asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will instruct staff of overseas embassies in those countries exporting textile and footwear products into this country, to monitor both production costs and home market prices of these goods; and if he will arrange for the results of their investigations to be published in appropriate official journals.

It would be impracticable for our overseas posts to undertake on a regular basis the local monitoring of production costs and home market prices of all textile and footwear products beyond the information they already provide on local prices in the course of their export promotion work. This extremely complex task would impose a considerable burden on the resources of our commercial posts, which could only be met at the expense of their main function of the direct promotion of United Kingdom exports.