Orders of the Day — Agriculture
Mr John Farr (Harborough)
I hope that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Winterbottom) will forgive me if I do not follow him to closely into the intricacies of the meat trade apart from saying that he made a very energetic and interesting speech. I wish to refer to two outstanding speeches which might be regarded as the first and the last, namely; the maiden speech of the hon. Member for Faversham (Mr. Boston), with which he began his Parliamentary life, and the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for South Angus (Sir J. Duncan), which will probably be his last Parliamentary speech. I reiterate what has been said by other hon. Members, that we hope to hear the hon. Member for Faversham on many future occasions.
To be perhaps more controversial, I wish to record my regret that the hon. Lady the Member for Carmarthen (Lady Megan Lloyd George) should have referred to the ex-president of the National Farmers' Union in the way in which she did. I knew Mr. Turner, as he was then, extremely well, and in common with many other people who met him when he was president I have the utmost confidence in him.
This has been a varied and an interesting debate. The hon. Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies) took us through the "paddy fields" of Wales and the hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) went into great detail about an egg-processing plant in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Knowing my hon. Friend, we may be sure that this matter can be safely left in his hands to be dealt with impartially and fairly without the hon. Member for Devon, North sticking a long and inquiring nose into it. I should have thought that there were quite a number of matters in North Devon, some of which have made headlines in the national Press, to which the hon. Member could well turn with more satisfaction to his constituents and possibly to Members of Parliament who are responsible for adjoining areas.