– in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 23 March 1964.
Mrs Barbara Castle
, Blackburn
12:00,
23 March 1964
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will approach the South African Government in order to ensure that gifts of clothing, food and other charitable supplies are admitted into the High Commission Territories duty free.
Mr Peter Thomas
, Conway
The High Commission Territories are in customs union with the Republic of South Africa. Under the 1910 Customs Agreement, they receive a fixed share of the import duties collected by the South African authorities and this is a valuable source of income for them. It is a necessary feature of the Agreement that the Territories should conform as far as possible to South African law as regards rebates and refunds and there is no provision in South African customs Laws for the refund of duty on charitable gifts. I am not convinced that there are good grounds for asking the South African authorities to change the customs laws in this respect, but if the hon. Lady has a case in mind and can give me full details, my right hon. Friend is prepared to consider taking it up with the South African authorities.
Mrs Barbara Castle
, Blackburn
While thanking the hon. Member for that reply, may I ask him whether he is aware that the Church World Service recently offered a free gift of blankets and foodstuffs to the Community Development Centre at Mochudi, Bechuanaland, on condition that no import duty was payable on them but that the officials of this centre were informed that they would have to pay 25 per cent. duty on the blankets and a smaller percentage on the foodstuffs? As there will be an increasing number of this kind of charitable gift, does not the hon. Member think that this matter ought to be renegotiated with the South African Government?
Mr Peter Thomas
, Conway
I am aware of the case which the hon. Lady mentioned. I believe that the Colonial Office have had some correspondence on this matter.
Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
Laws are the rules by which a country is governed. Britain has a long history of law making and the laws of this country can be divided into three types:- 1) Statute Laws are the laws that have been made by Parliament. 2) Case Law is law that has been established from cases tried in the courts - the laws arise from test cases. The result of the test case creates a precedent on which future cases are judged. 3) Common Law is a part of English Law, which has not come from Parliament. It consists of rules of law which have developed from customs or judgements made in courts over hundreds of years. For example until 1861 Parliament had never passed a law saying that murder was an offence. From the earliest times courts had judged that murder was a crime so there was no need to make a law.
