§ 3.5 p.m.
§ THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE)My Lords, with the permission of the House I wish to correct a mistake which I made yesterday when replying to a supplementary question by the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition arising out of a Question by the noble Viscount, Lord Elibank. I apologise to the noble Viscount and to your Lordships for inadvertently misleading the House.
On November 10 of last year, when I was out of this country, my noble friend Lord Perth, speaking on behalf of the Foreign Office, informed your Lordships that an extension had been granted by the Mixed Committee to Herr Krupp up to January 31, 1960. On December 15 of last year, I informed your Lordships that the Committee had under consideration an application for a further extension. On January 25 of this year the Committee announced a second postponement. No report was submitted to the four Governments on the first postponement. I can say, however, that I would expect the report, to which I referred yesterday, to deal with both postponements. I hope, my Lords, that this correction has dispelled any confusion that I may have caused in what is in any case a sufficiently complicated matter.
§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGHMy Lords, I am grateful to the noble Marquess for, with his usual courtesy, coming at once at the earliest possible moment and putting this matter right. As he spoke yesterday I was fairly convinced in my own mind that he had not been correctly briefed for the case. I had not proposed 948 to do anything else about it, so I am grateful for the information. I do not want to deal with the facts now; I think they ought to be dealt with by a further Question.
§ THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEMy Lords, I very much appreciate what the noble Viscount has said, but I would say at once that I was not incorrectly briefed.
VISCOUNT ELIBANKMy Lords, may I say, as the originator of the Question, that the noble Marquess is always so accurate and so courteous in his replies to this House that I at once took it to be merely a verbal slip of the tongue, especially having regard to the verbal tornado raging around the noble Marquess at that moment.