§ Mr. CousinsTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the successful and unsuccessful bids submitted to him under the Pathfinder initiative; and what was the cash value of each successful bid.
§ Mr. AitkenThis is a matter delegated to the Defence Research Agency under its framework document. I have therefore asked the chief executive to reply direct to the hon. Member.
Letter from Mr. J. Chisholm to Mr. Jim Cousins, dated 3 November 1993:
In today's written answer the Minister of State for Defence Procurement informed you that I would be replying to your question about Pathfinder.The DRA received over 640 bids in response to its Pathfinder initiative. So far 43 proposals with a total value of over £15.4 million have been accepted. A further 133 proposals with a total value of £42.7 million have been accepted in principle and negotiations are continuing to determine how these can best be incorporated into the existing research programme.For reasons of commercial confidentiality I am not able to provide a list of all the bids received or their values. I would, however, hope to be in a position to give further details of the successful bids—;though not the values—once formal contracts have been negotiated and the permission of the individual companies obtained. Some of this information should be available by the time of the second Pathfinder Conference which will be held at Farnborough on 24 and 25 November and I will write to you then with an update.