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COMPETITIVENESS: Fresh plans to help British businesses compete with overseas firms are to be put forward in the summer, Michael Heseltine, the President of the Board of Trade, disclosed in the Commons. The initiatives would form part of a second White Paper on competitiveness, which would also report on progress that had bewen made so far.

EQUAL PAY: The difference in the average hourly pay of men and women has narrowed in six of the past seven years, and has now reached to reach its "lowest ever level", Lord Inglewood, for the Government, said in a written answer in the Lords. Women's average hourly earnings, excluding overtime, were 79.5% of men's in April 1994, he disclosed.