§ 45. Mr. Hooleyasked the Secretary of State for Industry what were the terms on which £830,000 of public money was made available to Rio Tinto Zinc Ltd. and Consolidated Goldfields to under take research and development on deep-sea mining and processing of manganese nodules; and what other arrangements have been made of this nature.
§ Mr. BennThe main terms of the offer which was announced on 29th January are that if the project leads to commercial production the assistance will be repaid with interest and supplies of metals will be made available to United Kingdom consumers. The offer of assistance is limited to the initial phase of the project. No financial assistance has been offered to companies for other deep-sea mining projects.