§ Mr. Rileyasked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that German Nazi authorities in this country have issued instructions to German refugees in this country to furnish the Nazi authorities with returns not only of their property and possessions in Germany but also of their possessions and bank balances in this country; and what action the British Government will take regarding this matter?
§ Sir S. HoareI have no information that any such instructions have been issued by the German Embassy or Consulates in this country. If the hon. Member has any information and will send it to me, I will consider the matter.
Mr. T. Morrisasked the Home Secretary whether he will state the types of professions represented by the applications which during the last 12 months he has received from German and Austrian refugees for permission to settle in this country, and the number of applications in respect of each such profession?
§ Sir S. HoareApplications from holders of German and Austrian passports who wish to leave their own country on political, religious or racial grounds cover a great variety of professions and occupations which does not lend itself to ready classification. I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave on the 7th March to the hon. Member for the Moss Side Division of Manchester (Mr. W. R. Duckworth). The figures given in that reply comprise for the most part persons in the categories mentioned.
§ Sir E. Graham-Littleasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in view of the large number of able and qualified doctors who are at present refugees from Greater Germany, he will consider the possibility of appointing some of them to subsidiary positions in the Colonial Medical Service?
Mr. M. MacDonaldIt is not quite clear what posts my hon. Friend has in mind when he refers to "subsidiary positions in the Colonial Medical Service." Admission to the Unified Colonial Medical Service is necessarily confined, broadly speaking, to persons of British nationality, though a person who is born or is ordinarily resident in a Colony, Protectorate or Mandated Territory, is not excluded.
2725WIf the reference is to minor posts in the local health services, it has been the settled policy for some time to train the inhabitants of the various Dependencies to undertake this type of work, and eventually to take over the higher branches of medical and public health work, as they become qualified to do so.
As at present advised, I do not think it is practicable to envisage any general scheme by which foreign medical practitioners could be incorporated in the State medical services of the Colonial Dependencies.