§ Mr. Alfred MorrisTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to his answer of 14 March,Official Report, column 509, what backing Her Majesty's ambassador in Tokyo gave to the case argued by former British prisoners of war of the Japanese when they visited Japan recently to claim compensation for their treatment and that of other Japanese prisoners in the second world war.
§ Mr. GoodladWe gave assistance to the former British prisoners of war, through the British embassy in Tokyo, on the lines described in my answer of 14 March. The question of compensation, however, was in our view legally settled by the San Francisco peace treaty of 1951; so we are pursuing a different approach. As agreed between the Prime Minister and his Japanese counterpart in September 1993, we have been examining whether non-governmental measures could help. One such proposal—for a private sector foundation—turned out not780W to be feasible, but we are discussing with the Japanese Government possible alternatives.