HC Deb 18 April 1956 vol 551 cc1137-46

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

9.55 p.m.

Sir Ian Fraser (Morecambe and Lonsdale)

The shrimps which are caught in Morecambe Bay are famous. They are eaten in palace and in cottage. We in this House enjoy them from time to time.

The process by which they are brought to us at our table is that fishermen go out and net them in the shallows in Morecambe Bay or in boats in the deeper water. They catch them and land them. If they have landed but a few they pick them themselves in their own homes. If they happen to land a large catch they cannot pick them in their own homes so they distribute them among the homes of their neighbours.

Many families have for a very long time, possibly a hundred years or more, traditionally picked shrimps. They bring them back to the person who landed them and he does one of two things with them. He either sells them by retail himself or he takes them to a Co-operative society, to a merchant or to a person who pots them by pouring butter over them and thus producing the famous potted shrimps. Whether they are sold by retail or potted, they are boiled.

I have been poisoned more than once in my life by eating oysters. Indeed, a friend of mine who has been dining with me tonight told me that he was poisoned by an oyster only the other day. I have been poisoned by eating ice cream within the last two or three years. Though I have been the Member for the Morecambe constituency for fifteen years and have eaten thousands of shrimps I have never been poisoned by eating a shrimp, nor have I been able to find anybody who has. The shrimp is, indeed, a wholesome, fresh and delicious food, with a great reputation.

Regulation 7 of the Food Hygiene Regulations, 1955, provides that where food is prepared in a home or in domestic premises it may be sold by retail by the person owning those domestic premises. It may be prepared by him and sold by him but he may not parcel it out, so to speak, in neighbouring homes to be prepared or partially prepared there. He may only prepare it in his own home if it is going forward to be potted in a potting factory or plant or in a Co-operative society's premises. The Regulation will have the effect, after 1st July next, that hundreds of shrimp-picking families in my constituency will be greatly embarrassed, and a useful and wholesome trade will be damaged. Many people will be deprived of their shrimps or will find that they cost more because little factories will have to be set up in which to pick them.

Imagine yourself, Mr. Speaker, trying to run a little factory in which shrimps are to be picked. You do not know at what time of the day or night the shrimps will come in, so you have to hold your staff, if you have any, and more than half the time you find that there is nothing for them to do. Obviously it will be an uneconomic and almost ridiculous business. On the other hand, if the present position is left as it is these families, which contain many old people as well as housewives, can do the picking in their spare time as they please. The money which they get means a good deal to them.

If this Regulation is continued in its present form it will cause great hardship to many hundreds of my constituents. It will damage a long-established trade with a very great reputation, and it will not do any good to anybody while doing much harm to many.

I would also call attention to the fact that it will introduce a principle which I feel must be abhorrent to hon. Members on both sides of the House, that is the principle of discrimination. Regulation 7 of the Food Hygiene Regulations, 1955, says, in effect, that one house may be clean but another house must be presumed to be not clean, especially if it is a small one.

It being Ten 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. Legh.]

Sir I. Fraser

I suggest that this discrimination is one which we ought not to tolerate. If factories were set up for the picking of shrimps, I doubt very much whether the staffs could be obtained. I doubt whether proper wages could be paid to them, because there would be no full-time work, and nobody would wish that they should be paid inadequately. Therefore, this Regulation, I am sure quite unwittingly, would produce a situation damaging to existing tradition and to a good supply of clean wholesome food, and would be harmful to my constituents. I ask the House, for that reason, to support me in asking the Ministry of Health to alter the Regulation.

The shrimp fishermen do not wind their houses being registered, just as a factory might be registered. They do not mind their houses being inspected. They are inspected at present by the sanitary authority. The fishermen have nothing to fear, because they are proud of the wholesome cleanliness of the product which they have produced for so long and want to go on producing.

I greatly appreciate the interest which my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health has taken in this matter. I thank her for already having sent doctors and inspectors from her Department to see this trade and how it is conducted in my constituency and elsewhere. I hope that the interest and sympathy which she has shown will take practical effect in one of two ways.

I ask my hon. Friend to alter Regulation 7 before 1st July and, if possible, tell the House tonight that she is going to do so in order to remove uncertainty. If she cannot tonight say that she will alter the Regulation, because she is not ready to do so, I ask that she should postpone its operation and that of any other relevant Regulations so that she and her Ministry may have more time to consider what is fair and right to all concerned, so as to preserve this traditional, valuable and most delicious product.

10.2 p.m.

Colonel C. G. Lancaster (South Fylde)

I should like to support briefly the case which my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser) has made on behalf of the shrimp fishermen. It would be tedious to the House if I were to go over the ground which my hon. Friend has covered so clearly and comprehensively. Just as in Morecambe, this is an old industry in Lytham which has been carried on in much the same way. The same problem arises. When there is a reasonably large catch, the shrimps have to be parcelled out among relations and neighbours of the fishermen, who do the necessary work of preparation in exactly the same circumstances as those in which the fisherman himself would do it if he were able, as he sometimes is, to deal with the whole catch himself.

As my hon. Friend said, these fishermen and their relations and friends recognise that the picking must be done in hygienic conditions. They are very ready to have their houses and premises inspected and, if necessary, registered so that the industry can be carried on in conditions which everyone would wish to see. I must agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend when he says that the alternative simply would not work. It would be extremely expensive and very casual, and it is doubtful whether the majority of the people who are at present doing the picking would be available to do it in some central depot. Many of them are older, retired people who are able, in their domestic arrangements, to do this job at home but who would find it almost impossible to carry out in some central place.

I likewise agree with my hon. Friend that the present Regulation introduces a degree of discrimination about which none of us is very happy. If the fisherman's home is not clean, it is doubtful whether his neighbour's home is likewise clean, but if it is clean, then one can assume an equal degree of cleanliness in other premises.

In the light of all these considerations, I am encouraged to hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will find it possible this evening to make some arrangements by which this whole matter will be reviewed, so that a Regulation which, if it was enforced, would bring a good deal of distress and indeed some economic problems in its train to my constituency, will be set aside, and arrangements made to carry on in the traditional way in which this industry has been carried on.

10.7 p.m.

Mr. R. Fleetwood-Hesketh (Southport)

I, too, should like to support my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Sir Ian Fraser). Southport, like Morecambe and Lytham, is famous for shrimps, and, equally, the industry there has been established for a very long time, longer indeed than the town itself. The method of catching and shelling is exactly the same as that described by my hon. Friend in dealing with Morecambe.

There are three points which I feel should be borne in mind in considering this question. First, although the shrimping season goes on from about now to the end of the year, the only time when the really heavy catches are made, when the shrimps are distributed among fishermen's families and friends, are the three months of the late summer—a very short period. The second point is that the catch entirely depends on the tides, so that pickers may be needed at any time of the day or night. The third is the length of time involved in each shelling. At one time one might have nothing to do at all, and at another time a fisherman might come in with a catch which may take two hours to shell. The length of time involved changes from day to day.

The industry has been working for generations on the basis of sending the shrimps for shelling to the wives and families of the fishermen in their homes, so that they could keep an eye on their household jobs and their children while they were doing the shelling. I think that everybody agrees that if there really is any danger to public health, we must accept the position, but, so far as my own inquiries have led me in Southport, there is no single instance of a case of food poisoning from shrimps having been discovered. For that reason, I very gladly support my hon. Friend.

10.9 p.m.

Mr. G. R. Howard (St. Ives)

I should like to join with my hon. Friends in supporting my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Sir Ian Fraser) and to congratulate him on the considerable amount of work he has done in this matter, and to put one point which has not been mentioned so far.

I was recently making inquiries of the secretary of a fisheries committee into this matter, and I was told by one of these men that, if we do this, we should have to put a ban on all imports of Dutch shrimps. When I asked why, I was told that the reason is that many people use Dutch shrimps. As far as I can discover, they are picked by hand in the people's homes, and if our people were to suffer from this disqualification, it is only fair that all imports of Dutch shrimps should be stopped as well.

An important part of this question is that of the registration of premises. A fisherman told me that they have no objection at all to, and, in fact, would welcome, the registration of premises, because they realise that it would dispel any idea that these shrimps are not picked in a hygienic manner. As has been said, once they have been picked they are boiled, and if there is any danger of infection it disappears on boiling.

Women who have to look after their children could not possibly go into factories. I have seen one of these small factories, and I do not think they could possibly be operated on the scale suggested. As has been said, the times vary according to the tides and the amount of the catch; they are so variable that one could not run a factory on this basis.

It seems to me that this is one of those things which get into hygiene regulations under an optimum clause which covers a great many other things and that it was not intended to deal with shrimps in this way. In support of my hon. Friend, I hope that the Ministry will look again at the matter and will give an answer which will reassure those people who are producing a food which we all like so much.

10.12 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Patricia Hornsby-Smith)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser) not only for the way in which he has raised this matter, but also for the great courtesy which he has shown in keeping us apprised of the various efforts that he has been making in this direction. I welcome the support of other hon. Members who are equally concerned about this industry. It concerns small businesses but is, nevertheless, a large issue in their constituencies. Certainly, the industry in Morecambe is internationally famed. I appreciate the great importance of the industry to my hon. Friend's constituency, and I think he appreciates how this difficulty—and it is a difficulty—has arisen.

Regulation 7 of the Food Hygiene Regulations, which applies to food generally, makes it an offence for a person to give out any food for preparation or packing by another person for reward on or about domestic premises other than his own. The Regulation is to come into force on 1st July, 1956.

The 1955 Act required the Minister to refer the proposed Regulations to the Food Hygiene Advisory Council. That Council expressed the view that the preparation of food by outworkers was as objectionable as the wrapping of food by them—a provision which the Ministers were already proposing to include—as it was impossible, in the vast majority of processes, for the food trader concerned to exercise in private houses the hygienic supervision which the public had reason to feel should be exercised by him over the food which he would subsequently sell or supply to the public.

One must also recognise that it is extremely difficult for the local authority to ensure, by inspection of outworkers' premises, that proper standards of hygiene are maintained. For one thing, people do not like inspection in their private houses. Such inspection as is normally accepted as part of the general procedure in practice is not easily undertaken.

I appreciate that on the Lancashire coast this type of outworker is of long standing and that shrimp fishermen have been accustomed, when they could not cope with the task of picking their catch in their own homes, to find relatives and friends to help cope with the catch in the shortest possible time.

On 5th March, in reply to a Question by my hon. Friend, I gave him an assurance that the Minister and the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food would consider this question and go into it in detail. As he has said, as a result, a medical officer of the Ministry of Health, the district fisheries inspector and a member of the staff of the Fisheries Research Station of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food at Conway, visited Flookburgh, Morecambe, Fleetwood and Lytham. They had discussions with the fishermen and shrimp dealers and the medical officers of health and sanitary inspectors of the districts concerned, and they also visited some of the outworkers' houses.

As hon. Members know, conditions in the shrimping industry are not uniform. At Fleetwood, for example, practically all the picking is done centrally. Else- where, it is done in domestic premises and where, as in many cases, they are the fishermen's own homes, they are not affected by Regulation 7. The homes of the outworkers, however, are affected.

In these other areas—I accept the case put by my hon. Friends tonight—it is the opinion that central picking would not be satisfactory. Despite the difficulties of the variation in the demand for labour and the piecework nature of the work required, nevertheless the inspections so recently undertaken showed that some of the outworkers' premises were very clean. Others, however, were not suitable and there were, in fact, instances of bad conditions.

In Morecambe there is an informal system of registration. The two employers co-operate with the local authority, satisfying themselves that the home has reached a suitable standard of hygiene and then obtaining a report from the public health department. In some of the other places, however, there appears to be little or no discrimination in the choice of outworkers.

My hon. Friends have all said that the shrimps are boiled. The potted shrimps certainly are treated with butter or margarine, and to that extent are termed "boiled"; but roughly 5 per cent. of the shrimps which are picked are sold direct and not potted. At Flookburgh, Lytham and Fleetwood they are sprinkled with salt, scalded with boiling water from a kettle, drained through a colander and dried with a cloth before packing or dispatch. At Morecambe, where 5 per cent. of the catch is sold picked and not potted, they are neither scalded, salted nor treated in this way. Therefore, if there were contamination, there would be a loophole through which it could spread. As far as the potted shrimps are concerned, they are heated with butter or margarine.

One difference which my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale may have slightly misunderstood is that the premises used for potting have since the Food and Drugs Act, 1938, been subject to registration with the local authority, which has had power to cancel registration if conditions were unsuitable. The trade, therefore, has had to conform to certain hygienic standards. No such control, however, applies to the outworkers' premises, where the shrimps are prepared for potting. The remainder of the picked shrimps, as I have said, may be sold through the fishmongers and in the markets.

Shrimp meat, like any other fish meat, is capable of carrying disease organisms. There can be no question but that the operation of picking the shrimps should be carried out under properly controlled hygienic condition, as I am sure hon. Members agree. The fishermen concerned have represented to us, as hon. Members have done, that the outright prohibition of the preparation of shrimps by outworkers would lead to a serious decline in their trade. We accept the view that because of the uncertain and varying nature of the demand for workers and the piecework nature of their employment, that is a fair and reasonable view to submit. Whether if the prohibition came into force the decline in the trade would be as serious as is feared, we cannot predict, but clearly, if the Regulation comes into force on 1st July, there might well be a serious dislocation of the shrimp fisheries of Lancashire at the peak point of their season.

Nevertheless, the House will, I know, uphold the principle embodied in the Act that a proper standard of hygiene must be maintained for all food processes wherever they are carried out. The process in question undoubtedly raises a difficult problem and my hon. Friends are justified in bringing it to the House tonight.

We are considering whether any satisfactory alternative method can be applied which would enable the picking to continue to be done under controlled hygienic conditions by suitable outworkers. There is, in principle, no reason why the preparation of food should not be just as hygienic in domestic premises as in a food factory; but it is, we must accept, far more difficult to supervise private premises than factories, even with the willingness of the occupiers to accept inspection by the local authorities.

In a factory, the trade concerned can see to it that the picker does no other task. In the home, as hon. Members have mentioned, housewives help in this task. Washing up or looking after the baby may interfere with the picking, or may be an interlude during picking. Unless the picker is very careful and very scrupulous, such a state of affairs could easily give rise to contamination of the picked shrimps.

There is also the difficulty that people do not always relish inspection of their own homes. I have been assured by hon. Members this evening that in order to co-operate in finding some solution to this problem, shrimp pickers would be prepared to accept inspection.

All those facts have to be considered in our genuine desire to find a solution which will help this long-established industry and, at the same time, maintain proper standards of food hygiene. My right hon. Friends have studied in great detail the reports that we have received from the fishing areas. It is not at the moment possible to say exactly what the final solution may be, as, under the Act, the trade and local authorities have to be consulted about any amending regulations, and the advice of the Food Hygiene Advisory Council must be sought. Obviously, therefore, I cannot anticipate what their reactions to any suggestions put forward may be.

I can, however, give an assurance that if a satisfactory alternative can be evolved which will enable the complete prohibition to be avoided, amending regulations will be laid before the House. This procedure will, however, take time, and I recognise the concern of fishermen in relation to their peak period in the coming months. My right hon. Friends, therefore, feel that it would be wrong to leave the industry in a state of uncertainty until this further conclusion can be reached. They will therefore propose that amending Regulations should be made deferring the date of operation of Regulation 7 for at least six months after 1st July, which will carry over the 1956 shrimping season.

May I add a point on a matter which is in many ways parallel to the one with which I have just dealt. The same assurance would apply in relation to pickled onions. Pickled onions, too, are prepared by outworkers, and certain hon. Members have expressed some concern regarding this industry. Work upon pickled onions would equally be affected by the same provisions I have mentioned in regard to shrimps.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-four minutes past Ten o'clock.