Oral Answers to Questions — Agriculture – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 14 July 1947.
Lord Willoughby de Eresby
, Rutland and Stamford
12:00,
14 July 1947
asked the Minister of Agriculture if he will give the latest figures of the number of cases of fowl pest notified and the number of fowls ordered to be slaughtered.
Mr Thomas Williams
, Don Valley
Up to 9th July there have been 571 outbreaks of fowl pest in Great Britain and about 35,000 birds have been slaughtered.
Lord Willoughby de Eresby
, Rutland and Stamford
In view of the fact that these figures go up every time I ask this Question and the fact that the adverse balance of our overseas payments also rises, does not the right hon. Gentleman think that the moment has come when the Government might well prohibit the import of poultry from countries where fowl pest is known to exist, in order to save dollar exchange and to wipe out fowl pest in this country?
Mr Thomas Williams
, Don Valley
Perhaps the hon. Member will be happy to know that the number of outbreaks is going down and down instead of up and up. The numbers of outbreaks in the last four weeks were 65, 40, 30 and 17 respectively. There is reason to hope that we are overcoming this problem.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
