Orders of the Day — Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill.

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 9 October 1941.

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Photo of Mr Robert Hudson Mr Robert Hudson , Southport

I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

This Bill to which I am asking the House to give a Second Reading to-day is a successor to the two miscellaneous agricultural Bills which were introduced and passed in 1940. I cannot claim that it enshrines any great new principle, because we are pushing on under our existing powers to the utmost of our capacity with food production, and we have increased very considerably the amount of food grown this year, not only for human consumption but also for our livestock. For instance, I anticipate that our output of cereals and straw this year will be at least half as much again as it was in 1939. In addition there has been a very considerable expansion of the production of potatoes and vegetables for human consumption and of fodder crops. We intend to go on increasing to the utmost of our ability the expansion of food production.

But we have found from our experience of the last 12 months that' there is a certain number of things that require legislation, and they form the subject of this Bill. The Bill deals mainly with three things. First, it provides the necessary legislative sanction for the continuance of the lime subsidy and grants for drainage, which were originally introduced in the Agriculture Act, 1937. Secondly, arising out of our experience of the last 12 months, it expands somewhat our powers for drainage and for providing increased facilities for upland and fenland farms. Thirdly, it confers certain powers on the Government to acquire land already requisitioned for agricultural reasons so as to ensure that the expenditure of public money on the improvement of that land shall be recovered, as far as practicable, by the State. That is a brief summary of the provisions of the Bill, but as necessarily some of it is legislation by reference, it would, perhaps, be for the convenience of the House if I ran through the various Clauses in greater detail and tried to explain them.

Clause 1 extends until 31st July, 1944, the lime subsidy, but transfers direct responsibility for administering it from the Land Fertility Committee to the Agricultural Ministers. The similar subsidy on basic slag is definitely abolished as from 31st July last, and that corresponds with the announcement I made on 12th June. I think it will be generally agreed that the arrangement for subsidising the supply of lime ought to continue and not to come to an end as it otherwise would do on 31st July this year. We are taking active steps to increase the supply of lime and to encourage producers to expand their plants. The regional organisation which we set up to achieve this object has actually succeeded in increasing by no less than 70 per cent. the supply of lime to farms during the summer off-season this year. New plant has been set up by 20 firms, five making quicklime and 15 for grinding limestone, and other firms are submitting specifications. At six other works new limestone grinding plants are being set up with State assistance. We are trying to concentrate State assistance on plants in areas where the need for concentrating lime is greatest or will be the greatest as a result of the ploughing-up campaign and where the few existing plants are not capable of being developed by the producers' own resources. Naturally, difficulties of labour, fuel and transport are continually arising, but the new regional organisation is, I believe, overcoming them as fast as possible. Indeed, as the result of smoothing out these difficulties and putting up these new plants we shall hope to increase the supplies of lime this year by no less than 75 per cent. over 1940–41. We expect that the lime subsidy for 1941 will be at least £1,500,000 and probably greater in the next few years. In view of these developments which could not appropriately be brought within the scope of the old Land Fertility scheme under the Agriculture Act, 1937, direct responsibility for administration of the subsidy arrangements has been transferred to the Agricultural Ministers, but full use is being made of the administrative machinery set up by the Land Fertility Committee and we are grateful to the members of that committee for the work they have put in over the last four years.

As regards basic slag, the subsidy has come to an end, and it will be realised by hon. Members that the war has brought about considerable changes in the fertiliser position. Supplies of fertilisers generally are controlled by the Ministry of Supply in consultation with the Agricultural Departments, and we have stabilised the prices of phosphatic fertilisers with the help of a considerable Exchequer subsidy. At the same time, in view of the railway position and the transport position generally, it is of the utmost importance to try to minimise the costs of distribution, and especially the areas of distribution. Therefore, we are trying to arrange that, as basic slag and superphosphates are, to all intents and purposes, interchangeable, the supply of basic slag should be distributed near the point of origin and that the supply of superphosphates also should be distributed as near as possible to the points of manufacture. This must affect some individual farmers, but I think hon. Members will agree with me that the economy and the saving in transport will fully justify any slight inconvenience which individual farmers may have to suffer. As regards the total supplies, we have established a reserve at the disposal of county committees so that those farmers who must have phosphates because of the phosphatic deficiency of their particular soil can be assured that they will get them in time, and that there will be no dispute of the sort that there was last year, when some farmers ordered them, but could not get delivery. Thanks to the invaluable assistance of the United States under the Lease-Lend Act, we have made arrangements for a considerable increase in the total supplies of phosphatic fertilisers, and with reasonable care in their distribution there should be sufficient for the increased demands that will be made as a result of the increased arable acreage.

Before dealing in detail with Clause 2 and the later Clauses on land drainage, I would remind the House that drainage is no new subject, and that it is because of the multiplicity of Acts on the Statute Book that the following Clauses dealing with drainage are a little difficult to understand owing to the necessity of legislation by reference. I take it that the House agrees on the fundamental necessity of drainage. We have already spent over £2,500,000 on schemes affecting nearly 2,000,000 acres since the beginning of the war, and considering the labour difficulties, I think that is a satisfactory result. We have already in use. about £250,000 worth of new drainage machinery, and we have a good deal more on order. The limiting factor, of course, is labour, but even that I hope gradually to overcome by the use of increased numbers of Italian prisoners of war. The various Clauses dealing with drainage are intended to increase the facilities to the farmers which the experience of the last 12 months has shown to be needed.

Clause 2 is relatively straightforward. It extends to 31st July, 1944, the period in which Exchequer grants may be made in respect of the improvement of minor arterial watercourses. These grants are, of course, the keystone of the whole of our drainage programme Schemes covering more than £1,000,000 worth of work on these minor watercourses have been approved since the beginning of the war, but there is still a great deal to be done, and it is, in our view, very important that the drainage authorities should now be in a position to plan ahead with confidence. Under the existing legislation these grants would lapse next July. They cannot be continued any further under existing legislation, and therefore, we are asking for the powers in this Clause.

Clause 3 amends Section 15 of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous War Provisions) Act, 1940, which enabled us to make grants for field drainage. We propose now to amend it so that we can make similar grants for the improvement of upland farms by laying on water. As a result of the progress of the ploughing-up campaign, especially on upland farms, the farmers are having more and more to make use of the top fields of those farms for the grazing of their cattle, and especially their dairy herds, in order to free the lower fields of better agricultural land for immediate use for arable crops. That cannot be done unless adequate supplies of water are available, and, therefore, we are now asking for the sanction of the House in order that a grant of 50 per cent. may be paid for the laying on of that water. In general, a scheme will be approved only where a county committee can certify that there will be an increase of food production and in general only in cases where the scheme affects more than one holding, so that we can get the greatest advantage from any given amount of money or labour that is involved.

Clause 4 enables advances to be made to drainage authorities in respect of minor drainage works that can be carried out by drainage authorities under Section 15 of the 1937 Act and Section 14 of the 1940 Act. Some of these schemes are private or contributory schemes; that is to say, the balance of the cost after the 50 per cent. grant has been paid is not found from the drainage rates, but from contributions from the owners of the land which benefits from the scheme. The owners of the land have a certain length of time in which to repay the cost, and some of the drainage boards that are carrying out these operations are not very large authorities and find their work impeded by not being able to finance themselves. Therefore, we propose to advance the whole of the cost to the drainage authorities as the scheme progresses, 50 per cent. being regarded as the Government grant and the remainder being recovered in due course, over a period of five years, from the drainage board and paid over to us with 4 per cent. interest. In view of the urgency of the matter, we have made, and are making, advances of this sort pending approval by the House of this particular Clause.

Clause 5 extends the provisions of Section 14 of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous War Provisions) Act, 1940, under which catchment boards may carry out minor drainage works outside drainage districts. Under this Clause, the catchment boards may carry out work inside a local drainage district, either with the consent of the drainage board, or, if they refuse, with my consent. The purpose is to enable one authority to carry out a scheme even though it happens to overlap the boundaries of another authority. The Clause also confers on local drainage boards in respect of schemes carried out by them within their districts powers similar to those already possessed by catchment boards; in other words, they will be able to recover the cost of the schemes from the owners instead of from the drainage rates. The maximum expenditure for which these schemes, whether carried out by catchment boards or drainage boards, may provide is increased from £5 to £10 per acre. The amount of £10 already exists in Scotland, and the £5 was originally taken from another Act at a time when minor drainage grants were not available. It is logical now to increase the limit to £10, although the average expenditure is of the order of £2 per acre.

In view of the urgent need to extend the land drainage powers, we enacted these by Defence Regulation, but, so that Parliament should have an opportunity to confirm our action, we included this Clause in the Bill. Sub-section (4) of the Clause, which is not in the Defence Regulation, provides for the maintenance of works which have already been carried out. The House knows that drainage works cannot be left for long without deteriorating, and there has been a unanimous demand on the part of drainage authorities that something in this nature should be inserted in the Bill so that the schemes upon which a great deal of money, energy and labour has been expended shall be maintained. Of course, the question of the maintenance of drainage works after the war will have to be settled after the war, but meantime we must try to maintain the schemes which we have carried out. Therefore, this Clause is put in to deal with the war-time emergency, and the question of permanent long-term legislation will have to be dealt with after the war. Under the Defence Regulations my Department can carry out drainage operations where no other body is able to do so. At present we can recover our expenses in carrying out that work only when the land is within an internal drainage district. Clause 6 enables us to recover our expenses in respect of work which we carried out on agricultural land outside a drainage district, and it will enable us to put in hand further schemes costing about £100,000. This Clause enables us to recover our expenses, either from the landowners by way of betterment, or from the drainage board concerned. But we do not propose to recover from the owner or the drainage board more than 50 per cent. of our expenses.

Clauses 7 and 8 extend slightly the provisions of Section 2 of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous War Provisions) (No. 2) Act, 1940, which relate to the improvement of ways over fenlands. The House may remember that we found a number of cases where it was impossible to grow the heavier crops, such as potatoes and sugar beet, on a lot of this land because there were no means of getting the crops away. We were therefore authorised to spend money on improving these roads by laying down concrete. Now we have found it is necessary in a number of cases to continue work on these roads outside the internal drainage system. Some of the roads are partly outside and others wholly outside an internal drainage district. Clauses 7 and 8 bring these two different classes within the provision of Section 2 of the No. 2 Act of 1940. As the tenant of the land actually reaps the immediate benefit on any improvement to the roads, we are authorising the owner of the land, under Sub-section (2) of Clause 7, to recover from the tenant interest on his contributions in the shape of increased rent. In cases of ways wholly outside a drainage district, the Clause empowers the county councils to take over the maintenance by agreement, and this particular proposal has been agreed to by the County Councils' Association.