§ Mr. Hendersonasked the Secretary of State for Transport what progress has been made in implementing the agreement published in Cmnd. 9038, on the European Economic Community project for concerted action in the field of shore-based marine navigation aid systems.
§ Mr. David MitchellThe concerted action research project was approved by the Council to commence on 1 January 1983, but due to the need to define the work programmes more closely and to set up the necessary management structure its start date was set back to 1 May 1983, from when the project will run for three years.
The work has been divided into five sub-programmes and the United Kingdom is playing a prominent part in the two of these which are most important to our interests. A British firm won the contract to provide management services to assist the project leader in the Commission. It is expected that the schedule as drawn up will be maintained.