§ 27. Dr. John A. Cunninghamasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will alter the basis used to calculate the retail price index.
§ Mr. Booth:The construction of the index follows the advice of the Retail Prices Index Advisory Committee and changes recommended in the committee's recent report—[Vol. 886, c. 460–2]—were applied in the construction of the index for February 1975. I am satisfied that in this form the index provides a reliable measure of the changes in the retail prices of the goods and services currently consumed by the great majority of United Kingdom households.