Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 12 Rhagfyr 1973.
I am very pleased to be winding up this debate. Like the hon. Member for West Bromwich (Miss Boothroyd), I am a consumer, and, as a housewife, I hope to benefit directly from the Bill in due course. It shows that the Government are serious in their determination to help consumers to shop more intelligently. I personally have benefited greatly from listening to the debate this morning and from the contributions made by members on both sides of the Committee. All that has been said shows the great interest that hon. Members have been taking in the ways that we can help people to judge value for money more easily and directly.
A number of points have been raised and I should like to deal with them. The hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Alan Williams) referred, as did a number of hon. Members, to metrication. Hon. Members will have noticed that Clause 1(4) gives power to require imperial or metric units of measurement or both. The Consumer Safeguards Group of the Metrication Board has reported on the advantages and the difficulties of unit pricing in metric change. We will explore the use of powers in the metric changeover in detail. In some cases it will be particularly valuable.
The hon. Member made a point about advertising and information on metric change. The Metrication Board has been discharging its continuing responsibility for disseminating information on metrication and its programme of advertising is under more or less continuous discussion with Ministers. I am not sure whether the hon. Member for Swansea, West shops very often for food, but if so he would know that metrication has yet to begin for food standard quantities. This will be introduced from 1974 onwards.