§ 58. Mr. A. Lewisasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that there has been a further rise in rates, rents and the price of butter, sugar and bread, and that the cost-of-living index figure has risen to its highest peak; and what new action Her Majesty's Government will take to reduce prices and the cost of living.
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§ Mr. du CannYes. But I am also aware that there has recently been a fall in the price of eggs, of some fresh vegetables and of coal, and that the price of milk will be reduced by ½d. a pint next Sunday. In April the Retail Prices Index was 2.1 per cent. higher than in April, 1962. Most of this increase was due, directly or indirectly, to personal incomes outstripping national production. As the Government have emphasised repeatedly, the most effective way of stabilising prices is to keep the rise in personal incomes within the long-term increase in national production.
§ 59. Mr. A. Lewisasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will publish in HANSARD a table of figures giving the percentage rise or fall since October, 1951, until the latest stated date, of the purchasing value of the £ sterling and its relative cash worth today, the index of retail prices, unemployment, personal income taxation, expenditure on local authority housing, expenditure on private house building, National Insurance contributions, income from rents, rates, radio and television licences, including postage and telephone charges, purchase tax, Bank Rate and Public Works Loan Board rate, imports, exports, terms of trade, and national production; and on what dates the cost of living reached its highest level and the £ sterling reached its lowest purchasing value.
§ Mr. du CannI would refer the hon. Member to the reply given on 22nd January last to a similar Question. Such changes as have occurred in the intervening period can be readily ascertained by reference to the White Paper "Preliminary Estimates of National Income and Balance of Payments, 1962" (Cmnd. 1984), and to the "Monthly Digest of Statistics" and "Financial Statistics", all of which are available in the Library.