WEIGHTS AND MEASURES ACT 1963 (DRIED FRUITS) ORDER 1976 (Hansard, 4 March 1976)

Lord ORAM
My Lords, I beg to move, That the draft Weights and 1180 Measures Act 1963 (Dried Fruits) Order 1976, laid before the House on 5th February, be approved. At the same time may I speak to the Weights and Measures Act 1963 (Edible Fats) Order 1976. I understand that in this House, as in another place with whose procedures I am much more familiar, it is traditional when addressing the House for the first time to avoid controversy. I think I am on fairly safe ground this afternoon because I am sure it would be difficult to find a subject less controversial than dried fruits and edible fats.
I am encouraged in that thought by the fact that over 80 organisations were consulted about the provisions of these orders. They represented manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, consumers and enforcement authorities, and all of them welcomed the orders. One or two points of detail were raised but the majority of those organisations wholeheartedly supported these orders. Their purpose is to permit the foodstuffs mentioned in them, most of which, under the provisions of the Act, may now be prepacked only in prescribed imperial quantities, also to be prepacked in metric quantities. Although the orders will permit both metric and imperial packs to be sold, in practice manufacturers will phase out imperial packs and adopt only the metric quantities permitted. We have set 1st January of next year as the effective date for both orders, this being the date when the first metric packs of either group of products can be produced. The rate of change to metric will vary from industry to industry according to the problems obtaining in each, but all manufacturers recognise the need to complete the conversion as quickly as possible in the interests of consumer protection.
The House will be aware that a Bill has recently been introduced into another place to empower the Government to phase out the use of imperial units of measurement, and no doubt we shall quite shortly be dealing with that Bill. If Parliament approves this Bill, the Department will in due course enter into discussions with all affected interests to determine suitable terminal dates for the use of imperial quantities in the sale of the products concerned. This will also apply to all other products that are covered by metrication orders.
1181 So far as the EEC is concerned, as yet no EEC legislation has been adopted on any of the products concerned in these orders, although draft legislation exists on all of them, and the proposals contained in these orders are substantially in line with the draft EEC proposals. I understand that there are a few details to be settled, but we do not anticipate that there will be any difficulty in resolving those points. The new metric packs will hold roughly 10 percent. more by weight than the imperial packs they will replace. If I may give one or two examples, the ½ lb. pack of butter, which weighs 226 grammes, will become 250 grammes, and the 12 oz. or 340 gramme carton of dried currants will become 375 grammes. Naturally we must expect, in relation to prices, that there will be increases in prices to cover the extra product in the new packs and, of course, industry will need to recoup the costs of conversion of its machinery. This is being examined in the industries concerned, but we are not expecting that the conversion costs will be a significant factor in reaching the price of the new metric packs.
There are one or two points of particular interest arising from these orders that I should like to mention. The first concerns education. Orders have already been made in respect of flour and sugar. Those two commodities, together with those with which we are now concerned, namely, edible fats and dried fruits, are the prepacked ingredients used most frequently in household cooking. Metric packs of these four groups of products will help the housewife more readily to understand metrication and will facilitate teaching home economics in metric.
The second point is that we have freed packs of dried fruit of 75 grammes and below from the provisions concerning prescribed quantities. This is in order to permit the industry to bring back the small packs which were sold as snack food. These disappeared when the 1963 Act came into force and we are enabling that to be reversed.
Thirdly, in the order on edible fats we have included products such as low fat spreads and solidified edible oils for which the Act itself does not prescribe standard quantities at present. The last special point I should like to make is that we are setting 10 kilogrammes as the 1182 upper limit to both orders. This is as high a figure as is ever likely to be used in retail trade and one which also conforms with EEC legislation. We are naturally concerned that the changeover should take place as smoothly as possible, and with the minimum confusion to the consumer and with the minimum cost for conversion borne by the manufacturer.
As I said earlier, we are looking to the manufacturers to complete the conversion in as short a time as possible, but we are aware of their need to ensure that there is no unnecessary waste of materials or needless expenditure of any kind as the result of the conversion. As part of its campaign to familiarise the public with metric weights and measures the Metrication Board intends to give advance publicity to these changes before the effective date. All metric packs will have to be marked clearly with the words "metric pack "in capital letters and the quantity will be indicated on all packs in both metric and imperial weights. It is our intention to press ahead as quickly as possible with the metrication of food generally. The Department are having discussions with other sectors of the food industry and we hope to lay further orders before the House fairly soon. My Lords, I commend these orders to the House.

§ Lord ELTON
My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Oram, and to congratulate him on making his maiden speech, not only in this Chamber but at the Dispatch Box at the same time, in such a controlled and lucid and competent manner, and I look forward with pleasure to having him explain to your Lordships the more complicated pieces of legislation which will be entrusted to his hands in the future, in a manner which will enable us to understand them much more readily, thanks to his patient exposition.
There is not a great deal to be said about these two orders, which are just another example of the old system of measurement dying by inches, except in areas already touched on by the noble Lord. First, it is agreeable to find that in this at least we are ahead of the rest 1183 of Europe and that nevertheless our legislation is in line with their draft proposals. I hope we need not be alarmed by the minor details which the noble Lord has said remain to be cleared up and that, if there is a discrepancy, for once Europe will conform to us and not we to Europe.
However there is another point which gives me a little more pause and that is the increase in the basic units of 10 per cent. of average over the equivalent sizes in the old scale of measurement, because this must necessarily apply, among all the others, to the smallest unit and it is in the smallest unit that the poorest members of our community usually buy these commodities. From time to time your Lordships have your attention drawn to the position of old-age pensioners going in for their small quantity of sugar and their small quantity of tea. It is a fact that small quantities come dearer, whether they are sold loose, when they take more to turn the scales, or whether they are packaged because of the extra packaging costs which they have to bear. Ten per cent. in addition to the minimum amount which one can spend on half a pound of butter is, after all, lop in the £ and that is a very considerable increase on a narrowly budgeted weekly expenditure for a single old-age pensioner, for example.
We have considered, and are in the future to consider, the position of those most at risk in the present days of inflation and I hope your Lordships will bear this particular instance in mind because, whereas dried fruit is something which may not be regarded as a necessity of life, edible fats do constitute a necessity of life; and I hope that in their future orders Her Majesty's Government will have it in mind to make any variation of the smallest unit in which essential commodities are sold as little as possible, and preferably in a downwards direction. I can see that the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, who to our great regret is relinquishing the reins of authority in this sphere, does not agree with what I have said but I am sure he will seek an early opportunity of saying it so that we may all hear.
In the meantime, I would refer your Lordships to the other matter touched upon by the noble Lord, Lord Oram; namely, the question of education. I am 1184 glad to hear that these packs will be clearly identifiable so that they will not just seem to be much larger or, even at the same size, more expensive packs. But there are all sorts of problems now in the culinary world. We have cooking stoves marked in Fahrenheit and cookery books printed in Centigrade; we have butter and sugar in grammes and recipes written in ounces. Therefore, I think it is a good thing that the Government are giving advance notice of what is being done, and I hope the Metrication Board will not be too astonished at Mr. Bernard Levin's raillery against their campaign and will continue to educate the public in an area where it is of great practical importance to them. In conclusion, my Lords, may I once again say that we are glad to have the noble Lord, Lord Oram, among us and welcome him. As he has said, his debut was with something which could scarcely be called controversial but even less could it be called glamorous. I am sure that greater glory will accrue to him in the future.

Lord ORAM
My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Elton, for his kind personal welcome and comments and I am glad that he had no very controversial matters to raise. I share with him the hope that, in so far as there are differences between ourselves and our partners in Europe, we maybe able to persuade them that our point of view is the proper one. I believe there will be one or two instances where that will occur. The noble Lord is right, of course, to ask us to look carefully at the effect of metrication on the poorest—on the old-age pensioners and others who have to rely on the purchase of small quantities. For instance, I recall that there was a controversy over the introduction of the ½p, and what might have seemed to more affluent people something not worth arguing about was indeed worth arguing about for the old-age pensioner and those on very small incomes, and we need to look at this question in a similar way.
I think on reflection the noble Lord will agree that in relation to these commodities the small quantities are so small that when we add 10 per cent. to the smallest quantity permitted by these orders it will not really make much practical effect from the point of view that he has expressed. So, although I share 1185 his thoughts that we ought to watch these things very carefully from that point of view, I do not think there is any real danger in this respect. I mentioned that we had consulted a great number of organisations about the effect of these orders. Included in those bodies were organisations, representative of consumers, which would have in mind the kind of point expressed by the noble Lord a moment ago. They have not raised the difficulty that he has raised, as I understand it, so I think the noble Lord can rest content that it is not considered that there is any great problem in this connection.