§ Mrs. RocheTo ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement regarding his Department's proposals for implementing the European Commission's community initiative for small and medium enterprises. [1937]
§ Mr. PageThe Community SME initiative programme for England will be implemented as a series of sub-programmes for each of the structural funds objective 1,2 and 5(b) areas in England for the period 1996 to 1999, with total Community funding of 47.4 mecu, £36.5 million. These programmes are being drawn up by Government offices, in consultation with local bodies in432W each area. The programmes are intended to focus on cross-frontier networking between SMEs in England and other Community member states, with projects normally delivered through business links, regional supply offices and training and enterprise councils. They will complement the additional funding for new, local designed, business development programmes which was announced in the competitiveness White Paper, "Forging Ahead", Cm 2867 last June. It is expected that area programmes will be agreed with the Commission from early 1996 and will open for applications from business support organisations shortly thereafter.
Separate programmes for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have been adopted by Commission and operate under the responsibility of the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland Offices.
§ Mrs. RocheTo ask the President of the Board of Trade what percentage of his Department's expenditure in 1994–95 was spent on procuring goods or services from small and medium enterprises. [1956]
§ Mr. PageThe information sought is not available and could be assembled only at disproportionate cost.