§ 5. Sir G. Nabarroasked the President of the Board of Trade what steps he is taking to redress the adverse balance of Anglo-Danish trade, whereby Denmark is selling to Great Britain approximately £70 million more than Great Britain sells to Denmark, so that, for every £2 of British sales to Denmark, Great Britain buys approximately £3 from Denmark; and whether he will make a statement on Anglo-Danish trade.
§ Mr. CroslandSince 1960, total trade between Britain and Denmark has grown by nearly 55 per cent. We have followed up the highly successful British Week in 1964 by a series of trade promotions, culminating in a trade drive this year which included store promotions in several Danish towns and a British Engineering Exhibition in Copenhagen. I have firm hopes that our exports to Denmark will increase as a result.
§ Sir G. NabarroIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that the most important export from Denmark to Britain is bacon, that the Danes have 50 per cent. of the British market for bacon, that home producers have only 34 per cent., and that other foreigners and Commonwealth sources have 16 per cent.? In those circumstances is this not a rewarding field for the policy of import substitution—more English bacon and less Danish bacon? Would the right hon. Gentleman apply himself to that?
§ Mr. CroslandI will gladly apply myself to any question that the hon. Member directs towards me, and I hope that he will apply himself to not making statements about bank mergers before he has even read a copy of the Report. As to the question he asks about substituting home-produced bacon for imported bacon, we would all of us like to save imports, and recently ambitious ideas for agricultural import saving have been advanced. When we are considering these we must also consider the possible cost to the consumer or to the taxpayer. I think that under the current Selective Expansion Programme we are moving satisfactorily in the kind of direction that the hon. Gentleman would like.