FOOD STOCKS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 21 June 1940, Page 3

FOOD STOCKS

POSITION IN BRITAIN , SUFFICIENT FOR WEEKS AND WEEKS PREPARATIONS FOR EMERGENCY 1 British Official Wireless] RUGBY, 19th June. Replying to a debate in the House of Lords, the Minister of Food, Lord Woolton, said that, even if nothing more came 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 rations 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 the price of milk, bread, meat and bacon had only risen 8 per cent. Without the subsidy it would have been 30 per cent. Uncontrolled foods had risen by 40 per cent. Lord Woolton said he had been trying to use the £60.000.000 per annum which the Treasury was spending in subsidising foods so that it should go to the people who most needed it. The food manufacturers had decided in large numbers that they would be prepared to produce goods without profit for some portion of their 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 people of the poorest classes shall be cared for during wartime,” he added. The Ministry of Food announced a national milk scheme as an urgent wartime measure under whicl. a pint will be supplied free daily to families if the joint weekly incomes of the parents are below 40s, or the income of a single person below 27s 6d. Twopence a pint will be charged for expectant mothers and children under five who are not attending school.