Lord Balfe
Main Page: Lord Balfe (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Balfe's debates with the HM Treasury
(2 months, 1 week ago)
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Lord Livermore (Lab)
I absolutely understand the importance of the regulations that the noble Baroness is talking about. As her noble friend said, this is about what we as a Government can do, such as easing existing regulations on supermarkets, which would then enable them to keep costs down for consumers.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, 50 years ago I was working in the retail sector when the right honourable Baroness Williams, who was a Member of this House some time later, was the Minister for food prices. At the end of her term of office, she admitted that it was a hopeless task to try to curtail food prices or to ration them. Can I suggest that the Government dig out the files from 50 years ago, read them and then maybe reconsider whether this rather extreme idea from Scotland is worth pursuing any further?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
The noble Lord asks me to reconsider an extreme idea that we are not considering, so I think we should be okay on that point. The times he talked about were very different. I do not think anyone would advocate for that now, and we certainly are not.