IRON AND STEEL GOODS. (Hansard, 7 September 1939)

§ The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Oliver Stanley)
I beg to move: That the Additional Import Duties (No. 6) Order, 1939, dated the nineteenth day of July, nineteen hundred and thirty-nine, made by the Treasury under the Import Duties Act, 1932, a copy of which was presented to this House on the said nineteenth day of July, nineteen hundred and thirty-nine, be approved. I have to trouble the House with these Import Duties Orders, which were brought in under entirely different circumstances and, of course, have no relation to the conditions which exist at the moment. I can easily explain why it is necessary to maintain these duties. They were imposed just before the House rose in July, and unless this Resolution is passed they will lapse in a day or two. We have within the last few days passed an Act 616 which removes from the Import Duties Advisory Committee the authority for the imposition or reduction of duties of this kind and places it upon the Treasury. When that is done it will be necessary to take a general review of the duties which are now imposed, including in particular the complicated system of duties on iron and steel goods many of which have relation to a European cartel which, of course, is likely to be quite inappropriate in war time. It is quite clear that a review of this kind must take a certain amount of time, and there will be an interval before the Treasury will be able to bring forward under their new authority a new plan dealing with orders of this kind.
It would be unfortunate if these duties, which have been on since last July, were allowed to lapse pending that general review, because the result would be that in a certain number of cases additional duties would have to be imposed on iron and steel products coming from such countries as Sweden, Holland, and Belgium, when it may be to our interest to get them in at the lowest possible rate of duty. It is clear, pending the general revision of these duties which will now have to be taken, that it is wise to keep the whole range of duties as they are now and not by allowing them to lapse to have to increase certain duties which then, after a general review, we shall want to remove. That is the reason why I move the Resolution. It is well to keep the position stable until we have had a general review.

§ Mr. Foot
I should like a further explanation. When I saw that we were going to discuss these Orders to-day I thought we were living in a world of bedlam. A little light has been thrown upon them by the right hon. Member, but even so it seems remarkable that we should be imposing additional duties on iron and steel products at the moment. I should have thought that if a general revision of the duties was necessary, it would have been quite easy to undertake that general revision without this particular increase being put on or being confirmed. The only argument the right hon. Gentleman has brought forward is one which I find difficult to follow. He said that if we failed to confirm these Import Duties Orders, it would then be 617 necessary for the Treasury to place additional duties on steel goods coming from certain countries, and he mentioned Sweden. He said that in the present circumstances it would be an unfortunate thing to do. I may have failed to follow his argument, but it is difficult to see why, if we do not confirm import duties which we no longer need it should necessitate an immediate imposition by the Treasury of a new set of import duties.
We have, of course, an entirely different situation in regard to imported goods. There are goods which we need and goods which we do not want. If they are goods which we do not want, the President of the Board of Trade has power to exclude them entirely under the Act which we passed the other day. If they are goods which we want in our war economy, it is difficult to see why we should impede their importation by keeping tariffs on, and increasing in some cases the duties, if only for a short time.

§ Mr. Stanley
I can give the hon. Member a very short answer. The effect of these Orders is, on the whole, to reduce the duties on goods from our principal suppliers, but to increase duties upon two classes of competitors, such as Japan, in one class of goods; and therefore, the general effect of not passing the Orders would be to allow the duties on the larger part of the imported goods to go back to what they originally were, although it is true that would reduce the duties on the smaller part. The main effect of the Orders is to reduce the duties, and if the Orders were allowed to lapse, the duties would be higher.

§ Mr. Foot
I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. Does he say that in the case of the first Order, taken by itself, if we failed to confirm it, it would mean a general increase in duties?

§ Mr. Stanley
It would mean an increase in the duties on the main part of our imports.