§ 31. Mr. Teelingasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what are the reasons for the delay in announcing the terms of the Roumanian and Hungarian debt distributions.
§ Mr. Boyd-CarpenterThe drafting of the Treasury directions has not yet been completed. It is being done as quickly as possible.
§ Mr. TeelingDoes my right hon. Friend realise that nobody wants to press the Treasury unnecessarily on this matter, but that it has now gone on for at least two years and that it is two months since the Economic Secretary to the Treasury said that it was only a question of weeks and not months, and only one of legal drafting? Will my right hon. Friend tell us what has gone wrong?
§ Mr. Boyd-CarpenterNothing has gone wrong, and I should have thought that my hon. Friend would appreciate that legal drafting sometimes takes a little time. This, in point of fact, is a complicated matter.
§ Mr. H. MorrisonThe Financial Secretary tells us that nothing has gone wrong. Will he be good enough to tell us what has gone right?
§ Mr. Boyd-CarpenterEverything has gone right except, perhaps, the right hon. Gentleman's supplementary question.
§ Miss HerbisonIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are many ordinary people who have been waiting a very long time for the distribution of these assets? I know one person particularly interested in the Roumanian assets. Time and time again we have been told that they are about to be distributed, but now we are told that there are some legal complications. Surely the time has passed when these debts ought to have been honoured.
§ Mr. Boyd-CarpenterI agree with the hon. Lady that the sooner the payments 1443 can be distributed the better, and that there is a very real demand for it, but we are pushing on with the matter as fast as we can.
§ Mr. Emrys HughesAs far as the Roumanian assets are concerned, could it not be arranged that a football team from Hungary should play a football team from Roumania, and the better people allowed to have the assets?
§ Mr. Boyd-CarpenterThat might be most attractive from the point of view of Entertainments Duty.
§ 32. Mr. Teelingasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how often, during the last six weeks, the legal experts employed by the Treasury to clear up the legal wording of the directive on Roumanian and Hungarian debt distribution, have been transferred to other work; what that work has been; and why they were so transferred.
§ Mr. Boyd-CarpenterNo delay has occurred for the reasons suggested by my hon. Friend; the second and third parts of this Question do not, therefore, arise.
§ Mr. TeelingIs my right hon. Friend aware that for some reason or other, according to my information, the legal officials dealing with this matter have been switched to other matters? Can he really assure the House that every effort is being made to get this matter cleared up and that legal officials are not being switched to other matters because the Treasury may think at the moment that they are more important?
§ Mr. Boyd-CarpenterI can only repeat that no delay has occurred by reason of the legal experts in question being otherwise occupied. I can certainly give my hon. Friend the assurance that we will get on with this as quickly as we can.
§ 33. Mr. Teelingasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many lawyers, outside Government service, have been employed by the Treasury over the past three months on settling the legal points connected with the distribution of Roumanian and Hungarian debt payments; what are their names; and how much they have been employed each month and in the last month, week by week.
§ Mr. Boyd-CarpenterThe answer to the first part of the Question is "None, Sir." The remainder of the Question does not, therefore, arise.
§ Mr. TeelingBefore we finish with this matter, can my right hon. Friend tell us the date on which we are likely to get the matter settled? We were told that it was a question of weeks, and now. apparently it is to be months.
§ Mr. Boyd-CarpenterI have nothing further to add to the three answers I have already given to my hon. Friend.