Government bites intervention bullet with funds for industry

THE GOVERNMENT is to take a big step towards 1970s-style industrial intervention through an initiative to help the private sector with advanced technology research, writes Stephen Castle.

The move, which marks a significant shift from the laissez-faire philosophy of the Thatcher years, will feature prominently in the Government's White Paper on science, which is expected in mid-May.

Under proposals being discussed by William Waldegrave's Office of Public Service and Science and the Department of Trade and Industry, research projects with industrial application will become eligible for government funding.

Ministers are anxious to play down the notion that the state will return to the business of 'picking winners', as with notorious loss-makers such as Concorde. Instead, the Government claims it will have a much more limited stake in developing generic technologies to the point where they can be exploited by the private sector.

Whitehall is taking its cue from Japan and the US, where computing, manufacturing technologies and methods of making new materials have been targeted by governments. In all these areas, the technologies can be exploited by a variety of industrial sectors.

Nevertheless, officials say the plans reveal that the Government now recognises, for the first time in recent years, that it has 'a specific role to play' in industrial research.