§ Mr. Leightonasked the Secretary of State for Industry if he is willing to consider Government assistance for design facilities for the footwear industry.
§ Mr. MacGregorWe already make assistance available under a number of on-going schemes which can facilitate and encourage better design. As well as the design advisory service, now sponsored by my Department, there is the manufacturing advisory service, which exists to help small and medium-sized companies and has been extended to cover the footwear industry. There are also the computer-aided design centre service and microelectronics application project. I would be delighted to see footwear companies making more use of these schemes in design-related projects.