HC Deb 21 November 1956 vol 560 cc1877-89

10.0 p.m.

Mr. G. R. Mitchison (Kettering)

I beg to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Flour (Revocation) Order, 1956 (S.I., 1956, No. 1182), dated 31st July, 1956, a copy of which was laid before this House on 2nd August, in the last Session of Parliament, be annulled. Would it be convenient, Mr. Speaker, if reference were made at the same time to the next Motion on the Order Paper: That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Flour (Composition) Regulations, 1956 (S.I., 1956, No. 1183), dated 31st July, 1956, a copy of which was laid before this House on 2nd August, in the last Session of Parliament, be annulled?

Mr. Speaker

If it is agreeable to the Government, I think that the first two Prayers could well go together. They could both be discussed on the first one. I think that the third Prayer, relating to sugar, is entirely different, but we could take the first two together.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Harmar Nicholls)

I agree with your suggestion that the first two Prayers should be taken together, Mr. Speaker, and that the third one should be taken completely separately.

Mr. Mitchison

If that is in accordance with your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, I beg to move, also—

Mr. Speaker

Order. It is not necessary to do that. If the hon. and learned Member has moved the first Prayer, on that Motion he can discuss the second one, and I shall put the second one formally, if necessary, later. We can have only one Motion at a time.

Mr. Mitchison

I have moved it formally, Mr. Speaker.

10.1 p.m.

Dr. Barnett Stross (Stoke-on-Trent, Central)

I beg to second the Motion.

I think that everyone is aware that our first Motion is quite simple in that it asks only for the revocation of the 1953 Flour Order. By the Flour (Composition) Regulations, however, which are the subject of our second Motion, we are creating certain changes in a very important food, and in bringing that about we on this side; of the House—and, I believe, quite a number of hon. Members on the other side as well—have certain hesitancies and fears about the outcome.

The background of this matter is, J think, well understood by everyone. Sir Jack Drummond, who was the Chief Adviser to the Ministry of Food, in 1942., was responsible at that time for raising the extraction rate to protect the public health of the people and to save us from the dilemma with which we were faced as a result of the shortage of shipping space.

In mentioning Sir Jack Drummond's name, may I say that we who knew him and admired his work so much have never ceased to deplore his tragic and untimely death, and that of his wife and child, while on holiday in France. He was a very great man, a very great expert on nutrition, and I am proud to acknowledge myself, very humbly indeed, as a pupil who learned a great deal from him.

Our case against the Minister falls into three parts. Before I discuss them, may I say that it is not possible to overestimate the importance of bread as a nutritional factor in our diet. I know that the Parliamentary Secretary will agree with me at once when I say that one-third of the calorie intake of our people comes from bread and that it is very important, therefore, that we should know that our bread is as good as possible. There are two conflicting views, and the Minister has come down on one side; I will, however, deal with that in a minute.

Our three grounds on which we attack the Minister for his decision are as follow. First, in accepting the advice of the Panel set up by Lord Adrian at the request of the Minister, and in face of a disagreement, he has disregarded the advice of his own scientific and medical advisers and of the Medical Research Council.

Secondly, we must criticise him because, when the problem had to be examined, the very learned Panel had its terms of reference grossly limited so that it was not able fully to examine the question. It was told that it had to consider one matter only, namely, what is the difference between flour at 80 per cent. extraction unfortified, and flour at 70 per cent. extraction fortified with three token additions, vitamin B, which is needed to protect us from beri-beri, vitamin B 2 needed to protect us from pellagra—from which we do not suffer much in this country—and iron, which, as everybody knows, is necessary for good health to protect us from anæmia.

As the terms of reference clearly stated, those were the only three things the Panel was told to consider. As a result, therefore, it was not for the Panel to take note, except in passing, of other factors which are removed from the wheat berry when the extraction rate is lowered to 70 per cent., as compared with 80 per cent.

As is made quite clear in the Report of the Panel, there has been a conflict of opinion and a struggle waged between the Minister's own advisers, both medical and scientific, and the trade. Here is our third ground of criticism, which we wish to press very strongly, that it was to the trade that the Minister has listened. The Panel thought the weight of evidence lay with the trade. We say that the Minister has listened much too easily to the millers, who have always preferred the whitest possible type of flour.

We know why the millers have this preference. There are three reasons, which I will give very shortly. First, they say that it meets popular demand. We know, to go back to the thirteenth century, that London, or Cheapside at any rate, was known for its white flour, which was the envy and admiration of aristocratic foreigners who came here and found the workers had a whiter flour than they themselves consumed in their own countries.

The truth, as everybody now recognises, is that when white bread was made available but unsubsidised, the public did not make a rush to buy it. Indeed, in many parts of the country it was hardly favoured at all. I doubt whether more than 10 or 15 per cent. of the bread eaten today is pure white. No doubt I may be corrected, because the Minister may have up-to-date figures, but in North Staffordshire it was not favoured until recently. People preferred to buy the national bread, which was subsidised. Whether that preference arose because of the subsidy or because of taste, I do not know. But the millers rely for their case on appearance, and that case we say is not proved.

They, the millers, argue that it is easier to standardise. That is true; it is obviously easier to standardise if extraction is taken down to the 70 per cent. level.

The third reason why the millers like what the Minister is to give them is that the wheat offals can be sold profitably for animal feedingstuffs, or, what is more interesting, as patent foods sold back to people at high prices to prevent them getting the constipation they are liable to suffer as a result of eating white bread. The Minister knows that that is true. I do not wish to mention names, because we do not normally do so, but it is well known that the bran, after being taken away from the flour, is sold back at high prices for this purpose if there is too much for animal foods.

The Panel, in coming to its conclusion, said that 70 per cent. extraction, if there is fortification by the addition to those three token accessory factors I have mentioned—the two vitamins in the B class and iron—would significantly protect the health of the population "in any foreseeable circumstances." They are very guarded words—"in any foreseeable circumstances." As we read the Report we find that the Panel was very nervous at having to disagree with the very eminent disinterested scientists in the Ministry and in the Medical Research Council. Again and again in the Report we see that it is hesitant and worried.

In page 23 the Panel covers itself about the loss of a substance called riboflavin, which is also a vitamin B complex or a constituent of a complex of vitamin B. It says: The Government's plans to safeguard the uptake of riboflavin are linked to its policy for milk rather than to its policy for bread. It did not know then what was to be the Government's policy for milk. Had it known that the Government would increase its price and halve the amount made available free for young children. I wonder whether the Panel would not have been more hesitant. I wonder whether it might not have come down on the other side.

It speaks of "in any foreseeable circumstances". No one can blame the Panel; it did not know. But we may well be short of shipping all over the world for the next year or so until the present difficulties over the Suez Canal are solved. There will be shipping difficulties because grain is very bulky to carry. It was because of our difficulties during the war, following the loss of ships to submarines and bombers, that we went over to a high extraction rate. When we did so we found that it not only eased our shipping problem, but that we received a great advantage to the health of the community, much greater than we had expected. We were dealing with a new, strange subject. None of us had known such an experiment in our history.

In its criticism of what the Minister is doing the Medical Research Council makes two points. It says, first, that in addition to the three token substances which I have mentioned and which I will not repeat by name, there are others which we know. They elaborate four more. Again, I will not mention their names; some of them are a little unusual and difficult to spell. Those four are all vitamins; they are accessory factors. We suspect that they are absolutely essential for health, but we do not know as much about them as we do about the other three, vitamins B 1, B 2 and iron. We nevertheless have a right to suspect, unless there is proof to the contrary, that they are essential to the health of the individual.

If a man has a mixed and reasonably good diet he will pick up these substances elsewhere in his diet, but in the Report the Panel took careful note of the fact that at least 10 per cent. of the people tend, in their early life-time, while they are children, to be deficient of these particular substances. Their diet may improve when they grow older and become wage earners, but if they are children of poor homes, or children whose parents are ignorant and choose things by appearance rather than for the sake of knowledge—if they are English rather than Scots—they may well find that they suffer in their tender years and that it is too late to obtain a full remedy when they are grown up and consume a better diet.

The Medical Research Council declares that a 70 per cent. extraction flour, which is to be imposed upon us by this Order, fortified as declared, must therefore lead to a reduction in some of the nutrients. The Council means the four which we know, but I think it is fair to say that there may be others which we have not yet discovered. We must be fair about this. The Medical Research Council uses a most interesting sentence: This constitutes a risk which can be avoided. Of course it can be avoided. It can be avoided by the Minister's having the good sense to take back these provisions and to realise that they are not safe, and that we should be far better off using the 80 per cent. extraction.

The conclusion one is forced to is that during the war we were very well served by the higher extraction rate. We were very well served after the war. I will give two illustrations. In the late 'twenties some children, many hundreds of them—a very large sample for the experiment—in the East End of London, all aged five, had their teeth examined to see how much dental decay and caries they suffered from. By using a very special technique it was found that only five out of a hundred of those children at that time were entirely free from all dental decay. In 1948 to 1949 another experiment was carried out through three surveys in the same schools, all the children being aged five, with the same technique being used. It was discovered that well over 30 per cent.—not 5 per cent.—of the children were entirely free from dental decay.

Why was that? During the war we had a change in the quality of our bread. During the war there was a better distribution of milk. During the war there were less sugar and sweets for the children. I think those were the three reasons, and probably the most important ones were the better distribution of milk and the change in the quality of the bread.

My next illustration is drawn from personal experience. I noted that when the men came back when the war was over in 1945 there tended to be a rapid rise in the number of women having babies. We call that increase in the number of babies the "bulge" in the schools now. Those children are now-passing into the secondary schools. I had lived and worked in my constituency as a medical man, delivering many women of their babies, for very many years—since 1925. I noticed that dramatic change in the circumstances of the birth rate. The women, of course, tended to be older when they had their babies, for their men had been away at the war. Women of up to even 40 years of age, and having their first let alone their second or third child, were being delivered of their children with ease, and without complications of any kind.

It was a most remarkable situation. There were these factors in that situation, the ante-natal clinical treatment, the vitamin and calcium tablets mothers were given, and, again, the bread, and there was the milk distribution. There was the quality of the bread and there was the fact that it had become fashionable to drink more milk and that the mothers could get it because steps were taken to see they did.

I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary not to be obdurate about this, because we know that this is a tried safety measure. This tried safety measure, which we know was good and secured us against ill-health, is to be discarded for an untried substitute. Those words are not mine, but taken from the editorial of the British Medical Journal of 9th June this year. The medical profession is deeply sorry that the Government are taking this step. This is not a political issue. We believe that it is a great mistake. I hope that it is not too late for the Parliamentary Secretary to tell us that the Government have had second thoughts about this. If it is imposed, and if, as the years go by— and it will take ten years to make certain—we find that the standard of health of the nation is falling off we shall have to place the blame squarely where it ought to lie and say that on this night a shameful thing was done because we were not listened to in time.

10.20 p.m.

Mr. C. N. Thornton-Kemsley (North Angus and Mearns)

The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) is always persuasive and, of course, is listened to with great respect if only because he is a member of the medical profession and naturally knows what he is talking about on a subject such as this. I rise because the hon. Member implied that there were hon. Members on this side of the House and on his own who were anxious about the Government's policy. I do not think that that is true of this side of the House. If it were, my hon. Friends would be here in force. I think that there are just about the same number of hon. Members on each side at present. It is not a bad thing to put it on the record. Let us face the fact that there are at the moment four hon. Members on the Opposition side of the House and seven on this side.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Charles MacAndrew)

Is the hon. Gentleman drawing my attention to the fact that there are not 40 Members present?

Mr. Thornton-Kemsley

No, Sir. I am not calling attention to that fact. I am quite sure that there are that number outside, but it reinforces my point that there is not really such indignation about the Government's action.

The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central said that the Government had disregarded the advice of their own experts on this matter. I would remind him of its history, which I am sure he well knows. I would recall how, in 1945, the conference on the post-war loaf, which the Government convened, recommended that on the decontrol of the milling industry, regulations drawn up by the Government ought to provide that flour must contain not less than certain specified quantities of the three token nutrients which the hon. Member has mentioned.

In order to determine the value of low-extraction flour suitably enriched by these three token nutrients—two of the B vitamin group and iron—experiments were held in German orphanages after the war by Professor R. A. McCance and Dr. E. M. Widdowson. Those experiments proved conclusively, as I am sure the hon. Member knows, that reinforced low-extraction flour was a perfectly good substitute for high-extraction flour which derives its vitamin contents from the darker portion of the wheat grain.

Dr. Stross

I think that the hon. Member would remember also, however, that it has since been pointed out by the two eminent gentlemen who conducted the experiment that they would not like too much to be inferred from one experiment, especially since it was conducted on German children who had suffered from a very low diet until they were handed over to them.

Mr. Thornton-Kemsley

That is a good point.

Because medical opinion and lay opinion in this country was still divided on whether synthetic enrichment was a good thing, the Government invited the President of the Royal Society to appoint an independent panel to advise them on this matter. The Panel consisted of accepted authorities, representative of the scientific and medical professions.

It seems to me that when the Government do not appoint a panel of that kind themselves but nominate a man of the eminence of the President of the Royal Society to appoint it, and the Panel arrives at the finding that white bread is an excellent food and that the available evidence does not reveal any ascertainable difference between national flour and ffours of extraction rate less than national flour to which vitamin B, nicotinic acid and iron has been added, we must accept it, otherwise it seems to me that there is no finality whatsoever.

10.25 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Hat-mar Nicholls)

I should like to join with my hon. Friend the Member for North Angus (Mr. Thornton-Kemsley) in saying how much we always enjoy listening to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross). His sincerity is beyond question, and he has a manner which, if he had a good case at all, would win us all over without any doubt. On this occasion, I do not think that he had such a case.

We dealt with most of the arguments produced by the hon. Gentleman tonight during an Adjournment debate initiated by his hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Dodds) on 16th July. I suggest, therefore, that as those points were dealt with in detail on that occasion, it may not be necessary for me to spend so much time on them tonight, especially as there is another Prayer to follow this one.

There is one point, however, with which I want to deal at once. The hon. Gentleman brought out a new point when he referred to the limitation of the terms of reference of the Cohen Panel. If his inference were true, it would very much affect all that flows from the submission of that Report. It should be made perfectly clear, therefore, that the Panel covered the area of conflict between the experts, the whole field. There was no question of the Panel having to make a report on only one tiny section. There was this conflict of view between the medical men on the one side and the scientists who advised the industry on the other, and effective arguments had been put forward by both sides for many years.

Because that went on over so many years I do not think that the hon. Gentleman was quite fair in saying that my right hon. Friend the Minister had ignored the advice of his own experts. The truth is that my right hon. Friend held the ring for years, and in doing so he was really accepting the advice of his own advisers at that time. However, the conflict of opinion became so acute, and the rights and wrongs of the matter were becoming so narrow, that my right hon. Friend did what I think is accepted on all sides of the House as the only thing that he could do and was the proper thing to do.

My right hon. Friend said that in view of the conflict of expert opinion there must be an umpire, one whose impartiality was above any question. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Angus has reminded us, my right hon. Friend asked the President of the Royal Society to appoint an impartial group of people who had the knowledge to understand the medical evidence that would be produced.

I do not think that any Government could have been fairer than that. The Panel was not limited in the sense that the hon. Gentleman seemed to suggest Its terms of reference covered the whole area of conflict between the experts. In furtherance of that, it is not without significance that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite did not criticise the terms of reference at that time, so obviously there was no real complaint, or the hon. Gentleman who is so keen on these matters, would have been on his feet long ago and would not have waited until we had received the Report and acted upon it.

The Panel did, however, consider the possible importance of other lesser nutrients. The hon. Gentleman rather suggested that they had not taken that into account, but if he looks at paragraph 10.6 in page 26 of the Report, he will see that this point was well covered.

Those were the new points brought out by the hon. Gentleman this evening. They are important points, and we should not let it go from the House at this stage that there was any deliberate limitation of the terms of reference.

The main point put forward by the hon. Gentleman was that all medical opinion was against altering legislation on the extraction rate to what we are going to do under these provisions. I do not think we ought to ignore the impartiality of the Cohen Panel, nor should we ignore its eminence. It is well known to the hon. Gentleman and to other hon. Members present here tonight—Professor Henry Cohen himself, Doctor Chibnall, Professor Gaddum, Professor Morton, Professor Witts. If we look at their eminence in the medical world we cannot really say that they could have ignored the importance of the medical evidence given.

Dr. Stross

I would not dream of saying that, and have not done so. My accusation is against the Minister. I think that he made the terms of reference too narrow. If the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will look again at page 26 he will see in the fourth paragraph: Enrichment with other essential nutrients is outside our Terms of Reference.

Mr. Nicholls

The whole area of conflict—the matter had been going on for years and everybody who had been taking up the topic knew what was under discussion—was submitted to this impartial Panel. I have no doubt—I am sure that the hon. Member has no doubt—that the Panel approached the subject with an impartial mind, and its Report and our action based on the Report were the result of the honest beliefs of those men, with medical qualifications, after they had heard all the evidence. I do not think the suggestion that we ignored the evidence of our own medical advisers can stand.

There are two points that I should make about the practical reasons for our action. The 80 per cent. extraction rate was not begun with nutrient value in mind. It was to save shipping, and it got us through a difficult period. It was said later that at the 80 per cent. rate of extraction we were leaving in the nutrients needed to make bread of the quality that we wanted. The Order that we are revoking laid it down that national flour was to be made at the 80 per cent. extraction rate, which is what the hon. Gentleman wants.

However, there is an administrative problem which the House should bear in mind. It is all very well to put in an Order that we will judge the quality of flour by the extraction rate, but there is no effective way of checking whether we are really getting flour at the 80 per cent. extraction rate. If someone wants to cheat and produce flour at an extraction rate of 72–73 per cent., there is no easy way of discovering that he is doing so. Thus, the Order tied one to an extraction rate of 80 per cent. but one could not prove that that was the extraction rate in use, and it might be that the health of the people was suffering because some bread was made at a lower extraction rate, for the nutrients present at the 80 per cent. rate might not be there in sufficient quantity at a rate of 72–73 per cent. We might then be forcing on the country a supposedly nutritional loaf which did not contain the required nutrients.

The Panel said that there were certain additives which were essential if bread was to provide the nutrients that we required, and that, as the 80 per cent. rate could not be proved and there was a doubt about the presence of the required nutrients, it would be wise to adopt the positive attitude that the nutrients must be contained in the bread, because their presence could be checked.

Consequently, under the new Regulations the test, instead of being the 80 per cent. extraction rate, is one which can be more effectively carried out, the determination of the presence of specific quantities of the nutrients, because if they are not in the bread, they must be added. I believe that what we are doing achieves what the hon. Gentleman desires rather more effectively than do the provisions which he wishes to retain.

Dr. Stross

That is true as to the three token additives, but what about the four which will not now be present and those we know nothing of yet, but which may appear later?

Mr. Nicholls

I am speaking from memory, but I believe that the Cohen Panel said, "As far as we can see in the forseeable future." They have looked ahead as far as possible and did not express real doubt on that score. In asking the House to reject this Prayer I am satisfied that if we examine the debate in detail in HANSARD tomorrow it will be seen that, far from going against the argument that the hon. Member has adduced, we are doing what he wants in a more effective way than if we accepted his advice.

Question put and negatived.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

Does the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) wish to move the second Motion?

Mr. Mitchison

No, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. We desired to discuss the two together.

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