§ 63. Mr. Tony Lloydasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what proposals he has to put to the Council of Ministers of the European Communities to strengthen the programme to fight poverty in Europe.
§ Dr. BoysonThe Government have made no proposals for this purpose to the Council of Ministers. We have, however, placed in the Library a copy of a paper requested by the European Commission from "UK Government experts" to assist the Commission prepare proposals for the Council on a possible second anti-poverty programme. It is likely that any second programme, like the first which ended in 1980, would be limited in scope to small scale action research projects to improve and develop new methods of helping poor people, and to other activities to aid policy analysis on questions of poverty in member states.