§ Mr. Rentonasked the Secretary of State for Industry, further to his reply of 22 June, Official Report, c. 33, to the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex, in view of the statement of the Council of the European Communities—Official Journal, 17 June C1 47—that "the Community regional policy in particular, which relies on aid from the ERDF, has helped create or maintain during the period in which the latter was in operation (1975–79), 339,317 jobs for the Community as a whole, including 99,767 in the United Kingdom", what is the basis of his Department's view that European regional development fund grants are not linked directly to job numbers and that no overall records of such jobs are maintained.
§ Mr. MacGregor[pursuant to his reply, 8 July 1981]: Grants from the ERDF in respect of United Kingdom industrial projects represent a percentage contribution towards the regional aid given to those projects by the United Kingdom Government, and much of this aid is not directly linked to employment. Applications to the ERDF in respect of industrial projects are usually made only for projects which have received both selective financial assistance under section 7 of the Industry Act and regional development grant. The figure for the United Kingdom given in the Official Journal is the total employment associated with the projects in respect of which ERDF aid has been committed.
The ERDF provides welcome general support to regional policy in the United Kingdom by enabling expenditure to be maintained at a higher level than we would otherwise be able to afford.