Oral Answers to Questions — Trade and Commerce – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 7th May 1959.
Mr Edwin Leather
, Somerset North
12:00 am,
7th May 1959
asked the President of the Board of Trade what are the principal commodities imported into the United Kingdom from Commonwealth countries on which both the United Kingdom and the six Common Market countries have zero tariffs; and what percentage they represent of total Commonwealth imports.
Mr David Eccles
, Chippenham
I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT a list of the principal commodities which are duty-free when imported into the United Kingdom and which are expected to be duty-free when imported into the Common Market. Such commodities account for about 15 per cent. of United Kingdom imports from the Commonwealth in 1958.
Following is the list:
There is set out below, in order of the Brussels Tariff Nomenclature, a list of the duty-free items where United Kingdom imports from Commonwealth and other preferential sources exceeded £500,000 in 1958. Since the Common Market Tariff has not yet been fully elaborated, the list of items assumed to be duty-free is based on the best available information, and may in the event prove inaccurate. Where import figures for the precise definitions below are not available, they have been estimated. The calculations exclude gold and precious stones, which are not specified in the Trade Accounts.
Within this list by far the largest items are wool, natural rubber and unwrought copper. Other large items in order of magnitude, are jute, cotton, furskins, raw hides, and nickel.
| Brussels Nomenclature Number | Description | |
| ex | 01.01 | Live horses, asses, mule and hinnies: |
| Horses: | ||
| Pure-bred animals for breeding. | ||
| ex | 12.01 | Oil seeds, oleaginous fruit, whole or broken: |
| Cotton seed; rape seed; tung nuts. | ||
| 25.02 | Iron pyrites (including cupreous iron pyrites), unroasted. | |
| ex | 25.10 | Natural mineral calcium phosphates, natural alumium calcium phosphates, apatite and phosphatic chalk: |
| Other than ground (except natural calcium phosphates not in sacks). | ||
| ex | 25.26 | Mica, including splittings; mica waste: |
| Blocks, films and splittings | ||
| ex | 25.32 | Mineral substances not elsewhere specified or included; broken pottery: |
| Infusorial earths, siliceous fossil meals and similar siliceous earths; perlite, obsidian and pitchstone (crushed, ground, powdered or graded) | ||
| (Exceptions: Strontiamite, celestine, finely powdered glaena). | ||
| ex | 26.02 | Slag, dross, scalings and similar waste from the manufacture of iron and steel: |
| Except slag "wool "and dross "wool "and other mineral "wool". | ||
| ex | 40.01 | Natural rubber, balata, gutta percha and similar natural gums, raw (including latex, whether or not stabilised): |
| Natural rubber (including rubber latex, whether or not stabilised); gutta percha. | ||
| ex | 41.01 | Raw hides and skins (fresh, salted, dried, pickled or limed), whether or not split, including sheepskins in the wool: |
| Unsplit hides and skins other than kid and goat skins. | ||
| ex | 43.01 | Raw furskins: |
| Other than fine furskins: | ||
| Fresh or dried. | ||
| ex | 53.01 | Sheep's or lambs' wool, not carded or combed: |
| Raw, cleaned, scoured or carbonised but not otherwise worked. | ||
| ex | 53.02 | Other animal hair (fine or coarse) not carded or combed: |
| Raw, cleaned, scoured or carbonised but not otherwise worked. | ||
| ex | 55.01 | Cotton, not carded or combed: |
| Not bleached or dyed. | ||
| ex | 55.03 | Cotton waste (including pulled or garnetted rags), not carded or combed: |
| Containing not more than 33⅓ per cent. by weight of man-made fibres. | ||
| ex | 57.03 | Jute, raw or processed but not spun; tow and waste of jute (including pulled or garnetted rags or ropes): |
| Jute, tow and waste of jute, not carded or combed: | ||
| Containing not more than 33i per cent. by weight of man-made fibres | ||
| ex | 71.05 | Silver, including silver gilt and platinum-plated silver, unwrought or semi-manufactured: |
| Silver bullion. | ||
| 73.03 | Scrap and waste metal of iron or steel. | |
| ex | 74.01 | Copper matte; cement copper; unwrought copper (refined or not); copper waste and scrap: |
| Except unwrought copper alloys. | ||
| ex | 75.01 | Nickel mattes, nickel speiss and other intermediate products of nickel metallurgy; unwrought nickel (excluding electro-plating anodes); nickel waste and scrap: |
| Except unwrought nickel-copper alloys containing 60 per cent. or less, by weight, of nickel. | ||
| ex | 80.01 | Unwrought tin; tin waste and scrap: |
| Except unwrought tin alloys | ||
