Staffordshire Potteries Water Board (Tenders)

HC Deb 19 July 1960 vol 627 cc235-6

29. Dr. Stross

asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he studied the detailed figures of the tenders submitted to the Staffordshire Potteries Water Board by the four firms that recently tendered for cast-iron pipes and special castings; and why he decided to refer this matter to the Registrar of Restrictive Trading Agreements.

Mr. J. Rodgers

My right hon. Friend has studied the information supplied to him on this subject. The suggestion had been made by some hon. Members that the fact that closely similar tenders were submitted indicated that a registered agreement, supposed to have been terminated, had been revived. Investigation of complaints on this score is a matter for the Registrar and not for the Monopolies Commission.

Dr. Stross

Does not the Parliamentary Secretary agree that this is the second occasion that this has happened within two years? If he has studied the figures carefully he must be aware that the chance of coincidence must be more than one in a million—one in a billion? How long are local citizens to be held up to ransom in this way? The answer he gave to my hon. Friends does not really suggest that there is much intelligence in the people who prepared the answers.

Mr. Rodgers

It is true that the Registrar did investigate a similar complaint last year and then found that there was no reasonable cause for him to believe that a registrable agreement did exist in this case. The papers have been referred to the Registrar and he is now looking into them.

Mrs. Slater

Does the hon. Gentleman not realise that exactly the same Answer was given to us before? We were told at that time that if further tenders were asked for and the same thing happened the matter would be dealt with. Tenders were asked for, and the same thing happened. We have had the same thing happen again. Is the local authority, the Staffordshire Potteries Water Board, to be held up by high interest rates, on the one hand, and, on the other, at the point of a gun by firms such as these?

Mr. Rodgers

As I said, it is not a matter for my right hon. Friend, and the papers have gone to the Registrar.