HC Deb 02 August 1907 vol 179 cc1441-56

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."

DR. COOPER (Southwark, Bermondsey)

said he desired to move that this Bill be read a second time that day three months. Everybody had at heart the object sought to be carried out by this Bill, but they objected to the way in which the President of the Local Government Board proposed to achieve that object. Those who read the Bill could not avoid seeing the drastic change that was contemplated by it. It proposed to take out of the hands of Parliament and give to the Local Government Board the whole control, and all foods except drugs and all drink except water were to be covered by regulations of the Local Government Board. There was no suggestion that those regulations should be laid before Parliament or laid upon the Table or inquired into by the various trades affected, and therefore he thought it was his duty to oppose the Bill. For years he had been interested in the administration of the public health, and he knew how seriously this Bill would affect it. It was the most anti-democratic measure that had been introduced into the House of Commons in modern times. It was such a Bill as one might have expected an administrative autocracy to bring in, but not a democratic Government. It took out of the hands of the people the control of all these large trades, and although the President of the Local Government Board might say he was responsible for everything that was done, the people's representatives in the House of Commons were deprived of any opportunity of discussing the action of the Local Government Board. A large number of Members would like to do so, and even if they had such an opportunity there would be very little chance of discussing the question. He regretted that the Government had not devoted the time that they had employed on the Army Bill to a Public Health Bill to preserve life instead of utilising the time to pass a Bill to destroy life. In such a Bill the whole of these subjects might be dealt with by Parliament and not by the Local Government Board. The work of this Bill might have been put into a Public Health Bill. Such a Bill had stood upon the Paper all through the session, and yet at the far end of the session this Bill was brought up. It was hardly the proper way of dealing with the question. The Bill dealt with a trade of £300,000,000 or £400,000,000. The meat trade alone came to £30,000,000 or £40,000,000 a month, and that meat was to be inspected directly it came into the country. The machinery necessary must be large and expensive, and he thought they ought to know something about that machinery before the Bill was passed. The same thing might be said of all other interests bound up in the Bill. The Bill not only made the regulations but gave power to the Local Government Board to modify Acts of Parliament already passed, which was a most extraordinary power to give to a Government Department. That alone ought to give rise to a very serious consideration of the Bill. It was for these reasons that he declined to give the powers proposed to the Local Government Board. He knew what the inspectors of meat in England were. Many of them were not properly trained and their work was done by rule of thumb. In Germany the inspector of meat had to be either a veterinary surgeon or a surgeon, and to have two years special training. On all these grounds and with the desire of giving the House some opportunity of discussing the Bill, which he did not desire should slip through without some debate, he begged to move the Motion standing in his name.

* MR. WATT (Glasgow, College)

said he seconded the Motion not so much upon the intrinsic demerits of the Bill as because of the want of conciliation on the part of the President of the Local Government Board who had brought it forward. He regarded the Bill as one of the most drastic of the session. Notwithstanding this fact, the President of the Local Government Board had placed every obstacle in the way of Motions being placed upon the Paper, asking that the regulations in the Bill might be laid before the House. The Bill was based on an Act which dealt with cholera and epidemics and which was only used on special occasions. Notice had to be given of the regulations under that Act before they came into force. In 1896 another Public Health Act was passed and the powers of the authorities were further extended and handed over to the Local Government Board. That Act dealt with the regulations of port authorities. It dealt with the case of disease on board vessels coming into ports. The powers which had been handed over to the Local Government Board required that in that case also consent had to be obtained and notice given to the public before the regulations became operative. Consent had to be obtained from the Customs authorities and from the Admiralty, and notice had to be given to the public of that consent. This Bill was an extension of both those Acts, but the extraordinary thing about it was that the Local Government Board had to give no notice to anyone as to the regulations they were to make. They were to deal with all the articles of food and drink of the people without giving any notice to the people or to the trades affected. He thought that such regulations should be laid before both Houses of Parliament for forty days before they came into effect.

Amendment proposed — To leave out the word 'now' and at the end of the Question to add the words 'this day three months.' "— (Dr. Cooper.)

Question proposed, "That the word ' now ' stand part of the Question."

THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. JOHN-BURNS,) Battersea

said he asked the House to give a Second Reading to this simple, useful, necessary, and in his judgment too long delayed measure. At the outset he wished to state what were the deficiencies in the law as it now was, and the reason and justification for the Government asking that this Bill should be passed into law to make good those deficiencies. The Government asked that the Local Government Board should have power to extend the duties it now enjoyed under the Act of 1875, as set out in the Bill now under consideration. Perhaps in the light of what had recently been said, he might state what the law was with regard to the condition, the preparation, storage, and distribution of human food which was peculiarly liable to become unsound. The Public Health Act empowered the Medical Officer for Health or Inspector of Nuisances to examine meat or other articles of food if exposed for sale or deposited for the purposes of sale or in course of preparation for sale, if intended for the food of man. If it appeared to the Medical Officer or the Inspector of Nuisances that meat or any form of food was diseased, unsound, unwholesome, or unfit for food, he might seize, carry away, examine and bring the case before a magistrate. If the magistrate was satisfied, the food might be condemned and a penalty inflicted on the vendor or any person on whose premises the food so condemned was found. To many people who had not closely studied the question, the law was quite sufficient; but unfortunately it was not, because an Inspector was-unable to deal with any food so long as it was not, in the language of the Act, "exposed for sale for human consumption." The Public Health Acts gave no control over the arrangement or preparation of food or the cleanliness of the receptacles in which it was contained The House would perhaps permit him to-give an illustration. A certain firm whose name he would not mention exported a large quantity of tinned meat from England to South Africa. That meat was sound, clean, healthy and well packed. It went to South Africa and lay there for two or three years. It was moved from pillar to post, following the troops wherever they went. But a considerable proportion of it was not used, and at the end of the war it was sold. It had so bad a reputation in South Africa that no one would think of touching it. It was shipped to England and arrived at a certain port with a view to its being sold and circulated in this country. It was in a shocking condition, but it could not be touched at the port were it was landed because it was not exposed for sale. It was transported by rail to London, and it could not be touched in the goods yard for the same reason. To their credit, the firm who originally prepared and sold it, who of course were not responsible for the condition into which it had fallen, seeing [that if that food, bearing their name, packed in their tins and packages, was put upon the market and sold, their reputation would suffer enormously, informed the Local Government Board of the circumstance. The Local Government Board had no power to seize the food, but the result was that the Board with the co-operation of one or two people succeeded in persuading the person who bought this unsound food to sacrifice his prospective profit, and the stuff was condemned and destroyed. The Local Government Board ought not to be put in that position. When large quantities of condemned stores were known to be unsound and it was known by the port sanitary authority that an endeavour was being made to put them upon the market the Local Government Board ought to be in a position to stop them.

MR. WATT

They were sold to this person.

MR. JOHN BURNS

said they were sold as condemned stores, and the man knew perfectly well that he would not have got them at the price he did if they had not been unsound. The medical officer or port sanitary authority ought to have the power to seize and condemn such things. If that was not done, these bad stores were sold to retailers of food, who were in many cases persuaded that they were in good condition or were not so unsound as to be objectionable to the palates of their customers. But the chief evil was that an honest tradesman was induced to purchase them for a small price. He exposed them for sale, the sanitary officer came along and seized the goods, and this unfortunate man was taken before a magistrate and fined for selling things which he should have had no opportunity of selling. A fine or perhaps imprisonment was the result. That was bad enough, but worse still was the fact that this perfectly honest tradesman who had been trapped into this, had his reputation so affected that if he was able to pay the fine, he was not able to outlive the unsavoury reputation which he had acquired as a seller of bad food, and he was either absolutely ruined or had to remove to another place. To show the necessity for these powers he might say that in 1872 tinned meat to the extent of about 14 lbs. per head of the population was imported into this country, and that in 1902 the importation had grown to 56 lbs. per head. £40,000,000 worth of food was imported yearly into this country. Half that food came from the United States, and the great bulk of that half came from a particular city. The Local Government Board desired under this Bill to obtain powers to prevent danger arising to the public health from the importation of tinned foods. Tinned food made from unwholesome articles could, save in exceptional cases, now be detected, but only two port sanitary authorities had power to deal effectively with this food on landing. Those two were London and Manchester. This Bill proposed to put all port sanitary authorities in the same position as those of London and Manchester, of being able to take samples of such food and destroy it where necessary. The regulation would also require satisfactory evidence of the antecedents of the food such as were demanded by Germany, Denmark, and other continental countries. The authorities would insist upon knowing the conditions under which food was prepared, especially sausages, brawn, and other articles consumed mainly in the poorer districts. It would insist upon the provision of clean and decent places where food had to be stored. It would provide, for example, that ice cream under process of preservation should not be kept under or in a bed or near a lavatory. It would insist that in the process of distributing food the receptacles, wagons, and other means of transport should be kept cleaner than they now were. It would enable many of the abominations which prevailed in all parts of the country to be stopped, and indeed the conditions under which food was prepared and distributed would be so improved as to be an advantage to the food trade, while conferring a protection upon honest traders in the difficulties which now surrounded them. If the House would permit him he would give one or two reasons, quite apart from the desire of the Local Government Board, for this Bill. He had before him the report of a man who very properly enjoyed the respect and good opinion of all who knew him. He referred to the medical officer for Finsbury, Dr. Newman, who was the author of that excellent work entitled "Infant Mortality" and who had given many years study to dietetics. Dr. Newman stated — Much imported meat is actually diseased, and especially does this apply to offal and veal, even when it is received from such countries as Holland, where more or less inspection takes place. For instance, from 1901–5 in Finsbury, in addition to a large quantity of damaged and decomposed veal and offal, we contiscated 213 carcases of veal, 150 carcases of pork, and 40,486 sheep's and pigs' plucks, all of which were diseased and none of which bore evidences of inspection. He wished to supplement that by saying that this was food the medical officer was able to condemn with his limited powers, and yet had it been placed in wagons and transported from Finsbury to Batter-sea it could not have been stopped, because in the words of the Act, "it was not exposed for sale for human consumption." The Report went on to say that two van loads of tinned so-called beef and sausage were found to be in a Very bad condition; some of the tins had been pricked to let the gas out, and then re-soldered. The contents when analysed were discovered to consist not of beef but of horse flesh from Hamburg. Now they could realise what became of the poor old horses shipped from England to Hamburg, and sold there for about £1 or 30s.; they came back after an interval to this country in the form of canned foods of every description. He was glad to think that the City Corporation and the local authorities were strongly in favour of this Bill. He had received no complaint against it; on the contrary, he had been strongly urged to press it forward. He would give another case. Dr. Collingridge, the medical officer for the City of London, said that in December, 1906, 11,000 tons of mixed food were seized. He tested seventy or eighty tins, the contents of which he found in every case to be unwholesome, some were putrid, eved rotten, and some were saturated with tin: it was solely in consequence of the liquid that came from the tins that they were examined. If the importers only knew how deficient were the powers of medical officers in this matter, he feared that much more of this stuff would get into circulation. He had a quotation from the Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Marylebone, dealing with the kind of thing this Bill was intended to prevent— The chief fault lay in the American brawns; six samples of brawn derived from Chicago were filthy, containing dirt, bits of straw, woody fibre, hair, hogs' bristles, shreds of skin with the bristles attached, and other matters, giving one the impression that some portion of the contents was made by floor sweepings. Again, the Chairman of the Public Health Committee of the London County Oouncil said — In Paddington there had been seized five tons of diseased meat, much of which consisted of liver filled with parasites and abcesses; while as to Finsbury they were told that in the first five years since it became a borough, 376 tons of meat bad been seized and confiscated. One report spoke of a business in prepared food being carried on without the inspector knowing anything about it, the reason being that the law as it now stood did not empower the inspector to go where he could get information. He did not think it necessary to give further instances showing the enormous amount of diseased and unsound meat which got through. It would be sufficient to quote one authority, and that was the Lancet, which deserved great praise for the way in which it pressed the Government to do something in this matter. In a leading article in June last, it said — The trade in diseased meat and putrid milk, to say nothing of adulterated foodstuffs, will never be put an end to until the offenders are treated as the poisoners which they really are. He could give instance after instance to prove the truth of that comment. He could cite many instances of meat being treated with boracic and salicylic acid, and of food being prepared in filthy, unsanitary places, and he asked the House to give the Local Government Board power, not only to deal with unsound meat, but also to deal with tinned meats, instead of leaving medical officers of health as at present to do their best to cope with these evils by mere persuasion and sometimes bluff. It would be well for the House to listen to some descriptions of the way in which the food of the poor in some parts of the country was stored. In Mansfield in 1896, as a result of the preparation and storage of potted meats under uncleanly conditions, 250 persons were affected, and no doubt other isolated cases of illness were not reported. The factory inspector for the East End of London reported— The sausage and brawn factories are mostly owned by Germans, who have a retail shop on the premises, and employ one or two hands to make the goods in a room behind the shop or in a cellar underneath. These places are small, delapidated, badly-lit, and often infested with rats. In the case of another provincial corporation the Report stated that beef was received in a dirty passage, and was either hung on hooks against a filthy wall or laid on the floor. It was then taken into a filthy room and cut up. The boiling pans were situated in rooms, the walls and floors of which were bespattered and dirty to such an extent that the beef must have been contaminated. The walls of these rooms were covered with soot, and altogether the place was in a condition likely to give rise to danger. Surely here the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wimbledon had an opportunity of securing protection near home. He had even worse instances in the City of London which he could quote. Not only did these Reports deal with unsound meat; they also covered the case of liquids, and he would tell them of a case showing how sarsaparilla wine— which was no doubt intended to be sold in the parks on Bank Holiday— was treated. He would read the Report of the case of an old woman charged with neglecting her tour children. The sanitary inspector said that— In July she found the four children locked in a back room, absolutely naked. The witness had found out for whom the woman prepared the sarsaparilla, and the work had been stopped. The Public Health Act enabled them to make the house clean, but they could not make the people clean. He ought not to be placed in the position of having to be written to to put a stop to insanitary conditions in places where sarsaparilla wine, tinned meats, brawn, pate de foie gras and other things were made and sold to the poor; and he appealed to the House to give him the power to look into these matters under the regulations which he asked them to pass. It might be said that this did not apply to food imported from Canada, America, and elsewhere. He believed in equal rights between all white men in the matter of tinned foods whether they came from Canada, America, Australia, New Zealand, or Manchester or Liverpool. Whether they were sold in small towns or in the City of London, they would all have to toe the line in regard to medical and sanitary standards. It had been represented to him that the tinned foods from certain places were absolutely clean, that the places in which they were made were also absolutely clean, and that there was no danger in them at all. He must on this point read one or two extracts from Dr. Buchanan's Report, and he would leave out the names of the firms— —'s Brawn: Many hog bristles and much skin and bone. Contents very dirty; —'s brawn: Many pig's bristles, woody fibre and dirt; —'s Brawn: The contents of this tin were filthy. Hogs's bristles, hair, probably human, bits of wood, cotton fibres, starch granules, and dirt generally; —'s Brawn: Filthy sample, much dirt, many hog's bristles; —'s Brawn: Contents mainly gristle and skin with hair attached, cotton fibres, dirt and human hair. Sample unfit, in my opinion, for use; —'s Brand, tongue: Contents very dirty. It might be said that since the recent exposures in this country and elsewhere things had been put right, and that there was no need for any panic. He could have got this Bill last year, at the time when the food panic was at its height, but — he hoped fairly and courteously —he had declined to pass a Food Regulations Bill in a period of panic; he had determined to allow that panic period to pass over, and, a year having elapsed, he could not now be accused of taking hasty or ill-considered action. However satisfied they might be with the conditions of life, sanitary, social, municipal or political, whether in America or here, or in any country however perfect things might be now, they could not allow them to continue with the law so defective as it was at present, because there was a strong probability that in the absence of proper regulations matters would relapse to their former condition. Well, he was not going to allow diseased horseflesh to be exported to Hamburg and transhipped to England in the shape of "Piccadilly brawn" that kind of thing had to be stopped; he did not see why we should take from other countries what Germany, Denmark, and other European nations refused to receive. If it were necessary, he could give further instances in support of the claim he was making upon the House; he could more than justify every statement he now made, and he asked the House to give the Local Government Board power to make these regulations, which would be communicated to every sanitary authority that wanted them. Places like Salford, Liverpool, Glasgow, London, and elsewhere could not act without these regulations; therefore he asked that his Department should be entrusted with such regulations, which they would administer with fairness to all concerned. He was prepared not to enforce them for twenty-eight days after they were issued, except in a case of emergency such as the South African case, so as to give all interests affected an opportunity of examining them and communicating with the Local Government Board in the event of their thinking that they were prejudiced in any way. He would lose no opportunity during that twenty-eight days of communicating with the trades. He had already received a deputation from them, and there was no substantial opposition to giving the Local Government Board power to make these regulations. The Department would neither harass nor inconvenience those who wanted to carry on a legitimate trade in either fresh or tinned foods decently and in order; but, compatibly with doing justice to the trade, and recognising all the interests affected, he appealed to the House on behalf of the food consumer to give the Local Government Board greater power over the £40,000,000 worth of tinned food that came into the country, so that they could save the very poor, who suffered most in this respect, from the danger of death and disease which resulted from foods being stored in filthy places, or from their being made in the insanitary conditions which he had described. If the House conferred on the Local Government Board power to make these regulations that Department would, to the best of their ability, do their utmost to carry them out. None but the dishonest trader in unsound food or the dirty manufacturer who prepared the food in places where they they would not stable a horse or litter a pig, would have reason to take exception to the regulations. He therefore, hoped that the House would confer on the Local Government Board the simple and effective powers for which he was now asking.

* SIR FRANCIS POWELL (Wigan)

said he desired to support this Bill, and to offer a word of thanks to the right hon. Gentleman for his proposals. The Police and Sanitary Committee, on which he served, had been engaged time after time in discussing clauses relating to tinned meat. Great difficulty was associated with the subject, and it should not be left to chance local action. This measure should have a beneficial effect in dealing with children who were too often ill-fed, through the carelessness of their parents, who were frequently the victims also of fraud. The Bill would save children from being put into that unhappy position in which they were now liable to be given unwholesome food. The case made out by the right hon. Gentleman appeared to him to be absolutely complete, and he would feel grateful if there were not one dissentient voice raised against the measure. It was not often he could agree with His Majesty's Government, but on this occasion they had his most hearty support, and he hoped the Bill would soon become law.

* SIR WALTER FOSTER (Derbyshire, Ilkeston)

said he was sure that everyone in the House desired to assist the President of the Local Government Board in trying to put a stop to the abominations which he had so graphically described by means of the extracts which he had read. He thought that no law could be too strong to put down such cases, though he was disappointed with the machinery of the Bill, which did not appear to him to be adequate to deal with this great evil. There would have to be inspection throughout the length and breadth of the land of a thorough and efficient character, and hundreds of inspectors would be required who would have to be paid out of the rates or taxes for their work. If they were to have food adequately treated and inspected, they would have to have inspectors who would attend every market and prevent diseased cattle being sold. They could do that under the present law, but unfortunately the local authorities did not assist in the work, consequently they had every day in the markets of this country diseased cattle which were sold and slaughtered in the locality and sent to London or some of the chief towns of the country to be consumed by the poor. He had brought before the House instances of cattle suffering from that terrible disease anthrax, which had been sold in the Midland counties to be consumed by the people. If that was to be stopped it must be by adequate inspection all over the country, and in order to do that they must have a sufficient staff provided. One set of inspectors would act where animals were sold in the open market, another body of inspectors would stop diseased meat in shops and factories. The right hon. Gentleman also proposed to follow the food up to the stores, and they would have to deal with cold storage places where they took in food for human consumption, and where it was kept for a certain length of time and required inspection before it was distributed. But that was a gigantic task, so gigantic that it required a large amount of consideration and a very large staff. Every part of the country would have to be equipped with a proper staff. Was the machinery proposed adequate to deal with these great evils? The publication of rules and regulations would not suffice, there must be machinery to expose them. Food inspection to be carried out thoroughly and efficiently would necessitate hundreds of inspectors being employed and paid out of the rates. Under the existing law local authorities could have inspectors to attend markets and prevent diseased cattle from being sold and killed for food. Unfortunately local authorities would not always help in this way, and cattle suffering from diseasess were constantly sold for food. The President of the Local Government Board was undertaking a gigantic task. He thought that the regulations when framed should be laid on the table of the House for forty days. He did not think regulations of this magnitude ought to be enforced without the cognisance of the House. He therefore asked the right hon. Gentleman to agree to extend the period from twenty-eight to forty days, and he hoped that that concession would be made before they proceeded to a division.

MR. CAVE (Surrey, Kingston)

said the right hon. Gentleman had made out a very strong case indeed for some Bill of this kind, but he thought the powers asked for were too wide. He assumed that the Bill would go upstairs.

MR. JOHN BURNS

dissented.

MR. CAVE

said under this Bill the powers of the Local Government Board would not be confined even to unsound and unfit food. Regulations might be made dealing with food of any kind which the President of the Local Government Board might consider injurious to health. He agreed with the suggestion that a longer period should be allowed before the regulations were put in force.

MR. BOWLES (Lambeth, Norwood)

said he should not have intervened but for the indication given by the right hon. Gentleman that it was not the intention of the Government that this Bill should be sent to a Committee upstairs. If that were so it would be an entirely new departure. Nobody could doubt that there was a crying need for further regulations to stop the abominations which the right hon. Gentleman had described. That, however, was a very different thing from giving the Local Government Board, as this Bill did, powers to apply not only to bad food but to any article of human consumption any regulation which might seem good to them, or which might already be in existence under the Public Health Act. That was an enormous power and was larger than was justified by anything which the right hon. Gentleman had said. It appeared to him to be one of those Bills which ought to be submitted to a Committee upstairs. Enormous, vague, indefinite powers of this kind affecting large interests and many persons ought not to be considered by the House during the small hours of the morning, and rushed through under circumstances with which they were all familiar, and which no hon. Member could contend were at all satisfactory.

Lord BALCARRES (Lancashire, Chorley)

held that the powers asked for by the Local Government Board were too wide. They might, indeed, be applied to alcohol, which some people considered was injurious to health. The President of the Local Government Board would be empowered to make regulations preventing the importation of articles dangerous to the public health and by placing alcohol in that category he could prevent its importation.

MR. HIGHAM (Yorkshire, W.R., Sowerby)

supported the suggestion that the regulations should be placed upon the Table of the House. Nobody had gone the length of explaining what could be done by this Bill, and no such wide powers as were proposed ought to be given to any Department. They would not always have the right hon. Member for Battersea at the head of this Department. It was the custom in every other Department that such regulations should lie upon the Table. That was the practice under the Factory and Workshops Act, and it had been carried out from time immemorial. He did not think that in asking that this old custom should be carried out in the case of this Bill they were asking for anything unreasonable. It was very seldom indeed that such regulations were criticised, and during the last two years there had not been a single instance. The right hon. Gentleman need have no fear that any reasonable regulations would be refused. He agreed that a measure of this kind was needed. He believed that the chemicals which were being used as preservatives were in many cases deleterious, and this was the only civilised country in the world which had not imposed regulations in regard to the use of preservatives. He held that this was a matter in which the health of the people should be protected.

MR. JOHN BURNS

said he was quite willing to concede the request of the hon. Member for the Ilkeston Division that the regulations should lie on the Table of the House for forty days. He hoped the proposal that the Bill should be sent to a Standing Committee would be withdrawn. This was a Bill of one clause, and there was no reason why it should not be considered by Committee of the Whole House.

Dr. COOPER

asked leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for Monday next. — (Mr. John Burns.)