Overseas Aid

HC Deb 26 November 1984 vol 68 cc371-2W

Mr. Richard Page

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (1) what was the amount budgeted for bilateral aid in 1983–84; and what was the amount spent on bilateral aid in 1983–84;

(2) what was the amount budgeted for multilateral aid in 1983–84; and what was the amount spent on multilateral aid in 1983–84.

Mr. Raison

The information requested for 1983–84 is as follows:

£ million
	Provision in spring supplementary estimate	Outturn
Multilateral	379,833	403,233
Bilateral	647,532	601,974
	*1,027,365	1,005,207
* This cash limit was reduced by £19.7 million to £1,007,674 million as announced in House of Commons on 27 July 1983.

In addition to the multilateral aid figure from voted expenditure shown above, the United Kingdom share of European Community overseas aid financed from within the EC budget and which is attributed to the aid programme in 1983–84 was £92.25 million against an original estimate of £100 million.

Mr. Latham

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he will describe the administrative requirements which currently exist to reduce his Department's overseas aid budget by some specified national proportion which is related to decisions of the European Community to release stocks of food and monetary aid for disaster relief in Ethiopia; and whether he will discontinue any such practice of reduction forthwith.

Mr. Raison

Food and finance for disaster relief is provided from the European Community budget or, in the latter case, from the European development fund under article 137 of the Lomé convention. The United Kingdom share of budgetary expenditure is attributed to the public expenditure allocation for financing the United Kingdom aid programme.

In the case of Ethiopia, the amount so far allocated from the 1984 budget amounts to 34.2 MECU (£20.5 million). The United Kingdom share of this is about £4.55 million, although since the rate of expenditure is uncertain, this will not necessarily all be a charge on the aid programme in this financial year.