asked the Secretary of State for Energy what percentage of the original number of applicants for licences on the United Kingdom Continental Shelf during the fifth round were successful; and, of those not successful in their applications, what percentage of British companies was involved and what percentage was foreign.

As announced, I have made conditional offers to groups comprising a total of 65 companies—23 British, 42 foreign—that is to say a little under half of the 133 which applied. Of the companies which were not successful, 17, or 25 per cent., were British and 51, or 75 per cent., were foreign-owned—that is, a ratio about the same as that between British and foreign-owned companies among the successful applicants. These figures for the percentage of British and other companies have not been compiled on a basis which makes it possible to draw any conclusions about the relative success of British or other applicants; and there is no way of producing figures that could be useful in that connection, except possibly by devoting wholly disproportionate effort to the task.