§ THE EARL OF LISTOWELhad given Notice that he would ask His Majesty's Government whether they are taking steps to secure that the nutritive standard of the children of the country shall not suffer as a consequence of war conditions; and also move for Papers. The noble Earl said: My Lords, the main object of my Motion is to enable the Minister to report to the House on what he and the Government propose to safeguard the children of the country against a deterioration in their diet owing to war conditions, 347 and to improve the unsatisfactory standard of nutrition prevailing among working-class families before the war. This is not a controversial matter. It is for that reason, perhaps, particularly suitable for discussion during the pleasantly informal atmosphere which prevails in the House during the luncheon hour. The special urgency of the problem is due to a combination of two factors: the widespread incidence of malnutrition among working-class children in peacetime, before the outbreak of war, and the inevitable tendency of war conditions to aggravate this situation. Before the outbreak of war a far larger proportion of infants and school children than of adults were living in acute poverty and therefore suffering chronically from under-nourishment. Let me illustrate this by reference to a locus classicus on the subject, Mr. Rowntree's sociological survey of the city of York, a typical urban area, in the year 1936. He found that no fewer than 28.2 per cent. of all the children in the town were living below the poverty line, and that almost half the townsfolk sunk into deepest poverty were children under fourteen. This is characteristic of urban conditions all over the country.
The war has, of course, aggravated the situation by introducing a number of factors that increase the difficulty of providing the child population with an adequate diet. The flood of evacuees from the towns, the rising price of milk, fresh vegetables, and other foodstuffs, the employment of mothers on war work outside their homes—these have all added to the anxiety of those responsible for the health of the rising generation. The Government have not closed their eyes to this grave problem. On the contrary, there has been a rapid extension, since the war, of Social Services providing fresh food of first-rate quality for children under fourteen. We have to thank the Minister for enabling children under five, as well as expectant and nursing mothers, to get milk free or at a reduced price. If I may say so, the Minister has done in this respect a very great service because no scheme of this kind tried out before he came into office was successful. It is estimated, and the figure is generally accepted, that 75 to 78 per cent. of our infant population is benefiting under the noble Lord's scheme. Of course, some parents of the remaining 22 to 25 per cent. can obviously afford to 348 pay the market price, but there must nevertheless be a number of parents who cannot afford to buy their milk from the milkman, and yet do not at present take advantage of the Government scheme. I suggest that the noble Lord might consider an inquiry being made into the reasons why so many infants are still not supplied with fresh liquid milk.
Then there is the older plan for providing cheap or free milk in the schools. Steady progress has been made since the outbreak of war, and as many as three children out of every five are now drinking milk at grant-aided schools. Nevertheless, there are no fewer than 2,000,000 school-children who are still unable or unwilling to take advantage of this magnificent opportunity. This presents another fruitful field of inquiry. Why, for instance—to give a problem that has caused me and others a good deal of concern—is there so much variation between adjacent local authorities, where problems and conditions must be extremely similar? Of three neighbouring county authorities in the south of England, one is providing milk for 70 per cent. of its schoolchildren, one is catering for 60 to 65 per cent., and another for 40 to 50 per cent. There are even greater differences between certain adjoining county authorities who supply hot mid-day meals for their schoolchildren. I suggest that a friendly inquiry into the problems of these authorities might help them in the long run to overcome their difficulties, and in that way extend the benefit of these schemes to many children who at present are not able to profit from them. There has also been good progress in the provision of hot dinners served on school premises, but, in spite of the advance made in the last two years in this direction, only 300,000 out of 5,000,000 schoolchildren are now getting midday meals at school. Some parents no doubt prefer their children to come home for their meals, but we have still a long way to go before we can claim to have satisfied the enormously increased demand for school meals.
There is, after considering this brief survey, a good prospect of our achieving an important and very substantial measure of social reform. If these comparatively new antidotes to poverty and malnutrition come to be regarded not as mere experiments introduced by the stress 349 of war conditions but as no less a permanent feature of our Social Services than free education, they will bring a lasting benefit to many generations of the country's children. The success of the whole plan will depend on the success of the partnership between the State, the local authorities, the teachers, and the parents, who are all animated by a common desire to promote the welfare of the children under their care. The Government Departments should be in constant touch with the local authorities who are faced with vast and often baffling administrative problems. When these difficulties of the local authorities cannot be overcome unaided, it is up to the Government to help them out from our much larger national resources.
The teachers who have bravely shouldered so many new burdens since the war are beginning to reap the reward of their unaccustomed labours. They have discovered that a school meal is a practical demonstration of character training and dietetics, and as valuable a feature of their curriculum as regular classes or organized games. They realize more clearly than ever before that a stunted body means a stunted mind, and that it is their job to cure both. As for the parents, they are finding that the school and the home are complementary and equally indispensable aspects of their children's welfare. I am asking the noble Lord, not without gratitude for what he has already done, for information as to what he and the Government are prepared to contribute to a partnership that has begun well and that promises much more for the future. I beg to move for Papers.
§ THE MINISTER OF FOOD (LORD WOOLTON)My Lords, it would perhaps best serve the purposes of the debate if I intervened at this early stage and, with your Lordships' permission, perhaps I might answer any further points that may be raised later on. I intervene now in order to inform your Lordships of the general policy of His Majesty's Government in the whole field of nutrition in so far as it is associated with food. In doing so I am most anxious not to curtail the debate. The noble Earl who has moved for Papers has placed the House under an obligation to him in this matter and I am quite certain that the expression of your Lordships' opinion will have great 350 value in the country. In the first place I want to make an announcement which I venture to think will be welcomed. In another place my right honourable friend the President of the Board of Education has to-day made a statement indicating that His Majesty's Government are anxious to facilitate and encourage the extension of the feeding of children in schools by local authorities and are prepared to make such grants as are considered necessary in order to achieve this end.
The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, referred to problems of policy as we knew them in our social order before the war. In so far as the feeding of school children is concerned, your Lordships will be aware that some provision already exists. This provision before the war was mainly, though not solely, exercised in order to provide free meals for people who were financially necessitous and undernourished. War conditions may, indeed, have intensified that problem for that class of society, but I venture to suggest that they have also altered the whole nature of the problem. We are now all of us, as a result of the extraordinarily equalizing effect of the ration book, living on a diet which is mainly influenced by the domestic ration, and this ration is based on the average need of the family. It is not designed to meet the needs of special classes of the community, and there is in my opinion, and in the much more learned opinion of those who advise me, some danger that those who require special consideration in the matter of diet, either for the growth of their bodies or for the maintenance of more than average physical strength, may find this diet as contained in the ration book insufficient.
I think this is particularly the case with children who need more than the average supplies of body-building foods. Particularly as a result of the conditions of war family life and domestic arrangements have been seriously disturbed. We have to face a great call not only on the manpower but on the woman-power of the nation in order to secure the required out put of munitions, and in order to secure indeed a continuance of our ordinary industrial life. We have to recognize, as the noble Earl has recognized, that before the war the standard of nutrition of very considerable portions of the population of 351 this country left a great deal to be desired. These facts constitute a background on which the food policy of the Government must be based.
At present there are, as Lord Listowel has pointed out, 5,000,000 children in the elementary and secondary schools of this country, and of those only 300,000 are receiving meals at school. But small as this number is it is an increase of 100 per cent. as a result of a campaign that has been conducted during the last year by my right honourable friend the President of the Board of Education and by the Secretary of State for Scotland, backed as their propaganda has been by the inducement of an increase of 20 per cent. in the grant. But the provision of meals in different parts of the country is most uneven. In a few areas as much as 30 per cent. of the children are taking meals at school, while in others little or no provision has been made. Not all local authorities have realized the implication of a war-time diet scale. There is no doubt that many of them have found themselves faced with very considerable difficulties—difficulties of providing equipment, difficulties of securing premises, and, of course, difficulties of finance—and these difficulties have prevented them perhaps from developing as quickly as they would have done otherwise, and certainly have prevented them developing as quickly as the case demanded. Inquiries have shown that in some districts up to 50 per cent. of the parents are anxious to have their children take meals in schools and they are willing to pay for them if facilities be provided by the local authorities.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer has agreed that as from October 1, 1941, the rate of grant in respect of provisions for meals for children is to be increased by a further 10 per cent., with a maximum. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has wisely put a ceiling and the ceiling is at 95 per cent. The minimum rate of grant will now be at 70 per cent., and the average rate in the country will be 80 per cent. while the maximum that any local authority can get will be 95 per cent. That, we hope, will deal with the financial aspect of this problem.
§ LORD ADDISONMay I interrupt? What is that 95 per cent. of? Is it 95 per 352 cent. of the cost of the administration and of the meals?
§ LORD WOOLTONIt is 95 per cent. of the loss that is incurred. I have indicated that I am sure financial considerations alone have not been the only determining factor. There have been others. There has, of course, been the question of food, the question whether there was sufficient food to do this work properly. Well, we can now assure the local authorities that a sufficiency of food will be forthcoming, whatever their demand may be. Moreover, my Ministry has arranged, in consultation with my right honourable friend the President of the Board of Education and with the Secretary of State for Scotland, for a priority supply to enable school canteens to serve balanced meals of the type that our medical and scientific advisers recommend. I am glad that these officers, some of them honorary, and the two Ministries are working in the closest consultation in order that we shall secure the right food for maintaining the growth and the health of school children. May I emphasize that the provisions regarding food will apply to all schools and not only to the schools that are under State control directly or indirectly?
The provision of cooking arrangements to feed such a large number of children as we hope will be fed is indeed a formidable task, and there I am glad to say we shall be able to help the local authorities as a result of the provisions which we have made under the grants on Civil Defence. Your Lordships will probably remember that the Ministry of Food is charged with the task of making emergency arrangements for feeding the people of this country in the event of war conditions making it necessary for there to be some extension of communal feeding. We have already 170 cooking depots set up under the auspices of the Ministry of Food by local authorities, and that number will presently be increased from 170 to 250. This equipment is now capable of providing 300,000 meals a day, and presently that number will be increased to 400,000. I propose to place those depots at the disposal of local authorities. These depots were created to deal with the problem of feeding the people of this country in the event of our lines of communication being broken, or of the normal domestic arrangements for 353 providing meals being destroyed by the misfortunes of war. Most of them are now lying idle in readiness for the day that we hope will never come. We are going to bring them into action now. They will be kept bright and polished in the daily service of the children of the country.
They will be ready to serve their original purpose, if occasion requires, and I think that this use for civilian purposes of a piece of machinery devised for special war purposes will meet with your Lordships' approval. It will avoid any unnecessary expense and duplication of equipment that would be called for if school feeding centres had to be furnished on a full scale in areas in which food can be quite easily supplied by these depots. Under one name or another we have some 1,000 British Restaurants. They have been adapted expressly to meet the condition that they may have to expand themselves suddenly in the event of national emergency. At present they are feeding but a portion of the numbers for which they could cater if occasion demanded it. May I just comment on the fact that the directors of education in this country and the teachers have rendered very great service, which I am glad to have the opportunity so publicly to recognize, in bringing in the supplementary food services that I am now proposing to place at their disposal? In addition to these 1,000 British Restaurants and the 170 rising to 250 cooking depots there are war emergency meal centres which have been established in approximately 4,000 centres in this country, in cities and industrial areas. They are already equipped with cutlery and crockery and they are already available for meals. I propose, with suitable safeguards for emergency conditions, to place these at the disposal of the local authorities.
But all this will not be enough to deal with so formidable a task. Local authorities will still find it necessary to start new individual or central kitchens. I do not anticipate that they will have difficulty in getting equipment because it has fallen to my responsibility—having become a rather large-scale caterer in this country as a result of having to bring in all this emergency organization—to have some equipment standing by for the time when it may be needed. I have, in fact, 354 a central pool of equipment that has been organized by the Ministry of Food, stocked with many of the necessary items that will be wanted. I propose to place this pool also at the service of local authorities. My right honourable friends the Secretary of State for Scotland and the President of the Board of Education and I am working on these things. We believe that these special facilities designed and maintained for another purpose can be seconded to the provision of school meals and that in doing this we shall be able to help and encourage local authorities to proceed apace.
My right honourable friend made reference in another place to the milk in schools scheme, to which the noble Earl has referred. The extension of this scheme can be put into operation immediately. At the present time, as the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, remarked, only 60 per cent. of the children are taking milk in schools. Of course it is entirely fallacious to assume that all children like to drink milk, but it is quite clear from the experience of some authorities that the mixed process of persuasion and education can bring the percentage of children taking milk in school up to a very large one. We hope this will be done. There again we come to a problem of cost. If this is to be done an additional new burden will fall on the local education authorities, because the milk distributors are already finding difficulty in supplying milk in one-third pint bottles, and as the demand increases and as bottles suffer the fate of bottles, the distributors will be obliged to distribute milk in bulk. This will involve education authorities in providing cups and facilities for washing them, and it will also mean some extra burden on the teachers of this country, but they have shown already their willingness to go a long way outside their professional duties in order to help in war work. The expense to which local authorities will be put as a result of providing utensils and means for keeping them clean, will be borne by the Exchequer. Moreover, in order that the policy, so far as milk is concerned, may be implemented without delay, a grant of 100 per cent. is to be paid on the school milk service as a whole.
The figures I have given so far relate to England and Wales. In Scotland the position is much the same as on this 355 side of the border. Fifty thousand children out of 750,000 in Scottish schools receive solid meals in schools and 415,000 out of 750,000—or about 56 per cent.—are receiving milk in schools. I have been in consultation with the Secretary of State for Scotland and we are agreed that the new arrangements I have already described shall apply to Scotland, subject to any modification in point of detail that may be needed to adapt them to Scottish conditions.
I think your Lordships will recognize that His Majesty's Government have mobilized the powers that they have through the Exchequer, through the administration of education, through food supplies, and through the organization of their emergency cooking facilities, in a determined effort to achieve a great and practical ideal: the ideal that the children of this nation shall not suffer from malnutrition because of the war. Feeding children in schools is only one aspect of the problem of maintaining the nutritional life of the country. I wonder if your Lordships will bear with me for a few minutes whilst, for the sake of completeness, I endeavour to present to your Lordships a picture of the way in which His Majesty's Government are endeavouring to deal with the general problem of nutrition in so far as it is affected by our food supplies. Our food supplies are certainly restricted, but I believe that by adopting an informed and sensible control of the things that we import and of the goods which the great efforts of the farmers are making available for us, we can secure that in spite of a restricted diet there shall be no deterioration in the standard of the health of the nation and no failure of output through shortages of food. That is what, I believe, we can accomplish.
May I begin my review at the beginning? The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, has courteously referred to this and I am grateful to him for what he said. The provision of plentiful supplies of milk for expectant mothers and children under five is a plan that is already working. There is nothing I have been privileged to do as Minister of Food that has given me more permanent satisfaction than bringing in that scheme. I believe it has accomplished a great deal to secure that 356 as far as feeding is concerned, our children are starting right. Your Lordships are aware that we have recently taken some additional control over the milk supplies of this country. The main purpose of that is to ensure that growing children up to and including the age of seventeen, shall have adequate supplies of milk both in their homes and in their schools. I am glad to say that the plan is at the present time making no call on the forbearance of the public, though I do not disguise the fact that as winter comes on and the supplies of liquid milk become a little less, it may call for some sacrifice on the part of those of us who are older and who, except in exceptional and medical circumstances for which I have provided, can do with a little less liquid milk.
In addition to milk, we have arranged that such oranges as are available for us to bring into this country—and indeed that is no easy process in these days—shall be sold in the first instance to children and on a ration. But we recognized that it was inevitable that there should be some shortage of fruit, and we have taken particular steps to deal with it. Quite frankly, we have appealed to the great generosity of the United States of America, and not in vain, to secure fruit juices for distribution to children in order that we may in that way make up any deficiency in diet which, in the ordinary course of events, would be supplied by fruits in their natural state.
This, my Lords, is the story of what we have been able to do to deal with the problem of nutrition for children. I hope that your Lordships will agree that it represents a carefully planned policy and that it should secure that end which we have in view—that there shall be no preventable deterioration in the standard of child health during the war. So much for the children; but we have not only to preserve life; we have to defend Liberty. Those who are producing the weapons of war also need to be sustained in their efforts, and there must be no battle for resources between those who want to maintain child health and those who want the maximum of war output from the adult population. And there need be no competition. I believe that we are able to do both, and I will go further and say that we must do both even if we have to do it at some sacrifice from those of us 357 who are neither children nor come in the category of being physically heavy workers.
The principle that we are adopting to secure the health of children is to see that they shall be fed where they are congregated, so that we are sure that the food, and the appropriate food, certainly goes to children. We have adopted the same policy with industrial workers. Industrial workers need widely-different foods. Heavy workers need more meat or cheese or fish than the office workers. Workers in some forms of employment require more sugar than do others. We therefore propose to allocate foods to industrial canteens and catering establishments according to a broad general classification of their customers—a broad classification of their needs. No precision is possible here, no hard and fast definitions. We shall divide them into three groups—those who serve the workers who require meals of the most substantial character; those who are catering for other workers; and those who serve the rest of the population. We shall then be able to allocate a larger allowance of some foods to the second class than to the third, and, again, a larger allowance to the first class than to the second. I repeat that any such allocation must be on a rough and ready basis and it must be judged by whether it produces the right results or not.
In the case of miners, as your Lordships were informed by Lord Templemore, we shall before the end of this year cater in some measure for 85 per cent. of the mining population, by having supplementary foods served at the pit-head before they go down the pit, which will provide them with what are called "snap-pings," and thereby we shall relieve the wives of the miners of what I think must have been one of their most difficult problems of housekeeping in war-time. But I ventured, when opening one of these places a few days ago at Stoke, to say that "snappings were not enough." We have been greatly encouraged by the enterprise of some of the colliery owners and of the Miners' Welfare Commission working with the Mines Department, in arranging, at some mines, that canteens should be provided to secure that a hot meal shall be available for the miner when he comes up from his day's work.
It involves new organization: and, it involves acceptance of new ideas, both by 358 the miners and by the employers, but surely we are on indisputable ground when we say that in war-time it is the duty of Government to see that food adequate for the purpose of maintaining the physical strength of the people, is directed to the workers of this country who are producing munitions both for our Allies and for ourselves. We accept that obligation, and, subject to all the accidents and the uncertainties of war and thanks, indeed, in large measure to the aid both given and promised by our friends in the United States on the one hand and by the farmers of this country on the other, my Ministry is prepared to secure that food for this purpose shall be available. I believe that in this development of industrial canteens, in the pursuit of this policy of securing that the workman at his work and the child in its school shall have the opportunity of being appropriately and adequately fed, we are not only maintaining the health of the nation during war-time but we are doing something of permanent value both for the industrial life of this country and for the rising generation.
I have ventured to take the opportunity which my noble and gallant friend Lord Listowel has given me, to place before your Lordships the whole broad outline of the food policy which—according to our resources, according to the limits of our ability, and always subject to the uncertainties of war—we shall endeavour to carry out. But to make it effective there must be behind it an informed public opinion. Public authorities, armed with the powers that my right honourable friends the President of the Board of Trade and the Secretary of State for Scotland have given them this morning, must consider the extent to which they can speedily avail themselves of those facilities. On them rests the responsibility. Employers of labour must recognize the importance of securing adequate feeding arrangements for their workpeople, and I ask them in addition to note that the Ministry of Food is at their disposal in order to help them to carry out this policy. This is the first time that the Government have had the opportunity of placing before Parliament their food policy in so far as it affects the special classes of the population. I express the hope that it is one which will meet with the 359 approval of your Lordships and that this debate may hasten its adoption in the country.
§ LORD HORDERMy Lords, I am very grateful, as I am sure your Lordships are, to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for bringing this matter of the country's nutrition before the House, especially as it has drawn from the noble Lord, the Minister of Food, as he has himself told us, the first explicit and full statement of the Government's policy not only in regard to the nutrition of children but also in regard to the nutrition of the people of this country as a whole. Together with many of my colleagues, I, like the noble Earl, have been concerned about the standard of nutrition of the child population of our country; and, although it is true that so far no overt signs of malnutrition are to be observed, it must be remembered that, if we wait until signs of malnutrition appear, we have waited too long. If these signs once appear—let us hope that they may not—their appearance means that grevious injury has been done, and injury which, unlike a similar defect which may appear in adults, will leave a permanent mark—indeed, it may be called a scar—for the rest of life.
So far, as I say, we have been fortunate. The Government evacuation scheme has undoubtedly acted as a deterrent against deficiency diseases in children, because, as your Lordships of course realize, sun and air are essential elements in preserving nutrition. We do not know at present how far our children may be from a state of malnutrition; modern science gives us at present no means of measuring the safety of that margin. For that reason alone you will forgive me if I emphasize this time factor. The child, as the noble Lord, the Minister of Food, has reminded us, is at the mercy of chance in any rationing scheme; and with most mothers, as we must realize, knowledge marches a good way behind affection. This fact, I may say incidentally, is, I think, one reason why family allowances, excellent in themselves, cannot be expected to preserve the child against malnutrition, nor to solve this problem of safeguards. The school is the only place where defects may be made good and hazards warded off. It is gratifying, therefore, that His Majesty's Government have, as we are 360 informed to-day, accepted that principle in full.
It is good to hear that the noble Lord, the Minister of Food, can see his way to supply the protective and body-forming foods which, as we know, are necessary in preparing the diet of a child. It is equally good to know that the noble Lord can see his way to provide the requisite equipment, or a considerable amount of it, and that the local authorities are assured of a Treasury grant of such generous dimensions. Experience shows, however, that quite frequently and for a long time there is a lag at the periphery, even when direction has been given and action taken at the centre; otherwise one would feel quite optimistic about protecting the health of the children. I am not pessimistic, however, and I do feel that this is a red letter day in the annals of our children's nutrition. I envy the noble Lord the fact that in years to come it will be to his credit that this principle of preventing the nutrition of the children being sacrificed during war-time has been accepted and met by the bold move of increasing very considerably the provision of a standard meal at school. I do not doubt that the necessary encouragement and stimulation from the President of the Board of Education will be forthcoming. It seems to me that encouragement and stimulation will be necessary for the local education authorities, for the teachers and for the parents, in order to get the machinery going as soon as possible. The work of organization will not be easy. Everybody must help. We have to aim at as many meals as possible in as short a time as possible. Our children deserve that we should make this effort; they at least are not responsible for the grim state of the world which puts their health and happiness in jeopardy, and let us remember that our children are all that we have for to-morrow.
§ LORD ADDISONMy Lords, I rise for a minute or two only in order to express my gladness at the announcements of far-reaching importance which have been made. If your Lordships will forgive me for one personal recollection, my mind went back, as I was listening with envy to the noble Lord, to what happened to me in I921. I was Minister of Health at that time and I encouraged as best I could the provision of school meals and milk for children at school. I well remember 361 that at the height of the outcry against me for my extravagance, because we were spending £800,000 altogether in the whole country on all these things, a popular London evening paper had my photograph on the front page with a black band all round it and with the superscription—"The Super Squandermaniac." That is a true story. My mind went back to that sad day, and I thought with envy of what the noble Lord can do on much more generous lines to-day.
I hope, as my noble friend Lord Horder suggested, that the combined Departments will get together to encourage and galvanize some local authorities, which, without a doubt, they will find will be slow, and possibly, sticky. There are such local authorities. They are the standing difficulty of every administrator, and I hope that the noble Lord will be able to devise some ways and means of applying the necessary stimulus. I am glad, too, that he has adopted the canteen device for giving increased rations to manual workers, where they are wanted, because of course it has always been a very difficult administrative problem as to how you are to give the extra rations to those who require them. I sincerely hope that we shall hear of rapid progress in the future.
There is one matter that I was listening for and did not hear. It is true it was not quite a part of the statement made by the noble Lord. We all hope that there will be an enormously increased demand for the milk which this courageous scheme provides for children and, I trust, for others too. But except incidentally, when the noble Lord talked of those of us who, like himself and myself, do not perhaps require the extra supplies—in some directions one has to go without a bit—he did not refer to what it will mean—namely, a vastly increased supply of liquid milk. I am very apprehensive indeed as to what is going to happen to our milk supply, and I hope the noble Lord will waste no time in considering this. The Minister of Agriculture the other day at Norwich said that the farmers of the country have done magnificently in providing an increased quantity of food for their animals, but for various reasons we are in great danger of the milk supplies not being adequate 362 for what the noble Lord has in mind. I am quite sure that is a serious danger.
If he will allow me to return once more to the subject—he will perhaps think it is a sort of King Charles's head with me—one of the most important things in this respect that the Ministry of Food must see to and amend is the price obtained by the farmer for his milk, because the attractions of other forms of production are competing very heavily with the production of milk, which is a very difficult seven-day-a-week job, with very long hours. Unless the farmer sees he is getting an adequate and fair return for it the production may drop off; in fact I am afraid it will. What has happened has been that the farmers have had promised to them a certain price until next March, but when it came to the past summer the farmers found that whilst the nominal price to the producer was so much, what he actually received was 4d. a gallon less or thereabouts because of various deductions that were made. The result has been that during the past summer the public—I am not talking about the children—were paying twice as much or nearly twice as much for their milk as the producer received. It had an exceedingly discouraging effect. What the producers want is some assurance as to what the prices will be next year, after March. The present arrangement is announced up to March. It is of first-class importance if the noble Lord is going to maintain the supplies of milk, and if suitable heifers are to be selected and put aside, that the price received by the producer for milk should be announced much more than six months' ahead and put on a satisfactory basis at a very early date. That is most important; otherwise, the Minister will not get the milk.
I mention that incidentally, but it is exceedingly material. I know that the noble Lord will not think that I am in any way lacking in appreciation of the highly important statement he has just made. I wish it had been made to a full House at the beginning of a discussion, but I have no doubt that it will, for all that, make little difference to the ultimate appreciation of the statement. It is one of first-rate importance, which many of us for years past in various degrees have done something to work for, and have often suffered, as I have, a great deal of 363 obloquy in the process. But I am sure we congratulate the noble Lord on being able to make this statement, and our congratulation is not untinged with a considerable amount of friendly envy.
§ VISCOUNT SAMUELMy Lords, I desire in a few words to say on behalf of noble Lords who sit on these Benches how much we welcome the initiative taken by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, in inaugurating this discussion, and how very cordially we welcome the highly important and comprehensive statement that has been made by the Minister of Food. I share the regret just expressed by my noble friend Lord Addison, that so many of your Lordships have been engaged in the applied and very personal study of the subject of nutrition and were not here to listen to this momentous declaration by the Minister. In congratulating him upon it we are sure that the House and the nation will most cordially welcome it, and the statement made to-day will confirm the confidence that is generally felt in the noble Lord's administration of the important Department over which he presides.
§ THE EARL OF LISTOWELMy Lords, I am sure I am speaking for the House when I say, associating myself with what has fallen from my noble friend on the Liberal Benches, that we are deeply grateful to the Minister for taking us into his confidence and giving us such an exhaustive survey of Government policy in the matter of food. What is more, it is quite evident that the speeches that followed, when published in the country, will give added weight to the views of the Government on this matter. So far as the children are concerned, it is quite clear from what has been said that the Government are playing their part in this partnership, and it is now up to the local authorities and teaching staffs to make the most of the very generous facilities that are being placed at their disposal. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
§ Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.