§ Q3. Mr. Tebbitasked the Prime Minister if he is satisfied with the co-ordination between the Secretaries of State for Prices and Consumer Protection, Industry and Energy with regard to protecting the consumer against price increases consequent upon the Chancellor's Budget Statement.
§ The Prime MinisterYes, Sir.
§ Mr. TebbitThe Prime Minister has a lower threshold of satisfaction than I thought. Does he not agree that co-ordination might be improved if he asked his right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council to repeat the advice he gave at Stockport on 13th February, that a sensible Government who wanted to contain price rises would cut the tax on petrol? This would give some co-ordination in the protection of the consumer against the activities of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
§ The Prime MinisterI do not think that at that time my right hon. Friend—I myself speculated about these problems much earlier—had any conception of the financial position left to us by the previous Government. This was a difficulty he shared with the whole electorate and with those Conservatives who were not members of the then Government. My right 1319 hon. Friend's Budget Statement was approved by the Conservative Party.
§ Mr. MolloyDoes my right hon. Friend agree that, apart from the political aspects of this question, the facts are that if he and his Cabinet colleagues were not in office today Britain would be on a two-day working week, let alone a three-day working week, the miners would still be on strike, and prices would have gone through the roof? Is it not a fact that the instant action taken by the Labour Government has made the biggest contribution to restoring industrial sanity, increasing Britain's productivity and contributing to a reduction of prices?
§ The Prime MinisterI think that in general my hon. Friend is on the right lines in his remarks, but I regret to inform him that I have no direct knowledge of the dangers to Britain of a two-day working week. My only information on that subject came from the right hon. Gentleman the former Prime Minister, who is now Leader of the Opposition.
§ Mr. PeytonDo not the Prime Minister's comments about the state of the economy seem a little odd against the background of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's description of his own Budget as a neutral one?
§ The Prime MinisterThe right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) is not doing very well these days. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer used the word "neutral" in his Budget judgment as to whether it should be net reflationary or net deflationary. I think that his judgment on this was supported by the Conservative Front Bench. Although his judgment has been criticised in certain sections of the Press and approved in others, that Budget obviously was considered by Conservative Members to be fair—or they would have voted against it.