§ Mr. BattleTo ask the President of the Board of Trade how much his Department spent supporting academic research into the applications of biotechnology in the last year for which figures are available; and what proportion of the total public research and development budget this represents.
Mr. Robert G. HughesI have been asked to reply.
Some £102 million was spent supporting academic research into biotechnology by the research councils in 1992–93. This was 1.9 per cent. of the total public civil and defence research and development budget.