(d) to do what it could to encourage Government agencies to "buy
British";
(0)
· (1)
to prevent the lapse in September 1975 of the GATT Long-term Arrangement;
to provide for the continuation of the need for foreign made- up textiles to show their country of origin, despite the provisions of the Trade Descriptions Act 1968. (Не recognised that the only grounds on which this could be done were 'consumer' grounds but he hoped he would nevertheless accede to this request)
(g) there should be consideration of an import surcharge to
tide the industry over its current crisis.
Changing from quotas to tariffo would benefit countries such as Korea, Taiwan, Portugal and Japan, at the expense of developing countries with whom we have strong ties of history and kinship such as India. Ending the need for made-up goods to disclose the country of origin would hit British firms very hard.
4.
Mr Kershaw said that he wished to add further information on closures caused by the incoming tide of imports. In the past 5 weeks 23 mills had closed down, making 2952 workers redundant. The proportion of workers on short-time' was 1.2% nationally but it had risen to 3.9% in the textile industry. Although closures had proceeded slowly up to the end of 1970, since then they had speeded up. Now they were taking place 'twice as fast as envisaged by the P & E Report, and still accelerating. In fact many firms who had tried to implement the P & E recommendations were among those put out of commission. A major defect of the Government's policy was that the change in the treatment of imports occured when the industry had yet to fully implement the P & E recommendations and was still in a state of flux.
5. The Minister said that he was greatly concerned to learn first- hand of the difficulties which the textile industry were experiencing. He was quite unconvinced by the plea for requiring the country of origin to be shown on imported made-up goods, but for the rest he reaffirmed his position as stated in the letter of 14 June, namely "if evidence was produced after the new import regime had come into effect that real damage was being done, whether to the industry as a whole or bo some significant part of it, the Government would certainly consider what could be done to remedy the situation." He believed that the best immediate course would be for the representatives of the industry to get together with officials to study recent trends and to consider to what extent the industry was threatened by imports on a larger scale than anticipated. The industry had faced the problems of transition in a very praiseworthy manner: the transition must not become a headlong rout. The delegation had urged that the Imports Commission be revived. He did not consider this necessary. But he did consider it essential for officials and the industry to study the evidence and monitor the important changes taking place in the industry. Then there would be a mutually understood basis for any subsequent measures. AL present, however, it was not possible to modify Government policy on the lines Mr Normanton had suggested and he did not wish to create false hopes. He promised to write to Mr Normanton giving his considered views on the latter's suggestion of a temporary import surcharge to ease the industry's problem. Mr Normanton thanked the
/Minister
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