§ Mrs. Kellett-Bowmanasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether he intends to introduce a scheme to assist universities and colleges to purchase textile and clothing equipment.
§ Mr. ChannonI intend within the next few months to introduce a £4½ million scheme to help centres of higher and further education to buy advanced textile and clothing machinery. Although all institutions running appropriate courses will be eligible to apply, we intend to concentrate assistance upon those universities, polytechnics and150W colleges which provide a particularly wide range of education in this area. The raw of grant will be 50 per cent. of equipment costs.
Preparations for the introduction of the scheme have yet to be completed; but centres of education will no doubt wish to start thinking about possible applications under the scheme and the likely availability of supporting finance from other sources.