I gave notice to-day that I would raise, an the adjournment to-night, the subject-matter of Question 50 on the Order Paper. I am doing so for two reasons. First, there is the obvious reason that I was dissatisfied with the reply given to me by the Minister and, secondly, I am raising this matter for the purpose of teaching the Minister for Industry and Commerce that a penalty usually attaches to a Minister who loses his temper over a supplementary question — the penalty of having the matter reopened on the adjournment. Shortly after he became Minister for Industry and Commerce he made a speech to his constituents in which he assured them that traders subject to price control and rationing regulations were no longer going to be annoyed by pip-squeaks of inspectors. I asked him if that statement was to be interpreted in the way in which the ordinary person was likely to interpret it, as meaning that the price control and rationing regulations were no longer to be enforced by his Department. He informed me that that was not a correct interpretation of his statement. I then asked him as a supplementary question — it seemed to me to arise naturally out of the main question—whether it was his intention that traders subject to price control and rationing regulations would continue to be inspected by his Department. He replied that was a separate question. The separateness of the question was not very apparent to me, and hence this further discussion of the matter on the motion for the adjournment.
If it is the intention of the Minister for Industry and Commerce to continue to enforce price control and rationing regulations so long as they may be necessary, I want to know how he is going to do it. One could hope to enforce such regulations by the publication of appeals through the Press or by the occasional expression of a pious wish that people would observe the regulations. If there is to be a continued enforcement of these necessary regulations, it must necessarily involve some inspection of the traders to whom they apply: some effort to ascertain whether, in fact, the regulations are being observed by them, and some procedure by which those who fail to observe the regulations will be brought to account. If it is possible to have a system of inspection without inspectors then the Minister for Industry and Commerce can be credited not merely with a remarkable innovation but a rather successful economy.
