Mr. Alan Lee Williamsasked the Prime Minister, in view of the approaching anniversary on 14th August of the transfer of power to India and Pakistan in 1947, what proposals he has for the commemoration of this event.
§ The Prime MinisterAs I informed the House on the 9th of March, 1966, the Government have decided to extend to other Oversea Departments the Foreign148W Office practice of publishing selected documents concerned with our external relations, subject to inter-party agreement through the Group of Privy Counsellors whose composition I announced on the 8th of June. I am happy to inform the House that the Group have agreed that in view of the great interest now being shown in historical circles in the last days of British rule in India the first selection of documents to be published under the new arrangements should be documents from the India Office records on the Transfer of Power and the events leading up to it.
The scheme will follow closely the lines of the Foreign Office series of Documents on British Foreign Policy from 1919 to 1939, and, as in that series, the editors will be independent historians who will be given unrestricted access to the Records and freedom to select and edit documents for publication. Professor P. N. S. Mansergh, Smuts Professor of the History of the British Commonwealth at Cambridge, has expressed willingness to accept appointment as Editor-in-Chief, and the scheme will be in full operation by the end of the year.—[Vol. 725, c. 561; Vol. 747, c. 1289].