UTILITY CLOTHING (Hansard, 13 December 1950)

§ Colonel J. R. H. Hutchison (Glasgow, Scotstoun)
I beg to move, That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, praying that the Order, dated 20th November, 1950, entitled the Utility Apparel (Maximum Prices and Charges) Order, 1949 (Amendment No. 15) Order, 1950 (S.I., 1950, No. 1863), a copy of which was laid before this House on 21st November, be annulled. There is a further Prayer on the Order Paper, and both are concerned with the same theme. With the permission of the House, I think it would be convenient if they were to be treated together. The second Motion is: That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, praying that the Order, dated 20th November, 1950, entitled the Utility Apparel (Gaberdine Raincoats) (Manufacture and Supply) (Amendment) Order, 1950 (S.I., 1950, No. 1862), a copy of which was laid before this House on 21st November, be annulled.

§ Mr. Speaker
It would be in order for the hon. and gallant Member to discuss both Prayers together.

§ Colonel Hutchison
The first of these two Orders is concerned with the prices of certain articles and with the manufacture of raincoats out of gaberdine. My first complaint is against the method of hand- 1286 ling these Orders and the way that they were made available to the House. The Orders, as the House will see, were laid before Parliament on 21st November. Some six days later I tried to get them, and I was told that they were not available. I put down a Question to the Minister asking why they were not available and I received a reply to the effect that the Order came into operation on 4th December, and to allow sufficient time for the printing of the four relating to the schedule arrangements had been made to publish all five on 1st December.
The House knows that we on this side think that delegated legislation has been carried much too far, and that out of the precious 40 days available to the public for examination and, if necessary, objection to any of these Statutory Instruments, 10 precious days have been cut off. That is an unfair way of treating the public. It is perfectly true that the schedules were available in the Library, but that is of no value to the public, and I cannot understand why it was necessary to lay the Order before the House of Commons before the schedules which, after all, are the important thing in the Order were available. Like a postscript to a letter, the sting is very often in the tail, and certainly that is the case with these schedules. Consequently, until the schedules were available the Order was of no significance at all. That is the complaint about machinery, but the main burden of my criticism lies in a different direction.
As I have said, the Orders cover a wide range of apparel. They cover things like men's, youths' and boys' outerwear, women's and maids' outerwear, women's and maids' underwear and nightwear and—I say this in an undertone so as not to raise too many hopes in female breasts—nylon stockings. A wide range of apparel is affected by this Order, introducing maximum prices and also new fabrics into the schedule.
Nobody in the House will deny the importance of earning dollars, and it was in connection with that, that I had the honour to lead members of the textile trade to the United States of America a few months ago. We were concerned entirely with trying to propagate and further the sale of British articles of this kind in that country. We came to a number of conclusions. I shall not weary the House with more than the pre- 1287 dominant conclusion. It was this: that the Americans will not buy goods from Great Britain unless they fit in with American style, weight, weave and design. It is not the slightest use imagining that the type of goods that are mentioned in this Order will, in fact, automatically sell over there.
As a result of that visit, I am now concerned, when Parliament spares me the time, in trying to persuade manufacturers in this country to adapt their programme to American requirements, asking them to study design, weave, weights and widths. They say to me, very reasonably, that that is asking them to take a very serious risk, because the goods which are required in the United States of America demand special plant or adaptation of plant and the setting up of representation over there, and if the goods do not sell they come back to this country and are not in any utility—

§ Mr. Speaker
Are these things affected by this Order? They are affected by a previous order and this Order amends some of the specification of that order. Therefore, to annul this Order would not affect the original specification which laid down certain statutes.

§ Colonel Hutchison
May I, with respect, Sir, point out that in some of these orders, one in particular, the range of utility cloths is increased? My objection to the Order is that it does not go far enough, that it is only toying with the question, and that the range of specifications in these orders ought to be very much wider. I want to support that argument that this Order is too narrow, too confined, not flexible enough, by showing that it is killing or damaging seriously the very trade that the Government wants to bring about.

§ Mr. Speaker
The hon. and gallant Gentleman wants to add something to an Order. One cannot add anything to an Order. One is limited to what is in the Order, and nothing outside.

§ Colonel Hutchison
May I put it like this, Sir? Brought down to that narrow argument, I must object to the Order as being insufficient as it stands. To prove that insufficiency of the Order I want to show the grounds I have in mind. If I were to give an example from the manufacturing Order, perhaps rather a different 1288 one and more directly in line with the Order itself, it would be that which applies to gaberdine raincoats, Order No. 1862. I am informed that that Order virtually limits manufacturers of these raincoats to only two cloths and that a kind of raincoat which I am told is a brilliant British discovery, the Ventile raincoat, is heavily penalised, because it has not been so far possible to establish production on a reasonable scale. Paradoxically enough, I am also told by raincoat manufacturers that this Order cuts out the cheaper type of raincoat which was popular before the war and thus has had the effect of raising the cost of living, which was not in the least the intention.
So I submit that these Orders ought to be examined afresh. I dare say I shall hear that that cannot be done, but I should draw comfort from the hon. Gentleman who is to reply if, in his statement, he recognises the problem that we and the manufacturers are up against. If the problem is realised, and if in future orders, the utility scheme can be more flexible, and less narrow and can provide in some way for garments and apparel which is sent out of this country in order to earn dollars, I, for my part, shall be satisfied.
There is one other point. If the manufacturers succeed in selling goods in the American market the narrowness of this utility range means that they cannot sell them in the home market, with their liability to Purchase Tax, at the same time. Instead of having a double length of cloth to run through their machines and so reduce their overheads, they are limited to a lesser quantity of cloth, because of the infliction of the 66⅔ per cent. Purchase Tax, to which all these cloths are subjected over here as they are not within the narrow range of this Order.
In conclusion, I suggest that the hon. Gentleman should take these schedules away—it is the schedules to which I object more than to the Order—and see whether they can be widened. He should consult the trade to find out exactly what kinds of garment are being hit, like the cheap raincoats that I mentioned. He should try to expand the utility range. In mothering part of the home trade the Government are smothering the overseas trade. The taste and quality for which 1289 this country has been famous is gradually disappearing. When taste and quality disappear, then very soon designers and skill are lost.
This is a very important question. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the study which we gave to this in the United States of America shows me that the chances of being able to sell textiles in the United States markets will always be struck at and made unnecessarily difficult and that our efforts may not succeed until the utility range is widened and made more flexible.

§ Squadron Leader Burden (Gillingham)
I beg to second the Motion.
The question of the utility clothing ranges has been causing considerable anxiety particularly in the wool cloth trade and in connection with garments made of wool cloth. In the case of cotton cloth the specification number is also an indication of the quality of the cloth, but in the case of wool it is not so. For a very considerable time although wool cloth has had a utility number which has remained stationary, the quality of the cloth has been debased, and the Order brings in new qualities of cloth to try to hide the failure of the Government to maintain the quality of the utility cloth under the old number.
The Minister will probably agree with me that certain cloths which were originally put into the utility range can no longer be made under the old numbers. There is also the danger in that in the past when buying a garment of cloth under No. 29E the public have regarded the number as an indication of the quality of the cloth and when they buy a garment made under the same indication number today the cloth may not be of the same quality. There is a very great danger in this when we realise that to try to increase our dollar earnings the Government made it possible to export utility garments and cloth to America and other markets Americans who bought cloth under No. 209 a year ago would find the quality debased if they bought it today. If we continue to export new qualities of cloth under the old indication numbers, there is a very great danger that the Americans will become dissatisfied and that we shall lose the American markets instead of rataining and expanding them.
1290 If it had been possible for the numbers for cotton cloth to be regarded as specifications of standard quality in order to maintain the goodwill of the public in this country and also to retain the export markets in wool garments and cloths, the Government should endeavour to extend the wool utility range and ensure that the indication number is also a specification of quality. In other words, they should endeavour to bring in some standard specification on each number in utility ranges of wool cloth. That would serve a very much more useful purpose than bringing in new numbers in an effort to catch up with the increase in wool prices, which is apparently the case now. There should be flexibility to enable the price of existing numbers in the utility range to be raised instead of the quality under the numbers having constantly to be debased and new numbers having to be brought in to try to catch up with the increase in the cost of wool and the cost of manufacture.
I support what has been said by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Scotstoun (Colonel Hutchison), and I ask that these Orders should be withdrawn and that the whole question of utility fabrics and garments made therefrom, should be re-examined and another Order brought in to provide a much more reliable test of quality than there is at present.

§ Mr. Heathcoat Amory (Tiverton)
I find it difficult to decide whether the services which my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Scotstoun (Colonel J. R. H. Hutchison) renders when he is a Member of the House, great as they are, are greater than those he renders outside the House, for the report of the mission which my hon. and gallant Friend led to the United States is an excellent one.
First, I have an interest to declare in so far as I am actively connected with a company which produces piece goods, among them utility goods. I would like to pay a tribute to what the utility scheme has done in the past. I think it has done a good job since it was started, but I am not so sure that it will go on doing as good a job in the future unless it is altered radically. Before the war, one of the troubles was that cloths were always being debased, and one of the great advantages of the utility scheme has 1291 been that it gives a designation of sound specification—

§ Mr. Speaker
A general discussion of utility cloths is not in order, because that is the law of the land. This is a Prayer to amend certain Orders.

Mr. Amory
I was hoping to show that I was disappointed because these Orders perpetuate the present scheme instead of, as I had hoped, radically altering it. I was about to point out one or two respects in which I think that is the case.
As far as export business goes, if we are too utility-minded we shall lose a tremendous amount of business. Sometimes hon. Members opposite speak as if everything non-utility was super-luxury. That is a great mistake. The export market where our prospects are best is in the grade just above utility—goods of sound quality and of a medium price grade. Sometimes people speak as if for fashion goods, they must turn to Europe and this country. I doubt whether that is true. More and more in many parts of the world people today are looking to America for fashion goods, possibly owing to the influence of the films. One of the advantages which the Americans have and which we have not in our utility scheme is that they are able to exploit new synthetic yarns—

§ Mr. Speaker
The hon. Gentleman is dealing with the general principle of utility goods abroad. This is a Prayer to amend certain utility Orders and he cannot discuss the whole utility scheme.

Mr. Amory
I am sorry, Mr. Speaker. I will try to restrict myself more narrowly to these Orders. What we want in altering the utility scheme, and I had hoped these Orders would have done something, to introduce great flexibility. Today we are very confined, and one of the greatest handicaps is the sudden step up in Purchase Tax—

§ Mr. Speaker
The hon. Gentleman is going right outside the scope of the debate. We are only seeking to amend in a limited way certain utility Orders. The hon. Gentleman must keep to what is in the Orders, not what he would like to see outside them.

Mr. Amory
I am finding it difficult to make the points I had hoped to make 1292 Mr. Speaker. I am trying to point out that these Orders are perpetuating the scheme which is leading to growing rigidity. We shall get nowhere on that line. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to indicate to us that he has some plans in hand, even if he has not been able to apply them to these Orders, for giving effect to the greater flexibility I have mentioned. I believe the hon. Gentleman has a committee sitting now. I hope we shall see some of the effects of the work of that committee in these Orders. If not, I hope the hon. Gentleman will tell us whether he is hoping for results from this committee and, if so, in what direction.

§ Mr. Speaker
This has nothing to do with these Orders. It is quite outside them. I must protest against this.

§ Brigadier Rayner (Totnes)
I want, briefly, to suggest that these Orders are unsatisfactory from another point of view. It is admittedly a smaller point of view, but quite an important one. If I may be quite fair, I should say that I asked the President of the Board of Trade on the 24th of March last year what protests he had received against the use of the term "wool" to describe cloth containing only 15 per cent. wool, and what action he proposed to take. The right hon. Gentleman replied: In consequence of representations received from various quarters in the past few years that the term "wool cloth" should not be used in Statutory Instruments, to refer to any cloth containing more than 15 per cent. of wool, we undertook that, as and when these Statutory Instruments were reviewed, they should be amended to avoid defining the term in a way which might prejudice its interpretation as a trade description. This has been done."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th March, 1949, Vol. 463, c. 46.] I suggest that ever since the President of the Board of Trade made that reply in the House, he has forgotten it, because time after time, Board of Trade regulations and schedules have referred to "wool" and "wool cloths" in relation to materials which have contained an extraordinarily small percentage of wool. The Orders now before us contains specifications Nos. 215, 215A, 233 and 223A, which are gaberdine cloths of wool union with very little wool in them. They are referred to as wool cloths. In that way, the Board of Trade is encouraging traders to deceive their customers on 1293 what the cloth really contains. We have the Board of Trade making threats about action to be taken against traders for any irregularity, but the people at the Board of Trade are very much to blame. I hope to hear something about this.

§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. Hervey Rhodes)
With regard to the argument of the hon. and gallant Member for Scotstoun (Colonel Hutchison) about the laying of the Orders, may I say that the hon. and gallant Member has got it all wrong.

§ Sir Herbert Williams (Croydon, East)
No, he has not.

§ Mr. Rhodes
Oh, yes. He complained that it was unfair to the public. I suggest that it would have been unfair to the public if the prices had been going down. But instead of that, the prices are going up.

§ Sir H. Williams
Like everything else.

§ Mr. Rhodes
There is no question of the wholesaler or retailer breaking the law about this at all, because the stuff he had in stock was at the old prices. These Orders were signed on Monday, 20th November, and laid on 21st November. They were published on Friday, 1st December, and came into force on Monday, 4th December. It is usual for Orders of this description to come into force as soon as possible after they have been published. We have not the slightest wish to prevent the people concerned with Orders of this description from having their fair dues.

§ Colonel Hutchison
Surely it is a most heretical and dangerous doctrine that the hon. Gentleman should try to decide whether it is to the advantage of any section of the public that an Order should go into operation and, when he thinks it is to the advantage of, say, the wholesaler, to say that no harm has been done.

§ Mr. Rhodes
No. The hon. and gallant Gentleman is off the mark again, because there is no possibility of the unfairness to the public of which he was talking, since a man could not offend against the Statutory Instrument unwittingly when the price was going up. If the price had been going down, it would have been a different thing altogether. In fact if it had been going down—and I hope some day that will happen—

§ Sir H. Williams
With a change of Government.

§ Mr. Rhodes
—we would have aimed at allowing a longer interval of, say, a month between the date of publication of the Order and the date on which it would come into operation. This would give people a chance to handle their business transactions so that a reduction in price would come into effect. It is perfectly clear. There is nothing in that. There is no sting in the tail at all, because the rise in price has been given to the wholesalers and distributors in these Orders.
The hon. and gallant Gentleman mentioned the schedules, but there is nothing particular in them or reason why they should be put in conjunction with these Orders. Personally, I do not see what objection he could have to them. I was glad he referred to exports, although he was running near to being out of order all the time. I appreciate the work that he did on the mission that went to Canada and the United States of America. I had great pleasure in reading their report, and seeing some of the comments he and his colleagues have made. Textile manufacturers throughout the country could read that report with profit, because it is a good one. I do not think so much of his arguments about utility and flexibility as I do about his report, because he was just a little bit wide of the mark again. It may be true that Purchase Tax might be a discouragement to exporters on occasions. On the other hand, it is also true that the high rate of this tax on fine woollens and worsteds has discouraged home consumption and made much more available for exports.

§ Sir H. Williams
The object of the hon. Gentleman is to make a vest so dear that I cannot buy it, so that Americans can wear it instead.

§ Mr. Rhodes
It might be all right for the Americans, but it is certainly objectionable to us. Utility cloth is, by intention, limited to the lower and medium prices ranges referred to by the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Amory), and many of the types of cloth sought by our foreign customers, including the United States, are excluded from the utility scheme because they are too expensive. They cannot then be sold in the home market because of the Purchase Tax on non-utility cloth.
1295 I want to give the House some information about what one can and cannot do under the utility scheme. Utility cloths—cotton and rayon—can at present be made in any width in the utility scheme, provided that the comparable price and weight and specification are there. The utility scheme cannot be blamed, on that account, for any failure of exporters to North American markets to make up in the required widths. The same applies to wool. That can be made up in the widths required. There is no question about the widths and weights, except as they are related to the Schedule for wool.

§ Squadron Leader Burden
Surely this does enter into it, because if a utility specification is such that it should be sold at a certain price and the price of wool rises, then, obviously, the only way that that cloth can be sold in the American or any other market is by debasing or lowering the quality of cloth. Otherwise, it cannot be sold at the price specified.

§ Mr. Rhodes
If he has any knowledge of this trade at all, the hon. and gallant Member knows perfectly well he does not sell either to America or any other similar market on a utility number. What one sells on is a quality decided upon between two contracting parties, and the customer in Canada buys it by agreement with the seller from this side on a specification of the seller, whether it is all wool or whether it is a union cloth.

§ Squadron Leader Burden
If that is the case, why is it that the Government made it possible, and stated they were making it possible, for utility garments made of utility cloth to be sold to the United States and Canada?

§ Mr. Rhodes
That is a different matter altogether. The fact that one is able to sell, does not mean that, in the first instance, one is selling a utility cloth to Canada and one is hindering exports. The reason why, in all probability, there has been debasement in categories like this is, as the hon. and gallant Member knows full well, the high price of wool and the necessity of bringing down the cost of the blends.
I will deal with the question of flexibility at the risk of going outside the rules of order. The House will know probably that the committees on cotton and rayon utility schemes, set up by the 1296 President under my chairmanship, have been considering this question of flexibility for some time. In fact, we had started on that work long before the hon. and gallant Member for Scotstoun went to America. These committees, both on cotton and rayon, recommended a relaxation of the specifications for cloths where there is a fashion element. Before the hon. and gallant Member condemns this, I want him to study very very carefully the answer given by the President of the Board of Trade to a question by the Member for Bolton, East (Mr. Booth), on 14th November, and the statement published in the Press: …for cotton cloths which have a considerable element of fashion, such as dress cloths, a number of broader specifications should be introduced to allow greater variety in construction and to permit a wider range of cloths to be brought into the utility scheme …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th November, 1950; Vol. 480, c. 143.] There was a little bit of selfishness in this tonight, but I do not object to roaming around because I wanted to put this over.

§ Colonel Hutchison
Is that flexibility reflected in these Orders?

§ Mr. Rhodes
Certainly not. If the hon. and gallant Gentleman knew what these Orders were doing, he would know the Orders and the prices in the Orders relate to garments made from wool and other materials at old prices. It is not as though these Orders have to do with the prices which are coming along. Not a bit of it. In making this recommendation for broader specifications both these committees pointed out that the introduction of specifications would be of great help to the export trade—

§ Mr. Speaker
This is a little dangerous. We are going quite outside the scope of the Orders. Afterwards, everything the hon. Member says will be discussable and we may go on all night discussing things which are not in the Orders but which the Minister has mentioned.

§ Mr. Rhodes
Thank you, Sir. If you will excuse my inexperience I will leave it at that, if I may.
I will pick up the point with regard to wool, mentioned by the hon. and gallant Member for Totnes (Brigadier Rayner). The question of what is wool and what is not wool, really came in after 1941 when the utility scheme was first introduced. In 1297 1942, the question of what was wool was defined in an order, as the hon. and gallant Member will probably recollect. It was not until 1948 that this was altered when the Woven Cloth (Wool and Animal Fibre) (Manufacture Marketing and Supply) Order, 1948, came into force.

§ Mr. Lennox-Boyd (Mid-Bedfordshire)
On a point of order. May I ask whether, in view of this interesting exposition of the definition of wool, those of us who do not regard utility wool as wool, will be able to argue the point?

§ Mr. Speaker
I was not listening at that moment, but I think we are getting rather wide of the Orders. I tried to keep the debate narrow, but the drafts which are presented sometimes do run rather wide. If one sticks to the Orders and nothing else, we know where we are.

§ Mr. Rhodes
I must say there was more substance in what the hon. and gallant Member for Totnes was saying—and I have come better prepared on that account—than there was in nine-tenths of the remarks made by any other hon. Member. He went back to the statement of the President of the Board of Trade in March, when he referred to the necessity of avoiding defining "wool cloth" in Statutory Instruments in a way which might prejudice its interpretation as a trade description. The use of the term "wool" in describing cloth containing a substantial proportion of other materials conforms to the generally accepted trade practice of many years' standing. It was really brought in for the purposes of the wool and cotton controls during the war.

§ Brigadier Rayner
The Parliamentary Secretary is batting on a sticky wicket. He will have the whole of the trade against him. They are very annoyed about this definition, and they ought to know something about wool.

§ Mr. Rhodes
The hon. and gallant Member is not correct. No promise has been broken in this particular instance. But we undertake as far as possible to avoid using in future, schedule headings of the type to which objection has been taken tonight. I cannot say anything fairer than that. A lot of consideration is being given to this subject by the British Standards Institute and the trade as a whole, and I am hoping that it will be 1298 possible sometime in the future to define "wool cloth" a little better.

§ Mr. Boyd-Carpenter (Kingston-upon-Thames)
I wish to make two points arising out of the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary. In the first place, he made unduly light of the arguments of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Scotstoun (Colonel Hutchison) as to the delay in making the Schedules available. I understand that it is now admitted that these schedules were not available until 10 days after the Orders had been laid. Whatever the Parliamentary Secretary may think as to the outside convenience of that, it is surely inconvenient from the point of view of the House that from the day the Orders were tabled, when the 40 days that are provided for begin to [...]un, 10 days elapsed before hon. Members were in a position to make up their minds whether or not to move to annul the Orders. That results in a further diminution of the already inadequate Parliamentary control over Statutory Instruments. What is alarming is not so much that this should have happened, but that the Parliamentary Secretary should make so light of it. I hope we are not going to have any further diminution, deliberate or inadvertent, of the very limited control which the House exercises over delegated legislation.
Secondly, as I understand the Parliamentary Secretary's speech and his peregrinations around the perimeter of the rules of order, he was endeavouring to make a defence of this Order. That defence would have carried more conviction if, at the time he was preparing his defence, his right hon. Friend had not been laying on the Table an Order which supersedes quite a large part of this Order. It is quite astonishing that the Parliamentary Secretary should stand at the Box and ask the House not to annul this Order, when he or his advisers must know that in the Votes and Proceedings yesterday there appeared as having been laid the day before yesterday Statutory Instrument No. 1996, 1950, which supersedes the whole of one of the related schedules dealing with the matter covered in the first Order—the wholesale prices of men's outerwear—and substitutes a wholly new schedule.
I cannot, in view of the disadvantage of which we all know, of the Order not 1299 being available at the Vote Office, produce this Order in this House and so bring the English Constitution into chaos by stealing the one copy that is in the box in the Library. But I have looked at it very carefully and, clearly, it has the effect I have stated. We are faced with two alternative results of this situation. First, I believe it to be the truth that the Parliamentary Secretary, with all the assistance he has got, did not know that part of the Order which he is now defending had been superseded by his right hon. Friend 24 hours ago. If that is so, how can the Parliamentary Secretary who, specially briefed to resist an Order, does not know that another Order has been passed superseding it in part, expect ordinary traders, who are subject to criminal penalties if they contravene it, to have any possible knowledge of it?
The other possibility is that the Parliamentary Secretary knew of it and did not tell the House. I dismiss that at once because I know him and that he is always perfectly straightforward and honest with the House. As the position he sought to defend has been outflanked by his right hon. Friend I imagine that the Parliamentary Secretary will now find it very difficult to ask the House to accept an Order part of which is not, in effect anyhow.

§ Mr. Rhodes
At the risk of another "peregrination round the perimeter," may I say—

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Milner)
The hon. Member must ask for leave if he desires to address the House again.

§ Mr. Rhodes
With the leave of the House may I say that hon. Members have grumbled about this both ways. It just shows how the President of the Board of Trade and the Parliamentary Secretary work together. While I am defending in the House what, according to the hon. Member opposite, is an out-of-date Order, he is getting on with it and introducing a more up-to-date Schedule. We are doing our utmost to keep up to date with the increasing prices to follow the rapid rise in raw materials and I think the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) will be perfectly willing to agree, that the speed at which wool 1300 prices have gone up during the last few weeks would have made it very difficult for anybody to catch up with any "related schedules" or anything else.

§ Mr. Assheton (Blackburn, West)
The Parliamentary Secretary's explanation has been extremely full. We are both Members for Lancashire constituencies and we are extremely interested in anything affecting the textile trade, but some of the Government speeches in the House really do not give us much confidence in the administration of the Board of Trade in these particular matters. The Parliamentary Secretary was evidently furnished with a brief to explain to the House what was wool, how the definition of wool was regarded in 1948 and matters of that kind.
I do think that the House has great difficulty when it has to consider Orders of this kind. The two Orders we have under consideration are Nos. 1862 and 1863. These numbers in themselves are significant of the sort of régime in which we are living. In the year 1950 we have already had 1860 Orders, and we are warned by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) that Order No. 1996 is upon us, and that these Orders, laid yesterday, are about to supersede these Orders. That has not been denied by the Parliamentary Secretary; indeed, has been confirmed by him. He has just told us that it illustrates what close contact there is between him and the President of the Board of Trade, who has apparently prepared another Order because of the sudden rise in the cost of wool.

§ Mr. Rhodes
My information is a little more accurate than that of the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames. The Order that he mentioned, I am informed, does not alter the Orders under discussion in any particular whatever.

§ Mr. Assheton
The House is being put in a great difficulty. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames has taken the trouble to read the new Order, and has been good enough to inform us what, in his opinion, it is all about. It evidently came as a great shock to the Parliamentary Secretary because he has repudiated what he has told the House. I do not know which of his 1301 statements is right, but they certainly cannot both be right.

§ Mr. Poole (Birmingham Perry Barr)
On a point of order. Is it in order, on a debate on one Order, to refer to an Order which has not yet been published?

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
It seems to me that it may be relevant to the question whether the Orders now before the House should be annulled or not as to whether there is another Order on the same subject, if that be the case.

§ Mr. Lennox-Boyd
Is it not a fact, Sir, that in recent years a Prayer by the Opposition against an Order was withdrawn at the request of the Government because they had already tabled another Order on the same subject?

§ Mr. Deputy-Speaker
I think that was a case where the Order which superseded the first Order covered the whole of the ground, and not merely part of it.

§ Mr. Assheton
I want to give the Parliamentary Secretary a fair chance to answer. Is he suggesting that Order No. 1996, to which the attention of the House has been drawn, does not in any way vary Orders Nos. 1862 and 1863, which are now before the House?

§ Mr. Rhodes
I am advised that Order No. 1996 does not alter these Orders in any particular. In any case the Order has not been published.

§ Mr. Assheton
We seem to be in considerable difficulty because I am told by the Parliamentary Secretary that the Order has not been published, and my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames says that it has, and is now in the Library. The Government should be able to give more accurate information on this point. If the Parliamentary Secretary does not know, there are, no doubt, officials near at hand who will give him the information. Is it in the Library or not? If there is no reply to my question it is quite clear that the Parliamentary Secretary is playing with the House tonight, and knows perfectly well that the Order is in the Library, and is not prepared to tell the House that it is, and what is in it. I suggest under these circumstances that he ought to withdraw both these Orders and bring them back another day.

§ Colonel Hutchison
I wish, very shortly, to reply, because the situation seems to have become chaotic and the deeper we go into it, the more difficult it is to make any sense of the present situation. The hon. Gentleman used the very extraordinary argument that delaying the availability of the Order and the schedule did not matter because prices were going up. He presupposes that no manufacturer would object and that he would not go against the Orders because prices were going only one way. But there are other sections of the public to be considered. It is an extremely dangerous theory to enunciate that, because it appears to the Minister that as all sections of the public will be satisfied it does not matter if the Order ever appears at all.
The fact that so much of this argument has turned on the schedule shows how important these schedules are. I do not believe that the hon. Gentleman is really aware of the contents of the schedules, because he engaged in an argument almost exclusively on the subject of wool. But if he studies these schedules he will find there cotton, silk, and nylon—all these things are covered by this order. The argument that the schedules do not really matter is nonsense. My original remark that the sting is really in the schedules is very true.
He said that a committee had been sitting and that it had reported and made recommendations as to more flexibility in the utility scheme. Is that report to be made public? Until we know what the committee said, the report is not of the greatest possible value. I asked whether that flexibility was reflected in these Orders and he said it was not. So the Orders are out of date on two counts. First, they do not reflect the finding of the flexibility committee—if I can use that term—and, second, it has been superseded, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) said, in respect of schedule No. I(j) (Men's and youths' outer wear) by the substitution of schedule I(k). This is a new schedule superseding and completely altering that particular part of this Order. The thing is chaotic. The situation has grown fantastic. The only answer is to take the Orders away and knock them into shape.

§ Mr. Lennox-Boyd
This matter affects a large number of people in the country— 1303 many thousands of retailers and those who get their living by dealing in goods of this kind—and it is unreasonable that the present chaotic condition should continue after the House has risen. We are entitled to ask the hon. Gentleman a direct question, or, rather, two linked questions. Does he agree that yesterday, in the Votes and Proceedings, there was presented on the Order Paper a copy of the Goods and Services (Prices Control) Order, No. 1996 of 1950, and does he agree that that Order removes the related schedule, No. I(j), and substitutes a schedule of 27 pages, very largely varying the subject matter of the Orders we are debating tonight? If he does agree, how can he possibly expect members of the general public, who depend for their livelihood and not their entertainment, on Orders of this kind, to be able to understand what the Board of Trade wants to do. Would the hon. Gentleman give us an answer? If not, may I ask that if the hon. Gentleman, on further scrutiny, discovers that the facts we have related are true, will he then withdraw both these Orders and bring forward an Order comprehensible to the general public?