§ Lord Bruce-Gardyneasked Her Majesty's Government:
Under which provision of Section 8 of the Industry Act 1972 it is proposed to provide selective assistance of £2 million towards the cost of investment by Peugeot at Ryton; how many permanent jobs are expected to result and when; and what is the total amount of taxpayers' money lent, granted or guaranteed to Peugeot to date.
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§ Lord LyellI understand that the effect of the investment proposals recently announced by the Talbot Motor Company, which were related to the introduction of a new model at the company's Ryton plant and to various projects for the modernisation and improvement of the United Kingdom facilities, will be to safeguard existing employment rather than to create new jobs. Any Government assistance which might be made available on the latter would be under the provisions of Section 8(1) of the Industrial Development Act 1982. In 1978 an agreement was signed between the Government and PSA Peugeot-Citroen (PSA) under which PSA took over all of Chrysler Corporation's obligations arising from a previous agreement between Chrysler and the Government.
Under that agreement a total of £64 million was paid to the company in the form of loss subvention grants. Loans totalling £50 million were also made to the company of which £22 million has now been repaid.
Particulars of assistance to individual companies under the Industry Acts 1972 and 1980 are generally regarded as confidential between the Department of Industry and the applicant. However, since 1st October 1974 regional development grants in excess of £25,000 and offers of selective assistance in excess of £5,000 have been published on a quarterly basis in British Business (formerly Trade and Industry). Fourteen payments of regional development grants totalling some £2.4 million to Chrysler Scotland Limited have been published in this way together with a total of £680,000 in selective assistance under Section 8 in respect of various investments in the Midlands.