§ Mr. Tapsellasked the President of the Board of Trade if he has now considered the application made by the Machine Tool Trades' Association for the discontinuance of the arrangements for the remission of import duty on individual importations of machine tools, together with a reduction in the duty on them.
§ Mr. MaudlingAfter careful consideration of the application and of the views of other interested parties, I have decided that it would be in the national interest to accept the proposal.
The Import Duties (General) (No. 10) Order, 1959 (Statutory Instrument 1959, No. 1957), which is accordingly being laid today and which will come into operation as from tomorrow, reduces the duty on machine tools covered by tariff heading 84.45 (B) from 17½ per cent, to 10 per cent, ad valorem.
No further applications will be accepted for the remission of duty under Section 6 of the Import Duties Act, 1958, on machine tools covered by this tariff heading unless they have already been ordered.
As a consequence of accepting this proposal, I have also decided that the arrangements for duty remission on parts for incorporation in machine tools being manufactured in this country, while being continued for the present, will also cease at the end of 1960.
Details of these arrangements are being published today.