HC Deb 21 February 1947 vol 433 cc1651-68

2.34 p.m.

Mr. Spence (Aberdeen and Kincardine. Central)

I am most grateful for the opportunity of calling to the attention of the hon. Lady the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food, the position which has arisen in North Scotland and. indeed, in the country generally over the question of oatmeal production and oatmeal stocks. It will take only a moment to recall the history which has led up to the present position. Some eight months ago when bread was put on the ration, oatmeal, along with other cereals, was put on points. At that time the points value of oatmeal was two per pound, and there was the right to exchange bread units into points and points into oatmeal.

The view taken by the Minister—and we are not now concerned with whether it was right or wrong—was that one could buy either one cereal filler or another. Later on, for reasons which are extraneous to this argument, the right to convert bread units into points was withdrawn, but a special provision was made by the Ministry that heavy users of oatmeal could cash their bread units into specially endorsed oatmeal points. Both these practices, however, tended to restrict the consumption of oatmeal, and the position has arisen today whereby oatmeal mills in Scotland are glutted with stocks. I think the hon. Lady and the Ministry are to some extent aware of what is going on because, in a recent S.R. & O. No. 172, the points value of oatmeal have been reduced from two points per pound to one.

The case I want to put to the hon. Lady is that we on this side of the House do not feel that the reduction from two points to one will be sufficient to clear the accumulated stocks. Perhaps I may give the figures of what is happening in the North-East today. I have ascertained these figures and checked them this week. In my own area, beyond my constituency, there are today 81 oatmeal mills. There was a production of 4,600 tons in November, but in January it had been reduced to 2,200 tons. Out of the 81 mills, 70 have either closed or are on short time, and only 11 are working full time at the moment. This is not due to weather conditions. There is plenty of grain for milling. Most of them are worked with water supply and, consequently, the question of power from coal and so on, does not impede the normal milling process being carried on. I can assure the hon. Lady, from my own personal contacts with the men doing this work, that the storage and all the accommodation within the mills is stocked up to such an extent that they cannot go on producing oatmeal.

I want to suggest that it might he wise to make an immediate decision to take oatmeal off points. The Minister has told us that he uses the machinery of points value to regulate demand as against supply in all these things. Here is a case where supply is super-abundant, where it is so great that production is being impeded and here, therefore, it is a case which should commend itself to the Ministry for immediate action. I feel that any action taken should be taken at once. It is well known that the stock position in the North-East of Scotland is as I have described, and the housewives of the North-East are by no means slow in the uptake. If they see it is probable that oatmeal will either be further down-pointed, or come off points, they will naturally run on a very low stock. We could not give them greater encouragement to buy than to take oatmeal right off points at the present time. I feel it is a policy which should be adopted, at any rate until the stocks have gone down. If we find that the removal of oatmeal from points causes a tendency for stocks to fall below normal, then it is easy for the Minister, by raising the points value, to regulate supply and demand.

I can assure the House that until these stocks are moved, our production of oatmeal—and after all that is important over a long view—will be held up. I appeal to the hon. Lady to take very special care in looking into this matter on account of what was said about Scotland yesterday. A remark was made at the beginning of yesterday's Debate, which I am sure must have left a very unfortunate impression as to the view the Government take of Scotland. The remark was made in excuse for the fact that the new Bill was not ready for discussion last night by the acting Leader of the House. He said: Scotsmen, after all, are less than 10 per cent. of the population of this country."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th February, 1947; Vol. 433, c 1416] I hope the hon. Lady will bear that in mind, and that when looking into this matter she will give an assurance that Scotland will not be neglected in this respect.

2.41 p.m.

Sir Basil Neven-Spence (Orkney and Shetland)

I do not know whether the hon. Lady is a student of Burns but, she may have heard that The best laid schemes of mice and men Gang aft agley. One scheme produced by the Ministry of Food has gone agley. It is the scheme whereby the people of Scotland are able to get their oatmeal. Obviously there is something seriously wrong with the scheme, or we would not have to raise the point so frequently here. We do not want to badger the hon. Lady, or the Ministry, unnecessarily over this, but we must keep on pegging away until we get it put right. Our charge is that the scheme has operated most unfairly against the people of Scotland. To quote Burns again: What's done we partly may compute, But know not what's resisted. My hon. Friend the Member for Central Aberdeen and Kincardine (Mr. Spence) has computed some of the damage and I want to bring to the notice of the hon. Lady the feeling which exists in Scotland about this and the extent of the resistance engendered in the public mind. They all feel that they have had exceedingly unfair treatment in regard to oatmeal. I do not think the hon. Lady, or anyone in the Ministry of Food, really grasps the place of oatmeal in the dietary of the Scottish people Practically every family takes porridge once, and a great many twice in the course of the day. They eat a large quantity of oatcakes, oatmeal bannocks and other things, like haggis, for instance. Haggis, as the hon. Lady probably knows, is an article of diet which is eaten with a considerable degree of ceremony in Scotland. I do not know whether she knows Burns' "Ode to a Haggis' in which are the lines: Fair fa' your honest sonsie face, Great chieftain o' the puddin'-race! Aboon them a' ye tak your place, Painch, tripe or thairm: Weel are ye wordy o' a grace As lang's my arm.

Mr. Janner (Leicester, West)

Translate.

Sir B. Neven-Spence

The haggis may be eaten with ceremony on occasions but it is also a quite regular part of the diet of the Scottish people. Every time a sheep is killed, haggis is made, and other things such as puddings which involve the use of oatmeal. Oatmeal is used in cooking herring. I do not know whether the hon. Lady has ever eaten a herring as prepared in Scotland, split and fried in oatmeal. It is one of the most delicious meals one could have and it is highly nutritious as well. To put a cereal like oatmeal, which bulks so largely in the diet of the people, on points is a most unfair proceeding. It shows a complete lack of imagination and something more serious than that, it shows that the Ministry of Food are ignorant of a most important dietetic principle.

The hon. Lady ought to be aware if anyone in the Ministry should be that various races rely principally on specific grains for their cereals. The Indians eat rice, the Egyptians eat dura and so on. Very difficult problems arise if one tries to make a race live on some cereal to which they have not become accustomed in the course of their history. We have had an example of that in India of which the hon. Lady probably knows. Large quantities of wheat were sent to India for consumption by the Indians who are not accustomed to it. They cooked it by boiling then threw away the grain and drank the water. I have had experience of telebun, a grain which it is absolutely impossible for a European to digest. I am not suggesting that anything so serious as that will happen in Scotland. But what I want to bring out is that it is really sharp practice on the part of the Ministry of Food, to try to deal with oatmeal by putting it on points. It is not as if the points available were enough to meet the demands of the ordinary family. I am sure the hon. Lady would make more available if that was possible but it is grossly unfair to take away part of the points supply in order to enable people to buy what is their fundamental cereal, the one they rely upon for a very important part of their diet. It is no good saying as was said in answer to a question put by me that after all we could exchange bread units for flour. It is not flour that we want, it is oatmeal we want and we must get it. I hope that very serious consideration will be given to taking oatmeal off points altogether. It is high time that was done.

2.48 p.m.

Mr. Snadden (Perth and Kinross, Western)

I wish to support what has been said by my hon. Friends the Member for Central Aberdeen (Mr. Spence) and for Orkney and Shetland (Sir B. Neven-Spence). There is no doubt that the position of the oatmeal milling industry in Scotland today is extremely unsatisfactory. Some 70 mills are either shut down, or working on short-time. As has been said, the problem is to remove oatmeal from points altogether. When oatmeal first went on points, there was a slight drop in the sale, due, possibly, to the fact that oatmeal may have been used for animal feeding purposes. But that was not the main reason for the glut in the mills throughout Scotland. The real explanation is that oatmeal is a slow-selling commodity and, since it requires points to purchase, a large pointage must be exchanged by the grocers and the wholesalers. Quite naturally, the grocer normally much prefers to stock points goods which are quick-selling. He gets a quicker turnover and his remuneration is, of course, correspondingly higher. This has resulted in the grocer ceasing to operate in the oatmeal market, and must have the effect that all over Scotland, and in many parts of England, housewives are unable to get oatmeal from the shops, although it is known that all the mills are completely glutted.

We have reached a time when we not only have most rigorous weather, but an acute shortage of food, while more than 70 mills in Scotland are either closed down, or working on halftime, and are glutted with this most important food, causing unemployment at a time when we are doing our best to see that there are jobs for everyone everywhere. The pointing of oatmeal, any miller will tell the hon. Lady, is actually killing the oatmeal industry, which is important to the Scottish farming community, and it is doing something almost as bad. It is depriving the housewife of a valuable heat giving and energy giving food at a time when, so far as I can gather, the housewife has a hard job to find something for breakfast. A recent telegram sent to the Ministry of Food on this question by a recognised organisation in Scotland brought a curt reply from the Ministry of Food—I have verified this—telling these millers that they must cut their production, in accordance with normal commercial practice.

If this is the best the Government can do, all the oatmeal mills in Scotland will soon close, and no one will be able to get oatmeal, even for points, at a time when the mills are full up and we are in the middle of a world shortage of food. It is really time the Ministry recognised that they made what I would call a "howling muck up" of this oatmeal business. Let them now take oatmeal off points altogether, and at any rate see what happens. At the present time the position is really absurd. We have all these mills closed down, hundreds of men out-of work, and our oatmeal mills glutted, when the housewives cannot get any because the shops will not stock it. Surely the hon. Lady will have another look at this and tell us in her reply that the Ministry of Food have decided to remove oatmeal from points altogether.

2.53 p.m.

Squadron-Leader Sir Gifford Fox (Henley)

I should like to appeal to the Minister from another angle, that is, from the farmworkers' point of view. Last weekend, in my constituency, on three different farms, a farmworker came to me and said, "You are a Member of Parliament. Can you not do something to try to help us to get more food? We have practically no coal at home; there is no heat in the cottage, and the food we get is not enough to keep us warm enough to enable us to work in this hard cold weather." I ask the Minister if, say for a month, she could take oatmeal off points. It would help the oatmeal factories in Scotland, of which we have heard that 70 have had to close down because they cannot get rid of their stocks, and are unable to find any more storage room. This solution

would help the fellow working in the field, who has a very hard row to hoe in this weather, and who now, when he comes home at night, owing to the fuel shortage, is unable to get any warmth. Oatmeal is a good food for supplying one with heat and energy, and I ask the Minister to see what she can do about taking oatmeal off points.

2.54 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Dr. Edith Summerskill)

The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Sir B. Neven-Spence), whose delightful quotations from Burns we shall always remember—although I must confess that I did not understand a great deal of them—was a little apprehensive, in the light of a remark made by the Lord Privy Seal yesterday, lest Scotland might not get a fair crack of the whip. I think that Scottish Members here, and the hon. Member who asked for this Adjournment Debate, will agree that the Ministry of Food have tried their best to help Scotland, and if we have not always done exactly what Scotland has asked us to do, we have at least always been willing to hear their grievances. In fact, I think that the last time I spoke in an Adjournment Debate was when Scottish Members asked me to provide more barley for Scottish whisky. I believe that some of them may have been fairly satisfied with the result of that Debate, but it is a little difficult to satisfy Scotland.

Hon. Members have made a case which appears to be unanswerable, but unfortunately they have not all the facts. I think that those Members present, who are not biased, will agree with me, when they hear the facts, that the Ministry of Food, during the present critical time, cannot possibly consent to take oatmeal off points. May I recall some of the events which led up to the pointing of oatmeal, and to the recent application of the Oatmeal Millers' Association to the Ministry of Food for this special concession? Hon. Members must realise that, owing to the shortage of oatmeal, most of the oatmeal millers stopped production in June or July last year. Later, owing to the very bad weather, the harvest was held up in many parts of the country, and oatmeal millers were still unable to obtain sufficient oats for their mills. This was then reflected in the shops, and there was a universal demand for more oat products.

In view of this unsatisfied demand, the Ministry of Food realised that it would be necessary to make allocations to the oatmeal millers out of the stocks of the Ministry. There was another factor also to bear in mind when we came to this decision. In view of the fact that farmers are allowed to keep their oats for animal feedingstuffs, and also in the light of the shortage of animal feedingstuffs, it was difficult for us to estimate what quantity of oats would come off the farms. In view of these imponderables, we decided that it would be necessary to make an allocation to the oatmeal millers. Therefore, we met their Association and worked out a scheme whereby releases would be made to them from Ministry stocks. We asked the millers themselves to tell us what allocation they would like.

Let me be absolutely accurate, and state that the whole of the allocation was not taken up, but it is now clear that these millers have not only taken up about 60,000 tons of the allocation from the Ministry of Food stocks, but have also been taking oats from the farms, and have consequently accumulated stocks, because they have been producing oat products to the full capacity of their mills, without any regard to current demands. When the Ministry of Food came forward and offered to make an allocation, it was in order to tide the millers over a difficult time. At the same time we expected the millers to have due regard to current consumption during those difficult months in the autumn, when there was a shortage of oat products throughout the country, and the products which the millers produce—other things, of course, as well as oatmeal—were taken up quickly. As the months went on they continued to manufacture, with the result that now a surplus has accumulated. We do not deny it. For one hon. Member to say that this surplus is of such a nature that it is necessary to take it off points is entirely incorrect. The surplus is a matter of one month's stocks. I think that, at the corresponding time last year, the millers had about two weeks' stocks in hand, and now they have a month's stocks in hand.

What would happen if we took oatmeal off points? I think that every hon. Member knows that the oatmeal would not necessarily go for human consumption, hut would be consumed by animals, both in Scotland and England. One hon. Member has said that consumer needs were not satisfied. My Ministry is a consumer Ministry. I would not come here and tell hon. Members from Scotland that consumer needs were satisfied if we had been inundated with letters from consumers at the Ministry. The fact is that we have had only one or two letters of complaint, and they were mainly caused by questions of transport. We have not had a letter from a consumer saying that they were unable to obtain oatmeal, although there is plenty of it

Mr. Snadden

Is the hon. Lady aware that the Scottish Oatmeal Millers' Association has received hundreds of letters, including many from housewives in England, saying that they cannot get oatmeal from the shops, because it is not there?

Mr. Walkden (Doncaster)

Is it not also true that the housewives who have written from England were the subject of a considerable amount of publicity concerning supplies of oatmeal or oatmeal products from Scotland, which they knew had to come through legitimate channels, and in regard to which the advertisement concerned was grossly misleading, hence the letters?

Dr. Summerskill

I can only say, that during the difficult period in the autumn, the Ministry received a large number of letters from dissatisfied consumers, but we rarely see a letter now, and that, I think, is the answer to those hon. Members who say that consumers are dissatisfied.

I now want to talk about the question of animal feeding stuffs. Every hon. Member knows that it is very difficult for the poultry keeper who keeps a few hens in his back yard, and every Scottish hon. Member knows that a great deal of the oatmeal produced before points rationing was sent to England for the purpose of feeding animals. If we take oatmeal off points today, it would mean once more that oatmeal would be given to animals. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland tells me that I do not understand the part that oatmeal plays in the diet of the Scots. I understand it very well. I would not be able to stand at this Box were it not for the fact that there was a very wonderful Scotswoman who spent 15 years in my house and made life possible for me as a doctor and a politician, and she has seen to it that my family realised the proper place of oatmeal in our diet.

The hon. Member spoiled his case when he spoke about porridge and haggis—and I would remind him, that at least I shall go down to history in this House as the only English person to define a haggis—and when he told us about herrings cooked in oatmeal, at the same time indicating that this food, which is an excellent filler, providing heat and energy, is a substitute for bread. Hon. Members will remember that the hon Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) asked that porridge should be served in this House The Scottish housewife gives her family a bowl of porridge for supper where the English housewife gives her family a piece of cheese and large slices of bread. Thus, we find the Scottish housewife substituting oatmeal for bread. I have gone into this fully, and I have explained to the hon. Member that three B.Us. equal two points, and, with oatmeal pointed at one point a pound, the Scottish housewife receives 2 lb. of oatmeal against the English housewife's 1 lb. of flour.

I have had my attention called to letters in Scottish newspapers in which people have said that I do not understand how oatmeal is used in Scotland. I appreciate that it cannot be a direct substitute for flour if one wishes to make cakes which need flour, but it is an energy and heat giver and, therefore, it is a substitute. That is why, when we had to put bread on points, we recognised that if we were to maintain a saving of wheat we should, at the same time, have to point oatmeal. Therefore, if we took oatmeal off points today the strain would be felt on our wheat supplies.

I want to make it quite clear that the real reason why this surplus has occurred is that the oatmeal millers have been producing to capacity. But let us look at the position if we were to do as the hon. Gentleman asked. If we took oatmeal off points today, there would be an immediate run on it. I am advised that by March or April, our stocks would be so low that the millers would have to stop production completely, and in July or August the position would be so serious that we would have to import oatmeal from Canada. This, of course, would create difficulties, because we are trying to get as much wheat from Canada as possible, and we want the transport for that purpose. Furthermore, there are other oat products which Members have not mentioned. Surely, they are not going to ask me to take points off, let us say, oat flakes, which is another product of the oat millers? Today the demand for oat flakes far exceeds the supply, and it would be quite uneconomical to do that. I fully realise that hon. Members opposite are requested by their constituents to ask the Ministry of Food for this concession. It is very natural that they should do so, but I ask those hon. Members to appreciate the serious repercussions of this step, and, therefore, to allow the Ministry of Food to decide this matter. At the moment we must keep oatmeal on points.

Notice taken, that40 Members were not present;

House counted, and,40 Members being present—

3.11 p.m.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter (Kingston-upon-Thames)

I am glad that despite the breach of the understanding of this House, of which the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Walkden) has been deliberately guilty in the last few minutes—

Mr. Walkden

On a point of Order. Was I guilty of a breach of understanding by drawing your attention to a point of Order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hubert Beaumont)

That is not a point of Order.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

I appreciate that it is quite useless to try to teach the hon. Member manners. I will, therefore, proceed with this most important subject platter which he sought to interrupt. I am very sorry for the hon. Lady the Parliamentary Secretary, that even on the occasions when her right hon. Friend the Minister of Food is in this country, she is put up, again and again, to defend thoroughly bad cases, which she does—I hope I may be allowed to say, without imper:inence—with the greatest of a[...] and charm. But really the case of this present example is a hopeless one. Normally speaking—and very properly—the case for the rationing of any commodity is that it is in short supply. It is a new experience for this House to be told by the Minister in charge that a surplus of a commodity has accumulated, but that none the less it must he rationed. That, surely, is making a mockery of the whole system of rationing? The House will recollect that the hon. Lady told the House that a surplus of oatmeal had accumulated. In those circumstances hon. Members—and not only Scottish Members, because all constituencies are interested—are entitled to demand that this commodity be taken oft points and made available.

As I understand the argument of the hon. Lady, she sought to justify the continuance of the rationing of a surplus commodity on three grounds, of which I made a note. First, that the Ministry of Food had received hardly a letter—those were her words—demanding that this commodity be taken off points. I put this to the hon. Lady. If, thanks to that statement of hers, and thanks to any publicity which that statement may be given, her Department receive within the next fortnight a very large number of letters, will she reconsider the position? In fairness, I think she must. She has given as one of the grounds for her refusal to de-ration, or to de-point this commodity, the absence of those letters. If the people of this country hear, that there is a valuable foodstuff which will be de-rationed if they write to the Minister of Food, it may well be they will write to the Minister of Food. And they may write to him on a scale which may tax even the massive staff of his Department. I hope the hon. Lady will indicate that if, in the next fortnight, her postbag bears evidence of the fact that the people of this country do want more of that food she will reconsider that matter.

Secondly, the hon. Lady made what, it might fairly be conceded, is the stronger point, that if she took oatmeal off points, it might be fed to animals. Rut suppose she were to take oatmeal off points and at the same time appeal to the public, and tell them that this was only being done on the definite understanding that it was not to be fed to animals, and that if evidence were forthcoming that it was being fed to animals on any scale it would he put back on points? I hope hon. Members opposite are prepared to trust the public of this country. When it suits their book they are prepared to make every sort of appeal to them. After all, the Minister of Fuel and Power defends, to prevent an utter breakdown of our electricity supplies, solely on trusting the public. I hope, therefore, that hon. Members opposite will not mock that confidence in the public which, if it is misplaced, will bring their Government down in the next fortnight. Why does not the hon. Lady therefore say that she will take oatmeal off points and put the public on their honour not to feed it to animals? If that appeal should fail it could be put back. Is she not prepared to trust the public at any rate to that extent?

Her third argument, as I understood it, was that if she took oatmeal off points it would increase the strain on our wheat resources. I have heard many arguments put forward from the Ministry of Food, but—although the House will appreciate that I am putting it rather strongly—I have never heard as fatuous an argument as that. Is it really suggested that if one foodstuff is made more freely accessible, there is, for that reason, a greater strain on another? Surely, the converse is obviously the case? Surely, it is quite clear that if one foodstuff is made more easy to get the strain on another is not accentuated but is diminished? If the hon. Lady is anxious, as I am sure she is, to diminish the strain on wheat, on those wheat stocks which the House of Commons is not entitled to be told the size of, surely one of the best things to do is to take off points a cereal of which, he has herself admitted a surplus exists?

Unless the hon Lady can be much more helpful that she has been today, unless she is prepared to say that her Department will either take oatmeal off points or provide some reason which the average child of seven would regard as valid for keeping it on, this House will be driven to the conclusion—a conclusion to which many people in this country have already come —that the Ministry of Food likes rationing, and maintains it, not as a means of sharing out scarce commodities, but for rationing's sake.

3.18 p.m.

Mr. Guy (Poplar, South)

I have listened with very serious attention to the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) and I agree with him that it would be very nice if oatmeal were taken off points. But the hon. Member knows just as well as I do, that one of the principal reasons why it was put on points was that it was being used by individuals to feed their poultry. I regret it very much indeed, because I am as fond of oatmeal as any other hon. Member of this I louse, but those of us who like it, have to suffer because of those who used it indiscriminately. To ask the Minister to take it off points and, as the hon. Member suggested, rely on people not using it for poultry is, I think, asking a great deal too much. I am not convinced that we can appeal to the vast majority of people in this country not to use oatmeal for poultry, because once it is taken off points it will again be used indiscriminately for that purpose.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

Would not the hon. Member be prepared to make an appeal to the country, with all the persuasive eloquence of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food? Would he not at any rate try that experiment, and trust the people?

Mr. Guy

I am not too sure about that, having had the experience of trying the experiment in other directions.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

In other words, the hon. Member does not trust the people.

Mr. Guy

It may be a sound point, and it might be a possibility; no doubt the Parliamentary Secretary will look into it. At the same time, in speaking about oatmeal, I should also like to make a strong plea in regard to Quaker oats, because Quaker oats can provide just as good an early morning meal.

3.22 p.m.

Mr. Walkden (Doncaster)

I want a reply to the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) in regard to oatmeal. I do not wish to resist his other arguments. I happened to be in Kingston Market, which is in his constituency, and I found there was a shortage of potatoes, which is in keeping with the Minister's arguments. When bread and flour were rationed, potatoes were used as animal feeding stuffs. It was obvious that some alternative had to take the place of these rationed commodities, and therefore 1,500,000 backyard poultry keepers and others resorted to the use of potatoes.

Sir G. Fox

On a point of Order. Is it in Order for the hon. Member, who attempted a short time ago to count out the House, now to make a speech?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

That is not a point of Order.

Mr. Walkden

The result was that the consumption of potatoes went up by 20 per cent., and there was scarcity, and scarcity in Kingston. I do not know whether the hon. Member would say that the Ministry of Food or the Ministry of Agriculture or the farmers are to blame.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

The hon. Member has made a definite and specific allegation against the inhabitants of my constituency, that they are feeding potatoes to poultry. Will the hon. Member have the decency, either to give specific evidence in support of that very serious allegation, or to be sufficiently a gentleman to withdraw it?

Mr. Walkden

I do not know whether there are backyard poultry keepers in Kingston or not.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

The hon. Member made that allegation.

Mr. Walkden

My allegation concerns the 1,500,000 poultry keepers, and whether a few of them are to be found in Kingston, I do not know. Certainly, there are not 1,500,000 backyard poultry keepers in Kingston. It is obvious that if backyard poultry keepers are to keep their poultry alive, that they have to resort to the next best thing in unrationed foodstuffs. In this case it has been potatoes, and, consequently, the consumption has gone up.

There is a shortage today and if the Ministry of Food were to say, "We will de-ration or de-point oatmeal," the obvious thing would happen. It is quite true that, as the hon. Member for South Poplar (Mr. Guy) says, we like oatmeal—we are not fanatics about it—and the folks in Lancashire have been eating oatmeal since the days of the Chartist movement. We were brought up on oatmeal, oatcakes, or oatmeal foods, and we like them very much. We have learned to appreciate oatmeal, so that does not apply to Scotland alone. But I would Maintain that the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames is forgetting why commodities are pointed

The pointing of foodstuffs began in the days of Lord Woolton, when the present Minister of Transport and I, and a few other colleagues, gave the best possible advice we could gather from the grocers of Britain, and from all sections of the community, that the pointing of commodities, to give alternative choice to the people, was the best way of handling this difficult problem. In the beginning we suggested that—and I am glad to say the sugegstion was adopted—we should take into account what was the available supply over a period, what was in the pipeline, what was in the warehouses, and, finally, what was in the grocers' shops, to determine the points' value. I think that the Parliamentary Secretary will agree that that is the principle on which the Ministry work today. They point month by month, and if a commodity is showing signs of a surplus month by month, then, obviously, the Minister says, "We will reduce the points value"; but if there is a commodity which is likely to be scarce, say, in a month's time, then, obviously, up go the points; and if there is likely to be no supply at all, then a tremendous increase in points is shown by reason of the fact that there is likely to be only the supply in the retailers' stores.

I put this to the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames, and to my Scottish Friends: If we were to de-point oatmeal altogether, in the next two months, unless the Minister could see, in the third month, a surplus, this is what would happen. We are coming to the season when chicks will be sold in little boxes all over Great Britain, and the result will be that people will look for a commodity on which to feed them. Most of these chicks die, anyway; but millions of chickens will be brought on to the market, and we should see, if oatmeal were de-pointed, a tremendous rush on oatmeal. The hon. Member says, "Trust people—why ration anything at all?" Why ration butter and bacon? If that were done, the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames and his Friends, who are the people who have the money, would "scoop the pool," and the working class people would get no butter, bacon or anything else.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

The hon. Gentleman does not appear to have appreciated the point. There is a difference between a commodity such as butter, which is admittedly in short supply, and a commodity like oatmeal of which there is a surplus.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

The hon. Member is now making another speech.

Mr. Walkden

I thought that the hon. Gentleman was going to raise a point on the argument which I was presenting. I chose butter and bacon. May I choose, as an alternative, canned fruits? If canned fruits were removed entirely from points, I again maintain that only the privileged classes and the well-to-do people, who are largely represented on the Opposition side of the House, would get the canned fruit. There can be no doubt that the Minister in her reply was convincing and brought ample and adequate proof, and from my point of view there can be no argument—unless the Minister is able to produce evidence that after oatmeal has been de-pointed or de-rationed there will be in three or four months an adequate and generous supply for every homestead in Britain. Therefore, I beg the Minister, in no circumstances—whatever may be said by the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames or his hon. Friends—to take the risk of gambling with the people's food, but to maintain wherever we can equity in supply and equity in distribution. Let us have fair shares all round. Of course, hon. Members opposite do not believe in that philosophy.

3.31 p.m.

Mr. Baldwin (Leominster)

I had not intended to speak in this Debate until the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Walkden) showed his ignorance in regard to potatoes and gave us an illustration of how a little knowledge may be dangerous. He said that potatoes were being fed to animals. I would like to point out to him that, in the early part of the season, many thousands of tons of potatoes were condemned by the Ministry of Food, quite unnecessarily, and were sold to farmers for stock food. At the moment, I have potatoes for which I gave 7s. a ton and which I am feeding to animals. I dare not use them for anything else. If the hon. Member for Doncaster sees potatoes being fed to animals, that does not mean that an offence is being committed; it simply means that, as I have said, in the early part of the season not sufficient discrimination was shown by the Ministry of Food in condemning potatoes. That is why we are suffering from a shortage at the present time.

Mr. Spence

rose—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

The hon. Gentleman cannot speak again; he has already spoken.

Question put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-Eight Minutes to Four o'Clock.