FOOD IN BRITAIN

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 146, 21 June 1940, Page 7

FOOD IN BRITAIN

EMERGENCY STOCKS

BEING KEPT AS HIGH AS

POSSIBLE

CONTROL OF PRICES

i (British.:. Official Wireless.) RUGBY, June 19. Replying toja debate in the House of Lords, the- Minister of Food, Lord Woolton,,) said that even if nothing more kame into Britain, there were sufficient food supplies for weeks and ■weeks. "All^ the essential things are there, and it is our constant care; that these stocks. should be kept as.high as possible," he said. "We have put up and down the country iron ratioms of food to be used only in great emergency," Lord Woolton continued. \ "In addition, we have prepared in all:areas round about the vulnerable centres of population other rations which will be used in the event of a mass evacuation." Because of the Government subsidies he said, the price of milk,, bread, meat, and bacon had arisen, only 8 per cent. Without the subsidy- the rise would have been 30 per cent. Uncontrolled foods had jysen by 40 per cent. The Minister said he<had been trying to use the £60,000,000 per annum which the Treasury was spending in subsidising foods so thajt it should go to the people who most needed it. Manufacturers of food hjad decided in large numbers that they *jwould be prepared to produce goods profit for some portion of theiir productions if these could be distributed to the poorer sections of the population without undue extra charges. \ "I am trying to secure that, without any charge to the Exchequer, these pjeople of the poorest classes shall be ca«red for during wartime," he added. \ The Ministry .of Food announced a national milk scheme as ■an urgent wartime measure under wjiich a pint will be supplied free daily "to families if the joint weekly incorjies of the parents are below 40s or if the income* of a single person is below 27s 6d. Two-pence a pint will be c.'narged for expectant mothers and children, under five who are not attending school.