§ 43. Mr. Geraint Howellsasked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on his Department's report to the European Commission on Her Majesty's Government's assumptions about employment and industry until 1990 as it affects Wales.
§ Mr. Nicholas EdwardsThe United Kingdom regional development programme 1986–90 is the latest United Kingdom document in a series required of all member Governments of the Community as the basis for applications for European Regional Development Fund assistance. Because of Community requirements, the454W programme contains assumptions about the number of unemployed claimants in each region of the United Kingdom in 1990, but in common with earlier documents in this series, no forecasts of unemployment have been made. The assumptions are based upon the national unemployment assumption from the 1986 Public Expenditure White Paper (Cmnd. 9207) covering the period 1986–87 to 1988–89. The 1990 figure was derived by repeating the assumption for 1988–89 a further year. The national assumption was allocated to regions in proportion to 1985 regional unemployment to reach regional assumptions. No specific assumption about industry was made but in some cases the programme document refers to possible trends.