PRICES AND INCOMES ACT 1966 (AMENDMENT) (Hansard, 5 April 1967)

§ Mr. John Biffen (Oswestry)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the Prices and Incomes Board to publish with each report a list of the consultants employed and the fees paid to them. The National Board for Prices and Incomes undoubtedly plays a very important part in economic decision taking. We have perhaps a most dramatic instance of this in the fact that recently it has been required to report on the findings of the wages council for the retail drapery trade and on the findings of the Agricultural Wages Board. We also have the evidence of politically significant price increases being referred to the Board—for example, the increase in the price of newsprint and the recent question of changes in mortgage rates.

It has always been argued that the reports of the Board would stand on their own merits, and would convince on their own merits that there would be contained in the prices and incomes legislation no sanctions enforcing the findings of the Board. That view has generally been welcomed. But I think that possibly in this atmosphere Mr. Aubrey Jones has sought to present himself as a kind of patron saint of the economy and of the national interest, standing above what he once described in a television interview as "robber barons"—this in the presence of Lord Robens and Mr. Frank Cousins. It is not for me to comment on that.

However, more recently the House has had the advantage of knowing something more about the workings of the Board. From the Minutes of Evidence taken for the Eighth Report of the Estimates Committee we learn a great deal more about the operations of the Board which, I suggest, amply sustains the case for the Bill which I am seeking leave to introduce. In the Minutes of Evidence it was made quite clear that the Board was being obliged to accept such a wide range of tasks that it could not conceivably carry them out with the 128 people currently employed by the Board which, according to the evidence submitted by 157 Mr. Jarratt, includes everybody—in his words, "including the doorman".

The balance of effort has been made up by the widespread employment of consultants, particularly financial consultants.

I think that I can do no better than to quote very briefly from the evidence which was given by Mr. Jarratt, the Secretary of the Board. He said that quite early in the career of the Board: We had immediately to embark on cost enquiries in two industries for which we had to employ outside accountants. Something like 40 per cent. of our current expenditure on outside professional services is on account of accountants. He later said: We could not hope, on the basis of civil service salaries or the career structure of the Board to attract the type of accountants which this firm has. What is this firm? No one knows. We are never told in this House. These reports are based substantially on evidence produced by this firm of accountants, but the House of Commons does not know which firm it is, and neither does the public. We may have fairly shrewd ideas about who these accountants are, but it is left to our own devices. We are not told as of right, and the Bill that I seek leave to introduce would ensure just that.

It goes far beyond this favoured firm. In subsequent evidence Mr. Jarratt said: We have a very full record of 200 consultancy firms, their field experience and so on. The reason why this House should be particularly interested in the extent to which the reports of the National Board for Prices and Incomes lean on these outside bodies is because the disclosure that the Government require by Mr. Aubrey Jones is far greater, potentially, than that which could be required by an inspector of taxes or under existing company legislation. One question that we might ask ourselves is: are any of these consultants not British consultants but overseas consultants?

We do not have to reflect on the evidence before the Estimates Committee. We can even turn to Report No. 26 of the National Board for Prices and Incomes dealing with Prices of Standard Newsprint. Paragraph 38 states clearly: 158 From the advice we have received from a leading firm of American consultants with wide experience of the pulp and paper industry …". We ought to require that with each report submitted by Mr. Aubrey Jones we should have some idea of who has been employed to provide so much of the field work and the evidence on which the conclusions are inevitably based, because the evidence often points to the conclusions. Secondly, and even more important, we ought to know what it costs. That will give us some idea of the degree of thoroughness with which a report has been prepared. How much we would like to know what it cost to produce the report on the wages in the retail drapery industry, for example. It would give us some idea, and we would know what valuation to place upon the report's judgment, which was sought to be set alongside of that of a wages council.

The Board is an innovation, seeking in some sense to establish one of these outside bodies purporting to have very considerable influence upon Governments and upon other bodies taking part in economic decision making. For this reason possibly more than any other, we should be very wary of how these bodies proceed. The National Board is a vitally important body, and no one reflecting upon Part II of the Prices and Incomes Act should have any doubt about that.

Therefore, Parliament should know who are the chosen consultants behind Mr. Aubrey Jones and what they are paid. Parliament should know. It is the least that we owe to our constituents and to those who are exposed to the inquests commissioned by the Board.