§ Mr. Colvinasked the Minister for Trade if he will set out the definition used by his Department in assessing the size of the British merchant fleet with an explanation of the basis upon which this definition is made.
§ Mr. SproatUnited Kingdom merchant fleet statistics used by the Department cover merchant vessels registered at ports in the United Kingdom; these statistics can be subdivided into vessels owned by United Kingdom resident companies and those owned by non-resident companies. The term British merchant fleet is not normally used for 513W definitional purposes as it could be interpreted to include or exclude vessels registered under the British flag in the United Kingdom dependent territories under the Merchant Shipping Act 1894. Full definitions are published in Business Monitor MR 15 "General trends in shipping" page 3, available in the Library.
Registrations of new cars sold in the United Kingdom by country of origin '000s Country of origin 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 Federal Republic of Germany 95.1 58.2 72.0 104.0 154.4 180.0 233.3 207.1 233.4 260.7 Japan 92.5 84.7 107.9 121.4 140.4 174.5 185.1 180.2 163.1 171.1 France 134.2 109.7 110.5 119.2 109.8 142.0 198.0 165.2 137.2 132.5 Italy 56.4 52.5 54.2 63.3 74.8 97.4 93.5 59.1 63.5 56.2 Belgium 77.6 48.8 61.3 79.9 54.5 91.2 107.8 86.6 65.8 115.8 Spain 2.8 25.0 49.5 69.5 59.3 52.2 Other 63.9 75.0 98.7 90.6 104.3 109.1 Total Imports 455.8 353.9 405.9 487.9 600.6 785.1 965.9 858.3 826.6 897.6 United Kingdom Origin 1,205.8 914.7 788.2 797.7 722.9 806.9 750.4 655.4 658.1 657.5 Total Registrations 1,661.6 1,268.7 1,194.1 1,285.6 1,323.5 1,591.9 1,716.3 1,513.8 1,484.7 1,555.0 Imports as percentage of total registrations 27.4 27.9 34.0 38.0 45.4 49.3 56.3 56.7 55.7 57.7 Source: Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.
Note: Certain information for individual countries within the "other" group can be obtained from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders' annual publications "The Motor Industry of Great Britain", copies of which are in the Library.
§ Mr. Austin Mitchellasked the Minister for Trade what percentage of the cars sold in the United Kingdom market by American firms manufacturing cars in the United Kingdom was imported from the European Community Six either assembled or completely knocked down; what proportion of their United Kingdom output was exported in each case to the European Community Six; and what proportion of their sales in the European Community Six was imported from the United Kingdom, for each year since 1976.
§ Mr. SproatI shall reply to the hon. Member as soon as possible.