Mr. C. Straussasked the Home Secretary whether he will consider extending Category 11 of the Government White Paper, No. 6223, so that internees who have shown their loyalty to the British cause by trying to join the Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps before their internment, but who have been rejected 941W solely on grounds of ill-health, should be released from internment?
§ Mr. PeakeMy right hon. Friend will consider this suggestion in consultation with the Advisory Committee.
§ Mr. Sorensenasked the Home Secretary whether the Governments of Australia and Canada, respectively, have been pressed not to use the term "prisoner-of-war" in connection with internees who were refugees from Nazi oppression; whether those Governments have been asked why they have refused to make the distinction operative; and whether he will make representations to those Governments, with a view to securing similar standards for internees as obtain in this country?
§ Mr. PeakeI have been asked to reply. The use of the term "prisoners-of-war" in connection with internees in Canada and Australia does not imply that the Governments of these Dominions are not fully aware of the distinction between prisoners-of-war and internees. My right hon. Friend is satisfied that they are, and has no reason to believe that the treatment accorded to internees sent to the Dominions is substantially different from that accorded to them in this country. I may add that a representative of the United Kingdom Government is being specially sent to Canada, at the request of the Canadian Government, to assist them in dealing with internees transferred from this country. In the case of those sent to Australia, where there are at present no prisoners of war, our information shows that Nazi sympathisers and refugees are interned in separate and widely distant camps, and that the internees have made no complaint with regard to the conditions of their internment.