§ Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
410§ Moved, that the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Southwark.)
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.
§ House in Committee accordingly.
§ [The EARL of DONOUGHMORE in the Chair.]
§ Clause 1:
§ Amendment of3 Geo. 4. c. 106, and 6 & 7 Will. 4, c. 37, so as to permit sale of self-raising flour.
§ 1. Nothing in the Acts relating to the manufacture or sale of broad within or without the City of London and the liberties thereof shall be deemed to prohibit the addition to any flour of any ingredient or mixture for the purpose of making such Hour self-raising or the addition to such self-raising flour of ingredients suitable for the making of cakes or puddings, or the sale or offer or exposure for sale of any flour to which any such ingredient or mixture has been added.
§
THE EARL OF MAYO moved, at the end of the clause, to insert: "Provided that the public are clearly notified of the addition of any such ingredient or mixture." The noble Earl said: If your Lordships read Clause 1 you will see that it says that
Nothing in the Acts relating to the manufacture or sale of bread within or without the City of London and the liberties thereof shall be deemed to prohibit the addition to any flour of any ingredient or mixture for the purpose of making such flour self-raising or the addition to such self-raising flour of ingredients suitable for the making of cakes or puddings, or the sale or offer or exposure for sale of any flour to which any such ingredient or mixture has been added.
My Amendment merely adds the proviso that the public are to be clearly notified I of the addition of any such ingredient or mixture.
§ I consider that to be a most harmless addition. These are ingredients that are really put in to raise the flour. The right way to make bread and to raise it is to use yeast or yeast cakes, brewer's barm of the best sort, which is used for tea cakes and milk bread, or sour dough, or tartaric acid. Those are all wholesome ingredients. All sorts of powders are used and some proprietary articles which, practically speaking, are minerals. My only object in making this addition to the clause is that for young children and very old people bread made in the right way and raised in a simple manner is very wholesome. It is of the children that I am thinking. This question has been raised by many medical men and those who are interested in the welfare of children, and I cannot see how the proposed Amendment will affect the Bill in any way. I shall be told, no doubt, 411 that it is going to wreck the Bill. I have heard that said in regard to a great many Bills. In reply to any suggestion that a Bill shall be amended it is said at once that the proposal is going to wreck the Bill. I have been many years a member of this House and I have heard that said from this and from the other side. I do not believe for one instant that this very simple addition to this very simple clause can possibly affect the Bill. I beg to move.
§
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 14, at end insert the said proviso.— (The Earl of Mayo.)
§ LORD SOUTHWARKI hope your Lordships will not accept this Amendment and that my noble friend will not press it. He displays, I think, really unnecessary alarm. He will find that the public are amply protected by the present Acts of Parliament. In Clause 2 of the Bill itself he will find that the Ministry of Health are given express power to deal with the manner in which an article is described or named. They have other powers under Acts dealing with adulteration which make it absolutely safe in the public interest to leave the Bill in its present form. I would draw the noble Earl's attention to Clause 3 which provides that—
Nothing in this Act shall prejudice or affect the operation of the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts, 1875 to 1907.The noble Earl has shown anxiety—
§ LORD SOUTHWARK—as to the evil effects which may arise, but the Ministry of Health have all necessary powers to protect the public in the direction in which the noble Earl sees that protection is needed. I hope, therefore, that he will withdraw his Amendment or, if he presses it to a Division, that your Lordships will not accept it.
§ LORD PHILLIMOREI think the noble Earl need not persist in his Amendment. Section 6 of the Food and Drugs Act, 1875, says—
No person shall sell to the prejudice of the purchaser any article of food or any drug which is not of the nature, substance, and quality of the article demanded by such purchaser, under a penalty not exceeding twenty pounds; provided that an offence shall not be deemed to be committed under this section in the following cases; that is to say,412(1) Where any matter or ingredient not injurious to health has been added to the food or drug because the same is required for the production or preparation thereof as an article of commerce, in a state fit for carriage or consumption, and not fraudulently to increase the bulk, weight, or measure of the food or drug, or conceal the inferior quality thereof.There are also other provisos which I do not think affect this case.No doubt that section does not actually prevent a man from selling to the public without telling the public that he has used some ingredient to make his cake a little bit lighter and more easily digested. But if it is any ingredient which is injurious he is ultimately hit by that section, and it really cannot be necessary for a baker to put a label on his cake saying: "Pursuant to the Bread Act, 1922, I have put in some form of yeast to make my cake a little lighter." I think the noble Earl's Amendment is really unnecessary, and one knows at this stage of the session that unnecessary Amendments are not desirable.
THE EARL OF MAYOThe noble and learned Lord has made a very good case, no doubt, but the result of his argument is that I do not see the smallest harm in my Amendment. It makes it even clearer than the Act. Does the noble Lord in charge of the Bill say that my Amendment would wreck the Bill? That is what I want to know.
§ LORD SOUTHWARKI do not say that it would wreck the Bill, but I think it is unnecessary, and at this period of the session when the desire is to wind up business it is not, perhaps, wise to send down an Amendment which is really unnecessary.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Clause 1 agreed to.
§ Remaining Clauses agreed to.
§ Bill reported without amendment.