THE EARL OF HARROWBYasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they can state the value of the £ and of its predecessor in 1350, 1400, 1500, 1600, 1650, 1700, 1750, 1800, 1825, 1850, 1875, 1900, 1914, 1919, 1929, 1939, 1945, 1950, 1955, and each subsequent year and including further any earlier year where a marked change was noticeable.
§ THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD MILLS)Little is known about movements in the general price level before the nineteenth century, and no reliable comparisons can be made between the purchasing power of the pound at the present time and before 1850.
Rough estimates of changes in purchasing power for the period 1850 to 1914 can be obtained from a retail price index compiled by the late G. H. Wood and published in The Study of Prices by Layton and Crowther. Official indices for measuring such changes are available only from 1914 onwards. For the period 1914 to 1938 measurements are based on the official cost-of-living index, which covered expenditure of 80WA working class households. Comparisons from 1938 onwards are based on the consumer price index, which covers expenditure on goods and services by all consumers.
To produce a single series comparing the purchasing power of the pound over the last hundred years it is necessary to link together these three indices and to ignore differences in their purpose and scope. The results are given below. The purchasing power of the pound has been taken as 20s. in 1914 because this is the first year for which an official index of retail prices is available.
Purchasing power of the pound (1914=20s.) s. d. 1850 20 5 1875 18 0 1900 23 0 1914 20 0 1919 9 4 1929 12 2 1939 12 5 1945 7 10 1950 6 3 1955 5 1 1956 4 10 1957 4 8 1958 4 7 1959 4 7 1960 4 6 House adjourned at seventeen minutes past six o'clock.