Orders of the Day — Incomes and Productivity

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 18 December 1961.

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Photo of Mr Harold Boardman Mr Harold Boardman , Leigh 12:00, 18 December 1961

We are concerned today with whether inflation is to be regarded as a necessary corollary of full employment. Our problem can be summed up in that question. Fortunately, in this country we have never suffered inflation in the acute form in which many parts of Europe have suffered it. When the Labour Party was in power and I was associated with the Ministry of Labour I accompanied my right hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards) in visiting displaced persons' camps in Austria to recruit labour for British mines and cotton mills. My right hon. Friend tried to outline to these people the advantages of working in British mines now that they were nationalised. He was giving some idea of the kind of wages that could be earned when one of the displaced persons said, without emotion, "That is all right, but what will those wages buy?"

This is the whole problem. What will the wages buy? I speak as a trade union official when I say that we are not concerned so much with what the wages packet means in terms of £ s. d. but with what it means in terms of food, shelter and clothing. This wretched man in a displaced persons' camp had learned too well the meaning of inflation, but I doubt whether the present Government, who have given us so many lectures on the subject, know what inflation means. Is it not ironical that the Government stand idly by and say emphatically that they can do nothing about the extortionate increases in land prices and about other matters where they have made it virtually impossible for many local authorities to build houses to let and thus for many people who would choose to buy their own homes to buy them?

This single instance will form part of the wage agitation in the near future, and I would point out to right hon. Gentleman opposite that applications for increased wages are not cooked up in trade union board rooms. The agitation generally starts in a working-class kitchen when the husband hands over the house-keeping money and the wife recites the increases in prices since she last received a wage packet. Most housewives are well informed about prices and they can work these things out without the help of Treasury statistics. It is obvious that before a Government of any colour can appeal to trade unions it must be regarded as a first, fundamental prerequisite of that appeal that the Government have demonstrated that they have taken such action as will keep prices stable if not reduce them.