HC Deb 22 November 1949 vol 470 cc318-28

9.15 p.m.

Major Legge-Bourke (Isle of Ely)

I should be less than polite if I did not begin by thanking the right hon. Lady the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food for coming to the House especially as she has had to come some considerable distance. I am grateful to her, and I hope that we may at least start this Debate in a slightly more propitious frame of mind than on the last occasion when she replied to an Adjournment Debate in which I had spoken. We have had an interesting discussion on the matter of a debt of a sort. During the course of it the hon. Member for Central Bradford (Mr. Webb) said that the Conservative Party must face realities. I hope that the right hon. Lady will assist me in that task this evening.

I want to try to find out what is the real situation regarding a certain type of fat. We were discussing vegetable fats yesterday, and I think the situation was generally agreed to be far from satisfactory. Tonight I wish to speak about another type of fat, animal fat known under the trade name of tallow. But before I come to that I wish to speak about animal fats of all types, including butter, margarine and lard.

I have been endeavouring to discover what is the total consumption per year in the country and from the official statistics—I have tried to keep entirely to them—I deduce that we consume 865,400 tons of butter, lard and margarine together. This year to the end of September we have consumed about 505,900 tons of these same three fats. In these same months we have produced at home 112,650 tons of butter, margarine and cooking fats, which are also compounded with other oils, and we have imported, too, 295,900 tons. That makes a total of home production and imports of 408,550 tons. But we have consumed 505,900 tons. Therefore, I take it that the balance must have come from last year's stocks and would have amounted to about 97,350 tons.

I do not know what stocks were at the beginning of the year and I hope that the right hon. Lady will at least give me that figure—I understand why she cannot give the day to day and week to week stocks—so that we can then see how much has been available for the nine months of this year compared with the same period last year. We have produced 35,750 tons more at home and imported 66,400 tons more from abroad. We have now available 102,150 tons more butter, lard and margarine than we had last year from what I can deduce from the official figures.

I have calculated that, assuming that the population which receives a fat ration to be about 40 million, to honour the nine-ounce ration of these fats takes about 100,400 tons. To make a Christmas bonus of four ounces takes about 35,500 tons. That still leaves from that surplus of 102,150 tons 64,900 tons extra compared with what we had last year. And there is still three months of the year to go. But that figure of 64,900 represents about two-thirds of the total amount of fat which it takes to honour the nine-ounce fat ration of butter, lard and margarine.

In other words, what I contend is that the right hon. Lady now has sufficient fat in hand to increase the basic ration very considerably straight away. I hope, if she accepts the figures I am putting forward—and I can assure her I have calculated them entirely from the official figures—that she will be able to announce at the end of this Debate that she is prepared, not merely to give a Christmas bonus, but also to increase the basic fat ration.

Where does the imported fat come from? I do not propose to deal at any length with butter, save to say that Australia, New Zealand and Denmark are the main suppliers and that whereas in 1947 we obtained about 200,000 tons short of the million from Australia, in the first nine months of this year we have already very handsomely exceeded the million mark and that is about the same figure as in 1948. We have increased the amount from Denmark by 400,000 tons over 1947. The amount is slightly less in 1948. We do not import margarine at all, so far as I can gather, but we do make it mainly from imported fats. If I am wrong I hope that the right hon. Lady will correct me.

Many of those imported fats come under the heading of tallow, although I think there are added other fats and oils of various other sorts, even vegetable oils in some cases. But there is a proportion of edible fats, animal fats, and it is that subject on which I have questioned both the right hon. Lady and the Minister quite recently in this House. The best quality of that imported edible fat we obtain in considerable quantities from New Zealand, Australia and the Argentine. In 1948 we got about 7,500 tons from New Zealand and this year, according to an answer given me last week by the Minister, we have imported over 11,700 tons. That is a very big increase indeed. From Australia the increase is even bigger, although unfortunately the figures given me by the Minister cover the season from July to June instead of from January to September and therefore they are not a strict comparison. But whereas in the 1947–48 season we got 2,300 tons, in the 1948–49 season we had 9,600.

I am only too glad to see this increased reliance which we are placing upon those two great Dominions, and we ought to say nothing tonight to make those two Dominions feel that we are not grateful to them for allowing us to have these fats. At the same time, I think it should be known that the prices we were paying to them were far in excess of the prices offered by practically every other country with the exception of the Argentine. I hope that the right hon. Lady will be able to tell me what is the amount we have imported this year from the Argentine. Last year we got about 24,500 tons of edible fats from the Argentine and 6,300 tons of inedible fats, and if we have had anything approximating to the same amount as we had last year, then it does seem that we have had a very big increase in imports from those three countries which I have mentioned.

I know that the Minister and the right hon. Lady do not like disclosing prices in this House, and therefore all I can do is to cite prices which I understand are being charged. Whether the right hon. Lady will be able to confirm them I do not know, but I hope that she will. I understand that in October, 1948, the Argentine prices went up to approximately £140 a ton—I use the word "approximately" because there is a considerable range of about 19 different grades of fat, and there is a variation of about £30 in the prices. At that time the United States were buying at prices well below £100, and eventually they fell to below £50. In Australia the local controlled price was considerably lower than £100.

In the case of one fat, which I mentioned to the right hon. Lady in a delightful conversation which she invited me to have with her in reply to one of my Questions, she paid £100 a ton when it would have fetched only £50 a ton in Australia itself. I believe that there are 19 set brands and that until October prices ranged between £121 and £96. After devaluation, which put up the prices in dollar area, the prices dropped to a range between £88 and £70. That is the information which I have got and I hope that the Minister will confirm or correct it.

I am the first to want to give the Dominions a better price than other people. I think that we should always do that, but it seems to me that an increase of something above £50 over what was being offered by others is slightly excessive. At least—and here I am only too glad to say "Thank you"—it has secured for us a considerable increase in our imports of tallow.

But having got that tallow, what did the Ministry do? There was one shipment of about 1,700 tons from the Argentine in February which was not offered to soap manufacturers until September. It was only offered to them then because it was no longer edible although it was imported as edible tallow. If we are to produce the finest quality white soap, rancid fat is not very much use, because while acidity can be eliminated from fat. rancidity cannot. It is possible to manufacture only pink soap with rancid fat, and that does not sell nearly so well in the dollar markets. I do not want to plead the case of the soap manufacturers tonight, because I understand that they have managed to make perfectly satisfactory arrangements, but I want to point out that rancid fat bought from a nondollar area will not be exportable to a dollar area where we should like to send it, because it will not be of a sufficiently high quality to be able to obtain a market.

In yesterday's "Daily Express" Beachcomber commented on the Minister's definition of "technical purposes." I noticed that he fell into what is perhaps a natural error when he said that if edible fat, which is perhaps not quite so edible as it was earlier, is manufactured into soap and other articles, then perhaps we shall next be told that soap is edible and that it has many useful vitamins. I am afraid that that is not true and that we must face the fact that fat imported at high prices for edible purposes and then stored for long periods by the Ministry, after which it is offered to the manufacturers of soap, will inevitably involve this country in some loss. That must be so. because the price for inedible fat is considerably below the price for edible fat.

.I understand that this particular consignment was bought at about £102 per ton, and that it is now being offered at that price to the manufacturers, when the current price is round about £80 per tons for incoming fat of similar quality. I hope the right hon. Lady will be able to sell it, but it is obviously going to be extremely difficult to get rid of it. Perhaps she will be able to tell us tonight that she has got rid of it.

Another consignment was offered to the Ministry last August at a price of £110 per ton, but was refused. Permission was given by the Ministry to offer that fat elsewhere, and the highest price that could be obtained was £50 in Rotterdam, which was not considered good enough by those who were trying to sell it. It was therefore re-offered to the Ministry with another parcel at the beginning of September, and the Ministry bought it at £110 per ton. It seems to me that that cannot be classed as very good business from the Ministry's point of view.

There was the case of another 463 tons from New Zealand which came in during the summer, and, when I put this matter to the Minister on 7th November, the right hon. Gentleman denied that it had gone bad, though on the 14th November he admitted that it was of low keeping quality and was being offered for non-edible purposes. Obviously, that is no longer edible fat, although it was earlier; it was high quality mutton fat from New Zealand.

I want to ask the right hon. Lady why so high a price was paid in comparison with American and European prices, and, secondly, how long the Ministry of Food hold the fat in store, because there seems to be evidence that, as a result of long storage, it is going bad and edible fat is being reduced to a condition in which it is no longer edible. I also want to know why there was such a long delay in offering the two parcels I have mentioned for non-technical purposes, because I assume that some inspection is carried out of the edible fat which is kept in store, and it seems to me that, if the inspection was carried out properly its condition should be noted and the stock disposed of at once.

Most of all, I want to know why the right hon. Gentleman does not increase the fat ration if the figures which I gave at the beginning of my remarks are correct. I once placed the right hon. Lady in the rô le of Justice, but tonight I want to warn the country that she may be directing her activities towards the rô le of "Queen Wenceslas" but delaying that rô le until a little bit nearer the General Election. I hope not; I hope she will not do that sort of thing, because I think it is very important, and I am sure she would agree, that we should increase as soon as we possibly can increase the basic ration of fats. I believe that this is one of the rations which have been so short that it has been noted by some people as being a greater hardship than anything save perhaps meat.

If the right hon. Lady would cease to hold for quite so long what stocks the Ministry now has, and if she would get them on to the market, she would be doing not merely a good turn to the housewife but an immensely beneficial act to British industry, because I believe it is the fats in their rations which increase the stamina and energy of men to a degree only second to meat. Therefore, I hope she will do what she can to prevent any delay in distribution any longer than is absolutely necessary, because every day which she holds it back unnecessarily means output lost to British industry.

9.34 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Dr. Edith Summer-skill)

The hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke) agreed that he gave me short notice of this Debate, and, although he knows that I am only too happy to be here, even when I hear of a Debate on the Adjournment Motion at short notice, he must realise that I am placed at a great disadvantage when, in a Debate like this, he raises a matter which has no relation at all to the original Question which he put down. That was answered by my right hon. Friend and was followed up by the hon. and gallant Gentleman giving notice that he would raise this matter on the Motion for the Adjournment.

This is the Adjournment, I understand, which follows the Question put down by the hon. and gallant Gentleman concerning the allegation which he made that during the summer certain tallow was landed in this country and became rancid—deteriorated—because it was not handled expeditiously. The hon. and gallant Gentleman was not satisfied with the answer given my right hon. Friend, and he said, quite rightly, that he would raise the matter on the Adjournment. Then, at very short notice this afternoon, the hon. and gallant Gentleman asked Mr. Speaker if he could have the second Adjournment. I naturally thought that the hon. and gallant Gentleman would raise the matter which he mentioned in the Question.

It amazes me that he should come here tonight and, far from showing the courtesy that I had expected of addressing himself to the Question which we both had in mind, should raise the question of a Christmas bonus of fat, a matter, he must agree, far removed from rancid tallow. I have no doubt that his constituents would much prefer to read about a Christmas bonus of fat than about rancid tallow, but the hon. and gallant Gentleman must realise that I cannot possibly come here tonight and immediately disclose our stocks of fats, and, furthermore, speculate on increased rations. He must surely realise that only recently my right hon. Friend made a statement on Christmas bonuses, and that I cannot announce on an Adjournment Debate a week or two later, an increased Christmas bonus, in answer to his request.

The hon. and gallant Gentleman asked me to be realistic. I am. I must charge him tonight with being completely unrealistic, and I ask him once more to address himself to the question of tallow, which, if I may say so with respect, has rather obsessed him during the last month or two. He has put Question after Question on that matter, and I can assure him that the officials in my Department, my right hon. Friend and myself have done our very best to answer him.

I suspect the source of his information—our knowledge of these things is very wide—but unfortunately the person who has given it to him has not given him the whole background of our tallow negotiations. There is nothing sinister about them, and nothing that we are anxious to hide. On the occasion to which the hon. and gallant Gentleman referred as, I think, the "delightful" or "charming" conversation he had with me behind Mr. Speaker's Chair, I once more tried to help him and to clarify his mind.

I will tell him once more what is the position. I can only deal with general principles. He will realise that I cannot go into all the very detailed figures without consulting certain files which can, of course, only be found in my Department. We import our tallow from soft currency areas. He has mentioned again tonight the price in dollar areas—in the United States of America—and he has asked me to relate the prices which we are paying in soft currency areas to the prices he has quoted for the United States. But he must realise that the prices which he has quoted have no relevance to our purchases. How can they have?

On the one hand, we are trying to save dollars, and therefore we are not concerned with the prices in the United States. He must also recognise that the United States are self-sufficient so far as fats are concerned. They certainly wish to export them, because at the moment there is a surplus owing to the price, and the United States certainly do not need to import fats. The dollar problem is one which affects many countries which need fats. So, of course, we are not concerned with dollar prices. What we are concerned with are the supplies in New Zealand, Australia, the Argentine and certain South American countries. We import 56 per cent. of our total imports from New Zealand, the principal source, 22 per cent. from Australia, and 22 per cent. from the Argentine and a few South American countries. We buy from Australia and New Zealand their total export surpluses at prices which we negotiate in each September for the ensuing year.

The hon. and gallant Gentleman has asked before how these prices relate to the world price. There is no world price. The price can only be related to the supply position. He asked why the price fluctuates. I have told him before, and will do so again, that we try to be very fair to our friends in the Dominions. The prices in the Argentine in the past have been much higher than the prices asked in Australia and New Zealand. We recognise that Australia and New Zealand, while making an adequate profit, have treated us very fairly, and at no time have we felt it wise, prudent or just to try to keep the Australians and New Zealanders down to the lowest level. That and the supply position are the reasons why the price has fluctuated.

The shipments from Australia during the last few years have increased because the Australian meat programme has expanded, but during 1947–48 there was a drought, the production of meat decreased and the result was that the tallow imports decreased with it. In fact, we were only importing something like 2,300 tons during that year against 9,600 tons in 1948–49. The hon. and gallant Gentle-man asked me how much we had imported. I have given him the percentages; the total import during this year—that is, from 1st January to 30th September, 1949—was 11,777 tons; that is, of edible tallow from New Zealand, Australia, the Argentine and Uruguay.

Now we come to what I thought the hon. and gallant Gentleman was going to address himself to with even more vigour, and that is the keeping quality of the tallow and whether it has deteriorated to such an extent that we could be charged with gross mismanagement. I do not think I am wrong in inferring that that is what the hon. and gallant Gentleman thinks. Let me give him the figures. Of 11,777 tons of edible tallow which have come in this year, only 511 tons have been transferred to stocks of technical tallow. Technical tallow is tallow for soap making, leather work and so on. Perhaps the hon. and gallant Gentleman would like me to break those figures down; 463 tons of this came from New Zealand, 24 tons from East Africa and 24 tons from Australia. He is quite right when he says that we sell inedible at £102 per ton, but if it is fit for edible use we sell at £104 per ton. So the hon. and gallant Member will agree that the loss is not very great.

Edible tallow, of course, is not of uniform keeping quality; I am quite sure that his informant has told him that. A good quality edible tallow might keep for six months, but a sub-standard tallow would not. Of course, we cannot always ensure that the keeping quality is as high as we should like. I might say—and I want to be quite fair to the hon. and gallant Gentleman because sometimes his figures are correct—that although only 511 tons of tallow have been transferred during this year, there would be some left over from the preceding year, about which I shall say something in a minute. The consignment that came during the summer about which the hon. and gallant Gentleman asked in one of his Questions—was the one which came from New Zealand—arrived during the dock strike and was unduly delayed. I think that probably a month elapsed during which it was difficult to discharge the ships.

But there has been other tallow of which we have tried to dispose—and again I think this is in the hon. and gallant Member's mind—which came to us under the Andes Agreement from the Argentine. That quantity was sub-standard and we refused to accept it as edible. I want the hon. and gallant Gentleman to understand that it came to us as sub-standard and we refused to accept it. We asked a firm to use some of this quantity for certain technical purposes and only one firm refused—probably for the reasons that the hon. and gallant Member quite rightly gave: that you can make coloured soaps out of some of this tallow which has deteriorated whereas you cannot make white soaps. This was not wasted; another firm took it and used it for very good purposes.

Major Legge-Bourke

Can the right hon. Lady give me the price?

Dr. Summerskill

I have given the prices. We sell at £102 10s. when it is not fit for edible use and £104 when it is fit for edible use.

That is the whole story. I will look at the hon. and gallant Member's speech again tomorrow to see whether there are any other detailed figures which would help him, but I want him to go away from this Debate reassured that we are conducting this business on the best possible lines. It is a difficult business; we are dealing with a perishable commodity. We are dealing with our friends in soft currency areas—men who are well-known to us, whom we can trust and who do their best to supply this country with a good quality commodity.

We cannot always anticipate a dock strike, however, and we cannot always anticipate that we might have a consignment of sub-standard tallow We have to deal with it, therefore, in a certain way. I am sure the hon. and gallant Member will agree with me that the longer one lives the more one realises that there are always two sides to a question. He may be given a story about sub-standard tallow and somebody may say, "This shows how inefficient is the Ministry of Food; you must raise this in the House." But nobody tells him that sometimes substandard tallow reaches these shores from another country and we, as the purchaser, protest against it and make arrangements for other tallow to come here in exchange. That is what happened with the consignment the hon. and gallant Member mentioned. I hope the hon. and gallant Member will leave here happier tonight. I can assure him that if he is not satisfied. I am only too happy to help him.

Major Legge-Bourke

Could the right hon. Lady give me one more figure? It was mentioned in a Question I asked earlier. What were the stocks at 1st January this year?

Dr. Summerskill

I am afraid I could not give the hon. and gallant Member that figure.

Adjourned accordingly at Eleven Minutes to Ten o'Clock.