FOOD AND DRUGS (MILK AND DAIRIES) BILL. (Hansard, 18 July 1944)

THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (THE DUKE OF NORFOLK)

My Lords, I rise to move that this Bill be now read a second time. We have just had the final debate on a very great measure connected with the education of the children and this Bill is a reminder of the fact that in considering their welfare we must pay regard to the nutritional side as well as to education. We have, in this war, seen a great change in the diet of the people. In spite of the fact that many of the foods which we might enjoy have not been available, the general health of the public has been maintained at a high level, and I think it is right to say that this has been achieved partly owing to the policy of supplying the right foods from the protective and nutritional points of view. During the war the production of milk has been very fully maintained, but the special schemes introduced for providing milk for children and nursing mothers has led to an increase of 40 per cent. in the consumption of liquid milk, with the result that there has not been enough milk for everybody to receive what they need. A system of rationing therefore had to be introduced, but it must be our desire to see that that shall be relaxed at the earliest possible moment.

Apart from the Government's duty to see that as much milk is produced as is required, it is also their duty to see that the milk is safe and is clean. That is the reason for this Bill. Your Lordships will remember that last year a White Paper was introduced which promised legislation in this matter. At that time 983 various noble Lords asked whether all was being done that was possible for the production of clean milk. One of the first essentials for that is a sound breeding policy for our live stock, and the main plank in the four-year plan of my right honourable friend the Minister is the improvement of our live stock. The war agricultural executive committees are giving all possible help to that end.

The Government, however, wish to go further than that. They wish not only to increase the supply but to improve its quality. The Ministry have a regular system of inspection of dairy herds. Under that system the State veterinary surgeons carried out in 1943 no fewer than 230,000 herd inspections which covered the inspection of some 5,000,000 cattle. There is also a Tuberculosis Order under which some 14,000 cattle have been destroyed each year, and we have other schemes for the control of cattle diseases, including the 1942 National Milk Testing and Advisory Scheme. The aim of this scheme is to improve the keeping quality of milk and it also provides, as I mentioned in a recent debate in your Lordships' House, for bacteriological tests of the milk and the utensils with which that milk comes in contact. It is also designed to help both producer and distributor to improve their methods. Tests are made in the case of 77 per cent. of the milk producers and 89 per cent. of the wholesalers.

There are, however, far too many authorities concerned in this matter and I think it is safe to say that it is logical that the production of milk should be under the control of one authority. That is what this Bill seeks to bring about. At the present time methods of production, buildings and equipment are under the control of the sanitary authorities, while the tubercular testing of herds comes under the county councils or county borough councils; it is small wonder that we have such varying standards of production. I submit to your Lordships that the obvious, right and proper person to have this control is the Minister of Agriculture. Therefore it is suggested that the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Health should jointly introduce regulations for the production of milk. Criticism in another place centred round the removal from the local authorities of their responsibility in the production 984 of milk, but I would remind your Lordships that they will still have responsibility at the consumer stage. They will also be responsible still for the health of the people concerned in the production of that milk. Further, they will also retain the right and the power to sample and check the purity of milk within their areas.

As so much of the milk which to-day is brought into the urban areas is produced at remote farms in the rural areas, it is quite impossible for these local authorities to know exactly what is going on. The Government intend to do everything possible to encourage the production of milk, and during the discussion in another place, two main points were raised. One concerned the principle of the transfer of the powers of registration or cancellation of registration by the Minister. The second related to the appeal to a tribunal. It is safe to say that the interest of the Minister as well as the local authority is to safeguard the consumer, and for that reason co-operation will be needed in the carrying out of the provisions of this new Bill. Subsection (3) of Clause 4 provides for the constitution under the Milk and Dairy Regulations of a Central Committee, and also for county committees, to make recommendations. The county committee will make recommendations to the Central Committee, and the Central Committee will make their recommendations to the Minister. The constitution of these committees will be dealt with more precisely in the regulations, which, as they are drawn up, will be put before representative organizations in the country and later presented to Parliament.

There is a weakness in the existing law at the moment owing to the fact that the Food and Drugs Act, 1938, does not permit the refusal by a sanitary authority of registration to any person who wishes to become a milk producer. All that happens is that there are certain regulations which have to be carried out, and if they are not complied with a prosecution may follow. Subsection (2) of Clause 1 of the present Bill puts the whole of this matter of registration in the hands of my right honourable friend the Minister, and gives him power either to refuse registration on the ground that he does not consider the surroundings in which the milk is produced are tidy and clean, or, if he so wishes, to cancel the 985 registration if the regulations are not being complied with.

Let us for a moment consider what is likely to happen in actual practice. The whole idea is to produce regulations which will aim at securing a minimum standard to provide safe and clean milk. My right honourable friend wishes to see another 350,000,000 gallons of milk produced very year. He wants also to ensure that that milk should be produced in a manner which will be most beneficial to the consumer. If a farmer who has not registered for the production of milk before decides to go in for it he will, presumably consult the Ministry's local officer, and should it be found, on an inspection of the farm being made, that certain of the requirements are not met, it will be quite proper, and no harm will be done, if the farmer has to continue his ordinary farming activities as in the past. On the other hand, should he wish to carry out the alterations necessary, time will be given for him to do so. In the case of somebody who is at this moment producing milk, it may be that he has not complied with the regulations. If the conditions are remediable reasonable time will be given for that farmer to alter his buildings and, generally speaking, to bring things up to the required standard. It will only be if he persistently neglects to carry out the instructions that he will have to put his farm to some other use than the production of milk. We cannot arrive at a uniform standard all at once, but we hope as we proceed to raise the standard of the less satisfactory farms up to those which are producing the better milk. The new entrants into milk production, as well as the existing producers, will be adequately safeguarded under subsection (3) of Clause 1 which gives them the right of appeal to the tribunal.

These are briefly the main outlines of this Bill, the other clauses of which are all ancillary. It is the desire of His Majesty's Government that the health of the children as they grow up should not be impaired in consequence of their receiving any milk which does not come within the category of a clean and safe nutritional food. In view of that aim, I commend this Bill with confidence to your Lordships and ask for it a Second Reading.

§ VISCOUNT BLEDISLOE

My Lords, there is a strange difference in the interest taken in this Bill in this House, and that which was taken in it in another place. I am bound to say that the Bill, as it left the House of Commons, has been immensely improved in one very vital particular—namely, that any dairy farmer who might be deemed to suffer an injustice under the sole authority of the Minister of Agriculture now, at any rate, has provided for him some tribunal to which he can appeal. This tribunal will no doubt save him from suffering any undue hardship. There are of course four parties affected by this Bill—namely, local authorities (including county councils, county borough councils, and, of course, sanitary authorities represented in the rural areas by the rural district councils), the dairy farmers, the milk distributors, and, last but by no means least, the milk consumers. In regard to the last, the noble Duke has quite properly emphasized the importance of a pure and adequate milk supply for the feeding of our children. If pure milk, produced under wholesome conditions, is to be universally and uniformly secured, I appreciate the necessity for some alteration in this branch of the law, but I am bound to confess that I do not altogether like this Bill. It leaves the local authorities, and especially the county councils, and the county borough councils, in an anomalous and illogical position. The truth of the matter is that our whole system of local government urgently needs an entire overhaul. This is in fact a piecemeal interference with local government administration, without attempting to cope with the crying need for overhauling and reorganizing the whole local government machinery of the country.

This Bill would appear, prima facie, to provide for the centralization of the administration of a public service which is essentially local in its implications. The associations of local authorities and of their officers have repeatedly drawn attention to the urgent desirability of an entire reorganization of local government but so far the Government have turned a deaf ear. In support of this measure the Minister of Agriculture and the noble Duke have pointed out that, although responsibility for matters concerning the health of dairy cattle was transferred to the Minister of Agriculture in 1938, responsibility for the buildings, 987 equipment and method of handling milk employed on dairy farms remains with the local sanitary authorities, and in the case of the produce of tuberculin-tested and accredited milk with the county councils and the county borough councils. The contention of the noble Duke, if I understand it aright, appears to be that because a very large number of different local authorities is involved, the standard of administration varies widely throughout the country. It seems rather unfortunate that because Parliament has made mistakes in the past by dividing the administration among a multiplicity of authorities it should now go to the other extreme and take away all the powers vested in local authorities in this connexion so far as the farms are concerned and confer them on the Ministry.

It cannot be denied that some of the rural district councils, and I suppose also some of the urban district councils, have been lax in their inspection and control of buildings and equipment on dairy farms. This has been due partly, if not mainly, to the inability of these lesser local authorities to pay a sufficient number of well-trained sanitary inspectors to carry out the work for them. It seems rather a pity that there cannot be a compromise on the lines suggested by the County Councils' Association, whereby all milk and dairy functions would be concentrated in the hands of the county councils, who are quite able and willing to carry out the task, on the understanding that in the case of the larger boroughs and the larger and more reliable district councils these powers might be delegated by them if this would result in greater efficiency.

The Sanitary Inspectors' Association, in a recent memorandum, point out that when this Bill becomes law the veterinary inspectors of the Ministry of Agriculture will be responsible for the inspection of dairy farms not only in regard to the condition of the cattle but in order to secure compliance with the provisions of the Milk and Dairies Regulations relating to milk production in every sense, and including, of course, those which have reference to building construction, drainage, sanitation, sewage disposal and water supply, matters normally within the province of the sanitary inspector, as is perpetuated and emphasized by the Rural Water Supplies and Sewerage Bill now 988 under your Lordships' consideration. The veterinary profession has drawn attention to the acute shortage of veterinary surgeons, which results in the fact that they cannot carry out the full number of clinical inspections required in the cases of heated and raw milk respectively.

I quite agree with the noble Duke that both the quantity, and to some extent the quality, of milk have appreciably improved during the last ten or fifteen years, but I do submit—and here I am sure that the noble Duke will agree with me—that they are capable of very much further improvement. I do not anticipate that that improvement is likely to take place until much more drastic action is taken in regard to the diseases of bovine cattle, and more particularly tuberculosis, Johne's disease, contagious abortion and mastitis. I venture to suggest that if only cattle disease were dealt with with a much stronger hand both by the Ministry of Agriculture and by the Ministry of Health it would do infinitely more both to improve and to increase the milk supply of this country than anything that this Bill is of itself likely to bring about. There is one question which I should like to ask, with regard to Clause 5 of the Bill. It is admitted that a certain number of officials will have to be displaced as a result of the passage of this Bill. Why should not compensation to these displaced officers of the local authority be found by the Ministry? Why should it have to be paid by the authorities who lose their services?

I venture to suggest that if it is found that this Bill, which will no doubt be passed into law without amendment, does not work satisfactorily in practice, it may well be considered desirable for the Minister of Agriculture to delegate his powers under the Bill to the county councils and to the county borough councils, perhaps acting on a joint committee with representatives of the dairy farmers—no doubt represented by the local branches of the National Farmers' Union—and possibly also with representatives of the district councils. After all, if this is going to be a success, and if the improved administration of milk production is really going to be achieved, we must ensure the confidence and support of the local authorities, who, after all, are mainly responsible for the health of the population.

In conclusion, I should like to say that although the health of our infantile popu 989 lation has, I am told, improved in recent years, it has to be borne in mind that our country by no means holds the record in the matter of the standard of health of our infantile population. There are other countries in which infant mortality—the mortality of children under two years of age—is far lower than it is in this country, and notable among them are Holland and New Zealand. New Zealand, of course holds the world record in this respect. Bearing in mind how enormously important the adequacy and high quality of milk are to the health of our infant children, it is most earnestly to be hoped that by the suppression of disease and by more effective administration there will be far more milk available from our cattle in days to come in this country, and milk of a much higher quality than has obtained so far. I am conscious that I am not voicing the view of my friends who sit on local authorities—and I sit on one myself—when I say that I welcome this Bill and I certainly am not going to oppose the Second Reading but I cannot help deploring the fact that it is a glaring instance of piecemeal legislation, and what is wanted is an entire overhaul of our local government in this country.