asked the Secretary of State for Industry how much assistance has been offered to smaller projects under the industry scheme and the accelerated projects schemes, under Section 8 of the Industry Act 1972.
The total assistance offered up to 20th October 1976 under the Wool Textile, Clothing, Machine Tools, and Ferrous Foundries Schemes is shown below by size of project:
| Project size £000 | Offers | Assistance £m. | |
| 0–50 | … | 60 | 0·2 |
| 50–100 | … | 59 | 0·8 |
| 100–200 | … | 70 | 1·5 |
| 200–500 | … | 85 | 5·8 |
| 500–1,000 | … | 46 | 6·6 |
| 1,000–2,000 | … | 25 | 7·7 |
| over 2,000 | … | 14 | 9·4 |
| Total | … | 359 | 32·0 |
preferential assistance in the Merseyside Special Development Area over the five years 1970–71 to 1974–75, as compared with total expenditure in all development and special development areas in Great Britain. A similar figure could not be produced for an individual regional authority area in Scotland without disproportionate expense.
Project size | Offers
| Assistance | |
| Under 1 | … | 25 | 1·7 |
| 1–2½ | … | 30 | 5·1 |
| 2½–10 | … | 33 | 16·0 |
| 10–25 | … | 6 | 12·7 |
| 25–50 | … | 4 | 12·3 |
| over 50 | … | 3 | 30·3 |
| Total | … | 101 | 78·1 |