§ Mr. Beaumont-Darkasked the Secretary of State for Industry whether any changes to the regional development grant scheme have now been agreed with the European Economic Community Commission as a consequence of the review of the United Kingdom's regional aid system.
§ Mr. TebbitUnder its continual scrutiny of the regional aid arrangements of all member States under article 93 of the Treaty of Rome, the Commission has been reviewing the United Kingdom's regional aid system. Two minor changes have been agreed with the Commission and these are due to come into effect towards the end of the year. First, to be eligible for grant, machines should have a useful life of at least four years rather than two years as at present. Secondly, the minimum value of individual items of machinery qualifying for grant will be increased 81W from £500 to £1,000. Small businesses will be exempt from this latter change, which will not apply to premises employing fewer than 100 people.
In the longer term we will also make a further administrative change to the RDG scheme which will affect the payment of grant for certain routine investment in plant and machinery where no basic change in the scale or nature of a company's existing activities is involved. Although some details of this remain to be worked out no change will apply to investment made up to the end of 1984. The changes will not affect the basic features of the RDG scheme nor reduce the rates of assistance or affect the levels of assistance which are available in the development areas. For the present there will be no change in the basis upon which companies investing in the development areas, including companies coming to this country for the first time, receive regional development grant. None of these changes affects the parallel system of capital grants in Northern Ireland.