§ Dr. John A. Cunninghamasked the Secretary of State for Employment whether he will reconsider the basis of calculation of the cost-of-living index to give more prominence to costs of food, housing, clothing, heating and travel and eliminate the rôle played in the make up of the index by alcohol and tobacco; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. BoothThe construction of the retail prices index follows the recommendations of the Retail Prices Index Advisory Committee which includes representatives96W of the TUC, the CBI and trade and consumer organisations together with leading academic experts and Government statisticians.
On this matter, the Committee has explicitly recommended that the index should reflect price changes over the whole field of goods and services purchased by households and that the importance of each category of expenditure in the "basket" of goods and services making up the index should be determined by the actual pattern of spending of households measured specially for the purpose in the Family Expenditure Survey. I accept the judgment of the Committee on this matter.