HL Deb 19 March 1941 vol 118 cc830-50

LORD DAVIES rose to ask His Majesty's Government what is the estimated annual tonnage of kitchen waste or swill in Great Britain including the food refuse of military establishments; what proportion of this total is systematically collected by local authorities, and what steps are being taken to convert and utilise all kitchen waste and offal for animal feeding stuffs; and to move for Papers.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have put this Motion on the Paper because I believe that one of the most important problems with which we are faced, and one which will become increasingly more pressing, is the problem of our food supply, how to maintain it, and how it may be possible to increase our home production. I am sure it is unnecessary for me to labour this point. We all realise its supreme importance, and Cabinet Ministers have warned the country from time to time of the vital necessity of utilising every conceivable means in order to increase and conserve our stocks of food. We also realise the strain which is being imposed upon our Merchant Navy, and the need for saving every available inch of space in our ships for the transport of munitions, raw materials, and other indispensable cargoes. Obviously the more food we produce at home the less shipping space will be needed for importing supplies from abroad. Unfortunately the losses sustained by our Merchant Navy, especially during recent weeks, make it more imperative than ever that we should utilise every scrap of material to the best advantage and that nothing should be wasted. This applies, I suggest, especially to the production of meat.

One would have imagined that after eighteen months of war, when everyone could read the writing on the wall, the most strenuous efforts would be made to ensure that waste of every kind should be eliminated from our national economy. Quite recently, your Lordships are aware, there has been a very drastic cut in the amount of imported feeding stuffs, and we have been warned that the present ration may be still further reduced. It is for this reason that I want to ask the Government what is the estimated annual tonnage of kitchen waste or swill in Great Britain, including the food refuse of military establishments, what proportion of this total is systematically collected by local authorities, and what steps are being taken to convert and utilise all kitchen waste and offal for animal feeding stuffs.

Some weeks ago our attention was drawn to this subject by a letter which appeared in The Times, written by my honourable friend Mr. R. C. Morrison, who represents the Borough of Tottenham in another place. In this letter Mr. Morrison described the methods adopted by the Tottenham local authority to convert the kitchen waste collected in the borough into fodder, which I understand makes excellent material for the feeding not only of pigs but also of poultry and cattle. About a fortnight ago I paid a visit to the salvage works at Tottenham and saw the plant at work. I venture to recommend your Lordships to go there, because I discovered that it was a most interesting and stimulating experience. It really is a most wonderfully organised and carefully planned enterprise and, if I may say so, reflects the greatest credit upon the local authority and their officials.

Nothing is wasted. Paper, tins, rags, bones and even the ashes are all salvaged and sold as raw materials to various industries. The kitchen waste is cooked in a boiler for two hours at a temperature of 200 degrees. This ensures that the feeding stuff when it emerges from the boiler is free of any disease or contamination. It is then poured into containers and left to cool for twelve hours. It comes out like a jelly out of a mould, and looks rather like an enormous plum pudding, though I confess it does not smell like one. It is then sold to farmers and pig breeders at £4 a ton, which I was told gives the local authority a profit of about £1 a ton on the processing and relieves the waste department of the cost of burning it. The point I want to try and emphasize is this, that if every local authority in this country emulated the example of Tottenham, there would be a considerable increase in the amount of food available for animals, especially for pigs, which would help to make up the deficiency of imported feeding stuffs.

This is what Mr. Morrison, who has gone into this matter and investigated it very thoroughly, says in a letter to The Times: The melancholy fact remains that after eighteen months of war, in which it was obvious from the outset that shipping space would be vital, there is no collection of kitchen waste from more than half the population of this country. I submit to your Lordships that this is a very serious indictment of the policy hitherto pursued by the Government. Since Mr. Morrison's letter appeared a number of questions have been asked in another place and I cannot help feeling that the replies only confirm Mr. Morrison's statement. It is clear from the answers that the waste complained of by Mr. Morrison still continues, and that the Ministry of Supply are dealing with it in a slipshod and half-hearted fashion, after eighteen months of war, and at a moment when it is imperative that every ounce of kitchen waste should be salvaged, processed and used for feeding purposes. For instance, on March 6, figures were given in another place which showed that according to the records of the Salvage Department of the Ministry of Supply, 680 local authorities with a population of over 10,000 each, including 316 rural districts, were not on January 31 making any collection at all of kitchen waste. Several Metropolitan and county boroughs are included in this list. As your Lordships are aware, the total number of local authorities in England, Scotland and Wales is 1,864, from which it appears that more than one-third of their number have taken no direct action to ensure the elimination of waste.

That is the first deduction to be drawn from the replies that were given in another place. The second is this. The Government have issued a statement indicating the quantities of kitchen waste collected and sold by various local authorities in the counties of Middlesex, Surrey and Yorkshire during the month of January last, which illustrates the haphazard way in which this problem is now being dealt with. During that particular month of January the quantity collected and sold in the borough of Tottenham works out at approximately 25 cwts. per thousand of the pre-war population. Your Lordships realise that populations in the boroughs and even in the rural districts in these days are very fluctuating quantities on account of the evacuations that take place from time to time, but the point is that if every local authority had maintained the same standard as Tottenham, on the basis of 25 cwts. per thousand of their populations the actual results would have been very different.

Now what do we find? Let me give your Lordships a few examples. There is Croydon, for instance, with a population of 233,000, and, therefore, on the basis of 25 cwts. per thousand, having a collectable capacity of 291 tons. The amount actually sold by Croydon in the month of January was 5 tons only. Wembley, with a population of 48,000 and a collectable capacity of 61 tons, sold only 7 tons. Sheffield, with a population of 500,000 and a collectable capacity of 640 tons, sold 41 tons. Huddersfield, with a population of 113,000 and a capacity of 141 tons, sold 8 tons. I could go on citing many more examples of a similar kind, but in the aggregate the authorities concerned collected 1,893 tons against a possible 4,492 tons had they set about it in the same way as the Tottenham authority. The total deficiency was, therefore, no less than 2,599 tons the month of January. In other words, this group of authorities collected during the month of January only 42 per cent. of what could have been collected if they had set about it on Tottenham's scale.

I have pointed out that the Tottenham authority, in January, collected kitchen waste to the amount of 25 cwts. per thousand of the population. I am informed, however, by the authorities there that the amount now being collected in March works out at between 35 cwts. and 2 tons per thousand of the population, and that it is possible even to improve upon that figure. It follows that if the urban populations of the country are calculated at about 25,000,000, and if all the local authorities had followed the example of Tottenham and had collected and processed their kitchen waste, the monthly output for the whole country would amount to approximately 43,750 tons, or a yearly collectable total of 525,000 tons. I understand that one ton of the Tottenham product will maintain fifty pigs for a week, that is, shall we say, one pig a year. Thus the total quantity that could be collected from the urban population of the whole country would be sufficient to maintain about 525,000 pigs, or nearly one-seventh of our pre-war pig population which, in 1939, was estimated at about 3,750,000. As I have said, the Tottenham processed product is sold at £4 a ton. The national collectable quantity, if dealt with in the same way, would be worth about £2,000,000. In 1938 the value of all imported animal feeding stuffs was approximately £11,500,000. Thus, by an intelligent reorganisation in the present emergency, we could produce at home from kitchen waste about one-sixth of our former imports of feeding stuffs.

I think I have made it clear that the present position is utterly unsatisactory and that an enormous amount of waste is still permitted to go on. The Department, however, seem to regard the position with their usual complacency. The Minister of Agriculture said: I cannot accept that there is any lack of drive. We are, in fact, collecting the greater part of the waste food available in this country to-day, and what is left is merely a small part. Then I read an article in The Times which informed us that the Ministry of Supply are calling for a new salvage campaign. In a recent article The Times said: The results obtained last year are regarded as satisfactory, but greater efforts are required. Of course it may be true—I have no doubt it is true—that the local authorities, or at any rate the majority of them, have been very slack, but surely it is the duty of the Government to keep them up to the mark and, if necessary, to exercise compulsory powers. We all know that local authorities have very many urgent matters to attend to in these days, and this saving of food wastage is one which is perhaps apt to be overlooked. For my part I do not believe that the job will be tackled properly, energetically and speedily unless the utilisation of waste food is put on a national basis.

Why should not the Minister of Supply —or it may be the duty of the Minister of Agriculture—why should not one or the other constitute a separate section or an ad hoc organisation with compulsory powers to deal with it? Let this Department instal the processing plants in the most convenient centres and employ the existing refuse collecting services of the authorities. I understand that at present the Tottenham authority purchase waste food from Islington and other neighbouring boroughs. I venture to suggest that a central authority could group local authorities for this purpose and thus obviate the danger of erecting too many plants, and avoid overlapping. Another suggestion I would venture to make is that, in order to save the cost of transport, pigs, when they reach a certain age, should be brought to the food instead of taking the food to the pigs. Or, if the Government do not wish to undertake the job, why not constitute a public utility company with compulsory powers?

The main point, I suggest, is that whoever is made responsible for the collection and conversion of kitchen waste into fodder for animals should have had some previous experience and know precisely what has to be done and how to do it; otherwise, they will spend many months in learning the ramifications of this business. Those people who have carried out the Tottenham experiment so successfully are the people who could be relied upon to apply the same methods on a national scale, and to do it quickly without any loss of time. Therefore, I venture very humbly to suggest to the noble Lord opposite that what is wanted is action, not conferences. If the local authorities will not or cannot come up to the scratch, let someone else be appointed to do the job for them and thus ensure that in this critical period of our history every household in the land is given an opportunity of preventing waste and thus of adding to the food supplies of our country. I beg to move for Papers.

LORD ADDISON

My Lords, I am sure the House is under a real obligation to the noble Lord for having brought up this subject. Every one of us, certainly those who live in the country and who are in touch with agricultural matters, knows, I am sure, that what he has said is true. In the main it is a happy-go-lucky business, which appears to have depended, to a great extent anyhow, upon exhortations to local authorities, sporadic outbursts on the wireless and the issue of very nicely-written and well-distributed circulars. But nobody knows better, I am sure, than the noble Lord who is going to put up as good a reply as he can for the Ministry, that that is not the way to get a job of work done. That is why this job of work has not been done efficiently. As recently as Friday of last week I was engaged as chairman of my county war agricultural committee in a conference upon this very matter.

There is no doubt that what is wanted is an organised collection of the swill, and its treatment in sufficient bulk by processing plant big enough to be economical in working. Then, I am sure, there would be an enormous scramble for the product. At the present time a very large number of the keener farmers are doing their best to collect the waste, buying boilers or some kind of plant—on a small scale because they are doing it individually—and doing their very best. You cannot treat this material without boiling it and resolving it down to a considerable extent, and it is quite wrong, if you have an organised collection from hundreds or thousands of separate houses, that this waste should be dealt with in a happy-go-lucky way as it is in a large number of places. I am quite sure that the Ministry of Supply, so far as their own products are concerned, are exceedingly anxious to make the thing a success.

I well remember that in the last war I, myself, appointed Sir Alexander Walker, better known as the proprietor of Johnny Walker Whisky, and he was the most champion rag-and-bone merchant that ever was. He developed the collection of scrap—scrap iron and all kinds of scrap— into a finely organised and highly remunerative business. That is the point— it was highly remunerative. I think we want, shall we say, a "Johnny Walker" in charge of this job. I am sure that my noble friend is right in insisting that it should be taken in hand, departmentally or otherwise (I am not prescribing the method), by an organisation responsible to the Ministry, with authority either to amalgamate others or to set up regional organisations of an appropriate kind, which will not be dependent—as we cannot afford to be dependent—upon the chance good will of an authority here or there.

The amount of material that is being wasted every week now, as everybody knows, is prodigious. Particularly is it important, now that the Ministry of Food for certain reasons—and I am not saying that they are not good reasons—are cutting down animal foodstuffs. I, myself, more than once have questioned the wisdom of the selection of poultry and pigs for what I may call decimation, but the more we are restricted in our imports—as we necessarily are—of foodstuff for pigs the greater is the urgency for doing this thing well. I am certain that there will be no difficulty whatever in finding a market for the product, and I should not wonder if the price went to more than £4 a ton. At any rate there is a good market waiting—every county war agricultural committee can testify to the truth of that statement—provided that the product is reliably processed and properly treated by people who understand the business. I rose for a minute or two only as one who has been concerned in a certain way in the business, to lend what support I could to my noble friend, and I am sure the House is under an obligation to him for raising this subject. I hope that the noble Lord who is going to reply will be given the chance of getting this job done properly.

VISCOUNT BLEDISLOE

My Lords, I regret to say that owing to my participating in a welcome, in another place, to our very distinguished guests from the Netherlands, I was unable to be present to hear what my noble friend Lord Davies said, but I feel so very strongly upon this subject of waste of edible food—edible for human beings or for farm animals—that I feel bound, if only for a few minutes, to take part in this debate. I know that it is the custom, I am glad to say the growing custom, to compare what was done during the last war with what is being done now. In this connection the need for utilising all edible food is so much greater than it was, in view of the very serious trans-oceanic menace, even during the most critical period of the last war, at a time when I myself was acting as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food, that I feel it would be perfectly justifiable to ask the Government to take stronger measures than were adopted in that critical year, and not to leave to voluntary action what so many people in this country are clamouring to have made compulsory.

It seems to me that just as when a war develops you are bound to scrap the voluntary principle in the matter of national service, in the matter of service in the defence forces, so in this matter you are bound, I think, in response to growing opinion, particularly amongst the farming community, to scrap the voluntary system instead of leaving it to do what all the more enlightened individuals and public authorities are conscious ought to be done in this matter. Tottenham has set a noble example, and was very early in doing so on the initiative of its very enterprising and public-spirited Member of Parliament. Many other municipalities and some urban district councils have followed Tottenham's example. I am prepared to believe that there are between 300 and 400 urban district authorities doing their best to collect, sterilise and distribute waste food of which such an enormous quantity today goes into the incinerator or otherwise becomes unavailable for consumption by human beings or by animals.

It is really a very serious step for the Food Ministry to take to say: "We are quite prepared to sacrifice a very large proportion, possibly two-thirds, of our pig population, and a similar proportion of our poultry and to that extent to render extremely risky the continued provision of both bacon and eggs," while all the time there is available in thousands of homes a large amount of waste food that would enable both pigs and poultry to be maintained almost in their entirety, if not wholly. I was interested to notice this morning, in the columns of our chief agricultural newspaper the Farmer and Stockbreeder, an announcement reporting the opinion of Mr. Cyril Fox, Superintendent of the Sheffield Cleansing Department. He, with full knowledge of what is possible in that enlightened city, estimates that if all waste in uncooked vegetables, meat, bread, and certain other foods were carefully saved and collected, most of the country's 4,000,000 pigs could be kept alive and the nation's poultry could continue to produce eggs. I entirely endorse that enlightened and experienced opinion.

I want to ask the Government how they can reconcile the continuance of this fearful waste in face of the growing diminution of food of a concentrated character for which not merely are our farmers asking for their animals but human beings are beginning to demand in sufficient quantities. If I may, I should like to revert to what was the main burden of the arguments proferred here exactly a month ago on the subject of food supplies generally, when it was, I think, assented to by everyone in this House that the preference which is given to bullocks over pigs and poultry in the matter of a due quota of imported food was a wrong preference, and could not be justified from a scientific or from a dietetic point of view. I should like to remind the Government that the bullock depends, and ought in these days to depend, very largely on what can be raised on the surface of our own land, particularly if we are going to turn our pastures over very largely to arable production, thereby greatly intensifying the output of our temporary pastures.

Moreover, we ought surely to bear in mind that the bullock, when it comes to be slaughtered, leaves for the consumption of the public only something like 60 per cent. of its bulk; the rest is represented by offal. Compare that with the egg. Apart from the shell, the whole of the egg is very valuable and well-balanced human nutritive food. If you over-fatten the bullock in the way we expect in the case of animals which we see at the Smithfield Show, a large amount of food passes out of him as manure and does not make flesh at all. One is inclined to ask, therefore, what happens to all this waste food? If you are going to convert your bullock feed into manure to a large extent, or if it is going to pass into an incinerator, as so much of it does, how is it possible to justify treating pigs and poultry in the way in which it is proposed to treat them at the present time?

I should like to ask another question arising out of this matter of waste. We are told—and I am very glad to hear it— that milk is going to be forthcoming in larger quantities for the making of cheese. I do not know that anything has troubled our civilian working population more during the last few weeks than the lack of adequate supplies of cheese, particularly for their mid-day meal. In the course of making cheese, a large proportion of the substance of the milk passes away in the form of whey. I should like to know whether the Government mean to control the disposal of the whey which is available in such large quantities as the result of making cheese. It is a most valuable food; it is very valuable in the feeding of pigs, but it is also very valuable, as containing lactose or sugar of milk, for feeding infants and invalids. I believe I am right in saying that most invalid foods contain lactose. It is relatively scarce in this country; it has been imported in the past largely from New Zealand and other parts of the world. Cannot it be made a condition of the production of this additional cheese that at least the whey shall not go down the drain, but that it shall be rendered available either for animal or for human food?

It is this lack of thorough organisation of the production and disposal of our food in this country which troubles me more than anything else, as one who was part of the human machine which operated this Department during the last war. It has been announced to-day in the Press that milk is going to be rationed, and I should therefore like to ask the Government to consider whether it is really necessary for middle-aged people to have the same ration of milk as the very young, invalids, the very poor and the very old. I believe—a noble Lord present who is a distinguished member of the medical profession can correct me if I am wrong— that for those between twenty-five and sixty years of age, milk is relatively unimportant as a form of nutritive food, whereas relatively it must be of greater importance to very young people and to very old people. If that is so, is not there going to be a considerable waste of milk in this very critical time—a very critical time so far as food is concerned—if we give the same ration of milk to people of all ages?

I do not want to take up more of your Lordships' time, but I do most earnestly ask the Government, and not for the first time, to consider whether it is really fair, not merely to the public but to the pig-keepers and to the poultry-keepers, to allow the whole of this waste to go on in our towns without any compulsion being applied, and at the same time to allow such a large proportion of our pig and poultry population to go without adequate food, with the inevitable result that neither bacon nor eggs will be available in the future in anything like the quantities in which they have been available in the past. I must apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, for being absent during his speech, but I had some reason to know what he was going to say, and from what I do know of it I endorse it.

House adjourned during pleasure, and resumed by the LORD CHANCELLOR.

LORD SALTOUN

My Lords, I do not know that anybody could be more unhappy than I have been for a long time about the colossal indifference to waste shown in every circle in our country; at the same time, I cannot help thinking that the picture drawn by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, is rather more gloomy than the case demands. In going round the various local authorities and examining their methods of dealing with waste, one is struck by the great variation between one locality and another in the problems with which they have to deal. It would, I think, be a great mistake to base any extended scheme of salvage upon the experience of Tottenham alone. Even in London the salvage problem varies with a great many factors, one of which is the incidence of bombing, which interferes with salvage collection very much. In any case, there are at least seventy-five local authorities in this country who have schemes very similar to that at Tottenham, and who are doing very good work. I am not at all sure that the experience of the City of Edinburgh would not be a far better guide to the salvage problem of this country as a whole than the experience of Tottenham. Moreover, in discussing what local authorities are doing and in concentrating our gaze on that, we are forgetting one factor which enters into every department of salvage— namely, that the local authorities are expected to do the work while it is unremunerativc and difficult, but, as soon as you come to a district where salvage is obviously a paying proposition, you find that private enterprise steps in, collecting the materials, and paying for them, which the local authorities are unable to do.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies, concluded his remarks by expressing the hope that if those at present in charge of salvage could not improve the work that they were doing, others would be appointed. It seems to me that if we are to go on in the way in which we are going, it docs not matter who is appointed, because as soon as anyone is put in charge of a department like salvage he is immediately overwhelmed with work, crushed down by multitudinous questions which have to be answered and dealt with straight away. Salvage is a highly scientific subject. It is one which requires more fore-thought and planning than almost any other department of social activity; and to put a man in charge of work like that and then overwhelm him with petty details of daily routine makes him hopeless. Whoever has charge of salvage, steps should be taken to relieve the actual salvage king of the enormous amount of detailed work that falls to his lot. What this task requires is somebody who has time to think. Instead of concentrating his thoughts on any particular thing, he ought to have time to reflect. If he has leisure for that purpose it will repay the country far more than the most concentrated endeavours of other men.

THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF SUPPLY (LORD PORTAL)

My Lords, you will be aware that a debate on practically the same subject as that raised by the noble Lord took place in another place last week after the noble Lord's Notice in this House had already been put down, and most of ray reply will have to be along the same lines as that given then. I should like to refer to the terms of the noble Lord's question, which inquires as to "the estimated annual tonnage of kitchen waste" in the country, "including the food refuse of military establishments," and asks what steps are being taken for the conversion and utilisation of this waste, particularly for animal feeding stuffs. Though I have no desire to shirk any responsibility for my own Ministry, your Lordships will understand that the speeches that have been made to-day have covered a very broad field—the spheres of the Ministry of Food, the Ministry of Agriculture, the War Office and the Ministry of Supply. I have now to try to answer on behalf of all those four Ministries, and if my reply should be inadequate your Lordships, will understand that in these busy times it is very difficult to cover the whole ground. The noble Lord referred to the question of eggs, which does not come under the Ministry of Supply. The noble Lord sitting opposite said very courteously that he thought I would like to run this on business lines, but I could not possibly cover the ramifications of four Ministries in trying to answer his rather difficult question.

As your Lordships are aware, the Ministry of Supply are responsible for the collection of salvage. In this case I have to reply also on behalf of the War Office and Ministry of Agriculture to questions raised by the noble Lord. The two points which the noble Lord raised— which of course must be discussed with His Majesty's Government—were these. The first was whether the persons responsible for the collection of salvage should have adequate knowledge for dealing with feeding stuffs, such as swill, and whether the matter should be put into the hands of experts. Both noble Lords opposite raised the question whether the greatest efforts were being made—and nobody is ever satisfied in these days with efforts that are being made. They asked whether we were satisfied with the voluntary organisation of this collection of salvage. That is a very large question, which I in my humble position as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Supply am not in a position to answer; it must be referred to others.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies, based his arguments wholly on the case of Tottenham. On behalf of the Ministry which I represent I should like to say what a great debt we owe to Tottenham and the representative of Tottenham for the lead they have given in this matter. But my figures lead from the whole to the part, rather than from the part to the whole. As the noble Lord will remember from the time when he learnt logic, that was the first thing you were taught. My reply will be based on the figures for the whole country. There are 395 local authorities, covering districts whose total population is over 23,000,000, which have organised collections of kitchen waste. As the noble Lord observed, that represents about half the population of the country. Collections from these sources are at the rate of 110,000 tons per annum. Private collections are operating in 1,200 districts, but the amounts collected are not known. Contractors also collect from hotels and restaurants, and although no figures are available, the tonnages so collected must be substantial.

The noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, pointed in this connection to one of the difficulties. If you are a contractor, you take the best of this work and the rest may be left. That is a difficulty which is bound to arise when you are working on a voluntary basis. In the Borough of Westminster alone 574 tons were collected during January last. The estimated collection from military establishments is at the rate of 93,788 tons per annum. Before the war the figure of waste was estimated at 350,000 tons a year. This figure must naturally be reduced through rationing, and also for part of the refuse, such as orange and banana peel. I am not trying to make an excuse, but as rationing extends there will be less to collect, and if there is less to collect you must be more efficient in your collection. From civil and military sources together we are collecting approximately 203,000 tons per annum, without allowing for the private collections. This 203,000 tons is to be compared with the figure of 350,000 tons before the war. As abattoirs are under the control of the Ministry of Food, the question of the disposal of offals for feeding stuffs is one that I cannot answer. In a few cases it is known that local authorities mix offals with kitchen waste to produce animal feeding stuffs.

The number of local authorities making kitchen waste collections is increasing month by month, but some have been confronted with financial loss as a result of disposal difficulties. Those difficulties arise especially in the scattered areas of some local authorities. The main difficulties experienced by local authorities are shortage of labour and transport to make the necessary collection, and the reduction of yield as a result of rationing, and, as has been said, a falling off was very often due to bombing, for during periods of heavy bombing it is very difficult to collect waste. Some reference has been made to the "complacent manner" of the Controllers and the like. I should like to say, on behalf of my Ministry, that the Controllers and the people who work in the Salvage Department have really put in a great deal of work along the lines on which they are allowed to go. The noble Lord opposite said there were some spasmodic broadcasts. It might be better if there were fewer B.B.C. broadcasts on some of the questions put before us today. Occasional broadcasts are good and no more on some of these questions. I should like to pay tribute to the work which these Controllers are doing.

I should like also to say that the Ministry of Agriculture have issued to local authorities and county war agricultural executive committees circulars and instructions urging them to make arrangements for the collection and disposal of kitchen waste. The agricultural executive committees have been asked to co-operate with the local authorities in their areas in finding outlets among the farming community for swill and, in particular, to ensure as far as they can that local authorities are not left with swill on their hands. In a number of cases the agricultural executive committees have appointed swill officers for this purpose. A vigorous propaganda campaign has been conducted through the Press and the B.B.C. to call the attention of pig and poultry keepers to the value of swill as a substitute feeding stuff, and advising them on the best methods of using it. A leaflet on this subject has been widely distributed among farmers in which the need for adequate boiling or other means of sterilisation of swill has been emphasized.

Feeding trials with pigs and poultry have been conducted at the School of Agriculture, Cambridge, in order to determine the feeding value of swill collected from various sources, and what quantities of ordinary feeding stuffs would be needed to supplement this waste material. The processing of swill is undertaken, firstly, to ensure sterilisation with a view to obviating the risk of spreading disease; and, secondly, to improve the keeping qualities and enable swill to be distributed over a wider area. For sterilisation purposes, simple boiling is sufficient, but both objects can be secured by concentration and drying and grinding to a meal. Having regard to these objects and to the costs involved, the Departments reached the conclusion that the concentration process provides the best method of utilising kitchen waste from larger centres of population. Local authorities have been urged to instal such plants and to intensify their collections. The necessary steel for a number of plants, which has to be got on a priority basis, has been reserved, and already eight local authorities have agreed to put up twenty-three units of plant. In some cases they are already in operation or in process of erection. In view of the uncertainty of the continued use of such plant when the war is over, the Government have given certain guarantees to local authorities which are designed largely to relieve them of the financial liabilities involved.

The swill in the raw state may readily be the agency for spreading foot-and-mouth disease, swine fever, and other animal infections, and a number of recent outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease have been attributed to swill. All users of swill are by law required to boil the swill before feeding to stock, and constant publicity is being given to this requirement. Other measures have been taken to minimise the risk of spread of disease from raw swill in process of transit from the collecting centre to the farm. The best method of minimising the risk of disease would be to sterilise all swill at the source of supply rather than at the farm. This is one of the reasons why the Government have urged local authorities to instal concentrators and other processing plant where sterilisation before distribution can take place. That is the view of the Ministry of Agriculture on this question, and I do assure the noble Lord who raised the matter that his remarks have been very helpful as a contribution to the cause which we must all have at heart at the present time. It was not very long ago in this House that the question of homegrown timber and the use of it for the saving of shipping was discussed. If that were necessary, it is very much more necessary in a case where the livestock of this country has to be preserved. Speaking for my own Ministry, the Ministry of Supply are fully alive to the fact that it is of importance in these times to press on with this campaign, and I can assure the noble Lord that we appreciate fully the importance of the Motion he has brought forward.

LORD GAINFORD

My Lords, I should like to say one or two words on this subject. First of all your Lordships are indebted to Lord Davies for the speech he has delivered this afternoon, giving statistics of a very valuable character which show the enormous waste that is going on at the present time, and which the statement of the noble Lord, who, no doubt, has done his best to say what the Government are doing, has not really met. As I understood the noble Lord, the Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Supply, we are now securing something like 200,000 tons of salvaged material and waste mostly from homes of the people of this country. That is all to the good. The materials are to be sterilised, and local authorities are to be urged, as the noble Lord said, in order to do better. But the figures that Lord Davies gave us showed that there are 500,000 tons of these materials capable of being saved at the present time, and only 200,000 tons are now secured. That is a very inadequate amount after eighteen months of war.

LORD PORTAL

I did not take the figure as 500,000, but as 350,000.

LORD DAVIES

The figure of 520,000 tons is arrived at on the basis of 35 cwts. per 1,000 of the population in each urban area. If the same amount is collected in the other urban areas as in Tottenham, then we should collect 525,000 tons.

LORD GAINFORD

I think I am in the recollection of the House that I have not exaggerated Lord Davies's statement. He gave us very careful figures, and explained how they were reached in order to justify the case he put to the Government. I have had some experience of local government, and I know what the financial difficulties are in connection with collecting swill of this kind from the various households in counties as well as in boroughs in this country. A great deal more can be done, and what we on these Benches feel is that the Government, whilst they are urging local authorities, have not used the powers that they possess to induce local authorities to do their job. I know the difficulties of transportation. I know we cannot always get everything done very quickly by local authorities. But I do not think the financial point made by the noble Lord, speaking for the Department, is a very good one, because Lord Davies has already proved that, by realising this material, local authorities can make 25 per cent. on the sale of this material compared with the cost.

If these figures can be justified, surely the Government ought to do a great deal more than they are doing. We feel that not only should local authorities be urged, but they should be compelled if necessary, to save these enormous sums of money in order that we may get the increased benefit for production in the matter of poultry and pigs, supplying items of food which are essential to the community. There has been nothing less than discouragement to poultry-keepers and those who produce pigs, as a result of the Government's methods. What we feel is that bacon ought to be increased in production, and poultry farmers ought to be encouraged instead of being restricted, because eggs as well as poultry are essential to the welfare of the community at large. I trust the Government will realise what a strong feeling there is outside that all those who have this material to dispose of should be induced to arrange with local authorities for its collection, and that the local authorities should then turn it into material for the benefit of cattle, poultry and pigs.

VISCOUNT SAMUEL

My Lords, I think that several voices ought to be raised in this House to express dissatisfaction with the statement that has been made by the noble Lord who replied for the Government. We have always regarded him as a man who gets things done, and is not willing merely to accept the official statements of a Department in justification of inadequate action; but today it did seem to me that the statement he made was not such as the House ought to accept as an adequate reply to the indictment of my noble friend Lord Davies. Lord Davies gave reasons for thinking that the total material involved was in the neighbourhood of half a million tons, and it was said that if Tottenham was typical of the rest of the country—and there is no reason why it should not be regarded as typical—that was the figure to be arrived at. The noble Lord who replied, on the other hand, said the Department accepted a figure of 350,000 tons, but he gave no reason why they had adopted that figure; he gave no basis for thinking that the figure of my noble friend Lord Davies was not the correct figure.

The whole of his speech was framed on the assumption that 350,000 tons was the correct figure. But why should he assume that figure? He did not tell us. Since the amount which is now being obtained by the local authorities is in the neighbourhood of 200,000 tons, according to his statement, if the total collectable amount is 350,000 tons then the 200,000 tons that are being collected are a little more than half that. If, on the contrary, 500,000 tons is the collectable amount, then the 200,000 tons that are being collected are very much less than half. In the present state of affairs in this country we cannot afford to waste more than half of this available source of supply. It is a question not merely of potential foodstuffs to the value of millions of pounds, for, if the figures are translated into terms of pigs, it runs, certainty, into hundreds of thousands of pigs.

I think the feeling in this House after the debate to-day may—if I represent the views of others of your Lordships, and I think I do—be expressed as one of desire that the noble Lord, Lord Portal, should consider this matter yet again, and approach it afresh with a feeling that everything is not being done that ought to be done. I submit that he should approach it rather with the view that the present position is very unsatisfactory and that we need a further spurt and greater vigour so that we may be able to achieve better results than those which have so far been obtained.

LORD DAVIES

My Lords, I thank my noble friend opposite, Lord Portal, for his reply, but I think that perhaps he will now agree that it was an inadequate reply, not because he did not desire to give us a satisfactory reply but because he found it exceedingly difficult to do so. I have little or nothing to add to what has been said by my noble friends below me. I hope the Ministry will now realise that the total amount which is being salvaged, and I assume is also being processed and turned into feeding stuffs, is really only about half of what could be salvaged if all local authorities took this matter seriously and proceeded on the lines of the Tottenham local authority, and also, as I was delighted to hear, the Edinburgh local authority. I am sure that if all the authorities in this country proceeded on the same lines as the most progressive authorities are doing there would be no need for compulsion from the Ministry of Supply; but, as there are so many local authorities that do nothing at all, as there are so many who are really playing at it, surely it is the business of the Ministry to see that some new system is put into operation so that this waste shall not continue. I am very grateful to my noble friend for his reply, and for his promise to bring the matter to the notice of the authorities with a view to seeing what can be done to speed up the whole of the machinery, and, if possible, create some new organisation which will be able to double the present supply within the next three months. I beg to withdraw the Motion.

LORD PORTAL

My Lords, may I, by leave of the House, say a few further words? I would like to speak upon the difference which has been expressed on the question of the figures of Lord Davies and myself. The figure that I gave was based upon the refuse bins, and I understood that my figure was for a period of two or three years before the war—that is, the figure of 350,000 tons which I mentioned. I will certainly go into that figure again, because there is a great difference between the figure given by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and the figure of which I was speaking. I do, however, wish to impress on the House that His Majesty's Government realise the great importance of this question. I said at the beginning of my speech, and I say now, that if enough is not being done under the present system by means of a voluntary collection, and the urge behind it is not sufficient, then we must go into the question how we can get the maximum collection. There are only two ways of dealing with the matter, one of which is by a voluntary collection. If that is not satisfactory then other methods must be used. As I have told the noble Lord, I agree that it must be a very bad thing at this time if we are only able to collect 50 per cent. or 60 per cent. of the refuse of the country. As to the other point in this matter of the collection of swill or animal foodstuff, it is better to have people dealing with it who understand the particular subject rather than people who take it as part of a large whole. I think that sometimes you want experts to deal with a matter of this kind. I assure your Lordships that this debate has been very helpful, and I will take up with His Majesty's Government the questions that have been debated.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

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