§ Mrs. GillanTo ask the President of the Board of Trade what factors led her to exclude overseas trade fairs from future rounds of the Sector Challenge; and if she will put copies of all representations she received from industry recommending that Sector Challenge should be abolished for export promotion programmes in the Library. [7680]
§ Mrs. Roche[holding answer 10 July 1997]: As my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade said in her answer on 21 May, Official Report, column 67, "industry has told us that it believes that a separate scheme is more appropriate for trade fairs than a challenge approach". There were over 350 individual letters from or on behalf of industry following the previous administration's announcement on 17 January 1997, Official Report, columns 392–93. In every case the correspondent was objecting to the inclusion of trade fairs support in Sector Challenge. Extracting and copying all those letters would cost over £450. I will place in the Library a list of the organisations and individuals who wrote in.