Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am ar 26 Gorffennaf 1935.
I beg to move,
That the Bacon Development Scheme, 1935, made under the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1933, a draft of which was presented to this House on the 22nd day of July, 1935, be approved.
It might be for the convenience of the House if I explained the proposal which now comes before them. It is the sanctioning of the development scheme under the Marketing Act of 1933. The development scheme arises out of the Lane-Fox Commission's Report, which drew attention to the very points which have just been stressed by hon. Members opposite, the desirability of bringing the bacon industry of Great Britain up to date and also the necessity for having a certain representation of the general public on any body that is set up. The arguments of hon. Members opposite upon the previous Motion indicated that a certain representation of the general public should take place when these new bodies were being brought into existence, and this scheme provides for that. The scheme of the Development Board provides for four representatives from each of the Boards and three representatives to be appointed by the Minister and, therefore, I think, goes a long way to meet the objections made in various parts of the House that the interests of the general public were not being sufficiently considered. The hon. Member for Carmarthenshire (Mr. R. T. Evans) indicated that, while having misgivings about the scheme as a whole, he was prepared to allow these developments
to proceed but that he thought that they would need to be exercised in a cautious and not in a tyrannical manner. I think that will be found to be so. I think the representatives appointed by the Minister will bring in an element which will be very valuable in the development of the industry. We have found in negotiations before that outside representation has often succeeded in reconciling the interests of two bodies which otherwise might have been very much opposed to each other.
There is a danger, of course, in all these matters of over-organisation, and my hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon (Mr. H. Williams) is undoubtedly a protagonist of the non-planner. We have had to move between the Charybdis of chaos and the Scylla of over-organisation and all that one can say is that, when a scheme is criticised from one quarter on the ground that it is not doing enough and from another on the ground that it is doing too much, it is possible that the happy medium is somewhere in between. The work of the development scheme can only be tested in practice. It it does not work, it will not be continued. The two Boards have delegated powers, but only delegated powers. The powers will remain so long as the resolution delegating them remains in force and, if the scheme works inefficiently, no doubt the powers will be rescinded and the scheme will not remain in force. I do not think it necessary to go in great detail into the matter because the necessity for an organised industry with improved modern methods of factory construction and the like are common to all of us. The only point that is raised by hon. Members opposite, as to whether societies in which they are interested, like the co-operative society, will receive reasonable treatment
under the scheme is, I think, met to a considerable extent by the fact that we are going to work in the spirit of the Lane-Fox commission, which specially laid down in one of its most important paragraphs that
We think that consideration should be given to curers who in the interest of both pig producers and the bacon industry as a whole are prepared to transfer factory accommodation from foreign countries to the United Kingdom, and specially to those who are also in a position to sell the bacon that they produce direct to the consumer.
It would be in a spirit of fair play to all who desire to welcome recruits to an industry who would bring capital and efficient organisation to bear that we should hope that the Development Board would operate and I do not think it is necessary to do more than refer to the great difference between this country and Denmark and to the fact that we have over 600 curers of whom only seven are handling a through-put of more than a thousand pigs a week, whereas in Denmark there are 80 factories with an average through-put of about 2,000 pigs a week. It seems to me in those circumstances that it is desirable that somebody representing both producers and curers and the general public should survey the situation, because to the producers themselves an inefficient process is the greatest disadvantage. It leads to high costs, to waste and to a lower return to them for their products. I look to the Development Board as a sign of the interest of the producers themselves in the technical efficiency of the processing end of the organisation. It is admittedly an experiment but one which has much hope in it, and I commend it to the House.