§ 15. Mr. J. Howardasked the Minister of Labour how many units in the Index of Retail Prices are allocated for expenditure upon cigarettes; and if he will drop cigarettes from the items making up the index in view of the findings of the report of the Royal College of Physicians entitled "Smoking and Health", a copy of which has been sent to him.
§ Mr. HareThe weight for cigarettes is 70 out of 1,000. The purpose of the Index is to measure changes in the average level of prices of goods and services commonly purchased and it would be wrong to exclude any item widely purchased.