Exports

HC Deb 01 July 1993 vol 227 cc1101-2

5. Mr. Beggs

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will make a statement on the effectiveness of the present level of support provided by the Industrial Development Board and the Local Enterprise Development Unit to Northern Ireland industry for the purpose of promoting exports outside the United Kingdom.

Mr. Atkins

Both agencies offer a range of export services to Northern Ireland industry, and in the financial year ended 31 March 1993 business worth in excess of £120 million was generated as a direct result of these activities.

Mr. Beggs

I thank the Minister for that reply. Will he join me in congratulating those marketeers who recently have been very successful in winning millions of pounds of export orders for Northern Ireland? Will he seek to ensure that IDB and LEDU make available such assistance as is necessary through export credit guarantees, small firm loans, and so on, and will he undertake to make representations for overseas development aid where that would be helpful?

Mr. Atkins

The hon. Gentleman is at the forefront in helping both agencies to attract foreign business and encourage companies in his constituency and other constituencies in Northern Ireland to expand. His point is understood. I am in constant communication with my predecessor in Northern Ireland, my hon. Friend the Member for Wiltshire, North (Mr. Needham), who is now the Minister for Trade, with a view to encouraging the sort of things for which the hon. Gentleman asks.

Mr. Thurnham

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is most important to build the confidence of business men in Northern Ireland and that the Opposition spokesman, by his performance this afternoon, has shown that nobody would have any confidence in his policies?

Mr. Atkins

I could not agree more.

Mr. Stott

I am not tempted to follow the Minister down that path; there will be a time to do so.

Notwithstanding the achievements of the two agencies, to which I pay tribute, the Minister will be aware that the Public Accounts Committee recently concluded that perhaps more than half the new jobs established by LEDU may have been created at the unnecessary cost of displacing existing workers. The report also recommended that both LEDU and the Department of Economic Development continue regularly to seek ways to measure and record the extent of dead weight and displacement.

Given the stringent minimum standards that the Government have recently set for the Northern Ireland Co-operative Development Agency, will the Minister tell the House why he is not applying the same tough tests to LEDU's activities?

Mr. Atkins

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's compliments to the agencies; he knows what they achieve. Of course, nothing is perfect in this world, and mistakes were made in the way in which LEDU operated. As a result of the investigation, a number of the changes that were recommended by the Committee have now been implemented. I invite the hon. Gentleman, if he would like to do so, to see for himself exactly what LEDU has been achieving and to learn of the detailed changes that have been made. He can rest assured that the points were well made by the Committee and have been taken into account.