§ Mr. Gwilym Robertsasked the Minister of Transport, further to the answer of the Under-Secretary, Official Report, 5 December, column 396, what study he has now made of the manufacture of diaphragms for brake activators in Taiwan and their use by the National Bus Company; what study has been made of the performance of substitute Taiwan parts; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. Kenneth ClarkeFollowing the failure of a diaphragm in one of its buses, a subsidiary of the National Bus Company discovered it to be a counterfeit. It replaced the part with a genuine British-made part and immediately reported the matter to this Department. Our engineers have conducted investigations in collaboration with the bus operator and a British manufacturer of the brake activators of which the diaphragms are part. It has not been possible to identify precisely where the counterfeit diaphragms were manufactured, though it seems likely that it was a Far Eastern country. A study of the performance of the counterfeit shows that it is considerably inferior to that of the genuine British manufactured diaphragm. Steps have been taken to trace other counterfeits and to alert operators and stockists throughout the country.
The NBC subsidiary concerned has assured the Department that none but genuine diaphragms remain on its 619W vehicles or in its stocks and the NBC has confirmed that all its subsidiary companies are checking to eliminate any possibility of counterfeits being used.