Sitting of 23 March 1955

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  TELEPHONE SERVICE

    Naphill Exchange
    Mr. John Hallasked the Assistant Postmaster-General what new circumstances have arisen which have made it necessary to postpone the building of the new telephone exchange at Naphill from 1955 to the end of 1957.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Supply (Sir. Edward Boyle): I have been asked to reply for my hon. Friend, who is unfortunately still indisposed.
    There have been difficulties about acquiring the site. The large increase in demand has also meant a larger building than was originally planned. Service is at present provided by a mobile exchange, but for the reasons given it cannot be replaced by a permanent building until 1957.
    Mr. Hall:Is my hon. Friend aware that those of us who pay telephone accounts may think that those without telephones do not know when they are well off? Will he, in view of the masochistic desire of some of my constituents to add to their financial burdens, do his best to speed up the building of this new exchange?
    Sir. E. Boyle: My hon. Friend is sorry about the delay. Unfortunately the sites finally obtained included two parcels of land in different ownership. There has also been difficulty about title, but completion of purchase is now being put forward as quickly as possible.
    Mr. Stokes: Is it not a fact that there is difficulty in arriving at what is called a satisfactory price between his hon.
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    Friend's Department and the owners of the sites?
    Sir. E. Boyle: I have not myself been concerned with the technical details. I would rather not answer that question without notice.

    Stoke-on-Trent
    Mr. Ellis Smithasked the Assistant Postmaster-General if he is satisfied with the number of telephone kiosks in Fenton, Longton, Meir, Blurton, and Newstead; and if he will see that the expanding housing estates in the area are provided with kiosks, telephone, and other Post Office services as soon as possible.
    Sir. E. Boyle: There are seven kiosks in these places, all of them near the housing estates. Other kiosks are being provided. Telephone and other Post Office services will be expanded as quickly as possible to meet the needs of the residents.
    Mr. Ellis Smith: While not expecting a reply today, may I ask the hon. Gentleman to request the authorities to treat this matter as one of urgency, seeing that this is an expanding mining area and it wants a telephone service so as to be able to get into touch with the medical authorities and other such services?
    Sir. E. Boyle: My hon. Friend entirely appreciates the difficulties to which the hon. Gentleman refers. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for having taught me a lot about the geography of the Five Towns area.
    Mr. Ellis Smithasked the Assistant Postmaster-General what steps are being taken to increase the number of telephones and kiosks in Trent Vale, Trentham and other expanding areas in the city of Stoke-on-Trent.
    Sir. E. Boyle: No less than 1,500 telephones were fitted during 1954 in the area served by the Stoke-on-Trent automatic system, and it is hoped to improve on this figure in the current year. Additional kiosks are also being provided. New cables are being laid, or are planned, in most parts of the city and extra equipment is being provided where necessary in the exchanges.

    New Installations
    Mr. Nabarroasked the Assistant Postmaster-General the rate of new telephone connections he plans for 1955 compared with 1951; by how much percentum the installation rate for 1955 has increased compared with 1951; and what is the waiting list.
    Mr. Nabarro: Before this Question is answered, may I ask your protection, Mr. Speaker, for Members of this House both in the case of this Question and of that to which the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards) referred, Question No. 3? Both Questions were put on the Order Paper of this House from 10 to 14 days ago. It has now been brought to our notice that absolutely identical matters formed the subject of a statement in another place yesterday by the Minister responsible, in order evidently to make a circumvention of the orderly and usual answer to Questions in this House. How can we be protected from a practice of this kind?
    Mr. Speaker: I see no point of order in this. Members in the other place are entitled to make statements just as are Members of this House.
    Mr. Woodburn: While not imputing any such motives to the Postmaster-General in another place, I think it seems a little discourteous to this House if Questions here are anticipated by statements in the other place.
    Mr. Speaker: That is quite another matter. It is certainly not a point of order.
    Sir. E. Boyle: In answer to the Question, I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer given by my noble Friend yesterday to a Question in another place. I will send my hon. Friend a copy of this answer.
    Mr. Nabarro: On a point of order. May I have the statement read in reply to my Question, which was on the Order Paper long before the matter was raised in the other place?
    Mr. Speaker: I do not think that is necessary. The hon. Member has been referred to a Government statement on the matter, and that is quite enough. Mr. Nabarro.
    Mr. Nabarro: Are you calling me to put a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker?
    Mr. Speaker: I am calling Question No. 10.
    Mr. Nabarro: May I put a supplementary question on No. 9? I rose to ask a supplementary, which is whether my hon. Friend will tell me by what margin per centum the number of telephone installations in the character of new connections during 1955 will exceed the new connections during the year 1951. That is a supplementary question to the original Question.
    Sir. E. Boyle: By 28 per cent.
    Mr. Ross: How many of these were party lines?
    Sir. E. Boyle: I have not that figure here.

    Caithness and Sutherland
    Sir. D. Robertsonasked the Assistant Postmaster-General if he is aware of the gravity of the situation which developed in Caithness and Sutherland during the recent snow storms through lack of public telephones; and if he will take immediate steps to supply additional public telephones to remedy the situation.
    Sir. E. Boyle: There has been no general complaint that there were not enough public telephones in Caithness and Sutherland during the recent snowstorms. On the contrary there has been general agreement that the public telephones materially assisted operation "Snowdrop." Any instances my hon. Friend has in mind will gladly be looked into, but I would remind him that the sites and number of the rural kiosks are fixed after consultation with the county council.
    Sir. D. Robertson: Will my hon. Friend draw to the attention of the Postmaster-General the fact that public telephones are much needed? I can supply any amount of evidence. Is it not a fact that in Caithness and Sutherland telephone kiosks have been dealt out like gold dust? Sometimes in a year not one new kiosk has been installed.
    Sir. E. Boyle: I hope my hon. Friend will remember that if the telephone managers devote more of their resources

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    to public telephone kiosks many applicants, including farmers, who are awaiting telephones will have to wait still longer.

    Party Lines
    Mr. F. M. Bennettasked the Assistant Postmaster-General how many party lines are currently in operation in the United Kingdom.
    Sir. E. Boyle: Eight hundred and sixty-five thousand. If it were not for sharing the waiting list would be twice what it is now.
    Mr. Bennett: Has my hon. Friend been made aware that among certain sections of the population peculiar difficulties are being encountered in the amicable sharing of party lines?
    Sir. E. Boyle: That may be so.

    Easthouses, Midlothian
    Mr. Prydeasked the Assistant Postmaster-General when he anticipates that it will be possible to install telephone kiosks in the new town of Easthouses, Midlothian.
    Sir. E. Boyle: There is a kiosk on the main road which borders the estate and my hon. Friend is looking into the question of providing others.
    Mr. Pryde: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this is a very large new town created to receive redundant miners from other parts of Scotland, that amenities are very few, and that there is a widespread feeling that there is a shortage of equipment for an exchange in Midlothian?
    Sir. E. Boyle: My hon. Friend is aware of this. Inquiry is now being made locally into the possibility of providing two further kiosks.

    Stretford
    Mr. Storeyasked the Assistant Postmaster-General the number of telephones connected to the Stretford Exchange during 1954, and the number of people waiting for telephones on 1st January, 1955.
    Sir. E. Boyle: Four hundred and eighty-five telephones were connected in Stretford in 1954, and 500 applications were outstanding on the 1st January, 1955.

    Urmston
    Mr. Storeyasked the Assistant Postmaster-General the number of telephones connected to the Urmston Exchange during 1954, and the number of people waiting for telephones on 1st January, 1955.
    Sir. E. Boyle: Four hundred and forty-two telephones were connected during 1954; 780 applications were outstanding on the 1st January, 1955.
    Mr. Storey: Will my hon. Friend ask the Assistant Postmaster-General to give special attention to this area in which live a large number of the executives of firms in the adjoining Trafford Park Estate and where telephones are very essential?
    Sir. E. Boyle: Yes, Sir. In the last 12 months there has been a reduction of 45 in the waiting list. A major cable relief scheme will be started this year, and, though the waiting list may be high for some time, the situation will get better until the cables are finally completed in 1958.

    Exeter
    Mr. Dudley Williamsasked the Assistant Postmaster-General how many names are on the waiting list for telephones in Exeter; and how this compares with the situation a year ago.
    Sir. E. Boyle: There are 349 applications outstanding, including 173 in course of provision, as compared with 301 outstanding on the 31st March last year. During the past 12 months 796 telephones were installed in the city.
    Mr. Dudley Williams: Does my hon. Friend anticipate any substantial drop in the number of applicants over the next 12 months?
    Sir. E. Boyle: Cable relief schemes are in hand, but the number of outstanding applications depends very largely on the number of new applications, which is extremely difficult to forecast.

    Priority Classes
    Mr. J. Johnsonasked the Assistant Postmaster-General what classes of persons have immediate priority for the installation of a telephone.
    Sir. E. Boyle: Priority is given to the essential requirements of public services,

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    health and life saving services, Government Departments and businesses engaged on production and distribution for exports or for saving imports. Outside these broad classes of priority, business applicants are in general given preference over residential applicants, and removing subscribers over new applicants.
    Mr. Johnson: Can the hon. Gentleman go a little beyond this and tell us whether the local telephone superintendents have what one might term a points system as councils have for housing? It is very important that the hon. Gentleman should throw some light on this matter, because many of my constituents have been waiting two years or more and are rather mystified by this attitude of prevarication.
    Sir. E. Boyle: I do not think I can go beyond what I have already said, but I will ask my hon. Friend to write to the hon. Member if he would like more information on this point.

    London Directories (Essex Subscribers)
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Assistant Postmaster-General, in view of the inconvenience caused by many telephone subscribers in Metropolitan Essex not being included in the London telephone directories, what is the estimate of the number of inquiries for telephone numbers to that area arising from this omission; and whether he will give further consideration either to the need of enclosing the whole of Metropolitan Essex within the London directories or of issuing to all subscribers in Metropolitan Essex a supplementary directory to cover the whole of Essex or the rest of Metropolitan Essex.
    Sir. E. Boyle: If my noble Friend were to do as the hon. Gentleman suggests, the whole idea of reducing the weight, bulk and incidentally the cost of the present London directories would be lost. There has for the moment been an increase in directory inquiries, but there is no reason to think it will continue.
    Mr. Sorensen: Does the hon. Gentleman appreciate that numbers of people in my district and contiguous districts are constantly telephoning just beyond the border of the London telephone area and that means a great deal of embarrass-
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    ment? In those circumstances would it not be possible to supply all those in areas contiguous to the outer London area with this supplementary directory?
    Sir. E. Boyle: I think we ought to give the new system a longer run before suggesting any change. That is the view of my hon. Friend.

  INDEPENDENT TELEVISION AUTHORITY

    Advertisements
    Mr. Ness Edwardsasked the Assistant Postmaster-General what rules as to advertisements have been made under the Second Schedule to the Television Act, 1954; and whether he will publish the advice received from the Advisory Committee.
    Sir. E. Boyle: The Television Act lays down that advertisements may only be inserted at the beginning or end of the programme or in natural breaks. My noble Friend the Postmaster-General understands that the I.T.A. has decided that, apart from shoppers'guides and advertising documentaries, the amount of time given to advertising will not be more than six minutes an hour. Subject to these overriding limitations, even where there are frequent natural breaks, not more than six advertisement periods will be permitted in any one hour. It would not be in accordance with normal practice for my noble Friend to publish a report of any advisory committee which has been set up to advise the I.T.A. and not himself.
    Mr. Ness Edwards: Is the hon. Gentleman satisfied that the creation of natural breaks is not being overdone under these rules?
    Sir. E. Boyle: I would point out to the right hon. Gentleman that the decision of the I.T.A. is exactly in accordance with the forecast which my hon. Friend the Assistant Postmaster-General made when the Second Schedule was being discussed on the Report stage of the Bill. If the right hon. Gentleman will look at HANSARD of 22nd June, 1954, he will find that is so.
    Mr. Ness Edwards: Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that under paragraph 3

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    of the Second Schedule the Postmaster-General is obliged to publish rules? When are we to have the published rules?
    Sir. E. Boyle: I will convey that information to my noble Friend. Discussions are still proceeding on this subject.
    Mr. Ness Edwardsasked the Assistant Postmaster-General what types of advertising have been proscribed for transmission by the programme contractors operating in contract with the Independent Television Authority.
    Sir. E. Boyle: My noble Friend the Potsmaster-General understands that, after consultation with their Advertising Advisory Committee, the I.T.A. will very shortly approach him with its proposals about the types of advertisement and methods of advertising which may be accepted or will be barred. The programme companies are aware of these proposals. It seems clear that in practice the I.T.A. intends to follow closely the accepted standards in other media of advertising.
    Mr. Ness Edwards: Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that the Postmaster-General is under an obligation to inform this House of the list of things that may not be advertised and that his discussion with the I.T.A. does not relieve him of his responsibility to inform this House? Will he inform his noble Friend of this view?
    Sir. E. Boyle: Under Section 4 (5) of the Act
    "it shall be the duty of the Authority to consult from time to time with the Postmaster-General as to the classes and descriptions of goods or services which must not be advertised. …"
    That part of the Act is being followed up.
    Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Is there any control over the amount that may be charged for this advertising, or is £1,000 per minute just the beginning of an upward spiral?
    Sir. E. Boyle: That is quite another question.

    Transmission Hours
    Mr. Ness Edwardsasked the Assistant Postmaster-General what hours have been fixed for transmission for the Independent Television Authority.
    Sir. E. Boyle: This information was announced by my noble Friendthe Postmaster-General on Tuesday, 22nd March, in another place.
    Mr. Ness Edwards: Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that we feel a little grievance about this matter? This question has been on the Order Paper for a fortnight and this answer should have been given in this House out of respect for the rights of the House. Is he not aware that the Postmaster-General has announced maximum hours but has not announced the minimum hours that the I.T.A. is obliged to provide for the second alternative programme? Will he convey that view to his noble Friend?
    Sir. E. Boyle: I will convey that view, but that is a different question from the one on the Order Paper.

    Croydon Transmitter (Range)
    Mr. Hobsonasked the Assistant Postmaster-General the range of the Independent Television Authority's transmission from Croydon, and the power of the transmitter.
    Sir. E. Boyle: I would refer the hon. Member to my hon. Friend's reply on 16th March to the hon. and gallant Member for Down, South (Captain Orr).
    Mr. Hobson: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the transmitter at Croydon is identical in size with one that has been installed in Rome, which has a radius of only 11kilometres? Is he also aware that in the opinion of very prominent radio engineers in this country the range of the transmitter in Croydon is deemed to be optimistically fantastic?
    Sir. E. Boyle: The hon. Gentleman was kind enough to tell me that he was going to raise this point. His view is not shared by the technical officers of the I.T.A. or by Marconi's, who are responsible for installing this transmitter.
    Mr. Hobson: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the transmitter in Rome is a Marconi transmitter and that it has a range of only 11 kilometres? The range of the Croydon transmitter is said to be 30 miles.
    Sir. E. Boyle: I cannot go further than to give the hon. Gentleman the information at my disposal.
    Mr. Hobsonasked the Assistant Postmaster-General what steps he is taking to see that the public and the advertisers have a service of sufficient technical quality commensurate with the sums of money that are being contributed by them and the Treasury.
    Sir. E. Boyle: My noble Friend is confident that he can rely on the Independent Television Authority, in their discharge of the responsibilities placed on them by the Television Act, to have full regard to the points made by the hon. Member.
    Mr. Hobson: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there is anxiety about the real range of this transmitter? If the range is a radius of only 11 kilometres, are we not encouraging people to buy adaptors and to alter their aerials under false pretences? It is not good enough. The facts are known with regard to the transmitter in Rome.
    Sir. E. Boyle: There is no question of the public being misled about this matter. The I.T.A. is going on the best technical advice it has, and I really believe that the hon. Gentleman's comments are not valid.
    Mr. Shackleton—
    Hon. Members: Sit down.
    Mr. Shackleton: It is a little distressing, Mr. Speaker, to be told to sit down by anyone except yourself
    Mr. Speaker: When I called the next Question, I had not observed that the hon. Member for Preston, South (Mr. Shackleton) rose.
    Mr. Shackleton: Cannot the hon. Gentleman take my hon. Friend's Question a good deal more seriously than he has? There is a large body of expert opinion which regards the stated range of the new Croydon transmitter as being completely false and completely unlikely to be obtained? If this is an example of how the new I.T.A. is to work, will he ask his hon. Friend the Assistant Postmaster-General to see whether there are grounds for being satisfied with the technical advice given to the I.T.A.?
    Sir. E. Boyle: It is precisely because I did take the hon. Gentleman's Question seriously that I did my best to inform myself on this before answering.
    Mr. Ness Edwards: If the hon. Gentleman took the opportunity to inform himself, can he say how many transmitters will be required by the I.T.A. to cover the whole London area and what he is going to do about the aerials?
    Sir. E. Boyle: That certainly does not arise out of this Question.

  WIRELESS AND TELEVISION

    Broadcasting Facilities (Rights)
    Miss Burtonasked the Assistant Postmaster-General whether he has yet made any regulations under Section 7 of the Television Act, 1954, relating to exclusive right.
    Sir. E. Boyle: No, Sir.
    Miss Burton: Would the hon. Gentleman convey to the Assistant Postmaster-General the fact that we on these benches are afraid that unless he gives effect to this Section there will be a great waste of public money, because the B.B.C. and the I.T.A. will attempt to outbid each other in the events which the public will wish to see?
    Sir. E. Boyle: I will convey that view to my hon. Friend. It is my noble Friend's opinion that it is much too soon to think of drafting regulations under this Section. I would point out that under Section 7 (3) of the Television Act any such regulations must be submitted in draft to both Houses of Parliament for approval.
    Mr. Ness Edwards: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Postmaster-General said something entirely different in the other place? He said that the new Bill provided in part for the impossibility of exclusive rights. Surely they are two different views on this point.
    Sir. E. Boyle: I do not see anything inconsistent between that and what I have just said.
    Mr. Hobson: Does not the hon. Gentleman think there is definite urgency with regard to the laying of regulations, otherwise we are faced with a monopoly?
    Sir. E. Boyle: I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. My noble Friend thinks that it is much too soon to be thinking of drafting regulations under this Section. The B.B.C, the I.T.A. and the

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    promoters of events of national interest may very well make voluntary arangements to meet the requirements of the Act; and this would be much better than regulations

    Transmission Hours
    Mr. Hobsonasked the Assistant Postmaster-General if he will introduce legislation to require the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Independent Television Authority to inform him of the regular hours of transmission of their programmes and of the introduction of any fresh transmission in order that he may be enabled to inform the House on these matters.
    Sir. E. Boyle: In view of the provisions of Clause 15 (1) of the B.B.C.'s Licence and Agreement and Section 9 (3) of the Television Act, fresh legislation is not needed. My noble Friend announced yesterday in another place the arrangements he has agreed with both organisations.
    Mr. Hobson: Does that reply mean that any alterations in the times of transmission and any fresh programmes likely to be instituted by the B.B.C. or the I.T.A. Advisory Committee will in future be announced in this House?
    Sir. E. Boyle: Quite frankly, my answer means that I think the hon. Member has not studied Section 9 (3) of the Television Act quite as carefully as one might have expected him to do.

  BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION

    Programmes (Reception)
    Mr. E. Johnsonasked the Assistant Postmaster-General if he is aware that reception of the Welsh Regional programme is unsatisfactory in Manchester; and if he will take such action as may be necessary to bring about an improvement.
    Sir. E. Boyle: The primary concern of the British Broadcasting Corporation in regard to the Welsh programme is of course to make it available in Wales, and in my hon. Friend's reply of the 2nd February to the hon. Member for Anglesey (Mr. C. Hughes) he described the present difficulties in doing so. Manchester lies outside the normal range of
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    the transmitters used for the Welsh Service, and the British Broadcasting Corporation considers that special measures to extend its coverage, even if these were possible, would not be justified.
    Mr. Johnson: Is it true to say that all the difficulty is due to interference from stations in Eastern Europe? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that many Welshmen do not like to get their programmes from East of the Iron Curtain? Is it not possible to alter the B.B.C. wavelengths in order to overcome this interference?
    Sir. E. Boyle: It is true that there is an East German station pirating the Welsh frequency. The present position in that matter is that a reply from the Soviet High Commissioner is still awaited. The B.B.C. has written to the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Watkins), who has particularly interested himself in this Question.
    Mr. Ness Edwards: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that we are also sinners in this respect, and especially the Americans? We are all pirating on the Continent of Europe, and it is unfair to place the responsibility entirely on the East Germans and the Soviet authorities. That excuse has been put forward too often.
    Sir. E. Boyle: I was not doing that. I was answering the Question that the hon. Gentleman put to me.
    Mr. Grimondasked the Assistant Postmaster-General what steps he is taking to improve reception of British Broadcasting Corporation services in Orkney and Shetland.
    Sir. E. Boyle: The B.B.C. informs me that, owing to the distance from the transmitters and to interference from a Spanish station, it is difficult to give completely satisfactory service in Orkney and Shetland, but that in spite of this reception is reasonably satisfactory in the daytime. The Spanish authorities were last written to in December and the matter is being taken up with them again.
    Mr. Grimond: Cannot something be done to strengthen and improve the transmitters? I am a constant listener in Orkney and I hear almost all European languages except Spanish. Is the hon. Gentleman certain that it is Spain which is causing the trouble? Cannot he make

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    representations to Germany and Russia, which also seem to be causing interference?
    Sir. E. Boyle: I will pass on that information, but I gather that the Scottish Home Service has been subject to varying degrees of Spanish interference since 1951.
    Mr. Hurdasked the Assistant Postmaster-General if he has considered the complaints made to him about the poor reception of the Home Service broadcasts in the Newbury and Hunger-ford district; and if he will now state what action is being taken to give satisfactory reception.
    Sir. E. Boyle: Very little complaint has been made from this area, either to the Post Office or to the B.B.C. My noble Friend understands that the B.B.C.'s Home Service programmes are in general satisfactorily received in this district, though at night there is some fading, and some interference from abroad. We have taken up this interference with the countries concerned. The B.B.C. tell me that there is good reception of the Light and Third Programmes in the district.
    Mr. Hurd: Is my hon. Friend not aware that my Question referred to the Home Service? Will my hon. Friend ask the Postmaster-General to have further talks with the B.B.C. and go to Newbury and Hungerford and try to listen to the Home Service in the evening? He will find it impossible to get any clear reception. Will he have further consultations?
    Sir. E. Boyle: This is a difficult point because Newbury and Hungerford are both on the fringe of the service area of the London and West Regional Home Services. By day the reception of the London Home Service should be quite good, but the Newbury district is on the limits of the area in which no fading is evident at night, and consequently after dark the signal will not be very strong. We are doing our best, but this is a really difficult case.
    Mr. Hurd: Should not there be a relay station there?
    Sir. E. Boyle: I will ask my hon. Friend about that.
    Viscount Hinchingbrooke: On a point of order. Would not the difficulties in which the House was placed a little earlier at Question Time, relating to the desirability of original answers to Questions being given in this House instead of in another place, be resolved by giving my hon. Friend, whose answers today have been entirely satisfactory, the office of Postmaster-General?
    Mr. Speaker: That certainly is not a point of order.

    Television Licences
    Mr. Nabarroasked the Assistant Postmaster-General the latest total of television licences compared with October, 1951; and what steps he is taking to apprehend persons who evade purchase of a television licence.
    Sir. E. Boyle: On 28th February, 1955, there were 4,407,393 television licences compared with 1,031,095 on 31st October, 1951. As regards the second part of my hon. Friend's Question, the Post Office relies mainly on television detection cars, extensive publicity, and special local inquiries which include visits to individual houses where records show that no wireless licence is held.
    Mr. Nabarro: Does not the fact that the number of television licences has multiplied by more than four times in three and a half years amply demonstrate that Conservative freedom works? Is my hon. Friend satisfied that no extensive evasion is taking place of the payments due for television licences?
    Sir. E. Boyle: The answer to the first part of the question is "Yes," Sir. With regard to the second part of the question, I would not like to give an unqualified answer. I have no doubt at all that the measures we are taking are fully adequate.
    Mr. Rankin: Is it not the case that Conservative freedom has not so far extended to the cost of the cathode-ray tube which, in spite of the fact that there are more than 4 million licences, is still chained to the 1951 price, and that—
    Mr. Speaker: Order.

  POST OFFICE

    Deliveries, Smallwood
    Lieut.-Colonel Bromley-Davenportasked the Assistant Postmaster-General why letters in the Smallwood, Cheshire, area do not arrive until 10.40 a.m. first post.
    Sir. E. Boyle: Smallwood is a rural area which has hitherto relied on two part-time postmen for the delivery of its letters. Both recently resigned, and the delivery has had to be reorganised, using a motor van. The present delivery times are not out of line with those in other comparable areas; but if, as a result of inquiries which are being made, it is found that they can be improved without too much expense, this will be done.
    Lieut.-Colonel Bromley-Davenport: Is my hon. Friend aware that the service was infinitely better before the war? Is not this typical of any nationalised industry or State monopoly—worse service at increased cost?

    Services, Stoke-on-Trent
    Mr. Ellis Smithasked the Assistant Postmaster-General the programme of his Department for improving the Post Office services in the city of Stoke-on-Trent during the next few years.
    Sir. E. Boyle: I have dealt with the telephone service in my answers to Questions Nos. 8 and 24. The postal and telegraph services, which conform to national standards, are being extended to the new areas in the city as these develop.
    Mr. Harold Davies: We are proud of the work which the telephone managers are doing in the Stoke-on-Trent and North Staffordshire areas, but will the Assistant Postmaster-General assist in the expansion of the telephone service to the hill country? Telephones are needed in such districts as the Leek area, where children and farmers are often stranded because of bad weather.
    Sir. E. Boyle: That is another Question, but I know that the hon. Member's constituency has some isolated districts and I will pass on the information to my hon. Friend.

    Mail Deliveries, London (Complaints)
    Miss Burtonasked the Assistant Postmaster-General whether he is aware of the unsatisfactory postal service in the W.1area of London; that repeated complaints have been made by the hon. Member for Coventry, South; that this seems to have no effect on the W.1 postal service; and, in view of the fact that it is impossible to carry out the work of a Member of Parliament if mail is mislaid or not delivered, what steps he proposes to take to remedy the position.
    Sir. E. Boyle: I am very sorry that the hon. Member should have been troubled in the way she has by the incorrect treatment of her correspondence in the post and would assure her that everything possible is being done to avoid a repetition of the regrettable mishaps from which her mail has suffered in recent months.
    Miss Burton: While I appreciate that this is not the fault of the hon. Gentleman, I know the House will sympathise when I say that on Friday last my mail went to Liverpool instead of coming here. Will the hon. Gentleman make it quite clear to his hon. Friend that it is only through the courtesy and help of the Postmaster in the House of Commons that these mistakes have been rectified?
    Sir. E. Boyle: I agree that it is certainly most unfortunate these mistakes were made on 18th March. Possibly it is not the fault of the Post Office—there is some doubt about that—but I will gladly pass on the hon. Lady's comments about the House of Commons Postmaster.
    Lieut.-Colonel Bromley-Davenport: Is not this typical of any nationalised industry or State monopoly—worse service at increased cost?
    Mr. Wilkins: Will the hon. Gentleman suggest to the Assistant Postmaster-General that there should be a more thorough investigation into the non-delivery of mail, because I have received complaints of up to four days' delay in the delivery of letters in the constituency of the hon. and gallant Member for Knutsford (Lieut.-Colonel Bromley-Davenport), and also letters from Oxford to Bristol? Will the hon. Gentleman have inquiries made to ascertain whether

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    there are some mechanical defects which are responsible for letters being mislaid or lost?
    Lieut.-Colonel Bromley-Davenport: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it not rather de trop for an hon. Member to refer to another hon. Member's constituency?
    Mr. Wilkins: Further to that point of order. I did advise the hon. and gallant Member that I proposed to mention his constituency.
    Hon. Members: Withdraw.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. What is or is not de trop is not a point of order.

    Crown Office, Brixton
    Lieut.-Colonel Liptonasked the Assistant Postmaster-General where the new Crown Post Office in Brixton will be situated; and how much larger it will be than the present one.
    Sir. E. Boyle: It is hoped to get an office with four times as much public space as at present and double the length of counter. I would prefer not to mention the address, as negotiations are still going on, but my hon. Friend will write to the hon. and gallant Member as soon as he has some more definite news.
    Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that I hope that this particular letter does not get mislaid in the post and that it will reach me very soon, as we need this post office at the earliest possible moment?
    Sir. E. Boyle: My hon. Friend is fully aware of that and also of the interest that the hon. and gallant Gentleman takes in this matter. He will probably be glad to know that, as far as can be foreseen at present, the new office will have a public counter 70 feet long and public space of 1,220 square feet, as against a counter 38 feet long and public space of 330 square feet available at the present time.
    Mr. Stokes: Is not that all "pie in the sky"? Is the obstruction not a matter of arriving at a position satisfactory to the ground landlord?
    Sir. E. Boyle: It is not "pie in the sky." It is simply stamps on the counter.

    Rumney and Llanrumney Estates (Facilities)
    Mr. Callaghanasked the Assistant Postmaster-General if he will arrange to visit the Rumney and Llanrumney Estates during his visit to Cardiff on Saturday, 26th March, in order to see for himself what additional post office and telephone facilities are needed on those estates.
    Sir. E. Boyle: It is my noble Friend who will be in Cardiff at the end of this week, and he will get in touch with the hon. Member before he goes.
    Mr. Callaghan: Does that mean that the Postmaster-General will visit Rumney, because he has to pass through it on his way from Cardiff to Newport?
    Sir. E. Boyle: It sounds as though he will visit Rumney, but I will inquire about that.

  ROYAL AIR FORCE

    Atmospheric Pollution (Radioactivity)
    Mr. Masonasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air what department in his Ministry is responsible for ascertaining the percentage dosage of radioactivity in the atmosphere.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Air (Mr. George Ward): None,
    Sir.
    Mr. Mason: Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that following thermonuclear tests in other countries, radioactive clouds have been known to pass over these islands, that our airmen fly aircraft within the immediate vicinity and even through these clouds, perhaps without radiation filters? May I receive an assurance that the hon. Gentleman is keeping a close watch on this matter?
    Mr. Ward: Of course, large numbers of aircraft are flying over this country at their operational ceiling all the time. If the hon. Gentleman listened to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health yesterday, he will have been assured that there is no danger whatever.

    Treleaver Camp, Cornwall
    Mr. Bowdenasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air when the Royal Air Force camp named Treleaver in the Kerrier Rural District Council area, Cornwall, was completed and ready for occupation; what was the cost of building this

    2061
    camp; for what personnel in total this camp was intended to cater, and how many actually occupy it at present; and for what purpose it is intended to use this camp.
    Mr. Ward:The domestic camp at Treleaver was completed on 31st March, 1954. It cost £164,000 and can accommodate 85 men, with messing facilities for a further 700 in emergency. It is at present unoccupied but will shortly be used to accommodate the operating parties of three local signals units.
    Mr. Bowden: Will the hon. Gentleman say whether this camp is unoccupied, because it has been built either upon or adjacent to a refuse tip? Will he say further whether the R.A.F. medical authorities have advised the Air Ministry not to occupy this camp at the moment?
    Mr. Ward: Yes, Sir., it is quite true that the opening of the camp has been delayed by the need to move a nearby refuse tip which created a risk to health. We are now in touch with the rural district council and we hope that we shall be able to move into the camp within the next few weeks.
    Mr. G. R. Howard: Is my hon. Friend aware that this camp, which is situated in the constituency which I have the honour to represent, was built with the knowledge that the refuse tip was there, and that somebody must have known it because the refuse tip has been in use by the local authority for many years? Is my hon. Friend further aware that the situation will resolve itself within, I believe, the next fortnight or three weeks, and that I had that information from the authority this morning?

    Engineering Craftsmen (Union Representation)
    Mr. N. Macphersonasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air how many skilled aircraft mechanics employed by his Department recently signed a petition submitted to him by the Aeronautical Engineers' Association, seeking changes in their wages system; what proportion that number bears to the total number of skilled aircraft mechanics employed by his Department; and what channels of approach to his Department are open to these employees in view of the refusal of the Engineering Trades Joint Council to represent them.
    Mr. Ward: The petition was returned to the Aeronautical Engineers' Association so that they might send it to the trade union side of the Engineering Trades Joint Council. The signatures were not counted in the Air Ministry, but if they numbered 1,152, as the Aeronautical Engineers' Association claim, this would represent 18 per cent.of the total number of engineering craftsmen employed by the Air Ministry in the United Kingdom. I am not aware that the trades unions on the Engineering Trades Joint Council have refused to represent these employees.
    Mr. Macpherson: Will my hon. Friend make further inquiries about this matter, since all the information I have makes it quite clear that the Engineering Trades Joint Council will not deal with this Association in any way or receive any representations from it, so that its members are entirely disfranchised in trade union relationships?
    Mr. Lee: Would the Minister also inquire into the basis of the so-called trade union and make sure that his Department has an agreement with the engineering unions concerned about how dilutees and matters of that sort should be handled?
    Mr. Ward: Yes, Sir. The Air Ministry could not consider a pay claim for any engineering workers unless it were sponsored by their representatives on the trade union side of the Engineering Trades Joint Council, and that is a matter entirely for discussion between the unions concerned.
    Mr. Macpherson: Will not my hon. Friend make representations to the Engineering Trades Joint Council to ensure that in some way it carries out its responsibilities, if those responsibilities are accepted, towards the members of the Aeronautical Engineers' Association?

  METEOROLOGICAL OFFICE (SHIPPING FORECASTS)
  Captain Ryderasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air if he will arrange for the description used to indicate the force of the wind in the weather forecast to shipping issued by the Meteorological Office to comply with that used by seamen under the notation of the Beaufort Scale.
  Mr. Ward: The Meteorological Office intends to make this change within the next few weeks.
  Captain Ryder: Do I understand that shipping forecasts will use the numerical notation of the Beaufort Scale?
  Mr. Ward: Yes,Sir.

  CIVIL AVIATION

    Rearward-facing Seats
    Miss Burtonasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if, as a result of his conversations with the Australian Minister for Air on 16th February last, he is now in a position to make a statement on the policy to be adopted for civil aircraft in this country.
    The Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter): No, Sir., though it was very useful to obtain the views of the Australian Government. There is a substantial division of expert opinion on this subject, both in this country and in the United States. I have arranged with British European Airways to test passenger reaction to the large number of seats which already face aft in their existing aircraft. This is with a view to pursuing a policy in favour of rearward-facing seats at next year's meeting of I.C.A.O.
    Miss Burton:Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that that is a very slight progression from the entirely negative answers given previously? Is he aware that the Director-General of Civil Aviation in Australia has said that the system of backward-facing seats is three times safer for passengers in the event of a crash than the other seats? In view of that, why does the right hon. Gentleman procrastinate from month to month?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: It is not a question of procrastination. This is avery difficult matter, on which expert opinions differ. The research carried out by Cornell University appears to indicate that in their judgment forward-facing seats, if built sufficiently strongly, give comparable protection. That is an example of the fact that this is perhaps not quite as forward-facing a matter as the hon. Lady thinks.

    Renfrew Engineering Base
    Mr. Rankinasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation from what firms he has received proposals that they should take over the engineering base at Renfrew.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: A number of firms have asked if the base would be available if they obtained work to put there but none has as yet made firm bids for it.
    Mr. Rankin: In view of the fact that it seems likely that a new employer will enter the base to use it partly, would the right hon. Gentleman consider the advisability of operating the base on a fifty-fifty basis as between B.E.A. and the new entrant, thereby ensuring full employment for the 800 staff presently engaged?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: No decision has been made with regard to this matter, but any suggestions, such as that which the hon. Member has been good enough to make, will certainly be considered.

  TRANSPORT

    Parking (Lights)
    Mr. Peter Freemanasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he is now able to announce his decision in reference to car owners leaving them without lights on the street if within 100 yards of public lighting, following his hearing of comments received from interested organisations.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter:I hope to be able to announce my proposals on this matter in the very near future.

    Route C Tube
    Mr. Albuasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he will reconsider his policy on the proposed Route C tube in view of the strongly-expressed opinions of the Committee of Inquiry into London Transport.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter:As a necessary step in the detailed planning of this route, powers to construct are contained in the British Transport Commission's Bill now before Parliament. No decision can be taken with respect to construction until this preliminary work has been done. This

    2065
    seems to me wholly consistent with the Report of the recent Committee of Inquiry into London Transport.
    Mr. Albu: Has the Minister noticed that the Committee of Inquiry stated that, although this route might not pay London Transport on the basis of its capital charges, it would probably lead to considerable economic savings due to a reduction of congestion in the London area? Had this view been taken into account when the Parliamentary Secretary made his very discouraging statement during the debate on the British Transport Commission's Bill?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I noted the views of the Committee of Inquiry but, as I said in my original answer, until the necessary planning can be done for which these powers are required, it is not possible to take a firm decision on this matter.

    Motor Vehicles (Increased Number)
    Mr. Russellasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what estimate he has made of the increase in the number of vehicles which will use the roads of this country in the next three years.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: On the basis of the current rate of growth, I estimate that the increase over the next three years in the number of motor vehicles will be about 1½ million, including motor cycles and motor-assisted pedal cycles.
    Mr. Russell: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that his road programme will be adequate to ensure that worse congestion does not occur than that which exists at present, especially in large towns?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter:It is this expected increase in the number of vehicles on the roads which makes it so urgent to proceed with the road programme.
    Captain Pilkington: Will my right hon. Friend consider the question of bigger commodities being sent by rail instead of by road?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I think that in due course that may well be the result if the Transport Tribunal approves the Transport Charges Scheme which the Transport Commission has recently put before it.

    Driving Tests (Skidding)
    Mr. Remnantasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he will require new car drivers in future to have had some training on a skid pan before being passed out.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: No, Sir. I am afraid my hon. Friend's suggestion would not be practicable.
    Mr. Remnant:In view of the alarm which all drivers feel at their first few skids, does not my right hon. Friend agree that road safety would be added to if all drivers had some experience of these pans under instruction, whether or not their ability is included in the test?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I think that instruction in this way is extremely useful, but my powers are limited to laying down conditions for testing and I have no power to lay down conditions for training.

    Public Service Vehicles (Carrying Regulations)
    Mr. J. Edenasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he will relax Regulation 7 (i) (c) of the Public Service Vehicles and Trolley Vehicles (Carrying Capacity) Regulations, 1954, so as to make it permissible for aged and infirm persons to be carried on a vehicle even when there are vacant seats only on the upper deck.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: This is a matter which is generally best left to the good sense of conductorsand the good manners of other passengers. It is quite impossible to deal with by regulations. I am looking into the particular case to which my hon. Friend has been good enough to draw my attention.
    Mr. Eden: Does not my right hon. Friend think it would be better to relax the existing Regulation 7 (i) (c) so as to enable it to be left to the discretion of conductors and passengers? If there is already a regulation in existence, would it not be better to take steps to relax it so that they would be in a position to exercise discretion?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter:In general, I do not think much difficulty has been met over this matter. I am afraid it is quite impossible to prescribe by regulation the degree of infirmity or age which should

    2067
    bring this into operation, but I am looking into the particular case about which I know my hon. Friend is concerned.

    Snow-clearing Appliances
    Mr. Woodburnasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what steps he has taken to retain in service the snow-clearing appliances and arrangements established at their various road depots by British Road Services; and how far these have been sold or dispersed.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The British Transport Commission inform me that they have no snow-clearing equipment, though some of their lorries are adapted to carry such equipment belonging to other people. Of such lorries, eight had been sold. This does not involve dispersal, since arrangements exist for pooling such vehicles in an emergency whether they belong to British Road Services, local authorities or private operators.
    Mr. Woodburn:Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that between Glasgow and Carlisle there were depots where British Road Services kept vehicles for clearing the roads and helping local authorities? For their own purposes they kept the vehicles, and is it not rather surprising that British Road Services have not been notified?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter:I think the right hon. Member is confusing vehicles for carrying equipment with vehicles devised to effect clearance.

    Working Hours
    Mr. Callaghanasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what report he has now received from the Licensing Authority for the North-West Traffic Area about the allegations that illegal hours are being worked by lorry drivers employed by private firms in that area, and other complaints.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I have received a full report, the substance of which I have communicated to the hon. Member. As I have indicated to him, the allegations contained in the newspaper article which he sent me were insufficiently precise to permit of the initiation of prosecutions, or indeed to identify any alleged offender.
    Mr. Callaghan: That is true, but were they not also symptomatic of a great deal
    2068
    of illegal working by lorry drivers on behalf of private enterprise lorry owners, which is growing? Therefore, will the Minister please ask his licensing authorities to take this matter seriously into consideration in order to ensure that the law is not broken in this way?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: As I told the hon. Member in the letter to which I have referred, the licensing authorities are anxious to check up on any case in which breaches of the law are suspected. But I am not prepared to follow the example of the hon. Member of drawing general deductions from a case in which in fact there was insufficient evidence to go before a court of law.
    Mr. Callaghan: Why does the right hon. Gentleman rely on the last part of this answer? Does he not know that the information given to a newspaper reporter wasconfidential? Has he not seen an illustration of a case where a driver had been sacked for refusing to work illegal hours?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: If that is a particular case, apart from the newspaper article, the hon. Member can put down a Question about it. On the general question, I take it that he accepts that the allegations in the article in question were insufficiently precise on which to base a prosecution or, I suspect, to base charges.

  ROADS

    Improvement, Devonshire
    Brigadier Raynerasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation to what extent increased grants for road improvement and development in Devonshire will be available under the expanded road programme.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I have asked all highway authorities for their proposals in respect of classified roads. I can make no statement on the allocation of grants until I have received and studied those proposals.
    Brigadier Raynerasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation how much of the Totnes westerly by-pass will be completed during the next financial year.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I hope the whole of it, but certainly three-quarters of it. The limiting factor from a time point of view is the bridge over the railway.

    Street Lighting
    Mr. Pageasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what steps he is taking to promote improved road lighting, having regard to the fact that despite the reduced traffic during a great part of the hours of darkness, nearly one-third of the casualties to adult road users occur during those hours.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter:I make contributions to lighting authorities of half the cost of installing and maintaining approved lighting systems on trunk roads. Increasing funds are being made available for this purpose. I am not empowered to provide financial assistance for street lighting on other roads, but it is evident from the volume of loan applications sponsored by my Department that local lighting authorities, whose responsibility this is, are providing new or improved lighting on a substantial scale.
    Mr. Page: Having regard to the very effective lighting which can now be installed—effective from the point of view of making the roads safe—will my right hon. Friend consider consulting the Chancellor of the Exchequer to see whether further assistance cannot be given to local authorities in installing this very effective lighting?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Great help can be given to local authorities in connection with the research into standards and methods of lighting which has been undertaken in recent years. Of course, suggestions for altering the present financial basis raise very wide and different questions.
    Mr. Woodburn: Would the Minister consider giving some preference to parts of the roads which are especially dangerous in fog, bearing in mind that if those parts of the road were illuminated it might save a great many accidents during fog?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I am quite certain that local lighting authorities give a good deal of help in such cases.
    Mr. H. Morrison: While noting that the Minister is encouraging the use of the
    2070
    research establishment, with which I am familiar and which does good work, may I ask him whether he has considered prescribing standards and methods of lighting as a condition of grant in order that there can be a high standard and some degree of uniformity? The differences in systems of street lighting and the sharp movement from one to another are liable to be dangerous for driving.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I take the right hon. Gentleman's point. I do not think we have yet reached sufficient agreement as to the best methods of lighting for such a general laying-down of standards to be sensible, but I think it is a matter which we may have to consider before very long.
    Miss Ward: Am I right in assuming that, where trunk roads are not properly lit, the Minister intends to do something about it? Would he like to come up to the North of England, when I will take him for a drive on a trunk road?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I shall always be happy to be taken for a ride by my hon. Friend.

    Accidents (Official Statistics)
    Mr. Pageasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation in what respects the calculation of deaths resulting from road accidents in 1954, for the purpose of the official statistics, differs from the calculation in previous years; and whether he will give an estimate of the number of such deaths in 1954 if the calculation had been upon a basis similar to that for previous years.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: In accordance with a recommendation of the Economic Commission for Europe, which has been accepted by other countries, our 1954 figures only record as deaths, as opposed to serious injuries, deaths taking place within 30 days of the accident. Previously there was no precise limit, though in practice people dying more than two months after the accident were excluded. It is impossible to state with precision what effect this change in practice, which was announced in our Annual Summary of Road Accidents, a copy of which is in the Library of this House, had on the deaths figure in the 1954 figures. It might be of the order of 2 per cent.
    Mr. Page:Does this mean, rather disappointingly, that the number of road deaths in 1954 was not reduced as compared with that in 1953 and that, on the other hand, the number of serious injuries was inflated as compared with the 1953 calculations?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I think that is a correct deduction to draw from my answer.

    Central London (One-way Streets)
    Mr. Russellasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what plans he has for introducing more one-way working in streets in the Central London area in the near future.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter:I am considering, in consultation with the police, a number of individual proposals of this sort. These include an experiment at Great Portland Street and the possibility of prohibiting certain traffic movements near Oxford Circus.

    Cromwell Road and Piccadilly (Land Acquisition Costs)
    Mr. Stokesasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation the amount to be paid for the balance of 13·4 acres required for the Cromwell Road extension, the first 36·6 acres having cost £750,000, or approximately £20,000 per acre.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: About £1¼ million including compensation for disturbance and other costs.
    Mr. Stokes:Can the right hon. Gentleman say how much the land acquisition is separately? In the answer which the Minister gave a short time ago it was given separately and worked out as in the Question. Now, apparently, the right hon. Gentleman is afraid to tell us what the facts are.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter:If the right hon. Member studied the answers he would see that I have given all the facts.
    Mr. K. Robinson:Is the Minister aware that road development schemes in Central London have been delayed for so long that the cost of land acquisition has inevitably increased? Will he see that no consideration will deter him from pressing
    2072
    ahead with those urgent schemes as quickly as possible?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I cannot go as far as that, but the fact that we are proceeding with a number of major schemes in London should reassure the hon. Member.
    Mr. Stokesasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he is aware that the 146 square yards of land required for widening Piccadilly, costing £20,800, works out at £686,400 per acre; to whom the purchase price was paid; and what steps he proposes to take to avoid paying similar sums elsewhere for road widening.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The London County Council now tell me that the area involved is 167 square yards. The land is at present owned by the Commissioners of Crown Lands. The answer to the third part of the Question is, "None Sir."
    Mr. Stokes: Does not the Minister think this is a perfectly absurd price to pay even for 167 square yards, which works out at about £686,000 an acre, or £16 a square foot? Surely that is an outrageous price to pay even to the Commissioners of Crown Lands?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: If one compulsorily takes other people's property, I think it is reasonable to pay compensation which has some relation to its value.
    Mr. Stokes:Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Commissioners of Crown Lands did nothing whatsoever to create the value of this site? Why should the public be made to pay through the nose whenever they want to get a piece of land back for their own use?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Of course I would not accept the implication in the question of the right hon. Member that it is right compulsorily to take property at prices far below the real value of that property.
    Mr. C. Williams: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the late Socialist Government allowed these things to go on?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: That would seem a very good argument against our doing so.
    Mr. Shinwell: Are we to understand that the principle enunciated by the right hon. Gentleman applies not only in the case of the Commissioners of Crown Lands but also in the case of small holders of land who are dispossessed?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: So far as I know, in connection with the acquisition of land for the purpose with which I am concerned it does not make any difference whether the owner is the Commissioners of Crown Lands or an individual landowner, large or small.
    Mr. I. O. Thomas: Would the right hon. Gentleman indicate if in any case where the cost is considered excessive steps are taken, or can be taken, for reference to an impartial tribunal?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The basis of valuation and for settling disputes which may arise is laid down in the statute passed by Parliament a little time ago.

  SHIPPING

    Flag Discrimination (Representations)
    Mr. Holtasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation how many countries are practising flag discrimination against this country's shipping and which they are; and what action Her Majesty's Government is taking to counter this development.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter:Flag discrimination takes many forms, with varying actual effects upon our shipping. I am circulating in the Official Report a list of 23 countries to which the United Kingdom has made representations on this subject in recent years. The United Kingdom plays a leading part in international action to resist these practices, and the Government take every opportunity to counter them when negotiating trade agreements or commercial treaties.
    Mr. Holt: In view of the last part of the answer, why is it that the Government were importing into this country coal and fruit from the United States under flag discrimination quite recently? Can the right hon. Gentleman give an undertaking that Her Majesty's Government will not in future be a party to any contract which has flag discrimination as a condition?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter:That raises very wide questions, but so far as the particular transactions to which the hon. Member has referred, I think he should put down a Question to whichever
    of my right hon. Friends is concerned.

    Following is the list:

    Argentina

    Japan.

    Brazil

    Poland.

    Chile

    Portugal.

    Colombia.

    Rumania.

    Cuba

    Saudi Arabia.

    Ecuador

    Spain.

    Egypt

    Turkey.

    Germany Federal Republic

    United States of America.

    Hungary

    Uruguay.

    India

    Yemen.

    Indonesia

    Yugoslavia.

    Israel

    Port Facilities
    Mr. Callaghanasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what reply he has made to the letter from the Chairman of the Institute of Shipping and Forwarding Agents calling for improved facilities at ports in order to overcome the delays to which ships and cargoes are subjected.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter:As my reply to this letter is rather long, I am sending the hon. Member a copy.
    Mr. Callaghan:Has the Minister drawn the attention of the Institute of Shipping and Forwarding Agents to the facilities which are available in Cardiff and other ports in South Wales, where shippers will have no delay at all if they send their ships there?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Of course I have not ventured to discriminate between the many excellent ports available in this country.
    Mr. K. Thompson: Will my right hon. Friend have another look at the question of the approaches to our docks in various parts of the country, as well as South Wales, to ensure that road traffic carrying goods to and from the docks is not hampered because of out-of-date routes and facilities in these areas?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I have that in mind. As I said when announcing the road programme, I pay particular attention to the routes which are important to industry.
    Mr. G. Jeger: Will the right hon. Gentleman agree to publish his reply to the Institute in Hansard rather than forwarding a copy only to my hon. Friend?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: If it is the wish of the House, and the authorities of the House have no objection, I shall be glad to do so.
    Following is the letter:
    22nd March, 1955.
    DEAR MR. MARTIN,
    Thank you for your open letter of 25th February about port development in this country. I am now replying on behalf of the President of the Board of Trade as well as myself. You urge that port development should be regarded as a national matter. The Government recognise that the efficient working of the ports and their continued development to meet the needs of importers and exporters are matters of national importance. The Board of Trade watch closely for any difficulties which may affect exporters, and my Department keeps in touch with the port authorities and with shipowners so that the Government may be aware of the situation in the ports.
    I am always ready to assist, in so far as lies with the Government, in any action which may be necessary to relieve difficulties or to increase the capacity and efficiency of the ports. I must point out, however, that the responsibility for the efficient operation and development of ports in this country lies in the hands of the port authorities; and the Dock and Harbour Authorities' Association have made it clear that they do not ask that port development should be undertaken nationally; the matter to which you refer in the opening paragraph of your letter is related to a limited issue affecting development plans lodged by planning authorities under the Town and Country Planning Acts.
    Port authorities have since the war done a great deal to expand and modernise dock facilities throughout the country, and, as the Dock and Harbour Authorities' Association have already pointed out in "The Times," the Port of London Authority has spent over £14 million since 1946 on engineering projects over and above its ordinary maintenance. I am satisfied the P.L.A. and the other dock authorities have well in mind the increasing demand for road transport facilities, and are planning their developments accordingly. I give full weight to the need for improving road access to docks in highway development.
    I realise, as you point out in your letter, that many ports are under considerable pressure at the present time. Partly these are attributable to the accumulations of traffic following the labour dispute at the end of last year, and partly to the recent heavy volume of import and export traffic. The dock authorities of the country are faced with serious problems which, as you rightly say, can only be dealt with by the co-operation of all the interests concerned and by continued development in the ports. The Port Users Committees
    2076
    and the Port Operation panels—which were set up in the major ports—provide machinery through which these problems can be dealt with in each port.
    Finally, I am ready to give any help I can to the port authorities and to other interests concerned in meeting their responsibilities.
    Yours sincerely,
    (Sgd.) John Boyd-Carpenter.

HALF-HOUR ADJOURNMENT DEBATES (ARRANGEMENTS)
Mr. Speaker:I have a short statement to make to the House about the daily half-hour debate on the Adjournment.
I have had representations made to me from both sides of the House that the present system under which the subject for the daily half-hour Adjournment is selected is not altogether satisfactory, inasmuch as no opportunity occurs for raising a matter of immediate topical interest. In an endeavour to meet these representations I am putting before the House today the outline of a scheme which, I hope, will to some extent mitigate the defect complained of.
Broadly speaking, the scheme would provide that while the subjects for the half-hour Adjournment on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays should still be chosen by ballot, those on Tuesdays and Thursdays should be selected by the Speaker, who would give priority, first, to matters raising individual or constituency grievances, including subjects of which notice has been given at Question Time, and, secondly, other matters of topical interest. I am circulating in the Official Report proposed detailed arrangements which, I suggest, should govern this new scheme.
When hon. Members have read these, I should be very grateful if any objections to the scheme were sent to me before the end of next week, and I would undertake to consider any such objections or suggestions and to make another statement to the House before the Easter Recess. Subject to such representations and suggestions, I should propose to bring the new scheme into operation in the week following the Easter Recess, but Adjournments for the week beginning 18th April would be decided before the House rises for Easter under the old system.
The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Harry Crookshank): I am sure the whole House is grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for having taken this matter into your consideration. I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members in all parts of the House will carefully study the details of the arrangements which you have outlined and will let you know any comments they would like to put forward on the matter.
Mr. Attlee: I think that this is a great improvement. Formerly, it was possible to raise matters of great urgency at short notice. Latterly, it has been extremely difficult to do so. I think your proposed scheme, Mr. Speaker, will be a great advantage.
Mr. Bellenger: I understand that this is a matter primarily affecting back benchers, and I hope, Mr. Speaker, that in giving your decisions you will consider matters not so much of topicality as of urgency.
Mr. Speaker: I undertook my consideration of this matter solely in the interests of back benchers.
Mr. Elliot:I am sure that it will be for the convenience of back benchers that such a change should be made, but I would certainly hope that you would take into consideration, Mr. Speaker, topicality, because the essence of this proposal is to offer an opportunity forthwith for a discussion rather longer than that afforded at Question Time.
For instance, yesterday the hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) gave notice after Questions that she wished to raise the question of the facilities available in Scotland for the treatment of tuberculosis. It would be greatly to the advantage of all of us if that matter could be discussed at a fairly early date, instead of its having to be postponed, as it may be under the present system, to the Greek kalends.
Mr. Speaker: I shall endeavour to keep all these considerations in mind. I should very much appreciate it if hon. Members who may have comments to make on these arrangements when they have read about them would send me their views, because I should like to do what is in the interests of the House as a whole.
Mr. Porter:What would be the position on Tuesdays and Thursdays if there should be no subjects on those days which come within the category you have suggested,
Mr. Speaker: I am not sure that I have heard the hon. Member aright, but I think that if he reads the proposed rules he will find that that matter is referred to in them.
Following are the proposed rules for the new scheme for the half-hour Adjournment:

1. After Easter the subject for the half-hour Adjournment on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays will be selected by ballot, while those on Tuesdays and Thursdays will be selected by Mr. Speaker.

2. When the selection rests with him Mr. Speaker will endeavour to give priority to

(a) individual or constituency grievances and

(b) matters of immediate topical interest.

3. The present Adjournment book will be abolished after the draw for the Adjournment for the week beginning 18th April. Thereafter, a Member desiring to raise a matter on the Adjournment should write to Mr. Speaker before four o'clock on the Thursday in any week stating the subject of his proposed Adjournment and the Minister involved in exactly the same way as if he wished to raise it on the Easter, Whitsun, Summer or Christmas Adjournment. At half-past four o'clock on any Thursday, Mr. Speaker will consider the letters he has received on this matter since four o'clock the previous Thursday, and allocate the subject for the Adjournment for the Tuesday and Thursday of the following week.

4. Members who have not been selected byMr. Speaker will, if eligible, be put into the ballot for the Monday, Wednesday and Friday of the following week, which will then be drawn.

5. The names of Members who have not been either selected or successful in the ballot will be entered in a book, together with their subject, and they will, if eligible, be included in succeeding ballots.

6. A Member successful in the ballot will not beeligible to ballot for the following two weeks, but he will not thereby be prevented from submitting his name and subject for Mr. Speaker's selection but, if not selected, his name will not be included in the ballot or entered in the Adjournment book.

7. A Member may not have more than one entry current at the same time. Accordingly, if a letter is received from a Member whose name is already in the book the original entry will be expunged.

8. An oral notice to raise a matter on the Adjournment will not be considered by Mr. Speaker unless it is confirmed in writing.

9. A Member will not be permitted to change the subject of his Adjournment except with the consent of Mr. Speaker.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  CONSOLIDATED FUND BILL
  Considered in Committee, and reported, without Amendment.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

  COST OF LIVING
  3.36 p.m.
  Mr. Frederick Willey: I intend to raise the question of the failure of the Government to arrest the rise in the cost of living, or to afford any protection for the housewife, or, indeed, to ensure her the benefits of the fall in the cost of imports which this country has enjoyed over the past three years. In particular, I intend to indict the Government on their disastrous food policy.
  I have, therefore, every sympathy with the right hon. Gentleman, the two-headed Minister, "Mr. Facing Both Ways," who is now both Minister of Food and Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries. I have every sympathy with him because when he was Minister of Pensions he had the respect of the whole House, and he deserved a better fate than that which the Prime Minister has now bestowed upon him. I suppose we can regard him as a genial liquidator in bankruptcy, the administrator of a policy already in ruins, although with this difference, that the act of bankruptcy usually brings an abrupt end to losses, whereas the right hon. Gentleman is accountable not only for past losses but for present losses on an aggravating scale.
  I understand that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food is not to intervene in the debate today. [HON MEMBERS: "Why?"] I accept his silence as a mark of repentance, though I for one shall miss the entertainment and distraction of his vigorous but often frivolous irrelevancies. While I regret the absence of the Parliamentary Secretary, I think it is right and proper that for once we should have a spokesman from the Treasury, because the real responsibility for what has happened lies upon the shoulders of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
  2080
  Food policy affects agriculture, so whichever way he looks the right hon. Gentleman can find no consolation. I shall mention only three factors affecting agriculture. In the first place, here is a quotation from the Command Paper entitled "Annual Review and Determination of Guarantees, 1955," commonly called the Annual Review:
  "Following the return to free market conditions there has been a fall in tillage area—469,000 acres in the United Kingdom in the last year,"
  As hon. Gentlemen opposite know, in "the unfilled acres of the homeland lies a great reserve of production." They know that because that is what they said in "Britain Strong and Free." I can hardly welcome the action of the Government in putting 500,000 acres into reserve at this time. I would rather that those acres were contributing to the economy of this country.
  Secondly, I quote the Minister himself:
  "…. we may have more grass than we have animals to eat it."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th March, 1955; Vol. 538, c. 852.]
  or, to quote the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries:
  "Last year…the livestock population of grass-eating animals was nothing like enough to eat the extra grass."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th March, 1955; Vol. 538, c. 905.]
  As the Minister himself has said, all this is very sad. It is the shadow of the prewar pattern of British agriculture when we had idle fields and no animals to eat the wasting grass. It is very sad indeed.
  In the third place, we have the utter fail failure of the Government, hag-ridden by their belief in free markets, to provide any system of orderly marketing for agricultural produce. Together, these factors explain why anxiety has replaced confidence in the farming industry. Together, they provide a very different picture of British agriculture from that which the industry has enjoyed in the past decade.
  To turn to food policy more directly rather than deal with its consequences on British agriculture, the charges I make against the Government are these. They have acted in flagrant and cynical disregard of their election pledges. They have pursued a traditional Tory practice of deliberately following a high-price policy when foodstuffs have still been relatively scarce. The Government, afraid

  2081
  of a frontal attack on the Welfare State, have undermined it in subtle and devious ways by trying to abolish the food subsidies and pursuing a high-cost policy. The Government have acted with such incompetence and, indeed, crass stupidity that they have saddled the taxpayer with enormous losses.
  As to my first charge, it is unnecessary now to recite the specific pledges made by the Tory Party during the last election, but I am prepared to make the ears of the noble Lord turn red by reminding the House that Lord Woolton said on the wireless during that election campaign:
  "There is a story that the Tories would cut food subsidies. That is not true."
  It was so untrue that not only did they slash the food subsidies, but they set out to eliminate them altogether. They have not quite succeeded. They have abolished all food subsidies, except those on milk, bread and welfare foods, but even these did not escape attention and attack.
  Milk is 1½d. a pint dearer than it was when the Labour Government were in office and bread is 3d. a large loaf dearer. There is, of course, the case of eggs. Before the Minister had stopped boasting that he had destroyed the subsidy on eggs he found that it was bigger than when he began. Eggs today are running at from 3d. to 4½d., corresponding to 2d. to 4d. at this time in 1951. Last December they were costing from 6½d. to 7d. each, whereas under the Labour Government they were never more than 5d., and that despite the fact that today we have a subsidy on eggs which is larger than was the subsidy under the Labour Government.
  Mr. Harmar Nicholls Mr. Harmar Nicholls (Peterborough)rose—
  Mr. Willey:I can understand that this is embarrassing to the hon. Gentleman, but he will probably have his opportunity to speak.
  If we wish to see the effects of the Government's policy, we have to look at the retail prices of essential foodstuffs. When the Government took office, the maximum price for 3 lb. of flour was 1s. 1¾d. It is now 1s. 8d. I am taking all my figures from the "Grocer," the official journal of the trade. When Labour was in office, sugar was 6d. lb. and now it is 8d. I do not want to advertise, but cubes are 9½d. a lb. When the present
  2082
  Government took office cooking fats were Is. 4d. a lb. and now they are 2s. 2d.
  Lard was Is. 4d. a lb. at the time of the Labour Government and now, again, the maximum price is 2s. 2d. Margarine, under the Labour Government, was Is. 2d. a lb. The top price today is 2s. 2d., and the average price is 2s. I can say that the average price is 2s., because a grocer in my constituency has had his supplies withheld because he was selling at 1s. 11d. a lb.
  Squadron Leader A. E. Cooper Squadron Leader A. E. Cooper (Ilford, South) rose—
  Mr. Willey: If we compare like with like, we see that bacon back rashers under the Labour Government sold at a maximum price of 3s. a lb. and they are now running at 3s. l0d. a lb. Gammon was 3s. a lb. and is now 4s. 4d. Cheese was Is. 2d. a lb. and the price range now is from 2s. to 3s. 6d. a lb. [An Hon. Member: "It could not be got before."] Butter was 2s. 6d. a lb. and the price at London stores today is from 4s. Id. to 4s. 6d. a lb.
  Miss Edith Pitt: It is 3s. 6d.
  Mr. Willey: I am giving figures from the "Grocer."
  The price in the country ranges from 3s. 8d. to 4s. 2d. a lb., and we can say that the average is 4s. a lb. The average price of tea under the Labour Government was 3s. 8d. Today, the price range is from 6s. 4d. to lis. 10d. a lb.
  Mr. Nicholls Mr. Nicholls rose—
  Mr. Willey: The corresponding average price is 8s. a lb. If the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. H. Nicholls) has any dispute, he can conduct it with the "Grocer."
  The price of meat before decontrol was 4d. a lb. more than when we had a Labour Government. According to the "Meat Trades Journal" this week, the price of home-killed beef has gone up by 9d. since decontrol and home-killed Iamb by 10d. Therefore, the price of home-killed meat is 1s. 1d. to 1s. 2d. more than it was under the Labour Government. The Home Secretary used to talk about the sausage. Now, pork sausages cost from 4d. to 10d. more per lb., and beef sausages 5½d. a lb. more.
  Lieut.-Colonel W. H. Bromley-Davenport: The sausage is worth eating now.
  Mr. Willey: All these price increasesand the consequential price increases that have followed from them are the result of the Government's flagrant breach of faith. Not only the housewife but the baker the butcher and the grocer should blame the Government for the fact that she has to pay 4s. in the £more than she had to pay under the Labour Government.
  Mr. Nicholls Mr. Nicholls rose—
  Mr. Willey: I can quite understand the hon. Member's embarrassment. That is why I made it quite clear that this was the non-controversial part of my speech. I have confined myself deliberately to quotations from the "Grocer" and the "Meat Trades Journal."
  It is not an unfair charge to say that we have had an absolute abrogation of responsibility by the Government in their refusal to exercise any control whatsoever to mitigate increases in prices. It is true that in the last few months the terms of trade have moved against us. Indeed, that has brought down the heavy hand of a doctrinaire Tory Chancellor to increase the Bank Rate to a point higher than that at which it has been for twenty years. But that has not affected these retail prices.
  The free market has affected these prices, because the present increases in imported food prices are entirely due to tea, coffee, cocoa and meat. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food has spoken in the past about the Government getting out of the business, but they have done nothing since to mitigate the price increases. In any case, the plain fact is that whereas, under the Labour Government, import prices rose over three times as much as the increase in the retail prices, since October, 1951, import prices have fallen by 16 per cent. whereas retail prices have increased by 10 per cent. and retail food prices by more than 20 per cent.
  It is obvious that these prices are due to the deliberate fiscal policy of the present Government. If we turn to world prices and compare the prices ruling today with those in October, 1951, we find that all the world food prices are down.
  2084
  They are down for wheat, sugar, lard, butter, oils, fat—all except meat, and, as far as meat is concerned, the Ministry has been making a profit on imported meat.
  Now I want to deal with two defences which the Government plead by way of excuse. First, they say, with a goodly smack of Victorian Pecksniffian charity, "We admit taking this money away from the housewife, but we have given it to the deserving poor." As the then Minister of Food said at the end of the first year's operations, on the wireless in his political broadcast, the Government "took away £210 million with one hand but returned more with the other—not to everybody, but to the people who needed it most."
  I am bound by the rules of order, Mr. Speaker, but I must be allowed to say that the Minister's script writer was misinformed. The position in 1952–53, if we disregard entirely the increased petrol duty and postal charges, which together amounted to £76 million, was that the food subsidies were slashed not by £210 million but by £162 million. I am more modest than the right hon. Gentleman.
  While the food subsidies were slashed by £162 million, all the increased social benefits to the war pensioners, National Assistance, family allowances, National Insurance, old-age pensions and the rest, in all amounted at most to £50 million.
  Mr. Charles Ian Orr-Ewing: For a full financial year?
  Mr. Willey: For a full financial year, 1952–53. I will deal with the point made by the hon. Gentleman now. I will deal with 1953–54. In that year, the food subsidies were slashed by £160 million, and, according to the figure of the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself, the social benefits were increased by £24 million. So there is not much in that excuse.
  The second excuse given by the Government is that if we have a high-cost domestic market and a free market we will attract to this country additional food supplies; free enterprise will—to use the hallowed words of "Britain Strong and Free"—"comb the world for greater supplies. "I regret very much that the business men have not got on very well with their combing. [HON MEMBERS: "Eggs."] I will deal with eggs in a moment.

  2085
  In 1954–55, according to the Board of Trade Journal, the volume of food imports will probably be less than the year before. It will certainly be less in regard to the essential foodstuffs I have been discussing. There will be more tea, yes, but I will say more about tea presently. There is no more butter, though I concede that we have imported just as much butter as we did in the previous year, but we have imported 15 per cent. less wheat, and what are we doing now? We have heavy current imports of wheat at a much higher price than that at which it was available last year. That is how big business helps this country in its economic difficulties.
  We have imported appreciably less sugar—£25½ million worth less than in 1953. We have imported much less cheese—14,000 tons fewer than we did in the previous year. Hon. Gentlemen have mentioned eggs. We have imported over 10 per cent. fewer eggs than we did in 1953, 10 per cent. less bacon and appreciably less meat.
  Mr. C. I. Orr-Ewing: But our production is up.
  Mr. Speaker: Order, order.
  Mr. Willey:We have imported 40,000 tons less beef and 24,000 less mutton. [An HON. MEMBER: "So what?"] I am dealing with the point that if we have a high-cost domestic market it attracts the food. That has not happened. If we take the corresponding periods after decontrol and compare them with the periods under control, 12 months earlier, we find that even in the case of butter, imports have fallen since we have had a free market. There is this remarkable fact, that only in the case of oils and fats, which are stillsubject to Government procurement, have we imported more food than we did before the Ministry went out of the food business. So both defences fail.
  The simple fact is that this Government have followed a traditional Tory policy, a dear food policy, which has not attracted more food to this country. Within that dear food policy there are wide differentials between foods of different quality, so that the poorer housewife finds not only that she has to pay more for her food but has to pay more for food of inferior quality. And all this
  2086
  has been a glorious picnic for the middle man. Unfortunately for the Government, through their unparalleled incompetence all this has brought no relief to the taxpayer.
  I will now deal with the commercial losses of the Ministry of Food and I invite the interruption of the hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Nicholls:Would the hon. Gentleman deal with the position of the consumer? He has compared prices today with those when the previous Government were in power. Is it not a fact that when the previous Government had control, rations were restricted to a very low level, whereas for the last two and a half years every commodity mentioned by the hon. Gentleman has been consumed to a much greater degree?
  Mr. Willey: I advise the hon. Gentleman to carry out a little research. Consumption levels for the past two years have been well below those under the Labour Government and this year—this is just like the Government on the production figures—the figures have been rather better but, if the imports have fallen, it is a bad lookout for the present calendar year.
  I can understand the reluctance of the hon. Gentleman that I should so deal with the matter, but I want to deal now with the commercial losses of the Ministry. As they have been dealt with in previous debates, I hope I need not recount these in detail. At the time of the broadcast of the Minister of Food, to which I have referred, the Government claimed that they had reduced the food subsidies to a rate of £250 million a year. Shortly afterwards, in his Budget speech, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that provision for food subsidies in the year 1953–1954 was £220 million or, if we make allowance for removing the subsidy from sugar, £210 million. He did not say at what rate the subsidy would be at the end of the year, but I think a fair estimate is that he expected it to be running at about £100 million.
  The remarkable fact is that although we had price increases in flour, milk, sugar, margarine, cooking fats, cheese—and butter went up by 8d.—bringing a saving to the Exchequer of £160 million; although there was a fall in the price of food imports put by the Leader of the

  2087
  House at 5 per cent.—I can quite understand why he is not with us this afternoon—nevertheless, owing to the mammoth miscalculations and incompetence of the Ministry, its trading losses were not £100 million, were not £220 million, but were £334 million.
  This year, although, again, we have had a succession of retail price increases, putting up the food index by eight points, and a further point in January, although we have had decontrol and elimination of all the food subsidies except milk, bread and the welfare foods, the Minister, at the time his Supplementary Estimate was debated, last month, said that the trading loss of the Ministry—we no longer call these subsidies—would be £326 million, in spite of a saving on his original Estimate of £22½ million on milk, bread and the welfare foods. Therefore, we have the position that the essential remaining subsidies have been whittled down and, at the same time, the commercial losses of the Ministry of Food have increased month to month.
  I say "month to month" because these figures were given before the great meat muddle. The Minister at that time was expecting to make a profit on imported meat. Does he expect to make a profit on imported meat now? If the Government are long enough in office the burden upon the taxpayers will be greater than when they came to power, although nearly all the subsidies have been abolished. We thus have the net result that the housewives have to pay substantial increases in retail prices and the burden on the taxpayers is about as big as when the Government began their term of office.
  I am sure the House will agree that the matter should receive a little detailed investigation. I will start with a very modest figure. The Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General, which has just been published, shows that in 1953–54, among other losses, the Ministry incurred a loss of £20,876,010. This had nothing whatsoever to do with subsidies. It was the old story of buying on a rising market and selling on a falling market. I do not know which colloquialism you prefer, Mr. Speaker, but it was either money down the drain or money up the spout.
  I asked the Minister of Food a Question about this loss, and I got a very
  2088
  remarkable reply from the Parliamentary Secretary, who told me that the loss "represented about 8 per cent. of the cost of trading stocks held at that date." I wanted to know what percentage it represented on the stock realised, which was obviously far larger than 8 per cent. However, here we have the position that at the time when everyone else in the food business is making handsome profits, the Ministry is making a loss of 8 per cent. It is a remarkable achievement.
  This year, the position is equally fantastic. As the Parliamentary Secretary likes to say, the Ministry is getting out of the business, realising stocks and paying the receipts to the Exchequer. When the year began, the Minister of Food, in the Estimates, said that he would pay over to the Exchequer £110 million. However, the Exchequer is not to get that at all. When we got the supplementary Estimates we found that not £110 million, but only £70 million would be paid into the Exchequer. Again, I asked the right hon. Gentleman to tell me the reason why, and I got this laconic reply from the Parliamentary Secretary:
  "Because of lower realisation prices and reductions in quantities sold."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 28th February. 1955; Vol. 315, col. 220.]
  Mr. J. B. Godber: I am trying with great care to follow the hon. Gentleman's argument. Is he really arguing now against the whole principle of bulk purchase? If so, how does he fit that into his new plan for marketing commissions?
  Mr. Willey: I will explain quite briefly. I am sorry that the hon. Member has not followed me so far. I am saying that we have high retail prices, but that, notwithstanding those high and increasing retail prices, whereas every one else in the food business has been making an enormous profit, the Ministry of Food has managed to make an enormous loss. I ask the Minister to state how much of the £40 million has gone down the drain. How much has to be written off as a commercial loss?
  When we use the phrase "realisation of stocks," it really covers a grotesque position. Does the right hon. Gentleman dare to deny that butter and cheese are going bad in store. What about the 100,000 tons of sugar stored in the barges at Rotterdam and other Continental

  2089
  ports? There is bacon stored in the cold stores of Denmark, such a large amount that the Minister was too embarrassed to give me a figure. Today, meat is stored afloat. Two questions that I should like to put to the right hon. Gentleman are, "How much food is today stored abroad?" and, "What is the cost in foreign currency?"
  Perhaps I ought to ask the right hon. Gentleman a third question. Has he received any representations from the bargees? Surely at this time of the year they want to be going up the Rhine. They may welcome being pensioned by Her Majesty's Government, but I should have thought that by this time they would have liked to use their barges for their proper purpose.
  Now let us deal with the individual commodities which I have been discussing, and first butter and cheese. The taxpayers this year will foot the bill for Ministry losses to the tune of £5,300,000. That is £5 million more than the Minister estimated at the beginning of the year. How has that happened? Last year the price of cheese was increased by 2d. per lb. to eliminate the subsidy. As I have said, it is selling today at 2s. to 3s. 6d. per lb. compared with Is. 2d. per lb. under the Labour Government. Butter is selling at an average price of 4s. per lb. compared with 2s. 6d. per lb. under the Labour Government. Last year we had a price increase of 8d. per lb. followed by a further 4d. on decontrol, and yet at the end of the year the Minister comes to the House and says, "On butter and cheese I have made losses; the taxpayers have lost £5,300,000."
  The same is true of oils and fats. The Minister began this year by saying that he would make a modest profit of £500,000 on oils and fats. What has happened? Instead of there being a windfall of £500,000 to the Exchequer, the taxpayers have now to fork out £5,800,000. The Minister was a mere £6½ million out in his calculations. Again, how has this come about? Last year we had a further 2d. per lb. increase in the retail price to eliminate the subsidy. Margarine, instead of being 1s. 2d. per lb. is now as much as 2s. 3d. per lb., and the average price is certainly 2s. per lb. Yet, again, at the end of the year the taxpayers are called upon to fork out
  2090
  £5,800,000 to cover the follies of the Ministry of Food.
  Exactly the same is true of sugar. The Minister began the year by saying that he would make a profit of £100,000 on sugar, but we now know that he is not going to make a profit. In fact, he will make a commercial loss of £3,200,000, again in spite of the retail price increases which were imposed to eliminate the subsidy. There is a rather curious fact in the case of sugar. While sugar has been sold at home at a higher price to the housewives, it has, at the same time, been sold abroad by the Minister at a lower price than last year to foreign consumers. We have only to glance at the Trade and Navigation Returns to see that. I want the Minister to tell me how much the taxpayers are now contributing to the relief of foreign consumers.
  I asked the Minister a question on that some time ago. Again, I got a quaint reply from the Parliamentary Secretary. He did not deny this—he could not deny it—but he said "it would be difficult precisely to estimate the proportion of losses due to foreign sales." Let him have a try, because this is rather important. I have harried the Government occasionally about East-West trade. We have been selling sugar to Russia. Are we now subsidising the Russian consumers? That is certainly much further than I would go in pressing the claims for East-West trade. Is it now the Government's principle that they have no hesitation and no reluctance about subsidising foreign consumers while they refuse to subsidise British housewives?
  Now let us turn to tea. The then Minister of Food, in his broadcast speech, referred to tea, and he chose to accept tea as the test case. He said "in the case of tea competition did what price controls used to do, only much better." That was at the time when he used to brag about the prospects of falling tea prices. However, he had the good sense to scuttle to the Home Office. Tea today, instead of being at an average of 3s. 8d. per lb. as it was under the Labour Government, is selling, even if we make allowances for the decreases over the past few weeks, at an average price of not less than 8s. per lb.
  This is not due, as the Parliamentary Secretary occasionally tried to persuade us, to increased wages. I have gone into

  2091
  this and it is very difficult to establish any increase due to wages because they fell in 1952 and have done very little more than rectify themselves. Certainly, no more than a penny of the increased price of tea can be attributed to wages.
  It is not due to supply and demand, because the Tea Trade Committee says that tea supplies are surplus to demand. The Committee says that there is a "very small surplus production" of tea in the world. Of course, it has something to do with bumper profits. As the "Economist" said, "some companies will hardly know what to do with the money." I agree with the Economic Secretary to the Treasury that those are mainly tea producing companies. It has a good deal to do with the exploitation of the market and that is why I complain of the complete abnegation of responsibility by the Government.
  Mr. Cyril Osborne: Since the hon. Member says that it is exploitation of the market which is responsible for the high price of tea, will he explain why it is that the Co-operative Wholesale Society, which owns 14,000 acres of tea gardens in Ceylon and produces 12 million lb. of tea a year and which purchases 75 million lb. a year in the open market, still sells tea at as high a price as do the private shops?
  Mr. Willey:That is an irrelevant interruption. It is irrelevant because the Co-operative Society admits to having been making very handsome profits out of tea. The difference between that and private enterprise is that with the Cooperative Society the profits go back to the consumer. So much for the commodity which the Minister of Food chose to regard as a test case of his policy.
  I want now to accept the challenge of an hon. Member who interrupted earlier and referred to eggs. "You cannot pour public money into a commodity over which there is no public control." Those are not my words, they are the words of the present Secretary of State for Home Affairs in his political broadcast, to which I have referred. How right he was. In 1952–53, the subsidy on eggs was £21 million. The Minister of Food then abolished the subsidy and he and his jovial Parliamentary Secretary stumped the country saying how they had saved the taxpayer money.
  2092
  In 1953–54, the year in which the subsidy was abolished, the loss was not £21 million, but £23 million and this year it is not £23 million, it is £29 million. When we had a debate on food at about this time last year the then Minister of Food attributed that remarkable result to the "exceptionally mild winter." Will the right hon. Gentleman now attribute this result to the exceptionally cold winter?
  A year ago I complained of the muddle and chaos and exorbitant profits which were being made out of eggs by middlemen. How right I was. All the strictures I then made have been confirmed by the Comptroller and Auditor General. I doubt whether there has ever been such a critical report as his. As he points out, in March, 1953, the Government announced an interim scheme and declared that they were anxious to introduce permanent arrangements as soon as possible. That was two years ago and, presumably, they are still equally anxious. The Ministry told the Comptroller and Auditor General that the subsidy scheme was introduced as the only safeguard the Ministry had against "temporary setbacks in the market." Do we now have a subsidy of £29 million to provide for temporary setbacks in the market? The scheme is still the same. I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman who was kind enough to write to me about this, but he will agree that the scheme is still a temporary scheme to deal with setbacks on the market and it now involves a loss to the taxpayer of £29 million.
  As the Comptroller and Auditor General said in his Report no provision was made for particulars of the prices actually charged by the packers. The Report refers to the inadequacy of the information provided, the arbitrary estimates of expenses, the fact that no provisions for costing were made. It is rather interesting to note that the Ministry told the Comptroller and Auditor General of its efforts to stem the decline of shell egg prices. That was just at the time when the Minister of Food and the Parliamentary Secretary were claiming credit for the low prices of eggs.
  We learn the further interesting fact that of the £23 million less than £15 million went as a direct subsidy to home-produced eggs. What happened to the

  2093
  other £8 million? It did not go to the producer. We know that £4 million was written off as a commercial loss on the realisation of stocks by the Ministry. Once again, I say that the Government's administration of the egg subsidy is a public scandal. I invite them once again to accept my challenge to allow this to be the subject of inquiry and examination.
  Let us turn to cereals. Last year, I complained of the mammoth miscalculation of the Ministry. On this occasion I will be more modest. I will quote the "Observer," which said:
  "The free market has, in fact, revealed the astonishing situation that the milling industry, the main customer for English wheat, has no use for more than three-fifths of the crop and is not prepared to pay much more than two-thirds of the price guaranteed by the Government."
  That is certainly an astonishing situation. The Ministry of Food has been compelled to buy grain at a considerable loss. Indeed, it has been selling some of this grain abroad at a further loss, apparently again following its policy of subsidising the foreign consumer.
  Farmers have been selling their grain to the Ministry to take advantage of the guaranteed price and have been buying grain more cheaply on the free market. In fact, they have been buying imported grain. One of the present difficulties of the Chancellor of the Exchequer is the heavy expenditure which there has been on imported grain which might have been avoided.
  According to the right hon. Gentleman, farmers have been receiving an average of £10 10s. from the taxpayer for every ton of wheat they have sold. That is to say, they have sold it on the free market at £19 5s. a ton and have received £10 10s. from the taxpayer. As the "Observer" comments, this is not likely to endear them to the taxpayer. The world price of wheat and grain fell last year and at home millers have been buying grain at £20 per ton, £10 below the guaranteed price. Yet the taxpayer has still had to find £77½ million and bread has not been a farthing cheaper. It is a masterly understatement to describe that situation as astonishing.
  Now for bacon and meat. We are concerned only with home-killed bacon and meat, because the Ministry makes a profit of 2¼d. on every pound of imported
  2094
  bacon that the housewife buys. Last year, the Ministry made a profit of £7½ million on imported meat. Where has that profit gone? Presumably it has gone to the trade. It has not affected prices. When bacon retail prices have been increased to absorb the whole of the subsidy and when retail prices for meat have been increased by much more than was necessary to absorb the whole of the subsidy, why should it happen that the subsidy on meat and bacon last year was £57 million but the subsidy on fatstock this year is £82 million?
  I have asked the Minister this question before. His reply has been that it was partly due to increased supplies. With all respect, that is irrelevant. It does not matter what the supplies are, if they are selling at prices higher than is necessary to absorb the whole of the subsidy. The Minister says that another reason is that the Ministry of Food is making lower profits on imported meat and bacon. That is true, but, again, I ask: where has the £10 million that the Ministry was making as a profit on meat and bacon—setting it against the subsidies—gone? Obviously, it has gone to the trade. Even if we allow for this, the fact remains that the taxpayer, in spite of the increase in retail prices, is paying £15 million more than in the previous year.
  Of course, this has something to do with the great pig muddle. In the autumn pigs were dumped on the market at giveaway prices, but, unfortunately, the pork was not given away in the shops. At times the taxpayer was paying nearly half the price which the farmer was obtaining for his pigs. We have the fantastic subsidy this year of £60 million on pigs alone, at a time when the Ministry is making £6½ million profit on imported bacon.
  Talking of meat, we have the present muddle about imported meat. Today, far from combing the world for greater supplies, the Ministry of Food is sending officials to New Zealand to slow down and stop meat coming here, and the Minister is giving the novel advice to the butchers that they should charge more for home-killed meat, that they should sell it at even higher prices and should not be content with the present small margin of profit on it.

  2095
  Over the next two months two things are likely to happen. The retail price of home-killed meat will go up still further and the Minister, instead of making a profit, will make substantial losses in disposing of imported meat. All this is, of course, certainly true to form.
  I have dealt with only one aspect of the Government's disregard of the cost of living problems of the housewife. The fact is that the food policy of the Government is in ruins; that their deception has been exposed. A blind doctrinaire inability to understand the implications of the guarantees to the British farmer has replaced confidence by disillusion. The Government's inept handling of decontrol has contributed to and aggravated the difficulties of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
  In place of wage and price stability which we ought to have had, we have a spiral of price and wage increases which is prejudicing us on world markets. We have had a mammoth incompetence which, certainly as far as I am concerned, is without parallel. At home, instead of equality, we have had an increasing emphasis on inequality. Profits and dividends have outpaced wages, and the food business has become a profiteer's paradise. The Parliamentary Secretary is silent and thoroughly ashamed. I give this advice to the Minister. I advise him to get out and to save his reputation while he yet has time.
  4.24 p.m.
  The Minister of Food (Mr. Heathcoat Amory): I am astonished at the suicidal tendencies of the Opposition as exemplified in their selection of this subject for debate today, seeing that it was a sphere of activity in which they had such a melancholy record when they were in office.
  We have had a torrent of exuberant rhetoric from the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey). It was a vast expenditure of ammunition, but not many rounds fell within the target area. It appeared to me that most of his missiles were very definitely not of the guided variety. He reminded me of a herald in one of Stephen Leacock's books, who was said to have jumped on his horse and galloped off madly in all directions. We are left completely wondering what
  2096
  Opposition policy is on this matter. I fancy that they are uncertain and confused—
  "For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?"
  The hon. Gentleman's object seemed to be to show that the cost of living had gone up. That is agreed; there is no doubt about that at all. It has gone up, but it has gone up far less than it went up in the years when hon. Gentlemen opposite were in office. It has gone up, but that is one side of the picture.
  What about the other side of the picture? I refer to the nation's income. The fact is that the standard of living has improved. It is higher today than it has ever been before. The nation is better off today, and the nation knows it. Let us cast our minds back to the autumn of 1951, when Her Majesty's present Government came into office.
  What did we find? We found the cost of living rising faster than at any other time since the end of the war. We found a first-class financial crisis in which this country was overspending itself on its overseas account at a rate higher than £2 million a day. We found, six years after the end of the war, that we had the full paraphernalia of controls, regulations and rationing.
  What a position for a new Government to start in. It was certainly not the position which we should have chosen to start in. It reminds me of the Irishman who was asked the way to Roscommon. He replied, "If it was to Roscommon I would be going, it would not be from here that I would be starting." What did we do? At first, we had to take emergency action to restrict imports but then, as our policies began to take effect, the improvement in the national well-being was unchallengeable.
  Have we achieved all we set out to do? Of course we have not. When one is facing a tough situation it is right to set one's sights high, but I have never been able to understand why it should be regarded as humiliating for a politician to admit that he has not entirely achieved his objective. That is not my experience of life. One never does entirely achieve one's objective, but in this instance the improvement in the condition of the nation has been so manifest and clear that there is every reason why we should feel proud of the progress we have made in

  2097
  three years towards achieving our objective.
  I wish to refer now to some of the comments of the hon. Member for Sunderland, North, and I will refer to one or two others later. I want to point out to him, because he implied the reverse, that import prices for foodstuffs in the last three years have gone up and not down, though the general price of imports has gone down. The hon. Gentleman referred to agriculture and today I will not follow him there except to remind the House that last year was an absolute record for the years since the war not only for gross but for net output in the agricultural industry.
  The hon. Gentleman referred to Ministry of Food trading losses. I remind him that the figure of £330 million he mentioned includes all subsidies, including the welfare subsidies and those for agriculture.
  Mr. Willey:The right hon. Gentleman has referred to imported food prices. Will he specify those which have fallen? I have the figures before me.
  Mr. Amory:The imported food index gives the figures. On looking at that and taking all foodstuffs over the past three years, the right hon. Gentleman will see that it has gone up a bit—not much, but a few per cent.
  The hon. Gentleman mentioned sugar. He said sugar has been sold at an average price higher than the world price. The answer, of course, is the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement, with which he is familiar and which has the support of all parties in this House. To reply to what the hon. Gentleman said about eggs, I would remind him that home production of eggs has improved and increased in a very satisfactory way. The hon. Gentleman appeared to regret that, and I would ask him whether, in fact, it is something which he welcomes, or whether it is something which he regrets.
  I have admitted that there has been a further increase in the cost of living during the past three years, measured by the most reliable indicator that we have, the Interim Index of Retail Prices. Having said that, I must ask the House to consider two very important changes: first, that the rate at which the cost of living has risen during the past three years has, under this Government, been
  2098
  only a little more than half the rate at which it increased under the previous Government.
  Mrs. Jean Mann: Surely, the right hon. Gentleman will admit the authority of the cost-of-living index figures in the Ministry of Labour Gazette? The figures are 100 in 1947; 125 in 1951; and 147 today.
  Mr. Wilfred Fienburgh: And with world prices going up.
  Mr. Amory: If the hon. Lady will allow me to continue, I have a few more figures to quote in support of what I said.
  During the administration of the present Government, the cost-of-living figures have risen only slightly more than half as fast as they did under the last Government. That applies to food prices as well as to prices generally. Secondly, since this Government have been in office, wages have more than kept pace with the increase in the cost of living. This is shown by the movement of the index of weekly wage rates.
  Let us look at these figures more closely. I hope that the House will forgive me for inflicting upon them quite a few statistics during the next few minutes.
  Mr. M. Turner-Samuels: Would the Minister first say something about the Tory election promise to reduce the cost of living?
  Mr. Amory: The hon. and learned Gentleman must allow me to make my own speech, and I have a great deal to say.
  In the years during which the previous Government were in office, the cost-of-living figures rose by 40 per cent.—this is over the whole period—and food prices by nearly 60 per cent. Over the 3½ years during which the present Government have been in office, the cost of living has risen by 13 per cent., and during the last 2½ years it has risen by only 6 per cent.
  Mr. Norman Dodds: Tell us the world prices.
  Mr. Amory: Surely that is a very striking contrast.
  Over the last three years of the Labour Administration the food index went up by just a little more than 12 per cent. each year; whereas, during the three years of the present Government, it has gone up

  2099
  by just over 6 per cent. a year. Let us see what has happened to wages during that time.
  Mr. Dodds: Give us the world prices.
  Mr. Amory: I know—
  Mr. Dodds: This is a dishonest argument.
  Mr. Amory: I know that it is not at all congenial for hon. Members opposite to hear these figures.
  Mr. Dodds: Will the right hon. Gentleman give the figures for world prices? This is a dishonest argument.
  Mr. Amory: Let us see what has happened to wages. Between 1949 and 1951, prices rose, on average, according to the retail price index, slightly over 6 per cent. every year. During these years wages rose, on average, by 5½ per cent. [HON MEMBERS: "Earnings."] Not entirely. Between 1952 and 1954, the average increase in prices was a little over 3 per cent. a year, but the index of wage increases rose, on the average, by 5 per cent. a year. This index takes no account of overtime working earnings, and so the true position is even more favourable.
  As I have mentioned wage earnings, perhaps I might now deal with a fallacy sometimes expressed by hon. Members opposite, which takes the form of argument that, because food prices have risen by a certain percentage, wages ought to increase by the same percentage to put matters right. I would remind the House that food is only one of the things on which wages are spent, and, for the nation as a whole, food accounts for about 30 per cent. of the total private expenditure.
  In the Interim Index of Retail Prices, food is expressed as 40 per cent., and therefore, if there is an increase of, say, 9 per cent. in food prices, other things being equal, it would require an increase of only 3 per cent. or 4 per cent. in wages to put that matter right. The conclusion which must be drawn—and it is impossible to draw any other conclusion from these figures—is that, whereas under the previous regime there was a deterioration in the standard of living, over the last three years of the administration of the present Government there has been a rise in the standard of living
  Mr. Dodds:Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Economic Secretary to the Treasury indicated on 24th November that the world price index, which stood in 1949 at 87, was 100 in 1950 and 133 in 1951? In 1952 it had gone down to 129, and in September, 1954, it was down to 113. Does not that knock into a cocked hat his argument about the cost of living?
  Mr. Amory: I do not think that it does at all. The House may have the opportunity of hearing the Economic Secretary himself later. I would remind the hon. Gentleman of one rather obvious thing, that prices in this country do not depend only on import prices. Secondly, as I have said, the import prices for food have not gone down, but in the last three years have gone up slightly.
  I wish now to turn from prices and wages to food, looking at it from the angle of the quantity of food consumed. What is a bout the level of food consumption? During the past year or two we have been eating more of most foodstuffs. Measured in terms of calories—although personally I do not care to do that, because it never gives me much of a kick—the consumption per head today is at the rate of 3,120 calories per day. That is the highest figure ever recorded in this country. The comparable figure for 1951 was 3,020, and for 1938 it was 3,000.
  In fact, there has been a striking improvement in the diet of the nation. It is more palatable and more nutritious. We are eating better, and, what is important also, we are getting more of our calories from meat and less from bread and other starchy foods—a sure sign of a rising standard of living. In 1954, we ate 50 per cent. more meat, 30 per cent. more bacon, 15 per cent. more sugar, and we drank 20 per cent. more tea than in 1951.
  I ought, perhaps, to say a word more about tea because that is a subject on which hon. Gentlemen opposite are apt to go more than usually astray. During 1954, we not only drank substantially more tea than in 1951, but we drank more than during the war. The figures in lbs. per head per year are, pre-war—this is an average of five years—9·3 lb.; 1951, 8·1 lb., and 1954, 9·8 lb.
  I mention those figures because I believe it is rather significant that even in

  2101
  cases where certain foodstuffs have increased quite sharply in price—tea and home-killed meat, for example—consumption has not, as might have been expected, diminished, but has actually increased. That is evidence of the improvement in the standard of living which simply cannot be controverted. It reflects a country which is enjoying great prosperity. Indeed, it is quite odd now to think back to those days, only four years ago, when the ration for carcase meat was 8d. a week, and when, even at that figure, it was sometimes not considered to be very good value.
  The hon. Gentleman spoke a good deal about the increases in prices of certain kinds of food. The satisfaction which I am sure he feels with us at the lower prices for other imported foods which are available today was not quite so exuberantly expressed by him. I would remind him and the House that the prices of cheese, bacon and eggs are lower today than when they were controlled. So, too, are some brands of butter, margarine and fats. [HON MEMBERS: "No."] Yes, I said "some brands," and I can substantiate that.
  Mr. William Hamilton: Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to be more specific and to name the brands of butter which are cheaper now than when they were controlled?
  Mr. Amory: No, but what I can say is that I have a great deal of evidence of the price at which these commodities are being offered.
  Mr. Willey: I made it quite clear that the figures I used were taken from the "Grocer," the official journal of the trade. Is the right hon. Gentleman claiming to know more about trade prices than the trade itself? These figures are published for the benefit of grocers so that they may know what prices are being charged.
  Mr. Amory: The hon. Gentleman has quoted some figures, and when he did so I noted that he was apt always to give the maximum price.
  Mr. Willey:On a point of order. Surely, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I must have some protection from the Chair. What I said must be in the recollection of the House. When I referred to maximum prices, I did so expressly, and when I
  2102
  gave a range of prices I took the minimum given in the "Grocer," and the maximum price.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Charles Mac Andrew): The hon. Gentleman knows prefectly well that that is not a point of order.
  Mr. Amory:What I have said, I stick to.
  Mr. Hamilton:Will not the right hon. Gentleman name the brands, because my wife would like to know?
  Mr. Amory: At the present time it is possible to buy certain brands of butter, margarine and fats at prices—
  Hon. Members: Name the brands.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker:I think that we might have a little more peace. I am surprised at the behaviour of certain hon. Members.
  Mr. Amory: In using the word "brands," I may have been wrong. Perhaps I should have said certain grades, which may or may not have a name. To mention one, New Zealand butter is obtainable today at 3s. 6d. a lb., whereas the controlled price was, I think, 3s. 8d. a lb.
  To mention some other cases, the prices of tea and coffee have fallen from their peak, and there are now indications of reductions in the prices of imported meat. Good-quality frozen meat is now being sold by my Department at 20 per cent. below controlled prices. These are substantial reductions, and when one adds to all this the unquestionable improvement in quality and variety, what reasonable person can deny the trend of improvement? I confidently claim that, all in all, the picture of our food situation today portrays a nation well supplied with food of higher quality and greater variety than ever before, and at prices that bear comparison with those of any other country in the world.
  I know that some people get very tired of indices and statistics, but if we look for confirmation of this improvement in other directions we shall have no difficulty in finding them. I will mention one or two examples. The first is sweets and ice cream. I examined the figures showing the expenditure on sweets and ice

  2103
  cream for 1951 and 1954. In 1951, the nation spent £204 million on those commodities. In 1954, it spent £297 million, £49 million more than it spent on milk, and £130 million more than it spent on bread.
  The figures of sweets consumption by weight are interesting. They are seven oz. per head per week before the war, 5·7 oz. in 1952, 8·1oz. in 1953 and 8·5 oz. in 1954. I am not saying whether that is a desirable or an undesirable development, but I do say that those are not the kind of foods that would be bought in those quantities by a nation which is finding it difficult to pay for its basic foods.
  Mr. David Jones: Could the right hon. Gentleman tell us at the same time how much the population increased between 1938 and 1954?
  Mr. Amory: That is relevant to the total sum of £297 million which I mentioned, but there I was only comparing three years. I should not think that between 1951 and 1954 the population had increased sufficiently to alter the validity of those figures. The other figures were per head.
  Another example—and this is not a foodstuff—television sets. In 1951, there were 1·2 million sets; in 1954, 4·2 million sets, and the numbers are still growing. This is a new aspect—
  Mr. Arthur Lewis: Why does not the Minister give the figures for cars and champagne, because they have all gone up as well?
  Mr. Amory:Television sets are a new aspect of modern life. They are gradually becoming a standard in every home, and one day I suppose, they may even get into the retail prices index. Who knows, one may even get into my home one day.
  One more example—savings—and this I consider very important, because savings are an important indicator of national prosperity. The following were the levels of personal savings. In 1951, £237 million; in 1952, £697 million; in 1953, £875 million, and in 1954, £1,017 million. If we turn from those savings to small savings, what do we find? In the last full year for which the Labour Government were responsible, the net
  2104
  receipts from small savings sank to the lamentably low level of £4·6 million. In the current year the comparable figure is £131 million. I cannot think of a better reflection of national prosperity and well-being than that.
  It is absolutely clear, from the figures which I have given, that the nation is better off today. Even so, it might be the case that certain sections of the nation, such as old-age pensioners, are severely hit. I have here the latest information made available by the National Food Survey. As hon. Members know, that Survey was begun during the war, and is based upon sampling techniques. It measures the food consumed in the homes of various sections of the community, and I think that it provides the best and most impartial information available of the foods actually consumed by old-age pensioner households, and, of their nutritive value.
  We all know that old-age pensioners do not have an easy time, but the evidence is that in 1954 they ate 15 per cent. more cheese; 50 per cent. more eggs; 20 per cent. more meat and bacon, and 60 per cent. more sugar, and drank 25 per cent. more tea, than they did in 1951.
  We have corroborative evidence from the scale of the requirements of the British Medical Association with regard to the diets of old-age pensioners. The British Medical Association figures record the present diets of old-age pensioners as being adequate both in respect of energy value and all the important nutrients. From the beginning of next month—and this is something about which we can all rejoice—there is to be a further increase of over 20 per cent. in the amount of the retirement pension.
  On every possible occasion hon. Members opposite recommend to me one remedy for the troubles which they allege exist—the imposition of price controls. I should like to examine that suggestion for a moment, because it sounds a simple and attractive solution to the problem. Unfortunately, hon. Members opposite very seldom give any details as to how the scheme would work in existing circumstances. First, the controlled price must presumably be less than the market price; otherwise the whole exercise would be a rather pointless one. That being so, in the absence of anything else price control must discourage traders and producers, and, as a result, there must be a

  2105
  smaller volume of supplies coming along. As far as that is true, the cure would aggravate the disease.
  It follows that in order to be effective price control must be accompanied by consumer subsidies to make up the differences between the artificially-low controlled prices and the market prices. That is the first complication, which is not always mentioned by hon. Members opposite. But that is not the end of the matter by any means. Even with subsidies, it is only in exceptional circumstances—bread and milk are two cases—that one can have effective price control without rationing or supply allocation of some kind or another.
  The reason for this is clear from the experience of the Ministry of Food in the recent past. At the controlled price demand almost inevitably exceeds supply, and without some form of consumer rationing or allocation some other less direct forms of allocation have to be adopted. These usually start with queues, in which housewives wait patiently for their share of what is going, and develop into under-the-counter sales, black markets, and all those other devices with which we were so familiar during times of shortage.
  The hon. Member for Sunderland, North, with his knowledge of these problems and his experiences at the Ministry of Food, knows that what I have just said is true—and the process does not stop at consumer rationing. If the system is to work at all there has to be erected, on top of that, a superstructure of allocation by quota to wholesalers and firsthand distributors.
  The issue which divides us from hon. Members opposite is not the simple one of whether or not to reimpose control of prices, but a far more fundamental one. The question is whether consumers shall have the maximum amount of freedom to buy when, where and how they like, or should be told by some Government Department when, where and what they are to buy.
  Today, consumers have freedom of choice. They can decide what quality of food they are going to buy, what price they are prepared to pay for it, and what retailer they are going to deal with. They are no longer expected to eat snoek or dried eggs or take whatever meat the first shop offers them. It is significant that the housewife, in exercising her freedom
  2106
  of choice, is now doing so in favour of high-quality foodstuffs. An example of this is meat, where the demand is strongest for the highest quality.
  I referred to the markmanship of the hon. Member for Sunderland, North as being a little haphazard. He always seems to aim at where he thinks the Tory Government are, but he forgets that we keep moving. I was once teaching a young fellow to shoot, and when I asked him how accurate he was he said, "I shoot straight enough, but when I shoot the rabbit is no longer there." I am the rabbit today—I gladly accept that fact—and I claim that I am just in the right place. The hon. Member forgets the basic difference between us. He and his friends like a rigid, authoritarian system, where the consumer gets whatever the Government think is good for him. We like a flexible, dynamic system, where the consumer can choose how he will spend his money.
  If, under the present level of prices, we are impoverishing the nation in the way that the hon. Gentleman tried to make out, how does he account for the fact that the whole community is eating more of most foodstuffs, including those the prices of which have risen substantially? The facts are against the hon. Gentleman and his friends today. The truth is that our present problems—and we have problems—are, in general, ones of relative plenty and not of shortage. If the country has to choose between one set of problems and the other I believe that it will choose the problems of relative plenty. The real test, as I see it, is whether people would be glad to go back to the situation which existed three or four years ago. I do not believe for one single moment that anyone would suggest that the nation would be glad to do that.
  Measured by any material test, the nation is better off today than at any comparable period. As I have said before, the nation is aware of that fact. I know that that knowledge is disconcerting to the Opposition, but to us it is an encouragement. It shows that we have been moving in the right direction, and fortifies us in our resolve to continue steadily upon our course.
  5.0 p.m.
  Mr. M. Turner-Samuels: It was very proper that the Government should have put up a leading Minister of the Crown to deal with this very

  2107
  serious question of the rise in the cost of living. It is unfortunate that the presence and performance of the Minister have not made much difference, because I verily believe that no worse or weaker case could have been put forward even if the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food had done it himself.
  We have had a most pathetic example of what happens when a man comes to the Dispatch Box and has no case whatever, particularly when he realises that on this particular question the Government are "on the spot." There can be no doubt that the rise in the cost of living is one of the prime mischiefs of our times, and it is no use the Minister coming to the House and trying to delude people about the obvious, namely, that not only has the cost of living gone up, but it has gone up to the point of causing great hardship indeed throughout the whole country.
  The Minister was so hard put to it to find some argument that he had to trot out what has now become an ancient and puerile argument, namely, that the cost of living has risen less under the Tories than it did under the Labour Government. The point to start from, to use the Minister's expression, is that the cost of living under the present Government has indeed gone up, and it has gone up in the context of their election pledge that they would bring it down. The party opposite, in their election manifesto in 1951, and over the wireless, made that solemn promise, and they made it with the motive of getting votes and misleading the electors.
  Another thing to which the Minister referred to try to justify himself and the Government—really a most childish thing—was in connection with the amount of savings. He mentioned what he appeared to think was a fabulous sum, because it ran to about £100 million. Of course, anyone knows that very large profits have been made in the last year or two, and, therefore, it is not surprising, perhaps, that savings have gone up to this figure. Whether it is based on the savings of the working class or on the investments of more well-to-do people is quite immaterial. Put side by side with the huge figure represented by the cost of food, which runs into thousands of millions,
  2108
  it has really no relevance whatever. Therefore, that was a very poor effort indeed on the part of the Minister.
  Mr. Amory:Surely it has relevance, because this figure of savings is after paying the cost of food.
  Mr. Turner-Samuels:That may very well be, but it does not alter the fact that people have to pay more for their food than they ought to pay, and that many people cannot purchase the food which they would like to purchase because of its very high price. About that there can be no doubt at all.
  The next thing which the Minister did—and I think this was a cruel thing to do—was to try to lead the House to think that old-age pensioners were now having a picnic because of the present Government—[HON MEMBERS: "No."] Oh, yes, that suggestion was distinctly made. The Minister attempted to make the House accept the position that old-age pensioners were really getting adequate and plentiful food. I will not pursue that argument, but does anyone in his senses believe that old-age pensioners are, in fact, getting, or are able to get, the quantity, quality or the sort of food which they ought to have? That is a shameful illustration of how hard put to it the Minister was to produce any substantial argument.
  Mr. John Peyton: Before the hon. and learned Gentleman leaves that point, may I say that he does not seem to have the very widespread support of his colleagues on that side of the House. Perhaps he will make perfectly clear to the House whether he accepts the evidence and the value of the National Food Survey or not; or does he regard it as an entirely worthless document?
  Mr. Turner-Samuels: That is an excellent diversion, but it is a very poor interruption. [HON MEMBERS: "Answer."] No, I have already answered it.
  I now come to something which I consider to be much more material than the irrelevant interruption that has just been made. Let us look at the true picture, not the fanciful statistical picture that has been limned by the Minister. Does anyone deny that prices and the cost of living have been soaring week after week and month after month? It

  2109
  has now become an established phrase: the up and up and up of prices. At the same time we have been experiencing the down and down in the value of the £.
  Does the Minister deny what the Chancellor of the Exchequer has recently had to admit—the weakness of sterling, and that the weakness of sterling reflects a serious deterioration in our present balance of payments? That deterioration had, in January, reached very worrying proportions and this is having a most serious adverse effect upon the cost of living. We have also now an adverse balance between exports and imports. Does the Minister deny that? In addition, we have to sustain a high Bank Rate—a higher Bank Rate than we have had, I think, for over twenty years. All this is causing an increase in the cost of living. Local rates are also increasing, and the burden on young people as a result of high prices and the rise in the cost of living is making it impossible for them to set up homes.
  Yet in this context the President of the Board of Trade came to my constituency a week or so ago and laid down a truly remarkable thesis. He said that what we were suffering from is "the disease of prosperity." So apparently the difficulties which the country is experiencing through the high cost of living is to be attributed to what has become known as "the disease of prosperity." It makes one wonder whether the disease is of such a nature that the Government intend to seek a cure for it by going to the country to ask for a doctor's mandate on the homoeopathic principle of a "hair of the dog that bit you." That may be one of the underlying reasons why we are hearing so much just now about a General Election.
  On this question of prosperity, the "Manchester Guardian" had something to say recently which is most relevant to the Minister's argument about the cost of living. The Government have been saying that prosperity consists in the fact that people are buying more, that there is plenty, and that they have more money with which to buy more. Of course, that is not true. It is easily said, but the facts more easily refute it.
  The "Manchester Guardian" used one really significant and conclusive phrase, which was this: It said, bluntly:
  "Tory prosperity is illusory."
  2110
  The newspaper went on to indicate clearly that all the talk of Tory prosperity had proved to be an absolute sham. That has been further proved by the statements made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer a week or so ago, when he was forced to raise the Bank Rate and to bring back certain controls and restrictions to help save the situation from the very financial deterioration which the Government's policy has brought about.
  Let us look statistically at the value of the £ and at the cost of living. Between January, 1952, and November, 1954, the cost of living rose by 4s. in the £. Those are official figures, and cannot be denied. The result is that a new escalator of prices is on its way. There is a further rising cost of living, and wages have therefore, had to be increased for millions of workers because of the rising cost of living. It is very difficult to understand why the Minister should try to delude himself that the cost of living has not gone up seriously, when, all over the country, millions of workers are having to have their wages raised very substantially, due to that serious increase in cost.
  That process, however, will not cure the problem of the cost of living but will make it worse, because, as I say, we shall have a new escalator of prices and the cost of living will, in consequence, go up again. It is obvious that there cannot be increased wages without that being inevitably followed by increased prices. In the process our economy will be stretched to breaking point.
  Mr. Douglas Glover: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman putting forward the proposition that every increase in wages is caused by an increase in the cost of living, and vice versa? Has he never heard of increased productivity? Is it not a great reflection upon the workers for him to say that increases in wages are based upon increased cost of living and not upon increased productivity?
  Mr. Turner-Samuels: It is evident that hon. Gentlemen opposite cannot look these plain facts in the face. They are always producing an academic barrage or some sort of artificial thesis in order to hide the facts. What I was saying is irrefutable. It is that because of the high cost of living wages have had to be increased. [Laughter.] I will put it again. It is no laughing matter. Primarily, wages

  2111
  have had to be raised for millions of workers for no other reason than the burden of the cost of living, which the ordinary worker and his family could not sustain. No academic barrage from the Government benches can possibly hide that established fact.
  What the Government and the Tory Party will do in this case will no doubt follow the line of what they have done before. Their method looks like bringing another 1931. We shall get a financial crisis and then wages will be pulled down at once and there will be a reduction in the standard of life. Then what will be said about plentiful food, about savings, and about the ability of people to pay for the cost of living? That will happen, because that is according to well-practised Tory pattern. The end-product of Tory policy is always that the standard of the mass of the people is brought down. It has happened before and, if the present Government get back into power, it will assuredly happen again.
  Let us look at the Tory election manifesto of 1951. It said that "the greatest national misfortune was the ever-falling value of our money." What have the Government done about it? The true answer is that all they have done is to increase the misfortune. That is a very poor result, both of their promises at the General Election and of their performance as a Government since. The Minister tried to get away with statistics. When there is a complicated, difficult or bad case it is always a good idea to complicate it a bit more by statistics. Figures can be much like law. Montaigne once said:
  "There is law sufficient everywhere to argue both pro and con."
  Anybody who wants to hide his case conveniently gets hold of some statistics—the more statistics the better—and buries the true facts under them.
  The fact, however, is that basic food costs have gone up more than 40 per cent. since 1951. Anybody who examines the graph will see how the figures have soared. For a family of four, the increase over 1951 in basic prices of food in January, 1953, was 23 per cent. By January, 1954, the cost had gone up to 33 per cent. and by October, 1954, by 40 per cent. [An HON. MEMBER: "Where do those figures come from?"]
  2112
  They are from the research department of "Reynolds News"—[Interruption.]—and the official figures confirm them. That cannot possibly be denied. Those are official figures.
  The comparison in the cost of bread, milk, eggs, potatoes and lard and other foods has already been given and I do not propose to repeat that. The lists for October, 1951, and October, 1954, show that the food which cost £1 11s. 10d. in 1951 cost £2 13s. 0½d. in 1954. Those are the facts. The Minister, of course, does not face it, but it is the difficulty which, at the present time, the country has to face.
  Mr. James Harrison: When my hon. and learned Friend quoted from "Reynolds News" some degree of derision was shown on the other side. Could be quite clearly state that what he deduced from that newspaper coincides almost identically with the official reports?
  Mr. Turner-Samuels: I thought I had made that clear. Hon. Members opposite have jeered at the Reynolds' figures; they were the official figures.
  Mr. H. Nicholls:The hon. and learned Gentleman is quoting figures and producing evidence which he has said cannot be questioned. Will he quote the official figures side by side with the Reynolds' figures, so that we may see how they compare?
  Mr. Turner-Samuels: If the hon. Member wants a clerk I invite him to engage one, but if he cares to walk from the Chamber—and I am sure he will not be missed—and go to the Library he can himself there do the work which he asks me to do for him.
  When the Foreign Secretary spoke some time ago, on, I think, the only occasion I have heard him do so, on domestic matters—[An HON. MEMBER: "A very good speech."]; I am not criticising the speech, but merely saying that I was rather surprised at the occasion—he then called the operations of the Government, from the time they had come into power, salvage operations. He wanted to give the impression that up to then there had been difficulties, and so on, and, accordingly, that they had been using their time for salvage operations, but that now everything was quite all right.

  2113
  One wonders how that is so, because the only effect of those operations that I can see—and I should like the Minister to refute this if he can—is that those most in need are having to pay higher prices for food, and the people who are worst housed at present are having to pay higher rents. Those seem to be the two net results of these remarkable salvage operations which, we are told, have been performed by the Government. The Government must find a much better case than that to justify the faults and deficiencies which have occurred since they came into office.
  That the Government's deliberate policy is one of high prices and high rents is confirmed by their own acts. They deliberately removed the subsidies. When they did so they must have known what would happen. It is no use the Government now coming here in a white sheet to try to tell the House that they have improved the conditions of the people and eased the conditions of living when, in fact, their policy was deliberately aimed at bringing about the contrary effect. That is unquestionably why they got rid of the subsidies.
  Hon. Members opposite will probably not like the following quotation relating to the question of the cost of living and higher rents. When I tell them its source it may occasion them surprise. However, I will read it first. This is what it says:
  "From the middle-income men rises a cry of rage and woe. For rents bound up by several pounds a week. Up, up, up goes the cost of living. The Official Index leaps three points in a month and hits the highest level ever."
  That, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, comes from a recent issue of the "Sunday Express." Perhaps hon. Gentlemen opposite will now dissolve their look of solemnity and try to laugh again.
  It cannot be denied that since the present Government took office our cost of living is, in the main—with one or two exceptions—the highest in Europe. Let me give another example of how prices rose: In 1945 to 1951, retail prices rose by 34 per cent.—these are official figures. In other words, they rose by one-third. On the other hand, import prices went up by 120 per cent. The Government can today say what they like about controls and rationing, but it was Labour's policy, and that alone, which kept prices down then.
  Again, since 1951 import prices have fallen 16 per cent. but retail prices have
  2114
  risen 10 per cent. As has been mentioned already, food prices generally have risen 20 per cent., but that is not the whole of the story because basic food prices have risen by 40 per cent. This afternoon the Minister did something I had not expected of him. The Conservative Press has been in the habit of doing it for some time, but I really thought that the Minister would forbear from trying to blame the extra cost of food on the alleged fact that there is more food. Here, again, the official figures show beyond dispute that seven-eights of the expenditure on food is due to higher prices and only one-eighth to the fact that more food is being bought. Indeed, when a housewife buys a £'s worth of food, out of that £ she pays 4s. more in the total, and, of that, 3s. 6d. is represented by higher prices. Only 6d. can be attributed to the additional quantity of food.
  Let us recollect what was the attitude of the Tories in 1950 and 1951 and see whether that same attitude persists today. Lord Woolton, who is Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, a very prominent member of the Cabinet although he holds a sinecure, said at the General Election in 1951, and at the election before that, that the cost of living would be brought down if the Tories were returned to power. He made that specific pledge. He also said that there would be no withdrawal of the subsidies. Both those statements have been proved to be meaningless verbiage. The other day he even went as far as to give a cynical interpretation of what he had said. He said that his statement was not a promise nor a pledge, but a prophecy. Of course, everyone knows that it was no pious prophecy at all but a solemn promise, an election pledge, that subsidies would not be withdrawn.
  What makes it worse is its motivation. The motivation of that statement was to delude the electors, to attract votes and to secure office. When the next General Election comes along—and, from what one hears, it will not be long now—the cost of living will become a major issue. It will, in fact, be a principal count in the indictment against the present Government. The Government, of course, hope foolishly that the electors will concern themselves with personalities. Let the Government make no mistake. The electors will not ask about personalities. They will want to know about the cost

  2115
  of living and the other matters on which the Government have defaulted.
  This matter of personalities may be all right for street-corner gossip, but it will not be a major talking point at the General Election. Nor will the Government be able to use it as dope to obscure the real issues. The cost of living will be an issue, a very live and grievous issue for the Government, and it will put the Government where they justly deserve to be—out of office.
  5.34 p.m.
  Mr. W. R. A. Hudson:I am sure that the hon. and learned Member for Gloucester (Mr. Turner-Samuels) will forgive me if I do not follow him directly in his somewhat tenuous argument, although I will try in the course of my remarks to refer to some of his statements and arguments.
  I want to begin by making a few observations upon the speech of the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey), who opened the debate for the Opposition. I am sorry that he is not in his place. In fact, I am sorry to see the Opposition Front Bench almost completely denuded. I think that that is perhaps a reflection on their enthusiasm for the case which they have tried to put.
  The hon. Member for Sunderland, North, by his rather exaggerated and forceful delivery, tried to make up to some extent for the weakness of his case, for he gave a most confused account of this situation. First, he challenged the Government with removing controls from foodstuffs relatively scarce, yet, almost in the same breath, he said that import prices have dropped. In fact, as my right hon. Friend stated there has been a slight increase in food import prices. But the hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. If foods are relatively scarce, surely there must follow an enormous increase in the price of imported foods. That is the logical outcome.
  The hon. Gentleman also said that the quantities imported have been reduced. Yet it is a well-known fact that quantities consumed have been greatly increased. My right hon. Friend has already shown that to be so. Do hon. Members opposite complain of that? More home produce has been consumed by the people in this country.
  Mr. George Darling: Which people?
  Mr. Hudson:Surely that is something upon which we ought to congratulate ourselves, reflecting, as it does, the success of the policy which we have pursued.
  I last intervened in a debate of this character when we debated the Gracious Speech in November, 1953. On that occasion I tried to relate the impact of the food situation upon the daily lives of the people.
  Mr. Darling: Which people?
  Mr. Osborne:The whole lot. The hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. G. Darling) is well fed, anyway.
  Mr. Hudson:I think I succeeded and I intend to follow the same course today. I always feel that a debate of this kind, which centres around the cost-of-living index, is a little unrealistic. In saying that, I would at once add that I am not in any way criticising my right hon. Friend for having expounded the statistical position so clearly. I think the cost-of-living index is as good a yardstick as is possible. At all events, it is the same as was employed by the present Opposition, when they were in office. Therefore, I have no criticism on that score.
  I think, however, that bare figures do not reveal the immense improvement in the standard of living, nor do they show how the quality and the variety of the national diet has improved. They do not take account of individual preferences or—another important factor—the impact of the different commodities and the different services required by different people. I shall return to that point in a moment.
  In the cost-of-living index—and my right hon. Friend has stated the position with great clarity—it is true that since October, 1951, there has been a rise of 13 points, seven points up to June, 1952, and a further six points up to February, 1955. In the meantime, there have been only very minor fluctuations, and at the end of February there had been no increase whatever in the figure for some little time. The figure in January was 146, as it was in February. The important fact is that there had been no violent fluctuations throughout that period—merely a point up or a point down or a very minor fluctuation of that kind.

  2117
  We must admit, as we have always readily admitted, that certain increases in costs had to be made if we were to bring ourselves into line with realistic world conditions and if we were to restore our economy. Of course, that has been done. The whole of our experience up to October, 1951, revealed one most important fact—that controls and bulk buying arrangements together could in no way prevent an enormous rise in the cost of living and keep it within reasonable bounds.
  What has been achieved under the relatively free conditions which have been re-established? First of all, supplies have been assured. We have been able to pay for them, but had we gone on as we were proceeding we should not have been able to do that. Secondly, I claim that prices have been kept within reasonable limits in relation to world prices. If anybody cares to challenge that, I have some interesting figures here which will prove it up to the hilt. I can show that, with very few exceptions, bread, sugar, butter, margarine, lard, cheese, bacon, beef, mutton, pork, tea, coffee and other items are lower in price in this country than in any country in Europe—with a very few exceptions in odd cases.
  Mr. Dodds:Was not that also the picture up to 1951, or does the hon. Member suggest that it has been the picture only since the Conservatives took office?
  Mr. Hudson: I am not saying that it was not the picture up to 1951. What I am saying is that, despite Opposition criticism that freedom would bring our prices up to and in some cases higher than Continental prices—and that used to be the tenor of their arguments—that has not happened, and that with a very few exceptions prices in this country are lower than those on the Continent. Furthermore, we have increased wages and earnings and increased pensions and National Insurance benefits.
  I referred earlier to the varying impact of individual preferences and I want to say something about that. It is nearly always forgotten that one of the greatest influences upon the cost of living is the price of fuel—coal, gas and electricity—from the nationalised industries. The greatest number of complaints which I have had from old-age pensioners at any
  2118
  time since I have been in the House have been not about food but about the price of coal, gas and electricity. Those are necessary items.
  On the other hand, the cost-of-living index is, fortunately, influenced favourably by reduced clothing costs and reduced prices for household goods. Those are competitive industries, and the contrast I am trying todraw is this: whereas we have had enormous increases in costs in the nationalised industries, in some of the free and competitive industries and trades prices have been coming down.
  Mr. J. Harrison Mr. J. Harrison rose—
  Mr. Hudson: I cannot give way at the moment.
  Not only does that condition apply to the nationalised industries when compared with industries producing household goods, for example, but I contend that freedom and competitive conditions also have a beneficial effect in the case of food. I am now prepared to give way to the hon. Member.
  Mr. Harrison: I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's courtesy. I was thinking wicked things about him, but now I must change my mind.
  The hon. Gentleman spoke about the nationalised industries and compared the rise in the price of their commodities with the fall in the price of clothing and other articles. Bearing in mind that the prices of clothing and other textiles had reached an unprecedented height in 1951, will he compare the prices of the nationalised industries' commodities or services with general prices and tell us the result? Will he not admit that the prices of the commodities provided by the nationalised industries have risen less, generally, than other prices?
  Mr. Hudson: I am quite willing to examine the situation in the light of the hon. Member's remarks, but he did not contradict my statement that, whereas prices in the nationalised industries have risen, in some of the competitive trades they have fallen substantially.
  It is generally admitted that some prices have risen since 1951, which was inevitable for the reasons which I have given, but it is too often forgotten that many important foods are lower in price today than they were in 1951. I have taken some pains in this matter, because I have

  2119
  an interest in it and am concerned with the distribution of food. In November, 1954, I checked on the prices of a large number of foods and I have here a list of 30 foods—all of them important—25 of which are lower in price than they were in 1951 and five of which have dropped considerably in price since 1953.
  I could readily quote the details if hon. Members wished. These foods include dried fruits, tinned milk, canned meat, canned tomatoes, bacon, canned fruits, English canned fruits and a whole list of such foods as peas and beans. Those are all in regular demand for packed lunches, or by wives who pack their husbands' dinners or do home baking, and I suggest that all those reductions have combined to reduce the cost both of home baking and of packed lunches, which is a very important item in industrial areas. I have had another look at the prices of many of these foods within the past seven days and I find that there are among them a number of items which have still further dropped in price.
  In obtaining these figures I have not been content to take a price here and there, but have collected them from the most reliable sources. Prices were supplied to me by one of the retail distributors on a national scale, which means that the prices were applicable throughout the country. Secondly, I obtained information from a group of multiple stores supplying the London area and, finally, I took examples of prices in the North-East, some of which were provided by my own company, but which can all be verified. I have them here.
  Mr. Lewis: If we are asked to accept what the hon. Gentleman says, that things such as peas and beans have fallen in price, how does he account for the fact that the February edition of the Monthly Digest of Statistics showed that the price of all the types of food mentioned had risen by nearly 20 per cent. and that not one item of food included under the heading, "Miscellaneous, manufactured foods, vegetables and fruit," had fallen in price during the whole period from January, 1952? He will see that these figures were issued officially by his own Government.
  Mr. Hudson:I do not intend to attempt to substantiate anything in that official document. It must be true. But
  2120
  if the hon. Member will come with me, I know that these prices are available and I shall be glad to show him where the goods are obtainable. I am quite sure that he is interested in food.
  The hon. Member for Sunderland, North quoted prices taken from trade papers and, in particular, from the "Grocer." I should not dream of denying that the prices which he quoted prevail in certain cases. Those are average prices which the trade Press must secure, but I am speaking from facts which prevail in the shops and which can be verified by anyone in this House.
  There have been criticisms of the price of meat. It is perfectly true that the best quality and the best cuts of English meat have gone up in price, but it seems rather a lopsided point of view to criticise that, for what does it mean? It means that wages and earnings are up, that people are anxious to have the best and are prepared to pay for it. That is a matter for congratulation, not a matter for commiseration. The money is available.
  In passing, I would say that it is not the purchases of the wealthy shopper which affect the price structure, but the purchases of the average wage earner that influences these prices. Excellent imported meat is available and is neglected. It would not be if there were not money in people's pockets to buy the better meat and we can congratulate ourselves on our policy of producing more excellent English beef. I hope that we shall always go on doing so.
  The argument about the burden of the cost of living is wearing a little thin. I think the shrewd housewife knows it. Anyone who reviews the facts objectively must be driven to the only honest conclusion, that the burden of the argument of hon. Members opposite is really quite fallacious. The Minister has quoted figures of savings. We know that there are record sales of household amenities, of television sets and all those kinds of thing, which, in themselves, are highly desirable. From what we know of that and of the real facts of the situation I believe that the Government have done a splendid job in holding the cost of living where it is. I believe that our policy has been highly successful. The people are only too glad to be able to buy good food in great variety wherever and whenever they want.
  5.53 p.m.
  Mr. George Darling: I agree with the hon. Member for Hull, North (Mr. W. R. A. Hudson) when he suggests that we should use the Interim Index of Retail Prices—to give it its correct title—with a great deal of caution. For the rest, what the hon. Member has said is that prices fluctuate—with which we all agree—that some prices have gone up more than others and that some prices now and again come down. That is the beginning and the end of the story.
  We are all well aware that that sort of thing happens. But what we are concerned about in this debate is the continuing general rise of prices, wherever it may have started, the rise in costs of production because of the claim for higher wages—which always follows increases in prices—and the inflationary situation which this country has to face. It is easy to talk about savings going up in certain years and not quite so much in other years, but those savings will not be much use unless we get some stability into the value of our money. That means getting stability in prices.
  I should like to say a few words about the figures and a few things about the general problem of high prices in this country and to see what we can do about it. First, I mention a point that occurred in the speech of the Minister. I nearly rose to a point of order when the right hon. Gentleman was quoting the Food Survey figures, which is frequently done in the House. In this case, the right hon. Gentleman was mentioning the Survey in relation to old-age pensioners. I could not know whether he was quoting the correct figures—I am sure he was, because he would not mislead the House—but these documents are never published until it is too late for them to have any effect on current debates. If documents of this kind are used in this way they should be laid on the Table. I did not want to rise to a point of order and bring you into the debate, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, but I hope that that matter can be gone into and that we shall not be put into this situation again.
  Because of the time available I want to make my speech a little shorter than I had intended. I will begin by saying a word about the Interim Index of Retail Prices. It is a useful index, as I think
  2122
  we all agree, for measuring general trends of price movements, but I do not think it ought to be used in the way it has been used in this debate by the right hon. Gentleman and will be used, I am sure, by other hon. Members, as a measuring rod to make comparisons with changes in incomes.
  When the new cost-of-living index was being prepared in 1937–38, I wrote an article in a paper on which I was then working criticising the way in which the 30,000 households were being selected and the manner in which the index was to be built up. The arguments I used then have, I think, been proved correct, although the index has come into operation much later than anyone then anticipated. It has produced an average working-class household which is completely fantastic. Hon. Members will know what I am referring to—the 1¼ children and the composition of the household which bears no relation at all to a typical working-class family to which the cost-of-living index should apply.
  I think, also, that the present weighting of food in the index is quite wrong. If it is true that, apart from fuel and light, the greatest increases come in the food section, the index is certainly not giving a true indication of changes in the cost of living. From inquiries I have been able to make, I think that the food index is very much under-weighted. It should be nearer 60 per cent. in the lower income groups than the 40 per cent. which goes into the index.
  Before going on to the next point, I wish to say a word about "Co-op" tea, a matter which was raised by the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne). I am sorry that the hon. Member's figures were not quite correct. Less than 10 per cent. of the tea sold by the Joint Co-operative Wholesale Society comes from its own estates in India and Ceylon and it has no estates outside India and Ceylon. It is probably true that from those estates the financial position of the society has been made better this year compared with the year before. The society was faced with the problem of where to pass on that very small increase in prosperity.
  As the Financial Secretary to the Treasury has said, the big increase in profits has been among the big producing companies and not the dealers and packers. The small part of the "Co-op"

  2123
  trade which comes from its own estates has not been sufficient to make any substantial difference to the price of tea as a whole. The society was faced with the problem of making a very minute reduction in price or passing on the benefit—as there are no individual shareholders—to the customers, and that is what they decided to do. I know that the hon. Member for Louth is interested in this trade and although I will not give any further trade information away in public I can tell him that the retail margin on "Co-op" tea would surprise him. In that way it is going back to the Cooperative societies' members.
  Mr. Osborne:The figures I gave the House were given me in good faith by people who are supposed to understand the trade. I wonder which of the figures I quoted were, as the hon. Gentleman says, wrong. Can he give me the right figures, because I would not want to mislead the House?
  Mr. Darling:If I recollect aright, the hon. Gentleman said that the "Co-op" were taking about 20 per cent. of their tea from their own estates. Actually, it is about 8 per cent. at the moment. It fluctuates from time to time, of course, according to the total at the time in the market, but it is seldom above 10 per cent.
  Mr. H. Nicholls: The hon. Gentleman is confirming that the producers are the ones who are making the extra profits, not the distributors and retailers. In view of that—and it is a fact—would he admit that it is very unfair of his hon. Friends to say, as they are always saying, that it is the middlemen, meaning the distributors and retailers, who are responsible for the increased price of tea?
  Mr. Darling:I think I had better couple two words together—dealers and packers. The dealers and packers, the people who do that double job, have certainly not been making great extra profits. Whether the middlemen, the dealers who go into the overseas markets and do not do packing and distributing themselves, have been making these profits, I do not know, but I do know that the packers have not. It is the producers who have been making these profits.
  I come to the general question of rising prices. Quite clearly, there is no one solu-
  2124
  tion to the problem. We talk about increased subsidies and other remedies, but there is no easy solution. I do not want to abuse my fortune in being called to take part in the debate by taking up too much time, so I shall not, as I should have liked to had I more time, give a complete list of the things that I think could be done to bring prices down. I shall content myself with mentioning one or two.
  First, there is the question of price maintenance. The Minister of Food twitted us for saying that we believed in price control. He said he was against price control. He said that price control would not operate properly under private enterprise. Believe me, there is far more price control under private enterprise than any official price control we are trying to suggest. The control of prices for what we think, rightly or wrongly, is the purpose of maintaining profits ought to be inquired into, vigorously.
  We are told, when we raise this matter with the President of the Board of Trade, that we have to wait for the report of the Monopolies and Restrictive Practices Commission acting on a reference made to it under Section 15 of the Monopolies and Restrictive Practices (Inquiry and Control) Act. However, the Monopolies Commission is not concerned with the question of prices. It is concerned merely with the administration of price fixing, of collective boycotts, and the rest of it. There ought to be an investigation into the costs of manufacturing, distributing and retailing those things that comprise the chief items which enter the cost of living. There ought, in particular, to be an investigation into the costs of production and distribution where competitive conditions quite clearly do not apply. Some of the facts such an investigation would reveal would, I am sure, be rather surprising.
  The inquiries that have been made into pharmaceutical products have shown how branded goods sold under the Proprietary Articles Trade Association arrangements are sold at prices very much higher than the prices of such commodities bought by the customers on prescriptions, instead of in a bottle with a branded name on it. I am sure that if the prices and costs of the main commodities in the main lines of trade with which we are concerned today were investigated we should be able to

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  make an attack upon one sector of this problem, the high prices that are the results of these trade arrangements.
  I come to the food question. We have heard much statistical argument about whether the prices of imported meat has gone up so much, whether the price of home-killed meat has gone up so much, and so on, but the point is that the price of home-killed meat is too high for the customer who buys it in a retail shop. Whether the farmer is getting a proper price for his cattle, sheep and pigs is something I am not prepared to argue about. He is probably getting a fair price, but the difference between the price he is receiving and the price people have to pay in a retail shop for killed and processed meat is too great to be left without any further examination.
  I should say that, generally speaking, the prices of meat in the shops are too high because, first, our slaughtering charges are too high. They are too high because of the inefficiency of the slaughtering arrangements in this country. For one thing, we have not got factory abattoirs to deal with the meat, and we waste the by-products the proceeds of the sale of which should go into the incomes of the people who do the slaughtering and processing of the meat. If they received that extra income prices would come down.
  Secondly, we have not got adequate cold stores for the home-killed cattle. I do not know how long this state of affairs will continue. The question of factory abattoirs and of cold stores was first raised as a political issue by the appointment of a Government committee to go into the matter in 1930, yet we are still pressing for efficient organisation of the meat trade in this country. The proper organisation of the meat trade would certainly bring down the price of meat to the consumer. Why do we not deal with it? What are we waiting for?
  Mr. Godber:The hon. Gentleman suggests that one solution is the setting up of cold stores for home-killed meat. How would he deal with the fresh home-killed meat, which is a valuable product selling at a high price, for if that meat is put in cold stores it will not be worth anything like so much? Who is to stand that loss?
  Mr. Darling:What the hon. Gentleman seems to forget—and I am surprised
  2126
  that he does—is that we do not kill home-produced cattle all the year round. I should even out the meat supplies. I admit that there is some loss of value of the meat if it goes into cold store, but we could keep the autumn-killed meat in cold store instead of selling it all at once. At the moment, all the meat from slaughtering in this country is mixed up, and the cattle rearing trade is mixed up. There is usually a spate of killing in the autumn, and there is the problem of storage to deal with. I am convinced that we can raise far more cattle if we offer the farmers guaranteed markets and guaranteed prices plus a properly organised system of factory abattoirs to deal with the cattle, sheep and pigs they produce, and bring down the prices of meat.
  The same sort of complaint can be made about dairy produce. It is fantastic that in this great milk producing country—for it is—we have nothing like the co-operative creameries and dairies and processing plants for dealing with milk products that there are in Denmark, Holland and Sweden. There is no reason why we do not have them, except the lack of enterprise. The country's milk trade could be far better off and could provide us with more milk and milk products and at cheaper prices. We are paying high prices for inefficiency.
  I come to the matter of fruit and vegetables. All our fruit and vegetable markets are utterly old-fashioned, out of date, costly and inefficient. The taking of produce to Covent Garden and such markets means that the consumer has to pay far too high prices when the stuff reaches the retailers' shops. Go into any provincial fruit and vegetable market, and there will be about a hundred dealers there, whereas possibly less than a score of specialist commission agents could handle the whole of the produce at the market at very little cost compared with the enormous cost which arises between the farmer or the importer and the retailer under the existing system. Why do we not do anything about these markets? Transport costs are enormous, and the consumer has to pay for them all the time.
  In attacking high costs, as I say, there is no one simple solution. We have to deal with many things at once, including little things. Consider weights and

  2127
  measures. The greengrocer, the retailer, quite properly, is compelled by law to give exact weight to the customer, but nobody is compelled to give the retailer exact weight. I would say that no consignment, whether it be a box of apples or of pears or other hard fruit or of vegetables, goes into the retail shop at the exact weight. As for the dirt in a bag of potatoes, that is something that ought to be inquired into, to see whether we cannot put a stop to the bagging of so much dirt. A grocer who lives near me showed me and weighed 17 lb. of dirt in 1 cwt. bag of potatoes. He has to pass the cost of that on to the consumer.
  Squadron Leader Cooper:That is nothing compared with the rubbish which appears in nationalised coal these days.
  Miss Margaret Herbison: The hon. and gallant Gentleman should dig some. I should like to see him go down a mine.
  Mr. Darling: I agree. I have a garden and I grow my potatoes. The hon. and gallant Gentleman should dig some coal.
  Mr. Victor Collins: I would remind my hon. Friend that the retailer is not permitted to pass on the cost of the dirt to the consumer. He has to stand the cost himself, because he has to work under a controlled price.
  Mr. Darling: I agree. What I meant was that in his general trade the greengrocer will not suffer this loss, because on commodities in respect of which he can make the consumer pay he passes on the loss.
  Mr. Nicholls:This is a very fair point, but is not this again one of the reasons for the difference between the producer's cost which the hon. Member mentioned and the retail price? Ought not these facts to be advertised as much as other things?
  Mr. Darling: I do not know where that gets us, but these matters should be inquired into and action should be taken. In the case of most of the food and manufactured goods trades the consumer is paying dearly for inefficiency, old-fashioned, obsolete methods, price rings, indefensible retail price maintenance
  2128
  arrangements, and managerial inefficiency, and the housewife often pays too highly for shoddy goods and misleading advertising. We have taken some action to deal with these matters. We have had the Merchandise Marks Act, the Food and Drugs Act, the Monopolies and Restrictive Practices (Inquiry and Control) Act, and so on, but however good each of these may be in itself it is insufficient, as at present administered, to deal with the exploitation of the consumer and with prices which are far too high.
  In any case, there is no drive behind these things. These Measures are scattered about in Government Departments where they are not the prime responsibility of the Ministers concerned. In the Board of Trade, the Minister is at present far more concerned about G.A.T.T. than he is about dealing with weights and measures or a problem which the Monopolies Commission may be considering. If the Government go on burying consumer protection services in Ministries where the Ministers are not primarily concerned with them, there will be no full-scale attack on the cost of living problem. The Government are now proposing to place the Ministry of Food completely in the hands of the Minister of Agriculture. That is a misalliance if ever there was one, because the Minister's primary job is to look after the farmers and it should be somebody else's job to fight him on behalf of the consumers.
  There is only one way to make full use of the Measures which already exist for looking after the interests of the consumer. It is to bring those Measures into one Department where there will be a Minister to look after these things and to have no other interest in Governmental administration. If the job is done in that way, and it is placed in the hands of a Minister who has this primary responsibility, it will be found that existing legislation is sufficient. Some improvements and modifications are needed here and there, but the more we go into this matter the more we shall find that there is less need for new legislation. It is our present legislation that is not being used properly. That is the cause of the trouble in so many of the spheres with which we are dealing.
  The Co-operative Party, with which I am associated, has put forward, for these reasons, a proposal for a Ministry of

  2129
  Consumers' Welfare. We do not like the title, but we cannot think of a better to fit what would be the function of such a Ministry. We do not propose any new spate of legislation, because existing legislation brought together under one Minister and, vigorously applied, could deal with far more problems than I have attempted to deal with this evening.
  We do not need an army of inspectors. There are plenty of inspectors under existing legislation to do all that would be required. We propose that these questions of high prices, exploitation of the consumer, price rings, price fixing, and all the rest should be tackled by a Minister who would be concerned only with that job. If the job is tackled properly and vigorously by such a Minister I am confident that a full-scale attack on the rising cost of living could bring the results which we all want.
  6.17 p.m.
  Miss Edith Pitt: The hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. G. Darling) will, I am sure, appreciate that I do not want to follow him through the whole of the points which he made in his speech. I wish only to ask him now, as I did when he once addressed a meeting of a women's voluntary organisation on his ideas of a Ministry of Consumers' Welfare, to say whether he truly believes that if we had such a Ministry, and even if it took over part of the duties of other Ministries, we should not be building another empire and imposing an additional heavy financial burden upon the country.
  The hon. Member's proposal is rather less than fair to the British housewife, in that it gives her little credit for the use of common sense in her purchasing and for her ability to learn to make the most of the new-found freedom of goods in the shops. It is from the point of view of the housewife that I should like to contribute to this debate.
  No one denies that the cost of living is high, but so are earnings, and so is the standard of living. We on these benches are entitled to make a comparison of the position now and the position which we inherited in October, 1951, when hon. Members opposite found the job too much for them. During the whole of their six years of office the cost of living had been rising steadily. In the latter part
  2130
  of that period the rise was very largely accelerated.
  Mr. Lewis: Why?
  Miss PittBecause no efforts were made by the Government to control it.
  When the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) said today that the present Conservative Government had made no effort to mitigate rising prices, I wondered what he felt his own Government had tried to do during their period of office.
  Mr. Lewis Mr. Lewis rose—
  Miss Pitt: I have only just started my speech. I hope that the hon. Member will try to make his own speech in his own way and not by means of interjections.
  There were no signs of any real attempt on the part of the Socialist Government to control those rapid and continuousrises. Here is the comparison. We now have abundance, especially of food. There is plenty to choose from, far more variety, and better quality, and more money in our pockets to pay for the goods. It is true that the cost of living has increased during the period of office of the Conservative Government but, as my right hon. Friend the Minister of Food has already pointed out, the increase in our three years five months of office has been only the same as that which occurred during the last 12 months of the Socialist Administration.
  Furthermore, during our period of office there have been two reductions in Income Tax, and we have given or are in process of giving two rises in social benefits, which suffered tremendously from the rise in the cost of living under the Socialist Government. When the Socialist Government came into power the family allowance was 5s. [An HON. MEMBER: "They introduced it."] Oh, no, they did not. The "caretaker" Government introduced it. The family allowance was 5s. in 1945, and, when the Socialist Government went out of power in 1951, it was still 5s., although the purchasing power had declined considerably.
  I will admit that social benefits were introduced by the Socialist Government, but when they were introduced the basic rate for a single person was 26s. When they went out of power it was still 26s.,

  2131
  with the exception of a limited number of pensioners and yet there had been a constant rise in the cost of living.
  An Hon. Member: What was it in 1945?
  Mr. SpeakerOrder.
  An Hon. Member: What about the hungry thirties?
  Miss PittI lived through the hungry thirties as the daughter of a Birmingham working man.
  Furthermore, not only have there been two reductions in taxation under the Conservative Government, not only have there been improvements in social benefits, but for the first time wage increases are ahead of any increase in the price of commodities. That was not the case in the days of the Socialist Government.
  I want to make a point which is too often misrepresented. The Conservatives never made easy promises. [An HON. MEMBER: "No rise in the cost of living."] I stood as a candidate in the 1951 Election, not a successful one, but I remember what I said. I remember also what was written in our policy manifesto, and these are the actual words—I quote from page 15 of "Britain Strong and Free":
  "There is no single step that will of itself substantially reduce the cost of living … All these things will be achieved only by immense efforts and after some time … but they will enable us to control, and then as we are determined, to reduce the cost of living for all."
  Mr. Hamilton:Would the hon. Lady allow me to interrupt?
  Miss Pitt:That was the policy which all of us who stood on Conservative platforms put forward in 1951. I think we have achieved much in what we have done to stabilise the cost of living and, at the same time, to improve the standard of living.
  That is what really matters, the standard of living. I should like to remind hon. Members opposite that they made this point over and over again in the 1951Election; that the standard of living was more important than the cost of living. I remember it being made in Birmingham on platforms of the party
  2132
  opposite. Indeed, I do not need to remember it, because I have brought the evidence with me. The hon. Member for Aston (Mr. Wyatt), writing in a Birmingham newspaper shortly before polling day, said:
  "And what is Birmingham thinking about the cost of living? Most housewives are grumbling about increased prices, but most of them are also saying 'But we have got the money to buy what we want.' That is the fact. Ordinary people in Birmingham are better off than they were before the war."
  If that was true then, how much more true now when everybody is much better off.
  Furthermore, the hon. Gentleman the Member for Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) writing in another Birmingham newspaper, in referring to full employment under the Socialist Government, stated:
  "As a result there was always a problem of rising prices, for it is an elementary economic fact that while, in a period of slump and heavy unemployment, it is easy to keep prices steady, or even bring them down, it is very much more difficult when demand is high and all resources are being used to the full."
  That is again an unanswerable argument, and one very much applicable to the position in which we find ourselves today.
  In his Election address, the hon. Member for Stechford said:
  "I ask you to remember that the STANDARD OF LIVING—much more important than the COST OF LIVING—has been higher under the Labour Government than ever before."
  I do not dissent from the use of the standard of living as a yardstick and as being much more important than the cost of living, but if it was true in 1951, and it suited Socialist Members of this House to write about it and to introduce it into their Election addresses, then it is obviously true now.
  Mr. E. G. Willis: What about the pensioners?
  Miss Pitt:I am prepared to take that interruption in my stride. When I spoke in this House on pensions as long ago as July last year, I said that I had been challenged by Co-operative women in my own constituency on pensions and hardship. I asked them to give me names and cases. I have had none. I said that I had mentioned this in Kent and had asked for information. I have had none. The hon. Lady the Member for Liverpool, Exchange (Mrs. Braddock) in-

  2133
  terrupted me, and said she would take me to her constituency and show me cases. I offered to go with her, and I have heard no more.
  Mrs. Mann: Does what the hon. Lady is saying mean that she does not believe there is any hardship?
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady is not entitled to speak if the hon. Lady who has the Floor is not prepared to give way.
  Mrs. Mann: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It has been the custom of this House always for ladies to give way.
  Mr. Speaker: I know that is not the general principle of hon. Members of the other sex, but if the ladies have an arrangement of their own, perhaps they can apply any sanctions which go with it. Miss Pitt.
  Miss Pitt:Mr. Speaker, I can think of certain circumstances when ladies should not give way but I am prepared to answer the hon. Lady. I assert that no one is going without food, even the pensioners, and that they can afford to buy enough to keep themselves comfortably, though they are not living in luxury. We should all like them to have more, and under the present Government they will have more.
  Mr. Willis: Two shillings and sixpence.
  Miss Pitt: The majority of people in this country are better off than before the war. That certainly applies to the weekly wage earners. They are spending more on food—on meat, bacon, sugar, eggs, and sweets—and they are spending slightly less on bread and potatoes. If the nation was hard up we should be spending more money on the cheap filling foods—bread and potatoes—but we are spending less on them. We are also spending more on tobacco, alcohol, pools, radio, television sets, washing machines, and other household goods—things that make life more comfortable for the family and easier for the housewife.
  I had occasion to get out some figures a week or so ago, not in connection with this debate. Even I was surprised to find that whereas pre-war we spent 4 per cent. of our national income on tobacco, we now spend no less than 7½ per cent. of our national income on it. Does this suggest
  2134
  that we are hard up and cannot maintain a good standard of living?
  We are also saving more. This point has been emphasised already and I only want to add my own evidence. Earlier this year, I, in common with everybody else who has helped with the National Savings Movement, received a letter from its Chairman, from which I quote:
  "1954 has been a goodyear for us. Our savings figures are the best for eight years, and the number of Savings Groups and their members have also increased."
  These are the small savers, the ordinary people, the weekly wage earners as I prefer to describe them.
  Furthermore, all hon. Members of this House must recently have had the first leaflet from the building societies. On reading it, I was interested to note they were able to say that shares and deposits showed a marked increase in 1952, 1953 and 1954. Again, their deposits are not infrequently made up of the regular, weekly contributions of small savers.
  I do not have to rely on figures. I have quoted some, and many others have been given. I know that the ordinary working people are better off than they have ever been in their lives, because I belong to them, I was born among them, and I have lived among them all my life. In passing, I wish the hon. and learned Member for Gloucester (Mr. Turner-Samuels) was still here. I should like to give him a word of advice. I wish he had not used the expression "working class." We do not like it. We think that it is used in a derogatory sense. If I might give him a hint, if he exchanged that term for my own expression "weekly wage earners" he would be adequately describing the section of the community to which he wants to refer and would not be giving offence.
  I know that the weekly wage earners are doing very well. When I go into their homes—they are the homes of my friends—I see television sets, new radios, new furniture, new carpets, vacuum cleaners, and even washing machines. The washing machine is the latest gadget in which they are interested.
  Mr. Dodds: Why not?
  Miss Pitt: I am very glad about it, but hon. Members opposite cannot say "Why not?" and then, in the same breath, say that the people have not got the money

  2135
  to provide these things. I notice that there are not so many refrigerators, although sales are going up, but husbands should beware, because I am certain that the refrigerator will be the next item on the list.
  In Birmingham, on Friday night, I spoke to a workman whom I know well, a staunch Socialist who is never going to change. I said, "How are things going? How do you think we are managing under a Conservative Government? What do you think about the cost of living?" He answered, "Well, my wife is not the grumbling kind." I think he would not go so far as to admit that things were not so bad under a Tory Government. However, after a slight pause he added, rather quietly, "I have just bought a little car." I suggest that that is an indication of the high standard of living that we are enjoying.
  I know there are some exceptions. The people who are most hard hit are those on fixed incomes. Also, not infrequently the comment is made to me that the black-coated workers, although they have made some progress, have not progressed to the extent that the weekly wage earners have done. I am not disputing that that is so, but I want hon. Members opposite to admit it.
  What of the housewives? Two-thirds of the women of this country still describe themselves as "housewives," I notice from the last census. They are the most important members of the community. They have not yet got round to applying to themselves the American term "domestic economists," but that describes the job that they are trying to do.
  What have the Government done for them? Clothing is cheaper, especially adult clothing. I hear complaints that children's clothing is dear. That is surprising, because children's clothing takes so much less cloth. The answer may be that the persistently high price of children's clothing is the result of labour charges. I suppose it is simple economics that one cannot have high wages without paying more for the articles. That is probably part of the explanation for the present price of children's clothing.
  Household goods are cheaper, especially towels and sheets. Hon. Members
  2136
  opposite may say, as is often said, that these articles do not have to be bought every week. Nevertheless, I have referred to them because they are the household goods which one has most frequently to replace, and I am very glad that the largest fall has been in the price of towels and sheets.
  There have recently been reductions in the price of margarine, and we now have good branded makes to choose from. The prices of cheese and butter have fallen in the last week or two, and the price of tea is now falling. Hon. Members discussed the price of butter earlier. I would remind hon. Members that butter is still very cheap in this country compared with many other countries. The average price is 3s. 8d. per lb. whatever may be said in the "Grocer."
  I am prepared to take the hon. Member for Sunderland, North by the hand to Birmingham and there buy New Zealand butter with him at 3s. 6d. per lb. I am also told that British butter is available in the Harrow Road at 3s. 4d. per lb., and that is very much cheaper than butter in many other countries. Much more important, we now have choice of variety and quality.
  I believe that the housewife has come into her own, and she thinks so too. She can feed her family better. I am quietly amused to hear these days the comment which I used to hear before the war, the rather proud boast of the housewife that she keeps a good table. She could not do that if the food were not available.
  Many housewives have now discovered, some for the first time, the joy of being able to bake their own cakes. Again, I am a little amused when I hear my friends brag about the kind of cakes they have turned out or the new recipes which they have tried. How different that is from the days not so very long ago when they used to say to each other, "Oh, cannot we get away from food? I am sick of rationing and trying to manage." Now their pleasure lies in showing their ability in cooking.
  Housewives make their own jam. I make jam. I made ours last year. Housewives now bottle their own fruit. Because the customers call the tune now, and because they now have the influence, housewives are doing something to bring down the price of certain foodstuffs, as

  2137
  they did with eggs and as they are doing with tea.
  I should now like housewives to turn their attention to meat. What a commentary it is that the newspapers are reporting that there is too much meat these days. Housewives choose their shops, but they buy the expensive cuts. I believe that the selection of meat has tended to become a lost art to women or else that many of them have never known it, especially the younger ones.
  I hear them say in the butchers' shops that they want a fillet or shoulder of lamb, but they do not know the cuts of beef. One rarely hears them ask for topside, silverside or bedpiece. They can now have the aitchbone; that is a joint which the butcher has only recently been able to cut. Housewives do not very often buy brisket, sweetribs, or breast or neck of lamb, the cheaper joints, cheaper not in quality but in cut, which make extremely good, nourishing meals if housewives are prepared to spend longer over the preparation of the vegetables and longer over the cooking.
  I am not an expert cook. My father describes me as a good, plain cook. However, I do know the things my mother taught me, and I should like to see women getting fuller value out of their present opportunity to provide good meals at much less cost than some of them are doing at the moment. I am not for one moment suggesting that it is a job for the Government, which Heaven forbid. I do not think that "the gentleman in Whitehall" always knows best. I suggest that some of the women's voluntary organisations, particularly—
  Mr. Lewis: The Housewives' League.
  Miss Pitt:—the Women's Institute and the Townswomen's Guild, might add to their already full programmes for their members classes to help women understand the different cuts of meat and the variety of meals that can be prepared from them.
  To conclude, there is one grumble which I frequently collect in every area of Birmingham, and I am surprised that it has not been mentioned by hon. Members opposite. The grumble is about the price and the quality of coal. I hope that hon. Members opposite will mention it, because it is a genuine grumble. It is
  2138
  still rationed, or allocated, and perhaps that makes a difference.
  I should like to know—and I hope that when the hon. Lady for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mrs. Mann) winds up she will tell the women of this country—what is the Opposition's remedy for the present high cost of food. What proposals do hon. Members opposite have? Is their answer to restore subsidies, as they say in "Challenge to Britain"? If so, how do they propose to raise the money? They have never explained that. Will it be by an increase of taxation, an increase of Income Tax—goodness knows, we are all hoping for a decrease of taxation—or will it be by an increase of indirect taxation on tobacco, alcohol and so on or Purchase Tax, or a combination of them all?
  Are the Socialists proposing to take out of people's pockets the money which they now have, and spend it for them? Or are we to cut down the amount of food which we are now consuming and return to rationing? Are we to return to the rationed amounts which we found when we came to power in 1951—bacon 3 oz., cheese 1½ oz., butter 3 oz., Is. 7d. worth of meat, tea 2 oz. and sweets 6½ oz.?
  Mrs. Mann: The hon. Lady cannot give way. She is a coward.
  Mr. Speaker: I heard the hon. Lady for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mrs. Mann) use an expression which is not Parliamentary. She should withdraw it.
  Mrs. Mann: I think it lamentable that a Member—
  Hon. Members: Withdraw.
  Mrs. Mann: She has thrown out challenge after challenge and has not given way in the whole of her speech.
  Mr. Speaker: I am not concerned with that. The hon. Lady herself will have the opportunity of replying, but she should not use the word "coward."
  Mrs. Mann:I must say in all honesty that I think that it is a cowardly thing to do.
  Mr. Speaker: I must ask the hon. Lady to withdraw the expression. If the hon. Lady is refusing to obey my direction, I can only take a certain course with her.
  Mrs. Mann: I unreservedly withdraw.
  Miss Pitt: I accept the hon. Lady's apology.
  I am well aware, as are hon. Members opposite, that the hon. Lady for Coatbridge and Airdrie is tonight winding up for her side. She will have every opportunity after I have finished, and that is why I particularly addressed this point to her so that she may be able to answer it.
  If I may conclude—[HON MEMBERS: "You may."]—in November, 1953, when the right hon. Lady the Member for Fulham, West (Dr. Summerskill)—and I remember it very clearly, because it was in my early days as a Member and it struck me as so significant—was challenged from this side of the House as to what were her proposals for food and she was asked if she was proposing to reintroduce rationing if ever the Socialists were returned to office, she replied, "We shall adopt any methods that we think necessary. "I think that that is still significant. Does it mean that rationing would be reimposed? I should like to know, and so would the women of this country.
  Mr. Ivor Owen Thomas: I thank the hon. Lady for giving way. Will she indicate what would have been the practical policy, other than rationing, which she and her colleagues would have pursued, in a condition of world shortages after a war which devastated the world, to ensure that everyone had a fair share of those things which were in short supply?
  Miss Pitt: I quite agree that immediately the war ended, when there was a world shortage of food, any Government would have had no alternative but to continue rationing, not for six years, and not long after most other countries in Europe had given it up.
  If hon. Members opposite intend to woo the electors with promises of a reduction in the cost of living, how can they do it, in these days of full employment and high wages, without some system of rationing and control? In that case, they are out of touch and they do not know what the ordinary housewife in Britain is thinking at this moment, nor do they know the expression which is most frequently on her lips. It is not a grumble about the cost of living. I will make them a present of the expression which I hear most frequently among
  2140
  housewives, and I ask them to bear it in mind when they go electioneering. What the housewives in Birminghamsay to me is, "It is lovely to have plenty to eat."
  6.46 p.m.
  Mr. J. Grimond: Of course this country is prosperous. I do not, however, find among the crofters of Shetland that there is the large-scale buying of washing machines and small motor cars which goes on in Birmingham. This country, speaking generally, is prosperous, and so it ought to be, and it will, I hope, continue to be. But it has to maintain its standard of living in a highly competitive world. I must confess that the hon. Member for Edgbaston (Miss Pitt) gave me the impression that there was no danger of inflation and no danger of running into trouble in foreign markets—trouble which would seriously affect all industrial workers. We have seen in Australia that these dangers are not so very far removed from the world horizon.
  It may be said that the rise in the cost of living during the time of the present Government is not as big as it was in the time of the previous Government, but we all know the story of the camel and the final straw on its back. It is no consolation to the camel to tell it, "We put on only the last four or five straws." The trouble is that the beast was severely overloaded before the present Government came into office.
  The Government know quite well that there is danger of inflation and that is why they lately put up the Bank Rate. It seems to me that the cause is reasonably well known. It is clear that there is too much purchasing power compared with the number of goods to be purchased at present prices. But the question which faces us is whether the suggested cures for inflation are not worse than the disease? A cure sometimes suggested from this side of the House by the Labour Party is the subsidising of certain commodities and thereby cutting down their prices.
  Sir William Darling: The hon. Member spoke of cures being worse than the disease. Can he give an example of where that could be so?
  Mr. Grimond: Yes. Having one's head cut off to stop a common cold.

  2141
  I suggest that to subsidise certain commodities one would almost certainly have to ration them, and unless one also reduced purchasing power one would find the prices of other commodities going up at the same time. The Government could further increase the Bank Rate and use other methods of restricting credit, and I am inclined to think that they may well have to do that. But there is no doubt that the reason why they do not do so is because of the deep-rooted fear in this country of unemployment.
  I want to ask the House whether we are not a little too obsessed today with the conditions which obtained in the 1930s. Unemployment was then the great scourge of this country, and no one could exaggerate its evil effects in those days. In those days we werefaced with mass unemployment and a continuing lack of demand for many of the products of our great industries and with the apparently inevitable recurrence of trade slumps. It would be a very bold man who would say those circumstances will not recur. It is conceivable that they may do, but that is not the danger with which this country is faced at the moment.
  Where there is unemployment—and there is high unemployment in part of my constituency—I do not think that the cure is a general increase in purchasing power. The fact is that unemployment, where it exists, is in pockets in the economy, and special remedies may have to be applied to cure it. We have learned a good deal about the distribution of industry, about bringing new light industries into different districts, and it is on those lines that we shall have to tackle the type of unemployment which we face today, rather than by attempting to deal with the position by continuous inflation.
  I suggest that inflation is going on, and that it always hits the poorest people, the least well-organised. It hits the old-age pensioners, it destroys savings and the carefully laid plans of people who have made preparation for their old age. Above all, it continually puts in jeopardy our foreign trade. We are always living on this knife edge as to whether our reserves will go too low, whether there is to be a general flight from the £, or whether we are keeping in balance.
  Our foreign balances today are considerably lower than they were in 1951. In these circumstances, I suggest to the
  2142
  Government that they should not be afraid to put some further squeeze on credit, to take a little more froth out of the Stock Exchange, for instance, and, if there is any sign of unemployment developing, to take special steps to meet it in the particular places where it may show.
  If the Government are afraid of curtailing investment too far, they should make special arrangements for investment of a type that they want to encourage. I believe that the Government have been right to put up the Bank Rate. They should have done it earlier. It will be for the general good if the Government are not afraid to squeeze inflation out of the economy.
  Another matter which one is forced to say something about is the question of wages. No one would deny a rise in wages to the workers in an industry which is doing well, which is becoming more efficient and increasing its output. Of course there have been considerable rises in profits, and I shall say something about that in a moment. Unfortunately, it is also true that a rise in wages increases demand for consumer goods. Naturally the wage earner wants to spend his additional income, and he spends it on the sort of goods which often the Government might like to go to the export market.
  There has been a considerable increase in wage rates—in real wages and in money wages—compared with those of 1938. I think that the figure is 230 per cent., as against an increase in profits of 60 per cent. to 70 per cent. I wonder whetherthe Government should not grasp this prickly nettle of the method of negotiating over wages. I do not suggest that they should interfere directly. Of course the negotiation must be done with the trade unions, but I am not sure that the Government can ever stand completely aside—nor, in fact, have they been doing so.
  An important book has been published by Miss Wootton, who is sympathetic to the Labour point of view, and who knows a very great deal about this subject. She has drawn attention to the very curious way in which wages are negotiated today. I do not agree with her conclusions, but she has drawn attention to a real problem.

  2143
  There have been big increases negotiated this year. I think that it will be agreed that they are bigger than could be justified by the rise in the cost of living. One might well argue how far wage rates should be tied to the cost of living at all. I suggest that they should be tied to productivity, and that mass negotiation for people called such terms as "engineers"—a term which I understand covers all sorts of jobs, trades and industries—is probably wrong.
  It might be that we should break down wage negotiations, and that firms which are making big profits should pay a considerable increase, while firms which are not paying such big profits should not give big increases. Perhaps there should be some pressure put on labour either to leave that industry or that job by having a slightly lower increase, or no increase at all.
  Mr. Osborne: It would not work.
  Mr. Grimond:So the hon. Member says, but will the present situation work?
  Can we go on living under this continual danger of the economy toppling over under inflation? Are not these big increases in wage rates really a matter of first importance? It is difficult for a person like me, who admittedly is not a trade unionist but who has great admiration for trade unions, to discuss them, yet surely they must be discussed if we are to have a debate on the cost of living.
  There have been these big increases in wages and surely they are an important factor which should be discussed. I suggest that if negotiations are broken down a little, if they take place between different firms and industries rather than through mass bodies such as the engineers, and if they are related to productivity, that might help us in dealing with this problem.
  Another matter that I want to discuss is that of profits and private enterprise. I know that the amount of money injected into the economy through the rise in dividends is small. We know why that is—because so much of the extra is taken in taxation—and we know, too, that, as a profit or a dividend is not a prime cost, it does not enter into the cost of the article. Nevertheless, the importance of these relatively large increases in profits
  2144
  is not that they are pumping more money into the economy but that they show that firms have a certain margin—yet prices are not going down. It may be said that this is not a matter in which the Government can interfere, but I think that they could make their attitude known.
  Their attitude ought to be that the private sector of the economy must really be competitive and enterprising. I suggest that it is riddled with restrictive practices and price maintenance, and that the attitude of most employers is "Do not let us bring down prices; let us do the thing up in a brighter packet or offer some small service with it; after all, our costs are bound to go up in a year or two and then we shall not have to put up prices again; let us keep them up; the public will pay; there is plenty of money about."
  That is a fatal attitude, and if it continues the argument for nationalisation will eventually become irresistible. I agree that the Government cannot, for instance, in the case of restrictive practices and monopolies, prejudge the findings of the Monopolies Commission, but they could make it known that they are against monopolies, restrictive practices, and price maintenance, in the face of big profits and possibly some reduction in the price of raw materials.
  I am not asking them to condemn any firm or any industry, but I think that there is a good deal in what was said by the hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. G. Darling). Industry must, wherever possible, reduce its prices and must accept competition. I do not know that I should go so far as to recommend a Ministry of Consumers' Welfare, or whatever the phrase is, but there is a good deal in what the hon. Gentleman said. There are plenty of laws, plenty of inspectors, and so on, but I have not noted that there is a coherent voice coming from the Government inevitably condemning monopoly and these attempts to keep up prices.
  I agree with the hon. Member for Edgbaston that no doubt the housewives—the shoppers—must play their part too; but price maintenance and restrictive practices have gone a very long way, and it is asking a great deal of the ordinary buyer if one expects him to break up the absolute network of agreements which there are in industry tying people

  2145
  to sell at the same prices. One finds the same thing in almost any industry one cares to name. There are agreements throughout. I suggest that this is not healthy for the economy.
  Another feature is that this country must maintain its investment. I do not believe that a high rate of consumption is necessarily antipathetic to a high rate of investment. America is a very good example of the opposite. What I suggest is that we shall not get savings and we shall not get investment unless people have real confidence that the Government are determined, not to maintain the value of the £ absolutely static, but to allow only a very limited amount of inflation.
  All of us will suffer, and, in particular, the poorest people in the country—the pensioners and the people who benefit from our social services—will be deluded out of their rights unless the Government make it clear that they do not intend to keep on pumping indefinite amounts of purchasing power into the economy but that instead they intend to set their face against restrictive practices wherever they appear.
  The Government should also make it clear that, in conjunction with industry and the trade unions, they will—I do not want a wages policy—clear their minds, if I may put it that way, and try to give some lead on the need to relate wages to productivity.
  7.0 p.m.
  Mr. Cyril Osborne: I entirely agree with a great deal of what has been said by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond). Were we not discussing food, I should like to have followed up most of his points, including the point that inflation is the greatest danger facing us at present. I am not as certain as the hon. Member about how it is to be avoided.
  I take it that this debate is the opening shot of the party opposite in the General Election campaign. To the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) I would say that I think he was unnecessarily spiteful, unnecessarily vicious and unnecessarily unbalanced. If his speech represents the opening shot of his party, it completely misfired. His hon. and learned Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Turner-Samuels) likened the present situation to 1931, and accused Her Majesty's Government of trying to
  2146
  create a financial crisis similar to that of 1931. What I remember most vividly about the 1931 crisis—in which the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) took part—was that three leaders were turned out, and there was bitterness and hatred, and the party opposite was rent in two, as it is being today.
  Mr. James Griffiths: I remember 1931 very well, but if the hon. Member is under the impression that I was in the House in 1931,I would correct him. I was not.
  Mr. Osborne: I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon, but he does remember.
  The only similarity between today and 1931 is that, unfortunately for the country, the party opposite was torn in twain in 1931. There was bitterness and hatred which has never been lived down, and since constitutional government requires that we should have a united and loyal Opposition, I hope that the same thing will not happen now.
  Mr. Griffiths: The hon. Member is quite right. It will take a long time for the party on this side of the House to live down what happened in 1931—and after.
  Mr. Osborne:I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman agrees that it was his party which went through that.
  So far, every speech in this debate has been made from the consumer's point of view. If we are to talk about food and the cost of living, we mustlook at the problem not only from that point of view, but also from that of the producer. I represent a constituency which provides both fish from the sea and food from the land, and I wish to put a few points to hon. Members opposite from the producer's angle. If, as has been said on more than one occasion, the cost of living is to be one of the prime questions for discussion at the next General Election, I would ask the hon. Member for Sunderland, North and the right hon. Member for Llanelly—whose case is that the cost of living is too high—how much too high do they think the price of food is today, and by how much are they proposing to promise to bring it down? [Interruption.] The hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Lewis) is a good advertisement for the Conservative Government in his present fat state—
  Mr. Speaker:Order. I do not know what has gone wrong with this debate. Although it is not out of order, hon. Members should not make these personal remarks about each other. They should treat each other with courtesy.
  Mr. Lewis:I thank you for that intervention, Mr. Speaker, but may I say that I do not take offence in any way, because I agree that I and the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne) are a good pair.
  Mr. Osborne: I beg to withdraw that remark, Mr. Speaker. I shall not sin again.
  I wish to ask hon. Members opposite—and this is a question which will be asked of them at the General Election—by how much do they think that they can bring down the cost of food? How do they propose to bring down the cost of food? What action will they take to bring that about? I believe that the right hon. Member for Llanelly is coming to my constituency. If he does come to Louth I want him to answer those questions.
  The cost of food might be reduced in three ways. First, it might be reduced by cutting the wages of the men who produce the food. Is the right hon. Gentleman—
  Mr. J. Griffiths Mr. J. Griffiths rose—
  Mr. Osborne: Let me finish. Is the right hon. Gentleman coming to my constituency—if he is, I should like to be there to listen to him—to tell the agricultural workers that to get cheap food for the industrial workers who are getting higher wages than my constituents, he proposes a cut in agricultural wages? If that is his policy, I hope he will say so.
  Mr. Griffiths: I shall tell them about the wages of agricultural workers under a Tory Government.
  Mr. Osborne: I have not received a direct answer to my question.
  The right hon. Gentleman might say that the price of food could be reduced because the farmers are getting too much out of it, and that, if they are returned to power, the policy of the Socialists would be to cut agricultural prices. Perhaps that is what he will say when he comes to Louth.
  As the House knows, 60 per cent. of the food we consume is produced at
  2148
  home. How are we to reduce the price so that the consumer may obtain that food more cheaply?
  Mr. Collins Mr. Collins rose—
  Mr. Osborne:No, I cannot give way now. May I just make my point and then I will give way, although it will be taking up time.
  So far as I have been able to ascertain from the Ministry of Labour, these are some of the average weekly earnings in industry: coal miners, £12 17s. 2d.; motor car and cycle workers, £12 4s. 2d.; workers engaged in the printing and publishing of newspapers and periodicals, £11 16s.; agricultural workers, £7 2s. 10½d. This is the crux of the matter. My constituents say, "What right have men in the big industrial centres, who are enjoying these much higher wages, to demand that their food be cheaper, if it means that the men who produce the food have to work for less?" They contrast the position of the coal miner with their own.
  During the ten years that I have been in this House, I have heard hon. Members opposite say on many occasions—and with a great deal of justification—that in the old days there was blood on the coal; that it was sold too cheaply—
  Mr. Tom Brown: It is now.
  Mr. Osborne:—andthe only way in which it was possible to pay a decent wage to the miner was to see that what he produced was sold at a better price. I entirely agree. But if that be true of coal and of the miner, it is equally true of the agricultural worker. Those who demand that we shall pay a high price for coal have no right to demand cheap food.
  I want this question to be faced fairly and squarely, because if the issue of the cost of living is to be raised at the General Election, at least let us be honest with our people. Do not let us try to fool them.
  Mr. Hamilton: The hon. Member is three years too late.
  Mr. Osborne:We have been told that during the next three or four months the price of coal is to go up again to meet increased wages. Today, there are no profits in the industry. There are no

  2149
  capitalists sucking the industry dry. All the money is going in wages and salaries. If hon. Gentlemen opposite are quite content that the country shall pay a higher price for coal so that the miner may get a better wage, surely it is reasonable that they should also say that the price of food should go up so that the agricultural worker can have a decent wage. Since his wage is little more than half that received by the miner, how can hon. Gentlemen opposite complain? What basis is there for their argument?
  Mr. Griffiths:The hon. Gentleman seems to suggest all the time that we want a policy of low wages. From where does he get that idea?
  Mr. Osborne: I will ask the right hon. Gentleman a question. Will he please tell the House how he proposes to get cheaper food from the 60 per cent. that is produced at home without either cutting the prices which the farmer receives for his products or the wages of the men who produce them?
  Mr. Willey: I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman would answer this question, which is why, in "Britain Strong and Free," it was stated that there would be cheaper and better food?
  Mr. Osborne: It so happens that I am making this speech, and I am asking the question.
  To take it one stage further, it has been said more than once that it is the middleman's fault that food is so dear.
  Mr. I. O. Thomas: May I interrupt the hon. Gentleman?
  Mr. Osborne: No, I cannot give way.
  Mr. Thomas: I only want to say—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I suggest that we should proceed with fewer of these interventions. If I may say so to the hon. Gentleman who is addressing the House, if he persists in asking rhetorical questions it is difficult to prevent them from being answered. A straightforward statement by the hon. Member on the one hand, and a straightforward statement by another hon. Member in due course, on the other, would get us along more quickly.
  Mr. Osborne: I will bear your advice in mind, Mr. Speaker.
  2150
  I should like to give the House some information on the middleman's position.
  Mr. Thomas: Cut out the middleman's rake-off.
  Mr. Osborne:It so happens that among various other activities, I am the chairman of a wholesale grocery company. What we handle is typical of the smaller-sized grocery concerns which distribute foodstuffs to the hundred-and-one small shops in the villages of the counties round about. Hon. Members may be interested to know what profits have been made by that company since 1946. I have all the balance sheets here, and I am prepared to show them to any hon. Member who wishes to see them.
  Since 1946, this company—which, I think is typical of the smaller wholesale grocery companies—has turned over between £3½ million and £4 million of foodstuffs, and the gross profit made, that is, before allowing for wages, amounts to 8·06 per cent. After paying wages—and may I say that wages in that industry are miserably poor; they are among the worst in the country, owing to the fact that the margins are so narrow—the net profit over the nine years, before paying tax, was ·68 per cent. That means that for nine years this company has bought 20s. worth of food and sold it for 20s. l½d. Its profit has been l½d. in the £. No hon. Member opposite could possibly say that that was profiteering.
  Mr. Hamilton: Can the hon. Gentleman say how the Co-operative societies manage?
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member is not giving way.
  Mr. Osborne: I have no inside information about the Co-operative societies. What I am trying to give the House is the actual position on the distributive side of the industry. From the figures I have given, hon. Members opposite will see that the high prices are certainly not caused by distributive costs.
  My final point is that the other 40 per cent. of the food which we consume in this country comes from abroad. As the hon. Member for Sunderland, North said in his opening speech, the largest increases in price are in tea, cocoa, coffee and meat.
  Mr. Willey: In the past few months.
  Mr. Osborne:The first three are produced by men who have a standard of life which is about one-tenth of what we enjoy in this country. I put it again to the right hon. Member for Llanelly, because I am going to touch his heart, does he and his party want poor workers in the Colonies to have their standard of life pushed down still further, and to work for starvation and slave wages so that he and his highly paid industrial workers can have their food at cheaper prices? If that is what he is after, he should say so.
  I will give two more examples. The point has been made about the price of tea. The Indian tea picker receives an average wage of 2s. a day, plus food and shelter. The only way in which we can raise his standard of life is to pay more for what he produces, just as we do in the case of coal. Surely, no hon. Gentleman opposite would suggest that the Indian tea picker should work for less than 2s. a day so that the Socialists of this country may have their tea at a lower price.
  Many Jamaicans are coming to this country because wages here are much higher than they can get at home in the sugar industry.
  Mr. Griffiths: I entirely agree with that. Our relatively higher standard of life has been bought at the expense and poverty of peasantsall over the world, whether it be the picker of tea or any other worker producing primary products in the Colonies at low wages. But I would also point out that fabulous profits have been made out of these people in the Colonies for generations past. Is the hon. Gentleman going to say something about that as well?
  Mr. Osborne: I agree that that is what has happened in the past, but we cannot deal with the present problem by digging up the past.
  I was saying that Jamaicans are coming to this country today because the wages which they can earn here are four times greater than what they can earn at home. A sugar worker in Jamaica gets 10s. a day. I do not think that anyone in this country would say that because we want cheaper food, we should make them work for less than 10s. a day.
  Mr. Griffiths: Hear, hear.
  Mr. Osborne: The right hon. Gentleman says "Hear, hear." But if we do
  2152
  not do that, how can we have cheaper food?
  Mr. I. O. Thomas: The hon. Gentleman has asked a question. He has asked how exploited native workers who produce these products at sweated wages are to get an improved standard of life while we, at the same time, have reasonably priced products. The answer to that question lies in another question, which the hon. Gentleman must try to answer for himself. It is, what happens in between the native producer and the people who buy the products in this country? Where is the rake-off going?
  Sir W. Darling: Ask the Co-operative societies.
  Mr. Thomas: What is the middleman's rake-off?
  Sir W. Darling: Ask the producers of tea in Ceylon.
  Mr. Osborne:The hon. Member opposite was kind enough to give way to me on one occasion, when I pointed out that the Co-operative societies had 14,000 acres of tea gardens from which they produced 12,000,000 lb. of tea a year. They also buy 75 million lb. of tea a year. But their prices were just as high as those of anyone else—and they are not paying the workers on their plantations any more than Messrs. Brooke Bonds or similar producers.
  Mr. Thomas: I challenge that statement.
  Mr. Osborne: If we want to give the depressed people of the world a better standard of life we must pay more for what they produce—
  Mr. Thomas: What does the hon. Gentleman intend to do about it?
  Mr. Osborne: —and if we do that we cannot have cheaper food. Because the whole world is becoming industrialised the position as between the producers of manufactured goods and the producers of foodstuffs will, in the near future, alter in favour of the latter, and it is inevitable—no matter what Government is in power or what they try to do—that food will cost us more. The right hon. Member for Llanelly knows in his heart that that is true.
  Mr. Griffiths: I quite agree, but what did the hon. Member and his party say to the electorate in 1951?
  Mr. Osborne: The only thing that matters to the right hon. Gentleman is what happened in the past. All that he has got in his mind is, "How are we to get votes? Can we get rid of Nye? If so, who shall we get in his place?" What concerns me is the economic welfare of the people. To tell our people that they can have cheaper food, knowing the facts that the right hon. Gentleman knows, is dishonest—and I am surprised at him and his party.
  7.27 p.m.
  Mr. Arthur Lewis: If anyone had walked into this House when the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne) was speaking and asked him to cast his mind back to 1951, I wonder whether he could have remembered what happened during the last General Election. I agree entirely that the cost of living will be one of the major issues confronting the electorate whenever the next election comes. We are in some doubt about that at the moment, because the Prime Minister has not yet told us, but we all believe that it will be between now and next October.
  As the question of the cost of living will be one of the most vital issues at the next election, it is right that we should examine it. We should also remember what was said about it at the last election. It was not hon. Members on this side of the House who, at that election, promised to bring down the cost of food; to reduce the price of commodities; to reduce the cost of living; to "mend that hole in your purse or pocket"; to make the £ worth something, and to do all the very things which the hon. Member for Louth now suggests that we shall promise to do at the next election. We never promised such things in 1951, and we shall not do so at the next election.
  What we shall do is exactly what we did in 1951, namely, to explain to the electorate—as the hon. Member is now explaining, four years after the last election—that to a great extent the high cost of living is outside our control, because we have to import a large proportion not only of our food but of our basic raw materials, and are, therefore, dependent
  2154
  upon world prices, and are not in a position to control those prices. The Minister—and the Leader of the House on a previous occasion—tried to make out that when the Conservatives came to office they found the skeletons in the cupboard; found that the cost of living had gone up, and they did not know anything about it, but if that is true, why did they promise at the last election to put it all right? If they did not know the position, why did they promise to put it right? The fact is that they knew.
  We know, and the hon. Member for Louth knows, that the reason the cost of living rose under the Labour Government, especially during the last 18 months of its term of office, was that world prices rose to astronomical heights mainly because, owing to the Korean war, there was so much stockpiling and building up of stocks of raw materials that commodities rose in price by 700 per cent., 800 per cent. and 900 per cent., and the cost of our imports rose by 120 per cent.
  The astonishing thing is that, when the Labour Government were in power, by a system of controls and wise Government they were able to check the rise in the cost of living far more than any other country in Europe. Prices here rose far less rapidly than in any other European country. It is not for us but for the hon. Member for Louth to explain to his constituents just how far the Government have succeeded.
  Mr. Osborne: I think that the hon. Member wishes to be fair and honest about the matter and does not want to misrepresent me. If he reads Hansard he will find that I have been saying the same thing for the ten years that I have been in the House.
  Mr. Lewis: Then I bow to the hon. Member, and I shall correct myself and say that in their official manifesto "Britain Strong and Free" under the honourable signature of the Prime Minister, all the Tory Party—with the exception of the hon. Member for Louth—promised to bring down the cost of living; reduce the price of food, and make the £ worth something. How far have they succeeded? They made those promises and pledges well knowing, as the hon. Member has just revealed—he has let the cat out of the bag, as he often

  2155
  does—that these matters were outside the control of the Government.
  The Government are responsible for internal causes and effects. The hon. Member for Louth will surely agree that it is not the wages of the workers in Ceylon that have pushed up rents; it has been entirely due to the action of the Government. It has not been through any external cause that big rebates have been allowed to Surtax payers, or that there have been rebates on Purchase Tax upon mink coats, refrigerators and washing machines. The hon. Member for Edgbaston (Miss Pitt) triedto suggest that all working-class housewives are now getting washing machines, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners and the rest. What a story! I certainly have seen no signs of them in the working-class homes in West Ham. It may be true of Birmingham.
  Mr. Victor Yates: No; it is not true of Birmingham.
  Mr. Lewis: My hon. Friend the Member for Ladywood (Mr. Yates)—and, I think, in future the hon. Member for Aston (Mr. Wyatt)—will have to tell that to the hon. Member for Edgbaston.
  The point we must be quite clear about here is the fact—and it is a fact—that, with world prices of raw materials falling, the Government have achieved the remarkable success of allowing the cost of living to reach the highest-ever figure. Over the last year the price of food alone has risen by 20 per cent. Hon. Members opposite say, "Well, wages have gone up by 4 per cent. and the cost of living has gone up by 4 per cent." The hon. Member for Edgbaston mentioned some of the items that have been reduced in price, such as towels and sheets. The hon. Member for Louth referred to my size. I make no apology for it; I like it—but even with my size I do not wear out sheets or towels every day of the week. My wife, therefore, does not haveto buy a pair of sheets every day of the week or every week of the year, but she does have to buy the eggs, bacon, butter and other day-to-day necessities of life.
  The fact is that the old-age pensioners and those in the lower income groups cannot afford to buy these day-to-day commodities the prices of which have gone up 20 per cent. in the past year, as the official figures show. We are told that
  2156
  the old-age pensioners are to get an increase. They were promised an increase about six months ago and if they live long enough they may get it next month. I hope that they will be here to receive it, but many of them will not be. Even when they do get the increase, the overwhelming majority of them will have it reduced from their supplementary allowances, so that, in fact, they will get an increase of only 2s. 6d. That half-a-crown has already been lost in the increased cost of living which has taken place, particularly in the price of food, since the Government announced that the increase was to be given.
  The Government have done nothing at all to control or reduce the cost of living, even when it has been within their power to do so. They have done the very reverse. By giving big hand-outs to the steel barons, the road hauliers and the brewers, and by giving big tax concessions to the well-to-do, they have been responsible for increasing the cost of living. When we on these benches get back into power we shall put right some of the retrogressive actions of this Government. We shall be in the happy position of finding that prices of imported raw materials and commodities, instead of increasing as they used to do, are dropping.
  We are told by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that because world prices are moving against us, we may be in trouble. We are now, therefore, promised a further increase in the cost of living because world prices are against us. In addition, as a result of the increases in wages for railway men, miners, gas and electricity workers and engineers—and rightly so—there will inevitably be a further increase in the cost of living.
  When the election comes along, we on these benches will not promise the electorate to bring down the cost of living. We never did so in the last election, and we shall not do it at the next. We shall tell the electorate that the cost of living will go up as a result of the policy of the present Government.
  My last word is to tell the electorate not to be caught twice. The last election, in my opinion, was won mainly because many housewives mistakenly believed the false promises made by the Tories. I believe that the Tories will again make the same promises. They will say, "Return us so that we can continue the

  2157
  work which we have already started." I say to the women of this country, "Be prepared. Do not be caught twice. Let us get back to a really strong Socialist Government which can deal with the day-to-day cost of living on behalf of the whole of the people, and not on behalf of those few who represent the vested interests of this country."
  The hon. Member for Louth laughs, but if he looks at the official figures he will find the facts. Those who were wealthy in October, 1951, are more wealthy today. The rich have become richer at the expense of the poor, who have become poorer.
  Major W. J, Anstruther-Gray: The hon. Gentleman has said that wages have been rising. It is, therefore, untrue to suggest that the poor are becoming poorer.
  Mr. Lewis: The hon. and gallant Gentleman is quite right. Wages have risen 4 per cent. officially, as the cost of living has gone up 4 per cent. also. But if the hon. and gallant Gentleman looks at the figures of dividends, profits and interest, he will find that they have risen twice as fast as wage rates.
  There has been almost a 12 per cent. increase for the shareholders and the moneyed people. While it may be true that wages have kept pace with the cost of living, those who are in the happy position of owning stocks and shares, and who do not produce, have been obtaining, on official figures, almost three times as great an increase in their unearned incomes.
  7.35 p.m.
  Mr. John Eden: The hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Lewis) has made his usual colourful speech. He made certain references of a strictly party character, and I want to take up some of those remarks and follow him as best I can. In doing so, there are one or two points that I want to make myself.
  The hon. Gentleman has talked about hand-outs to the brewers and the big businessmen, and has brought out the old cry about class distinction, capitalists, and the wicked Tories grinding down the poor. Hon. Members opposite seem to feel that that is a good heartrending cry for the next election, and when they have
  2158
  no constructive suggestions to make they fall back on that kind of sob stuff.
  The hon. Member said that shares and dividends have increased. The other day there was published a Stock Exchange report which showed that the increase in dividends between 1950 and 1954 was something over £100 million. The amount paid out of that in tax was about half, and a certain amount of the remainder was reinvested. Wages, on the other hand, went up by nearly £400 million in a single year. The example which the hon. Gentleman gave of the recent wage increases—
  Mr. Lewis Mr. Lewis rose—
  Mr. Eden: I do not intend to give w ay because I wish to give a chance to others to speak.
  Mr. Lewis: The hon. Gentleman has misquoted me—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member has not given way.
  Mr. Eden: If I have misquoted the hon. Gentleman I withdraw my misquotation, but I am not aware of having quoted him at all. I have referred to some of the things which he said, and I have pointed out that the interpretation that he has placed on the information which he has chosento give is wholly false and partisan. I am only trying to give a true picture of the situation. It is wrong that the hon. Gentleman should get away with those statements.
  I am most concerned about the people who are hardest hit, such as those who live on small fixed incomes who have not benefited by the wage increases to which the hon. Gentleman alluded. They are not so lucky as the miners, the engineers, the dockers, and the railwaymen, who have benefited from wage increases. They have, in fact, suffered considerably. Their incomes fell a great deal when the £was devalued not so long ago. That is something which hon. Members opposite choose to forget, but it plays a great part in the cost of living today.
  Those people have worked all their lives, have done their best to save a nest egg for their retirement, and have tried to invest it. They have been trying to deal with their own responsibilities themselves, and have endeavoured, as far as possible, to take the burden off the State

  2159
  and look after themselves. The wasteful money-spending policy of the Socialist Government has virtually ruined their little nest eggs.
  I hope that hon. Members opposite will remember some of these people, who are among the hardest hit in the community, instead of thinking in terms of the powerful labour organisations to whose voices they listen so carefully. It is the powerful labour organisations which complain most about increases in the cost of living, and it is those organisations which demand most. By getting most they also contribute most to the increases in the cost of living.
  A number of figures have been mentioned, but the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) did not mention the wage earners, the people who work in our industry, and the fact that their wages have been steadily going up and up, well above the rate of increase which has taken place in the cost of living; and that fact has very materially contributed to the increase in the cost of goods sold in this country.
  Mr. Percy Wells: Tell that to the agricultural workers.
  Mr. Eden: We have heard a lot about dividend and wage restraint but Professor G. D. H. Cole, a Socialist economist, writing in "Money Trade and Investment," showed that dividend and wage restraint, such as had existed, broke down in 1950. Dividend restraint still exists in part, and many managements do their best to limit dividend increases, but what has never existed has been any form of wage restraint.
  The trade unions have taken every possible advantage they could of exercising their bargaining powers to secure the maximum wage increases they could get for their men. They are in a very strong bargaining position because, as we certainly welcome, we have full employment in this country—the greatest degree of employment this country has ever known. There are more notified vacancies than spare men to fill them. That is something which hon. Members opposite seek to evade when they fight an election. I should like them to go to the country, when they get an opportunity, and say, "Our statement in 1951that the Tories would bring unemployment has proved to be untrue."
  2160
  For we now have such full employment that the trade unions are in a very strong bargaining position and there is no free movement of labour such as we should like. [HON MEMBERS: "Ah."] But the trade unions have made full use of their position, which is why most wage increases have taken place. Many companies have to resort to bribes nowadays, not only to keep their men at work but to encourage men to come in to work.
  I will give some examples of the way in which organised labour is bribed to do a day's work. We have factory welfare schemes, special canteen prices, works pension schemes, recreation grounds, bonus payments, and overtime pay, held out as a great encouragement
  Mr. Lewis: Why not?
  Mr. Eden:These are facts, as hon. Members opposite know perfectly well. These measures are adopted not solely in order to show how generous management is but because management wants to keep the labour which it has, and to encourage the labour to do a day's work. These things materially increase the cost of living.
  Mr. Maurice Orbach: Grind them down.
  Mr. Eden:I hope that the trade unions, the men and women who work in industry, will demonstrate that they have a sense of responsibility, that they realise the heavy responsibility which they have in this country: that they can contribute far more than anyone else to reducing the cost of living by exercising a little wage restraint.
  As a whole, they have admirable working conditions in this country. They have a short working week, full employment, and a rising standard of living, and they and their families are also bolstered up by the Welfare State. But what they choose to ignore, and what too many people choose to ignore in this country, is that those benefits entail certain obligations to the rest of the community. One of them, I maintain, is that, as far as possible, they should exercise restraint in their demands for the increasing of wages. I certainly hope that they will do so. Apparently they consider it as their birthright to get all these things, and they feel that all they need to do is a little work and then to ask for more.

  2161
  We have heard quite a lot about working longer hours in the week, but what is needed is working in those hours a good deal harder than people are working now. It is peculiar that one is not allowed to make any attacks on organised labour or trade unions, but the hon. Member for West Ham, North and his hon. Friends can freely attack management, the people who issue capital and those who run the risks of investing money in industry. They can attack such people as hard as they like and go scot-free, but if anyone answers them with an attack on organised labour he is accused of class warfare and class distinction.
  Hon. Members opposite cannot have it both ways. It is as well that someone should speak about the men who are producing the goods of this country, who are vitally concerned with rises in the cost of living, and whose jobs are dependent on our ability to continue to hold the cost of living steady, as the Government have done. It is right that we should make some statement about the part which they play in the economy of this country.
  Management, too, can play a very great part, particularly by taking the people in their employment into their confidence more. They do not tell them nearly enough about how the business is run, how the money is spent, and what are the dangers of competition. We have to remember the dangers of competition, because unless we can face this competition from Germany, Japan and the United States, this country will be hit very hard indeed, and the cost of living will be affected very seriously. This competition is not just a bogy which has come out of the blue; it is being seriously felt in this country. If anyone doubts it, let him ask the motor industry.
  Unless we can get better labour relations, unless we can cut down restrictive practices, wherever they may be—as the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) said—and unless we can speed up the delivery of our goods and make certain that we meet the demands of our customers by delivering the goods on time, we shall never meet successfully the challenge of overseas competition and maintain our position in world markets.
  It is only by doing that that we can continue to maintain the present rise in the standard of living. We are spending more in this country, we are consuming
  2162
  more—as the Minister said; and he gave figures to support it—and we are getting more from the State in benefits. We have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Edgbaston (Miss Pitt) about how family allowances have been increased and how pensions are about to be increased. All these things are taking place, and people still demand and expect more, still clamour for more, and still, at the same time, want to pay less and less for it and call for reduced taxation.
  Mr. Willis: Who produces it?
  Mr. Eden: I know that hon. Members opposite think they can get away with it by introducing class warfare, but that will not help the country in the next few years. It is my generation and the next which will be concerned with meeting the increases in costs which will be made if the present trend towards higher wages and demanding more for fewer results should continue.
  Apart from the trade unions, organised labour and management, the Government can also help to bring down the cost of living. The part they can play particularly is in their Departmental expenditure. I know that a great deal has already been done in that direction.
  I am grateful that we have this Government, and not one elected on a programme as laid out in the Opposition's red paper, "Challenge to Britain." If a Government got into power on the mandate of the plans which the Opposition has put in "Challenge to Britain," with its beautiful, woolly-headed schemes, without any thought of where the money is to come from and who is to pay for them, without any confession at all as to how much they would cost, woe betide the people of this country, particularly the pensioners and wage earners. The cost of running the socialised machine for which they hope would cripple the country.
  I believe that still further reductions can be made in Government expenditure. There is too vast an expenditure in the Departments. A colossal wastage is still going on.
  Mr. Sydney Silverman: Sack them all.
  Mr. Eden:I know of case after case where there are far too many spending their lives interfering with other people's lives. [Interruption.] Hon. Members

  2163
  opposite now seem slightly happier than they were when I began. I am glad to see that they are recovering their spirits. I hope they will also recognise that in making these remarks I have tried at least to be honest and have attacked the three principal causes which I consider are the main causes for the slight rise in the cost of living which has taken place under the present Government. Hon. Members opposite try to depend entirely on their rather nebulous and out-dated story of the wicked Tory boss. They had better forget about that pretty quickly because the electorate has long since got over its fear of the spectre which the Opposition tries to portray.
  I should like to see more co-operation in industry because I think it would be a great help in bringing down the cost of our manufactured goods. [Interruption.] I am trying to cut my speech short.
  Mr. Hamilton: Wrong page.
  Mr. Eden:We have heard a lot about the increased cost of living which has taken place under the present Government. If, indeed, it is so bad—
  Mr. Orbach: Call in uncle.
  Mr. Eden:—I advise hon. Members who represent powerful labour organisations to go back and preach to the men who support those organisations to demonstrate their sense of responsibility to this country by not forging ahead day after day with demands for increased wages. Let them show that they also consider not only what is going into their own pockets every day of the week but how the countryis placed. Let them show that they, too, consider the position of those on fixed incomes and the position of old-age pensioners. Let them contribute by doing an honest day's work for an honest day's wage, and help to produce the goods which the country needs to sell in overseas markets.
  7.54 p.m.
  Miss Margaret Herbison: Most of us on this side of the House, and perhaps some of his hon. Friends, felt that when the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. J. Eden) spoke in a previous debate, on education, he had reached a very low depth. I do not think any of us has changed our
  2164
  mind after the speech we have heard him make today. What a farce it is for an hon. Member who has made such a speech to finish by saying that he wants better labour relations and greater cooperation in industry.
  The hon. Member slighted every working man and woman in the country. He suggested that they have used the position of full employment to make demands which were not just demands. If one examines the whole history of the trade union movement from 1945 until the present day one can only come to the conclusion that our great trade unions have been led by the most responsible leadership.
  I would say to the hon. Member that before he comes to this House he ought to make very careful inquiries to see that the points he intends to make are correct. He has indicted the workers but not said a word about the people who are jeopardising not just the present standard of the country, but the future security of employment for our people. As I hope to show later, if there are any dangers for the future prosperity of our people one cannot put them down to the working men of this country, but to the very class to whom the hon. Member was giving the greatest praise.
  I have listened to almost the whole of this debate. I should like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey). He made a most devastating indictment against the Government. The Minister skated over many of the points that had been made and to which we expected an answer. None of those who followed the Minister on his side of the House has found any answer at all to the specific points made by my hon. Friend. I hope that the Economic Secretary, who is to wind up the debate, will deal quite specifically with the points that have been made.
  As for the Minister's speech and the speech of the hon. Lady the Member for Edgbaston (Miss Pitt), I have never known such complacency in this House. It would appear that everybody in the country is living a very full and happy life under this Government. The hon. Lady said people had told her that if she were to go to their constituencies she would see how old-age pensioners were living and she had replied that she had not been given the chance to go. I am

  2165
  sorry that the hon. Lady is not present, because I am certain that even in her constituency, in Birmingham—without going to any other constituency—she could find old people suffering miserably under this Government.
  The Minister said that no politician should be ashamed of saying that he has not entirely attained his objectives. In the statement he made he was very biased indeed. We are not accusing the Government of not entirely attaining their objectives—we are accusing them of having made no attempt whatever to attain the objectives that they set out in the General Election in 1951. That is our criticism today, and I want to deal particularly with that. I would not accuse any politician who had really tried but, through forces outside his control, had failed. I do blame very much indeed the members of this Government who have not even aimed at attaining their objectives, but have ruthlessly and shamefully broken the promises they made to the British people in 1951.
  The hon. Lady the Member for Edg-baston tried to show from the Tory pamphlet, "Britain Strong and Free," that the Tories had not made any specific pledges on this matter of the cost of living. I have a quotation from that document, through which they tried to tell the British people that
  "The rising cost of living is the rising cost of Socialism."
  That was the story they were telling the country. They went on to say:
  "The remedy is in your own hands. Turn out the Socialists and help the Conservatives to fight the rising cost of living."
  Was that not an attempt to tell the people of Britain, in 1951, that all they needed to do was to return a Tory Government to bring the cost of living down? They went on to say, in that very same document:
  "A Government will be judged according to the effect of its programme upon rising costs and prices."
  I hope that they believe that today, because if they still believe that today they know that their fate is sealed at the next General Election.
  We have been told today by various Members opposite, by the Minister and by the hon. Lady the Member for Edgbaston particularly, that we have been eating more. They have tried to tell us
  2166
  about the various things we have been eating more. I ask those hon. Members, particularly the Minister and the hon. Lady, whose speech was based on this assertion, who has been eating more? To us on this side it is of the greatest importance in examining this matter to find out whether all of our people have been eating more, or whether some of our people have been eating more and some of our people have been eating less.
  Judging from my visits to the old people in my constituency, I am in no doubt at all that many of those old people who have no other income but their old-age pensions and supplementary pensions are eating less today than they ate when the Labour Party was the Government of this country. I talk not only of the old-age pensioners. I am thinking also of the children of the lowest paid wage earners.
  The Tories are making a very different claim today from the claim they made in 1951. Their claim in 1951 was that they would bring down the cost of living. Their claim today, their claim in the television brains trust broadcast, their claim in all their propaganda, is not that they will bring down the cost of living but that at least it has not gone up so much under a Tory Government as it did under a Labour Government. They have moved a long way from their General Election promises of 1951. I think it is important that we should examine that claim.
  This country, of all the countries in the world, is the most vulnerable to movements of prices in world markets. There is not another country that imports to such a large extent as ours. Because of that necessity to import we are very vulnerable indeed to fluctuations in world market prices. From 1945 to 1951 there was an increase in world market prices of almost all the raw materials we used and of about 50 per cent. of the food we ate of 120 per cent., yet during those years, under a Labour Government, the increase in the cost of living was 34 per cent. I say that that reflects great credit on the policies of the Labour Government.
  What chances this Tory Government have had since they came to power to honour the specific pledges they made. Until a few weeks ago world prices were falling. There was a decrease of 16 per cent. in the prices of our imports. Every one of our housewives had a right to expect that when she went to the shops

  2167
  she would find a decrease in prices. No one on the Government side can gainsay that she has found the opposite. We are told today that there has been a 13 per cent. increase in the cost of living as a whole, and a 20 per cent. increase in the cost of food.
  We are also told that wages have kept pace, under this Government, withthe increase in the cost of living. If one were to leave that statement thus one would be giving a completely wrong impression of what is happening to thousands of people. The old-age pensioners have had an increase in their pensions of only 4s. since the Government came to power, and that 4s. increase was for two people. The hon. Lady the Member for Edgbaston said they were to get an increase next month. That reminds me of a very old Scots saying:
  "Leev auld horse and ye'll get corn."
  That decision was made so long ago many of the old people who were supposed to have benefited by it will not be living next month to benefit by it.
  The old-age pensioners, the people with small fixed incomes, agricultural workers, many of the labouring classes—all those in the lowest income groups have to spend a bigger proportion of their incomes on food than do the rest of the people. So that it is quite wrong to say that wage increases for them have kept pace with the increase in the cost of living, and it is about these people we are very worried indeed today.
  The hon. Lady the Member for Edgbaston talked about rebates. That is a story often told in Tory propaganda, but the people I am talking about, the people about whom we on this side are concerned, have not had any tax rebates: their incomes were so low that they were outside them. They have not benefited from that, but they have suffered because of the policy of the Government in taking away the food subsidies. I mentioned just now that two old-age pensioners had received an increase of 4s. in their basic pension since this Government came into power, but they have lost almost 6s. 8d. a week in food subsidies, so that they have suffered. And so have the children of the workers in the lowest wage groups.
  From the hon. Lady the Member for Edgbaston and from the Minister we heard again today the story about the big increase there has been in the sale of
  2168
  television sets, and the hon. Lady talked about the great increase in the consumption of tobacco and drink, andof the money spent on the pools. I come from a home where my father neither smoked nor drank, and where, under previous Tory Governments, he and his family suffered very greatly indeed. Many of the people with whom we on this side are concerned are in that same category. If they did not spend a penny on cigarettes, if they did not spend a penny on drink, if they never put sixpence on the pools, but were as thrifty as my parents were, as things are today under this Government they would still suffer greatly because of the increase in the cost of living.
  There is no doubt about it. We know from the Economic Bulletin of the Uinted Nations that there has been a larger increase in the cost of living in this country under a Tory Government than there has been in any other major country in Western Europe. The hon. and gallant Member for Ilford, South (Squadron Leader Cooper), in an interjection—it was a rather "Smart Alec" interjection—said he hoped that we on this side would notice the people who were complaining about the high price of coal and of the stones mixed up in it.
  We have had that sort of interjection hurled at us often, and we have often been asked what we think about the high price of coal. It is important that we should deal with this, because the suggestion is quite clearly—it was made very clear by the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West—that our miners are not pulling their weight today.
  I will give the figures. The output per man shift at the face in 1939 was three tons. The output in 1955, according to the latest figure, is 3·27 tons. In other words, there has been an increase under nationalisation of over ¼ ton. The overall output per man shift in 1939 was 1·14 tons and today it is 1·24 tons. It is important to remember these things. I come from a mining area and I am intensely interested in these matters.
  Another point which should be noted is that the National Coal Board has been carrying national responsibility. If the pits had been under private enterprise today, pits which are making losses of up to 30s. a ton would have been closed. They are being kept open by the Coal

  2169
  Board because the nation so desperately needs coal. No one can tell me that that responsibility for the national well-being would have been borne by private coal owners.
  According to the Economic Bulletin of the United Nations, the internal prices of coal are lower in the United Kingdom than in any other Western European country. One would never have thought from interjections made by hon. Members opposite today that that was the case. I interjected when the hon. and gallant Member for Ilford, South made a comment. I should like him to come to my village, where there is a higher incidence of pneumoconiosis than in the whole of Scotland. The hon. and gallant Member would also see a number of miners with broken backs, paralysed from the waist downwards, going about in wheeled chairs—and that is only one village. The Government realise—for they have not attempted to denationalise the coal mines—that if it were not for the miners there would not be full employment today. There would have been a much lower standard of living for many of our people if the coal industry had not been nationalised and the Coal Board had not taken the steps which it has taken in recent years.
  Reference has also been made to security of employment and wages restraint. When we speak about hours and wages we should also consider the rise in profits and dividends. How can the Government ask for restraint on demands for wages when in almost every part of their policy they have made it possible for there to be no restraint on profits and dividends? All this is having an effect on everybody's cost of living in this country and if it goes on it will have a serious effect on future employment. I hope that the Minister will have an answer to many of the points which have been put from this side of the House in the course of the debate.
  8.15 p.m.
  Mr. J. B. Godber: I am very glad to have the opportunity of following the hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison). She always speaks with great sincerity, and I always enjoy her speeches. When I was in my constituency last week I was surprised when I visited a hobbies exhibition to find exhibited there by the local camera
  2170
  club a photograph of the smiling face of the hon. Lady. The caption under the photograph was "The Canvasser." I was very happy to see her photograph exhibited in my constituency.
  I am sure that, with her charm, she is always successful when she goes canvassing, but I do not think that her constituents, when they come to think about her arguments tonight, will consider that they really hold water. I do not want to follow too closely the points made by the hon. Lady, but she took up a point which was made earlier by her hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Lewis), which must be refuted. She spoke of an increase in food prices of 20 per cent. in the last 12 months.
  Mr. Hamilton: No.
  Miss Herbison: I did not. I spoke of increases since October, 1951.
  Mr. Godber:At any rate, that is what the hon. Member for West Ham, North said. I am sorry if I am misinterpreting what the hon. Lady said, and I am sorry that the hon. Member for West Ham, North is not here now. Actually, the Interim Index of Retail Prices has risen from 109·5 to 119·2, and that is certainly not a rise of anything like 20 per cent.
  It is always possible to produce many different sets of figures in the course of a debate on the cost of living. We have certainly had plenty of them today and I do not want to enlarge further on them. It is always easy to choose a particular period to suit one's own point of view, and draw conclusions from it.
  The only thing that is absolutely clear from the fact that this debate has taken place today is that the Opposition is paying a compliment to the Government in that it is saying that we on this side of the House should not have allowed a rise in the cost of living to take place, disregarding the fact that that rise has been only half of what it was when the Opposition was in office. In other words, the Opposition realises that we are much more efficient in that we have only allowed a rise of half of the rise which took place when hon. andright hon. Gentlemen opposite were in office. The Opposition thinks, therefore, that we should have been even more efficient and should not have allowed even that rise to take place. We take that as a sincere compliment.
  Mr. Dodds: What about the reduction in world prices? Will the hon. Member say anything about that?
  Mr. Godber:I was referring to food prices, and world food prices have not been reduced. It is true that they dipped slightly in 1952 but they are now well above that figure.
  Mr. Dodds: The hon. Member should ask the Economic Secretary to the Treasury.
  Mr. Godber:No doubt my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary will deal with that point. Food prices are not lower. It is only commodity prices that are lower.
  The House has heard from our side about abundant supplies and from the other side about how people cannot afford to take up those supplies. I should like to quote something extremely sensible which was said on 2nd November, 1950, in these words:
  "Finally, I think there is another reason why nowadays people feel stringencies which they did not feel in earlier years. It is the simple fact… that there happens to be more to buy. When there was nothing much to buy in the shops people had plenty of money in their pockets, and the complaints, as we all remember very well, were about shortages. When more things that we all want to buy come on the market—well, my experience, at any rate, is that my wife presses me for more money to replace things—for instance, clothing, and sayswe ought to spend a little more money on clothes; and we find the temptation, of course, to spend more ourselves very much greater; and this creates a feeling—a very natural feeling—of stringency, that money is tighter and that somehow or other the cost of living is going up."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd November, 1950; Vol. 480, c. 345.]
  I forgot to say that those words were spoken by the right hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Gaitskell). I thought that those words were very sensible. They explain a good deal of the attitude shown by hon. Members opposite today.
  The position of the housewife has been commented upon already today, but it is worth enlarging upon because the housewives now are in a position to exert a powerful influence on prices in many ways, through the greater freedom which now exists. They are no longer chained to the ration books but are able to buy what they like where they like, and there is sufficient abundance and choice for them to leave aside a particular item, if they so wish, and by doing so force down the price of that commodity.
  2172
  That has already been shown recently in the case of tea. The fact that housewives were holding off buying helped to cause the welcome drop in the price of tea which has taken place in recent weeks. The same thing could happen in regard to fresh meat. The present price of home-killed best joints is high because meat costs a great deal to produce in this country at this time of year. There is, however, plenty of imported meat which can be bought at lower prices, and if every housewife bought one joint of imported meat in every two joints she purchased, it would immediately react on the price of home-killed meat. So the housewives have an ability now which they have not had for 14 years, and they should be encouraged to use it.
  Now I turn to deal with one or two points made by the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey). The hon. Lady for Lanarkshire, North said that he made a devastating indictment of Government policy. I thought his indictment was so devastating that it sunk the hon. Gentleman himself. In fact, I thought that he was completely submerged beneath the weight of his own statistics at the end of his speech. He produced such a wealth of them that they went out in all directions and ended nowhere, if I may say so without being too unkind to him.
  Mr. Collins:The hon. Gentleman may say so, but it is not true.
  Mr. Godber: Indeed it is, as I shall show.
  The hon. Gentleman spoke about eggs. He seemed to be worried about the cost of imported eggs at one stage. If I understood his argument aright it was that we have been importing too many.
  Mr. Willey: I apologise if I expressed myself badly. I called attention to the fact that the import of eggs had dropped 10 per cent.
  Mr. Godber: Yes, and I understood that the hon. Gentleman was—
  Mr. Willey:May I explain, in order that the hon. Gentleman knows the case he has to meet, that I was dealing with one of the defences of the Government that if we have a high-cost domestic market, we attract foodstuffs to this country? I was saying that our experience over the past few years has shown that to be false.
  Mr. Godber: My point is that there are ample eggs in the shops at the present time.
  Mr. Willey: But there are far fewer eggs than there were in 1951.
  Mr. Godber: Oh, no. The consumption of eggs is far higher now than it was then. The hon. Gentleman cannot get away with that. In 1951 it was a case of a black market in eggs. Today the housewife can buy what she wants. That argument is complete nonsense. If I cannot get any further with the hon. Gentleman on that point, shall I turn to what he said about consumer subsidies?
  Mr. Willey: Before the hon. Gentleman leaves that point, may I apologise and say that I ought to have referred to 1950? [HON MEMBERS: "Ah."] Well, that was the year when there was an amplitude of eggs, whereas 1951was a bad egg year. Does he want to take that as a standard? Egg production is affected by the weather. In 1954 we had an exceptionally good egg year but consumption was still less than in 1950. I should like to know whether the argument of the hon. Gentleman is that we shall never have as many eggs as we had in 1950.
  Mr. Godber: Certainly not. I am saying that we can get as many eggs as we like at this time, and I do not accept the figures of the hon. Gentleman. They take no account of the many eggs that now pass from the farmhouse to the consumer, of which there is no record.
  Mr. Willey:Will the hon. Gentleman deal with the facts before us? If there was a black market of unrecorded eggs in 1950, the true figure for consumption was so much the higher.
  Mr. Godber:The point that I am making is that there is now no need for a black market. There are plenty of eggs for sale today, as one sees on going along every road in the country, where there are placards "Eggs 4s. a dozen," or whatever the price may be. The fact is that any housewife knows that there are far greater supplies of eggs available today, and it is not a point to which the hon. Gentleman's argument can stand up.
  He also spoke of consumer subsidies being whittled away, instancing bread and
  2174
  milk, and he mentioned a reduction of £17 million or £18 million. At the same time he said that home-grown wheat prices were low but that there was no reduction in the price of bread. He must know that much of that whittling away of which he was speaking was due to the fact that there was not the need for the same subsidy on bread because the price of flour was low. So his arguments were defeating one another. That is why I said they went in all directions.
  Mr. Willey:If the hon. Gentleman will deal with the point I was dealing with then, may I explain that I was saying that the Trading Loss Account of the Ministry of Food was standing at £326 million and that the commercial losses were greater than are indicated by that figure alone, because the milk, bread and welfare subsidies had been reduced by £22½ million, compared with the original estimates.
  Mr. Godber: Yes, but the hon. Gentleman used the words "whittling away." He tried to pretend that we were cutting the food subsidies, whereas the reason for the whittling away was the one I have given.
  Mr. Willey Mr. Willey rose—
  Mr. Godber: I have given away a great deal—
  Mr. Willey: If the hon. Gentleman—
  Mr. Godber: I have been as fair as any hon. Member can reasonably be expected to be, and the facts are clear in this case. The arguments of the hon. Gentleman will not bear close investigation. I also want to take him up on another point.
  I turn now to the effects of Socialist policy. We have heard a lot about the shortcomings of the present Government, but what about the policy of the Labour Party? As to its policy with regard to food, we got a little reference to it in "Challenge to Britain," but we have largely to develop our ideas about it from the policy statement on agricultural marketing which has recently been published. It is a most interesting document which I, for one, have studied most carefully.
  I am interested to see that the Labour Party pins its faith largely, as regards both home produced food and imported food, on commodity commissions. The

  2175
  document talks of a cereals commission which will operate fixed guaranteed prices on a quality basis, and imports will be contracted for either directly by the Government or through the agency of the commission. That is bulk buying, of course. There is the same sort of thing in respect of livestock. Imports from exporting countries will be contracted for either directly or through the agency of a commission. The whole idea is bulk purchase by commodity commissions.
  What I looked for most carefully in the document, but did not find, was a statement about just what the Labour Party was going to do about the control of imports. However, the hon. Member for Sunderland, North has been very forthcoming. He supplied some of the answer in his speech on Friday, 11th March, when we debated agriculture. He was talking about this document. He said:
  "What about imports? We know that the real difficulty about the policy of guarantees is the isolation—and it is no good trying to avoid it—of home agricultural production from world markets. That is something against which we must safeguard our British agricultural industry in the most efficient and expeditious way possible. All that is required is that the livestock commission, as a non-profit-making body, should have the power at the point of control to determine the movement of imports. That, in short, is the proposal of the Labour Party about livestock marketing.—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th March, 1955; Vol. 317, c. 881–2.]
  If that means anything at all, it means control of imports. I imagine that what the hon. Gentleman means is that the Labour Party would control imports, and having read the policy statement, I presume it would do so in such a way as to maintain not too great a supply but almost a shortage in order to bring import prices up to the prices guaranteed to the home producer. In other words, if it means anything at all, it means artificially high prices to British housewives. It means bringing world prices up to home prices wherever they fall short, and, thus, British housewives will have to pay the full prices.
  Under the present system whereby we make deficiency payments we are able to allow housewives a free run of commodities from all over the world at world prices. Under the system advocated by the Labour Party there will be restriction on imports and the housewives will have
  2176
  to pay through the nose as a result of the maintenance of an artificial price for the home farmer.
  If that is the policy, I could understand it having some appeal to the agricultural community if they really thought it would be implemented. It is all very well to put that proposal forward on the one hand, but it is absolute hypocrisy to put forward on the other hand the suggestion that food prices should be lower and that the cost of living should not rise. The two things just do not go together.
  I hope that whoever winds up the debate for the Opposition will show very clearly where the Labour Party stands on this issue. If not, it will be our duty to tell the constituencies throughout the country, and particularly the agricultural constituencies, just what the proposal means. I am certain that if it were implemented it would mean a substantial rise in the cost of living. It would be Government action deliberately to put up the price of food to the housewives. If that is the policy of the Labour Party, I hope that the Opposition will say so clearly when the next General Election comes. If it is not its policy, I hope that the Opposition will repudiate the document. Otherwise hon. Members opposite are misleading the agricultural community.
  I wish, in passing, to refer to the speech of the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond), who brought into the debate a touch of realism which was most welcome, particularly as it came from the benches opposite. He showed what is really at stake, and that if we are to hold the rise in the cost of living we must secure greater productivity. Whether the productivity comes from farm or factory does not matter much. So long as it is commensurate with the rise in wages and profits we can carry on without any loss, and should be able to stabilise the cost of living.
  It is when wages and profits rise at a higher rate than the increase in productivity that we get into trouble. I think that the hon. Member stressed the real point at which we should all aim if we have the benefit of the people of this country at heart. I hope that when my hon. Friend replies, he will touch upon that very important topic.

  2177
  I get a little tired of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite talking about subsidies and controls as though they were something which they invented in some sort of magic way to solve these problems. They inherited them at the end of the war, and their only claim to any credit is that they inherited what were perfectly good arrangements for war-time and prostituted them by using them in conditions for which they were wholly unsuited.
  I am glad that hon. Members on this side of the House have referred to the standard of living, which is the real basis. By whatever figure one judges it, the standard of living throughout the whole range of people of this country today, certainly not only the well-to-do, is better than it was in October, 1951. No amount of confusion which hon. Members opposite may seek to spread will stop the electors from realising that. That is the vital point to which we should hold, and we shall improve the standard more and more if we take the line that the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland suggested, and step up productivity even more. There will then be no limit to what we can do for the people of this country.
  8.36 p.m.
  Mr. William Hamilton: If this debate has done nothing else, it will have been valuable if it makes it impossible for any political party in any future election to go to the electorate and make specific promises about reducing the cost of living. It would be dishonest for us to go to the country at the next General Election and promise that we will bring down the cost of living. Our main charge in this debate is that the Government got into power largely through making just that promise. They did not go to the country and say what they are now saying. They did not go to the country and say to the electorate, "If you return us the cost of living will rise, but not as fast as it did under the Labour Government."
  The hon. Lady the Member for Edgbaston (Miss Pitt) stayed in the Chamber for about ten minutes after her speech and has not been seen since. She did not fully quote from the document, "Britain Strong and Free" on which the Conservative Party fought the election. I should like to complete the quotation. It read:
  2178
  "A Government will be judged according to the effect of its programme upon rising costs and prices."
  In other words, the Government invited the electorate to judge them on the cost-of-living issues. The document then went on to describe some of the measures that would be taken:
  "The reduction of State trading will mean cheaper and better food…."
  Have the Government reduced State trading? If so, has that meant cheaper and better food? It went on:
  "All these things will be achieved only by immense efforts and after some time but, carried into effect together, they will enable us to control"—
  and this is the part the hon. Lady omitted—
  "and then, as we are determined, to reduce the cost of living for all."
  That is the quotation from the manifesto on which the Government fought the last election.
  The most honest speech that has been made from the Government benches was made by the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne). He put the question quite fairly. He said that if we wanted to reduce prices of food we had to say whether we meant to reduce wages for our own agricultural workers, or for the workers who are supplying the food which we bring in from overseas. Developing that theme is a more honest way of dealingwith the question which we are facing. I do not think that anybody in the House would be fully prepared to contend that that is the only way we can reduce the cost of food. Indeed, it is possible to reduce prices by increasing wages; but we must have someregard to the costs which we pay abroad.
  The Economic Secretary will say, no doubt, that the prices we pay in world markets are not the sole cause of fluctuations in prices of food at home; but they are a very important consideration. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Stirlingshire (Mr. Woodburn) asked a Question on 8th February of this year. He asked for the import prices as a whole during the six years of the Labour Government and for similar figures for the period of the Conservative Government, and the Interim Index of Retail Prices for the same period. Figures given by the Treasury showed that between 1945 and 1951 under the Labour Government import prices as a whole went up

  2179
  by about 125 per cent. In the same period, retail prices went up by only 36 per cent. Between 1951 and 1954, under the Conservative Government, import prices came down by 14 per cent. but retail prices went up by 10 per cent. That is the picture as a whole.
  Food prices are very much worse. They are up by20 per cent., quite clearly as a result of deliberate policy on the part of the Government and not in any way connected with the import prices that we are paying. Table 153 in the Monthly Digest of Statistics shows that between 1951 and January, 1955, the price of wheat was reduced by 19 per cent. In the same period there was a 44 per cent. reduction in the world price of sugar. While there was a 72 per cent. increase in the world price of tea, the retail price at home went up by about 120 per cent.
  Table 151 in the MonthlyDigest of Statistics shows that the commodities which are basic foods, meat, bacon, ham and fish, have gone up by 25 per cent.; butter, margarine and cooking fats by 37 per cent.and tea, sugar, and so on, by 67 per cent.
  The hon. Member for Grantham (Mr.Godber) referred to tea. During the whole six years of the Labour Government, tea increased in price by 8d. a lb. Under the Conservative Administration, in three years it has increased in price from 3s. 8d. to 8s. a lb. The Parliamentary Secretary to theMinistry of Health, in her broadcast in May, 1953, said after tea had been decontrolled:
  "There's plenty for everyone and at reasonable prices."
  On 6th February of this year, at Eastbourne, she said:
  "Britain's tea is still the cheapest in any country, except Australia."
  The hon. Lady was, of course, speaking from a brief which had been supplied to every hon. Member of this House by the tea trade. She continued:
  "You can get 200 cups of tea out of 1lb. of tea."
  I should like to ask the Minister how much he pays for a cup of tea in a café or restaurant in Britain. Say it is 4d. Two hundred cups of tea at 4d. a cup means a total of £3 6s. 8d. The cafes and restaurants get £3 6s. 8d. for an 8s. lb. of tea. The hot water must be very
  2180
  expensive. That is the kind of thing the tea trade is trotting out, and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health faithfully repeats it, like the parrot which the Conservative Party is for the trade concerned.
  The Housewives' League—Lord Kilmuir's darling—then came into the picture. Its solution to the tea problem was to stop drinking tea. The "Daily Express" and the Tory Press were full of stories on how to save on tea. Even special teapots were manufactured in order to save a spoonful of tea. I had visions of the old lady who appeared at a Labour Party Conference about two years ago and said, "We are getting very near to the days that I remember so well in the 'thirties, when you had to dry the leaves after each meal and use them again."
  The "Daily Express" also said that the way to bring down the price of meat was to buy less meat. If we buy less tea and less meat, we shall reduce the cost of living. If we bought nothing of everything, and then died, the cost of living would be nil—that is the logical conclusion of that argument. Again, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health repeated what the tea trade said—and this relates to the same theme—that if the average consumer smoked eight cigarettes fewer each week, tea drinking would cost nothing at all. So we have to stop buying tea, stop eating meat and stop smoking, and then the cost of living will come down—and if we do not die at the end of it we shall be lucky.
  Let us look at what has happened in other countries. In a competitive world we must consider what has been happening in other countries while these things have been happening in our own. I had occasion to peruse the United Nations Monthly Bulletin of Statistics for January, 1955. In that bulletin are listed 82 countries, of which 53 have had smaller food price increases since 1951 than has the United Kingdom, which is well into the second half of the table so far as food prices are concerned. Indeed, in 15 of those countries there were actually decreases in food prices during the period of present Government, including Canada, Cuba, Egypt, India, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, and Yugoslavia. All these countries enjoyed a decrease in food prices while

  2181
  we were having a 20 per cent. increase in this country.
  Almost every European country has done much better than Britain in the matter of food prices in the last three years. According to the Bulletin, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, West Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Holland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Yugoslavia all did better than we did. As I said earlier, there is, obviously, no easy solution to this problem. Certainly, there is no short-term solution to it. Were each party honest at the next General Election it would tell that to the people. It would say that the world does not owe us a duty to give us the cheap food that we have enjoyed for far too long. There has been "blood on the tea" as well as "blood on the coal" in the past, and it is the duty of nobody overseas to supply us with cheap foodstuffs.
  I believe that we must do very much more than we have done hitherto in the matter of the production of food at home. The farmers were bolstered up and encouraged by the Labour Government more than by any other Government in our history. After three years of Tory Government, they reached the stage where, at the National Farmers' Union Conference, they were going to move a motion of no confidence in the Government, and they had to be bribed by the Annual Price Review into not doing so.
  I believe that the time is over-ripe for a much more scientific and discriminatory use of the subsidies that are now being paid in such an undiscriminating way to our farming community. In a debate about 18 months ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) made the revealing statement that farmers in Scotland were receiving in subsidies the equivalent of their complete wages bill of £30 million a year.
  If the public is paying the whole wages bill of the farmers in Scotland, then it is entitled to make absolutely certain that it is getting value for money. I am not at all sure that we are getting value for the public money which is being poured by way of subsidies into the farming community. I am not saying that all farmers are inefficient—of course, they are not; quite a number are efficient—but I am quite sure that inefficiency is being
  2182
  unnecessarily bolstered up by the indiscriminate use of subsidies.
  Mr. Denys Bullard: Nonsense.
  Mr. Hamilton:I am stating what I believe to be true, and the only way in which we can establish whether or not I am telling the truth is by a much more scientific investigation of the subsidies than we have had hitherto.
  So far as the distribution of food is concerned, my hon. Friend the Member for Hillsborough (Mr. G. Darling) made out a case for an inquiry into that side of the matter and, therefore, I need not say anything more about that. Looking at the international aspect, I think it would be wrong to assume that our standard of living should go up as of right if world production goes up. That need not necessarily be so. I think that if the world food production goes up the priority claim to any increase in the standard of living ought to be with the underfed millions in Asia, Africa, South America, and elsewhere.
  However, that is no reason for our not making a special and increased effort to increase world food production, because, quite clearly, if we raise the standard of living of the peoples overseas, it automatically increases the markets for our own exports. That all ties up. If we are to increase our exports and are to sell them in the more numerous markets that we are hoping to create overseas, we in this country must do something to make our exports competitive.
  The main argument put forward from the Government side today is, I think, the signpost to chaos, because they have been saying, "We admit that food prices have been going up, but wages have been going up just as much." What is the logical conclusion of that? Surely it is that export prices must continue to rise, as a consequence of which our ability to sell our goods abroad must be impaired. Indeed, the whole complaint of the Chancellor today is that our exports are not going up.
  The Government have got themselves into the position of saying, "We are bleeding to death, but the blood transfusion service is wonderful." Our charge against the Government is that they made specious promises at the last General

  2183
  Election. They have been found out, and at the next election they will be condemned for them.
  8.55 p.m.
  Squadron Leader A. E. Cooper: Part of the speech of the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. Hamilton) was essentially emotional, and was no doubt intended for constituency consumption, but part of it was a realistic attempt to face the facts of the situation.
  I disagree with a number of the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. J. Eden). It is within the experience and knowledge of all Members of the House that since the end of the war the T.U.C. has conducted itself in a highly responsible manner, and our industrial stability since that time is in no small measure due to the responsible attitude of its leaders. I do not think that we serve the interests of our country by trying to sow discord between different classes of the population, especially at a time when there is probably more unity in the country than there has been for many years.
  Of course, we have our political battles upon the Floor of the House, and much that has been said today has been of a purely political character. For example, we have been privileged to listen to the dress rehearsal of the adoption speech of the hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Lewis) for the forthcoming General Election. He knows perfectly well that he cannot expect any hon. Member to believe one word of what he has said, but it was good political, knock-about stuff.
  At the end of the day, however, we have to face the realities of the situation. What are we to do about the cost of living and the standard of living? How are we to ensure that in future years we shall be able to maintain the high and rising standard of living which we now enjoy? On purely political grounds I did not think much of the speech of the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey). It was a mischievous speech, and it contained a wealth of mis-statements which my right hon. Friend was able to destroy without too much difficulty.
  We have to remember that the record of the Labour Government on the question of the cost of living is a very deplorable one. It is a very great privilege for
  2184
  me to find sitting upon the Opposition Front Bench the Leader of the Opposition and the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths), because it was the Leader of the Opposition who said, in Bristol, in 1952:
  "We"—
  that is, the Socialists—
  "kept the cost of living steady by food subsidies."
  Let us see what his right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly was saying in 1946, when he was a Minister. When he introduced the National Insurance Bill he said that it was the intention of the Labour Government
  "to hold the cost of living at about 31 per cent. over the September, 1939, level."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th February, 1946; Vol. 418, c. 1742.]
  But, as the right hon. Gentleman well knows, by 1951, under the Labour Government, the cost of living had risen to nearly 70 per cent. above the 1939 level.
  In the same speech, the right hon. Gentleman also assuredthe House that it was the intention of the Labour Government to take people off public assistance, but in the six years during which they were in office the number of people drawing National Assistance increased from 1 million to 2 million. When it comes to the question of fulfilling promises and pledges, therefore, it does not lie in the mouths of hon. Members opposite to complain.
  I should like to go one stage further and quote from an article, which I have quoted once before in this House, by the hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman). He said on 7th November, 1954:
  "While prices, profits and wages all soared under the Labour Government, the standard of living of our old people went down. They were cheated even of the modest slice of the national cake which they had been promised"
  It was not a Tory who said that. That is the statement of a member of Her Majesty's Opposition.
  In those six years the cost of living increased and the standard of living went down generally. That is evidenced by the fact that practically every year when the Labour Party controlled our affairs there was a decrease in the amount of small savings. But that trend has been reversed, and today there are published weekly details of increases in savings of

  2185
  the small investor in National Savings and in Post Office savings. Without going into all the statistics which have been quoted today, and which only serve to cloud the issue, the fact is that we are earning more, spending more, eating more, producing more and saving more All these facts are incontrovertible.
  But, having said that, we come hard up against the questions which were put to the Government by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond), who, if I may say so, I thought made the best speech in the debate today. Certainly it is the only speech in which has really been discussed the cost of living. The cost of living is not simply and solely concerned with food. It is concerned with every aspect of our lives.
  I am very disappointed that the Opposition should have decided to provide, as their main speakers, to open and close this debate on their behalf, two hon. Members who are concerned purely with the food aspect of the situation. That is only one part of this great problem.
  This question of taxation has to be tackled by the Government—not only this Government but any subsequent Government. We cannot, as a nation, continue to exist with any prospect of increasing our standard of living with the weight of taxation which is grinding everybody down at the present time. It is all very well for us on this side of the House to say that we have relieved millions of weekly wage earners of the liability to pay Income Tax, but these same people today have to pay 3s. 7d. for a packet of 20 cigarettes, a high price for their beer, and a considerable sum weekly in Purchase Tax. In addition, if they are fortunate enough to own a car, they have to contribute 2s. 6d. in tax for every gallon of petrol that they buy.
  This is a situation which cannot be allowed to continue. In one way or another, taxation must be reduced. We are carrying, too, what we call in the business world an excessive overhead. We are today carrying in national and local government service more than a million employees, and that at a time when our labour force for productive purposes is inadequate.
  I should like to ask my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary this question. If he were suddenly faced with a situation in
  2186
  which he did not have any of the existing methods of levying taxes, and yet had to find £4,500 million to finance the country, would he use the same methods of taxation as are employed today?
  Looking back on the economic and financial life of the country, it seems to me that we work on something like these lines: we have a series of classifications—petrol duty, Income Tax, Purchase Tax and so on—and year by year the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he is a Conservative or a Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, considers each tax and puts a little on here and takes a little off there. Over the years we have developed this almost Frankenstein system of taxation which is slowly stifling the initiative of the country. If we are to live in a highly competitive world we must, in the very near future, get down to reducing some of the overheads.
  I have spoken on Purchase Tax in the House on many occasions, for I believe it to be a stupid and vicious tax. I do not accept the strictures levelled by the hon. Member for West Ham, North at the Government for their decision to reduce Purchase Tax on mink coats. A person earning his living in the fur industry, who has seen the possibility of continued employment being taken away because of the high rate of Purchase Tax, will look upon that concession as a decision which has kept him in employment. The concession has undoubtedly saved the fur industry in this country, and we are now back in a position which enables us once more to export.
  When we consider that we can buy a car for £650, which is the price of the article, but then have to find another £350 for the Government, plus a high rate of petrol duty, plus a licence fee, we realise how stupid the situation is. This tax is a cost in industry which we must abolish. If it is necessary to provide the money, I should prefer to see a sales tax in some form substituted for Purchase Tax.
  We must remember that it is not only the increased cost of food which has raised the cost of living. The increase in the cost of living in this country has found a great supporter in the costs of the nationalised industries—coal, gas, electricity, and transport. The cost of all those services has risen, and that makes a contribution to the increase in

  2187
  the cost of living. This year we must do something about the tax on petrol and fuel oil in an attempt to reduce these costs.
  In certain ways we have the weapons in our own hands, if we use them properly, to make an onslaught on the cost of living. We have the weapons in our own hands, if we use them properly, to ensure not only that we maintain our standard of living in 1955, but that we create a sound, competitive position for our industries for the future.
  9.8 p.m.
  Mrs. Jean Mann: I have been in the House throughout the debate, and since my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) sat down I have felt that I was living in cloud-cuckoo-land.
  It appears from the speeches of hon. Members opposite that we have everything that is best in all possible worlds. The Minister told us about sweets and ice cream and television sets, and the hon. Lady the Member for Edgbaston (Miss Pitt) found it quite impossible to trace any person who was suffering in any way. I remember that the Minister's predecessor told us very complacently on the wireless one night about the large amount being spent on tobacco and alcohol and used it as a sign of the great prosperity of the country and a sign that no person was suffering. He had not the common sense to know that there are a great many people in Great Britain who do not smoke and never touch alcohol.
  A great many of those people bitterly resented that the Minister should think there was a green light to go ahead with higher prices because of the increased consumption of alcohol and tobacco. The present Minister, in much the same way, cites the increased consumption of sweets and ice cream and the buying of television sets as a reason for increasing the price of all the basic commodities.
  I have also been surprised at the getaway being prepared by hon. Members opposite. They have now completely forsworn their official document, issued by their own Minister, as a reliable authentic indicator of today's prices. What has gone wrong? Why do they not agree? Why do they not quote those figures? Every time I have quoted them
  2188
  at Question Time the Minister has repudiated them. The last time I asked about the price of three commodities he won the cheers of all around him by saying that those prices had not increased, that they had, indeed, decreased. Hon. Members opposite thought that was really a wonderful retort, but it was a wrong retort. If I had not rather a respect for the right hon. Gentleman I would say that it was a dishonest retort. He knows what I have been in touch with him about and the correspondence that has passed between us.
  I was astonished at the prices he quoted. I wanted to know where he had got his figures. I knew he had not got them from the Ministry of Labour Gazette. It transpired that Tory Members have a new angle now. They discovered a shop selling margarine at 1s. 4d. per lb. Goodness knows where it is; I do not know. They have discovered other shops selling butter at 3s. 6d. per lb., although we all well know that the price is fluctuating between 3s. 8d. and 3s. 10d. per lb. Having made that particular discovery they have done something completely unwarranted along the lines of logic; they have argued from the particular to the general and despised their own Minister's figures.
  The right hon. Gentleman said to me, "The facts you quote from the January issue of the Ministry of Labour Gazette refer to the average level of prices." Surely I am entitled to quote the average level of prices and surely the right hon. Gentleman is entitled to quote the average level of prices. Why, then, do we find that hon. Members opposite will not agree to the cost-of-living index figure quoted by the Minister of Labour? He is a very estimable gentleman, a gentleman whom we all respect. Surely there is not a split on the other side of the House. Are they not on speaking terms with the Minister of Labour? Why do they despise his figures? I think I know.
  Here are the latest of them. We take the figure for 15th January, 1952, as 100–15th January, 1952, was after l0d. per lb. has been imposed on cheese and l0d. per lb. had been imposed on bacon. Compared with that figure of 100, the figure for butter, margarine and cooking fat is 137. The figure for tea and sugar is 167. Meat, bacon, ham, and fish—here we find the contradiction with the Minister's

  2189
  statement—are now at 125. Milk, cheese, and eggs, which he told us a few hours ago had come down below the controlled price, are now at 108. Vegetables and fruit are 110. Miscellaneous manufactured food is 106. I must include rents and rates. They are now 113·5.
  I promised hon. Members opposite, particularly the hon. Lady the Member for Edgbaston, that I would deal with coal, with fuel and light. I was rather astonished that the hon. Lady should declare herself as being inside the Conservative Party and a member of the working class, but did not want to be known as a member of the working class. Iam very proud of being a member of the working class. My people were working-class people. It is a much greater effort to maintain a high character standard and a high human dignity when one has to put up with the deprivations and the situations in which many members of the working class find themselves. I would remind the hon. Lady that in that class was found the carpenter of Nazareth.
  The hon. Lady asked me to consider fuel and light. They stand at 114·9. Fuel and light are supplied by nationalised industries. It is interesting to compare that figure of 114·9 in the nationalised industries with the figure of 137 for butter, margarine and cooking fat, with the figure of 167 for tea and sugar. What is more to the point, it must be remembered that if any commodity is in short supply, it is coal. If tea has gone up to 8s. a lb. because of the situation of supply and demand, can anyone suggest a figure for the rise in the price of a bag of coal, had coal mining not been nationalised?
  I must emphasise this, that the Minister of Fuel and Power has been sadly lacking in his duty to prosecute where such action is necessary. All over the country there are complaints about coal. People meet me and say, "I have paid for Grade 1 coal, but I have got awful stuff in my cellar. I paid for Grade 1 coal and got three bags of Grade 5 and seven bags of Grade 1 on top." But there was no prosecution. The Minister is doing nothing whatever to inspect coal delivered to see that its quality corresponds with the great charge. There are many people paying for first grade coal today who are simply not getting even third grade. The
  2190
  Report of the National Coal Board shows that the available quantity of first-grade coal in the country amounts to only 1½ per cent. of the total supplies of coal. Yet everyone complains of having to pay for first-grade coal.
  Again, it is said that the merchants will not take up the complaints. Why not? The Coal Board asks, in page 30 of its Report, for complaints. It urges coal merchants to report immediately when they receive a bad consignment. I had very bad coal delivered to my cellar. I suspected that it was Grade 5 and that I was being charged for Grade 3. My merchant gave the usual reply, "I have just got to take what I get." It is not true.
  I asked him to let me take up his case, but he would not let me take it up with the Coal Board. Coal merchants do not want that. Housewives ought to have fair treatment from the Ministry of Fuel and Power. The Ministry should send out its enforcement officers to see that people receive the quality of coal for which they pay. I have spoken at some length on coal, because the subject is raised so often on the other side of the House.
  Hon. Members opposite constantly speak of how the cost of living jumped under the Labour Government. It jumped from 1947 to 1951 by 25 points. We were told that that was due to Socialist muddling and to a stupid, bungling Government that did not know how to control prices. How would one describe a Government that, having said that, allowed prices to jump from 125 to 146 points? What kind of Government is that? What kind of people are they who went to the country and said, "We will mend the hole in your purse. We will bring down the cost of living"? What kind of Ministers are they who said, as one of them said over the wireless, "The rumour that we will take away food subsidies and abolish rent control is not true. There is not a word of truth in it. Do not let them pull the wool over your eyes"?
  Did not hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite promise women voters that prices would come down? If they have not found it possible to reduce prices, why, after making such promises, did they increase them? Was it because world

  2191
  conditions were against them? On the contrary, every act which increased the cost of living was deliberately planned. [Interruption.] So it was not deliberately planned that the food subsidies should be reduced? Was that not deliberate planning? Was it not deliberate planning to take away controls and allow prices to shoot up to the roof?
  It was not deliberate planning, apparently, to introduce the Act which increased rents by 13 per cent. It was not deliberate planning to increase the Bank Rate and to make the Public Works Loan Board charges higher for the local authorities and, in consequence, increase rents as well. Was none of that deliberate planning? Did it just happen? If so, could hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite tell us just how it happened if they did not plan it deliberately?
  It might be said, of course, that when decontrol was permitted it was expected that prices would find their own level. Of course, they misled the boys up there in the Gallery—or the masters of the boys up there in the Gallery—who said, "Abolish controls. Make a bonfire of controls, and in the free competition that follows prices will find their own level."
  Where I live there are seven different grocers' shops with seven different names above them, and they are all one combine. There are eight different names above eight different bakeries and they are all one combine. [An Hon. Member: "The Co-op."] An hon. Gentleman opposite says, "The Co-op." The name above the shop where I make my purchases is the "St. George Co-operative Society" and they are honest; they put their name above the door. Moreover, I can become a shareholder, and so can any hon. Member, because there is no closed shop there. Hon. Members opposite know how to get in on the ground floor, but where the Co-operative societies are concerned, anybody can join on payment of 1s. 6d.
  The policy of decontrol did not bring prices down, because we are running into the hands of monopoly and there cannot be competition where there is monopoly. I remember that when I was Chairman of the Glasgow Housing Committee, every tender we received for sanitary ware and for asbestos was about the same figure.
  2192
  I conceived the idea of breaking that ring and my committee agreed to order 5,000 baths at a time, 5,000 sink sets, 5,000 closet sets, delivery as and when required because we were going ahead with a very big housing programme. We found that even by that way it was impossible to break the ring. It is no use the Conservative Party, or the newspapers which protect it, pretending that there is competition in Great Britain today. It is slowly disappearing.
  In June, 1952, just after there was decontrol of many things, I put this Question to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food:
  "… how many food items … have gone up in price during the past six months; and by what amount"
  The reply was:
  "In the six months to the middle of May, 27 items…. The increases on individual items range from 4 per cent. to 33 per cent."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th June, 1952; Vol. 502,
  c. 207.]
  Even then the Government did not learn their lesson, because, when they decontrolled tea, the Minister of Food was asked what would be the effect on the price. Here is what he replied:
  "The trade has undertaken that blends of sound quality tea will be on sale at 3s. 8d. a lb. in sufficient quantities to meet any foreseeable demand. This is the same as the present average price and only 4d. more than the present low priced tea. This means that although the subsidy is withdrawn the existing weekly ration of low priced tea will cost only ½d. more."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th April. 1952; Vol. 498, c. 2738.]
  The Conservative Party now finds that its prognostications have gone wrong, that under decontrol there is no such thing as competition, and that prices are rising. What do Conservative hon. Members tell people? They tell them that they can get scrag end of mutton, that they can get the second quality, and that they ought to buy imported beef and imported mutton. What did hon. Gentlemen opposite say when the Labour Government were buying imported mutton? They called it "old ewe." Every day they attacked the Labour Government for providing housewives with imported mutton.
  The Press tells us not to buy the choice cuts. I remember a noble Lady going to a Scottish constituency and telling the people how to make good soup from a cod's head. One old lady wanted to know who was getting away with the cod when

  2193
  others were making soup from its head. I should like to know who is getting away with the silverside and the other best cuts when we are cooking imported mutton.
  It has been said that the Labour Party is the party of controls and that if it were returned to power it would impose controls. It is said that we are doctrinaire Socialists who levy control for control's sake. But the Labour Party took 90 items off the ration book, including biscuits, canned fruit, canned meat, canned beans, milk and dried fruit. The difference between the policy of hon. Gentlemen opposite and our policy is that when the Labour Government removed these things from the ration book they imposed a ceiling price which could not be exceeded.
  I have here two cuttings from a newspaper, published on the eve of the West Derby by-election. One says:
  "The green light goes up.
  Hoped-for fillip for markets"—
  No, I ought to read this one first:
  "West Derby polling slows up share business.
  Voting day in West Derby was 'Mark Time Day' for buyers in the share markets. Many members were delayed by fog and this accentuated the general slowness of markets."
  It is evident that they were awaiting the by-election result. Here is the other quotation:
  "Green light goes up.
  Hoped-for fillip for markets, and business generally, comes with the West Derby election result"—
  Hon. Members may laugh, but he laughs best who laughs last. I will finish the quotation:
  "and fairly general marking-up of prices should follow."
  Let them laugh now. Let them take it to the doorsteps—and laugh. Let them show it to the housewives and tell them what will happen.
  The Chancellor of the Exchequer told us that of the £600 million extra consumer expenditure—this will be the washing machines, the refrigerators, the alcohol, the tobacco, the ice-cream and sweets we were hearing about—£525 million represented increased prices. Only £75 million represented increased consumption. He said that on 16th March, 1954. [HON MEMBERS: "What about the time?"] My time has been encroached upon by hon. Members opposite—
  Mr. Dodds: Do not hon. Members opposite appreciate that this is exempted business?
  Mrs. Mann:In the midst of the complacency, time and again I heard hon. Members opposite saying that wages hadkept pace with the cost of living. They are proud of that fact. Do they not know that if they let the cost of living go up, wages are bound to keep in step? At any rate, the wage demands will come. My iron and steel workers in Coatbridge are tied to the cost of living and their wages automatically increase as the cost of living increases. An increase in the cost of living is bound to bring wage demands from all the other workers, and we will have demands from all the others, be it transport workers, be it miners, be it anything else, and the vicious spiral will soar. Yet hon. Members opposite sit there and preen themselves about wages. They say that in this best of all possible worlds under Toryism we should let prices shoot up through the roof and let wages follow suit.
  But what of our export trade? Do not hon. Members opposite know that housewives are not concerned only with the price of bread and butter of tea and sugar and meat? Housewives are concerned about the prosperity of their country. That is especially true of mothers who have to keep an eye on all aspects of the home. The housewife who is worthy of her salt has to keep an eye on her country's prosperity. To allow prices to go up as they are doing, without making any attempt at stability, is imperilling our export trade.
  If there are people for whom we should be sorry, it is some of the old folk. I will not speak of old-age pensioners, because their case has been put again and again. I shall speak of some of the old folk represented by hon. Members opposite. They bought their houses thirty and forty years ago. They saved money then and they are now up against stern poverty. They vote for hon. Gentlemen and hon. Ladies opposite. They believe in them.
  I have met these people. They are old dears who have told me that they have never voted anything but Tory. They were thrifty. They bought their houses. They put aside a sum of money in the bank—and the value of the £ has dropped. I know one old couple who, because they had to pay for a roof repair,

  2195
  went without new clothes which they needed during the winter. This is real, stark poverty, and there is no one, with the exception of the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Miss Ward), who has ever spoken from the party opposite on behalf of those in the fixed income group.
  The poor old dears in the fixed income group are disappointed in the party opposite. They have told me that they blamed us. They put the party opposite back in power. They voted all their lives for it, and the party opposite has made matters worse. It has also made matters worse for our side, for our old-age pensioners. It is making it worse for the country, which is faced with the sternest opposition, and the best thing it can do for everybody is to get out as soon as possible.
  9.41 p.m.
  The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. R. Maudling):This is the first opportunity that I have had of replying to a speech by the hon. Lady the Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mrs. Mann). I listened with great interest to what she said, as we all know that this is a subject on which she speaks as a result of a great study Indeed, she speaks with great fervour, though I must confess that I cannot accept a great number of the arguments which she advanced. I will explain my reasons.
  In particular, I was struck by her reference to recent by-elections. I should have thought that, whatever we may have heard today from her and her colleagues about the theory they hold that we won the last General Election by making specious promises, that view is not shared by the electors.
  Mr. Ellis Smith: Who won at Wrexham?
  Mr. Maudling: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will tell me who will win at Ebbw Vale next time.
  Mr. Smith: That is safe enough.
  Mr. Maudling: The problem of the cost of living is obviously a serious one. It is one of the most serious of those which the House considers. I was very much impressed during the debate by the emphasis on the fact that the cost of living is only part of the problem of the
  2196
  standard of living. That was a point made by several of my hon. Friends, including the hon. Member for Edgbaston (Miss Pitt). It is true.
  The reason we want to see prices coming down is that then we shall be able to buy more. I know that that sounds naive, but it is an important proposition. It means that what is fundamental to the problem of the cost of living is the problem of productivity, which was referred to by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) and my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham (Mr. Godber).
  We cannot in this country consume more than we produce. All of us, I think, agree that if there is an increase in incomes not accompanied by an increase in output, obviously the mere effect of that is an increase in prices all round. But equally the converse is likely to be true, that, at a given level of production, we could only bring prices down by bringing incomes down—that is the fact of the matter—by more taxation or by reducing wages or by so restricting people, by controls and rationing, that they cannot spend.
  Without more production we can get lower prices only by having lower incomes. It is possibly a simple argument but it is important and fundamental. Some of the approaches of hon. Members opposite indicate that they have not fully grasped the importance of that proposition.
  On the question of the standard of living, I want to quote one or two figures about what has been happening in recent years. We have had many comparisons made during the debate, and I should like to make one or two of my own which seem to me to be most significant. Let us look at the experience in respect of real wages. Taking together the level of prices and the level of wages and fitting the two together, we get real wages—what people can, in fact, buy with the wages which they get.
  Under this Government, since November, 1951, real wages have risen by 2½ per cent. Yet between June, 1947, and November, 1951, they fell by 2½ per cent. If we take earnings, between October, 1947, and October, 1951—it is a different period, but, as hon. Gentlemen will know, the statistics come at different

  2197
  times—the statistics rose by 2 per cent., and between October, 1951, and October, 1954, by 9 per cent.
  That is a perfectly clear demonstration of the fact that the wage-earning people of the community as a whole earned more and had more to spend in real terms as a result of a Conservative Government policy than they had under the previous Administration. These are official figures which I amusing, and which have always been accepted on both sides of the House. I do not think that they can be seriously questioned. They may be inconvenient, but, nevertheless, they are accurate.
  In addition to this increase in real wages, there have also been substantial reductions in taxation which were referred to by my hon. Friends. When reductions in Income Tax are mentioned, hon. Members opposite seem to suggest that only a small number of people pay Income Tax. In fact, over 16 million people pay Income Tax, and they and their dependants, taken together, probably make up the majority of the community. As Income Tax payers they have had a substantial reduction in taxation under this Government. There have also been reductions in Purchase Tax.
  Let us consider the position of people receiving benefits from the State. During the period in which this Government have been in office, the index of retail prices shows that the cost of living has risen by 13 per cent. in 3¼ years—compared with 20 per cent. for a similar period under the previous Administration. During that same period, of all the social security payments which are in issue, the smallest increase is 25 per cent. and the largest, 60 per cent.
  Against a rise of 13 per cent. in the cost of living, National Assistance is up by 25 per cent.; sickness and unemployment benefit by more than 50 per cent.; family allowances by 60 per cent.; 100 per cent. war disability benefit by 50 per cent.; widows' pensions by over 50 per cent. and retirement pensions by either 33 per cent., or more than 50 per cent. All these increases will have been effected by this Government when the new scales are in force.
  So much for the extraordinary claim of the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey), that we are undermining the Welfare State. If this great
  2198
  increase in the real value of social security payments in this country is undermining the Welfare State, language seems to me to have no meaning. Surely the fact is that all the evidence, examined objectively, shows that there has been a substantial improvement in the standard of living throughout the whole of the community in the course of the last three years.
  Whether we look at the figures for wages or earnings; whether we look at the level of taxation; whether we look at the level of profits and savings—particularly small savings; the hon. Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie referred to "mending the hole in the pocket," but I should have thought the change in the level of small savings showed a pretty effective effort to mend the hole in the pocket—whether we take the figures given by my right hon. Friend, the new old-age pensions, or the amount which the community can afford to spend on less essential things; whether we look at the trading experience of the Co-operative and the multiple stores—the shops where the mass of the people go to spend their money—all the evidence is quite incontrovertible, that there has been a substantial increase in the standard of living of the people, as a whole, over the last three years.
  Hon. Members: Hear, hear.
  Mr. William Ross: Go on, give him more encouragement than that.
  Mr. Maudling: The object of Government policy clearly must be to achieve a high level of production and of employment with a stable value of the £ both internally and externally.
  The question of the level of employment was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Edgbaston. It is important to remember, as the previous Government found, that the two objectives of maintaining full employment and production and a stable value for our currency are often conflicting. It was because they failed to realise that that we so often found ourselves faced with balance-of-payments crises.
  The fact is that prices can be reduced by deflationary policies at the expense of employment. By reducing the amount of money people can spend it is possible to

  2199
  bring down prices, but at the same time employment is also reduced. Just before the General Election in 1951, when the textile recession was already beginning, Iremember the right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Dalton) telling people to reduce the price of goods by refusing to buy cotton textiles. His advice was only too well taken, not only in this country but abroad, and it had a considerable effect upon the level of employment.
  Mr. Lewis: The Government told us not to buy tea.
  Mr. Maudling: There is a conflict between maintaining a high level of demand in order to maintain full employment, on the one hand and, on the other hand, not allowing it to get out of hand so as to produce dangerous inflationary pressures.
  It is sometimes argued—and in this respect the newspaper article of the hon. Member for Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) has been referred to—that in order to maintain full employment and full output we must have a steady increase of what is sometimes referred to as controlled inflation, and rising prices year by year. The Government do not accept that for one moment. If we followed that course the effect upon savings and investment, and all that depend upon savings and investment, would surely be very serious.
  Mr. Ross: That is what has been going on for the last three years.
  Mr. Maudling:That is precisely what has not been going on, because savings have been showing a remarkable improvement under this Government.
  The other very serious problem, which was referred by the hon. Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie, concerns people living upon small fixed incomes. They are people whom it is especially difficult for any Government to help.
  Miss Irene Ward: Not at all.
  Mr. Maudling:People who receive State benefits can have, and have had, their benefits increased, and people who pay taxes have had their taxation reduced, but many people neither receive financial benefit from the State nor pay
  2200
  a substantial amount in taxes to the State. In those circumstances it is very difficult to see what direct action the State can take to help them.
  Miss Ward: Has my hon. Friend read my memorandum?
  Mr. Maudling:I mention this matter particularly because I want to make it quite clear that the Government are conscious of the difficulty in which people at that level of income find themselves. The only effective way in which we can help them is by doing all we can to maintain the level of prices, and by not accepting the proposition that in order to have a healthy economy and a high level of employment we must always allow prices to go steadily upwards.
  During the course of the debate many vigorous allegations have been made about the cost of living, some of which have been rather inaccurate. Many figures have been given about the prices of individual products, but with the exception of the hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. G. Darling), who made one or two interesting and practical proposals, I cannot remember any hon. Member opposite suggesting how this problem should be dealt with. The whole attitude of hon. Members opposite is utterly and completely negative.
  The reason for this is twofold. First, as the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. Hamilton) implied, hon. Members opposite do not know what to do about it. Secondly, some of them suspect that the measures that they might adopt would not be at all popular. In a television broadcast a few days ago, the deputy Leader of the Opposition was questioned on the subject by a number of journalists, and he was singularly coy upon the subject both of controls and subsidies.
  What is the policy of the party opposite upon the question of controls? Do they really believe that price controls will bring down the cost of living? If they believe that, they have learnt nothing from the experience of the last few years. Further, do not they realise that a return to controls and subsidies must mean a return to rationing? There is no possible escape from that proposition.
  If we have a free market, the free market price fixes the level between supply and demand. The only purpose of price control is to bring the price down. If the

  2201
  price is brought down, then the demand goes up. But there must be additional supplies to meet that demand, or else we are back to goods under the counter, the black market, and queues. We have to go back to rationing. The only answer is largely increased imports, but how are we to pay for them with our adverse balance of payments? If we bring down prices below the free market level, we must create additional demand, and, if we cannot satisfy it, the result will inevitably be chaos.
  Then there is the question of subsidies. If we are going to bring down prices by controls, we shall also have to restore subsidies, which means increased taxation. Incidentally, subsidies are another reason why a return to rationing under the Labour Party's policy will be inevitable. I know it is true that bread and milk are subsidised, but they are not rationed. They are things for which, to use the jargon, the demand is inelastic.
  In other words, the people of this country have as much bread to eat as they want. Even if we reduced the price of bread drastically, we should not increase its consumption. But if we decreased the price of meat, we should increase its consumption. We should neither have the supply to meet that demand nor would any Exchequer be able to shoulder the unlimited liability that would arise as a result.
  I think we should be quite clear that a policy of controls and subsidies, at which hon. Members opposite hint, but which they never openly adopt, inevitably means a return to consumer rationing. Hon. Members opposite should be honest about it. Apart from that, I find it difficult to see what other suggestions have been made from the benches opposite. The suggestion has been made once or twice about the need for more competition. I find that ironical coming from a party whose policy is to abolish competition. I should have thought that the whole question of monopolies and restrictive practices had been very thoroughly dealt with by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade in the debate last month, in which the Opposition showed more than its usual disarray.
  Then there is the point about profits. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland referred to the level of profits and
  2202
  their effect on the level of prices. It is important that we should be clear on this matter. I quite agree that where profits are high, because there is no competition or because of restrictive practices, it is bad and often contributes to an increase in the cost of living because it creates inefficiency. But in an economy which is fully working at the high level of demand, output and employment, a high level of profits is a good and not a bad thing.
  What happens to the profits of industry? It is quite fallacious to think that by drastically reducing the profit level of industry we can reduce the cost of living. We do nothing of the sort. What happens is that a very large part of these profits go to pay taxes, and if those taxes were not paid out of profits, they would have to come from the individual. The second purpose to which profits are devoted is the building up of the productive machine of the country. If we do not build up the productive machine, we cannot, in the long run, hope to get greater efficiency and lower prices.
  The third purpose to which profits are devoted is to increase the savings accounts, by putting them into thebank or into gilt-edged securities. That helps to finance the whole capital programme of the country. When put to reserve, the profits of industry are a major factor in the savings of the country and are. in fact, disinflationary.
  The only element in profits which can affect the cost of living is the amount distributed by way of dividends. I was interested in some figures quoted by Professor Cairncross. They showed that if we were to take all the money distributed as dividends, less tax, it would amount to less than 3 per cent. of the total amount of money available for spending by the people of this country.
  In fact, in 1954, although we have been told by hon. Members opposite that wages and salaries are lagging behind profits, the latest figures which I have show that profits have risen at about the same rate as wages and salaries. The item in the national income figures for rent, dividends and interest shows a very much smaller percentage increase in 1954 than does the item for wages and salaries. In terms of volume, the amount of additional money going in rent, dividends and

  2203
  interest is £60 million and that for wages and salaries is £645 million.
  As I have said, we have had from hon. Members opposite no suggestion of any value, apart from the suggestion of the hon. Member for Hillsborough, as to what we can do about the problem of the level of prices. What have been the main elements in the increase in prices which has taken place in the last three years? It is true that food, at 19 per cent., represents the largest increase, and that, of course, is clearly one reason why food has been concentrated upon by the Opposition, to the exclusion of other items.
  The increase in the price of food arises from several reasons. One of the principal reasons is the reductions in the food subsidies in 1952, which were accompanied at the time, as we are never now reminded by the Opposition, by substantial increases in all the social services. The other influence on the level of food prices is the fact that since 1951the prices of imported foodstuffs have not gone down but have gone up. Hon. Members will find that in the Statistical Digest.
  Mr. Willey: I should like the hon. Gentleman to deal with the specific commodities that I was discussing—not the general cost of food imports—and to give the comparable world prices. This Government are claiming the virtue of going on to the free market.
  Mr. Maudling: It is really too naive of the hon. Gentleman to complain that I am dealing with the cost of food as a whole and to ask that I should pick out the items which suit him. The fact is that, taking import prices of food, beverages and tobacco together, they have gone up from an index figure of 115 in 1951 to 120 in 1954. As for comparison with other countries, I have been looking through some figures which show that foodstuffs in this country compared with practically every other country in Europe, are still substantially lower in price.
  The other substantial increase in the cost of living arises on fuel, which has risen 15 per cent., and an increase of 13 per cent. in services, which largely refers to travel and transport. Those are the main increases. On the other hand, clothing has fallen in price, and prices of household durable goods and miscellaneous services have also fallen. The in-
  2204
  creases have been in food, transport and fuel and power, and the decreases have been over the whole range of manufactured goods produced by British industries, which I think is an interesting comparison.
  Rents and rates have risen by 13 per cent. There are two reasons for this. One of the reasons for rising rates is the higher standard of local government services and higher emoluments paid in local government, to which I do not expect hon. Members opposite to object. Rents, of course, have risen, but what hon. Members opposite tend to forget is that against the increase in rents we must set off the increase in the cost of repairs.
  Mrs. Harriet Slater: Where?
  Mr. Maudling: To the houses.
  Those are the main elements in the cost of living which have risen in the last few years.
  What are the main factors which affect these changes in either direction? First, there are import costs. Import prices certainly rose under the Labour Government and have fallen under the Conservative Government. No one has ever attempted to deny that, and that has been of considerable benefit. Obviously, we have gained from the improvement in the terms of trade. But import costs represent only about 20 per cent. of the total cost of all goods and services consumed in this country. As for food, upon which the Opposition have concentrated, prices have not fallen, but have risen against us.
  What is significant is that experience has shown that increases in import costs are trebled or quadrupled by increases which take place simultaneously in home costs. A serious point for the economy of this country is that those import price increases are followed by big increases in home prices—in wages and transport costs, for example; but when import prices fall, home costs remain up, and therein lies the danger to our competitive position, to which the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland referred.
  Other items in the level of home costs are, of course, wage rates and the relation of wages to productivity. I agree with all hon. Members who have spoken of the importance of relating wage increases to increases in productivity, because, clearly, increases in wages or

  2205
  personal incomes which are not related to increases in productivity can only result in commensurate increases in price
  levels.
  Next, there is the Government's financial policy. It is extraordinary how a cheap money policy, as pursued by the previous Administration, is in fact a very dear money policy to the consumer. Nothing can contribute more to inflation in this country than to allow the credit situation to get out of control and then to try to put it right by imposing an excessive level of taxation, which is what happened under the previous Administration.
  How do we intend to continue to tackle the problem of the cost of living? We intend to continue and to expand the policy designed to increase productive efficiency and to prevent inflation. That, and that alone, is the way in which we can deal with the problem of the cost of living. We intend to continue to free the economy. We have no intention of reimposing controls over consumers.
  We are sometimes attacked by hon. Members opposite for allowing our traders to buy in any market in the world without discrimination—in the dollar markets if they like. Why do we do that? We give them that freedom in order to enable them to buy in the cheapest market. Do hon. Members opposite object to that? Do they want us to reimpose controls on our traders, and to force them to buy in the dearer non-dollar markets? Is that a way of bringing down the cost of living?
  We intend to tackle the problem of monopoly in the way to which my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade referred in the recent debate. Finally, we intend to continue our fiscal and monetary policy. It is difficult for me, at this stage of the year, to speak about our future taxation policy, and it is difficult at any time to speak about our future credit policy, but the House will be aware that it has been the Chancellor of the Exchequer's policy consistently to give all possible incentive to increased productive efficiency by reducing taxation and to expand by furthering demands for the products of industry—but not to expand so fast as to threaten once again a return of inflation.
  There is this clear choice in the ways of tackling the problem, not of the cost
  2206
  of living alone but of the standard of living. There is our way—the way of giving freedom to industry, freedom of choice to the consumer, diversity and freedom to the housewife to buy what she wants in the shop; the way of reducing taxation, reducing controls, and maintaining the monetary policy. That is our way. The alternative is to go back to controls, to rationing and to higher taxation. That is the choice which will lie before the country when the next Election comes, and I have no doubt which it will choose.
  Mr. Willey: In view of the last reference made by the hon. Gentleman, can he inform the House when the next General Election will be?
  10.10 p.m.
  Mr. Norman Dodds: If a Sunday newspaper is to be believed, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury is the great hope for the future of the Conservative Party. If the speech he has just made is the best the Conservative Party has to offer the future is indeed bleak.
  I could not help thinking that what the Economic Secretary said fitted in very well with the report last week of the meeting of the Coal Committee of the Economic Commission of Europe. There was a report before that committee alleging that the price of petrol and oil, which so much affects the cost of living, was too high. Statements were made attacking the oil racketeers. It was said in the "News Chronicle"—if the hon. Gentleman does not agree I know he will say so—that before the chairman of the Committee could reply, the British representative jumped up and was an excellent advocate defending the oil companies
  Mr. Maudling: I have not seen the report to which the hon. Member refers, but I must say that it is completely inaccurate if his version is anything like true.
  Mr. Dodds: I take it that tomorrow morning the "News Chronicle" will either apologise or say that was what happened at that committee.
  Much of the speech of the Economic Secretary was devoted to twitting the Opposition for not telling the Government and the country how to reduce the cost of living. That has been the tenor of many of the speeches of hon. Members opposite. After being in power for nearly four years and having made

  2207
  promises which persuaded the people to put them in power, instead of saying, "We made a mistake" they have been charging the Opposition with a negative attitude.
  I do not think the hon. Gentleman could deny that they made it clear in 1951that if elected they would be a Government of business men who would be able to deal with this question of the cost of living. In consequence, they got into power by what we all now know were false pretences. If not, I would have expected the hon. Gentleman or the Minister of Food to have admitted quite frankly that the Government had failed to do what they set out to do and to apologise to the electorate.
  I have with me a report from the "Daily Telegraph" of 22nd January, 1954. It says:
  "Major Lloyd-George, Minister of Food, declared that food prices would continue to drop. He said that taking the index of food prices since June last year food prices had dropped by three points and the drop is going to continue."
  I ask the hon. Gentleman, has the price of food dropped since January, 1954? He knows very well, and all hon. Members opposite know, that it has gone up. Is not this just one more miscalculation?
  The best the hon. Gentleman seemed to offer the House and the country was that during the period of the Labour Government wages rose by only 2½ per cent. but from October, 1951, to 1954, they had gone up by 9 per cent. There, again, it seemed that the only thing the Conservative benches could offer is that wages have gone up very much more quickly than under a Labour Government.
  The hon. and gallant Member for Ilford, South (Squadron Leader Cooper) paid great tribute to the wage restraint introduced by the T.U.C. I do not think it is a secret that for several years when the Labour Government were in power it was realised that raising wages was not the best way to deal with the economic problems we had to face. It has been pointed out by hon. Members on this side of the House that if that is the best which hon. Members opposite have to offer in this competitive age, which is growing more and more competitive, that sort of policy may react against workers and everyone else.
  2208
  It is fair to say that the policy of the Tory Government, commencing with the abolishing of many of the food subsidies, has resulted in a perpetual spiral of price increases, and that, in turn, has meant that the T.U.C. has not been able to restrain its members from demanding higher wages. The Economic Secretary was quite persuasive in his explanation about business profits and dividends, but it will require much more ingenuity than he showed to persuade the workers to exercise restraint in making their demands for higher wages when they see profits and dividends rising by many times the amount of their wage increases. I ask the hon. Gentleman seriously to note this. He must be more explicit when trying to persuade the workers that they must exercise restraint, since it seems that the Government are powerless to exercise restraint on those who get these dividends.
  The hon. Gentleman the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr, J. Eden) must have a hide of the thickness of that of a rhinoceros to come here today and attack, as he did, not only the T.U.C. but the workers generally. However, we must give him credit for this, that he was honest enough to say that one of the difficulties is that we have full employment.
  Mr. Lewis:Will my hon. Friend not agree that the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. J. Eden) had the courage to say publicly what many big industrialists and Tories are saying privately?
  Mr. Dodds:My hon. Friend has saved me the trouble of taking up time at this late hour in pointing that out.
  Mr. Osborne:How does the hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Lewis) know what big industrialists are saying privately?
  Mr. Lewis: I have heard some of them say it.
  Mr. Osborne: They do not talk to the hon. Member.
  Mr. Dodds:The hon. Member for Bournemouth, West has done a great disservice by his attack on the T.U.C, as, I am sure, many of his hon. Friends will agree, but what he has said here tonight is in keeping with what he has

  2209
  been saying in speeches in the country. I do not think hon. Members opposite would say that he is the only one of them who would welcome a little more control of workers through a little bit of unemployment. He said as much today in his speech. It is no use anyone denying that he did. The Economic Secretary could have said on behalf of the Government that the Government did not agree with the hon. Members, but he did not.
  Mr. H. Nicholls: On a point of order. Did the hon. Member give notice to my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. J. Eden) that he was going to make these charges against him? He ought to be given a chance to reply.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Charles MacAndrew): That is not a point of order.
  Mr. Dodds:I have sat through this debate, which has lasted nearly seven hours, and have heard several hon. Members refer to what other hon. Members have said, and I have heard them do so even in a manner not altogether complimentary, and without giving notice to the hon. Members concerned.
  Both the Economic Secretary and the Minister of Food made great play with the fact that under the Labour Government prices rose very quickly indeed. The hon. Member for Hull, North (Mr. W. R. A. Hudson) said that prices had been reasonable in this country in contrast with world prices. As the Minister pointed out, not everything we use is imported.
  I think the right hon. Gentleman will accept that much of what we use in food and particularly in raw materials comes from outside and, therefore, world prices must have a very big effect on our cost of living. In that connection, a Question was asked of the Chancellor on 24th November, 1954. He was asked to give from 1945 to 1954 the percentage trend of world prices affecting the United Kingdom. It was given as an index of average values taking the value in 1945 as 59 points. In 1949, world prices were 87. They jumped 13 points in 1950 to 100 and in 1951, the year of the Korean trouble, by 33 points to 133.
  When the Conservatives came into office in 1952 they dropped four points
  2210
  and in 1953 they dropped 15 points to 114. The latest figure I have for September, 1954, is 113 points. Therefore, during the period since the Conservative Government took over, according to the figures given by the Chancellor, world prices in so far as they affect United Kingdom imports have dropped 21 points.
  I submit, therefore, that whereas in many European countries the cost of living was going down, it has gone up steadily in this country and was higher in February than it had ever been before. The hon. Lady the Member for Edg-baston (Miss Pitt)—and I apologise that I have not seen her either—read out her election address. In that address, and this has been claimed by other hon. Members, it was stated that the Conservatives would be able to stabilise prices. The hon. Lady went on to say that they would be able in time to reduce the cost of living for the benefit of all. Therefore, anyone who studies the figures of the cost of living will do so with some alarm in view of those undertakings.
  We find from Ministry of Labour figures that in January, 1953, the index stood at 138, or nine points higher than when the Conservatives came into office in October, 1951. In February, 1952, the figure was 140 points. It looked then as if, in accordance with the promises or the prophecies made, there was some semblance of controlling prices and of getting them stabilised and that the promised land of a reduced cost of living could be expected. That has not happened. In the next 11 months, from March, 1954 to February, 1955 the index went up by three times, that is, by six points as against the two points in 1953.
  References have been made today to wage increases. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Lewis) said that the recent wage increases sooner or later—it may take some months—must further increase the cost of living. It seems from the picture we have that the housewife will not get the relief that the Government expect. I have in my hand a list of the approximate amounts that will result from recent wage awards: engineers, £70 million; railwaymen and bus men, £27 million; miners, £13 million: farm workers, £12 million; shipyard men, £6 million—totalling £128 million increase in wages in recent weeks.

  2211
  I submit that most of this has arisen because of the policy of the Government, who have never concerned themselves with the promise they gave to reduce the cost of living. This policy can only result in higher prices and, as was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison), can only have an unfavourable effect on our exports which we hope to send abroad to compete with other countries which are getting into their stride.
  I should like to say much more, but the time is getting on. Nevertheless, in recent weeks we have had debates into the early hours of the morning on Estimates for the Army, Navy and Air Force, and I make no apology for keeping the House a little later than usual on a matter which affects so many people.
  I see that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Bournemouth, West has just come into the Chamber. Although I am on another subject, I will give way, since apparently he has had a report that I have not done him justice.
  Mr. J. Eden:I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way and I am sorry that I had to leave for a short time. I am not clear about his reference to something I said because I did not hear it, but I can probably guess one or two things he might have said. If I am wrong, perhaps he will interrupt me. I would like to take this opportunity of saying—
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order, order. The hon. Member cannot make a second speech.
  Mr. Eden: There is one point I would like to clear up with the hon. Gentleman, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, with your permission. He may have made reference to the fact that I accused the trade unions of using their position to bargain. I want to give one example to substantiate my claim, namely, what the railway unions do in demanding a wage increase.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order, order. I cannot allow the hon. Gentleman to make a second speech.
  Mr. Dodds: I am sure I have not done the hon. Gentleman a disservice, and that he will be able to confirm this by reference to the Official Report.
  2212
  Before I reach my last point, I want to bring a little up-to-date evidence to this House which I would advise the Government Front Bench to take seriously. Last week, in the "Kentish Independent" a well-known, highly independent newspaper, there appeared this report:
  "The Greenwich Liberal Association, in conjunction with organisations in other London constituencies, is taking part in a campaign aimed at halting the steep rise in the cost of living."
  I want to emphasise that these were Liberals—
  "In the course of a canvas in the Charlton area, say members, they have found almost universal concern regarding increases in the prices of necessities, particularly food."
  Hon. and right hon. Members opposite would be well advised not to try to laugh off what the Opposition has been saying about the widespread concern in the country over the continued increase in the cost of living, especially in the cost of food, which is not in keeping with the undertakings given at the last General Election. I do not think there is any doubt that more will be heard of that in the coming months.
  One hon. Member after another, including the Economic Secretary, has spoken of the higher standard of living under a Conservative Government. On 16th November, 1954, the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne), asked how much of the increase in the amount spent on food represented an increase in food and how much an increase in price. I very clearly remember his facial expression when he heard the reply.
  The Chancellor of the Exchequer made it clear that between 1951 and 1953 the £600 million increase in the amount spent on food was made up by £525 million representing increased prices with only one-eighth, £75 million, representing an increase in the volume of food. It might be asked if that food went to everyone. It is true, of course, that a section of the population is living better today than it has ever done. It is obvious that somebody must be living better.
  However, I should like to refer to old-age pensioners, who have been mentioned by few hon. Members in this debate.
  Mr. Lewis:Every hon. Member on our side who has spoken in the debate has mentioned old-age pensioners. It is only

  2213
  on that side that they have not been mentioned. The hon. Lady for Edgbaston (Miss Pitt) was an exception.
  Mr. Dodds:The hon. Lady said that the old-age pensioners were living better than ever before. The hon. Member for Bournemouth, West referred to fixed incomes. He must have the hide of a rhinoceros to say what he did when he represents what must be the laziest section of the community—Bournemouth. It would have been a much better balanced speech if the hon. Member had spared a minute to think of the poor old-age pensioners.
  Let us deal with the promise in 1951. The Conservative Central Office issued a pamphlet in the form of a retirement pension order book. It has on the front an old lady and an old gentleman. Inside it says:
  "This is not a real old-age pension book. But to every old-age pensioner it is a bitter reminder of the hard times they are having to endure. Rising prices and the high cost of living hit everyone, but it is the old-age pensioners who suffer worst of all."
  I ask hon. Members opposite to notice what follows. It says:
  "Even the new rate of 30s. introduced this month for those who qualify, has been left behind by galloping prices."
  The Conservative Central Office said in October, 1951, that the pension of 30s. had already been left behind by rising prices. Yet the Government themselves have increased it by only 2s. 6d. since then in a period in which they claim prosperity has never been higher and in which they say the standard of living has never been better. If in October, 1951, the 30s. had already been left behind by rising prices and if, on the admission of the Economic Secretary food prices have gone up by 20 per cent. since then, then, as it is known that the poorest old-age pensioners spend a high percentage of their income on food, is not it obvious that they are getting the worst deal of all? The promise at the end was this:
  "It is part of Conservative policy to see that help goes to those who need it—and that it goes in time. Those who need it most will get it first."
  If the 30s. had already been left behind in October, 1951, how can they claim that those who need it most will get it first? What we shall see—and it is becoming evident now that the books are being called in by the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance to get the amounts
  2214
  altered—is one of the shabbiest tricks ever played by any Government.
  I have been trying at Question Time on Mondays to get from the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance details of how many old-age pensioners will not get the 7s. 6d. or 11s. which they expect because they are already receiving above that figure from National Assistance. I submit that no old-age pensioner gets National Assistance unless he really needs it. There is a machinery to ensure that exhaustive inquiries are made. I propose to keep on asking until I get the exact figure but, from figures which I have got, I estimate that between 1,500,000 and 1,750,000 old-age pensioners, the poorest in the community, will not get 7s. 6d. or 11s. but only 2s. 6d. or 4s.
  The hon. Lady the Member for Edgbaston seems to think that she knows more about the working classes than anybody else. I live in my constituency and I represent more people than anyone else except an hon. Member from Northern Ireland. I know something about old-age pensioners. Not only the pensioners themselves but their relatives will be disappointed.
  I ask the Government to give a little more thought to the matter before the Budget. They should consider the position of these people, of whom there are at least 1,500,000, and also that of those on fixed incomes, many of whom are living in absolute poverty. We must do something for these people if we are to hold up our heads and to be able to say that all members of the community are sharing, fairly and squarely, in any cake that the country has. I should like to know whether there is to be any further statement to say that something will be done about these two bodies of people.
  Mr. Lewis: Do I understand that the old-age pensioner will get only 2s. 6d.? Is that the increase they are due to get in April? If so, will not it be reduced pro tanto by the increase in the cost of living which has taken place since last October?
  Mr. Dodds: Of course, the decision to give these increases was made five months ago, and the cost of living has increased since then, which worsens the situation for the old-age pensioners, whether they got this increase, or only the National

  2215
  Assistance Board increase of 2s. 6d. and 4s. I say that if this is allowed it is a national scandal.
  10.40 p.m.
  Mr. H. Rhodes: I do not wish to make a speech on this subject, but merely to ask the Economic Secretary for some advice.
  I agree with his arguments about increased production and its relation to the cost of living. That has been preached for many years from both sides of the House. But what happens when one is confronted by an audience of Lancashire cotton workers? Do we still tell them how virtuous it is to increase production, when they cannot get enough orders to keep them going full-time?
  I put that point to the Economic Secretary, because we shall have to have a few more precepts and ideas about this question. There are occasions when one cannot preach that doctrine to a particular section of the community, and I shall be sincerely pleased if the Economic Secretary will say something about that.
  10.42 p.m.
  Mr. Victor Collins: I did not imagine that my hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Rhodes) would receive an answer to his question, because the most significant thing about the speech of the Economic Secretary, and, indeed, about the speech of the Minister, was that they completely failed to attempt to answer the devastating attack of my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey). They dodged it completely. They ploughed resolutely and glumly on through prepared speeches.
  The only concession to this debate which was made by the Economic Secretary was when he said, "Do not let us talk about prices, let us talk about real wages." Then the hon. Gentleman produced a mystical sum, and said that from 1951 until the present time real wages had gone up by 2½ per cent.—whatever that may mean—and for the four years back, from 1951 to 1947, they had gone back 2½ per cent. He said that was a tribute to the magnificence of Conservative rule.
  He made no acknowledgment whatever of the £500 million a year bonus which has come to the Conservative Party and
  2216
  to the country as a whole from the improvement in the terms of trade. I believe that such statements are not merely nonsense, but that, in view of the vital importance of this discussion and the charges made by my hon. Friend, it is somewhat less than honest to fail to mention that.
  Although I sympathise with the Minister in his determination not to attempt to answer the unanswerable, I am disappointed that he has fallen so far from his former high estate as a back bencher as to descend to using the kind of argument which he advanced in tryingto prove that the cost of living had risen less under a Conservative Administration, on the average, than under a Labour Administration. The right hon. Gentleman neglected altogether to point out that, whereas under Labour rule we had constant, and, at the end, very quick advances in world prices, the prices at home advanced less than in European countries. Under a Tory Administration the position is that, in the main, world prices have advanced in our favour, but prices at home have gone up more than in any other country.
  The other thing which amazes me is the statement made by several right hon. and hon. Members opposite that the Conservative Party has given the housewife the benefit of the free play of markets. She is enjoying a greater selection and greater supplies, and, of course, the privilege of paying very much higher prices, while her husband, as a taxpayer, is paying £326 million in subsidies or in support prices, as they are termed.
  The only plaintive remark that the Minister of Agriculture could make was that that was the total. I should think it was the total—£326 million—when the Conservative Party is supposed to have abolished subsidies. When the Labour Government were providing consumer subsidies of around £400 million, they were, in the main, being used in the direct reduction of prices to the consumer.
  Now we have the higher prices as detailed by my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North, and, in addition, this £326 million which we are paying for as taxpayers. It is heads the housewife loses, and tails her husband loses as well. We are paying both ways, and through the nose. There is no doubt that the indictment made this afternoon of broken pledges is well founded.

  2217
  It is no use the Economic Secretary saying that the electors do not know about them. Of course, they know, and equally, of course, right hon. Gentlemen opposite know all about them. They know that they made the promises deliberately and that, just as deliberately, they broke them. They knew when they removed the food subsidies that it meant increased food prices and increased wage demands. It is too petty for hon. Members opposite to complain about the increased price of coal, gas, and so on, when they deliberately engineered increases in food prices, with the inevitable wage increases which flowed from that.
  Having sat for 7¼hours in a debate of this kind, one's interest in food becomes more keen, but one's interest in its price becomes less acute. However, I wish to say one word arising out of the statement made by the Economic Secretary that we on this side of the House had not made any concrete suggestions for improving the situation. I propose to make a modest suggestion which may mean a difference of a point or two in the cost-of-living index.
  In particular, I want to refer to a remark made by the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne) when he asked, almost with tears in his voice, what he was going to say to the fishermen and the farm workers in his constituency about our methods for better wages. It was an amazing thing for an hon. Member opposite to ask that question, although, at the time, he would not let us answer it.
  We know that the principal products of the hon. Gentleman's constituency are fish and market garden produce. One could not possibly select two more representative examples of free, untrammelled, glorious free enterprise than the horticultural industry and the fishing industry.
  Mr. Osborne:The hon. Gentleman is missing the point.
  Mr. Collins: I am answering it now.
  As I say, one could not have two better examples than these two industries, and, therefore, the answer must come from the party opposite. The whole policy of the Government in respect of food has been to remove restrictions and controls, to do away with bulk buying, and to return to free enterprise so as to show us how Conservative freedom works.
  I would point out to the Minister of Agriculture, too, that complete freedom
  2218
  has been given to British horticulture, and ask him how it is working. Those employed in the industry—and the Minister will be aware that I have some knowledge of the matter—are complaining bitterly, and their complaints have been translated in recent times into one-third less vegetable acreage. The wholesalers, the so-called middlemen—of whom there are far too many—say that they are doing far worse under the present system. The workers in the industry, like the porters at Covent Garden, who have been on strike for four weeks, must have some criticism, and of all the things complained about by the housewife, few bring more adverse comment than the cost of fruit and vegetables. On 8th March, the Minister of Agriculture issued a Press statement on fruit and vegetable crops and supplies in England and Wales.
  Mr. Osborne:May I just explain to the hon. Gentleman that my constituency does not produce horticultural products? It produces sheep, barley, and potatoes.
  Mr, Collins: All I can say to that is that when I visited the hon. Member's constituency quite substantial areas were devoted to market gardening; but perhaps under a Tory Government those people have had to go out of business.
  But I was speaking about the Minister's Press statement, because in it he refers to the fact that winter cabbage, savoys, and the small stocks of brussels sprouts, will be finished this month, and that, owing to the long winter, with its very bad weather, there cannot be more supplies coming on until well into April. He adds that winter cauliflower supplies in March are not likely to exceed 2,000 tons, compared with the normal 15,000 to 20,000 tons, and that next month these supplies will not exceed 10,000 tons, compared with the normal 30,000 tons.
  Here we have the normal conditions of supply and demand, and, when we have had a bad time in a long winter, we expect prices to be higher because commodities are fewer. It is one of the indictments that we make against this industry that, while a period of hard frost at the wrong time is bad, it is, in fact, less of a disaster than the generous bounty of nature whereby, when there is a good crop, it is not worth while sending it to market.

  2219
  The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that not long ago he increased tariffs. He had representations from the National Farmers' Union, who wanted tariffs even on vegetables which we did not import into this country, and he succumbed to the suggestion that these tariffs should be fixed; or perhaps, I should say, his predecessor did. But the tariffs were fixed. We on these benches suggested that these tariffs would constitute a fine on the housewife because, when prices here were low, the foreign exporter would not send his produce here, and, when prices were higher in this country because of a scarcity, there would be no need for these tariffs. That is the position with which we are confronted at the moment; and it will apply next month.
  Is the Minister taking any steps to relieve this scarcity, by a temporary lowering of the tariffs, or is he prepared to let the matter go on without any sort of hindrance so that, of a certainty, next month will find us with fantastic prices—and some very high profits? Hon. Members on both sides of the House are asking him if he is aware of this and is merely going to make some lame comment. Unquestionably supplies are short; they must be at present, and that is not his fault. But the fault will rest with him unless he takes steps to relieve this scarcity.
  I said when I began that it might not be considered very important, but if it means a couple of points increase in the cost-of-living index for a month or so—as it can mean—it can also mean a whole chain of reaction of wage demands for those who are dependent upon that index. Therefore, I ask the Economic Secretary to pay attention to this point and see if something can be done; and I hope that he will say that at least one contribution of some small importance and some value has come from this side of the House.
  10.55 p.m.
  Mr. E. Fernyhough: It is most unfortunate that, 10 years after the war, during which time the trade unions have been in the strongest bargaining position in their history, the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. J. Eden) should have made the attack upon them that he did. No one can deny that if
  2220
  the trade unions had wanted to wield their power in a selfish manner there was no limit to the terms that they could have obtained because of the full employment which has existed since 1945.
  If the coal miners decided to wield their industrial power today they would be in an impregnable position. Everybody knows what the consequences would be if they acted irresponsibly. Everybody knows that if they said, "We want certain concessions, and unless they are agreed to we shall strike," they would be in a very strong position, because a strike of the miners at this time would spell economic collapse for this country.
  What applies to the miners applies to the steel workers, the engineers and, indeed, to the overwhelming majority of workers. The trade unions have acted with a patience, a responsibility and a judgment which ought to meet with universal acclaim, yet the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West, in defence of what he said, quoted the action of the railway-men last Christmas.
  Mr. Gerald Nabarro: Where is he?
  Mr. Lewis: In the Garden of Eden.
  Mr. Fernyhough:If the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West thinks that the railwaymen, in making that modest demand and saying that they were prepared to strike, were acting irresponsibly, he knows nothing about the history of this country.
  Our trade unions, unlike the employers, did not take advantage of their strength. In the inter-war years, when unemployment was the order of the day—when there were 2 million unemployed—there was scarcely an industrialist who did not take advantage of the labour market to get cheap labour in order to increase his profits and depress the standards of the workers.
  Mr. Osborne: No.
  Mr. Fernyhough: If the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne) thinks otherwise, it is obvious that he did not move in the circles in which I moved at that time.
  Mr. Osborne: Surely the hon. Member knows that wages were negotiated between the responsible employers' federations and the trade unions. The bargains were made between the two great responsible bodies.
  Mr. Jack Jones: Who locked the miners out?
  Mr. Fernyhough: Exactly.
  Who locked the miners out in 1926, and caused industrial unrest in 1921 and throughout those inter-war years? It was the employers who were always demanding wage reductions, because they knew that they could sack workers and get men from the dole queues to replace them. There is no question that if the workers, having been in this strong bargaining position since 1945, had acted as the employers did when we had 2 million unemployed, this country would have been in a hopeless economic position.
  It is perfectly true that there are some things beyond the control of the Government which tend to play a part in the cost of living; but from the time this Government came into office they have repeatedly made decisions which have led directly or indirectly to an increase in the cost of living. I do not think, for instance, that anyone doubts that the increase in the Bank Rate is bound to increase the cost of living. If local authorities have to pay more for loans that is passed on to the rates.
  I remember that immediately after this Government came into office, the Minister of Supply informed the House that the Government had decided that the price of steel must be increased. At that time the Steel Board said that was not necessary and the Chairman resigned rather than agree. Subsequently, the balance sheet was published, and it was found that because of the unnecessary increase the Government had caused the Corporation to make a profit of £60 million in nine months.
  If the Economic Secretary wanted to see our exports increase he should have objected to that. It was unnecessary, and made every ship built in our shipyards dearer. It made every lorry carrying goods dearer, every railway wagon dearer and every piece of machinery exported dearer. By forcing the price up the Government increased the cost of our exports, which consequently tended to increase the cost of living.
  We are repeatedly told by hon. Members opposite that this is the best of all possible worlds. They tell us to look in the shops and see how crammed they are with food—plenty for everybody and
  2222
  plenty of everything. If one analyses a reply which the Chancellor gave to the hon. Member for Louth,one begins to appreciate just how much this so-called plenty means when it is spread over the country. The Chancellor said that increased prices represented £525 million of the £600 million by which consumers' expenditure on food had risen between 1951 and 1953. That meant that in 1953 the people of this country ate £75 million worth more food than in 1951. There are 50 million people in this country and it means that they ate 30 shillings worth of food more per year, in other words, sevenpennyworth more a week. All that this plenty and freedom amounted to was sevenpennyworth more food to the individual consumer. The difference between 1951 and 1953 or 1954 is not very great if it is represented by only sevenpennyworth of extra food.
  Whilst it is true that some people are consuming more food, some are consuming considerably less. The Economic Secretary himself supplied the answer. He said that if the prices of meat and butter were reduced consumption would go up. This means that some people are not getting what they would like, because they cannot afford it. The hon. Gentleman does not believe in rationing by legislation, he believes in rationing by the purse. There is no question about it.
  The hon. Gentleman asked how he could reduce the cost of living. I see that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food is present. I put a Question to him, but he would not answer it. I asked what profit we made on imported Danish butter and bacon. The hon. Gentleman was not willing to disclose it. If the Economic Secretary to the Treasury wants to reduce the cost of living, let die Ministry of Food enable the public to be supplied with Danish bacon and butter at the price which the Ministry pays for it.
  Everybody knows that Danish bacon could then be sold at Is. per lb. less. Everybody knows, too, that there could be a considerable reduction in the price of Danish butter. Therefore, if the Government want an opportunity to contribute towards a reduction in the cost of living they should take steps to make it possible for people to have those commodities at the price which the Government pay for them.

  2223
  I can see the deputy Chief Whip looking very angry, and I promise that I will not delay the House unduly, but I want to say that none of us should pretend that it is an easy matter for any Government to reduce the cost of living while so much of our wealth is being devoted to defence purposes. I am not arguing the merits of the case for armaments now, but as long as we are having to pay hundreds of thousands of men for producing goods which nobody can consume, that obviously is bound to make an impact upon the cost of living.
  While the Government have by no means taken all the steps open to them to keep the cost of living stabilised, while they must accept responsibility, because of the policy they have pursued, for the wage claims which the workers are now pressing, I would hope that the Government will struggle with might and main to reduce the extent of our defence programme and by that means make a more substantial reduction in the cost of living than they can achieve by any other means open to them.
  11.8 p.m.
  Mt. Jack Jones: I would not have ventured to intervene in the debate had I not been horrified to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough) telling the House and the country that a young Tory Member had taken upon himself this evening to attack the trade union movement. I want to tell that young Member and his hon. and right hon. Friends, the Prime Minister in particular, and the Tory Party that they should be grateful that the trade union movement has acted in the way it has since the war.
  I am not an expert on what goes on in some industries, but I can tell the House what goes on in the industry about which I claim to know a little—the steel industry, which I consider to be the finest in the country. If any Tory Member or Minister wants to tell me that the present Government or any other Government do not owe a great debt to the men in that industry I should like him to get up and say so.
  If the steel workers were to insist on being paid in the way in which their original agreement provided for them to be paid they would be receiving about
  2224
  140 per cent.more on their base rates than they are today. We had a sliding scale agreement for very many years, and it provided that if steel went up 2s. 6d. a ton 1¼ per cent. was added to a man's wages. In the past few years there have been many 2s. 6d. increases. There has been a £10 increase in the price of most stable steel commodities. Those men have forgone all that money. They have instead a cost-of-living bonus which gives to all the workers, to the £30 a week man down to the £5 a week man, the same amount each per week.
  The steelworkers have shown real restraint, because they are men who recognise the economic difficulties of the country. Those economic difficulties existed when this party was in power. They exist now, and they will exist after the next General Election, whichever party wins it. Those men have that sense of responsibility, and it ill becomes any Member of Parliament, particularly a Tory Member of Parliament, to attack people of that type. Members should go into steel works and down coal mines to learn something of the background of the steel and coal mining industries before claiming to know something about them.
  Mr. Lewis:My hon. Friend, and my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough) quite rightly, have drawn attention to the appalling speech of the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. J. Eden). Does my hon. Friend feel it is serious enough to warrant a reply from the Government, so that the Government can dissociate themselves from it?
  Mr. Jones: I can give even a Tory Government credit for being honourable enough to dissociate themselves from anything of that sort.
  Mr. Lewis: They have not done so, so far.
  Mr. Jones:May be they have not done so so far, but I am not one of those bigoted Socialists who think that there is no decency in a Tory Government. They have a sense of honour, and if they have a sense of honour they should, as I believe they can and will, dissociate themselves from any attack on the great trade union movement.
  Mr. Lewis: They have not done so.
  Mr. Jones: I was talking about the steel workers. Since the war started they have voluntarily worked a complete work-round system, 168 hours out of 168. They have no 40 or 44 hour week. Their works are not idle on Fridays, Saturdays and Mondays as are the spindles in the constituency ofthe hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne). The furnaces are never still. Those steel men have made tremendous sacrifices. They work Saturday afternoons, Saturday nights, Sunday mornings, Sunday afternoons, Sunday nights. They have done so since the commencement of the war. They have made a tremendous contribution to the economic salvation of the country.
  What have we seen on the part of the owners—the new owners—of the industry? I say seriously and sincerely that if the new powers that be were to show the same restraint in the payment of dividends and the making of profits as the men have shown in the matter of their wages I could see some sense in Tories starting attacks and charges against the trade unions, but as it is I advise the Tories and the Government to apply their minds not so much to what the workers are doing as to what those who employ the workers are doing, particularly in that industry.
  The economic situation is far from being all we would like it to be. The Tory Government, and even a Socialist Government, will need all the help they can get from employers and employees alike before the country is out of its economic difficulties. There is something I ask them to remember. If the international situation is eased, as we hope it may be, and as it could be, and if we can bring sanity to the world, we shall probably see a big recession in our heavy industries, at least for a time. In view of that possibility, to provoke the trade unions is to go rather far.
  I hope and trust that tonight or on some other occasion we shall get from the Minister of Labour, his Parliamentary Secretary or some other knowledgeable employer of labour—there are a few such employers on the other side of the House who have lived in industry long enough to know something about it—to say that the Government completely dissociate themselves from what has been said.
  2226
  Unfortunately, having been elsewhere on other business, I did not hear the speech of the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West, but I am always ready to reply to anybody who, in this period of history, attacks our great trade union movement. The trade unions are a model to the world, although they may not be perfect. Many things have happened in the history of the trade union movement that we would rather had not happened. Many memories are still fresh. I come from a constituency where the children and grandchildren of miners have been told the history of the mines as they have been brought up. I do not want to scratch old sores because all that does is to inflame them, but we have not forgotten that the Prime Minister was the person responsible for sending troops into my constituency. But I do not want to dwell on that; that is the sort of thing that can well be left in the limbo of the past.
  Any Tory hon. Member who looks forward to the economic salvation of this country and wants prosperity in this country must be inclined in a more friendly fashion, both as an employer and as a Member of Parliament, towards the trade union movement than was apparent from the speech of the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West.
  Mr. Dodds:Is my hon. Friend aware that the Economic Secretary to the Treasury did not rebuke his hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. J. Eden) for his hysterical and vicious speech?
  Mr. Jones: I was not here when the Economic Secretary to the Treasury spoke, but I am surprised that he did not do so. Even the occupants of the Tory Front Bench know the facts. The Economic Secretary ought to have done so.
  11.17 p.m.
  Mr. T. L. Iremonger: I do not propose to keep the House very long. If I really tried, I think I might confine my remarks to 55 minutes, and if I tried harder, I think I might even confine them to 55 seconds.
  I am sorry that the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. Jack Jones) should have taken it upon himself to attack my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth,

  2227
  West (Mr. J. Eden) without having heard his speech. I did not hear it either, but I should like to tell the hon. Member—I am sure my hon. Friend would associate himself with what I am saying—that I, my hon. Friend and hon. Members on both sides of the House would feel very much happier about the economic condition of the country and about its economic future if we were confident that the leadership of the trade unions was in the hands of persons as sagacious, honourable and patriotic as the hon. Member for Rotherham. That was probably in my hon. Friend's mind, and it is certainly in mine.
  I should also like to say a word to the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough), who is closely associated with another of our great national movements, the Co-operative movement. As we are debating the cost of living, perhaps it would not be out of place to say that the community as a whole has very much appreciated the initiative taken by the distributive trades in reducing the margin of profit of about 1s. put on 1 lb. of tea after it reaches the grocer's counter. Some of us may feel that the cut might have been made rather more quickly if a lead had been given by the Co-operative movement instead of it following the lead given by private trade.
  I am not saying anything against the public spirit of the Co-operative movement, which makes a very valuable contribution to our national life, but I hope the hon. Gentleman will use his influence with the movement to ensure that it gives a lead at any time when it is necessary to bring down distributive costs.
  Mr. Fernyhough Mr. Fernyhough rose—
  Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member has already addressed the House.
  Mr. Fernyhough: I rose to interrupt the hon. Member opposite, Sir.
  Mr. Speaker: I believe that the hon. Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Iremonger) had finished his speech.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

  WOOL (GUARANTEED PRICES)
  11.21 p.m.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (Mr. G. R. H. Nugent): I beg to move,
  That the British Wool (Guaranteed Prices) Order, 1955, dated 8th March, 1955, a copy of which was laid before this House on 9th March, be approved.
  This Order is made under Section 4 of the Agriculture Act, 1947, and its effect is to replace the Order which expires at the end of April of this year. The new Order makes two small changes from the existing Order. One of them has the effect of making the guaranteed prices for wool payable to the British Wool Marketing Board instead of to the individual producer and the other change has the effect of consolidating the marketing allowance in the global price guarantee.
  Other than that, the Order continues with a profit sharing arrangement similar in principle to the one we have had in the current five years and in detail according to the new financial arrangements which were announced on the 10th of this month, in answer to a Question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. Hurd). The principal effect of the Order is to carry on the general principle of the arrangement we have had in the past five years. There have been long and detailed discussions with the Wool Board and with the three National Farmers' Unions, who are in agreement with these arrangements. I think that they will effectively carry out the will of Parliament in providing a price guarantee for wool.
  11.22 p.m.
  Mr. Frederick Willey: I rise only to thank the hon. Gentleman for the concise and clear explanation he has given and to say that we on this side of the House have no opposition to the Order. I should like to take this opportunity of thanking the British Wool Marketing Board for the excellent work it has done over the past few years.
  As I said one or two controversial things earlier in the day, I should now like to say that it is a good thing that both sides of the House can agree that this is an orderly marketing arrangement.
  11.23 p.m.
  Mr. H. Rhodes: Ihave no objection to the Order, but I have something to say about its implications and I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will give us his views on what Ihave to say. The British Wool Marketing Board has done a good job of work and the country can view with satisfaction the arrangements that have been made for marketing. What I have to say has to do with a section of the marketing which affects the quality of the wool.
  As the House knows, there is a penalty of 4d. per lb. on wool which is found to be contaminated with tar. Under the present arrangements, farmers with wool to sell get in touch with a grader who receives the wool into his warehouse for appraisement. The price the grader puts on the wool is the price which is paid to the producer.
  If, during his examination, the grader sees tar or pitch on the fleece he ensures, or should ensure, that 4d. per lb. is knocked off the price that would otherwise be paid. The method employed is that the fleeces are sent to a grader and it might be that out of 600 fleeces only one is taken from the pile for examination. The effect of this can cut both ways. It might be that a farmer, perhaps accidentally, has got a little tar or pitch on one fleece and that that is the one which is examined. As a result he can be penalised under the financial provisions of the Order on the whole of his weight of wool to the extent of 4d. per lb.
  I will give way to the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Hurd) if he wishes, for I know that my facts are right.
  Mr. Anthony Hurd: I am listening attentively.
  Mr. Rhodes:On the other hand, it might be that the producer has pitch or tar on his wool and that it might not be seen by the grader. In that event, 4d. per lb. is paid to the producer to which he is not entitled.
  This is an international as well as a local problem. The countries of the world have been considering it very seriously for many years; in fact, they have been considering it for many hundreds of years. There was a Proclamation issued by Charles II against the use of
  2230
  pitch, tar or paint on wool, and there were very severe penalties for infringement. Through the ages this problem has been considered a scourge by the manufacturers.
  I am a manufacturer. It is a serious matter to me and to my workers. It is a serious matter to the industry and to the country. If the raw material is not looked after properly and presented to the people who can turn it into articles to sell abroad then, to that extent, the country is failing in its duty and its obligation to those who have to apply their craftsmanship. We are definitely being handicapped in the Canadian and American markets because of the presence of pitch and tar in wool.
  I should like to outline what has been done during the last year or two to try to tackle the problem. Last year, there was an international wool textile conference in Brussels. It embraced most of the wool manufacturing countries of the world and also the producers. One of the principal subjects discussed at that conference was that of the marking of sheep with tar and pitch. The wool growers were asked to comment on the following suggestions for dealing with the branding problem: first, refraining from branding altogether, or, alternatively, using some method of branding not injurious to the fleece; secondly, instituting official testing and approval of branding fluids for legibility, permanence, scourability, etc.; thirdly, forbidding, by legislation, or by other means, the use of branding fluids which have not been approved; fourthly, brand markings to be made as small as practicably possible and splash marks to be avoided; fifthly, brands to be cut out of the fleece and sold separately; sixthly, wool free from brands should be baled separately and labelled as such, since it is expected that it would fetch higher prices.
  I do not wish to deal with all these matters in sequence, as other hon. Members wish to speak; but I will deal first with refraining from branding altogether. The only country which does not brand is Italy, where they have a very small number of sheep. They pierce the ear and mark in that way. But that method would not work in countries where there are large ranges, as they wish to be able to identify sheep at a distance

  2231
  On the second and third suggestions, the testing of fluids for this purpose is very necessary, because, of the rigours of climate in this and other countries. Until recently it has always been said that there is no branding fluid available which would stay put until the time of shearing in all weathers. That argument was advanced as late as June of this year by the Australians, who know what they are talking about in this respect.
  In their comments at the conference they said that the fluids at present available were not yet of sufficiently wide application to merit official approval. They are moving rapidly in Australia in this matter. I am informed that at a meeting in Australia in January this year representatives of the Australian Wool Bureau, wool growers, brokers, manufacturers and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, discussed this matter. The Chairman, Mr. C. P. Ball—after a statement that the estimated loss to woollen manufacturers was £3 million per annum on account of the use of tar and pitch—said that they accepted the report of Dr. M. Lipson of the Research Organisation on more than twelve months of proving tests on the new fluid. He continued:
  "The committee is satisfied that the fluid is the answer to unscourable brands which cost the industry so much each year. The fluid will be prepared in reds, blues, and greens so that all black markings on wool will be suspect."
  Mr. Gerald Nabarro: On a point of order. Are we allowed to discuss imported wool under this Order? It is my impression that the Order applies only to British produced wool. Is it not therefore completely out of order to discuss Australian wool?
  Mr. Speaker: I took it that the hon. Member who is addressing the House was telling us of something that had been discovered in Australia which might be of advantage to British wool. Certainly as far as I can make out, this Order deals with British wool. I thought that was the tenor of the hon. Member's remarks. I cannot allow him to go into wool all over the world.
  Mr. Rhodes: You have got it quite right, Mr. Speaker. That is just what I was arguing. Having been round the
  2232
  world to seek justification and corroboration for the argument which 1was using for the benefit of the industry in this country, may I now say that this fluid which is available for the marking of British sheep, which are affected by the Order, is made in this country and is being marketed by the Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd.
  If an organisation like I.C.I, is taking it up, it is surely seriously worth considering at this juncture. In view of the small number of farmers in this country who are marking their wool with pitch and tar, thus doing damage to the reputation of the whole farming community, cannot we apply our minds to introducing legislation to take care of that very small minority who are doing damage not only to themselves, but to the reputation of the farming community and to manufacturers who have to use the wool?
  This is a very serious subject, as can be seen by anyone who goes into a textile factory which has received a delivery of wool that is affected by tar. One has only to consult the workpeople on the subject to hear their opinion about it. I hope that the Minister of Agriculture will have something encouraging to say on the subject, because it is a very deserving case.
  11.38 p.m.
  Mr. Archer Baldwin: I am sorry to take up the time of the House at this very late hour, but we are dealing with a Board which is handling £18 million to £20 million worth of wool a year. It is a matter for regret that this debate is not taking place at a more reasonable time of day, when we could go into the whole operations of the Board.
  I have sympathy with the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Rhodes) on the question of this tar marking, which has a very serious effect. But the hon. Gentleman will not get what he wants in the way of penalising a user of tar unless there is an entirely different method of grading in operation. The grading is not done exactly in the way he mentioned.
  When I had my wool graded into 11different categories, I thought, in my innocence, that each of my fleeces had been opened and that different portions of the fleece had been put into their right heaps and weighed at the end of the grading in accordance with the quality of

  2233
  my wool, for which I received a price ranging from 4s. 6d. to 8s. 6d. per lb.
  After the protest made by the hon. Gentleman in the agricultural debate on the same subject, I took the matter up with my merchants and found out that it was nothing like that. The vendor's wool arrives, and it is then the duty of the merchant who receives it to go through a few fleeces in each sheet to see whether it is tar branded or not, and it is a matter of luck whether or not tar is found. After that, the Board's grader comes along, and, instead of opening the fleece and grading it, he does what is called fleece grading. He picks up each fleece and throws it into what he considers the appropriate grade. He must be a clever man if he can grade it in that way.
  Mine went into eleven different heaps. Why that should be so, I do not know, but that is what happened to my 250 fleeces. I suggest that the Wool Marketing Board wants a system of real grading because after the woolgets to the manufacturer it has to be properly graded and I should have thought that it would be best to do this in the first stage. That would enable us to penalise the pitch marker.
  I should like to say something about the original scheme. I have here a copy of the first annual report and statement of accounts of the Board, and in that there is this statement:
  "The ultimate disposal of any quinquennial surplus not required for the operation of the Scheme will be decided by the producers in Annual General Meeting in the light of conditions obtaining in four years' time when the amount of the surplus is known."
  I should like to ask the Minister whether that annual general meeting has taken place and, if so, whether the producers have decided what shall be done with the surplus now existing which, I believe, is something between £2 million and £3 million. If they have not made a decision, I suggest that this Order should be taken back, since it is not in order for a bargain to be made by the Board when it has not undertaken to do what it said; and that is, what the producers wanted done with this money.
  In the five years which have gone by—and here I must declare an interest—I have helped to pile up this surplus; and probably many producers like myself
  2234
  want to know what is to happen to this bit of money. Will it, for instance, be handed on to the next Board, or will it be distributed? I think that some of the Scottish hon. Members would be interested to hear something about this surplus. Many of the producers in Scotland have worked under terrible conditions this winter, and might be glad of their share. We should not lightly agree to the passing of this Order.
  I have also a copy of the minutes of the first annual general meeting of registered producers, held in August, 1951, at which the chairman assured the meeting that, subject to any necessary provision which the Board would have to make, the remainder of the reserve would be put at the discretion of producers at the end of the five-year period. One member, Mr. Ivor Smith, of Devon, asked for an assurance that, as the reserve fund was provided by the 1950 producers, they should have special consideration in any future distribution. If the Board has come to a bargain with the Minister as to what should be done with that surplus, then this Order should not be accepted.
  I have just one more question which I should like to put. In the Annual Review and Determination of Guarantees, 1955, Cmd. 9406, under the heading, "Wool," it is stated:
  "The Government have agreed, for one more year, to request the British Wool Marketing Board to continue the payment, within the guaranteed price, of a special bonus of 3d. per lb. on the wool of certain breeds of hill sheep."
  My question is this. Where does that 3d. come from? Is it from the Ministry, the Treasury, or is it 3d. from the lowland farmers? I do not know if the lowland farmers would have any objection to helping out their hill colleagues, but if this is paid by the Board, I do not know why the Government have requested, for one more year, that this should be paid. Is it paid by the Board, or by the lowland farmers?
  I have an objection to this Order. Paragraph 5 (2) says:
  "If for any wool year the Board's outgoings are greater than the Board's receipts, the Ministers or the appropriate Minister shall pay the difference to the Board subject to and in accordance with the provisions of any arrangements in that behalf made between the Ministers and the Board"—
  this is the important part—

  2235
  "or if no such arrangement has been made, in such manner and subject to such conditions as the Ministers may determine."
  I am not afraid of the actions of my right hon. Friend or my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, but I am thinking of future Ministers of Agriculture. It might be that one would be the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), who is now a keen farmer. I wonder whether this Order will hand over to such a future Minister the power to do something even if he has not come to some arrangement with the Board. He could easily not come to any such arrangement—and he can then take into his own hands dictatorial powers.
  The Minister should look at the Order again. The same provision is made in the following sub-paragraph. As a Conservative Party we should watch these Socialist measures which we are now operating. It is a great mistake that we should be handing over dictatorial powers to Ministries in London. I am still a Right-wing Conservative and a democrat, and I believe that in all these matters we should consult the people who are financially interested in these schemes and not let the decisions be made in London, among the various bodies who happen to be operating.
  11.46 p.m.
  Mr. Nugent: With the leave of the House, I should like to reply to the points made by the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Rhodes). The House has had the benefit on previous occasions of listening to him upon this subject of fleeces spoilt by tar marks, and we all recognise his authority in the matter and the interest with which he speaks. His plea is that the Government should legislate to make it a criminal offence for farmers to use these tar marks, but I feel that he has to some extent replied to his own argument by his explanation that the Australians—who have as great an interest as anyone in wool production—have not yet discovered a mark, other than tar, which can in all circumstances be regarded as suitable. That is precisely what the hon. Gentleman said. Though much progress has been made with soluble marks, nothing has been found that is completely certain in all weathers.
  Mr. Rhodes:The hon. Gentleman has it completely wrong. I first quoted from the report of the International Wool Textile Organisation, which had its conference in Brussels last June. I said that at that time the Australians objected to the bringing in of legislation to stop tar marking, but the cable which I received in January this year said that the committee which was then sitting—and which embraced brokers, farmers and every other interested body in Australia—had now agreed that there was a suitable marking fluid. I want to make that quite clear to the hon. Gentleman. They now agree that there is a suitable fluid.
  Mr. Nugent:The hon. Member has added something to what he said before, but we are not yet satisfied that there is a fluid which can be used entirely satisfactorily in all circumstances in the climate of this country.
  If Parliament decided to make it a criminal offence to use these tar marks it would mean policing large numbers of small flocks all over the country. Inspectors would have to go on to the farms. We must hesitate before introducing Measures of that kind. I recognise the gravity of this matter when the wool reaches the mill, but let us look at it from the other end. The percentage of fleeces reported as spoilt in this way in 1953 was ·7 per cent. and in the 1954 clip it was ·4 per cent. It may be that that does not cover every fleece that is marked, but it is enough to indicate that the percentage of spoilt fleeces is really very small.
  My right hon. Friend takes the view that this is essentially a matter to be dealt with by co-operation. Progress should continue to be made and is being made with alternative marking fluids. Obviously, sometime something will be found. In the meantime, it is a matter for the Wool Board, representing producers, and merchants and manufacturers to try to work out through the price structure penalties and incentives which will persuade those who still use these tar marks not to use them. I am able to say tonight that the Wool Board, pursuing this general line, has decided to increase the penalty for tar from 4d. per lb., to 6d. per lb. to give a further prod in the direction we wishproducers to go. I do hope the

  2237
  hon. Member will not think we are not taking this matter seriously when I say that we really do not think legislation would be the right way of curing it.
  In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Mr. Baldwin), his first point was a reference to a Report from the Wool Board, the 1951 Report I think, in which he informed the House that the intention of the Board was to refer to an annual general meeting the question of how the surplus should be disposed of. That is on the matter of the new agreement I imagine. As far as we are concerned as the Government, we have made the new financial agreement with the Board as representing producers and agreed it with the three National Farmers' Unions. The Wool Board is elected by the wool producers triennially and is responsible to the producers.
  As my hon. Friend said, there is a surplus of about £1½ million to £2 million. It is impossible to say precisely what it is until we get to the end of the current year. That money is kept at the disposal of the Board and the Board has decided that it will be in the best interests of wool producers to carry it forward in its funds and not pay it out. It is not for us, as the Government, to tell the Board what itshould do with the surplus. It is the Board's money and it is elected by the producers to dispose of it as it thinks best. There is no question whatsoever that that is proper constitutional practice. If my hon. Friend is not satisfied with the arrangement he, as a wool producer, has the remedy to address himself to the Board which he has taken a part in electing, and to complain to them if he is not satisfied it is handling the matter in the right way.
  My hon. Friend's second point was the question of how the 3d. bonus was paid to the hill sheep farmers. It is paid out of the general funds of the Board and, therefore, the cost is spread over the wool producers of the country. His third point was his complaint that the Minister had a residual power of control. My right hon. Friend is, of course, making the Order which I am proposing to the House and all it provides is that if a financial agreement has not been made—one was made about a fortnight ago—between the Minister and the Board, it
  2238
  is for the Minister to decide how the funds should be disposed of.
  As it is the Minister who decides what the guaranteed price is to be and then on behalf of the Government undertakes to pay whatever moneys are needed to implement the guaranteed price, it seems perfectly reasonable that it should be the Minister who decides how to dispose of the money if no agreement is made. After all, he is a Minister responsible to Parliament, and if the House was not satisfied I am sure that it would say so very soon and that my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster would be among the first to raise his voice. Surely this is a constitutional way of dealing with the matter.
  The Board has done a really good job for wool producers and has won the congratulations of the whole farming community, and it would be most unfortunate to leave any impression that it has done other than serve well the interests of wool producers throughout the country.
  11.56 p.m.
  Sir John Barlow: I have listened with the greatest care to the explanation given by my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Mr. Baldwin). I am not satisfied that the Wool Board was competent to make this arrangement with the N.F.U. and the Minister. It has been laid down that this arrangement should be changed only by members at annual meetings. I understand that the arrangement has been changed by the Board without reference to producer members or members in annual meeting and for that reason I am certainly not satisfied with the explanation to which we have just listened.
  I remember also that very large sums of money were left with the Ministry of Agriculture by the Wool Board. When I looked at the accounts, it was not clear to me whether any interest was received from the Ministry. I should be glad if the Minister would answer that point.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the British Wool (Guaranteed Prices) Order, 1955, dated 8th March, 1955, a copy of which was laid before this House on 9th March, be approved.

  OIL IN NAVIGABLE WATERS [MONEY]
  Resolution reported,
  That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to enable effect to be given to the International Convention for the prevention of Pollution of the Sea by Oil, 1954, and otherwise to make new provision for preventing the pollution of navigable waters by oil, it is expedient to authorise—

  (1) the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of—

  (a) any administrative expenses of the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation under the said Act, and

  2240

  (b) any increase, attributable to provisions of the said Act relating to facilities in harbours for the disposal of oil residues, in the sums payable out of such moneys under Part I of the Local Government Act, 1948, or under the Local Government (Financial Provisions) (Scotland) Act, 1954;

  (2) the payment into the Exchequer of any
  fees received by the said Minister under the
  said Act.

  Resolution agreed to.

  ADJOURNMENT
  Resolved, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Oakshott.]
  Adjourned accordingly at two minutes to Twelve o'clock

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Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers
The Lord Rochester—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

NATIONAL INSURANCE (INDUSTRIAL INJURIES) (COLLIERY WORKERS SUPPLEMENTARY SCHEME) AMENDMENT DRAFT ORDER, 1955
2.35 p.m.
THE PAYMASTER GENERAL (THE EARL OF SELKIRK)THE PAYMASTER GENERAL (THE EARL OF SELKIRK) rose to move, That the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) (Colliery Workers Supplementary Scheme) Amendment Draft Order, 1955, reported from the Special Orders Committee on Wednesday last, be approved. The noble Earl said: My Lords, I beg to move that this Order be approved. The original scheme which the Order seeks to amend is the only one of its kind under the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act, 1946, and it was approved by both sides of the mining industry in 1948. It has already been amended several times. The scheme broadly covers all colliery workers, underground or surface, who are employed by the National Coal Board or a small mine owner. It does not apply to clerical workers or to under-managers and upwards, or to anyone who is not in an employment certified as coming within the scheme by the Board and the National Union of Mineworkers. The contribution is 4d. a week for the employee, rather less for boys and women, and the National Coal Board contribute every month an amount equal to 4d. a ton on the total saleable tonnage of deep-
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mined coal for that month. The scheme is under a National Committee, with five representatives from each side of the industry. The chairman is Sir Eric Coates, and a former President, Sir William Lawther, and the present Secretary, Mr. Horner, of the National Union of Mineworkers are also members.
The present amendment of the scheme will make the benefit in the case of injury under this supplementary scheme one-third of the new industrial injury benefit—that is, one-third of 67s. 6d.–22s. 6d. Supplementary disablement benefit, which is also 22s. 6d., will be calculated in the same way—that is, one-third of the industrial injury rate. The increase will become effective from May 19, the same date as the new rates for industrial injury benefits come into farce. The scheme is financed independently of the Industrial Injuries Act and imposes no charges either on the Industrial Injuries Fund or on the Exchequer. The estimated cost is £400,000 for the first year, rising to £700,000 per annum in twenty-five years' time. The Government Actuary is satisfied that the Fund can carry this additional burden without any change in the contribution rates. I am sure that your Lordships will welcome this improvement for those engaged in this very dangerous industry.
Moved, That the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) (Colliery Workers Supplementary Scheme) Amendment Draft Order, 1955, reported from the Special Orders Committee on Wednesday last, be approved.—(The Earl of Selkirk.)
VISCOUNT HALL: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friends on this side of the House, I welcome this Order. It is an agreed Order. It is another sign of the good relations existing between both sides of the industry that agreements of this kind can be entered into, and we approve of it and welcome it.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

PROBLEM OF THE AGED
2.40 p.m.
LORD BEVERIDGE LORD BEVERIDGE rose to call attention to the social and human problems of old age as noted in the Report of the Committee presided over by Sir Thomas Phillips (Cmd. 9333); and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, following the Report of the Committee presided over by Sir Thomas Phillips and the proposals of the Government last December for increasing the rates of pensions, when many rates of insurance pensions were under consideration, I think it was generally agreed on all sides of the House that at some later date there ought to be an occasion for discussing the social and human problems of old age, irrespective of the rates of pensions. These social and human problems were not within the scope of the Phillips Committee. They were concerned with the economic and financial aspects of old age, and above all with the rates of pensions and the conditions of pensions. But in one section of their Report, they did note most of the problems.
I should like to present the social and human problems of old age to your Lordships as arising in the main through two general facts. The first general fact is the nature of age itself, the fact that age brings decay. The decay of the faculties, both physical and mental, is inevitable in the end, but utterly uncertain in the rate at which it comes, its incidence and severity. I think I cannot illustrate the uncertainty of how old age will bring the faculties to an end better than by referring briefly to what happened in Athens 2,500 years ago. It is generally understood that, in the main, lyric poetry is a product of youth. I think it is an undoubted fact that the finest lyric poetry ever written, or I think ever will be written, in the world was written by the tragedian Sophocles, at the age of 90, in his play, ædipus at Colonus. And Sophocles was not unique in going on writing tragic poetry and lyric poetry in those choruses in old age. Actually, all three of the great Greek poets—æschylus, Sophocles and Euripides—were persons of pensionable age when they were producing their best known masterpieces. Whether they had pensions or whether they had recourse to assistance, I cannot say; but æschylus produced the Oresteia, Euripides, the
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Bacchœ—a play which I remember with great joy because I got a First-Class upon it at Oxford many years ago—when they were between 75 and 80 years of age, and Sophocles produced the Philoctetes at 87, and this other play to which I have referred when he was already 90.
But the Greeks were not only famous in those days as dramatists at old age. At that time they enjoyed the leadership of a remarkable statesman, Pericles. He, I am sorry to say, died before he attained full pensionable age, but he was near it, and he undoubtedly made one of the finest speeches of his life, and the finest at that time, when he was nearing pensionable age. There was another maker of orations in Greece, Isocrates, who made his masterpiece in orations when he was 98. Unfortunately, owing to his unhappiness at what happened to his native city of Athens, he decided at the age of 98 that the time had come for him to commit suicide—otherwise, so far as one can see, he would be living still. We know all about that kind of thing in this country to-day. We have our Pericles, who goes on being a statesman and a maker of orations regardless of age. We know that old age does not destroy faculties at the normal time when a pension is due. Unfortunately, though, we also know that, sooner or later, decline must come. Decline of faculties is uncertain in time, but inevitable; and decline of faculties makes increasing care by others in the last years of life as necessary as in the first years of life. That is the first fact: the inevitability of decline through age and the extreme uncertainty as to the stages by which it will come about.
The second general factor is not one which we share with ancient Greece, though we share it with some other countries; it is that, owing to changes in the birth and death rates in the past seventy years, the age structure of our population in Britain has changed fundamentally. At the beginning of this century, in 1901, we had 2¼ million people of pensionable age, 12 million children under 15 and 22 million people of working age. The 2¼ million of pensionable age represented one to every ten of working age, and one to every 5½ children. In 1951, we had 6¾ million persons of pensionable age, about the same number—22 million—of working age, and fewer than 6 million children. In other words, there were only

81
three persons of working age to look after every pensionable person, as compared with the ten at the beginning of the century.
But if we look forward, the picture becomes rather grim. In the year 1979 (thank heaven, unless I live to be 100, I shall not see it!) there will be 9½ million persons of pensionable age—that is, nearly twice as many persons of pensionable age as there are children under 15—and there will still be approximately the same number of persons of working age, about 24 million. There will, in fact, be fewer than three people, perhaps two-and-a-half people, of working age for every one of pensionable age. That growth in the number of pensionable persons, which will clearly bring us over the 10 million mark before the century ends, means a great and growing cost of pensions. The Chancellor of the Exchequer will have to find for pensions something like £500 million a year from taxation, over and above what is paid for by national insurance.
But the problem of pensions is not mainly one of money. My main thesis is that the economic and social problems of the aged are not soluble by the simple methods of the so-called Beveridge Report on National Insurance, by the handing out of money to the pensioners and of subsistence pensions to the pensioners. Those are desirable and necessary thins to-day, but that leaves the economic and social problems of the aged largely untouched. I was looking at a Report that I made on voluntary action some eight or nine years ago, and I noted that there, in dealing with the problem of the aged I had already come to the conclusion—and I want to emphasise it to-day—that their problems are not soluble by giving them money. Many of the old have money, and more of them have money than had it in the past. What they need, however, is care of many and different kinds, care of a perpetual changing amount and character. It may range from the care required by those chronically sick in hospital, through occasional medical and nursing treatment, to perhaps no care at all—that is, to total independence. That is the uncertain and difficult problem about age: it is largely a problem of discovering just what care is needed.
Of course, the natural agent for giving care to the 10 million old people we shall have in 1979 is the family—the children whom they have brought into the world and who naturally may be expected to give, and do in fact give, most of the care that old people need. But, through the change of population structure which I have just described, the family today is not physically as capable of covering the ground as completely as it was before. In the days when for every pair of grandparents there might be four or five children, each with their own consorts, those four or five children might well divide in turn the task of looking after the grandparents. Now there may be only one or two couples of working age to look after each grandparent. We know, of course, as a fact of human life, that it is not always the son who wants to look after his father; it is not always certain that his wife will want to look after his father, and still less is it certain that she will want to look after her mother-in-law. There are difficult problems of human adjustment owing to the decline in the number of working-age families in relation to the old people who have to be kept—fewer children to each ageing person. The family cannot do all that it did before, and that means that the Government have to come in, nationally and locally. It means, I think, at least this much: that neighbours have to help by voluntary action, independent of Governments. I will illustrate that point in a moment.
In considering what should be done about dealing with the economic and social problems of old age, I think it is obvious and natural to say—as I believe our present Minister of Health has said on more than one occasion—that the aim or policy should be to keep the elderly so far as possible in their own homes. I agree with that view, but it needs a good deal of comment, and I should like to introduce my comment upon it by a reference to a meeting which I attended recently in London of the League of Hospital Friends, people who organise looking after old people in hospitals. I heard there three of the most deeply moving speeches that I have ever heard in my life. One was concerned with a problem irrelevant to this present issue—that of the people in mental homes, and the need for help from outside for them;

83
the second concerned the problem of what happens in a rapidly growing suburb of London; and the third related to the problem of the aged sick and the chronic sick. That was a speech given by Dr. Brooke, who is the consulting physician to the Southampton group of hospitals. When, as I hope, the report of that conference is published, I trust many of your Lordships will take the opportunity of reading it, particularly that speech of Dr. Brooke. His thesis was that home is the right agent, other things being equal, as the Minister has said.
But the home is also the scene of many tragedies, largely concealed. His plea was that the League of Hospital Friends should enlarge their activities to deal with the aged sick and the chronic sick, not only in the hospitals but in the homes outside the hospitals. He gave many moving instances. We can all repeat many instances of miserable old people struggling to look after one another. One, I remember, was an old gentleman of eighty-four who was devoting himself to doing all the washing and other services needed for his neighbour, aged seventy-nine, living in a condemned house next door to him. Dr. Brooke gave a list of these tragedies which came only gradually by chance to the knowledge of the hospital authorities, who then had to struggle desperately hard to rescue people from the inadequate care that they were getting.
It is the right policy to get the aged sick and the chronic sick treated so far as possible in their own homes, but there are three conditions for making the home the right place for the aged and the chronic sick. The first is that there should be adequate machinery for discovering the growing failure of strength which makes transfer to a hospital or other more serious treatment necessary. That should be discovered before it leads to a human tragedy. The only Government organisation in touch with the aged is, in fact, the National Assistance Board. It does its work excellently. But the National Assistance Board has only 1¼ million old people on its books, and there are 7 million elderly persons. Broadly, the figures are 7 million pensionable persons, 4¼ million of them receiving pensions and 1¼ million of those pensioners receiving help from the National
84
Assistance Board. In the case of all the other pensioners who do not come to the Assistance Board, and all the people who are not pensioners at all, there is not at the moment any automatic means of discovering the conditions in their homes before they become tragedies.
I suggest that somehow or other there should be some known person in every neighbourhood to whom neighbours can report a case where there is need for more care than is being given at the moment. Whether that should be the medical officer of health, or whether it should be some voluntary agency, I am not concerned to say. There clearly should be means of discovering trouble before it becomes a tragedy. That is urgent, because, among other things, of the rapid growth in the number of old people living by themselves. There are at the present moment something like 1 million elderly persons living by themselves. The figures given in the Phillips Committee Report for 1951 were 750,000 elderly women and 170,000 elderly men. Those figures are for 1951, and the million mark is clearly within sight. That is the first thing: that there must be some means, if we keep people in their homes—and naturally we all want to do that—of discovering when they cannot any longer be kept in their homes or in the conditions in which they live.
The second condition is that for the old people who are trying to live in their homes, even if they are not so far declining in strength that they ought to go to hospital or have continuous nursing, there should be adequate home help for the tasks of their homes. There should, in fact, be much fuller domiciliary services than are at present available. It is the fact, of course, that the provision of home-helps is one of the functions of local authorities but there are to-day, in comparison with these 7 million elderly persons in this country, just 30,000 home-helps, of whom 3,000 are full-time and 26,000 are part-time workers. That is a ludicrously small figure for the needs of these old people living alone, most of them trying to live in their own homes. So we need adequate home-helps. Moreover, that adequate home help must be available within the material means of the old people who have to be helped. That is my second condition. Those are the two important conditions—discovery of trouble before it becomes tragedy and

85
the provision of adequate help for home tasks, so that many more old people can enjoy it.
The third condition is, I suggest, that there should be a determined attempt to maintain the occupation and interest in life of the old people, to give them something worth living for. Incidentally, that brings back to my mind one of the tragedies—because it is, in a sense, a minor tragedy—reported by Dr. Brooke. One of the old people was a man of a very lively mind and devoted to listening to the B.B.C. His wireless went out of order and he found himself unable to put it right or to travel to anyone who could put it right. I regard a loss of that kind of interest as a tragedy of happiness, if not of physical need.
Whilst we should keep as many people as we can in their homes on these conditions, we recognise also that there must be some halfway houses between the hospital that provides full treatment for a hospital case and the home, where these people can live with the kind of help that I have indicated. We need these halfway homes, if only to keep out of hospital the people who are able to stay out of hospital and so leave room there for those who must go to hospital. We all know that today there are long waiting lists of people to go to hospital, and we ought to have homes in which those who need some treatment, though not full hospital treatment, can get it.
There is a section under the National Assistance Act, and also under the National Health Service Act, which enables the Ministry of Health and local authorities to establish these homes for elderly people. That section has been very largely used. I believe it is true to say that there is hardly a local authority which has not established some kind of home, what is called a small home, for elderly people. In addition, there are many voluntary agencies which try to deal with this problem. But whatever the agency, whether it be a local authority or a voluntary agency, there are, I think, certain conditions that have to be satisfied by any building in which old people are housed before it can be called a home. Homes should be real homes, and not institutions without privacy, as I have seen them, with one sitting-room for everybody, with a shared dormitory—often making it impossible for the people living there
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to keep any of their own possessions. It is having their own possessions that the old people value. It is not a home if you have to share your dormitory with somebody whom you never saw before, changing from time to time, or if there is just one sitting-room where you have to listen to the noise of the wireless or whatever else the majority may want, whether you want it or not, and where you cannot keep your own possessions.
As regards these homes that the local authorities have established and into which a great deal of thought and care have gone, I cannot help feeling that a home with only one room (and there are thirty-five such homes) is hardly a home at all. Another thing which I think has to be laid down about these homes is that they should not be in places so remote that visiting by neighbours is difficult; and yet there is a natural tendency for that to happen. In this country, many houses in country districts are now becoming unavailable for ordinary life by people who had them before, and it is natural to turn them, or to try to turn them, into homes for the aged. But, if they are far away from all possible visitors, that means cutting off the old people in them from their relations and friends.
I go on to say this. The local authorities' homes are excellent so far as they go, but they are not always homes. Also, they do not come to the old people as of right. I suggest that what is needed when one looks forward to one's old age is that as many people as possible should feel a certainty that, when they come to real old age and cannot live wholly by themselves, they will have some kind or right to a home with service, and without necessarily passing through all the apparatus of the Assistance Board and proving their poverty. Here, I believe, is something that voluntary agencies and, in particular, bodies like the friendly societies and the insurance offices, might well undertake. I shall come back to that particular point in a moment.
In preparing a Report which I made on voluntary action about seven or eight years ago, I remember that I made it with the help of a number of assessors, one of whom happened, I may say, to be my wife. She suggested that in this provision of homes with service, which one could get as of right because one

87
had contributed in advance for it by insurance, lay one of the excellent fields for activity of the industrial life offices. The industrial life offices used to provide funeral benefit. Now that that has become unnecessary, I very much hope that they will consider the possibility of providing something for the long stage that takes place before the funeral and for which something is needed even more than for the funeral. That suggestion was not adopted then in my Report, but I would now commend this to my old friends and old enemies of the industrial life offices. In my time, I have said many hard things about them, but I would take back every harsh thing I ever said of them if they would set themselves, with their money and organisation, to make it easy for every working person while of working age, if he so desired, to pay a contribution which would entitle him, when he came to need it, to a real home into which he could put all his possessions, and in which he would be certain of the service he will come to need. In some ways the industrial life offices are well fitted for that task. They have a great organisation for visiting homes. That organisation could be used for helping to discover what is needed by old people as they pass from complete independence to the need for more and more care.
The suggestion I have made brings me back to the question of money. I have mentioned the industrial life offices because they are people with large sums of money. Though the problem of the aged is not soluble by handing out money to them, it is not soluble without some money as well. There are many interesting problems which arise in regard to money. One is mentioned in paragraph 260 of the Phillips Committee Report, where the Committee discuss the division between national and local finance and suggest that while a person in hospital would be wholly paid for out of national funds, a person out of hospital receiving domiciliary and nursing service would be paid for out of the rates, and that might set up a bias in local authorities, who might try to keep in hospital people who ought to be out, instead of making it easy for them to come out. I admit that there is there a certain theoretical argument which should be examined; I doubt whether in fact it is more than
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a theoretical argument. I believe that most local authorities would be only too willing, if they could, to give the domiciliary and other services which would enable people to stay out of hospital, even if it cost something in rates which they would not have to pay if the man or woman went into hospital. That is a theoretical point, but no doubt the Government will consider it.
Let me come to another question involving finance—the question of chiropody. This was the subject of a Parliamentary Question and Answer in another place on November 22 last. A number of local authorities are asking for permission to provide chiropody service as part of the National Health Service, but the Answer that was given on behalf of the Minister of Health was that though, in many cases, the need for chiropody treatment, and the benefit that it would confer upon the old, was recognised, the Government, with their strict limitation upon the amount that could be spent upon the health services could not find any more money for this purpose. In other words, they could not find any more money for an admittedly desirable purpose and one that would increase the happiness and comfort of the aged. The Government said that they had other, greater, priorities for the Health Service.
That leads me to suggest that the Government might look at another item upon which they are spending a great deal of money for the aged—namely, the cheapening of tobacco for all pensioners. That particular item costs £14 million a year; that is the actual figure to-day. Chiropody would cost £1 million; that was the figure given by the Minister of Health on November 22. I suggest that to refuse £1 million for chiropody for the old, including, incidentally, a large proportion of women, and to spend £14 million on cheapening tobacco—I hope it all goes to the old; I am not sure whether it does, or what happens to it—is a wrong priority, and I hope the Government will look into it. There are many objections to this subsidising of tobacco. There are many more important things to subsidise.
Home-helps in relation to these millions of old people number 30,000. They have to be paid for at the rate of something like 2s. 6d. or 3s. per hour, unless an old person goes to the Public Assistance

89
authorities, which a great number of them do not want to do. If I were subsidising anything for the old, I would much rather subsidise home-helps, to enable people to get them cheaper, than subsidise tobacco which most of the old people do not want. Most of the aged are women who do not need tobacco; yet they can get it if they want it. I suggest that this is a problem of finance that might well be looked into.
That is almost all I have to say about finance, and nearly all that I have to say to-day, but I come to one final point which arises out of this problem of the old, as I have tried to put it before your Lordships—namely, the need for concerted action on this, the greatest social problem of our time. It is a problem which calls for concerted action because the needs of the aged are neither uniform nor stable, nor easy to discover; the more independent they are, the less one can discover. Yet the needs are there, and if we let the needs go unattended it will be a failure of our civilisation. The needs of the aged are very different, ranging from complete hospital treatment to some nursing treatment, from living in their homes with home-helps, to needing perhaps nothing more than occupation and companionship and an interest in life. Because they are so varied, we have to deal with them by a number of different agencies, but all those agencies should work together. There must be concerted action at the centre. By that, I do not mean that there should be appointed a Minister for Old Age, but I should like to feel certain that all the Government Departments and all the agencies—voluntary agencies and others outside—would concert their policies by some kind of committee at the centre. Secondly, there needs to be concerted action locally, between the hospitals, the general practitioners, the National Assistance Board, the local authorities with their many different services, and the voluntary agencies of all kinds. Let there be no jealousy about getting anyone else in to help in this matter; the whole task is too big for anyone to refuse help of any kind.
Finally we have to make a call to the ordinary citizens to help in dealing with this problem of the aged. First and foremost, there is the call to the family. I
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do not think that for most families this is easy, but let it be realised that the existence of the Welfare State does not mean that one can hand over one's family responsibilities to the State. Family responsibilities now include the care of the old, as they have always included the care of the young. Apart from that, I hope that many people, not yet elderly but who are approaching old age—many more people than at present—will be able to give to old people in their homes help in their domestic tasks and in all the other tasks in which they need assistance. Let that be taken as a job for many more people. They will be mainly women of from 50 or 60 onwards, perhaps widows who now retire on widows' pensions. I should like to see many more offering to work in the homes of old people. There is a call for help to citizens, as well as to the Government, to local authorities and to existing voluntary agencies. This whole problem of the aged is a test of our services. I hope that we shall know how to accept the test, and that Her Majesty's Government will lead us. No Government can do it all, but I hope Her Majesty's Government will lead us successfully to ensure that all the aged, at all stages, get the care they need and all the happiness they can still have in their lives. I beg to move for Papers.
3.22 p.m.
EARL JOWITT: My Lords, I rise for a moment to offer an apology. It had been arranged that my noble friend Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor should follow the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, in this debate. Unfortunately, owing to some misunderstanding, that was an impossible arrangement for him and he has had to leave. In these circumstances I suggest that my noble friend, Lord Wise, who was to have spoken later, might follow now, taking the place of the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor, the noble Lord, Lord Burden, later taking the place of the noble Lord, Lord Wise. Since I am on my feet, may I just say to a very old friend, Lord Beveridge (after all, the Beveridge Report was made to me, for I was then Minister of National Insurance) with what great interest I have listened to him. I hope that his words of wisdom will not be wasted, and I am sure that Her Majesty's Government must give a lead on the lines which the noble Lord has indicated.
3.24 p.m.
LORD WISE: My Lords, it is my first pleasure to congratulate the noble Lord who has moved this Motion upon his interest in this matter and his references to the old folk. With much that he has said I am in entire agreement. My knowledge of the old Greeks and others is not extensive, but my experience with old folk in this country has been fairly wide and I have a great desire that things should be right with them. I was particularly interested in what the noble Lord said with regard to hospital treatment and home-helps. I am also concerned that, so far as possible, old people should be kept in their own homes and that, when they have to go to homes for the aged, particular care and attention should be given to them.
It will be obvious to all noble Lords that this is one of the most important problems likely to come under our consideration. I was particularly struck by the statement of the noble Lord that this problem can be solved and righted to our satisfaction only by concerted action. As he remarked, the problems of old age are not entirely confined to the solution of financial and economic troubles. The aged have to meet other stresses and strains—ill-health, the lessening of their mental and physical faculties, frequently loneliness in their homes, feeding and other domestic difficulties. These and similar difficulties facing the aged may overwhelm those who, in earlier years, conscientiously carried out their allotted duties in their calling and to whom the means of provision for old age have never been sufficiently available. Through beneficial advances in social services in recent years we have been able to allocate to pensioners and others various measures of allowances to help to meet their needs; but such allowances have, unfortunately, sometimes been all too readily governed by national financial stringency and such other restrictions as have been imposed upon pension recipients from time to time. In the past, perhaps quite properly, that procedure may have been considered the best for our national purpose; but I am not sure that in present-day life and thought, which change frequently, the practices of past years can meet immediate needs and circumstances.
Unfortunately, those of our old people who are financially and physically weakest seem to have suffered most and
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continue to do so. Not all have been fortunate participants in superannuation schemes or been able to provide for old age by endowment policies; not all have been able to save for the inevitable rainy day. These beneficial advantages have in many cases been denied, owing to the often heavy expense of bringing up a family, or of ill-health which comes all too frequently, or misfortunes of other kinds, like unemployment or underpaid employment or inability to achieve financial and other success. Having worked as hard as others, and played their part in the national life, such people find, when old age comes, that declining days necessitate the aid of specified national pensions, grants or allowances. Some noble Lords may not agree with my view, but I believe a suitable and adequate reward for services rendered to the community should be forthcoming as a right to all when the time comes for retirement.
In mentioning the Report, I wish to pay a tribute to the Committee which compiled it. It is full of interest. It shows a real intention to put before the country matters of great importance. I do pay that tribute, with all humility, to the chairman and his fellow-members of the Committee. Doubt is expressed in the Report about when the time for retirement should be. There is a difference of opinion among members of the Committee. The sponsors of the majority recommendations on this point may have been impressed by a feeling that national expenditure upon pensions will rise. They suggest the raising of the receiving ages for pensions, but I hope that this suggestion will not meet with general approval. In paragraph 191 of the Report, the thought is expressed that such a proposal is likely to meet with strenuous and sincere opposition. I am sure that that will be the case, because I think that it would be a very backward movement on our part if, for the sake of financial expediency or otherwise, we should raise the receiving ages for pensions.
Nevertheless, there are anomalies in the present structure, and pensions are often delayed by reason of these anomalies. I do not think that welfare matters should be so inevitably tied to financial considerations and restrictions as they are at the present time. If a nation is worth its salt, it can afford to make proper provision for the welfare of its people and for the enjoyment by all of a full and

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active life. We are all, in a manner of speaking, servants of the community, and whatever we do—whether we are housewives (and I think that in this connection I must put them first), manual workers, tradesmen, manufacturers, civil servants, officials, agriculturists, teachers, domestics or even politicians—we all give some service to our fellow men. For that reason we should all, upon retirement, be entitled to a pension from the State. It may be said that in some instances no financial contribution would have been made by the recipients, but I assure your Lordships that all adults, both now and in the past, have been taxpayers, either directly or indirectly; and though they may not until recent years have made any contributions towards pension by way of the purchase of stamps, all have, in the past, done what has been asked of them in regard to taxation, and thus have assisted in no small measure in the payment of pensions to the various people who have received them and will receive them in the future.
In the fullness of time, when our expenditure upon preparations for war can be seriously curtailed—and I hope that that time is not far distant—and when we have overcome and survived the present tensions, I hope that these insurance benefits, which, as I have stated, are not now received because no contribution has been made, may be given to all, and that the present method of collection of contributions may be dispensed with and payments for pensions may be a matter of contribution by direct taxation. It may not be possible at the moment, but I hope a time will come when that will be brought about. Some mention is made in the Report of the future cost and future commitments. The noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, has mentioned the year 1979 and years later than that. I hope that by that time we shall have got rid of the present difficulties and the present tensions, and that this country of ours, and, in fact, the entire world, will be in a better state of prosperity, productivity and progress than it is in even at the present time. But, whatever the cost may then be, I hope that we shall be able—and I am sure we shall—to meet our liabilities and our obligations to the pensioners. In that connection, it must not be overlooked that, whatever be the pension we allot or allocate to pensioners and others, the weekly sum of money is
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inevitably spent amongst the productive or distributive trades or elsewhere. So, by divers ways, it returns, through taxation, or by other spending, or by other production, back into the national resources. I feel certain in my own mind that when the time comes for an increase in benefits to the aged population, this country will be in a position to foot the bill.
I wish to conclude with just one appeal to the Government. The question of public assistance arises in the Report, and, in that connection I was particularly struck by an article which appeared yesterday in the Daily Herald—I make no apology for mentioning the paper—on the difficulties which are being experienced by pensioners who are now in receipt of National Assistance to augment their existing pensions, and who will, when the new pensions come into force shortly, not receive the full amount of those particular pensions. The point is that whatever additional amount is received by way of pension, that amount will be deducted from the National Assistance which is now being given to them. That subject came up in our previous pensions debate, and it seemed as though the Government were making a comparatively small contribution by the fact that they were likely to reduce their commitments in regard to National Assistance. I hope that when the noble Earl replies he will be able to assure us that those who seek National Assistance, even though they may receive additional pensions, will be treated generously. For the benefit of them all, I hope he will be able to say that if they are in difficulties when their new pensions are received and certain National Assistance money is deducted, they can have their cases reopened by the National Assistance Board, and that they will not be worse off from the point of view of the extra cost of living than they are at the present time.
3.41 p.m.
VISCOUNT SOULBURY: My Lords, my excuse for breaking a rather long silence and taking part in this debate is that some years ago I had the honour to be Chairman of the Assistance Board, as it was then called, and during those years, between 1941 and 1948, I was naturally brought into close contact and was deeply concerned with the social

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and human problems mentioned in the Phillips Report and to which the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, has drawn attention in his Motion. The noble Lord prefaced his observations by reminding your Lordships of some of the great Greek dramatists who composed their masterpieces at a very advanced age. I cannot for the moment recollect any exact modern parallel, but I can recollect that when I was at the Assistance Board one of the Board's clients, aged 96, relinquished his supplementary pension in order that he might take up the occupation of a part-time jobbing gardener.
The noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, has pointed out that the Phillips Report does not concern itself, and could not concern itself, with the social and human problems, but was concerned with the economic and financial side, although in paragraph 61 there are valuable references to those aspects. Similarly, the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, in the Report always associated with his name, confined himself to the insurance aspect and to the exposition of the financial and administrative measures necessary for comprehensive social security. It is a pity that, so far as I know, there has been no recent Committee or Commission which has reported on the social and human problem of old age, and it might well be worth while considering whether such a Commission should not be appointed to deal with them. In the noble Lord's Report there is one paragraph which showed that he clearly foresaw that these problems would arise. Perhaps I may quote from it:
"In view of the increasing number of old persons, there is probably considerable scope for experimentation with and development of services connected with the recreation and welfare of the old, including special housing facilities."
Before the Beveridge Report saw the light of day, experimentation had been started in the provision of houses, while schemes for the establishment of a number of small hostels, something in the nature of halfway houses, were set on foot. They owed their origin, in the first instance, to the fact that a number of old people, who hitherto had had the services of, and had been dependent upon, their children or grandchildren, had to be looked after because their children or grandchildren were called up for war
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service or war work, so that these people became an immediate problem. By 1943, about halfway through the war, a number of hostels had been established under the auspices of the National Council for Social Service, entirely by voluntary effort. The Assistance Board had no power to purchase or construct or equip them, but what the Board did was to undertake to make up the income of any approved pensioner to 30s. a week, so as to enable that pensioner to pay his charges when he was admitted to a hostel. I use the word "approved" advisedly, because these hostels were not nursing homes or hospitals: they were not suited for those who required hospital treatment, or long, careful and skilful nursing, or for those who were bedridden; they were rather for the somewhat frail, slightly feeble, sickly and tired, who were finding it more than they could manage to carry on in their own homes without any help from their children.
At that time, the only alternative accommodation available for that class of old age pensioner was accommodation in large institutions run by public authorities. They had considerable disadvantages. With the best will in the world, in institutions accommodating at least 100 old people, restrictions, regulations and disciplinary precautions were inevitable, and for that reason alone they were not at all popular; and I hope they are no longer in use. On the other hand, the small hostels (I am talking about the ones I know) were something like small hotels or boarding-houses, or even had one-roomed flats where, in some cases, pensioners could have their own furniture; and they could pay their charges as if they were living in a boarding-house or residential hotel. So far as my recollection goes, there were no dormitories, and I am sorry to hear that it has been necessary to have hostels in which dormitory arrangements are in force, because I entirely agree that it is a severe hardship on these people to undergo such proximity with others whom they may not know. In those days, I may add, we took good care that the hostels were not remote, because, as the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, pointed out, one of the difficulties of old people living in hostels is that sometimes they cannot see friends and relatives. In nearly all cases, these

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hostels were in or near the outskirts of towns.
Later on, the National Assistance Act, 1948, made local authorities responsible for the provision of accommodation for old people. The good work of the voluntary bodies was recognised because local authorities were enabled to carry out their responsibilities by entrusting them to voluntary bodies as their agents. I think the success of this experiment is shown by the fact that in England and Wales to-day there are over 600 hostels run by voluntary bodies, and something like 1,000 run by public authorities; so that, between public authorities and voluntary bodies, there is a fairy wide range of accommodation and facilities for those who need care and attention and who cannot fend for themselves.
There was another experiment I saw, and perhaps the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, when he replies, will be able to tell me whether it has been extended. In Darlington the local authority had built a number of small bungalows or cottages around a square, which took on the appearance of a quadrangle of a college at Oxford or Cambridge. There was a community centre at one side, where the college hall might be, and the matron lived at the entrance, where the porter's lodge might be. It looked a very attractive set-up, and I was much impressed. I should be interested to know whether this experiment has been repeated. The only drawback it had was that such a set-up inevitably tended to segregate and isolate the old people, and I think that is something which we should always avoid. I am sure your Lordships will entirely agree with the statement in the Phillips Report that where old people have to change their homes, as they often have to do when their homes become too large, so far as possible the change should be made in such a way as not to involve isolation of the old people from the young. Where new housing estates are being put up, local authorities should scatter about them, so far as they can, a number of smaller dwellings, to prevent isolation and segregation of the old. That, I think, the local authorities are doing.
As the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, has rightly pointed cut and indeed, as the Phillips Report stresses, if the old people are to be kept in their homes—and it has always been everybody's policy to do
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that if possible—there must be domiciliary services, because a great many of the old people require some domestic help. We all know how difficult it is in any walk of life to get such help, and neither the local authorities nor the Assistance Board—and I am sure there is no more humane or sympathetic body of administrators in the world—can guarantee a supply of domestic help. Obviously, priority for the help required should rest upon the relatives of the old people, if they are living near enough. The home-help services are of great assistance in that direction, but they are inadequate, and so are kindly neighbours. Frankly, I do not know what the solution to that problem is. We can only do our best and hope that more and more people will find it possible to give help to old people whose failing years and strength make that help essential.
There is a rather disquieting paragraph in the Phillips Report where the Committee draw attention to the striking increase in recent years in the number of old age pensioners who are living entirely alone and who, as the Report says, "may be in great loneliness." The noble Lord, Lord Beveridge has already referred to that matter. The figure given in the Phillips Report is about 900,000, but it may well be 1 million to-day. The Phillips Report says that the counterpart of that change is the greater isolation of the elderly from their relatives. In the Beveridge Report the noble Lord mentioned five problems to be dealt with—he called them the "Five giant evils"—want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness. I should be inclined to add, as a sixth, loneliness. That is one of the gravest afflictions of advanced old age, particularly in any case where death has broken a lifelong partnership of a man and wife and left the survivor without a companion, or when, as happens in so many cases, the old man or woman looks around and finds that all the old familiar faces are gone. I remember being shown a copy of a note amongst Robert Louis Stevenson's papers after his death. The note was just this:
"Desiderata: 1. Good Health. 2. £200–£300 a year. 3. Oh, du liebe Gott, Friends.
That brings me to a subject that has not yet been mentioned—namely, the provision of recreation for the old; and recreation, of course, includes companionship. Here again an experiment was

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tried in the war, and I am not at all sure how far it has gone. It owed a great deal to the initiative of a Member of another place, and it consisted of setting up clubs for old people, which I believe were called "Darby and Joan Clubs." I opened several of them, and I was very much struck by the way in which they appealed to and satisfied the needs of the old people living in the vicinity, many of whom took a hand in managing the club. I trust that there has been some development on those or similar lines, and, if possible, I should like to know what it is.
The prestige and reputation of a civilised community rests in a high degree upon its treatment of and care for the aged. In an uncivilised, barbarous community they are considered a burden upon the remainder, useless mouths, consumers and not producers, and they are got rid of. A famous English writer has told us that amongst a primitive people a knock on the head with a club or a stool is the equivalent of an old age pension. He tells a story of an elderly African chief who implored a European visitor to give him some hair dye, because his hair was going grey and he knew what that meant to him. The hair dye, unhappily, was not forthcoming, and in a very short time the younger warriors dispatched him. In the East respect, reverence, and, indeed, veneration for the old people is almost proverbial, and particularly so in China. I hope that the new régime has done nothing to disturb that. In the country in the East of which I have some small acquaintance, if a family neglected its old people that family met with the condemnation, censure and contempt of its neighbours. I am not sure that in the West the family unit has ever been quite so strong as in the East, where, indeed, family ties are the most binding of all ties. Sometimes I have wondered whether when the State took over in large part the financial obligations of the family for the support of its aged members, that might not have weakened the feeling of responsibility and the sense of obligation which the younger members had in other regards to look after and maintain the general social comfort and happiness of their aged relatives. I was glad to read in the Phillips Report that there is no evidence that family ties are weaker than they used to be; it would be tragic if it were otherwise. I hope that those
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responsible for old people, and particularly their relatives, will always bear in mind the pathetic prayer of the psalmist:
"Cast me not off in the time of old age;
when I am old and grey-headed, O God, forsake me not."
3.59 p.m.
LORD ROCHDALE: My Lords, I suggest that no discussion in your Lordships' House, on whatever subject it might be, could be initiated by anyone with a greater recognised knowledge of his subject than that which the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, can bring to this discussion to-day. I speak as a layman in this extremely difficult and technical matter, and therefore with some considerable hesitation. But I would suggest that hesitation in a matter such as this, which in some form or another concerns every single one of us, is something that should be avoided, since hesitation could easily lapse into a convenient way of escape or avoidance of the problem. It is a subject to which we all have obligations. We must all interest ourselves in it, and not least, I suggest, those of us—and there are many in your Lordships' House—who are concerned in one way or another with industry. It is along those lines that I want to make one or two observations which I hope will be pertinent.
I listened with the greatest interest and respect to what the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, said. One could not but feel moved by the sympathy with which he covered a great many aspects of this problem. I want to confine my remarks rather to the parts of the Report which deal with those older men and women—I suppose one might say, for the most part, those between 65 and 70—who can be given some form of work, because I would suggest that, if properly arranged, that work could do a great deal to relieve the loneliness to which my noble friend Lord Soul-bury referred. It could also do a great deal to maintain their interest, and I am sure your Lordships will agree that interest and health go close together. It could also do a great deal to ensure that these older people receive the attention which they require and which they would not necessarily get if living alone in their small houses.
I should like, in the first place, to give three reasons why I think this problem is the concern of industry. I know that

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of late years industry has been giving an increasing amount of consideration and thought to the problem of the older men and women. The first reason comes under the heading of the words mentioned in the Motion, "the human and social reasons." I put this first most emphatically, because I believe that every good employer must be deeply concerned—if he is not, he ought to be; but I believe that most are—with the well-being, as they grow older, of the men and women who have worked with him and for him in years gone by. I emphasise that point, and I wish to underline it as much as I possibly can, lest the next point that I am going to make may be taken as suggesting that industry's only concern is a mercenary one: what can industry get out of the older men and women by giving them a certain amount of work, perhaps at too low wages? I say at once that that is not the purpose of industry as a whole to-day. There may be, I readily grant, a few less scrupulous employers, but we find less scrupulous people in every walk of life. But I do not think a general criticism of industry on those lines would be either true or fair; in fact I would say quite definitely that industry has—and I believe to an increasing extent—a very soft spot for its older employees.
The second reason why I feel that this problem concerns industry is that the country to-day cannot afford to lose the help of those older men, with knowledge and skill and, as often as not, great loyalty to the firms for whom they have been working. One sees frequently in the Press these days—only last week I noticed it—mention of the shortage of skilled labour. As the country finds itself to-day, I suggest that this is a matter that has to be carefully considered. It would be folly to adhere to an arbitrary retirement age which, however appropriate or convenient it may have been considered before the war, is not necessarily so to-day.
I listened with great care to what the noble Lord, Lord Wise, said, and I recognise that the suggestion of the Phillips Report for a retirement age of 68 is a controversial one. But if that suggestion were to be agreed upon, then two important factors must not be overlooked. The first is that nothing must be done that would in any way jeopardise, or
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appear to jeopardise, the promotion of younger men and women, because if it did, it would be no help to the older men and women who all stand to gain by the prosperity of industry. The second important point is that we must not lose sight of the possibility that less favourable employment conditions than we are enjoying to-day may occur at some time in the future. I know that all political Parties endorse that famous White Paper on Employment Policy, which was issued shortly after the end of the war, to see what could be done to guard against unemployment. Whilst I personally am not in any way defeatist, or even worse, in this matter, I think we have to be realistic on that point when we consider further employment of older men. Having said that, I am sure we shall all recognise that it is unnatural for anyone to have to cut himself oft arbitrarily, at a certain age, from the interests he has enjoyed and lived with all his life. I am sure that, even in your Lordships' House, there must be many who would have first-hand experience of that.
The third point that affects industry very closely indeed is this question of cost—the cost, shall we say, in twenty-five years' time. The Report goes into that question in great detail and refers to the prodigious cost that the present scheme will involve in 1979 or 1980, even if the normal retirement date were raised to 68. I should like to read from the Report one or two lines which affect this situation. Paragraph 141 says:
"The provision that can be made in future for pensions must depend largely upon the success with which the nation increases its total production. …"
It goes on further down to say:
"It has been put to us that it might be reasonable to assume a continuing improvement"—
that is an improvement of productivity—
"over the next 25 years at the rate about 1½ per cent. per annum."
That would be equivalent to nearly 50 per cent. over 25 years. The Committee say that that
"would be by far the most important single factor tending to case the burden of providing for old age."
That increased output can be achieved only by the cumulative outcome of the efforts of employers and employed who

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find improved ways of doing things. It is therefore quite clear that in this matter a major degree of responsibility for the care of the old must now rest, and must continue to rest, on industry.
In the light of those observations, it seems to me that there is everything to be said for encouraging older men and women to stay on in their work as long as they find themselves able to do so. That may mean full-time work for some, and for others a shorter time—perhaps even flexible hours, as they may feel well this week and not so well next week. The work may be done in less exacting jobs than those which they were doing when they came to normal retirement years, but at least in some job where their skill and loyalty can be used, and where, as is mentioned by Professor Cairncross in the Report, they can "learn to retire slowly." In that respect, so far from its being the wish of a cruel industrial taskmaster to raise the age of pension in order that he may get something for nothing, I believe that for many old people it would mean a welcome postponement of an unhappy day.
I am rather fortified in that view by the Report of the Departmental Inquiry which was set up by the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance. Out of 19,000 older men and women who were questioned, I see that six out of every ten who had passed the pension-able age were still in work, which, to my mind, showed a considerable desire on the part of many to go on doing something of value and interest if they possibly could. There is no doubt that Her Majesty's Government have not been behind in this matter, for they have set up the Standing Advisory Committee on the Employment of Older People. I understand that, as a result of the First Report published by that Committee, many industrial firms have gone out of their way to make modified employment conditions for old people and special provisions of one kind and another. There are, I believe, a great number of firms who have done good work in that way. One firm that particularly comes to my mind, a world-famous firm with headquarters at Derby whom some of your Lordships may still be able to afford to patronise, have created, I know, what I think they call "twilight clubs," where the
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supervisor no longer supervises but is given work which he can conveniently do and which earns him a very satisfactory income indeed. I must say that I look forward to the further report which I understand that that Committee is due to produce in due course.
As a result of those observations, I wonder very much whether my noble friend, when he comes to reply, will be able to tell us in any way what Her Majesty's Government's view is on the general findings of the Phillips Report. Perhaps he could also say how Her Majesty's Government view the reservation of Professor Cairncross's addition. It semes to me that there is something to be said for that point of view. Your Lordships will remember that he does away with the earnings rule and the question of increments, and that makes the whole situation much simpler. There must be some advantage in having a pension arrangement which can be easily understood by all. I am certain that though some of the present provisions may seem easy to your Lordships to understand, there are many would-be pensioners who do not really understand what the situation is for them.
Whether or not the retirement age of 68 is accepted in due course, it must take time to be brought into use. In the meantime, there are questions that one ought to ask. What can be done in the meantime to encourage more men and women to take up part-time work that is congenial to them? There are two points I particularly want to raise here. Both of them are dealt with at considerable length in the Phillips Report. The first is the question of the earnings rule. I see that the Phillips Committee recommended that there should be no change in the earnings limit of £2. I regret very much indeed that recommendation, especially as I understand from the Report that the savings of the Government as the result of that rule amount to only about £1½ million, which is a very small amount considering the large figures with which we have to deal. After all, the £2 figure was originally £1; it was raised to £2 in 1951. Surely it would be true to say that the cost of living and the general level of wages since 1951 have changed substantially. If £2 was an appropriate figure then, surely it is an incorrect figure today. I see that in another place on Monday of this week the Minister was asked

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whether he was considering an increase of the earnings limit. He said then [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 538 (No. 57), col. 1724] that he had no ideas of that kind "in mind at the moment." I know that my noble friend cannot give me an answer now, but, if that matter could be looked into again, it is a suggestion that many of us in industry think would do a considerable amount of good, even if only in a small way.
The other point I want to mention regarding the interim period is this question of increments. I gather that after some discussion the Committee agreed against making any change in this respect and that the maximum increment that a man could add to his pension by working on from 65 to 70 and forgoing his pension for that period was only 15s. a week. Of course, if the Cairncross proposals were agreed to the point would not arise; but, assuming that that were not so, I would suggest that here again we have a matter which ought to be looked into very carefully. To use the words of the Report, I am not suggesting "that increments should be based on the principle of exact actuarial equity"—(paragraph 200). That would be extremely complicated, and unreasonably so. I do suggest, however, that there should be an increase on the 15s.
I have made a brief calculation, leaving out consideration of interest, and it seems to me that, for every year that a man postpones his pension, he has to live, when he finally retires, a further two and a half years to get back a sum anywhere near the amount of money that he has forgone by giving up his pension and continuing in full work. That shows that there would be a greater inducement to continue working if the increments were increased, although I must admit, with some surprise, that the Phillips Report says it is wrong to assume that the object of these increments is to give insured persons an incentive to remain at work. The Report says at paragraph 201:
"Their object is commonly thought to be to give insured persons an incentive to remain at work rasher than retire on pension, but it is clear from the evidence that they have little effect of this kind."
However, I would make only one other point on this question of increments, and it is this: that I recognise that my argument that they should be increased
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depends very much on whether in the job that the man is given to do between the ages of 65 and 70 he is really giving value for money, or whether the job can be regarded as something in recognition of past services.
My Lords, I have nothing further I want to add on this subject. Obviously, this is a prodigious problem, the solution of which cannot easily be defined. At any rate, the rather narrow aspect that I have considered seems to me to depend on two things: first, the ability of the country, together with the Government of the day, to go on increasing its productivity; and secondly, our willingness in industry to go out of our way to see how the older men and women can be usefully, congenially and happily employed according to their particular capacities. Because I believe that industry is conscious of this responsibility and is giving a good deal of thought to it, I have ventured to address your Lordships.
4.21 p.m.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, there is just one of the social and human aspects of old age to which should like briefly to draw your Lordships' attention. I am afraid it barely comes within the terms of the Motion which the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, has introduced, because it is a point which is only briefly referred to in the Phillips Report which we are now considering. The problem to which I wish to refer is that of finding out in time when an old person is in need of some kind of care and attention and assistance: what we can do to prevent people from going on so long that, when they are found to need assistance of some sort, they have gone downhill so far that they need assistance at a much more expensive rate than before. The kind of people I refer to are mainly those people who are becoming rather feeble and who live by themselves.
The reason this problem has been brought home to me rather strongly is that for the last six years I have been working fairly consistently in a London borough. I am working on the medical side, and I propose to give your Lordships figures takers from a specially selected sample of the population—namely, those, who are seeking admission to hospital. The borough in which I work is not a large one; it has a population of 140,000 people. During the last six

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months, roughly 200 people from among the particular group of people I am talking about, the old age pensioners of 60 and 65, have applied for admission to hospital. It is difficult to define what type of people they are, but they are the type who, in the old days, would have gone into the poor law hospital rather than into the voluntary hospital. I cannot go further than that.
Of this total of 200 applications, 90 were from people living by themselves. About 50 of the 90 were living perfectly comfortably and well, and it is the remaining 40—one-fifth of the total number—to whom I wish to refer, because they were living in standards of neglect, dirt and squalor such as one would not have believed possible in a London borough in 1955. Most of them were starving—that is perhaps rather a strong word; at any rate they were so neglected that they needed a lot of good food, a lot of tidying up and cleaning up. But, when they had had that, they could then have gone back, rehabilitated enough to take up some kind of normal life again. The tragic thing is that in only six months, in one London borough, 40 people were living in such conditions. If one applies that proportion to the rest of the country, as I think one is justified in doing, what an enormous reservoir of human misery there must be!
Whilst I have no solution to this problem, I wonder whether Her Majesty's Government, or the noble Earl who is to reply—perhaps it is rather unfair to fire this question at him without any notice—can indicate what one can do to stop this sort of thing. It does not appear only on the medical side, because in the borough where I have worked they have one of the most co-operative local authorities that I know. An enormous amount of work, with a large amount of visiting and investigation, is done. I was talking to the medical officer of health at the town hall the other day, and he told me that he found the same kind of conditions among people who applied for help to the town hall as among those who applied to the hospital. We have worked together there for six years. Either we have not been working very satisfactorily or this is a continuously recurring problem.
I do not know how to begin to tackle the source of the difficulty. One of the
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difficulties, of course, is that there is nobody whose duty it is to go round and find out what is going on. I have great admiration for the work of the National Assistance Board, and for the people they employ, but I do not think they work on a big enough scale. I do not know what the trouble is but they do not seem to get down to this tragedy of people living by themselves. One reason is that when people live by themselves they become unpleasant and difficult, and tend to shut their door against others. I often wonder whether it is because they are lonely that they become difficult, or whether they are lonely because they have been difficult all along. That is something I cannot answer, but it does occur. The only means I have come across to get over that difficulty—I do not approve of it, nor do I think your Lordships would—is that there should be some kind of compulsory register of people when they reach 60 or 65, pensionable age. That would mean, I suppose, that, coincidental with the postman's knock in the morning, there would be the arrival of the inspector from the town hall to inquire whether the people were all right. I think their answer would be a very firm, "Go away." I do not think any purpose would be served by having such a register. I raise this important matter, however, because I should like some kind of reply from Her Majesty's Government as to whether they are considering this matter, and whether they can assist me by making any suggestion about what might be done to prevent some of these tragedies from occurring in the future.
4.29 p.m.
VISCOUNT GAGE: My Lords, I cannot claim to be an expert on this subject, which is often termed the science of geriatrics; but, perforce, being a member of a local authority which has far more than the normal number of old people, and by reason of my connection with the housing association movement, I have learned a certain amount, and I certainly feel that I am in a position to say that the old will have cause to be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, for lending the great weight of his appearance and authority to the investigation of their needs. There has been a great revolution in the treatment of the old, nearly all for the better, since I first joined a small board of guardians about thirty

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years ago. Nevertheless, in those days a relieving officer, if he was a humane man, as relieving officers often were, had one advantage which nobody seems to have today: he knew all aspects of the needs of the people under his care and he knew the people intimately as individuals. Now everything has become much more departmentalised. Assistance in money is supplied by the National Assistance Board; housing, in a rural area, by a district or borough council; and care and maintenance by the county council—that is, unless nursing and medical care is required, when responsibility comes under the regional hospital board, an entirely different body.
No doubt this is all much more scientific, but human beings do not readily divide themselves into categories for administrative convenience. As the Phillips Committee point out, this situation leads to a great number of borderline cases. While negotiations go on, while letters are written and committees are taking their decision, many of these borderline cases may, and do, suffer. This is particularly true where money and accommodation are involved. For some reason which is not clear, the Committee held that the question of relations between central and local finance was outside their terms of reference. That is a pity, because lack of money is one of the principal reasons why more is not being done. Noble Lords will know that rates have gone up enormously since the war. Homes for the aged are very expensive, and before embarking on any major scheme for building or adapting premises for the old, the local authority is inclined to consider the effect of such expenditure on ratepayers, many of whom are themselves old and impoverished.
The local authority may be quite wrong to allow such considerations to weigh. Paragraph 320 and others in the Report seem to suggest that the local authority should have no compunction about putting up rates, even if it is known that, as a result, more and more ratepayers will be forced to have recourse to National Assistance. In my own county there are a great number of retired people who, for many years, have come to live in the south of England on comparatively small pensions. Many of them are in a condition not far removed from that of those we are trying to benefit. Over a
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million people are now having their rates paid by National Assistance. Notwithstanding this, nor the fact that the Phillips Committee say that a new approach to this problem is needed, many ratepayers have strong objection to having recourse to National Assistance. Some noble Lords may be old-fashioned enough to respect this attitude. I wonder whether my noble friend who is to reply has any comment to make upon this matter? To some it will be a new idea to suggest that we must say to ratepayers, "It does not really matter whether or not your rates go up, because if, as a result, you are, caused distress, you can always get National Assistance." Is that the attitude which a Conservative Government wish to take?
The difficulty in regard to rates is that welfare services are more expensive than any other form of social service, and whereas we get a 50 per cent. grant for education and health, we get virtually nothing for welfare. There are, of course, the contributions from inmates of old people's homes, paid out of old age pensions and so on; but that contribution does not amount to anything like 50 per cent. of the expenses. In my county it amounts to hardly 25 per cent. As welfare is one of the most important services which a local authority has to provide, this differentiation is difficult to understand. Perhaps my noble friend can explain what is the principle. I should feel much happier if there were a 50 per cent. grant, because major schemes could then be embarked upon without giving rise to the feeling that, as a result, a number of ratepayers would be forced to have recourse to National Assistance.
Local authorities are well aware of the need for more homes and even more aware of the need for more hospital accommodation for the chronic sick. I am told that there are over 4,000 cases scattered up and down the country where the need is really desperate—cases of the kind referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Amulree—but for whom there is no suitable accommodation. At the other end of the scale, local authorities are also well aware that when the old are comparatively able-bodied it is much better to keep them out of institutions. I entirely endorse what has been said on the value of home-helps and special forms of housing. We must be grateful to the

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present Government for the encouragement and facilities they have given for these special forms of housing, and grateful, also, for the encouragement given to housing associations and similar voluntary bodies which are often the best agency for managing these types of housing. The noble Viscount, Lord Soulbury, has referred to the arrangement of a quadrangle of small cottages with a matron in charge. I know of a similar experiment. There are many other schemes, notably those for adapting and improving large houses, in which improvement grants have been extremely valuable.
Gratitude should be expressed to the people who run these voluntary bodies. In my own county we have a retired medical officer of health who has collected money and organised no fewer than five small homes. Though the net result may be small, the example is certainly inspiring. It is clear from the Report, and this debate, that we have a long way to go before we can say that our welfare services are perfect; but unless we have some great upheaval, such as a large measure of inflation, I cannot see why progress should not go on steadily. Coming, as I do, from an area to which many old people go to retire, I am certainly conscious of how vitally important it is for us that this progress should continue.
4.40 p.m.
LORD BURDEN: My Lords, I am sure we are all deeply grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, for initiating this debate. At the outset of his speech he gave us some instances of Greek genius that have come down to us through the ages, and he referred especially to men who had long passed the normal allotted span. But, if my recollection is correct, I believe that most, if not all, of Greek civilisation was based on slavery. At least, it is true to say that Plato and Aristotle justify or condone some form of slavery. I wonder whether there are any figures to show to what age those condemned to slavery lived, or whether they could equal anything like the ages quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge.
This debate undoubtedly has relation to the Phillips Report: time after time noble Lords have referred to that Report. But there is one recommendation in that
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Report which I sincerely hope will not be implemented—that is the recommendation to raise the retirement age of women to 63. I have in mind particularly a number of women who were in our factories and workshops during the First World War, when the work was not so well organised or conducted as it is, more happily, to-day. In the nature of things, through the loss of men in the First World War, those women have been denied the normal happiness which flows from married life. Again, many of them were engaged in our factories and workshops in the Second World War, and no one will deny that wonderful contributions were made by women to the war efforts in both world wars. These women feel that they are entitled not to a later retirement age but to an earlier retirement age. They believe—and I have a measure of sympathy with their contention—that in their insurance contributions they are paying for benefits which, in the ordinary course of things, they will not be able to claim. They contend that widows and married women receive a larger measure of consideration; and for twenty years, under the self-sacrificing and devoted leadership of Miss White, of Bradford, they have been trying to get what appears to them to be elementary justice. For the Government to attempt to raise the retirement age for these women, would, I think, be adding insult to injury. If there is anything to be done, so far as retirement ages are concerned, I suggest that perhaps the right way of looking at it would be to confine it to new entrants into the National Insurance Scheme, or at least those who have been in it for only a limited number of years.
The noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, in his far-ranging and wise speech, made passing reference to the mental hospitals. Perhaps I ought to declare an interest here, because I happen to have the honour of being chairman of a hospital management committee responsible for a mental hospital—I believe the last one built in this country: it was opened in 1935 by the late Sir Kingsley Wood. And from my knowledge of the work there and in other such institutions, I wish to pay tribute to the devoted work which goes on in our mental hospitals today. No one, I think, can measure the advance which has been made in the treatment of mental illness. But I venture to say

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that there are literally hundreds of men and women—particularly women—in our mental hospitals to-day who ought not to be there. They are there because there is nowhere, else for them to go.
This problem is related to that which has been referred to by the noble Viscount, Lord Gage. When these people leave the mental hospitals, if there are no relations to take them, any provision that has to be made for them has to be made by the local authority. But while one knows that local authorities have done a great deal in the provision of hospitals, or places of that kind, there is an urgent need for halfway houses—call them what you will—where these people could be accommodated, and receive a minimum of medical care and attention or nursing. While I am on that topic, I would reinforce what the noble Viscount, Lord Gage has said about the absolute necessity of looking into the financial relations between the local authorities and the Ministry of Health or the National Health services as quickly as possible. There is this gap. Local authorities, obviously, are reluctant to incur heavy financial expenditure at the present time. On the other hand, there are instances where there should be an exchange, so to speak, of cases in hospitals and cases which are in the local authorities' homes, so that a person can rapidly pass from the category of an elderly or aged person to that of a sick person requiring medical care and attention—institutional care, that is.
While I am on that question, I should like to make a passing reference to what are known as "Broadmoor cases" now in our mental homes. They are cases of patients who have been, quite rightly, sentenced to periods of detention during Her Majesty's pleasure. If it is felt at Broadmoor that they should be rehabilitated and brought back to mental health, they are sent to mental hospitals. I make no complaint about that idea; I believe that that is in line with modern treatment so far as those who are mentally afflicted are concerned, even if they have been sentenced to terms of detention. Prior to the appointed day for the coming into force of the National Health Service Act, the local authorities were reimbursed for that cost by the Home Office. Then, somehow or other, the responsibility for that maintenance was put on the regional hospital boards, whereas I
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submit that it is a charge which ought to be borne by the Home Office Vote and not by the Ministry of Health. It is all very well to say that it comes out of the same pocket—that is perfectly true, and I can see the noble Earl's mind working along that line. But I know that the costs of these social services are closely examined, and it is only right and proper that every social service (if one can call detention in prison a social service) should be borne by the appropriate Department.
The noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, rightly said that the paying out of money is not the only thing, and perhaps not the principal thing, in dealing with the elderly. I could not agree more. In addition, I would say that it is very important not to become stereotyped; we must retain flexibility in dealing with old age, and must not try to get them all jammed into one mould. In this connection, I should like to mention an experiment made by the City Parochial Foundation, a body of which I have the honour to be a member. They built in Islington a place known as Isledon House for the aged and elderly, and they took care that the elderly were not segregated. On the top floors of this rectangular building, built round a beautiful garden, young couples are being accommodated, and it is a very real joy for those old people to see the young folk and the children in the garden. I am glad to say that the public spirit of the Corporation of the City of London has led there to take over financial responsibility for Isledon House and they are now running it and paying the Foundation an appropriate sum, leaving us free to experiment in some other direction.
As the noble Viscount, Lord Gage, said, the problem of finance is a very real one. I would suggest to the Minister of Health—I know that there has been a report on the subject—that the solving of the problem of finance in relation to the regional hospital boards and the local authorities is most urgent, and that someone ought to be deputed to get down to the job and work out the financial solution. It is not for me to suggest how, and by whom, this should be solved. It is our duty to point out that the problem exists, and it is for someone else to find the solution.
The noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, said that the principal way of dealing with

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elderly people would be to keep them in their own homes. Of course, that would involve the provision of those services to which he referred, and also the cost of home-helps. Anyone in touch with doctors who practise in industrial areas will know of cases of old people living in their own homes with no one in contact with them except the doctor when he makes an occasional visit. I know of one case, which I believe I have mentioned to your Lordships before, where an old man living just outside the boundary of the City of London was ill and had only the doctor calling occasionally. The old man died, and when his corpse was discovered his face had been gnawed away by rats. That may be an extreme instance, but the fact remains that, though I cannot speak too highly of the humane and wonderful manner in which the National Assistance Board are interpreting the regulations, there is no one person in any local authority charged with the responsibility of seeking out and dealing with these cases. The much maligned relieving officer has gone, and a problem is not obliterated by saying that somebody else will take charge of it.
I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, who said that all bodies who in some way or another have responsibility for old people should get together—regional hospital boards, local authorities and private voluntary agencies, who are still supplementing in commendable ways the efforts of statutory bodies. And long may their work continue, because they can do things which are outside the ambit of the provisions regulating the statutory bodies!
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, would the noble Lord go even further and agree that they are doing a very great part of the work?
LORD BURDEN: I have no means of judging that. I pay tribute to the great work they are doing, and the noble Lord knows that I usually try to measure my words. Again we come up against the problem of finance. I believe that it would be illegal for regional hospital boards to take part in a conference of that kind and incur any expense—they would probably be surcharged by the district auditor. They are responsible under the Ministry for dealing with the sick, but I think they would be exceeding their
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statutory authority. I see that the noble Earl shakes his head; but these bodies have to be careful, because the district auditors have wide powers and they are independent persons not responsible to any particular Ministry.
This has been an important debate, and no doubt we shall be assured that the Minister of Health and his Department will look carefully at what has been said. Again I express our gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, for giving us the benefit of his ripe wisdom and experience. Time after time in this debate it has been emphasised that the test of a civilisation is the way in which it looks after its old people. Perhaps the most important result of this debate, if anything flows from it—as I hope it will—will be that old age will not in future be regarded with the deep apprehension, and even terror, with which it is regarded by many people to-day, and that, in the days to come, the old people will be able to say, in the words of Browning:
"Grow old with me,
The best is yet to be."
5.0 p.m.
LORD HAMPTON: My Lords, in company with one or two other noble Lords, I confess to being very much a layman in this particular matter; in fact, my past concerns have been much more with the other end of the age scale, that is to say, with the young people. But the matter dealt with in this Report and in the Motion is of such growing importance, and the concern of all of us, that that must be my excuse for intervening in the debate. This Report has impressed me for two main reasons: first, because it emphasises the immense improvement in the lot of old people which has taken place during the last fifty years; and secondly because it sounds a necessary warning as to the need for watching carefully the changing conditions of life to-day as they affect old people, and the certainty that, as the preponderance of old over young increases, as unfortunately it is bound to do, this need will become even greater in the future. For confirmation of that one has only to look at paragraph 77 of the Report, where it is stated that in 1954 the growth in numbers of old people exceeded that of the young by 50 per cent., while the numbers in the active age groups hardly altered.

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To my mind, the Report makes it quite clear that successive Governments who have tackled and legislated for the problem of old age have little to be ashamed of; indeed, to a mere layman, it is difficult to see, in the present state of the national economy, what more could be done at present from the centre. At the same time, we cannot become complacent about it, especially in view of the rise in the cost of living and the lower purchasing power of money, which probably affects the people we are talking about this afternoon more than any other people in the community. If the Government are doing all they can, I hope that the same can be said of local authorities. After all, when all is said and done, the care of the old people in the community is very much a question for the community itself—in other words, the concern of the good neighbour. I am glad to say that the organisation with which I have been concerned for a number of years has taken this very much to heart, and I think it would delight the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, if he could see, as I have seen more than once, a small wolf cub, aged 10, going off with his little shopping basket and getting the groceries for an ancient dame of 85. It is a picture, perhaps, of dignity and impudence, but it is the sort of impudence that we want to encourage. This sort of thing is going forward with the girl guides and boy scouts, and with many other youth organisations throughout the country, because we regard it as a definite part of the training of the young to make them realise that they have responsibilities to the old people.
The question of housing has been mentioned a good deal this afternoon, and it is an important question from the point of view of the old people themselves. The Report says the evidence suggests that, in general, local authorities are aware of the need for special provision of housing. It world have been better if the Committee had been able to use the word "invariably," instead of the words "in general"; but I imagine that on the whole, though I have nothing to do with the working of any local association, from what one can observe in going about the country, they have the problems of old age very much in view—in fact, it could hardly be otherwise, I believe that in most housing estates
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special provision is made in the way of small, easily run houses.
I believe that to be one of the most important features of the provision of housing for the aged, because so many old people are commendably house-proud and like to have their own little place, which they feel is their own home which they are running themselves, as long as they are able to run anything. It is true that a number of old people are lonely because they want to be lonely. Possibly they are the kind of people who never in their lives have got on very well with others. The noble Lord, Lord Amulree, would probably agree that there are cases—and from the point of view of the Welfare State they are most difficult cases to tackle—of old people who wish to be lonely and deliberately shut themselves away. It is this fact that causes the tragic sort of case to which the noble Lord, Lord Burden, has just referred.
It is important for local associations—and I think they now realise the fact—to divide the old people, from the housing point of view, into categories of those who are content to live as part of an old persons' community and those who wish, and are able, to carry on in their own little houses. They need a great deal of guidance, as we know, especially the more feeble among them. There is so much that can be done for them, but unless they are well advised they may not know what they are able to obtain in the way of National Assistance, National Insurance, home nursing, domestic help and so on. Whether, in the course of time, from the financial point of view, some simplification will be possible, I do not know. Of course, the old Poor Law was much simpler, but it had not the ramifications or the possibilities that we have at the present time. From the point of view of old people, it is rather a complicated matter for them to understand all that they can get, although, as we know, there are many people trying to advise them. Here I should like to pay a special tribute to that enormous body of voluntary helpers throughout the country who, day in and day out, carry out their job—and a magnificent job it is. The country owes them a great deal.
There is no doubt that since the First World War, and certainly during the last

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decade or so, there has been a change in the structure of family life: younger people do not live as they used to in my young days, and they are not attached to the home roof to the extent that they used to be. This is due largely to the need for workers during the two wars, when many young people went to work on their own, right away from their homes, and got into the habit of living away from home. Perhaps in some cases that has led to a certain carelessness about the older members of their families. I hope that is not a common thing, but there may be a slight tendency that way which requires watching. Emigration to the Commonwealth, which has been so encouraged, may also have had something to do with the cutting up of the family life.
There is one other matter that I should like to mention and that is the question of men and women continuing work after the normal retiring age. Provided that suitable work is found for them, I can see nothing but good in it, and it is something that should be encouraged. After all, the expectation, not only of life but of healthy life, is so much greater now, and the will and ability to continue work is often as good a medicine as any which the National Health Service can supply. The multiplicity of skills of modern life, modern invention and modern manufacture, leave many loopholes into which an elderly person can be fitted and can find work. I am glad to see from the Report that there seems to be a growing tendency in this direction. It says in paragraph 93 that estimates show a rise, between 1950 and 1953, in the number of men over 65 employed of 10·5 per cent. and of women over 60 of over 21 per cent. I hope that that rise will continue. To my mind, it is an encouraging sign, and should continue, so long as it has no adverse effect upon the normal labour market, and I see no reason why that should be so.
Your Lordships, I know, will agree that this is a Report where a mere layman finds it difficult to make any constructive contribution. The fact remains that this is an urgent national problem and it is a growing problem. It is difficult to envisage the situation in 1979, about which the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, spoke, when the preponderance of old age over youth will be so great. It is difficult to foreshadow
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what we shall be able to do. I suppose it is a matter of gradually leading up to that point, of legislating up to it. Certainly we owe a debt to the old people. Many of them have lived useful lives, humbly, perhaps, and unrewarded; and so many of them have given the greatest gift in their power—children to serve the nation after them. It is a growing responsibility, and a nation-wide one, and I hope the nation will never forget it.
5.13 p.m.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, as the noble Lords, Lord Beveridge, Lord Soulbury, Lord Amulree and Lord Burden have all emphasised the difficulty of discovery of cases, it is hardly necessary for me to emphasise it further. It is one of the worst problems we have to face in this business. I was interested to hear that the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, had applied his mind to it and thought of a way (which he disliked and I disliked) for overcoming it, because, owing to the lack of somebody who can discover these bad cases, horrible things occur and keep occurring, and we can never be sure that they will not continue.
With great deference to my noble friend Lord Soulbury, whose work has won him the affection of everybody who is interested in this subject, I think that probably the only people to-day who can possibly engage in the work of discovery are the members of the Assistance Board. I know they kick like salmon at the suggestion, but I think they are the only people who can do this, because they are regularly visiting people who are old already and who nearly always know who among their neighbours is getting into a condition when he or she will need care. I do not think there is anybody else. I was told long ago—I have told your Lordships this before—that it was a welfare officer's duty.
I went to a welfare officer, and he said, "My district is much too big. I could not possibly be responsible for discovery. I have to rely on my voluntary workers." I then went to the Council of Social Service, and said, "Some of these cases are pretty bad. Do you give your women a uniform?" After all, a uniform is more acceptable than a dirty old Burberry and a hair cover, when you are dealing with some of these bad cases. The answer I received was, "Of course not. Before you can get a voluntary worker regularly, you

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must have a place cleaned up and made ship-shape and Bristol fashion." So between the voluntary worker and the welfare officer there is no duty recognised, and these cases go undiscovered. In parts of London there are voluntary workers who do this work. I know one very noble voluntary worker in North London who does a great deal of this work herself, but there is no single organisation or person charged with that duty. As everybody is in agreement about it, I will say no more.
I was interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, said about chiropody. Many voluntary committees have instituted their own chiropody service and found it very valuable. With great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, I submit that it is probably best that it should start as a voluntary service. I think one of the greatest values of having voluntary old people's welfare committees locally, is that they can try out what they find to be necessary and pave the way for it to become an official service. In many places, at any rate, that is in quite a good condition. Another need which I think is important relates to many old people who stay at work long after they have passed the retiring age. I know one old man—I think he is about 75 years old—who works perhaps three, four or more days a week. He does not work when he is not fit. The difficulty with him and with similar people, however, is that, having outlived his wife, he has nobody to look after him when he goes home. He has to make his own meal, and when he has done that he has to go to bed and he almost dies of boredom.
If one could get suitable accommodation for such a man—I do not mean a hostel, but something like the premises the noble Lord, Lord Burden, described—it would be a very good thing. But the difficulty, in London at any rate, is that no man who is in one of these voluntary homes or local authority hostels is allowed to go to work. That knocks on the head at once any solution of that kind for him. I daresay another solution will be found, but it is a difficulty which I think is liable to increase. I am told by my noble friend Lord Amulree that Exeter is the one place in Britain where a man can get accommodation of that kind and still go to work. I hope Her Majesty's Government will study what is
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going on in Exeter with a view to effecting an improvement.
I believe everybody in this business feels that in the Minister he has a friend who is personally interested in his problem and who will help him in every possible way. I find that feeling everywhere I go, and I should like to express it here. There is only one other matter in the Report to which I should like to draw the attention especially of my noble friends opposite, because I think it goes to the root of what may be done in this matter. It is much more on the lines of what the noble Lord, Lord Rochdale, said. I quote the Phillips Report at paragraph 132, where it says:
"The National Insurance Fund is not self-supporting; there is a large prospective deficit. On pension account alone, a deficit already exists and might be increased at any time: it is open to any Government to announce an increase in benefit rates which its successors would have to finance, and it can, in doing so, add to the future liabilities of the State with a facility that makes even a war seem a laborious method of inflating the National Debt."
That phrase, I believe, was put there on purpose to draw attention to the very serious nature of the statement. The Report goes on to discuss the prospects of an increase in the national wealth to meet the burdens that the calls of old age and all the calls of the Welfare State must entail on future generations.
The prospect is so tremendous that feel I must draw the attention of noble Lords opposite to what seems to me to be the only possible solution, namely, that, for the very sake of all those services in which they, with of us, and possibly more than most of us, are so deeply interested, they must relax their hostility to risk capital. I suggest that what I am saying is really something that was said in The Times yesterday in a very able article on the right-hand middle page. One can think of any number of industrial companies who are doing very good work, who are increasing their output, who are holding overseas markets in the face of cut-throat competition, whose wages bill has gone up, the price of whose materials has gone up, whose dividend has not moved and who could not make a new issue of risk capital if an opportunity came to extend their enterprise.
It is only if we use British enterprise in the highest possible degree and reward risk and enterprise that we can hope to

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gain the money which is necessary to defray the account which the Welfare State is certain to lay upon future generations. The opposite will, and I am afraid must, lead to bankruptcy. I remember that once, in about 1930 or 1931, I was in Poland. Poland had had a very fine (I think it was) unemployment fund which had "gone broke." While they were all anxious to have the best possible welfare services that the country could afford, there was one thing on which they were quite determined: that they would never run the risk of "going broke," because they remembered the suffering it entailed. I hope that this country, with its vast interests and its enormous ageing population, will never have to face a problem of that kind. For that reason, I have made this appeal to my noble friends opposite.
5.23 p.m.
LORD PETHICK-LAWRENCE: My Lords, by common consent we are all greatly indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, and not only to him but to the other noble Lords on all sides of this House who have taken part in this interesting debate. But it is not only that we ourselves are indebted: the community of our country is indebted also, because, when these large subjects are brought into the light of day and discussed, that is a step towards things being done which afterwards work out to the good of the community as a whole. The noble Lord who has just sat down departed somewhat from the harmonious discussions we have been having by introducing a controversial subject. In this closing part of the debate, I do not propose to make any answer to him except to say this: we are all agreed that only by increasing the productivity of the country can the burdens that lie in front of us be met. On what precisely are the best ways of doing that we may not always see entirely eye to eye; but on the principle that you cannot eat a cake which you have not made, I think we may all agree to accept that fundamental doctrine.
A great deal of ground has been covered in this debate. Nearly all the important things about old age have been said. Therefore, I shall not detain your Lordships very long. There is, however, one aspect of the problem which it seems to me has not been fully covered, and before the noble Earl winds up the debate
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I should like to say a few words about it. Most of the speakers have been talking of old age as if it were one stage in life. I do not think that is at all true: I think that old age consists of three or four stages in life which are entirely distinct. It may be that one leads to the other, or it may be that it does not, but the symptoms and treatment of one of these stages, in my view, are an entirely different matter from the symptoms and treatment of the others.
Let me put into some shape the idea that I am trying to convey to your Lordships. In the first place, there comes a time in the life of most men and women who pass through and are completing the prime of their life when it first becomes apparent to them that to continue a full day's work in the job that they have been doing for most of their life is becoming difficult. They find that they are very weary at the end of the day; they find their nerves, it may be, or their sinews unwilling to carry out their occupation. Therefore, they are, in a sense, becoming old. What do they require? They require perhaps not to be forced to work particularly long hours; they require some alleviation; and, in particular, they require in some cases financial assistance, because, with the best will in the world, they are not able to earn the full money which they earned in the days of their prime. That is the first stage of old age, and it can be cured entirely by some additional money coming into the house of the ageing person.
I may point out here that the situation is not entirely independent of the actual anno domini but one case may differ very much from another. One man or woman may be tired or weary and want to retire in the fifties; another may want to in the early sixties; another may want to at just about the pensionable age; yet another may not want to for ten or fifteen years beyond that time. There is evidence of this in the fact which has been mentioned over and over again—and it has been referred to again today—that there are a large number of people of pension-able age who are continuing, and do continue for quite a considerable number of years, to work full-time in their trade and earn full money, and earn the additional old age pension when the time of retirement comes, whenever that may be. That is the first stage.

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The second stage is when a person can no longer make any substantial contribution to his own upkeep, when he wants to live almost exclusively on his pension, supplemented perhaps by the small sum which he is allowed to earn by some part-time work. Such people may be quite capable of looking after themselves in all the ordinary affairs of life. They may be living in one of those houses specially adapted for old people. They may require an occasional visit from a friend or a visitor, or even some State person to see that they are all right. They may, if they are obstinate and entirely on their own, through circumstances which are in no sense their fault, become the kind of person about whom my noble friends Lord Burden and Lord Saltoun, and others, have been talking this evening. Normally, however, they are quite capable of locking after themselves, and they do not require any special protection other than monetary help. A pension such as we have at the present time admirably meets their need.
Then we come to the third class of people—the third stage, it may be, of old age. Those are the people who are not capable of entirely looking after their own needs and who, because they cannot properly attend to their own ordinary needs if left entirely to themselves, must live either with relatives or in some old persons' home which is provided by various means. But the help that they require is still only of an ordinary kind. It need not in any sense be medical; it can be the help of quite ordinary people, with no medical knowledge, or the help of some home where the persons running it, though they may have a special ward or portion set aside for medical cases, in the main expect people to be looked after by ordinary persons.
Then we come to the fourth stage, where people, in the normal course of their day, are not able to look after themselves and where ordinary non-professional, non-medical attention is not enough; they need to go to hospitals or to nursing homes. Their incapacity, which may be either physical or mental, or both, may entirely unfit them to play anything like an ordinary part in the life of the community or their fellow human beings.
I have been constantly brought into contact with those four different stages
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in what, lumped together, are termed "old age." As I have said, those four stages are quite different; they are distinguished by entirely different characteristics, and they require entirely different solutions. It seems to me that that point is not fully realised when all these people are classed together in the term "old age." Each has its problems. The problems, however, are entirely different problems. It may be that some people never reach old age in this sense. They may be 70 or 80 years of age and never reach the first stage of these difficulties; they may reach one of these stages, or they may be carried off by death coming quickly, before they reach any one of these stages of life or any part of such a stage. In my view, we shall meet the problems of old age fully and completely only if we understand the distinction between these different stages. I do not wish to take up any more of your Lordships' time, and with those brief words I, in common with other noble Lords, shall listen with interest to the reply of the noble Earl.
5.35 p.m.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, I think we have had a notable discussion on this subject, and before I begin to reply, I would welcome back to our discussions the noble Viscount, Lord Soulbury—he has not taken part in the debates in your Lordships' House for a number of years. It it just about twelve months ago that the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, introduced in this House a Motion on the subject of the retirement pension rate. As your Lordships know, the Government have taken action since then, in fact before Christmas, when, at the same time announcements were made in regard to National Assistance and war pensions. Next month, on April 25, the first payment will be made at the new retirement pension rates, and on May 19, the increased industrial injuries benefit will become payable.
I should like to make three comments at this point. First of all, the retirement pension to-day is at least as high in purchasing value as it ever was. The retirement pension has been increased by more than 50 per cent. since this Government came into power; it is to-day 75 per cent. higher than it was in 1946, which I think fully compensates for any increase in the cost of living. May I say to the noble

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Viscount, Lord Gage, that there should be no doubt but that we believe in pensions as of right. But that does not mean to say that there will ever be a time when the National Assistance Board will not have to help some people over difficulties. The noble Lord, Lord Wise, I think, sought to confuse the National Assistance basic rate and the retirement pension rate. The noble Lord knows perfectly well that they are quite different. It is not fair to make a comparison between the two.
Apart from any other consideration, of course, National Assistance includes rent, as well as other payments, so that a comparison is not really apt. But I want the noble Lord to rest assured that there is provision in the regulations whereby, in special circumstances, the allowance may be adjusted appropriately to meet those circumstances. This power is fully used by the National Assistance Board, in regard to such things as special food for a sick person, laundry, or domestic assistance for an old person unable to do his or her own work. I am informed that this power was exercised in no fewer than 574,000 cases last year, so the noble Lord may take it that there is a certain amount of elasticity vested in the National Assistance Board.
LORD WISE: May I interrupt the noble Earl, to thank him for that information? I thought it important to have that made public by the Government.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I thank the noble Lord. I think we really took action at the first practicable and possible time. To have done so a few months before the Quinquennial Report and the Phillips Report were published would have been highly irresponsible. There might still have been something which was basically wrong in our whole approach to this subject. I think one of the advantages of the Phillips Report is that, whilst it has raised many criticisms of detail, it indicates that the general lines on which we are advancing are sound. I think it is important that we should bear that in mind, because we might have been quite a long way off the mark.
The third point I should like to mention is one which has been referred to by a number of noble Lords—namely, the size and the extent of the scheme which
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we have now undertaken. Clearly, that is dependent on the general economic strength of the country. The Phillips Report says that we should be in a position to carry this burden provided that productivity increases by 1½ per cent. per year. And at present, the rise in productivity is not less than this figure. This means, I think beyond peradventure, that whatever Government are in power, the welfare of the old people is directly and necessarily linked with the general economic strength of the country. Unless that is assured, the purchasing power of pensions cannot and will not be maintained, no matter what cash figure may be affixed to it.
The noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, then turned to the broader question of the general facilities available to old people. What I should like to do is to analyse what noble Lords have said, and to try to see how far what we have done measures up to what we should like to do. I found the definitions given by the noble Lord, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, most interesting—they were not far from my own analysis of the stages of old age. What seems to me to be the essential, if I may use that term generally, in regard to old people to-day is that they should remain, first, useful; secondly, independent; and thirdly, wanted. May I explain in a little more detail what I mean? In the first instance, they should feel there is still some part that they can play in this world. Secondly, they should feel that they are in no way a burden to other people. Thirdly, they should feel that they remain welcome company, not only to their relatives but also to their fellow citizens. This is a field where the State can do only part of the work. All citizens must play their part if these objectives are to be attained.
Translating these ideas into practice, we should seek to enable old people to remain at work as long as possible. Secondly, we should enable them to remain in their own houses—and in this respect, cash pensions which enable people to do so, are of very great importance. Thirdly, whatever happens, they should never feel that they have ceased to be part of the community as a whole or that they have no contribution to make and that nobody wants them. But the question of staying at work has received a good deal of attention, and there have

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been two Reports upon it, the Watkinson Report and the Report of the Departmental Inquiry of the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance published last autumn. This is a matter essentially dependent on individual circumstances. The choice must be made by the individuals, but they can be helped by being provided with the opportunity of doing work within their power.
I was delighted to hear what my noble friend Lord Rochdale said. It is true that many industries are now realising that they must do away with the idea of a rigid retirement age and, so far as possible, must make available work of the kind which older people can do. The noble Lord, Lord Rochdale, raised the question of the rule relating to earnings, but this is essentially a retirement pension and not simply an old age pension. I am not satisfied with reasons which have been advanced for changing this rule. I believe that it is entirely right. The Government, as an employer, hive a considerable burden to bear, and although in regard to the Civil Service, 60 continues to be the minimum age of retirement, that is not now regarded as the normal retiring age. Officers between 60 and 65 who wish to stay on, and for whom there is useful work, can remain so long as they are fit and efficient. The most important factor in keeping old people at work is the maintenance of a high level of employment. Only with full employment can older people be given an opportunity of taking an active part in the work of the country.
The question of keeping old people in their own homes was emphasised by the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, by my noble friend Lord Hampton, and by other speakers. It is fortunate that the number of houses available has increased, and that the number of houses suitable for accommodating old people has also increased. The Phillips Committee Report gives the figure for the six months to December, 1953: 8·4 per cent. of all new local authority houses were suitable for old people. The latest figure, for the six months to December, 1954, is 9 per cent., which shows that the importance of this provision is realised and that increasing emphasis is being placed upon it.
That is, so far, satisfactory; but the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, and others, question whether the provision of assistance in the home is adequate. We are
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dealing here with expanding services. A good deal of ground is covered. In the Home Nursing Service between 1948 and 1953 the number of nurses employed increased from 7,700 to 9,500—a notable expansion. The number of cases attended to increased by about 40 per cent. over the same period. The number of home-helps is to-day only 30,000, but it was only 11,000 in 1948. In a service of this kind, a 300 per cent. expansion in five years is not too bad, though I concede that the service is still inadequate.
There are also such services as sitters-in and night watchers provided by some local authorities, some of whom call on voluntary organisations such as the St. John Ambulance Brigade, the British Red Cross Society and St. Andrew's Society. There is also the laundry service which a growing number of local authorities provide for elderly people, particularly where it is felt that a domiciliary service of this kind would ease pressure on hospital beds. A "Meals on Wheels" service for sick and old people is provided, either directly by local authorities or through the W.V.S. and the British Red Cross. I understand that the London County Council provide a service of "Invalid kitchens of London." Nursing equipment is made available in the home, and there are health visitors who are mostly concerned with mothers with young children.
The noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, made particular reference to chiropody treatment and compared its cost with that of tobacco. No doubt this is an example of the unsatisfactory result of making benefits available to old people by coupon. I am afraid that we must look at it in that way, and we must clearly recognise that it would be very difficult in practice to withdraw such concessions at the present time. The noble Lord must not have the impression that there is no provision for chiropody. Chiropœdic treatment is available in hospitals and at a number of clinics taken over by local authorities. It is also available in the home, in some places, through the British Red Cross and St. John Ambulance and, I believe, St. Andrew's Society. Treatment is also given at a number of old people's homes provided under the National Assistance Act. The booklet of Health Services of Hammersmith, shows that the charge there is 2s. 6d. per treatment, or free if

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the old person is receiving National Assistance. While I agree that the service remains inadequate, noble Lords should not have the impression that nothing is being done in this field.
LORD SALTOUN: Can the noble Earl say whether the Hammersmith service is provided by the local government or is a voluntary service?
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: It is organised by the local authority, and I believe it is run by Hammersmith. There was one matter on which some noble Lords spoke with great authority. I was greatly disturbed by what the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, said, because he speaks with real authority. Let us be quite clear. If a case is known of any one in need of assistance, there is no doubt that the National Assistance Board should be informed as early as possible. If domiciliary services are needed, then the local authority should be informed. It does not matter whether the Board or the local authority are informed, for if a person is found to be in need the appropriate authority will take action. The noble Lord raised a disturbing point; he wanted an automatic method of discovering people who are in hardship. Such a method is difficult to visualise. I am surprised at the story told by the noble Lord, Lord Amulree. I imagine none of those people were on National Assistance, for people who are receiving National Assistance are at least in touch with someone. We are now dealing with a number of people who are not receiving National Assistance but who for one reason or other have fallen on bad days.
LORD BEVERIDGE: That means one in seven. One in six of all elderly people is on National Assistance. Five out of six are not on National Assistance, and therefore they do not get dealt with by that method. Is that not so?
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I appreciate the noble Lord's point. He may be right. There was some reference to the relieving officer. I do not think the relieving officer ever had the task of seeking out cases of hardship. He had the personal statutory duty of relieving need, but I do not think he ever had the duty of seeking out these cases.
LORD SALTOUN: I beg the noble Earl's pardon, but the relieving officer
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certainly did have that responsibility, and he might be prosecuted if he failed in it. Every relieving officer I knew told me with pride that it was his duty.
LORD BURDEN: I can assure the noble Earl that whether it was or was not the statutory duty of these officers, it was accepted by every relieving officer with whom I have ever been in contact as his duty.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I think I am correct in saying that it was not a statutory duty. The statutory duty of the relieving officer was to relieve need. However, that is a matter relating to the past, and we do not need to pursue it further now. But surely this is a matter in which anyone, whether it be a neighbour or a general practitioner—or even a rent collector, for that matter—can act. They are in touch with these people and can report these cases. I wonder whether in fact the relieving officers were able to find all the cases. Is this an entirely new phenomenon—something that has never happened before? I find it difficult, with the best will in the world, to see how anyone could be charged with a duty which, because of its very nature, would be so difficult to perform. But why should not neighbours do this—or even ministers of religion, if they are in touch with the happenings in their parishes? I should have thought that if the duty of reporting these cases were clearly understood, the sort of things which have been mentioned should not happen. I am afraid that I cannot give the noble Lord a fuller reply than this. What I think should be clearly known is that where people are aware of distress they should report it, and either the local council or the National Assistance Board will take the necessary action.
There are, I suppose, two general criticisms. One is that the volume of assistance given by these domiciliary services is inadequate. As I have already said, they are expanding. Here is certainly a sphere for all those who are able and willing to enter into voluntary service: here is opportunity for them to play a full part. The nature of the work to be done is extremely varied. It varies from visiting people and relieving their loneliness to the more exacting tasks which need qualified personnel to carry them out.

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The second point of criticism relates to co-ordination. There is a doubt in people's minds whether these different services are properly co-ordinated. It is felt that all the services should be, to some extent, co-ordinated. I think more is being done than is perhaps appreciated. What we want to avoid—and I am sure your Lordships will agree with this—is looking upon old people as a class by themselves. It is much better to regard old people as part of the community, and not simply as a segregated section. I think it is important that that should be clearly understood. Help is given to these people by various ad hoc services organised for the particular purposes. Whether it be housing accommodation, health services or hospital treatment that is required, the services are there and ready to play their part. My right honourable friend the Minister is aware of the need for closer co-operation in this field, and he does all that he can to encourage people in localities to come together. Any one who is able to assist in doing that, to assist in bringing about fuller co-ordination, will be performing a valuable public service if he comes forward to help. I think it would be wrong to assume that no such thing is taking place.
The noble Viscount, Lord Soulbury mentioned Darby and Joan clubs. There are about 4,000 of these clubs, of one character or another, in the country at the present time. They do not entirely provide what is needed, but they do afford meeting places for these old people. What is more important is the work of the old people's welfare committees under a central Committee. I believe that they include representatives of various authorities such as the medical officers of health, the welfare officers, the National Assistance officials and voluntary organisations such as the W.V.S. and the Red Cross.
LORD BURDEN: May I interrupt the noble Earl for one moment? I am sorry to do so, for I know haw difficult it is to continue a speech such as that which the noble Earl is making when there are frequent interruptions. We have, as the noble Earl has said, the good will of the Minister on this point of different agencies, shall I say, dovetailing together, so far as they can, without losing their separate existence. Would it be possible
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for the Minister to consider the advisability of sending a further circular, say, to statutory bodies—not to voluntary bodies, because statutory bodies can more usefully get in touch with the voluntary bodies—calling attention to essential points of various kinds that have been stressed in this debate, and particularly dealing with the question, so far as regional hospital boards are concerned, of whether they will have any legal power to take any action in connection with this co-ordination of work? I believe that there has been a report of the Central Health Advisory Council on this very point, and that some action was taken after that. Now, I think, it is time that the matter was revived.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, I am sorry that I am not able to give the noble Lord an answer about regional boards, but he is probably right in what he says. What I can say is that the Minister will certainly consider what has been said. Whether he will think it advisable to send out a circular, or indeed what action he will take, I cannot say; but I think he will take some action as a result of the discussion in your Lordships' House to-day. I believe it is the fact that medical officers of health and hospital boards or hospital representative authorities do meet regularly. I also believe that it is hoped shortly to institute meetings between medical officers of health and general practitioners. It is hoped that they will come together in due course more or less as a matter of routine.
May I now move on to the next stage, which is that of people who cannot be retained in their homes. In cases where circumstances are such that old people can no longer remain in their homes—and sometimes that is inevitable—it is clearly necessary that residential facilities should be available. These cases come into the stage 3 to which the noble Lord, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, referred. They depend on family circumstances. In some cases the family can look after the old people, but in others they cannot do so. I have the honour—it is a curious addition to my office—of being chairman of Chelsea Hospital, which is, I suppose the oldest, and indeed it is still the finest, building of this particular character.
I can tell your Lordships this fact. Local authorities in England and Wales have provided 69,000 beds, of

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which at least 50,000 are available for aged persons. The figure for Scotland is about 6,500. Since the end of the war some 800 new small homes, with accommodation for 23,000 people, have been opened by local authorities. There are registered over 1,200 small homes, of one character or another, with another 23,000 beds, so that there is a fair amount of accommodation available there. I had the pleasure last week of visiting two or three homes run by the L.C.C., and I was very much struck with the quality of the accommodation provided and, if I may say so, by the imagination with which these homes were decorated to make them appear attractive, light and airy.
The noble Viscount, Lord Soulbury, emphasised the need for quality, but I think he would have been satisfied if he had seen these homes, and I believe the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, also would have been satisfied. In some cases the old people had retained their own furniture and in a great many cases they had retained many articles of personal interest, such as pictures and items of that character. Where old buildings are still in use, local authorities have been dividing up dormitories and providing cubicles, in order to make them more suitable accommodation. They are also encouraging the building of old people's homes where new housing estates are going up. I thought the noble Lord's suggestion about encouraging life insurance offices to build and run homes was interesting. One or two friendly societies already run homes for their own aged members, and I understand that with this object in view a Bill was recently introduced in another place to give powers on a wider basis.
The noble Viscount, Lord Gage, was worried about the financial arrangements. Let me say to him that when this new scheme was brought into being it was really part of a settlement by which the central Government took over Public Assistance and the hospitals, leaving the local authorities with responsibility for old people's homes, subject, admittedly, to not very generous, though quite substantial, assistance, both through national assistance towards the expense of running them and through housing subsidies for erecting new buildings. The noble Viscount may say that this is not very important, but is he really anxious to
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abrogate all the powers of the local authorities in favour of central control? That is the direction in which he is going. I should have thought it very unwise for local authorities to ask the central Government always to meet the costs of such schemes.
VISCOUNT GAGE: My Lords, I do not think I went so far as that. What I asked was that welfare services should be put on the same basis as any other form of social service and we should ask for a 50 per cent. grant.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I am aware of that. I am afraid I went further than the noble Viscount and I accept his view, but if he asks for more help from the central Government, the independence of the local authorities will tend to be more and more undermined. I entirely agree that there is nothing like enough being done on these lines. But I am sure that those concerned will note what the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, said about the quality of the buildings and about not building them in isolated places.
It has been suggested that possibly the structure of the services was making the ties of family weaker. This was not strongly pressed and I think most of us found satisfaction in the statement in the Phillips Report that they found no evidence of it. I believe that to-day we should re-echo the words used by King George V in his first speech after his accession to the Throne:
"The foundations of national glory are set in the homes of the people. They will only remain unshaken while the family life of our nation is strong, simple and pure."
I would add one or two words about hospitals, because I think it is important to realise that recently, through the stronger economic position we are in, we have been able to announce additional expenditure of £15 million on hospitals. Old people will not directly benefit by this, but, none the less, it is a step in the right direction which I imagine will have a spreading effect and which will make more hospital accommodation available for older people. The position in hospitals is that whilst the number of beds available in England and Wales in 1951 was 507,000, that had increased by over 2,000 by the end of 1953. Of this number, however, 18,000 beds are closed through lack of staff. That is a very

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serious matter, which has to be met. The number of beds occupied by the chronic sick in December, 1953, was 55,000, which is an increase of 3,500 over the previous four years. This is approximately 7½ per cent. of the total number of beds. In Scotland, the percentage is roughly the same.
The greater portion of these beds are certainly occupied by old people. As the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, has emphasised, we are anxious that hospital accommodation should be made available where it can be used for a quicker turnover, and I think that is increasingly being done. For instance (these are rather dull statistics but I think they are important), in 1952, the number of beds for old people increased by 1·1 per cent., but the number of patients increased by 9·5 per cent. In 1953, the number of beds increased by 1·5 per cent. and the number of patients by 5·5 per cent. Of course, that is a cumulative figure, indicating a fairly rapid turnover. I have the figure for the Dundee Geriatric Unit: it shows that 45 per cent. of the patients admitted can be returned to a condition in which they no longer need hospital treatment. I mention this fact because I am certain it is much better not to leave the chronic sick in hospitals, which should be used to restore people who are unable to find treatment outside. Wherever it is possible to nurse people adequately at their homes, it is desirable that they should remain there.
The noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, is disturbed about the increasing number of old people. I believe that we can meet this point. The disturbing figure is not so much that of the increase of old people, but that of the increase of old age pensioners, which is a very much bigger figure. It may well be that with the National Health Service we have to-day the demand for institutional accommodation will not necessarily increase in direct proportion to the number of old people.
I am afraid that I have not done much more than run through the facilities available and the general policy which we have to deal with these problems, but I feel that it is essential, whatever action we take, that the old people should continue to feel part of the community, to remain useful, to remain independent and to remain wanted. That is an objective which
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no doubt will take many years to achieve, It depends just as much on individuals as on the State. The Phillips Report is encouraging in this regard, and I think it indicates that the way we are going is probably sound and that the basis of our approach is right. Of course, we are going through a transitional period and we are ready to improve the position. It is for that reason that I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken to-day.
6.8 p.m.
LORD BEVERIDGE: My Lords, after this long, memorable and most fruitful debate, I shall speak shortly. I should like to begin by expressing my delight (it is not really for me to thank them) that so many noble Lords have spoken on this occasion. I think they have helped to make it clear to the old people of this country that their problems and difficulties are of serious concern to Members of this House. I am sorry that I cannot say anything about all the speeches; I can only say that I heard most of them and I shall read them with the greatest possible interest in the OFFICIAL REPORT to-morrow.
I must just say a few words about the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, who has replied for the Government. He made one brief reference to the last debate of a year or so ago when I spoke about retirement pensions. If the noble Lord will refer to the Report of that debate, I think he will not find any suggestion in my speech that the Government ought to have proceeded without waiting for the Phillips Committee Report. I said that they could hurry the Report. If the noble Earl will also refer to his speech, he will find that on that occasion he was highly discouraging about the possibility of the Government's doing anything whatever about pensions last year. Fortunately, the Government did much better than the noble Earl forecast. I congratulate them, and I hope that, in so far as his speech to-day has not been completely satisfactory on all points, they will repeat what happened on the last occasion and will be even better than the noble Earl has promised.
I want to differ fundamentally from the view the noble Earl has just expressed, that the concern is not really the growth in the number of old people but the growth in the number of pensioners.

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That is a remark which perhaps would come appropriately from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but not, I think, from the noble Earl, who, if he is speaking for any Minister, is speaking for the Minister of Health or the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance. My speech was concerned with other things than pensions—namely, the care that the old people need. Old people are likely to want care, whether or not they are pensioners, because whether or not they have a pension does not affect the rate at which their faculties decay, or their sudden passage from one class of the old to the other.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I think the noble Lord must have misunderstood what I said. What I intended to convey was that the difference between the number of pensioners to-day and the number in twenty-five years' time is a much sharper difference than that between the number of old people of to-day and the number of old people in twenty-five years' time. I do not say that it is not serious, or that it does not present a problem; but I do say that, in the way we are proceeding to-day, we hope to be able to meet the needs of the old people at that time.
LORD BEVERIDGE: I hope the Government will continue to improve on anything unfavourable that the noble Earl has said on this occasion. I would ask the Government to examine centrally, as a whole, the problem that has been laid before them to-day and with which they are familiar in many ways. I believe there is a case for co-ordination, because an old person in one particular class and degree of decay of faculties may at any moment pass to another, and we want to be sure that the appropriate body is ready to deal with him as he passes. I ask the Government to consider it centrally and together, and to let no question of departmental or sectional jealousy stand in the way of the co-operation of the different Departments, the local authorities and the voluntary agencies.
I hope they will not mind my putting three criticisms for their consideration. The noble Earl has emphasised the fact that old people ought to be encouraged to go on working and not discouraged from doing so. Would the Government once again consider whether, in the light of that statement, the present retirement
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condition for pensioners, of which I was the inventor, is a right and necessary condition; that is to say, the rule about earnings that now applies? That is the point that was put by the noble Lord, Lord Rochdale. Secondly, would the Government ask themselves whether what is called "a small home" in the Ministry of Health Report—that is to say, a large house which used to house one family and is now housing thirty or forty people—is really a home or can be made into a home? That is about the average inhabitation of the houses which have been established. I ask the Government to look at that policy again. May I say how much I welcome, in that connection, the noble Earl's support for the suggestion which I threw out, that bodies like the industrial life offices and the friendly societies—I know that some of the, friendly societies do this—should deal with the problem of trying to get over to the people who are now working the certainty of having a home, with service, to retire to when they need to retire. I think there is a great need for voluntary action in that field, combining organisation, money and management.
I come now to my final point of criticism. I know that some chiropody service is being given, but unless the lady who answered in the other place for the Ministry of Health was saying what she did not believe, it is clear that chiropody is not getting as much attention as it ought to get in the interests of the old people themselves. The only reason given for that is lack of money, and that is why I still ask the Government to consider whether their priorities are right. I would go on and ask whether it is a right priority to keep home-helps as expensive as they are, when that service could be cheapened by subsidies, while at the same time you are giving away £14 million a year for tobacco. I would invite the Government to look again at a very trenchant article which appeared in The Times on this subject on, I think it was, March 1, or it may have been January 3, of this year. I believe they will find there is a real danger in the unfortunate step that was taken in 1947, and it is having the effect of giving the old people what they really do not need, and, on plea of that, denying them what they desperately need in the way of home help, chiropody and so on. That is all I have to ask the Government.

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Finally, I would repeat that this problem of the old is a problem for the whole community and not for the Government only. I hope that children, if possible even more than in the past, will continue to look after their parents; I hope that neighbours will continue to do work as volunteers to help the old people; and finally, I hope that even more people who
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are going on working after they could retire and who are still full of energy, will use that energy in helping the still older people to live in their own homes. I ask leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
House adjourned at eighteen minutes past six o'clock.