§ Mr. DavidsonTo ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on the progress made to date in creating a national strategic technology acquisition plan.
§ Mr. Sainsbury[holding answer 3 May 1994]: The Government adopted the technology priorities of the aviation committee's national strategic technology acquisition plan for civil aeronautics in July 1993. This plan is important in helping to identify and prioritise the research effort that may need to be taken in industry and through publicly funded programmes—and to bring about better complementarity and relevance of the latter including DTI, defence, science base and Community programmes. DTI has just completed a number of pilot exercises which are being evaluated.