Hello, i was wandering is there an extension or some other means that will allow me to set the page size to the size of my laser's work space then import an svg into it several times. Then have inkscape position the individual svg's in such a way that it maximises the number of items and mimises the waste material thank you for your help.

Not sure about Inkscape. Have you tried Deepnest?
https://deepnest.io

thank you Aero very much, between this program and inkscape everything should work ok. thank you very much.👍👍👍👍