§ Mr. Swinglerasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the scale of rations given to inmates of His Majesty's prisons; and how it compares with the rations available to the general public.
§ Mr. EdeThe scale of rationed foods for prisoners is the same as that for members of the general public except as44W regards potatoes. A special arrangement as regards potatoes was found necessary to prevent the calorific value of prison diets falling so much below the average for the rest of the population as to become insufficient, and after consultation with the Ministry of Food it was arranged that for prisoners the allowance of potatoes should be 14 oz. a day. With this allowance the over-all value of the diets for prisoners, of whom 80 per cent are males engaged on manual labour, approximates to the average for the whole population but is less than the value of the diet of an ordinary male industrial worker.