MINISTRY OF FOOD

HC Deb 09 June 1944 vol 400 cc1657-755

Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £90, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1945, for the salaries and expenses of the Ministry of Food."—[Note.—£10 has been voted on account.]

The Minister of Food (Colonel Llewellin)

When last I spoke in this House as Minister of Aircraft Production, I was able to report that things went well. What I then said has been borne out by our finding that the Allied Air Forces now have a superiority on every front, and by the figures given by the Prime Minister earlier this week. We hear our aircraft going overhead, by day and by night. Many of these aircraft, of course, are made in the United States but many are our own. As, then, I reported that things went well on the aircraft production front, so now I can report to the Committee, that things go well on the food front, too. I should like to pay a high tribute to those who launched this ship, the Ministry of Food, to those who were concerned in the early days, in the Food (Defence Plans) Department, and to those who equipped it, as they did, and set it on its course. My Noble Friend Lord Woolton was rightly popular in this country. He did a great job of work as Minister of Food. He left the ship on a good course, on an even keel, and he left me with a first-class crew. However, careful navigation and a good captain are still needed. When I led a Parliamentary delegation to the Empire Parliamentary Association Conference at Sydney, I remember on the voyage talking to the captain of the ship on the fact that he was seldom on the bridge, when the ship was on the high seas. He said "The ship is safe enough on the high seas; it is when it is coming near land, that you have to be careful of the navigation."

This country has been through difficult waters in the last four and a half years. Now, we hope that we are reaching our haven, but we can in no way relax either our vigilance or our efforts, and certainly, towards the end of the war, there will probably be more restlessness on the food front than there has been in the midst of war time. The way in which the food front has been handled, so far, has, I believe, materially contributed to the solidarity of our people in the intense war which this country has to fight. It is well, therefore, that I should report to the Committee and through it to the country what the position now is.

I will deal first with stocks. During the latter part of last year, we built up our stocks, knowing that shipping and port facilities would be largely employed on the operations which are now taking place. The policy of the Government was both far-sighted and wise. In consequence, in spite of great demands on shipping for these military operations, I can assure the Committee and the country that our stocks of food are good. Here, I should like to pay tribute to the work that has been carried on in Washington, and in Ottawa as well, by the British Food Mission in North America, and especially I should like to pay a tribute to Mr. R. H. Brand, who was head of the Food Mission since its inception in 1941. He has now, as the Committee will have observed, become Treasury representative in Washington, but I am concerned to pay tribute to his work while in the Food Mission and as British member on the Combined Food Board. I know that that work was good. During eleven months of last year I worked in Washington with him, and his work and that of his Mission largely enabled our stocks of food to be built up to the satisfactory point at which they now are. Indeed, he and those who have worked with him, have deserved well of their country.

As far as I can see, looking at the stocks and having taken a careful esti- mate of the outlook, we shall be able fully to maintain existing ration scales in everything for the remainder of the year. When I say "in everything," I must, of course, except milk, which has a seasonal flow. There may be temporary difficulties at the moment due to transport difficulties. Now that the invasion has been launched there will, of course, be a large military follow-up, but, so far, our food supplies are getting through well. That reflects great credit on the Ministry of War Transport, on the railways and on the road hauliers, and it reflects great credit, if the Committee will allow me to pay them a tribute, on our divisional food organisations and our local food organisations up and down the country. During the past few months, my right hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary and I visited the emergency food stocks which we have accumulated in the country against the events that are now taking place. Perhaps the Committee will allow me at this point to say how lucky I am to have my right hon. Friend with me as Parliamentary Secretary. For the last two years he has borne the brunt of the burden in this House alone, and he has done it as far as I can make out remarkably well. The great point is that he knows the background of the various problems that arise, and I must confess that he knows much better than I do what you can and what you cannot do under our food Regulations. I am however beginning to learn. As I said the Parliamentary Secretary and I inspected those preparations and were fully satisfied with them.

The Committee will be glad to learn that as yet we have made no call on the emergency food supplies which we laid in. My Ministry is responsible for the procurement and delivery of food to the Service authorities—food for the Navy, Army, Air Force, for the Dominions and European Allied troops in this country, and, needless to say, our first aim is to meet these requirements in full. Also it is hardly necessary for me to say that they have been met in full and that our Army, Navy and our Air Force have in full the supplies that they need. We are also providing, under reverse Lend-Lease, the United States Forces here, with many of their needs. For instance, we let them have potatoes and other fresh vegetables, apples, milk, flour, coffee, sugar, tea, jam and marmalade, and we have, of course, met these requirements also.

While dealing with Service requirements perhaps the Committee would allow me to say a word about dehydration. It is a horrid word for a wonderful process. It enables armies in remote parts of the world to have what are indistinguishable from fresh vegetables. It has been a great boon to the Royal Navy, and to the Merchant Navy, and we are now providing, in full, the requirements of the Services. When my right hon. Friend spoke a year ago on these Estimates, none of our factories were then working; now we have 14 factories working on drying vegetables. Last year, my right hon. Friend gave the economies thereby effected. He said that 1,000 tons of raw cabbage occupies 140,000 cubic feet. If you reduce it by drying, that 1,000 tons is reduced to 40 tons and the capacity is reduced to 15,000 cubic feet. Now, however, we have learned to compress it as well, and, when compressed, a cubic capacity in the raw of 140,000 cubic feet is reduced to a capacity of only 2,727 cubic feet. Hon. Members can see what a saving that makes in any transport of supplies to our Forces.

The Committee may be interested to know that we have an entirely new product, mashed potato powder—[Interruption]—which will, I am certain, be very well cooked in many of the Oxford colleges. [HON. MEMBERS "Why in Oxford?"] I was referring to the interrupter, my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Quintin Hogg). The potatoes are cooked and mashed and then dried, and they turn into a powder which is contained in a tin much like cocoa powder. All that has to be done is to take a few teaspoonfuls of it, pour hot water on it, and you get an extremely good mashed potato without any cooking in the home at all—that is why I said I thought it might be possible to cook it in Oxford. I have tried it, and if he had not seen it mixed, I do not believe that any hon. Member would know that it was not ordinary mashed potato. [An HON. MEMBER: "Have we any in the tea room?"] I will see whether we can put a tin in the tea room of the House. One thing that may interest my hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) is that in this drying field, we are moving our experimental plant to Scotland for experimental work on the dehydration of herring.

The Armies need to take with them a certain amount of supplies not only for themselves, but for the people they may liberate. The Committee knows, I think, that I had the privilege of leading the United Kingdom Delegation to the first council meeting of U.N.R.R.A. at Atlantic City, and at that meeting it was decided that the military should take responsibility for providing, during the initial period, food supplies after any occupied country had been liberated, until that task could be handed over to U.N.R.R.A, or to the duly recognised national authority. For South and Western Europe that responsibility rests, of course, on the United States and upon ourselves. I have, accordingly, undertaken during the early part of that period, so long as my stocks allow it, to make a generous contribution towards the foodstuffs which the combined military authorities have assessed as necessary. These stocks are the nearest sources of supply, and relief in the form of food may, of course, be needed quickly. For any long-term provision of foodstuffs, it would, of course, be absurd for this country to send them—we are large importers of foodstuffs ourselves—nor would it be right or reasonable to cut down our reduced standard of living, in order that this provision should be made. I said that I was at Atlantic City and there were 44 nations represented there. Subtracting the nine who had all or parts of their countries occupied, and ourselves, that left 34. In the great majority of those 34 countries there is no rationing at all, and where there is rationing, it has neither been in existence so long nor is it so thorough and restrictive as our own. In my view, therefore, it would be wrong, both in principle and in practice, for the people of this country who have borne the heat and burden of the day, to bear any more in this respect.

This brings me, naturally, to the next thing I want to speak about, the food supplies available for civilians here. I speak as one who comes fresh to the Ministry of Food, and I have come to the conclusion that the Ministry has done a great job on nutrition. The policy has been, as hon. Members know, that vulnerable classes—mothers and expectant mothers, infants and children—should have large extra rations of various sorts; that those doing long hours of work in factories and canteens—and the Committee will be glad to know that canteens in factories have gone up by 300 a month during the last 12 months—get millions of meals now served in those industrial canteens. For the agricultural labourers, apart from the extra cheese ration, the rural pie scheme now sells no less than 1,300,000 pies a week through a large number of villages up and down this country. So the policy is to put the mothers and the children first, then those doing the work in factory or field, and then to give the rest of the population an adequate diet.

The evidence available shows that the national health has been well maintained. There is no sign of a general loss of weight; in fact, adolescents are showing an increase. There is some sign of the loss of the "middle-age spread," but I think that is a loss which most of us welcome if it happens to ourselves. There is no sign of any impaired resistance to infectious diseases. Infant mortality reached its lowest rate in 1942, and maintained the same rate last year. Nevertheless, we have been on a somewhat unvaried diet for some time and more variety would certainly be good. I have been endeavouring, quietly, to get more variety and some hon. Members may have noticed a little more ham about. A soldier certainly noticed it. One of the chief officers of my Department, while changing trains the other day at Crewe, came into contact with two soldiers who had just come out of a restaurant, and heard one of them say, "By Heaven, it is ham." He seemed very surprised to get it. At any rate, we are getting more of these picnic hams into the shops, and I believe that they have been extremely welcome. We have also in most grocers' shops at the present time what I believe are termed in the trade, "American fat bellies," and that is an acquisition which we have been able to put into our diet.

In regard to milk I am afraid that I shall shortly have to reduce the milk allowance, not, of course, to priority consumers but to ordinary people like you and me, Major Milner, from four pints to three pints a week. This will take place this year on 18th June: last year it did not take place until 4th July. There are two reasons for this—the dry weather and increased Service requirements. The dry weather we cannot help, indeed, it may have been helpful to have it during this invasion period. I am sure that nobody would wish me not to fulfil Service requirements for condensed milk to the utmost. They are large; we intend to fulfil them, but it does mean giving up two pints of milk over a fortnight because of this earlier cutting down of the four pints allowance. I hope, however, to restore the cheese ration from two ounces to three before winter comes. I believe I shall be in a position to do so. In other ways, I am trying to get more variety into our diet. Fruit crops will not be as good as they promised to be. Our climate sometimes lets us down rather badly. To have nice warm weather, and then three nights in succession of severe frost is just about letting us down as badly as our fruit crops could be let down. Soft fruits, therefore, will be short. People who like strawberry and black-currant jam will not get as much of it as they did before. In fact, I do not think there will be sufficient black currants to make jam. They will all go into black-currant purée. We have had some complaints about jam, and we intend to improve the quality of two kinds, strawberry and gooseberry, by raising the fruit content. The total quantity of these jams will be slightly less, but the quality will be noticeably improved.

I am afraid it is impossible, in present transport conditions, to carry fresh fruit about the country and distribute it evenly. Even distribution can only be done in the form of a non-perishable commodity such as jam. As I have said, our own fruits will be short, and we made a considerable purchase of apricot pulp in Spain, which will be used to make jam. To increase our supplies of fruit, I hope again to get oranges from Palestine, South Africa and Spain and again to get bitter oranges from Spain. [An HON. MEMBER: "With bombs?"] No, I hope there will be no bombs in them this time. I think it is very unlikely. We have brought in or are in the course of bringing in, 17,000 tons of lemons, and I hope to keep up that supply next year. These mainly come from Sicily and I think we ought to thank our Armies if we are able now to have a lemon occasionally. Two years ago we imported apples from Canada, and I am again hoping to get supplies from there this year. We have bought all the exportable surplus of dates from Iraq, all the raisins from Cyprus and we have bought 32,000 tons of Turkish dried fruit, so that we are trying to do what we can to bring more variety into the diet of this country, which was impossible before the Mediterranean was open. The tomato scheme last year was a great success. Twenty million containers were circulated throughout the country, each containing 12 lbs. of tomatoes, which went to 117,000 registered retailers. We are very much indebted, for the working of this and other distribution schemes, to the voluntary efforts of the various trades which undertake them on our behalf. I am very much obliged to them for the way they do this; they know the trade, they work it fairly for us; they do it far better than less experienced people, and we should be very grateful to them.

Before leaving the immediate supply question, there is one other food to which I should like to refer, and which is so often taken completely for granted. I refer to bread. It has never been rationed. The price throughout the war has never exceeded 9d. per 4-lb. loaf, and we eat 4,000,000 tons of it per annum. The fact that the Canadian people give us large quantities of wheat, as part of their contribution to the war; that farmers and farm-workers work long hours in those far-off Provinces to produce it; that our farmers and farm-workers have succeeded in growing wheat on land which would not have been considered fitted for it in prewar days; the fact that they are now providing us with half the wheat we are now using in our bread; the fact that despite the bombing of flour mills the supply of flour keeps up, and that when I wanted, two months ago, to build up an extra flour supply for an emergency reserve, men willingly worked two or three week-ends; the fact that 55,000 bakers worked long hours with much depleted staffs, under blitz and black-out conditions, to make the bread in large plant bakeries and little shops throughout the country—all these facts are often overlooked. We are inclined to take them for granted. I should like to thank all these people, if I may, on behalf of the House. They have done well by us all. Through their efforts we are provided each day with our daily bread, and it is better bread now than it was formerly. The oats have gone, the rye has gone, the barley has gone, and now the only cereal in the loaf is wheat, and that is an achievement which we could not have performed, except for the services of the Canadian farmers and our own. Last year we gave an extra ration of sugar of one lb. for domestic jam making. That was not given until July. I do not quite know when we shall make it available this year but it is going to be made available for the same purpose this year as last.

Now I want to deal with the long-term position. When he spoke on the Estimates in 1941, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Fuel and Power, then Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food, said there was no shortage of food in the world. The difficulty was to get it here. That picture is now changing and, certainly for the next four years, we are in for a period of shortage in several essential foodstuffs, in dairy products, milk, butter, cheese, in meat products, beef, mutton and lamb. In addition, the foreign exchange position may not be too easy. We must, therefore, produce at home as much of these products as we can. I want to see the National Milk Scheme continued; I want to see the milk in schools scheme continued, and I want to be able to discontinue milk rationing, as soon as possible after the war. We shall also want to manufacture in this country the maximum quantity of condensed milk, milk powder, butter, and cheese, and if we are to accomplish this we shall need 360,000,000 gallons more milk each year to be produced in this country. I want also to get rid of meat rationing as soon as possible after the war. To do that, we must increase our meat herds and our sheep flocks here. The Minister of Agriculture is asking farmers for the next few years to apply their minds and energies to this new task. While they are doing it, we shall still want large cereal crops; we shall still want large potato crops and we shall still want large crops of sugar beet, but the farmers and farm-workers have "done the country proud" during these years of war, and I am sure they will do equally well by the people of the country in helping us to release them from rationing restrictions.

The Government have decided that the producers in this country of milk, beef cattle and fat sheep should be given a guaranteed market for their output of milk and meat up to the summer of 1948, at price levels not lower than those now operating. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture has announced this. But, as far as supplies from overseas are concerned, the Committee would like to know that I have started negotiations for the conclusion of long-term contracts for some of the principal imported foodstuffs. This will enable overseas farmers to plan their production for a period ahead, and will ensure supplies to this country during a difficult period. So the Government have invited the Australian and New Zealand Governments to consider a proposal that we should purchase the beef, mutton and lamb surplus to their own requirements, and all the surplus dairy products that they may have available for export up to the end of June, 1948. This proposal has been accepted in principle by those Governments.

Negotiations have also been in progress for some time with the Government of Canada for the extension of the current bacon contract, which covers the years 1944 and 1945. We have offered Canada a bacon contract covering four years instead of two, up to 1947, providing for minimum deliveries totalling 1,850,000,000 lbs. of bacon during those four years. This would have the effect of guaranteeing a market for a considerable part of the output of Canadian farmers, who have done so much for this country during the war. Our proposals also provide for the inclusion of a clause for revision, in the event of unforeseen circumstances which make the contract unduly arduous on either side. I hope that agreement on this matter will soon be reached. An agreement has been concluded with the Canadian Government for the purchase of 125,000,000 lbs. of cheese, in each of the two years from 1st April this year, to 31st March, 1946. The Ministry of Food has also undertaken to purchase the whole exportable sugar production of the Dominions and Colonies, up to the end of 1946, at prices which will be determined from year to year.

Another matter to which I have been giving my attention is the question how far we are going to be able to continue this concentrated orange juice, which has been such a success with mothers and young children. The orange juice scheme is an excellent one. The take-up is now well over 50 per cent, and I want to see this kept up after the war. We now get nearly all the orange juice under Lend-Lease, and at the end of the war, those supplies under Lend-Lease may, of course, not be available to us. We are, therefore, encouraging the production of concentrated orange juice in Palestine, in Jamaica, in Southern Rhodesia and in South Africa.

I have spoken about the farmers and I think it would be appropriate here to say a word about the fishermen. The fisherman, like the farmer, has a patriotic duty to perform. He plays an important part in food production. I have taken the opportunity to go recently to two of our large fishing ports, Fleetwood and Grimsby, to impress this upon them. In the last few months, I am glad to say, fish landings have substantially increased. I would like to thank the masters of those vessels and the crews for what they have done. I know they will continue the good work. In the coming winter, in particular, we want more fish, and I am sure they will do their best to get it for us. I was rather impressed to see how quickly they turned their boats. A master of one of these craft had been invalided out from the Navy and had won the Distinguished Service Cross while in it. Now he comes back to his fishing, taking his boat to sea and bringing fish to our shores. It is men like that who are doing this work for us, and I am certain that we can rely on them to continue to bring this essential food to our people. The initial troubles of the fish distribution scheme have been overcome; it has at any rate saved one-third of the train mileage formerly employed on taking fish about the country.

I now want to say a word about herrings. They are not included in the Ministry's scheme of allocation. The opening of additional fishing grounds in July, 1943, yielded a glut of supplies that, for some time, seemed likely to overwhelm the normal distributive machinery of the trade. I have taken some steps, which I hope will go far to help solving this problem. Its solution must be sought, not in the restriction of fishing, but in the provision of means of dealing with herring surplus by curing. I have, accordingly, undertaken to purchase the total output of the salt herring curers at a number of ports, and have arranged to hold, for relief purposes, any balance that cannot be sold in the home market. Processors are being encouraged to cure and kipper larger quantities this summer. These arrangements should enable the fleet to continue regular fishing, so that the maximum quantities of fresh herrings and kippers will be available, both to the people of this country and to those of the liberated areas.

Mr. Loftus (Lowestoft)

Is my right hon. and gallant Friend bearing in mind, in his calculations, the possibility of the resumption of the large autumn herring fishing, in the North Sea next November?

Colonel Llewellin

I cannot prophesy about that, but what I was about to say was that, when the war ceases, and before these fishing grounds can be re-opened, there will be a great deal of mine-sweeping to be done and the crews will have to return. But there is a good prospect for the fishermen in the North Sea. We shall need more protein foods—and fish is one of them—and there are parts of the North Sea in particular, which are out of bounds now, which will then abound in fish.

There are one or two other matters with which I should deal. One is the question of enforcement. I see the reports of cases brought in the courts. The problem of control falls into two parts. The first is: Are all the Orders necessary? In considering that, two factors have to be borne in mind. On the one hand, there is criticism of the fact that there are too many Orders, or that the Orders are necessarily complicated, or that they interfere unduly with the elementary rights of the citizen or the trader. This, I suppose, is part of a campaign called "the campaign against the rising tide of red tape." On the other hand, and almost simultaneously by the same people, there are agitations calling on the Ministry to make more and stricter Orders to deal with specific problems, to secure, perhaps, a more precise distribution of oranges, to ration fish or tomatoes, or to control the distribution and price of spirits and wines, and so on. The fact that Orders dealing adequately with these problems would necessitate considerably larger staffs is often overlooked. So I have to hold the balance between these two. I do not want more Orders than are essential. We have recently reduced the number of Orders current on food matters from 650 to 430. I am now having a review made of them all because I think it is a good thing from time to time to look back at what was done in the past and in different circumstances and to see whether it cannot be modified as things are at the present time.

The second, if not more important, part is the reasonable and proper enforcement of these Orders. My predecessor delegated to local food control committees the duty of instituting prosecutions under practically all the Ministry's Orders. That is not an easy task. Speaking generally, these food control committees have exercised their powers admirably. I have caused a circular to be sent to all food executive officers urging upon them to avoid the initiation of prosecutions in any case which is open to reasonable criticism. It is not too easy for the shopkeeper or a member of the public to know exactly what he can do and what he must not do, and we are very much indebted to shopkeepers, large and small, and to shop assistants up and down the country, shorthanded as they are, for the way they are distributing our food supplies. I should like to thank them for what they are doing. People are sometimes ill or for one reason or another have to leave work, and the shops have to carry on in these times without any replacements. They have a lot of work to do, and I am the last person to want to see any of these people prosecuted because they have made some innocent mistake or have not understood one of the Orders. In those cases an explanation by the local food executive officer or one of his staff, and, if it occurs again, then a warning, is normally sufficient to ensure future enforcement of the law. This does not mean that where we find a real black market offender or a person who persistently offends, though warned, a prosecution will not descend upon him energetically and hard. The persistent offender must be ruthlessly brought to book.

In the course of the review of our Orders I have come across one to which I have given personal attention. That is the Pig (Self-Suppliers) Order. Under that Order, it is illegal to give away any part of one's pig. The Committee may remember that there was one case where a man gave away part of his pig to some other people, and a part to his daughter at Christmas-time, and he was prosecuted for it. It is also, under the present Order, incumbent upon the owner of such a pig not to draw similar rations while any of the pig-meat, bacon or pork is in his home, and it can only be consumed by his own household. Despite this, his allocation of rations still went to his registered retailer, and it was very difficult for the fellow at home, for the conscientious person, to know exactly how long he ought to cease to take his bacon ration, or whether he should not take pork, when he had some pork in the house, but should take mutton and lamb when it was available.

Mr. Messer (Tottenham, South)

He was anxious to save his bacon, anyway.

Colonel Llewellin

No institution could keep and kill a pig, without giving up a part of their fresh-meat entitlement, equivalent to the weight of the pig and, as a result, hospitals and schools could not keep pigs, because it was not economical for them to do it. The weight of a pig is, normally, 520 bacon rations. There are co-operative pig clubs, and they have done extremely good work. They are run largely in connection with factories, and agricultural workers' hostels. There are also other pig clubs in the countryside. The co-operative pig clubs can kill one pig for the use of members, so long as they sell a pig to the Ministry, in order to help to keep up the supply of the general rations. They can kill up to two pigs per member per year.

I am altering this Order in the following respect, and the alteration is being signed to-day. It will come into force on Monday next. In future, hospitals, residential schools and colleges will be allowed to have co-operative pig clubs, just as in the factories and as in the agricultural workers' hostels. They will have to give up one pig to the Ministry for each pig they kill for their own' use, but that is in line with what has been done in those factories and co-operative clubs. The individual self-supplier will be relieved of the dilemma involved in deciding whether he ought or ought not to refrain from drawing his rations or those of members of his household, because in future, when he goes to get his licence, he will have two alternatives. He can keep the whole of his pig, and surren- der 52 bacon coupons—it must be 13 out of four books, 26 out of two books or 52 out of one book—whereas the weight of the pig is equivalent to 520 bacon rations. Formerly he did not have to give up any bacon rations but had voluntarily to refrain from taking his bacon ration. By this new method, the bacon will be stopped going, on his account, to the retailer and so we shall really, as one hon. Member has just said, "save our bacon." He can, on the other hand, keep half a pig, and sell the other half to the Ministry, although the Ministry must reserve the right, where the pig is in a very remote district, to decline to take the half, and make him give up his 52 rations.

Having thus contributed to the nation's food supply, either by giving up his 52 bacon coupons or by giving up his half-pig, the man will be able to give away his pig meat if he wishes. Neither a self-supplier nor a pig club can, of course, sell a pig except to the Ministry, as it is not permitted to sell any rationed food without a licence. Pigs will still have to be kept by a self-supplier for a minimum period of three months before slaughter, although if a pig dies I am relaxing that rule. They can add the time of keeping the first pig, to that of the second, and if they have kept the two, consecutively, for three months, then the pig can be killed. We are increasing the number of places at which a self-supplier may have his pig cured. We are making one further alteration which will help the agricultural workers. Some farm-workers have no pig-sties. Before the war, the farmer allowed those who worked for him to keep a pig in his sty. Under the old Order this was illegal. I am proposing to legalise this practice, but only in this case, because we certainly cannot extend the Order to allow people who live in London, to park out a pig in a farm somewhere else. By these alterations we shall get rid of several small irritations, and, at the same time, increase supplies of bacon to the general pool. In other Orders, we are doing similar things, and where there are small irritations we are trying to remove them.

Before I sit down, hon. Members may be interested to hear how the ration-book distribution is going. It was more difficult last year, because we gave identity cards out at the same time, and it was clear that everything did not go as smoothly as it might have done. We have learned from the past, and the distribution is going very smoothly this time. In one office from which I have had a report, it takes only 15 seconds, if a person's documents are in order, to issue a new ration book. In the first two weeks, we estimate that we have issued 41 per cent. of the ration books. There are seven weeks in which to deal with the remaining 59 per cent., so that, as I say, is going extremely well this year.

I thank the Committee for bearing with me so patiently for so long. In conclusion, I would say that the Ministry of Food is jealous of the reputation it has built up and proud of its staff, both the civil servants and the new people who have come in and who have done such good work on the commercial side. I have found among them a strong and deep desire to serve well the public of this country and to maintain the fighting strength and fitness of the nation in factory and in field. The remarkably good health record of the nation during this war, and above all of the children, has been their great reward. It is my aim so to lead the good team that I have, that that reward may still be theirs.

Mr. Wootton-Davies (Heywood and Radcliffe)

On a point of Order. May I ask, Major Milner, whether it is your intention to call the Amendment which stands in my name on the Order Paper, to reduce the Vote by £10?

The Chairman

I was not proposing to call the hon. Member's Amendment to reduce the Vote.

Mr. Wootton-Davies

Thank you, Major Milner. Now may I ask, as a new Member, for some guidance? May I say, first of all, that this Amendment is not a vindictive one? I understand that it is a privilege of a Member to put down such an Amendment in order to use it as a basis for making certain observations. And I would like to ask what is an hon. Member's right in this respect? I do not want to reduce the Minister's salary by £10, but I would like to know what opportunity there is to raise certain points and it is for that purpose, that I have put this Amendment down.

The Chairman

The hon. Member is quite correct. It is perfectly open to any hon. Member to put down an Amendment to reduce a Vote, but the Chair has discretion whether to accept it or not. I am assuming that the hon. Member does not desire to carry his Amendment to a Division. In that event, it is not necessary to call it, and he will be at liberty, if he catches the eye of the Chair, as no doubt he will, to put forward any criticism he desires to put forward. If the hon. Member should desire to call a Division at a later stage, it would be competent for the Chair to call him, and for a Division to take place, if the reply of the Minister, for example, was not considered satisfactory.

Mr. Wootton-Davies

Is it then for me to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment?

The Chairman

The Amendment will not be called, and hence will fall to the ground.

Mr. Boothby (Aberdeen and Kincardine, Eastern)

Will you make it quite clear, Major Milner, that an hon. Member will not necessarily be called if he puts down an Amendment to reduce a Vote by £10? Otherwise, there may be an epidemic of such Amendments.

The Chairman

I am obliged to the hon. Member. That is, of course, the case. The fact that an hon. Member puts down an Amendment to reduce the Vote, is no guarantee whatever that he will catch the eye of the Chair.

Mr. Wootton-Davies

That is just what I want to know.

Mr. Wilfrid Roberts (Cumberland, North)

The Ministry of Food is deserving of compliments, and I am glad to have the opportunity, on behalf of the Committee, of welcoming the right hon. and gallant Gentleman's statement to-day. He is, clearly, going to carry on the excellent precedent established by his predecessor. He promised us more varied diet in the future; he certainly gave us a varied diet to-day, covering a wide range of subjects. I do not know whether I understood his reference to Oxford University and the national potato meal. As an old member of the University I was a little confused about whether he was recommending mashed potato powder as a diet for Tory Reformers. I do not know to whom he would specially recommend dehydrated vegetables. However, it was a most interesting statement, and we all wish the Minister, and his Parliamentary Secretary and his Department, every success in the future, as in the past.

Circumstances will change in the future. The additional troops in this country have been a responsibility. As we move on in Europe, new problems are bound to arise which will put further strain, if not on the food supplies of this country, at any rate on world resources. I was not altogether happy about what the Minister said about the decision at Atlantic City, covering the work of U.N.R.R.A. I quite understand that we cannot make sacrifices in this country which are not fully shared by others of the United Nations, and I think it is true that Canada and the United States have had a more favourable food position during the war than we have had, not perhaps for any reason other than the fact that a good deal of shipping has been required for military purposes. Connecting what the Minister said with regard to U.N.R.R.A. and what he later said about long-term contracts being made with supplying countries, I was a little uneasy, lest we should be establishing a position in which we shall be able to draw on the world's supplies, to the disadvantage of other United Nations in Europe who ate not in a position to do so at present.

Colonel Llewellin

Perhaps I might correct the hon. Member on that. We are, at present, on behalf of the Combined Food Board, buying in countries like Australia and New Zealand, and so on, and the United States authorities are buying in other parts of the world. Those supplies will, of course, go into the common pool, so long as the common pool exists.

Mr. Roberts

I am glad to be assured on that point, because it is, clearly, a matter which ought to be governed by world considerations. I think we have already found the food problem of North Africa and Italy a strain on resources, and that will increase as Europe is liberated. We cannot rule out the possibility that the food position will be very difficult, until Europe is able to recover from the German occupation.

Another point which the Minister raised very interestingly was the question of the health of the country. That, I suppose, is primarily a matter for the Ministry of Health, but one of the great advances we have made has been to to recognise that the prevention of ill-health is to a very marked extent a matter of food, and while the Ministry of Health may deal with results, it is the Ministry of Food who can do the preventive work. More than one doctor in more than one part of the country, is not quite happy about the health position. There has been a definite improvement during the war, but there were signs last winter that the state of the health of the country was not quite as good as perhaps it might be. It is also true that we had a very mild winter. The cumulative effect of war, the cumulative strain, judging from the last war, might suggest that next winter will be the most difficult of all, even if the political situation is very much more favourable.

I am told, for instance, that in one local survey made there symptoms of rickets were to be found in 10 per cent. of infants. The prevention of rickets is of course a matter of the wide distribution of vitamins and mineral diet. Great advances have been made during the war—I am not suggesting they have not—but it was suggested to me that an even better distribution of more standardised vitamins would meet that and other problems. Doctors also criticise the fats position. I do not know whether it is possible to supply more fats, but total supplies during the war have been definitely below pre-war supplies, and it has been suggested to me by doctors that that is a weak point in the food position so far as it is related to preventing ill-health. I was very much interested in what the Minister said about the long-term arrangements which are being made. The British farmer should, I think, welcome very warmly the decision to stabilise prices over the next four years until 1948. We were also told that arrangements are being made to buy all possible surpluses from New Zealand and Australia and of bacon from Canada. That, also, was very interesting, but I am not one of those who feel that there is any danger of a surplus of food in the next four years provided we have a high standard of consumption in this country, nor do I believe there is any danger of a surplus thereafter if we really mean business in regard to the resolutions which were adopted at the International Conference at Hot Springs.

Before I say a word about Hot Springs I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary if, when he replies, he can fill in one gap in what has been said with regard to the present situation and the long-term policy The Minister talked to us of vegetables and of bacon, but there is another popular product, which usually goes with bacon, of which we see very little nowadays, and that is the egg. Commercial egg farmers have had a very poor time during the war. The humble hen seems to have no champions. Nowadays farmers rather despise the hen, and the nutritionists say that we can "do" on dried eggs, but although they are all right nutritionally, they are not very palatable. The poultry farmer, who, before the war, contributed very substantially to the agricultural output, and to the diet of the people, seems to have no one to back his interests. I hope that he may have a better time in the immediate future, and that some prospects may be held out to him for the next four years. It is an astonishing fact that, including the dried eggs imported into this country, the consumption of eggs in 1943 had apparently gone down by only about 6 per cent. Nobody judging from his own experience would say that that was so, but I suppose the statistics are correct. Eggs have been very scarce. In the United States and Canada the consumption of eggs has gone up enormously, and I should like to see in this country after the war a target set up of an average consumption of an egg a day, that is, 365 fresh eggs per head per year. I think American consumption was not far short of that, but we never reached more than half that figure. I am sure the poultry producers of this country could supply the eggs if that were the target.

During the war we have recognised that it is a primary responsibility of the Government to see that people have the food needed for health and life, and I hope we shall regard the provision of an adequate diet as a responsibility which the Government should undertake in peace time. It should rank with the provision of houses and of a proper education. It is an extraordinary thing about the British that we are all interested in food but all very uninterested in nutrition, which is regarded as a very dull subject. I am speaking of food as food, and not from the point of view of food as a means to health, as one of the services which the Government need not necessarily provide any more than they provide all the housing which is needed. It should be a primary objective of the Government to see that conditions exist in which food is available in the quantities needed.

People take it rather for granted that after the war the position will be much eased, but I do not think that we have yet recognised how bad the position in this country was before the war. It has often been said, though it does not seem to have sunk in, that before the war about 50 per cent. of our children were undernourished. The Ministry of Food, in doing its job, which it has performed so well, learned very much from the experience of the last war, and I hope that it will carry forward the experience gained in this war into the peace and learn from the successes—but mostly failures—between the wars to correct the mistakes and develop the successes. As a practical point, may I ask, Are careful records being kept of the national food supply and in particular of the methods of distribution? The Minister has told us that he is satisfied that the fish distribution scheme has reduced by a third the mileage which fish travels in this country. That is an achievement, but will the benefits of that system be available after the war?

On the general question of reconstruction, one of the problems must be how to continue many of the savings in distribution, which have been instituted during the war without, at the same time, involving us in a permanent bureaucracy and permanent control of food. We want to continue the economies in the distribution of fish and milk and other things, but we do not want to retain rationing, and we do not need to do so. I do not believe it would be necessary to maintain some of the objectionable features of bureaucracy after the war, though it may well be desirable to maintain the Ministry of Food itself. Perhaps it should be attached to the Ministry of Health, though, personally, I would rather see it attached to the Ministry of Agriculture.

Mr. Evelyn Walkden (Doncaster)

Or vice versa.

Mr. Roberts

Or vice versa. We should recognise that the primary object of producing food, or importing it, is to provide a proper diet for our people. The Ministry of Agriculture has other considerations to bear in mind. It must watch the interests of those who provide the food. Our guiding principle should be to see that the public is properly fed. Other factors very greatly affect food consumption. If by the means suggested in the White Paper, we can maintain a high standard of employment in this country, we shall also have a high standard of nutrition. Family allowances will help, and social security will also help, but, even so, I feel there ought to be some definite authority responsible for surveying the position and for giving us information of what is being done, and showing how improvements could be effected in various ways. That was one of the recommendations of the Hot Springs Conference. I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to tell us what is happening about the Permanent Commission set up at Hot Springs, because we hear very little about it. I hope the lines laid down there, will be the lines upon which our post-war policy is founded. One hears expressed fears that we may go back to a policy of restriction, to that real defeatism of quotas and other forms of restriction, with attempts to reduce food production even when there is no world shortage of food. I hope that situation will never occur again, but that we shall adopt a policy of confident expansion in food production and consumption.

Let me say a word about milk. Milk is vitally important for nutrition. It also happens to be the largest single product of British agriculture. There is great need to improve its quality as well as to obtain the 36,000,000 extra gallons of which the Minister spoke. I should like to regard the provision of milk as a national service after the war. Though I do not know whether one could go so far as to say that milk, like letters, should be delivered on the doorstep at a flat rate for everybody, irrespective of where it comes from, yet that is the way in which milk should be regarded—as a basic need and available to everyone. But it ought to be better milk than we have at present. I am a little concerned to know that some of the developments of war-time rationalisation have made it more difficult for people to get the better and purer grades of milk. Where the retail distribution has been zoned, it often means that a customer who has been getting tuberculin-tested milk is no longer able to do so, because the retailer allocated to that district is not producing milk of such a safe quality.

I would like to draw attention to the scheme which we have in Carlisle. It meets many of the difficulties. I was partly responsible for that scheme. Instead of zoning Carlisle, the retail distributors of Carlisle joined together to form a new company, in which their resources were pooled. One result is that all the milk in that city is either pasteurised or tuberculin-tested, and the demand for tuberculin-tested milk has gone up enormously, as a result of the pooling of supplies. I believe that the Minister will agree with me that that is a better way of reorganising milk supplies than to give each distributor a district of his own. One other special problem is the position of old age pensioners. I think that they ought to be treated as one of the vulnerable classes, to which the Minister referred. Conditions are very difficult for the old age pensioners at present, and I wonder whether it would be possible to give them an extra ration of tea.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Mr. Mabane)

Contributory or non-contributory old age pensioners?

Mr. Roberts

I think all old age pensioners should be treated alike.

Mr. Evelyn Walkden

Does my hon. Friend include the 850,000 old age pensioners working in war factories, who can have gallons of tea if they want it? Does he mean that all old age pensioners in industry to-day should be given extra rations of tea, too?

Mr. Roberts

No. Their position exactly illustrates what I am trying to get at: that most workers have opportunities of getting extra tea, through British Restaurants, works canteens, and so on. But the retired old age pensioners, living on one, or possibly two, ration books, have difficulties. If it were possible to devise a scheme which would give them a small extra ration of tea, and possibly of sugar as well, it would ease their position very much. Subsidies on food, to keep the cost of living down, have now risen to £250,000,000. They have risen steadily during the war. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in opening his Budget, said that eventually, although not immediately, it would be necessary to allow the cost of living to go up another 10 points. [Interruption.] I thought that it was from a maximum of 25 to, possibly, 35. How is that going to affect food prices? Has that process started now, or is it only contemplated for the future? A part, though a small part, of the very large subsidies involved, goes to meet distribution costs. It is easy to be critical of distributors, and I do not wish to be unduly critical of them, but I would ask whether the costings system, under which distribution margins are, I understand, being constantly reviewed, is working well, and whether the Ministry have a large enough staff to cope with all the problems. Can the department known as the organisation methods department cover all the problems which arise, and are the reviews of those subsidies to meet distribution costs quite satisfactory to the Minister now?

I go back for one moment to long-term policy. I hope that this question of nutrition after the war is receiving proper attention from Lord Woolton, and those who are considering reconstruction problems. I would impress upon the Committee the importance of establishing a proper level of nutrition after the war, as an aim ranking with other great objectives, like the proper housing of this country and its proper education. It is a wide problem, which involves all kinds of other problems, the agricultural problem, the problem of imports and exports, social questions, housing and cooking apparatus, the education of housewives, and many other things. I believe it is an aim which is well worth while, and which can be achieved by this country fairly quickly, although, if it is to be achieved on the world-wide scale thought of at Hot Springs, a long-term policy will be needed as soon as possible.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot (Glasgow, Kelvingrove)

We are indebted to the Minister for a most interesting review. I would like to welcome him in his important position, and to give him the good wishes of all of us on this side for his great success in the task which he has undertaken. This Debate proceeds in a calm atmosphere, and with no great attendance of Members, yet it not only touches every single inhabitant of these islands—because it concerns their daily bread—but it is a subject on which a pronouncement on world affairs has been made by the Minister, of an importance which it is impossible to exaggerate. The Minister brought to the attention of this Committee, and, through us, to the attention of the country, the fact that the statement made by his predecessor in office, that there was plenty of food in the world and that the only difficulty was to get it to the right places, is no longer true. We have been warned of a world food shortage. That is a declaration of the most far-reaching importance, which will demand the attendance of crowded Houses and long Debates in years to come. The problem to my mind, therefore, turns not only on the detailed review, which the Minister has given us to-day, but also on what I suggest is the underlying, much more important, problem, of how these supplies which the Minister and his successors hope to distribute are to be obtained.

It is interesting to hear that alterations are to be made in certain niggling restrictions upon home producers. I beg the Minister to consider whether he has yet gone far enough on those lines. When I heard accounts of how a pig reared by a cottager was to be handled, one of the conditions being, apparently, that, if it died, an obituary notice was to be put in the local papers, and that its life should be added to that of its successor, I thought of the Scriptural injunction: Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn. I think one can restrict country people a little too meticulously in these matters. The man and woman living in a remote part of the country are without some of the advantages which their brothers and sisters have in towns. Food supplies in the country are a matter of very much closer planning than they are for people living in the towns, where, if the worst comes to the worst, one can go out and get supplies, at any rate for the next meal, in one of the public meal places. I beg the Minister to consider again the restrictive side of his Ministry's activities, which although, no doubt, admirable for the black marketeer, can be pushed to extremes in dealing with ordinary people. An example was given last year of the skipper of a fishing boat at Fort William, who, to prevent his catch going bad, sold it round about the harbour, and was brought up before the sheriff, who had no power to do anything but admonish him, instead of recommending him for the O.B.E. These matters, relating to incidents in the ordinary life of people, require the attention of the Minister, as against the permanent officials, because he is here to represent the ordinary man and woman, and to remove their grievances where a Regulation may be found to be pressing hardly upon them.

But that seems to me to be secondary to the tremendous statement that has been made, that we are now in the presence of a world food shortage. The Minister has explained that we shall need to keep up supplies; the wheat crops, the barley crops and the sugar beet crops. I was interested to notice that that went without a protest from one of what I suppose we might call the repentant "Guilty Men" of the Liberal Party, whose activities with regard to sugar beet have been purely restrictive and destructive, for more years than I should like to say. However, that is all by the way, because that is all done with now.

Mr. Boothby

Oh no, not at all.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot

Until we bring out a new edition of "Guilty Men," dealing with other aspects of political life, I think it is almost unique in the official speeches on food of members of the Liberal Party, that there should have been no protest against the beet sugar industry.

Mr. de Rothschild (Isle of Ely)

Does the right hon. and gallant Gentleman not remember that when he was Minister of Agriculture, I made many speeches on agriculture and, every time, supported the sugar beet industry, but every time the right hon. and gallant Gentleman brought in his 20th century policy?

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot

I will say that that bench is not entirely composed of sinners.

The Deputy-Chairman (Mr. Charles Williams)

I think these remarks are becoming a little antique for a modern Debate.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot

They represent, Mr. Williams, in my submission a reference to a part of the Minister's speech and a little attempt on my part to indulge in what a previous Speaker called "the cut and thrust of debate," which I always understood was a desirable thing in this House. I would only say to the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Mr. de Rothschild), who represents a sugar-growing constituency, and has called attention to the fact that he used to support the sugar-beet policy, that I acknowledge the fact with joy and pleasure. I say that the hon. Member was unique among his party and that I received many encouragements from him, for which I was most grateful, and for which the country is grateful now.

The farmers of this country are feeding this country with its daily bread for half the week. Three and a half days in the week, the bread that we eat comes from the soil of this country, grown by the farmers of this country—an enormous increase in the production of home-grown food which the country should recognise. I think it is by no means antique to say that every ration of sugar which was consumed this morning by the people of this country—the domestic ration of sugar—was produced from the soil of our country by the labour and work by our agriculturists and processed in those very sugar-beet plants, to which so much exception has been taken in the past.

Mr. Boothby

The right hon. and gallant Gentleman seems to assume that he has unanimous support for the views he is expressing, but any proposition on his part to base the agricultural programme on the production of wheat and sugar will be strongly opposed by many hon. Members.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot

We are all for dealing in these matters, with short-term and long-term policies. I was calling the attention of the Committee to the Minister's statement that he will require, for years to come, all the sugar and wheat that can be grown in this country.

Mr. Boothby

What about the West Indies?

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot

Well, my hon. Friend will have to fight that one out with the Minister. I say that the Minister has called attention to the existence of a world food shortage, and I think he will be glad of all the sugar that will be produced from this country for some time to come. I think it is very necessary for all of us to take note of his warning and of the request made to the agriculturists of this country. The Minister has said, and it has been repeated by the hon. Member for North Cumberland (Mr. W. Roberts), that the farmers of this country should be very grateful for the four-year settlement of prices which has been made. I suggest that that does not really meet the difficulty, to which he has called world attention, and, particularly the attention of the agriculturists of this country. The building industry is about to act on a 20-year programme. I do not suggest that you can give a 20 years agricultural programme, but I think something more than a single rotation of crops is necessary, if agriculture is to be put on an efficient basis, to deal with the problem to which the Minister has called attention. Regarding the production of livestock, I do not think the four-year programme even begins to cover the necessity for the production of the flocks required in this country.

When the right hon. and gallant Gentleman came to the fishing industry, for which he has given us a one-year programme, I did not consider that in any way adequate. The Minister referred to the purchase of this year's supplies of cured herring, but the fisherman has to make his plans ahead and secure the credit which he requires. If the fisherman is working against a contract, even a four-year contract, he is working against something on which he can reasonably obtain credit from those who supply him with nets, gear, and even boats, but a one-year contract is totally inadequate, I do not think the Minister intends to hold only to that. No doubt, you must trust the Minister. We do trust this Minister, and we welcome with joy the steps he has taken, but I would point out that, in the time of his predecessor, herrings of the finest quality were swimming about in the North Sea looking for someone to catch them, and the vats and vaults of the great curing firms in this country remained open and empty and are empty to this day. Now, the grounds in which the herring could be caught have become part of an active battle-field and whether it will be possible to gain access to the North Sea and the Narrow Seas, with the same ease this summer as last, is a question which only higher strategy can answer.

When, last summer, the Admiralty threw open extra fishing grounds, the boats were left tied to the quay and Debate went on in this House and outside about the glut which, as the Minister has just said, threatened to overwhelm all concerned. Now, a year after, the Minister tells us that we are in the presence of a world food shortage. I suggest that the record of his Ministry, on that particular episode at any rate, is not such as to encourage the fishermen to look to future years, in which, if the Ministry were reverted to its previous policy, these fishermen would be in a very parlous position. There are other hon. Members behind me who have a great knowledge of this industry, and of fishing schemes and I shall leave to them to develop this aspect of the problem. The hon. Member for North Cumberland said it was a wonderful thing that the carriage of fish had been cut down by one third. Well, it could be reduced to almost nil. If the poor unhappy consumer could see a fish anywhere, he is willing to walk miles, but whether it is an advantage so to reduce the distance over which the Transport Ministry has to carry the fish, I am not so sure. Again, I think that, on its record, there is no bouquet we can hand to the Ministry here.

I agree with the hon. Member for North Cumberland and other hon. Members that some maintenance of the Ministry of Food will be required after the war. I think it would probably be best done in conjunction with the Ministry of Agriculture which would go better with the Ministry of Food than the Ministry of Health. But some combination of the two will be necessary. I am a firm believer in the method of contract. I think the guaranteed price is, essentially, the means by which we shall get out of the chaos of agricultural prices which was such a serious matter before the war and which may do so much to reduce the chances of agriculturists to deal with the food shortage to which the Minister has called attention. Nor do I see how such contracts can be placed without a contracting authority and that authority, I think, should be the Ministry of Food or its successors.

It has been said that the health of the country has been well maintained by the way in which the Ministry has looked after the food supplies of the country. I think that is true, but I do not think we can be complacent about these matters. I do not think the health of the country is quite as good as the figures seem to indicate, when everybody is driving at full blast to do a job of work which they are not only anxious to complete, but about which they feel that, if anybody stays away, others have to work double time. People are driving themselves into work. This diminishes the sickness statistics of the country, but I do not think fully justifies the statement made about the excellent health of the country at the present time. The tuberculosis figures are not exactly such as anyone would feel quite happy about, especially in Scotland. I certainly think the necessity for a greater variety of food is considerable.

I would not put it higher than that, but we must remember that on the vigorous functioning of the population of this Island, a great deal of the chances of the recovery of Europe depends. The people of this country, in relation to the recovery of Europe, are a rescue team, and, if the rescue team is not well-fed, fit, and able to put forward extraordinary exertions, those whom it has to rescue will have a poor chance of getting out of the Slough of Despond in which they now suffer. The Minister's policy of a greater range of rations, in continuation of what he has done in purchasing oranges, lemons and in what might be called the garnishing of our rations, should not be slackened, because physiologists tell us that you must not only be fed, but that food should be eaten with relish. That is the difference, and an occasional bit of garnish may make all the difference between somebody struggling with the rather monotenous rations necessary to keep up strength and leaving them at the side of his plate. Reducing that "middle-age spread" only means that the individual, like the nation, is living on his capital. But there comes a time when that process has got to stop.

Sir Stanley Reed (Aylesbury)

Would the right hon. and gallant Gentleman not regard that as excess profit, properly due for reduction?

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot

A firm, which goes on living on returned excess profits, is not going to solve its difficulties and its solvency will be called in question at a very early date.

I come back to the question of how to produce this extra food which is required. Here we come to the word "price." What are the prices to be offered for these foodstuffs, and, in particular, what are the prices which will be offered to our primary producers here at home, and in the Empire? I do not think it is a bad thing that the Ministry is making contracts with the great primary producers in the Empire, for a period of years. I only wish it were for a longer period of years. I ask, Who is to place these contracts? After all it is the great contractor, Great Britain, the great shopkeeper which the Minister of Food represents, which is able to call out these supplies, at home and abroad. Contracts at remunerative prices will certainly need to be made.

That brings us to the point of sub-sidies. There was, for a while before the war, a rather ignorant clamour against subsidies. It was said that we were giving the farmer a great deal of money and that people were being sweated for the benefit of the farmers. But now, in war-time, we can see that that is not so. When there was recently a suggestion that these subsidies might be diminished, it was the consumers who said, "Do not touch subsidies." These are subsidies to the poor. They do not say that they are subsidies to the farmer. They say, "If you cut down the subsidies, the poor will have to pay more for their food." That is undoubtedly so. We should regard subsidies as a means by which the community pays, collectively, part of the price which, otherwise, would have to be paid individually, for its food, and certainly not as a fat cheque handed over, annually or quarterly, to some rich farmer battening on the people. There is large-scale redistribution of the cost of food to prevent food costs falling as a poll-tax on large families, and more particularly on the small wage-earners. The greatest example is that of the married man with the growing family. It is upon him that the price of food falls heaviest, and it is to him, and to him particularly, that the advantage of subsidies goes.

The sum of £200,000,000 a year is certainly formidable, and we should face what that problem may represent in the future. These sums may be higher in future as food supplies to this country are now coming in under Lend-Lease. When we are faced with the necessity of purchasing those foodstuffs from abroad by exports, which will be in short supply, we may find ourselves in a difficulty. That will be my friendly reply to my hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) on the question of wheat and sugar. We shall need to produce every ounce of food in this country that we can until prices are evened out and we are able to export things abroad in sufficient quantities to pay for the great supplies which are now coming in without any cross entry against them in our books. We shall be for some time in a very uncertain position in this country. I do not deny that the carbohydrates—sugar and starches—can be increased much more quickly than livestock.

My last word would be on the urgent necessity of considering the future livestock problem both in beef and mutton. One of the great sources of mutton in this country is the hill farms, where the breeding stock lives and from which the store lambs come down to be fattened off in the low country. There was a period of great stringency when the low country itself could not make a living on cereals but bred, reared, and killed fat sheep. At that point, the hill men were faced with bankruptcy. Now, the low country is being put to its proper task. Its rich lands are being ploughed, and cereal crops are being taken and rotation is established, bringing up fertile leys of young grass, rich, home feeding-stuffs to replace imported feeding-stuffs. Second-year young grass is equal to cotton cake in its feeding value. Back on the hills there is again the necessity of keeping the breeding stock and sending down the store lambs to be fattened off. But the present arrangement of prices is such that the hill man is being ruined. The prices do not produce a remunerative rate for the hill men even with the ewe subsidy, and that is the certain factor. Prices are not such as would encourage any man to take to hill farming or to remain in hill farming for one hour after the prohibition comes off which at present prevents him from getting out of it. There is no hill farmer but who would be better off, if he turned his ewes into money and put the proceeds into war stock and then sat down and allowed his cottages to go to ruin and the drains to be choked up, and the hill land revert to desert. That is not a position we can view with equanimity. Conditions are not such as to induce maintenance, let alone the increase, of our flocks of which the Minister speaks.

The problem of the Minister is the problem of the shopkeeper. The shopkeeper cannot flourish unless people are stocking up his shop. The Minister must be the closest friend and most intimate acquaintance of the Minister of Agriculture in England, and the Department of Agriculture in Scotland, and of Ministers of Agriculture throughout the Empire from whom stocks are being bought. Are we giving enough attention to the maintenance and increase of the goods with which cur shop is filled now and has to be filled in the future? In particular, are we giving sufficient attention to the prices paid to those producing these goods? Unless the price is adequate, that spring will run down, and however good our organisation, we shall not have anything to distribute.

Mr. Barnes (East Ham, South)

In the speech of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) we see the error into which we can fall if we do not appreciate that we are considering the Estimates of the Ministry of Food in relation to the war situation and the war background. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman took the opportunity—in which I am not very much interested—of twitting Members of the Liberal Party on their attitude to the situation in the past.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot

I am perfectly willing to extend it to Members of the Labour Party.

Mr. Barnes

I do not mind accepting that responsibility, but I would point out that we have the spectacle of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman complaining that four years of guaranteed prices is not sufficient in a Department like the Ministry of Food, and that two years' guaranteed prices is not sufficient for the fishing industry. The Ministry of Food, by a very excellent Socialist experiment, I would remind the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, has been able to do the job in a way that private enterprise could not possibly have done it in this war. In discussing the reactions of the present on the past, we on this side of the Committee will not, in any way, shirk the implications of the Ministry of Food on our various political philosophies.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot

Does the hon. Member consider that the food has been produced by private enterprise, or by Socialist enterprise?

Mr. Barnes

In this case, by private enterprise.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot

Hear, hear.

Mr. Barnes

If you take some of the bases of distribution, again, it is private enterprise, but the right hon. and gallant Gentleman cannot escape by bringing out a fact of that kind. We are dealing in the Ministry of Food with an organisation which is handling the whole food supplies of this country. Does the right hon. and gallant Gentleman suggest that we could produce a sufficient quantity of food in this country without the war-time organisation of the Ministry of Food? It is not my intention to embark on that argument, but, nevertheless, it is desirable to point out that the impact of the Ministry of Food on the war-time economy, on all the producing and distributing factors here, is undoubtedly Socialistic in character, and the right hon. and gallant Gentleman had better be careful how far he attempts to initiate a Debate of that character on these Estimates.

I was interested in his comment upon subsidies. I frankly admit that I favour certain subsidies to producers, and certain levies to certain forms of trade, but all these matters should be decided at the time upon their merits. While I have opposed certain levies and subsidies in the past, it does not mean that I oppose them on principle, or oppose them on every occasion. In the case of subsidies on basic food articles required for the people of this country, during the war I strongly support them both as an individual and as a party representative. If the Government had not subsidised the basic foodstuffs, we would have gone irresistibly towards inflation in this country. It has been a very sound policy, but it does not mean that because one supports a policy in a particular set of economic and financial conditions he would support a similar policy for all time, and perhaps under entirely different conditions. I hope that Parliament and the British people will have the sense to judge matters, according to how they suit our national economy from time to time.

I appreciate the straightforward and encouraging report which the Minister of Food was able to give and I want to comment on one or two points that he made, before I indulge in some minor criticisms. I wish to say on behalf of the retail trade—I speak particularly from the point of view of the co-operative movement, but this applies to all retailers—how much we welcome the circular the Minister sent to local food control committees, emphasising the difference between the infringement of a regulation by a harassed employee, or one not fully trained and unable to cope with the rush of work, and the infringement of a regulation with definite criminal intent. An undue number of prosecutions have taken place and wrong conclusions have been drawn from that type of human error. People in our shops have tried to do their best as substitute labour, and it is not right, if they slip up and make a mistake, that severe action should be taken against them in the way of prosecution. The circular of the Minister telling local food committees to exercise reasonable judgment, and to differentiate between these two forms of infringement will, I am sure, give general satisfaction.

With regard to the four years of guaranteed prices, it is significant that what the Minister of Agriculture said about that is followed up by the Chancellor, in his Budget statement, with a hint of a revision of Government policy in this respect. I do not know how it will work out, but I want to emphasise that the Minister of Food—despite what the right hon. and gallant Member says—holds the special Ministerial responsibility of representing the views of the consumer in this triangular set-up, and I hope he will bear that in mind.

I would like to associate this side of the Committee with the Minister's tribute to the flour-milling and the bread industries, and the grocery trade, for the way they have done their jobs under war-time conditions, and I think it is very desirable to extend that tribute to the Dominion producers, who have really put themselves out to try to add to our food supplies. But there is a criticism I should like to address to the Ministry of Food. We are in the fifth year of war and the fourth season of fresh fruits and salads. The Ministry, whilst committing errors in many directions at the commencement, have rapidly learned and, in co-operation with the trade—as was fully acknowledged in the Minister's statement—they have from time to time perfected an organisation that has gradually removed abuses. I fully admit the difficulty in handling certain. seasonal goods, but that only emphasises the responsibility of the Ministry to call in all the necessary aids at their disposal to try to avoid abuses which flow from this state of affairs. After the long winter months, the average household seeks eagerly for any change of diet, and nothing is more aggravating to the average housewife—I am not talking about the housewife who can get a favoured service of goods, but about the housewife who has to trudge and tramp about and go through the ordinary inconveniences of shopping in order to get any little tit-bit that comes along from time to time—than to find the early fresh salads or fresh fruits coming to the market, entirely beyond her purse. It should be possible to prevent this aggravation of the price of things like lettuces when they first appear on the market. I have quoted figures extensively before, and I do not want to do it to-day, but housewives are repeatedly asked to pay a shilling for a lettuce. Such high prices prevent the variation of diet. I think, by now, that state of affairs ought to be improved, at least to some extent, by the Ministry of Food.

Again, the Minister has indicated that we shall meet a shortage of soft fruits owing to weather conditions. That means that some of these fruits will not be on the market at all. As I understood it, certain districts may have these fruits and other districts have no fruit at all.

Mr. Mabane

What the Minister said was that no black currants would be available for jam.

Mr. Barnes

Does that mean that there will not be black currants on the ordinary retail market?

Mr. Mabane

Yes, it does, because the Minister said that all the black currants were necessary for the purée which, as the hon. Gentleman knows, is for medical purposes.

Mr. Barnes

Obviously that emphasizes the need to see that other fruits are more equitably distributed, and I hope the Ministry will bear that in mind. I would illustrate the need for the more equitable distribution of soft and other fruits by reference to the tomato scheme. My right hon. Friend knows that a year or two ago tomatoes were very badly distributed; in some parts of the country you could get them and in other parts it was impossible. As a result of collaboration with the trade, it was possible last year to get a much better and more even distribution of tomatoes.

Mr. Mabane

There was an enormously increased supply of tomatoes.

Mr. Barnes

That does not matter; it was possible to get a better distribution of tomatoes. If that can be done with tomatoes, it can be done with other commodities. Here, again, the scheme was not completed; it ended, more or less, at the wholesaler and the factor; it was left to retailers to allocate their supplies fairly between their customers. We need to secure a better distribution of salads, vegetables and fruits which are in relatively short supply. Before I leave that point, may I urge the Minister to pursue his intention of increasing the variety of foodstuffs as much as possible? It occurs to me that since practically the whole of the Mediterranean area is now being freed from war conditions, increased supplies of dried fruits should be possible from that area. We should be assured now of sufficient stocks of dried fruits to tie up with the distribution of a ration such as sugar, so that everybody is able to get an adequate supply of dried fruits. If that happened, it would add to the variety of food to some extent.

The next point I want to submit to the Minister concerns the distribution of canned meats for canteens. There are many canteens in which a full service of meals cannot be given and they are more or less reduced to a sandwich service. Unfortunately, there is an overall shortage of canned meats, and any distributors responsible for supplying those canteens must do so at the expense of denying the average housewife her supplies. Surely the Minister should have no difficulty in providing a fixed percentage of canned meats for those canteens which largely supply snack meals.

I would also ask the Minister to give an opportunity to retailers to renominate their wholesalers. The consumer is being provided again with an opportunity of changing his retailer, but for four years now the retailer has had no opportunity of changing his wholesaler. All goods are not governed by rationing, and my right hon. and gallant Friend ought to appreciate that many goods go by favour of wholesalers. The average retailer—it does not matter what type of retailer he is—is not in a position to change his wholesaler if he is not getting a square deal. At the moment, when there is to be a re-registration of retail customers, that matter might very well come under review.

My next point is to ask the Minister to reconsider the sugar preserves scheme. Under the present arrangement, each consumer has six coupons during each four-week period. Each coupon is worth half a pound of sugar or one pound of jam. The possible variations on the part of the consumer in the use of these facilities are very considerable, and a good many housewives find it very difficult indeed to grasp the scope of them. When the Minister institutes a complicated arrangement of this kind, he should bear in mind the difficulties under which the average retailer is suffering with regard to staff. It is really difficult for inexperienced shop assistants, whilst they are trying to carry out—I do not know whether the Parliamentary Secretary is smiling because he does not accept my views or he thinks I am exaggerating them—

Mr. Mabane

I was expressing agreement with the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Barnes

I am very glad to hear that; the smile now has taken on a different character. I am pleased that the Parliamentary Secretary appreciates this point, because we feel for the assistant who, in the rush of service, is also trying to advise a harassed housewife. This scheme has been condemned, I think, by all sections of the retail trade because of its administrative complexity, and I hope, therefore, that the Minister will now consider separating the rations of sugar and preserves.

Some time ago, in the rationalisation of milk supplies, it fell to my lot to make representations to the Minister to postpone the North Western Sectional Rationing Scheme because the retail end had no representation on the North Western Joint Regional Milk Distributive Committee. The Minister was good enough to postpone the operation of that scheme, and I think it was to everybody's advantage. I would like to express my appreciation of the representation given to the retail side, for it is a policy which, I feel, will lead increasingly to good will between the Ministry of Food and the general trade. We all know that when we are trying to initiate something entirely new in ally trade, something which normally they would resist, the first step is to obtain the good will of everybody concerned. You cannot get that good will if they are not consulted, if they have not the opportunity of putting their point of view and their experiences. Because of the representation granted in the case I have mentioned, I understand that the scheme is moving smoothly, and I think that is a very good sign.

The last point to which I want to refer is the Hot Springs Conference, which made two declarations of supreme importance to the problem we have under review. The first one was that there had never been enough food for the health of all people. Hon. Members have been emphasising the need to increase our food supplies. The vital thing is for what purpose we are to increase our food supplies, Sir Charles—I wish that honour could be conferred upon you, Mr. Williams; I am sorry if I have anticipated it. The point I wanted to emphasise is this: if we are to increase the food supplies of this and other countries we must, of necessity, recognise that malnutrition cannot exist side by side with increasing food supplies. We must seek to expand the consumption of basic food. Unless the Government and the nation fully accept that complementary policy, sooner or later we shall reach the stage we reached after the last war. If people are denied a standard of income that enables them to consume an increasing output of food then, sooner or later, there will be a glut in some parts of the world, and when that happens growers will lose confidence, the standard of living will fall in the producing areas and we shall move again to the economic difficulties of the past.

We on this side of the Commons fully endorse the statement that there has never been enough food to maintain the health of all the people. We say that the first cause of hunger and malnutrition is poverty, and that if we want a successful agricultural industry throughout the world we must recognise that the vast majority of the people must be safeguarded against hunger and poverty. The experience of the Ministry of Food has shown us the power that resides in the State and in the community as a whole, a power that no individual or organisation holds. If that power is wisely used and brought into proper contact with the active and energetic life of the community we see what a great national purpose it can serve. The Ministry of Food have demonstrated during this great crisis the efficacy and value of the Socialist theory of using the power of the community in the right way and we hope that after the war the nation will not lose sight of this service but will use it to even greater advantage than hitherto.

Lady Apsley (Bristol, Central)

I welcome this opportunity of saying a word of appreciation of all that the Ministry of Food have done during the past four years of war, when we have all had to learn and re-learn a very great deal of the fundamentals of our national life. I would like for a few minutes to refer to the health side of the problems of food, and, first of all, to the great work which has been done by the Ministry on behalf of future generations. This is a sign which we cannot too greatly appreciate at the present time. I refer to the distribution of cod-liver oil and fruit juices to the young children of the nation. I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health is not present, because I feel sure she would agree with me how very important it is that we should push to the utmost this nourishing food for our young children. I feel some anxiety at the fact that a considerable proportion of the children who are entitled to this food are not obtaining it, partly through the ignorance of their mothers or partly, I fear, to their laziness. When we prosecute mothers for not having their children vaccinated we should make sure part of the future generation is not unnecessarily deprived of what the rest of the community get. In the best interests of future health they should not be deprived of these vital cod-liver oil and fruit juices.

The second point I would like to refer to concerns national bread, and, here, again, I congratulate the Ministry for making this purer wheat bread both palatable and attractive. I hope we shall never go back to white bread for general use. A dentist friend of mine assured me that the teeth of children and grown-ups were decidedly better than they had been, largely due to the use of the purer wheat bread and to the lack of white starch and sugar. Therefore, I hope we shall retain this health giving food in the future. I would like to associate myself with the thanks which the Minister gave to the shopkeepers of this country; they have served the nation extremely well and have largely maintained the morale of our people. Their courtesy and cheerful efficiency throughout great difficulties have been of enormous help, particularly in our blitzed cities. I would also like to say how much I agree with what the Minister said about black marketeers and what great harm they do to morale. It is like dropping a pebble into water. The repercussions of the activities of one black sheep do great harm to the rest of the nation. I also welcome strongly the reference made by the Minister to the reduction in forms and form filling. I am quite sure that I am speaking for the British public when I say how greatly they appreciate this progressive move on the part of the Minister, a move of which I hope other Ministries will take note. In one day I have myself had to fill in forms for fuel, for binding twine, seed potatoes, poultry rations, one to enable a pig to be killed and another for paraffin, so I welcome, on behalf of all housewives, this effort to reduce the multitude of forms.

Lastly, I would like to express my appreciation on behalf of the nation, and, again, particularly on the part of housewives, to the officials of the Ministry of Food. No praise can be too great for their courtesy, intelligence and great patience in many trying circumstances. I asked a German refugee woman who came to this country what had impressed her most in this country at war and she said, "I am most impressed by the kindness of everybody, particularly by the courtesy of your officials." She showed me a letter from the Ministry of Food, dealing with ration books, which ended, "Your obedient servant," and she said," That is what we appreciate so much." Once again may I express appreciation for the services which the Ministry of Food have carried out during the past year?

Mr. Wootton-Davies (Heywood and Radcliffe)

I am glad that I have caught your eye, Mr. Williams, and I think perhaps that you will not rule me out of Order if I make a reference to what happened earlier to-day. I realised when I put my Amendment on the Order Paper to reduce the Vote by £10 that I should not get a squatter's right to speak, but I would like to tell the Minister of Food and his Parliamentary Secretary that I have no desire to reduce their salaries. Rather am I one of those who would increase them, because I think the salaries of our Ministers are far too little. As a new Member in this extraordinary school one has to try things and see how they turn out. Well, I tried to do something earlier to-day, but I hope the Minister will take it in a friendly spirit.

With regard to what the Noble Lady the Member for Central Bristol (Lady Apsley) said about fruit juices, cod-liver oil and vitamins generally, the period of the war has been one of the greatest experiments in nutrition that the world has ever known. I do not intend to debate what has been said, but I would like to ask the Minister whether he is altogether wise in stopping children over five years of age from having these fruit-juices and vitamins? A medical man might be able to give a better opinion, but I think that if, in the growing stage of our children, the nation could see its way to continue these vitamins up to the age of seven the outstanding results which have been achieved would be continued. With regard to the activities of the black market, I have asked several Questions in the House and have done my best to get action, for which I have been thanked by the Minister's predecessor. I do not think the Minister wishes to prosecute shopkeepers for charging a halfpenny too much—I know full well he does not—but I wonder whether sufficient attention has been paid to the initiators of these black markets, the manufacturers of the goods. How many manufacturers have been prosecuted? Although I am a manufacturer myself I do not think that they are any more virtuous than the average shopkeeper. I have nothing but praise for the Minister and his officials, but I do not think that prevents me from asking one or two questions.

My right hon. and gallant Friend's predecessor said he was one of the biggest shopkeepers in the world. We heard in the House this week one of the biggest producers, namely the Minister for the Colonies. I should like to ask for information as to how the Minister arranges to buy the various materials he sells in different parts of the world. The cost of living shows that he does his job very well, and there is only one point about which I am anxious. It is a rather peculiar British characteristic that we often treat our own people worse than others, and I should like to remind the Minister of some facts. He has told me that it is not expedient to give certain information, so I have to rely entirely on official records. We have just been reminded of the possibility of a glut of certain things. No one would regret more than I would a falling off in articles of primary produce, but the right hon. and gallant Gentleman is too good a shopkeeper not to know that if he does not pay the primary producers sufficiently, supplies will fail.

I want to know whether in the case of some of these things, particularly the long list of West African produce, he is really paying the British Colonies what he should pay. It can be seen from HANSARD that, on 23rd February; the Minister or someone here, paid the natives 7 12s. 6d. a ton for palm oil in the year 1939. The price was raised this year to £12s. 19s. 0d. or roughly 70 per cent.—about equal to the rise in the cost of living here. Freights have increased to a surprisingly small extent considering the perils of the sea in these times. They have risen, again according to HANSARD, from 34s. per ton in June, 1939, to £5 IOS. 0d. in 1944. In 1939 this oil which was bought from the natives for £9 6s. 0d., was sold in England according to the Minister for £12 10s. 0d. The inference is that some one got 3s. 6d. for his services. The same oil to-day according to HANSARD once again is costing £18 10s. 6d., and my right hon. Friend is charging £42 5s. 0d. for it, which looks as if someone is getting not 3s. 6d. but £23 14s. 6d. for his services. I am quite sure no one is getting this profit. My right hon. and gallant Friend is much too clever to allow anyone to get such a margin. But I do think this is an opportunity of letting the country know that he is not getting such a profit nor is anyone else. If I am right in assuming that half our imports of this oil comes from British territory, and half comes from somewhere else, and that which costs 18 10s. 6d. from British territory is sold for £42 5s. 0d., then from an arithmetical calculation that which comes from the other place must be about £66 a ton. Now the Minister writes me that he considers it inexpedient to announce publicly the prices he is paying. All prices have, of course, risen considerably, but we are still able to buy in some countries at lower prices than others. One can quite imagine this, but I have the curious feeling that the lower prices are paid to our own British Colonies and the higher ones elsewhere and I want, by hook or by crook, to raise the price of primary commodities in our own Colonies, and I thoroughly agree with the hon. Member for South East Ham (Mr. Barnes) that we must maintain the production and price level of primary commodities. I will use all the strength I have to this end. Unless we raise this price level, we cannot carry out the social reforms we all want. I hope my right hon. and gallant Friend will forgive me for having had the temerity to put my Amendment on the Paper and will also forgive my apparent discourtesy if I do not stay to hear his final answer. As a matter of fact I am going to open a "Salute the Soldier" campaign and I. am sure the Committee would like to send to Radcliffe a message urging them to save all they can at this important time in our affairs.

Mr. Hubert Beaumont (Batley and Morley)

I have been interested in the hon. Member's speech and have been wondering why he put down an Amendment to reduce the Vote. He said he had nothing but praise to give to the Minister. It therefore seems that, the more successful the Minister is, the more desirable it is to reduce his salary.

Mr. Wootton-Davies

I do not want to reduce his salary. I have made it plain that I am trying to get information, and I can get it in no other way than by the grand old method of trial and error.

Mr. Beaumont

It is true that the hon. Member may not wish to reduce the salary, but it is equally true that he has managed to secure prominence, and he has got in his speech, as a result of putting down the Amendment. It is possible that the same device will not work twice, and that the innocent attempt of a new Member, who has been in the House four years, will not succeed on a second occasion. I will not go into the realms of palm oil. I know that "palm oil" can be interpreted in another way. When the hon. Member said "All I want is"—I thought he was going to quote the refrain of the song, "A little off the top," and that he was going to suggest that the money paid for palm oil was excessive and that the Minister ought to take less. But, if I understand his argument correctly, it was that the Ministry should pay more, and that he was desirous that the Vote should be decreased by if o because the Ministry had failed to pay more for the goods they are obtaining. I can hardly think that that is good advice which the Minister is likely to act upon.

I wish to join in the general measure of congratulation to the Minister, not only on the efficiency of his Department, but also upon the very excellent speech he gave us. I have heard him on many occasions and in many different capacities, and I think this was one of his finest efforts, because his speech was full of information and will be heartening to the people of the country when they read it. He expressed thanks and appreciation for all that had been done by the shopkeepers and shop assistants, who labour under great difficulties and disadvantages and have shown a great deal of patience with people who are not the most easy to get on with. I should like to echo that appreciation of the very valuable public service that has been rendered by the shopkeepers and their assistants, under the most adverse and difficult conditions. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman also referred to the great work that has been done by our fishermen, and I think that perhaps the public are not conscious of the perils which beset those who in these days go out to fish in deep waters and that, when there is a shortage of fish, it is not due to any lack of desire on the part of the men who go out and face the hazards of the sea. It is due to circumstances, which possibly cannot be made known, which prevent them fishing. I feel that we ought to express our appreciation and admiration for the great courage and tenacity which they have displayed and for the fact that we have had so much fish during these perilous years.

The Minister congratulated those responsible for food production, the farmers and farm workers, but there is one section whom he failed to congratulate, and that is the general public—the consumers. I believe that, in the main, the British public have accepted the difficulties without much murmuring. The way in which they have collaborated, and accepted the restrictions which have, of necessity, been imposed upon them, is worthy of the highest commendation. I think the reason why the public has accepted these restrictions and has been so generous in carrying out the desires and orders of the Minister, is that the Ministry, very wisely, has always taken the public into its confidence. The predecessor of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman himself, and the Parliamentary Secretary—whom, I am glad to note, he praised today so highly—have at various times gone to the microphone and broadcast to the nation why this and that had to be done. The public, even when they have not been given reasons, have been willing to believe there was a good sound reason why certain restrictions had to be put on, why there was limitation of supplies, and a shortage of certain necessary goods. This policy of maintaining personal contact with the public through the medium of broadcast and Press announcements should be continued, because I am confident that if the public is assured that certain things are being done of necessity they will accept cheerfully any restrictions placed upon them.

The review which the Minister gave us to-day was extremely heartening to hear. The fact that in the fifth year of war we are the best-fed nation in Europe is a remarkable state of affairs and reflects enormous credit upon those responsible for the organisation of the Ministry of Food. The fact that we have an adequacy of essential and nutritive foods in this country will play an important part in the campaign that is now taking place in France and other countries. There is only one thing that could materially affect the morale of our troops. No amount of hardship, dangers and difficulties could impair their determination to carry on in a cheerful spirit. The only thing that could affect the morale of our troops would be a knowledge that their loved ones at home were short of food. The Ministry of Food has been largely responsible, not only for creating the great stocks of food that we have in this country and for developing the rationing system that has been an immense advantage to the community, but it has done a great service in seeing that the men who fight our battles and face the dangers and hazards of war knows that while they are away their folks at home are being well looked after. That is a tremendous tribute to the Ministry of Food.

The Noble Lady the Member for Central Bristol (Lady Apsley) rightly congratulated the Ministry upon its wisdom, judgment and skill in supplying fruit juices, cod liver oil and so on for the children. It is amazing to think that after four years of what might have been terrible privation and what has been a time of great anxiety, the health of the nation is at least equal to what it has ever been. The health of the nation has not been impaired, and it can be proved that the health of the young children is far better than it has ever been in days past. That is a great tribute, not only to the Minister and the Ministry of Food, but to the understanding, knowledge and intelligence of those who have advised the Minister in this respect. The Ministry has been extremely fortunate in gathering within its fold men and women of ripe and rare experience who have been able to advise an nutrition matters. I hope along with the hon. Member for Heywood and Radcliffe (Mr. Wootton-Davies), who has now gone home to tell his constituents—

Mr. Wootton-Davies

The hon. Member wears glasses as I do, but I am not so small and insignificant that I cannot be seen.

Mr. Beaumont

If the hon. Gentleman would remain in one place, it would be easier to find him.

The Temporary Chairman (Captain Cobb)

I think we might get back to the Ministry of Food.

Mr. Beaumont

If I say much more, the hon. Gentleman will want to reduce my salary. I would like to say to him that when to-morrow he takes part in "Salute the Soldier" in his constituency, I trust that he will tender to the people the advice that he tendered to the Minister; that is, to pay the highest possible price in their contributions to "Salute the Soldier" because of the value of the work they will get from the soldiers in the field. That is by the way.

I was pleased to note the comments of the Minister about the foodstuffs that have been gathered together and stored for the use of troops abroad. I had an opportunity during the Whitsuntide Recess of seeing some of the great 'stores in which were accumulated vast stocks of food for D-Day. It was an eye-opener to me. I saw on the shelves of these great stores many articles that I have not seen in the shops in the last four or five years, and I was heartened to know that our soldiers would have not only an adequacy of food, but a great variety. Our soldiers could not be fed better than at the present time, and I feel sure that the Committee will rejoice in the fact that these brave men and women, who are facing the dangers and hazards of war, will have an adequacy and variety of food. In this the Ministry of Food has played an important part, and although it is not possible for the Minister to give facts and figures to show what has been done in this respect, it is comforting to know that in the provision of food for our troops the Ministry has fully justified the reputation it has secured and that it has become a great food provider for the Army. Food will have to be provided for the people of the countries we shall eventually free from the enemy. Great stocks of food will have to be acquired and distributed on the Continent. In this matter the Ministry has a gigantic task; up to the present it has done the job well.

I do not wish to strike a controversial note, but there is one matter I would like to bring to the notice of the Minister. I have not given him notice, except by telephoning to his office to-day, and I do not expect a reply now. I would ask him to consider what is being done in connection with British Restaurants, on many of which there is a deficit. One of the greatest things that the Ministry of Food did to ensure an adequacy of good and plentiful food was the establishment of British Restaurants. The response made by the local authorities to the request of the Ministry during the early days was remarkable. Some of those authorities which were most energetic in the establishment of restaurants are now faced with financial difficulties. I understand that the Ministry will, within certain limits, repay any deficit incurred by a local authority if it can be shown that reasonable care has been taken.

Colonel Llewellin

It is only done in exceptional circumstances.

Mr. Beaumont

I want to submit that in the great majority of cases where there is a deficit there are exceptional circumstances. When British Restaurants were started in 1941 and in 1942, local authorities were asked to provide restaurants in which people could obtain well-cooked meals of good quality at a reasonable price. Following the establishment by the local authorities of these restaurants, the Board of Education—quite rightly—requested the education committees to open school canteens. Then the Ministry of Labour compelled works employing 250 people and over to establish canteens. There immediately followed a great reduction in the clientele of British Restaurants. Although it may have been possible to close a restaurant here and there, it was not possible in many cases materially to reduce the overhead expenses. Therefore, British Restaurants, which in 1942 were a financial success, are now making losses.

May I quote two cases? In my constituency I have three boroughs, Batley, Morley and Ossett. Batley has been highly successful in the provision of school canteens, and over 60 per cent. of those in the schools are receiving meals; it is the highest in the country. When Batley opened a British Restaurant on 10th January, 1942, there were only eight school canteens. There are now 28 in a population of about 40,000. With regard to factories, there were only seven canteens when the British Restaurant opened in Batley, and there have been started, since the British Restaurants were opened, 16 works canteens, one of them supplying the needs of something like 3,000 people. Therefore, it will be appreciated that, after all the care and forethought they have exercised, the authorities in Batley have not been able to reduce the amount of their overhead charges so as to ensure that their restaurants are not being run at a loss. At the present time there is a loss which in 1942 was £119, in 1943 was 905, and, in 1944, owing to certain alterations that were made, was £644.

Colonel Llewellin

Is that the figure up to date, in 1944?

Mr. Beaumont

Up to 31st March. I do not want to bore the Committee with many illustrations, but perhaps I might take the other case, that of the borough of Morley, where British Restaurants were opened in 1941. The borough has had to close some of them. The number of school canteens that have been opened is only three, but the number of works canteens is 32. It is obvious that however wise and careful the local authority may have been in making provision for overhead charges, if there is a great reduction in the number of their clientele it must materially affect the financial success of the British Restaurants. This local authority is faced at the present time with a loss of something like 1,550. The income for the month averages only 93 per week, as compared with last month, and there is a continual reduction of about £18 per week. There has been no corresponding reduction in the expenditure. The result is a loss of £27 on operation costs, which is increased to £54 after charging repayment of capital. That is the first time there has been any loss on operations since 1943, and the net surplus to date has been reduced to £140, and after charging repayment of capital there is a net accumulated deficiency of 1;1550.

Mr. Reakes (Wallasey)

On a point of Order. Are these details a matter of any general interest to the Committee? Could not the hon. Gentleman be content to send them to the Minister? Suppose we all do that. I have been waiting for three hours to get in a few words.

Mr. Beaumont

I do not propose to go on for much longer but I quote these figures as illustrations.

Mr. Reakes

Give us all a chance.

Mr. Beaumont

I do not think the hon. Member can complain of the multitude of times that I speak in the House compared with himself.

Mr. Reakes

I speak very much less often than does the hon. Member.

Mr. Beaumont

The other point I want to make, despite what the hon. Member has said, is that in this case two canteens have been closed down. The equipment of those canteens has been idle for several months, and I ask the Minister whether he will be good enough to have an inquiry made into the matter.

We recognise that the operation of the Ministry of Food in war-time has been of tremendous value to the community. I was very glad to note that the right hon. Gentleman dealt in his review with longterm policy and anticipated the continuance of the Ministry of Food for some number of years after the war. I believe that is essential, from the point of view of national health as well as of good feeding of the community. It was said by the Noble Lady that we have done much to increase the standard of health and the physique of the children, and the hon. Member for South East Ham (Mr. Barnes) said that before the war the peoples of the world never had an adequacy of food. I think it is true to say that, prior to the war, taking the world over all, from France to China, that, while there have been famines in many parts, such as in North China and occasionally in India, the people of the world have not received an adequacy of food from the nutritional point of view. If we are wise we shall see after the war that not only is agriculture no longer a depressed industry, but we shall recognise that the provision of adequate nutritive food can be of immense value in promoting health and wellbeing and in preventing a state of mind and ill-health of body that are conducive to unrest, revolution and may be war. My final word is to congratulate the Minister upon the work of his Department and to hope that when he comes back to that Box next year he will have a record behind him of equally good service. Perhaps he will then be able to give us the plans upon which the Ministry proposes to work in time of peace, we hope as well and as efficiently as it has worked in time of war.

Sir Henry Morris-Jones (Denbigh)

In common with other Members who have been in the Committee, I have listened with very great interest to the Minister. I had the great pleasure of being a colleague of his many years ago in the Whips' Office, but he has travelled very far since that day, although no farther than his admirable qualities and undoubted abilities entitle him. Though an older man now, but not an older politician, he is still young, and I can assure him that we all wish for him a great political future in high office. The popularity of the Ministry of Food in this country is shown by what is usually a very good barometer, the number of Questions asked, and the amount of time taken by the Department, in this House. I should think the Ministry of Food takes less time in proportion to its importance than any other Department, and that is the greatest tribute that could be paid to the machine that was perfected by the Noble Lord, the Minister's predecessor, and which has been continued by himself.

We can all agree that, in the main, the people of this country have been very much better nourished during the war, but I would not go so far as my right hon. and gallant Friend, in his praise of the carbohydrates and starchy food. All of us could do with a little more protein, and I hope that at a day not very far distant, we shall be allowed more meat and fish. There is no question that many people in this country are tired, no doubt because of the great strain of five years of war, but possibly it is due, in some degree, to the lack of the complete range of diet that we used to have before the war. People do not recover quite so rapidly and readily from illnesses as they did. In spite of the excellent and nourishing food that we get, we miss something that we used to get before the war. Clearly this is not the fault of my right hon. and gallant Friend. It may be something to do with the soil or with the vitamins. I have heard it said that the soil itself throughout the world has something to do with it. Although we get the same amount of food, it does not seem to have the same potency.

The hon. Member who has just sat down spoke of British Restaurants and canteens. May I point out that the agricultural labourer still misses a great deal of what the factory worker gets? In some counties, efforts are being made to feed agricultural workers with extra nourishment which they require, and I know it is the case in Essex, near where I live. In some of the rural villages they are doing very well, but in many counties that is not the case. This matter seems to be dependent upon county effort. I hope that my right hon. Friend will keep an eye on this matter and see whether it is possible to enlarge the scope of the facility which is being given for canteens for agricultural workers and put them upon a national scale.

The hon. Member also referred to milk distribution. Milk is being supplied to many young people who have never had it before in their lives and I wish my right hon. and gallant Friend and his Department to keep an eye upon the calling up of milk distributors, especially the one-man retail milk distributor. In my own constituency is a one-man distributor with 800 names on his list. He works from half past five in the morning to six o'clock at night. He has recently bought out of his own savings the best possible kind of equipment to help him in his distribution. He is nevertheless about to be called up, and the answer of the food executive officer, when this was pointed out, was "Your work will be taken over by the co-operative society." I presume that that means that men from the cooperative society will do the work that this distributor has been doing. I therefore must protest in the name of the small distributors in this country, that a food executive officer should have the right to make that remark.

Mr. Evelyn Walkden

In the name of fairness and honesty I must ask the hon. Gentleman to tell us the actual area and the name of the food officer, so that we can examine this allegation.

Sir H. Morris-Jones

I do not think that it would be wise for me to mention the name of the area. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why not?"] I have sent the name of the town to the Minister and I shall be quite prepared to mention the town to my hon. Friend. Here is the case of a man engaged from half past five in the morning to six in the evening upon milk distribution, in his own little business. If he is called up, I presume that his work will have to be done by two men. Surely, from the aspect of man-power, the country saves nothing at all by the calling up of this private distributor and handing over his business to the co-operative society.

Mr. E. Walkden

Tell us where it is.

Sir H. Morris-Jones

I am quite prepared to hand the name of the town to my hon. Friend.

Mr. E. Walkden

It is dishonest not to tell the Committee.

Sir H. Morris-Jones

Why should my hon. Friend expect me to say publicly the name of a town in my constituency? I am quite prepared to tell him privately that name.

Mr. E. Walkden

We will force it out of the hon. Member.

Sir H. Morris-Jones

The headquarters of the Ministry of Food are in my constituency in the borough of Colwyn Bay. There are in the borough between 5,000 and 6,000 officials of all grades serving this very vital and important Department. The borough of Colwyn Bay is very proud that it has had the privilege for five years to be the home and the centre of this great Ministry. I can only repeat what has been said to me on more than one occasion on my visits to the constituency, that the most happy relationship has existed throughout between the officials of the Ministry and the inhabitants of this town. Many of these officials left their homes in London and other large areas and went to an entirely new town and some initial difficulties were inevitable. But the spirit in which they have entered into the corporate life of the borough of Colwyn Bay, and have taken part in all good movements there—social welfare, educational schemes and Welsh cultural movements—is worthy of the highest commendation, and will leave its mark on the borough for many years to come. It will be a source of pride to the borough of Colwyn Bay that they have had the privilege in this war—they themselves are rather removed from the war from the geographical point of view—and the great honour of housing the officials of this Ministry, which has done such beneficent work.

Mr. Robertson (Streatham)

I think my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) put his finger on the really serious aspect of this Debate, when he referred to the statement of the Minister that the position regarding world food has so changed, that the great surplus which existed in his predecessor's time is no longer there, and that we are facing an appalling shortage. I regard that as indisputable, and it seems to me that when my right hon. and gallant Friend referred to herrings, he also put his finger on one of the commodities which are at our own door, in enormous supply, and which should be called into use at the earliest possible moment. A few weeks ago, a report on the herring industry was published by the Committee under the chairmanship of my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kelvingrove. It gave this startling figure, in the first paragraph, that the catch of herrings in the North Sea alone in one year before the war, averaged i,000,000 tons—the finest food in existence almost, full of high protein values, which will counteract the overdose of carbohydrates we are now getting, which will stop rickets, and will go a long way towards stopping tuberculosis and the other maladies of which the hon. Member for North Cumberland (Mr. Roberts) and others have spoken.

What did the Minister say with regard to herrings? He said he had made a contract, for one year, to buy pickled herrings—not fresh herrings but something which this country discarded a long time ago. When I was a boy in the city of Glasgow, every grocer's shop used to have a barrel of pickled herrings before the door. I suppose the same thing happened in the constituency of the Noble Lady the Member for Central Bristol (Lady Apsley), and in all other cities and towns. It is a fact that, in the last war, the then Ministry of Food made enormous purchases of pickled herrings and the great bulk of them were condemned. Many of them were purchased as part of a deliberate blockade policy to prevent them going to the enemy. Nevertheless, when they were brought to this country and stored in every little town on the East coast, from the Shetlands right down to East Anglia, communities were threatened with an epidemic, because these pickled herrings were going bad before they could be consumed. But people do want fresh herrings and it seems to me that this proposal is a very pathetic contribution towards solving the difficulties that arose last year.

These herrings are landed beside a network of railways which do not run through the bottle-neck of Crewe, nor through heavy munitions areas. In any event there is no real problem of any magnitude. If they cannot come by rail they should be put on a fast carrier vessel to bring them in a fresh state to the Forth, Humber and Thames. It does not need much imagination to do that. We did that in the white fishing industry for over a century. We only abandoned the carrier system because of the over-fishing and consequent depletion of the North Sea—a few years before the war broke out. For that long period of time, London was mainly supplied with fish caught by fleets in the North Sea. They moved from the Dutch coast right up to the Faroes, following the fish as they migrated from bank to bank. The fleet remained fishing all the time. The carriers were detached every day from the fleet to bring the catch into the City of London—fine fresh fish only a day or two old—which built up the great fish consumption in this Metropolis. That can be done with herrings, if railway traffic is the only problem, but if herrings are to be turned into a heavily preserved article, by the most ancient method of preserving known to the human race, and stored away for the use of the civilian population, it will be an utter failure. The only people likely to buy are the people in places like the Hebrides and elsewhere, who, because of their location, have to put up with heavily preserved foods.

The seas are teeming with white fish. I referred a few moments ago to the depletion in 1932–3–4–5. Almost five years of war have given a period of rest and the fish have multiplied enormously. I put that forward to my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench. I hope they are listening to what I am saying because it is based on experience gained in 25 years' work in the industry, with which I am not now connected. If steam trawlers are used as fleets, as we did for a century, keeping them at sea night and day, fishing for six weeks, and then bringing them in one at a time for a week's rest but with the fleet always fishing—a fleet may comprise TOO or 5o boats—and the catch is taken by fast carrier, that is another trawler, to the market, that would overcome many of the problems. Why talk in war-time of hauling food from the Argentine, with all its transport difficulties, risks to seamen and currency difficulties, when we have this great volume of food lying round our coasts waiting to be caught? If one-thousandth part of the time was put into fish production that has been put into agricultural production, the shortage of food from which we are suffering to-day would very largely have disappeared.

I want to say another thing with regard to that aspect of this important matter. You cannot catch fish without trawlers, or drifters, and crews. The Admiralty took away 75 per cent. of the fleet when war broke out. I do not blame them for that; it was necessary. But I do blame the situation which brought about the necessity. The Admiralty should have had their own adequate fleet. The fleet they have taken is wanted to catch food, which is our first munition of war. I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman should go to his colleague in the Admiralty and ask whether the time has not come, after five years of war, for the Admiralty to release some of these trawlers, and allow them to go back to the jab for which they were built, that is, fishing for the people. If that is done I think it will have a tremendous bearing on the health of the people of this country. I do not accept this evidence of excellent national health. I see tuberculosis in my native country and I believe it exists in all the great munition areas, where people have been working far too long hours. I, of course, admire their patriotism. I say that fish can make a tremendous contribution, and that this source of food has been hopelessly neglected.

I have said before in this House that, if I hailed the Minister of Agriculture as the Minister of Fisheries, he would not turn round because he would not know I was addressing him. In the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, fisheries are dragged along by the tail of the coat, a long way behind. I appreciate the Minister's remarks about Lord Woolton, and also about his Parliamentary Secretary, with whom I differ not infrequently. But I do realise that the Parliamentary Secretary gallantly held the fort in this House for over two years, in a very difficult period indeed. My right hon. Friend rightly said that they had done a great job. Lord Woolton played a big part with his talented staff in saving this nation from starvation. But that is rather a long way behind. The seas are freed now of enemy aircraft, submarines and surface ships. I know this is a difficult week, but even if the right hon. Gentleman adopts my suggestion, by the time his plans are formulated our bridgehead will not be in Caen, but on the Rhine or beyond it. So, I earnestly beg of him to take the steps which are necessary to use this food which Providence has put at our own door.

Yesterday I intervened in Debate on a Fish Sale (Charges) Order by which the price of the carriage levy was being altered because of an alteration in the price of fish. I attempted to give the House some figures relating to the prices that had been paid to trawler owners for fish, which I regard as far too high. I have a list here of the 1938 figures, the average rates that were realised for the principal varieties of fish in the year 1938, which is the last recorded year. Some of these prices may have been too low, but I am dealing with the facts published by the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, giving the landed cost of all fish on the average in Great Britain, fish caught by inshore fishermen, North Sea trawlers, and trawlers fishing Iceland, Faroe, and the White Sea grounds. These prices together are the basis on which the Ministry published these landed costs, and they published them, year after year. I do not suppose anyone will dispute them. Bream in 1938 realised 10s. id. a cwt. The price prevailing up to a few weeks ago was 405 per cent. more than that. The increase in brill was 122 per cent., in catfish 260 per cent., codfish 288 per cent., dabs 358 per cent., flounders 583 per cent., gurnards 531 per cent. There are 29 varieties of fish in this list, and the average increase during the winter months is 300 per cent. or over. These prices are too high. It is time they were taken in hand.

I recall that, whatever credit this great Department has earned in regard to food generally, it has not earned a great deal of credit over fish. It had a scheme of control at the outbreak of war which existed for three weeks and then ceased. Then prices sky-rocketed. This 30o per cent. increase is a bagatelle compared with what prices rose to in that period, when the poor people—in fact, the bulk of the people—could not get any fish at all. With a great deal of timidity the Ministry brought in a scheme of control, after telling us, week after week, from that bench how difficult it was. Greater nonsense I have never listened to. One of the difficulties was that the organisation known as the Fish Industry Joint Council waged a battle against it. Their job was to maintain these high prices, and they succeeded. Whatever fees members paid to that association, they got them back a thousand-fold. After that period of control the Ministry said, "We have done a wonderful job and now we can rest content until the end of the war." Here is what they have done— 300 per cent, increase in prices. What is the result of this increase? Trawlers which earned at the outbreak of war £25 a day—

Mr. Loftus (Lowestoft)

Gross earnings.

Mr. Robertson

Yes—are now earning 175 a day. What is of even more importance, they are catching double the amount of fish they did before the war. I hope nobody will challenge that, because I have the figures of my right hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary. That is the effect of prices on the takings of the boats: what is the effect on the capital values? Boats that were tied up before the war and would only get scrap values of a few hundred pounds, are now fetching £10,000 and £15,000—I know a man who sold one the other day for £18,000. These are outstanding facts—far too high prices, far too high profits, and far too high capital values. The owners of these old boats selling them for high prices, are making new boats out of them. Because of the privileged position which they enjoy with regard to Excess Profits Tax, they are able to write off each year 33⅓ per cent. of the price they paid for them. That is a deplorable situation when every citizen of this country should be doing his best for the war effort. It is a situation with which this House must deal. I appeal to my right hon. Friends, who have a wonderful chance to put things right in the fishing industry and to serve this people of ours. If I was in either of their positions I should not envy Lord Woolton, but should think only of the job of serving humanity in this war. The job is waiting to be done. It will not be done by cowardice, incompetence, or timidity, but only by facing up to the facts. I would like to be in the team facing the trawler owners on the question of a reduction in prices: I would like to be the man to answer them. I have spoken rather long, but I have spoken about something which I know: every word I have said is true, and every statement I have made is a fact.

Mr. Leslie (Sedgefield)

We have listened to not only a very interesting but a very instructive speech from the Minister of Food, and to a very encouraging report on the food situation. We cannot be too grateful to our gallant sailors and fishermen, who have risked limb and life to save us from the pangs of hunger which so many people in so many countries are suffering to-day. It is good to know that our relief forces are bringing food to those countries, to help some of those suffering people. The hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Robertson), who is an authority on the fishing industry, has told us what could have been done with that industry, and I hope that his remarks will be taken to heart by the Minister of Food. In the last war I saw in one town thousands of tons of salted Iceland herring, with the stench rising to high heaven. The people were constantly urging the Government to destroy those barrels of herring. I hope that the mistake of having salted herring, instead of fresh herring, is not going to be repeated. I was hoping that it might have been possible for the Minister to announce that changes would take place on a Monday, instead of on a Sunday. The arrangement by which changes take place on a Sunday encourages Sunday trading, which we think is deplorable. I am very glad that the Minister has given new instructions to local food committees about infringements, and I hope that that will result in fewer prosecutions for trivial infringements.

I am very glad also that the Minister did not forget to mention those employed behind the counters of our food shops. Their task has not been a light one. On the one hand the multiplicity of Orders and forms issued by the Ministry has to be studied and then operated. Then there are the whims of customers; and, heaven knows, the assistants have to deal with many cantankerous customers. Then there has been the depletion of staffs and the training of novices; and after the training has been gone through, many have been suddenly drafted to munition factories and other work of national importance. My contention is that serving in food shops is work of national importance; and that fact should have been emphasised more than it has been. The position of shop managers has not been a bed of roses. Can it be wondered at that many prefer to volunteer for the Armed Forces rather than staying behind the counter? There is no occupation in this country that has contributed more men to the Armed Forces than have the distributive trades, and we can only hope and pray that more of them will return to civil life after this war than did after the last war.

Lieut.-Colonel Boles (Wells)

I would like to refer to the statement in the Minister's speech—which we all welcomed—about the Pig Self-suppliers Order. It gave us a certain amount of information as to new arrangements, such as concessions in respect of the keeping of pigs by farm labourers. The farmer is now permitted to accommodate the pigs on his farm, instead of their having to be kept, as before, in the backyard of the farm labourer. But those concessions are counter-balanced by some further restrictions, to which my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) referred as being perhaps unnecessary and irksome for those who live in out-of-the-way places. The Minister has, no doubt, an easy case to make out for this new arrangement of giving up coupons in place of the pig which is killed. But there is another side of the problem. The various clubs and schemes under the Small Pig-Keepers' Council vary in certain respects. The individual pig-keepers' club scheme, which allows a small pig-keeper to keep four pigs and to kill two in a year, differs from the co-operative scheme, because, under the co-operative scheme it is necessary to give pig for pig to the Minister, whereas the individual hitherto has not had to surrender anything, apart from putting himself under the moral obligation not to draw his bacon ration. That has worked very well, and, by and large, the Minister has scored. The figures are recorded by the Small Pig-Keepers' Council, and they show that the Minister has had at least 5o per cent. of the bargain. That compares on an equal basis with the return which he gets from the other scheme, under the Small Pig-Keepers' Council, so he has not been a loser on the deal.

I think the credit for that scheme must be given to the former Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture, the hon. Member for Honiton (Mr. Drewe). He has worked very hard at it, and has made a great success of it. There are no fewer than 5,000 clubs in that part of the scheme, and their total membership is in the neighbourhood of 150,000, which, if we are comparing figures, is probably equal to the total membership of the National Farmers' Union. That scheme has been worked up in four or five years, and it is an extremely creditable performance. But it was meant originally as a trap, not a trap baited to catch the Minister of Food—far from it—but a trap to catch waste. As such, it has worked extremely well. The basis was the combination of the small housekeeper, the neighbour's wife and small town or village dwellers who combined from four houses in order to keep a pig in order that what would have been waste from those cottages should be converted into a national food supply. The numbers of those who have joined in that scheme are a tribute to the success of the Ministry's efforts to secure that that waste should be converted into really useful food.

The point about that scheme which I want to stress is really the psychological one. In these days, psychology, call it what you like, fills a very large part in a great many schemes. The Army, as we know, maintains people called psychiatrists, who decide, very often, that an individual soldier is not suitable for this or that job, and, as a consequence, the man is pushed into something quite different. We ought to study the mentality of the neighbour's wife and the wife of the farm worker, who are the people who after doing the work—and it is work—of collecting and cooking this waste, keeping the pigs clean and all the rest of it, are then asked to give up a whole book, maybe, of coupons, when they wish to kill a pig. These people think they have a right to a certain number of bacon coupons, and ought not to have to hand them over in exchange for what they have worked very hard to obtain. After all, the trap was baited with the small return which the worker was to get for converting all this waste into really useful foodstuffs.

Colonel Llewellin

At the present moment, anybody is allowed to kill and consume his own pig as soon as an undertaking is given not to use his bacon or equivalent rations during the time he has that pig meat in the house. The average number of bacon coupons represented by a pig is 520, and I am only asking them to give up 52.

Lieut.-Colonel Boles

I think that, before the right hon. and gallant Gentleman arrived in the House, I had noticed that fact, but, as I have said, this case can be based perfectly well without that. There is the psychology point of view of having to surrender something which these people regard as their right, particularly in view of the risk they have taken in this curing process, as I know to my cost. Having surrendered their coupons to obtain a licence to kill, they have nothing to show for them on the table at a later date. It rather goes against the grain for the housewife to have to surrender her book of coupons when she wishes to kill the pig.

The question of giving up half-pigs for half-pigs may be all right in theory. On paper, you may be able to snip off half a pig, but, in practice, this cutting up of a pig is not such an easy business. I was doing it only last Monday before I came to the House, and it is not such a tidy business as snipping off paper with a pair of scissors. I wonder if it is necessary, when you kill two pigs, to divide them both in halves, or whether one might surrender one of the pigs and keep the other.

Mr. E. Walkden

But give the Minister one little one.

Lieut.-Colonel Boles

It might simplify matters if the half-pig condition was altered under certain conditions. It is a question of psychology. These people have worked very hard to save and collect the waste and turn it into good pig food, and if the Minister could see his way to allow this concession to these people, living in outside, wild parts of the country, as a lot of diem do, it would be of tremendous value and would be very much appreciated by the very large numbers who have joined this movement and made it such a success.

Lieut.-Colonel Lancaster (Fylde)

I do not propose to follow my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wells (Lieut.-Colonel Boles) in his reference to the new arrangement in regard to pigs, although I am fully in agreement with what has been said in that regard. I would like to say a few words about the fishing trade, which has been referred to, particularly by the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Robertson). I cannot pretend to vie with my hon. Friend either in his knowledge or experience of the fishing trade. Indeed, I have no very great knowledge of it, other than the fact that I have the honour to represent Fleetwood, and there have picked up a certain amount of local experience regarding this trade. It seemed to me that the hon. Member for Streatham was a little unkind in some of his references to the fishing trade, certainly, as far as Fleetwood is concerned. They have risen to the occasion during this war in a splendid manner.

In the natural course of events, a great deal of additional trade passed to Fleetwood, owing to its location on the North-West coast, and a heavy extra responsibility fell upon the port and all those engaged in the industry in maintaining, or attempting to maintain, the volume of fish being brought into this country, and they rose to the occasion extremely well. It was not, as the hon. Member for Streatham suggested, all a question of making immense profits. I think a great deal of money has been circulated within the industry. High profits are undoubtedly being made and high wages are being paid, but they are performing, for these high prices and high wages, a very real and very necessary duty. In the first few months of the war, before December, 1939, 14 trawlers, with their crews, had been sunk, out of the comparatively small fleet setting out in those days from Fleetwood. They have gone out in all weathers and amid all the hazards of war and have brought back an immense tonnage of fish. This port has handled largely increased supplies during the intervening period, and all those connected with the industry have played their part in bearing this additional burden.

Recently we had the honour of a visit from my right hon. and gallant Friend the Minister of Food and he had the opportunity of seeing a little of the work which was being done by all sections of the trade; not only the trawler owners and crews,. but the merchants, and above all perhaps the lumpers, the men at the docks who do the heavy work of clearing the trawlers and preparing the fish for transport to the inland markets. I think that my right hon. and gallant Friend came away agreeably impressed with all he saw and with the spirit that animated the port. Undoubtedly all sections of the industry do recognise the part they have to play and have risen nobly to the task, and I feel that in the praise which has been given to other sections of the Food Industry, and the part that they have played in connection with food distribution some meed of praise is due to the fishing industry and that it is not so much a matter of criticism of certain aspects of the trade but of praise for the good work they have done.

Mr. Reakes (Wallasey)

I have waited a very long time for the opportunity to say a few words. I have noted carefully that we have had speeches from six Conservatives, three Members of the Labour Party, and two Members of the Liberal Party, so a few words from an Independent Member may or may not be helpful. I am not going to join in the meed of praise which has greeted the Minister of Food and his staff. I hope that he will take my tribute as read. I rise to put two points to him. I express the hope that he will now, very seriously, consider the distribution of fish in this country. I am aware that there are great difficulties with. regard to the matter. I put a question to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman some months ago and received a reply, and, in conversation, I was more or less assured that the problem was extremely difficult, and it is apparent to me that it now is as difficult as it has been and still remains unsolved. We heard the Minister, in his very excellent statement, say that there will be heavier landings of fish in the future, and I hope so, but that is not sufficient. I want to see the commodity reach the homes of the ordinary people, and I can assure the Ministry of Food that it is not reaching the ordinary people to the extent that it should be.

I have purposely stood in fish queues to see what happens, and have found those at the head of the queue served with, probably, more fish than was necessary for their individual needs while two-thirds of the people had to go home without any fish at all. These people, many of them mothers with children, have had to go home after waiting in a queue sometimes for an hour and a half without that very necessary food. It is not too much to expect the Ministry of Food to solve the problem. If they will only face it in the same way as the Admiralty, the War Office and the Air Ministry are facing the gigantic problem of the invasion of Europe, and in the same spirit, with the determination to succeed, I believe that they will solve the problem.

I am not going to support the special pleading for fishermen of the hon. and gallant Member for Fylde (Lieut.-Colonel Lancaster). They are doing a splendid work but they are jolly well paid for it. What is the use of landing fish in large quantities if it does not reach the people who are so dependent upon it? References have been made to the claims of the folk. It is the people who are unable to stand in queues for fish who never see it. I want the better distribution of fish to be approached from the point of view that it is necessary not only in the interests of the old people but of invalids and people to whom fish is a vital necessity because they are not allowed to oeat anything else. I appeal most sincerely to the Minister of Food to try to solve this problem. He is doing magnificent work, and so are his staff—we have heard that until I am tired of hearing the tributes which have rightly been thrown at him to-day—but it will crown his work if he will get down to the big problem of making sure that there is a proper and equitable distribution of fish.

Another thing about which we have heard is the black market. It is about time the Ministry of Food dealt with the night clubs. I know that the Home Office and other Ministries are concerned, but I say definitely that the night clubs are a lucrative operational field for the black marketeer. There is no question about it. I have been to them mainly to get information, not that I have got any enjoyment out of it. I do not believe that an hon. Member should get up and speak on a subject unless he is in possession of first-hand information, and I have got that first-hand information, and I definitely say that the night club is a breeding ground for black marketeering. Seeing that the matter has been brought to the attention of the Ministry of Food on previous occasions, it is astonishing that, apparently, no action has been taken, or if any action has been taken, it has not proved successful. These places in the West End are flourishing. They are hoodwinking the Ministry, and hoodwinking other Ministries as well. Therefore, I am not asking that they should be cleaned up but that they should be closed down. It would be a good thing for the morale of the people and would put an end to the consumption of vital food by a lot of people who have more money than sense.

A careful watch should also be kept on luxury hotels and restaurants. They are to be found in all big places and to a lesser extent in other towns, and even in very small hamlets as well. They are able to supply their wealthy patrons, who have plenty of money in their pockets, with foodstuffs which are inaccessible to ordinary people. There is no question about that and I defy any hon. Member of the Committee to deny it. There exist throughout this country, establishments where well-to-do people are able to get food which is unobtainable by other people. The only time one sees poultry is in a night club or fashionable restaurant, where one pays the standard rate and house charge, but, if one happens to take wine with it, one "pays through the nose" for the wine. It is a ramp which ought to be stopped forthwith.

I have heard one or two very excellent remarks, particularly from the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) with regard to the post-war policy of the Ministry of Food. It is of transcendent importance that this country should be assured, at the earliest possible moment, that the Ministry of Food has a post-war policy, because unless there is a true policy for food distribution after the war there is bound to be hardship and suffering, not only for the civilian population, which has suffered so many years of privation already, but for the men and women who return from the Forces. I hope, therefore, that the Ministry will be prepared to submit to Parliament at some early date a policy which will secure the backing of all parties. I conclude by saying how much I, personally, appreciate what has been done by the Ministry of Food. If every Ministry had been so successful in its work, this war would have been over two years ago.

Mr. Francis Watt (Edinburgh, Central)

If I say very little in praise of the Ministry of Food it is only because, at this hour, speeches are necessarily short. I will say only this—that the establishment of this Ministry, starting as it were from scratch, is a most memorable achievement, and the thanks of the country will always be due to those who are responsible for it. There are very few institutions that are so perfect that they are beyond improvement, and I want to say a word or two on a topic which has not been dealt with much to-day—about the relationship of this Ministry with the ordinary citizen. We have heard a great deal about the black market, but not every citizen is a black marketeer, and not every member of the public who contravenes a rule, or order of the Ministry of Food, or other Government Department, is a criminal.

I note with pleasure that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman has issued a circular calling attention to the need for the lessening of friction between his Department and the public. I hope his circular meets with better success than the broadcast which Lord Woolton made about two years ago. Within a month of that broadcast, a very large institution in Dumfriesshire was prosecuted for the contravention of an Order relating to the purchase of eggs. It could not obtain a copy of that Order in Dumfries at all. In evidence, inspectors of the Ministry of Food in Glasgow said that when they were away from Glasgow for a fortnight they had to make inquiry on their return, to see what was the latest state of affairs, because Orders were pouring out at such a speed that they did not know where they were from week to week. Nevertheless, two officers from Glasgow went down to Dumfries. They pretended to the cashier of the Crichton Royal Asylum that they wanted access to his books for the purpose of preparing a new rationing scheme. They obtained those books and immediately there followed a prosecution, not only of the concern, but of everybody who had supplied them with eggs in contravention of this Order. Only a few weeks before, Lord Woolton had broadcast that anybody who innocently contravened an Order of the Ministry of Food was not to be dealt with as a criminal, but that Order was not carried out by his subordinates. Fortunately, this institution escaped; they were found" not guilty." But it would not have been an equitable result, if they had been found guilty of contravention, and had then had to rely on the mercy of the judge presiding over the case to let them off without penalty, when the true state of affairs was that they should never have been prosecuted at all.

Only yesterday a case was decided in Edinburgh, in the High Court of Justiciary, in which a fisherman was prosecuted at the instance of the Ministry of Food, because he refused, at Ayr, to deliver fish to a gentleman who said he was an allocation officer. The Ministry of Food, as we all know, has a most elabor- ate allocation procedure—committees are set up in different ports—but somehow or another there arrived at Ayr, a gentleman who was not appointed by the local committee but appointed, apparently, in some mysterious way by the Ministry. He proceeded to carry out the allocation, quite illegally, because although the Order, under which he purported to act, said allocation must be agreed to by weight, this gentleman did so by chalking the boxes of fish as they came in. It happened there was not a weighing machine on the quay at Ayr and that was how he proposed to overcome the difficulty. Naturally, one can envisage that such a Bohemian method of allocation was not likely to work with great success. The fishermen, one and all, who landed their catches at Ayr complained about the short weight they were getting at Ayr and preferred to send their fish to Glasgow. They were allowed to send 75 per cent. to Glasgow. The case was so bad that the learned Solicitor-General for Scotland yesterday admitted that he could not support a conviction, and invited the Court of Appeal to quash the conviction. I cannot quite imagine how a conviction ever came about.

These are the sort of petty aggravations which annoy the public, and I appeal sincerely to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. He has a Ministry which is a success. There is not a single member of the public who, looking at the big issues, will not say "Congratulations to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman." But why have this enforcement department, that is causing continual and petty annoyance to members of the public? I should have said that, at Dumfries, the local prosecutor did not want to prosecute, but, because the Ministry of Food insisted upon a prosecution, it had to go on.

I will give one other illustration of the sort of thing I mean. A Glasgow firm was prosecuted for adding too much to the price of fish in carriage to Newhaven. The whole matter turned upon whether Newhaven was an inland or a seaward market. The Ministry of Food had an Order in which it was designated as a seaward market, but because the custom in the trade was that it had been an inland market, a letter had been written by a responsible officer of that Ministry to the firms concerned admitting that it was to be inland. Accordingly, on that view, the price which was charged was justified. Those facts were put before the local prosecutor at Edinburgh. He admitted the justice of the contention, but said the case must be referred to London. London insisted upon a prosecution. When the matter came before the court, the presiding sheriff-substitute, very naturally, said, "How can I possibly convict those people when the Ministry says two different things?"

I emphasise those points for this reason. If, as I understand, it is obvious that this Ministry must carry on for a number of years, then it is equally obvious that good relations must exist between it and the people. I would not, for a single minute, support any leniency towards anyone who tampers with food distribution—in other words indulges in the black market—but generally the distinction between the innocent offender and the criminal is as plain as a pikestaff and, if the Department would only leave it to the local prosecutors who know their job, and not insist upon prosecutions where the man on the spot who knows the facts says "No," then I think we would get along with a lot less friction.

I want to say a few words on the subject of the small trader, a man who is having a rather tough time at the moment. I know that the Ministry are trying to do their best for the small trader, but there are difficulties in connection with distribution. Here is an incident which was brought to my notice with regard to distribution of jam. Last year, the City of Edinburgh had 50 tons of third grade plum jam. I suppose that if it was put in tins and labelled, "Plum and Apple," which many of us used to know in the last war, possibly we would not know the difference, but, at any rate, the reason why we were landed with 5o tons of this jam, was that the rules by which the Ministry proceeds with regard to the purchase of this commodity imply that the large wholesale concern which has its own retail branches—be it multiple store or cooperative society—can place its orders with great accuracy, whereas the ordinary wholesaler has to get his orders from small retailers, who, ultimately, get landed with this third grade jam while the big shops do not. We went five weeks before we saw our ration for this particu- lar period in the small shops. That is not smooth working.

These may be small matters but, nevertheless, I commend them to the notice of the Minister. I understand that he is coming to Edinburgh next week. If he had come at Christmas or the New Year, I imagine that he would have had a rather hostile reception because, owing to a well-intentioned attempt on the part of his Ministry to ration poultry, there was hardly a bird to be seen about the place. People are beginning to forget that now, but while I assure him of my admiration for the achievements of himself and his predecessor, I ask him to keep in mind the fact that, while it may be easy to distribute to the big man, the small man is the backbone of the nation. The Minister and his Department will not continue to be popular if that is forgotten.

Mr. Evelyn Walkden (Doncaster)

If I do not follow the hon. Member for Central Edinburgh (Mr. Watt) in what he has said, I can assure him it is because I am hoping that the Minister will provide him with a little education in connection with food distribution. Such education seems to be necessary, especially when the hon. Member foolishly contends that the small retailers are the only ones to receive supplies of third grade jam. That is utter nonsense. [An HON. MEMBER: "Be generous."] Yes, but it is necessary, now and again, to point out the efficiency of the Ministry of Food, and wholesalers, and the great co-operative spirit—not wholly related to the Co-operative movement—which is in existence in the food trade. The Minister has tackled the question of jam distribution with great success and I would like to offer him and the Parliamentary Secretary congratulations on their excellent innings during the past 12 months, during which they have fed, and possibly pleased, the people. I know the Minister does not expect to get away without some criticism and after listening to the robust remarks of the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Robertson) on the fish position and prices, I know that he will have much work to do in the next few days, in examining the evidence which has been brought forward by the hon. Member.

There are, however, many things that the Minister has left undone, which I feel he ought to have done. I would have liked to have heard him say to-day that he had considered the evidence tendered a few days ago by the body known as the Country Poultry and Rabbit Distributors' Association, or some such name as that—

Colonel Llewellin

After the discussion, they said that they would like to go back and think out a scheme. Yesterday they submitted a scheme, which is now being considered by my Department.

Mr. Walkden

I am glad to have that assurance, because I believe that a scheme will eventually be evolved. I must say that the Ministry of Agriculture seems to have harassed the Minister at every turn when he has tried to set up a scheme involving the countryside. As regards eggs, the Ministry of Agriculture certainly handicapped him. As regards the distribution of poultry, for two months of the year the ordinary consumer was able to buy poultry in small shops, but for the rest of the year, the black market has thriven on illicit profits, out of boiling or roasting fowls, which are price-controlled by the Ministry. The price control scheme for poultry means nothing at all. Everybody knows that the general flow of poultry, for normal consumption, to-day goes in only one direction. My hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Mr. Reakes) mentioned night clubs, hotels and restaurants. Everybody engaged in the legitimate poultry trade, is now finding it hard to discover any poultry at all, but the racketeers at every market know precisely where they can dispose of these birds. Instead of paying 7s. 6d. or 8s. 6d., as the price ought to be, they readily pay 25s. for an ordinary boiling fowl, because it is classed as a stock bird. The Minister must tackle this problem with vigour, because it is most unsatisfactory that ordinary people should know that only those with means can obtain a meal of poultry today. I am anxious that caterers should not be the only persons convicted for engaging in this black market practice, because they are only part offenders.

I wish to follow what the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) said about adequate prices being paid to farmers for their products. He, rightly, insisted that such prices must be paid to the growers. We are grateful to the farming community for their excellent achievements, and I am sure that they, in turn, are well satisfied with the guaranteed prices which have been offered to them. But I should like to ask the Minister and the Committee whether they are satisfied with the ordinary margins of profit on the everyday prices of vegetables available in the shops to-day. Leaving out, for example, the subsidised produce referred to by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Kelvingrove, apart from potatoes, milk, wheat and so on, it is a good thing for employers that those who prepare the statistics to prove the cost-of-living figures, do not take into account the inflated selling prices of most of the esssential everyday vegetables required and purchased by the average housewife. Instead of the cost-of-living index figure being 3o per cent., if the statisticians referred to vegetables in particular, the figure would be, on the average, well over 100 per cent.

When we had a Debate on agriculture some weeks ago, the Minister said we must have better machinery for price fixing, and that we wanted representatives of both sides to get together. What did the right hon. Gentleman mean by "both sides"? Has the Minister of Food been consulted, or is the consumer likely to be consulted? Is it likely that that committee, if it is set up, will include the general body of consumers, because theirs is a sad story? They need more protection than they have had in the past. It is not alone with the price of wheat and potatoes that we are concerned. It is with everything that comes from the land and everything that makes up our average daily diet. Owing to the price inflation in the vegetable market, there has been a steep increase in recent months, and the figures that I would quote are comparable with those offered by the hon. Member for Streatham in relation to fish.

For instance, before the war it was generally understood that the average price of turnips was 2d., or at the most 3d. for five lbs. If the housewife wants to buy five lbs. of turnips to-day, according to the figures laid down by the Minister the price is 1s. A cabbage, which cost id. before the war, now costs 6d. If we take sprouts or any normal vegetables which provide the everyday diet, we find there has been a steep increase. No one seems able to explain the reasons for it. I cannot understand who advised the Ministry when they were fixing the retail selling prices that obtain to-day for vegetables. Housewives are paying dearly. Wages are fairly high, or reasonable, and there are few complaints, but let there be a trade slump, or let there be smaller pay packets, and there will be general complaint throughout the country. I notice in the newspapers that turnips are about 2S. 6d. a lb. or a bundle. I cannot see for the life of me why that should obtain. I cannot understand why lettuces, which are sold at Evesham at 2d., cost the consumer 6d.

It is obvious that we have to tackle this very difficult problem of linking up the grower with the consumer, eliminating all these costs which seem to inflate the price. I, therefore, beg of the Minister to tackle the marketing system, which is out of date. It stands condemned as much as the distributing system in the mining industry. Lord Woolton properly tackled it some 'time ago, and the Minister of Agriculture would like to tackle it but believes it is the job of the Minister of Food. I, therefore, plead with the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, between now and the next time he comes before us, to give an account of his stewardship to present a proper marketing system which will eliminate these enormous costs which seem to inflate the price of commodities day by day.

The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Kelvingrove mentioned one other item, garnishing food, or that which made dietary a little more interesting. The Minister received a deputation some weeks ago from ice-cream manufacturers, and a similar deputation went from the Milk Bars Association. Their plea was a very simple one. It was that the Minister should revise the existing Order concerning the manufacture of ice cream. It may seem foolish to make such submission on a day like this, but I am simply asking for an answer to the representations that were made. No statement has been issued, and I believe the arguments used by both deputations were very fair and very convincing. It was said that the reason they could not allow ice cream to be made locally, is that it would be unfair to big business. Most of the ice cream that is made is carried on the railways. I feel that there is a good case now for allowing the sugar and milk to be utilised to give pleasure to the children. We can carry austerity too far. It can become wearisome.

I heard the Minister's argument last week that it was the Ministry of War Transport which was likely to obstruct the making of ice cream. The same vehicles which formerly took it round, are now taking round the biscuits without the ice cream. Consequently, there is no saving of any kind. Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman go more fully into the evidence and endeavour to provide for the holiday time while the children are away from school? I know he has the sugar and the milk, and I know he has the will to do it. Let us have some kind of answer which will give a little joy and pleasure to the children. I believe that, if he could only announce that a little ice cream is going to be made available for them, his name, which is not well known in the country, will be as well known as that of Lord Woolton in the course of the next month or two.

Mr. F. Beattie (Glasgow, Cathcart)

I wish to add my congratulations to the Minister and to the Department on the excellent work that they have performed during the past year and on the way they have maintained the supply of essential foodstuffs for the people. It is appreciated that, whenever possible, improvements, however slight, have been made into the quantities, the qualities and the varieties of the food that is available.

In congratulating the Minister and the Ministry of Food I should like to refer particularly to the national loaf. During the past 12 months there has been a steady improvement in the quality of national bread. The Ministry of Food have found it possible to reduce gradually, and finally to eliminate the diluents, namely, barley, oats and rye, which at one time it was necessary to include. I am almost sure that a great many people never realised that these diluents were contained in the national loaf, and I would like the Minister to agree with me that a good deal of skill has been shown by the baker craftsmen in making the bread as palatable as it was. To-day we have national flour entirely milled from wheat, and it may be said without contradiction that we have the finest bread in Europe. But it cannot be said that we have the finest bread of the Western Allies. The bread in America and Canada is white. It is here that I must disagree with the Noble Lady the Member for Central Bristol (Lady Apsley) in what she said about the retention of brown bread after the war. I hope that brown bread will be retained after the war, but I do not think we should have nothing else. Let the public have white bread and brown bread.

The Minister may not know what happened when the national loaf was first introduced to the country. Much money was spent in advertising the national loaf and telling the people to buy it. Doctors recommended it and bakers were requested to push it forward. The bakers were always to be sure that the public were told that they could have one loaf or the other, so that the customer could have a choice. The people, however, did not want the national loaf, and then through other circumstances, such as shipping, the loaf had to be made in its present character. It would have been better if the Minister at that time had openly said that it had nothing to do with doctors and scientists and that it was a plain matter of shipping. When I was a boy I would like to remind the Noble Lady I went to a music-hall occasionally and I remember a popular song which said "A little of what you fancy won't do you any harm." People to-day want something that they fancy and I am sure that white bread will not do them any harm. In support of this plea I have one or two arguments I would like to put before the Committee. The fact that diluents have been removed from national flour shows that it has been possible to adjust the sowing of wheat, barley and oats. With the quantity of wheat, which of necessity has to be imported, there has resulted a sufficiency of home-grown wheat to meet the requirements in milling national flour.

It cannot be said, however, that the wheat which is grown in this country is the best that can be produced for milling into flour for bread making. There are varieties of wheat of the Yeoman classes and others, for example, "Holdfast," "White Victor" and "Little Joss" and others which have been tested and found suitable in giving good bread baking flours. I should like to suggest, therefore, that this possibility be examined and there be collaboration between the Ministry of Food and the Ministry of Agriculture with a view to ascertaining what can be done in improving the baking quality of wheat grown at home. One could appreciate how in the early days of this war the Ministry of Food wanted to get as much wheat as they could in order to turn it into flour and then into bread, and that it did not matter what the quality was like. I am happy to think that those clays are long past. I would like to ask the Minister what efforts have been made by his Ministry to collaborate with the Ministry of Agriculture. What requests have been made to the Ministry of Agriculture to grow wheats that are suitable for flour for bread making? A year ago I addressed the House on this point, but I was not given a reply and I have not heard any reply. It would be interesting to know what collaboration there has been.

Now is the time, I suggest, to give consideration to the lowering of the extraction of national flour. It is now 85 per cent., and I suggest that it should come down to 80 per cent. While it is true that the phytic acid contained in the 85 per cent. extraction flour is much lower than that in wholemeal, it is high compared with that in white flour. One cannot remember with equanimity the disastrous results which followed, in 1940, the decision of the Government in Eire to make milling of 100 per cent. wholemeal compulsory. In 1943, in Dublin the incidence of rickets in children had increased from 11 per 1,000 to one child in two. That is a dreadful picture, I understand also that in South Africa, where wholemeal bread is compulsory, there is evidence of a serious increase in rickets. Rickets is a deficiency disease and may be caused by an insufficiency of calcium in the diet, a lack of Vitamin D or an excess of phytic acid in the diet, which renders it equivalent of the calcium in the diet unavailable to the body. Happily in this country we have neutralised to some extent the phytic acid content of the 85 per cent. extraction of national flour by including calcium, in the form of seven ounces of Creta Preparata per sack and two pounds of milk powder per sack. As the result we have been spared the scourge of rickets.

I want to stress the point that as long as we have 85 per cent. extraction national flour so long shall we have phytic acid present in our bread and cancelling out much of the benefit to be derived from the calcium in our diet. It is an ever present danger ready to take advantage of any lowering of the calcium intake which has arisen out of war conditions or the feeding of the liberated European nations, and it may be necessary to impose for example a reduction in the supplies of milk and milk products. In addition, the lowering of the extraction of national flour to 80 per cent. would save considerable quantities of yeast which are used in bread baking. It has been authoritatively estimated that the lowering of the extraction to 80 per cent. would yield a saving of 20 to 25 per cent. in the quantities of yeast. The distribution of yeast, which is a highly perishable article, entails much transport, and I venture to suggest that the Minister of War Transport would welcome such an economy. There would, too, be much saving in the manufacture and processing of yeast. Further, it seems probable that with the liberation of occupied Europe we shall be faced with the task of supplying yeast to liberated peoples in order that the flour which we are pledged to supply them may be converted into bread. I am informed that the yeast factories are working to capacity and that supplies for export could be provided only by rationing yeast to our own bakers, with the consequent reduction in bread quality. Surely it would be preferable to improve the bread quality at home, and at the same time make yeast available for our friends and Allies across the Channel. There is great need also at the present time to improve the number of livestock in the country, a need which has been emphasised on several occasions recently in this House, and was referred to by the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) to-day. Livestock, however, cannot be increased unless feeding stuffs are available in ample quantities, and a reduction in the extraction of national flour to 80 per cent. would go a long way to remedy the situation.

Farmers throughout the country are in great need of proper feeding-stuffs for their herds. While, as always, they are willing and anxious to help the country by increasing their livestock, they are baffled to see how this can be done if feeding-stuffs are not available. The serious shortage can be met by reducing the extraction of national flour. I maintain that the greatest benefit would accrue in the minds and outlook of the people of this country by a return to the white loaf. I leave it to hon. Members to imagine the great welcome that the white loaf would receive. As one of the leading newspapers said recently, it would be like the silver lining to the war clouds and would encourage optimism. It would be accepted as a symbol and a sign of better times to come.

Mr. Boothby (Aberdeen and Kincardine, Eastern)

With reference to the speech of my hon. Friend who has just sat down, I would just like to say that I quite agree with him about getting back to the white loaf after the war. I have a feeling that we are not going to have many pleasures when peace comes, at least not in a hurry. Pleasures are going to be hard to come by. The two great pleasures to which I look forward on the day when the Armistice is declared are first, to pull up all the blinds and let the lights shine out at night; and, secondly, that the hon. Member for the London University (Sir E. Graham-Little)—who is unfortunately not here at this moment—will no longer be in a position to force this filthy brown bread down the throats of the people of this country against their will, and that people will once again have a chance to eat white bread. They have always preferred white bread; and I am sure they always will prefer it.

The Committee has listened with pleasure to the Minister of Food, and to the satisfactory account he was able to give of the resources of this country and the reserves that we have stored at the present time. After all, food is the basis of all plans for social regeneration and reconstruction; and there is a shortage of food at the present time in the world, as has been pointed out by hon. Members on both sides. Why has the Ministry of Food been so successful in this war? I believe it is because it has based its policy from the very beginning on two principles which were, I think tragically, rejected before the war. The first is that production should be for consumption and distribution according to need; and the second is the replacement of the old market price by the "just" price, which prevailed in medieval times, when the countryside was prosperous.

In order to carry out this policy, the 11Enistry, as we have heard to-day, has found it necessary to do five things: Control imports; give a general direction to home production; organise distribution; regulate prices, both wholesale and retail; and subsidise the consumer in respect of certain basic articles of food. What has been the result? Despite a colossal reduction of imports of food, the standard of life of our people is higher to-day than it was before the war; and malnutrition, particularly among children, has practically disappeared. I suggest to the Committee that our food policy must continue to be based primarily on the nutritional requirements of the people, and that it is up to us in the House of Commons to see, not only during the war but when peace comes, that every man, woman and child gets enough of the food that we now know to be essential to their health, at a price that they can afford to pay. That is the real function of the Ministry of Food; that is one of the reasons why I hope that it will not be abolished when the war is over. But if we are to do this, we shall find it absolutely necessary to retain the powers that have been found necessary to carry out our food policy during the war.

I would like to ask my right hon. Friend to say a word, when he comes to reply, about the national milk scheme. I want to know whether it is being taken advantage of on a very great scale both in England and in Scotland. I had a hand in framing that scheme, and I had the honour of commending it to this Committee in 1940. I venture to say that no single executive act on the part of any Government has ever had a comparable impact upon the health of the community. I was delighted to hear the Minister of Food say that he wanted this scheme to go on when the war is over. I would like, for interest, my right hon. and gallant Friend to tell me whether it is being taken full advantage of in the country to-day.

Now I will turn from the general to the particular. It has been said, with truth, that the only trouble about Scotsmen is that there are not enough of them. One thing is certain; no nation of 5,000,000 people has ever had a comparable influence upon the world. I think it was Sir James Barrie who said that the very wind of their name had swept to the farthest corners of the globe. The Committee will therefore forgive me if I deal in some detail with the five commodities upon which the qualities, the strength, and the fame of Scotland have very largely been built. They are beef, oats, herrings, potatoes and whisky. To start with livestock policy, I think there will be general agreement—in fact my right hon. and gallant Friend in his opening statement admitted it—that the time has now arrived when there must be some shift of emphasis from the production of cereals in this country for direct human. consumption to an increase—both of the quantity and of the quality—of our herds and flocks. I think everybody agrees with that. My right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) agreed that the world shortage of livestock was perhaps the most menacing aspect of the present world food situation.

I suggest to my right hon. and gallant Friend that this change-over will have to be planned with very great care. There will have to be a percentage reduction in the ploughing direction orders; but I hope there will be no sudden cessation of the acreage payments, because if this happened, the marginal ground would go helter-skelter down to grass. That is the last thing we want at the present time. So far as quality is concerned, I am glad to see in successive statements by the Government spokesmen, that increasing importance is now attached to the quality of our flocks and herds. It is quality on which our agricultural industry will largely depend in the future—upon which its survival will largely depend, I think. So far as beef quality is concerned, I suggest that the special grade price should be maintained throughout the year, that a super-grade should be introduced for animals of high quality, killing out between 57 and 59 per cent., and that the annual price gap should be reduced from 10s. to at least 5s. per cwt. I think it is too wide at the present time.

There is one other question upon this subject of beef that I would like to put to my right hon. and gallant Friend, but I do not expect an answer to-day. I wish he would look into the question of Irish store cattle. I never can understand why the Ministry does not buy these store cattle, through the normal channels, and keep the profits for themselves. I am satisfied that an immense amount of money is finding its way into the pockets of commission men over here. It is doing no good to our own farmers; and I think the Ministry might just as well reap the benefit. So far as sheep are concerned I would like to reinforce the argument of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Kelvingrove that, in the long run, the hill men will depend upon the price they get for the sheep they produce; and that if they do not get a decent price it will kill the hill farming industry in this country, which is the last thing we want to do. It does depend on price and no one can maintain that the prices of sheep from the hill man's point of view are satisfactory at the present time. I suggest that we should also consider very seriously, the advisability of a substantial increase of both pig and poultry production in this country. This is, primarily, a question of feeding-stuffs.

I now turn, for a moment, to cereal production. I want to emphasise again, most strongly, that any reduction of all-over cereal production in this country will have to be even more carefully planned than the expansion which was designed to meet the supreme emergency of 1940 and 1941. The plan must be a comprehensive one, covering wheat, barley and oats; and I think these three cereal crops must be related to each other, in the general cereal price structure. You cannot isolate wheat, and separate it from oats and barley, because that would be frightfully unfair to the farmers of the North and North-West, who can only produce oats and barley as their main cereal crops. Therefore, I say that the plan must be a comprehensive one. In framing policy two considerations should be borne in mind. Here I fear I shall join issue with the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove. I do not think that British agriculture ought ever again to be based primarily on wheat and sugar beet. I do not think they should be made the cornerstone of British farming. I have quite powerful support for this view—for instance, from Lord Astor.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot

Surely the hon. Member is not suggesting that I ever put to the Committee any such proposal?

Mr. Boothby

No; but the right hon. and gallant Member evinced great enthusiasm for sugar-beet. He was all muddled up with this when he was Minister of Agriculture; and he had to defend it so much then, against his inner conviction, that he has now convinced himself that it is the right policy. The proper place to grow sugar is the West Indies, and the proper places to grow wheat in large quantities are Canada and Australia. That is where we ought to get it. What we should do in this country is to build up our production on what the land of this country is best fitted to produce, namely, the protective foods which we now know are essential to the health of the people, and are of the highest nutritional value—milk, meat, vegetables, eggs and fruit. They should be the foundation.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot

The hon. Member must not ride away too rapidly from that. Has he ever heard of "Turnip" Townshend and the reclamation of Norfolk? How can you cultivate the Eastern counties without a root crop?

Mr. Boothby

I agree there are certain districts in this country, particularly East Anglia, where wheat and sugar-beet can legitimately and profitably be grown; but it is a limited area. I am now speaking about the country as a whole, and I am saying that wheat and sugar beet should not be made the cornerstone of British agriculture. We did it after the last war, with disastrous results. Look at the fate of the Corn Production Act. I believe that the production of protective foods in this country could be increased by £200,000,000 per annum. We can produce a large part of our feeding stuffs and all the oats we need for this purpose. It will involve a definite increase in the proportion of arable to grass land as compared with pre-war. The second consideration I think the Minister should bear in mind is that soil fertility is of fundamental importance. This can only be achieved by a well-balanced system of mixed rotational farming. The bullock remains the pivot on which any sane grass and grain policy must hinge. Livestock and leys is the long-term answer to the British agricultural problem. What is the alternative? Single crop production. That is the road to ruin. It involves the ruthless destruction, over a period, of natural assets; and leads to the dust-bowl of the Middle West, and the derelict islands of the West Indies.

I should now like to say a word on potatoes. A large quantity of last year's crop of potatoes in North-East Scotland is going to waste, is still lying in the fields unlifted. If the Ministry pays the controlled price, as I think it is bound to do, it will lose a lot of money. The Ministry should, in my opinion, buy a percentage of potatoes from all farmers of the country who grow more than a certain acreage in the autumn; and any surplus should be fed to the hens and pigs.

The Minister paid a great tribute to the farmers of this country, and I only want to put in this caveat. If they are to do their job, which is a vital job, perhaps after that of the soldiers, sailors and airmen the most vital job of all, they must have some labour. The labour problem on the land of this country is becoming very acute. There is a real shortage, and the shortage of domestic help on the farms is now so serious that it is definitely affecting the efficiency of our agricultural industry. Domestic help on the farms is quite different from domestic help anywhere else.

The Deputy-Chairman

We have already gone very wide on the subject of agriculture to-day. We should limit ourselves to that in its connection with food, and keep off the matter of labour.

Mr. Boothby

I will, Mr. Williams; but the Minister did say that he was dependent very much on the farmers of this country, and on their producing the necessary food. However, I may have an opportunity on the Motion for the Adjournment of the House to deal with this matter. All that I am indicating now is that, unless the Minister does something to see that they get the necessary assistance, both in the fields and in the farm houses, farmers will not be able to produce the food which he has told us he must have.

I turn with great pleasure and enthusiasm for a few moments to fish, which has always been, from the very beginning, the Achilles' heel of the Ministry of Food. Over last year's performance, if it can be called a performance, with regard to the summer herring fishing it is really kinder to draw a veil. I have already recounted the sombre facts to the House; and I will not do so again, except to say that it was a terrible spectacle to see that fleet tied up for 18 nights, practically in succession, at the very height of the best summer herring fishing season we have ever had, and Lord Woolton flatly declining to do anything about it. It was an awful mess, and the best thing to do is to try to forget it. But the Prime Minister has told us that the purpose of recriminating about the past is to ensure effective action in the future. I therefore want some assurance that we shall not see anything like that again.

I was much comforted to hear what the Minister had to say on the subject of herring fishing. I wish now to direct his attention to the comprehensive agreement between the Scottish Kipperers and Freshers Association and the Herring Producers' Association with regard to the setting up of a joint committee of fishermen and buyers at the ports of landing, to landings themselves, and to a minimum price for all herring not cured into barrels. That agreement was reached voluntarily by the different sections of the industry. Further, I would like to draw his attention to the decision of the exporters to combine for the purpose of handling the export of herring during the critical period immediately after the cessation of hostilities, when it will be necessary to bring immediate relief to the starving peoples of Europe. Their aggregate experience will thus be at the disposal of the Ministry and of U.N.R.R.A. These are important events. In 20 years' experience I have never known so co-operative and constructive a spirit to prevail in this industry as that which prevails to-day. It is up to the Ministry to take advantage of this, by providing the labour, materials, and transport facilities required to reap this great harvest of the sea. I was very much encouraged by what the Minister said on this point. I was encouraged also by what he said about dehydration. Research is most important. I suggest that brine-freezing requires just as great attention as dehydration. There is no doubt that there is a great future for this industry. I see signs that, at long last—and it has been a long struggle to get the Government and this House to take the fishing industry seriously—the Government are beginning to take it seriously. If they do that, I shall feel that I have not lived and laboured altogether in vain.

As regards white fish, the Committee listened with great attention to the very impressive and instructive speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Robertson), who, as he says, has great experience of this industry. I am not going to deal with the price situation in this industry, because I do not know it—I know something about the herring industry, but not so much about the white-fish industry. But I will say that there can be no doubt that far too much fish of poor quality has recently been landed in this country. The House laughed very much the other day when I attempted, at Question Time, to describe a personal experience that I had in Aberdeen. I can only say that the carrier fish from Iceland and the Faroes arrived in such a condition that the lumpers in Aberdeen protested against being asked to handle it. My right hon. Friend said that it went bad in the train afterwards. I wish I could have taken him round Aberdeen harbour with me, and he would not have said that it was waiting to go bad then. This question of the quality of fish is of vital importance to the future of the industry as a whole. The fishing industry is getting a bad name. It is partly due to incompetence in the industry—I am talking now of the white fish industry, and not of the herring industry—and it is partly due to the incompetence of the Ministry of Food. The public are getting tired of it. They cannot always get white fish; and when they do they often cannot eat it, because it is bad.

Mr. Robertson

My hon. Friend has touched upon a point which might reflect on the industry. It is not the British fisherman who is responsible for the bad fish, but the Icelandic fisherman, who is reaping an El Dorado at our expense. He is collecting fish on the coast of Iceland; it then has to undergo the long journey to Aberdeen or Fleetwood and frequently arrives stale, and it is that fish and not British fish which is bad.

Mr. Boothby

All I would say is that the Minister should tell them that if they cannot bring the fish here in good condition, they cannot bring it here at all. If it arrives in bad condition, dump it at once, and tell them to go away. One clear decision is worth ten soft talks; and they are now getting nothing but soft talks. I must say one word about whisky. I think it is most unfortunate that we have stopped distilling whisky. It is a great Scottish industry, it is a great source of revenue, and it is also a great consolation.

Mr. Mathers (Linlithgow)

But it is not food.

Mr. Boothby

No, but it is handled by the Ministry of Food. This question has another, and even more important, aspect. I am not one of those people who have sleepless nights, as many people, including Lord Keynes, have, about our export trade after the war; but I do not think that we can afford to throw an export trade, worth £12,000,000 a year to the United States alone, down the sink. Scotch whisky requires to be matured much longer than American whisky. If we allow this industry to sink, the Americans will be able to place whisky on the markets of the world, and even in this country, far sooner than we can when the war is over. If the Minister prevents the distillation of whisky for another year the industry will be ruined for a considerable time, and perhaps for a generation. I therefore beg my right hon. and gallant Friend to reconsider his decision to stop the distillation of whisky, and to start it again as soon as he can.

There is a great argument being conducted to-day, over a wide field. It is the argument between those who think of human life and happiness in terms of the essentials of human welfare, of which food is the chief, and those who think of it solely in terms of money. This is to my mind far more important than the argument between Socialism and private enterprise. The Hot Springs Conference came down heavily on the side of food commodities and I suggest that we now have to turn the aspirations of Hot Springs into a reality. The setting-up of an international authority with the funds necessary to make bulk purchases of food, to establish buffer stocks, and distribute it to the countries most in need would be an achievement of incalculable social and economic value. I will conclude by quoting a sentence from a remark made by an American business man to Sir John Orr. He said, "This new food policy could be the self-starter for a movement which would pull agriculture, industry, and trade out of the slough of post-war depression and set them on the road to an expanding world economy, with resulting prosperity to everybody." I hope that we shall hear from my right hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary that his Ministry, at any rate, is wholeheartedly in support of the policy laid down at the Hot Springs Conference.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Mr. Mabane)

My right hon. and gallant Friend, I am sure, has no reason to be dissatisfied with the course of this Debate. Almost every hon. Member, if not every hon. Member, who has spoken has offered constructive suggestions. Looking back on past Debates, I think that the Department can claim that it has listened attentively to the suggestions made by hon. Members, and hon. Members may often see in the policy of the Department the fruit of their own contributions to Debates. My hon. Friend the Member for North Cumberland (Mr. W. Roberts), my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot), and my hon. Friend the Member for East. Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) have rightly fastened on the really important matter which was referred to by my right hon. and gallant Friend the Minister, the prospective world food shortage and the urgent necessity for all countries throughout the world to concern themselves now with the encouragement of production in the years to come. It is true to say that a year or two ago there was plenty of food, if we could only bring it here. In some commodities there is still a sufficiency. But we have to look a year, two years, or three years ahead, and we must recognise that in many commodities there is a prospective shortage.

It is because of that that my right hon. and gallant Friend has been endeavouring to encourage the producers by making long-term contracts with them. He has reassured my hon. Friend opposite on the destination of the purchases which he is making; but I feel that my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kelvin-grove was rather less than generous in suggesting that the contracts into which the Minister is entering are less long than they might be. He, with his long experience of office, knows well the difficulties of determining prices over a long period, and I am sure he will realise that, although the term may not be as long as he wishes, my right hon. and gallant Friend deserves commendation for the contracts into which he has already entered for the purchase of food in various parts of the world.

My hon. Friend opposite asked me about the Hot Springs Conference. He asked me what had happened to the permanent organisation that was to be set up. The hon. Member will remember that an interim commission was established which had for its task the construction of a constitution for the permanent Organisation of Food and Agriculture. That Commission has been busy on its work since it was set up, and it has produced a constitution for a permanent Organisation. Agreement to that constitution from 44 nations it not, as my hon. Friend will realise, likely to be obtained very rapidly. That constitution is now being considered, and I hope it will eventually emerge in a form not unsatisfactory to him. I hope, too, that a permanent organisation will come into being and that it will indicate that his hope for, to use the hon. Member's own phrase, "a confident policy of expansion" is the policy that is animating the rest of the world. I would just say, in passing, that in these matters we should remember always the difference between the dream and the business.

Perhaps hon. Members will allow me to speak somewhat in shorthand about the various matters raised very interestingly by many hon. Members who have spoken. I would refer to the matter of fish, which has figured so prominently in the speeches of so many hon. Members. I am an enthusiast for fish, like my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Robertson), but I feel, sometimes, that he allows his enthusiasm, which, I would say, I fully share—and I thank the hon. Member for the kind things he said about me—to run away just a little with his presentation of the facts, because he was most insistent in saying that he was presenting facts. At the very outset, the hon. Member referred to herrings. He said that I was aware that in the first paragraph of the Report of the Committee on the herring industry presided over by the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove—a Report I read with great care and interest—it was stated that in the North Sea alone before the war no less than 1,000,000 tons of herrings were caught. I am sure the House thought they were all caught by this country, whereas 357,000 tons were caught by Norway, 216,000 tons by Germany, 93,000 tons by Holland, 34,000 tons by other countries and 230,000 tons only by this country. I think it puts the thing in a little better perspective if we realise what that means, while it does not diminish the importance of the herring catch to this country.

Mr. Robertson

Will the right hon. Gentleman allow me? He is casting some doubt on my veracity.

Mr. Mabane

Oh, no.

Mr. Robertson

I did not say who caught the fish. I was drawing attention to the fact of a potential supply of food which is available for catching, and the North Sea is common to a number of nations, and there is no reason why we should not catch what the Germans caught. We have not been given a percentage by the Almighty, or anybody else.

Mr. Mabane

I was not casting doubt on the hon. Member's veracity, but on the completeness of the information he gave. I made inquiry from some hon. Members to see if they had the impression that the 1,000,000 tons was caught by this country, and they told me they gathered that that was so; but it is not the fact. The hon. Member for East Aberdeen, on 3rd December last, made certain suggestions about the development of the herring industry in the current year, and, in passing, I should like to say that the Ministry of Food does not accept his strictures on the situation last year. The hon. Member knows very well that, unknown to us, a large area was thrown open to fishing at the last minute which had been forbidden for fishing and this glut of herrings came along. The hon. Member knows, too, that the fishermen stayed in port because of a dispute about a matter of prices, and we said, "If the price is not right, you may have a public inquiry on condition that you reveal all your figures." The facts were a little exaggerated in the hon. Member's statement.

Mr. Boothby

You ought to have been pressing yourselves for the extension of the fishing area. You should not have left it to us to press for it and then be startled with the result. You ought to have done the pressing.

Mr. Mabane

The hon. Member is perfectly right, and we do press every year. We were told that the areas then open were the only areas in which we could fish, and I have said that the opening of the areas in which the fish was caught was subsequent to our request for the areas to be opened. The hon. Member will be glad to hear that almost every one of the suggestions he made on 3rd December has been accepted by the Department, in principle if not in detail, and that this year, as the Minister has indicated in his opening speech, we shall be buying the surplus herrings for curing, and I hope sincerely that that will have the effect which the hon. Member indicated he desired when he spoke on the 3rd December. I shall be glad to send him details of the proposals the Ministry is making, and I hope that they will give some satisfaction to those whom he represents.

It has been suggested that people in this country want fresh herrings. I noticed that the right hon. Baronet who sits for South-West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) cheered that suggestion. I am sure that the market for fresh herrings in this country is limited. It is interesting to observe that the many people who cheered the suggestion that fresh herrings are wanted are people who do not have to cook them. I have made careful inquiries of working class housewives. If any hon. Member will gut, scale, clean and cook a herring, he will find that it is not such a pleasant job. Therefore, I agree with the suggestion in the Report that there must be rather more concentration on new methods of processing and curing. There is one form of herring readily acceptable to the people of this country, and that is the kipper, and we have, in the last six months, been doing our best to secure an increase in kippering.

As to white fish prices, the hon. Member for Streatham suggested that the prices were quite out of proportion. It is important to remember the changes in the war. The hon. Member said that at the beginning of the war there was a quite ridiculous scheme prepared by the right hon. Gentleman who is now the Minister of Town and Country Planning. It might have seemed ridiculous in the circumstances of its application, but it would not have been so ridiculous if London had been heavily bombed in the first week or two of the war. That scheme was made ridiculous by the fact that the Germans did not live up to our expectations. The fishermen were going out to sea in conditions of far greater danger than now. I suggest that the figures quoted by the hon. Member for Streatham were rather exaggerated, because the over all average price per stone of white fish in 1938 was 2S. 4d. and in 1943 6s. 11d., an increase of 196 per cent.—a great increase, but not so great as my hon. Friend indicated

Mr. Robertson

Is the Minister suggesting that my figures are not accurate? They have been checked by a firm of chartered accountants.

Mr. Mabane

If the hon. Member quotes the price for bream, when there is virtually no bream caught, he is giving an incorrect picture.

Mr. Robertson

There are 29 others I could give the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Mabane

Well, the hon. Member did not do so. He gave the price of bream. I gave the average over all figure.

Many hon. Members have suggested that there should be more variety in our food. My hon. Friend the Member for South East Ham (Mr. Barnes) emphasised that point. I am sure that it is the right view. It is said that the Members of this House are rather old. We remember what we used to have. There are some growing up now, the younger generation, who do not remember. Last year I quoted a popular philosopher of mine—and I am sorry to say she was incorrectly quoted by the hon. Member for Cathcart (Mr. F. Beattie)—Marie Lloyd. Marie Lloyd said that "what you have never had you never miss," and many of the younger generation growing up now never had many of the foods which added a variety to our pre-war diet. My. hon. Friend indicated in his speech that he is fully aware of the need for improving variety wherever it may be. He indicated one or two ways in which he has been endeavouring to introduce variety into the diet, and he has to do it somewhat subtly and surreptitiously. Nevertheless, if hon. Members will look about they will find in one or two ways an increased variety.

An hon. Member wanted, as many of us want, an increase in the availability of dried fruits. We cannot get all we want from the Mediterranean. I wish we could. He suggested that dried fruits might be tied to the sugar ration but he will realise, were that to be done, dried fruits, from being a food on points, would become a food for which the consumer was tied to a particular supplier and that would not work out so well. Dried fruits are perishable to a certain extent, and if we were to tie the consumer to a particular supplier for dried fruits we might find that we had dried fruits left over or that some consumers who are now able to get dried fruits could not get them so easily. He spoke about salads, lettuces, tomatoes and so on and deplored the fact that at the beginning of the season prices are high. I am sorry, but that cannot be helped. It always was the case when we were accustomed to regard fruits and salads as seasonal. At the beginning of the season prices were high. But he did not dissent from the words of my right hon. and gallant Friend, that the tomato distribution scheme was remarkably successful. It would be extremely difficult, as I gather he wished, for the consumer to be confined to a particular supplier for tomatoes. I am afraid that that would not work very well. As for canned meat for canteens, we are doing our best to get wholesalers and first-hand suppliers to make a reservation for the very canteens in which my hon. Friend is interested.

Mr. Barnes

Would the Parliamentary Secretary indicate whether there is any possibility of giving the retailer a chance to change his wholesaler, if desired?

Mr. Mabane

We have considered that over and over again and we find that it is really not possible. I will give my hon. Friend a considered statement of the reason why. This is a very burning topic with many retailers, but we really are unable to do it.

Many hon. Members have referred to the subsidies given in respect of foodstuffs, and I would like to correct the statement of my hon. Friend the Member for North Cumberland on the statement of the Chancellor about the cost of living index. Hitherto the cost of living index has been kept steady at 125 to 130 points above pre-war and he now suggests that he might let it go up to 135 to 140. The give, that is to say, is rather more accurately represented as five points than ten points. He wondered whether the costing system on which we determine our margin could be altered. There is a dilemma. If we were to determine the margin at any stage of distribution in accordance with what my hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeen calls the "just price," that is, the price we might agree as efficient, we would at once close down all those who might be deemed to be inefficient. So far, this House has not been prepared to agree to that. There has been rather a tendency—let us admit it—to determine margins at a figure which will allow not merely an efficient producer or efficient distributor to remain in business but to allow a good many who are not as efficient as they should be.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot

I hope that my right hon. Friend will keep himself straight theologically. When he mentioned the just price he was straying a little from the definition of a just price of the medieval judge. The rack rent price he was quoting is something widely different from what the medieval judge had in mind.

Mr. Mabane

I know that St. Thomas Aquinas was very precise in his definitions and he meant by "just price" a price sufficient to enable the seller to maintain himself in that station of life to which God had called him. But that really does not affect the margin in the sense that the hon. Member for North Cumberland meant.

He talked about tea for old age pensioners. He realised the difficulty when I asked whether he meant "contributory" or "non-contributory," and he would realise the difficulty still more if he considered whether it is fair to exclude somebody who is over the pensionable age and does not have a pension. It is evident that if we were to do anything for the old people we should have to do it for all over 70 or 65 as the case might be. He would recognise that we would be departing from a principle on which the Ministry had worked, and many hon. Members opposite might argue that the miner should have first place. The supply position is difficult and although I know that my right hon. and gallant Friend has a very generous and kindly heart and would do what he could in these directions, he is limited by the supplies available to him.

My right hon. Friend mentioned enforcement in the opening part of his speech and many hon. Members have also referred to enforcement in the course of their remarks. My hon. Friend behind me spoke about ridiculous cases which were brought before the court, but I was somewhat surprised, for, with his great experience of administration, he knows full well that many cases may come before the courts that may appear to be ridiculous and trifling but which embody a great principle.

Mr. Francis Watt

Does my right hon. Friend have any principle embodied in his Ministry?

Mr. Mabane

The hon. Gentleman really must be a little more patient. There have been one or two cases before the courts which on the face of them appear to be trifling, but they embodied a principle of very considerable substance. While my right hon. and gallant Friend indicated to the Committee that food control committees issue warnings where warnings will do, that does not in the least mean to indicate that he desired to abandon a great many offences as offences if that abandonment would open the gate to a new black market.

Mr. Watt

Do I understand the right hon. Gentleman to contend that, in spite of the cases I mentioned, he professes that the behaviour of his enforcement committees is quite satisfactory?

Mr. Mabane

I do not think the hon. Member has appreciated the full force of what my right hon. and gallant Friend said in his opening speech. He said that his predecessor had, in his wisdom, delegated authority to prosecute to the food control committees. The food control committees in their discretion operate the Orders and my right hon. and gallant Friend can guide them on the lines that they should take. But if the hon. Gentleman will give me any cases that have been before the courts, I think I shall be able to show him that, behind the offences for which there have been prosecutions, there is the possibility of a very considerable black market or else a very considerable inroad upon the regulations of the Ministry of Food.

The hon. Gentleman the Member for Batley and Morley (Mr. Beaumont) spoke about British Restaurants. I will look in detail into the case he brought to my notice. The hon. Member for Wallasey (Mr. Reakes) spoke about luxury feeding. Some time ago I was at pains to discover what proportion of the rationed foods consumed in this country went to those establishments which, by a rough definition, might be called luxury establishments. I found that the figure was 0.2 per cent. Usually luxury establishments are considered to be those for which a house charge has been granted. Here are some figures. In London there are 29,000 licensed catering establishments; of those 119 have been licensed to make house charges. In the rest of the country there are 115,000 licensed catering establishments; of those, 110 have been licensed to make house charges. So it is not so very many, and I think it is very easy to be misled by the menus of some of these luxury establishments. There is one so-called luxury establishment in London that prints its menu in French. One day I observed on its menu, "Jambon de Valenciennes au choux" and, on the other side, there was "Jambon de Strasbourg aux endives." One translated was "hot spam," and the other "cold spam." Indeed, I have here before me an even more grand menu of a well-known restaurant, and I see here "Pilaff du pêcheur des côtes de la Manche," which translated means, "Boiled rice and hot cod." To my hon. Friend who spoke about whisky, all I can say is that his, remarks have been noted and I am sure they will not be received unsympathetically by my right hon. and gallant Friend.

Mr. Boothby

Carefully noted?

Mr. Mabane

Carefully noted. Many hon. Members in the course of the Debate have expressed their appreciation of the efforts of the officers of the Ministry of Food, and I was particularly pleased to hear such remarks from my hon. Friend the Member for Denbigh (Sir J. Morris-Jones) in whose constituency Colwyn Bay is situated. As I listened to the hon. Member for Cathcart who is nearly, but not quite, an officer of the Department, I thought he was giving very excellent evidence of the kind of expert advice on which the Ministry of Food can rely. He made a speech that was packed with facts, and full of knowledge and experience. He spoke about the extraction rate of bread. I assure him, however, that there is a very considerable body of opinion among the scientists and doctors who argue that a lower extraction rate is better. I can assure him, too, as he well knows, that his speech will be very carefully noted, and he would not expect me to enter into a discussion with one so expert as himself.

I have left to the last what I would like to say about the theme that has been running through the whole Debate, and has been mentioned by two-thirds or three-quarters of the hon. Members who have spoken, and that is nutrition. Almost every hon. Member has said that, whatever may happen to the Ministry of Food, let the schemes that have been inaugurated during the war for improving the general nutrition of the people be continued. Before the war, I am sure we all agree, everybody ate what they liked, or what they could afford to buy; some were limited by income, others were limited by need. If we were well nourished before the war it was, as often as not, by accident. But between the wars the science of nutrition had made remarkable strides. The Ministry of Food began in a much better position in the matter of nutrition than could have been the case a generation before.

The immediate effect of this has been that during the war we have not merely imported food, whatever it was or whereever we could get it, we have imported food values, and under the general compulsion of rationing we have deflected the population from the consumption of foods of little or no food value to the consumption of foods that are much better for them. We expected rationing before the war, but we did not expect that the Ministry of Food would so positively present a nutritional point of view to the public. We expected the Ministry of Food to be restrictive and negative. I do claim that it has added to that a positive function. Before the war nutrition was an unpopular word, as has been mentioned in the course of the Debate. It called up a vision of the highbrow. It made one think of a diet of chopped raw cabbage and carrots, and a particularly noxious form of wholemeal bread, washed down with copious draughts of vegetable juice. That was what nutrition was taken to mean, but during the war the Ministry of Food has endeavoured to ally the salesman with the scientist. It has had this great organisation of public relations and food advice and I would argue that, contrary to what one hon. Gentleman said, the housewife to-day takes a very keen and direct interest in the nutrition both of herself and her family. That may be one of the reasons why we have been able to maintain a higher standard of health than ever we could have hoped. We have done it by conscious and deliberate direction in education and feeding.

I feel encouraged by the Debate to-day, and I am inclined to say that we might resolve now that this work shall not stop with the peace. None of us know whether the Ministry of Food will continue in being after the war or for how long. Many of its functions will, automatically, disappear, but I should be most disturbed if I thought that the great advances made by the Ministry of Food in food education were not to be continued and, indeed, substantially extended so that their benefits should become universal. Nowadays we talk about the brave new world and most people are thinking about the future. Too few, however, stop to think that you cannot have a healthy society unless you have healthy animals to form that society. I think the Ministry of Food has indicated how the healthy animals can be brought into adult life. "Mens sana" is all right, but you want the "corpus sanum" as well. If the Ministry of Food has been of any help in that direction, then I think it has done a very good piece of work indeed.

Mr. Reakes

May I ask the right hon. Gentleman, in view of the special appeal I made to him to study the equitable distribution of fish, whether he has any words to say on that? It is very important to everyone.

Mr. Mabane

The hon. Gentleman will realise that this matter of fish rationing has been in debate not once but many times.

Mr. Reakes

I agree, but nothing has happened.

Mr. Mabane

I could only suggest that he looks back to some of the previous Debates, because all the arguments advanced then, hold good now. We should be very glad to ration fish if we could. The simple truth, in fact, is that we do not know how. I think the real answer to the fish trouble is that there should be more fish.

Mr. Reakes

I am sorry.

Mr. Mebane

So am I, so we shall have to console one another in our sorrow.

I end, as I began, by saying that the Ministry of Food can be grateful to hon. Members for all the things that have been said about the administration of the Department, and for the suggestions for improvement that have been brought forward in the course of the Debate. If I have failed to deal with any points, all I can say is that they will be studied in the Department, and we shall, I hope, be able to produce either a reason why the proposal cannot be accepted or to produce, in fact, the proposal accepted.

Mr. Bartle Bull (Enfield)

Before the right hon. Gentleman sits down, may I say that I have no time to pay compliments, but I would like to ask if anything can be done to make dried eggs taste a little more like eggs? Christopher Columbus is the only one who might have had a chance to be able to do anything with these eggs, but it is very difficult for the rest of us. On the box it says "Everything in the box except the shell." I do suggest to my right hon. Friend that it might, conceivably, make them taste a little bit more like eggs if one were to add the shell as well.

It being the hour appointed for the interruption of Business, The CHAIRMAN left the Chair to make his Report to the House.

Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Tuesday next.