Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Trade and Industry – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 5 June 1991.
Hon. Tim Sainsbury
, Hove
12:00,
5 June 1991
I hope that my hon. Friend will recognise from what I and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State have said that there is no possibility of what he suggested about Japanese-marked cars made in Britain happening. We cannot anticipate what the European Commission will finally propose in that regard, but I repeat what I said earlier—as far as we are concerned, Japanese-marked cars made in Britain must be allowed to trade freely throughout the Community.
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.
The European Commission is the politically independent institution that represents and upholds the interests of the EU as a whole. It is the driving force within the EU’s institutional system: it proposes legislation, policies and programmes of action and it is responsible for implementing the decisions of Parliament and the Council.
Like the Parliament and Council, the European Commission was set up in the 1950s under the EU’s founding treaties.
