My Lords, I start with an apology to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey. In Committee I said that I would certainly look at the idea of somewhat broadening the scope of what we were considering. However, I received the official reply very late, and I have also suffered, as I hope will not be too much in evidence as I move the amendment, from a chest infection, which means that I dissolve into coughing fits from time to time. Therefore, I was unable to pursue the matter further and I apologise to the noble Lord.
I moved this amendment in Committee because the present law—at least, as widely understood—causes confusion. In descriptions or advertisements, there is no need as in other transactions to quote metric as the primary measurement. I shall give two examples. Some estate agents describe properties in square feet, others in square metres. As carpets are normally sold in square metres, it is hard for a would-be customer to know whether a carpet will fit into a room in a flat or house which they want to buy if it is advertised in square feet. The other example that I gave in Committee was that a retailer may offer in his showroom two comparable fridges—one whose capacity is described in litres and the other in cubic feet.
It appeared that the present Government’s view is that descriptions and advertisements are covered by the Weights and Measures Act, but David Willetts, the previous Minister concerned, held the view that they
were not. Trading standards officers responsible for enforcement of the law believe that the law does not apply. They have given me examples of where they understand certain terminology to be legal and where similar terminology is illegal. One described the law on this subject as “a ass”.
This morning I met the Minister. It was a heart-warming occasion. My noble friend the Minister and her officials were the soul of reason and agreed to advise the professions and trading standards officers that the law did require the primary description to be metric, with every right to quote imperial measures as well. Therefore, the position should now be clarified and I am most grateful to all of them.
I have one reservation, which I hope will give rise to some discussion before I announce what I will do with my amendments. I was told that the Government have no intention to make any further moves towards metrication. They are happy to let two separate systems—conflicting systems, in some ways—coexist, whatever the confusion and cost that may cause for ever and ever.
I mentioned in Committee that in 1970, as Financial Secretary when Roy Jenkins was Chancellor, I helped to prepare the change to decimalisation, which was subsequently carried out by the Heath Government in 1971. We sounded out no focus groups and commissioned no opinion polls. We thought that opinion might well be rather against the move and many people forecast chaos. However, the decimalisation board made the most careful preparations and explained everything very clearly. There was no chaos and everything went smoothly, and who now doubts in retrospect—except, no doubt, some irrational UKIPers—that the change made life simpler for consumers?
The then Prime Minister had set up the Metrication Board to do for metrication what was so successfully done for decimalisation, but Mrs Thatcher abolished the board. It nevertheless continued to be government policy in principle to move towards metrication, but slowly and very cautiously, at a snail’s pace. Even that has now been abandoned. Everyone else—except, as far as I know, Britain and the United States—has gone metric, including, for example, the Commonwealth.
The United States and Britain have paid for that. If you run two systems side by side, there will be mistakes, some of which will be very costly. There was the orbiter disaster in the United States. In Canada, the so-called Gimli Glider ran out of fuel because of the same mistake and nearly killed hundreds of people. In Britain, only in the past few weeks, we have heard about the difficulties of Network Rail. A BBC reporter was told about maintenance crews across Britain who record what they do in different ways. He said:
“Network Rail told me that in some parts of the country they use miles, in other parts they use kilometres, so when two teams record the fact that they’ve fixed ‘three units’ of line, some mean three miles, others mean three kilometres. I don’t need to spell out what a mess that makes”.
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In Committee, I said I hoped that in my urging further steps towards metrification after Magna Carta we might record some progress. Magna Carta decided that there should be one measurement for weights
throughout the country. I also said that I hoped that the Committee would not feel I was showing an excessive sense of urgency in asking for further progress when it had been a mere 800 years since the concept was first advanced.
As well as the cost to employers such as Network Rail and the possibility of serious disasters, YouGov recently polled a number of consumers and asked them if they understood the present system. It asked for quick answers to how many yards there are to a mile and how many metres to a kilometre. Most people found it difficult to answer those questions. It was easier for them to answer that there are 1,000 metres to a kilometre than to get the 1,760 yards right. These surveys did not show that there was any easy familiarity with either system. Of course, it would be much simpler for consumers if there was one system, and the metric system should be the only choice.
We have not exactly speeded up since Magna Carta. In fact, we have moved backwards. Clearly, Magna Carta’s commitment to one measurement was far too radical for the present Government. We have gone backwards instead of forward. I hope that there will be some protests at this progress at a snail’s pace and at what I would call the cowardice of the Government in going back on the Magna Carta decision. It should be tackled for the benefit of the consumer. For the fear of whom have the Government run away? Possibly, it is UKIP because it does not like that kind of thing as it is too common in Brussels.