Orders of the Day — Prices and Incomes

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 25 October 1966.

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Photo of Mr Iain Macleod Mr Iain Macleod , Enfield West 12:00, 25 October 1966

The hon. Member had better refresh his memory by looking at the Division lists, particularly that for the Division to impose the Guillotine and thereby stifle discussion of the Co-operative case in particular.

Price control has a superficial attraction, but I am sure, and I believe that the First Secretary of State would agree, that it does not really work. It could not work even with an army of civil servants. For new products there is and there can be no old price structure. It is often unfair in the sense to which the First Secretary of State drew attention this afternoon, inasmuch as those who have held back their prices may now be penalised. If I may repeat a metaphor which I used at the Blackpool Conference, to control prices is literally, in many instances, like controlling the weather, because there is no bigger single influence on prices in this country and throughout the world than the weather. It is an illusion which I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will now abandon that he can control prices, even with the aid of a vast bureaucratic machine.

I want to make a brief reference to Statutory Instrument No. 1021, which is on the Order Paper today as the subject of a Prayer, under my name, and then pass from it. We do not intend to move this Prayer when the time comes because our vote on the larger issue will take it into account.

But the House of Commons should take into account what has been done. On 12th August, the day that Parliament rose, and the day that the Prices and Incomes Bill received the Royal Assent, the Government by Order withdrew the entire Second Schedule to the Bill, which was in itself a White Paper, and substituted an entirely different White Paper which will now have to be construed by the courts as part of the ordinary body of statute law. This is ridiculous. There is no reason why speeches made by the right hon. Gentleman or the Leader of the House to their constituents should not in this way be enshrined as Schedules as part of legislation, and then the courts will have the job of construing them.

I hope that the Leader of the House will take this matter into account and refer to it when he winds up. It struck us as very curious and somewhat disingenous—I am glad that the hon. Gentleman is here—that when the Under-Secretary of State was asked about it at about 5.30 in the morning of 10th August, he gave no indication that this would take place. Yet, with only one day intervening, and as soon as the House rose, the entire Second Schedule to the Bill, which was a formidable one of a number of pages, was swept away by Order and an entirely different Schedule was put in its place.

I do not want to comment on the legal aspect of this at great length but it is, to put it mildly, surprising that a thing like this should be done, and it was disingenuous of the Under-Secretary not to tell us—if, indeed, he knew—what was in the mind of his Minister. I do not know whether he knew or not, but he should have known. The responsibility for these matters rests mainly with the Prime Minister who made the statement on 20th July. I have already shown how little the Under-Secretary knew in this instance about what is going on, and shall quote briefly from what he said on 14th July on the Second Reading of the Bill: … may I make it clear again that there is opportunity in the normal way for negotiations to continue during the period when the Board is preparing a report. There is no delay in that respect. Claims can be made; negotiations may go forward. There is no interference at all in that respect with free collective bargaining. I hope very much that there will be no further misrepresentation about the Government's attitude and what the Bill says in this respect."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th July, 1966; Vol. 731, c. 1850–1851.] It was a ridiculous state of affairs when, six days later, the Prime Minister made the gravest economic statement we have heard since the war.

I am sorry that the Minister of Labour is not here, but he did attend part of the debate. He and his Parliamentary Secretary are perhaps the best-liked team of Ministers in this Administration. But it is infinitely depressing to anyone who knows the Ministry of Labour well, as I do, to see how it has deteriorated, and how the Minister has become little more than a bell-hop to the Prime Minister. It is very foolish of him to travel the country calling the people dishonest and thriftless. It is very foolish to do as the Parliamentary Secretary did last night, basing herself on unemployment statistics and comparisons that will look very absurd in a few weeks, let alone a few months. Above all, it is midsummer madness for the Minister of Labour to turn his great Department into a sort of local office of the Inland Revenue for the administration of the Selective Employment Tax.

The net result is that now, when we need the Ministry of Labour as never before, the work of the local offices is clogged up with administering the Selective Employment Tax and work subcontracted to it by the Treasury. We know very well, and this showed again yesterday at Question Time, how deeply unhappy the Minister of Labour is about the Selective Employment Tax, the work which pulls against everything which all Ministers of all parties have tried to do at St. James's Square, and the burdens that have been put on the Ministry.

The Prime Minister is not here and I shall not comment at length on him. I shall simply read an extract from what he said on the "Election Forum" last 10th March: I do not think that you can ever legislate for wage increases and no party is setting out to do that. Once you have the law prescribing wages I think that you are on a very slippery slope. It would be repugnant, I think, to all parties in this country. As to the idea of freezing all wage claims, salary claims, I suppose, dividends, rents … I think that this would be monstrously unfair". So indeed do I.

On 20th July, he said: It is not our intention to introduce elaborate statutory controls over incomes and prices."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th July, 1966; Vol. 732, c. 636.] In Washington, where he was singing a very different tune on 29th July, he said: We have taken steps which have not been taken by any other democratic Government in the world. … We are taking steps with regard to prices and wages which no other Government, even in wartime, has taken". That is what he said. But Part IV is what he did.

I shall not spend time on the little hare which the First Secretary went chasing after when he started his speech and again when he ended it. I shall gladly send him a copy of my Blackpool speech which dealt with that, if he wants it. He mentioned three names, my right hon. Friend the Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling), my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) and myself. We had a detailed debate on incomes policy in the summer. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman was occupied in another sphere and did not read it. It was opened by my right hon. Friend the Member for Barnet, it was wound up by myself, and the Motion which we put before the House and debated was signed also by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West. We need not spend any time on that matter.