§ Lord Melchettasked Her Majesty's Government:
Why the report for 1979 on the Implementation in the United Kingdom of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species does not follow the format of reports produced by other parties to the convention, what steps are being taken to improve the correlation between the statistics published by the United Kingdom and other parties to the convention, and whether the United Kingdom's statistics and documentation on the convention are now up to date.
§ The Earl of AvonThere is at present no standard format for these reports. Proposals for a format, which would differ only in minor ways from our present format, are under consideration by the parties. The convention secretariat already prepares a comparative study of annual reports. We expect to publish the report for 1980 later this year and to achieve further reductions in delay for subsequent years.