HC Deb 11 July 1949 vol 467 cc153-4

9.20 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. John Edwards)

I beg to move: That the Timber (Charges) (No. 10) Order, 1949 (S.1., 1949, No. 1080), dated 3rd June, 1949, a copy of which was laid before this House on 7th June, be approved. On 3rd June, the Board of Trade made the Imported Softwood Prices Order of 1949, Statutory Instrument 1079, which came into force on 20th June. The effect is to increase the prices of the better grades of softwood and to reduce the prices of the lower grades. This widens the gap between the prices of the better and lower grades of imported softwoods which a series of flat increases, which from 1940 has been about £42 a standard, has increasingly obscured. At the same time, the new order leaves the general level of prices unchanged, and we hold the view that this revision is most essential in the interests of timber economy and a realistic price structure.

This order, as I have said, involves increasing the prices of the better grades of imported softwoods, and therefore a Charges Order was necessary to prevent merchants from making a windfall profit on their stocks. The order before us, Statutory Instrument 1080, was accordingly made by the Treasury on 3rd June and came into effect simultaneously with the Imported Softwood Prices Order. The Charges Order imposes a levy corresponding to the increase in price of softwood held by merchants, the prices of which are increased by the prices order.

The first order to which I have referred, the Imported Softwood Prices Order, by reducing the prices of some of the lower grades of imported softwoods, brings into operation for the first time what has been known as the "Fall Clause." This is not in the order, but it should be borne in mind in considering the order. It is a guarantee given by the Board of Trade to cover softwood merchants against stock losses caused by reduction in the statutory prices. It is, in effect, a reversal of the Charges Order. For convenience in administration and in the timber trade, the Charges Order and the Fall Clause will be combined and each merchant will send a return to the Timber Control, who will calculate the net sums recoverable from or payable to the merchant. So far as I can see, the general charges and the Fall Clause will about balance at about £750,000.