§ Mr. Gordon Wilsonasked the Secretary of State for Energy on how many occasions his Department or the Offshore Supplies Office has engaged private consultant engineers to give guidance on the approval of designs for oil production platforms and the suitability of sites; how many of these consultant engineers are members of or employed by firms based predominantly in Scotland and England, respectively; and what is his estimate of the proportion of such external consultancy work as a percentage of total consultancy work undertaken by his Department or the Offshore Supplies Office.
§ Mr. John SmithMy Department has on eight occasions commissioned a United Kingdom consulting engineer based in England to advise on the merits of386W designs for oil production platforms. Seven consultants have been commissioned to advise on the location or the suitability of sites for production platform fabrication. Of these two are Scottish and have been commissioned on 14 occasions and once jointly with an English consultant and once jointly with an English and a foreign consultant; four are English and have been commissioned on six occasions, including the joint consultancies; and one is foreign and has been commissioned once on a joint consultancy. Because the extent of the work involved in individual commissions varies considerably it is not possible to give an estimate of the proportion of such external consultancy work as a percentage of all consultancy work commissioned by my Department without disproportionate expenditure of staff time.
§ Mr. Gordon Wilsonasked the Secretary of State for Energy how many design and consultant engineers are employed by his Department or the Offshore Supplies Office to give guidance on the approval of designs for oil production platforms and the suitability of sites; and where they are based.
§ Mr. John SmithNone.