§ Mr. John H. Osbornasked the Secretary of State for Industry when he expects to respond to the report of the working party on the cutlery and flatware industry; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. MacGregorThe Minister for Trade and I met separate delegations from the Cutlery and Silverware Association (CSA) and the Federation of British Cutlery Manufacturers (FBCM) earlier today. We discussed both the report of the Working Party and also a separate report on table cutlery put forward by the FBCM, who had dissociated themselves from the Working Party's Report. The points of view of the two Trade Associations wer put to us.
In turn we explained to them that, under the rules of the Community and the GATT, there was no sustainable case for import controls in this instance. We are more dependent upon exports than most other countries, with about one third of our manufacturing output going into exports, and any action taken outside the GATT and the EC would provoke retaliation against United Kingdom exports placing thousands of jobs in manufacturing industry at risk.
18WThe Government had, however, already acted to introduce origin marking for cutlery. Orders requiring the origin marking of, inter alia, cutlery will come into force as from 1 January 1982.
On financial assistance the Government are prepared to consider applications for assistance for investment projects, from companies in the industry, as requested in the working party report, within the normal criteria applied to requests for selective financial assistance under the Industry Act 1972. We discussed the fact that so far companies in the industry have made little use of the existing possibilities open to them. We stressed to the industry that selective assistance continues to be available under sections 7 and 8 of the Industry Act to all sectors of manufacturing industry which meet the relevant criteria but it is not the Government's current policy to introduce new sectoral support schemes under the Act.
The problem of disparities between stainless steel supply prices to Far Eastern and United Kingdom manufacturers was itself looked into by the working party. The Government have concluded that a further investigation is not likely to bring any further advance.
A number of other matters were discussed. Both the report of the working party and the FBCM report contain a variety of recommendations addressed to the industry and relevant to the improvement of the industry's own performance. The Government urge companies within the industry to consider carefully the merits of all the recommendations addressed to them. They are, however, matters for the industry itself to decide on and take action upon.