§ LORD SOUTHWOODMy Lords, I beg to put a question of which I have given private notice—namely, to ask His Majesty's Government whether they are in a position to make a statement as to the effect of recent developments in the war on the food situation, present and prospective.
§ THE MINISTER OF FOOD (LORD WOOLTON)My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Southwood for having given me an opportunity of making this statement. Your Lordships will remember that last autumn I stated in your Lordships' House that our stocks of wheat and flour were satisfactorily large. We had been fortunate both in the extent to which millable wheat had been produced in this country, and in the extent to which we had been able to import it from overseas. Your Lordships need have no concern about our stocks of these commodities to-day: but since I last addressed your Lordships on this subject new circumstances have arisen. The fields over which it is now necessary for us—and our Allies—to convey troops and equipment have been considerably extended: the increased strain on our shipping resources is heavy. We must consider where it is possible to make changes in our national diet that, without detriment to the health of the nation, will set free for military purposes ships that otherwise might be engaged in bringing food to this country.
Your Lordships will recognize that of the many foodstuffs we import nothing bulks so large as wheat. To reduce the tonnage used for the transport of wheat His Majesty's Government have therefore decided to increase to 85 per cent. the ratio of flour from wheat milled in this country. This means that we shall stop the production of white bread. Whilst the nation, in spite of the advertisements that I have issued, has made it quite clear that it prefers white bread, I do not believe 228 that it wants it at the expense of slowing down our military effort and the movement of our troops. It was in this conviction that His Majesty's Government have decided that from Monday, 23rd March, millers in this country will be prohibited, except under specific licence, from manufacturing any flour other than national wheatmeal flour or some authorized speciality brown flour. Your Lordships will not expect me to make a statement of the actual figure of tonnage that will thus be saved; but I must say that it is not quite so much as I have seen publicly mentioned.
There is another point that will have occurred to your Lordships. This increased milling ratio entails the diversion of some of the product of wheat from the feeding of live stock to use as human food. The decision has not been taken without careful examination of the possible effects on our agricultural output. The change has been timed to take place when, with the approach of summer, it will not be necessary for the Ministry of Agriculture to change, from now until the end of August, the scale of rations of purchased feeding-stuffs allowed to stock and poultry feeders.
I have in the past indicated to your Lordships that we had considerable stocks of flour as well as wheat in this country. That flour is all white flour. We shall have to absorb this. It has been held up to now as part of our security arrangements, and the decision to raise the milling ratio will call for certain supplementary orders. Millers, importers, factors and bakers hold stocks of white flour. As from 23rd March no miller, factor or importer will be permitted to deliver any white flour to any person other than a licensed baker, and then only providing that three times the quantity of national wheatmeal is concurrently delivered. From the same date bakers will be authorized when producing national wheatmeal bread to include up to 25 per cent. of white flour with the national wheatmeal. I apologize for going into these technical details, but they are of considerable importance to the trade. As from 6th April it will not be permissible except under licence to sell any white bread. The only bread on sale will be national wheatmeal bread or authorized speciality brown breads. As from 20th April an Order will take effect prohibiting 229 the manufacture of any article of food unless at least three-quarters of the flour contained in that article consists of flour of not less than 85 per cent. extraction. From that date, that is, from the 20th April, biscuits, cakes, and flour confectionery will be made of the same type of flour as is permitted for bread. We shall not go on to the total use of 85, per cent. extraction flour until the existing stocks of white flour have been used up.
My Department, in association with both the millers and bakers, has endeavoured during several months to define a standard and to improve the quality of wheatmeal flour and bread. Complete uniformity in production is not possible. There will always be some differences in colour and appearance: the grades of imported wheat supplied by my Department to different millers are not uniform: at different times the same miller may have to use different grades. The proportions of home-grown wheat included in the millers' grist vary from time to time, and in different parts of the country. Great progress towards uniformity has, however, been made, and I am advised that it is now possible for me to frame an Order prescribing a more detailed technical specification for national wheatmeal than was considered possible at the time our first Order was made.
I am satisfied that we shall get a good bread, good in substance, good in texture, and agreeable to the palate, and I am satisfied that the resultant saving in shipping will represent a considerable contribution to the war effort, in which the whole of the people of this country will be proud to take their share. This is a pure bread; it will be unlike the standard bread of the last war and vastly superior to it. I would add one more word on this subject. We have been very generous in our use of bread in this country. So often a great deal of it is wasted. I wonder how many people have a roll or a piece of bread with a dinner that is quite adequate without the addition of bread. That roll is so often played with and crumbled away. I was going through the park the other day, and I noticed some people amusing themselves by feeding the birds on the park lake with bread. I wondered what sailors who had been torpedoed might have thought if they saw such people so lightly regarding the precious food that has been so dangerously brought 230 to us. When I first became Minister of Food almost two years ago I appealed to the public not to waste bread. I repeat that appeal now. I mentioned the dinner roll deliberately because so many people who eat it do not need it. If every person in this country were to endeavour to save one ounce of bread a day, we should save the voyages of fifty-six ships. I commend that to the consideration of my fellow-countrymen who are in a position to make such savings.
It may be convenient if I also tell your Lordships now that, in order to release man-power and factory space, I propose to place limitations on the production of sugar confectionery and of biscuits. I propose to require the chocolate trade to limit their production to slab chocolate, filled bars, and what is known in the trade by the rather gorgeous name of "enrobered count lines." The pre-war selection of biscuits, already reduced by 75 per cent., will, during the next few months, be further reduced. Variety in manufactured foodstuffs usually involves increased labour. I have, therefore, arranged with these trades to produce the stipulated output in the variety that employs the minimum of labour. The public will be quite well served by these trades, and I am glad to be able to tell your Lordships that I have had from their representatives, and from the millers and bakers, both large and small, the most cordial co-operation in bringing these new-conditions into existence.
The noble Lord, Lord Southwood, has in the past drawn the attention of your Lordships to the need for making the sentences on what are termed "Black Market" offenders reflect the seriousness of the damage these people do to the country. It may therefore be your Lordships' pleasure that I should tell you something of the new penalties and provisions which my right honourable friend the Home Secretary is announcing in another place. Under the existing Defence Regulations the maximum term of imprisonment which can be imposed for contravening orders for the control of essential supplies is three months on summary conviction and two years on indictment. For deliberate and calculated efforts to evade for selfish ends orders designed to secure an equitable distribution of controlled articles, we consider these penalties are inadequate, and it has been decided to 231 introduce new Defence Regulations raising the maximum term to fourteen years' penal servitude on indictment and to twelve months' imprisonment on summary conviction. In the pursuit of these offenders there is close co-operation between the police and the departments concerned with the control of food and other articles, and as is shown by the number of prosecutions active measures are being taken for the detection of offences. These measures will be kept under review and continuous efforts will be made to strengthen the machinery and make such improvements as experience may suggest.
The offences to which the new Regulations will apply will vary in gravity, and many of them can properly be dealt with by the summary courts empowered as they will be to impose as much as a year's imprisonment. It would be a great mistake to undervalue the work of the magistrates who deal with the great majority of offences against the Defence Regulations as well as against the ordinary law. To their public spirit and efficiency in administering justice we must continue to look for assistance in dealing with a large proportion of offenders. But in order to ensure that there shall be no failure to commit to the higher Courts the graver cases calling for greater penalties than the summary courts are authorized to impose, the new Regulations will provide that cases falling within their scope shall not be dealt with summarily without the consent of the prosecuting authority. There will also be a provision enabling the Director of Public Prosecutions to require in cases of special gravity or difficulty that the offender shall be committed to Assizes rather than to Quarter Sessions.
Special consideration has been given to the question of fines. Even when sentences of imprisonment or penal servitude are imposed—and for deterrent purposes it is most important that full use should be made of such sentences—the offender must not be allowed to retain his illicit gains. Whatever other punishment may be imposed upon him, he ought to forfeit any profit he may have made by contravening the law. The new Regulations will therefore require that, in the absence of special circumstances, the offender must be fined a sum equal to the benefit which in the opinion of the Court he has derived from his offence. This is the least which ought to be done. The 232 maximum fine which may be imposed will not be limited to the amount of the profit. It may be higher, as, for example, under the existing provisions in Defence Regulation 55 authorizing a fine equal to three times the price at which the offender has offered to sell or buy the goods in question; and the Courts will, I am sure, recognize that in appropriate cases the fine should be larger than the profit and that sentences of imprisonment or penal servi-ture should be imposed as well as the fines.
The new Regulations will also contain a provision for dealing with the man behind the scenes who, though he organizes and profits from illicit transactions, keeps so far in the background that it has hitherto been difficult or impracticable to bring him to justice. Although it may be known that such a man has taken a large share of the profit it has frequently been impossible to bring home to him guilty knowledge of the active complicity. In future the onus will be placed on these shy profiteers of explaining their conduct to a Court. There will be a provision in the Regulations that any person who receives a commission or valuable consideration in respect of an illicit transaction in controlled articles shall be guilty of an offence unless he proves that he did not know, and had no reason to believe, that the transaction was illicit. As many of these illicit transactions start with thefts, the provisions of the new Regulation will not be confined to contraventions of orders made under Defence Regulation 55, but will also apply to any cases of stealing or receiving stolen articles. Theft of the nation's food or other necessaries is more than theft; it is a crime against the State and must be rigorously punished.
These new provisions have been carefully devised in consultation with the Departments concerned with the administration of orders for the control of essential commodities, and with those who have had experience of the proceedings in the criminal Courts. If further powers are needed, they will be taken, but the Defence Regulation now prepared will, I am confident, provide potent weapons for a vigorous offensive against persons who, regardless of the national interest and of the priniciple that food and other essential articles must be fairly shared, are seeking to exploit the war situation 233 for private gain. The Courts can be relied upon to make effective use of the new powers and to administer them with a due sense of the gravity of the evil at which they are aimed. I am sorry to have kept your Lordships so long but I thought the statement was one that the noble Lord, Lord Southwood, would be particularly glad to hear because of the active interest he has taken in this matter.
§ LORD SOUTHWOODMy Lords, I am sure the House is very much indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Woolton, for the, clear and concise and, I think, encouraging statement he has made on our food situation. I think it speaks volumes for the work the Ministry of Food has done that after two and half years of war we arc still so amply feed. I am perfectly certain that every right-minded man will whole-heartedly welcome the decision of His Majesty's Government to increase the penalties up to fourteen years' penal servitude to be imposed upon those vicious people who batten on the public in time of war through what is known as the Black Market. I thank the noble Lord very much for the statement and I am sure it will be welcomed by the country at large.
§ LORD HANKEYMy Lords, I rise to congratulate my noble friend the Minister of Food on the announcement which he has just made, from the point of view of the Scientific Advisory Committee, over which I have had the honour of presiding since its inception till a few days ago. So far as the nation's health is concerned, I know that this, reform of national bread will be particularly welcome to that Committee, for, as stated in the final report of the Mixed Committee of the League of Nations on nutrition of 1937,
when bread is made with flour that has been excessively milled, much of the valuable mineral elements of the grain fails to find its way into the bread.It is always difficult to persuade our people to change their feeding habits for health reasons, even when the change is recommended by experts of world standing, and has been approved by large scale experiments. But now, as the noble Lord has just shown, this reform is necessary to our war effort for shipping reasons, and there is no change to which our people will not gladly submit in that supreme interest.234 I venture to forecast that they will never regret it, subject to one paramount condition—namely, that the millers and the bakers play their part in producing a palatable bread all over the country. That may require watchfulness and guidance by the Ministry of Food. I earnestly hope that this reform will be extended as soon as practicable to the Fighting Services, whose health, physique and staying power will soon respond to this improvement in their diet. I also hope that the Minister of Food will follow up this notable advance by pressing forward with the following advice of the Medical Research Council in its Report for 1937–38, so far as it is consistent with the exigencies of war-time feeding. This is the extract:
A much greater consumption of milk and other dairy products, of eggs, of vegetables, including potatoes, of fruit, and of fat fish, at the expense of bread, biscuits, sugar and sweets, especially in early life, is an urgent national requirement: it will not only improve the physique of the people, but will reduce the amount of dental decay and greatly raise the standard of health. An increase in breastfeeding will still further reduce the high mortality rate of infants from gastro-intestinal troubles and bronco-pneumonia. Whatever advances in medical knowledge may come, until these simple precepts are adopted there will still remain a great deal of preventable disease in this country.I know that a good deal has been done already along these lines.
§ LORD HORDERMy Lords, you will not be surprised if I welcome this, decision on the part of His Majesty's Government to make a definite, uniform, controlled, supervised form of flour for national use. I have never been satisfied, personally, that there came back to us in terms of milk anything like the equivalent of the valuable germ of the wheat which we feed to our cattle, and, looking at the new policy from the doctor's angle, which chiefly concerns me, I can assure your Lordships that my colleagues and I are uniformly of the opinion that no single step which the Government could have taken in respect of the nation's food is so calculated as this one to raise the level of the nation's nutrition. The noble Lord, Lord Hankey, has dealt with some of the perhaps more scientific aspects of this matter, and with your Lordships' permission I would like very briefly to supplement them from the clinical angle.
There is still to some extent unresolved the question of the actual availability, during the process of digestion, of the 235 superior content of national wholemeal flour in minerals, vitamins and other valuable ingredients, but that is a question which is still in the hands, and will be in the hands, of scientists for some time to come, but the fact remains that 85 per cent. extraction wheat berry is a natural food, and being a natural food we have a priori reason at least for considering that it is superior to white flour, which has been subjected to methods of what are termed replacement. Many criticisms have been offered in respect of national wheatmeal. Some of them are well-informed, others are ill-informed. The fact that we can wrangle about our food demonstrates that we are very well fed. With regard to some of these criticisms, if the Minister will assure us that this new flour on this 85 per cent. basis will be uniform in all but colour—which is known to be a trivial point—that the specification will be as exact as possible, so that for example detection and punishment of criminal tinkering with it will be rendered easy, then a great deal of the current criticisms will die of inanition.
But a fear of a different kind has been expressed—namely, that national wheat-meal, this 85 per cent. extraction flour, is indigestible. We have no evidence of that and we must remember that during the last war the standard bread was of a quality much poorer than the present national wheatmeal. Although a good many careful observations were made during the last war on this question of digestibility, no evidence was forthcoming to show that people's digestions were disturbed by the consumption of that standard bread. In South Africa, as your Lordships perhaps know, already the national wheatmeal is of 90 per cent. extraction, and in Eire I think it is illegal to sell bread made of flour of a lower extraction than 93 per cent. From no one of these countries have we heard of diseases of digestion arising from the consumption of the bread. There is another point that may interest your Lordships. There are no diseases—at least I know of no diseases—of the digestive system, or indeed of any of our systems, other than those for which bread of any kind is disallowed, in which national wheatmeal may not be given with impunity. Even in cases of gastric and duodenal ulcers, when we arrive at the stage when bread is approved as part of the diet, national 236 wheatmeal is found to be well tolerated. Evidence seems to be accruing to show that the minerals and vitamins in which national wheatmeal is rich are a valuable adjunct in the healing process.
I, personally, have no fear that the nation will be unwilling to adopt this new policy. There will be some grouses, of course, but I agree with my noble friend when he suggested that a new psychological factor has of late replaced the old one of wanting to eat the bread we like. The new psychological factor, I suggest, is stronger than the old. It is that factor which leads people to say, "If you tell us that more shipping is needed and that we liberate more shipping by eating national wheatmeal, we shall do so" and they sometimes add—God bless them—"I remember my doctor said it was better for me." One more point and I have finished. This national loaf will be of greater benefit to those who are still living below the poverty line in respect of their nutrition than the rest of us, for the simple reason that they are the slowest to change old habits in the matter of basic foods. Those who are restricted both in markets and in means to pay will get better value for their money, because this loaf is itself a food and white bread is not.
§ LORD HUTCHISON OF MONTROSEMy Lords, I listened with great interest to what the noble Lord the Minister of Food said on this question of brown flour. All I can say is that the millers, especially in the North, will very gladly study what he has said, and I am sure he can reckon on the millers being whole-heartedly behind him in doing what he wants to do and thereby reducing pressure on our shipping. I would like to warn your Lordships' House, however, that by so changing the extraction of flour from wheat we are undoubtedly going to interfere with the production of feeding-stuffs for our animals. That no doubt will be considered by the Minister, but it will have quite a serious effect in the production of offals in the mills. Be that as it may, I can assure the noble Lord that we will loyally support him in anything he wants to do in reducing pressure on shipping. At the same time, I might venture to suggest that perhaps the change in the quality of flour will reduce the consumption of bread to begin with because our people have been largely accustomed to white flour. I think you will find that for 237 a time at least, until people get accustomed to the change, there will be a reduction in the consumption of bread. Perhaps that was at the back of the mind of the Minister when he made this change. At any rate all those who are engaged in this trade will heartily support him in what he wants to do. Anything we can do to help the noble Lord we will do, with the greatest gratitude to those who have been doing so much at the Ministry of Food.