§ Mr. Prescottasked the Paymaster General what steps he intends to take to expand and promote work such as that undertaken and sponsored by local authority enterprise boards as part of the EEC labour market initiative; and what steps he intends to take to ensure that such boards will continue to be allowed access to appropriate EEC funds for training and industrial development.
§ Mr. LangThe labour market initiative put forward by the United Kingdom, Italy and the Republic of Ireland at the 5 June meeting of the European Community Labour and Social Affairs Council contains a number of proposals designed to promote the creation of jobs. To the extent that this is also an aim of local authority enterprise boards the initiative and the work of the boards are complementary. In relation to EC funds, decisions on training programmes for which enterprise boards may make application for support under the European social fund are a matter for the European Commission. In respect of grants for industrial development purposes made from the European regional development fund, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the 577W Environment will consider the most appropriate means of dealing with applications from local authority enterprise boards from that fund in the light of his Department's current review of the local authority capital control system.