Question to the Department for International Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what representations the Government has made to the European Commission on the imposition of tariffs on the solar technology sector; and what the Government's policy is on that subject.

The Government has not made recent representations to the European Commission concerning the anti-dumping and anti-subsidy measures against imports of solar panels from China.

The UK opposed the Commission’s renewal of the anti-dumping measures and supported the renewal of the anti-subsidy measures in March 2017. The measures are due to expire in September 2018, unless the Commission opens Expiry Reviews to determine whether the measures should be maintained.

The Department for International Trade published a call for evidence on the 28 November 2017 with the aim of identifying which UK businesses produce goods currently subject to anti-dumping, or anti-subsidy measures, or to on-going investigations related to these.

It asked those businesses to state whether they support, are neutral to, or oppose the maintaining of those measures, when the UK begins to operate its independent trade remedy framework. It asked for data about those businesses’ production and sales, and total UK production and sales.

The Call for Evidence closed on 30 March 2018. However, we continue to invite other interested parties to provide relevant information for measures of interest to them. This will enable us to make an accurate assessment of applications to maintain measures.