§ Mrs. DunwoodyTo ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (1) if he will place in the Library a copy of the statement made by him to the producers of the programme "Fragile-Earth—Seal Mourning", with an explanation of the statistics therein;
(2) what changes he intends to make to improve the accuracy of the information contained in his import statistics relating to harp and hooded seals.
§ Mr. ForthThere has been no contact between Ministers and the producers of the programme. My officials discussed problems associated with statistics of trade in seal pup skins with a researcher for the programme, explaining that, due to errors in coding of goods, certain items had been wrongly classified to headings related to seal pup skins. These items included lambskins, leather and fox fur goods.
There is provision in the system for checking trade data to include specialised checks on specified commodities and/or countries. Action has now been taken to institute such checks in respect of headings involving skins of whitecoat pups of harp seals and pups of hooded seals (blue backs).