To ask the President of the Board of Trade what representations he has received urging referral of the bids for Southern Electricity, Midlands Electricity and NORWEB by National Power, PowerGen and North West Water to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. [37482]
The Department has received a number of letters concerning these proposed mergers. In line with standard practice, all correspondence has been forwarded to the Director General of Fair Trading, who will, in due course, advise my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade on whether he should refer the proposed mergers to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission.
(a) Hoskyns/Cap Gemini Segeti, (b) AT and T Istel, (c) EDS, (d) Sema Group, (e) Datasolve, (f) ITN Net, (g) Andersen Consulting, (h) Centre File, (i) BIS, (j) Telecom Capita, (k) ICL, (l) Digital Equipment, (m) CFM, (n) Siemens, (o) Nixdorf, (p) CMG and (q) Logica. [36997]
Such information is not readily available for the whole Department and could be assembled only at disproportionate cost. However, major contracts let through the DTI's central IT purchasing section relating to the companies listed are as follows: