§ Mr. Evelyn Kingasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if the Ethiopian Government have yet received Great Britain's free gift of trucks; and what landing fee was charged on their arrival at Haile Selassie airport.
§ Mrs. HartI have been asked to reply.
We have now flown out 23 of the 56 vehicles that Her Majesty's Government are providing for famine relief in Ethiopia. Of these, six were flown out by commercial air charter and the remainder by the RAF. In the case of the two commercial charter flights, landing charges of£480 per flight were paid, in accordance with normal commercial practice.
The Ethiopia Government have waived landing and handling charges for RAF relief flights. It appears, however, that 502W handling charges totalling£640 were raised in error by Ethiopian Airlines on four of the RAF relief flights. The Ethiopian Civil Aviation Authority has confirmed that these were issued in error and we have been assured that there is no question of payment being required.