'Tired of comment’

Press, 11 August 1977, Page 2

'Tired of comment’

The Labour spokesman on consumer affairs, Mr R. O. Douglas, said he was tired of commenting on food-price rises.

“Almost every month the Government Statistician tells us food prices have risen, and every so often that the consumers price index has set yet another record,” he said. Whatever the figures were, the Government asserted that things were coming right and that light was just round the comer, Mr Douglas said.

“It’s a farce. The harsh facts are that the November, 1975, food dollar is now worth only 77c,” he said.

“It is a fact that food prices have risen 17.8 per cent in the last year. “It is also a fact that this is the third successive month in which the annual food-price index has risen.”

Mr Douglas said that no amount of statistical juggling by the Government could get round this fact. “Instead of pretending

that the situation is coming right, I urge the Minister of Trade and Industry to admit that the Government has lost the economic battle against inflation and has given up.

“The public would give him some points for honesty,” Mr Douglas said. The leader of the Housewive’s Boycott Movement (Mrs K. Himiona), said that the increase represented 21.6 per cent on an annual basis. It meant that food was galloping ahead of general inflation, she said. Food was actually a higher proportion of most people's spending than the 18 per cent weighting given it in the over-all consumers price index. “The average family would pay far more than $lB for food in a week. That would just leave you living on grass and beans,” she said.

The secretary of the Campaign Against Rising Prices (Mrs C. Kelly) said the in-

crease, being higher than the general inflation rate, would have most effect on lowerincome families who spent a higher proportion of their income on food.

“C.A.R.P. also checks on the prices of groceries which are outside those covered by the index, and we find price increases there as high as 70 per cent (for a tin of tongues) at one leap,” she said.

The latest food price index rise made it clear that the Government was “telling fibs” about controlling inflation, said the national co-ordinator of the Working Women’s Alliance (Ms S. McCallum). Nothing better could be expected while the economy was controlled by big business, she said. “Because the whole increase has taken place on basic foods, it is fairly clear that the people who will be most hit are those on low incomes and one income,” said Ms McCallum.