§ Mr. Eldon Griffithsasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will publish a list of those foodstuffs whose prices have been increased in the last three months; and by how much per cent. each item has increased.
§ Mr. PeartThere are many thousands of individual food items, only a proportion of which have recently increased in price, but I regret that it would not be practicable to give precise details of these price changes. In the case of manufactured foods, details of manufacturers' recommended changes have been published weekly in the trade press but I am not in a position to distinguish the representative varieties and packs of these foods or to estimate the average price increases since these appear to have varied between different retail outlets and have not necessarily conformed to manufacturers' recommendations.
The only information available which includes basic as well as manufactured foods is that covered by the food group indices of the Index of Retail Prices and is set out below in as much detail as possible.