§ Sir D. EcclesI beg to move, in page 2, line 3, at the end to insert:
Provided that, where the Board of Trade are not satisfied that the effect of the dumping or of the giving of the subsidy is such as to cause or threaten material injury to an established industry in the United Kingdom or is such as to retard materially the establishment of an industry in the United Kingdom, the Board shall not exercise that power if it appears to them that to do so would conflict with the obligations of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom under the provisions for the time being in force of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade concluded at Geneva in the year nineteen hundred and forty-seven.The Amendment has been put down to meet a point made in Committee. My hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Remnant) asked about it, as did the right hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker). They wanted us to write into the Bill words which would make it conform with the obligations contained in Article VI of G.A.T.T., that one of the tests for putting on an anti-dumping or countervailing duty should be that material damage was done, or was threatened to be done, to an established source of supply. We thought that was a sound thing to do, and therefore we put down this Amendment, which I hope I can explain clearly, because the whole subject is extremely complicated.What we are trying to do in order to meet the wishes of the House are three things which are not covered in the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment. I want to explain to him why his Amendment will not do and why I think that ours is perhaps better. First, we wish to carry out our obligations under G.A.T.T. to full G.A.T.T. members by using this test of injury to United Kingdom industry when one of the G.A.T.T. countries sends us goods which are subsidised or dumped.
In the second place, we want to have power to put on a duty when injury is done to a source of supply outside the United Kingdom and of course we have first in mind the possibility that Commonwealth sources of supply might be injured 701 by the dumping of goods in the United Kingdom. But I think that it is right not to confine it to the Commonwealth but to extend this power to all other countries which are members of G.A.T.T. and might be so injured.
Thirdly, we wish to have powers in respect of goods coming from countries not in G.A.T.T. to put on a duty without the criterion of material injury. I should tell the House that we should normally use that criterion and we should not have a different policy except in very rare cases.
Our Amendment achieves those three objects. It provides that a duty can only be imposed if one of two conditions are fulfilled. Either the Board of Trade must be satisfied that there is a material injury to a United Kingdom source of supply or, if there is no material injury to a United Kingdom source, I can come to the House and ask for a duty when, if it were put on, we should not be in breach of our obligations under G.A.T.T. That is, I think, very skilful drafting of our Amendment.
§ Mr. Gordon WalkerI cannot see it.
§ Sir D. EcclesThe right hon. Gentleman says that he cannot see it. I will read the Amendment. It says that the duty can be imposed
Provided that, where the Board of Trade are not satisfied that the effect of the dumping or of the giving of the subsidy is such as to cause or threaten material injury to an established industry in the United Kingdom …and… the Board shall not exercise that power if it appears to them that to do so would conflict with the obligations of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom under the provisions for the time being in force on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade …I think that is very ingenious. It means that where we are carrying on our G.A.T.T. obligations then, of course, we test by an injury to the United Kingdom But G.A.T.T. does not say that we may not put on a duty when the injury that is done concerns a supply outside the United Kingdom and therefore, as this Amendment says, I must either be satisfied that the injury is done in this country or that the case falls outside our obligations to G.A.T.T. We are left with exactly that freedom which we want, and I believe that there is no other way in which we could draft it successfully.702 Article VI of G.A.T.T. has already been once amended and therefore it is necessary to draft this Amendment in such a way that if at any future time Article VI were again amended, we should in this Bill have the obligation that would then arise through the Amendment of Article VI. It will be seen that in the last line of this Amendment we leave quite open what might happen to Article VI in the future.
I agree that this has been a very difficult Amendment to draft. I hope that I have explained it to the House. I have looked at it most carefully and I believe it does all that the Opposition wishes to do and all that my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham wishes to do, and it is an improvement to the Bill.
§ Amendment agreed to.