Mr Ronald Ledger: Can my hon. Friend give any examples, under the old system of free-for-all, where the lower-paid workers have done better than the higher-paid workers, because we have come to the conclusion that it is the old free-for-all system which has perpetuated the lower-paid workers? This policy is meant to redress that situation.
Mr Ronald Ledger: Not all of them.
Mr Ronald Ledger: That is no answer.
Mr Ronald Ledger: I am not going to follow the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) in what he said about the Bill because I agree with so much of it. He showed considerable knowledge of the problems involved in having legislation of this kind, and a reasonable approach to the dangers inherent in advertising if they are completely free from legislation. There is one point on which I will take him to task....
Mr Ronald Ledger: That may be so, but I think to that extent Molony was not quite accurate. One of the reasons why we need this Bill is the growing affluence of the consumers. They are less discriminating; they do not have to watch every penny as they did, for example, before the war when I was younger and not so interested in purchasing as I am now when I have a family. Parents then were much more careful...
Mr Ronald Ledger: It so happened that I was at a meeting I had this afternoon here in the Palace of consumers who had come today just because the Bill was being discussed, and that is why I have not been able to be in the Chamber all the afternoon.
Mr Ronald Ledger: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
Mr Ronald Ledger: I have tried to follow the right hon. and learned Gentleman's argument. He has said that these old ladies would not go for their supplementary benefit because they felt they had not the right as they had not contributed. Why does he think they will go for a pension to which they have not contributed?
Mr Ronald Ledger: Mr. Ledger: So am I.
Mr Ronald Ledger: This is a dangerous argument. Many of my constituents are working-class people earning about £14 a week. When they become old-age pensioners, they find a big drop in their standards. It is not only those covered by the Bill, but most pensioners, who find this drop in standards. The Labour Government's record of trying to help them is so much better than that of the Tories that hon. Members...
Mr Ronald Ledger: Having listened to the whole of the debate, I begin to get a little suspicious of what is going on, particularly when from the opposite benches one hon. Member after another says that this is a completely non-political Measure. The noble Lord the Member for Hertford (Lord Balniel) found it very difficult to be non-political when he referred specifically to undertakings given by the Labour...
Mr Ronald Ledger: Of course, Tories when in opposition always say that it is the Government's job to introduce legislation, and now the hon. Gentleman again advances that argument. It does not excuse the Tory Government for doing nothing for 13 years. Very little was said or known about this problem in 1964, because the Tories had done so little for these people, and many others. Today, there is much talk...
Mr Ronald Ledger: I agree that the record of right hon. and hon. Members opposite after losing power is rather better than their record when they were in power and could have implemented these things.
Mr Ronald Ledger: I support my hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Gwilym Roberts) be- cause not only is this an appropriate time to he considering the problems covered by the Motion but linking minimum incomes to social benefits is the right way to deal with them. I did not agree entirely with my hon. Friend's arguments. For instance, he was a little concerned that if we had a minimum wage...
Mr Ronald Ledger: Exactly. I am just taking the bare minimum benefits that the man gets by staying away from work. To talk in terms of an incentive to work when one has an automatic encouragement not to work is a bit of a contradiction. Also, at the levels where many people talk about incentives to work there is no need for any incentive. Members of the Opposition are normally talking about people earning...
Mr Ronald Ledger: I think I see what my hon. Friend is getting at but I know many small firms where an increase in wages of £2 or £3 for one or two workers could be a burden. Not all our firms are big or earn tremendous profits. My hon. Friend mentioned the figure of 1 million or 1½ million people earning less than £13. Is he talking of earnings or wages? I would have thought that the figure for workers...
Mr Ronald Ledger: But surely the hon. Gentleman has destroyed his own case, because he himself remembered and eventually obtained his licence. He did not have a reminder. He realised, in the case both of the licence and the insurance, that he had forgotten to renew them. The sort of people we are after surely are those who never take out any licences, including television and radio licences, and ignore all...
Mr Ronald Ledger: I think that this debate has followed a pattern very similar to that of the debates on the other Orders, and it has become quite clear that the Opposition are really not concerned about specific anomalies which arise but use them in order to oppose the whole of the Government's policy on prices and incomes. This has become increasingly clear. There is a world of difference between the...
Mr Ronald Ledger: No. The hon. Member has not been in the Chamber. I certainly shall not give way. I want to get to the end of this debate. I have been sitting here while the hon. Gentleman has not. I do not see why I should give way.
Mr Ronald Ledger: Well, I have been watching very closely—
