§ Mr. Sainsburyasked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection what is the average percentage change in consumer prices in the United Kingdom's four principal industrial competitors for the three months to January 1976 at an annual rate weighted by the weights given in the OECD index of industrial production.
§ Mrs. Shirley Williams, pursuant to her reply [Official Report, 6th April 1976; Vol 909, c. 158], gave the following information:
Our major industrial competitors vary widely according to the particular products in question. However, to January 1976 the average increase in consumer prices between Belgium, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, the USA and West Germany, weighted by the OECD's index of industrial production, was 60 per cent. Using the OECD's preferred system based on consumers' expenditure weights rather than industrial production weights, the corresponding figure was 6.1.
§ Mr. Sainsburyasked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection (1) what is the percentage change in consumer prices in each of the United Kingdom's four principal industrial competitors for the 12 months to January 1976;
(2) what is the percentage change in consumer prices in each of the United Kingdom's four principal industrial competitors for the three months to January 1976 at an annual rate;
(3) what is the percentage change in consumer prices in each of the United Kingdom's four principal industrial competitors for the six months to January 1976.
§ Mrs. Shirley Williams, pursuant to her reply [Official Report, 6th April 1976; Vol 909, c. 158], gave the following information:
232WOur major industrial competitors vary widely according to the particular products in question. The following are the latest available figures for percentage increases in consumer price indices over three months—at an annual rate—six months and 12 months to January 1976 for most of our competitors.
PERCENTAGE INCREASES IN CONSUMER PRICES RE JANUARY 1976 Country 3-monthly—at annual rate 6-monthly 12-monthly United Kingdom 16.0 6.8 23.4 Belgium 10.5 5.4 10.9 Canada 6.7 3.8 9.6 France 9.5 4.6 9.6 Italy 12.4 5.6 10.9 Japan 4.3 4.4 9.0 Netherlands 3.6 4.0 8.6 United States of America 5.2 2.7 6.8 West Germany 5.7 2.1 5.3