§ Mr. Stephen O'BrienTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry pursuant to her answer of 5 February 2004,Official Report, column 998W, on business support schemes, if she will list the (a) service costs to run and (b) cost of the programme delivered by (i) the Small Firms Loan Guarantee, (ii) Grant for Research and Development, (iii) Grant for Investigating an Innovative idea and (iv) Knowledge Transfer Partnerships between 2003–07. [155357]
§ Nigel GriffithsThe forecast costs of the new Business Support Products for the financial years 2003–04 and for 1073W 2004–05 are listed in the table below. Allocations for future years will be agreed as part of the 2004 Spending Review process. Grant for Research and Development and Grant for Research and Development and Grant for Investigating an Innovative Idea were introduced on 1 June 2003 to replace and enhance the
£million 2003–04 2003–04 2004–05 2004–05 Business support product Service costs Cost of programme
Service costs Cost of programme
Small Firms Loan Guarantee 0.702 52.85 0.702 65 Grant for Research and Development (including Smart) 3.83 40 3.83 26 Grant for Investigating an Innovative Idea 0.6 3 Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (formerly TCS) 2.4 25.6 2.4 25.6
§ Mr. Stephen O'BrienTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry pursuant to the answer of 5 February 2004,Official Report, column 998W, on business support schemes, (1) if she will list the new business support products that are due to be made available in April; and how much money is to be spent on these products;. [157178]
(2) she will list the new products that have replaced business support schemes that are (a) already in place and (b) to be introduced this year; and what the projected cost is of each product. [157224]
§ Ms HewittFour new business support products are already in place. These are: Grant for Investigating an Innovative Idea, Grant for Research and Development, Knowledge Transfer Partnerships, and Small Firms Loan Guarantee.
Five further new business support products will be introduced in the first half of this year. These are Knowledge Transfer Networks, Grant for Collaborative Research and Development, Access to Best Business Practice, Support to Implement Best Business Practice, and Finance to encourage investment in specific areas of England.
The timing of the introduction of the tenth business support product, Enterprise Capital Fund, is dependent upon the current notification to the European Commission for State Aids Clearance.
The Department's annual expenditure on each product will be kept under review by the Investment Committee to ensure products' impact on productivity and value for money.
The Business Cases presented to the Investment Committee currently project expenditure to be as follows:
1074W
£ million Grant for Collaborative Research and Development 134 Knowledge Transfer Partnerships 36 Grant for Research and Development 133 Knowledge Transfer Networks 17 Grant for Investigating an Innovative Idea 3 Small Firms Loan Guarantee 49 Access to Best Business Practice 10 Support to Implement Best Business Practice 20 Finance to encourage investment in specific areas (provisional title)
125 Enterprise Capital Fund Subject to EU notification 1£100 million over three years Smart scheme. Since that date administration of all three has been unified and it is not possible to apportion service costs between them. The same applies to Knowledge Transfer Partnerships which was introduced in 1 June 2003 to replace TCS.