§ 30. Mr. David Rentonasked the Minister of Food whether, in view of the now plentiful supplies of milk, he will consider granting an extra cheese ration to small holders and farmers continuously engaged in manual work on their own farms.
§ Mr. WebbI am sorry that our supplies do not permit us to do this. The reason for supplying extra cheese to farm workers is that they often cannot get home for a meal as a farmer or smallholder can. I could not, in any case, spare the cheese. After fully using our own productive capacity I still have to buy a lot of cheese for dollars to maintain the present ration.
§ Mr. RentonIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are many small farmers and smallholders doing very hard manual work and making a great contribution to our production who also cannot get home for an extra meal and who, even if they could get home, would not have more than an 8d. meat ration or the small amount of cheese ration as protein food to eat? Will he do his utmost to take advantage of the increased milk supplies and alleviate their position?
§ Mr. WebbI am very well aware of the difficulty of that section of the community, but they are not the only section with some claim to extra supplies. The problem is that once we begin to have these specialised extensions of the ration scheme one does not know where to draw the line. The real solution is in the need generally to increase the basic ration, which is our aim and purpose.