HC Deb 17 July 1978 vol 954 cc18-20
14. Mr. Adley

asked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection if the cost of living has yet doubled since February 1974

Mr. Hattersley

No, Sir.

Mr. Adley

Will the right hon. Gentleman accept our congratulations on answering Questions about price increases where the figures are marginally under 100 per cent.? We noted his reluctance to answer questions where prices exceeded 100 per cent. As he failed to answer the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton), will he tell me where in this document the increases in food prices that have taken place are mentioned? Will he also remind the House whether the Chancellor's arithmetic about 8.4 per cent. in October 1974 was accurate?

Mr. Hattersley

I look forward to answering Questions about shorter indices later this afternoon. On the hon. Gentleman's original point, every month I witness his attempts to prove that inflation began on General Election day 1974. That is a difficult thesis to sustain. If he does not believe me, I hope that he will join me in a common enterprise: to ask the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath)—I believe that they are all now on speaking terms again—to agree to the publication of the last inflation forecast received by the Conservative Government in the way that we publish inflation forecasts under the Bray amendment. If the former Prime Minister will agree to publish that forecast, it will make it absolutely clear that the Conservative Government knew that inflation was taking off and that they did absolutely nothing about it.

Mr. Gwilym Roberts

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the rate at which the rate of inflation is changing is what really matters? Does he further agree that in February 1974 the change in the rate of inflation was high and positive and that the same rate of change is now high and negative? In view of the latest industrial figures and the accumulated value of the pound relative to world currencies, does he agree that there is now a good chance that the rate of inflation might fall even further?

Mr. Hattersley

My forecast remains that the rate of inflation will stay during this year at or about its April figure, which was 7.9 per cent. Regarding the right index to choose, not only do I agree with my hon. Friend, but in months past the Opposition agreed with him. When the RPI was running at 26 per cent. they were not conjuring new figures out of the air; they were concentrating on that figure. They abandoned the annual RPI only when it was moving in favour not only of the Government but of the people of this country. I regard that as a highly disreputable technique.

Mrs. Knight

Will the Secretary of State bear in mind that to the ordinary housewife the question put to him by his hon. Friend the Member for Cannock (Mr. Roberts) is sheer gobbledegook? The thing that really matters to the ordinary housewife is that, as she gets her shopping week after week, she finds that prices keep on rising.

Mr. Hattersley

That is not what the ordinary housewife—a patronising term that I should not employ—finds. That is not what women, and men, for that matter, who do shopping, find. They find a remarkable degree of price stability from one week to another. The reports of surveys demonstrate, as was put in a simple sentence in one newspaper, what one lady said: that this week's shopping money now buys last week's groceries and the week's before as well. That is what housewives and others are finding.