§ Mr. Patchettasked the Secretary of State for Energy what was the annual expenditure on research and development in renewable sources of energy in each year since 1970.
§ Mr. David HuntExpenditure by my Department on research, development and demonstration in renewable sources of energy since the programme's inception in 1974 to 1985–86 is given in the table below:
£ million 1975–76 0.5 1976–77 1.0 1977–78 2.5 1978–79 3.6 1979–80 8.9 1980–81 12.3 1981–82 19.2 1982–83 17.9 1983–84 13.7 1984–85 18.2 1985–86 15.3 Notes:
1. Where available figures include expenditure on waste as a fuel and passive solar under the energy efficiency demonstration scheme, contributions from external contractors and the European Commission.
2. Information on spend by contractors is estimated from the contractual link with departmental spend in many cases and thus may not be exact. In particular it may be a few months out in its allocation and therefore spend from one year may have been moved to another year.