HC Deb 09 November 1967 vol 753 cc1230-1
17. Mr. Goodhart

asked the Minister of Overseas Development what aid will now be sent to South Vietnam in 1968.

Mr. Prentice

The size of our medical and nursing team at the Children's Hospital at Saigon will be expanded from 11 to 18. We are providing complete X-ray, and other equipment—about £35,000 —for the new hospital block. Also as a capital grant, about £75,000 of road-making equipment.

Other projects are under study.

Mr. Goodhart

In view of the very widespread concern about casualties and damage in South Vietnam, is it not rather disgraceful that our material contribution to the relief of suffering in that country should be so small?

Mr. Prentice

In the last sentence of my reply I said that other projects were under study, and I expect that these will result in a fairly substantial increase in the next financial year in the amount of aid going to South Vietnam compared with this year.

Mr. Heffer

Will my right hon. Friend define the reasons why road-making equipment is being sent out? Will he give an assurance that the main assistance will be purely along the lines of medical aid, because any other aid would be considered as an interference in the situation and show that our so-called rôle of neutrality was absolutely nonsensical?

Mr. Prentice

I do not see any reason why our aid should be confined to medical aid. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Projects under discussion cover other forms of aid. However, they are all projects of an economic and social nature, and none of them is directly related to the war. That is what I had in mind in my reference to road-making equipment.

Sir F. Bennett

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the children's hospital. Some of us have seen the help given and appreciate it. Can he say whether one of the projects under consideration is the extension of the clinical laboratory there, which ought to go along at the same rate as the hospital?

Mr. Prentice

I have announced some extra help to the hospital. I think that our future help to the hospital and that with regard to clinical laboratories will be considered with other projects. There are many more suggestions than we can take up. However, I hope to take up some of the new ones. I agree that medical assistance is most important, and by that I mean not only actual medical assistance but helping local personnel to have a rôle in this field.