Mr Robert Hudson: We are being asked to vote this sum of over £7 million, and we should like to know what articles it covers and what the general policy is. It is better to take it short now, than at much greater length later on.
Mr Robert Hudson: This is not in the ordinary sense of the term a Supplementary Estimate. This is a new service, and it is outside my experience for a Minister on an Estimate of the kind which the right hon. Gentleman has introduced —one of his main Estimates—to give such an extremely cursory explanation to the Committee. He has not told us in the slightest degree what he desires to do, what articles in...
Mr Robert Hudson: Will the hon. Member give way?
Mr Robert Hudson: I was not misquoting the hon. Member at the time as the hon. Member is misquoting me this time. I never said anything about private enterprise procurement. I was not discussing private enterprise procurement as against bulk buying.
Mr Robert Hudson: That is completely incorrect. The hon. Member has been in the House long enough to know that he ought to quote hon. Members in any part of the House correctly. If he will look at my speech on that occasion he will find that I said nothing of the sort.
Mr Robert Hudson: If the hon. Gentleman wishes to attribute views to me, he should take the trouble to read the speech in which I set out my views.
Mr Robert Hudson: The hon. Member for Coventry, North (Mr. Edelman), and the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) share the failing, only too common among hon. Members on the benches opposite, of inaccuracy in quotation. Hon. Members have accused us on this side of the Committee of opposing the accumulation of dollars. To the best of my knowledge we have never done any such thing. The hon. Member for Coventry,...
Mr Robert Hudson: I am obliged to the hon. Member. That is precisely the point I propose to deal with this afternoon. I hope to show, on the strength of his own publications, that that is not true; that prices were beginning to rise and were rising substantially; that trade was rising and prices were rising before Korea; and that was the time they ought to have taken steps to purchase. The hon. Member for...
Mr Robert Hudson: I propose to assume that Government bulk buying is desirable. What I say is that in the national interest the Government ought to have had efficient bulk buying—efficient Government buying. I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman or his Parliamentary Secretary would challenge the statement that the first task of anyone buying in bulk for the Government should be to guarantee supplies...
Mr Robert Hudson: The Minister did not reply. Apparently, he does not accept that it is the first duty of his Department to provide, let us say, non-ferrous metals. Even he could accept that the first task of his Department is to be able to guarantee supplies of raw materials to manufacturers.
Mr Robert Hudson: Why not? The right hon. Gentleman is reluctant to accept the simple proposition that it is the duty of his Ministry to guarantee adequate supplies of raw materials to manufacturers. My second suggestion is that the task of his Department is to avoid undue fluctuations in prices. Does he accept that? I suggest that over a period of years the Department, in buying raw materials, should make...
Mr Robert Hudson: I am not in the Department.
Mr Robert Hudson: Yes.
Mr Robert Hudson: The hon. Member must not be so naive. It was not I who said that the Government claimed foresight. It was the present Foreign Secretary who said that. I agree with the hon. Member that it cannot be done.
Mr Robert Hudson: It cannot, but I am merely pointing out the folly of a party which is tied to the principle that it can. It is because they are tied to that principle that they have made this mess. I am sorry to have to come back to it, but I repeat that the duty of the Ministry of Supply is, first, to guarantee supplies to manufacturers; second, to avoid undue fluctuation in prices; and, third, over a...
Mr Robert Hudson: It is rather a pity that the right hon. Gentleman does not know what his own Permanent Secretary describes as his duties. I suggest that, in the light of what has happened over the last three or four years, the right hon. Gentleman is bound to accept the obligation to provide raw materials in adequate supply to manufacturers. As he will no doubt agree, last year he ordered manufacturers not...
Mr Robert Hudson: That does not happen to have been the procedure followed by this Government.
Mr Robert Hudson: I agree that it is a fact, but the trouble was that the hon. Member or I, being sensible people, under the influence of our wives, who probably do the shopping, would have bought.
Mr Robert Hudson: The trouble with the Minister of Supply and, to some extent, with his Department, was that they were continually believing that there was a surplus just around the corner. They refused to believe that the surplus did not exist and that prices were going to rise. They did not believe it in the autumn of 1949. They did not believe it in the spring of 1950, and, so far did they carry it, that in...
Mr Robert Hudson: I should be delighted to do so if I had time but I am giving this one example, one out of many to show that the Government were consistently wrong throughout all these months when there were supplies, and that when the price was likely to rise they consistently refused to take action because they thought that a surplus was just round the corner. I could go on with further examples, but this...
