50. Mr. De la Bèreasked the Minister of Food whether, with the Ministers of Labour and Agriculture, he will arrange a practical scheme for producers to obtain a fair market value for their products without State subsidies, in view of the difficulties which the present system entails in arriving at a fair valuation for wages under the present system of false food prices.
§ Sir B. SmithI would refer the hon. Member to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 9th April, in which he confirmed the Government's intention to hold the cost-of-living index at its present level during 1946 by provision of the necessary cost of-living subsidies.
Mr. De la BèreIs the Minister aware that these subsidies are not producer subsidies at all but are consumer subsidies, and that they unbalance the whole agricultural system, making it impossible to pay a really adequate wage to the workers?