Price Commission (Hansard, 17 April 1978)

§ 19. Mr. Canavan
asked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection when he next expects to meet the chairman of the Price Commission.

§ 28. Mr. Neubert
asked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection when he will next meet the chairman of the Price Commission.

§ Mr. Hattersley
The chairman of the Price Commission and I meet frequently. No firm date has been set for our next meeting.

§ Mr. Canavan
Will my right hon. Friend ask the Price Commission to investigate the wide variation in the price of a basic food, such as bread? Is he aware that it costs some people as much as 26p to buy a loaf which costs only 18p elsewhere? Is it not about time that the Government stepped in to stop big business monopolies such as the Spillers French group, which not only subjects its workers to shabby treatment but exploits housewives by charging extortionate prices for supplying bread to certain shops, especially in small towns and rural areas?

§ Mr. Hattersley
There is a special problem in small towns and rural areas, but what is done by these groups should be kept in perspective. To a large degree, competition in baking has kept and will continue to keep prices down. As I told the House half an hour ago, the average price of a standard loaf is still appreciably lower than the maximum price set by law, and while competition keeps the price below the statutory price it is not doing a bad job.

§ Mr. Neubert
When the right hon. Gentleman next meets the chairman of the Price Commission, will he draw to his attention the recent devastating statement by the Governor of the Bank of England on the damaging effects of price and profit control on investment and employment? As the cost of living has more than doubled since the Commission was established, is it not clear that, far from reducing prices, the most that the Commission has achieved is a reduction in the number of jobs and more people out of work?

§ Mr. Hattersley
I shall continue to attempt to explain to the Opposition that there have been two Price Commissions. The first was invented and implemented by the Conservative Government and operated a general level of price control, which, I always agreed, had potentially dangerous consequences. This Government abolished that Commission and had a more selective policy which cannot, by definition, have the sort of problems to which the hon. Gentleman referred. If his question was an admission of guilt, I accept it gladly.

§ Mr. Dudley Smith
When the right hon. Gentleman next meets the chairman of the Price Commission, will he suggest that 25 when the chairman and his colleagues call before them well-known organisations and industries they should treat them a little less like potential criminals under suspicion and a little more like worthwhile industrialists who are trying to do a good job?

§ Mr. Hattersley
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will break the rule of a lifetime and, instead of making general complaints, give specific examples. I shall. I have before me a letter from the Weetabix Company Ltd. congratulating the Price Commission on its methods of operating and its techniques. I propose to put the letter in the Library as a result of today's Questions.

§ Mr. McCrindle
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Arising out of a supplementary question on Question No. 16, the Minister of State indicated that he had no responsibility for the effect of a Government Commission on the price of motor insurance. May I seek your guidance as to which Minister has such responsibility?

§ Mr. Speaker
Points of order are better raised at the end of Question Time.

§ Mr. McCrindle
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wish to pursue the point I raised earlier. I wish to remain within the rules of order. Will you please confirm that it was in order for me to ask the Minister of State, Department of Prices and Consumer Protection for a reply to a question which referred to the effect on the price of a commodity of a report of a Government-appointed Commission? Will you confirm that he was the right Minister at whom such a question should have been directed and that he was wrong in implying that the Department of Trade's responsibility for the overal supervision of insurance and insurance companies meant that it was the Department to which my question should have been directed?

§ Mr. John Fraser
Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. It is well understood that the Department of Trade has answered Questions about the level and control of insurance premiums for the last four years.

§ Mr. Speaker
In any case, I was about to say that the Ministers' replies are not my responsibility.