§ 30. Dr. Strossasked the President of the Board of Trade, in view of the fall in the volume of exports of domestic pottery for the first five months of 1956 as compared with the corresponding period in 1955, what steps he will take to stimulate an improvement in these exports.
§ Mr. P. ThorneycroftMy Department continues to give all the assistance it can to the domestic pottery industry in export matters, but success must depend in the main on the efforts which the industry itself is making to obtain more export business.
§ Dr. StrossWill not the President at least inform the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the savage imposition of 30 per cent. Purchase Tax has meant that fine bone china is not being exported to the same extent that it was; that it has disappeared from home consumption; that workers and craftsmen are leaving the industry, and what the motor car industry has suffered is what we in the pottery industry are now suffering?