, and indeed irrelevant, because much of that increase must have been for the cereal farmers—I am told that barley to-day is £63 per ton. But, my Lords—and this is really a most important point—two-thirds of all the dairy farmers in this country do not grow cereals. It is becoming a much more specialised industry. We spend a fortune on our machinery, housing and feeding, but many, two-thirds, have no cereals to recoup their losses on the purely milking side. It seems that for the dairy farmer Phase 3 is working very unfairly. Manufacturers' profit margins are limited to a 10 per cent. increase; the dairy producers' margins have been cut by 60 per cent. by feedingstuff increases, but the price of milk is held down.
The Prime Minister made a statement saying that it is difficult to help dairy farmers because the income is expected to go up by 26 per cent. I have already shown that this figure is doubtful. Even under the strict control of Phases 2 and 3 manufacturing companies have not had their prices held down because other companies were doing well. The dairy farmers are being held down because the cereal farmers are doing well. Milk producers never really recovered from the 1973 Review. That was hopeful because of calf price increases and because foodstuffs were lower in price. The opposite has in fact occurred. I
1008
would point out, my Lords, that the livestock industry accounted for 70 per cent. of all agricultural output, and milk for 20 per cent. of all the returns of farm sales. In these times I would have thought that increased farm output was of paramount importance. I think the Prime Minister said on October 8 that the sudden and steep increases in imported food and raw material prices were a major factor in the national economic difficulties. Therefore to increase our milk output and the production of beef calves should help the economy, and this will not happen unless the dairy farmer is helped. If livestock numbers are down, meat prices go up.
After working as a farm labourer I went to Cambridge to study the theory of farming and the first lecture was the "shock" lecture, "Gentlemen, agriculture is a mixture of immorality and dirt", and we knew, or know now, what that meant. The dirt can be seen on my farm to-day, and the immorality is the way we arrange the matings of our animals and the inbreeding and line breeding which go on to produce the perfect cow. But is it morally right for the Minister to say to us that the long-term prospects for milk producers are excellent? They are "going bust" in that period of waiting for the long-term prospects. Many milk farmers are "going bust". Have not dairymen a right to compete on level terms with the E.E.C. countries? If so, how do we justify the similar costs we have with the E.E.C. with 5p per gallon less return for the milk we produce?
My Lords, may I quickly give you one or two costings from farmers in Kent who have authorised me to give these costings? This is one from Blacketts Farm, in Tong. Their increase in feeding costs in the year 1973–74 was £12,293; the increase in the milk cheque, £2,017. In March, 1973, they sold three barren cows for £501; in October 1973, six barren cows fetched £454—a real reduction in livestock prices from a dairy herd. In March, 1973, their Hereford cross calves fetched on average £31 each; in October, 1973, they fetched £14·20 average, a real drop. And the farmer is paying 151½ per cent. for his overdraft and losing

1009
money. The second is from Manor Farm, Kingsnorth, Ashford, Kent, where the farmer, with ten more cows in the herd, is producing 584 more gallons a month but is worse off by £273 per month on feed and wages bill alone. On this farm the farmer would get no income at all, and in fact is making a loss. And the last example—from New Street Farm, Great Chart, Ashford—shows that the farmer's total extra costs increased by 6·14p per gallon or £52·60 per cow. All dairy farmers, therefore, except those with large cereal acreages as well, are now losing money. We may have to import liquid milk.
Many of your Lordships will say that it is a way of life, and of course it is a good way of life; but you cannot have a way of life unless you can make a profit to live on. Another trouble is that land has become more valuable. None of us wants to sell land; most of us are short of land for dairying, but the increase in the value of the land has made it more difficult, and in fact virtually impossible, to hand on to a farming family and keep it in that family. I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Rowallan is not here. He would, I am sure, have spoken on the problem of brucellosis. We have not yet had a proper eradication scheme and this prevents those of us who are pedigree breeders from exporting to the E.E.C. We hope that something will be done at least to encourage markets to go for one or the other. At the moment you go to a market and find that the right-hand side is brucellosis-free but that on the left you get the most appalling reactors. I cannot believe that any sound veterinary officer would agree that that is right.
I have made no mention so far of the obvious other increases. The food increase is so important that it dominates the whole picture. Of course the next one is fertilisers, nearly all of which are derived from oil. The dairy farmer makes an enormous use of nitrogen, in particular, and not many of us have clover in our pastures because of the intense use of nitrogen to produce the grass necessary for a large herd. I hope, my Lords, that the Government will be able to avoid the power cuts on an area rota basis. They would be disastrous for the dairy farmer. They would mean starting up all those little petrol engines
1010
to try to keep the supply going. My Lords, I promised that I would be short. I have reached thirteen minutes and I will not be more than two more. We need 5p per gallon more for milk to break even, without making any profit. We want it retrospectively to help those who are "going bust" or have already "gone bust". We can produce more milk to narrow the balance-of-payments gap, but unless help comes soon milk will be reduced again. We are now worse off than all the farmers in the EEC. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
5.40 p.m.
LORD HOY: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Monckton, for introducing this Motion. Agriculture is certainly having a day out in your Lordships' House to-day. However, there are some compensations after that dramatic statement by my noble friend Lord Maelor that he did not know a ram from a ewe. I was encouraged when my noble friend Lady Phillips said to me, "You know, you start off with a great advantage in this debate because you can distinguish between a bull and a cow". I thought that was an advantage.
Every time we talk about retrospective legislation in this House noble Lords on Government Benches hold up their hands in horror and say: "The last thing we should ever do in this House is to have retrospective legislation." But the noble Viscount's last claim was for an extra 5p a gallon retrospectively. He will be lucky if he gets 5p a gallon; he will certainly be more than lucky if he gathers it retrospectively. I do not know what the Government are prepared to do about it, but this is within control of Government. The Government and no one else control the price of milk.
When it was my duty to defend the Government for doing it I never lacked advice from the Benches opposite who told me why the Government should give it up and allow milk to play a free part in the market, and that the least I could do was to put a penny on the pint. I remember them arguing specifically that Jersey milk ought to be taken off control completely. I do not know what the position is to-day, but so long as we were in Government we held prices under control. Whether milk is still controlled to-day or not I do not know, but there

1011
was always a demand from the Benches opposite that it should be decontrolled completely. It is true that beef prices have gone up enormously; it is true that many cereal farmers must as a consequence of this be doing rather well. I do not know how well they are doing at the moment; they are not doing as well as they were, but certainly for a period of time they were doing rather better than well. Obviously, at the other end the dairy farmer was paying a price for that in animal feed. We would not deny this. If the situation gets as difficult as certain farmers assert, the responsibility must lie with the Government to deal with it.
Many of your Lordships may have received a letter in the post this morning, as I did. This letter is a copy of a letter sent to the Minister of Agriculture from the Northampton County Farms Tenants Association. Writing to the Minister, they said this:
"The Northampton County Farms Tenants Association would like to draw your attention to the serious situation which faces its Members as set out hereafter.
"The Association is composed of a group of tenants of Northamptonshire County Council all farming statutory farms, mainly milk producers whose total herd size comprises some 1,672 cows producing approximately 1,839,200 gallons annually, and over 1,000 beef calves plus followers for the dairy herd.
"We are obliged to use purchased concentrates to maintain production and estimate that the cost of this concentrate has risen from approximately £40 per ton in the winter of 1972–73, to £74 per ton at the present time. The additional cost is, therefore, in the region of £51 per cow per annum. The receipts from calves have dropped approximately £20 per head and culled cows approximately £100 per head but the increase in milk prices has been nil.
"Fixed costs have risen drastically. We now find with these prices we are no longer running viable businesses and insist that immediate steps be taken to rectify this drastic situation."
Noble Lords who have much greater knowledge of this particular industry than I will be able to make an analysis of these figures and say whether they are correct, under-estimated, or exaggerated. I am certain that no one would deny that costs have risen tremendously and have made it very difficult indeed for such people to carry on their business. I do not want to detain your Lordships, but I thought
1012
it right to put my voice to this complaint, which was fortified by the speech delivered yesterday by the President of the National Farmers' Union. Sir Henry Plumb in his speech was saying that they had had to put up with promises over a great number of years. I say this because he was talking about all Governments, not just one Government or this Government.
He said that industry was now reaching a stage where it had no faith in any promises that were being made. But if they were going to be asked to undertake increased production then the Government of the day, irrespective of which colour, ought to make it economically possible for them to do so. He was asserting, and rightly, that if you were going to call on the industry for increased production, obviously you had to provide the capital that was required. I would not go so far as the noble Lord. Lord Maelor, and say that that should be 100 per cent. If you are going to be in business at least you ought to have a financial interest in it. I do not think that is asking too much. But if you are going to ask an industry of this size to undertake that task, it not only avoids increasing your imports bill, but the more you can produce for your own use and for your own customers, the less dependent are you on foreign supply. You are independent to that extent. That is easily seen in the field of oil production. If we had oil flowing from where we think it is going to flow we should not be so dependent on other people to supply it to us. The same argument can be used with regard to food.
So, my Lords, I am happy to say some words in support of the noble Viscount's Motion, and I thought the best way to put it was to repeat this letter which I received this morning. If the situation is as they say it is, then we shall expect the noble Earl who is to reply to have something more substantial to say to us because this is something over which we ourselves have control. We are not dependent on certain other people to be able to take action; this action lies within the power of our own Government, and I can only hope that before this debate is over some encouragement will have been given to associations of this kind, and to the industry as a whole, who are finding life particularly difficult at the present time.
5.48 p.m.
LORD SWAYTHLING: My Lords, first may I join the noble Lord, Lord Hoy, in thanking the noble Viscount, Lord Monckton of Brenchley, for having put down this Motion which allows us to discuss such an important subject. Having been a dairy farmer connected with milk production for well over forty years, I propose to deal chiefly with the problems of the production side of the dairy industry as opposed to the distributive side. During these years I have seen the dairy industry prosper and go from strength to strength. Admittedly, there have on occasions been problems but, generally speaking, the dairy industry, headed by the excellent Milk Marketing Board, has a record second to none—increased production, improved quality, unequalled service to the customer and a relatively peaceful relationship between employers and employees. It is an industry of which the nation should be genuinely proud.
Unlike other industries, dairying has not been disrupted by strikes. Can any housewife remember her daily "pinta" not being delivered? Perhaps as an industry, the producers, processors and distributors have been too successful. They have not threatened the nation by industrial unrest and possibly this has led to their being taken for granted. But the dairy industry, through no fault of its own, is facing a grave crisis—far more serious than I can ever remember. The industry is one of the most efficient and heavily capitalised sections of agriculture which, if allowed to develop, could serve a vital role in the future economic recovery of this country. As a natural dairying nation, we have one of the finest opportunities in our history to compete in the vast European markets with quality products second to none.
Until recent months, the world demand for beef has to some extent helped to relieve the burden for owners of heavier types of dairy cattle. Producers of top quality milk who maintain lighter pure dairy breeds, have however not had the same benefits and find themselves in an even worse plight. It is very apparent that the Government are concerned not to increase prices to the consumer, but if nothing is done to ease the present burden, the consumers will have no option in the quality of the product because there may be none of the best quality
1014
to buy. It is vital that our mature dairy breeds should not be allowed to suffer extinction through lack of foresight in the current economic crisis, which threatens the provision of milk and dairy products for the whole nation and imposes an immense financial burden on the livelihood of milk producers.
During 1973 all the costs of producing rose alarmingly. The price of feedingstuffs, as has already been mentioned, has risen by 40 per cent. since January 1973, contrary to the expressed forecast of the Minister of Agriculture, and further price increases must be expected. The cost of labour has equally risen. The latest award by the Agricultural Wages Board becomes effective this month. Fertilisers since January, 1973, have gone up by some 40–50 per cent. in price and further increases are known to be in the pipeline. In answering the Government's call to extend and modernise their enterprises livestock farmers have invested heavily in stock, in buildings and in equipment, often involving considerable amounts of borrowed capital from bank and other loans. Interest rates in December, 1972, were 8 per cent., and were no less than 13 per cent. in December, 1973. This represents a rise of about 60 per cent.
I am told that the Milk Marketing Board calculate that the cumulative effect of these and other increases in the costs of milk production means that any milk produced this winter will be produced at a loss. The result has been a crushing blow to producers' confidence at a time when the nation badly needs every gallon of milk for cheese and other dairy products which otherwise would have to be imported. Last Christmas, I am told, what was required for the liquid market fell, leaving a reserve of only 165,000 gallons, which is negligible. At the same time, it has been calculated that if one person in every 400 had ordered an extra pint at Christmas, the nation would have been short of milk for liquid consumption, and cream.
The future is grim and it is reported from numerous markets throughout the country that farmers are selling dairy cows for slaughter in large numbers, even when in calf. I am informed that the Milk Marketing Board's artificial insemination service has been dropping steadily month by month. In September

1015
the number fell by 1·7 per cent.; in October, by 2·4 per cent.; in November by 5·2 per cent., and in December by 7·9 per cent. These decreases occurred at the time of year when inseminations are normally rising. Over the last four months of 1973 total inseminations, both beef and dairy, in England and Wales were 31,777 below those in the same period in 1972. This is an overall decline of 5·6 per cent. From this it follows that cows expected to calve next autumn will show a substantial decline and have an automatic effect on milk supplies. In the longer term the size of the national dairy herd will be significantly reduced.
The number of registered milk producers in England and Wales has declined rapidly. In 1950, there were 161,937 producers; in 1970, these had reduced to 80,265. In 1972, there were 72,271, and in 1973, 69,357—and the reduction continues. In 1972–73, 183 million gallons of milk were used in the manufacture of cream. It is doubtful whether in 1974, even if the whole of this amount were used for liquid consumption, there would still be enough to provide the public with the milk it required; and that, of course, would leave no margin for the manufacture of butter, cheese and other dairy products.
This comes at a time, my Lords, when very large sums have been spent by the dairy industry to stimulate the consumption of liquid milk and ironically an increased budget for advertising was only recently announced. Owing to this publicity and other causes the consumption of milk and of dairy products is rising. This is partly due to the growing population and partly to the relative cheapness of milk as a food compared with other foods that have been allowed to rise in price. It is important to remember that there is this statutory control on the price of milk and producers are precluded from passing on any part of their extra costs to the consumer. This, if not unique, is almost unique in present-day economics. Owing to the number of dairy farmers who are ceasing to produce milk, it has been estimated that there will be a shortfall of 110 million gallons of milk in 1974, and it could be more. The cost of importing milk products to replace this would be in the neighbourhood of £25 million.
1016
I should like to mention to your Lordships the proposal recently made in Brussels, that a tax of 2 per cent. should be raised on all output of milk above 2.000 gallons per year per farm. For years the Government have been urging the small producer to throw in the sponge and the remainder to increase production. As always, the dairy farmers of this country have responded to the Government's appeal, but now Brussels propose to punish milk producers for producing more than 2,000 gallons a year. If this is the policy and thinking in Brussels I hope that the Government will do all in their power to oppose it.
The noble Viscount, Lord Monckton of Brenchley, has referred to the absence of Lord Rowallan, and in his absence I am going to mention brucellosis. There is one other small problem on which I feel the Government should be able to help milk producers. It is the problem of brucellosis, which in itself is not a small problem but I use that word as being small in comparison with the other matters I have been speaking about. The brucellosis eradication scheme was started by the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers, of which Association I have the honour to be Deputy President, and was taken over by the Government; but the dairy farmers feel now that it is not being pursued with all the vigour and effort it should and that the complete eradication of brucellosis is being considerably slowed up. I know that there is a shortage of veterinary surgeons, but this is an important matter and should be pursued as thoroughly and as swiftly as possible.
My Lords, to sum up, I feel that I can do no better than quote from a letter that has this week been written by the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers to the Minister of Agriculture—and I quote:
"This Association is deeply concerned and believes that the outcome of the Price Review will be crucial to the future of the dairy industry for many years to come. Unless producer-prices are raised substantially to cover both extra costs which have already arisen and those which are anticipated in the immediate future, the trend away from milk production will undoubtedly accelerate dramatically. This would have tragic consequences for other sectors of the agricultural industry and for the nation's balance of payments as well as for countless farming families whose income depends solely or primarily on the sale of milk."
I quote further:
"Many are already withdrawing from the industry, unable to sustain heavy weekly losses.

1017
Many others are economising by reducing the nutritional level of their cattle feeding, with a consequential lowering of yield. Others are culling less productive cows or are failing to retain calves, both of which will have a devastating effect on the dairy cow population of the future and on calves needed for home-produced beef and veal.
"If the current decline in production is not halted, the industry will be unable to fulfil its obligations to the public in milk for liquid consumption. There will be no balance of milk for even the production of cream, let alone manufacture into butter, cheese and other dairy products."
I can only add, my Lords, that unless the Government agree to an increase of, as has been said, at least 5p to the price of milk during the current Price Review the results may be disastrous.
6.0 p.m.
LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY: My Lords, I know that I ought to thank the noble Viscount, Lord Monckton, for initiating this debate. Due, however, to a certain nervousness in addressing your Lordships for the first time, I am not quite so sure that this would be entirely truthful. I therefore crave your Lordships' indulgence for this my maiden speech, not only because it is my maiden speech but because, although I have been a tenant farmer of New College for twenty years, I am not in fact a dairy farmer. I discovered 21 years ago that this was far too much like hard work. And although I farm some acres in Anglesey, and therefore might have spoken on the previous debate, I do not think that Anglesey can quite be classed a hill area, though there is a case for her being similarly treated because she is a long way away and the transport costs are very high. It is despite this lack of knowledge on the specific subject being debated to-day that I feel I must speak, because there is an absolute need to realise that you cannot consider the problems of the dairy industry without realising its effect on the rest of agriculture, and in particular on beef production and, eventually, believe it or not, on the arable production.
If I now stray off the specific debate of dairying I hope that your Lordships will understand my reasoning. If you do not, I know from having listened to your Lordships that you will tolerate, indeed you may even forgive, my naughtiness, at least far more so than the Almighty does when I farm badly. The problems facing our
1018
dairy industry have been, and will be, spelt out by other noble Lords far better than I could. I should therefore, with considerable temerity, like to put to your Lordships a few suggestions as to how the position might be put right.
First, what the livestock industry needs, indeed what all agriculture needs, are long-term guarantees for continued production. By "long-term" I mean seven years or so, and by "guarantees" I mean financial help in the form of a satisfactory price tied to costs. We have as farmers been told to stand on our feet and get our returns from the market. Although I am in favour of the European Economic Community as an institution, I dislike most intensely the Common Agricultural Policy; and suggest that a guaranteed price tied to costs is a better way of getting the right amount of food at the right price, even though (and I am sure somebody is going to slaughter me) we may have to subsidise food occasionally, than the "free for all" we are now engaged in. And I speak as a mainly arable farmer who, I am told, being a professional pessimist, has to admit that the 1973 harvest was not too bad—and of course a damn' sight better than the 1974 one will be!
Secondly, I believe that, in order to keep the price of the end product, be it milk or meat, within the reach of the housewife, increased use of grants to drainage and to buildings, maybe even to stock and machinery, is essential. I should like to ask the noble Earl why, when livestock production is so essential, the fencing grant was removed. The only reason I can think of was to let the bull escape among the cows. Thirdly, I believe the long-term answer to our dairy industry, and indeed the whole of arable production, lies in the profitability of our meat production. Too much milk is not then produced; too much barley is not then produced, and, more important, the fertility of our land increases without massive use of fertiliser, something which is obviously going to increase.
I accept that at the moment we are not producing enough of anything anywhere. But that is why, in my opinion, it is so important at this time to keep milk and meat production profitable; otherwise it will be all barley again, and it is so very difficult, as has been mentioned before to-day, to get back into livestock pro-

1019
duction, particularly dairying. Alas! it looks as though, due to excessive profits in cereals—and I am glad I got that phrase off me; I feel a lot better now that I have admitted it; and I should like to ask as a byside here whether there have not been some funny dealings in this market by speculators, perhaps abroad—we are returning, unfortunately, to the old cycle. This time it will be dairy cows being slaughtered and switched into beef, possibly aided and abetted by the E.E.C. beef conversion scheme, which incidentally I hope the noble Earl will try to alter. An increase in the beef cow subsidy would in my opinion be better. As a result of this, as night follows day, a shortage of dairy products will follow, and a temporary glut in beef due to the slaughter of dairy cows will in turn encourage beef producers to give up, which in turn will encourage a shortage of beef.
If I took my accountant's advice, I would to-day kill my beef herd, plough up every acre, sack two men and a gaggle of women, and go on holiday. My Lords, is this really what the country wants me to do? I am sure the environmentalists do not, and I am not at all sure that the Secretary of State for Employment does. These long-term assurances must be implemented if such a situation is not to occur in both the dairy and the beef herds. So far as short-term help is concerned, I must say I sympathise with the Government in their present predicament. I believe that farmers are more than prepared to tighten their belts yet once again, more so perhaps than anybody else. We have so much to lose through strife. Maybe the Government could consider averaging farm income over five years back-dating it—I am sorry, my Lords—to 1972. A precedent has been set in the recent Finance Bill with regard to capital gains tax liability on land.
My Lords, I conclude by repeating that it is not possible to consider the dairy industry's plight without taking into consideration its effect on the rest of agriculture, particularly beef production. Although short-term help is necessary, I am convinced that it is long-term assurances we want. May I platitudinously remind the Government that it is food we are talking about, and until we all turn
1020
into Dr. Who's Daleks or something, food will remain an essential to our livelihood, more so even than oil. And despite all the much talked of benefits to land owning—and I am not particularly a landowner—of letting cottages, of speculating, of even having lion parks, a farmer's first job is to produce food, and to do this satisfactorily he needs long-term assurances. My Lords, I am sorry if I have read my speech. I did so because I did not want to say something that I did not mean to say—though no doubt I have done so, anyhow. I thank your Lordships for your attention.
6.8 p.m.
THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH: My Lords, I am happy and pleased to be the first speaker who is able to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Stanley of Alderley, for his excellent and interesting maiden speech. He has indeed passed with flying colours what I personally found quite an ordeal—and still do, for that matter. I am sure I speak for many of your Lordships when I say that I hope we will see and hear much more of him in the future. I, too, should like to thank the noble Viscount, Lord Monckton, for initiating this debate. I, too, must declare an interest because I also have dairy cows.
The main problem, as I see it, in the dairy industry is that the profit margin for the producer has been very severely reduced, especially for the majority of producers, the small family self-employed farmer and the specialised, intensive farmer. The reasons, as many speakers have already pointed out, are quite clear; namely, the big increase in costs during the past two years of fertilisers and feeding stuffs. They have nearly doubled—or, in the case of fertilisers, are about to double—over the past two years, while the price of milk to the producer has increased very little indeed. Some may argue, quite rightly, that the price of calves, and culled calves, has also increased significantly during that time. But this is only partly true because during the past four months we have seen a considerable drop in the price of calves and culled calves. Therefore to the dairy producer there are two possibilities: one, to get out of milk production or, secondly, to stay in, hope for a higher price of milk and improve the efficiency of his unit. With regard to the first, getting out of

1021
milk production, right now that could be considered to be an attractive possibility with higher prices on the arable side of farming and beef as a substitute livestock enterprise, but long term results from this would be a depressed dairy industry which would mean the loss of cross-bred beef calves. In addition, many producers might turn to summer milk. This would result in higher beef prices, an over production of summer milk and a grave shortage of winter milk and the possibility, as has already been brought out, of liquid milk having to be imported from the Continent, which would be detrimental to our already serious balance of payments problems.
With regard to the second possibility—better efficiency and a higher price for milk—there is still room for higher efficiency, but before higher efficiency can be persuaded with enthusiasm there must be confidence in the future—I repeat, confidence in the future. In my opinion there could be improved efficiency in general grassland management, better quality silage and more grass production with increased usage of fertilisers; but we must remember that with to-day's prices the extra capital that would be required to produce this improved efficiency could produce a far better return from, for instance, cereals.
So far as higher prices are concerned, in the present inflationary climate anybody who would argue for higher milk prices should take a long, deep and responsible look before doing so. But the milk producers' dilemma is a serious one. Unfortunately, I believe that one will only get improved confidence and efficiency by the Government showing their backing for the dairy farmer, and that can only be done by increasing the guaranteed price of milk.
Some of your Lordships may recall a cartoon that was produced, I believe, during the First World War, at the time when white feathers were being sent to young men who did not go to the front on active service. This cartoon depicted a young man sitting at a cow, milking it, and an old lady standing by who said to him: "You ought to be at the front". He replied "But. Mum, there ain't any milk at that end". Well, my Lords, there will not be enough milk at the correct end unless the Government do something about the problem quickly. I sincerely
1022
hope that the Government will show their confidence and faith in the dairy industry; they must not allow it to become a depressed industry.
6.14 p.m.
LORD WISE: My Lords, I should like to add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Stanley of Alderley, for an excellent and most interesting maiden speech. It is a good thing for us to have more noble Lords in this House who can speak with such a practical knowledge of the agricultural industry. I hope we shall have the benefit of listening to him on many occasions in the future.
I feel it is important that our dairy herds shall continue to provide enough milk to supply home demand. It would surely be disastrous, not only for the industry but for the country as a whole, if this were not so, but I am certain that there is a very real danger of this happening. We have heard this afternoon some dismal speeches on the state of the dairy industry at this time, and unfortunately I agree with them. The British dairy farmer is inevitably very worried at this moment. As we have heard, food costs are now pretty well double what they were twelve months ago, and I shudder to think how all the other variable costs for fertilisers, machinery, fuel, labour, and so on have risen also, whereas the price of the end product has risen by only about 2 per cent.
The escalating costs also of beef fattening have reduced the demand for the culled cows and the surplus dairy calves. This has caused a consequential fall in prices for these calves. This further aggravates the situation for the dairy farmer. In an effort to keep going, farmers are cutting down on their concentrate usage; but obviously, this is causing a fall in production and, also most important, farmers are meeting troubles in regard to the quality of milk.
The Government have placed great emphasis on the need for increased production and increased investment in the dairy industry. They are telling farmers to "hang on". But surely there is small consolation to the dairy farmer to be told that he can look forward to a good future when he is finding it pretty well impossible to meet his current bills out of income. It is impossible for this situation to continue indefinitely: it is a fact that farmers must receive more money for

1023
their milk, or just give up production. I hope this fact will be recognised during the Price Review deliberations which I understand are going on now. The price that the farmer receives for his milk is about half the price paid by the consumer. It seems to me that generally with all farm products the farm gate price bears little relation to the ultimate price to the consumer. I know little of the wholesale or the retail trade and, in particular, of the distribution trade of milk; but as a layman one wonders whether in this instance it would not be possible for a reasonable increase in price to be made to the producer to enable him to stay in business. He must have a better price. Can he not have this price without an overwhelmingly large increase in price to the consumer? I think perhaps this could be so.
6.18 p.m.
LORD BURTON: My Lords, may I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Stanley of Alderley. Although I am sure we can all understand his nervousness I feel that he had no need for it and we shall all wish to hear him many times again. I should also like to thank the noble Viscount for having introduced this debate. Many of your Lordships will have heard of the dream of the West Highlander:
"Oh! that the peats would cut themselves, And the fishes jump upon the shore."
I would suggest that the dream of many farmers to-day is:
"Oh! that the cows would milk themselves And would not muck upon the floor."
Surprisingly enough, the debate to-day has rather revolved around the financial situation in the dairy industry, but I feel that an even more serious problem is the labour situation. This is becoming chronic. I nearly gave up my pedigree Jersey herd last spring, mainly through the difficulties of getting the herd milked. Three things saved the day: first, the reluctance to give up a pedigree herd of some years establishment; secondly, that I am the only source of Channel Island milk and, I think, the only source of milk in the area which has not been homogenized, pasteurised or in some way tampered with, so that the loss of this milk would be greatly felt by the consumer.
1024
Thirdly, the other saving grace was the arrival of a New Zealander who has milked the cows since then. Unfortunately, his work permit runs out in June, so I am likely to be back in the same predicament. The problem is what to do about this. I believe that youth employment officers going round the schools are encouraging children not to go into agriculture. They say, "It is a bad job; you can do better for yourself. You want to be a five-day week boy with a white coat. You want a white-collar job, or something like that." I hope that this will be looked at by the Government to see whether this is the case.
My Lords, the situation, which is already serious, is also deteriorating. Only last week I was listening on the car wireless to that country programme called "The Archers", and I was rather disappointed to hear that they were elaborating on how the agricultural workers' lot was very much worse than youth employed in other spheres. This is not in any way an encouragement for the youth of the country to go into agriculture. I think it is a great pity that this sort of propaganda should be put about. Agriculture can be a good and profitable job, and I hope that this type of propaganda will not continue. The labour situation, which is one we have heard about to-day, is a most serious problem, but no less serious is the feedstuff situation. I understand that the official margin over variable feed costs, in terms of price, is officially now under 4p per gallon. If the average is under 4p, it means losses for some people. Feed costs have risen from 11·7p per gallon last December to over 20p per gallon this December. In fact, feed costs have nearly doubled within the year.
If one looks to the month of March, as I understand one is likely to have to do (we do not know what is going to happen after that), undoubtedly costs will go up. As was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Monckton of Brenchley, the minimum increase required in the price of milk will be 5p per gallon. I am a little concerned about this because, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Hoy, who stated that this was in the gift of the Government, I understand—though I may be wrong; and I hope I am—that it is not in the gift of the Government. Under

1025
the E.E.C. agreement which the Government made, I understand that under the transitional arrangements they have only 1·6p which they can give away. They must go hot-foot to Brussels to ask for a relaxation of this agreement. I trust that we shall have an assurance from the Minister to-day that the Government have either already been, or are preparing to go, to make these bargains with our fellow members in the European Economic Community. On the Continent farmers are already receiving 5p to 6p per gallon more than we are, and to-day's papers tell us that they are seeking a 12 per cent. increase on their already enhanced price. The transitional arrangements for entry into the European Economic Community made allowance for the price of milk to rise steadily over a five-year period, but made no arrangement to reduce producers' costs over this time, which have risen within the first year to Continental prices.
My Lords, one cannot allow a debate like this to pass without a mention of another controllable cost; that is, the health of our cattle. We have already heard about brucellosis, but there is another scourge—mastitis, which one hopes the Government will do all they can to control by advice to our farmers. Already a great deal is known, but this is largely a matter of herd management, and a good deal more can be done by educating the farmer. With regard to brucellosis, there are miles of unnecessary fencing littering our countryside because of lack of Government action. Hours of time are being wasted daily on our farms because the Government are so lethargic about eradication. There are hundreds of cattle still being infected and having to be slaughtered because of the slowness of eradication. We hear about the shortage of vets., but we should make greater use of laymen. There is no reason why lay people should not take blood samples. Already lay people analyse the blood, once it has been taken, and there is no reason why a great deal of work should not be done by people other than vets.
Then we have another problem, the supply of artificial fertilisers. Grass is possibly our cheapest feedingstuff, but maybe we shall be unable in coming years to produce anything like the grass we require. I have not had time to check
1026
this, but I understand the position to be that Shell are unable to produce any fertiliser at present because they produce it in Holland and the petroleum situation there does not allow of the production of fertilisers. Imperial Chemical Industries have had some fault with their manufacturing plant, and it appears that they are unable to supply at present. I wanted 150 tons of nitrogenous fertiliser, but I am able to get only 30 tons this month, and perhaps 30 tons next month, from Fison's. This is well short of what one requires. Fertiliser costs could well he up by 40 per cent. in June. Moroccan phosphate has gone up in price by nearly 200 per cent, since last year.
My Lords, what is to happen? Let us take the example of what has happened in Nairn, in the Scottish Milk Marketing Board area. In Nairn, in spite of the fact that milk is being imported, the quantity of butter made in the six months from July to December is equal only to what was made in three days last May. The writing is on the wall. If there is not urgent Government action to relieve the dairy industry, there will be a serious and grave shortage of dairy products in this country. Increasing the price of milk to the farmer now will not be as inflationary as if one allows the dairy industry to run down. Our imported dairy products have to be imported at European prices, which are substantially ahead of ours. But I do not want to end on a despondent note, my Lords. If artificial fertilisers go, we may have a welcome return of the partridge and other birds to our countryside.
6.28 p.m.
LORD RATHCREEDAN: My Lords, may I raise one point? I was wondering whether it would be possible for the Government to consider raising the incentive given under the voluntary brucellosis scheme, because this would encourage the efficient milk producer, and also encourage more farmers to produce brucellosis-free milk. I would also point out that the cost of becoming accredited as brucellosis-free has increased enormously since the last incentive price was fixed, because the cost of fencing and of providing calving boxes and other buildings has also risen enormously. A method by which the Government could encourage the efficient producer would be by giving an increase in the incentive in the voluntary scheme.
6.29 p.m.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I think that this has been an important debate, and it certainly is an important subject. There were not many bouquets flying around for the Government to-day. I am bound to say that I did not think there would be, because all noble Lords who have spoken this afternoon have called attention to problems which are at present affecting milk producers. I would agree with them that in recent months dairy farmers have had to face an unprecedented increase in feed costs. Other costs also have gone up, and returns from the sale of calves and cows, as was explained by the noble Viscount, Lord Monckton of Brenchley, have gone down. The price of milk, on the other hand, depends essentially on arrangements which for a considerable time now have run for a year at a time. I should like to thank my noble friend for being, as I would expect him to be, completely fair over this, and for generously agreeing that the price of milk was right at the 1973 Review, which indeed I think was the accepted feeling of most dairy farmers. He went on to say that we have E.E.C. costs but not E.E.C. prices. Of course, what we have is the prices not of the E.E.C., but prices which have been affected by world prices. Yet we have the advantage—and I know one has to look for advantages sometimes—of seeing that our milk products and our milk are not running at world prices but at E.E.C. intervention prices.
Faced with a combination of circumstances, all dairy farmers, and particularly the specialist producers, I accept, have been hard hit recently. It is equally true, of course, that other people in other sectors of industry have been confronted with substantial cost increases, often as a result of developments on world markets which are totally outside Government control. The dairy farmers who rely heavily on compound feeds have been particularly affected by the quite unprecedented rise in world cereal prices. I would say here and now that the Government fully recognise the particular problems which dairy farmers are at present facing. My right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture has made this very clear in all his recent meetings with farmers and those who represent them. I do not, therefore, regard it as part of my job this afternoon
1028
to argue that case against my noble friend or indeed against anyone else.
Many of the factors which have been clearly set out by your Lordships this afternoon have an important bearing on the future development of the dairy industry, and none of us, and that includes me, would wish to dispute this. But I find myself, needless to say, in a bit of a fix, because I am sure my noble friend will understand, and indeed I hope other noble Lords will too, that I do not see it as part of my job this afternoon either to anticipate the decisions on milk which the Government will shortly have to make in the light of the results of the Annual Review of the industry which is now taking place. Many noble Lords have referred to the fact that an increase in the price of milk is essential. I understand that; I take note of the point, but needless to say I can say no more than that.
I should like to make it perfectly clear that it was very largely because of the need to consider the position and the prospects of the dairy industry in depth, and as soon as possible, that my right honourable friend decided, in consultation with the farmers' representatives, that the Annual Review discussion should be started on December 6, and that was far and away earlier than usual. An initial meeting which was devoted specifically to the dairy sector was held with the leaders of the industry on December 13. Further discussions on milk have taken place since then, and there is a good deal still to be done in order to ensure that the Review is completed as soon as possible. My right honourable friend hopes to be able to announce the Government's decision on prices for 1974–75 earlier than usual, and if possible before the end of February.
My noble friend's initiative in tabling his Motion to-day has therefore provided an opportunity for a fairly wide-ranging debate and—this is the important thing—before conclusions have been arrived at. I think, however, that it is right that I should set out the main factors which in the Government's view are of major importance in considering both the present position and the future prospects of the industry. The issue about which producers are most anxious is undoubtedly the increase in production costs and more specifically, as has been

1029
mentioned I think by nearly every noble Lord, the increase in feed costs. This concern is perfectly understandable when feed grains form the substantial proportion of production costs, and their price has shown a most dramatic increase. The rise in grain prices was not, of course, the result of developments either in the United Kingdom or in other countries of the European Community. The big rise in prices was, as we all know, due chiefly to poor harvests in other parts of the world, notably Russia. These were followed by heavy buying both by Russia and China with consequential effect on world prices. It is true that there have been better harvests this year.
There is also the encouraging prospect that additional acres will be put under grain in some of the main producing countries. The longer-term supply prospects, therefore, seem to be reasonably good. But I think it is only fair to recognise that we may continue to be faced with a relatively tight situation on the world market for some time yet. It is particularly difficult at present to try to predict how world grain markets will in fact develop in the immediate future. Experience shows that reliable forecasts are always difficult to obtain, and this is particularly so at present partly because of the oil crisis and its possible repercussions on the movement of supplies, which has injected a further element of uncertainty into the situation.
Available supplies of protein feeds, on the other hand, have increased substantially since the middle of last year. At that time, the United States felt forced to ban exports of soya bean meal in the interests of its own livestock industry. Prices rose to £260 a ton. Fortunately, however, supplies improved and the ban was soon lifted, and prices for soya bean meal, which is the major source of protein feed, have now fallen back to less than half last July's figure. The increases in feeding stuffs are of course only part of the picture, although they are undoubtedly the most important part. The Agricultural Wages Board has announced an increase in the basic minimum wage which will come into force on January 22. There have also been significant increases, as my noble friend Lord Burton said, in the prices of fertilisers and of fuels and other important materials. The Government also recog-
1030
nise the cost which high interest rates have imposed on agriculture, as indeed they have on other industries. These changes are all of considerable importance to dairy farmers.
LORD HOY: My Lords, would the noble Earl allow me to intervene. He is talking about all these costs. One of the things he overlooks—and I do not want to make too much of it—is that it was the present Government who decided to let the pound float—if "float" is the right word in view of the position of the pound to-night. As a consequence of this, anybody who wants to buy to-day is in fact now paying something like 20 to 25 per cent. more as a result of the devaluation following the decision of the Government to float the pound. This has got to be taken into account. This was done neither by our overseas competitors nor by anyone else; it was a decision by the Government to float the pound, and as a consequence we are paying to-day about 24 to 25 shillings—I use the amount we were all used to when we had real currency; when we dealt with shillings and pounds rather than pence—which is approximately 25 per cent. more for every pound's worth we buy as a result of that one decision by the Government.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I do not propose to accept the noble Lord's offer to widen the debate into a form of economic debate. All I am saying is that whatever the floating of the pound may or may not have done, whatever good or bad it may or may not have done, the fact is—and this is not necessarily restricted to the floating of the pound—that costs have gone up, costs of imported materials as well, and these have affected the dairy farmers' costs.
I would make it perfectly plain that the Government fully accept that it is the specialist dairy farmer who has been most hit by the present difficulties. The non-specialist dairy farmer, while he is still faced with similar problems, has nevertheless the advantage of diversification and can at least benefit from the increases in returns which have been evident in some crops. On the other hand, not all forms of farmers produce nothing but milk. As the noble Lord, Lord Hoy, said, many produce some cereals, and where this has happened there is the possibility that the high returns from these enterprises can help to offset the reduced

1031
profits from dairying. This is not the time for me to examine in detail all the changes affecting the dairy industry, or to try to give a full assessment of their effect, because this is precisely what is being done at the moment in the Price Review talks.
There have been some suggestions from some parts—I do not think they were actually made in this form to-day, although two noble Lords were very near to it—that the Government should not simply have speeded up the Review but should have made an immediate increase in the guaranteed price of milk. Two noble Lords said that they hoped that any increase in price would be made retrospective. My right honourable friend considered the proposal that in the Price Review we should have made an immediate increase for milk, but he came to the conclusion that it would be wrong to take this kind of decision before we had studied all the information that will become available during the course of the Review.
I thought that with the noble Lord, Lord Rowallan, not being here, we might not have discussed brucellosis. However, that was too much to hope, because not only the noble Lord, Lord Swaythling, but also my noble friend Lord Burton, and the noble Lord, Lord Rathcreedan, referred to this. I do not accept that there is this terrible lethargy over the brucellosis scheme. We had a debate about it only a short while ago. I would tell noble Lords who are quite rightly interested in what is an important subject to the dairy industry, that by the end of October, 1973, about half of all the herds in Great Britain—83,243 herds—were in official schemes, with 67,211 herds of accredited status. That is not a bad effort. I would also tell noble Lords that it is anticipated that the date when the brucellosis scheme is finally completed will be the date anticipated before the scheme first started. Satisfactory progress is being made in brucellosis eradication. The situation of course has to be re-examined from time to time, and there will be a review of progress in the spring of next year.
My noble friend Lord Monckton of Brenchley said that dairy farmers' incomes have fallen. This may be so in individual cases. He may have been
1032
referring to individual cases over the last few months. Actual sample farm accounts show increases for specialist dairy farms in England and Wales of 26 per cent. in 1970–71, 78 per cent. in 1971–72, and for 1972–73 a further increase similar to that of 1970–71 is expected. In these three good years incomes have risen on average by around 40 per cent. a year. Even with some reduction in 1973–74, there seems likely to be a substantial annual increase on average over the four years to 1973–74. My noble friend Lord Monckton also quoted some very low calf prices which he said he had received. Again it is difficult to rely on individual cases too much. The Ministry of Agriculture prices record prices as still being broadly £35 to £45 per head on average.
I should like to congratulate most warmly my noble friend Lord Stanley of Alderley on his maiden speech. It was an excellent maiden speech, and it showed that he is a person of individualistic approach, and that will always be welcomed. He may have found it an alarming experience. Indeed, I agree with the noble Duke, the Duke of Marlborough, who said. "Who didn't, and who doesn't". He asked a number of questions, all of which were germane. I congratulate my noble friend, and I hope that he will frequently come to your Lordships' House and speak on matters other than agriculture and with the same individualistic approach as he showed to-day.
My noble friend asked me why fencing grants were removed if in fact the Government wished to see the dairy herd increase. Of course life is full of compromises. The grants for lowland fences were ended as part of a package whereby certain items were taken off after the general review of the capital grants scheme. Any Government have to operate within severe restraints, and in order to give emphasis to drainage grants other items had to be removed. Nevertheless, fencing is of particular importance in the hills, and it has been maintained with grant support. However, in the lowlands fencing tends to be done in various parts of the country, and the removal of the grant is unlikely to affect this practice very much.
LORD HOY: My Lords, the noble Earl was boasting a little earlier on, when we were dealing with another subject, about the increase of drainage

1033
grants to the farming community compared with what we had done. He did not give an example of this, but he was talking about something having gone up from 60 to 70 per cent. One thing he did not say when he was making that observation was that this had been done at the expense of fencing grants. I am certain that the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, would have had something to say to him if she had understood that she was getting a little more for this and was going to have her fencing subsidy taken away from her. If the noble Earl is claiming credit for putting this grant up 70 per cent., is he going to tell us by how much he reduced the fencing grant? What did the Ministry say in the process of increasing one and reducing the other?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, when he gets hold of a point the noble Lord, Lord Hoy, sometimes reminds me of a Jack Russell; he argues it backwards and forwards.
LORD HOY: My Lords, this is a new point.
EARI FERRERS: My Lords, I am not going to be drawn on that. The fact is, as the noble Lord knows perfectly well, that sometimes grants go up and sometimes they go down, and I am merely trying to tell my noble friend that the grant had to be removed for lowland fences but was kept for the hill fencing where this was considered to be more essential.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, may I follow up the drainage point, and not from a Jack Russell or Walter Mitty point of view. The Oxford conference on agriculture, to which the Parliamentary Secretary spoke last week, and articles from the N.F.U. and the Farmers' Weekly and Stockbreeder point out the paramount importance of this drainage. In view of the fact that it is now about thirty years since we tackled the drainage problem from the military point of view, in order to produce as much food as possible, is it not about time that a committee investigated the possibility of the maximum amount of help possible being given to draining Britain's land in view of the prospective possibility of 25 million tons more grain going to Russia and China over the years to come? In
1034
view of that, surely this is an exercise worthy of any Government in power.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that that is a very important point. This is one of the reasons why the drainage grant is being kept substantially higher than almost any other grant, because we fully recognise that land that is not drained where it should be drained is well below its potential.
My noble friend Lord Stanley asked why taxation could not be spread over five years. I gather that the question of averaging farm profits for tax purposes has been considered several times in recent years, and the conclusion reached is that quite apart from considerations of tax principles any benefit accruing would not justify the administrative costs and the complexity involved, and that averaging would be likely to create more problems than it would solve.
My noble friend Lord Burton referred to the limitations that he considered might be put upon the Government with regard to an increase in the price of milk in the Price Review negotiations. There has been a good deal of speculation about the Government's freedom to raise the guaranteed price, in view of our Community obligations. My right honourable friend has said a good deal about this subject, and I am afraid that I cannot add to his comments last week which were widely reported in the Press. The issue has to be discussed in Brussels, and at the Annual Review the Government will have established what figure is fair and right, and thereafter it will be for them to ensure that it is achieved.
LORD BURTON: My Lords, may I interrupt before my noble friend leaves that point? I am sure we all hope—I do not suppose he can give us any assurance—that the Government will not be so tight-fisted as the Government mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hoy, which gave away one old penny in real money, as the noble Lord would call it, whereas this Government will be giving away more than one new penny.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I told the noble Lord, Lord Hoy, that I would not be drawn on that subject, and I say to my noble friend Lord Burton behind me that I will not be drawn now because that

1035
would be quite improper. The debate has concentrated attention on the immediate issues. That was quite understandable and almost unavoidable in the circumstances. I do not under-estimate the short-term problems but, on the other hand, farming is a long-term business. It is therefore important to consider the longer term prospects, and there is no doubt in my mind that the efficient dairy farmers in this country have good grounds for confidence. I accept that their present difficulties are acute, and no one seeks to deny that, but I suggest that these should not be allowed to obscure the prospects for dairy farmers in the longer term.
We shall be moving towards the Community's target price which is much higher than our pool price. Our dairy farmers are well placed, in terms both of climate and of efficiency, to meet the conditions of free competition in the enlarged Community. As my right honourable friend the Minister said last week at a meeting of farmers, this must mean a satisfactory level of return for British farmers in the years ahead. With the brighter prospects ahead—and I accept that these are in the longer term—I should hope that dairy farmers would not retrench and would not produce less milk, because the Government remain committed to the objective of expansion. This is in the interests of individual dairy farmers and of the country. My right honourable friend is aware of the difficulties of dairy farmers and expansion may falter this year, but it need not and should not collapse. I believe that those dairy farmers who continue to farm efficiently will see their persistence amply rewarded, and I for one expect expansion to continue over the longer term.
6.53 p.m.
VISCOUNT MONCKTON OF BRENCHLEY: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lords who have taken part in this debate particularly the noble Lord, Lord Stanley of Alderley, whom I congratulate on his maiden speech. I also congratulate him on not being a dairy farmer at the present time. I now know where dairy farmers may go to borrow money in future. I am particularly grateful to the Minister for his kindness and consideration. We are unique in the dairy industry in that our costs are completely uncontrolled but our prices
1036
are controlled, not by the Price Commission but by the Government. We have had this debate to show that the present state of affairs is "up the pole", and if that message has got through I shall be glad. If the Ministry of Agriculture do not know that the price of dairy bull calves has plummeted down, then I almost despair. They must read the farming Press, they must listen to "Farming Today" and they must go to Ashford Market and think. But I do not want to end on a discordant note. We have had this debate at a good moment and I thank all who have taken part. My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

HEATHROW EXERCISE: USE OF ARMED FORCES
6.54 p.m.
LORD WIGG LORD WIGG rose to ask Her Majesty's Government: Whether civilians have been interrogated and vehicles searched by members of the Armed Forces during the recent Heathrow exercise, and, if so, under what authority. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I do not need to elaborate on what happened at Heathrow, for it has received very considerable publicity both at home and overseas. First, I should like to sketch the background against which the Armed Forces of the Crown can be used in aid of the civil authority. The Regulations are now quite clear. At one time they were spread over a number of volumes but, following the work of the Select Committee on the Army Act which laboured for some two years, and of which I had the honour to be a member, an Army Act was produced which met with general approbation and it was eventually adopted by the Conservative Government of the day. One of the things which was asked was that the Manual of Military Law should be re-written so that it could be understood by officers who were called upon to act under the authority of its provisions. That has been done; indeed, more than that has been done.
Part I of the old Manual of Military Law had a considerable amount to say, but the principle now centres upon one sentence. Paragraph 2 in Chapter I of Part I of the Manual of Military Law

1037
lays down the doctrine upon which the Select Committee acted. It states:
"2. A man who joins the Army, whether as an officer or as a soldier, does not cease to be a citizen."
This is based upon a judgment given by Chief Justice Mansfield many years ago. He said:
"It is therefore highly important that the mistake should be corrected which supposes that an Englishman by taking upon him the additional character of a soldier puts off any of the rights or duties of an Englishman."
The Regulations themselves are now contained in Section V of Part II of the Manual of Military Law. The first sentence of paragraph 2 which is apposite is based upon the judgment of Chief Justice Mansfield. The words are not quite the same and I shall read them. The paragraph reads:
"2. The common law, which governs soldiers and other citizens alike, imposes two main obligations in such cases, which are, first, that every citizen is bound to come to the aid of the civil power when the civil power requires his assistance to enforce law and order and, secondly, that to enforce law and order no one is allowed to use more force than is necessary.
"These obligations apply to everyone in every type of disturbance.
"3. When called to the aid of the civil power soldiers in no way differ in the eyes of the law from other citizens, although, by reason of their organisation and equipment, there is always a danger that their employment in aid of the civil power may in itself constitute more force than is necessary.
"The law is clear that a soldier must come to the assistance of the civil authority where it is necessary for him to do so, but not otherwise. No excess of force or display must be used, and a soldier is guilty of an offence if he uses that excess".
The doctrine is quite clear and has come down to us over a period of 300 years. The principles which I have read were accepted by the Select Committee and the Regulations are crystal clear upon the point. Queen's Regulations lay down the method by which the Armed Forces can aid the Civil Power. The channel of communication must be the chief officer of police—in the case of Heathrow, the Commissioner of Police for the City of London or the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis.
Let me say at once that I have every confidence in the integrity, the ability and the efficiency of the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, Sir Robert Mark.
1038
The allegations which have been made in journals published in Britain that there was a kind of plot, a demonstration of the use of force, to intimidate those who are now engaged in strike action is to my mind quite absurd. I do not believe a word of it. The conspiracy would have to be so wide. It would have to involve the Home Secretary, who is a liberal-minded man; it would have to involve the Chief Commissioner of Police; and it would have to involve senior officers in the Army, because Queen's Regulations make it clear that if the aid of the military is sought by a police officer the Ministry of Defence must know all about it. So what happened at Heathrow must have originated from a request by the Commissioner of Police and the Ministry of Defence must have known about it. To that extent I am quite satisfied. But I am not so satisfied about some of the things that happened.
I have been, I suppose naturally—(though perhaps it is not so natural), because of my service in the ranks of the Regular Army, my interest in the Army and the fact that I was associated with my noble friend Lord Shinwell in the War Office and the Ministry of Defence—the recipient of a number of communications which perhaps other Members of your Lordships' House did not see. So I was on this occasion, as I have been in the past, and I looked to see what happened.
I have here a copy of the Evening Standard for the night of January 7, and in it there is a photograph of a soldier with an automatic weapon stopping a young woman in a car. I have here the original of that photograph. Of course, it may have been "blown up"; it may not be true. But the caption to the picture is:
"Gun-carrying soldier stops and questions a woman driver at Heathrow today".
If that picture does not depict accurately what happened, then I believe it was the duty of the Home Secretary, or of some member of the Government, to contradict it. That is not all. Inside the paper there is a picture of three soldiers, armed with automatic weapons, in a position, one may say, of alert. I remind your Lordships that the Manual of Military Law makes it quite clear that there must not be a display of force and that there must not be an excessive use of force.

1039
To my mind, to stop a lady in a car in that way contravenes that Regulation.
But there is further evidence, my Lords. The Daily Telegraph is, I am sure, accepted by the majority, at least, of noble Lords on the other side of the House, although some of us on this side of the House may not accept its authority with the same alacrity. It reminds me, if I may say so, of the old Morning Post in the extreme views it expresses, although I must say that it is not written with the same style as the old Morning Post, which was always a delight to read although its views were, on the whole, almost as much nonsense as the views of this paper. What does the Daily Telegraph say? It says:
"An Army machinegunner, lying concealed in a position on the western side, was asked what would happen if cars did not stop at the control point he was overlooking. The soldier, a veteran of Northern Ireland, replied grimly, 'They'd stop'".
The inference from that is quite clear: if they did not stop he would open fire.
Let me say at once that it may well be that, as they stand, the Regulations are out of date. Certainly when we examined the Army Act some 20 years ago over a period of two years (again we worked during the Recesses) we found that a number of provisions of the old Army Act, which stemmed from the Articles of War, needed to be looked at again. They were looked at again, and they were brought up to date. It may well be that the Regulations as they now stand do not take into account the possibility of criminally minded men using bazookas. If the available powers are not sufficient, it is not good enough for the Army to take the law into its own hands. The job of the Government is to recognise that fact and to come to Parliament and ask for additional powers. This, I should have thought, was very important at a time when the Government, so we are told, are contemplating an Election on the issue of the rule of law. If the provisions of Parliament are not satisfactory, if they do not meet the challenge of the times, then the job of the Government as the executive power is to come to Parliament and renew those provisions.
Of course, the damage that was done at Heathrow goes beyond our shores. Again I rely on the somewhat doubtful
1040
authority of the Daily Telegraph. Mr. William Buckley was writing in the Daily Telegraph on January 11—a few days ago. The Daily Telegraph thought it sufficiently important to publish Mr. Buckley's photograph and to print his words in black type. He was forecasting a military coup in Great Britain! Just as I think that the statements made by Mr. Gollan at the Communist Congress at the weekend, that this was part of action by the Government to intimidate the strikers, were nonsense, I equally think that Mr. Buckley is talking the most arrant nonsense. Yet it is perfectly cleat on all the evidence that the doctrine upon which the Armed Forces can be used in support of the Civil Power requires that throughout the operation the police shall remain in charge, in complete control, and that the magistrate, the civil authorities, shall up to a point be the judges and must accept responsibility—responsibility which of course they share with the senior Army officers—about the use of force and the display of force. It means that right the way through the doctrine the Civil Authority Act is paramount. It is upon this that our liberties depend.
May I here interpose this thought? If ever it appears that a trade union is acting in a way which is an infringement of the law, the letters to The Times From Law Lords or ex-Law Lords, from Lord Shawcross or somebody else, simply storm in. But on this subject, when on the clearest possible evidence this matter has been allowed to get out of hand, there is not a word, not a note. I am quite sure that if the positions had been reversed Lord Shawcross would have been here: but not to-day. There have been no letters to The Times—not a single word. Again I repeat: so far as I am concerned, I do not believe in the plot theory. What I do believe is that after the event, if not before it, the Government behaved with that incompetence which one now comes to regard as being normal part of their behaviour. That is normal. The Home Office have no control. They would have been informed.
In this particular case, it happens that as the Commissioner of Police is involved the Home Secretary has some direct responsibility. But the situation having arisen, I believe that the Commissioner, in the exercise of his authority—and I again pay tribute to him—asked for help, help came and then, as a public relations

1041
exercise, it got completely out of hand and no effort was made to check it. This is damaging. It is damaging to the reputation of this country; it exacerbates feelings at a time when the reverse needs to happen; and it creates alarmist reports abroad. I do not know what Mr. Buckley's authority is in the United States, but it may even encourage some of the Gnomes of Zurich or the tycoons in New York to sell sterling short, on the grounds that before very long there is going to be a military coup. But this is not all. I have had two communications in which I am assured that this was not planned in Britain at all; that this stems from the Common Market; that there is power, under the Common Market Regulations, without Parliament being consulted, for some regulations to be made in Brussels. Where does it end?
I have every confidence in the Army. I have every confidence in the common sense of officers and other ranks alike. But is there really a serious threat? Is it possible that before we know where we are some regulations would be made and we would have the Guardia Civile coming in? This is where rumour can go unless it is checked. I do not believe a single word of it. I put down this Unstarred Question and used the procedures of your Lordships' House because there ought to be a categorical answer from the Government. If, in actual fact, it really did get out of hand; if instead of the civil authorities asking the Army for help it eventually turned out that the Army had taken control over and beyond the police—if that happened, let us have an admission. Let us have an assurance that it will never happen again. On the other hand, if the situation did arise so that the steps that were taken were necessary; that the Army and the police authority found it necessary to act in the way they did, including people armed with automatic weapons stopping young women driving cars; if it were necessary and the law is not sufficiently strong, do not let us do it this way. Let us come to the Houses of Parliament, the Commons and the Lords, and seek additional powers. I await with considerable interest the Answer of the Government.
7.12 p.m.
LORD HALE: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, has presented his case (I hope he will not mind my saying so)
1042
with his usual clarity and with enormous and unaccustomed moderation. I do not know that at this hour I have very much to add to what he has said. He and I were together in another place for a long time, and among his many avocations the noble Lord was always the spokesman for the private soldier, or for the whole of the Army. But I think that he had a very justifiable preference for those who had less chance to speak for themselves. As one who was a private soldier in the Army long after he was, I share that view. I do not think, in theory, that the Army should ever have been sent to Northern Ireland. In legal terminology the only justification, perhaps the only possible justification, was that in the circumstances there was no alternative.
I could wish sometimes that those of us who know pacifism could recruit a pacifist constructive force of people prepared to risk their lives, and give their lives without compensation, and to take part in reconstruction. It may be, looking back, that that was one of the situations in which, with no solution, such a thing might have happened. For myself, I always took the defence of the village "Bobby", particularly the policeman on the beat; the man against whom there was always a slightly historic antipathy on the part of the Labour Party on the simple and absolutely certain proposition that wherever there was a conflict between Fascists and Socialists it was the Socialist heads that were broken and not the Fascist heads. The same thing happened, unfortunately, between the Fascists and the Jews. It was the Jews who were attacked and beaten up. That was because the Police Force is necessarily in the service of the Establishment, and, the Establishment at the time was a very Right Wing one.
My Lords, I do not think that there has ever been an occasion when we owed more thanks to the Army than for the way they have conducted themselves in Northern Ireland; with lads of 18 and 19 years of age facing an ordeal which I should have thought would after some time have broken down the morale of the sturdiest and of the strongest. To-day the police are facing a situation almost unprecedented in peace time, and they have shown a skill, an assiduity, a courage and speed of organisation for which all of us owe them a very real

1043
debt of thanks. The noble Lord will know that there always has been a deep-rooted antipathy to the conjunction of the military force and the protective force at the same time for the same object. It is a sort of operation which can be justified only in times of exceptional emergency. I agree, and perhaps I would put it more strongly even than did the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, that there should at once have been a report on this matter to Parliament.
Let us assume, ex-hypothesi (I do not ask the noble Viscount to confirm or deny it), the particular fact or theory that settled down after a time: that this operation was arranged partly because the defences of London Airport have quite clearly been exposed as inadequate; partly because, despite the metal tests and various specialist devices, arms were getting through; and partly also because there were doubts about the efficiency of London Airport's own police, and its own secrecy. There was also the suggestion that there was a Sam 7 wandering around Europe, which had passed through the airport at Brussels and which might have passed through the airport at Rome, which would not have got into the luggage box at the Swiss station referred to as a deposit of arms. Another possible reason for the operation was that we were told these things were taking place all over Europe, and, quite possibly, the immediate necessity of taking protective measures against the possible use of such a weapon, even of a single weapon, against aircraft flying away from London Airport. That has been said so often that to repeat it certainly can do no harm; and I shall well understand if the noble Viscount who is to reply does not feel it appropriate to give us today the military and secret details about the operation.
If the situation was as I have suggested, the operation is understandable. One cannot tell—we are not in a position to know—how far it was necessary to use the military; how far it was wise; how far it could have been an experiment in the face of a possible future emergency. Certainly the alarm and dismay to the public must have been very considerable. The dislocation must have been considerable. It is of course the fact that news
1044
about the operation was being broadcast into every house in the country shortly after it commenced; and if the object really was to place a single bazooka in the back of a car one would have thought that the second day's operation was a somewhat unnecessary procedure.
But, my Lords, let us confess that the situation is serious. It is serious if we are told that one of the richest nations in the East is helping to finance terrorist activities all over Europe and in particular, directly or indirectly, the Irish Republican Army. One of the reasons, perhaps one of the results, is that there has been too much idle speculation; too many rumours which the Press has a tendency to exaggerate. I did not quite catch a single word that the noble Viscount uttered—I think he intended it to be heard—when my noble friend produced his photograph. I think he said, "Forged". He made a comment which I thought suggested—
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, what I said under my breath was "Order!", because I did not think one was allowed to produce photographs in the House. Of course, it is not a very serious point.
LORD HALE: My Lords, that is quite clearly what I took it to be. We all know what happens: an enterprising Press photographer wants to produce a dramatic photograph and he persuades the soldiers to stand outside a car and the occupants co-operate—something like that.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: No, my Lords, is was nothing to do with the photograph as such. I was saying that I thought there was a rule that photographs could not be produced in the House.
LORD HALE: I am sorry, my Lords; but I have seen the photograph and it is alarming. It might well be the only explanation, and the noble Lord may well have been justified in producing a photograph. If this was the sort of thing seen in London early in the morning by people travelling around London Airport, then it becomes a very serious matter. What I really wanted to say was this. The police at the moment are gravely overstretched and gravely under strength. They are suffering wastage, as they always have

1045
done. I was a member of the Royal Commission on the Police for four years and I remember we had the same problem at that time. I do not know how far the Home Office is directly responsible for the Metropolitan Police and not for the provincial police, as the position was then. We made recommendations and most of them were adopted. I do not recall the details of the various recommendations that we put forward.
There was never a time when the fullest co-operation and confidence between the public and the police was more necessary than it is now. The noble Lord knows perfectly well that it is not so long that when there was a motor accident the witnesses disappeared the moment the police arrived. They did not want to be involved. I remember one of the daftest things the Liberal Party ever did: they tried, through legislation, to get the use of identity cards abolished. This was hailed as a great triumph. I am told that a liberal lady in California is now fighting for the freedom not to give her fingerprints. Members of the public are willing to co-operate now. Noble Liberal Lords hand in their identity cards without the slightest protest and yet we leave the police in the situation in which they have to take 90,000 fingerprints in a single town in order to trace the person who committed one of the gravest of crimes. A little more co-operation, understanding and praise is a very necessary thing.
The noble Lord, Lord Wigg, gave the Government a cleaner bill than I would, because there is a possibility of confrontation. People are concerned about this growing possibility—I hope to God it will never happen! There is a growing concern about what forces may be used in the case of civil unrest and strife. That is why perhaps some papers have been publishing articles of a very alarmist nature. The noble Lord referred to the Daily Telegraph; and even the Guardian—which nobody could accuse of being very excitable—was talking about the rapid development of the Home Defence and Assistance Corps in London as if it were something sinister. The Times comes out on the front page to-day with the simple statement that the Germans had armaments depots in Westmorland of all places—whatever for I
1046
do not know, because one would have thought that a retreating German Army could not have set foot in Westmorland without some considerable difficulty. There are these rumours. The noble Lord says he does not believe them, and I agree to a certain extent, apart from the possibility of civil confrontation. But I would ask your Lordships to remember that a Statement should have been made in this House, and it ought to have been made already. It should, at least, be made quite clear that the Government feel that the co-operation of military, para-military and police forces is to be resorted to only in a very special emergency—and such an emergency I do not think has occurred in this country in peace time for a very long time indeed.
7.26 p.m.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Wigg was justified in placing on the Order Paper his Unstarred Question if only because, so far as I am aware, no explanation has been offered by any Department of the Government (I presume this is something which primarily concerns the Home Office) for the fact that the Army has been taking part in the exercise at Heathrow. I have always been under the impression that before the Army can come to the aid of the police there must be something in the nature of a Proclamation. I recall that before the First World War, when there was some trouble arising from an industrial dispute in South Wales, the then Prime Minister, (Mr. Asquith), ordered the troops to South Wales to deal with the situation. My impression at that time was that there had to be some Statement made by the Government in this connection—perhaps a Proclamation of some kind. No doubt the noble Viscount will be able to correct me if I am wrong.
I am reminded of another occasion in 1919 when the rather speedy demobilisation of Servicemen led to excessive unemployment in the West of Scotland and other industrial centres. The notion was conceived by some of my colleagues and myself that we might assist in absorbing many of the unemployed by reducing the hours of labour. It was known as "the 40 hours strike"—of course it was not a strike but a demonstration. I can recall an occasion when the Riot Act was read in Glasgow, in George Square, when the

1047
Sheriff, various magistrates and others associated with the event were engaged in the operation. Then the military entered the fray. Tanks appeared on the street and soldiers were placed on the roofs of buildings for some reason which was unaccountable to us at the time. But the Riot Act was read, and I can understand it.
In this particular instance, so far as I know, there was no Proclamation and no explanation has been given by the Government. I can understand that if, because of their shortage of manpower, the Police need help in dealing with security matters, it is for the Government to decide to what extent help may be given by the Forces. But I should like to make it quite clear that while we expect the Government to provide what measure of security resides in our Forces other than the police or the military—I make no complaint; it is understandable—some explanation should have been offered by the Government. So far as I know, none has been offered. There have been references in the Press to this matter, and I think the Government might have offered some explanation without my noble friend having raised the issue. It is possible that there is a notion in the minds of some people that the military is required to be used against the civil population in the event of an industrial strike, or something of that sort. I do not believe there is any conspiracy of that kind, but one never can tell. It would, however, allay anything in the nature of suspicion, disquiet or misunderstanding if we had an explanation from the noble Viscount. That is the purpose behind this short debate.
7.30 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I am very glad to respond to what the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, has said and offer what I hope will be an explanation. I am glad, too, that the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, has given us an opportunity of doing this. May I just say to the noble Lord, Lord Hale, that although some of his remarks may—if I could respectfully put it like this—go a little wide of the subject matter of this Question, perhaps I may be forgiven for not answering all of them. He was very perspicacious and wise in putting this matter into a setting, a perspective, and I
1048
should just like to fill out some of the background that he touched upon. I believe that it is necessary to do so in order properly to understand what has happened on this particular occasion.
I do not think that your Lordships needed to be reminded that in recent times there has been a considerable increase in terrorist activities in Europe, and indeed elsewhere too. On December 17, Arab terrorists attacked and partially destroyed a Pan Am Boeing 707 at Rome airport, killing 30 people and wounding many more. They then seized a number of hostages and a Lufthansa Boeing 727 and flew to Athens, where they negotiated without success for the release of two Arabs arrested in Athens following an earlier attack there on August 5, 1973. Subsequently they flew to Kuwait, where the hostages were released. In France, two Palestinians connected with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (the P.F.L.P.), together with 10 Turks and an Algerian, were arrested on December 20 for being in possession of arms and explosives. Then there have been persistent reports, and this has been mentioned already, of SA-7 surface to air missiles being in the hands of terrorists at large in Europe. In September, five Arabs were arrested in Rome for being in possession of two of these missiles.
Over the Christmas period there were positive indications that terrorists were turning their attention to this country. The shocking attempt on the life of Mr. Sieff—which we are all thankful was unsuccessful—was made on December 30. The P.F.L.P. has claimed responsibility for this attack, although the police have not yet identified the man responsible. Between Christmas Day and December 29, four Arabs were detained at Heathrow. It appeared that the men had links with terrorist organisations, and they were sent back to the Middle East. Then there was a series of events which began on December 29 with the arrival of an American girl at London Airport and which led to the girl and two men being charged with conspiracy in relation to the possession of firearms. Finally in this chapter, the Government obtained some general information which, taken with the information that I have mentioned, indicated an increased threat to Heathrow which could not be ignored. The information was built

1049
up from a number of sources and assessments which I am afraid I cannot publicly reveal, but it was plain that against the background which I have just described, that information had to be taken seriously.
Now we have had the operation about which this Question has been asked and I am glad to provide for the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, the reason for it. With this background in mind the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis—and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, for his tribute to Sir Robert—sought the Government's authority to put into operation the contingency plan for the use of police and troops to defend Heathrow against terrorist attack. This plan, which is one of a number of contingency plans against terrorism and which was drawn up by the police and the military with the Government's approval, has been in existence for some time.
The plan is aimed at prevention and deterrence, and that would support the claim of everybody. It is clearly desirable as a general principle that plans of this kind should be exercised; but equally, a decision to mount an exercise on this scale cannot be taken lightly. In the light of the threat which I have described it was right that the plan should be put into operation, not only for the sake of the exercise itself but also as a preventive and deterrent measure. We think that it would have been wrong not to exercise the plan when the Government believed that there might be a need for it. I believe that most people are glad that the Government acted as they did; and I believe that the public has generally welcomed this example of the Government's determination to take all the steps we can to prevent and deter terrorist acts.
May I just say that I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, for dispelling from his mind—and I hope from everybody else's mind—any suggestion that there was here a conspiracy; that the "gnomes of Zurich" were involved; that the operation had something to do with the E.E.C. Regulations; or anything else of that nature. It is, of course, nothing of the kind. I am trying to set the background and to put it rather more realistically and factually than any of those rather more far-fetched matters. The fact that this operation—so alien to our tradition in this country—was necessary at all is
1050
one that every noble Lord will regret. I read in the Guardian what the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, was forecast as being about to say, and I must emphasise that it was not an exercise that was put on solely—in the words ascribed to the noble Lord—"to see how it would go". There was a real need to carry out this plan.
Your Lordships will have noted that the threat against which the exercise is directed came from outside this country. There is no ground whatsoever for any sort of apprehension that this is the thin end of the wedge and that the Army is encroaching upon the field of police duty. I do not know what Mr. Buckley is on about in the quotations that were given from him. Where the Army is called upon to aid the civil power on this scale, it is perfectly plain—and I think the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, and others said this—that the request in the first instance comes from the police. It is for the Government to decide whether to accede to such a request, and in this case the Government decided, for the reasons that I have given, that it would be right to do so.
I should say in passing to the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, who was talking about proclamations and riots, the Riot Act—which I believe has been repealed—and other matters of that sort which are involved, that if he cares to study Section 5 of the Manual of Military Law to which the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, has referred, he will see the position very clearly set out. In fact, those particular matters and the circumstances which the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, had in mind, are rather different from the ones that we are dealing with here. But the position is just as clearly described in the rules laid down in the Manual as it is for the present circumstances. I would refer him to the rules; he might be quite interested to see what they are.
It is right that we should take stock and consider carefully what lessons are to be learned from the operation that we have undertaken. After all, the essence of contingency plans of this kind is that they should be capable of being put into effect at short notice. Once the decision had been taken—and in this case, one had to be taken—the troops and the police were in position within a matter of hours and I think we shall all agree that they are to be congratulated upon

1051
the speed and efficiency with which they acted.
Why were troops used? I think this is part of the underlying worry that is in the minds of noble Lords. The police in this country are neither equipped nor trained to deal with terrorists armed with sophisticated weapons. As is known, the terrorists who have recently been operating in Europe have been equipped with such weapons and there was a possibility that such weapons might have been encountered in the operation at Heathrow. It was therefore thought necessary to have troops in support of the police. In addition, one of the objects of the operation was to carry out extensive preventive patrolling. The military are experts in this field, and their contribution in manpower available at short notice was of great value to the police who are, of course, heavily committed by their other duties and their other responsibilities, as the noble Lord, Lord Hale, has mentioned.
These factors—that troops might be needed to counter a threat of sophisticated weapons and to provide additional manpower—were fully recognised in the contingency plan and were indeed the basis of that plan. Both infantry and armoured reconnaissance units took part in the operation. The reconnaissance unit which was allocated to the task was equipped with Scorpions, which are tracked light reconnaissance vehicles, and with Saracens, which are armoured troop carriers. The unit's communications were in these vehicles, and for obvious reasons the unit did not delay in order to change vehicles. This change was made later when the opportunity occurred, and the troops then operated in Land-rovers and the like. They had the heavier vehicles with their radios in them.
Now I think I should come to the powers and the legal situation which concerned, and rightly concerned, the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, and indeed the specific Question which he has asked. My Lords, I hope that the House will conclude at the end of my speech on this matter that this matter did not get out of hand, as the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, suggested; and I will try and deal with that point. Of course it is right that reassurance should be sought. There is, and there was, no question of the mili-
1052
tary having replaced the civil power. In operations of this sort, as the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, has said, the police are in overall control; and they were on this occasion. They specify the task which they wish the military to perform and the military commander then directs his troops to carry it out. In this case the military assisted the police at road blocks and check points and by undertaking general patrols. Their presence at the road blocks and check points was essentially a back-up to the police in the event of trouble, but some of the troops engaged in the operation did question drivers and search vehicles. When they did so they were, as I say, acting in support of the police, and there would generally have been a police officer on the scene.
The troops—and this again has been made perfectly clear by the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, in his quotations from the Manual, have no special powers beyond those belonging to the ordinary citizen. The good sense and co-operation of members of the public may generally be relied upon, I am glad to say, in operations of this kind. Co-operation was in fact forthcoming in the operation at Heathrow, and I know of no case in which a member of the public refused to have his or her car searched by the military or the police, or to answer questions. Had anyone done so, the soldier would have referred the matter to the police. There is thus no question of the troops having acted illegally. The use of force—and I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wigg: it is a very old concept of common law—must be confined to what is reasonable and necessary; but in fact it was not necessary to use any force on this occasion. In case that bit of paragraph 3 of Section 5 of the Military Manual may enter some people's heads (and I find nothing wrong with this statement in the Manual) and it is suggested that the mere presence of armed troops constitutes a use of force, then I would say that this armed presence was eminently reasonable and justified by the nature of the threat to which I referred at the beginning of my speech. That is the way I put that.
After all, I do not have to go over I again the incidents at Rome and the

1053
arrest of terrorists, and all the other things which were involved in the background of this whole operation. My Lords, that, I hope, deals adequately with the background, with the operation itself and with the vitally important question of the legality and the method by which the troops were brought in and the way in which their powers were used. I would say, in conclusion, that the scale of the military presence at Heathrow will of course be reduced or increased in future, as may be necessary in the light of our continuing assessment of the risks. But let it be quite clear that the Government will not hesitate to take whatever steps they consider necessary to protect the lives of innocent people in this sort of way or any other.
LORD WIGG: My Lords, I have no right of reply, but perhaps the House will permit me to say that I find the noble Viscount's reply entirely satisfactory. I would back up any efforts which the Government may make to inquire into the lessons that need to be learned and, if necessary, to strengthen the law. I would say only one thing: I wish what he has said tonight had been said several days ago.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, since the noble Lord, in order to keep within the Rules of Order, will have made that remark before I sat down, may I just say I am very grateful to him indeed.
House adjourned at twelve minutes before eight o'clock.