HL Deb 26 July 1962 vol 242 cc1172-208

5.57 p.m.

LORD KILLEARN rose to move to resolve: (1) That, as it is now nearly six years since British subjects were deprived of their property and means of livelihood in Egypt, it is fully time that their claims were finally settled; (2) That, since it is clear (from the figures already given in Parliament by Her Majesty's Government) that the £27½ million paid in compensation by Egypt in February, 1959, falls very far short of what is required to meet the claims already agreed and those still to be made, Her Majesty's Government should now carry out the pledges made in both Houses of Parliament, by the grant in aid forthwith of sufficient funds to meet the assessed claims, mindful that it was on the strength of these pledges that Parliament accepted the Financial Agreement with Egypt of February, 1959. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I rise to put before your Lordships the Resolution standing in my name on the Order Paper. Before I get down to discussing its terms, I would apologise for bringing up such an old, old subject. Your Lordships must be tired and weary of this thing. It goes on for years and years, and never seems to get much forwarder. Yet it is a cause which some of us feel deserves all our support and pertinacity, even if it does sometimes weary your Lordships. This is the eighth debate we have had on this subject—eight solid, full-blown debates. And the Parliamentary Questions on it are like the stars in Heaven. I have counted up to at least 30, and I should think as many in the other place. And still we have this question with us; and, so far as I can make out, it is going to be with us for all time. That is why I put this Resolution down, to bring it up, as I hope, with a round term.

That brings me to paragraph 1 of the Resolution, which simply says in plain English: That, as it is now nearly six years since British subjects were deprived of their property and means of livelihood in Egypt, it is fully time that their claims were finally settled.

I cannot believe that in any quarter of this House there can be any dissent on the principle which I there enunciate. Before I go on to paragraph No. 2, here is an extract from a letter which I have only just received. Oddly enough, it comes from Kenya. The writer was one of the pillars of the British community in Egypt all through the war, and now, with his wife, he is living in Kenya. He says this: We ourselves have not had even a pocket handkerchief released from Egypt, and our present funds are frozen there and undergoing a sharp drop in value at the hands of Nasser.

That is only one of dozens of letters; we are all getting them. These are miserable and heart-rending cases.

That leads me to make this observation. I find it difficult to speak on this subject without a certain degree of emotion. I am not frightfully emotional—none of us is. But for 12½ years I lived, with my family, with these people in Cairo, in fair times and foul times, and throughout the war. A more loyal community I defy you to meet anywhere. That is, I suppose, in a sense, a sort of commonplace; you expect to find that. But they are not always put to the test of a war within 30 miles of their gates. I can tell your Lordships from personal experience that we had Rommel within 30 miles of us; we could hear his guns but there was not a quiver among my community. That is saying something.

Many of these people with whom it was our privilege to work put large funds into British Government securities; in fact not only substantially but morally they helped to maintain a stable basis for the British troops operating in the desert. Those are the people on whose behalf I am speaking. Some of them were poor; others were rich. But the time came when, owing to the failure of British policy (I personally backed that policy) these people were thrown out, neck and crop, with not a thing—many of them with not even a toothbrush: property, stocks and shares, houses and everything else were seized. At that time, I am glad to say, public opinion here was very much roused about it, and the Government did a certain amount. There was the noble Lord, Lord Colyton, and his Commission, and many of these people were placed. But, by and large, the matter remained, and still remains, outstanding.

Your Lordships may remember that during the war we used Egypt's harbours, ports, lights and what-have-you; and it was arranged at the end of the war (I think very generously; but I was not there then) that we should pay Egypt £400 million sterling for the privileges which she had given us. As I say, that was for saving her national existence. It seems a curious thing for us to pay for; but, never mind, we did it. Anyway, they had here credits of £400 million sterling. The years go on, and we come to the events at Suez. By that time these sterling credits, as we called them, had been reduced to roughly £100 million sterling. I obtained from the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, some weeks ago, a figure which showed that in February, 1957, the amount standing to the credit of Egypt was £93 million.

Now, my Lords, I should like to read the second paragraph of my Resolution.

It says: (2) That, since it is clear (from the figures already given in Parliament by Her Majesty's Government) that the £27½ million paid in compensation by Egypt in February, 1959, falls very far short of what is required to meet the claims already agreed and those still to be made, Her Majesty's Government should now carry out the pledges made in both Houses of Parliament, by the grant in aid forthwith of sufficient funds to meet the assessed claims, mindful that it was on the strength of these pledges that Parliament accepted the Financial Agreement with Egypt of February, 1959.

I take your Lordships back to the sterling credits. When the events at Suez occurred there was a contain amount of pressure brought to bear that these funds, which were perfectly good sterling in this country, should be held as security. There was a lot of fal-lal (if I may use that word) that it was contrary to bankers' practice, and I do not know what. Anyhow, on May 16, 1957, the then Foreign Minister used these words in the House of Commons [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 570, col. 584]: The blocked accounts are our security for the claims of British subjects against the Egyptian Government. We have no intention of whittling away that position. The House can be sure of that.

Well, my Lords, I could not have asked for a more explicit assurance. I would remind your Lordships that alt that time these funds stood at £93 million, according to the statement of the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, I come back to paragraph (2) of the Resolution, under which we accept in full and final settlement from Egypt the sum of £27½ million. I will just read to your Lordships what the Treaty says: The Government of the United Arab Republic shall pay to the United Kingdom the sum of £27½ million sterling in full and final settlement.

So we have not another kit coming out of Egypt; we cannot go back and say that we want any more; that is full and final settlement, and we have taken the £27½ million.

Against that we have (I can give a rough estimate) what I may call the short-fall, the difference between what we received and what I am asking for. The Foreign Compensation Commission are a very estimable body, of whom one hears nothing but good. It is through them that these claims have to be put forward—in fact, they have to do the distributing of the £27½ million; and they are proceeding to do so. They have on their files (that is, they have accepted agreements) claims for Egyptianised property—property which has been nationalised in Egypt—of between £60 million and £65 million.

Then there is the outstanding claim, which is, I know, the difficulty, of the sequestrated property. I am afraid that I am not being very clear, my Lords, but I hope that I am not getting too confused. Under the Treaty the property of British subjects was divided in two different classes. There was the property which Egypt nationalised and took over, which included all the bigger companies, of course, the things that were worth while; and there was the sequestrated property, which belonged to the smaller firms, and which, under the Treaty, was to be restored to its owners. The £27½ million, just to remind your Lordships, was to cover two things: it was to cover all claims in respect of property referred to in paragraph (c)—that is, the Egyptianised property; and, secondly, all claims in respect of injury or damage to property, the sequestrated matter, which under the Treaty was to be restored.

LORD PEDDIE

My Lords, could the noble Lord give any indication of a breakdown of those figures?

LORD KILLEARN

Which figures?

LORD PEDDIE

The amount in the corporate bodies and the amount due to individuals.

LORD KILLEARN

I obviously cannot do that; and I doubt whether the Government can do it.

THE EARL OF HOME

My Lords, I think that I might be able to help there.

LORD KILLEARN

I hope so. I have not got the sources. What it comes to is that the bulk of the bigger corporations have been nationalised. Shell is on a seperate basis altogether; I believe that they made a separate arrangement, and they do not come into this question at all.

I have here a long list of assurances of all kinds which have been given at different times by the Government. I will not quote many, because they are very tiresome. But on April 11, 1957—this has been quoted before and I quote it again—the Prime Minister said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 568, col. 1296]: It is the policy of Her Majesty's Government to secure from the Egyptian Government restoration of those assets in full, or alternatively complete compensation. That sentiment was echoed here, and we presumed that it was sincerely meant. How one is to reconcile that with the acceptance of the signature of the Treaty of 1959, I completely fail to see. I am skipping a bit now, but, various things happened in the interval. There have been ex gratia loans up to a certain amount to keep these poor people alive. Then in 1959 there was the Financial Agreement negotiated I think, by the Treasury, under which the Egyptian Government agreed to pay this £27½ million.

In due course this Agreement came before both Houses of Parliament. And in both it had a very chilly reception. It was accepted by this House, certainly—and I think also by the other House—only because of the assurances from the Prime Minister, among others, by which it was accompanied. In fact, if your Lordships read, as I have recently read again, the debate at the end of March. 1959, you will find it clearly set out that that, and that only, was the reason we allowed it to go through. Many of us said: "Thanks toe we have not to vote on this thing! We could not possibly vote for it, and we are devoutly thankful that we are not forced to vote against it. The reason we are not forced to vote against it is because of the assurances given by the Prime Minister and others" (and here I come back to my thesis) "about the shortfall." That is, the difference between the £27½ million and the totality of the claims. I am afraid that that is all rather involved, and perhaps not very clearly put.

I can quote the Prime Minister's promise again. On March 16, which was two days before our debate, they had a debate in another place and these words were, of course, quoted here [OFFICIAL REPORT. Commons, Vol. 602, cod. 150]: While we will not here and now pledge ourselves to make any fixed addition to the total of £27½ million, as has been suggested in the debate, I can say now that the Government will watch how this works out and will play their part in reaching a settlement which will be reasonable and fair, and we do not exclude a further contribution from public funds. That was a pretty guarded statement, it is obvious. I can anticipate the answer I shall receive on this matter: that it is not right or sense to ask the Government to take on an unknown liability. They said that before, and they will say it again. They said it in another place a couple of days ago. To my mind, that means that this shortfall is postponed until the Greek Calends. Why? Because claims have to be presented to the Foreign Compensation Commission here, which has its rules, and which insists on proof of ownership before it will register and accept a claim for assessment.

So far as nationalised claims are concerned, they go through fairly easily, because it is not difficult to prove the ownership of these big corporations. But for the unfortunate individuals, it is in many cases quite impossible. I can quote thousands of cases of men whose property is in Egypt, and they just cannot get the papers. In some cases they are burnt and non-existent. In other oases it is just Egyptian slowness, shall I say? At any rate, the net result is that these unfortunate individuals, these de-sequestrated people, if I may use the phrase, are not in a position to put their claims in to the Foreign Compensation Commission for registration. So far as I can see, they will go on until the end of time. So if the noble Earl tells me that it is totally unreasonable to ask for compensation without the papers, he must tell us what we should do. My answer is that you cannot get the papers.

After ail, a Government governs. The Government have the machinery and can do the whole thing. I feel, and have felt for a long time, that some body should be set up, if it cannot be the Foreign Compensation Commission—I do not know if it can or not—empowered to finalise these claims. After all, it is six years since this happened. These people are dying off, just like the rest of us, and eventually the problem will solve itself. I am callous enough to believe that that is the intention. I know the heart of my noble friend, Lord Home, is in the right place, and so is mine, I hope. At any rate, it seems to me that the answer given is completely fatuous. Your Lordships know the expression of the Greek Kalends. I do not suppose anybody thinks of that now. It means forever and ever. These people cannot get the papers—it is a physical impossibility; therefore they cannot present claims; their claims cannot be totted up, and so on.

Let me come down to bedrock. As stated in my second paragraph, we have received £27½ million. On the same day, for reasons best known to ourselves, and nobody else, we released £41 million, which was the residue of these credits. We took £27½ million in full and complete discharge of every liability, and we released £41 million, which was our only security. Madness! Absolutely crazy! If it had been a case of a trustee who had done this sort of thing, where would he have found himself? Honestly, I cannot find the right Parliamentary language to describe the situation. So my Resolution, as put down, is that the Government should at long last get in and somehow finalise this charge. Do not be held up by the Egyptians and the follies of their courts. Really, this is too much. Are we a Government or are we not? Cut across it. Finalise what the shortfall is. According to my information, we have got £27½ million. The Foreign Compensation Commission have accepted nationalised properties up to £60 million to £65 million. Those interested, that is to say the owners of de-sequestrated property, reckon the damage to their property at another £15 million. Add £15 million to £65 million, and you get £80 million. Take away £27½ million which we have already, and the shortfall, which I am talking about, ends up at £52½ million. Now I have finished. I hope that I have managed to make an extremely complicated question clear. It is very involved and a difficult thing to understand. I beg to move.

Moved to resolve, (1) That, as it is now nearly six years since British subjects were deprived of their property and means of livelihood in Egypt, it is fully time that their claims were finally settled.

(2) That, since it is clear (from the figures already given in Parliament by Her Majesty's Government) that the £27½ million paid in compensation by Egypt in February, 1959, falls very far short of what is required to meet the claims already agreed and those still to be made, Her Majesty's Government should now carry out the pledges made in both Houses of Parliament, by the grant in aid forthwith of sufficient funds to meet the assessed claims, mindful that it was on the strength of these pledges that Parliament accepted the Financial Agreement with Egypt of February, 1959.—(Lord Killearn.)

6.20 p.m.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF HOME)

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Killearn for raising this subject once again. The only thing that I think he got really wrong in has speech was that he was likely to be able to anticipate my reply. I should be very surprised if he had any idea what I was going to say, and I tope he will feel after I have finished that things are rather different from what he anticipated. A year ago I told your Lordships that I would try to find a settlement to these matters which the noble Lord, Lord Killearn, has raised; first of all, a settlement of all those things which were unresolved in the Financial Agreement of 1959; and, in addition, I would do my best to recommend a solution to the whole problem in due course which would mean Chat compensation for damage to property, both sequestrated and Egyptianised, would, in all the circumstances, be fair.

As the noble Lord has told your Lordships, there are really two related problems here. We have to ensure that the 1959 Agreement is rapidly and properly carried out and, at the same time, that when the Egyptian Government have met their obligations, Her Majesty's Government see that no undue hardship is suffered by those who were not sufficiently provided for by the Agreement of 1959.

I think there is no difference between the noble Lord and myself on the analysis of this problem. He and my noble friend Lord Salisbury and some other of your Lordships have from time to time asked me to try to devise ways and means of getting Egypt to pay across the exchanges the monies due to those claimants whose property has been sequestrated, because if they wanted to realise their property they were not in the event able to take their money out of Egypt and therefore could not enjoy it here. I have a great deal of sympathy with the plea made by the noble Lords, and I hoped that to-day I should be able to came to this House and report agreement with the Egyptian Government on this matter. The fact that I am not able to come and report agreement is not that there is any matter of principle in dispute between the Egyptian Government and ourselves, but, as your Lordships know, it takes a good deal of time to prepare documents which are very complicated, and this has taken a few days longer than I expected. And I would ask your Lordships not, at present, to take the Press accounts of what may come out in a few days' time as accurate, because they are not accurate at all. But when I am able to come to the House, and I hope lit will be before we rise, I believe that your Lordships will find the solution of this particular pant of the problem satisfactory.

I will say what the objectives are that I now have in mind in this Limited part of the settlement. The settlement should ensure, first of all, that all monies due for transfer under the Financial Agreement of 1959 are paid as applications are approved; secondly, that all problems arising out of the Financial Agreement of 1959 should be cleared up in a specific time; and that it should not be long; thirdly, that improved machinery should be set up both in Egypt and in this country to speed the matters up so that the claims can be approved as quickly as possible; and in that I have a good deal of sympathy with what my noble friend Lord Killearn has said. I hope also that this new arrangement will cover the speedy production of papers which are necessary for the assessment of claims and things of that kind.

But, of course, the main point of the settlement that I have in mind is that the transfer of cash and bank balances within the limit of the £5,000 in each case should be quickly settled; and I can forecast that, if I am able to sign this Agreement with the Egyptians in a short time, the settlement I have in mind will achieve all these objectives which I have now outlined to your Lordships.

I first raised this matter with Dr. Fawzi after some debates in your Lordships' House, and the Lord Privy Seal took it further with Dr. Kaissouni; and our conversations with the Egyptians have borne fruit. I must report to your Lordships that I am pleased with the spirit that has been shown on both sides in the discussions and that our working relations with the Government of the United Arab Republic have been very good. I am now quite convinced that both Governments share the desire that all matters concerning the Financial Agreement of 1959 should be cleared up and should no longer be an impediment to the development of good relations between the United Arab Republic and ourselves. There are certain matters of nuts and bolts, as I have said, but I hope to give your Lordships news shortly which I think your Lordships will approve, because this is what a number of my colleagues have been pressing on me for a good long time.

I want to say one word, which my noble friend Lord Killearn did not say, about the officials who were dismissed in 1951. I think it is known that Her Majesty's Government advanced £100,000 after the signature of the Agreement of 1959. Six months ago we advanced another £100,000, and the balance of compensation to be paid to officials which will be set against the recent advances by Her Majesty's Government are at present under discussion in Cairo. Again, I hope before very long to report some progress. Therefore, what I have spoken about so far is the 1959 Agreement; and I look forward to the possibility of settling all the problems under that Agreement in a comparatively short time.

LORD KILLEARN

Under that Agreement?

THE EARL OF HOME

Under that 1959 Agreement; because I am now coming on to the other.

The next matter to be settled then is the claims of those individuals and companies whose claims have not been met in full but have suffered loss to their property, as the noble Lord has said, in that they were either Egyptianised or sequestrated. The 1959 Agreement was not perfect, but it was the best we could get. It was better than no agreement and, although I know my noble friend does not like it, Parliament thought it was better than no agreement because it approved it. Both Houses approved that Agreement, although a good many noble Lords had reservations. As the noble Lord said, he himself had reservations, and so did a good many others. But the 1959 Agreement and Parliament's approval is one of the basic factors of this situation. It altered the situation that prevailed before, and the ministerial statements that had been made before were superseded by the statement of the Prime Minister, which the noble Lord, Lord Killearn, has read. Nevertheless, it was recognised that this Agreement was not entirely satisfactory; and, in so far as it was not satisfactory, the Government accepted the fact that at some point they would have to find more money. And I will repeat what my noble friend has already said—the statement of the Prime Minister that The Government do not exclude a further contribution from public funds over and above the sum of £27½ million provided in the Financial Agreement. The Agreement itself, therefore, and the Prime Minister's statement govern these claims, and the Government accept that more money will have to be found.

In order to assist the House—and the noble Lord, Lord Peddie, asked a question about this—and to measure the problem in what I call the next and, I hope, the final round of settlement, I will give the House one or two facts. Up to now over 83 per cent. of the claims before the Foreign Compensation Commission are receiving 90 per cent. of the assessed losses. Over 83 per cent. of the claims are receiving 90 per cent. of the assessed losses. Thus, over four-fifths of all the claimants have received nine-tenths of their claims. I know there are still hard cases, and where there are hard cases I hope that the machinery for mitigating them is fully and immediately used. These figures I have given to the House may seem very odd—particularly that four-fifths of all claimants have received nine-tenths of their claims—but it will become apparent why it is so when I tell the House that one of the claims is something round a figure of £17 million and that three others amount to over £3 million, and so there are a number of very large claims still to be assessed.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

Could the noble Earl say what are the names of the people who made these very large claims? Are they individuals? Are they great firms?

THE EARL OF HOME

I suppose it is legitimate to say Who they are; in fact they are large firms and one of them is a bank. The British-American Tobacco Company have the claim of about £17 million; the Tunnel Portland Cement, £3½ million; and Barclays Bank, £3¼ million. Those large claimants have had something like 25 per cent. of their claims, and even that, as the noble Lord, Lord Peddie, will see, runs into a good many millions. I give these figures really to help your Lordships and myself to consider what the next step should be, because what I think the House will be interested in are the claims of individuals, and in particular the claimants for comparatively small sums and those in the lower and middle ranges of claims. I am certain it is for those claimants that the House will feel very concerned, and it is to those people and their claims that I will direct my attention in what I would call the next and I hope, as I say, the final round.

LORD LLOYD

My Lords, if I may intervene, while the noble Earl is on figures, there is one other piece of information which he may be able to give us. Of the claims that have been settled, what proportion is in respect of Egyptianised claims and what proportion is in respect of sequestrated property? In other words, has the bulk of the money been paid out on one class of claims as opposed to the other?

THE EARL OF HOME

I think my noble friend Lord Dundee has those figures and he will give them. Therefore, when we consider this sort of case in which there are very large claims still ahead of us, I think your Lordships would wish to apply two criteria; one is the criterion of hardship and the other the criterion of equity, and that would be right, bearing in mind that the people who have to find any extra money which has to be found are, of course, the taxpayers of this country. I am very much aware of the hardships that individuals suffer when they are caught up in events over which they have no control.

To some extent, as the noble Lord has said, this is a risk run by those who live and make their work outside this country. And Her Majesty's Government could not, in all circumstances, all over the world, accept in general that in all such cases they should be the residual risk bearer. But I am afraid that this is all too often in this modern world the case, that British residents cannot get all the exchange that they wish out of a foreign country. We always do our best in these cases to minimise loss in every way.

But in this particular matter which is the subject of this Motion I would sum up in this way. Her Majesty's Government accept the obligation to supplement the monies available under the Agreement with further sums to prevent hardship and to promote equity. What I have said amounts to this. I hope that before the House rises next week I shall be able to make an announcement which will clear up once and for all the differences between us and the Egyptian Government over the 1959 Agreement and enable the transfer of monies to take place. Then I hope we shall consider the topping up, as it is known, and make it, in all the circumstances, fair and equitable.

I stand by the pledge which the Prime Minister gave in 1959. I want us to get on with the job, to do it as quickly as we possibly can, because I want as much as the noble Lord does to see this matter liquidated once and for all. These are subjects, as he says, which arouse emotion and we should not be human if they did not arouse emotion. I do not in the least object to his Motion on the Paper, because I share the objectives and I want to give these people a fair deal. In due course, therefore, I will come before your Lordships' House with a definite proposal on the residual obligation that we have accepted.

I do not know what response my noble friend will make to this reply which I have made to his Motion. I do not know whether he will go into the Lobby. I must say, I rather hope not. In a few days I am going to be able to announce something for which noble Lords themselves who are interested in this matter have been asking me for a long time. I have promised to apply my own mind and the Government's mind as fast as we may to settling the other problem, which is the topping up of the £27½ million. I say to your Lordships something more. When I saw Mr. Fawzi, the Foreign Minister of the United Arab Republic, I really did so because I believed it was high time, after many years of bad relations, for us to mend our relations with Egypt, and he reciprocated that sentiment. I believe that if we can make this financial settlement which I have outlined, that will be a start in better relations with the United Arab Republic, which is one of my objectives. Therefore, I hope the noble Lord will not divide the House; but if he does, I would ask my noble friends who share these objectives that I have had and who want to see a fair deal for the people here and also the start of an era of better relations with Egypt to support us in the Lobby.

6.38 p.m.

THE EARL OF LUCAN

My Lords, the first thing I should like to say is that most of us in this House, I think, feel an unbounded admiration for the noble Lord, Lord Killearn, for the energy and persistence with Which he is pursuing this campaign on behalf of the people he knew so well when he was serving in Cairo. I think many of us go a long way with him in his campaign and in his feelings and his determination to right what he considers is a grievous wrong to a number of British subjects, although not all of us, perhaps, certainly not all my noble friends on this side, would go to the length of following him into the Lobby on the exact terms of his Resolution. I would congratulate him on this occasion because his persistence has been rewarded and he has drawn from the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary something that seems to me really worth while—something which is "jam tomorrow", but it is not a very distant to-morrow—and it looks as if the deadlock that has persisted over these many years has been broken.

In thinking of this problem I should like to go back to the debate we had on the Financial Agreement of 1959. I notice that the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, in moving the introduction of that debate, said that the right course would foe to wait until we saw what emerged from the return by the Egyptian authorities of the sequestrated properties, and the work of the Foreign Compensation Commission. Apart from the question, of what the noble Lord, Lord Killearn, calls the short-fall, the difference between the total claims and the total payments toy Egypt under the Agreement, I think the most important thing is the question of the former sequestrated properties.

What has now been the result of the Agreement? Bow have the different Articles been carried out? I think we can take it that Article II, by which Her Majesty's Government undertook to remove the Exchange Control and in fact to release the sterling balances, was carried out promptly. In Article III the Government of the United Arab Republic undertook, immediately on the signature of the Agreement, to terminate all the measures which had been taken under the Emergency Regulations of 1956, and to return all British property. If your Lordships look at Annex B, which details the method of carrying out Article III, your Lordships will see that The Sequestrator-General shall ensure that within three months after the date of the receipt of each application … the property concerned be released and handed over by the Sequestrator-General. My information is that that undertaking has never been carried out. In fact, I am told that the average time between the receipt of the claim and the signature for the release was over one year. Nevertheless, nearly 5,000 claims had been forwarded or submitted by the end of last year—I think that that figure was given in another place. As the time limit in the Agreement was twelve months, and no claims were admissible after twelve months from 1959, presumably there are no more. Of those 4,960 claims, I am told that at the end of the year 3,300 agreements to release had been signed or were awaiting signature—that is, three-quarters or more. But that is only one stage in the restoration to these British subjects of their property.

The next stage is the application for the release of the £E5,000, which was later amended to £E1,000. The only figures I have seen show that 260 people applied for the £E1,000, and in 231 cases the applications were approved. I hope that the noble Earl who is to reply will be able to say whether or not these figures are correct and perhaps bring them more up to date. But the enormous difference between the total of 3,300 agreements to release signed and only 260 applications for the £E1,000 seems to me to require some explanation. Is it, as the noble Lord, Lord Killearn, has told us, that the formalities required by the Egyptian Government are so complicated, and the workings of the administrative machine in Egypt so slow, that all these 3,000 people have had their property theoretically released but are not yet in a position to claim the money? I should be glad to know whether it is due to friction in the works, so to speak, or whether there is any other explanation.

My Lords, the figures I have been mentioning relate to those whose property has been de-sequestrated and who wish to realise as much of it as they can. In regard to the claims for loss or damage during the period the property was sequestrated, I have been told that by November of last year, 777 claims, totalling £1,600,000, had been put in, and those were assessed. There were, in addition £2½ million worth of claims not yet assessed. That makes £4 million in all. At the same date, £600,000 had been paid out in satisfaction of the £1,600,000 worth of claims put in. Can we be told whether those figures have changed by now? We believe that a great deal more than £4 million represents the amount of damage suffered by sequestrated property. If that is so, we should like to know how the process of putting in the claims and getting them dealt with is progressing.

I should like to raise one other aspect of this matter—namely, the general economic position of the Egyptian Government. We were told last year that Egypt had appealed to Her Majesty's Government, and pleaded inability owing to shortage of sterling to meet the full £E5,000 on each claim which they had agreed to release under the Agreement. Her Majesty Government accepted that, and also the fact that each claimant could realise only £E1,000 worth of his property. What I should like to ask is whether Her Majesty's Government were satisfied that there was substance in the plea of the Egyptian Government. Were they really satisfied that the Egyptian Government had not the sterling needed to realise the sums agreed? Had they no other foreign currency? Could they not call on some other resources? We read in the papers of other activities of the Egyptian Government. It is hard to believe that they were, as they said, unable to allow the release of this amount of £E5,000 on each claim.

Egypt has been receiving dollar aid on a pretty large scale. I understand that some 600 million dollars have been paid to Egypt in the last ten years by the United States, and I am told that the new agreement in process of negotiation with the United States provides for another 600 million dollars in the next three years. That is a substantial amount of money, and if they have obtained all these dollar assets, surely they can meet a sterling claim of a comparatively small amount. It has been said, and I do not know whether it has ever been disproved, that a large amount of the American dollar aid has gone into the purchase of arms from the Soviet bloc, and that such purchases are going to amount to some £100 million between 1961 and 1964. The Egyptian arms budget is going up this year, by about 15 per cent., to a figure of £138 million. Finally, there was a report in The Times last Monday with the title "Egypt tests Rocket Missiles at Desert Site". Cairo Radio stated that Egypt had now joined the ranks of the rocket-producing countries. The Egyptian newspapers were delighted, President Nasser was delighted, and the journalists, many of them from the Soviet bloc, were shown these rockets which were displayed as proof that Egypt had joined the ranks of the rocket-producing Powers.

In view of those factors, Which cannot have escaped the attention of the Foreign Office, I wonder what steps Her Majesty's Government have taken to persuade the Egyptian Government to honour the Agreement. The noble Earl, Lord Home, told us just now that he has in fact had considerable success. I would suggest that people in this country "who read their newspapers expect that Egypt should be persuaded to act a good deal more generously, and to be much more prompt in honouring the Agreement to which they have put their signature, than they seem to have been hitherto. We shall look forward with great interest to the noble Earl's statement which he hopes to give us before we rise next week. I note with great satisfaction that Her Majesty's Government accept (I think the word was) the obligation to supplement the change under the Agreement. In view of that, I would suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Killearn, that he has gone a good long way towards his objective, and I, personally, should not feel it was worth dividing the House on this question.

6.53 p.m.

LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE

My Lords, I differ from my noble friend Lord Killearn only on one matter in his speech, and that is on his apology for bringing up this matter again, because I think that your Lordships in all parts of the House admire the noble Lord for his persistent efforts on behalf of these handly-treated British nationals. Although the hour is late and the House is thin, I am sure we all agree that Parliament is ever willing to receive the pleas of, and to give consideration to, oases of individual or collective unfairness or distress.

My Lords, the speech of the noble Earl, the Foreign Secretary, for which I would thank him, is certainly helpful, and an advance. But if I may make one criticism of it, it is this. It seemed to me a speech in which the positive statements were in the direction of helping the Egyptians and aiding the facilities for them to implement the 1959 Agreement. The basic responsibility which many of us feel that Her Majesty's Government have for the citizens, particularly the hard-pressed ones, is still not clearly admitted. The Foreign Secretary foreshadowed the culmination of the settlement he promised to your Lordships a year ago. He said he hoped to arrive at some agreement with the Egyptian Government in a few days, and that that agreement would allow the transfer of all funds to settle the approved applications under the 1959 Agreement in respect of the sequestrated persons. That is my interpretation of what he said.

My Lords, that may be very satisfactory, but it does not cover the desperately important point that so many of these people are unable to get their claims approved. They can never get to that stage because of—and I regret to use the word—the intransigeance of the Egyptian authorities and their resistance in so many different directions. The 1959 Agreement gives almost endless opportunities for bureaucratic delay and obstruction, and there is nothing in the speech of the Foreign Secretary, except that some better administrative machinery will be devised in this country and Egypt. There was nothing in the Foreign Secretary's speech to give an assurance that Her Majesty's Government will bring strong pressure to bear upon the Egyptian Government to introduce a system which will approve claims—a system very different from that which has hitherto persisted.

THE EARL OF HOME

I think, my Lords, that we must wait and see what the terms of the Agreement are; and I cannot reveal them. The noble Lord will have noticed that I said we wanted to improve the machinery on both sides in dealing with this matter, and also that we would deal with it in a specified time. I cannot tell him exactly what the time will be, but that does make a lot of difference.

LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE

Indeed, it gives a degree of reassurance, which is welcome.

My Lords, the other defect, if I may be allowed to refer to it in that way, of the Foreign Secretary's speech, was this. We know that there is going to be a shortfall, and we know that Her Majesty's Government have said they will look favourably upon a payment towards that shortfall. But I do not see—unless the new procedures are so very different from what we have suffered in the past—that it will be possible, in any reasonable time, to define the shortfall in exact terms of money, which of course is necessary before the Treasury can sanction grants. My Lords, the Foreign Secretary used a disappointing phrase which I took down. He said that he was sorry Her Majesty's Government could not accept direct responsibility for compensation of those (and these were his words) "caught up in events over which they had no control." It would have been fairer to say, "caught up in events for which Her Majesty's Government's policy was directly responsible." There is a very considerable difference there. This is a unique case of a claim for compensation for which responsibility is on Her Majesty's Government.

I shall not weary the House in any way by repeating the reasons for the Suez policy, to which I did give, and do give, full support. But we went into Suez to protect the lives and property of Britishers. If we went in to do that then, surely it is not unreasonable to ask Her Majesty's Government to accept direct responsibility now for the action they took then. There is no need for me to re-argue the case in detail, as has been so ably done both to-night and on other occasions by the noble Lord, Lord Killearn, and other noble Lords. All I would say is that, while grateful to the Foreign Secretary, I am disappointed that Her Majesty's Government still will not accept direct responsibility for the compensation of these British nationals, who have suffered from our own policy and our own actions; and that Her Majesty's Government, while showing good will and the general intention to do something, will not come down to the House to-night and say that they are determined to accept the responsibility for proper compensation, and then go to the Egyptians and get what they can out of Egypt. We used to be told that the more the British Government gave to British nationals, the more it encouraged Egypt to do less. That argument is fallacious now—it has gone. To-day we know exactly how far Egypt will go; and, my Lords, we should like to know how far Her Majesty's Government will go, in a direction more positive and further than that which the Foreign Secretary indicated to-night.

7.3 p.m.

LORD LLOYD

My Lords, I do not want to detain your Lordships very long, particularly as much of what I would have said has already been said by others, probably better than I could have put it. I have rather mixed feelings, if I may say so, about what was said by my noble friend the Foreign Secretary. I think we know that he would like to help us over this matter, and I have always felt that he used his best endeavours to that end. I think we are all glad to hear that positive steps are being taken initially to get the Egyptians at least to observe their obligations, and that is certainly the first step. I would agree with the noble Earl there. Of course, as has been said by other noble Lords, one of the most important things is to try to get these claims formulated, because so long as the Government's attitude is that they cannot even consider assisting these people any further until they know what the total bill is, and as we can never know what the total bill is until all the claims are in, we obviously remain in a state of complete impasse. I do not know how successful the Government are likely to be with the Egyptian Government in this respect, or how long it will take, but certainly I would agree that that is the second priority.

There are other aspects which I should like briefly to touch upon. May I say a word about the 1959 Agreement? The noble Earl the Foreign Secretary said, perfectly truthfully, that Parliament and noble Lords accepted the 1959 Agreement. The 1959 Agreement was the best we could get, although it was imperfect. It is true that we accepted it, some of us rather reluctantly, but I think some of us accepted it because we had been given assurances by Her Majesty's Government that, in view of the imperfections of the Treaty—this, at any rate, is the way I understood it—they would do something positive at a later date, which quite reasonably at that time they felt they could not be very precise about, not merely to rectify the financial injustices of the 1959 Agreement—because, after all, £27 million in settlement of debts worth £80 million cannot be regarded by any standards as a very satisfactory Agreement—but to deal with the actual defects of the Agreement itself.

The main defect, about which I should like to remind your Lordships if I may, is the very real injustice between the two classes of claimant, and I think this is so important that I must say a word about it again. It was purely fortuitous, whether you were Egyptianised or sequestrated. In point of fact, on the whole the big companies were Egyptianised and the small man was sequestrated, and, obviously, the worse of the two was to be sequestrated. So it was the small man, the poorer man, who got the worse deal. As I say, that was purely fortuitous, and I think the Government's theory all along has been that it was perfectly fair compensation if you gave a man back his property in Egypt, you de-sequestrated, and you gave him cash in sterling for the damage that had been done to his property in the meantime. I do not think that that is remotely fair.

Let us take two men with virtually equal properties. Let us say that they each have £100,000. The man with £100,000 who is Egyptianised gets paid £50,000 cash sterling in this country. The man who has the misfortune to be sequestrated gets the damage up to the date of the Treaty, and not a penny after that. His property may remain sequestrated for two years or more after that. He gets that in sterling, and he than is left with an asset which is probably virtually valueless and, at any rate, frozen. If the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary is successful, and the property is still worth £5,000, he may in a year or so be able to get £5,000 out of Egypt. I cannot feel that that is fair as between these two sets of people, and I think it is all the more inequitable since it so happens that the people who are the hardest hit are the smaller people.

I noticed particularly that the noble Earl said in his speech that the Government wanted the settlement to minimise the hardship and to be equitable. That is not an exact quotation, but I think it is the sense of his words. I think that is what we all want. But I do not think the Government can do that unless they are prepared, in dealing with this question of compensation, to remove a very real injustice which was built into the 1959 Agreement. I do not know whether that is going to be possible or not. I find it encouraging that the noble Earl has renewed the pledge given by the Prime Minister that additional funds will be made available—we do not know on what sort of scale and, above all, we do not know how these funds are going to be applied after they are made available. I am encouraged by that, but I still feel, like my other noble friends, that it is a pity that the Government could not have gone further and said that they have a real responsibility, and realise their real responsibility for these people who, in the opinion of some of us, were the victims of Government policy. I do not think there is any more I need say about that, except that there have been rumours of the possibility of sterling loans to Egypt. I saw that in the paper. It would be most unfortunate if any form of sterling loans were made to Egypt, until this issue had been resolved.

7.10 p.m.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

My Lords, I do not intend to keep the House more than a very few minutes this afternoon. This subject has been discussed so often that it is not necessary to recapitulate the arguments at any length. I should just like to sum up the position that has been taken up by my noble friends and myself. All of your Lordships have heard the arguments a hundred times over, and I hope that you have all formed your own conclusions about the situation of the many Suez claimants; and not only of the great firms, of whom the Foreign Secretary spoke this afternoon, but, in particular, of the individuals. many of them retired people, old people, too old to start life again, who have been largely ruined as a result of the Suez operation.

My Lords, I supported the Suez operation. I was a member of the Government that embarked upon it; and I still think that they were right. But I cannot hide from myself that these people are casualties of those operations just as much as if they had actually been wounded in battle. Indeed, again and again the Government have given clear indications that they recognise that the Suez claimants have a right to be compensated. The Prime Minister himself has used words that leave no doubt of that. As the House has been reminded again and again, as far back as 1957 he stated in the other place [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 568, col. 1296]—and it was quoted in your Lordships' House last week: It is the policy of Her Majesty's Government to secure from the Egyptian Government restoration of those assets"— that is, the assets of the claimants— in full, or alternatively full compensation". Yet, two years later, on 1959, the Government signed an agreement with the Egyptian Government which made it absolutely certain that the claimants would not receive full compensation from the Egyptians. Indeed, the Prime Minister himself seems to have recognised this, for at the time that Agreement was debated in another place he made a statement in which he said (the Foreign Secretary has quoted it this afternoon) that he would not exclude a further contribution from public funds. Behind that declaration, if they will forgive me for saying so, the Government seem to some of us to have sheltered (I can use no other word) ever since.

My Lords, 1959, 1960, 1961 and 1962 have passed; and each year it has become more obvious to any ordinary, rational man that the Egyptian Government do not intend to pay one penny more than they are forced to do. They have been putting every conceivable dicuffilty in the way Of de-sequestration of the property. Even when property has been de-sequestrated, it is often re-sequestrated; and, in any case, it is almost impossible for many British owners of assets in Egypt to get those assets, even in liquid form, transferred out of Egypt. Each year we have drawn the attention of our Government to this fact—a fact which I should have thought had become crystal clear to everyone—and each year we have had the reply, given with the utmost courtesy, as it was given to me by the Foreign Secretory the other day and repeated this afternoon, that the Prime Minister had made it clear in 1959 that he did not exclude a further contribution from public funds. Though this time, I must confess, the noble Earl went one step further and added that the Prime Minister had this matter very much in mind.

My Lords, as I listened to him I had a vision of exactly the same reply being given by the Foreign Secretary of the day—and I expect we should all hope that it would be the noble Earl, Lord Home—in 1972, in 1982 and in 1992, on and on, year after year, until such time as all the claimants were dead. I do not think any of us has any doubt of the Foreign Secretary's own sympathy in the matter. He has shown it on numerous occasions in the past, and he has shown it clearly in what he has said to us this afternoon. Moreover, we realise very well the handicap he has been under to-day in being able to give only a very bare outline of what he is trying to achieve for these unhappy people.

But, my Lords, what he has not been able to say, and what no Minister up to now has been able to say, beyond the vague statement made by the Prime Minister three years ago, is that Her Majesty's Government recognise direct responsibility themselves to see that proper compensation is paid; and paid in time to be of some use to the claimants. They always seem to be using their good offices with the Egyptian Government. They never seem to say: "If the Egyptian Government will not pay, we will"—except in the most general terms: this year, next year, some time they will pay.

My Lords, we already know very well that the Egyptian Government will not pay nearly as much as is required; and I am beginning to believe that Her Majesty's Government will never say that, for the simple reason that the Treasury are absolutely determined that in no circumstances shall any Government accept responsibility for compensating British people for losses overseas, even though those people have suffered through no fault of their own but purely as a result of the policy of their Government, and even though, as in this case, their own Prime Minister has described "restoration of their assets in full or, alternatively, complete compensation" as their right.

The Treasury, my Lords, are pretty powerful people, but I nave been comforted by recalling an experience I once had a good many years ago, when the noble Viscount, Lord Addison, was leading this House and I was leading the Opposition. In those days, after the 1945 Election, When the Labour Party had a large majority in another place and the Conservative Parity had a large majority in your Lordships' House, Lord Addison (who was a very wise man, as we all know), for the purpose of facilitating the passage of Labour Government Bills through the House, had the good idea of calling meetings of himself, myself (as I say, I was leading the Opposition) and the senior officials of the Department concerned with particular Bills, to go through those Bills before the Committee stage to see how far Opposition Amendments could be rendered acceptable to the Government. In one particular case the departmental officials—I will not say which Department—were being particularly obstructive, and as each Amendment came up they produced what they regarded as unanswerable objections to the making of any concession. Eventually, Lord Addison's patience became completely exhausted, and he turned to them and said, "You do not understand the position at all. It is not you who govern this country; it is Parliament that governs this country".

My Lords, I thought at that time, and I still think, that it was an extremely profound remark; and what is true of Government Departments is, if I may say so with all deference, true even of Governments. It is not Governments, ultimately, under Her Majesty the Queen, who govern this country: it is Parliament. It is to Parliament that we have been appealing for three or four years, and to whom we have been appealing to-day. Is it the wish of Parliament that this situation should continue and go on in that way? It is for that reason that we have constantly brought the matter up in your Lordships' House. Is Parliament prepared to allow these people to be denied any longer that full restoration of their assets, or, alternatively, complete compensation, which the Prime Minister has declared to be their right?

We feel sure that the Foreign Secretary has done his best; he has the respect and affection of us all. But it is not the Foreign Secretary alone who is concerned in this; it is the Government as a whole. The noble Lord, Lord Killearn, may feel that we ought to look in more detail at the new proposals which the Foreign Secretary has foreshadowed to-day before proceeding to extremes. I could well understand that very likely it would be the right course. But if he puts his Resolution to the vote, I personally shall support him in the Lobby. In any case, I hope he will continue to return to the attack, and return to the attack again, until these miserable people get justice.

7.21 p.m.

THE EARL OF DUNDEE

My Lords, this is a question on which it is very easy to be contentious in debate. I think that what your Lordships would like me to do, in replying to this short discussion, is rather to be factual; and because I think this is a rather complicated subject, I think your Lordships want to know more about the facts of the case up to the present moment. Whatever your Lordships may decide to do about dividing or not dividing, I think you would rather I tried briefly to answer some of the questions which have been put, rather than to enter into the broader issues of controversy with which we are so familiar on this question.

My Lords, these claimants have always been divided, I think, into two main categories: those who have claims to compensation of one kind or another, on the one hand; on the other hand, those who owned property in Egypt, all of which probably has been sequestrated, but there may or may not be any claim for damage, and the point is that they cannot get sterling payments made to them because of exchange difficulties. My noble friend Lord Lloyd argued that their case is very much worse, and is bound to be worse in the long run, than the case of those whose property has been confiscated, because those whose property has been confiscated (I shall give a few figures in a moment) have at least received something, and have the prospect of receiving something more, whereas those whose property has not been confiscated have only the prospect, which up to now has been doubtful and not fulfilled, of receiving £E5,000. Of course, their prospects in future must depend, and can only depend, on the exchange position, on the ability of the Egyptian Government to make sterling payments.

The noble Earl, Lord Lucan, asked whether we were satisfied that there really had been exchange difficulties, and that they might not have contrived to make these comparatively small payments—or, rather, I should say, transfers; he was quite right in drawing that distinction. They are transfers, because the property belongs to the owners in this country, and one ought not to call them payments to the owners of Egyptian property in this country. It is the case that Egypt has been short of foreign exchange over the past years, mainly due, we think, to the failure of her cotton crops. The Suez Canal dues, paid in sterling and other currencies, have for the most part been used for the maintenance and improvement of the Canal. Last year Egypt had a deficit of £17 million in her trade with this country. She exported only some £4½ million worth of goods to us, While she bought some £22 million worth from us. Therefore, it was largely owing to the shortage of sterling that the Egyptian authorities delayed allowing transfers to be made until March, 1961, and then they were able only to give this £E1,000, which I think is worth about £870 sterling, on transferable accounts.

Now when my noble friend the Foreign Secretary said that he would hope to be able to make an announcement next week, it would be confined to two things: one, the general desirability of speeding up machinery for settlement of all kind of claims, but, in particular, to get an arrangement—which, of course, I cannot anticipate now, because we cannot say anything about it until it becomes definite—which will enable these undertakings to transfer up to £E5,000 to their rightful owners in this country under the 1959 Agreement to be implemented within a reasonably short period of time: in fact, possibly the shortest period of time in which they could have been paid under the existing machinery of formulating claims to ownership of the property. My Lords, that is what we hope to do, and except for the point about machinery to speed up everything, it has nothing to do at all with compensation. Except in that indirect respect, the statement which my noble friend hopes to make next week will not have anything to do with the amount of compensation payable out of the £27½ million. That again falls into two categories, which my noble friend Lord Lloyd also emphasised: those who were claiming compensation in respect of nationalised, or, rather, "Egyptianised" (as it is usually called) property, and those who have had their property returned, but who are able to claim sums in damage, which may, of course, be relatively small, in some cases trivial, in relation to the total value of the property.

I will now try to give only a few figures. I do not want to trouble your Lordships too much with statistics, although this is a subject which needs, I think, some expounding of statistical facts. I will try to give only the facts both in relation to undertakings and in relation to the present state of the account as between the claimants and the Foreign Claims Commission. I shall not argue with my noble Mend Lord Salisbury the question of whether we ought morally to pay in full all the amount claimable in compensation by those who have had their property confiscated.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

My Lords, the point I was making was that the Prime Minister himself said that they ought to be paid in full.

THE EARL OF DUNDEE

Yes, my Lords; my noble friend quoted, I think in the couse of supplementary questions the other day, the statement of the Prime Minister on April 11, 1957, that: It is the policy of Her Majesty's Government to secure from the Egyptian Government restoration of those assets in full, or alternatively complete compensation". I think I would read that to mean compensation from the Egyptian Government.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

But the point is that the Prime Minister said that they ought to have either one or other of those two things, and they now know that they are not going to get it from the Egyptian Government.

THE EARL OF DUNDEE

Yes; but I could not accept, as a matter of historical fact, the implication that, if the Egyptian Government did not pay full compensation, it then became the obligation of Her Majesty's Government to do so. And I am sure that my noble friend Lord Salisbury did not think that at the time, because about only ten days before the Prime Minister made the statement, the noble Marquess, speaking in your Lordships' House on this subject, said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 202, col. 939]: A much wider question was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Winster. He asked what would be the action of the Government in the event of the Egyptian Government rejecting claims altogether. There will, of course, come a time when the Government must decide on that point, which is, for the moment, an entirely hypothetical one. … If I said to-day that if the Egyptian Government refused to pay the debts, Her Majesty's Government would shoulder them all, it would just be asking the Egyptian Government to repudiate all debts; and that is the last thing that any of us wants to do.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

My Lords, I do not recede from a word I said, but that was before the signature of the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement. When that Agreement had been signed, we knew the full extent of the Egyptian contribution. What the Government were afraid of at that time was that if we offered to pay, then the Egyptians would not pay so much, but after the signature of the Agreement we knew just how much they would pay, and it was not enough.

THE EARL OF DUNDEE

But, my Lords, the Prime Minister's statement, which the noble Marquess quoted, was also before the 1959 Agreement.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

My Lords, does that mean that the Prime Minister withdrew from his statement of 1957?

THE EARL OF DUNDEE

No more than the noble Marquess withdraws from his.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

I shall not withdraw on mine. I said that it was unnecessary for the Government to say that they would take full responsibility for the debts of all these claimants while it was uncertain how much they could get out of the Egyptians. The Prime Minister said that he accepted that these people had a right to full compensation.

THE EARL OF DUNDEE

From the Egyptians.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

But what the noble Earl is saying to us in effect is that the Government reject an obligation to compensate these people.

THE EARL OF DUNDEE

I am saying exactly the opposite. No obligation was undertaken. The Prime Minister said that he was endeavouring to obtain from the Egyptians full compensation, and when the Government were asked in your Lordships' House what would happen if the Egyptians could not pay, he said that Her Majesty's Government would not shoulder them all.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

I do not wish to interrupt the noble Earl, but this is an important point. At the time I made that remark, negotiations were still going on with the Egyptian Government as to how much they should pay, whether they would pay more or whether they would pay less. If at that moment the Government had said they would pay in full, obviously the Egyptians would have said they would pay nothing. But when the Agreement was reached, it was made absolutely clear how much Egypt would pay. From that moment, I felt—and it does not differ in any way from my earlier statement—that Her Majesty's Government should shoulder the rest of the burden.

THE EARL OF DUNDEE

My Lords, my point is that this cannot have meant that we were undertaking to shoulder the balance. At the time these negotiations were still in progress our object was to obtain full compensation from the Egyptian Government, and I am only arguing that this does not in fact impose any obligation on the British Government to come along, if the Egyptians did not give full compensation, and pay it themselves. We have always explained that and emphasised that every time the subject has been discussed over the last five years. This is not a new argument I am putting forward. This has been said again and again. When the agreement was debated in your Lordships' House, my noble friend Lord Hailsham, in talking about the question of supplementation, quoted the Chancellor of the Exchequer to this effect [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 215, col. 93]: that neither this Government nor any other Government in this country have ever accepted a commitment to make good losses suffered by British subjects in foreign countries. We could not possibly accept a commitment of that kind, but we are anxious to see a fair outcome of the matter. I am not arguing that we ought not to give more money. As I will say in a moment, we intend to do so. But I must refute and rebut the suggestion that the words used by the Prime Minister in 1957 ought to be taken, or ever have been taken, or could be supposed by any reasonable man to be taken, to involve the undertaking that the Government would be fully responsible for paying compensation, and for making up the full gap between what the Egyptian Government pay and what the compensation claims amount to. I put it to your Lordships that it is highly misleading to make any assertion to that effect, because it is an assertion which cannot be supported by the Prime Minister's words or by the circumstantial evidence or by the subsequent statements which have been made within the last five years, repeatedly and clearly, both in your Lordships' House and in another place.

Having said that, I would again remind your Lordships that the Prime Minister did say in 1959 that we did not exclude a contribution from public funds to supplement the amount which can be recovered from the Egyptian Government. As noble Lords pointed out, the chief thing we need now is a speeding up of the assessment of these claims, so that we can be in a position to see what would be a reasonable and fair contribution from the Government, as my noble friend the Foreign Secretary has indicated in this speech. I should like to indicate to your Lordships the factors which I think seem likely to bear most upon this question, which we cannot answer now, of how much what is called the "topping up" ought to be. I am not going to take long over it, because I know that none of your Lordships wants to prolong this discussion needlessly. But my noble friend Lord Lloyd and the noble Earl opposite did ask for a little more about the "breakdown" between the different classes of payments.

I do not think that I need spend long on the provisions of the last Order in Council, which I explained to your Lordships in December, under which claimants of up to £5,000 receive 90 per cent. of the amount assessed; those between £5,000 and £50,000 get 90 per cent. of the first £5,000 and 60 per cent. of the balance; those between £50,000 and £500,000 get 90 per cent. of the first £5,000, 60 per cent. of the next £45,000 and 35 per cent. of the balance. Those over £500,000 get the same up to the first £500,000, and 20 per cent. of the balance over that.

On June 30 of this year, there had been 584 Egyptianisation claims assessed; the total amount being £42,887,000. That is a good deal more than the figure which I gave to your Lordships last December. There has been some speeding up since then, though not nearly so much as we should like. After assessment, the claims (this concerns, so far, only Egyptianisation, and not compensation) fell into the following categories. Up to £5,000 there were 414 claims assessed; the amount claimed was £449,890 and the amount payable under the present distribution order was £378,719. These claimants have received, or will receive, 90 per cent. of their claims. Then, between £5,000 and £50,000, there were 118 claims, amounting to £1,818,000. I should just like your Lordships to see the pattern; the proportion of large claims and the proportion of smaller ones. The amount payable under the present distribution order is £1,166,000. Between £50,000 and £500,000, there are only 40 claimants and their claims amount to £6,800,000, of which very nearly £3 million (£2,914,000) is payable under the present order. Above £500,000, twelve claimants have claims amounting to £33,743,000—that is, out of a total of £44 million-odd. The amount they receive under the present distribution is £7,766,000. I do not want to elaborate this or to draw any morals from it but I just want your Lordships to see the pattern.

My noble friend Lord Lloyd asked, would we compare with the damage claims for returned sequestrated property. They, of course, take much longer to assess. They are also a comparatively small total compared to the nationalisation claims. On June 30, 1,224 sequestrated claims had been assessed. To complete the picture I ought to give our estimate of the claims still to come in for nationalisation claims. I gave your Lordships a figure of £44 million assessed. We estimate that there may be about another £17 million to come.

LORD LLOYD

My Lords, these are sequestration claims, are they?

THE EARL OF DUNDEE

No. I have gone back to the nationalisation claims. We estimate £17 million, in addition to the £44 million. So your Lordships will see that more than two-thirds has already been assessed.

On the sequestration claims, 1,224 claims have been assessed. The amount at which they have been assessed is only £2½ million. The amount claimed had been, for the sake of interest, £3,700,000. There is a much bigger gap between the amount claimed and the amount assessed in the case of these claims for damages, than there is in the Egyptianised property claims. This, I think, is what one should expect.

LORD KILLEARN

The majority of the people whose property has been sequestrated have not been able to put claims in yet.

THE EARL OF DUNDEE

I would not say the majority.

LORD KILLEARN

I mean a large part.

THE EARL OF DUNDEE

I gave your Lordships last December an estimate which was the best I could do—it was only an intelligent guess—of what the final total amount of the sequestration claims was likely to be. The best estimate that we can make is that the total amount of claims for damages at the end of the day will be about £10 million compared perhaps with over £60 million for nationalisation. In these sequestration claims, as they are called (I think it is perhaps less confusing to call them damage claims, so that they do not get mixed with the larger question of sequestrated property in general), of up to £E5,000, 1,122 applicants have had their claims settled at £1,060,000, of which they get £914,000 under the present statutory Order in Council. That has gone through already. For amounts between £5,000 and £50,000 there are 96 claimants; the amount assessed is £900,000; the amount which they are receiving under the present distribution is £646,000. Above £50,000 and up to £500,000 there are only six claimants, for £531,000, of which they are entitled to receive, under the present distribution, £248,000. And above £500,000, there are, so far, nil.

Your Lordships will now have, I hope, a rough idea of the pattern of how this is going and how it is working out. Up to now, only about half of the £27½ million has actually been disbursed. We hope that the process will be greatly accelerated before long, and, as my noble friend said, we hope that it will soon be possible to envisage a final date at which all claims under the 1959 Agreement may be finally settled. When we have got that in our minds it will be possible for the Government to present to Parliament what they think is a fair and reasonable amount of additional money, as the Prime Minister has undertaken, to be provided from public funds.

I have tried to give your Lordships the figures which I know some of your Lordships would like. I do not wish at this moment to draw any further conclusions from those figures than I have done, because I think the important thing at the moment is to get all the facts clearly and in their right perspective before we can finally judge whether the measures which we will take to bring this matter between ourselves, the Egyptians and the claimants to a final conclusion shall be presented to your Lordships and to another place.

7.46 p.m.

LORD KILLEARN

My Lords, before I go any further—I do not wish to prolong the debate—there is one point which the Foreign Secretary made: that the Treasury would never accept liability for British subjects damaged or suffering abroad. I want to controvert that at once.

THE EARL OF HOME

My Lords, I hope the noble Lord will read to-morrow what I said. I was talking in terms of damage which might be done to British property abroad generally. I was saying that in the general proposition the Government could not accept an obligation to make up in full damage done to British citizens everywhere. The noble Lord has served in many countries, and he knows of cases in which you cannot transfer foreign exchange. What I said was in the general context. I went on particularly to say that in this particular case the Prime Minister accepted an obligation.

LORD KILLEARN

I fully accept that. I misunderstood the noble Earl. We have always maintained, and still do, that this is sui generis. What the noble Earl has said clears up the point.

I should like, first of all, to thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate and those who have stayed long enough to listen to it. Frankly, my own instinct would be to divide the House, because I think this is a matter of intense national importance. On the other hand, there was a strong appeal from the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary not to divide, because he has certain proposals or declarations (I am not sure which) which are coming before Parliament next week.

THE EARL OF HOME

Well, I hope so. I cannot promise.

LORD KILLEARN

In the light of that, and with a rather thin House, it does not seem to me that I should be justified in dividing it. Just look at the empty Opposition Benches. The noble Earl made a most delightful and helpful speech, but there is obviously no interest in this matter, as your Lordships can see, which I think is rather unfortunate, because it is a question of national honour. So if I ask leave of your Lordships to withdraw my Resolution, it is simply and solely because I think the House is rather thin. It is not big enough for a question of this national importance to be decided upon, especially with the full Front Bench sitting there. I have had this position before. It is heavily weighted, and it would be most unfortunate to divide and to be defeated; I should not like that at all. But I will not divide, mainly because the Foreign Secretary made an extraordinarily interesting and helpful speech, as we knew he would. He has made certain proposals, which I suppose will come up very shortly, and I do not think it would be fair to the House to divide until we know what those proposals are. In addition, the Minister of State more or less suggested that it would be better not to divide, and I certainly do not propose to ignore that request. So, all in all, I ask leave of your Lordships to withdraw my Resolution.

Resolution, by leave, withdrawn.

House adjourned at nine minutes before eight o'clock.