§ Mr. Austin Mitchellasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will specify how each of the producer organisations to whom temporary aid has been allocated has decided to spend it; and how many are contributing additional finance from their own funds.
§ Mr. Buchanan-SmithThe aid to be made available under the fish producer organisation scheme relates to expenditure up to the end of September. The purposes for which it may be used are set out in the scheme, copies of which were placed in the Library on 16 April. Since the decisions on how best to use this money rest with the organisations themselves, and they may decide to vary their expenditure to reflect changing circumstances over the period of the scheme, it would be premature for me to attempt to say how precisely the money will be used. Whether any organisation will use part of its own funds to support expenditure under the scheme is a matter for its own decision, except where it is made clear that the Government are prepared to fund only part of the cost of any particular operation.