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Mr Mason (EID I)
CONFIDENTIAL
Reference...
BRIEF FOR SECRETARY OF STATE FOR AE MEETING ON -25 OCTOBER AE(71)35 : GENERALISED PREFERENCES AND COTTON TEXTILES
1. Your minute of 21 October to Mr Simmons and attached draft brief.
2.
I expect that you will by now have seen Mr Simmons' minute of 21 October to Mr Hale, attached to which is a statement of points which Mr Bottomley has agreed should be incorporated in any brief for the Secretary of State. You will see that in short we do not dispute that the recommendations in paragraph 14 of the DTI paper should be agreed but that we do not agree that the DTI's statement of anticipated difficulties should be allowed to pass without adequate comment for the Secretary of State's guidance, and an indication to him of the solutions for which FCO should press when these questions come up for decision.
3. I have the following further comments, on GPS points only, on your draft brief:-
Para 2. Amend the second and subsequent sentences to read as follows:- "On 1 January 1972 we shall be introducing our Generalised Preference Scheme, from which textiles are excluded entirely, and at the same time changing our import policy on cotton textiles from one based on quota restrictions to one based on a tariff. The Community GPS scheme, to which we have to adapt, incorporates duty-free quotas for textiles as a whole, though with special and more restrictive arrangements for cottons involving overall limits. We are therefore faced on cotton textiles with the awkward prospect of changing back to QR's within a year or two of abandoning them in favour of a tariff."
Para 4, third sentence, after "explains, this" insert "unless moderated by the introduction of duty-free quotas on textiles in general as in the EEC's current GPS scheme".
Para 7, first sentence, after "Commonwealth" insert "to the unmoderated addition of QR'S to our tariffs would". Delete "will".
Para. 8(b). Delete. This is perhaps the place to insert the points in Mr Simmons' paragraphs 3 and 4.
Consequential amendments would be needed in para 9. This is not just a bilateral wrangle between DTI and ODA. The FOO interest hitherto has been seen as to resist the DTI's proposition that duty quotas on textiles are unacceptable for domestic reasons.
/Para 12(b)
CONFIDENTIAL
DD 896639 140609 500M 7/71 GM 3643/2
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