§ 42. Mr. Bruceasked the Secretary of State for Scotland 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 Scotland.
§ Mr. LangThe United Kingdom regional development programme 1986–90 is the latest United Kingdom462W document in a series required of all EEC member states as the basis for applications for assistance from the European regional development fund. Because of community requirements, the programme contains assumptions about the number of unemployed claimants in each region of the United Kingdom in 1990. These are based on the national unemployment assumption from the 1986 public expenditure White Paper (Cmnd. 9207) covering the period 1986–87 to 1988–89. They are not forecasts. The 1990 figure was derived by repeating the assumption 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 in Scotland was made, although in some cases the programme document refers to possible trends.