CENTRAL TREATY ORGANISATION (IMMUNITIES AND PRIVILEGES) (Hansard, 6 June 1962)

§ The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Peter Thomas)
I beg to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Central Treaty Organisation (Immunities and Privileges) Order 1962 be made in the form of the draft laid before this House on 30th May. This Order is required to enable Her Majesty's Government to ratify the Central Treaty Organisation Status Agreement, which was signed in Ankara on 9th November, 1960. The immunities and privileges that it confers on the organisation and on persons connected with it correspond with those already enjoyed by Western European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. C.E.N.T.O. has its headquarters in Ankara, and it is highly improbable that it will ever establish an agency in this country. The Order has practical application only when the Organisation convenes a conference in the United Kingdom.
Apart from the Secretary-General and the Senior Deputy Secretary-General, 613 both of whom possess normal diplomatic immunity under this Order, Central Treaty Organisation officials would be liable to legal proceedings in respect of all acts performed by them in their private capacities. They would be personally answerable, in just the same way as would any hon. Member of this House, for all misdeeds, such as speeding, parking offences, or more serious crimes, committed outside the sphere of their official duties.
Article 19 of the Status Agreement provides that the Secretary-General and the Government of each contracting State shall together determine how many officials in the particular State concerned shall he entitled to diplomatic privileges and immunities. Following on this, and in accordance with their usual restrictive policy, Her Majesty's Government have stipulated that this number shall not exceed two, and a provision limiting this treatment to the Secretary-General and his senior Deputy Secretary-General in office at the time has been embodied in notes exchanged between Her Majesty's Ambassador in Ankara and the Secretary-General.
National representatives to the Council of the Organisation or to any of its subsidiary bodies would enjoy immunity in respect of their official acts and immunity from detention and arrest while they are in the United Kingdom for the discharge of their duties. In the present instance, this merely means that if another Central Treaty Organisation conference is held here in the future, the representatives of foreign Powers attending it and the qualifying members of their staff will he treated in much the same way as they were during the recent conference by virtue of a provision in the 1950 Act which accords them immunity while they are in this country for the purpose of attending an official meeting.
The position regarding experts employed on missions is wholly favourable to us. No other States normally send such experts here, but United Kingdom citizens go as experts to some of the other Central Treaty Organisation States and would under the Agreement enjoy appropriate immunities.
We now wish to ratify the Central Treaty Organisation Status Agreement and the Order now before the House 614 does no more than confirm our readiness to carry out the commitments which we undertook on signing the Agreement. There are few occasions on which these privileges and immunities are likely to be invoked, and I commend the Order to the House for its approval.

§ Sir Frank Soskice (Newport)
Again, I do not want to take much time in examination of this Order, but I think that the House would feel that a proper discharge of one's duty to the House required that we should consider it for a moment before accepting it. I understand that it follows the usual form, and I and most hon. Members would accept that we cannot do without this type of Order in the modern complicated arrangements of these national agreements.
I did not agree with the Minister when he seemed to imply that it does not matter whether these privileges exist because they axe not likely to be used. I think that most people are concerned with the fact that they exist, and it is only some measure of consolation that they are not in fact generally prayed in aid. The Minister said how many people would be affected by the first section of the Order. I do not know whether he can give any estimate of the number of persons who would enjoy these privileges under Parts II, III and IV. Experts of missions he said would work out in our favour because most of our experts go abroad and not many of those abroad come here. If he can give some general idea as to the number of persons likely to be put in a privileged position by the other parts of the Order, the House would like that information. I certainly do not seek to oppose the Order which, together with the others, seems unavoidable in the present context of international relations.

§ Mr. Marcus Lipton
(Brixton): So many people are entitled to immunities and privileges of various kinds that I do not think that the House will register any great objection to two more people being entitled to the same privileges— the Secretary-General of the organisation and the senior Deputy-Secretary-General in office. In those circumstances. 615 I do not think that we are adding considerably to the number of immune persons who are already covered by these privileges and, subject to the reply by the Under-Secretary of State to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice), I am not disposed to register any violent opposition to the Motion.

§ Mr. P. Thomas
Perhaps I may reply, with the permission of the House, to the right hon. and learned Member for Newport (Sir F. Soskice). It is true that this Order follows the usual form and is the same type of order as we have in respect of N.A.T.O. and W.E.U. I did not intend to convey that it did not matter that these privileges exist because they probably would not be much used, and I am sorry if I conveyed that impression. It is extremely important that the House should scrutinise very carefully privileges such as this which are accorded to international bodies which come to this country. I thought that the House would like to know that in fact these privileges are unlikely to be greatly used.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman asked me how many people are likely to be affected. As the hon. Member for 616 Brixton (Mr. Lipton) said, two people have full diplomatic privileges and immunity, and two alone. As to the remainder, there are 142 officials currently employed in Ankara. One would not expect there to be a full conference of C.E.N.T.O. in Britain for probably another four years, but if there were a full conference possibly one-third of those officials would come over here for it. They would not have full diplomatic privileges and immunity but a more restricted form, namely that when acting in the discharge of their duties in the course of their employment they would be immune from civil or criminal proceedings being brought against them. Apart from that, they would be entirely under the British law.
I think that those are the questions which were put to me, and I hope that my replies satisfy the right hon. and learned Gentleman.