The object of this Bill is to provide for the continuation of the discretionary powers of county councils in relation to the appointment of members of county committees of agriculture.
The existence of a committee of agriculture in every county first became mandatory under the Agriculture Act, 1931. That Act, which makes it a statutory function of the county councils to appoint these committees, prescribed also that every committee of agriculture should be composed, at the discretion of the relevant council, either wholly of persons who are members of the council or partly of persons who are, and partly of persons who are not, members of the council. Provision for the curtailment of this discretion was made in the Agriculture (Amendment) Act, 1964, to the extent of requiring that at least 50 per cent of the members of county committees of agriculture shall be non-councillors. However, this provision has not yet had effect, because there have been no local elections since the 1964 Act was passed. The present Bill proposes, however, to rescind the 1964 provision, and so to enable the discretionary powers conferred on the county councils by the 1931 Act to continue unchanged.
The General Council of Committees of Agriculture, the body representing all the committees of agriculture, the County Councils' General Council and a number of individual county committees of agriculture and county councils have all made representations against the amending provision in the 1964 Act. I have carefully reconsidered the whole matter in the light of these representations and I have come to the conclusion that the system which has worked satisfactorily over the past 35 years should not be jettisoned now.
In this important matter of the appointment of members of committees of agriculture, I am satisfied that the county councillors, who are the elected local representatives of the people and are themselves for the most part farmers or of farming stock, are quite competent to decide who are the persons in each county best suited to serve the interests of the farming community in that county. I do not believe that the freedom of choice of the local county councils should be inhibited by making it obligatory on them to bring in a fixed proportion of outsiders. There are no real grounds for assuming that the county councils abuse their discretionary powers, or that they are in general opposed to the appointment of outsiders. Indeed, on the present voluntary basis, some committees of agriculture have 50 per cent or more outsiders and more than half of them have over 25 per cent outsiders.
I feel that there need be no fears that persons who would have an outstanding contribution to make on committees of agriculture, although they are not councillors, will at all be debarred by this Bill from being appointed committee members. On the other hand, if all the county councils are compelled to fit into a rigid pattern of choosing 50 per cent of the committee members from outside their own ranks, as envisaged in the 1964 amending Act, it could well happen that in some counties able men and women who have gone through the stress and test of the local elections and have satisfied their electors of their capacity, would be deprived of the opportunity of serving on committees of agriculture.
It is perhaps well also to remember that the councillor members of committees of agriculture, because of their rate fixing functions, are likely to have a very keen sense of their responsibility in ensuring that the funds of committees of agriculture, derived in part from the rates, are spent to best advantage.
All things considered, therefore, I feel that we should preserve the long tried and democratic procedure which leaves discretion in this matter to each county council. The Bill provides for just this and I commend it to the House.