He had occasion to visit Ireland during the Crisis of the Famine, and the poverty, and suffering, the hunger, and the scenes of woe wide-spread over the country, which he then witnessed, would haunt him till his dying day.

He thought that was very like quenching the smoking flax and putting out the flickering spark of new industrial life, which was just struggling to re-appear since the Crisis of the Famine had been passed.

There are uppermost in the minds of many hon. Members, and in the minds of people throughout the country, certain questions which can fairly be described as of imminent urgency - for example, the Famine Crisis in West Africa and India, our relations with Greece and Portugal and the implications of Portuguese policy on the whole of the African Continent, and the French nuclear test in the Pacific.

We have seen how some charities have been able to respond quickly, as with the Famine Crisis in recent months.

Mr. Teddy Taylor asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will publish a table showing the deliveries of cereals from the European Economic Community stockpiles to Ethiopia and Sudan, respectively, since the emergence of the Famine Crisis in these countries.

However, it gives us an important opportunity to look at the Government's response to the Present Famine Crisis.

If these shortages are not made up, the Famine Crisis will worsen dramatically, in the way that has been visible in recent weeks.

We must go further than deciding how to deal with the Present Grave Famine Crisis which is gradually easing as a result of the enormous quantities of food aid provided by the western world.

As a direct result of the Famine Crisis, the United Kingdom has pledged a meagre £2 million, and that was only the day after the BBC reports on Ethiopia began to appear on television.

The point that the hon. Gentleman obviously missed, even though I stressed it forcefully, was that in direct response to the Famine Crisis the Government gave only £2 million.

The other money would have been given in any event, and was not provided in direct response to the Famine Crisis.

That is why the money that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced today is going not to the non-governmental organisations in the ordinary way of a Famine Crisis but to a specific organisation designed to deal with this situation - the International Organisation for Migration, which was set up in 1951 to deal with displaced people.

We should not expect the ODA to cope with a Famine Crisis without new money.

That is bad enough given that in a normal year 4 million such people would face a Crisis of Famine.