OVERSEAS PENSIONS BILL [Lords]

HC Deb 01 March 1973 vol 851 cc1762-800

Order for Second Reading read.

6.22 p.m.

The Minister for Overseas Development (Mr. Richard Wood)

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I move the Second Reading of the Bill with considerable respect for the complexity of its subject matter and also in the awareness that it is so comprehensive that this may well be the last occasion on which Parliament will have to consider a Bill concerning superannuation for public service overseas. I believe that it is a significant and good Bill and I hope that it will command support from 111 sides.

The Bill has two main objectives as well as two rather more limited aims. Its first main purpose is to enable Britain to pay direct to certain overseas pensioners their public service pension benefits. As the House will know, these are at present the responsibility of the developing countries which were formerly British dependencies.

This is the second stage of the policy of assuming responsibility for overseas public service pensions. It was first announced by the previous Government on 11th March 1970 and it has since been carried forward by the present Government. In effect, it reverses the existing position. At present overseas Governments pay the pensioners and we, where we have been able to conclude appropriate agreements, then pay back to those Governments the cost attributable to the service given before independence. Under the Bill and through agreement with overseas Governments we would pay the pensioners and would arrange with overseas Governments for them to repay us in respect of the cost of service which is given after independence.

The second main purpose of the Bill is to enable pension schemes for overseas service which are contained in Acts of Parliament to be set out in non-statutory documents and thus be given the same measure of flexibility as is accorded to the Civil Service pension scheme by the Superannuation Act 1972. The first of the other two minor objectives is to provide pensions benefits for two categories of people: former members of the Central Office of Overseas Audit Department, which is now extinct, and members of the home police forces who are killed or injured during their service abroad.

The Bill also includes an amendment of the Pensions (Increase) Act 1971 to make sure that the pension supplements can continue to be paid to overseas pensioners whose pension position will be affected by the Bill. Without such remedial action these pensioners would lose their statutory entitlement to these supplements, which clearly we all want to avoid. In Clause 1, which gives authority for the takeover of overseas pensions, we are concerned with the pensions of expatriate officers who served in Britain's former dependencies and former colonial and Indian dependent territories.

These expatriate officers of the Indian, Sudan and Colonial Services were employed not by the United Kingdom Government but by the Governments of the overseas countries in which they served. Their pensions are therefore governed by the public service pension laws of the overseas countries. They are the responsibility of overseas Governments and are a charge on the local revenues of those countries. This is and has always been the position, which has been in no way altered by the various steps which Britain has taken to give financial help to these developing countries. When dependent countries become independent the successor Governments automatically inherit the assets and liabilities, including the pensions obligations, of their predecessors.

It has normally been the practice of the British Government to conclude with each newly-independent Government at the time of independence a public officers agreement. Among other things, such an agreement reaffirms the responsibility of the overseas Government for its expatriate pensions and safeguards the pensions position of expatriate officers and their dependants. The responsibility for pensions which have been earned by expatriates who went to serve in countries abroad has rightly rested with the Governments of those countries. Past and present members of the Indian, Burma, Sudan and Colonial Services have, as everyone would agree, every reason to be proud of their loyal and valuable services to the overseas countries and of the great contribution they made when there.

Nevertheless, by 1970 it had become apparent that the pensions position needed to be changed in order to take account of representations both from overseas countries and from the overseas pensioners themselves. This was the reason why the previous Government announced its two-stage pensions takeover policy which I remember was generally welcomed when it was announced. The reimbursement to overseas Governments of the cost of the pensions earned by expatriates by service before independence is under way. This was the first stage of the takeover.

The annual cost of reimbursement will be about £12 million this year and next. After that, there is likely to be a gradual decline in annual expenditure because of the decrease in the number of pensions likely to be paid. It is very difficult to estimate the final total cost of the takeover but it might be in the region of £200 million over some 50 years, at the end of which period perhaps not many of us will still be in the House. If arrangements are made with all the eligible countries we shall waive £50 million of repayments of principal and interest on the compensation and commutation loans. So far we have waived about £36 million.

The object of this second stage which we are discussing this evening is to relieve the overseas Governments completely of the administrative task of making these payments and to increase the efficiency of payment by centralising all the work in this country. Clause 1 of the Bill will enable my right hon. Friend to make payments for which Her Majesty's Government become liable as a result of an agreement with an overseas territory and to establish schemes to provide the benefits. Our aim is to negotiate agreements with the eligible countries which at one time or another were dependencies of the United Kingdom. Under these agreements the British Government will be assuming the responsibility which at present rests with the overseas Government for the award, administration and payment of certain pension benefits.

We propose to seek agreement of the overseas countries to extending this responsibility not merely to the element of pension deriving from pre-independence service, but to the whole pension including any element attributable to service after independence. But I must make clear that, in seeking to assume this comprehensive administrative responsibility, we shall not be increasing Britain's financial liability beyond the cost of the pre-independence element of any pension.

Her Majesty's Government are fully satisfied that, in taking over the cost of the pre-independence share of an expatriate officer's pension, Britain will have made fair and reasonable contribution towards its cost. We believe that overseas countries should retain financial responsibility for the share attributable to service after independence had been gained.

In the agreements with overseas countries we shall seek to assume responsibility not only for expatriate officers' pensions, but also for pensions of their widows and children. Financial arrangements for these pensions will be broadly in line with those for the officers' pensions. The basic criteria for including expatriate pensions are that an officer should be covered by the relevant public officers agreement, and that he should not on 1st April 1971, or when he subsequently retires, be a citizen of the country which awards the pension.

The terms of Clause 1 of the Bill have, however, been drawn widely enough to allow other pensions for overseas service to be included in takeover arrangements if a future Government decided to extend the takeover policy to any particular category which now falls outside it.

There is the question of those known as overseas "quasi-governmental" pensioners. I apologise for that phrase, for which I am not wholly responsible. These are former expatriate officers—and their dependants—who were employed overseas by municipal corporations, nationalised industries, non-governmental educational establishments and other public service institutions. These people were not in overseas service under the Crown and were not people for whom the Secretary of State had special obligations as he had for members of Her Majesty's Overseas Civil Service.

The present Government, like their predecessors, have been unable to accept that those pensioners should qualify for pensions increases; but steps were taken to include in the Pensions (Increase) Act 1971 an additional enabling clause to provide, without fresh legislation, the powers necessary if the Government ever decided to treat them, or some of them, as people within the scope of pensions increases. To this extent Clause 1 accords with Section 12 of the 1971 Pensions (Increase) Act.

The position of these overseas quasi-governmental pensioners is extremely complex. I therefore asked a joint working party of officials of my Department and of the Overseas Service Pensioners' Association to examine each category of quasi-governmental pensioner against the Crown service criteria for entitlement to pension increase. I expect to receive its report in the near future. Meanwhile I have told the Overseas Service Pensioners' Association that I am aware of its concern on the pensions increase position, and also of its apprehension that the proposed takeover arrangements might indirectly harm the position of these quasi-governmental pensioners. I have assured the Association that, in face of the demonstrable need for change in policy, Clause 1 would give necessary power swiftly to make that change.

Mr. Ivor Richard (Barons Court)

The right hon. Gentleman is reading, with slight emendations, the speech made in another place by his noble Friend the Minister of State, who said that the Government hoped that the working party would report shortly. The Minister has said that he hopes it will report in the near future. That is a slight amendment from 21st December 1972. Will be tell us when he hopes, either shortly or in the near future, to get the report?

Mr. Wood

It is even more shortly than my noble Friend made clear.

The 1971 Select Committee on Overseas Aid recommended that any legislation on expatriate officers' pensions should make sure that an officer's circumstances are not changed adversely by Britain's assumption of legal responsibility for paying these pensions. I am satisfied that the proposed arrangements will meet the Select Committee's recommendation.

Perhaps the most difficult problem related to taxation. I was extremely glad to have help from my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Treasury when I tried to deal with this complicated matter. Most of the pensioners concerned now live in the United Kingdom. The total amount of tax payable by most of them would not be affected by the transfer to Her Majesty's Government of responsibility for paying pensions, although relative amounts of United Kingdom and overseas tax on their pensions may vary. But transfer would have unpleasant taxation consequences under the law as it exists for some pensioners. A pension paid by an overseas Government is not liable to United Kingdom tax if the pensioner is not resident here. If he is resident here it is chargeable only to the extent that the pension is remitted to this country. But a pension payable out of public revenue of the United Kingdom is normally liable to United Kingdom tax in full wherever the pensioner is resident.

The Government have considered this problem and, like the Select Committee on Overseas Aid, have concluded that no one at present receiving an overseas pension should be worse off by way of taxation as a result of our assuming responsibility for paying that pension. The Government therefore propose to include appropriate provisions in this year's Finance Bill. The main points were set out by my noble Friend the Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on 13th December last when she replied to a Question in another place.

In an attempt, perhaps rather over-optimistic, to make this quite clear I ought now to add three ponits. First, present and future pensioners will continue to be exempt from United Kingdom tax on their pensions while they are not resident in this country. Secondly, existing pensioners resident in this country will continue to be exempt from tax on any portion of their pensions which is paid abroad and not remitted here. We shall regard as existing pensioners those who have already retired by 6th April, 1973, the beginning of the new tax year. Pensioners who retire after that date will be taxed on the whole of their pensions in the ordinary way while resident here.

Thirdly, existing pensioners resident in this country who receive pensions for service in Malawi, Zambia and Trinidad, which are at present exempt from United Kingdom tax under the provisions of double taxation agreements with those countries, will continue to be exempt on those pensions, despite the fact that the agreements will no longer provide exemption when payment is taken over by Britain. I must make it clear that this exemption will not be granted to future pensioners who retire after 5th April, 1973.

Those last two exemptions will also be granted to widows of existing pensioners when they start to draw pensions on their husbands' deaths, but not to widows of future pensioners. None of these exemptions will apply to supplements payable under the Pensions (Increase) Act. In this way we can achieve the undertaking that no existing pensioner will be worse off as a result of taxation after Britain has assumed responsibility for direct payment of the pensions. Nor will any pensioner find himself in a worse position as a result of the effects of other aspects of the takeover arrangements.

I have fully explained these proposals to the pensioners' representatives and they have warmly welcomed the arrangements, which they think will be satisfactory to all concerned.

Earlier this year Parliament provided for a change in the administration of public sector pensions in this country. In approving the Superannuation Act 1972 consent was given to removal of the detail of public sector pension schemes from Acts of Parliament. Clause 1(2) and Clause 2 of the Bill will enable the Government to follow a similar course for the overseas pensions schemes set out in overseas laws which will be taken over from overseas Governments and for the schemes for public service overseas at present set out in United Kingdom legislation. In this way, instead of requiring legislative authority for every small variation of detail, schemes would be established in administrative documents and amended administratively, but a copy of a scheme would have to be laid for the information of Parliament before it could come into effect.

In Committee in another place, Clause 2(2)(e) was added to the Bill to allow my right hon. Friend to make a pension scheme for members of the former South Arabian security forces named in the Clause. This addition was made against Government advice because it was felt that the Government should make good the default by the Government of the People's Democratic Republic of the Yemen which we consider to be responsible for the pensions. The Government are taking account of the strong feelings expressed in another place, and are considering again whether they should make payments to members of these forces.

I give the House the undertaking that I shall report the conclusions of that reconsideration as soon as I can—during the Committee stage if possible—but I cannot say tonight what decision we shall reach. Whatever our conclusions may be, I must make clear that we shall ask the House to delete this provision. In itself it adds nothing to the powers of my right hon. Friend to make payments to these people and for several reasons it would create inequities. It is inequities which noble Lords in another place were and are anxious to remove.

I owe you, Mr. Speaker, and hon. Members deep apologies for having spoken at considerable length on a subject of great complexity. I promise now to listen with attention to any observations which hon. Members may wish to make before—if the House gives me leave—speaking again, I hope a good deal more briefly, at the end of the debate. I shall then try to answer points raised as well as any questions on Clauses 3 and 4. I have not described those clauses because I think I have spoken for too long. But I give the assurance in relation to Clause 3, which provides powers for the management of pension schemes, that we intend to consult pensioners' representatives on all major issues. I have already consulted them about the Bill and told them that the facility for retrospection included in Clause 3 will be employed only in circumstances advantageous to the individuals concerned.

All that I plead in extenuation for speaking for so long is that I believe the Bill to be a turning point in the intricate pattern of relationships between the British Government, independent Governments of former British dependencies and expatriate officers. For this reason I believe that this is an important Bill, which I hope the House will unanimously support.

6.42 p.m.

Mr. Ivor Richard (Barons Court)

I first join the Minister by saying that we on this side of the House—the few of us who are present—welcome very much the introduction of the Bill. With some qualifications we shall give it a speedy passage through the House.

I think that in many ways the Bill marks a very substantial change in the position of overseas pensioners. I do not want to go into it in great detail. I merely say that in general terms it would seem that justice is being done now to many people to whom justice was not done in the past and satisfaction is being given to a number who were denied satisfaction in the past. Therefore it is right and proper that Her Majesty's Government should assume the responsibilities set out in the Bill.

I turn to two or three specific points. Since I happen to be on my feet speaking on the Bill, I take the opportunity to refer to a constituent about whom I have had considerable correspondence with the right hon. Gentleman. He is Mr. Parpia, who I am sure the Minister will remember. Mr. Parpia is an Indian living in this country who was a United Kingdom citizen but who had previously been employed in the old Indian Civil Service. As I understand the position, which is extraordinarily complex, he is now one of four people in that situation living in the United Kingdom. Because when he initially joined the Indian Civil Service in 1935 or 1936 he was legally regarded or deemed to be of Asian domicile, he is not covered by the provisions of the Pensions (Increase) Act 1971.

Mr. Parpia's initial complaint to me as his Member of Parliament and my initial complaint to the Government was a very simple one based on the proposition that he is living in this country, is in receipt of a pension for services he rendered to the British Crown when the British Crown was responsible for India, and pays taxes in this country the same as everyone else but is excluded from any pensions increase provision which any Government choose to introduce by virtue of the Pensions (Increase) Act 1971. This seems to be a grossly unfair position.

When I went into the matter a little more deeply, it seemed that the great distinction which the Government seek to draw concerning Mr. Parpia's position is whether or not, at the time when he originally joined the Indian Civil Service—as long ago as 1935 or 1936—he was deemed to be of Asian domicile or the Secretary of State deemed him to be of Asian domicile. I put it not specifically in the terms used by the Act, but that is the general position.

Another complaint that Mr. Parpia makes, which I think is also utterly legitimate, is that while he was in India the rupee was devalued by ½per cent. but his pension was not increased by one penny or one rupee, as the case might be. Secondly, he finds himself in a situation in which for some months last year the Indian Government did not pay him the devalued rupee equivalent pension which he was entitled to receive.

As I understand the provisions of the Bill, Mr. Parpia's pension will in future be paid by Her Majesty's Government if they enter into an agreement with the Government of India so that for ex-Indian civil servants living in this country and domiciled here the British Government will assume responsibility for paying those pensions.

I do not expect to have a detailed answer this evening, but this is an opportunity to raise the point. I should like to have an assurance from the Minister that in relation to the Bill, in assuming liability to pay pensions of expatriate pensioners, the Government will be careful to include those who are outside the terms of the Pensions (Increase) Act, 1971 who nevertheless are domiciled in the United Kingdom and are United Kingdom citizens. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear] I am glad to have support from hon. Members on the Government side.

This is a gap in the provisions which in honour we should recognise and deal with. The numbers involved are infinitesimal and the amount involved in the Bill is £200 million over 50 years. Therefore, to put the position right for the few Mr. Parpias in this country would seem to be a matter of elementary justice and commonsense. I therefore hope that at some stage the Minister will look into this.

I have recently had a telegram from an expatriate pensioner living in Cyprus complaining bitterly that by the provisions of the Bill the parliamentary scrutiny he hitherto enjoyed is being removed. I do not think there is anything in the point but I should welcome reassurance for this gentleman and others who are worried about it. I hope that we shall no longer need to have detailed legislation dealing with expatriate pensioners which in any way prejudices their position and that all we are doing in the Bill is putting them in the same position as domestic pensioners.

With reference to Aden, I read the reports of the debates in another place with a great deal of interest. No one who has been through the HANSARD reports of those debates could fail but be impressed by the weight of the argument used by those proposing the amendment and the merits of the argument they put forward.

I noted with great care and some delight what the Minister said, but I should like to question a little further on the South Arabian issue. I realise that the right hon. Gentleman is to look at this again taking account of the strong feelings that were expressed in another place, and that the Government will report the conclusions they reach as soon as they can, and hopefully before Committee stage. I must tell the right hon. Gentleman that if the Government are not in a position to report their conclusions before the Committee stage I shall advise my hon. Friends to vote in such a way as to maintain the clause in its existing form.

After all, the Bill as it comes to us from another place is, broadly speaking, acceptable in relation to the South Arabian situation. The arguments in favour of paying pensions to these people seem to be overwhelming. The right hon. Gentleman spoke about strong feelings in another place. I am sure no one would wish the Government to start their consideration of the matter thinking that there were no strong feelings on the matter in this place.

I came to the argument totally fresh. I had nothing to do with the decisions taken by the then Government in 1970. I had not considered the position in any detail until I came to look at the report of the debate in the other place and to consider the arguments there presented. It struck me that there were three major considerations, and perhaps I may put them before the House.

First, what on earth is the justification for the distinction between civilian and military pensioners in South Arabia? If one goes back to the position in 1970 when my noble Friend Lord Shackleton in another place made the announcement in relation to public servants in Southern Yemen one sees that it was not a comprehensive statement but dealt with military personnel.

My noble Friend said: Having regard to all the circumstances and having carefully considered the situation, the Government have decided that so far as concerns indigenous pensioners of the civil administration and civil police they are prepared to make ex gratia loan advances equivalent to the amount of pension due".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 18th March 1970; Vol. 308, c. 1134.] They can be called ex gratia loan advances, but in effect what we are doing is paying these people pensions which they should get from the Government of Southern Yemen. My noble Friend said that he was not prepared to prejudice the step that was being taken there in relation to civil pensioners by arguing overlong and over-forcefully about the position of military pensioners, but I do not see the reason in principle for the distinction.

Secondly, I ask myself whether we would be setting a precedent. I do not think that we would be doing so in relation to South Arabia. After all, the great distinction between the South Arabian situation and almost all the ex-dependent territories which are now independent is that in relation to Southern Yemen no agreement covering pensioners was entered into prior to withdrawal. It it had been, I should have assumed that military personnel such as are sought to be covered by the amendment made in another place would have been included in the agreement; and if they had been included, prima facie they would be within the provisions of the Bill.

It seems to me to be somewhat unfair that these people in South Arabia should be treated adversely merely because the withdrawal from that part of the world was conducted in such a way—I make no complaint about it; that is a different and long argument about which I know certain hon. Gentlemen opposite might have different views—that no agreement could be reached about them with successor Government. A fortiori, if one attacks the way in which the withdrawal was carried out by the previous administration, that adds force to the argument that military pensioners should be included in the provisions of the Bill rather than the reverse.

Lt.-Col. Colin Mitchell (Aberdeenshire, West)

Surely the answer is that when Lord Shackleton took that decision one reason for not including the military was that there had been mutinies in Aden by the armed police and the South Arabian Army. Surely we must bring that fact out now.

Mr. Richard

I am obliged to the hon. and gallant Gentleman for raising the matter. His experience in that part of the world is far greater than mine. I had that matter in mind when I read the debates, but I am sure that the hon. and gallant Gentleman will not ignore what was said by Lord Shackleton and Lord Trevelyan. The hon. and gallant Gentleman was concerned on the ground, but the views of Lord Trevelyan in another place carry a great deal of weight. He is not noted for a lack of consideration of the issues involved in the opinions that he usually expresses, and he seemed to advance powerful and weighty reasons why the mutiny as such did not place these people in a different category.

Mr. Andrew Faulds (Smethwick)

Surely the answer to the hon. and gallant Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Lt.-Col. Colin Mitchell) is that those who were disloyal to Britain are probably perfectly happy in the new set-up in South Yemen, while those who were loyal to us have suffered by this unfair distinction.

Mr. Richard

My hon. Friend has given one answer, but there are two others. First, many of the people concerned retired long before the mutiny, so in any event it is impossible to make them responsible, even collectively and vicariously, for what took place at the time it occurred. Secondly, a large number of the people with whom we are concerned were hundreds of miles from Aden at the time of the mutiny, and it seems extraordinarily unfair to castigate and hold them responsible for it.

The mutiny is the one argument in favour of excluding these people which has never been advanced openly by anyone who has advocated their exclusion from the Bill. It has been hinted at and talked around. In any debate on the subject the mutiny has played a large part, but, as I read the debate in the other place, no one—certainly not the noble Lady, or the right hon. Gentleman today—said that the reason for the exclusion of these military personnel in Southern Arabia was that they had mutinied. Indeed, if that is the argument it had better be brought into the open so that we can consider the reasons for the mutiny, who mutinied, when they mutinied and what were the effects of the mutiny.

Lt.-Col. Colin Mitchell

Why did not Lord Shackleton include them in the first place if it was not because of the mutiny?

Mr. Richard

My noble Friend must speak for himself, but I think the answer is that he was not prepared to jeopardise the gain that he was making for civilian pensioners by raising the whole question of the military personnel. My noble Friend is a politician, as we all are, and there are times when one has to accept 50 per cent. rather than 75 per cent. of one's goal.

I hope that the Government will realise how few people are involved. As I understand the figures, they are as follows: Federal Guard, 128; Hadhrami Beduin Legion, 44; Federal Regular Army, 189; and Aden Armed Police, 22. Many of those officers were of junior rank and had few of the years of pensionable service necessary to qualify for a pension, and the Hadhrami Beduin Legion had only 44 officers. In these circumstances I hope that the Government will be generous I would be unhappy to feel that it was necessary to have an open breach between the two sides of the House over this part of the Bill when the Bill itself is a worthwhile step forward.

In general we welcome the Bill. I hope that, so far as Aden and South Arabian military pensions are concerned, the Government will, before or during the Committee stage, say that they accept the merits and the justice of the case and that they will do something about it.

7.1 p.m.

Sir George Sinclair (Dorking)

I should like to welcome the Bill, but I must first declare two interests. First, I was for many years a member of the Colonial Service and am today a pensioner. Second, I was a member of the Select Committee on overseas aid, which made the recommendation that the Government should take over the pension liabilities and, if they did, should ensure that the overseas pensioner was no worse off. I welcome my right hon. Friend's reassurance that, by this Bill, the overseas pensioner will be no worse off.

But there are other reasons why I welcome the Bill. The continuance of the payment of pensions which arose from service in pre-independence days had become a growing political irritant to the independent countries, and a demand was growing within their own legislatures and in their own public opinion that these payments should be ended, although they had been agreed at the time of independence.

By taking over these pensions, Her Majesty's Government are achieving two things at one stroke. First, they are removing a real and, I think, a growing irritant in their relations with countries for which we were once responsible. Second, they are giving a reassurance to pensioners that their retirement incomes shall not become a political issue for people who no longer have experience of their service.

This Bill will also reassure those pensioners who are living in the United Kingdom that, by the annual review of pensions, their retirement incomes will keep pace with the cost of living.

So much for my welcome. There remain two difficult points. The first concerns the quasi-governmental pensioners. I am glad that we may in the near future expect a report, and that this will go into the various categories separately and one by one. It is a complex problem, and the differences in status and in relationship with this country between the officers in various categories is often very narrow.

Indeed, whether a serving officer was appointed by the Secretary of State or was appointed or sometimes transferred to some local body was often a matter of purely local political convenience. By comparison with those appointed by the Secretary of State, many of these officers were doing similar jobs; they were enjoying similar conditions of service and they were always regarded by us who served alongside them as fellow officers carrying similar responsibilities, especially in times of trouble; also they were transferred from one job to another fairly freely.

Most of us who served alongside these quasi-governmental officers would therefor ask my right hon. Friend, when this report comes up, to treat them sympathetically. They did as good a job; and they were often indistinguishable from those holding Secretary of State's appointments. Justice has not been done to them in the past. Now there is a golden opportunity to do so, and I hope that the Secretary of State will take it.

I will not say more than a word or two about those who were members of the Aden security forces, because there are others who have closer experience of their plight, but I would make one general point. We should show generosity towards those people who were loyal to our Government in overseas countries during the final stages of our withdrawal and the coming of independence. They served in difficult, often hazardous, conditions, with their families; in Aden, those conditions were dangerous as well. I hope that, however difficult this problem may be, my right hon. Friend will be able to give these people what our country would regard as a fair deal.

7.7 p.m.

Mr. James Johnson (Kingston upon Hull, West)

I should like to pick up the point made by the hon. Member for Dorking (Sir G. Sinclair) about the generosity to those loyal to Her Majesty's Government, whatever the party in office here, in the final stages of the evacuation, if that is the word, of Aden, now the PDRY. I want to speak because, if the hon. and gallant Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Lt.-Col. Colin Mitchell) will allow me to say so, I think that I am the only hon. Member who has been into Aden since he left a certain Crater.

I was there last year and had the benefit of conversations with the Prime Minister of the PDRY and some of his Ministers, when this matter of pensions came up. It is a sore point, connected with what happened to the noble Lord in Geneva and elsewhere. They feel that the people concerned are entitled to these pensions and keep saying to people like myself with whom they may talk in London and elsewhere, "We, our fathers, our grandfathers and our great-grandfathers served for 160 years in God knows what capacity. We have been loyal in the past and done a job in this part of the globe."

For those people, I would say—yes, be generous. But I should like to say something, under Clause 2(2)(e)(iv) about the Aden police force. When I talked with the Prime Minister and his colleagues on this matter, I said. "This is fine, but what about those who mutinied? When people in London tell me that some of those in the police force took up arms and attacked our people in the closing stages of our withdrawal, it is a bit difficult to ask me then to go back on your behalf and lobby my Government for people who behaved in this way." There may be a small number, though I do not know how many. The Minister should look again at this matter of the Aden police force about which the hon. and gallant Member for Aberdeenshire, West may say more later.

As one who was not involved there at the time, I can be quite objective about the matter. I have the utmost good will towards what is sometimes called the South Yemen, PDSYR. I believe that, as a developing nation, it needs all the help it can get particularly in the sense of sterling coming in as pensions for people who have worked in the past alongside our own Army and, of course, those in the former Colonial Service, and elsewhere.

I ask the Minister to look carefully at those parts of the Aden Police Force which in my view did not behave in the best possible manner, to put it mildly, in the closing stages of our evacuation.

7.11 p.m.

Mr. John Tilney (Liverpool, Wavertree)

I will not follow what the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. James Johnson) said in connection with Aden because many on these benches know much more about Aden than I do.

I was glad that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West, my hon. Friend the Member for Dorking (Sir G. Sinclair), and the hon. and learned Member for Barons Court (Mr. Richard) all welcomed the Bill as, indeed, do I. Many of us on both sides of the House have urged this policy on successive Governments for a long time.

I ought here to declare an interest in that I am Vice-President of the Overseas Service Pensioners' Association which also very much welcomes what Her Majesty's Government are doing. But it is over two years since the original decision to accept responsibility was first taken and the delay has caused endless problems. I wish to refer to some of those problems.

First, some territories have increased their income tax rates. Secondly, the pound has been devalued. Thirdly, the payment of widows' pensions is often delayed for months while confirmation of the correct rates of pension under the widows' and orphans' legislation is sought from overseas independent territories. Fourthly, in almost every case the pensioner or his widow suffers because of this delay.

I therefore urge on my right hon. Friend to ensure that the Government do not wait for an approach to be made by the overseas independent territory but will make that approach themselves.

I wish also to refer to the problem of those whose pensions are not taken over because they, or their husbands in the case of widows, were not directly employed—in fact, the quasi-civil servants—by an overseas Government and were not therefore covered by public officers' agreements. No doubt my right hon. Friend has read what the noble Lord, Lord Boyd, said in another place, but it is worth putting on record in this House that these people were recruited on the terms laid down by local ordinance which was approved at the time by the Secretary of State. Those ordinances stipulated that they should receive pensions payable by—and I am now quoting the case of the expatriate staff of the Nigerian College of Arts, Science and Technology—the Federal Government of Nigeria identical to those payable to Government officers, Hitherto, of course, the Nigerian Government has made no distinction between these pensions and those payable to government officers. They have all been provided out of one lump sum in the annual estimates.

When the Government reach agreement with the Nigerian Government under this Bill, the position will change. The British Government will be paying the pensions to retired Government officers whereas the Nigerian Government will he left to pay the pensions of the handful of retired staff of the Nigerian College of Arts.

It may be argued that the position will not be adversely affected and legally, of course, that is so. But pensions have been dependent on the good will of the Nigerian Government ever since independence deprived them of the protection of the Secretary of State. In practical terms I believe their position will be jeopardised. By declining to take over the pensions of these quasi-civil servants, the British Government appear to indicate that they do not regard these people as their concern.

Hitherto, the bulk of pensions paid to expatriates by the Nigerian Government has been covered by a draft public officers' agreement. It must be remembered that the Federal Government failed to sign an agreement after independence, but the British Government have treated that agreement as binding although it was unsigned. Thus in practice this handful of quasi-civil servants was sheltered by the commitment of the British Government. But once the Nigerian Government is paying only expatriates' pensions which are not covered by the agreement, the British Government will have no standing to intervene on their behalf. This is a matter of which I think note ought to be taken.

The same dangers arise in the case of the widows. Let us remember that their husbands were required by law to contribute to the Nigerian Widows' and Orphans' Pension Scheme which was unfunded, that is, it went into the ordinary revenue account. The pensions payable to those widows were payable under the same ordinance and in all respects were considered identical to those paid to widows whose husbands were directly employed by the Government.

I will not mention the Nigerian Coal Corporation, the staff of Achimota College, the staff at Fourah Bay College in Sierra Leone or those in Lagos which have already been mentioned by my right hon. Friend together with other corporations. But if we can help the locally recruited civil servants in Aden, I believe we should help these people, too.

It remains only to refer to the problem of citizenship of an overseas territory on acceptance by Her Majesty's Government of pension take-over. This is rather a technical matter on which I hope not to take up much time of the House.

Under the 1962, 1965 and 1969 Pensions (Increase) Acts, birth in an overseas territory disqualified a pensioner from the receipt of a supplement. When this was removed under the 1971 Pensions (Increase) Act, an additional proviso was introduced. It was laid down that under the new category K, officers born in the country in which they served would qualify for supplement provided—and this is a date taken almost at random—that on 1st April 1971 they were not citizens of the overseas country from which the pension concerned was derived.

In setting up the new category K of officers eligible for certification for supplements, the Government have stated that the take-over is confined to those who are covered by a public officers' agreement—or would, in the view of Her Majesty's Government, have been covered if there had been a public officers' agreement—and who are not citizens of the country concerned. I ask the Minister will the citizenship of the overseas territory whether taken out before or after 1st April 1971 affect the take-over of the payment of the pension under the new Bill? Like the example quoted by the hon. and learned Member for Barons Court (Mr. Richard), this will apply to only a few people, but it is essential that they should get fair treatment. A number of pensioners have been refused a supplement on the ground that they held dual citizenship because automatically on the declaration of independence of an overseas territory they became citizens of that territory if they had been born in it and even if they thought that they held United Kingdom and Commonwealth citizenship and held a British passport. In many cases the pensioners concerned did not even know and were never informed that they held dual citizenship.

There is a case in point concerning a Dr. Dyson, who lives in Surbiton, who came to this country from Mauritius in 1947 and has been here since then—yet he will now be treated for pension purposes permanently, as regards his supplement anyhow, in a way quite different from a Mr. C. W. T. Johnson of Fiji who qualifies for his pension merely because the Fiji Citizenship Act came into effect after 1st April 1971—on 28th May instead.

It is absurd that those two very similar cases should be treated differently. I very much hope that my right hon. Friend will look very carefully into cases such as this long before the Committee Stage.

7.21 p.m.

Mr. George Cunningham (Islington, South-West)

I should first apologise for not being in the Chamber for the first part of the Minister's remarks and for the fact that I shall be unable to stay to hear the winding-up speech. However, I should like the Minister to deal with one question, which is along the same lines as a question with which I have bothered him on other occasions. That is the question whether the expenditure with which we are dealing in the Bill is to count towards the overseas aid programme.

One might have thought that a point as basic as that would be covered by the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum, but it is not. What we are told in the Memorandum is how much money is likely to be spent under the authority of the Bill when it becomes an Act, but we are not told whether it is proposed that that expenditure should be booked to the public expenditure programme or the overseas aid programme.

This matters an awful lot. If the money is not booked to the aid programme, we are talking about additional Government expenditure. If it is booked to the aid programme, we are providing for expenditure to take place which simply substitutes for other expenditure which would have taken place anyway. If the money is to be found out of the Minister's known kitty for the aid programme, he will have to lop it off the aid which he provides to recipient countries.

I cannot understand how the House is presented with something that calls itself an Explanatory and Financial Memorandum when it does not deal with such a basic point. I am sorry that the Treasury Minister has just left the Chamber, because the blame for this, which applies equally to other occasions when expenditure proposals are presented to the House, lies not at the door of the Minister for Overseas Development but at the door of the Treasury, which is responsible for the manner in which estimates and so on are presented to us.

Reading between the lines, the intention seems to be that this money is to be booked to the overseas aid programme. If the Minister would care to nod or shake his head to steer me in one direction or another on that matter, I should be grateful. But I guess that it will be booked to his programme. The Minister is neither nodding nor shaking his head at present, so I shall assume that that is so, in which case it is totally wrong.

We are saying here at long last, belatedly, that the responsibility for looking after these people is a British responsibility and should have been so all along, and that the legal duty to provide these pensions should rest with the British Government and not with the Government of the independent country which used to be a British colony.

If the responsibility lies with us, it is not aid. If the responsibility lies with the overseas Government and we are giving them money to assist them to discharge their responsibilities—money which they would otherwise have to take from their tax-paying base, such as it is—that is aid. It is upon that justification that the £12 million referred to in the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum has been provided in the past, as I understand it. If we now say, however, that we were wrong in the past to place this obligation legally upon, for example, Malawi and that it should always have been our responsibility directly, I see no logical conceptual justification for saying that it is aid to an overseas country.

Logic—if my logic is correct—does not sway the Treasury Bench. But I have something stronger than logic. I have a precedent. I ask the Minister to look at the case of the Central African Pensions Fund. That was the fund for the former officials of the Central African Federation, established when the Federation was broken up in 1963. Contributions had to be made to that fund by the three constituent territories in the Federation and by the British Government. At least one of the constituent territories, Malawi, had great difficulty in finding its share to contribute to that fund, so the British Government helped it out with aid. Because the responsibility for contributing the Malawi share was legally a Malawi responsibility, the provision of that money was properly booked to the overseas aid programme. The British contribution to that fund, however, legally rested, under the arrangements made when the Federation was broken up, upon the British Government. Consequently the British contributiton was not counted, at one time at least, as overseas aid.

That was a perfectly proper distinction to draw. What we are doing now is saying that all of these pension payments will fall legally to the British Government in the same way as the British contribution to the Central African Pensions Fund fell to the British Government. Therefore, upon the precedent I have quoted, these payments ought not to be counted as part of the aid programme.

This is not merely a book transaction. It is not just a question of whether one allocates this expenditure to one category or another in the public expenditure exercise. If £12 million or £13 million a year—declining, presumably—has to be booked to the overseas aid programme, it will have to be deducted from the aid provided to other countries. No one will ever be able to say which other countries have suffered as a result, because no one will know how much they would have got if this £12 million or so had been treated in a different fashion. As Bernard Shaw said, one can never tell how a man would have got on if one had not sawn his leg off.

It seems to me that the Treasury is at it again. It is trying to shove things into the Minister's aid programme which do not belong there. This has been a constant battle between the Treasury and the aid administration, whatever it has been called, over the years.

I appeal to the Minister of State for the Treasury, who must have more influence in this matter than the Minister himself, if my expectation of what he is up to is correct, to stop this and not fly in the face of a precedent established in the past, but rather to follow the precedent of the Central African Pensions Fund and say that this is a British responsibility, just as much as paying British civil servants here in this country. It should not be booked to the poor Minister's aid programme, which is already far too low, but should be carried out of other expenditure.

Sir G. Sinclair

The hon. Gentleman has made some slighting reference to the Minister's aid programme. I would like him to remember that the aid programme is now very much greater than it was during the time when his party was in power.

Mr. Cunningham

These points could be disputed, but on the subject of aid I do not think that the hon. Gentleman's party is in a position to cast stones. Certainly that goes for my party, too, but it also goes for the hon. Gentleman's party. Neither of us has done half as much as the French have done in this respect.

But the fact that I do not agree with all that my party did on this matter when it was in office does not mean that I should not urge the Minister to do better. I shall applaud him if he does. It is important that we keep the aid programme for aid to other countries and, if we book this £12 million or £13 million as aid to other countries, we are, in essence, taking aid away from those who should receive it and diluting the purity of the items which are categorised as overseas aid.

7.33 p.m.

Lt.-Col. Colin Mitchell (Aberdeenshire-West)

The point that I would like to make in this debate is a very short one and has probably almost all come out already. Obviously, I welcome this Bill and it seems absolutely right and in accordance with noblesse oblige to reward these fine men who served the British Crown in their day, and to put right all the errors that have occurred. I support any hon. Member on either side of the House who says that, and my right hon. Friend has said that, this is what we are trying to do.

I have been watching the debate in another place in the Committee and Third Reading stages with growing anxiety, because it is apparent that in the course of dealing with this amendment, which has now been included in the Bill, the noble Lords covered a field in which they either had direct experience or were what I would call supported by rumour.

The situation as regards the mutinies which took place was explained by the noble Lord, Lord Trevelyan, in the debate. He said that the circumstances were such that it was very difficult to identify whether things had been done with calculated intent. I would refute that statement in the sense that I was there, and I think it right that in this House, if we have direct experience of something, we should say so. Whether we say it well or badly is perhaps less important than that we say it. I was delighted that the hon. and learned Member for Barons Court (Mr. Richard) paid a tribute to Lord Trevelyan. I did so myself at a dinner in the House of Commons a short time ago, when I introduced him as one whom I considered a peerless knight who had become a life peer. He is a man we can all respect and his guidance in another place has been tremendous, as indeed has that of the noble Lord, Lord Boyd.

However, the question remains, are we now developing a situation in which we are going to produce a blanket amnesty for those police and military officers in the South Arabian forces who arranged the murder, over many months, of Arab and British Special Branch officers in the Aden Police and who also murdered 23 British soldiers in Aden in one day, 27th June 1967—more in number than all of us here and probably almost as many as in the public gallery. These were our own fellow countrymen.

In the debate in another place noble Lords were heard to say that they thought these men belonged to this unit or that unit. I know to which units they belonged and I knew where those soldiers came from. I do not want to be emotional because it is not a good thing to be emotional in discussing a financial Bill, but the fact remains that 23 of our fellow countrymen were killed in one day and the organisation of that murder and the murder of the Special Branch officers was carried out by people to whom tonight we are possibly proposing, if we are not careful, to give pensions.

It may be said that I am oversimplifying, that I am on the wrong track, but I must ask my right hon. Friend to examine this. I am an army pensioner and I am also in receipt of a wound pension because of the three occasions on which I have been shot—and I have to be personally accountable for my pension in that I have to parade every couple of years before a medical board so that they can look at the shot-holes and see that I am still entitled to the pension. They write to me and I write back. They know that I am a man who exists and to whom the Queen pays a pension.

What frightens me about the debate in another place is that nobody seems even to know the numbers of officers of the South Arabian forces who are eligible for these pensions. One noble Lord said it was fewer than 300, while another said that it was 400. Somebody else said that it was too complicated to find out how many there were. We cannot deal with a situation in which we are proposing to pay out, on this blanket amnesty arrangement, pensions to people when we do not know how many of them exist.

Obviously, at some stage, there has got to be either a working party or a special committee or some individuals who can sit down and write out the names of these people and who they are. I hope that if my right hon. Friend gets somebody to do that he will consult one or two of us who know these people personally. We have seen them. We have met some of them. Recently, in the Persian Gulf some of us met the last commander of the Federal Guard. In another place they talked about Nasir Buraik Alawi and his present plight. Many of these individuals are known by hon. Members opposite and on this side of the House. So let us see their names, then we can say, "Splendid. He is a great chap and deserves a pension", or, "I knew that chap, and at such and such a place on such and such a date he was involved in a mutiny; and he does not deserve a pension".

I have made by point, and it was made even more strongly and in better English than mine in another place when the question was discussed of loan advances to many of those who have been in difficulties. It is obviously a question of showing some heart and mixing magnanimity with common sense. I should be most grateful to my right hon. Friend if we could have an assurance tonight that the South Arabian Security Forces if they are to get British pension payments are, individually, honourably entitled to those payments.

7.39 p.m.

Mr. Richard Luce (Arundel and Shoreham)

I am very pleased to be able to follow in the debate my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Lieut.-Colonel Colin Mitchell) who can claim enormous experience, particularly in the last few months before independence in Aden. Certainly I cannot claim that kind of experience. Mine is that I had the privilege, as the son of an ex-Governor of Aden, of visiting that part of the world from time to time and witnessing the distinguished service of the security forces in that part of the world. I cannot declare an interest, although I am, like one or two other hon. Members here, a former member of the Overseas Civil Service. Unfortunately, however, I did not serve long enough to qualify for a pension, otherwise I should claim an interest in this Bill.

Noble Lords put up a forceful case for paying pensions to the security forces in South Arabia. Of course, we are dealing here with a wide range of forces—includin the Hadhrami Beduin Legion, the Federal Regular Army and the Aden Armed Police. There is no point in going over the background to this except to remind ourselves that that part of the world achieved independence in unusual conditions. It was a very speedy hand-over and there was no chance to make proper arrangements for public service pensions. It was right for the then Government in 1970 to announce that they would provide pensions for the indigenous Civil Service but it was wrong to exclude the indigenous officers of the security forces. The situation now exists where there are about 300 officers, the vast majority of whom surely served the British Empire and the British Government in Aden with the greatest of loyalty, who are being paid no pension, and I find that unacceptable.

Of course, a number of important arguments against paying pensions have been put forward, not only at Government level but from other sources. It is right for the House to pay close attention to the views about disloyalty in the Crater episode by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, West. But does he believe it right that because a small minority of the security forces at that time rebelled against the authority, the vast majority should be penalised for being loyal to the British Government?

I agreed with most of the views expressed by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. James Johnson) that if it is possible to distinguish between those who were loyal and those who were disloyal, so much the better. The problem is, however, that it is not possible so to distinguish, and, that being the case, we should press ahead and not penalise the vast majority who were loyal.

Another argument is that some of the armed forces are already paid pensions by the South Yemen Government. How- ever, they form the minority, those who were not particularly loyal, as I understand it, to the British Government at the time. They are in any case being paid at fairly reduced rates and the vast majority of them, who are living outside South Yemen, are not being paid anything at all. The third argument put forward by the Government, who seem to have shifted their ground considerably from time to time in arguing against paying pensions, is that the armed services are and should be distinguished from the Civil Service in Aden because the armed forces are paid gratuities. Of course, that applied only to the other ranks and not to the officers, and it is the minority of the officers that we are talking about.

However, by far the most important argument being advanced—and I understand that the Government are advancing it now—is that such a move would create a precedent, as the hon. and learned Member for Barons Court (Mr. Richard) said. Conversely, the Aden situation was unique, with the possible exception of Palestine. We withdrew hastily without reaching an agreement on public service pensions and if Palestine is used as the only other example it must be remembered that the British Government decided, although there was no agreement on public service pensions, that they would pay the indigenous security forces until such time as the new authority took control of it. That is one argument against concern about creating a precedent.

A second argument is that, as I understand it, all other dependent territories have had proper arrangements included in their independent constitution giving express guarantees of pension rights to civil servants, but also, where relevant, to members of the local armed forces. As an example I can cite Section 195 of the Kenya Independence Constitution—I served in Kenya as a district officer—which does just that. The third argument is that there is an additional factor in Aden in that the vast majority of the security forces there, with the exception of the Aden Armed Police, were directly raised and paid by the British Government. For example, payment to the Hadhrami Beduin Legion and the Regular Federal Army came entirely from Her Majesty's Army estimates.

I submit therefore that it would be dishonourable to forget those who served this country and their own country when we administered Aden. That view was strongly put by a whole range of distinguished British officers and civil servants who served in Aden before independence and who wrote to the Foreign Secretary in October 1971 expressing the unanimous view that these pensions should be paid. I do not believe that we should be petty or unjust. It would be untypical of the British not to show a generosity of spirit by finding special funds to pay these pensions. I must say to my right hon. Friend that unless he can give an assurance before the Committee stage that he will take action, I shall find it very difficult to give further support to the Bill.

7.47 p.m.

Mr. Dennis Walters (Westbury)

Like every ether hon. Member who has spoken, I should like to welcome the Bill. I should also like to confine my remarks, which will be brief, to the specific issue of the South Arabian officers who were not granted a pension.

In this connection I must tell my right hon. Friend that quite a few of us on the Government side as well as on the Opposition side greatly welcomed the amendment passed in the House of Lords. I and some of my colleagues were pleased with the undertaking which was given by my right hon. Friend that, while he intended deleting the amendment, he will give the most sympathetic consideration to the contents of the amendment. In the friendliest possible way I can assure him that we shall be following that consideration very closely.

My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Lieut.-Colonel Colin Mitchell), in an excellent speech and understandably feeling very strongly as he was so closely involved, made a number of points, some of which I did not agree with. For instance, regarding the number of officers involved, he implied that the situation was completely vague and that the numbers were not known. But as I understand it we are talking of a number somewhere between 250 and 300 officers, as my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and Shoreham (Mr. Luce) explained, and of about £100,000. We can therefore define the people involved and the money involved rather more precisely.

I was pleased that my right hon. Friend did not stress the argument about precedent. I have never found it a satisfactory one. It always seems to me a last ditch argument. In the course of the debates in the House of Lords, which I followed closely, many convincing speeches were made and in particular I found the contributions by Lord Trevelyan most persuasive.

It is in my view highly significant that the former commanders of the forces involved have all expressed their strong feelings that pensions should be paid and our obligations met. When, two or three years ago, the previous Government agreed to pay the pensions for civil servants who had served the Crown in South Arabia they created an anomaly by not agreeing to do the same for the officers who had served the Crown in the same area, and no satisfactory argument has been adduced in support of that decision. We have a moral obligation to those people who served us and to whom we made promises. A number of British officers who commanded troops there feel very strongly about the promises which they made to indigenous officers which have not been carried out.

I appreciate the feelings of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, West, and who would not? But I believe it is true to say that there was an investigation which found that it was almost impossible to discover who were the people directly involved in the mutiny. Therefore, as my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and Shoreham said, should we, in order to punish the few who were responsible for a crime, penalise the many who have loyally served the British Crown over the years, and continued to do so in the extremely difficult circumstances before the withdrawal from Aden? If we did so we would be punishing the great majority including the very best among them who gave their service most loyally to the Crown, who have been banished from their country and who are now living in exile. The letter of one officer was quoted during the debate in another place—that of Sharif Haider— who actually played a part in suppressing the mutiny. He wrote a moving letter in which he said that he had lost his homeland, a career, much property and life-long friends.

I submit to my right hon. Friend that it would be intolerable in the circumstances that Sharif Haider and people like him, who were particularly loyal, should not only be banished and in exile but should also live in penury. I hope that my right hon. Friend can give us even more encouragement than the already encouraging remarks which he made in his opening speech.

7.53 p.m.

Mr. Ivor Stanbrook (Orpington)

I must declare an interest because, like my hon. Friends the Members for Dorking (Sir G. Sinclair) and Arundel and Shoreham (Mr. Luce), I am a former member of Her Majesty's Overseas Civil Service. I enjoy the benefits of a pension which was granted by the Nigerian Government and which is still paid by them at the rate of £149 per annum.

On occasions like this we are at the tail end of the British Imperial heritage. It is perhaps appropriate to say that the members of the British Colonial Service provided nearly a quarter of mankind with stability, peace and a relative prosperity which they had never enjoyed before. Hundreds and millions of people throughout the world have benefited from the service which British officers were proud to render to Her Majesty in various parts of the world. We are speaking about those people, and whenever we have considered their pensions in the past there has been concern about what might happen when our various territories became independent and the question of payment and supplements to pensions arose.

The Bill is what we always wanted, and I welcome it warmly. It is true, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dorking said, that if its introduction were delayed much longer—and it is a complicated matter—we would have run into political troubles and an embarrassment which it was necessary for us to try to avoid.

There are one or two matters which I hope will be cleared up by the Government. The only one which I wish to refer to is that of the quasi-govern- ment institutions. I know from my service in Nigeria of the institutions which my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Tilney) mentioned, and I add the West African Institute of Trypanosomiasis Research as an institution which attracted officers from England who were proud to spend their service in West Africa. Some completed their service there and some died there for a programme of research which was necessary for the progress of that territory. Those people were treated, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wavertree said, on a par in every other way with members of Her Majesty's Colonial Service, and I hope that they will not be forgotten in the matter of supplements.

I do not agree with what the hon. and learned Member for Barons Court (Mr. Ivor Richard) said about locally recruited personnel. The line must be drawn somewhere and it is most appropriate that it should be drawn at that point. Those who were domiciled overseas and recruited locally, and who chose to come to this country subsequently, even if they have thereby placed themselves at a disadvantage have no entitlement. It would be wrong for them to be regarded as officers of the Colonial Service in the same way as those officers who were expatriates when appointed overseas. It is right to make that distinction between expatriate British officers and those who were locally recruited. It is right for the Government to exclude them.

7.57 p.m.

Mr. Ivor Richard

With the leave of the House, I should like to make a few comments on the debate. I am bound to say that we have had a singularly impressive debate. It is often the case when the House is two-thirds empty—and hon. Members with more experience than I will know better than I—that the quality of the debate is remarkable. We have had this evening an extraordinary debate. Of all the arguments that I have heard about the South Arabian problem, those of the hon. and gallant Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Lt.-Col. Colin Mitchell) are the only ones for which I have any vestige of respect. I think that I would carry the hon. and gallant Gentleman with me to this extent, that he would agree that those people who were loyal and remained loyal to the British Crown are entitled to be treated properly and honourably by us.

Lt.-Col Colin Mitchell indicated assent.

Mr. Richard

That means that those people who remained loyal will be entitled to the pension arrangements which are included in the amendment that was passed in another place. I fully understand the position of the hon. and gallant Member for Aberdeenshire, West. I read his book recently, and having done so it would be difficult for men not to apreciate the position in which he finds himself. His difficulty is to distinguish between those who remained loyal and those who were disloyal. If it were possible to make that distinction, and if on investigation the Government decided that that distinction could be made and it was made, I assume that the hon. and gallant Gentleman would have no difficulty in supporting the amendment.

If I were sitting on the Government benches I should have taken the hon. and gallant Gentleman's speech as an injunction to the Government to try to discover precisely who it is among those people who might be entitled to a pension under the amendment and those who in any shape or form can be classed as having planned or participated to a major extent in the mutiny that took place at Crater.

If the hon. and gallant Gentleman's plea were for investigation into that by the Government, so that we know exactly where we are, I have sympathy with it. But if it is not possible to make that distinction, I hope that he will agree that, as the overwhelming majority of those covered by the amendment are clearly loyal, it would be unfair and rather harsh to treat them badly just because we could not weed out the few who behaved in that dreadful way at the time of the mutiny. I hope that those of us who support the amendment will carry the hon. and gallant Gentleman with us, because on this matter perhaps more than on any other that comes before the House regarding South Arabia he is a supreme authority and a person to whom I listen with great respect.

During the Third Reading debate in another place the noble Lady, the Minister of State said, The noble Lord —referring to my noble Friend Lord Shackleton— said that he felt that we had a debt of honour because a definite promise was made. One of the reasons why the Government are considering this matter before it goes to another place is that we have been having a considerable search to find out what assurances were in fact given to the Hadhrami Beduin Legion. I am informed that authority was sent by the Foreign Office to the High Commissioner for him to assure the Hadhrami Beduin Legion that their pensions would be paid; but that the methods would have to be worked out… we cannot find any record of the manner in which this communication was, in fact, conveyed to the Hadhrami Beduin Legion."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords. 20th February 1973; Vol. 339, c. 16–17.] Therefore, it seems as though the Government were investigating what was the precise assurance given by the then Government through the mouth of the British military commanders at the time to the people we are talking about. Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us the result of those investigations? A reading of the OFFICIAL REPORT of the debate in another place makes it clear that Lord Shackleton and Lord Trevelyan in particular, who perhaps had the most responsibility of all, had no doubt that specific assurances were given with the authority of the British Government. If that is so, those assurances should be honoured.

8.3 p.m.

Mr. Wood

With the leave of the House, I should like to reply to some of the points made in the debate.

I entirely agree with the hon. and learned Member for Barons Court (Mr. Richard) about the high quality of our short debate. I promise to be brief in my reply, particularly in view of the long speech I made earlier. I am naturally pleased by the general welcome that hon. Members have given to the proposals in the Bill.

The hon. and learned Gentleman has, as he is only too entitled to do, taken the occasion to raise two individual cases. I give the assurance that I shall look again at the case of Mr. Parpia, particularly in the light of what has been said tonight and what we now have in the Bill. I shall write to the hon. and learned Gentleman about that.

The other case that he raised was brought to his attention by an expatriate pensioner in Cyprus. The hon. and learned Gentleman perhaps did not attach great weight to the anxiety expressed. I should like him to assure the person concerned that any conversion to an administrative document scheme that may occur under the Bill will certainly not adversely affect any individual. It is done merely for the purposes I described earlier.

My hon. Friends the Members for Dorking (Sir G. Sinclair), Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Tilney) and Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) have all spoken with force about the position of the quasi-governmental pensioners. I cannot add much to what I said on the subject earlier. I have considered that matter extremely carefully. In particular, I have considered whether it is possible to move away in any respect from what I described as the Crown service criterion.

Any movement of dividing lines always causes great difficulty. That point was made in another respect by my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington. Therefore, I came to the conclusion—although the Bill does not prevent a different decision in the future—that it was impossible at present to move the dividing line. But I was naturally anxious to be absolutely certain that all those who should be on the right side of the line are recognised to be there. That is the purpose of the working party's consideration. It has been examining the matter, and I have already made plain that I shall inform the House of the outcome of the consideration I give to its report when I receive it very shortly.

My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree expressed anxiety that we should make as rapid progress as we can in the takeover. I entirely agree with him. We shall certainly take the initiative and move forward as rapidly as possible, but we are engaged on stage 1, which is by no means complete. We have found that some governments move even quicker than others, and in stage 2 we are dealing with 30 independent governments. Much as we want to make progress, it is not always easy to do so as quickly as we should like. We want to do the best we can.

I was interested that my hon. Friend raised the question of citizenship, because I have been concerned about the prob- lems of dual-citizenship. I have naturally studied the cases he mentioned on Dr. Dyson and Mr. Johnson. I am now looking into the whole question of dual-citizenship. I hope that it will be possible to reach a decision that will be seen to be perfectly fair and to remove the kind of discrimination of which my hon. Friend rightly complains.

The hon. Member for Islington, South-West (Mr. George Cunningham) spoke about the cost of the takeover falling on the aid programme. I am delighted that in spite of what he said about his probable absence he is still here. I was grateful to him for raising the matter. He watches the whole situation with an eagle eye, and it is very difficult for anything to escape his notice.

I should like to point out to the hon. Gentleman several considerations which I am sure he has taken into account but which to me are ample justification for the cost of the takeover being borne on the aid programme. The first is the developmental nature of the services provided to which the pensions relate. The second is the value to the developing countries of the relief from the obligation to pay the pre-independence pensions. Thirdly, the policy is a continuation of the policy of the previous Government, which was to take into account the aid provided by way of pensions payments.

Although he probably recognises this already, I can tell him that this policy of taking these pension payments into account in the provision of aid has not resulted in any single instance in the overall level of aid to any country being diminished. There are substantial justifications, and so it seemed to our predecessors, why they should be borne on the aid programme.

I believe that I have dealt with all the questions raised except obviously that which has occupied much the greatest time. It has been given great attention by almost all hon. Members who have spoken, as I expected it would. This is the position of the members of the security forces in what is now the People's Democratic Republic of the Yemen. I cannot add—and I do not believe hon. Members would expect me, after an interval of less than two hours, to add—very much to what I said at the beginning of the debate.

This was a decision, as the hon. and learned Member made clear in his speech, which was reached by the Labour Government in 1970 and which now appears to some to have been mistaken. I do not know the precise reasons why that decision was taken. These secrets are, probably fortunately, hidden from successor Governments. I have listened with immense interest to the debate. I was as moved as the hon. and learned Gentleman by the testimony of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Lieut.-Colonel Colin Mitchell) who is much more qualified to speak on this than any of us. I was also impressed by the testimony of the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Hull, West (Mr. James Johnson) who has been there recently, and others who have various connections with this problem.

All I can say at the moment is that we now have to consider whether these members of the security forces should be given the same treatment as the civil pensioners in Aden to whom the Labour Government, to relieve hardship, decided to grant in 1970 ex gratia loan advances in place of pensions which the Government of the People's Democratic Republic had failed to pay.

If Her Majesty's Government decide that they are unable to make similar loan advances to members of the security forces they must take the view that Clause 2(2)(e) is unsuitable. If on the other hand, we decide that it would be right to make these advances, the amendment added in another place would be equally unsuitable because it gives us power to pay pensions but not to make loan advances.

This would not only put certain categories in a more favourable position than others; it would also result in our assuming responsibility for paying pensions which we are still convinced, as was the previous Government, remains the responsibility of the Yemen Government which took over after independence. We shall be asking the House to delete the subsection. I undertake to report to my right hon. Friends the feelings expressed by hon. Members tonight and also to tell the House the result of the examination we are now making.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Compursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).