Temperature rise as MPs say 99 fcresopOnPdaerrirentary
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• A Parliamentary row broke out over the 99 haulage permits allocated to Britain by the Common Market (CM last week). MPs asked if the decision was a regulation which automatically became law in this country or a directive which required Parliamentary approval.
Mr John Davis, the European Minister, hedged — but finally admitted, "It is something upon which we shall have to work". Later, Mr James Prior, the Leader of the House, stated firmly that the licences were dealt with in a regulation.
Mr Davis recalled that no decision had been reached to adopt the common orientation previously agreed by the Six in relation to lorry weights and dimensions. Mr Peyton had undertaken to resume discussion in the New Year.
The Six had decided to continue for two years their experimental system of bracket tariffs and multilateral quotas.
When Mr Douglas Jay, (Labour, Battersea N) called the allocation another serious threat no British interests, Mr Davis replied that Mr Peyton had said he would not consider himself bound by the quota directive indefinitely. While obliged to accept its implications early in 1973, he would require the setting up of a working group, taking account of hi objection, to report by April 1.
Mr John Morris (Labour, Aberavon. asked if the other countries returned tc the present proposals on axle weights anc total weights, would this country veto?
Mr Davis said that the veto as suck was hardly meaningful. What was meaning ful was the absence of consent to a ke3 measure which was, broadly speaking sufficient to deter it effectively from beini carried out.
Mr Jay and Mr Morris kept up th4 pressure for the law to be explained, but Mr Davis refused to be drawn.