§ 4. Mr. Hamiltonasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what statistics are avail able to him to enable some estimate to be made of the proportion of income spent, respectively, on food, rent, and fuel, by the various income groups; and to what extent this estimate influences policy in relation to food subsidies, rent and rates.
§ The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. R. Maudling)I regret that no official statistics are at present available showing the distribution of expenditure for different income groups.
§ Mr. HamiltonCan the Minister attempt to make such information available? Would he not agree that the increases in price of the commodities mentioned in the Question hit the lower income groups much harder than the higher income groups? Is it not significant that over the last two and a half years the prices of these commodities have gone up much higher than the prices of other commodities?
§ Mr. MaudlingWithout entering into the rather vexed question of movements of prices, I should like to tell the hon. Member that the Ministry of Labour's household budget inquiry which is now in progress will, when completed, provide data from which we can furnish figures of this kind.