Industrial policy as a whole would be a very wide subject, which could only be covered superficially; it makes sense therefore to discuss a fairly small part of it. For present purposes industrial support policies are defined as policies which offer financial incentives in order to encourage private sector businesses to achieve objectives which are judged to be in the general interest as well as—very often—in their own interest. There is, of course, room for argument about precisely what should be included. Both the purposes and the operational practice of such policies have changed rapidly over recent years and I am concerned with their development in the Department of Trade and industry (DTI) during the period of Conservative government since 1979. While this article pas prepared for a conference on manufacturing industry, there is no presumption that the policies are particularly relevant to manufacturing rather than to many other sectors of the economy.