§ 38. Mr. Hardyasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list the number of items recorded by his Department which were imported into the United Kingdom in breach of the provisions of the Endangered Species Act during 1976 and 1977.
§ Mr. Robert SheldonThere is no evidence of imports in 1976 and 1977 in contravention of the Endangered Species Act, except in those instances where seizure action has been taken. For several reasons, the licence statistics issued by the Department of the Environment and the import figures collected by Customs and Excise cannot be directly 413W compared. It is, however, clear that certain categories of imports for those years have been wrongly classified, and an investigation into these is being undertaken.