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No, I'm not trying to give myself a pat on the back. I was in
Brussels to give direction and advice to the negotiating team and
as Chairman of the Textiles Advisory Board but the negotiations
themselves were conducted by a team from the Department of Trade,
led and very well led by Mr. Lawrie Mills.
The
I should like in finishing, Mr. Chairman, to pay a public
tribute to everybody who played a part in this the most difficult
and exhausting negotiation that I have ever been involved with.
negotiating team was in the front line but they were backed up by
the members of the Textiles Advisory Board, who played a major role
throughout in guiding us as to what was and was not in the best
interests of the trade, by our Brussels and Geneva Office staff led
respectively by Claude Burgess and Peter Tsao, and by those who stayed
behind and who, when the negotiations were over, worked straight on
to get companies their Christmas package of 1978 quotas before the
new arrangements came into force.