§ Q1 Dr. M. S. Millerasked the Prime Minister if she will pay an official visit to East Kilbride.
§ The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher)I have at present no plans to do so.
§ Dr. MillerIf the right hon. Lady visits East Kilbride, will she accept that my constituents will expect her to take responsibility for soaring prices and the massive increase in unemployment? Does the right hon. Lady think that abolishing the Price Commission will cause escalating prices to disappear? As a corollary to her attempt to evade responsibility for the total collapse of her counter-inflation policies, does she intend to embark upon another shoddy parliamentary manoeuvre in the same vein, to try to evade responsibility for the increase in unemployment?
§ The Prime MinisterIn answer to the hon. Gentleman's multiple question, I point out that the Price Commission did not keep down prices. Prices doubled during the lifetime of the Price Commission. Nor did the previous Government keep down unemployment. Unemployment in Scotland doubled in the lifetime of the previous Government. The hon. Gentleman knows that a large component in prices is wage and unit costs. We are doing our level best to see that the self-financing productivity about which the previous Government used to talk so much—and seem to have conveniently forgotten now—is brought back into wage negotiations.