Voluntary Service Overseas

HC Deb 04 February 2004 vol 417 cc918-9W

Tony Baldry

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what his Department's grant to Voluntary Service Overseas (a) is this year and (b) will be next year: and how many Voluntary Service Overseas volunteers this money supports. [152088]

Mr. Gareth Thomas

Under the Partnership Programme Agreement with DFID, the VSO grant for 2004–05 will be £24,460,000. The grant for 2004–05 will be £24,860,000. In the past two years, the grant has made up approximately 75 per cent. of VSO's total income and we have no reason to believe that this will change during 2003–04 and 2005–06.

The total number of volunteers supported by the grant in 2003–04 will be 1505. In 2004–05, the number of volunteers supported is estimated to be 1540.