HL Deb 30 March 1955 vol 192 cc246-56

3.8 p.m.

EARL ST. ALDWYN rose to move, That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Transfer of Functions (Ministry of Food) Order, 1955, reported from the Special Orders Committee on Wednesday last, be made in the form of the draft laid before Parliament. The noble Earl said: My Lords, this draft Order in Council merges the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Ministry of Food into one Department. Your Lordships will remember that the Government's decision to do this was announced on 18th October last, and it was then explained that the process of welding these two Departments together was expected to take about six months, and that during this period my right honourable friend, Mr. Heathcoat Amory, would hold two portfolios as Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries and Minister of Food.

Paragraph 2 of the draft Order dissolves the Ministry of Food and, except in so far as the Minister's powers in Scotland are transferred to the Secretary of State, transfers its functions to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. I should perhaps explain that this is merely a matter of form. The Order has to be drafted in this way so that it can be made under the Ministers of the Crown (Transfer of Functions) Act of 1946. The Government's intention remains as stated last October, to amalgamate these two Departments to form a new Department concerned with the provision and distribution of food, whether from at home or abroad.

Nevertheless, what is left of the Ministry of Food is now very small indeed by comparison with the huge Department that it was at one time, and we must regard this as the formal occasion for taking leave of the Ministry of Food as a separate Department. It grew out of the pre-war Food (Defence Plans) Department and became a separate Ministry at the beginning of the war. At the peak of its activity it employed a staff of nearly 44,000 people. Although it was no longer as big as that when the present Government took office, we found it still a very large Department, with rationing and a wide range of other food controls still operating. As food supplies were improved and the various food trades could be set free, we were able to cut down the Department's activities and the numbers it employed. As noble Lords will remember, the last of the rationing schemes ended in July of last year.

In October, 1951, we found the Ministry of Food with a total non-industrial staff of more than 27,000. By last October the figure had been reduced to 7,191. The total at the beginning of this month was just over 5,600, and your Lordships will be interested to know that of this total more than 2,500 are employed in the operation of schemes under the Agriculture Act, such as the Livestock Deficiency Payments Scheme, for fulfilling our responsibilities to the farmers under free marketing conditions.

The difference between 44,000 and 5,600 is very great, and your Lordships will, I am sure, be glad that it has been possible to make these economies. At the same time, we must remember that the Ministry of Food, during its life of more than fifteen years, has played a very important part and done excellent work. Its staff, put together hastily at the beginning of the war, were immediately called upon to play a vital part in the war economy under new and trying conditions. Noble Lords will remember with what success this difficult work was accomplished; the part played in it by my noble friend Lord Woolton will undoubtedly go down in history. I am particularly glad to see that he is here this afternoon to witness the laying to rest of the Department which he led with such distinction, and he will know that we are putting these proposals before the House with a full realisation of the excellent work which has been done in the past.

After the end of the war, people naturally became impatient, as time went on, with the rationing and other irksome restrictions of war-time control which still remained. It took time to get rid of these controls, and while we were doing so the staff of the Ministry had to carry on their work in difficult conditions under critical public scrutiny. They did their work very well and have carried out the task of decontrol with equal loyalty.

I turn now to the actual functions which are being transferred. Part I of the First Schedule of the Order gives a list of the functions which we are proposing should be transferred to the Secretary of State for Scotland. Wherever it is reasonably practicable to do so, responsibilities which were hitherto discharged by the Minister of Food in relation to Scotland are being transferred to the Secretary of State. There are inevitably some functions—as, for example, those arising out of our relations with other Commonwealth suppliers, or out of international trade in food—which cannot be divided and must be carried on by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, in consultation with the Secretary of State.

The House will wish to know what functions the Ministry of Food will bring into the new Department, and I will mention first those which arise out of the administration of the Agriculture Act of 1947. The Ministry brings to bear on the marketing problems that arise in devising means of fulfilling the agricultural guarantees under free conditions its knowledge and experience of food processing and distribution, of food import questions and of consumer needs, and provides the main point of contact with the food trades concerned.

Secondly, the Ministry provides the executive arrangements for operating some of the principal schemes for providing the guarantees under the Act: the deficiency payments scheme for wheat, barley, oats and rye; the deficiency payments scheme for livestock, including the very important arrangements for facilitating the sale of meat on the hook through the services of Government graders; and the support schemes for eggs and potatoes, although responsibility for the latter is likely shortly to pass to the Potato Marketing Board. Quite a large proportion of the present staff of the Ministry is concerned with these schemes—some 2,580 out of a total staff of about 5,600. Thirdly, the Ministry administers subsidies totalling about £285 million a year, which mostly arise out of the agricultural guarantees, although there are some of a different type, like the subsidy on bread and the welfare subsidies.

Turning to a somewhat different field, the Ministry has still a number of responsibilities arising out of long-term contracts: with Australia, for instance, in connection with meat; with some of the Colonial producers, under contracts for oils and oilseeds; and wish Commonwealth suppliers of orange juice for the welfare scheme. It is implementing the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement; and it is still the sole importer of bacon. It has an important general responsibility for the over-sight of food import programmes for balance of payments reasons; and it has, of course, an important continuing relationship with Commonwealth countries interested in the United Kingdom as a market for their food exports. It contributes to the work of a number of important international bodies, of which this country is a member, including the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (the O.E.E.C.), the food defence planning work in N.A.T.O. and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. There are a number of other bodies with the names of which I will not weary your Lordships this afternoon.

The Ministry of Food at present bears the main responsibility for the administration of food and drugs legislation as it applies to food, although these matters are of great interest, also, to the Ministry of Health—indeed, the arrangements provide for regulations made under the Fond and Drags Acts to be signed jointly by the Minister of Food and the Minister of Health. The question of the division of responsibilities between the two Ministers on these subjects has been given a great deal of careful thought and some rearrangements have now been decided on. They will be given effect in an Order shortly to be laid before Parliament. The Order will transfer to the Minister of Health primary responsibility for questions affecting hygiene, which I may perhaps describe as those applying to the cleanliness of food premises and clean handling of food. Responsibility for other subjects, bearing mainly on the composition of food and on labelling and advertising, will remain with the Minister in his new capacity as Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Regulation of food composition is, of course, intended, in part, for the protection of health; but it is usually also designed, together with the regulation of labelling, to prevent fraud. These are likewise subjects in which close contact with the food manufacturing trades is important, because they usually involve a large number of technical questions connected with the raw materials and manufacturing processes used.

A responsibility of the Ministry which links up with work in this general field is that for the policy of Her Majesty's Government in connection with slaughterhouses. And I should perhaps mention that because my right honourable friend will remain responsible for this aspect of policy he will also retain primary responsibility for questions of hygiene in slaughterhouses and for the inspection of meat. He will also retain primary responsibility for milk in all its aspects. The work of disposing of stocks and clearing up the accounts of the former large-scale trading of the Ministry has made good progress, but there still remains some work to be done in this field.

Finally, there is the important question of defence plans. The maintenance of food supplies, and of food distribution, the reimposition of the essential controls and the development of schemes for emergency feeding all represent difficult and essential aspects of defence planning which must be kept up to date; and emergency reserves of food must be maintained and renewed at appropriate intervals. I hope your Lordships will agree that the arrangements proposed are sensible, and that it is logical to invest one Minister with responsibility for food in all its aspects, from production and importation through the various stages of manufacture and distribution to the final consumer. I am sure that these arrangements will work efficiently and economically, and accordingly I commend the draft Order to your Lordships. I beg to move.

Moved, That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Transfer of Functions (Ministry of Food) Order, 1955, reported from the Special Orders Committee on Wednesday last, be made in the form of the draft laid before Parliament.—(Earl St. Aldwyn.)

3.23 p.m.

THE EARL OF LISTOWEL

My Lords, I feel that, like the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, I owe an apology to you, and also, I am afraid, to the members of the Special Orders Committee, for not raising my voice—apart from asking one or two questions—when this matter was dealt with by the Special Orders Committee last week. This Order is certainly, I think we shall all agree, founded on precedent, because, of course, the Ministry of Food is only one of many war-time Ministries which have subsequently been wound up by Parliament. But in our view it is not the case that this Order raises no important issue of policy or principle. On the contrary, we take the view that it raises large issues of policy, and not only of policy but of sound administration, and that these are issues which the House should consider with the utmost care before it decides finally to approve the Order. And let me say clearly at the outset that we do not agree with the policy—which is the policy in the Order—of dismembering what is left of the Ministry of Food and distributing its remains between a number of other Government Departments. Perhaps, before I go further, I should say that while we shall state in the discussions that will take place on the Floor of the House our objections to the Order, we shall not, of course, carry them to a Division. As your Lordships are, I think, aware, we share the view that was taken, I am glad to say, by noble Lords opposite when they were in Opposition, that it is, at any rate, unwise for this House to use its power to reject Executive Orders.

Before I come to the controversial aspects of this Order I should like to say something about another aspect with which I think we shall all be in full agreement. I am delighted that the noble Earl, Lord St. Aldwyn, referred to this subject, and I am in entire agreement with what he said. The legislation which we are about to pass marks the end of a great Government Department which for fifteen years of war and peace has rendered outstanding service to the country. It will be chiefly remembered for what it did during the war. It helped us to win the war by maintaining and, indeed, improving the health of the civilian population. It was really an extraordinary achievement, when we look back on it, that, at a time when our food imports were about half what they were before the war, and home supplies could not catch up in time to fill the gap, our people were, nevertheless, better nourished and received fairer shares than ever before in our history. We are still reaping the benefits of war-time rationing and price control in the better health of thousands of families at the lower end of our wage scale, and our grateful thanks are indeed due to all who have served the Ministry of Food, whether as Ministers or as officials, whether in whole-time or in part-time capacity, whether in Whitehall or in any of the food offices up and down the country. When we call to mind the Food Ministers in a succession of Governments, I think we remember with special regard and affection here, because they have taken so large a part in the work of the House, the noble Viscount, Lord Woolton, and the noble Lord who succeeded him as Minister of Food, Lord Llewellin, who is now Governor General of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. I suppose that the noble Viscount, Lord Woolton, will for ever be remembered as the doyen, as it were, of this distinguished corps of Ministers.

I should like to make perfectly clear the reasons for our objections to this Order, and also to make clear what they are not, in case anyone should mistake our point of view. We do not object to this Order because we want to go back to rationing. We have always regarded food rationing as no more than a means, a regrettable but necessary means, of getting an even distribution of essential foodstuffs while they are in short supply. Of course, as soon as the war was over, agriculture began to pick up both at home and abroad and to increase the world supply of foodstuffs. This has made the situation at home much easier and thus rendered it practicable for us to start derationing during the term of office of the last Labour Government. The present Government have continued and completed this process of derationing. I am sure that no one in any Party—certainly no one whom I have ever come across—wishes to reverse the process. What we are aiming at in our food policy—and here, again, we shall find, I think, that we are in agreement with the Government—is to ensure a cheap supply of basic foods in sufficient quantities to maintain the highest practicable standard of nutrition. Where we disagree with the Government is about the means of putting this policy into effect.

We believe—and this is the heart of our case—that there must be one Department in the Administration and one Minister in the Government primarily responsible for looking after the consumer, for protecting his standards of nutrition and for keeping down the cost of living. That is why we think that the Ministry of Food, in spite of the fact that it has run down steadily since the war, can still do a useful job. It is true, of course, that with the end of rationing and Government trading in foods it has lost many important functions. It is also true that there are administrative difficulties in keeping alive a very small Department. But the Government has chosen only one alternative of several that might have been considered. If the Ministry of Food should continue to be, as we maintain it should, the guardian and protector of the consumer, it might have certain functions transferred to it from the Board of Trade and from other Government Departments not mainly concerned at the present time with the consumer's interests.

Another alternative which has been widely discussed and which I am sure deserves serious consideration is the setting up of a Ministry of Consumers' Welfare. Of course, as we are aware, there are many disadvantages in setting up a new Ministry at the present time. It is clear that the advantages would have to be great to outweigh the difficulties and the extra cost. Apart from the merits of the two alternatives I have suggested, I regret that the Government do not appear to have thought about either of them—about strengthening the Ministry of Agriculture or creating a separate Ministry in order to maintain in the machinery of government one Department and one Minister whose primary and overriding responsibility would be to safeguard the interests of the consumer.

When the Ministry of Food is scrapped, as it will be after this Order has been approved, there will be left no Department and no Minister concerned mainly and primarily with the welfare of the consumer. We deplore the removal of what we regard as an effective safeguard for the consumer. Nor can we accept the Government's contention that the Minister of Agriculture will be a satisfactory substitute for the Minister of Food. In speaking of "the Minister of Agriculture," I am not, of course, referring to any particular person: I am sure that Ministers of every Party will do their best to carry out the new duties and responsibilities which the Minister of Agriculture and his Department will assume after the demise of the Ministry of Food. We are all aware, and I am sure we all agree, that the Ministry of Agriculture is primarily a producers' Department. Its principal job under the 1947 Act is to see that farmers have an assured market and receive a fair price for their crops, livestock and livestock products. But a fair price for farmers might—I do not say it would—mean a sharp rise in shop prices. The Minister is therefore bound to find himself in a dilemma, resulting from the obviously conflicting interests of producers and consumers. Fair treatment for the farmer would be represented as unfair treatment for the housewife, and vice versa. I think it unwise and unreasonable of the Government to shoulder a Minister with duties that might so easily conflict and to submit him to the ordeal, as it will certainly be, of this ambiguous relationship to the public.

There is another reason why the Minister of Agriculture cannot possibly be an adequate substitute for the Minister of Food. The Ministry of Agriculture has become one of the largest and busiest of Government Departments. I was looking up the list of Ministers and Government Departments at the beginning of Hansard the other day (we are able occasionally to see who rules, by glancing at the opening pages of Hansard) and I find that when the Ministry of Agriculture has these four Ministers, as it will have, there will be only three other Government Departments with as many, or more, Ministers—the Foreign Office, the Scottish Office and the Treasury. That is surely an indication that the Ministry of Agriculture has become a mammoth Department. Yet it is to this mammoth Department, which deals also with the forestry industry and the fishing industry, as well as the agricultural industry, one of the most important in the country, that most of the functions of the Ministry of Food are to be transferred. It will now be expected to show equal interest, with forestry, fishing and the production of food, in clean food (temporarily, at any rate), in hygienic and humane slaughterhouses, and in the purchase of wheat and sugar from overseas—to give only one or two examples of matters that have been taken over.

I think there are two dangers in thrusting new duties upon an already overburdened Department. One is the lack of ministerial supervision. I thought that the Crichel Down Report showed pretty clearly, among other things, that Ministers were not completely aware of what was going on. The difficulty of keeping in touch, which is always a problem for the head of a busy Department, will be increased if his duties are enlarged in this way. I hope very much that responsibility for these new matters will not be delegated to a junior Minister and that they will receive the attention of the Minister himself. Perhaps the noble Earl could deal with that point when he comes to reply at the end of this discussion. The other danger I see is that these new matters will be regarded as no more than sideshows and will not receive the care and interest given to the traditional activities of the Ministry of Agriculture. I trust that the Government are aware of both these dangers and will do their utmost to avoid them.

My other criticism of the proposals in this Order, which is not a criticism of policy, is that they are plain bad administration. I do not like the way in which the functions of the Ministry of Food have been distributed among the Government Departments. The Ministry of Agriculture seems to have been given too many, while other Departments, better qualified to deal with them, have been completely left out. I am perfectly happy about the transfer to the Ministry of Agriculture of duties connected with price guarantees and deficiency payments. Such duties are obviously tied up with the normal work of the Department, and the noble Earl rightly pointed out that in fact the Ministry of Food had simply been operating schemes made under the 1947 Act. Of course, as the noble Earl again pointed out, this would mean, in any event, the transfer of about half of the existing staff to the Ministry of Agriculture.

I am much less happy, however, about the commercial duties which will arise under long-term food contracts with Commonwealth countries and British Colonies and for the purchase of sugar and wheat under international agreements. The Ministry of Agriculture has never been a trading Department. It has no experience of trading and commerce. It has never bought food from the farmers; this was done for it in time past by the Ministry of Food; and now, of course, it is being done by private traders or marketing boards. I cannot understand, therefore, why the trading duties of the Ministry of Food have not been transferred to the Board of Trade. The Board of Trade has plenty of experience of foreign trade; indeed, one section of this Department is entirely devoted to overseas trade.

As your Lordships will remember, when the Ministry of Food was set up fifteen years ago, it took over certain trading functions discharged by the Board of Trade. It seems logical that when the Ministry of Food is wound up those trading functions should revert to the Department from which they came, and that new functions of the same sort should go to the Department which ordinarily deals with commercial matters. As he did not mention this point in his opening remarks, I should like the noble Earl, if he will be good enough, to explain, when he replies, why these commercial duties and functions are being given to the Ministry of Agriculture. From what has transpired in both Houses, it is clear that the Government have made up their minds and that there is little prospect of a last-minute repentance. I am sure, however, that we all wish success to the 5,000-odd survivors of the Ministry of Food, under whichever ministerial chief they may serve in future. Their old Department will not be forgotten if they maintain its exemplary record of public service.