Agriculture and Transport (Scotland)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 6 June 1946.

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Photo of Mr William Snadden Mr William Snadden , Kinross and Western 12:00, 6 June 1946

I saw the Joint Under-Secretary on the other side a minute ago, and then he disappeared. I thought he had gone out of the Chamber. I quite realise that this question of the lime application to our land is of the very greatest importance. We have a pool for lime requirements for housing purposes. I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman or the hon. Gentleman, who will wind up for the Government, to elaborate a little bit on what the Secretary of State said in this connection. We want to know if supplies are to be adequate in order to step up the application both of lime and of phosphates to our land. We want to know if these manures are to be made available in the proper quantities to meet the present extreme circumstances. We also want to know whether any steps are being taken to give publicity to this important matter throughout the country. It is obvious that we cannot continue on full production much longer without doing harm, and, in view of the urgency to produce everything we can. the maintenance of soil fertility has become priority No. I. I hope myself that this will not be lost sight of by the. Scottish Department.

I see our tillage acreage has gone up from 1,480,000 acres in 1939 to 2,011,000 acres in 1945, but, according to what the right hon. Gentleman said there has been a fall during 1946. We expected that because of the normal transition from war to peace. Owing to the food crisis, of which we are all aware, it would seem to me to be inevitable that we shall have to step up our production in 1947 to at least the 1945 level, causing a very heavy drain upon our fertility resources. If we are to step up our wheat production, which would seem essential in view of the world shortage of bread, it would seem to me that the Government must take immediate steps about encouraging the people in Scotland to grow wheat. There is room for a vast expansion of wheat production in our country. I understand our wheat acreage has fallen by over 80,000 acres; I think the figure is 87,000 acres since 1943. That is equal to a production of about 75 tons of wheat.

If we are to get increased production of wheat in Scotland it is necessary to go back, I think, to the previous acreage payment of £4 per acre instead of the present payment of £2 per acre. I am told that is. 9d. per cwt. has been added to the price, but I do not think that will meet the case because our yield per acre is less than it is in this part of the country, and is. 9d. will not bring in wheat in sufficient quantities.

I am also concerned about potatoes. Our potato acreage will, no doubt, have to be stepped up beyond the 1945 figure. I understand that there will be a total acreage of 225,000. The Secretary of State said that success will, in the main, depend upon the available labour supply. He talked about policy for 1946. I am interested, not only in 1946, but, much more, in 1947. I want to know what the policy for that year will be in this respect. After all, executive agricultural committees cannot be expected to serve directions unless an adequate labour supply is guaranteed. Will the Government guarantee that supply of labour? The hon. Member for the Scottish Universities said in London, I think last week, that 1947 should see the greatest harvest in the history of the world. I think it is vital that we should concentrate on our labour supply during that year. We now have German prisoners of war and Polish troops working on the land, but everyone realises that we cannot hold these German prisoners for ever. We cannot tell when they will go, but when they do go, where will the labour come from to gather the enormous potato crop of approximately a quarter of a million acres? My hon. Friend below the Gangway mentioned school children. Personally, I would rather that school children were not required for this kind of work, but the alternative is that we shall starve in 1947 if we do not produce the labour to lift this enormous potato crop. My own county of Perth is now the largest potato growing county in Scotland. It has ousted the county of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Forfar (Major Ramsay) from first place, and we are proud of that. This is an important question, and we want to know what the Government intend doing about it in 1947. It is only fair that our farmers should be told, because the expense of this crop is very great and the risks they run are almost unlimited.

I would like to refer to long-term labour policy. Do the Government in that policy․to which the Secretary of State referred today in words most of which we heard last time․intend to assume continuing responsibility for the future supply of labour? In my experience, mechanisation has produced a rather curious change in the style of working an ordinary agricultural holding.

In the old days, a farmer was able to work on his farm with little outside help. But the balance has changed. Things have speeded up; tillage has vastly increased; one operation tumbles on top of another, and few farmers are now able to get on with their work without considerable help from outside. Is this problem of the continuing responsibility of the Government in regard to the pool of labour to be left to solve itself, or has the Minister a long-term plan, more detailed than what he gave us today, to meet the case? If he has a plan we should like very much to be told about it.

Before I leave the question of cultivation, I would like to say a word or two about another matter which is of vital importance to the maintenance of a high tillage acreage. I refer to the general condition of agricultural machinery, which is essential if we are to grow the crops we must try to grow in 1947 Just as the land has been overworked in our war effort, so also have our tractors and machines. Today, we need more tractors, we need replacements for those which we have worn out, and we need more spare parts to keep in running order the machines we have working at present. I was a little taken aback when I heard the Secretary of State tell us of his difficulties, in this matter This is important, because you cannot produce food without this machinery, and I ask the right hon. Gentleman to do his utmost to see that adequate machinery and spare parts become available because of the intense efforts made by our machinery during the war. With regard to the livestock position, owing to the tragic cut in our rations through the raising of the extraction rate of wheat to 90 per cent., and other causes which I will not go into at the moment, the situation will be felt very severely in Scotland. It will be felt most severely, in my opinion, by the small producer-retailer of milk, because he has not a big arable area on which he can keep his cows going. He cannot grow sufficient fodder without getting rations from outside. The cut will hit him, and it will hit our country very hard, because we are a livestock country.

Although we are livestock country, and although all we could do during the war was to maintain our livestock population, it is rather interesting to look at the effect of the cuts in imported foodstuffs which we have had to suffer during the war. We could not expect anything other than a fall in the numbers of sheep, pigs, and poultry. My fear always was that a devastating fall would also take place in other spheres of livestock, but we can congratulate ourselves that our cattle, both dairy and beef, have stood up to it very well. Scotland, in addition to contributing to the nation's food supply, is, after all, the great reservoir from which other countries replenish their supplies. Our reputation today is enormously high, and we should leave nothing undone to strive after even greater efficiency, and even higher quality. My hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) represents an area which has built up a reputation on the supreme quality of its cattle. We have for long, in Scotland, produced the world's best beef. Now, we lead Great Britain in respect of milk from tuberculin tested cattle. Thanks to the great work of Ayrshire breeders, South-West Scotland is ahead of any other area in Great Britain in the cleaning up of herds. In the main Scottish Milk Marketing Board area, more than half of our milk is tuberculin tested, and of our dairy cattle 22.3 per cent. have actually been attested. The time is obviously ripe for a final assault on bovine tuberculosis in Scotland. Our objective should be a tuberculin tested country, with milk and beef alike free from tubercle. We should have a national plan, and, since Scotland is already leading the attack, let us have, at all costs, an all-Scottish plan. The prize would be of enormous value to us, but up to date there is no clear indication of Government policy in this respect.

A progressive policy, proceeding area by area, in Scotland․and we are all ready to adopt it․should be announced as soon as possible. When circumstances permit․if it cannot be done at once, perhaps it could be two or three years hence ․the reactors from those areas should be wiped out and adequate compensation paid. Farmers other than dairy farmers should be allowed to come into these attested schemes. Before the war, the Government made a payment per head for all the attested animals; I think it was £1, but I have not been able to check that figure. Now, no payment is made in respect of those cattle. There is no inducement to the beef producer to free his cattle from infection, and become an attested producer, and there is therefore hardship on the dairy farmer, who, in order to protect his licence, must double fence his farm, look after his water supply, and in a number of ways protect himself and his licence against his non-attested neighbour. So I urge the right hon. Gentleman to bring all cattle into the attested scheme. On this very important point farmers want to know what policy is to be pursued. They are ready to cooperate, but the expense of double fencing and so on is great, and they cannot be expected to go ahead unless it is made worth their while to do so. Now is the time for an all-out drive against bovine tuberculosis in Scotland, so that the whole country may give a lead in becoming clean and free.

The right hon. Gentleman may say that the Department of Agriculture is not responsible for animal health and the running of the attested herds. That is true, but the answer is that it is a state of affairs which should be ended at once. In my view a change in this direction is long overdue. Scotland should control its own animal health. I am a " home ruler "In this matter. The present position does not make sense. The Department of Agriculture in Scotland, the one Department which should be responsible and which is qualified to do the job, has nothing whatever to do with it. Whitehall is responsible for animal health; the Department of Health looks after milk grading and the approval of dairy premises, then the various local authorities have different methods of carrying out the regulations, and they in turn send out armies of sanitary inspectors to urge on and ginger up the dairy farmers. The Department of Health for Scotland is the one Department really qualified to look after this business. The miserable dairy farmers pay so many pipers, and hear so many tunes, that they do not know which to dance to. It is a silly, untidy, unsatisfactory position, and the right hon. Gentleman should get down to it and clear it up.

I would like to say a word on the committees to which the Secretary of State has made reference. I see that in the Estimates a large sum is required to finance the work of the agricultural committees. By and large, I believe that during the war these committees have performed a very valuable service to the community. Their activities in the exercise of their powers have, in my experience, varied somewhat from district to district. To the progressive farmers they have sometimes been rather a nuisance; to the middle farmers they have on the whole been very helpful, and to the bad farmers they have been a perfect horror. On the whole, they have done a good job of work, and in the interests of the industry and of the country it is right that they should continue. The Secretary of State told us something about his plans for the future, and I know that another opportunity will arise when we shall be able to debate in detail what powers he should exercise, but I should like to ask him to consider very carefully, in the preparation of his plan, the vital question of the right of appeal on dispossession.

Because these committees were composed․quite rightly․of first rate farmers and expert officials, I have always felt that there was danger of creating a false standard of efficiency. Perhaps false is not the proper word; I mean an unduly high standard. One is always inclined to say, "If I can do the job, so can all the others."It does not work out that way, because we do not all possess the same degree of skill, the same amount of capital, nor do we possess the same quality of land. During the war farmers accepted the rigid discipline imposed by the war, but, if I know them, they will not tolerate it in the peace. Hence it is imperative that, where a case of dispossession arises, there should be a. right of appeal to an impartial tribunal such as the Scottish Land Court. It may be that that particular body would have to be strengthened in some way, I do not know but considering that only some 80 farmers were dispossessed in Scotland throughout the whole war, I should not imagine that this work would be too onerous for them in peacetime. I hope the Minister will bear this important point in mind when he is framing the necessary legislation.

My last point is this. Everybody knows that the greatest problem with which we are faced in the countryside is housing, as the Secretary of State has said. I know I must not talk about housing in this Debate, but there is one aspect of it which has a bearing upon cultivation to which I would like to draw the Government's attention. I refer to the procedure followed in regard to the allocation of agricultural land for housing purposes. I can see my hon. Friend looking at me with great interest, because I know that he is vitally concerned in this business. My experience up to date is that the development of the services for housing schemes constitutes a very heavy drain on agricultural land in Scotland. The agriculturist is as keen as anybody on housing, but development today is causing anxiety in the countryside. In my view it is going far beyond the erection of houses on prepared sites, and the result is that we are losing quite a lot of valuable agricultural land which we can ill spare, and which could have been used for this year's crop.