§ Mr. AllenTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) if he will encourage the International Monetary Fund to sell off part of its gold stocks to generate the resources to write off debt owed to the fund by Uganda.
(2) if he will consider establishing a debt relief fund for Uganda, additional to the existing aid budget, to help Uganda meet its repayment obligations to multilateral lending agencies.
§ Mr. NelsonAlthough Uganda is severely indebted, net transfers from the international financial institutions—IFIs —remain substantially in Uganda's favour. Most IFI support for Uganda is on highly concessional terms, thus reducing the debt service burden.
Debt to the IMF does not account for a high proportion of Uganda's debt stock. Uganda has benefited from highly 242W point, between 10 per cent. and 20 per cent. of children and teenagers have worries or problems severe enough to need help in overcoming them.
§ Ms PrimaroloTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will list the number of hospital admissions for mental illness for the latest available year for each age cohort for children by sex and by region.
§ Mr. BowisInformation relating to the admission of children into hospitals is not available in the precise form requested. 'Provisional information available centrally on the number of finished consultants episodes in the mental illness specialties in 1990–91 is shown in the table.
concessional IMF assistance under the enhanced structural adjustment facility—ESAF—and, subject to continuing to pursue appropriate economic policies, is expected to receive further assistance under the enlarged ESAF. The United Kingdom was a prime mover in the establishment of ESAF in 1987 and has just agreed a further contribution of £50 million to enlarge the facility to help the poorest countries such as Uganda. The United Kingdom will over time contribute one ninth of the subsidy required by the enlarged ESAF. Uganda also benefits from highly concessional credits from the World Bank's International Development Association, which concentrates on lending to the poorest countries. The United Kingdom contributed £620 million to the IDA at the last replenishment. In addition, Uganda has help meeting its repayments on non-concessional loans to the bank through the bank's fifth dimension facility.
While the United Kingdom has advocated sales of IMF gold in the past, this has been to fund targeted concessional facilities such as ESAF rather than debt write-off. The United Kingdom believes that continued targeted concessional financial assistance is the best response by the IFIs to the debt problem of the poorest countries such as Uganda. Debt write-offs even if financed by gold sales would, by running down these institutions' assets and increasing their financing costs, weaken their financial 243W standing and hence their ability to assist all developing countries. Both the IMF's and the World bank's funds are finite and revolving and intended to be available for use by members when and where they are most needed.
Uganda also has help in meeting its debt service obligations through concessional terms for its official debt. The United Kingdom has been a prime mover for this. The existing Trinidad terms which have the effect of halving payments due to creditor Governments over the period of an IMF agreement and give a commitment to consider reducing the stock of a country's reschedulable debt after three to four years of economic reform, are based on an initiative by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister when he was Chancellor. The United Kingdom continues to press other official creditors to agree to immediate stock of debt reduction, with reductions up to 80 per cent. for the most needy, for countries which have a one to two year track record of economic reform and are up to date with their debt servicing.
The United Kingdom believes that the approach outlined above is the most effective response to Ugandan debt and that a debt relief fund would not be a cost-effective or necessary use of the United Kingdom aid programme for Uganda.