§ Mr. Kenneth Clarkeasked the Secretary of State for the Environment why the Council for Small Industries in Rural Areas is providing financial assistance for factory building and sites in areas of the country where there is below national average unemployment.
§ Mr. MarksThe Council for Small Industries in Rural Areas builds factories, outside the assisted areas, as agent for the Development Commission; inside those areas the English Industrial Estates Corporation builds as the Commission's agent. The localities in which the factories are built are determined, not directly by the local unemployment rate, but by the task which the Commission has of improving conditions in areas of rural depopulation or deprivation by providing employment and in other ways. In fact, many of these areas do have unemployment rates above the national average.