asked Her Majesty's Government:What assistance has been given to charities to meet the expenses entailed in the distribution of surplus EC food; and whether any of the charities concerned has suffered financial loss as a result of this exercise.

Community-funded payments were made for the cost of repackaging butter released from intervention stores and for transport of butter and beef from stores to charities' own distribution points. For milk and milk products, which were purchased from commercial sources, charities were able to reclaim the full price of the product delivered to these points. As the Government made clear at the outset of the scheme to representatives of the charities, neither Community nor national funds are available for the costs of final distribution to recipients. I understand that all charities concerned incurred costs of this sort.