CLAUSE 3.—(Basic price.) (Hansard, 31 October 1939)

Major Lloyd George
I beg to move, in page 2, line 4, to leave out "first," and to insert "twenty-first."
The object of this Amendment is to alter the date from 1st August to 21st August. The 1st August would be unfair on some trades, and that is the reason for moving this provision by which another date is substituted for 1st August. It is desirable that we should have such a date. Between the Committee stage and the present stage we have made what inquiries we could and we have come to the conclusion that 21st August would be the best date.

§ Mr. G. Strauss
I desire a little more information on this point. Could the hon. and gallant Gentleman tell us why the 21st is more acceptable and more convenient, and could he also tell us whether there was any movement of prices between the two dates? I think we should be in possession of further information before this Amendment is accepted.

§ Sir H. Williams
I can answer the question which has been asked, because it was my Amendment in Committee. The suggestion was not my own original thought; it came to me from a number of large stores in my constituency who pointed out that certain summer sales were in progress on 1st August, and they suggested that the basic price should be the normal price, and for that reason 21st August, before the war started, was in fact fair to all concerned. It was purely for that reason that I proposed that Amendment. The Board of Trade, presumably, have examined it and found that the argument which I put forward in support of my Amendment was one of validity. I hope I have satisfied the hon. Gentleman opposite who asked the question.

§ Mr. Silkin
I thought that the reasons which were given on the Committee stage for the 1st August were conclusive. The 1818 hon. Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams) has not improved matters by saying that the representations were not made by himself but by certain large stores in his constituency, because everybody knows that between the 1st and 21st August there were upward movements of prices. The 21st August is very near to the war, and in the case of a good many articles prices were going up in contemplation of the war. The change from the 1st to the 21st August will have the effect of increasing the basic prices, and, therefore, increasing on the whole the prices which traders will be able to charge to their customers.

§ Sir H. Williams
The hon. Gentleman will recollect that it was on 24th August that we assembled here at short notice. The reason I suggested the 21st was that, broadly speaking, it represented the period when all the summer sales had come to an end, and by a lucky chance it was three days before the date on which we were suddenly brought here when war conditions established themselves—conditions which none of us had contemplated.

§ Mr. Silkin
I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, but I think he is wrong when he says that none of us contemplated anything like this. It was present in the minds of many of us on 21st August that a crisis was very near. I am satisfied that in the case of many commodities prices had already risen in contemplation of the possibility of the crisis. As I have said, the effect of this Amendment will be to increase the basic price and, therefore, increase the permitted price. I do not think that this Amendment is necessary to meet the difficulty which the hon. Member for South Croydon put, namely, that on 1st August there were summer sales. That is already met by the terms of Clause 3, which provides that in any exceptional circumstances the Board of Trade may fix another date, and it is also provided that where goods are subject to a seasonal variation of price they may fix a date other than the date fixed in the Bill. Therefore, the fact that summer sales were in progress in some cases on 1st August is no reason for fixing 21st August. It may be that on 21st August there were summer sales; of course, if that were so that would be a factor operating to the benefit of the buyer. However, on the 1819 whole, this Amendment would increase the basic price and would, therefore, increase the permitted price and would act to the detriment of the consumer without any justifiable cause, because the Minister satisfied himself when he first introduced the Bill that the 1st August was a proper date.

§ Mr. Stanley
There has been no appreciable increase in prices between 1st August and 21st August. The crucial date from the point of view of the price rise was 23rd August, and I do not believe that, as far as normal trade is concerned, the alteration from the 1st to the 21st will have any detrimental effect. I do not think it will have any effect upon the basic price at all. From inquiries made, the fact did emerge that in the case of a number of retailers 1st August could not be regarded as a normal time because they were in the middle of their summer sales. It would be necessary for all those particular retailers to make use of the machinery in Clause 3 to fix another date for the basic price. Clearly, you want to choose a date which is the normal date for the normal people. It is clear that choosing 1st August instead of the 21st would increase the number of cases in which traders would have to resort to the machinery in Clause 3. We found that in a number of cases it would not have been a normal date and, therefore, 21st August was considered to be the more convenient date.