EMERGENCY POWERS (DEFENCE) (FOOD) (Hansard, 12 February 1946)

§ Sir W. Darling
I beg to move, That the Order, dated 10th December, 1945, amending the Labelling of Food (No. 2) Order, 1944 (S.R.& O., 1945. No. 1550). copy of which was presented on 22nd January, be annulled. I would also like to refer to the following Motion on the Order Paper: That the Order, dated nth December, 1945, entitled the Bananas Order, 1945 (S.R.& O., 1945, No. 1551), a copy of which was presented on 22nd January, be annulled.". 339 I have been asked to move these two Motions by the hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. Challen). These two Orders deal with the Ministry of Food. One of them deals with a succulent subject—bananas—and the other with a rather dry subject, namely, the labelling of food. They are mentioned in the print issued on 4th February by the Select Committee on Statutory Rules and Orders. The Minister there explains his reasons, or the reasons of his Department, for the delay. The explanation is, he says, that in neither case was the Order received from the printers in time to be laid before Parliament rose on 20th December. The Minister goes on to say that the Stationery Office was pressed with work. These are interesting views, but they are unsatisfactory. These are very important Orders. They may appear trivial to many hon. Members but we have made real discoveries by this series of Prayers It is the practice of this Government to govern by regulations and by this tedious, intricate, clumsy and bureaucratic method. Because it is a new thing it is liable to slip up every now and then. I am aware that this series of blunders is typical of the kind of method to which apparently we are to look forward in the future as the means by which this country is to be governed. I make that observation because when I looked at the Orders I thought that hon. Members might not be aware of their character. I want to refer to the first of these Orders

§ Mr. Speaker
The hon. Member's name is not down on the Order Paper for this Motion, and, therefore, he is not entitled to move it.

§ Sir W. Darling
My hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead asked me to move it in his absence.

§ Mr. Speaker
The hon. Member may have asked the hon. Member to move it. but the hon. Member's name is not on the Order Paper and therefore he is not entitled to move it.

§ Lord William Scott
I beg to move, That the Order, dated 10th December, 1945, amending the Labelling of Food (No. 2) Order, 1944 (S.R.& O., 1945, No. 1550), a copy of which was presented on 22nd January, be annulled.

§ Mr. C. S. Taylor
I beg to second that Motion.

§ Sir W. Darling
rose—

§ Mr. Speaker
I called on the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food.

Mr. McKie
Is it in Order for a Minister in charge not to give way to an hon. Member when he rises?

§ Mr. Speaker
I did not notice the hon. Member for South Edinburgh (Sir W. Darling). I called upon the Minister.

§ Sir W. Darling
I thought that I was. in Order in resuming.

§ Mr. Speaker
The Minister rose, and I called the Minister, who is therefore entitled to speak.

§ Sir G. Fox
On a point of Order, Sir, If the Minister now replies, can the Minister answer any questions that are put from this side of the House?

§ Mr. Speaker
The Minister will be able to answer questions.

§ Dr. Edith Summerskill
I rose because I was anxious that the House should not be kept longer. It is past midnight now, and I am quite sure that Members are growing a little impatient at what is, after all, a repetitive Debate. Once more I have to come to this Box as my hon. Friend has, already, to apologise to the House. If there has been a delay in laying these Orders, I realise the inconvenience it must have caused. I must say that in neither case, were the Orders received from the printers in time to be laid before Parliament before the House rose on 20th December. Order 1550 was sent for printing on nth December and the prints were received on 21st December. It had been expected that they would be laid before Parliament on 19th December, but the Stationery Office was pressed with work to be got out be fore the Christmas holidays. Order 1551 was sent to the printers—

§ Lord William Scott
I only moved thee Prayer relating to Order 1550.

§ Mr. Speaker
I understood we were taking these Orders in batches.

§ Dr. Summerskill
I thought it was made clear at the beginning of the Debate that the Orders should be taken together. Order 1551 was sent for printing on nth December and the prints were received on 20th December. This explanation was given to the Select Committee in a memorandum on 21st January by the Ministry's liaison officer, and has been published by the Committee. I hope the House will be satisfied with this explanation. I can assure them that my Department is looking into this matter very carefully. We realise that this delay should not occur, and we are considering how the procedure for sending Orders to the Select Committee and laying them before Parliament can be improved.

§ Mr. Lennox-Boyd
Can we have an assurance that neither of these Orders came into force before it was published; and, secondly, will the hon. Lady follow the example of the Board of Trade and set up within the Ministry of Food, which touches life at so many points and with such importance to the individual subject, the same sort of machinery which has just been announced for the Board of Trade?

§ Dr. Summerskill
I shall be only too happy to do that.

§ Mr. Lennox-Boyd
And the assurance that neither Order came into operation before it was published?

§ Dr. Summerskill
I could not give that.

§ Mr. Lennox-Boyd
This is a matter of great importance. This is creating offences of which the subject might have been in ignorance because they came into operation before publication. In regard to one of these Orders, the explanatory memorandum says it comes into operation in April, 1946. In the other Order, there is no reference to when it comes into operation, and it would not be unreasonable, I think, to ask the hon. Lady to realise the importance of these Orders.

§ Dr. Summerskill
I fully realise their importance. I have been in the House for eight years.

§ Sir G. Fox
The reason I raise a further point on this Motion is that only the Under-Secretary to the Ministry is here and not the Minister of Food. I would like to bring to the notice of the House that the Under-Secretary apparently objects to the asking of questions at this hour on the matter of bananas. It is after the hour of midnight, but the public, and our constituents, expect us to do our duty whatever the hour. Regarding Order No. 1551, I would like to ask how the term inn, public house, hotel, restaurant, buffet, coffee stall, or any place of refreshment open to the public '' is interpreted and why British Restaurants are not included. They are just as important as inns, coffee stalls, public houses, or canteens. Why are they not included in this Order?.

§ Mr. Eric Fletcher
In connection with these Motions we have been discussing this evening, the House will realise it is not only Members of the Opposition who have been vigilant in drawing attention to Statutory Rules and Orders. No doubt these Motions will be withdrawn as previous Motions have been; but 1 think the House will agree that the Scrutiny Committee, which contains a majority of Government supporters, has fulfilled a useful function in drawing the attention of Ministers of the Crown to the delay in publishing these Orders. I believe it will have a salutary effect on those Ministers of the Crown who have been present to answer and on others. But it does seem necessary to keep this matter in a proper perspective. There is no statutory obligation to lay these Orders within a specified time. It is the Scrutiny Committee which has made recommendations to that effect. What is desirable is that these Orders should be laid before they come into operation, and Members present this evening will have noticed that, in practically every case brought before the House, the date of coming into operation has been considerably subsequent to the date on which they were laid, although there has been some delay in presentation. [Interruption.] If hon. Members will listen they will hear of the exceptions. I have been dealing so far with the Motions that 343 have been disposed of. All the Motions that have been moved so far as we have gone have been withdrawn. I was coming to the exception, and the exception happens to be the particular Order with which we are concerned at the moment, and I myself regret that in this particular one—the one about bananas— the hon. Lady, the representative of the Ministry of Food, has I think really failed to do justice to her Department, because this is an Order of great public interest which was not presented to this House until after it came into operation. I have the Order here, and the Order was dated 11th December, and it came into operation on 31st December and it was not presented until 22nd January. That is a considerable time after the time when it came into operation. No doubt, if the printers had been a day or two quicker it would have been presented somewhere about 19th or 20th December, and therefore it would have been an opportunity—but even then only a very slight opportunity—for hon. Members to consider it. Having said that, I think the House ought to know it still seems to me an insufficient justification for putting down a Resolution of this kind asking that the Order should be annulled.

§ Mr. Taylor
That is the only way.

§ Mr. Fletcher
It may be the only Parliamentary method, but it does not seem to me to serve any useful purpose that this House should- tonight pass a Resolution—

Hon. Members
A Prayer, not a Resolution.

§ Mr. Fletcher
Hon. Members who have been responsible for putting these Motions on the Order Paper—

Hon. Members
Prayers.

§ Mr. Fletcher
Hon. Members who have been responsible for putting these Motions—

Hon. Members
Prayers.

§ Mr. Fletcher
Mr. Speaker, at the risk of repetition, may I say that hon. Members who have been responsible for put ting these Motions on the Order Paper appear to have failed to notice that in all the cases, except two, they are Motions and not Prayers. The form of the first nine or ten is a resolution in words such as these: 344 That the Order dated 3rd December 1945 entitled Wages Board (Unlicensed Residential Establishments) Order 1945, S.R.& O. 1945 "—

§ Sir J. Mellor
On a point of Order. Is this a Motion which is now before the House?

§ Mr. Speaker
This is not a Prayer; it is a Motion.

§ Sir J. Mellor
As we are discussing the Motion, has the question of these Prayers anything to do with this Motion?

§ Mr. Speaker
No, we have dealt with the Prayer.

§ Mr. Fletcher
The last thing I want to do is to pursue this interesting distinction this evening. I was tempted into this digression by the interjections of Members opposite. A Motion, and not a Prayer, is the proper description of most of the matters with which the House has been regaling itself this evening. It is time hon. Members learned to appreciate the substance of some of the Motions they put down, apparently only for the purpose of subsequently withdrawing them.

§ Major Guy Lloyd
On a point of Order. Is not that an insinuation which is rather unworthy?

§ Mr. Fletcher
I did not intend to embark on it. If I may now revert to the point I was making before I was interrupted, nothing has been said on this Motion, or on any other Motion, affecting the merits either of this Order or any other Order. Therefore, whatever one may say about—

§ Sir J. Mellor
On a point of Order. May I ask whether it is in Order to discuss the Debate that has ranged this evening over a number of Motions, or is it in order only to discuss points arising on the Motion which is now before the House?

§ Mr. Speaker
We are discussing two Motions together now. Those are the ones to which we ought to address our attention.

§ Mr. Fletcher
In my concluding remarks I am confining my observations to the Motion on the Order dealing with bananas, which Motion will either be withdrawn or voted on. My submission to the House is, if it is not withdrawn the Motion should be resisted, because I can conceive no useful purpose in annulling that particular Order which is now in force and is wise, sensible and prudent.

§ Sir W. Darling
I take my cue from the Member for East Islington (Mr. Fletcher), who deplores, and I think perhaps rightly—

§ Mr. Mikardo (Reading)
On a point of Order. The hon. Member for South Edinburgh (Sir W. Darling) has already spoken on this subject. Had his speech been in Order he would, presumably, not have been allowed to speak again. Does the fact that his first speech was out of Order, make it possible for him to speak again?

§ Mr. Speaker
I am afraid that must be the case.

§ Sir W. Darling
I am grateful for your protection, Mr. Speaker. The hon. Member for East Islington told us that he deplores the somewhat academic' discussion on printers' delays being the subject of Prayers and Motions, and the merits of these Orders not being discussed. I would like to address myself to the merits, and so satisfy him, if I satisfy no other Member of the House. The Order I am looking at is the one dealing with Emergency Powers (Defence) Food (Labelling). I take it that but for the action of the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. C. S. Taylor) and his seconder we would have had no opportunity of looking at this extraordinary Order. Those Members who have burdened themselves with a copy of it will learn that it deals with the determination of the Ministry of Food that bottles shall be labelled. It is one of the most interesting of these many papers at which I ' have looked, in that it gives the design of the label and the size of the label. Certain labels must read: Fruit Basis Exclusively (x). Alcohol Content Not Less Than (y). 346 There are other labels which those who are in the unhappy position of endeavouring to sell bottled liquors are compelled to follow. It is an illuminating document in other respects. From page 2 one is gratified to learn that: For the purposes of this paragraph— (b) ' fruit ' includes rhubarb. In case you desire to put into a bottle a concoction of fruit including rhubarb the label shall be printed in dark block type "— It is unthinkable there could be any type other than dark block type— not less than⅛ inch in height upon a light coloured ground and shall be enclosed by a surrounding line. I am quite serious in saying that if this Order, in its naked plainness, as I now see it after midnight, were placed before the House for consideration and discussion, it would be laughed out of court. No intelligent Member of Parliament would believe that such detailed instruction serves any useful purpose. If a person intends to bottle fluid he surely does not require authority from Mr. F. N. Tribe, of the Ministry of Food, to tell him how to do it. I hope the Minister, in reply, will deal with the substance and the merits of the case. What are the merits or the demerits? How will the body politic suffer by the labelling, or otherwise, of these bottles?
Now I come to bananas, a more interesting subject, on which I want to raise a point of national interest. I want to know whether the distribution of bananas is proceeding and whether they have gone into the county of Inverness to the parishes of Abernethy, Abertarff, Alvie, Arisaig, Boleskine, Duthil and Rothiemurchus, Glenelg, Kilmallie, Kin-gussie and Insh, Kilmonivaig, Kincardine, Laggan, and Moidart. There is a long list of Scottish names and I would like to know by what methods of transport they have reached the places I have just referred to, if at all. I hope others will appreciate the point in connection with these bananas, because this is the first time that the House has had an opportunity of discussing this matter. By an accident we are being given the chance of discussing a matter in which the public are profoundly interested, and on which something more may well be said.

§ Mr. Pritt (Hammersmith, North)
I want to say a word or two about labels. The regulations when read sound funny. and move the more risible Members opposite to something resembling laughter. But the truth is that such things are necessary. If you have a regulation which might be disobeyed, it must be so definite that in a court of law it can be clearly shown that there was an infringement. The second and more serious reason is this: Life as run by the system which hon. Members opposite support consists of a long conspiracy to cheat the public and a long effort by the Government to prevent the public from being cheated too much. It is not enough simply to say "There shall be labels, and such labels shall be legible," because there is doubt as to what is legibility. You have to print labels so that they can be seen, because people are so dishonest that when you simply tell them that they have to give information, they do it in a way which cannot easily be read.

§ Mr. Lennox-Boyd
Are the proposals contained in this Order observed by the Co-operative Society? Does the hon. and learned Member say that for many years they have been engaged in a conspiracy against the public?

§ Mr. Pritt
They are engaged in a struggle to carry on business in the face of the appalling handicaps put against them by the business people represented by such people as the hon. Member.

§ Lord William Scott
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.