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Refugees:
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[LORD TREFGARNE.] significant events since my noble friend last raised this matter include the signing by the Chiefs of the Air Staffs of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom of a European staff target defining their needs for a future combat aircraft, and the receipt within the last two weeks of the industrial study, which began last September. I am afraid that it is too early to say what work-sharing arrangements might be agreed, but we anticipate, if past precedent is adopted, that work-sharing would relate to the number of aircraft each air force would need.
The Earl of Kinnoull: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. Is he aware that, despite what he has just said, there is serious concern at the slow progress on this important project? Can my noble friend remind us of the time-scale within which the RAF and NATO air forces require this aircraft to be brought into service? Secondly, can my noble friend remind us of the global number of aircraft and the number required for the RAF?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I am sorry if my noble friend thinks that progress has been slow, but this is a very complicated subject. The aircraft are required for service in about the mid-1990s, or shortly thereafter. The total number of aircraft anticipated is of the order of 1,100, of which the United Kingdom's share might be in the region of 250.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, can my noble friend say whether this project involves the agile combat aircraft, and, if so, whether it is the British agile combat aircraft or the French one?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, this is a collaborative project. The British and French aeroplanes which I believe my noble friend has in mind are simply technology demonstrators and are not meant to be prototypes for this project.
The Earl of Kinnoull: My Lords, can my noble friend give us a small clue as to the likely future progress of Ministers in considering and improving the development stage of this project?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, the Defence Ministers concerned will be considering the feasibility study some time later this year. After that we shall move to what I think is called the project definition phase. KK Further decisions will need to be taken after that.
2Further
2.53 p.m.
Business
Lord Denham, My Lords, it may be for the convenience of your Lordships if I say a few words at this point about the arrangements for this afternoon's short debates standing in the names of the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, and my noble friend Lord Massereene and Ferrard. It is customary in short debates that the mover is allowed approximately 15 minutes and that the Minister should rise to reply not less than 20 minutes before the scheduled end of the debate.
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Third World
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In the case of the short debate in the name of the noble Viscount, Lord Buckmaster, this means that all other speeches should be limited to a maximum of 11 minutes. If any noble Lord should speak at greater length, it will be to the disadvantage of subsequent speakers in the debate. In the case of the short debate in the name of my noble friend Lord Massereene and Ferrard the number of noble Lords wishing to speak is such that the standard will be even longer and it is not necessary to propose any formal time limit. I feel sure, however, that noble Lords speaking in both debates would wish to exercise a voluntary restraint in keeping with the spirit of these short debates.
2.54 p.m.
Refugees: Third World
Viscount Buckmaster rose to call attention to the situation of the refugees in the third world; and to move for Papers.
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, my pleasure in winning the ballot for the short debate this afternoon is heightened by the fact that this is the first time in my entire life that I have ever won a ballot for anything, whether it be for a short debate in your Lordship's House, a lottery, a raffle for a church bazaar, or what have you. But what is much more important of course is that this good fortune of mine enables us to focus our attention today, with the aid of that great range of expertise which your Lordships always deploy on such occasions, on one of the three terrible problems of the third world, the other two being of course world hunger, which is confined largely to Africa, and violations of human rights, which is also of grave
concern to me.
However, I find that I have once more embarked upon a vast and complex subject, and in the limited time available to me I can give only the briefest and barest outline of it. I shall confine my presentation to four main areas: the statistical, the tragic, the remedial and the triumphant.
Before I plunge into a sea of statistics, I should perhaps explain that, in dealing with refugees, I shall be following the definition in the Oxford dictionary which defines a refugee as someone who has taken sanctuary in another country as a result of religious or political persecution. There are, of course, a great number of refugees who fled their home countries. For example, refugees from Ethiopia have fled to the Sudan at the rate of 3,000 a day; they are refugees from hunger, and we assume that they will go back to their home countries when the rains return. As far as I can ascertain—and I am sure that noble Lords will realise that it is extremely difficult to obtain precise figures-the total number of refugees in the world is in the region of 14 million. That is a colossal figure indeed, but that figure is even more staggering when one realises that in 1951 the total was 1.5 million.
Of that large total of 14 million, about 5 to 6 million are being looked after by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, to which I shall refer in future simply as the commission. The largest concentrations of these refugees are to be found in Pakistan, which has 2,300,000 refugees from Afghanistan, although I should say that the Pakistan
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