§ 75. Mr. George Craddockasked the President of the Board of Trade if the wallpaper industry has applied for the continuation of maintaining the resale prices of pattern book ways.
§ Mr. JayI understand from the Registrar of Restrictive Trading Agreements that the answer is "No".
§ Mr. Floudasked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that, at its present rate of progress, it will take approximately 100 years for the Restrictive Practices Court to consider the restrictive trading agreements now registered in accordance with the Restrictive Practices Act, 1956; and what action he will take to speed up this progress.
§ Mr. JayTo take account merely of the number of registered agreements, and the number of cases referred to or disposed of by the Court, is misleading. As the Registrar of Restrictive Trading Agreements has announced, of the 2,505 agreements on the register at 31st December, 1964, 1,140 had been brought to an end by the parties or allowed to lapse, and a further 570 had been varied so as to remove all the restrictions with which the Act is concerned. As is indicated in paragraph 56 of the Registrar's Report for the period 1st July, 1961 to284W 30th June, 1963 (Cmnd. 2246), other agreements may be terminated following decisions in cases before the Court, or may be removed from the register under the provision which allows the Board of Trade to authorise the removal of an agreement which is of no substantial economic significance.
§ Mr. Floudasked the President of the Board of Trade how many staff are available to the Registrar of Restrictive Trading Agreements.