HC Deb 22 October 1979 vol 972 cc20-1
26. Mr. Bowen Wells

asked the Secretary of State for Trade whether he will make a statement about the effects of the Price Commission on prices and investment over the past two years.

Mr. Parkinson

As my right hon. and hon. Friends have already made clear, we consider that the Price Commission has had a minimal impact on inflation since the enactment of the Price Commission Act 1977. At the same time, the legislation has seriously harmed jobs and investment prospects and imposed unnecessary burdens on industry.

Mr. Wells

Has not management time been expended on the activities of the Price Commission, diverting management from increasing productivity, which is the only way in which we shall get prices down?

Mr. Parkinson

My hon. Friend is right. The Price Commission cost £35 million in direct costs but it also cost hundreds of millions of pounds in wasted management time taken up answering unnecessary queries.

Mr. Ioan Evans

Are not the Government appealing for restraint in wage increases? Did not the submission of price increases to the Price Commission have the effect of restraining those increases? If there is to be a free-for-all in prices, will there not also be a free-for-all in wages?

Mr. Parkinson

The hon. Gentleman is putting forward a very strange argument, which is that the existence of a body which is of no consequence and does nothing to restrain prices should be used as a means of holding down wages. I do not see the sense of that argument.

Mr. Michael Morris

Would it not help the House if the Minister were to place on the record the exact cost to British industry of the Price Commission?

Mr. Parkinson

That would be a most interesting exercise, but I suggest that it would be as big a waste of time as a great many of the activities of the Price Commission.

Mr. English

Can we get away from sterile and totally unprovable arguments about the Price Commission? Will the Minister answer a slightly different question? When the Price Commission is abolished who will perform its efficiency function? Who will tell companies such as British Oxygen that if they stopped theft they would not need price increases?

Mr. Parkinson

I suggest that the hon. Gentleman attends tomorrow's debate when we shall be concluding the Second Reading of the Competition Bill. Then all will be revealed to him.