FOOD ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS (Hansard, 29 September 1949)

§ Mr. Nally (Bilston)
I must apologise for troubling the House at this late hour of the night, particularly as I can well understand that hon. Members are anxious to retire, the Opposition for the purpose of licking their wounds and the supporters of the Government to go and rejoice in their triumphant vindication. However, the subject to which I wish to draw attention tonight is, in one small way at any rate, a projection of the Debate we have had during these three exciting days. By the status of food enforcement officers I mean not simply the conditions of work but the prestige of food enforcement officers and the morale of the very limited force we have at the moment standing between the people of this country and the organised forces of the black market.
It is a fact that there are grounds for believing that over recent months the morale of our food enforcement officers has suffered a sharp decline. The reason for that decline is the by-product of a sustained, vicious, unscrupulous campaign 448 in this House and out of it, that has been designed to create a situation in which food enforcement officers, who ought to stand high in the eyes of Parliament, the Press and the public, have been continuously degenerated, their work has been under-estimated and their achievements largely ignored.
Let us take the situation which arises when a food enforcement officer appears to give evidence in court. I have wide experience of this kind of activity. A food enforcement officer is only in exceptional cases called upon himself or herself to make a purchase—only where there have been continued complaints about the activities of the particular trader concerned. That is to say, if next week, as I have no doubt there will be, there are cases in the Manchester court in which a trader is indicted on the offence that he has sold a particular commodity at 2d. or 3d. above the controlled price, everyone in court knows that in point of fact he would not have been prosecuted had there not been a continual run of complaints against that particular trader. But he is not being charged on the letters of complaint but on the specific indictment.
It has become the practice, as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food will well know, for solicitors who are defending—they are doing their duty and I make no complaint about it—to open their remarks for the defence by making the point that the food enforcement officer is an agent provocateur who has deliberately forced an innocent defendant into committing the offence and that public money has been used for crime, and so forth. Many of the food enforcement officers I know are men whose records, whether in the Services or in public life, will bear comparison with anyone's record and it is no light thing for him to be told in the witness box that 449 he is an agent provocateur and then to pick up the local newspaper and see that the juicy remarks of the defending solicitor have been taken out to make a holiday for Kemsley sub-editors. That is continually happening, and as a consequence there is a sharp feeling, a continued feeling, among food enforcement officers that their job is a thankless one and that they would be far better off if they were not doing it.
There is another aspect of the matter. The Opposition pride themselves that they are entitled to say that, as individuals, they would join with us in war against the black market; but since 1945, if one takes all the questions asked from the Opposition benches on the subject of food enforcement, there has not been a single one that has not, either directly or by implication, suggested that food enforcement officers were another version of the Gestapo, and that the public was right in not co-operating with them in their duties. Indeed, last April, when the Parliamentary Secretary delivered a forthright defence of food enforcement officers, an hon. Member opposite who raised the matter of the powers of these public servants described them as being a variation of Hitler's executioners. That is the sort of remark used in this House. Even worse is the sort of thing which is said in the constituencies.
At this moment there are three areas of the country known to me where intensive investigations are proceeding into illegal slaughtering. That is the very basis of the meat black market. Everything hinges, in meat black marketing, on illegal slaughtering. Because of the campaign conducted, for which the Opposition and to some extent certain sections of the Press must carry responsibility, the food enforcement officers co-operating with the police in cleaning up the meat black market are finding that even many honest farmers, because of the atmosphere created, are not giving them the co-operation to which they are entitled. That is a serious consequence, because in at any rate, one area which I know, on account of political difficulties and so on, the chief food enforcement officer is being crippled and confined in the execution of his duties because of the continual attacks made on his food enforcement friends.
450 The people of this country, and Parliament, for that matter, have no idea of the patient, devoted and patriotic work which the average food enforcement officer does. It is not only his job to secure prosecutions. The greater part of his job consists in giving advice and guidance to traders. Parliament and certainly the public have no idea of the long, patient endeavour, often in collaboration with the police, of these food enforcement officers over the past years, which has led to the conviction of those rats who gnaw at the very basis of our policy of "fair shares for all."
I am not blaming the public relations section, but I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will examine how far it is possible to put over the magnificent work which is being done. I could go to the Ministry of Food tomorrow and take from its files a dozen dossiers of which I have personal knowledge which, if written up, would in themselves be a complete vindication of the magnificent defence work done by the food enforcement branch against those who seek to profit from our difficulties and shortages. Food enforcement officers ought to be sustained. The Ministry has shown a tendency to economise on its food enforcement officers.
In the difficulties we have had in Manchester—and Manchester is an honest and good city—we need at least 40 or 50 officers to clean it up, whereas we are working with a small handful. We have this sort of situation. A man whom the food enforcement branch of the Ministry worked hard to get sentenced to three years penal servitude during the war for offences, is today walking about "cocking a snook" at the food enforcement officers because he is now head of the horse meat business in Manchester, assisted by friends who helped him before he got three years penal servitude.
All these sorts of facts affect the morale of the enforcement officers, and I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to develop the remarks which she made last April; I ask her, further, to explore every avenue of publicity in order that she may explain to the public what the enforcement officers are, what are their duties, and how well they carry out those duties. I ask the House to realise that in the difficult days which lie ahead, as in the past, the food enforcement officer is a worthy 451 citizen doing a grand job: and this House, the Press, and the public ought to think it a duty to sustain them by thwarting those who would injure them and see to it that they are rightly punished.

§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Dr. Edith Summerskill)
I should like to thank my hon. Friend for having raised this matter on the Adjournment, because it does give me another opportunity of paying a tribute to the fine body of men doing a very difficult job; but, at the same time, I must say that I do not agree with him that there is evidence that the morale of these men has sunk. I have made a most careful investigation, and so far no individual nor collective complaint has come to my notice in that connection.
I think that my hon. Friend will agree that I am fairly accessible; I do not strike fear into the hearts of the civil servants in my Department, and if there had been a strong feeling on this subject I should have heard of it. I take every opportunity to pay a tribute to these men because I recognise that the difficulties under which they do their job are not fully appreciated by the public. I have not been slow to speak of the character of these men in the highest terms; to speak of their tact and efficiency, and the courtesy which they display in the conduct of their job. I took the opportunity in April, as my hon. Friend has said, to impress on the House the importance of the work of these men.
One can judge of their behaviour, I think, by the records of their activities—records which reach me regularly. As I said in April this year, it is a fact that from December, 1947, to April, 1948, during which we had a special drive to find people who were guilty of illicit slaughtering, out of 11,000 investigations, only 21 complaints of the behaviour of our inspectors were made. I want the House to appreciate what that means. These men have to approach farmers, or perhaps the farmer's wife, or the people who have been left in charge, and conduct investigations which are sometimes resented by the people they visit. Yet, there were only 21 complaints.
Hon. Members in this House know the world well enough to realise that there will always be somebody who will make 452 a complaint, however well the inspector behaves himself. In 1948, out of 27,000 charges against individuals, 94.8 were successful. That, I think, is a figure which shows that these men, besides behaving in a manner which we should applaud, have also proved themselves highly efficient in the conduct of their work.
I defended these men when I answered the hon. Member for Shrewsbury (Mr. Langford-Holt) and also when certain charges were levelled against them by the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Baldwin). However, I have no power to ensure that the Press reports what I say. My hon. Friend is a journalist himself; he must know that hard as he and I try to ventilate this matter, we have no power to ensure that the Press will give it adequate publicity. Perhaps my hon. Friend will agree with me that one's experience of the world leads one to believe that virtue has no news value. Perhaps we may even fail tonight to secure that publicity which he and I would like to have for these men.
I should also like to tell my hon. Friend that not only do I praise these men in this House, but they come to my Department on different occasions when it is necessary to have conferences and I see them personally. The last time I spoke to them I praised them so highly that I felt a blush would appear on someone's cheeks. I ask my hon. Friend not to go away with the idea that my Department is not fully conscious of the important work that these men do. At the same time I must remind hon. Members that these enforcement officers are chosen very carefully. They are not immature. Most of them have served long apprenticeships in the Police Force. In fact, I think something like 80 to 90 per cent. of the men in our enforcement division are ex-policemen. If I may say so, they are not unduly sensitive. They know perfectly well the work they are called upon to do.

§ Mr. Nally
Some of their families are.

§ Dr. Summerskill
Hon. Gentlemen will agree that when we are appointing enforcement officers we cannot test the degree of sensitivity of their families. These men know full well when they are appointed the kind of job they will be called upon to do. They know that at some time it might prove distasteful. They know they will have to watch their 453 step very carefully and that very often their actions will be misrepresented. My hon. Friend mentioned the defending solicitors and quoted some of the rather unpleasant epithets that those gentlemen used. Everybody knows that if the defence has a weak case, it has to fall back sometimes on abusive epithets. That is not unusual. That happens in cases other than enforcement cases, and these men, of course, are accustomed to it. They have been accustomed to this kind of thing in the police courts during their careers in the Police Force.
The House will agree that it is never a pleasant thing to enforce rules and regulations. Our own Police Force has not always been popular. They are very popular today, but when they were first introduced to this country they probably had some of the difficulties which our enforcement officers are facing today. I was reading an interesting book, to which I should like to draw the attention of my hon. Friend. It is called "The King's Customs" by Atton and Holland. As I was reading it I thought that some of those officers, who served the Customs and Excise many years ago, often found themselves in a similar position to the enforcement officers today. About the middle of the 18th century it was not an uncommon thing for an official of the Customs and Excise Department to be met by a gang of smugglers who set upon him and cut off either his nose or his ear.
When our enforcement officers know what their predecessors went through, they will feel it is perhaps a little less offensive to be called a "snooper" than go through that kind of thing. I must remind my hon. Friend that there are rewards in this life. I think if he asked some of these enforcement officers they would say they did not want to change places with some of the backroom boys at the Ministry, who do not have an exhilarating life. The rewards are to be found when they have checked an abuse of the food regulations and have protected the people's food supply. I often 454 have a chat with food enforcement officers, and they like to recall their successes, and in recalling the successes forget the petty irritations. I hope that these words will reach this fine body of men: let us pay our tribute to a force, which I agree may not receive the recognition it deserves but which is serving the country well by ensuring that the people are protected against that evil individual who seeks to make an illicit profit out of the nation's food.

§ Mr. Walkden (Doncaster)
Before the right hon. Lady sits down, may I ask has she any figures of how many of these enforcement officers have left because of the disagreeable words or epithets used in recent months? I noticed one newspaper a few weeks ago suggested that a large number had been sacked or disposed of in a manner which was not approved by some of the people who were writing at the time. It would be interesting if we could have some information as to whether a large number of these enforcement officers have had their employment terminated, in comparison with the evidence by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Bilston (Mr. Nally).

§ Dr. Summerskill
As the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Walkden) probably knows, my Department has been reducing its numbers. It is an overall reduction and the enforcement division has been reduced in some measure. I could not say that anybody has left because he did not like language used about enforcement officers, but if the hon. Gentleman likes to write to me giving me all the details, I will let him know.

§ Mr. Walkden
It is a matter of answering the question put by the hon. Member for Bilston.