§ Mr. Nicholas Wintertonasked the Secretary of State for Trade if he will make a statement on the merits of a recession clause being introduced into any renegotiated multi-fibre arrangement, and on any technical or statistical problems that might need to be overcome in operating a recession clause.
§ Mr. ParkinsonWe accept the case for trying to obtain some mechanism which would allow imports to be cut back when domestic demand is unusually depressed. Obviously, however, there are problems attached to an arrangement which will have to rely either on inevitably somewhat unreliable forecasts or on market information unlikely to be available quickly enough to be useful. Nevertheless, we will be continuing to look for some solution which would meet the objective we have in mind.
§ Mr. Nicholas Wintertonasked the Secretary of State for Trade what is his policy towards the proposal made by the British Clothing Industry Association that quota levels in a renegotiated multi-fibre arrangement should be calculated by taking the 1977 import level and then increasing this by the actual annual growth in the volume of consumer demand for that product over the period 1978 to 1981.
§ Mr. ParkinsonA limitation on overall growth rages in quota levels related to likely movements in domestic demand over the currency of the renegotiated MFA will be one of our objectives. The across-the-board cut in access which would be involved in the proposal my hon. Friend refers to would, however, be extremely difficult to negotiate.
§ Mr. Nicholas Wintertonasked the Secretary of State for Trade if, in view of their importance to negotiations 217W for a multi-fibre arrangement, he will take steps urgently to secure the collation of statistics on textile and clothing imports since January so that proper use might be made of safeguard provisions such as the basket extractor mechanism in the multi-fibre arrangement.
§ Mr. ParkinsonI hope very much that the present industrial action by civil servants which is causing difficulties in obtaining import statistics will be resolved shortly. I am sure that Her Majesty's Customs and Excise will make the necessary information available at the earliest possible time after that. In the meantime there is no practicable way of assembling the statistics, though we do monitor the issue of import licences for those products which are subject to quota or surveillance.
§ Mr. Nicholas Wintertonasked the Secretary of State for Trade if, following the undertaking by the Minister for Trade at the British Textile Confederation Conference in April of the current year, he has now consulted textile and clothing industry interests in order to identify those product areas in which United Kingdom industry is strong and those product areas in which United Kingdom manufacturers have largely withdrawn from the market place; and if he will indicate in the light of such consultations, which product areas he feels should be the subject of tight restrictions in a renegotiated multi-fibre arrangement.
§ Mr. ParkinsonI will reply to my hon. Friend as soon as possible.