asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement as to whether Her Majesty's Government have put forward initiatives to extend their policy of transferring loans to poorer countries into grants.

For several years Britain has had a generous policy of converting past aid loans into grants. Twenty-one of the poorest developing countries are benefiting from our retrospective terms adjustment policy at a total cost to the aid programme of nearly £1 billion. We are urging other donors to provide similar aid debt relief as part of the debt relief measures for the poorest and most indebted sub-Saharan African countries proposed by the Chancellor at the Interim Committee of the International Monetary Fund in April.