Debate on the Address

Part of Sessional Orders – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 12 November 1963.

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Photo of Captain Walter Elliot Captain Walter Elliot , Carshalton 12:00, 12 November 1963

I will not delay the House on this point, because I do not want to deal with the nuclear deterrent any further.

I want to come now to the theme of modernisation and of planning in the Gracious Speech. An hon. Member opposite said that in the mouths of hon. Members on this side of the House "planning" is a dirty word. What he should have said is that our approach to planning is different from that of hon. Members opposite. They say that we do not accept the idea of planning. I should like to draw their attention to what I believe is one of the most sensitive and responsive plans the world has ever seen—that devised by private enter- prise. I ask hon. Members why, when they want two pints of milk, they find two pints on the doorstep in the morning, and, if they want four pints, they get four pints? If they want none, no milk is left on the doorstep. That demand goes right back to the point at which the milk is produced. If there are goods in shop windows for which there is no demand, why do they disappear to be replaced by goods which people will buy?

Behind all this is the commercial structure, finance, the banks, the docks, the ships ploughing the seas half way round the world bringing to this country raw materials and finished goods to satisfy the consumer demand. That is the private enterprise plan. The consumer decides what is going to be bought, and his needs are satisfied. As I see it, hon. Members opposite want to drive a bulldozer through that plan. They want to put a rigid framework round it. On the other hand, we on this side of the House want to create the environment within which that plan can work.

The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland said that the word "modernisation" in the Gracious Speech was an indictment of the Government. He asked why, if there had been a demand for this, had we not done it before? I cannot follow the logic of that remark. Modernisation is a continuing process, going on all the time. It is absurd to say that one can modernise one year and do nothing the next. One hon. Member said that the point is that the modernisation envisaged is not enough. Of course it is not enough. It never is. On education, on roads, or anything else, it is never enough and never will be enough.

The great thing is that we should do all we can, and, in the words of the Gracious Speech, that we should have growth without inflation. If we try to do too much, we get inflation, and inflation causes more injustice and hardship than anything else. I hope that the growth without inflation spoken of in the Gracious Speech is what we shall get, however unpopular we may be in obtaining it.