Orders of the Day — Highland Development

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 25 April 1951.

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Mr. McNeil:

I do not want to start fumbling my way through the list, but I can see at first glance that work has started in some of them and I have referred to it. But perhaps the hon. Member will permit my hon. Friend to answer that point at the end of the debate. I will also leave the subject of water and sewerage to be dealt with by my hon. Friend. It is a subject which interests me a great deal and one on which our financial record is quite attractive.

I have made several references to the Highland Panel upon whose memorandum the Report was based. I have rather failed in that I have not acknowledged the great help we have received from the Panel, which is chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for the Western Isles (Mr. M. MacMillan) on which representatives from both sides of the House play a great part in exploration, recommendation, advice and information. As the Committee probably know, I have decided to extend the life of the Panel by another four years. I have made some slight alteration in its constitution and some slight alteration in its terms of reference, so that they will have an operative part to play in pushing this Secretary of State, or any Secretary of State, in the discharge of the Highland programme.

The hon. and gallant Member did not talk of agriculture—and he explained why—but I wish to say a word or two about it because it must remain the basic process upon which any Highland population is to be sustained. Equally plainly, the welfare of agriculture must depend primarily upon the condition and care of the land. I am, therefore, satisfied that it is basically to land improvement that we must look for an improvement in the industry and its reflection on the population.

Hon. Members will have noticed in paragraph 41 that we give some details of the progress made in the Highlands in hill farm improvements. I am glad to be able to tell the Committee that even since that was published, with its comparatively good figures, we have been able to make further calculations and the figures have further improved. Since the Report was prepared the number of schemes covered has increased by rather more than 30 and the amount of funds made available has increased by some £250,000. In addition, improvement schemes at present before my Department include 68 schemes dealing with crofting holdings and townships, some 36 of which have already been approved and upon the remainder I have directed that the most urgent consideration and advice must be given.

It is quite plain, also, that the recent Livestock Rearing Act, accepted and approved by both sides of the House, gives a further opportunity to extend the work of hill sheep farm improvement over the whole of the Highlands and enables us to give assistance to comprehensive improvements to farms where cattle rather than sheep are the primary feature. These schemes, I hope the Committee will agree, have a merit in that they permit a broad and whole approach to this subject rather than a series of piecemeal adjustments.

There is one further improvement to which I would call the attention of the Committee. Paragraph 42 of the White Paper refers to the increase in breeding stocks of beef and cattle in the Highlands. We put the increase at 66 per cent. since 1939. Again, we have had a chance to collate our statistics and the figure is very much better. The number of beef cows and heifers in the Highlands shows an increase of at least 75 per cent. over 1939 figures.

I am tempted to go a good deal further here because, although I am a layman, I scarcely apologise for saying that this is a subject which excites and attracts me. However, it may be more appropriate to consider the subject more closely when the Agriculture and Fishery Estimate comes before us. Even to a layman, in this extension of our hill animal population the determining and limiting factor must still continue to be the provision of winter feed. There is a great abundance of information, a great abundance of help available and a great deal of propaganda going on and some excellent pioneer men on both the east and west coasts showing us how to use methods of early hay, green corn and silage, but I plead with Scotsmen who have had such an excellent reputation in farming to take their courage in their hands and go ahead in the provision of more winter feeding.

It is not only that I believe it can be profitable to them, it is not only that it is beyond argument profitable to the hillside and to the land, it is not only that it is very acceptable to our country, which is a little hungry for proteins, but it would be a demonstration of our new determination and a new kind of activity in these matters.

I should like to say a word about my friend the pig. Many years ago the master, I think, certainly the friend of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) got me slightly in his clutches: I mean that very fine Scotsman, John Boyd Orr. He instilled into me an enthusiasm for the pig for which I have never found it necessary to apologise. With the help of some of my hon. Friends, and certainly with the assistance of the North of Scotland College of Agriculture and the Agricultural Advisory Committee for Uist and Barra I am determined to get the pig population in the Hebrides above the figure at which it stood just before the end of the last war. Here, again, I think that a profit can be made. A new element can be brought into that community life and, once more, the country will benefit. But I will not develop that subject at this time.

As I think the Committee knows, I propose to set up a commission to report on the condition of our crofts. This also arises from the Highlands Panel. I have already secured the agreement of a distinguished Scot to head the commission and we are in the process of choosing its membership. I will urge on them the need to report as quickly as possible and, therefore, I am not asking them to embark on a general inquiry into the Highlands at large. The commission's remit will be specific in its character and will relate to the use of land. I hope to be able to give very soon the commission's composition and the precise terms of reference.

Afforestation, too, is a most attractive subject. I confess that I share the doubts of the hon. and gallant Gentleman as to whether the greatest possible use is being made of the northern counties in this connection. I should be ungrateful were I not to admit how energetic and helpful the Commission is, and I know that the hon. and gallant Gentleman did not mean otherwise. I am bound to confide to the Committee, however, that I have not hesitated to indicate to the commission my anxiety that they should do more in these northern counties. I have visited the hillsides of Sutherland, and have met these first-class people who are not afraid of their job and are full of enthusiasm, and I cannot be persuaded that much of that land, which is not useful or valuable for any other purpose, cannot be harnessed to the nation's needs for wood.

I feel that I am boring the Committee, but I would say that I tend to look on afforestation in those counties as being as much a social service as an economic project. I will say no more than assure the Committee that as long as I and my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary are in this Department we will do our utmost to push this project. The Committee knows that we have set up a survey in Strathspey, and I hope that it will yield results.

The Committee also knows that my distinguished predecessor set going a very imaginative scheme in Strath Oykell. Things have hung fire a little there. The position is good on the agriculture side, but not so good on the afforestation side. I do not disguise my view that these schemes work best when we secure voluntary co-operation, but I must say—in no threatening sense—that unless we secure more co-operation on the forestry side in that great Strath I shall have to advise my friends that I think they will have to use their powers to push the scheme forward.

I have left out reference so far to herring. That topic will, no doubt, be developed in the course of the debate. We have difficulties here. The reasons why the Scottish herring industry has not overtaken those difficulties are familiar to the Committee. A good deal of development is going on in connection with our anxiety to secure alternative export markets. The herring Industry Board have men in the field and the laboratory. They are trying new methods of curing suitable for Africa, for equatorial areas and for the West Indies. I hope they will have great success. They are also going ahead in Scotland with a number of projects—quick freezing plant for kippers in Stornaway, cold stores, ice-making plant, oil and meal factories, gutting machines and varying methods of treating herring for oil.

But that is not the end. There is a great hive of research going on in Scotland just now, some of which is very exciting, about newer and cheaper methods of treating herring. Though the difficulties are many I have never been persuaded that when the whole world is hungry for proteins and we in our country are not so rich in them, we cannot relate economically and efficiently the harvest of our coasts to our fields and to our farms. It is mainly along that channel that research has proceeded.

I apologise to the Committee for having talked so long; I have talked too long. I understand why the hon. and gallant Gentleman said that he got a little tired about the reservations in the Report. He asked us if we did not think that there was some analogy with a business which had not enough capital available. I am sure that that is just and accurate. I am also certain that it is true—and I do not believe that the hon. and gallant Member disagrees—that there can be no area in the country where, proportionately, over so many years so much money has been dribbled.

The hon. and gallant Gentleman referred to a Resolution of this House of 50 years ago. It is more than 150 years since a commission reported upon the Highlands and concentrated upon transport, and gave us the Caledonian Canal. Then along comes another concept, another drive. I suggest that we have frequently lacked a plan. I do not blame the Committee for being impatient. I do not beg mercy for this Government or any other Government in relation to this problem of Highland development. I am not promising "pie in the sky by and by," but I am saying that, without a plan, resources will again be vitiated.

I believe in this programme. We have a plan. I am confident that this Committee and its successors will keep this Government—and I hope that this Government will go on for a long time—or whatever Government there happens to be, close up against this plan. If we secure the co-operation of the local people, if they are not too afraid of new ideas, if they will be a little patient and not always concern themselves almost exclusively—quite understandably—about the next year but will extend themselves to think of five, 10 and 20 years ahead, I believe that we may make a substantial contribution towards arresting depopulation in that part of the country and towards restoring it to the real glories which it knew, which we all remember and take pleasure in, and that we can do something for Great Britain by making a real and proportionate contribution towards the restoration of this part of the country.