I do not display the same interest as the hon. Gentleman does in football pools. I am only pointing out that at a time when the country is desperately short of newsprint that additional paper is to be given to the football pool firms.

The Government must carry full responsibility for the present situation because they have had full control over the raw material. It is all very well for the right hon. Gentleman at Question Time to give the impression that this is run by the Newsprint Supply Company who have got themselves into this position. But nothing of the kind is correct. They have been carrying on, on their own behalf, dependent on Government licences and instructions to a very great extent.

Before the war something like one-third of our total supplies of newsprint came from Canada. This was also the case during the war when the supplies from Scandinavia were cut off. Without Canadian help the newspapers of Great Britain would not have been capable of carrying on at all. The 1950 imports from Canada, which have only recently been agreed, are set at 25,000 tons. The wartime minimum yearly was 67,000 tons. Until devaluation last September Canadian newsprint was cheaper than any other in the world. Today the right hon. Gentleman in answering a Question of the hon. Member for Hendon, North (Mr. C. I. Orr-Ewing)—which was on the tape machine this evening—inferred that the industry had only itself to blame.

Lord Layton went to Canada in 1946 to arrange supplies and contracts for 1949, 1950 and 1951 on a basis of 300,000 tons per annum. He carried with him a written assurance from the Government that licences would be provided. Unfortunately the Government broke their contracts, and in doing so they upset the whole of this great industry in Canada which happens to be second to agriculture. In 1945 Canada and Newfoundland shipped to the United Kingdom 198,458 tons. In the autumn of 1945 the present Minister of Town and Country Planning announced that licences were available for only 93,000 tons. The Government went back on their contracts. The price of Canadian newsprint was £25 at ton against a British controlled price of £34 a ton. The Canadians made great sacrifices in this matter, and the British Government demanded cancellation of contracts.

Had coal been supplied to the Canadians as they wanted we should have had the newsprint. Coal could have been sent at a freight rate of 10s. a ton and newsprint could have been shipped back at an additional freight rate of 35s. a ton, but the Government broke its contracts. It seems to me that this Government completely lacks the ability to work out its priorities. The right hon. Gentleman will tell us, no doubt, that it is due to the shortage of dollars. We know we have been through a dollar crisis, but since the American loan has been forthcoming a lot of money has been spent in the United States on a lot of unnecessary items. I do not want to weary the House with figures, because they are all well known. If the hon. Member wants to interrupt I will give way.