HC Deb 27 April 1953 vol 514 cc1748-9
34. Mr. Willey

asked the Minister of Food why the consumption of full price fresh milk for the last three months of this year was 10 million gallons fewer than the corresponding period last year.

Major Lloyd George

Allowing for the fact that there was one day more in the first quarter of 1952 the decline in consumption was fewer that seven million gallons, or 1.9 per cent. It is too small to be attributed to any particular cause.

Mr. Willey

Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that it was his Department who refused to make an allowance for Leap Year last year? Is he further aware that this latest drop is over 3 per cent compared with the 1951 figures, and that most of us in the country, and the Parliamentary Secretary, I am sure, regard this as a serious decline in the consumption of milk?

Major Lloyd George

There has also been a decline in the quantity of the welfare milk taken up. It cannot be a question of the price of milk, because there has been no increase of price since last July. It may well be—I am fairly sure it is—that it is due to the greater availability of other foods.

Mr. Willey

Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that the Parliamentary Secretary said, in December, that there was a decline in milk for schools, but when we got the figures for the year they showed an increase in milk for schools?

Mr. Beswick

To encourage the consumption of milk would the right hon. and gallant Gentleman consider a welfare scheme for the old people, who are finding it increasingly difficult to afford it?

Major Lloyd George

It is just as well to realise that the subsidy on milk is costing the country £90 million at present.