HC Deb 21 June 1989 vol 155 cc324-6
8. Mr. Oppenheim

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what action the Government are taking to ensure that the European Economic Community does not erect protectionist trade barriers.

Mr. Maude

The United Kingdom is committed to ensuring that our experience of the economic benefits of free markets and deregulation is reflected in Community policy. The Community is also working in the Uruguay round of GATT negotiations to achieve a further substantial liberalisation of international trade.

Mr. Oppenheim

Can my hon. Friend confirm that the Government's opposition to protectionist trade runs to opposing vigorously any moves to protectionism emanating from within the Commission, despite recent improvements within the Commission? Can he also confirm that the best way to tackle competition from places like Japan and Korea is to look to our own problems, particularly in education and our attitude to industry, rather than imposing quotas, voluntary restraint agreements and spurious anti-dumping duties, which only push up prices to consumers and compound the inefficiencies of European industry?

Mr. Maude

I very much agree with my hon. Friend's sentiments. I am grateful to him for acknowledging that the attitude of the European Commission on these matters is increasingly liberal. Certainly, the new Commission takes the view that free trade is very good and that we should work hard to pursue it. My hon. Friend is also right to say that it is important to open trade in other markets outside the Community. I believe that those markets are opening. It is now up to British businesses to seek to exploit those markets and to get into them and sell hard.

Mr. Cryer

Does the Minister agree that after 1992 it will be essential for the survival of the clothing and textile industry that there is a burden-sharing agreement between all 12 member states on the import of textiles and clothing into the Common Market? Does the Minister further agree that the easiest market to penetrate is the United Kingdom market, with six main suppliers supplying every major town and city throughout the United Kingdom? That is not the position in any other member state. Therefore, on the basis of equality, a burden-sharing arrangement should be made. It is vital for the continued success of the British textile industry in areas like mine in Bradford.

Mr. Maude

As the hon. Gentleman knows, the multi-fibre arrangement was never intended to be more than a temporary measure to protect industry during a period of disruption and major changes worldwide in the industry. He will know that it is the intention of the Community in the GATT negotiations to consider ways of returning to ordinary trading. He knows also that my hon. Friend the Minister for Trade is well seized of the point that he raised about burden sharing within the Community and is working hard at it. Of course, the hon. Gentleman will want to recognise that the effect of protectionism in textiles—for that is what it is—is to increase the cost of clothing, which affects worst the poorest in society, and to inhibit the industrialisation of developing countries.

Mr. Aitken

If we are so opposed to protectionist trade barriers in Europe, can my hon. Friend kindly explain our humiliating acrobatics over the recent EC broadcasting directive? How did it come about that we supported the directive requiring all media companies in this country to take more than 50 per cent. of their programming from EC sources? Having supported that protectionist measure at 2 o'clock in the morning in the House, how did it come about, since we were arguing that it is more communitaire to support the EC party line, that when we got to Brussels the following day, we were out-voted by our communitaire partners and ended up with egg all over our faces?

Mr. Maude

I have to tell my hon. Friend that he has got it wrong. We were actually extremely successful in achieving a common position on the broadcasting directive which was very much more liberal than that which was proposed by many of our partners in the Community.

Mr. Aitken

Nonsense.

Mr. Maude

If my hon. Friend will contain his impatience for a little while, I will tell him that we have by no means lost the agreement. It is of great regret to us, having discussed it in good faith, that two countries in the Community, which pretend perhaps a greater adherence to European idealism than we do, went back on the agreement that they had already reached. But that does not mean that the broadcasting directive will be renegotiated. There is still a numerical majority for the common position that was reached, and I have no doubt that the qualified majority will be reasserted.