§ Mr. Dalyellasked the Secretary of State for Industry what estimate he has made of the practicability of banning the import of all products containing sperm oil from the whale, or treated with sperm oil; and if he will make a statement.
Mr. Alan Williams, pursuant to the answer [Official Report, 12th June 1978; Vol. 951, c. 353], gave the following information:
Industry in the United Kingdom is committed to finding viable alternatives to sperm oil, and research into substitutes continues. My Department has been active in the search for substitutes, and through the British Leather Manufacturers' Research Association—BLMRA—initiated initiated and funded a major study into the properties of sperm oil in December 1975.
The study culminated in the publication of the report entitled "The Utilisation of Sperm Oil by the British Leather Industry", in July 1976, a copy of which is available in the House of Commons Library. The BLMRA is currently engaged in a further research programme, funded by the Garment and Allied Industries Requirements Board, and it is hoped that this will bring the industry one step nearer to finding a commercially acceptable substitute for sperm oil. Furthermore, I have promised that when this study is complete, in autum of this year, I will look again at the question of further funds for research into substitutes.
Sperm oil is used through industry in the United Kingdom and abroad in a variety of applications. The largest single user is the leather industry where sperm oil is used as a softener of naturally hard leathers and to imply greater "run" and "handle" to gloving leathers. Another important industrial use of sperm oil is as an additive to cutting oils where it is capable of withstanding extremely high pressures without breaking down. Because of the multiplicity of industrial applications of the oil, it would be an almost impossible task to apply a ban on the importation of goods treated with sperm oil to the United Kingdom. To take leather imports as an example, it is extremely difficult, even with a detailed chemical analysis, to tell whether a soft leather is naturally soft or whether it has been rendered soft by a sperm oil treat- 104W ment process, as traces of the sperm oil application are not subsequently detectable.
Currently, there are a number of industrial applications where substitutes for sperm oil do not exist, though the industrial use of the oil has been steadily dropping over recent years as more substitutes become available for certain applications. But in the manufacture of leather goods there is not a country in the world that has successfully managed to do without sperm oil completely. Even in the United States, where whale imports were banned in 1971, sperm oil is still available as, at the time of the ban, there was a massive stockpile of sperm oil in that country.
Meanwhile, it is important to understand that, according to the latest figures. as many as 3.800 jobs in the leather industry alone could be at risk along with substantial exports, which in 1977 totalled £100 million, if, in the absence of identical action by other countries, any attempt were made to restrict the availability of sperm oil before substitutes are available for all its applications.