Workers' Meat Ration (Hansard, 10 November 1947)

8. Mr. Baldwin
asked the Minister of Food whether he will grant increased meat rations to agricultural workers.

§ Mr. Strachey
I am sorry but we have not enough meat to do this.

Mr. Baldwin
Is the Minister aware that agricultural workers have no chance of going to a canteen, and does he consider that it is fair that these men should be raising food for the country on Is. worth of meat a week?

§ Mr. Strachey
They receive six times the normal cheese ration and six extra B.Us. in lieu of meat.

§ Major Legge-Bourke
Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that an extra cheese ration is not the same thing as an extra meat ration; and will he see whether it is not possible that, where industrial canteens involving either Irish or European volunteer workers are in operation, British workers within easy access of them could also use the canteens and get the same rations?

§ Mr. Strachey
There are no such canteens confined to any special race or nationality of workers.

§ Mr. Gooch
Would the right hon. Gentleman consider giving to the farm worker in his home the same amount of meat as is given to a displaced person in a hostel?

§ Mr. Strachey
We could not give the rations given to all people residing in hostels. Whatever their nationality, it is just the same. We could not make the hostel rations the same as domestic rations.

§ Mr. Manningham-Buller
Is this another example of priority for the farming industry?

§ Sir Ronald Ross
As the miner gets a proportion of the coal he raises for the country, why should not the farm worker, in the same way, get some of the meat he raises for the country?

§ Mr. Strachey
The miner's coal is- always reckoned as part of his wages. It is not the case that no agricultural worker has any opportunity of raising food for himself.

Mr. Baldwin
Is the Minister aware that if these men were made of the stuff that would hold up the country to ransom, and threaten to down tools, they would get the meat?

§ Mr. Speaker
That was not a question; it was a statement of opinion.

Mr. Baldwin
I give notice that I will raise this matter on the Adjournment.

§ 44. Major Legge-Bourke
asked the Minister of Food what was the value of the weekly meat ration served to those taking all their meals in industrial hostels before the last cut in the basic domestic ration; what it is now; how these figures compare with the value of meat consumed by those workers who live at home and take one meal at an industrial canteen; and whether Irish and European volunteer workers receive meat rations on the scale now in force, or on the old scale for British workers in similar positions.

§ Mr. Strachey
Irish and European volunteer workers employed in the United Kingdom receive exactly the present rations as British workers engaged in similar work and living in comparable conditions. The average weekly allowance of meat for workers living and taking all their meals in a category "A" industrial hostel was 4s. 1d. worth before the cut in the domestic ration and is now 2s. 9d. worth, which is the same as that for a worker living at home and taking one main meal each day in a category "A" industrial canteen.

§ Major Legge-Bourke
Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that, particularly in the agricultural industry, there are a great many workers who live at home and have not the facilities to use a canteen; and cannot he do something to equalise the meat ration for such people in order that those who are doing the same job may receive the same ration?

§ Mr. Strachey
The extra cheese and bread was given specifically to meet that situation.