HC Deb 30 October 1989 vol 159 cc13-4W
Mr. McFall

To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the delay in publishing his Department's figures for import penetration.

Mr. Redwood

In 1988 a new commodity coding system was introduced by Customs and Excise resulting in a complete revision and renumbering of the existing Customs tariff codes.

Each of these new codes had to be allocated, whole or in part, to industries of the standard industrial classification before import penetration figures could be derived. The size and complexity of this task has resulted in an interruption to the normal publication timetable.