Metrication - Is it still a muddle?

Enclosed with this issue is a leaflet and a questionnaire about metrication. Please fill in the questionnaire and send it back as soon as you can. Many thanks in anticipation!

Progress in converting Britain to metric is about to take another stagger forward. The Government has just confirmed that, following legislation passed in 1994, pounds and ounces as legal measure for weighed-out goods are to be abolished before the new millennium arrives on 1st January, 2000. Only grams and kilograms are to be used as legal units of weight in shops after that.

However we immediately totter sideways as well, because shops can continue to display prices in pounds and ounces for another ten years! The only requirement is that the price in pounds and ounces must not be shown in larger type than that used for the legal price in grams and kilograms (as is the case at present). Also we can continue to ask for what we want in pounds and ounces. The shopkeeper (the DTI says) will convert the quantity into metric and weigh it out on a metric scale.

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has prepared a leaflet called "Shopping metric — a guide to buying loose food" which will be available in shops and from Trading Standards Offices. The DTI has a Metric Helpline on 0845 601 0540, calls charged at local rate. They also have a web site at http://www.dti.gov.uk/cacp/ca/metric/index.htm.

In all this apparent flood of information to help people cope with the change to metric for weighed-out goods there is not a single word of encouragement to actually use metric weights and measures, for example in cooking. Yet it is only by learning to cook using metric measures that we will properly understand buying food in metric. If you don’t use metric, how can you ever benefit from the changeover?

The Government says this year-end change completes the metrication programme. They claim the UK has complied with the EC Directive on "Units of Measurement". In legal terms they are correct, Britain is a metric country. However, as there is no legal requirement to use metric, people will continue to use imperial measures virtually all the time and the Government intends to make sure they have that choice. This makes it practically impossible for those of us who want to go metric to do so.

LETTERS

Chris Keenan, an Individual Member comments on references to the impending changes made in the last two issues of ‘Consumer News’.

"Issue 196 points out the forthcoming enhancements to metrication legislation and I was glad to see that the article highlighted the snail’s pace at which it has been happening.

However I was surprised to read in issue 197 that enabling legislation was still awaited when the amendments to the various parts of the "Weights and Measures Regulations, Units of Measurement Regulations and Price Marking Order," which enabled the 1995 changes, also included the changes due to take place from the end of this year (links to the various pieces of legislation can be found on my Web Site www.usma.demon.co.uk).

Having said that, I am still unhappy that the legislation isn’t stronger; it looks as if the big supermarkets will still be sticking with pints of milk after this year, even if they are labelled 568 ml.

I am also unhappy that the DTI hasn’t given more of a lead in educating the public, and Trading Standards Officers felt frustrated by being told not to issue publicity material.

Issue 196 also pointed out the anomalies that have arisen, particularly in the field of road transport. I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment that changing road signs to metric would help us think in metric. Ireland has achieved this through a gradual process of replacement (which our own Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions has dismissed as too dangerous!). Also, UK commercial vehicles have odometers that register km and most speedometers show kilometres per hour.

What I think is particularly ludicrous is the fact that, currently, metric units are not legal on road signs (except in a very few cases) even as a secondary indicator. Considering that the metric system is the legal system of weights and measures for ‘economic, public health, public safety, and administrative purposes’, I would have thought that there could be cause for a legal challenge to this legislative ban on legally-acceptable units.

I would appreciate any advice on this matter from members.

If you have some advice - Chris Keenan ‘s home phone number is 01242 525396 and his e-mail address is chris@usma.demon.co.uk

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