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Written Answers
18 JULY 1979
rather than strategic transports. It is not the policy to give details of the accident tes of individual aircraft types, but in s case I can say that the Jet Provost's accident rate over the 24 years service differs hardly at all from the rate over the period covered by the last six Jet Provost crashes or indeed the overall RAF accident rate in 1978.
Recent Jet Provost crashes have natur- ally caused concern to the public in the areas involved. Every accident is indeed
Written Answers
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Mr. Blaker: I shall have discussions with Banaban representatives on 24 July. which will no doubt cover the question of interest. No fixed sum of interest has been offered.
Sir Bernard Braine asked the Lord Privy Seal how much interest will be earned by the $A10 million offered ex gratia to the Banabans by the former Government on 27 May 1977, from 1 January 1979 to 31 March 1979, inclu- sive and from 1 April 1979 to 30 June 1979, inclusive.
a cause of concern to the RAF, both because it is the aircrew who are in- evitably most at risk, and because the safety of aircrew and the public is the
Mr. Blaker: The A$10 million is pre- highest peacetime priority. Everything
sently held by the British Phosphate possible is done to increase safety while
Commissioners as part of their funds. maintaining essential training. No student.
Information on the exact amounts of pilot is allowed to handle the controls or
interest attributable to the sum for the to go solo until he is judged by his instructor to be qualified to do so safety. periods in question is not readily available And equally no aircraft would be flown which there was any reason to suppose was unsafe.
FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS
Refugees
Mr. Wall asked the Lord Privy Seal if he will recommend to the Geneva refugee conference that if Hanoi does not cease its efforts to create refugees, ambassadors should be withdrawn.
Mr. Blaker: As my right hon. Friend said in his statement earlier today, there can be no doubt that it is the callous and inhuman policies of the Vietnamese Gov- ernment which are the root cause of the problem and it is imperative that the Vietnamese Government change those policies.
All possible means of influencing the Vietnamese Government will come under consideration in Geneva.
Banaba
Sir Bernard Braine asked the Lord Privy Seal whether a sum of interest amounting to $A1-5 million which was offered to the Banabans in December 1978 additional to the ex gratia capital sum of $A10 million will be paid to the Rabi Council of Leaders.
to the Government.
Sir Bernard Braine asked the Lord Privy Seal whether he has agreed with the Governments of Australia and New Zealand that the compound interest which the $A10 million, offered ex gratia to the Banabans by the former Govern- ment, will have earned between May 1977 and the date upon which the capital sum is transferred will be paid to the Bana- bans in full.
Mr. Blaker: No.
Sir Bernard Braine asked the Lord Privy Seal whether the United Kingdom Government's share of the sum of $A10 million which was offered to the Bana- bans by the previous Administration in May 1977 in exchange for an under- taking by the Banabans not to appeal in their action against the United Kingdom Government amount to $A3,150,000— that the Australia and New Zealand Gov. ernments between them will provide the balance of $A6,850,000.
Mr. Blaker: The $A10 million would come from funds held by the British Phosphate Commission on behalf of the three partner Governments.
[Continued in Col. 719]
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