§ Mr. Gordon Brownasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what is the latest estimate of the total numbers of jobs created as a result of regional aid in the periods 1960 to 1979, and from 1979 onwards.
§ Mr. TrippierThere have been a number of recent studies of the employment attributable to regional policy 183W and the findings of these were reviewed in the Department's publication "Regional Industrial Policy; Some Economic Issues", which was placed in the House of Commons Library last December. The various studies differ to some degree in their estimates of the net employment effects of regional policy. However, based on these studies, we would judge that the total employment in the areas aided by regional policy was in 1979 to 1981of the order of half a million jobs greater than it otherwise would have been but for the operation of regional policy since 1960. There have been no estimates of the net employment effects of regional policy since 1979 due to lack of data.