asked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations if he will request the United Kingdom High Commissioner in Canberra to investigate urgently and report the circumstances in which a number of aircrew and other employees of London Aero and Motor Services, Limited, are stranded in Australia without pay, although their contracts guarantee free passage home.

I have asked the United Kingdom High Commissioner in Canberra to investigate this matter, and I will communicate further with my hon. Friend.

As soon as my hon. Friend has had the report, will he consider urgently and sympathetically the possibility of assisting these men to come home?

It is difficult to answer that before we have the facts, but we shall consider the matter urgently, without question, and as sympathetically as is possible in the light of the facts.

Would my hon. Friend ascertain whether this is another case of the generosity of private enterprise?

It is supported by the Government.