§ 74. Mr. Coeasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will now give further details concerning the agreement he has reached with Portugal over its future level of textile exports to this country.
§ Mr. JayI have nothing to add to the reply I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) on 15th March.—[Vol. 743, c. 474–5.]
§ Mr. Barnettasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will negotiate new global quotas for cotton textiles taking into consideration the changed circumstances arising from increased Portuguese imports.
§ Mr. JayThe present global quotas were negotiated with the exporting countries for a five year period, and I have no ground for thinking that any attempt to renegotiate them would be beneficial to the British industry. As to Portuguese imports, I have already said that I have every reason to believe that these will not continue to run at the rate of recent months.