§ 4. Mr. Molloyasked the First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs what additional measures will now be taken to control prices to the same degree as wages.
§ 21. Mr. Moonmanasked the First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs whether, in view of the difficulties experienced in recent months in containing price increases, a new mechanism is now contemplated to deal with the problem.
§ Mr. Frederick LeeThe Government will continue to see that the criteria for prices behaviour are properly applied. I 1672 would not accept any implication that the policy has been applied more rigorously to pay than to prices during the present period of severe restraint.
§ Mr. MolloyIs my right hon. Friend aware that in the retail sector, as any housewife will tell him, this criteria is not applying? Since there is in the Department of his right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour a section known as the wages inspectorate, will my right hon. Friend consider establishing within his domain a prices inspectorate?
§ Mr. LeeMy hon. Friend is really asking us to establish something on the French model whereby, I believe, more than 20,000 people are supervising the prices issue alone. For our part, we reaffirm that the position on prices has been held very well indeed. If my hon. Friend is challenging the validity of the Index of Retail Prices, I suggest that the Ministry of Labour, with the assistance of the T.U.C. and other informed people who are on the Committee which runs that Index, will tell him that they believe that although it is not, of course, an exact replica of every price movement, it is a good return of the movement of retail prices generally.
§ Captain W. ElliotDoes the right hon. Gentleman still hold to the Government estimate that, after July, wages will rise by approximately 6 per cent.?
§ Mr. LeeWe were not referring to the period after July: we were talking about this year. If we are accurate about this estimate of a 6 per cent. increase in wages, when we know perfectly well that we will not get that kind of increase in productivity, it follows we shall have quite a job to restrain prices. If the House looks at what happened since the beginning of 1966, it is obvious that incomes had risen by at least twice the level of prices and—it is no good arguing against economic facts—if that increase goes on prices will rise.
§ Mr. Raphael TuckDoes not my right hon. Friend realise that if the Government had shown that they were controlling prices and dividends as strictly as they were controlling wages the workers would have been behind them to a man?
§ Mr. LeeAgain, my hon. Friend repeats something that is utterly wrong. Wages have increased during this period. I said publicly a few days ago that wages have been increased for 4½ million people this year. Over the period of the standstill and severe restraint, dividends are down by £60 million and prices have increased by only 1¾ per cent.
§ Mr. Iain MacleodDoes not the Question on the Order Paper ask what additional measures will now be taken to control prices, and do not all the Minister's answers boil down simply to "No, Sir"?
§ Mr. LeeNo, Sir. They boil down to the proposition that we have looked at prices, and have been as strict on prices as we have been on incomes.