§ Mr. Spearingasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how much of the total sum to date made available by Her Majesty's Government for 446W famine relief measures for Africa has been paid by the contingency reserve in the Estimates for 1984–85; what sums have been made available from other sources; and what was the balance in the contingency reserve on 31 March.
§ Mr. RaisonI expect spending in 1984–85 on famine relief measures for Africa to be funded as follows:
£ million £ million Contingency reserve allocations 17 Food aid national actions and European development fund allocations 27 Reallocations from slippage elsewhere in the aid programme 10 — Total from within voted aid funds 54 United Kingdom share of allocations from EC budgetised aid (non-voted) 35 Cost to Ministry of Defence of RAF Hercules operation in Ethiopia* 6 — 95 * The extra costs of mounting operation Bushel are currently estimated at up to £1.5 million per month. As an exceptional case, MoD agreed to bear the costs for the first three months of the deployment (to the beginning of February 1985). Since then the costs have been shared equally between MoD and ODA. There were no funds remaining in the aid programme contingency reserve on 31 March 1985.