HC Deb 10 July 1946 vol 425 cc78-81W
48. Brigadier Mackeson

asked the Minister of Food what estimate has been formed of the number of extra persons, including those concerned in any printing and distribution made necessary, who would be employed as the result of a decision to ration bread.

Mr. Strachey:

The printing of the bread rationing documents has been carried out by a small number of firms under a Stationery Office contract. No extra staff will be needed for their distribution. For the operation of the scheme the local food offices will require between 1,500 and 2,000 additional staff.

51. Mr. Randall

asked the Minister at Food if he will reconsider the exchange of bread units for points beyond the four-week period, as the present arrangement might entail the loss of odd bread units some months.

Mr. Strachey:

Coupons are intended to provide for current needs and not as means of laying in a store. If a housewife does not use all her coupons in a particular period that can only be taken to mean that she does not need them all and there is, therefore, no hardship in the arrangement that bread unit coupons which are not used for obtaining bread unit foods or exchanged for current points coupons during their period of validity must lapse.

52. Mr. Randall

asked the Minister of Food whether children who are within the 11 to 18 years of age group, but have left school and are engaged on manual work, will be entitled to claim manual worker's allowance of bread per day.

84. Mr. Perrins

asked the Minister of Food if he will make a statement classifying the position of adolescents who are engaged in manual employment; and whether they will receive bread rations on the basis of industrial allocation or under their respective age groups.

Mr. Strachey:

Yes, Sir. Moreover, young manual workers between the ages of 11 and 18 will be rationed both as adolescents and as manual workers and will, therefore, receive 18 oz. per day (or 14 in the case of girls) compared to 15 oz. for male adult manual workers (or II in the case of women manual workers) and 12 oz. for non-manual worker adolescents. They will, therefore, be some of the highest rationed people in the country, and in our view rightly so, for their psychological, and physiological, needs for food arc especially large.

53. Mr. Randall

asked the Minister of Food in view of the location of food offices in London and the fact that many people living on the edge of boroughs shop in other localities, he will consider making it possible for bread ration units and points to be interchangeable at any food office.

Mr. Strachey:

Unit coupons and points coupons will be exchangeable at any food office.

69. Mr. A. Lewis

asked the Minister of Food if he is aware of the wastage of crusts from bread used in preparing snacks for cocktail parties at the large hotels and restaurants; and what steps he is taking to prevent this wastage.

Mr. Strachey

The forthcoming rationing of the supplies of bread to restaurants and hotels should help to prevent this waste.

71. Mr. Collins

asked the Minister of Food if he will extend to self-employed agricultural smallholders who do manual work on farms not exceeding 100 acres the facilities for additional bread units which are at present applicable only to farm workers.

Mr. Strachey

Self-employed workers in the occupations such as agriculture which are listed in the schedule B.M.W.I are eligible, like farm workers, for the manual worker ration. They are not, however, eligible for the additional bread units which are intended solely for those workers who as a class need regularly to take packed meals from home and who have been granted entitlement to the special cheese ration.

85. Mr. Perrins

asked the Minister of Food whether he will give an assurance that in the proposed bread-rationing scheme women engaged in heavy industries and performing work normally done by men will receive bread rations on the same basis al male industrial workers engaged in heavy industry or of women manual workers

Mr. Strachey

The ration for all adult women manual workers will be 11 per week. But I am making special and extensive provision in the canteens which serve both men and women workers in heavy industries to enable these workers to supplement their domestic rations from the canteens virtually to any extent which they individually find desirable.

86. Viscountess Davidson

asked the Minister of Food whether, in order to relieve the housewife and the food office officials, he will agree to surplus bread units being used for the purchase of points goods instead of it being necessary to exchange them for points through the food offices.

101. Mr. Skeffington

asked the Minister of Food whether, in view of the distance of local food offices from some parts of the district they serve, he will consider the posibility of making bread units valid as points instead of having to be exchanged at food offices.

Mr. Strachey:

Without some means of finding out on what scale exchanges are taking place, it would be impossible for me to adjust distribution and thus make the scheme run smoothly. So I am afraid the exchanges will have to be done through a food office.

98. Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre

asked the Minister of Food the estimated numbers of the eight classes into which he has divided the nation for the purposes of bread rationing.

Mr. Strachey:

The estimated figures are as follow:

Children under 1 800,000
Children 1–5 3,000,000
Children 5–11 3,400,000
Adolescents 11–18 5,300,000
Normal adults 22,000,000
Expectant mothers 600,000
Manual workers (women) 3,000,000
Manual workers (men) 9,000,000

99. Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre

asked the Minister of Food why he has drawn a distinction between the agricultural worker and the working farmer for purposes of bread rationing.

Mr. Strachey:

For the purpose of bread rationing both the agricultural worker and the working farmer are classed ac manual workers and are eligible, if men, for the 15 ozs. a day ration. Agricultural workers however who have no access to canteen or other catering facilities and who as a class are unable to obtain a midday meal at home but need to take packed meals to work with them, are entitled to the special cheese ration and to an allowance of 6 bread units per week to enable them to provide these packed meals for themselves. Working farmers as a class can generally have midday meals at home and have therefore not been allotted this special provision for packed meals. At harvest time and other periods of seasonal activity further allowances are available both of bread units and other rationed foods for all those concerned including the working farmer.

102. Mr. Walker-Smith

asked the Minister of Food whether he will include all hospital nurses among those women who qualify for the 11 ounces of bread a day.

Mr. Strachey

Yes, Sir. All hospital nurses qualify for the 11 ounces of bread a day. Hospitals will be able to obtain this allowance for those who are resident.

107. Mr. Driberg

asked the Minister of Food if he will include inshore fishermen among those entitled to the bread ration for manual workers.

Mr. Strachey

Yes, Sir.