§ Mr. W. H. Greenasked the Secretary for Mines whether he is aware that, despite the advice given to the public by the Government to order and store domestic coal, coal merchants generally, and particularly the Royal Arsenal and London Co-operative Societies, with considerably over 1000,000 registered customers, are finding it difficult to keep down arrears of deliveries owing to inadequate supplies; and will he give an assurance that the new authority now set up to supervise the retail coal trade will ensure that merchants will get supplies based on the number of their registered customers?
§ Mr. GrenfellI am aware that delay in fulfilling orders is occurring in many areas. The response to my appeal to consumers to order as much coal as they could stock has been such that orders which would normally have been spread over three or four months have been placed in as many weeks; and although the rate of delivery to householders is now about 50 per cent. greater than at this time last year, some delay is unavoidable in the circumstances. My Department is doing everything possible, jointly with all the interests concerned, to increase still further the rate of delivery and to smooth out inequalities of distribution wherever they occur.