The Enterprise Initiative Scheme (Hansard, 15 March 1990)

§ Viscount Ullswater
My Lords, I am happy to confirm that the Enterprise Initiative scheme continues. It is an important vehicle for a wide range of DTI services for business.

§ Lord Williams of Elvel
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Viscount. How many business failures have there been in the qualifying category since the launching of the initiative in 1988?

§ Viscount Ullswater
My Lords, I am afraid that I was not prepared for that supplementary question. I shall have to write to the noble Lord.

§ Lord Williams of Elvel
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Viscount. How many business start-ups have there been in the qualifying category since the launching of the initiative in 1988?

§ Viscount Ullswater
My Lords, I can tell the noble Lord that the scheme has been well received. As at 16th February 1990 43,891 applications had been received, 31,581 projects had been commissioned and 13,931 projects had been completed. The terms of reference are agreed for a further 6,245 projects.

§ Lord Williams of Elvel
My Lords, I am most grateful for that information. How many business start-ups have there been in the qualifying category since the launch of the Enterprise Initiative in 1988?

§ Viscount Ullswater
My Lords, I shall have to write to the noble Lord with that figure.

§ Lord Williams of Elvel
My Lords, I should say that the noble Lord the Leader of the House has 1645 quite rightly pointed out that the object of Question Time is to elicit information. If the Government cannot provide the information that we wish to elicit, what are we supposed to do? Are we supposed to carry on this whole procedure by correspondence?

§ The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Belstead)
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Ullswater has given the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, the number of applications that have been made. If I may say so, I think they tell a good story. As the number of businesses that have been started is presumably a continuously moving total, my noble friend could, I think, be forgiven for not being able to give a definitive figure. However, I know that my noble friend, who is always helpful to the House, will write to the noble Lord with the best figure he can get.

§ Lord Gisborough
My Lords, what areas of management do the consultancy initiatives address and which areas are most sought after?

§ Viscount Ullswater
My Lords, the consultancy initiatives form a major element of the Enterprise Initiative. The key management areas are design, marketing, manufacturing systems, quality, business planning and financial information systems. The greatest interest has been shown in quality, followed by marketing.

§ Lord Hatch of Lusby
My Lords, I wish to make an appeal to the noble Lord the Leader of the House. I have given him notice of it. There is on this side of the House and indeed in other parts of the House dissatisfaction when Ministers will not answer specific questions. We are told that the purpose of Question Time is to elicit information. However, there has been a practice recently of asking specific questions which involve specific dates. They have not been answered.
An instance of that occurred yesterday when the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of the Environment repeatedly refused to confirm that this Government had signed an agreement in 1987 to end industrial dumping by 1989. The noble Lord has written to my noble friend Lord Northfield and he has sent me a copy of that letter. There is a perfectly reasonable answer to the question because there were certain reservations in the original agreement. However, these were never mentioned. Instead, the Minister continued to insist that the date involved was 1993. This kind of refusal to answer a direct question in my submission leads to the misleading of the House.

Noble Lords
Order!

§ Lord Hatch of Lusby
My Lords, I hope the noble Lord the Leader of the House will say whether he is prepared to take any action.

§ Lord Belstead
My Lords, the Government's intention in answering questions in your Lordships' House is always to try to give information. I hope that my noble friends on the Front Bench on this side of the House genuinely try to do that. As I understand it, the noble Lord is suggesting that 1646 my noble friend Lord Hesketh misled the House yesterday in answering the question which the noble Lord asked about the recent North Sea Conference.
In the time that has been available to me I have read yesterday's Hansard and I am certain that the House was not misled by my noble friend as regards giving inaccurate information which would therefore need correction. As that is the case, under the rules covering personal statements it would not be right procedurally for me to tell my noble friend Lord Hesketh that he should make a personal statement. Therefore for that reason I ask the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, not to persist in asking for that.

§ Lord Peyton of Yeovil
My Lords, is my noble friend aware that there is considerable sympathy in all parts of the House with my noble friends on the Front Bench who fail to answer questions of detail, particularly when those questions are inordinately long?

§ Lord Belstead
My Lords, it is right for me to say that there was one question—that was not, to be fair, of inordinate length—to which my noble friend Lord Hesketh said he would need to reply in writing. I know that my noble friend has written to the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, who asked the question and has copied the letter to the noble Lords, Lord Hatch of Lusby and Lord Sefton of Garston.

§ Lord Northfield
My Lords, as the letter came to me perhaps I should say a few words. I hope that we can have some private discussion about this matter outside the Chamber when I hope we can settle it. However, if one reads the exchanges that took place yesterday one will realise that it was not so much a matter of the Minister misleading the House but rather of simply failing to give facts. We asked time and again whether Britain had signed an agreement to end industrial dumping by the end of 1989. We never received a straight answer to that question and that made the House angry. I hope therefore that we can discuss this matter outside.

Noble Lords
Order!

§ Lord Northfield
My Lords, I beg the pardon of the House, but I do not understand why noble Lords are calling out "Order". I am in the course of an exchange with the noble Lord the Leader of the House and as the letter that we are discussing was sent to me I am entitled to make a simple point about it. I do not know why the noble Lord the Chief Whip also howled "Order".
I shall conclude my remarks briefly. I have said that I hope we can settle the matter outside the Chamber, but I hope that will be on the basis that we have a justified complaint. If one looks at Hansard, one will find that the simple facts which were asked for, and which have now been provided by letter, were simply not given. If those facts had been given yesterday, this entire problem would not have arisen.

§ Lord Belstead
My Lords, it would be a mistake to extend this exchange. However, I should make one thing perfectly clear. There was a single question 1647 to which my noble friend Lord Hesketh was unable to give a reply. He told the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, that he would write a letter to him. That letter has been written and it provides the information which was asked for—

Noble Lords
Order!

§ Lord Belstead
My Lords, it is important that this point should be made quite clear. I am afraid I must make it clear. My noble friend Lord Hesketh offered to give information in reply to one question to which he was unable to reply yesterday. He wrote a full letter which makes it absolutely clear that the premise on which the question was asked by the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, in particular, was a false premise. I believe that my noble friend Lord Hesketh has acted entirely honourably and in a straightforward manner.

§ Lord Hatch of Lusby
My Lords, I am not in any way impugning the honour of anyone on the Front Bench, least of all the noble Lord, Lord Hesketh. However, I must correct the noble Lord the Leader of the House. A question was asked about a date. It was not the case that the noble Lord, Lord Hesketh, was unable to give an answer. He gave an answer, but it was incorrect. He gave the answer of 1993 but the correct reply was 1989. He made that plain in the letter that he sent to the noble Lord, Lord Northfield. If he gave the answer of 1993 when it should have been 1989, that is an incorrect answer. That is not, however, an inability to give an answer.

§ Lord Belstead
My Lords, it would be tedious if this exchange were protracted. I suggest that noble Lords would probably prefer to look at yesterday's Hansard and at today's exchange when it is printed. I hope I may suggest that the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, reads the letter.