Loans And Grants Mr. John Browne 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. Mr. Chris Patten 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.