HC Deb 25 June 1934 vol 291 cc914-20

10.17 p.m.

Mr. H. STEWART

I beg to move, in page 14, line 6, after "arrangements," to insert "by advertising or other means."

I move this Amendment, not in the hope or indeed the desire that it will be accepted in this form, but for the purpose of raising what seems to me, an all-important consideration in connection with increasing the demand for milk. Up to now we have been considering methods of producing clean milk which, admittedly, is an essential condition of increased sales. In Clause 11 we pass to the process of disposing of the milk and two methods are to be adopted. They are being adopted, we are told, because the Minister was besieged by deputations from farmers asking for some means of increasing sales. The first method proposed is really what is known in commerce as the method of sample and the other is the method of publicity and advertising. I say nothing of the first except that it is an admirable method and one with which everybody agrees, because it will have the effect of improving the health of the school children who will benefit by it, and also building up an increased consumption of milk for the future. As to the second, the Minister made a statement to the effect that he was going to limit his contribution for publicity purposes to a sum of £50,000, out of £1,000,000.

I contend that that is inadequate. I accept the right hon. Gentleman's assurance that he was advised by the experts of the milk board that this amount was sufficient, but my contention is that he was badly advised, and I ask him to take further advice on the matter. This board is not a Government Department but a business concern. It will only succeed if it can sell the milk. Therefore, it is in no way different from any food producing concern in the country. It can only succeed if it is able to meet competitors in the same field or to produce an equivalent service, and I would ask the Minister to recollect that competitors in the business of food producing have come to the conclusion, after long experience, that one of the most potent methods of increasing sales is by means of advertising.

I am thinking now of one great concern with which I have been intimately connected, which spends each year, not £50,000, not £500,000, but something like £2,000,000 on advertising. They do not do that for fun, nor because they want pictures in the Press. They do it because they are very level-headed, hard-headed business men, who see in that way the most effective method of increasing their business. Over the week-end I consulted with some of the leaders of that great industry—I ask the right hon. Gentleman to believe that they are not advertising agency people or Fleet Street experts, but men controlling an immense world organisation—and I put it to these men, "What would you say if you were asked to control the milk trade of this country, to increase the sales of milk, and you were offered £50,000 a year to do it?" They said, "We would not take on the job at all."

Mr. SPEAKER

Is the hon. Member recommending that more should be spent on advertising?

Mr. STEWART

Yes, Sir.

Mr. SPEAKER

In that case, I am afraid he would be out of order.

Mr. STEWART

I hope I may put the case in a minute or two—

Mr. SPEAKER

If the object of the hon. Member were to spend a larger sum, the Amendment would be out of order, so that it would be of no use going on with it.

Mr. STEWART

It is merely an allocation of the sum set aside in this Clause. I am not proposing to increase the sum, but merely suggesting a different allocation of it.

Mr. SPEAKER

If that be the hon. Member's intention, that is in order.

Mr. STEWART

That is the intention, Sir. I asked these quite expert people what they thought would be a reasonable sum, and they assured me that it would require at least £150,000, and not £50,000, to be of any real purpose whatsoever. It may be that the Milk Marketing Board has some other proposal up its sleeve which the Minister has not divulged to the House. It may be that they have other methods of increasing the public demand for their products, but I say that if it is to be limited to this sum, then the money is entirely wasted. You might as well, as I suggested the other evening, throw it down the drain, because that too would be valueless. You could use up this sum of £50,000 on a few national news- papers alone, without any question of posters. One national newspaper well known to all of us charges no less than £1,400 for a single day's insertion. Therefore, where would £50,000 go in a really effective campaign?

I support the idea of school children having further milk supplies, but I submit that that is not going to have any effect upon increasing the immediate consumption of milk. It may have some effect in two years' time or in 10 years' time, but not now. If you want to increase the demand for milk, as I understand is the purpose of this Sub-section, I beg the Minister and the House to consider themselves for the time being a board of directors rather than legislators, given this sum of £1,000,000, and I beg them to use the accumulated experience of all business and to set aside a much larger sum than that mentioned by the Minister for this particular purpose. I suggest this Amendment in the hope that the Minister will demand from the Milk Marketing Board not only the details of a scheme for children's milk, but the details of a really effective advertising campaign, and that he will allocate a sufficient amount of money for the purpose.

10.26 p.m.

Duchess of ATHOLL

I beg to second the Amendment.

I cannot claim any knowledge of advertising, and it is not a subject that as a rule interests me, but it does appear to me to be a vital matter to increase the sale of liquid milk at a price that will be sufficiently remunerative to keep dairy farmers from bankruptcy, with which many of them are faced in my part of Scotland. It seems to me, therefore, that publicity of this kind assumes an importance which I am not myself in the habit of giving to it. A greater allocation of the grant mentioned in Clause 11 for publicity further commends itself because it is a form of expenditure which need not continue beyond the two years for which the grant will be available, and therefore, unlike the other proposals in the Bill, it need not be a liability on the producer at the end of a certain period. For these reasons, I shall be glad to see a larger proportion of the grant mentioned in Clause 11 devoted to this purpose.

10.28 p.m.

Mr. ELLIOT

I am not quite sure to what allocation the Noble Lady and the hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. H. Stewart) refer. There is no allocation in the Bill, nor would this Amendment make any difference. The Bill says "any arrangements," and surely to add "by advertising or other means "weakens and not strengthens the whole proposal. I hope the House will not accept an Amendment to insert words which do not have any effect whatever beyond limiting the very valuable pro-proposals contained in the Clause, and would therefore limit the purpose which my hon. Friends have in mind.

Mr. H. STEWART

Will not my right hon. Friend meet the case I put, with a good deal of authority, and with the greatest good will and desire to make this Clause work?

Mr. ELLIOT

I have more than answered it; I have super-answered it. I have said that anything which my hon. Friend desires to put forward in the Amendment is in the Clause already. Is there anything else I can answer? He asked me for an inch and I offer him an ell. I think he is under some misapprehension. There is no mention of £50,000 in Clause 11.

Mr. STEWART

My right hon. Friend gave that figure himself.

Mr. ELLIOT

I must have explained myself incorrectly. I said that we had in view certain expenditure which the Amendment does not alter. He suggested a sum of £150,000 a year as a minimum which it would be reasonable to expend on this purpose. The sums which I suggested were £50,000 a year from the Government for England, and with the pound for pound contribution that would make £100,000. In addition, there is £20,000 for the Scottish section, so that there will be a minimum expenditure of £120,000 a year. It is clear, therefore that the sums we have in view are not very divergent. The Clause, therefore, fully meets the purpose which he and the Noble Lady have in view.

Mr. STEWART

In view of this new statement and assurance by the Minister, I beg to ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. SPEAKER

I do not propose to call the Amendment standing in the name of the hon. and learned Member for East Bristol (Sir S. Cripps)—in page 14, line 35, after "prices," to insert "or distributed without charge "—because it would increase the charge falling upon the Exchequer, and consequently it would not be in order.

10.31 p.m.

Sir S. CRIPPS

May I point out that the charge in the Bill is £1,000,000 and the allocation of that £1,000,000 may be made with respect to milk which is sold at any reduced price. The Amendment which I propose to insert would merely mean that some of that money could be expended on milk sold at no price instead of a reduced price, and it could not possibly increase the sum of £1,000,000, which is the charge authorised by this House in respect of this allocation.

Mr. SPEAKER

If the hon. and gallant Member will look at the Money Resolution he will see that the amount to be spent out of that £1,000,000 is to be spent for a specified purpose, and it is laid down in the Bill that that is milk sold at a reduced price. While we are not entirely governed by the Money Resolution, the actual effect of the hon. and learned Gentleman's Amendment, if accepted by the House, would be that somebody would have to pay the increased charge arising from the distribution of milk free, and in that case obviously the Exchequer would have to meet the charge.

Sir S. CRIPPS

May I point out that where the milk was distributed without charge it would be the Milk Marketing Board which would have to pay. The Exchequer would pay whatever the Minister decided under this Clause, and the Milk Marketing Board would have to make up the difference. Under the Clause as it stands, if the Milk Marketing Board chooses to distribute it free, although it pays some of the charge itself, it could not get anything from the Exchequer. The extra charge would not fall on the Exchequer, but upon the board.

Mr. SPEAKER

That is not quite the point. I gather that I have been misunderstood. The actual charge as laid down in the Bill would be increased whether it fell on the Milk Board or on the Exchequer.

10.34 p.m.

Miss RATHBONE

I am sorry that I cannot quite follow your argument, Mr. Speaker. As this is money to be used for certain classes of persons if some of the milk is distributed without charge, would it not mean that the money would go less far, and therefore fewer people would get the milk? It would not affect the amount spent but the number of persons who would receive the milk.

Mr. SPEAKER

Whether that would be the effect of the Amendment or not, I do not know, but that was not the intention of the Mover of the Amendment.

Sir S. CRIPPS

I beg to move, in page 14, line 36, to leave out: and designated for the purpose by the Minister. I move to omit those words, because I do not in the least understand what they mean. The Clause as it reads at present—

Mr. ELLIOT

I am prepared to accept the Amendment of my hon. and learned Friend.

Amendment agreed to.