HC Deb 23 October 1946 vol 427 cc367-8W
74. Mr. E. Evans

asked the Minister of Food how the overall consumption of food in the United Kingdom in September, 1946, compares with the consumption in July, 1939; in how many main items the consumption is greater; in how many it is less; and by what percentages in each case.

Mr. Strachey

Comparisons for as short a period as a month are apt to be misleading. For the overall consumption of food my statisticians work on a six months' period. As I have stated in the House, we were eating in the first half of this year on the average about seven per cent, less calories per head per day than before the war. I have asked my statisticians if there has been any change since then, and they tell me that for the current six months consumption appears to be running at a rate of 2,920 calories per head per day as compared with 3,000 before the war; thus our overall consumption may be shown, when we get the final figures, to be now only some three per cent, below prewar. But of course these averages conceal the fact that some people are eating much less, and other people much more, food than they did before the war.

As to particular foodstuffs, the following figures compare the actual amounts of these foods which went out of our hands and into those of the public in the three months' period, June, July and August of this year with the consumption of these foods on an average for the years 1934–38. Incidentally these figures all come from the Statistical Digest for August, 1946, and anyone can go and verify them for themselves. They indicate that—

  1. (A) In fats (butter, margarine, cooking fat) and the like, taken together, we are each of us on the average eating about four oz. for every five oz. we ate before the war.
  2. (B) We are getting nine oz. of tea for every 10 oz. we drank before the war.
  3. (C) We are only getting just over half as many shell eggs per head as we did 368 before the war, and the same is true of bacon and ham.
  4. (D) Taking fresh and tinned meat together, we are eating almost exactly as much, on the average per head, as we did before the war.

On the other hand, they indicate that we are eating—

  1. (1) Nearly three lb. of fish for every two lb. of it we ate before the war.
  2. (2) That even after bread rationing we are still eating just a little more bread, cakes, etc., than before the war.
  3. (3) That we are eating five pots of jam or marmalade for every four pots that we ate before the war—and, last but not least, that we are drinking very nearly half as much milk again—47 per cent, more—as before the war.

The House must not suppose that in giving these figures I am denying the existence of a food shortage. On the contrary, there is still a food shortage, just as there was before the war. But now because of the great increase in working class purchasing power, everybody has much nearer a fair share.