§ Mr. Hurdasked the Minister of Food the categories of workers entitled to the extra cheese rations; and if he will now include lorry drivers and their mates who work in rural areas away from canteen facilities.
§ Mr. StracheyThe following categories of workers arc at present eligible for the special cheese ration:
Agricultural workers:
All insured under the Agricultural Unemployment Insurance Scheme and workers, not so insured, engaged full time under contracts for work in agriculture.
Dry Stone Dykers.
Ex-service trainees in agriculture and forestry not residing in hostels.
Hay pressers, trussers and cutters.
Hedgers.
Hop-pickers.
Land-drainage workers (including Catchment Board workers).
Members of the Women's Land Army.
Thatchers.
Threshing machine workers.
Tractor workers (including owner drivers).
Travelling blacksmiths and agricultural machinery maintenance engineers.
Women's Land Army trainees.
Other Workers:
Clay industries including brick and tile works.
Canal navigation maintenance workers.
Charcoal burners working all the year round in forests, burning in portable kilns or pits.
Coal borers.
Coal distributive workers.
Country and rural roadmen and scavengers.
Electrical linesmen and linesmen's mates working in open country.
Electrical sub-station workers.
Fishermen not holding seamen's ration books and on whose behalf no other special arrangements have been made.
Flour and provender mills workers in country districts.
351WForestry workers, including hauliers, fellers and saw millers in or connected with forestry who actually work in forests, timber workers employee at small saw mills in country districts, and lorry drivers exclusively employed in the transport of timber between the forests and railway stations.
Miners working underground.
Ministry of Transport Trunk Roads Direct Service workers.
Ordinance Survey Field Revisers.
Permanent water bailiffs, paid by Fishery Boards.
Post Office engineers working in open country.
Quarrymen—roadstone, limestone and slate, including chalk diggers, and slag workers procuring slag for road construction purposes.
Railway electrical sub-station staff.
Railway manual workers, including those who work a continuous turn of eight hours at a depot where there are catering facilities and owing to there being no rostered meal break are precluded from using such facilities.
Sand and gravel pit workers
Scale repairers included under the description "Service Adjusters engaged on repairs and / or contracts."
Sewage farms and works employees.
Wagon repairers working on railway and colliery sidings.
Waterworks undertakings employees.
War Department—civilians employed on ranges.
The special cheese ration is restricted to well-defined categories of workers who are permanently employed under conditions which render the provision of canteen or other catering facilities for them impracticable. This is not generally true of transport workers who are usually able to make use of cafes and other catering establishments on their route. In many cases it would also be possible for 352W employers to provide packed meals for their workers at their base. In the circumstances I am afraid I do not feel that there is any case for including transport workers amongst those who are entitled to the special cheese ration.