New Clause. — (Appointment of Consumers' Council and Committees.)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 27 April 1949.

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Photo of Mr James Hutchison Mr James Hutchison , Glasgow Central 12:00, 27 April 1949

Nearly every hon. Member who has spoken so far has given the purpose of this Clause his blessing, but has pointed out, as I wish to do, that we must not expect much from what Consumers' Councils can do. It is one of the vices of nationalisation that when an industry is taken over in this way, some sort of body has to be set up to try to protect consumers. But how effective have they been up to date? A short time ago I asked the Minister of Fuel and Power how often the Consumers' Council of the nationalised coal industry had met since it was set up. In his reply he told me that it had had nine meetings and that representations had been made to it by three groups of consumers. The fact that in nearly two years only three representations should have been made to the Consumers' Council about the types of coal and the shortage of coal just shows how little confidence the public has in such councils. I only hope that this one will work better. I think that a little more attempt has been made to make it a workable proposition, but inherently it must be unworkable for this reason.

I wish to return to the theme which I mentioned earlier about the public interest. The consumer's interest is not the public interest; the consumer's interest is to get the goods he wants to consume as cheaply as possible, come what may to the council. If the council is to do its job properly, it is going to have views diametrically opposed to those of the Corporation who are charged under an earlier Clause with watching the public interest. That is why I urge the Minister to give us some definition and to set up some sort of court of appeal to decide what, in fact, is the public interest. I hold out very little hope that this Consumers' Council will be able to achieve anything more than the very mediocre results achieved by similar bodies already set up in other industries.