§ Mr. R. Morganasked the President of the Board of Trade the reason for transferring the Export Licensing Section of the Cotton Control from the direct administration of the Ministry of Supply to that of the Cotton Board; and whether, when this decision was taken, the views expressed by the Committee of Public Accounts in their Report of 30th July regarding the desirability of direct Government control in this area were given full consideration?
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§ Sir A. DuncanExport licences are issued by the Board of Trade, and this direct responsibility has not been affected by the change referred to in the Question. In many trades the Board have to consult other Departments before issuing export licences, and in the case of cotton yarn the Cotton Controller had to be consulted about the availability of supplies. For the convenience of the trade it was arranged for applications to be sent direct by exporters to the Controller's office in Manchester, where they were examined and forwarded with his recommendations to the Export Licensing Department of the Board of Trade. Subsequently it became necessary to allocate a definite amount of cotton to the export trade and to extend export licensing control to piece goods. The interest of the Cotton Controller, who had previously to scrutinise licence applications from the point of view of safeguarding supplies, largely disappeared with the introduction of the system of allocating a definite amount of cotton to the export trade and of dividing it among the different markets in accordance with the Government's selective export policy.
The equitable distribution among traders of these limited amounts is a matter on which the Board of Trade naturally desire the advice of the trade, and for this reason it was arranged that applications for export licences should be made to the Cotton Board, who forward them with their recommendations to the Export Licensing Department of the Board of Trade, by whom the licences are issued. I assume that in the last part of his Question, my hon. Friend has in mind paragraphs 3–5 of the report of the Public Accounts Committee. It will be seen that the arrangements outlined above are not comparable with those referred to therein. The Manchester staff, whether employed by the Cotton Controller or by the Cotton Board, have not issued export licences, this work having been performed throughout by the Board of Trade, and the present arrangements do not in any way conflict with the Committee's views.