By Our Parliamentary Correspondent

An additional £8,500,000 is being given by the British Government for relief in India and East Pakistan. Of this, £7,500,000 will go to help refugees in India and £1m to East Pakistan.

This brings the total contribution from Britain to more than £14,750,000 for relief in India and £2m for relief in East Pakistan.

Announcing this in the Commons yesterday, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth affairs, said that these new funds were being made available in response to the recent appeals of U Thant.

Sir Alec said that the food reserves were quite good, but it was a matter of communications.