Wise, Michael John

The Committee of Inquiry into Statutory Smallholdings was established by the Ministry of Agriculture in July 1963. Its members were: Professor Michael Wise (chairman), Professor of Geography at the London School of Economics, Alfred W H Allen, General Secretary of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, D Ll Carey Evans, farmer and member of the National Farmers' Union County Executive, Major D J Cowen, land agent, W A Shail, Treasurer of the Metropolitan Borough of Paddington and Hugh T Williams, Vice-Principal and Bursar of the Seale-Hayne Agriculture College, Devon. H W Durrant was appointed as Secretary, D J Palmer as Assistant Secretary and D A Hole as Assessor. The Committee's terms of reference were to report on the working of existing legislation relating to smallholdings provided by County Councils and other smallholdings authorities and to investigate the economic position of smallholdings estates. It was also asked to advise on the future provision that should be made for smallholdings, on the form of future financial support and on the division of administrative responsibility between central and local government or other smallholdings authorities. The Committee's enquiry included an investigation of the origins of smallholdings policies and the results of smallholdings legislation; a study of the financial position of the smallholdings authorities based mainly on questionnaires; a study of the management costs of smallholdings estates; a survey of the social and economic position of smallholders; a study of the geographical distribution of the smallholdings estates; visits to the smallholdings estates of 14 local authorities; a critical review of written and oral evidence submitted.

The Committee's First Report ( First Report: Statutory smallholdings provided by local authorities in England and Wales , HMSO, Cmnd 2936, 1966) dealt with statutory smallholdings managed by the County Councils. Their Second Report ( Final Report Statutory Smallholdings provided by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food , HMSO, Cmnd 3303, 1967) was concerned with the cooperative smallholdings of the Land Settlement Association.