Orders of the Day — Prices and Incomes

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 22 July 1968.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr Stanley Henig Mr Stanley Henig , Lancaster 12:00, 22 July 1968

I am arguing that the basic criteria for any incomes policy that I would like to see introduced by the Government would be in favour of a redistribution of incomes, but I am afraid that this policy may, in the way that I have indicated, not do this, but rather, penalise the lowest-paid workers.

I wanted to take briefly the simple case study of a group of people to whom the incomes policy has already been applied—the municipal busmen. There is not much doubt about the proposition that the municipal busmen are one of the lower-paid groups of workers. For a basic working week a municipal busman earns less than all sorts of other people —and much less than a London busman earns. I am not convinced that it is all that more difficult to drive in London than it is to drive along winding country lanes—