§ Mr. Squireasked the Secretary of State for Industry if he will take additional measures to assist the United Kingdom fibre optics and optoelectronics industry.
§ Mr. Kenneth BakerUnless underlying technologies are in place in the United Kingdom, opportunities in the expanding markets and uses of information technology, in its widest sense, will be severely restricted. In addition to microelectronics, fibre optics and optoelectronics are playing an increasingly significant and necessary role.
The United Kingdom is fairly well advanced in these technologies. It is now necessary to exploit them by the development of products which can be sold in the increasingly competitive world markets.
I am therefore pleased to announce a set of measures designed
- (i) to build up, over a period of about five years, an industrial capability able to meet the needs of equipment companies and end users for optical fibre system components;
- (ii) to build up the United Kingdom industrial competence in optoelectronic techniques and to produce a wider range of component products, with particular emphasis on critical components for novel systems;
- (iii) to develop an infrastructure supplying equipment and materials to the optical fibre and optoelectronics industries; and
- (iv) to stimulate new applications by the imaginative use of public and private sector purchasing power.
The support available to cover these aims is £25 million from within existing provisions over five years.
The new scheme will be financed through the product and process development scheme—PPDS—under the Science and Technology Act 1965 and section 8 of the Industry Act 1972.
Assistance will be in the form of a 25 per cent. grant in three areas of activity: research and development of fibre optics, optoelectronics, optical sensors and instruments and test gear; capital expenditure on plant equipment and buildings; the applications of fibre optics and optoelectonics, including feasibility studies.
The scheme comes into effect immediately.