I move:—
That a supplementary sum not exceeding £650,200 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1952, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, including certain Services administered by that Office, and for payment of certain Subsidies and sundry Grants-in-Aid.
I think the House is aware that by a transfer of functions Order the administration of food subsidies has become the responsibility of the Minister for Industry and Commerce whereas formerly it was the responsibility of the Minister for Agriculture.
When the original Estimate for the flour and bread subsidy was being prepared in the Department of Agriculture prior to the commencement of the financial year, it was calculated that a sum of £7,400,000 would be required. That Estimate of the Department of Agriculture went to the Cabinet Sub-Committee which the previous Government had set up to review Estimates and was there written down to £7,000,000. The original Estimate for £7,400,000 prepared in the Department of Agriculture assumed that the deliveries of subsidised and unsubsidised flours during the years would be much the same as in the previous year and that the cost of both native and imported wheat would remain unchanged.
The decision of the Cabinet Sub-Committee to knock £400,000 off the Estimate was partly due to a decision to take out of it certain payments due to the flour millers and to incorporate them in a Supplementary Estimate which was introduced before the beginning of the financial year and partly due apparently to a tentative decision to revise the bread rationing scheme involving a reduction of rations in some instances and consequently reduced deliveries of subsidised flours.
Whatever may have been intended in that regard, in fact, no action to put it into effect was initiated. However, as it turned out, the Estimate prepared in the Department of Agriculture was more accurate than the Estimate prepared by the Cabinet Sub-Committee. As might have been anticipated, the cost of imported wheat rose steadily during the year and, on that account alone, the original Estimate of £7,400,000 would have had to be reinstated.
As the House knows, however, it was decided, when the 1951 Wheat Order was made, to increase the guaranteed price for native wheat by 6s. 6d. a barrel and that added a further £250,000 to the cost of the flour subsidy in the present financial year.
The total cost of the flour and bread subsidy will therefore be £7,650,000 and not the £7,000,000 provided in the Book of Estimates and hence a Supplementary Estimate for £650,000 is required.