HC Deb 12 December 2001 vol 376 c861W
Peter Bradley

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence for what reason the definition of British as it applies to civilian former prisoners of the Japanese differs from that applied to armed forces personnel. [22309]

Dr. Moonie

[holding answer 11 December 2001]: Under the former Far East prisoners ex-gratia payment scheme, the eligibility criteria for former service personnel are based upon the unit in which an individual was serving. Hence the main eligibility criterion is to have been taken as a prisoner of war while serving with our armed forces. In addition, certain other former military personnel who were taken as prisoners of war while serving in the colonial forces, the old Indian Army, or the Burmese armed forces and who received compensation in the 1950s under UK auspices under Article 16 of the Peace Treaty with Japan are also eligible for the scheme.

Mr. Swayne

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what estimate he has made of the additional cost of extending his scheme of ex gratia payments to all surviving British passport holders and their spouses who were interned by the Japanese; [20321]

(2) what estimate he has made of the numbers of surviving civilian internees of the Japanese and their spouses who do not qualify for payments under the rules of his scheme. [20322]

Dr. Moonie

No estimate has been made of the number of surviving civilians who were interned by the Japanese during the Second World War or of the number of them who were British passport holders at that time. We believe that the available data are too poor to be able to make such estimates.