Bread and Confectionery

HC Deb 03 February 1966 vol 723 cc1273-4

32. Mr. Hamling

asked the First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs whether he is aware that the price of bread is rising although the price of wheat has fallen and that the multiple bakeries largely buy wheat for themselves; and whether he will again ask the National Board for Prices and Incomes to investigate the price of bread and confectionery in relation to the price of flour and the profits of the milling industry.

Mr. George Brown

No, Sir.

Mr. Hamling

Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is much resentment among farmers over the fact that the price of bread has doubled in the last ten years—nine years under the last lot—and that their own income has suffered during that period?

Mr. Brown

I have that very much in mind, but I do not think that what my hon. Friend asks would achieve the end he has in view.

Mr. Peter Emery

Will the right hon. Gentleman explain why, when most of the industry co-operated with him in keeping down the price of bread for a much longer period than normally he could have expected, he found it necessary to condemn certain firms when they acted only a week before the Report came out and their action was backed up by the Board?

Mr. Brown

That has no relation to the Question on the Order Paper, but the answer is: because they broke their word.