Japan yesterday offered the visiting British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, an official apology for the suffering of British prisoners during the second World War, in a gesture of reconciliation before a visit to London by Emperor Akihito.Mr Blair said the apology was on behalf of Japan's entire government and was "a very significant step forward".Tokyo would also pay for grandchildren of British POWs to study in Japan for a year, as well as jointly finance veterans' visits to battlefields and cemeteries."As a sign of that remorse, they have agreed substantially to increase the payments into the reconciliation programme," Mr Blair said. He said the Japanese actions put relations on a more stable footing for the future, but avoided any suggestion the issue was now closed. In London, former prisoners of war said the apology did not go far enough to resolve their claims for compensation."We want proper compensation, not joy trips for 80-year-old men out to Japan," said Mr Arthur Titherington, chairman of the Japanese Labour Camp Survivors Association. Mr Titherington, one of 12,000 former inmates who are pressing in a Tokyo court claims for £13,000 each in compensation, accused Tokyo of deliberately dragging out the issue.The sensitive subject of former prisoners took 15 minutes of the 45-minute meeting between the two leaders on the fourth day of Mr Blair's visit to Japan. He told the Japanese Prime Minister, Mr Ryutaro Hashimoto, that the question of Japan's treatment of prisoners still raised very strong emotions in Britain. He said he hoped while people would never forget what had happened, the two countries would be able to "focus on the things that tie us together".British resentment over the Japanese treatment of prisoners, immortalised in the 1950s film Bridge on the River Kwai, marred a previous state visit in 1971 by Emperor Hirohito, Emperor Akihito's father, who reigned in Japan during the war.Mr Blair is to defend controversial plans to put benefit cuts for the better-off at the heart of his government's sweeping welfare reforms. He is to launch a series of nationwide roadshows on Thursday at a meeting of party activists in Birmingham.