§ Mr. Masonasked the Secretary of State for Industry if he will list the total amounts of loans granted in each of the regions under the loans guarantee scheme in 1982 and the percentage of the United Kingdom total each represents.
§ Mr. MacGregorGuarantees issued by my Department in 1982 for the areas covered by the Department of Industry's regional offices and for the rest of the United Kingdom are set out in the following table.
of £2.3 million. The Bradford units are complete and several companies are expecting to take space in them. We are planning to set up 20 information technology centres (ITeCs) in the region to train young people in microelectronics and computing, and nine of them are in operation.
Under the MAPCON scheme, we have approved 414 grants of up to £3,000 towards the cost of consultancies in microelectronics and committed over f3/4 million to firms in the region. Under the microelectronics applications project part C, firms can obtain grants of up to one-third to help with the work of new developments and we have approved 59 applications so far from Yorkshire and Humberside firms and committed £1.8 million of which 215W nearly £1 million has already been paid. However, I would welcome still more good projects for us to support, not just in microelectronics but in other areas of technology as well.