§ 47. Mr. Osborneasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer on what grounds it has been decided to discontinue the subsidies on utility clothes and footwear whilst maintaining them on food; and since both groups enter into the family budgets of the lowest paid workers, if he will make a full statement.
§ Sir S. CrippsOn the grounds stated by my predecessor in his Budget Speech, that it is desirable to reduce the number of separate commodities on which price subsidies are paid.
§ Mr. OsborneWhy should the Chancellor pick on clothing as against food? What is the difference in principle?
§ Sir S. CrippsIt is because, in the view of my predecessor and myself, food is more important than clothing.
§ 52. Mr. Norman Bowerasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether an increase in food rations would automatically involve an increase in subsidies; or whether, if the total amount of the subsidies remained unaltered, it would be accompanied by an increase in prices.
§ Sir S. CrippsAn increase in food rations, so far as those foods are subsidised and buying prices remain unaltered, must obviously involve either an increase of subsidies or an increase of prices to the consumer.
§ Mr. BowerWill the Chancellor give an undertaking that he will not exert any pressure to keep rations down, in order 1788 to avoid the unpleasant alternative of increased subsidies or increased prices?
§ Sir S. CrippsThere never has been any such idea at all.