§ 2.45 p.m.
§ LORD KILLEARNMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ [The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government—
- (a) Whether they can give the approximate value of desequestrated assets detained in Egypt after the transfer to the United Kingdom of the L.E. 5000 provided for.
- (b) What action is being taken to ensure that the owners of those assets are placed on the same equitable basis for compensation as those whose assets were Egyptianised.
- (c) What was the amount of the sterling balances standing to the credit of the Egyptian Government in the United Kingdom at the time of the Suez Affair.
- (d) How much of this was released to Egypt immediately on the signing of the Financial Agreement on February 28, 1959; and whether Her Majesty's Government still consider it was wise to do so.]
§ THE EARL OF DUNDEEMy Lords, in reply to the first part of my noble friend's Question, it is not possible to give an approximate value of desequestrated assets detained in Egypt after the transfer of the £E.5000 provided for in the 1959 Agreement. In reply to the second part, I would refer my noble friend to the statement made yesterday to your Lordships by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. In reply to the third and fourth parts, it is not our practice to disclose details of our sterling liabilities to individual countries, but the amount released in March, 1959 was £41 million under the Agreement which was then approved by Parliament.
§ LORD KILLEARNMy Lords, I should like, as always, to thank the noble Earl for his reply. In regard to the first part of his Answer to my Question, admittedly it is a very difficult thing to give an estimated value of this property, but is the noble Earl mindful of what was said by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the House of Commons in 1959 when placing the value of those assets at £130 million? This figure was subsequently reduced by £50 million because of a separate arrangement between the British Chancellor and the Egyptian Government, which reduced the figure to £80 million. I am assuming that the noble Earl is aware of that figure. But reverting to the scheme announced yesterday—all this will, of course, have to be fully discussed in the debate next week—would he not agree in the light of these figures that the £2½ million set aside to relieve cases of distress, as I think they are called, of those owners of property which cannot be brought out of Egypt, seems rather small? Is that not particularly so if the true value is anything approximating to the value of £80 million put upon the property by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1959?
With regard to the second part, the release of the £41 million, the noble Earl will no doubt have realised that the reason why I kept that on the Order Paper after yesterday's statement was that it was no bad thing that the memories of your Lordships should be refreshed as to how much we in fact released in 1959 to the Egyptian Government.
§ THE EARL OF DUNDEEMy Lords, in regard to the second part of my noble friend's supplementary, I take it that he wished to give, and not to ask for, information. With regard to the first part, about the usefulness of these estimates, we have not got the full facts. British subjects who left Egypt as a result of Suez were invited on their return to England to make to the Foreign Office a declaration of assets. Not all of them accepted this invitation. Others did make declarations, which, of course, it was not possible to check. Some of them were clearly inaccurate and some declarations covered property which was later Egyptianised and for which its owners could, therefore, obtain compensation from the Foreign Compensation Fund. Meanwhile, a number of British property owners have returned to Egypt and can still use their property there. For these reasons we do not think that any conjecture—for it would be nothing more than very unsubstantiated conjecture that we could make—about assets detained in Egypt would be either accurate or useful.
§ LORD KILLEARNMy Lords, I thank once more the noble Earl for his answer. I pressed it because it is a very important point and it seemed to me one of the points not really covered in yesterday's scheme.
With regard to the fifth part of my Question, regarding the unfortunate owners who are stranded with large blocks of property in Egypt, £E5,000 is brought here but the rest stands idle. They cannot either use it or move it out. It is a very difficult problem I fully agree.
§ THE EARL OF DUNDEEMy Lords, I agree that it is certainly a difficult problem. But even though for the time being assets are immobilised and their owners cannot get at them beyond the limit of £E5,000, I would suggest that we cannot start with the assumption that that means we ought to accept the principle that the British Government should pay the value of these immobilised assets to their owners. What we have done is what my noble friend described to your Lordships yesterday, and I am sure, if your Lordships may wish, that we shall be able to discuss that at a later stage.