§ 34. Mr. Haleasked the Secretary of State for War the estimated value of the military institutions in the Suez area taken over by the Egyptian Government; and what was the original cost.
§ Mr. John HareI assume that the hon. Member is referring to the military installations?
§ Mr. HareThe estimated value of those installations which until recently were operated by the Suez Base contractors is about £2 million. Their original cost is not readily available, but it may be roughly estimated at £9 million.
§ Mr. HaleIs the Secretary of State for War aware that the War Office itself made a statement in the Press, in which it estimated the present value at £40 million? How did this statement come to be made? And are we to regard this as a gratuitous addition to Colonel Nasser's heterogeneous collection of international arms; or does he regard it as a supplementation of the tanks, aeroplanes and destroyers with which right hon. Gentlemen opposite, when they were wooing Colonel Nasser, insisted on endowing him, in anticipation of a nuptial settlement?
§ Mr. HareThe hon. Member is mistaken. That is why I particularly asked him if it was to military installations that he referred. My Answer did not include the value of stores held in the installations. That is estimated at a figure of between £40 million and £50 million. I think that that is the figure which the hon. Member had in mind.
§ Mr. HaleBut can the Minister say what kind of stores they are? Why did we leave £40 million worth of stores lying there after the evacuation?
§ Mr. HareThey are munitions, workshop installations and so on, all of which were extremely difficult to move.
§ Mr. StracheyWould not the Minister agree that his Answers to this and the previous Question completely show the total failure of the Government's action in one of its main purposes which, we were told, was to protect British life and British property in the Canal Zone? It has obviously done neither.