ANTI-DUMPING (Hansard, 5 November 1975)

§ Mr. Richard Wainwright (Colne Valley)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Customs Duties (Dumping and Subsidies) Act 1969. From all sides of this House, especially in recent months, concern has been shown at the exposure of important and quite efficient British industries to manifest dumping by foreign exporters. Our existing law, intended to resist dumping, has proved inadequate and at the very least needs substantial amendment.

The Customs Duties (Dumping and Subsidies) Act, which my Bill would amend, is firstly a translation into law of the rules of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade against dumping, and it is no part of my purpose to seek to tamper with any of the GATT regulations. Secondly, the Act is an instrument of total power for the Department of Trade in administering these provisions. Wrongly, in my opinion, the Act gives the Department of Trade entire and unsupervised authority, subject only to the Prayer procedure in Parliament. For instance, the Department is free to decide whether to pursue complaints and evidence of dumping. It is free to leave as much of 401 the burden of proof as it thinks fit to the industry concerned. The Act also leaves the Department free to decide whether to make an anti-dumping Order and how to administer the provision for interim provisional anti-dumping duty. From the decisions of the Department in these matters there is no right of appeal.

This is not a firm legislative stance from which to act against a flow of artificially low-priced goods sent to this country with the likelihood, if not the purpose, of disrupting, damaging and perhaps destroying some sectors of our industry. As it stands, the Act is not even a substantial deterrent to potential dumpers.

Under the Act as it stands, the Department can and often does require relatively small industries to try to conduct delicate and highly detailed investigations overseas as to the prices being charged for the same goods in other countries or about the costs of production in the country of origin. Often this has proved an impossible task for private industry without governmental power or influence. In many cases only the most powerful of our industries have been able to approach success in this unequal task.

If and when the Department of Trade under the Act agrees to take over these investigations itself, it has been known, as in the case of footwear imports, which was regarded as a difficult one, to spend more than a year on one case and then to pronounce that, although dumping has occurred, nevertheless a further period of investigation is considered necessary; and there was nothing that the footwear industry could do in reply to that.

Since there is nothing in the Act to require reasonable speed, it is no wonder that there are at present only 10 antidumping Orders in force and that last year only one such Order was imposed and three were suspended.

The Act was consolidated in 1969 in a climate of rapidly expanding world trade in which few exporters had any desperate need to resort to artificially low prices in order to capture markets. Since 1969, of course, international trading conditions have sadly changed. The decline of world trade and the loss of confidence about future growth have proved a hothouse for the spread of dumping. There can be no doubt of the danger of what is happening. This was long 402 ago recognised in the text of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. The world-wide signatories, including ourselves, recognise that dumping, by which products of one country are introduced into the commerce of another country at less than the normal value of the products, is to be condemned if it causes or threatens material injury to an established industry in the territory of a contacting party or materially retards the establishment of a domestic industry. Under present conditions, some dumping could eventually give overseas suppliers a near monopoly of our home market. After a brief heyday with lower prices, the British consumer would eventually suffer from the reduction of competition after the victims of dumping had been driven out of that sector of their previous business. For example, it may at first glance seem rather attractive for the British shopper to be able to buy a check tweed imported from the Prato district of Italy at a price below the true cost of its production rather than having to pay perhaps an additional 25p a yard for the similar Yorkshire product. But if the present Italian wool textile tactics are allowed to persist in this country—I concede that no application for anti-dumping duty has been lodged formally, because the industry has had depressing experience in this sphere in the past—the Yorkshire manufacturers of similar check tweed will go out of business and the Italians will then be able to charge virtually what they like because there will remain no direct competition anywhere in Europe in fancy woollen cloth.

One response to this threatening situation is to put some sharp statutory spurs behind the anti-dumping procedure. My Bill therefore requires the establishment of a small committee of independent persons with wide experience of international trade charged with the duty of considering all applications for antidumping measures and assessing evidence provided by applicants. Where the committee decides that there is a case to investigate, the Department of Trade will have immediately a statutory obligation to pursue the work with all possible speed. If at the end of three months there has been no decision, the committee will inquire automatically into the progress and pace of the Department's work. If, when the investigation has 403 been completed, the Department declines to make an Order, under my Bill the applicant may appeal—this would give for the first time a right of appeal—to the same committee against the Department's decision. If during the investigation the Department refuses the application for a provisional and temporary anti-dumping order, the Department will have to try to satisfy the committee about that decision.

I submit that these requirements are likely to produce more decisive conduct by the Department, especially when dealing with State exporting by Iron Curtain countries or with particular overseas industries, elsewhere, with equivocal financial records. For example, it will have to decide promptly whether foreign refusal to answer its questions implies guilt in respect of dumping. The committee will require the Department to react realistically to deliberate delay by those being investigated.

There will also be realism in assessing cases where the landed price of imports is manifestly below any conceivable cost of production. For example, the 91,000 men's suits imported during the first half of this year from Romania into this country at an average landed price of £6.50 per suit and the 12,000 similar garments from East Germany at an average landed price in this country of £6 per suit would substantially condemn themselves, especially when these prices are compared with the much higher prices of other traditionally lower-cost producers such as Portugal and France.

The Department would, of course, under my Bill, continue to give foreign suppliers a proper chance to defend themselves but not to take advantage of us by prevarication, subterfuge and deliberate delay. The full legal rights of British importers to resist an applicant's case would be in no way whatever reduced by 404 my Bill. It would also remain necessary for the applicant to show that the dumping was causing or threatening material injury to his industry.

I emphasise that the Bill does not tamper in any way with the definition of dumping to which this country pledged assent in the GATT. We are not trying to introduce protectionism by any back-door method or in any other way. Parliament has always shown a strong concern down the centuries to protect those who work in our manufacturing industries and to protect ultimately the consumers themselves from the end result of dumping.

The trading nations of the world, in GATT, have condemned dumping. I submit, therefore, that Parliament should provide a system for the enforcement of these rules. Such a system should be established before the European Community takes over in this field, as it will do, so that Britain shall contribute to the Community a realistic and workmanlike anti-dumping procedure. That is what my Bill is intended to provide, and although I appreciate that time will not be available for it to proceed I hope that the House will express its concern by giving me leave to introduce the Bill.