asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what financial assistance Her Majesty's Government will make available to the British participants in the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture to be held in Nigeria next year.

Her Majesty's Government have agreed to pay the registration fee of US$10,000 on behalf of the United Kingdom African Festival Committee, to enable them to send participants to this important event. Parliamentary approval will be sought in a Supplementary Estimate in due course. Pending that approval, the necessary expenditure will be met by a repayable advance from the Contingencies Fund.

asked the Secretary of State for Industry what are his current arrangements for handling the Concorde project now the aircraft is in airline service.

Responsibility for policy on all civil aerospace projects rests with me. The general arrangement is that I call upon the resources of the Ministry of Defence (Procurement Executive) for advice and for detailed execution of the civil programme within agreed policies. However, up till now Concorde has been the exception to these general arrangements in that day-to-day technical control of work on the airframe and day-to-day financial control on both airframe and engine have been handled directly by my Department, mostly through stall on loan from the Ministry of Defence. Now that Concorde has been successfully in airline service for some months it has been decided that the general arrangements on civil projects should apply also to Concorde. Therefore, with effect from 1st December 1976 the Ministry of Defence (Procurement Executive) will handle, on behalf of my Department, all day-to-day technical and financial control related to the project in the same way as it does for other civil aircraft and aeroengine projects. This leaves unaltered the Government's policy on the project and my overall responsibility for it.

asked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection (1) what protection is given to a consumer who is refused credit on the basis of a debt incurred by a lodger at the same address as the consumer, where the lodger is not a relative of the applicant for credit;(2) when he expects the sections of the Consumer Credit Act 1974, which give a consumer the right to see and, if necessary, amend a credit reference file concerning him or herself, to be brought into effect.

The decision whether to grant credit at all, in particular circumstances, or to any particular person, must be for the creditor who is putting his money at risk. It would not be appropriate for the Government to intervene in such a decision. However, the Government believe that creditors should base such decisions on accurate information. It is for this reason that certain provisions of the Consumer Credit Act, which I hope to make effective early next year, will enable consumers to obtain a copy of information held about them by credit reference agencies and, if it is incorrect, to have appropriate corrections or deletions made.