Oral Answers to Questions — National Finance – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 18 February 1954.
Mr Willie Hamilton
, Fife West
12:00,
18 February 1954
asked the Chancellor of the exchequer what statistics are avail able to him to enable some estimate to be made of the proportion of income spent, respectively, on food, rent, and fuel, by the various income groups; and to what extent this estimate influences policy in relation to food subsidies, rent and rates.
Mr Reginald Maudling
, Barnet
I regret that no official statistics are at present available showing the distribution of expenditure for different income groups.
Mr Willie Hamilton
, Fife West
Can the Minister attempt to make such information available? Would he not agree that the increases in price of the commodities mentioned in the Question hit the lower income groups much harder than the higher income groups? Is it not significant that over the last two and a half years the prices of these commodities have gone up much higher than the prices of other commodities?
Mr Reginald Maudling
, Barnet
Without entering into the rather vexed question of movements of prices, I should like to tell the hon. Member that the Ministry of Labour's household budget inquiry which is now in progress will, when completed, provide data from which we can furnish figures of this kind.
The chancellor of the exchequer is the government's chief financial minister and as such is responsible for raising government revenue through taxation or borrowing and for controlling overall government spending.
The chancellor's plans for the economy are delivered to the House of Commons every year in the Budget speech.
The chancellor is the most senior figure at the Treasury, even though the prime minister holds an additional title of 'First Lord of the Treasury'. He normally resides at Number 11 Downing Street.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
