1 Introduction
1. This Report deals with the compensation scheme
for former civilian internees in the Far East. What the Government
intended as a generous gesture has become a source of outrage.
The Government's actions have led to former internees feeling
that their experience has been discounted, and to some people
who have spent their adult lives working in and for the United
Kingdom feeling that their Britishness has been questioned. Mr
Don Touhig MP, the Minister for Veterans, has told us that he
was not shutting his eyes to the distress, worry and concern this
has caused and the sense of injustice felt by many "that
they were not British enough to qualify and be recognised by their
country for the suffering they went through".[1]
We welcome this.
2. In preparing this Report, we have largely drawn
on the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration's report
on the ex gratia scheme.[2]
We also received material from Ron Bridge, Chairman of the Association
of British Internees - Far East Region (ABCIFER), from John Halford
of Bindman and Partners and from former internees both resident
in the UK and elsewhere. The Ombudsman's report did not rely on
material supplied by Mr Bridge. Our Report draws on it occasionally,
and where it does so this is clearly indicated. Our conclusions
would be the same, even without this material. We took evidence
from Ann Abraham, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration
(hereafter referred to as the Ombudsman), and Mr Iain Ogilvie
of the Parliamentary Commissioner's Office; Professor Jack Hayward,
the subject of the Ombudsman's Report, Mr Ron Bridge and Mrs Ann
Moxley, all former internees; and Mr Don Touhig MP, Parliamentary
Under Secretary of State, Minister for Veterans and Mr Jonathan
Iremonger, Director of the Veterans Policy Unit, at the Ministry
of Defence. We are grateful to all our witnesses.
1 Q 79 Back
2
'A Debt of Honour': the ex gratia scheme for British groups
interned by the Japanese during the Second World War, 4th Report,
Session 2005-2006, HC 324 Back
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