HL Deb 12 November 1958 vol 212 cc412-96

3.50 p.m.

Debate resumed.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

My Lords, I hope that your Lordships will allow me to express once more my gratitude to your Lordships for permitting this courtesy and will also show what forbearance your Lordships may should I, as a result of the intermission in my speech, have slightly lost the thread of my argument. During the week-end I have gone over again the catalogue, to me a somewhat melancholy catalogue, the length of which no one can regret more than I do, of the various debates we have held upon this subject. I find that, except on one occasion, which was more than a year ago, my own part has been limited to answering questions or replying at the end of a debate to a number of individual points and arguments. Without any disrespect either to the House or to myself, I think that it is quite inevitable that over such a period of time a certain amount of misunderstanding, both about fact and argument, is likely to accumulate, and I have risen thus early in the debate this afternoon because, after reflection, I thought that it would be more useful, in the hope of clearing away some of this misunderstanding, that I should review the situation from the point of view of the Government, in order to give, so far as I am able to do so, a coherent view of the facts and arguments as we see them. This and what follows will, I hope, help to answer the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, who expressed an interest in this part of the subject.

It is estimated that at the time of the events of 1956 there were upwards of 13,000 British subjects resident in Egypt. Of these about 3,000 were of United Kingdom origin, 4,500 were Cypriots, 5,000 were Maltese and 700 were of mixed Commonwealth origin. Of this figure of 13,000, a large number left Egypt, though not (as my noble friend said) all of them, and we estimate that between 7,000 and 8,000 came to this country, of whom about 6,250 are estimated still to be resident here. I may say, in passing, though it is irrelevant to my main theme, that about 1,500 have been assisted to emigrate to various parts of the Commonwealth and of the world, I think mainly to Australia, as a result of schemes which have been in force. Of the 6,250, about 4,000 have been resettled by the Resettlement Board and about 500 remain to be resettled. About 1,000 persons have received ex gratia loans without seeking further aid from the Board. Of the 7,000-odd refugees who came to Britain in this way, it would seem that about two-thirds had few or no tangible assets at all. I would say, again in passing, although I am sure that what he said was textually accurate, that I think the picture which my noble friend managed to paint, at any rate in my mind, of the typical refugee being an elderly executive of sixty or thereabouts is not quite accurate. Only about 2,600 had assets which ranked for the loans scheme, and of these well over half, or just over 1,500 had assets in Egypt amounting to £2,000 or less.

My noble friend's Motion draws the attention of Her Majesty's Government "to the continuing distress of British nationals expelled from Egypt." So far as the majority are concerned—that is, the two-thirds who had no assets—my own view is that they were all treated in a manner far more generous, so far as I know, than any other British subjects who have come to this country as refugees have ever been treated before. I gave your Lordships' House in June, 1957, particulars of what had been, and was then being, done. Apart from early teething troubles, of which, of course, there were some, as those of us who have had experience of administrative problems of this kind must expect, I have not heard a word of criticism about the way in which these persons were treated; and since June, 1957, not one single Question relating to that treatment has been put down in either House of Parliament.

LORD LLOYD

My Lords, I have a good deal of experience of these people as well, and if I have not said much about them to-day, it is because I did not want to confuse two issues. In point of fact, I wish to put down another Motion for a debate on the very question of those who have no assets. I do not agree with the noble Viscount. Many of them may have been resettled in the terms of the Resettlement Board, but from many points of view I should not regard them as being resettled. I think that that is a slight over-statement of the noble Viscount. Many of these people are still in great difficulties.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

My Lords, I do not understand why my noble friend did not raise the position of these people to-day if he wanted to do so. The Motion is not limited to those with assets; it draws attention to the hardship of British nationals expelled from Egypt. I would say that I have every intention of discussing this matter to-day. I must tell my noble friend, because I do not think that he has been quite fair about this that no single Question relating to the general treatment has been put down in either House of Parliament. I have been through the copies of Hansard. There have been two Questions in another place, neither of which, I think—

VISCOUNT STANSGATE

My Lords, may I interrupt?

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

Do let me finish the sentence.

VISCOUNT STANSGATE

It is a point of Order.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

If it is a point of Order, I am sorry.

VISCOUNT STANSGATE

My Lords, I understood that it is a well-accepted rule that it is quite impossible to discuss in your. Lordships' House the procedure in another place, except a statement made by a Minister.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

I am not going to discuss the procedure in another place. There have been two Questions in another place, neither of which involves any qualification of the remark I was making. There was also a Question about an individual case in which the refugee had taken the somewhat unusual course of going to Cyprus. I am talking not of details but of the general position, and I am perfectly sure that your Lordships' House would want me to do so. Having heard my noble friend's speech, although he did not adequately deal with the two-thirds who had no assets, he did not, at any rate in his speech, address one word of criticism regarding the treatment of this large majority.

LORD LLOYD

My Lords, I really must say a word to the noble Viscount about that. If he will look at the OFFICIAL REPORT, the noble Viscount will see that what I said was that there were a large number of people—I did not say the majority, though that makes no difference—who had no assets. I said that many of these people had no adequate resources and that I was not satisfied that they had been resettled. I said that many details depended upon the Government's future policy in regard to the Anglo-Egyptian Resettlement Board, but that as it would take a long time to go into the details, I preferred not to do so, and that I hoped the Government would make a statement on which we could have a discussion.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

My Lords, as I understood what the noble Lord said, it was that he was concerned lest those who had no assets were off the books of the Resettlement Board too soon. The point that I am making is that there was not one single point of criticism that the Anglo-Egyptian Resettlement Board were treating those on their books ungenerously—although there may be hereafter some criticism. That seems to me to be a legitimate summary of what my noble friend said. My view is—and I feel bound to tell the House this—that they have not only not been treated ungenerously, but they have been treated generously in the matter of grants for businesses, housing grants, resettlement grants, clothing allowances, maintenance allowances, facilities for education and, where it was desired, emigration.

It is as well, if we are going to consider charges of niggardliness and lack of generosity by the Government, that regard should be had to the almost total lack of criticism on this, the primary function of the Anglo-Egyptian Resettlement Board, financed by the taxpayer, and applying to two-thirds of the cases. And it is as well to remember, before we go on to consider the question of those who had assets (which I promise your Lordships I am not going to forget) that before they came under the loans scheme at all, all of those who had assets were entitled to the full advantage of the activities of the Anglo-Egyptian Resettlement Board just as much as those who had none.

There was a family in which I know my noble friend has taken interest, and as to whom he has been in correspondence with one of my colleagues. I do not intend to specify it as a particularly hard case—it would be invidious to do so—but I will return to it later to illustrate another point. This family not only have benefited by the existing loans scheme to the extent of £4,000, in spite of the assets in Egypt to which they laid claim, but have received another £1,800 by way of grant or maintenance from the Anglo-Egyptian Resettlement Board; so that, in addition to the loans scheme, over the period of two years they received £5,880. I think it is unfair on the part of noble Lords to talk only in terms of the loans scheme, whereas, in fact, in some cases, whether they have substantial assets or whether they have no assets, they may have received sums up to £2,000 by way of grant and not by way of loan.

VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH

We seem to be uncertain about the particular case which the noble and learned Viscount cited, as to whether the £5,000 was by way of loan or by actual grant. He referred to it as if there were other loans besides.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

I think the noble Viscount must have misunderstood me. What I said was quite clear: that there were loans of approximately £4,000, and grants and maintenance allowances, which were not loans, of about £1,800, making a total of £5,880.

LORD SILKIN

The noble Viscount said that, in addition to the loans scheme, they had £5.880.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

If I did, I apologise to your Lordships. I intended to say that they had received, in addition to the loans scheme, £1,800 by way of grant or maintenance, so that they received over the period of less than two years £5,880. If I did, by a mistake of the tongue, say the opposite, I apologise. I am anxious not to mislead in any way.

I will come back to the question of those with assets, but before I do so I feel it is necessary—and I am sure the House will agree with me that it is—to discuss a little more in detail the actual physical assets there were, what became of them and to whom they belonged. This may be a long digression, but I must say to the noble Lord and to my noble friend that I do not see how I can present my argument until I make it. If the majority of those who are refugees had no tangible assets, it is equally true, so far as one can judge, that of British assets which were owned in Egypt at the time of the events of 1956 the majority were not owned by those who subsequently became refugees: they were owned by British subjects elsewhere than in Egypt. Here, I am sorry to say, I am not in a position to give exact figures, but it is a fact which from the point of view of the argument I must not pass over.

My noble friend's motion refers only to those who were expelled from Egypt, and draws attention to their hardship, to which in terms the Motion is limited; but, from time to time during your Lordships debates, and, indeed, during my noble friend's speech, there has emerged a quite different proposition, which is a demand for compensation not based on hardship but based on what is alleged to be a legal or moral right to compensation for all sorts of losses. That is quite a different thing from hardship. It is not true that all those who have lost assets are refugees; and it is not true that all those who have lost assets are suffering hardship. You must refuse a claim for compensation, even if there is hardship, if no title to compensation is made; and you must grant a claim for assistance based on hardship, even though a title to compensation is not made out.

I must point out that strictly such a proposition is outside the Motion, to which I am bound, to some extent, to adhere; but I should be surprised if all mention of the subject were excluded from your Lordships' debate this afternoon. For this reason, I cannot avoid observing that, in assessing any question of liability, moral or legal, on the part of the United Kingdom Government to pay compensation for the loss of any of these assets, it is, in my opinion, difficult, and I should have said impossible, to draw any logical distinction between those assets which are and those which are not owned by persons expelled from Egypt. Indeed, in some ways the position of the British resident owners could be argued to be as strong if not stronger. They have at least incurred for many years the obligations which exist in this country.

In any event, neither of the two criteria proposed in this connection at any time by any noble Lord as justification for compensation could be expressed so as to afford any valid distinction between any class of British asset, whether privately owned or owned by a public company of which British subjects are shareholders, whether their owners are refugees or not. The objects of the landings of 1956 included the intention to protect British lives and property but this was not limited to the property which happened to belong to British subjects resident in Egypt at the time.

Before I return to the question of those who had assets in Egypt and who have been expelled, which is the group with whom my noble friend was for one reason or another particularly concerned in his speech, it is important that I should ask your Lordships' indulgence to consider what has happened in the meanwhile to British assets in Egypt whose ownership belongs partly to those expelled and partly to those who resided elsewhere.

Part (I think rather less than half and mainly business assets) were, to use the language of the Egyptian authorities, Egyptianised. This means that businesses built up by the enterprise of British subjects were expropriated and handed over to Egyptian ownership. I am not going to characterise the morality of this procedure, nor must I be taken to accept or endorse its legality. However, it is no good in this connection expostulating about that. The property was seized and expropriated, and whatever else may be true about their procedure the Egyptian authorities have never denied their liability to pay compensation. They admit their liability to pay compensation, though in fact they have never paid. From their point of view—and again I must not be taken as necessarily endorsing it—they regard the property as having been nationalised for social, or, perhaps one might say, socialist, reasons; and the consequence is that they regard themselves as liable to pay compensation for what they have taken, although the property is expropriated. Their failure to pay—which is one of the causes of the delay which we are discussing this afternoon—is certainly not due to any want of anxiety on the part of Her Majesty's Government that they should discharge it, but to other quite different factors which it is probably impossible in the United Kingdom fully to evaluate.

Here I must say something to my noble friend. I do not think he has realised —certainly from the language of his speech he did not indicate that he realised—that the Egyptianised or, shall we say, nationalised property, in respect of which there is an obligation to pay compensation, forms only a part, and probably—I should myself say quite certainly—not the largest part, of British assets in Egypt at the time of the events of 1956. The other and probably—again I would say quite certainly—the biggest part was sequestrated. Again, it is important to recognise the status of this sequestrated property—I am sorry for this discourse, but it is absolutely vital to the understanding of the problem that I should make it—because that, and not the failure of the Egyptian authorities to pay compensation for the Egyptianised or nationalised property, lies very much at the heart of our present practical difficulties. Without going into the question, irrevelant for this purpose, of whether or not a state of war existed, I might say that the process of sequestration in itself does not differ markedly from the process known to the law of this country as the handing over of enemy property to the Custodian of Enemy Property.

The point is that, contrary to what my noble friend said, whatever the merits or demerits of this procedure the essential point is that it is not confiscation, it is not expropriation; and it is not true to say that the sequestrated property has been, in the strict sense, expropriated. The property is held on trust and is administered on trust. I quite recognise that there may be issues between us and the Egyptians as to whether the property has been properly managed. That is a matter for discussion. But the income should be accumulating—and some of it is—subject to whatever administrative charges may ultimately be decided upon. In accordance with ordinary International Law, and at the end of hostilities, the property ought to be handed back to the true owners. This is the essence of the matter, and this is the present position. The sequestrated property is largely there. It is being administered, and the Egyptians, to do them justice, have never once denied their liability to hand it back. It is true that they have not handed it back, but in all the negotiations we have had with them they have fully recognised their obligation to do so. Nor, I think, could any civilised Government do less. Nor is it true to say, as my noble friend appears to think, that most of this property has disappeared into thin air. Of the sequestrated property, which is, I should judge, more than half the whole, 20 per cent. represents bank balances and securities, and 20 per cent, land and buildings, which presumably are bringing in rent.

Here I must put forward one or two contentions. A very large amount of property is at stake on both sides in this matter. It would, at any rate in my opinion, and I believe the House will accept it—but I must at any rate put it forward quite sincerely as my opinion—be utterly wrong for Her Majesty's Government to do any act at the moment which showed that they believed that Colonel Nasser could or should or was likely to retain possession of the sequestrated property or refuse to pay any compensation for the Egyptianised. Such an act would, I believe, be wholly contrary to the interests of this country, because it would practically, if not theoretically, abandon claim to assets amounting, it might be said, to very many millions of pounds, of which most are still in existence and still yielding income, at a time when the Egyptian authorities themselves have never repudiated their liability. It would also mean that, unless we paid out compensation on the basis of the entire claims put forward by the claimants themselves, without further verification, we should have to betray the cause of the same claimants in the negotiations with Egypt when we have hitherto sought steadfastly to maintain their cause.

LORD LLOYD

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Viscount again, but he is dealing with a particular point, and I want to get the facts right. I was perfectly aware of the difference between expropriation and sequestration. The case I have given him—and I believe the facts to be accurate—show that in two years the assets of the business have been dissipated. I venture to think that, from what I have heard through various sources, that is probably true about others. The noble Viscount brushes that point aside, but in point of fact the assets have disappeared: instead of a credit balance, there is a debit balance, an overdraft, of £49,000. That is what I am asking the noble Viscount to deal with, and I should be grateful if he would.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

Nobody is brushing anything aside. The noble Lord has never said, and I do not know, whether this business is alleged to have been nationalised or sequestrated. But on the assumption that it was sequestrated, clearly it is possible for assets to be dissipated, in which case, if they are dissipated as a result of bad management, we are putting forward a claim for compensation. But I have to point out that, speaking in the broad—and we cannot go on discussing individual cases indefinitely—a great number of these assets have either not been dissipated or are not capable of dissipation. Twenty per cent. represents bank balances, some of which are certainly in existence, amounting to millions of pounds, and 20 per cent. represents land and buildings.

I must make this clear. My noble friend says—and I quite accept it—that he understands the difference between sequestration and expropriation. None the less, I think he missed the point of the argument, because he allowed himself to say that the property had all been expropriated, which is not accurate. Moreover, the fact that this large amount of property exists, some of it at any rate in a state to be handed back, is precisely one of the factors one has to take into account in considering what to do.

LORD JESSEL

May I interrupt the noble Viscount? How can he say that bank balances are not capable of being dissipated? I know of a case where a company started with a bank balance which has all been dissipated.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

I am afraid that I must have spoken indistinctly, because I said they could be dissipated, though I quoted other things which cannot be. I must apologise for not having said it more clearly. The noble Lord is behind me, and perhaps my voice is not carrying as I was trying to make it do. None the less, we should be doing exactly what I regard as irresponsible and wrong if we either paid out the claimants and took over the claims, or paid out the claimants by satisfying them, in whole or in part, out of the blocked Egyptian balances, which some noble Lords have suggested from time to time. By doing the latter, we should be slamming the door, because the Egyptian sterling balances no more belong to us than the sequestrated property belongs to the Egyptians. We should at the same time be undermining confidence in ourselves as bankers.

Moreover, we should, if we were to take the proceeds of the sterling balances, be betraying the interests of a large class of claimants who are not refugees at all. By taking the other course we should be doing the same thing de facto, because we should be rendering it impossible for the present series of negotiations to continue on their present basis—and that at a time when we do not believe that it is at all out of the question for them to succeed, and when I believe that, on the whole, most people in this House would desire to see them succeed. Moreover, these negotiations are based from one point of view entirely on the separability of individual claims from public claims.

Whilst all this is still unsettled, I would have said, quite sincerely—and again I believe that the House will agree with me on this—that we must cast about for a reasonable and just course of action which is not designed to prejudice the normalisation of relations with Egypt or the ultimate claims of the refugees themselves. This must lead us to look at hardship and again to make loans against claims of assets. This is in fact what we have done, and as I understood it, although I may be wrong, this is exactly what, on March 28. 1957, the noble Lord, Lord Killearn, asked should be done; and I would now wish to discuss with your Lordships the criticisms which are made of it. I am not prepared to admit that in principle, in this conjunction of events, the practice of granting loans was a wrong one, since it was the only way we could find of assisting the refugees which did not at the same time prejudice either the claims or the existence of the negotiations. I am not prepared to admit that the time has yet come for a permanent solution, for to do so would be to abandon hope of very many important advantages which might be obtained. I say this after having carefully studied the state of play in the matter of negotiations.

Here, perhaps it would be fair, if the House would bear with me, if I read out an answer given in another place by the Foreign Secretary this afternoon, because I think it bears on what I am saying. I do not know that it carries it much further, but I think I should, in order to be accurate, refer to it. It was in reply to a Question asking him to make a statement regarding progress towards resumption of diplomatic relations with Egypt. My right honourable friend said: I had a long discussion with the Foreign Minister of the United Arab Republic in New York during the Special Assembly of the United Nations in August. As a result of that we agreed to a speedy resumption of the financial negotiations. There were further discussions in Rome in September which unfortunately did not result in progress. I am considering what can he done to resume the talks with some prospect of a satisfactory solution, but I have nothing further to say publicly at this stage. Noble Lords are, of course, perfectly at liberty to criticise our decision to advance loans, or to make any other criticism on the actual form which the scheme has taken; but since this is the first opportunity I have had since the announcement of the scheme over a year ago to describe it in detail, in answer to some of the criticisms which have been made, I hope that noble Lords on both sides will be extremely slow to make up their minds until they have heard the other side of the case. I do not complain of pressure from noble Lords to increase the scheme. That is what Parliament is for. But I do not regard noble Lords and the Government as being on different sides in this particular matter, and although it may be that we view matters from different points of view—and, indeed, our responsibilities are different, which makes it inevitable that we should do so—I believe that in fact we have the same objects at heart.

No one who knows my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer could conceivably suggest that he was an inhumane or ungenerous man. I hope, though it is not for me to judge, that I am neither inhumane nor ungenerous myself. The fact of the matter is that we have been anxious from the first to do what we could properly do. It may be that we have not had to concern ourselves so much with the plight of the minority of the refugees, as some noble Lords have done. Our concern has had to be equally with those who have had no assets and those who have had only a few. It should not be forgotten that, quite apart from the loans scheme, we have spent £3 million on this group of between 7,000 and 8.000 people, of whom the majority had no tangible assets at all. At the risk of repetition, I draw your Lordships' attention again to the fact that, after the first teething troubles, there has been very little criticism of our treatment of the majority.

I turn back from the assets to the refugees who owned them. I repeat that of the 7,000 to 8,000 refugees we are concerned with not more than about one-third, or about 2,600. More than half of these, about 1,460, had reckonable assets of £2,000 or less. May I say in passing, in reply to my noble friend, that we do not want to get involved in a mass of detail, because I say here and now that any detailed criticisms which have been made will be reported to my right honourable friend, and we can consider them. But I do not think that the criticism that some assets do not reckon for loans at all is quite so solid as my noble friend appeared to think. I do not think that sundry debtors of a business in Egypt or bills receivable by a business in Egypt stand in quite the same position as plant and machinery. Obviously, we must consider these matters of detail. He said that in the one business of which he gave details the debtors had been increased beyond all measure—we do not know their value—and the bills receivable had apparently been dissipated.

In respect of tangible assets of £2,000 or less, the claimants have been paid by way of loan, on their own unverified word, at the rate of no less than 70 per cent. of the amount claimed. No interest has been charged, and it has been expressly stated that no return of the loan will be asked for until something is forthcoming from the Egyptian Government. All these claims are unverified; all of them were expressed in Egyptian pounds or in kind. They included claims at the owners' valuation in respect of furniture, personal effects, vehicles, boats and livestock. I say frankly that I cannot recall any previous instance where public money has been paid out on this scale on the basis of unverified valuation in a foreign currency in respect of matters such as those. I do not call this, and I do not believe the House will call it either, ungenerous or niggardly; and I must say that since the loans scheme has been initiated nobody has put forward a considered suggestion that we could safely have allowed ourselves to advance public money on a much bigger scale.

The original scheme put forward by the Anglo-Egyptian Aid Society itself provided for 80 per cent., which is only a little more, but provided that the claims should first be verified by an impartial body. Since these individual claims are so relatively small, even an increase in the percentage granted would mean no more than a small cash grant, which would make no ultimate difference whatever, however welcome it might be, to the wellbeing of the individual concerned. Yet these claimants amount to no fewer than 1,460, out of a total of 2,600, leaving a group of only 1,160 out of 7,000 persons, or between one in six and one in seven, about whom complaint is now made.

That is the size of the whole problem we are really discussing, or at any rate which my noble friend appeared to be discussing, this afternoon. May I say at once, and absolutely unequivocally, that of course the size of the problem is no measure of its importance. Of course, if this small group of people have, in fact, been the subject of niggardliness, of lack of generosity or of injustice on the part of the Government, it is right for Parliament to insist on a recognition of their claims. It is also right for Parliament, if it be so minded, to say that the fact that they are few in number might make it easier, and not more difficult, for the Treasury to be generous. I would not suggest the contrary. But when we are discussing the somewhat intemperate language which has sometimes been used about these claims, I think it is right that the Government should remind the House that six-sevenths of the problem has been dealt with in a way which has given rise to remarkably little criticism.

I therefore turn to the remaining one-seventh, about 1,160 cases. I am not admitting that there is any legitimate complaint even about them, although of course I will report to my right honourable friend all the criticisms which have been made and ask him to review the situation in the light of those criticisms. Of the 1,160 cases which I have not so far dealt with, 540 are between the £2,000 and £5,000 mark. None of them has received less than £1,500 to date in respect of the loans scheme, alone, apart from what they may have received as resettlement grants from the Anglo-Egyptian Resettlement Board by way of absolute payment. Those with £3,000 and upwards have received £2,000. None of them will have received, by the time the extension I announced the other day has been implemented—less than £1,500, and those with £4,000 and over will have received £2,500.

I personally do not call this particularly ungenerous treatment, in the context which I have been trying to describe. Owing to the fact that these loans go up in steps some of them will have received better treatment even than those with £2,000 and under. Nobody will have received less than half his claim, and all the points which I made in relation to the smaller claims apply equally here, although, of course, the risk to public funds of treating unverified claims in this way is very much greater in any one case.

There remain 620 people or thereabouts with reckonable assets of £5,000 and over of whom 200 have registered £20,000 and over. I should remark at this stage that not by any means all of those who have made claims on the loans are without assets in this country. Some of them are very well off indeed. Moreover, it is true that some of the claims are very large indeed. Out of the 620 individual cases of £5,000 and over, no fewer than 16 form part of a single family unit whose aggregate claims amount to a figure of between £10 million and £20 million—about £1 million each. This single unit has already received £80,000 out of the loans scheme, and will be entitled to receive another £80,000 out of the extension recently announced.

When my noble friend says unequivocally that the time has come to recognise an absolute claim for compensation, which has, as I have pointed out before, not a necessary relationship to hardship at all but is a claim to compensation for assets lost, I should like to inquire what exactly it is that noble Lords are asking us to do to-day. Is it that we should spend between £10 million and £20 million of public money, free of tax, as compensation to a single family? I do not wish to utter one breath of criticism against this single family. I am not going to say that there is the smallest breath of criticism to be uttered against a family that has done so well in the world. But are we really asked to spend money by way of compensation in this way? If we are, I should like to know. I think I am entitled to a constructive answer.

However that may be, because that was an exceptional case, let us look at some of the remaining cases. Not one single person in the group which I am discussing, those with £5,000 or over, has received less than £2,700 under the scheme announced over a year ago. Those with £20,000 and over—remember, this is what they claim—

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Viscount? Does he suggest that these people are making false claims? Because that is the implication.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

I certainly neither implied nor intended to imply or suggest it in any way. I only said that this is what they have received in respect of a claim. The noble Marquess is, I think, being unnecessarily critical here. These claims are made in relation to assets at present in Egypt which cannot, in the nature of things, be verified. We all know that if we were claiming a sum of money for a motor car we had lost in those circumstances, we should quite honestly put it down. But public money cannot be paid in full on a claim of that kind, and I am entitled to say that of those who have claimed £5,000 and over nobody at all has received less than £2,700 under the existing scheme, and those with £20,000 and over have received £5,000 on their unverified claims. Under the extension none of them will receive less than £3,200 and the top class will have received £10,000. I do not myself regard such payments as niggardly or ungenerous.

Here, may I again say that I have repeatedly asked noble Lords since I have been handling this question to give me particulars of hard cases. I do so again. In the summer of 1957 I was receiving a regular stream of them—not in excessive numbers, but I was receiving them, and each one was looked into with the greatest care. Some of them I was able to bring within the existing scheme. Some of them I recognised as forming the basis of an extension or modification of the existing scheme. All I tried to help. But I am bound to tell noble Lords that I can recall off-hand only two hard cases of this kind that I have had since the summer of 1957. They came in by way of my noble friend Lord Middleton.

The House will remember that in July we were discussing this subject and the noble Lord, Lord Middleton, asked me whether I was aware that some of the persons concerned had been compelled to seek public assistance. I told him I was not, and that I would be anxious to receive particulars of any cases where that had happened. He sent me two cases. I do not think it was strictly true that they were cases for public assistance, but it so happened that they were both cases where the claimants' assets had been in a business. It is exactly that sort of case which is so helpful, because I was then able to use it as an illustration of the point that business assets ought to be included; and, so far as I know, both of them are covered by the extension which has now been announced. But I must add this. In August the Anglo-Egyptian Aid Society made the suggestion that some of these persons were compelled to seek public assistance. Immediately they were asked for particulars. They have been reminded of that request, but they have not responded to it, and really I must say—

LORD LLOYD

My Lords, is the noble Viscount talking about the Anglo-Egyptian Aid Society or the British Chambers of Commerce in Egypt? We ought to he clear on that.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

The information which I have received indicates the former. But if it is mistaken I would gladly correct it for the latter. The information I have is the former and that is what I said. I should like to make it clear that the fact that we have now announced an extension on this scale does not mean that we shall close our eyes to further hardship, further hard cases or further consideration. I must say that I am not satisfied that we are on the wrong lines as my noble friend suggests.

Let me take the individual case to which I referred some time ago, which is one in which I know my noble friend is personally interested. Again, I do not mention names because I am sure that it is right not to do so. It is the case of a couple who in less than the two years since their arrival have already received £5,880, of which £1,800 has been by way of maintenance and free grant under the resettlement scheme; the remainder has been under the loan scheme—£4,000 or thereabouts. Their total capital in Egypt, or the total claim which they registered, was just over £10,000. Under the extension which I have already announced they will have received about £7,000 out of £10,000. I am not prepared to admit that this is altogether ungenerous treatment as a payment in less than two years.

I know that my noble friend says that if they had been given £10,000 at once in exchange for the Egyptian assets they could have lived on the income of that capital; but, frankly, that is wholly unrealistic. If they were to have spent about £7,000 in two years, which is, so far as I can judge, the situation, including £1,800 of resettlement money, it is evident that they were living at a rate which they certainly could not have got from any income which could have been yielded by £10,000. I am not in the least suggesting that they were spending money improperly. Again, if the noble Marquess suggests that I am uttering a breath of criticism against these people, I indignantly repudiate the suggestion. But it is wholly unrealistic to suggest that had they been given the whole of this claim on the day they landed, it would have yielded an income on which they could spend anything like £7,000.

LORD DERWENT

My Lords, in the particular case that my noble friend is talking about, did they spend that money as income or was some of it capital investment?

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

I cannot say what they have spent; I can only say what they have received.

LORD DERWENT

It makes a difference.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

The proposition which I am putting forward is this. My noble friend spoke as if at some stage they ought to have got their £10,000 of capital in order to allow them to live, as he put it, for the rest of their lives on the investment income. That is the proposition. I am only pointing out that they have received £7,000 which will not be asked for until money is available from the Egyptians in respect of that claim, and it cannot be pretended that if that money was spent over two years it could have been derived from any income which would have been yielded by the capital sum of £10,000. I hope that that is plain. They would have had to dip heavily into their capital in any event, and, in the meantime, I must remind my noble friend, the income on their capital has, one hopes, been accumulating in Cairo and we are trying to get it from the Egyptians—who do not repudiate their liability to account for it.

Let no one suppose that I am speaking of this couple or any other people disrespectfully. I know what they have suffered. I also know the difficulties with which Her Majesty's Government have had to contend. I do not believe that any other class of refugees at any time in our history has been more generously treated than these; but I will not to-day reject out of hand any single criticism that is made. On the contrary, we are anxious for criticism, provided it is constructive criticism.

By the time this extension is in force we shall have dispensed upwards of £10 million on upwards of 7,000 people—£3 million on resettlement, £4 million on the original loans scheme and £3 million more on the extension. I recognise that since I announced the extension in July there has been a considerable delay, but I would say to your Lordships that the reason for that delay is not at all discreditable to Her Majesty's Government. When I made my announcement in July I had reason to hope for an early settlement, and it was in that atmosphere that the discussions were then held. When I returned from Canada in September I immediately resumed my work on this problem, and it seemed to me and my colleagues that as the prospects of a speedy termination to the negotiations were by then less favourable it would be legitimate for Her Majesty's Government to increase the scale of the extension.

The result has been that the limited extension which I promised in July has turned into an extension of 75 per cent. on the whole scheme. Obviously with my right honourable friends at Montreal, Delhi and elsewhere, and also concerned legitimately with other public matters, it was difficult to have the necessary consultations. But I do not think that in the circumstances we wasted any time or failed to consult the parties. I must say I cannot understand the criticism which has been made of the discussions with the parties. If I did, I should be disposed to suggest to your Lordships in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Killearn, that the proof of this particular pudding is in the eating. If the scheme itself is defective in any respect, by all means let it be criticised for its defects; but if it is reasonable, as I have tried to show it is, I should have thought that criticism of the method of discussion was a work of supererogation. But I cannot accept the criticism of the discussion.

In seeking to meet people with financial claims, as the Treasury have to do every day of the week, a long convention has grown up that the Treasury seek to ascertain from them what those claims are and how their grievances are expressed, both in kind and direction, since the Treasury properly wish to use public money to the best advantage and where it will be most appreciated. In dispensing public money there has never been a practice whereby the Treasury enter into a treaty with those who are to receive it; nor has any Treasury official the authority which only a Minister can have in promising disbursement of money. This is the place where schemes have to be announced and that is something for which the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Her Majesty's Government must take responsibility.

We found the discussions extremely valuable to us. We believe that they were in the interests of those whom we seek to serve and in particular of those who were expelled from Egypt. But they could not have taken place at all had we thought that in order to give them reality we were bound to carry with us the agreement on figures of those who were making the claims upon us.

LORD LLOYD

My Lords, the noble and learned Viscount really must not misrepresent what was said. I have never said that in this House. The noble and learned Viscount has already once misrepresented me. I was careful in what I said. I never claimed that Her Majesty's Government should have sought to agree with these people on the figures. I said that it would be advantageous had they had the courtesy to show what was proposed and to invite comments.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

My Lords, that is exactly what I was saying—that on the whole it was not desirable. What was desirable was to find out where the shoe pinched; and five separate discussions were held with four or five separate organisations. Their view on the question of where they felt the scheme was inadequate was most earnestly solicited, and if my noble friend will do me the courtesy to look at the extension of the scheme I think he will find that almost every legitimate point has been met. It really is not the case that when the Treasury enter into discussions with those claiming money it is their obligation to put to them detailed propositions, with figures, before the discussions can be fruitful or valuable. Nor, had that been the intention, could the discussions have been held at all. I certainly did not intend to misrepresent my noble friend and, so far as I know, I did not do so—certainly not willingly. Certainly those who were in the discussions with us were always eager—and have always been eager—to point out that they have not the right to enter into any such negotiations since they could not, even collectively, represent the whole body of claimants. Their views were of value and were sought, and I believe we have gone a very long way to meet them.

Now I turn to the future. I must say I regret some of the isolated quotations made from time to time, and though I am anxious in no way to misrepresent my noble friend I thought that in the earlier part of his speech it was suggested that Her Majesty's Government do not recognise any obligation to claimants. If such quotations are made they are used out of context. Your Lordships have never heard me say anything of the kind, nor, I think, would any of my colleagues have done so in context. What we have refused to do is to undertake, in advance, to compensate claimants for losses which are not yet fully ascertained in respect of obligations of the Egyptian Government which the Egyptian authorities not only do not repudiate but have accepted in every negotiation we have had with them.

VISCOUNT STANSGATE

My Lords, the noble and learned Viscount is basing his whole case on the fact that it will all be settled up by Colonel Nasser in the end. Can he tell us, on his heart, what amount of money he thinks Colonel Nasser will hand out in compensation for our invasion of Egypt?

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

My Lords, I do not think I should be pressed to do so. We have been negotiating and I should not be taxed on figures, for, if so, with all respect to the noble Viscount, I must decline to answer. What I have said is that we cannot undertake in advance to compensate claimants for losses which are not yet fully ascertained in respect of obligations of the Egyptian Government which the Egyptian authorities not only do not repudiate but have accepted in every negotiation we have had them. That is true. We have also refused to accept in principle either of two general propositions which I venture to think no responsible Government can accept. We cannot accept the view that if an expedition has among its objects the protection of British lives and property, that automatically puts upon the British Government an obligation to compensate out of the Consolidated Fund, from the moneys of the taxpayer, anyone who can show that their property was not in fact protected.

LORD KILLEARN

My Lords, is that regardless of the conditions in which the expedition takes place?

VISCOUNT STANSGATE

Hear, hear!

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

My Lords, I have said that we cannot accept the view that the mere circumstance that an expedition has among its objects the protection of British lives and property automatically puts upon the British Government an obligation to compensate out of the Consolidated Fund anyone who can show that their property was not in fact protected.

VISCOUNT STANSGATE

My Lords, even if a British shop was bombed at Port Said we should not pay for it?

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

My Lords, I did not say that, and the noble Viscount must not put words into my mouth. Nor, with due respect to the noble Marquess, who I know holds strong views in the matter, which I am sure he knows I respect and to which I give that great weight which we all attach to anything he says, do we accept the general proposition that every time an act of British policy, directly or indirectly, as a result of the violence or lawlessness of a foreign Power, leads to loss on the part of British subjects, there automatically arises a financial obligation on the British taxpayer to make good those losses, whatever happens.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

My Lords, I understand that the noble and learned Viscount is suggesting that all this arose from the nationalisation of the Suez Canal by Colonel Nasser and that that was a lawless act. In fact it did not arise from that. This action we took in going into Egypt was on our own initiative and that is why we feel that this particular case is sui generis.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

I hope that I am not in any way being impatient with the noble Marquess, but I really said not a word about nationalisation of the Suez Canal, nor did I intend a word about nationalisation of the Suez Canal. I am saying that for reasons which I have given, I do not think this is the appropriate moment to discuss the ultimate responsibility in this matter. What I said was (and if the noble Lord will look at it in Hansard he will see my words, and I shall be astonished if the noble Marquess, on reflection, would desire to say the contrary) that we should not accept the general proposition that every time an act of British policy, directly or indirectly, as a result of the violence or lawlessness of a foreign Power, leads to loss on the part of British subjects there automatically arises a financial obligation on the taxpayer.

LORD KILLEARN

My Lords, that is not what we claim at all. We claim that it is sui generis. We are not challenging the general principle; we say that this is quite a special case, as indeed it was.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

I am not prepared to agree that it is wholly special, but it may be that there is less between us than appears, and I was about to make that very point. Between that extreme proposition, which we reject, and repudiation of all obligations, which we have never done, there is obviously an immense field for discussion—and, I should have said, for friendly discussion. All I say is that some of that may be premature, and that, at this stage, some is better held in private than in public. I do not believe that the facts I have outlined this afternoon show any want of generosity. Whether expenditure of £10 million of money is the end or whether it is not must depend on what we get from the Egyptian Government, and when. I know that it must be very hard—

LORD KILLEARN

My Lords, is the noble Viscount really contending that until the end of time he is going to shelter behind Nasser—I use that word, which is less offensive than the word I have in mind.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord will never use an offensive word in this House. I should have thought that what he put into my mouth is the opposite of what I said. I know that it is very hard for those who have enjoyed much better times to view these matters calmly; I do not even ask that they should. But I hope I am entitled to ask noble Lords to study carefully what I have said before they condemn the Government's policy. I should have thought they would have wanted to consider it. I promise to think about any constructive criticisms made during this afternoon's discussion, and I shall take them back to my right honourable friend and ask him to consider them. In the meantime, I await these arguments, and I can only apologise for the length of time in which this factual statement has led me to indulge.

4.53 p.m.

LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE

My Lords, I am sure that we are grateful to the noble Viscount the Lord President for his full deployment of the Government's case, which I regret I found wholly unconvincing, on the Motion moved by my noble friend Lord Lloyd. The Motion is drawn in general terms, and the Lord President chose, as indeed is his right, to devote a considerable portion of his speech to two-thirds of the British nationals expelled from Egypt who had no assets and who, he claims, have been most generously treated. The previous debates have been concentrated rather upon the case of the British nationals who have been deprived of their livelihood and their possessions, and I propose to devote a few remarks to that particular aspect. If I traverse a few points which were covered by my noble friend Lord Lloyd, and which will no doubt be covered by other noble Lords, it is because I find, in the light of experience, that it never hurts to put the same points three times to any Government in order to make much impression.

Of course, the new scheme announced by the Lord President on October 28 is an improvement on the old, in the form of ex gratia loans. But I would venture to submit that the improved scheme would probably never have seen the light of day had it not been for Parliamentary pressure here and in another place. To me, no scheme of ex gratia loans can be acceptable, on grounds both of practice and of principle, in spite of what the Lord President has said to-day. I shall, in a few moments give my five reasons why the practice is unacceptable. It means that the Government are, in fact, forcing the victims to use the capital for current living. It is no good saying that a man has £7,000 and therefore he is living for two years at the rate of £3,500. That really is not worthy as an argument of the Lord President.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

I did not make it.

LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE:

I beg the noble Viscount's pardon.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

My Lords, I said that I did not make it. What I was saying was that it was wholly unrealistic to suppose that if such a man had been paid £10,000 on the day he landed in this country he could have lived on an income at the rate at which he had in fact received money; and that it was absolutely unrealistic to talk in terms of the entire capital being handed over and not being dipped into at all. My point was that it would have to be dipped into.

LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE

My Lords, a large proportion of the capital is probably spent in providing a roof for himself and his family, and that takes a large "bite". You are making the man use an ex gratia loan for his living expenses, be they capital expenditure or on what I would call the monthly house-books. That is wrong. If and when any assets are ever received back in compensation by the man, he will have to repay that particular loan.

The second reason I would submit why the practice of ex gratia loans is quite unacceptable is this. The loan assumes hope of recovery of the security upon which that loan is made. Here I come to what I might term as the glorious optimism of the Lord President in his expectation that in the not distant future everything is going to be quite all right with Colonel Nasser. I was very careful to take down certain of the Lord President's most unconvincing sentences. He regretted that Egypt has not acted according to International Law and returned the property. He was surprised at the delay in doing this by Colonel Nasser. Really! I think he must be about the only noble Lord in this House, apart from perhaps a few very exceptional ones, who has that surprise. He still hopes for normal relations with Egypt. But we all hope for a lot of things we know we are not likely to obtain. He says that in this delay it behoves us all, including the British victims, to display patience. We are, I believe, comparatively fortunate in this House. We are not like these people who have seen the whole of their lives changed, and it is not for us to tell these people to exercise patience. It is rather for us to exercise all the energies and efforts we can to help them.

He said he would condemn Egyptianisation—

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

My Lords, I did not say that. I said that I would not characterise it, and that I must not be taken to endorse its legality or morality.

LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE

My Lords, we will look in Hansard to see what the Lord President said. I took down the words, but I must say at once that I took them down wrongly—my pencil skidded over the paper wrongly. It was said the Egyptians have never denied liability. I really was shocked—I repeat, shocked—at the sort of optimism of the Minister that Colonel Nasser was going to come and "play ball" with us, because in fact I believe that Colonel Nasser has now gone to the Left and, to a large degree, has gone to the Kremlin for his financial assistance. I would also venture the view that Colonel Nasser dare not come to any settlement with us in view of his position with the rest of the more militant Arab national movements

The third reason is that the loan postulates a settlement with the debtors. That is now, I believe, further off than ever, and I do not think that that is a hope which these people should be made to accept. The Rome talks, as was said, broke down in February, and so far as I know there is no immediate sign of any renewal.

The fourth reason is that our past patience has been based on the twin pleas that we must not embarrass the hopeful position with Nasser and we must not press Her Majesty's Government to acknowledge direct obligation to the refugees, because it would weaken Her Majesty's Government's position in current negotiations. These twin arguments are really dead, because what we all hoped, and what the Government hoped, was a temporary position has now become a permanent robbery of British nationals—nothing more and nothing less.

My Lords, there is a fifth, and final, reason why their practice of making ex gratia loans is wrong. The Government are offering ex gratia loans. Thus the money does not become the property of the people; it becomes their own only when certain circumstances which are not likely to come about do come about. I submit that to these nationals the Government should not offer ex gratia loans but, I believe, justice—and here we come straight into conflict with the principle which the Minister has said the Government must stand by. I believe that we now have to leave expediency and get back to face this principle: whether the Government finally accept responsibility for the conditions of these people and their right to compensation for their losses.

The noble Viscount said, of course, that the Government have never denied responsibility. I must say there has been some confusion on this point. I was looking up the statement of the Minister of State in another place, and he said: We do not accept responsibility for this loss. It was the result of the action by the Egyptian Government and not Her Majesty's Government. That is one extreme view: one positive view. There is, of course, the other view, that of the Prime Minister, who said: We fully realise our responsibility and the urgency of the matter for all concerned. That was the Prime Minister speaking, on May 15. I think that we ordinary private Members are quite entitled to have some doubts as to the degree of responsibility which is accepted when we receive two completely opposite statements like that. But, as I have said, we have got to get back to this principle. If the noble Lord looks up the previous debate he will see that on July 16 some noble Lords, including myself, said that we were not debating it that day but that we might have to come back to it, and we have now come back to it.

The Government say that they cannot be responsible for losses to British nationals abroad brought about by the results of war. That sums up the matter in a sentence. That view is, of course, tenaciously held by the Treasury. They fear that if that rule were breached there would be all sorts of repercussions—Malaya, Hong Kong, the citizens who were affected in this war by the bombing, and their claims to compensation for assets. I see all those difficulties confronting the Treasury. They fear that, if this bastion were once breached, all the claimants would try to rush the opening, as it were, and would register their claims. But I say, as my noble friend Lord Salisbury has said, that none of this really applies here. World War I was started because Germany invaded Belgium. World War II was started when Hitler overran Poland. The seizures in the Far East and Malaya have been a result of direct Communist aggression. Our Suez action was deliberate. I am glad that we did it. With most other noble Lords in this House, I supported the policies then, and I still do—though I know that others may not.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

I am anxious not to intervene too much, but the noble Lord will agree that I usually give way myself.

LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE

Certainly.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

In point of fact, World War I was started because we declared war on Germany, and that is why our nationals lost their money. World War II was started because we declared war on Germany, and that is why our nationals suffered.

LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE

Yes. With respect, that could be argued, and perhaps my noble friend Lord Salisbury will deal with that. Let us stick to what happened at Suez. The fact is that we took action at Suez in order to protect the lives and property of British nationals and to prevent the spread of the Israeli-Egyptian war in the Middle East. To me, it would be a peculiar anomaly if the protection of the lives and property of British citizens was in fact to be at the cost of depriving those British citizens of their lives and property. That is a very serious contradiction.

My Lords, the argument on admission by Her Majesty's Government is, I believe, one which we must face up to. But, of course, the fact that the principle is admitted does not mean that the Government must pay everybody out at once 100 per cent. The noble Viscount took my noble friend Lord Lloyd rather to task when he quoted individual cases. He said that we must not deal with individual cases. The noble Viscount then dealt with about four individual cases himself, including a family which is supposed to have had £80,000 and which might have another £80,000. That seems to me a peculiar instance of arguing from the particular to the general—a practice which the noble Viscount himself had condemned in Lord Lloyd not a quarter of an hour before.

Once someone is declared responsible for debts it does not necessarily mean that all the debtors will be paid in full. What it means is that the responsibility has been admitted; then such resources as are available are distributed fairly and evenly. Of course, there are big firms like I.C.I. and Shell who have large claims, but one could not really put their claims on the same level, even if the principle be admitted—which the Minister denies—as the claims of the individuals, because the Shell business and the I.C.I. business did not depend entirely upon its Egyptian branches. It was only part of a general picture, where, as regards the British nationals, the whole of their livelihood and the whole of their assets were contained in Egypt. I hope the Minister will accept that some of us take the view that if you admit the principle you do not automatically admit the need to pay 100 per cent., which is one of the strongest grounds upon which he asked us to reject that principle.

I do not want to detain your Lordships any longer. I have tried to show very briefly how, in practice, ex gratia loans are not just or right, and I have tried to advance some arguments against Treasury robustness. This is something much bigger than the Treasury. It is a debt of honour by the Government to the men who have worked hard and contributed to our overseas wealth, and who are now suffering as a result of Her Majesty's Government's correct policy. I would appeal to the Government not to be so resistant to accepting this principle in each individual case. We are not ungrateful for too little given too slowly—not at all.

There are two blots, I think (and I speak now as a Government supporter), upon the Government's admirable work in the country. One of those blots is in the course of being removed—I refer to the injustice of the confiscation of private property, the robbery of owners of private property, which was taken over by the central or the local government. That matter is now being put right. The second blot is this treatment of British nationals who were in Egypt. I would appeal to the Government to think again on this matter. It has a much wider moral aspect than even that of giving the immediate help to those who we feel are entitled to it. Something of this Government's integrity of purpose and integrity of conduct is, I believe, bound up in this question. Far more than money stands on this question, and I hope that before the end of this debate the Government will have thought again and will be more resilient than the speech by the Lord President to which we have listened would suggest.

5.9 p.m.

LORD JEFFREYS

My Lords, the position is that British subjects have been both expelled from Egypt and have been robbed (I do not use any other word but "robbed") of all their possessions. I would say, incidentally, that our country, or individuals in it, helped the Hungarians when they were in trouble, but there has been nothing of the kind in the way of helping British subjects in Egypt. The claims against the Egyptian Government must be enforced, and, I would say, must be strongly enforced; but I admit that there is a question as to how they are to be enforced so long as we admit the authority of the United Nations.

This affects not only businessmen, but also pensioners of the Egyptian Government, ex-officials, ex-policemen and employees of the Suez Canal Company. Any Egyptian Government assets in this country should be detained for use to compensate these people. It has always been the boast of this country that British assets abroad are safe even in the case of war, and in this case Her Majesty's Government should recognise that a very definite obligation rests on them to compensate these people for what they have lost. We ourselves have preserved foreign assets in this country in war time. Is it no longer the case that British interests, British property and British persons are safe abroad in any circumstances? We ought to preserve British lives and property as always. I would say—and I realise that this is a controversial thing to say—that Egypt is not a civilised country. It has not been a civilised country since very ancient times. It was in those days.

VISCOUNT STANSGATE

My Lords, to which dynasty is the noble and gallant Lord referring when he says that the Egyptians were at one time civilised?

LORD JEFFREYS

They have robbed and expelled British subjects. Egypt would not have dared to do so except under the protection of the United Nations. The Government have made grants of £100,000 through the Anglo-Egyptian Aid Society, and so far, I would almost say, so good. They have set up a new Anglo-Egyptian Resettlement Board. But very much heavier spending is necessary to give these British subjects a fresh start, and some of them are too old to make a fresh start.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

My Lords, the noble and gallant Lord used the phrase "£100,000" no doubt by inadvertence. The figure, in fact, is £10 million—£7 million already spent and £10 million when the present scheme is fully in effect.

LORD JEFFREYS

My Lords, I can only say that I am very glad to hear from my noble friend that that is the case. The need of these unfortunate British subjects is urgent. In many cases they have little more than what they stand up in. Some time ago we froze, as the expression is, more than £100 million left from the £400 million of so-called war debt, a debt incurred in paying Egypt, who in fact was making vast sums out of the British occupational troops. That debt arose through unnecessary consideration by us; but of it £100 million is available and should be used to compensate some of these expelled Britons.

Prestige is a great thing in the East, and our name is "mud" in the Middle East at present. There is no question about it. It should be made clear to Egypt and to Nasser that it does not pay to be hostile to this country, whether as regards trade, finance or revenue. Success means everything in the East, far more than right or wrong and far more than justice or injustice. There is no question about that, I think, to anybody who knows the East. The Egyptian Government are not a legitimate Government; they are a revolutionary Government. There are many disadvantages and no advantages from membership of the United Nations, which includes many semi-civilised States and which, I would say, is quite discredited in the view of ordinary people. How much, I wonder, would British law be effective if there were no courts, no police and no prisons? No one except Britain takes any notice of the United Nations, if it is inconvenient to do so.

Why should we go on in the United Nations? Because of the United States. The United States are ignorant of the East and they should try to see our point of view and work with us for a change. Had the Suez operation not been started all these dispossessed Britons would still have their homes and assets, so they suffer on account of Government policy and the Government must see that they are not left to suffer at the hands of Egypt. The Government should give the answer that no trade or finance with Nasser or his Government will occur until all claims of loyal, maltreated Britons have been satisfactorily dealt with. The frozen balances should be used for compensation.

Our attitude to Nasser should be hostile, definitely. No frozen sterling should be paid to him or to his Government, but compensation should be paid on these claims. We should act, and act now, and if they do not like our action we should resign from the United Nations. No one except Britain takes any notice of the United Nations. We want to be friends with the United States, but not dependants of the United States, and if they want to be our friends they should try to see our point of view by way of a change. I hope that we shall make a real effort to hurry up with the compensation of these unfortunate Britons who have lost nearly everything they had.

THE EARL OF WOOLTON

My Lords, did I understand my noble friend the Lord President of the Council to say that a sum of £7 million had been given by the Government to the Anglo-Egyptian Aid Society?

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

No, my Lords, not to the Anglo-Egyptian Aid Society. I said that £7 million had been spent on the refugees, £3 million by way of resettlement and £4 million under the scheme announced in July, 1957.

THE EARL OF WOOLTON

I will not trouble my noble friend any more, but it sounded over here as though the money had been given to the Anglo-Egyptian Aid Society.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

My Lords, I did not say that, as the OFFICIAL REPORT will show my noble friend. I have been accused of many strange statements this afternoon but I think that this is almost the strangest.

5.20 p.m.

LORD KILLEARN

My Lords, your Lordships will not be surprised to hear that I rise warmly to support the Motion of my noble friend Lord Lloyd. I want to make that perfectly clear. I do not suppose that there is any doubt about it, but, if there were, that is my principal object in rising this afternoon. While the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Hailsham, was addressing us I took down what I think was almost his first sentence, as to what the policy was. He said it was "to normalise relations with Egypt", and that there had been a good deal of disappointing delay. Did not that let the cat right out of the bag? Of course there has been disappointing delay. Did anybody expect anything else? Negotiating with these people, did you expect to make progress? How are you to normalise relations? I hope that our unfortunate claimants are not going to have their chances prejudiced, or be sacrificed, in this process of normalisation of relations. It seems to me a rather sinister expression, although I may have imputed entirely wrong motives to it.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

My Lords, I should like to reassure the noble Lord about that. So far from being prejudiced in any way, as my noble friend Lord Lloyd said, one of the principal reasons on our side why we have been unable to accept everything which was proposed to us was precisely because we are unwilling to prejudice our nationals and their property. I thought my noble friend Lord Lloyd put that very well.

LORD KILLEARN

I thank the noble Viscount for that explanation, and I am glad that my suspicion has been dissipated. This is not the first time that this matter has been before your Lordships. Yesterday I was trying to make a list of the number of times, and I think that this is the fifth or sixth—certainly the fifth—full debate we have had on the subject. There have been three Government statements at different times and innumerable Parliamentary Questions, the first of which I asked on November 28, 1956. So this matter has certainly been ventilated a number of times. I thought at one moment that the noble and learned Viscount suggested that there had been an absence of Parliamentary Questions at a certain time. I am not sure of the timetable, but it is true that there were moments when we did stop asking Parliamentary Questions; and I will explain why. On several occasions I was asked not to ask Questions because it would prejudice the course of the negotiations in Rome; and, naturally, I complied with that request.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord again, but he must get what I said right. What I was referring to was not the absence of Parliamentary Questions, of which, as your Lordships know, there have been a great number. What I said was that in relation to those who had no assets there had been a remarkable absence of Parliamentary criticism.

LORD KILLEARN

I was not sure of which particular period the noble Viscount was speaking. I am probably wrong.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

Since the beginning.

LORD KILLEARN

I am certainly not going to try to cover the ground all over again; it has been covered ad infinitum. But surely the fact is as plain as a pikestaff that the Government are running out on their moral obligations. We have these doles from time to time, but, as has been argued, and will be argued again, this is a case sui generis; there is no normal precedent for it. We took the initiative, and by taking the initiative we provoked retaliation which fell on our unfortunate people in Egypt. Those facts are incontrovertible. Nasser retaliated, and the victims of our policy were our own unfortunate nationals. You cannot get away from that, however you argue. So three things seem to me to be undoubted: first, as I have suggested before and I suggest again, this is not a Party matter—or rather, I should say it is an all-Party matter; secondly, it is a matter of national honour; and thirdly, nobody can possibly argue that our own unfortunate people in Egypt were in any shape or form responsible for what happened; they were completely innocent.

My next point is that this has been too long-drawn-out. It started in November, 1956, and here we are in November, 1958, two years almost to the day. During that interval, has it not been a rather sorry spectacle to have the British Government sheltering behind Nasser as an excuse for not meeting their obligations? Time after time it has been suggested: "Do not say anything, because you will upset the case." Anybody who has any knowledge of Egypt knew that there was not a hope, and yet time and again we have been told not to upset the talks in Rome. We know what happened. It was, as I have said, a sorry spectacle to see the Government shelter behind Nasser; it was unimpressive, unworthy and unprofitable.

There have been two Government schemes, with an interval of almost precisely a year in between—I think July, 1957, and July, 1958—and both were the result of considerable pressure. If I might use a simile, it was like a dentist extracting molars: they were not willing to come out; they were torn out by the roots—and, if I may say so, they were rotten roots, with a nasty smell about them. Those schemes were insufficient, and, what is more important, unjust. There is no doubt that if we had not pressed, we should not have got even that.

I do not want to take up too much of your Lordships' time, but I have here, chosen at random, two extracts from letters, and possibly three, reflecting the matter of hardship. The first is dated April 15, 1958, from a widow, and says: My own case is a particularly unfortunate one. As a widow, I have left everything I possess in Egypt, have no investments or money here or abroad, and am the sole support of my mother, now in her seventy-fourth year. For the last eighteen months my mother and I have been living on £9 a week relief, granted us by the Anglo-Egyptian Resettlement Board, but as that was insufficient for even our most simple needs, my engagement and wedding rings had to be sold. When at last this additional sum had gone, I accepted the Government loan of £5,000, hoping to invest it in a small home and in the meanwhile find work with which to support my mother and myself. But at the age of forty-eight, with no previous experience of earning a living, all I can find is a job as a saleslady, or as a waitress if I work from 10.30 a.m. in the morning till 11.30 at night, week-ends included. The alternative is to live on my capital of £5,000, which at my age appears a reckless thing to do. I believe the majority of refugees from Egypt are pressing the Government to settle their claims over here. My own is only £27,000. I fear that unless I receive it in full, any safe investment would not bring in an income sufficient to live on without hardship. It saddens me to think that after a life of work and devotion to British interests in Egypt, the worth of which our Government recognised to the extent of awarding my husband with a knighthood, his widow should now be faced with such overwhelming anxiety for the future. That is not a nice letter to receive. As it happens, the second letter is also from a widow and is dated June 29 last. She says: It was two years on the 7th June this year that I left Egypt finally to come and take up residence in this country, having completed all the necessary formalities required of me by the Egyptian Government in order to have my capital transferred to Britain. Due to the events which led up to the Suez crisis and since, I still find myself floundering and haplessly wondering if there are such things as British justice or honour left. Who would ever have thought that with a capital of some £36,000 behind me I should two years later find myself in this desperate state of not knowing what to do or what to think, whether to stay in the hope or go and forgo. I have another letter from a business man, not quite so desperate, but the time being short I will spare your Lordships that.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

My Lords, I hope the noble Lord has in fact advised both these people that they are entitled to £10,000.

LORD KILLEARN

They have both been fully in touch with the British Chamber of Commerce, and I presume all action has been taken.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

I hope the noble Lord has advised them that on those facts they are both entitled to £10,000.

LORD KILLEARN

I think they both know that, but I do not think they particularly want £10,000. Must we really continue with this system of doles?—because that is all it is. I am reminded here of the simile employed by the noble Viscount himself on July 23, when there was a slight divergence of views as to the length of a piece of string. It was he who related the simile of the piece of string as between "substantial" and "limited". May I perhaps suggest that it would not be strange if the claimants, in the light of what we have heard today, should feel that in fact the Government are "stringing them out". I think they would not be surprised at all, because they are being strung out.

To sum up, I have always held, and I hold just as strongly as ever, that a grave injustice has been done. By going on record to-day, this House, the established bulwark of the rights and liberties of the British subject, can, and I hope will, show the public and the world that your Lordships are greatly shocked at the way in which this matter has been handled, and look to Her Majesty's Government to set matters right without further prevarication.

5.34 p.m.

LORD DERWENT

My Lords, I have not spoken in this series of debates before because I had certain doubts. I have had no doubt from the beginning that this country was in honour bound to see that our British nationals in Egypt did not suffer undue loss by the action of the British Government. I do not know whether it would be in order for me, a Back-Bencher, to congratulate the Lord President on a brilliant speech, and it would certainly be out of order, I suppose, if I were to congratulate him on a brilliant Treasury brief. They managed, between them, successfully to get some of us who even know something about this matter pretty confused. But I really think he was going too far (I do not think I am giving the wrong impression) when he conveyed that it was not a question of being morally right or wrong; that the British Government could not accept liability because—and then he made the analogy that in the First World War we declared war on Germany, and in the second war we declared war on Germany.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

My noble friend is wrong. I never mentioned the two wars in my speech at all. I did mention them when my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye gave, to my mind, an inaccurate account—he agreed with me that we would not pursue our differences about it—of the origin of those two wars in the course of his speech. I did correct him on what I thought was a matter of fact, but I expressly drew no analogy about it at all. I did not refer to any of the wars.

LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE

And I expressly did not accept the noble Viscount's intervention.

LORD DERWENT

I thought the noble Viscount said the British nationals suffered in the last war and the first war—I think these were his words—because we had declared war.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

I stand to be corrected, but I am convinced that there were no such words in my speech at all, and that the only reference to the declaration of war that I made at any stage this afternoon was in an attempt, right or wrong—we agreed to differ about that—to correct what I thought was an inaccurate statement of my noble friend. I think that was the only reference that I made at any time in the afternoon to that subject.

LORD DERWENT

I am sorry. I misunderstood the noble Viscount, and I apologise. But, should anyone wish to make that analogy at any time, I want to emphasise that this is a case on its own. This is not a case of action being taken by the British Government in support of a treaty with somebody or other. This is a case where the initiative was taken by the British Government—I think rightly, but that question we are not arguing this afternoon. These British subjects suffered as a direct result of that action, and, whatever the legal position may be—and who am I to argue with the Lord President on the matter, although I am not sure that he has argued the matter at all to-day—there is a clear obligation on this country to see that these people do not suffer too severely.

The reason why I have not spoken before, and the reason why I had doubt in my mind, was that I thought the Government case in the earlier stages of this matter was a strong one; that it might prejudice the negotiations which were then about to take place, and might prejudice their bargaining power. I think that was a perfectly reasonable argument. But after listening to the Lord President to-day, I must say that he has still not convinced me that there is the slightest chance of this particular section of unfortunate people getting anything out of the Egyptian Government, except possibly, in certain cases, their businesses, now worth nothing, thrown back at them. I do not think that that is a matter of which we can wash our hands. Therefore, whatever my noble friend Lord Lloyd decides to do at the end of this debate, I shall support him.

Before I sit down, may I ask the noble and learned Viscount on the Woolsack one question, and perhaps, when he comes to reply he will see fit to deal with two other matters. The question is: Can he say how many times in the Treasury minutes since this subject started, the phrase has been used, "It would create a precedent"?—because one has a feeling throughout that there is Treasury resistance owing to the neurosis they have about precedents. I may be wrong, but that is what it appears to be.

The other two things with which I should like the noble and learned Viscount to deal, if he will, is the question of what can be done, or what he thinks could be done, to prevent the Treasury from forcing these people about whom we are talking to spend their capital as income. Suppose a man was given £5,000 or £10,000, and that these negotiations were long drawn out, but that in five years' time there was a settlement and the man was paid in full. Suppose he got £5,000 the first time, and at the settlement is paid £10,000; if he has to repay the £5,000 first, in fact he gets only £5,000. The first £5,000 he will have spent as income. He will have £5,000 capital left, which will again have to be spent as income. Although he has lost his business, he will have spent his capital as income, and he will have no capital left and will be no better off than when he started. It seems to me that if partial payments are going to be made they should be on a much larger proportion of the claim. I am not talking about 100 per cent, claims, but about this frittering away of money. I know the Treasury do not mind individuals spending capital as income—they do it every time death duties are paid. But it is not good business practice, and I think something should be done to overcome this difficulty.

The other point I hope the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor will deal with is this. There have been rather disturbing reports in the Press that it is proposed to use part of the blocked balances to finance new trade with Egypt. I do not know whether these reports are true, but they have been widespread. If that is done, in my submission it will be both unfair and unwise. It is unfair because the balances are not enough to meet existing claims, and if there is any claim on those balances it should be for those people who had their money or property stolen: it should not be used to further trade with Egypt. It will be unwise because, if Egypt is to be given a new credit now, before the debts or thefts have been settled, she is going to default on any new credit we give her. However, I hope and trust that the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor will be able to tell us that these reports in the Press are untrue.

5.42 p.m.

LORD GIFFORD

My Lords, this is a simple issue and I think it has been put most clearly by the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, and also by other speakers who followed him. My only excuse for intervening to-day is that I think noble Lords will know that I have consistently fought this battle for two years, both by asking questions of my own and in support of the noble Lord, Lord Killearn, and others. I believe I am right in saying that no matter, so far as I can remember during the time I have been in this House, has been the subject of so many Questions and Motions over a comparatively short period. I think there can be only one reason for this: that we, all the Back-Benchers on this side, feel very strongly in this matter that the people we are fighting for have not had a square deal. In fact, if we had not got a good case we should be in danger of contravening Standing Order 29 by making taxing speeches; but we think we have got a good case and that is why we are going on. The noble and learned Viscount, Lord Hailsham, will correct me if I am wrong, but I understood him to say that he thought some of us were fighting this case for political reasons and not on its merits.

VISCOUNT HAILSHAM

The noble Lord said I would correct him if he was wrong, and I think he is wrong.

LORD GIFFORD

That is what I understood him to say, and I assure him that that is not the case.