Debate on the Address

Part of Sessional Orders – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 28 October 1958.

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Photo of Mr Jon Rankin Mr Jon Rankin , Glasgow Govan 12:00, 28 October 1958

There will be lots of wails in Scotland if it does not go there. The Government seem to be dithering about the strip mill as they are over Prestwick Airport. We are led to believe that some argument is going on about the advisability of carrying out the whole scheme or only a little of it. I appeal to the Joint Under-Secretary to see that every influence is exerted to bring the Treasury to realise that there is no use going ahead with Prestwick on a piecemeal basis. That will not be much help to Scotland. It will mean only that the full development which must come might come when there is more inflation than at present.

During the Recess I tabled a Question asking the Secretary of State for Scotland what legislation he proposed to introduce to deal with the control and protection of red deer in Scotland, and today I have my answer. The Gracious Speech states that a Bill will he laid before you, Mr. Speaker. for the protection and control of deer in Scotland. We are all interested in animals, and in most schools in Scotland a yearly lecture is given by the teachers on the importance of being kind to animals. I believe that prizes are given to the pupils who write the best essays on kindness to animals. In one school, after having given the lesson, the teacher asked her pupils if any of them could give her examples of kindness to animals, and one little fellow put up his hand and said, "I know one. I heard my father telling my mother yesterday that he had put his shirt on a horse." That is an unusual type of kindness to animals, which carries risks that some people do not like to venture upon. However, I think we are all agreed that we do not want to see cruelty to animals.

When in the month of May, last Session, I sought to direct the attention of the Home Secretary to an extreme form of cruelty to a stag by sportsmen in Somerset there was a wide volume of opinion which supported the protests made by English people in connection with that malpractice. But we must remember that cruelty to animals occurs in Scotland lust as it does in England. There is cruelty to the deer by sportsmen, but there is also cruelty to the deer by poachers and by owners. Owners omit to provide food for their stock during the winter, and that is as extreme a form of cruelty as any other. To die by hunger, as the report of the Committee which looked into the problem says, is just as bad as being hunted to death.

Because of the omission to put out hay for the deer during the winter season the deer in turn raid the farmers' turnips, and so become a nuisance to them. It is sometimes argued that the best solution would be to exterminate the deer altogether, but the Government have clearly decided that the deer should not he treated like the rabbit. Therefore, the issue of extermination will probably not arise, although it might be asked what greater use to the community is the deer than the rabbit.

It may be alleged by some that the provisions which the Government are to make will be merely a Tory Measure to protect the sporting interests of Tory owners of deer forests, and the incomes derived from them, but in a discussion I had with one owner of a deer forest I was assured that a deer forest is a dead loss, although so many capitalists seem to run their enterprises at a loss that one feels there must be a profit somewhere. If venison were a more popular food stronger interest might be shown in the care of the deer.

However, there is a strong argument for control. According to the Glasgow Herald of 14th August there are 100,000 head of deer in Scotland, and it is quite probable that we in Scotland cannot afford so many in addition to English landlords. If the deer were humanely controlled agriculture would benefit, and so would the deer, because less cruelty would arise through hunger. Poachers, particularly the gang poachers, would also be more effectively dealt with than at present.

According to the Report of the Committee on Close Seasons for Deer in Scotland, presided over by Sheriff Maconochie, Cmd. 9273, the number of deer in deer forests in the whole of Scotland in 1952 was 84,775 as against 130.000 in 1939, so the number is decreasing. While the number of deer was going down, the number of sheep in the same period increased from 50,000-odd to 140,000, but the number of cattle remained practically stationary, at about 1,600.

Obviously, the deer forests can become a source of food. If we controlled the deer, without a doubt these sources of food could be increased very greatly. John Bright, one of the leaders of the former Liberal Party, once visited the Great glen of Scotland, and Glen Urquhart. Viewing that glen, he compared it with many others he had seen and said: Glen Urquhart is to me a lovelier glen; There deer and grouse have not supplanted men. It would seem that in Bright's time that glen carried far more human beings than it now carries and had fewer deer. If the Bill carries the provisions which many of us hope it will, there is no reason why the deer forests should not be a great asset to farming and to food production; so we await it with tremendous interest. We hope it will not have the fate of its predecessor introduced in February, 1952, which left the Lords and was sunk without trace.

In the course of his speech, the Prime Minister said that the search of man through the ages had been for the Philosopher's Stone. Listening to him and reading his speeches in recent months, I have come to the conclusion that, while he may not have found the Philosopher's Stone, he has found the Blarney Stone. Whether he goes to bed with it every night or not, I do not know, but he cannot continue to kiss it. He cannot rely on his good luck all the time. He confessed today that good luck has helped many of his policies to materialise, but, unless he has a plan—he has no plan to deal with unemployment in Scotland—he cannot depend on good luck all the time. His luck will change. Without a plan the schemes outlined in the Queen's Speech will not fructify. Every one of us on this side of the House hopes that before the debates on the Address terminate we shall have given to us in clear terms the plans the Tories have for dealing with unemployment in Scotland.