Statistics and Registration Service Bill

For the conduct of monetary policy and Government economic policy making, we clearly have to have a national index of inflation, and that is established by the CPI. As any close examination of the statistical composition of price indexes shows, over a period some prices of some items will go up and some will fall. That has been the experience of recent years. Clearly, we have to aggregate those figures. Our index serves our purposes well; it covers a very wide range and basket of items, which are constantly updated to reflect modern consumption and economic activity in this country. I shall give way to the hon. Member for Braintree (Mr. Newmark) once more. I shall then set out some substantive matters to the House as part of the opening of this debate, and—if he and other hon. Members will forgive me—try to make a bit of progress.