§ 5. Mr. Hugh Jenkinsasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will take steps to provide that companies trading with South Africa receive no investment allowances.
§ Mr. Maurice MacmillanInvestment allowances were withdrawn by the last Administration: there are no proposals for reintroducing them.
§ Mr. Hugh JenkinsDoes the hon. Gentleman treat in exactly the same way firms which, on the one hand, support the South African Government, for example, I.C.I., which runs the South African arms industry, and Unilever, which has three factories employing 6,000 workers, both black and white, on a segregated basis, and, on the other hand, Bookers, Bovis and Wates, all of whom have moral scruples about dealing with apartheid? Does he make no distinction between the scruples of the one group, and the unscrupulousness of the other?
§ Mr. MacmillanIf the hon. Gentleman is still referring to investment allowances, as I said in my original Answer there are now no such things; they were withdrawn by the last Administration. We have no proposals to reintroduce them. If he is referring to standard depreciation allowances, all exporters are treated the same regardless of the markets to which goods are exported.