§ Mr. Geraint Howellsasked the Secretary of State for Industry if he will publish details of the number of staff employed in the small firms advisory bureaux, showing what experience each 277W of them has of working outside the Civil Service.
Mr. Alan WilliamsMy Department has small firms information centres in Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, London, Luton, Manchester, Newcastle and Nottingham each of which has a complement of three staff who are career civil servants selected on the basis of their experience. The centres in Cardiff and Glasgow, which are the responsibility of my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Wales and Scotland, respectively, are similarly staffed.