HC Deb 06 February 1953 vol 510 cc2270-86

3.48 p.m.

Mr. Gerald Nabarro (Kidderminster)

When I was notified a week ago that I had had the good fortune to win the ballot for the Adjournment on Friday, 6th February, it was my intention to talk about the rationing of sugar and sweets and the prospects for securing the de-rationing of both within a matter of the next few months. I am delighted to say that a small part of the contentious matter that I should have been discussing during this debate has now been rendered unnecessary by the timely announcement of my right hon. and gallant Friend the Minister of Food on Wednesday last.

For the first time in 12 years the children and men and women with a sweet tooth are able to buy unlimited quantities of sweets in the shops—except perhaps for the short space of time in 1949 when the fiasco took place with a premature de-rationing scheme. Not the least important of the consequences which flow from last Wednesday's announcement is the fact, as I am reliably informed, that 500 civil servants and temporary officials will be considered unnecessary. They can, I hope, be put into productive employment.

I have always been the fiercest opponent of bureaucratic Bumbledom in all its forms, and it seemed to me a tragedy that this country should have spent many years since the end of the war with countless thousands of people all over the place engaged in snipping little pieces of paper out of ration books.

The larger issue which is thus now left to me this afternoon—the question of sugar rationing—is, of course, infinitely more important to men and women all over the country. It is fair to say that it is the greatest grievance that the housewife has today, and her biggest single difficulty in good housekeeping. I have no connection whatever of a personal character with sugar refining, sugar production either in the Empire or the Colonies, or with sugar beet production in the United Kingdom, and my purpose in making this speech this evening is solely to make a plea on behalf of millions of women in this country who are gravely embarrassed by the continuing shortage of domestic sugar.

I said that this was a contentious matter. It is contentious from a curious point of view—in the statistics that have been given in this House from official sources, as compared with statistics given elsewhere, and notably by the great sugar importers in this country, the refiners and others interested in the industry. I hope I may be forgiven if I spend a good deal of time referring to those figures. In the first instance, perhaps I may say that I, in common with many other hon. Members who represent fruit-growing areas in Britain, have another or complementary reason for being so concerned about sugar.

In the last few years, it is sad to relate that a large part of the soft fruit crop has been wholly wasted. I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir R. De la Bére) is prevented by his duties as Lord Mayor of London from being here to support me. He sits for the Southern part of the county, and I represent in large measure the Western part, and these two areas constitute one of the largest fruit growing areas in the United Kingdom. A large percentage of soft fruit has been completely wasted, and that is, in measure, due to the shortage of sugar for bottling and for making jam, and to other difficulties of the housewife which have forced her to buy proprietary brands of preserves and of cakes. She cannot make good cakes at home on the scale to which she has been accustomed, and of course baking is so much more difficult.

It is fair to say that those famous cookery books which we all knew so well as children—and it is a long time ago—Mrs. Beeton's Cookery Book and Boulestin's Cookery Book, have gone into the waste paper basket, due to the shortage of sugar, and very largely due to the fact that many housewives cannot cook decently at home today because of this state of affairs.

Let me now turn to the world economics of sugar and to the figures that are concerned with this argument. There can be no doubt that there is currently a substantial world surplus of sugar. There is no quarrel on that account. Cuba, to take one example, has cut down her acreage of cane sugar because she cannot find a market for it. which is due, of course, in part, to currency difficulties. It is equally true that Britain is the only country in the Commonwealth, and the only country in the world, outside the Iron Curtain countries, which is rationed for sugar.

To de-ration sugar in this country, according to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who replied to me on this matter on 20th January, is said to require 750,000 tons of extra sugar imports in the first year of de-rationing, and, thereafter, 500,000 tons of sugar a year. I do not think that those figures, when I have finished my speech, will bear closer examination, because I think they have been exaggerated. I think they are too high, and I hope to demonstrate that the amount of additional imports would be substantially less. There is no quarrel that the tonnage of sugar required to de-ration in the United Kingdom is 2½ million tons per annum from all sources. That is the figure which has been quoted by the Government on occasions, and has also been confirmed by the sugar refining and distributing interests in this country. Under the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement, with the terms of which we are all familiar, the United Kingdom has guaranteed to buy the whole exportable quantities of Commonwealth sugar available, up to a maximum which will be reached in 1956–57 of 2,375,000 tons per annum. The expectation from the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement in 1953 is 1,800,000 tons. That is the figure we shall anticipate importing into the United Kingdom from the Commonwealth Sugar Pool.

To that 1,800,000 tons must be added our home or indigenous beet production of sugar which is 1953 is anticipated to be 625,000 tons. Therefore, the Commonwealth sources of sugar, added to the beet production of 625,000 tons, give a total of 2,425,000 tons. In addition to that, we have a reasonable expectation of 200,000 tons of sugar from Eastern European sources, from Poland and adjoining countries, from whom we have drawn considerable quantities of sugar in recent years.

That makes a total of 2,625,000 tons against an anticipated unrationed requirement in the United Kingdom of 2,500,000 tons. Therefore, theoretically, there is a surplus of 125,000 tons of sugar. But we have commitments from the Commonwealth sugar pool. Canada is buying 425,000 tons of sugar from that pool. We in the United Kingdom are exporting 680,000 tons of sugar to Commonwealth countries.

The two considerations, the 425,000 tons of sugar that Canada is buying from the Commonwealth Pool and the 680,000 tons of sugar that we are exporting from this country, both tend to complicate a statistical consideration of our sugar economy. I am going to endeavour to quote a sugar balance sheet which perhaps is a slight over-simplication. I ask the OFFICIAL REPORT to do me the kindness of reproducing it in the REPORT as a balance sheet. The debit side of the balance sheet is as follows:

SUGAR REQUIRED
Tons
Britain's de-rationed requirement 2,500,000
For sterling export (see HANSARD, 26th January, 1953) 680,000
For Canada—under Commonwealth Sugar Agreement 425,000
TOTAL 3,605,000

The credit side of the balance sheet is as follows:

SUGAR FORTHCOMING
Tons
From U.K. beet crop 625,000
From Commonwealth sugar agreement 1,800,000
(1953 expectation)
From dollar sources, Cuba, Puerto Rico and San Domingo to replace Canada's sugar from Empire Pool 425,000
From East German, Polish and Czech sources 200,000
From Formosa for Eastern Commonwealth countries 200,000
NETT SHORTAGE 355,000
TOTAL 3,605,000

The shortage of sugar shown in the balance sheet, according to my statistics, and I am well advised in this matter, is 355,000 tons in 1953, compared with the figure which the Chancellor gave of 750,000 tons required to de-ration. What would be the cost of buying that 355,000 tons of sugar at current prices? I am reliably informed that if bought from dollar sources it would be 28,500,000 dollars or £10 million. I enter the caveat in connection with the figures which I have quoted that I would not suggest for one moment that there are not other sources of sugar available for smaller quantities.

I am only quoting the main importations. In fact, we recently bought 60,000 tons of sugar with sterling from Brazil, and we had an offer of 100,000 tons of sugar from Spain that could have been bought with sterling. Those are spot purchases that are available, but the figures in my balance sheet show the general and normal run of purchases that we can anticipate in 1953.

It being Four o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. R. Thompson.]

Mr. Nabarro

I turn now to the statement that is so often made in this House and elsewhere that we cannot de-ration sugar unless we spend a lot of extra dollars. This is quite a controversial matter. The Government say that we must have extra dollars, but the people who ought to know more than anybody else in the wide world, the refiners, say otherwise. Lord Lyle of Westbourne said on 13th November last in an article in the "Financial Times "that no extra dollars would be required to de-ration sugar, and he advanced a number of arguments as to why he took that view.

I would not seek to adjudicate in this matter, but it is a question that urgently requires clarification. I hope that my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury will seek to clarify it when he replies to this debate. Here is a difficulty which arises in this argument. I said that Canada buys 425,000 tons of sugar from the Commonwealth Pool and pays in dollars, and with the dollars we buy an equivalent quantity of sugar from Cuba, Puerto Rico and San Domingo. It is not strictly true therefore, to say that we can dispense with that dollar transaction, for if Canada went elsewhere than to the Empire Pool-and I do not want her to do so-to buy her 425,000 tons of sugar, we should not earn the dollars that we employ to buy the Cuban and other dollar sugar. There is also the long-term difficulty that there will not be any shortage of sugar in the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth or elsewhere in three or four years time when the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement comes to full fruition and provides 2,375,000 tons per annum.

It would be not only a great trading mistake generally but also a great mistake from the point of view of Empire security and internal Commonwealth trade to drive the Canadians from the Empire pool into buying their sugar elsewhere. I believe that it is quite right and proper that this sugar should continue to flow to Canada and that we, as a temporary expedient, should use the dollars to replace that sugar from the West Indian dollar sources. But it is equally true to say—and I hope that the Financial Secretary will heed these words particularly carefully—that it was Britain that provided the extra capital to promote the increase in production of cane sugar in the Empire countries. It has been Britain that has provided the capital since the end of the war—for what purpose? It was not for the purpose of selling to the dollar areas to earn hard currency. The purpose of it was to increase the flow of sugar into the United Kingdom to enable us to get rid of sugar rationing.

If we continue with the trends of the last few years, there will develop a situation in which, as more and more sugar is produced in the sterling area it is used provide more and more dollars by selling it to the hard currency areas, and the British housewife will face sugar rationing for the remainder of her life. That capital investment in the Colonies under the Empire Sugar Agreement was primarily to de-ration sugar here. Also our guaranteed purchases from the Empire Sugar Pool are generally at higher than world prices.

Let me return to statistics for a moment or two. It is very instructive to survey the consumption of sugar in the United Kingdom today compared with pre-war years, and in several of the Commonwealth countries. Of the exporting countries in the Commonwealth, Australia, including Fiji Islands, consumed in 1938 354,000 tons of sugar; in 1953 they will consume 512,000 tons. Australia has increased her consumption by 44 per cent. Africa—that is the exporting Commonwealth countries in Africa, including Mauritius—consumed 272,000 tons in 1938, and in 1953 will consume 615,000 tons, an increase of 123 per cent. The British West Indies consumed in 1938 53,000 tons, and in 1953 will consume 128,000 tons, an increase of 137 per cent.

Of the importing countries in the Commonwealth, the Far Eastern group consumed 317,000 tons in 1938, and in 1953 will consume 455,000 tons, an increase of 43 per cent. The Middle East group of Commonwealth countries consumed 33,000 tons in 1938, and in 1953 will consume 42,000 tons, an increase of 27 per cent. The Africa group of Commonwealth countries who still import sugar consumed 84,000 tons in 1938, and in 1953 will consume 230,000 tons, an increase of 175 per cent. All those areas show very large increases in consumption.

What about Britain? In 1938 the consumption was 2,400,000 tons, and in 1953 it will be 2,145,000 tons, a decline of 11 per cent., whereas other parts of the Commonwealth show a very large increase in sugar consumption. It is not very fair to the British housewife or to the 50 million people who live in these islands. Perhaps what is even more inequitable is that sugar should be singled out for a unique position in our economy. Every Colony and Dominion at present is responsible for finding its own supplies, from its own dollar resources or otherwise, for commodities and foodstuffs other than sugar. Sugar is allocated for sterling and has been singled out for this special treatment with the result that the United Kingdom finds itself in such a singularly unfavourable position.

I want to say one or two words about sugar-tobacco switches and sugar-grain switches. On 20th January I asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer a number of questions about possibilities for substituting dollar purchases of sugar for dollar purchases of tobacco. It is a possibility. I shall return to that point in a moment. The argument against it from the Chancellor's point of view is that he reckons he would lose £300 million of revenue if such a switch were carried through. But there is a much more powerful argument in connection with wheat. If we bought 500,000 tons of extra sugar from dollar sources we would have to sacrifice 600,000 tons of wheat from the same sources.

The values of those two commodities in those quantities are approximately equal, at 45 million dollars calculated at to-day's prices. Why should not that be possible? There has been a shocking waste of bread in this country in the last few years, due in part to the rationing of feedingstuffs and the feeding of bread to pigs. I hope that with the free market in feedingstuffs that will diminish but there is still a shocking wastage of bread to be seen outside every restaurant and in dustbins all over the country, much of which is costing us dollars in the form of imported grain.

I will sum up all these matters by a simple proposition. I think I am right in saying that something in the order of 28¼–30 million dollars—something in the order of £10–£12 million—of extra sugar imports is required before we can de-ration sugar. How are we to save that amount of currency in other directions.

The first saving I should very much like to see is in the expenditure of dollars on American films. They cost £6 million this year. I hope the Chancellor will heed these references because on the 20th January of this year he said: … the whole question is also always under review.""—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th January,1953; Vol. 510, c. 6.] That was in reply to the hon. and gallant Member for Brixton (Lieut.-Colonel Lipton), whom I am glad to see here supporting me this afternoon. We should cut out part of these film imports.

Lieut.-Colonel Marcus Lipton (Brixton)

Cut out all the film imports.

Mr. Nabarro

It would not be possible to cut out all film imports because of the reciprocal arrangements which make it possible for British films to earn foreign currency. The second proposal which I think is fairly capable of achievement at an early date is to switch a minimum of £3 million or £4 million of dollar expenditure on tobacco to non-dollar sources where, in many areas, there are surpluses.

The third proposal is most certainly to cut grain imports from dollar areas by a few million pounds £3 million or £4 million per annum"—I think that amount could easily be saved and offset by less wastage of bread. These recourses should enable us to find enough dollars to de-ration sugar in the course of the next six or eight months. No one can deny that for social reasons, diatetic reasons, financial reasons and economic reasons there are the most powerful arguments for de-rationing sugar.

I hope the Financial Secretary to the Treasury has been able to take a note of the mass of figures I have mentioned this afternoon. This is perhaps a controversial subject, but although the Treasury may not agree with all that I have said, they will certainly agree with quite a lot of it. Within our food economy, in prevailing circumstances. it is of over-riding importance that we follow the de-rationing of sweets by throwing overboard the rationing of sugar at the earliest possible moment.

4.14 p.m.

Mr. A. G. Bottomley (Rochester and Chatham)

I am grateful to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury for affording me a few minutes to make one or two comments. The hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) has really said, "Let us have the de-rationing of sugar even if we have to spend dollars to do it." But he will attain his objective without the spending of dollars. He is very pleased about the de-rationing of sweets and confectionery; but that has only become possible because less and less is being consumed owing to the high prices, and in due course it will be found that the sweet manufacturers will not require so much sugar and there will therefore be more sugar available for the home market and the Government will be able to say, "We shall de-ration sugar."

I am sure the Financial Secretary would be the first to admit that the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement of December, 1951, is a very important agreement and one which will assure us of our sugar supplies for a long time to come. I think he would readily recognise that a great bulk of the work in connection with that agreement was done by his precedessor in office; but we join together in having achieved a most successful agreement.

I want to know whether it is the Government's intention to continue that agreement. Under it, we are to get from the West Indies very substantial supplies for eight years. commencing in 1953. We shall take 640,000 tons of sugar at a guaranteed price and then up to 900,000 tons. We shall purchase the difference between the 640.000 tons and the 900.000 tons at world prices, plus a preference. We ought to give all the support we can to the West Indies and we ought not to interfere with an agreement already made.

What I want to ask the Parliamentary Secretary is whether we shall continue bulk buying. May I take it that there is no intention on the part of the Government to give this buying back to the private trade? He ought to be in a position to give us that assurance if we are to be assured of this regular supply of sugar from the Commonwealth countries.

The hon. Member for Kidderminster said that 2,500,000 tons of sugar would be required for our normal supplies if we abolished rationing. I think it is a little more than that. About 50,000 tons more than that are required. Perhaps the Financial Secretary can tell us what amount is in the country for issue under de-rationing and whether that full amount of 2,550,000 tons a year would be made available. That would be useful to know. If it is not available, perhaps he could give some idea of the amount involved.

A good deal more could be said on the subject, but I do not want to take up the time of the Financial Secretary. As I have said, I am grateful to him for affording me this opportunity.

4.16 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter)

Mr. Pitt once convulsed this House by beginning a speech with the words, "Sugar, Mr. Speaker," and that is an illustration of the fact that this topic has been discussed once or twice before in the long history of the House. I must say that, as I listened to the robust and I might almost say rumbustious eloquence of my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), the whole thing had a somewhat agreeable eighteenth century ring about it.

Let me say at once, however, that my hon. Friend is wrong when he says that this is in any true sense of the term a contentious matter. The Government fully sympathise with my hon. Friend's general purpose. We, at any rate, have no affection for rationing for rationing's sake, as, indeed, we have made abundantly clear in recent months not merely by words but by deeds.

In this context I think that my right hon. and gallant Friend the Minister of Food is entitled to reassure my hon. Friend about his attitude and that of the Government on the general question from the fact that tea, sweets and gammon have been de-rationed. I hope, therefore, that the House will be prepared to proceed on the basis that there is no desire on the part of the Government to retain rationing except where it is necessary to secure a proper and fair distribution of commodities which are—I will not use the Ministry of Food's jargon, "in short supply," for I prefer the word "scarce."

The more freedom of choice we give to the consumer and, equally, the more administrative savings which we can make through the dismantling of controls which have outlived their necessity, obviously the more pleased we shall be. Equally, however, we are bound to maintain, and fully intend to maintain, rationing of these commodities until the supplies are adequate.

We come, therefore, to what is, in a phrase which I think hon. Members will associate with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, the crunch of this matter—whether or not, at this moment, supplies exist and can be obtained to raise the quantities available to the amount required to make de-rationing possible. I do not think there is very much dispute about the figure required to attain that desirable end. As the right hon. Member for Rochester and Chatham (Mr. Bottomley) pointed out, my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster under-stated it by a matter of 50,000 tons, but I do not think any of us would be concerned to argue very much about it; it is a figure of that order.

Before I proceed further into the discussion perhaps I may seek to answer two points which the right hon. Member for Rochester interposed. In the first place, there is, naturally, no intention of violating the West Indian agreement. As to his other point, he knows the answer normally given from this Box on the subject of levels of specific stocks.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster himself put to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor a question which accepted the fact that to reach the right level to permit of de-rationing an increase in the first year of 750,000 tons would be required and subsequently 500,000 tons a year. Those figures take into account, quite properly. the fact that when a commodity becomes de-controlled we have to build up further stocks since the demand has necessarily become uncertain and there is a certain wisdom in making larger provision in the first year. I gather that there is no difference between my hon. Friend and myself that to reach that position some increase in purchases of sugar would be necessary.

In the ingenious figures in what, with considerable appropriateness, my hon. Friend described as an over-simplified balance sheet, he did not dispute that some such increase was required, though he took the view that by various manipulations the amount at issue could be a little smaller than has been suggested. I shall study those figures with great interest, an interest somewhat accentuated by my speculation as to whether the OFFICIAL REPORT Will be able to appear in the novel form suggested by my hon. Friend.

Mr. Nabarro

The Editor assures me that he will publish them in that form for the benefit of the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

I am sure they will not be for my benefit in any narrow or restrictive sense. I am sure my hon. Friend should express his gratitude for the versatility of the OFFICIAL REPORT, and if he thinks this balance sheet conveys anything, he will no doubt think it is for the benefit of all who read it. I am no monopolist. So far as the oversimplification, which my hon. Friend admitted, is concerned may I first make it clear that the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement, with the contemplated figure of £2,345,000 tons in some years time, was calculated on the basis not only of the substantial Canadian share but also on the passing on of some, though admittedly much smaller shares, to certain parts of the sterling Commonwealth. Therefore. it was not quite right for my hon. Friend, in the course of his ingenious calculations, to proceed on the basis that the whole amount of the sugar in the agreement is necessarily available for people in this country.

Nothing is more invidious than comparisons between what is available to people who are fellow subjects of the Crown in different parts of the Commonwealth. But when my hon. Friend put such weight on the proposition that only in this country is sugar rationed whereas in other countries benefitting from the general sugar arrangements for the sterling area it is unrationed, I must point out that, taking 1951—the latest figure available—whereas consumption in this country under rationing was at the rate of 89½ lb. a head per year, in Southern Rhodesia, one of the countries concerned with sugar originating under the Agreement, it was as low as 29½ lb. a head.

Therefore, to use his own phrase, it is again an over-simplification to say that one person is rationed and the other is not, and that it therefore shows a tremendous prejudice in favour of the one as against the other. I do not want to go further into those comparisons.

Mr. Bottomley

Population figures are important.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter

No; population figures have nothing to do with it, because it is consumption lb. per head. It is consumption in lb. per head, and it would be precisely the same calculation if it were for one man or 10 million. I do not want to go into further comparisons which are, in some degree at any rate, invidious among our own fellow subjects under the Crown.

My hon. Friend's practical proposals for meeting the gap merit one or two comments in the very short time that is left to me. He made the comment that a certain amount could be obtained from Eastern Europe—that is perfectly true—mainly, I understand, from Poland and Czechoslovakia. One of the complications is that that sugar would be refined, manufactured sugar and therefore inevitably more expensive than the raw sugar which we draw from the West Indies.

It would involve, therefore, to our balance of payments the additional burden of the cost of refining the sugar as compared with sugar from the other sources, and as such would add seriously to the burden on our foreign exchange. I am bound to tell my hon. Friend that although, like him, I attach great importance to dollar expenditure, foreign exchange expenditure is at least a matter which it is important to take into account; and the fact that the sugar can be obtained from non-dollar sources does not as it were constitute it a bonus.

I think that my hon. Friend was becoming a little more realistic when he suggested that the matter should be dealt with by a sacrifice of other imports. He mentioned, first, tobacco. The suggestion that he put to my right hon. Friend in a Question on 20th January would have involved in substance a halving of our dollar tobacco imports. The House will acquit me of any partiality, because I am a non-smoker, but there is no doubt whatever that such a reduction of tobacco consumption would cause, to put it no higher, a great deal of resentment and discomfort. It was certainly our experience during the war that a real heavy reduction in tobacco of that sort is apt to have a bad effect on morale, and also on production owing to the time wasted in queues at tobacconists.

There is, equally, the revenue aspect of the matter. My hon. Friend's proposal, as he was told by my right hon. Friend, would have involved revenue of about £300 million a year. I should be out of order if I indulged in conjectures as to the directions in which it would be necessary to turn to reimburse the Exchequer for a loss of that sort.

My hon. Friend then suggested a reduction in grain imports, but he made no suggestion about how the consequential reductions, which would, no doubt, be necessitated by such a reduction in grain consumption, should be effected. I should not be prepared necessarily to contradict my hon. Friend very far when he says that bread is wasted. But, on the other hand, if he desires to secure a reduction in bread consumption, it is for him to suggest in what way the reduction should be secured.

The final and fundamental error of my hon. Friend is that he sought to deal with sugar in isolation. He said, in terms, that it was wrong to earn dollars as a result of the investment in the Commonwealth sugar scheme. That is a wholly unrealistic attitude. It is essential to look at our economy and the pattern of our imports as a whole, and to decide as reasonably and fairly as may be in what directions expenditure can be arranged and permitted. But to seek to isolate one commodity—admittedly, a most agreeable one—and to say that it must be treated as sacrosanct, is quite a mistake.

Indeed, my hon. Friend went further and suggested that other commodities were bought by other members of the sterling area from their own dollar resources and that this distinguished them from sugar. In fact, as the House is aware, the dollar calls for the whole of the sterling area involve liabilities on the sterling area dollar pool. Therefore, the distinction that my hon. Friend sought to draw was a wholly unrealistic one.

But I assure my hon. Friend that it is our intention, with this commodity as with all others, to press forward as vigorously as we can. We do not like the necessity to ration which arises from the difficulty either of obtaining or of purchasing supplies. We are at least as anxious as my hon. Friend to bring that to an end, and we shall certainly work in that direction.

The Question having been proposed at Four o'Clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Half-past Four o'Clock.