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Mr. Roger Gale (North Thanet): My hon. Friend will know--as do those of us with constituencies where organisations such as the Burma Star Association, the SSAFA Forces Help and the legions are represented--that they feel strongly about the subject. I think that the suggestion has been put forward simply because those involved wanted a way out of the problem. They feel--as we all feel--that the problem has existed for far too long and must be resolved. It is that sense of frustration that has led to the suggestion.
Mr. Nicholls: I understand the sense of frustration highlighted by my hon. Friend. It would be all too easy for the system to say that there was a difficulty, but it all happened a long time ago--we shall fix on a relatively modest sum and distribute it to service charities. The first point of principle that must be understood is that service men were shortchanged. Those service men still exist and have some remarkably clear recollections; many of them own better documents than those on the shelves of Whitehall. While I understand how the frustration highlighted by my hon. Friend has come about, I do not think that we can turn to someone who is still living and who has a clear recollection of the fact that he was shortchanged and say, "It doesn't matter, old fruit--we shall give a sum of money to a service charity." That is not the answer, but it is important that we do not become overly exercised about that in today's debate as we must deal with the point of principle.
Mr. Rod Richards (Clwyd, North-West): I represent the interests of my constituent Captain Frank Kernan, who was a prisoner of war during the last war. I support my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel (Sir M. Marshall) and congratulate him on the vigour with which he has pursued the case for Justice for Prisoners of War and on the lucid and cogent arguments that he has advanced on their behalf in this morning's debate.
No one here would dispute the fact that this is, for many reasons, an immensely complicated matter. In 1945, Europe was devastated by the war. Fifty years have passed, and it is natural that many of the records that existed then no longer exist, especially those connected with the Army and the Royal Air Force. We understand that.
The matter is also complicated because many of the records were not complete in the first place. They were not complete because many of the prisoners of war who were repatriated in 1945 had forms thrust upon them within a day or so of their return from having spent many years in prison. Many of those people spent four or five years as prisoners of war, and we understand that that was a very long time to be a prisoner, not knowing that the period of imprisonment was going to be four or five years--it could have been six, eight or 10 years. They faced an indefinite period of imprisonment and, having suffered that anxiety for such a long time, the state of mind of those young men on their return to this country must have been quite awesome.
As the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) rightly said, we must also bear in mind the fact that officers have a duty to escape or to attempt to escape and to aid their fellow officers in their attempts to escape. Military personnel who were prisoners of war were very much operational and active throughout that time and their lives were in danger--there can be no doubt about that.
In replying to the debate, I want my hon. Friend the Minister to recognise, as does every hon. Member who has spoken in this debate, that an injustice has been done. As the hon. Member for Newbury said, we owe those people a debt of honour, and my hon. Friend should, first, acknowledge that injustice has been done and, secondly, that compensation is due.
We all understand the difficulties involved in quantifying that compensation and in the repatriation of funds that were either not paid to or unfairly taken away from prisoners of war, but it is an important matter of principle that the Government should accept that an injustice has been done and that a sum of money is owed. How that sum of money is calculated and, indeed, what should be done with it is problematic, but it would be a first step if Her Majesty's Government were to acknowledge that payment in some form was due, either directly to former prisoners of war or, as my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel said, indirectly in the form of a generous payment to charities that support service personnel and their widows. As my hon. Friend said, payments to such charities might not be universally
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People always look for a villain of the piece in Whitehall, so it may offer some comfort and succour to my hon. Friend the Minister if I say that I am not suggesting that the sum of money, when quantified, should be deducted from the current Ministry of Defence budget. The moneys were held by Her Majesty's Treasury, so when the sum has been calculated and my hon. Friend takes up the battle it is for the Treasury to repay what is owed because, in a sense, the money has been held on deposit and the Treasury has benefited from the interest over the past 50 years.
Mr. Denis MacShane (Rotherham):
I, too, want to congratulate the hon. Member for Arundel(Sir M. Marshall) on obtaining this debate. As you might recall, Madam Deputy Speaker, we had a debate of my calling just before December on reparations for prisoners of war who were held in the far east, so I have some interest in this matter.
My interest extends further than the technical question of moneys owed that should now be paid back, either by our Government to our prisoners of war or, as I believe, by the Japanese Government or the Japanese companies that used our prisoners of war as slave labourers. Unfortunately, the issue can get bogged down in legal niceties, which is I why I am delighted that it is the Minister of State for the Armed Forces who is to reply to the debate. He is certainly no lawyer--neither a barrack-room lawyer, nor a Whips' lawyer nor a parliamentary lawyer--and I am sure that he will give as generous a response as he is allowed to give. Perhaps, as a former officer, he will even break free from the conventions of his civil service brief and, as urged by the hon. Member for Clwyd, North-West (Mr. Richards), offer an apology and announce that the Government--if not his, perhaps a future one--will be generous in this respect.
The issue goes further than the points raised in the debate. At the annual Remembrance day celebrations, I am conscious of the fact that British fighting men and women have been in service constantly since 1945, so the issue is relevant not just to those who served in the second world war, although they are the subject of our debate. Since 1945, we have been involved in a seemingly endless list of armed engagements: Korea, the various decolonisation conflicts of the 1950s, the constantly running sore that is Northern Ireland, the Falklands war and the Gulf war, to name but a few.
The Minister will recall that he gave me an hour of his time to discuss the issue of those killed in the friendly fire incident in the Gulf war, which is still a sore for the nine British families who lost their young ones in that tragedy. In addition, the Minister--very decently--came to the
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Consideration may need to be given to the possibility of our having a Minister who has responsibility for veterans, such as there is in the United States and France--someone who has special regard for the needs of former soldiers, sailors and airmen, including those who were held in prisoner of war camps and those who, although they may not have received the honourable wounds of war, suffer now from illnesses as a result of what they were obliged to do without fully understanding what was at stake.
Mr. Roger Gale (North Thanet):
I had not intended to participate in the debate, because other hon. Members have made the case much more effectively than I could. I have listened with great interest to the arguments, and I should like to reinforce a point that I made in an earlier intervention.
I listened with interest to my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel (Sir M. Marshall) suggesting that a sum of money should be given to the service charities to disburse among the claimants and causes which they feel should be the beneficiaries of the settlement of what is undoubtedly a debt of honour. I also listened with interest to the alternative argument, advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls). I can appreciate that prisoners of war who are still alive would feel a tremendous sense of injustice if they were not allowed to press their claims. As we all know, their numbers must be very small by now.
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