§ Mr. RedmondTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether he has considered using members of the armed forces stationed in Britain to assist charities in distributing the free Common Market food to the needy; and whether he has assessed whether this could be a useful training exercise should a similar procedure need to be undertaken during a wartime or national crisis.
§ Mr. Archie HamiltonNo. This form of assistance would not meet the criteria laid down in the well-established military aid to the civil community scheme, under which in certain circumstances military aid may be provided to civil agencies. This is primarily because there would be no training benefit, since we would not 249W envisage using service men in this way during wartime, and it is not our practice to train service men specifically for disaster relief.