| Previous Section | Home Page |
Immingham Coal Port
Mr. Brandon-Bravo : To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will refer the involvement of national Power and PowerGen in the financing and operation of the coal port development at Immingham to the Office of Fair Trading for consideration of the competition issues arising.
Mr. Redwood : Any agreement between the organisations concerned, if it is a registrable agreement under the Restrictive Trade Practices Act 1976, is a matter for the Director General of Fair Trading. Any concerns in this respect should be put to the director general.
Parent Companies
Ms. Mowlam : To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what Government policy is on safeguarding the trading positions of companies whose parent company has collapsed.
Mr. Redwood : Subsidiary companies are separate legal entities and do not necessarily encounter the same difficulties as their parent company. However, there are provisions within insolvency law that enable companies in difficulty to formulate plans for a return to solvency. These provisions are available to all types of companies, including subisidiaries.
East Timor
Mr. Nellist : To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what information he is prepared to publish in respect of the refusal of applications to export defence equipment to East Timor on grounds of their potential use against the civilian population in terms of numbers of such refusals, the proportion of applications or other illustrative figures.
Mr. Sainsbury : In the past 12 months, my Department has received no applications for export licences for goods consigned for East Timor.
Consumer Debt
Mr. Favell : To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what figures he has regarding trends in defaults on credit cards and other consumer debt.
Mr. Leigh : There are no national periodic statistics of defaults on credit cards. The Central Statistical Office collects statistics on amounts written off by finance houses
Column 29
and other specialist credit grantors under agreements with consumers. The amounts written off in each of the last five years were :
|£ million
------------------------------------
1986 |243
1987 |259
1988 |276
1989 |328
1990 |460
Consumer Councils
Mr. McMaster : To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will list the current members of the National Consumer Council, the Welsh Consumer Council and the Scottish Consumer Council, giving the relevant experience of each member ; how many of the Councils are females ; and what percentage of the total membership they comprise.
Mr. Leigh : The current members of the National Consumer Council (NCC), the Scottish Consumer Council (SCC), and the Welsh Consumer Council (WCC) are :
NCC :
Lady Wilcox (Chairman)
Ann Scully (Vice Chairman)
Rhiannon Bevan
Professor Kumar Bhattacharyya
Shiela Black, OBE
Anthony Burton, OBE
Professor Paul Fairest
John Hughes
Deirdre Hutton
Mary McAnally
Lady Anne McCollum
John Mitchell
Jill Moore, OBE
John Nelson-Jones
Josephine Turnbull
Alan White
Martin Wolf
SCC :
Deirdre Hutton (Chairman)
Winifred Sherry, JP (Vice Chairman)
Joan Aitken
Patricia Bolton
Patricia Cooper
Kim Donald
Peter Edmondson, OBE
Cowan Ervine
Bernard Forteath
Kenneth Gilbert
Christopher Harley
Mary Kidd
Gordon Smith
Mark Steiner
WCC :
Rhiannon Bevan (Chairman)
Nerys Biddulph (Vice Chairman)
Ian Edge
Dr. Arwel Edwards
Jane Lloyd Hughes
Irene John
Gareth Morgan
Ruth Parry
Lydia Stephens
Kenneth Thomas
Ian Thompson
Roderick Thurman
Charlotte Watkins
Information concerning the relevant experience of each member can be found in the annual reports of the councils.
Column 30
Copies of the latest reports for the NCC and WCC are held in the Library of the House and I have arranged for that of the SCC to be placed there. Details of new members will be available from the Library in the annual reports due to be published in July. As at 15 April 1991, the figures for the number of females in each council, and the percentage of the total membership they comprise, were :
Council |Number of |Percentage of
|women |women on
|council
--------------------------------------------------------
NCC |9 |53
SCC |7 |50
WCC |7 |54
Debt Defaults
Mr. John Greenway : To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what information he has on the percentage of consumer debt defaults directly attributable to financial difficulties caused by redundancy, long-term sickness and unemployment.
Mr. Leigh : This information is not available.
Iraq
Mr. Barry Field : To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether he will make a statement on the United States Treasury's announcement on 1 April concerning companies and individuals in the United Kingdom and elsewhere said to be connected with Iraq.
Mr. Lilley : On 1 April 1991 the United States Department of the Treasury published a list of 52 companies and 37 individuals worldwide whom the Director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control had determined to be owned or controlled by or to be acting or purporting to act directly or indirectly on behalf of the Government of Iraq. Sanctions under United States domestic law were applied the same day to these companies and people. The effect was to make all those listed "specially designated nationals", to freeze their assets in the United States or in the hands of United States nationals or corporations outside the United States, and to make any unlicensed transaction with them a criminal offence under United States law. Thirty-three of the companies and 13 of the individuals were said to be based in the United Kingdom.
The Government had become aware early in February that the United States Treasury was preparing for eventual publication a list of companies controlled by Iraqis, including companies based in the United Kingdom. Although my Department obtained a copy of a draft list, through our embassy in Washington, the United States Treasury published the list on its own authority. I am aware that some companies have already said that their inclusion was a mistake. If any company or individual based in the United Kingdom believes that it or he has been wrongly included, my Department should be informed. It has already taken up certain cases and any company which wishes to discuss its inclusion on the list with my Department should contact my officials without delay.
The Government fully share the determination of the United States administration to enforce United Nations
Column 31
sanctions against Iraq, and in particular to prevent the export of arms to Iraq. We have taken the following key measures.First, we are continuing to prevent the supply of goods to persons in Iraq, including companies controlled by Iraqi residents or Iraqi incorporated companies, or imports from Iraq in compliance with Security Council resolution 661. The legislation giving effect to the resolution applies to all persons and companies in the United Kingdom and to United Kingdom nationals and companies abroad. Compliance is carefully monitored. Very few breaches of this embargo have come to light, and these few cases are being pursued vigorously. The United States authorities have not alleged that the firms on this list have broken sanctions.
Secondly, we are continuing to maintain controls which have the effect of freezing the assets in the United Kingdom of persons and companies normally resident in Iraq on or after 4 August 1990, also in compliance with Security Council resolution 661. This embargo, too, is rigorously enforced.
Thirdly, for many years before Iraq's invasion of Kuwait exports of lethal military equipment to Iraq were prohibited by the Export of Goods (Control) Order. These controls, which apply to all persons and companies in the United Kingdom, remain in place, though they are in practice overtaken for the time being by the wider trade embargo introduced last August.
Export Representative Services
Ms. Quin : To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what was the rate of usage by businesses of the export representative service in the case of (a) the United States of America, (b) Canada and (c) West Germany for each month from March 1990 to date.
Mr. Sainsbury [holding answer 28 March 1991] : The information is given in the table.
Usage by businesses of the export representative service
has been:
|United |Canada |West
|States of |Germany<1>
|America
-----------------------------------------------------------
March 1990 |7 |2 |7
April 1990 |4 |1 |11
May 1990 |5 |2 |12
June 1990 |9 |3 |13
July 1990 |4 |1 |14
August 1990 |5 |0 |8
September 1990 |6 |2 |5
October 1990 |6 |1 |7
November 1990 |5 |4 |11
December 1990 |3 |0 |5
January 1991 |3 |1 |12
February 1991 |4 |1 |7
March 1991 |3 |2 |10
<1> Unified Germany from October 1990.
Film Industry
Mr. Tom Clarke : To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when he expects to make available the findings of the working party on the structure of the film industry ; and if he will make a statement.
Mr. Leigh : The film industry working party has not yet completed its work. We shall consider when to make the working party's findings available after the report has been received.
Column 32
Pharmaceutical Patents
Mr. Gregory : To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when he intends to publish his response to the European Commission's proposals for supplementary certificates for pharmaceutical patents.
Mr. Leigh : I am pleased to be able to make a statement indicating the Government's attitude to the Commission proposals for a regulation concerning the creation of a supplementary protection certificate for medicinal products.
The Commission proposes that medicinal
products--pharmaceuticals--which have taken over four years to bring to the market following patent application should be eligible for a period of supplementary protection, equal to the amount of patent life lost minus four years, subject to a maximum extension of 10 years. The broad result is that most medicinal products would be assured of 16 years effective protection.
We fully recognise the importance of patent protection for pharmaceuticals. Medicines are costly to develop and often easy to copy. An innovative industry must have a proper opportunity to secure a fair return. The United States and Japan already provide for the extension of patent term for pharmaceutical products and we wish to see broadly similar arrangements in the Community to avoid any distortion of competition which might occur.
The Commission's proposal needs to be considered in the context of the pharmaceutical industry as a whole. The market exclusivity which would go with supplementary period of protection would delay the entry of competitors into the market. This could result in the cost of pharmaceuticals being higher than it otherwise would be. We need to strike the right balance between a proper reward for the innovator and the encouragement of a competitive market. We must also take into account the considerable cost of pharmaceuticals for the national health service.
In judging the right period of supplementary protection we need to look at the historical evidence. The average period of protection for new chemical entities in the 1960s was around 13 years. More recent evidence on the products that matter in terms of company profits shows a similar overall position, and the level of research and development remains high. We do accept however that there is evidence of further decline in effective protection for all products in the last decade.
Taking all factors into account, we have concluded that in the United Kingdom, at least, restoration of protection would be achieved by a supplementary certificate of the sort proposed by the Commission but having the effect that industry would be able to count on 13 years protected life subject to a maximum extension of five years. These figures would be more in line with United States and Japanese provisions and would prevent further erosion of the present effective patent term.
Finally we think there may be a case for reducing the period of supplementary protection if the proprietor has not been diligent in obtaining marketing approval. United States law contains such a provision.
Food Advisory Committee
Mr. McFall : To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether he will list the current members of the Food Advisory Committee and give the relevant
Column 33
experience of each member ; how many of the Committee are females ; and what percentage of the total membership they comprise.Mr. Maclean : I have been asked to reply.
The members of the Food Advisory Committee are :
Dr. Ewan S. Page (Chairman) MA PhD BSc CBIM FBCSC eng FASA Vice Chancellor Reading University.
Dr. Margret Ashwell Bsc (Hons) PhD FIFST FRSH
Science Director British Nutrition Foundation.
Mr. Dennis Cumming
Director of Quality Assurance, Safeway PLC.
Professor Douglas Georgala CBE PhD FIFST
Director of Food Research, AFRC and Director of the Institute of Food Research.
Dr. Tom Gorsuch OBE BSc PhD FIFST
Former Director of Research and Quality Control, Colmans of Norwich (Retired).
Professor Marian Hicks BSC PhD DSc FRCPath
Science Director United Biscuits (UK) Ltd. Group Research and Development Centre.
Mr. Roger Manley FITSA
Director of Trading Standards, Cheshire County Council.
Miss Patricia Mann FCAM, FIPA CBIM FRSA
Head of External Affairs, J. Walter Thompson Group.
Miss Jill Moore OBE
Member of National Consumer Council and Vice President of National Federation of Consumer Groups.
Dr. Bryan Nichols MSc PhD FIFST
Legislation and Health Policy Manager, Van den Berghs and Jurgens Ltd.
Mr. Ronald Nicolson M Chem A FIFST FIWEM CChem FRSC
Regional Chemist, Public Analyst and Agricultural Analyst for the Regional Council of Strathclyde, and Public Analyst and Agricultural Analyst for the Western Isles Island Council.
Mrs. Barbara Saunders BA (Hons)
Freelance Consultant on Consumer Policy, Member of the European Commission's Consumer Consultative Committee.
Mr. Tony Skrimshire CChem FRSC FIFST
Director, Purchasing and Quality Assurance, H. J. Heinz Company Ltd.
Professor Paul Turner MD BSc FRCP Hon FIBiol FFPM
Professor of Clinical Pharmacology, St. Bartholomew's Hospital. Dr. Roger G. Whitehead BSc MA PhD FIBiol C Biol Hon MRCP Director of the Medical Research Council's Dunn Nutrition Unit, Cambridge, UK and the Gambia, West Africa.
Five members are women, one third of the membership.
This information is published approximately every six weeks with the agenda for the forthcoming meeting of the committee.
| Next Section
| Home Page |