§ Mr. David Watkinsasked the Secretary of State for Industry what support Her Majesty's Government are giving to manufacturing industry to encourage robot control and production systems.
§ Mr. Kenneth Baker[pursuant to his reply, 20 January 1981, c. 133]: The Department of Industry's product and process development scheme and mechanical engineering and machine tools requirement board are potential sources of help for the encouragement of the awareness, application and manufacture of robots in the United Kingdom.
Some financial support has been given for the work of the British Robots Association and for the robot advisory service of the Production Engineering Research Association which offers firms consultancy advice.
We are keen to encourage robot application and the Department will consider providing 25 per cent. of the cost of suitable robot applications in new fields, or the development and manufacture of robots in the United Kingdom together with possible pre-production orders.