PRISONS AND DETENTION CAMPS, KENYA

HC Deb 24 February 1959 vol 600 cc1019-78

7.8 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Creech Jones (Wakefield)

I beg to move, That this House urges Her Majesty's Government, with a view to allaying public anxiety, to institute an independent inquiry into the conditions and administration of prisons and detention camps in Kenya; and also to review the prolonged detention of men against whom no charges have been made. The matter which I am raising tonight on behalf of my party is one of considerable importance in colonial administration not only in Kenya, but elsewhere. We do not raise the issues in a spirit of party polemics, but because of the mounting anxiety of people everywhere about affairs in the prisons and detention camps of Kenya. It is within the knowledge of the House that a Motion, urging an inquiry, has been signed by nearly 200 Members of Parliament. It reads:

[That this House urges the Secretary of State for the Colonies to institute an independent inquiry into the conditions and administration of prisons and detention camps in Kenya, including Lokitaung Prison, Northern Province, in view of allegations of ill-treatment received from prisoners and detainees in Kenya and allegations about the conditions made by former officers of the Kenya Prison Service.]

One must be conscious from the reports which have appeared in newspapers and from the correspondence which hon. Members have received that there is ground for investigation into conditions in prisons and detention camps.

It is our duty, particularly because the European elected Members in Kenya have not raised this question and pressed their Government hard in respect of it, that we should bring the matter to the notice of our own Government and urge them to take the action which has not been taken in Kenya. This is no attempt on our part to smear the security forces and the Administration, as has been suggested once or twice by hon. Members opposite. Because the Secretary of State has a direct responsibility in this matter it cannot be urged that questions concerning the administration of justice are outside his purview and are the responsibility of the Governor under the instru- ments of his appointment. The Secretary of State has a responsibility to the British Parliament for the sound administration of justice in this Colony and for abuses which may arise in connection with it.

Moreover, we are concerned tonight with British subjects. It does not matter what may be their colour or creed. They are not members of a lesser breed. They are entitled to enjoy the standards of justice and administration which are characteristic of the codes in our own country. Let me also add that none of us here has any latent sympathy with Mau Mau or anything for which it stands. We recognise its bestiality and terror. But we have a right to demand that the Government, in their treatment of offenders, should not betray the standards which have become established in our own country and in other parts of the Commonwealth.

From 1952 there was a minor war in Kenya. I understand that in one year, in 1954, no fewer than 1,205 members of the security forces and 4,029 members of Mau Mau were killed. We are all aware that this was a conflict of some magnitude and that it necessitated emergency measures to meet a situation of terror, and in consequence no fewer than 88,000 Africans were detained and 18,906 Africans were charged as offenders. Abuses obviously arose in these emergency operations. There were excesses, and they were not limited to one side.

After a while, thanks, I think, to criticisms made in this House, thanks to the resignation of Colonel Young and his protests, and thanks to the criticisms made by Miss Eileen Fletcher, a much more constructive approach was made to the problems which arose from the emergency in the treatment of offenders, and in regard to the detainees who were swept up during the trouble. There was also the Heaton inquiry which carried prison reform a stage further. Provision was made for better training of warders, the extension of probation service and a better method of rehabilitation of persons likely to find their way back into the common life of the country. Also, prison camps were established, better conditions were laid down for detainees and, on the whole, substantial changes and reforms were made.

In spite of what the Administration felt obliged to do, subject as it was to acute criticism, considerable anxiety still remained on the part of many of us as to whether fair and reasonable conditions obtained in the prisons and detention camps. These anxieties have continued up to the present time. Newspaper reports, correspondence which we have received and statements made by persons who had been imprisoned give ground for some anxiety as to whether everything is now in good order.

I turn to the last report on prisons in Kenya, in which I read about riots in prison camps, reports of violence against the prison staff, resort to corporal punishment three times heavier than in the previous year, of warders being killed in certain camps, of suspicious deaths in others, of mutiny at another detention camp, of prison officers being charged with beating up and of prison officers admitting that they were guilty of beating up, and of letters smuggled out of prisons telling us about rations, water supply, medical attention, and so on. This is another cause for apprehension and anxiety. This is an alarming state of affairs which seems to be symptomatic of something wrong in the present arrangements.

Questions have been repeatedly asked in the House about a number of the matters to which I have referred. We have always had a denial. We have always been told that our information is false and that there is no foundation for the statements made either in our main Questions or in supplementary questions. None the less. Members of Parliament have been left both suspicious and uneasy about the replies which the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary have given. It is natural for hon. Members to ask: is the Administration hiding something? How is it that the Administration is so ignorant? Is their official information as adequate as it ought to be?

We have had these refutations and these dismissals of all arguments and all suggestions that perhaps something is wrong. All argument has been stonewalled. The reputations of officials and others have been impugned for a long time and there has been no opportunity for them to have their names cleared of the accusations which have been made against them.

Today, the evidence confirms the suspicions which have been aroused. That evidence comes now from Army officers, prison officers, prisoners, detainees and a host of other reputable persons whose character is high and whose truth cannot be challenged. In their statements, giving us the names of the persons who are involved and the dates and times when certain incidents have happened, they give graphic accounts of some of the dreadful things they have seen in some of these camps. These are not vindictive people carrying a grudge. They have nothing to gain by their revelations but, in the name of justice and of clean and good government, they ask that these matters which they report should be investigated. I suggest that there is a prima jacie case for investigation and for inquiry into unnecessary beatings, corporal punishment, inadequate medical attention, mental torture, laborious compulsory work, the refusal to prisoners of certain privileges and rights, and so on.

It may be forgotten that emergency regulations still operate in Kenya and that there are still 2,400 detained and possibly another 4,000 imprisoned for Mau Mau offences. It may be that many of these persons are dangerous criminals It may be that the life of a warder is extraordinarily arduous and very dangerous. It may be that some of the evidence that has come our way is false and possibly under cross-examination would break down, and that the witnesses who have asked to be heard are unreliable. But I put it to the House that the evidence is cumulative, is widespread and reflects treatment of a brutal character. I would say there can be no smoke without fire.

I have a variety of affidavits supporting some of the accusations which are being made and reflecting very gravely indeed on the troubles and difficulties in the camps. The first is by Mr. Williams Meyrick. He was convicted in 1957 and served in Kisumu prison and at Kamiti. In his affidavit, which I will not read to the House, he says that he witnessed the brutality of the warders, that detainees were sometimes hit on the head, and that prisoners were sometimes obliged to eat the tobacco which somehow they had managed to obtain. He says that medical attention was poor.

This is a European prisoner, and I suppose that a prisoner can probably speak much more intimately about the conditions of prison life than anyone else. However, I will not pin my faith for the moment in his testimony, because undoubtedly it will be said that he is not a reliable witness. It will be said that he is not likely to be objective, having done time in the prison, and that his evidence may break down under cross-examination. All I say is that in this case an affidavit has been sworn making accusations of the character which I have indicated.

Then there is an affidavit by a Major Bird. He was a labour officer. He was convicted of some offence, although he protests his innocence and undoubtedly his case will come up in the courts a little later on. He spent his prison sentence in Kamiti and Kisumu prisons until September, 1958. He again bears testimony to the beatings-up and other brutality and the sadistic conduct of the officers. Again, I will not press this affidavit, because I do not doubt that some hon. Members will say that because he has done time his evidence is likely to be unreliable.

Mr. Bernard Braine (Essex, South-East)

Will the right hon. Gentleman say on what charge this man was serving sentence?

Mr. Creech Jones

He was charged with some small theft, about which he protested his innocence, but he was sent to prison. He was a labour officer and a servant of the Government whose character on appointment was beyond reproach.

Mr. James Callaghan (Cardiff, South-East)

Is he never to be believed again?

Mr. Creech Jones

The third affidavit comes from Captain Law. He is one of those extraordinary cases of a person who gives himself up as a vagrant in order that he should be repatriated to this country. He was detained for five months at Kamiti new prison. More will be heard of his case, and I do not want to argue about the detention under the vagrancy laws. Again this man, a European, bears testimony to the fact that in the prison he witnessed arbitrary floggings. He saw brutal treatment by the warders and many things of a sadistic character to which he strongly objected.

There is another affidavit sworn by Mr. Victor Shuter, who was a principal officer in the Kenya Prison Service. He was appointed in 1955, and he is now awaiting his retirement. He performed his prison service in three of the principal prisons and prison camps in Kenya. I ask hon. Members opposite to note that what he has to say is confirmed by other prison officers as well as by one of the prison chaplains. His affidavit is now with the Kenya Government, and inquiries are being made. He describes the most revolting and humiliating treatment in Maryani detention camp. He points out that collective punishments are imposed on the detainees and that arbitrary beatings are also given.

There is also a great deal of evidence coming from other camps and other prisons with which I will not now bother the House, but it is perfectly clear that the protests I have mentioned have brought no action whatever from those in authority. The protests have been made on the spot to responsible officials, but nothing has happened as a result Protests have also been made by prisoners. Many prisoners today refuse, because of threats and intimidation, to carry their protests further. Likewise, the warders are often insufficiently trained and insufficiently experienced, and sometimes seem to lack humanity in their treatment of the people in their control. It is admitted that supervision of what goes on in these establishments is altogether inadequate.

When asked to look at the broad problem, the Secretary of State has refused to alter the system of visiting magistrates. He has said that it is good enough for the district officer, or the provincial commissioner, when he can, to visit the prisons in his district. Moreover, the right hon. Gentleman has also refused to allow African Members of Parliament themselves to go to the camps to see what is going on and to meet some of the people they know.

When the Lokitaung letter came to light the Secretary of State was disposed to argue in a somewhat ill-informed way on knowledge supplied to him by the Colonial Secretary in Kenya, that the allegations contained in that letter, which was smuggled out of Lokitaung, were false and altogether without foundation. The method employed is immediately to discredit the persons making complaints by referring to their alleged characters. However, in this case the Secretary of State was obliged to admit that there was room for more regular visits to the camp and for better arrangements for visiting magistrates.

The last piece of evidence which I shall put to the House has been provided by the Secretary of State himself. I will leave this case to be argued by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) who I hope may have the opportunity to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker. She has drawn attention to the case of Kabugi Njuma who was brutally assaulted with three others at Agathi camp, an assault which resulted in his death. For all we know similar brutal assaults have resulted in other deaths. Certainly other people have died.

At first, the Secretary of State said that there was no truth whatsoever in the statement that the deceased had been beaten up. At the inquest, the resident magistrate said that death was due to natural causes—a rather perfunctory inquest, since it was subsequently testified that death was due to a brutal beating up. On being pressed still further, the Secretary of State was obliged to write to my hon. Friend and to say that his report was inaccurate and that he had been misled. A prosecution follows and an inquiry is now being held into the lack of responsible supervision.

Here is an admission by the Secretary of State of inadequate supervision as well as inadequate information about some of the events to which his attention had been drawn. Had my hon. Friend not persisted with the Secretary of State in discovering the causes of this man's death the case would certainly not have come to light. One is left asking how many other such cases have gone undetected.

Speaking with the responsibility of an ex-Secretary of State for the Colonies, I say that with so much prima facie evidence of trouble, disorder and wretched conditions in many of these camps, I would have ordered an independent investigation right away. I cannot see what reasons there are for refusing such an inquiry when such evidence is to hand. Our good name is involved.

Mr. R. T. Paget (Northampton)

I think that this is the sixth case of which I am aware where no murder charge has been brought. To speak on general lines, each time one is told that it is very unfortunate and that a man did fire a revolver but, unfortunately, the damage done to the heart of the deceased was such that it was impossible for the doctor to say that the heart might not previously have had some natural defect from which the chap might have died, and that therefore a charge of murder cannot be brought and the Government are very reluctantly obliged to accept the plea of common assault. It is about the sixth time that that has happened, and it is one of the things on which we want an explanation.

Mr. Creech Jones

Yes. In regard to the last case, I would hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn will be able to describe what is now taking place, the charges that are made and the inquiries going on, so that we shall know how the matter is being handled.

What I really want to say is that, on the evidence which has been forthcoming, there is a prima facie case for an inquiry. Our good name is concerned, our respect for the rule of law and the vital importance of clean administration and clearing up the reputations of the people who are involved. We cannot condone cruelty and irregular and illegal practices against British subjects or anyone else, whatever their race, order or colour.

If this House is so sensitive as it was last week in regard to the Scottish case of John Waters, I cannot conceive how the slightest objection can be made in a matter such as this, where the facts are so alarming and where all the cases are of an infinitely worse character. This House was content recently, when the Home Secretary appointed a Commission in regard to Walton Prison, to accept the report of the investigating commission. Likewise, I think it is imperative that, if our good name is to stand, an independent inquiry should take place now into all these events in Kenya.

My last point is in regard to the last sentence of the Motion, which is concerned with the continued detention of Africans under the emergency regulations. Many people have been detained without any charge against them whatsoever, and this is repugnant to our own idea of civil liberty. Of the 2,400 detained, no fewer than 808 have been detained for four years and more, and in a large number of cases charges in the courts have broken down and there has been no case for the men to answer. Indeed, in some of the courts where they have been charged they have been completely acquitted.

None the less, these men languish in prison camp, and the Under-Secretary, replying the other day, said that we had released 80,000 detainees. That is no answer whatsoever in respect of those now detained. We well recollect that tens of thousands of detainees were swept up in the streets of Nairobi, that nothing was charged against them and that they were under no suspicion whatever. To argue now that because we released these people who were swept up without any charge and with no suspicion whatever there is some justification for keeping these 2,400 still in detention is an argument which I just do not understand.

The Under-Secretary himself, trying to justify his action or the action of the Government, said that the Government were still, after four years, reviewing these cases and that they hoped to release them as soon as it was socially ripe, but that they should not move too fast or prematurely in the release of irreconcilable elements. There are other categories, however, people doing short time, people who have been placed under restraint, sometimes for ten years, sometimes for eight years, but, in any case, it seems to me that in all this, being repugnant to our conception of civil liberty, more urgent action should be taken.

Its continuance is offensive, because it harbours racial bitterness. It provides examples, which are used against us, when hon. Members here complain both about certain things happening in Ghana, and about things happening in the Union of South Africa. It is repugnant to our idea of justice that this state of things should continue. Therefore, I urge the Government to give attention to this aspect of affairs in Kenya, and to see whether something cannot be done to bring out of restraint these hundreds or thousands of men who for years have been behind the wire of the concentration prisons.

Finally, there is no desire on our part to denigrate the administration of Kenya, but I do submit that from what I have said there is sufficient evidence for an independent investigation. I have put the case without referring to names, but if hon. Members want them I can give them literally scores of names in respect of the accusations and the statements which have been made and the affidavits which have been sworn. The evidence is concrete enough, with names, times and places of actual happenings. [Interruption.]I have the information here, but, because of the obvious fact that in using names people have no opportunity of reply, I have excluded from my speech altogether names and other particulars about them.

I have not tried to introduce sensational incidents. I have tried to give the House soberly and fairly the facts as they have been revealed to us, and I submit that it is no longer possible for the Government to shelter behind the complacency of the Governor of Kenya and that it is no longer possible for them to adopt an ostrich-like attitude in regard to the cases that have come to the notice of the Government.

We therefore ask for an independent, judicial inquiry, and we want that inquiry to have the right to obtain evidence, to secure the attendance of witnesses, in order that all these facts should be sifted. Our only desire is to serve the best interests of justice in Kenya. We have no desire whatever to smear or to throw mud at the administration, the security forces or anybody else. We ask for an independent inquiry into the whole of this evidence. The evidence is there, and I am convinced that if that evidence is closely examined, it may be possible that reforms may follow, and that some of the conditions of which I have complained may be remedied.

7.50 p.m.

Lord Balniel (Hertford)

I do not wish to speak for long because the time available for this debate is short and there are a number of other hon. Members who wish to speak. I shall be brief because the Motion before us has arisen out of a whole series of specific allegations which it is extraordinarily difficult for a backbench Member to test in order to discover the truth or worthlessness of them. We do not know the worth of the informants whose names the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Creech Jones) has referred to.

We can only assume that in making these allegations—may I say, incidentally that allegations are different from "evidence" which was the word he was using—the right hon. Gentleman has taken every step in his power to check their truth, because they reflect seriously on the character of administrative officers in the Kenya service and the performance of their duties. I thought the right hon. Gentleman said a dangerous thing when he said that there is no smoke without fire. That is a dangerous thing to say when making allegations against the honour and reputation of officers in Kenya.

In common with other hon. Members of this House, I have visited a number of these prisons in Kenya and have had the opportunity to make a fairly careful and detailed study of the detention system in operation there. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman when he says that a detention system under which persons are detained without trial is repugnant to our sense of justice and offensive to our democratic ideals. I feel that every hon. Member would be anxious that such a system should be brought to an end at the earliest possible moment. That moment is when it can be done without endangering society in Kenya.

We would also agree that when a country has been subjected to great strain and stress and terrible trials, and it has been necessary to have emergency powers to protect society and the State from disintegration, then it is extremely difficult to get rid of those powers quickly. I do not wish to adopt a partisan attitude over this matter, but hon. Members will remember that the right hon. Member for Wakefield was for a short time a member of the Government Charged with the responsibility of governing this country after the war. After six years of peace time there remained in being in this country 215 Emergency Regulations —[Interruption.]—if hon. Members will allow me to continue, I am not being partisan about this—and it is only now, fourteen years after the war, that there is a Bill before Parliament to do away finally with Emergency Regulations.

The situation in Kenya is different from that in this country. Only a few years ago the people of Kenya were involved in the closest approximation to a civil war that we have seen in one of our Colonies for a long time. It was not only a civil war between European and African but one in which the Africans suffered grievously from the activities of the Mau Mau movement. It is a situation where the emergency still continues; where there is another secret society, the K.K.M., which is doing all it can to perpetuate the beliefs and disgusting faith of Mau Mau. Were any one of us asked by a young English couple going to Kenya, I do not think that any of us could place our hands on our hearts and say that there was no possibility of trouble starting up again in the near future. The situation in Kenya is worrying and perplexing and we mislead ourselves if we believe that the trouble is something which has passed and can be completely forgotten.

I wish to refer to something regarding the detention system about which little mention was made by the right hon. Member for Wakefield. The issue facing the Kenya Government is of wide legal and constitutional significance, whether a person should be detained in prison without trial. That is an important and a a major question. But when one is discussing the general principles, it should also be remembered that another duty of a Government is to ensure that the innocent members of society are protected from fear and from assault.

If the Government find that the only way in which they can protect society from fear and from assault is by means of a detention system, there is a moral responsibility on them to continue such a system. The innocent members of society have as great a claim upon the Kenya Government as the detainees. I was surprised that in his speech the right hon. Gentleman—

Mr. Dingle Foot (Ipswich)

How can the hon. Gentleman tell whether the persons who are detained without trial are innocent or not?

Lord Balniel

I will come to that point in a moment, but before doing so I wish to say that what struck me about the speech of the right hon. Member for Wakefield was that he neglected to discuss at least half of the problem posed by the detention system. One of the great problems facing the Kenya Government results from the Mau Mau atrocities and existing during this period of the aftermath of Mau Mau is the rehabilitation of those people who actually took part in the Mau Mau atrocities; their rehabilitation and the regeneration of their spirit so that they may once again take their place in civilised society. It concerns the rehabilitation of people who had reached almost the absolute extremities of human degradation. The right hon. Gentleman made not one constructive proposal about what should be done to help those people.

Mr. Paget

As one who agrees with the hon. Gentleman that there are circumstances, much as we regret them, when it is necessary to shut up people against whom no charge can be brought, and as one who has seen and much admired what has been done for the rehabilitation of those people, may I say that, surely, the fact that we have this grim duty upon us imposes a special obligation to see that the men we have shut up are not maltreated? Surely there is a great responsibility on us to see that these charges are independently investigated?

Lord Balniel

I agree entirely with the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget). Of course, when these people have been shut up without any charges being made against them we have an extra special responsibility to ensure that the administration of the prisons is properly carried out and that the conduct and behaviour of prison officers towards these people is correct. I hope to show that every single piece of evidence from official sources indicates that the standard of conduct at these prisons is high.

Mr. Creech Jones indicated dissent.

Lord Balniel

The right hon. Gentleman may shake his head, but behind him sits his hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mr. J. Johnson) whose words I shall certainly quote, because he gave a high recommendation to the prison service in Kenya at the height of the Mau Mau rebellion—

Mr. Paget

The hon. Gentleman can have my own recommendation. I have seen it and that is why I think that these incidents must be investigated.

Lord Balniel

I should like to continue the thread of my argument.

Having, in company with other hon. Members, visited a number of these prisons I have been struck by the way in which the prison officers devote them- selves to the rehabilitation of the largest possible number of Mau Mau prisoners who have offended against humanity, so that they may be made fit and able once again to be received back in their own homeland.

The right hon. Member for Wakefield mentioned figures regarding the number of persons who have returned home. He mentioned that after "Operation Anvil" there were about 60,000 persons detained in prison without trial. All of those persons have returned home except for 2,400. It is a measure of the achievement of the prison services that not merely have these people been released but they have been reformed. They belonged to the Mau Mau faith but they are now accepted by their own people. It should be borne in mind that it is their own people, and not Europeans, who are the judges and who determine whether they should return to their own villages. This regeneration and return of about 60,000 Mau Mau is a very fine achievement which we should not minimise.

The hon. and learned Member for Ipswich (Mr. Foot) asked why, instead of insisting on holding these people in prison without trial, we did not try them before the normal courts of law. It is difficult to imagine how any prosecution could ever be made in the normal courts of justice in Kenya. One of the best known examples of Mau Mau massacre is the Lari massacre, and there is no possible way in which the perpetrators of that massacre could be prosecuted successfully in the courts of law, because every witness to that atrocity has been murdered. That is one of the reasons why it is not possible to take them through the courts of law.

There is an even more serious reason. If one of these Mau Mau persons is taken before the courts, if it is impossible for the prosecution successfully to lodge the prosecution, and if he is acquitted, then he will return to his village. It should be borne in mind that he is a practising Mau Mau, and the fear which the Administration have to take into account is that he will return to his village and once against infect the society there with Mau Mau beliefs.

May I turn to what the right hon. Gentleman said about the prison services? The Motion refers to" public anxiety". I can only say that, with what I regard as a fairly normal correspondence for an hon. Member, I have not received a single letter from my constituents on the subject of the prison services in Kenya. There is one exception, and that was after the publication in a responsible newspaper of a letter from prisoners in the Lokitaung Prison. If hon. Members make allegations and repeat affidavits in the House without attempting to prove their truth, and if newspapers report allegations, then there is, of course, public anxiety, but every official inquiry which has been held into the prison service in Kenya has dispelled any fear that there were malpractices on a large scale. The hon. Member for Rugby and the right hon. Member for Rochester and Chatham (Mr. Bottomley) visited these prisons at the very height of the Mau Mau rebellion. at a time when one could well expect malpractices to exist. The hon. Member for Rugby wrote: Overcrowding and lack of staff apart, the Prisons Department has discharged its duties well, the treatment of its prisoners is good and in its rehabilitation centres and camps highly constructive work is being attempted.

Mr. James Johnson (Rugby)

On which page is that?

Lord Balniel

On page 11 of Cmd. Paper 9081.

Two years later there was an independent inquiry into the prison service in Kenya. Its report was called" The Report on the General Administration of Prisons and Detention Camps in Kenya". This is signed by Mr. Heaton. It reads: During my visits to numerous establishments, I found the morale and discipline of the staff were good and the inmates were well fed, clothed and housed. I did not come across any form of rough handling of inmates by the staff: this in itself impressed me for there is little doubt that many of the Kikuyu staff have suffered grievously at the hands of Mau Mau, and it is amazing that no serious reprisals did in fact take place. He then went on to say that there might be minor malpractices but nothing of a serious nature.

In February, 1957, a deputation of the House inspected the prisons and studied the detention system in Kenya. If the House will permit me, I will make one more quotation, because this is from a Report which was signed unanimously by hon. Members from both sides of the House. Paragraph 80 of the Report of the Parliamentary delegation to Kenya reads: From our own careful observations and inquiries we are satisfied that the Government of Kenya and its officers have done and are still doing everything possible to make malpractices impossible and where they occur to detect them and bring the offender to justice. It would be ungenerous and unrealistic not to recognise this and to say that in both the administration and the field of law and order Kenya is fortunate in having the services of men of the highest integrity and good will. This Report was written after the deputation had had the opportunity of visiting many prisons and after it had studied the detention system in detail. It was a unanimous Report and it was signed by hon. Members from both sides of the House. It was designed to be—and I suggest that the House will consider it—a very high recommendation of the administration of the services in Kenya. In that paragraph we are told that it would be ungenerous not to recognise the standards which obtain and it also refers to the fact that these prison officers are men of the highest integrity and good will. In conclusion, I can only say that it is rather sad that sometimes a few hon. Members opposite do not show the same measure of good will and generosity when they themselves speak of the administration services in Kenya.

8.8 p.m.

Mrs. Barbara Castle (Blackburn)

For one glorious moment, when the noble Lord the Member for Hertford (Lord Balniel) began his speech, I thought we were to have his support in pressing the Motion, because he paid a very just tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Creech Jones) for the sincerity and honesty with which he advanced his case.

I hoped that we might have an all-party agreement in the House about the need for an inquiry into the detention camps in Kenya, just as we have over the Waters case. It will be a great tragedy if we are compelled to divide the House tonight on this Motion because the Government insist on rejecting it in a party spirit, because I assure the noble Lord that it is not a pleasant job for those of us on this side of the House constantly to have to raise these points in Questions to the Colonial Secretary or by the method which we have chosen today when all we get are accusations of ill will, and on many occasions even of ill faith.

I believe that the Colonial Secretary owes this inquiry to many people. First, he owes it to the Administration in Kenya itself, because the best way of helping the Administration in Kenya and proving where it is succeeding and where it is failing is to have a ruthless, independent inquiry. The Parliamentary delegation whose Report the noble Lord read is no substitute for that. My hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mr. J. Johnson) would be the first to agree with that because he had not got adequate powers. He has very good powers of observation and intelligence, of course, but he had no legal powers to command witnesses to appear and to give evidence on oath, which is the only way to get at the roots of the allegations.

Mr. F. M. Bennett (Torquay)

rose—

Mrs. Castle

I should prefer not to give way to the hon. Gentleman. I have a lot to say and I do not want to prevent other hon. Members from taking part in the debate.

The second set of people to whom the Colonial Secretary owes an inquiry are the detainees themselves. Thirdly, the right hon. Gentleman owes an inquiry to himself because, if he refuses it, he will stand under an accusation not of complicity—I do not bring that accusation against him—but certainly of complacency and uncritical loyalty to officials. Not least important, the Colonial Secretary owes this inquiry to us. Many of my hon. Friends receive letters every week of the year, sometimes every day, from detainees and others on these subjects. I have a pile of letters here so deep that I do not know where to store them in the limited space which is made available to us in the Palace of Westminster.

We get these letters every day. What are we to do about them? Are we to ignore them when pleas of ill-treatment come with circumstantial evidence, with names, dates and details, with men signing their names and, therefore, risking punishment for having written and made specific allegations, letters which repeat charges of a similar kind in a pattern which has become almost monotonously regular over the past four years? What are we to do? We must take some action. We should be failing as a colonial Power if we did not take some action. But what do we get? Not only do we get allegations inside this House of mischief making, but we get allegations of the same character outside the House for party political purposes.

The Colonial Secretary owes this inquiry, if to nobody else, to me. In September last year when I came back from Cyprus he made a speech at Felixstowe to a cheering Conservative Party audience. The speech was reported all over the Commonwealth. Cuttings of it have been sent back to me from the four quarters of the globe. I have here a report which reads: Mr. Lennox-Boyd said that he had previous experience of the practices of Mrs. Castle and remembered 'her habit of coming out with unsupported charges against British people in Kenya'. The Colonial Secretary has a duty to people he attacks like that, people who act in good faith on these issues to enable us to get at the facts in a way that we cannot from him and in a way that no Parliamentary delegation can do but only an independent judicial inquiry can do.

On a number of occasions hon. Friends and I have raised details of complaints in the House and have proved that the complaints were not trivial and not unsubstantiated. We have had proof and verification time and time again. We had it over the Kaman Kichina case. I then raised the question of a district officer whose behaviour, in my opinion, was incompatible with his office, and as a result of a disciplinary inquiry the Colonial Secretary had him removed. So that was not an "unsupported charge."

I am glad of the opportunity to speak tonight, for I think we have in the case of Kabugi, son of Nguma, an absolutely classic example of our problem. We have proof that these charges are not unsupported and not frivolous. This case lends serious support to our fears that such things may indeed be widespread. I received a letter dated 15th September from some detainees at Aguthi Special Detention Camp. I have received so many such letters that I simply have not the time to deal with them all. I often send them to the Colonial Secretary so that he may make inquiries. I do not think he is terribly grateful for this courtesy. I hesitated to send him this letter, but it bore the heading: Death of detainees through beating. It contains such specific allegations as to time, place and persons that I felt I could not ignore it. Therefore, I wrote to the Colonial Secretary and said that I had received an allegation that on 5th September last Kabugi, son of Nguma, had been beaten to death by African warders in Aguthi camp.

The Colonial Secretary replied to me by return and said that he had heard of this case and was asking the Governor of Kenya for a full report. Six days later I got the Colonial Secretary's further letter on the basis of what was no doubt in his estimation a "full report", because in this matter the Colonial Secretary is as helpless as we are. I am not accusing the right hon. Gentleman of being a conspirator. I believe that if he were to see these things with his own eyes he would be the first to be horrified and to refuse to condone them. However, he has to work through a long chain of command, and so has the Governor. Even if a request for a report goes to the Governor, will that necessarily get to the root of the matter? I am not accusing the Governor of trying to sit on these things, but there is an intricate network of personnel involved which makes it extremely difficult for the truth to be got at. So it has proved in this case.

As I said, six days later I got the result of the full inquiry which the Colonial Secretary received from the Governor. I was told that the man concerned was one of a group of former Mau Mau convicts transferred to the camp on 5th September. The letter went on: As is customary, immediately on arrival at Aguthi Camp they were put to work. Mr. Njuma was employed in carrying buckets of earth from a pit to an area which was being banked up some 80 yards away. After a short period at work he collapsed. He was promptly sent by car to the civil hospital, but he died en route. A post mortem was carried out by a medical officer and the cause of death was certified as 'pulmonary infection.' An inquest was held on 19th September, at which the Resident Magistrate, Nyeri, returned a verdict of 'Death from natural causes.' There is no truth in the allegation that the deceased was beaten by African warders at Aguthi Camp. Another "unsupported charge" by that woman the hon. Member for Blackburn!

I knew that I was powerless to do anything. How could I do anything? I cannot fly over to Kenya. If I could do so, I have not the power to get at the facts. However, I place it to the great credit of the Colonial Secretary that some weeks later he wrote again to say that he had had another report from the Governor correcting the information on which he had based his original letter. He said: The cause of death was, in fact, certified as 'pulmonary infarction'. Since this is usually a secondary phenomenon instructions have been given for further investigations to be made. I have consulted some of my medical colleagues in the House, because I did not know the difference between pulmonary infection and pulmonary infarction. I was informed that the first is an infection of the lung but the second is the stopping of the blood supply to a portion of the lung which causes that part of the lung to perish. I was given to understand that violence could cause such a condition, and that even if it did not actually cause it, a mart suffering from pulmonary infarction who was beaten would inevitably die.

The Colonial Secretary obviously went to a lot of trouble to get to the bottom of the matter. On 3rd February he wrote to me: The Governor of Kenya has now confirmed that the report on which I based my letter of the 31st October was inaccurate, and I am sorry that I should have misled you. As a result of the investigation into this case, there is some evidence that Kabugi S/o Njuma and two other former Mau Mau prisoners, who transferred from Nyeri Camp to Aguthi Works Camp on the 5th September, were assaulted by an African district assistant … The name is given but I will not repeat it. … and by African warders under this direction, when they arrived at Aguthi. The Attorney-General of Kenya has instituted proceedings against … the warder … on three charges for assault inflicting actual bodily harm on Kabugi and these two other detainees. The charge would have been more serious if the medical evidence had not indicated that the process of infarction, from which Kabugi died, apparently began several hours before his death, and well before the time of the alleged assault. Both the Governor and I are very concerned about this, and although I cannot comment on it further at present, as proceedings are under way, I will certainly want to make a statement when they are over. The Governor has already given directions for an administrative inquiry to be conducted at once into the lack of responsible supervision at this particular camp. I am grateful to the Colonial Secretary for that reply. I am also grateful to the Under-Secretary of State for the answer he has give me today to a letter I sent him on receipt of this. I have now sent the whole of this original letter to the Colonial Office, because it contained many other allegations besides those relating to the death of that man in particular. I am grateful to the Under-Secretary of State for saying that these, too, are now being fully inquired into.

The significance of this is that this case went the normal way of so many other cases which we have sent to the Colonial Secretary, and the original answer was, if I may say so, cloaked in the same complacent terms in which the Colonial Secretary has written to my hon. Friend the Member for Wednesbury (Mr. Stone-house), who forwarded to him the affidavit of Captain Law—the same kind of smooth assurances with which we have become familiar. What we are haunted by is the feeling that for every case which does come to light, every case like this one, there are others which do not reach us in their full form and reality. I hope that tonight we shall not get from the Under-Secretary of State a stale repetition of the answer, "This is an isolated case." How does he know it is an isolated case? There have been so many "isolated cases" that we are getting overcrowded with them.

The second matter I want to raise is one which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) is far more competent to deal with than I. When these cases do come to light charges are made of causing" actual bodily harm", not even grievous bodily harm. Yet in this instance, in their original letter to me, the detainees say that, not only did savage and persistent beating take place, but that the warders concerned gloated to them over the death of the man, and warned others that the same fate would befall them if they showed any signs of intransigence.

It probably requires a lawyer to answer, but I want to know this. Surely if one accelerates the death of a man, even if he is in an already weak physical condition, that is murder? My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton nods his head. This is what happened in the Kamau Kichina case which, we were told, was an isolated incident. It shocked the Colonial Secretary who said he would see it never happened again. One thing which might be done to see that it never happened again would be to bring a charge of murder. Otherwise, we are helping to encourage brutality.

I have here, as my hon. Friends have, affidavits which have been sworn in an almost monotonous succession recently. The allegations they contain show there is more in all this than a piece of mischief making by an hon. Member. We have been receiving piles of letters from Africans in these camps complaining of inadequate diet, lack of medical attention, the fact that they are put in leg irons, the fact that there have been illegal beatings and illegal collective punishments—a whole catalogue of horrors.

We hesitate at first to accept these, because we know that these people are accused of complicity in Mau Mau, and we wonder. We wonder whether, as the Colonial Secretary said to me some months ago, it is all part of a smear campaign against the Kenya Administration. So we hesitate, but then to show these are not isolated complaints we suddenly get one after another affidavits sworn by a succession of Europeans who have been in these prisons and these camps. Some have been there as prisoners for various reasons, not all of them disreputable, but there are also affidavits from men against whom no criminal charge has ever been advanced. No criminal charge has ever been advanced against Mr. Shuter, for example, to whom my right hon. Friend referred.

Here is a sworn affidavit by him about Manyani Detention Camp. The interesting thing is that he was formerly a prison officer in Kenya. The noble Lord the Member for Hertford tried to suggest that there have been adequate inquiries into conditions in these camps. I ask him to read this affidavit. I will gladly lend it to him. Through page after page it contains examples of what has happened to those who tried to get at the truth when visiting the camps. Here we have a description: At Manyani, detainees were supposed to be able to appeal against their detention to an Appeals Committee. Officers were given forms on which to record the names of those who wished to appeal and were supposed to enter their remarks at the foot of such form. No check, however, was kept on these forms, and I personally know of some instances when some officers tore up these completed forms to avoid the trouble of having to fill in their remarks. In particular, I remember seeing the said"— here a name is given— tearing up a batch of such forms on one occasion. This man, an ex-prison officer, is prepared to substantiate the facts before a commission of inquiry.

The noble Lord referred to the International Red Cross and to other visits which have been made. Mr. Shuter has got some interesting comments to make about this. He says: When, on one occasion, we officers received a warning that Mariira Works Camp was to be visited in a week's time by the International Red Cross, the legless man and two others who had their arms in plaster were sent off with some warders into the forest where they remained out of sight until after the inspection. At the same camp, he says: Before inspections by visiting committees, which were only introduced in the second year of my service, detainees were warned of unpleasant consequences if they made any complaints. At Mariira Camp I heard such a warning being given by the said"— and here there is a name— the Officer in Charge, and more recently in October, 1958, I heard such a warning being given by the said"— and here there is another name— at Fort Hall Reception Camp. On one occasion at Fort Hall Reception Camp, the inspecting committee was carefully steered past huts containing men who had injuries from being beaten up, and was told that the huts were empty. Many similar occurrences have come to light in a letter I had shortly after I returned from my visit to Kenya two or three years ago. I paid a visit to Kamiti Camp while I was there. I had a sense of helplessness at ever getting at the reality. One cannot stand there and just say to people," I think a lot of atrocities are going on behind those doors." I was told in this letter from this gentleman who had been a prisoner in the camp at the time of my visit that certain things were tidied up out of the way before I came, and he says: After you had been safely steered away on the day of your visit there was a liquid celebration at which some of the European convicts were in attendance. I can well believe it. I can well believe they said, "Cheers! We have got her out of the way without her discovering anything."

There is not time for me to read more than a fraction of the evidence which we have, but here we have these affidavits sworn by these gentlemen, and I would particularly refer to what three of these say about one particular incident in Kamiti prison. They all make very similar allegations about what happened on the occasion when some Mau Mau prisoners were transferred to Kamiti three days before Her Majesty the Queen Mother was due to open the new Embakasi Airport. These men were transferred to Kamiti and put in the compound and locked up. Three of them contain statements corroborating what happened on that day. One statement says: An order was given for the warders and askaris and riot squad to turn out. The following morning these convicts"— who had been locked up— refused to come out. They turned out in force, under the direction of … names are given. The other officials present at these beatings were … The victims were beaten into submission and when they came out were dragged and kicked. They refused to eat and each man was beaten with truncheons and sticks until he did. I cannot remember a day when beatings did not take place and I can name the Europeans and Africans who did it. I will give their names as sworn evidence before any court or commission of inquiry. There are other allegations repeated in all three of the sworn affidavits.

Only yesterday, as a result of the announcement in the Press that this debate was to take place, I got another communication from a European who has just returned from Kenya saying he had some information he wanted me to have. I tried to reach him by telephone, but he is in Devon and is not on the telephone. We dare not ignore this succession of complaints. It would be intolerable if we did.

Mr. Braine

The hon. Lady says that we dare not ignore these cases, but is she not aware that these allegations are already the subject of inquiry by the Governor of Kenya?

Mrs. Castle

This is our whole point. Certainly there is an inquiry by the Governor of Kenya, but that is not good enough. It is putting the Governor in an intolerable position. This matter has reached such proportions and has become such a public scandal that we owe it to the Governor of Kenya to take this responsibility off his shoulders. Independent people must go out there from this country and they must be given full powers to command people to come forward and to give evidence on oath. These men who have made these depositions to us have not been afraid to come out openly and risk their jobs. The have given their names and made sworn statements, which will not particularly help their careers. They have been smeared as we have been smeared, but it is intolerable for the Government to go on smearing people who are trying to do what this House has decided to do in the Waters case, which is not only to do justice but to show that it is being done.

8.33 p.m.

Mr. Bernard Braine (Essex, South-East)

If an injury is inflicted upon any one of Her Majesty's subjects in any territory for which we here in the United Kingdom have ultimate responsibility and that matter is hushed up by the authorities overseas so that justice is not done, clearly that is a matter for us here. We have in the United Kingdom, and must ultimately have, responsibility for the good government and wellbeing of those who dwell in the dependent territories.

That this debate is taking place is a good thing, but that does not mean that the right hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Creech Jones), who presented his case with moderation, or the hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle), have made out their case. I have been to Mariira and some of the other camps and I tried, in company with a number of my colleagues in this House, to follow with sympathy and understanding the ordeal through which all races in Kenya have passed in the last few years and the heroic efforts they are now making towards recovery. But I must say at the outset that the right hon. Gentleman failed to make any case whatsoever for the Motion.

I should like to get the problem into perspective. We should consider—I am forced to do this by the words of the Motion—whether anybody in Kenya should be in detention at all. The right hon. Member for Wakefield will know that there are circumstances of emergency when detention can be justified on grounds that the lives and liberties of the whole people are at stake. In a critical situation in 1948, the right hon. Gentleman authorised detention procedures in Malaya. On 1st December of that year he told the House of Commons that since the beginning of the emergency, 4,700 people had been arrested in Malaya and Singapore and—I quote his words: no specific charge need be made against persons so detained."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st December, 1948; Vol. 458, c. 1988.] Eighteen months later his successor, the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths), also came to the Box and announced that over 25,000 detention orders had been issued since the beginning of the emergency, and 11,000 people were still held.

To the best of my recollection, the only people who objected to that course of action at that time, who thought such a policy was wrong—and who, incidentally, I looked up the debates in HANSARD—buttressed their arguments with charges of atrocities committed by British troops and officials, were certain Communist Members of this House who, happily, are no longer with us. Today, and this is the moral of the story, Malaya is free and independent. She is, relatively speaking, a happy and secure country, but this would not have been the case if the Government of that day and their successors had not taken a firm line in dealing with the emergency.

It can be argued that the situation in Kenya is not dissimilar. The situation in Kenya started with the proclamation of the emergency, the House will remember, which took place in November, 1952. Why did that take place? It was precisely because the normal processes of the law had broken down and could not cope with the rising tide of Mau-Mau terrorism. Murder and intimidation were the order of the day and there was a danger that the madness which had seized a large part of the Kikuyu people might spread to other tribes. The law courts could not operate, witnesses would not give evidence either because they were intimidated or had disappeared. In those circumstances, the detention powers were put into force.

When I visited Kenya first, in 1954, there were about 60,000 people held in detention, and I went to a number of the camps. There were also 20,000 convicted of offences under the emergency regulations, making 80,000 in all. Most of those in the camps I visited seemed convinced that Mau Mau was going to win in the end. Hon. Members will recall, particularly those who have been to East Africa, the extent to which Mau Mau had corroded the soul and sensibilities of those people to a point at which, with the best will in the world, one despaired of winning them back to decency.

Quite frankly, I was pessimistic, and at that time it seemed to me that the problem was insoluble. Yet, looking back over that short period of five years, one can see now that without the use of these powers of detention, of intensified interrogation, of redemption through confession and work, it would have been quite impossible to have turned tens of thousands of sullen, fanatical Mau Mau terrorists into decent citizens. Now, 75,000 of them have returned to normal life. I met many of them on my last visit. What a different people they are. The past is behind them and they are looking forward to a constructive, new future as a result of the exciting agricultural change which has swept over the Central Province.

The interesting thing is that the sentences of Mau Mau convicts were suspended in order that they should take advantage of the rehabilitation facilities in detention camps. When I visited Kenya again last year I found a very different situation. I went to Mariira and to other camps. I found 80,000 detainees and convicts had dwindled to about 11,000, and they were going out into normal life at the rate of about 2,000 a month. I am not challenging the figures given by the right hon. Member, because he has his own sources of information, but I understand that there are now about 2,500 left. The important point to bear in mind about them is that 40 per cent. to 50 per cent. are convicts, people against whom a specific charge has been made. In other words, the vast majority of those who were taken in by Operation Anvil and elsewhere in the country have been released.

Mr. A. Fenner Brockway (Eton and Slough)

Is it not also likely that some of those who remain are the best type of detainee? The ordinary method of procedure is to require a confession. Some of those who are not guilty have refused to make such a confession, and they have continued to refuse. Many hon. Members on this side of the House know detained men whose characters are of the noblest and who have been acquitted of any crime but are kept in detention because they refuse to confess to a crime that they have not committed.

Mr. Braine

The hon. Member is entitled to his viewpoint, but he does the gravest disservice to the devoted band of Christian men and women who have been working in these camps since the beginning on this work of rehabilitation—men like David Warahui, the son of the murdered chief, a dedicated soul if there ever was one, the old Scottish missionary, whom I met there, who was a blood brother of the Kikuyu, whose name was Dennis, and scores of others. The hon. Member is doing a grave disservice to those who have been helping to save souls—because that is the essence of the problem. I beg leave to doubt that the hard core which is left—quite apart from those who have been convicted, in many cases, of the foulest crimes—are the lily-white—

Mr. Brockway

I said "some of them".

Mr. Braine

—heroes that the hon. Member pretends.

I confess that I was very unhappy when I went to Mariira. I do not see how any Englishman nurtured in the traditions of liberty of this country—certainly any Member of this House—could fail to be moved by the spectacle that I saw, and the feeling that there were many people there against whom no specific charge could be brought.

Mr. Callaghan

What is the hon. Member objecting to in the Motion? It asks that there shall be a review in respect of those who have been in prolonged detention and against whom no charges have been made.

Mr. Braine

I hope that the hon. Member will permit me to develop my argument.

Mr. Callaghan

I have been listening to the hon. Member for a long time, but I have not heard any argument against the Motion.

Mr. Braine

I have not taken anything like the time taken by some hon. Members opposite, and I am not going to be dictated to by the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan). If he can bear himself in patience—which is not exactly a quality for which he is famed—he will hear what I have to say.

When the hon. Member made that irrelevant interruption I was on the point of saying that the situation which I encountered at Mariira—when I was accompanied by my good friend the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu), whom I believe shared my feelings on the subject—gave me furiously to think. I was filled with compassion for these people, and I wanted to know why they were there.

The answer is simple. Among these people are some who did not hesitate to butcher thousands of their fellow tribesmen—never mind about white settlers—in the most savage and bestial fashion that one could think of. It is easy to forget, and it would seem from some of the observations which have been thrown across the Floor of the House that some people have already forgotten, that if we had let these men loose we should never have been forgiven by tens of thousands of loyal Kikuyu who withstood the tortures and the hellish persecution and terrorism of Mau Mau, and who remember, even if we sometimes forget, the Lari massacre of 1953, when 150 of their fellow-Kikuyu were slaughtered by Mau Mau gangsters.

I was not going to mention it, but the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East has provoked me into doing so—

Mr. Callaghan

This has nothing to do with the Motion.

Mr. Braine

It has everything to do with it. The hon. Member has provoked me into saying that at Lari the top of a child's head was cut off in order that those foul beasts might consume the brains.

Mr. Paget

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. We have now listened for a quarter of an hour to the hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine). In my submission, he has not said one word that is relevant to the Motion. There is no dispute that detention has been necessary, and the Motion does not question it. There is no dispute that most self-sacrificing and splendid work has been done in rehabilitation.

Mr. Braine

The last words of the Motion call upon the House to review the prolonged detention of men against whom no charges have been made. I listened with patience and respect to all that was said on the other side. I wonder why hon. Gentlemen are so keen to interrupt me. Is it that the truth in this matter is unpalatable?

My contention is that, if we had let these men loose, we would have proclaimed to the whole of the people of Kenya our inability to prevent vast numbers of human beings coming under the spell of the most perverted and filthy doctrine ever known to man. Further, if we had let these men loose we could not have started, let alone have completed, that dramatic break-through the barrier of poverty in the Central Province. We could not have carried out the agricultural reform which has taken place and which is now absorbing released detainees. If one goes anywhere in Kikuyu land today, one not only sees a transformed landscape but encounters a transformed people. All this has been recognised by responsible hon. Members of the House. The noble Lord quoted the Report of the C.P.A. delegation to Kenya. May I quote two short passages from the same Report. Referring to those still kept in detention, paragraph 95 of the Report says: The policy which determines their future should be based on the premise that although detention cannot be regarded as a substitute for the processes of the law, provision will have to be made to ensure that such persons—whose numbers will probably be relatively small—do not endanger public security or are enabled to resume full liberty of action until they have renounced Mau Mau. The Report then goes on to say, very properly, that the utmost speed in ending detention is required.

We are all agreed with that. I trust that when the Under-Secretary of State replies he will give us some indication as to what is in the Government's mind about the speed with which these Emergency Regulations can be terminated. Nevertheless, he would be a very bold man who would say that normal conditions, the normalcy envisaged in the 1957 Report, obtained in Kenya today. The right hon. Gentleman did not tell the House this, but a proportion of those still left in detention are people brought in in recent months who are members of the proscribed organisation K.K.M. As long as that organisation exists, subverting with its intimidation tactics and its oath taking, there is danger. I submit that the conditions do not yet obtain for ending the detention procedure.

Mr. Creech Jones

The hon. Member must know that there are men who have been under restraint now for ten years and for eight years. No less than 800 of the prisoners in detention have had no charge brought against them and have been in detention for over four years. We ask in the Motion that something should be done about that state of affairs.

Mr. Braine

What the right hon. Gentleman has not told the House is that procedure exists, and has existed all through these years, for the review of each individual case.

What the hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn said did her great credit. She has campaigned to bring instances to the notice of the authorities but, in effect, what her arguments added up to was: "Here are the facts of the situation—look into them." They have been looked into. The machinery exists to examine these charges, and that facts have been established shows that effective machinery does exist. One would think from what she said that there was not any machinery and that, therefore, this House must promote a special inquiry.

That is not the case. First of all, there is the normal review and appeal procedure. I am told that the reviewing committee is at present looking into appeal cases that were previously dismissed. Secondly, as the right hon. Gentleman well knows, there is the advisory committee, presided over by a judge of the Supreme Court to hear appeals against detention. A great deal of what has been said casts the gravest reflection on the integrity and professional honesty of these men. Thirdly, since 1956, all camps have been inspected by Ministers, by heads of Departments and by district officers, and the Governor has set up an inspecting committee for each camp.

I do not say that the system is perfect, nor do I say that abuses have not occurred, but I do say that no single case can be quoted where the Kenya Govern- ment or the Secretary of State has refused an inquiry into an allegation. The very allegations about which the hon. Lady talked at such great length are the subject at this very moment of an investigation. If this House does not trust the Kenya Government, it should remember that here at least the Secretary of State has to answer to the Parliament and the people of the United Kingdom for what is done in our name in Kenya. Therefore, these matters are under inquiry.

The noble Lord the Member for Hertford (Lord Balniel) referred to the Report of the International Red Cross Commission which went to Kenya and investigated 52 camps and prisons. The Commission's report, it is true, was confidential, but before leaving Kenya it issued a statement from which I should like to quote just two short passages. These are in a document dated 16th April, 1957, which reads: We saw all conditions in camps and prisons and interviewed detainees freely and could measure the magnitude of the effort made to provide the necessities of life and adequate supervision for thousands of detainees and convicts of whom we still saw 35,000 in custody.… We think it our duty to say at this stage our considered opinion that all has been, and is being, done to respect the international principles accepted in the custody of detainees and convicts, within the rules embodied in the Emergency Regulations. Wherever and whenever we presented observations or remarks, these were always received with sympathetic consideration. Is there any more impartial organisation than the International Red Cross? Apparently, it does not satisfy the hon. Lady—

Mrs. Castle

It not only does not satisfy me, but here is a prison officer of Kenya swearing an affidavit to the effect that when the Red Cross did visit particular camps in which he was, some of the cases of atrocity were quietly bundled out of the way so that the Commission did not see them.

Mr. Braine

The hon. Lady has not told the House that the ex-prison officer of Kenya whose allegations are now the subject of inquiry—[Interruption.] I copied down what the right hon. Gentleman said. He told us that he had evidence from a number of reputable persons, but in the very next breath he said that two or three of them—I am not sure whether there were two or three—had served prison sentences. He was not able to tell us exactly what they were inside for but, apparently, these were "reputable persons," and theirs was evidence fit to lay before the Parliament of the United Kingdom—

Mr. Paget

Do not be so silly.

Mr. Braine

I am surprised that the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget), who from his professional experience should be able to evaluate evidence and know just how much importance to attach to tainted evidence of that kind, should say that. This is the crux of the whole matter. In Reynolds News of 15th February, there was a headline Africans coshed, beaten. More Kenya charges and there was an account given there from a certain gallant major who alleged that he saw the beatings. There was a magnificent photograph of him and details of his allegations.

What I want to know, and what I think the House is entitled to know from my hon. Friend when he comes to reply, is the creditworthiness of this gentleman. I do not for a moment say that a man who has done "time", a man who is a proven liar in other respects, cannot speak the truth in a particular instance. I think it is right—I agree here entirely with the hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn—that any allegation of this kind should be investigated. But is it suggested that this House should thrust aside the Kenya Government and say, "We cannot trust you. We cannot rely upon you. We must set up an independent inquiry. The International Red Cross is not good enough for us"? Are we to say that on the strength of evidence of this kind? It would be an insult to the intelligence of the House and a base betrayal of our kinsmen overseas.

Mr. Creech Jones

I thought that, in fairness to the House, I should give some of the evidence from people whom the House might not regard as fully trustworthy. It does not follow that their evidence is false. I was merely trying to give the House some of the evidence which has come to hand. Moreover, some of the affidavits I did refer to are from people of high integrity, persons of strong character, who have been in a position to know precisely what is happening in the prisons and detention centres.

Mr. Braine

What is so unfortunate about all this is that we have heard it before. There was Miss Fletcher, who took five months from the moment of resigning her job in Kenya as a rehabilitation officer before she burst into print with allegations which were subsequently shown to be unfounded. There was the letter from the Lokitaung convicts, published in a reputable Sunday newspaper, which not only was false in most of its particulars but grossly libelled a European officer. The Observer newspaper withdrew, apologised, and paid a substantial sum in damages. I would like some of the things said inside the House to be said outside against our fellow countrymen who have beeen facing in Kenya a situation of tremendous strain and difficulty for many years and who, in my humble opinion, deserve much better treatment at the hands of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

Precisely because the Opposition cannot argue that the Kenya Government at any time have refused facilities for inquiries, precisely because there is no need for a new inquiry and adequate machinery exists, the Motion ought not to be pressed. It ought to be withdrawn. But there is another reason, in my submission, why the House should reject it. It is, in effect, a Motion of censure upon the Kenya Government, the Kenya Administration and our kinsfolk in that country.

I for one—though I speak here for myself alone, I suspect that I speak for a very large number of people in the country—deeply resent the inference behind all this that Britons, once they leave our shores, abandon their attachment to the principles of freeedom, decency and fair play. Everything which has happened in Kenya in the last few years proclaims the contrary. But some of the mud sticks. Remember what Bacon said: It is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in it …that doth the hurt. A few of these lies do sink in, and the effect upon the morale of our people in Kenya, whether European, Asian, or African, of countenancing them is something which a good many Members of the House of Commons, in their zeal and enthusiasm for the underdog, should sometimes take into account.

There is no case for the Motion. It would do the right hon. Gentleman credit if he were to withdraw it. If he does not, I hope that the House will reject it in the most decisive fashion.

9.0 p.m.

Mr. James Johnson (Rugby)

We have listened to the most amazing speech by the hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine), charged and supercharged with emotion, and, in fact, in parts contemptible. The hon. Member ranged from the Communists in the Malayan jungles to the lily-white heroes of Kenya. As so often in these debates, he went the whole gamut in party polemics I have also been to Kenya and have seen bodies whose heads have been severed, so I hope hon. Members opposite will not think that we have not seen what is happening in Kenya and that they know all the answers. It would be a most unhappy situation in this House and dangerous for our interests overseas if it were believed that we on the Labour benches accepted everything that we were told by colonial peoples overseas without careful examination. That is not so. It would be equally dangerous—indeed more dangerous, I think, after listening to the speech of the hon. Gentleman—if the Conservative Members accepted without any question all the acts of white settlers and of colonial administrations in our territories overseas. There is a tendency for hon. Members opposite to stiffen whenever we make any comments about colonial government in our territories overseas.

I would say to hon. Members that loyalty to one's class and colour is not everything. There are times when all hon. Members should rise above party and even above so-called bipartisan policy and think of the dignity of this House and of the welfare of the people in Kenya. I beg of hon. Members opposite to dismiss this party bickering which they have been indulging in. We have just had a speech full of it. People outside this Chamber get tired of Parliamentary bickering on the lines of the speech which we have just heard.

I want to speak in terms not of my own party or of any other party, but in terms of the people of Kenya and the people of this country outside this House who send us here to sit on these benches I have here not only letters, almost by the score, but a catalogue of all the Questions set down concerning these camps and prisons in Kenya over the last 12 months. Things have gone so far, both inside this House and outside it, that ordinary folk here and overseas are necessarily disturbed.

The Government of Kenya have made initial inquiries into camps and prisons We have had the Heaton and the International Red Cross inquiries, but there are widespread feelings, which I share fully, that further investigation is due by a person or persons outside the Colony, outside the Colonial Office and outside the Colonial Government in Kenya itself. We need an investigation by someone who is not less than a judge of the High Court of England. There is no other way, in my view, whereby these damaging facts cannot be conveniently hidden away. We have heard speeches both inside and outside the House of smear and counter smear, and now things are reaching the stage which existed in America in the days of McCarthy.

This is what is happening in Kenya There was a letter in the Observer regarding Lokitaung camp published with no confirmation, no footnote and no explanation. The inevitable happened and damages were paid to a Commissioner in Kenya. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) quoted earlier things said by myself about the prison camps in Kenya. May I say what we did. In our official report to Lord Chandos, as he now is, we said, united as an all-party delegation with the late Walter Elliot leading us, this about the police, and it still holds in some measure for these camps in Kenya. We found that— … brutality and mal-practices by the police have occurred on a scale which constitutes a threat to public confidence in the forces of law and order. We also stated Qn another page: Increasing political pressure has been brought to bear on the Government with a view to securing the abandonment of at least some of the principles upon which British justice is founded We said that in 1954, and those are the feelings today of many people on these benches and outside the House.

Earlier my right hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Creech Jones) made a damning and a well documented indictment, but I want to keep off any case of flogging, any cases of ill-treatment. I shall talk specifically of one camp, the Takwa Special Detention Camp, and of the men there who are not Mau Mau prisoners. This is the fallacy of hon. Gentlemen opposite. I am now pleading for political detainees, as my colleagues have done. The last words in our Motion speak of … the prolonged detention of men against whom no charges have been made. This is so. My hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) referred to one gentleman I know, Mr. Oneko. I have been in correspondence with these men over a period of some months, and I have many letters. I have one here which I have shown to colleagues on my side of the House. I have, as it were, tested them with it, and they have all said that such a letter rings sincere. And this is only one of many. This is what Mr. Oneko wrote to me on 3rd November from the Takwa Special Detention Camp: Lately we have made further protests to the Secretary of State for the Colonies against molestation on detainees in rehabilitation camps in a cablegram and a letter giving the details of the incidents. Admittedly we are very much disturbed at the manner in which confession is sought by methods already denied by Mr. Lennox-Boyd publicly in the House of Commons, not once but severally. Here I am not talking against confession, neither am I trying to defend those candidates for rehabilitation. I mean those who had implicated themselves in Mau Mau evils, but who originally had, and still have, nothing to do with this beastly movement"— He is talking of political detainees. The letter continues: … and were simply arrested on purely political ground. Whatever the case may be, violence of any sort cannot be tolerated by both the Government and men of good will, and we in particular assert that though detained for all this time, we will not tolerate violence in any form. We denounce it as an utterly reverse method of either restoring peace or gaining claims or bringing about reforms. This is the type of man with whom I am in correspondence and there are many more like him.

The funny thing is that Mr. Oneko has been acquitted with others, by the Kenya Supreme Court. This is the machine which we are told by hon. Gentlemen on the benches opposite is doing a wonderful job. Very well, let us then accept its findings and let these men out of camp whom the Kenya legal machine, from the Chief Judge downwards, have acquitted. He is not alleged to have taken any unlawful oath. He is not alleged to be a terrorist. He is not accused of sedition. Details of his speeches are not given to him, to myself or to anyone else. All there has been is a vague accusation: "You made inflammatory speeches against the Government of Kenya and Europeans." Why are those men kept in these camps? They have been rotting away for two, four, six and even more years, and we talk about justice. There is no charge against them.

The Under-Secretary said on 31st January that there were 2,280 men and 91 women in 15 detention camps in Kenya. Of the 96 detainees on Manda Island, 50 had appeared before the Advisory Committee, which recommended that 22 should be passed through the pipeline camps for rehabilitation towards release. Mr. Oneko was told when he was interviewed and screened that he would be released. What was the condition? Like so many other cases, the condition was that he would not take part in any political activities outside the camp. What terms are those for men who, when they come out, hope, like Tom Mboya or Dr. Kiano, to play their part in building up the political society and leading their people to a fuller and better life?

What is the Government's policy? The Secretary of State gave us the figures on 31st January, and we know the sum total of the work to be done. What is the function of the Advisory Committee? Does it not advise that innocent men should be released from these camps? What advice does it give to Sir Evelyn Baring?

Regarding Kenya Government policy, let us pay regard to what Mr. Coutts, the Chief Secretary of Kenya, said in a speech in the Legislative Council a few weeks ago. He said that there are more extreme detainees being put through the pipeline than ever, and that so long as that great experiment was going on it was impossible to lift the emergency. Why is it impossible to lift the emergency? We lifted the emergency in Cyprus in a few hours, when we wished to, given the conditions. What is it in Kenya which stops our lifting the emergency? There are a few hundred detainees waiting to be released. There is no reason why the emergency in Kenya should last a day longer. We have 13,000 policemen in Kenya, together with soldiers. They can keep order. I would not have thought that a few score of these political gentlemen being released would affect the body politic of Kenya.

I should like to ask one or two more questions. What access is there to these camps? Question after question has been asked on this matter, and we have been told that the Secretary of State is satisfied. In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White), who asked a Question about Lokitaung Prison on 22nd July, the Secretary of State said that he would do everything possible to strengthen the system of visiting justices … to this prison."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd July, 1958; Vol. 592, c. 220.] The Secretary of State did not think it necessary to appoint visiting justices other than provincial and district officials.

I should also like to ask what is happening to letters which are being sent out of the camps by detainees, censored or otherwise, and letters sent into the camps by Members of Parliament, people like myself and my hon. Friends.

In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Wednesbury (Mr. Stone-house), the Secretary of State said on 29th July that no measures would be taken against prisoners who wrote to newspapers complaining of conditions, but they would be warned that any further communications constituted a breach of the prison regulations. My last letter to Mr. Oneko was as far back as December. I have not had a reply to it. I would like the Minister to find out what is happening to letters which are sent to camps like Takwa. If they are being censored, we do not mind. If they are being stopped on the way, that is a quite different kettle of fish.

If I go to Kenya, as I hope to this Easter, will I see any of the camps which I wish to visit? I hope that I will. I should like to know who will make an effort to stop me. If a Member of Parliament can go to these camps, why cannot African Members of the Legislative Council in Nairobi also visit them? What is the objection to that? Why cannot men who are elected by their fellow Africans see what is happening in these camps?

Mr. Patrick Wall (Haltemprice)

The hon. Gentleman will recall that two of the African elected Members have said in public that they look to Jomo Kenyatta, the founder of the Mau Mau, still as their political and spiritual leader.

Mr. Johnson

I dismiss that, as I dismiss some of the earlier contemptible emotional stuff that we have heard. [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] I can see no objection whatever to African Members of the Legislative Council going to these camps. I also want European Members of the Council to go into them. Why should a man like Mr. Shirley Cooke, for example, not visit the camps? Any Government that fears ventilation of the conditions of camps within their Colony cannot fail but give the impression that there is something to hide. It would be a good thing for the Government of Kenya themselves if they were to favour or support a visiting commission of inquiry. They owe it to themselves to do it.

When he replies to the debate, the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies should grasp this nettle, and he should not be afraid of being unpopular with European settlers in Kenya. I would commend to him the words which are sworn by all Governors when they take the oath of office. They swear to do right by all manner of men, without fear or favour, affection or ill-will.

9.17 p.m.

Mr. Patrick Wall (Haltemprice)

At the beginning of his speech the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. J. Johnson) said that we on this side of the House tended to stiffen when we heard the Kenya Administration or the white settlers criticised. The reason why we stiffen is the lack of impartiality on the part of hon. and right hon. Members opposite. The right hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Creech Jones) and other hon. Members opposite, after saying that there is no reflection on the Government of Kenya, have proceeded during the rest of their speeches to paint a picture showing that warders maltreated prisoners and that this was known to the Administration and that nothing was done about it. That is a travesty of the facts. All these cases have been investigated and many are under investigation today.

Mr. J. Johnson

Perhaps the hon. Member would like to answer the point which was the burden of my speech about political detainees in the detention camps. Why cannot they be set free?

Mr. Wall

The smear campaign which is being carried on from some of the benches opposite—not by the hon. Member for Rugby—has a political motive, which is to upset the Government of Kenya and to do everything to undermine European administration.

No hon. Member would allow prisoners to be maltreated or wish to see people imprisoned without fair trial. On the other hand, we must remember the background. My hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine) described the bestiality of Mau Mau. We all know what a terrible thing it was and how the oath taken by the hard core of Mau Mau virtually turned a man into a beast. We owe it to the loyal Kikuyu and the other tribes to see to it that these men are not allowed to associate with their tribes in Kenya again.

The hon. Member for Rugby asked why the emergency regulations cannot be lifted. He knows that the situation in Kenya is still tense and that two African Members have said that Kenyatta is still their leader. He knows that K.K.M., the aftermath of Mau Mau, is still in existence and has dangerous potentialities. He knows that Lairi villagers who were given badges to show that they were loyal Kikuyu are now frightened to wear them because of the fear of intimidation directed for political motives and exercised by certain African elected Members in Kenya. It has been put to the House already that large numbers of prisoners have not only been liberated but rehabilitated so that they are now useful members of society and are doing fine work, as I saw for myself, when I visited Kenya last month. The Kikuyu tribe is now becoming a prosperous settled community, and I believe that that is due to the rehabilitation programme which must not be upset.

As an aside, I want to add that I hope that the Government will continue with the financial help given to the Kenya Government, particularly for the purpose of continuing social services whose con- tinuance is badly needed even though we have got down to the hard core of the terrorists. We must not forget that we still need to spend money on social services in Kenya.

Nearly all of the complaints advanced this evening—I would prefer to say all of them, but I will be strictly fair and say nearly all—have come from persons with chips on their shoulders, people with resentment against the Administration in Kenya, people who have been dismissed from the service for one reason or another, people who have made a failure of their own lives and who are now getting back at the Kenya Government. They are not those with legitimate complaints.

Of all the criticisms which have been advanced, almost all have been shown on investigation to be unjustified and those which have proved to be justified, as the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) said, have resulted in action being taken and people being punished by imprisonment or dismissal, as they should be and as the House would wish. We have had the case of the famous Lokitaung letter about which the Observer had to apologise and over which it had to pay damages. On the other side, we have had examinations by the International Red Cross, Parliamentary delegations, the C.P.A., the Kenya Government and other impartial witnesses.

Hon. Members opposite are asking that every time a tainted criticism is made there should be a judicial investigation by the House of Commons. They are asking us to put on a pedestal people who have chips on their shoulders, people who have grudges against the Kenya Government and to disregard the International Red Cross. This smear campaign stems from political motives. No hon. Member wants to see any prisoner maltreated or kept in prison without trial, but a smear campaign is extremely difficult to track down.

All that can be done is to have each case investigated as it arises. My right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary has done that and in some cases the complaint has proved justified, but in many others the allegations have been proved unjustified. Nevertheless, the campaign continues and I repeat that it is political and designed to undermine the authority of the Government of Kenya and belief in European tradition of liberty and justice in that Colony. That is the political objective and the Motion should therefore be decisively rejected to show that we have faith in our own people in Kenya who believe in justice as much as we do.

9.23 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Julian Amery)

I hope that hon. Members will forgive me if I intervene at this stage, but the debate is extremely important and the Motion, for all the mild tones in which the right hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Creech Jones) moved it, is a Motion of censure on the policy of the Kenya Government—and therefore my right hon. Friend—towards detention and the prison services in Kenya.

Naturally, the House always feels very sensitive when there are allegations that British subjects may be guilty of brutality. The House feels that way, as do the Government. I am sure that hon. Members will understand if I take a little more time than the normal half-hour to try to deal as best I can with the matters which have been raised.

The Motion falls into two halves. There is a demand for an independent inquiry into the prison camps and detention camps, and there is a demand for a review of the whole detention system. I will deal first with the problem of detention. To understand it, I must ask right hon. and hon. Members to cast their minds back a little. It was not only very difficult for us to understand at the time the situation created by the Mau Mau emergency; it is very difficult for us to remember it today. This was a situation in which murders were being committed in the presence of hundreds of people, and yet no witnesses would come forward and the weapons could not be found. Unless we were to relinquish all ideas of law and order, we had to detain persons about whom we had legitimate suspicion, though these could not be proved in the courts.

Some of these people are in detention still, and hon. Members will appreciate that it is no good saying at this stage "If you think them guilty of these actions, why do you not bring them to trial?" because the circumstances in which they were detained were circumstances in which no witnesses would come forward.

Detention was necessary for the security of Kenya at the time, and I think that this was accepted at the time on all sides. Detention was also necessary for the sake of the detainees themselves. There could have been no rehabilitation and no washing away of the Mau Mau taint had there not been detention, and it was indeed, as my hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine) emphasised, precisely because the detention camps were also the rehabilitation camps that the great majority of the Mau Mau convicts were taken out of their prisons and put into the detention camps, so that they could go through the process of rehabilitation.

What happened in these camps is, I think, an amazing story of social engineering, hard for those of us who do not know the African background well to understand, and yet one the success of which has been acclaimed by Members of Parliament of all parties who have seen it at work. The results speak for themselves. Of more than 80,000 detainees, a little over 2,000 now remain in detention. Who would have thought this possible two or three years ago?

Two problems still remain in connection with detention. There is, first of all, the problem of the hard core of detainees, and then there is the problem of whether it is necessary to keep detention longer, so far as the rest of the community is concerned. Let me deal first with the problem of the hard core. In the view of the Government of Kenya and of Her Majesty's Government here, no one can be judged permanently irreconcilable, but equally, so long as a detainee shows himself to be irreconcilable, it would be very dangerous in many cases, perhaps in all cases, to release him.

The Commonwealth Party delegation, which included the hon. Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson), the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) and the hon. Member for the Park Division of Sheffield (Mr. Mulley) called for the utmost speed in ending detention, but agreed that there were certain hard core detainees. The delegation described them as self-confessed criminals under the former amnesty, men convicted of serious crimes or men who for other reasons would be regarded as inimical to the security of the State and of law and order for a long time ahead. They said that provision would have to be made to ensure that such persons—whose numbers would probably be relatively small—would not endanger public security or resume full liberty of action until they had renounced Mau Mau.

Mr. Brockway

The hon. Gentleman has referred to the "hard core." What about the men who are still in detention and have been for 4, 6 and 8 years, men who have been tried and acquitted of any crime, yet are still kept in detention?

Mr. Amery

Will the hon. Member allow me to develop my argument a little? I am coming to that.

The hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. J. Johnson) said that we ought to lift the State of Emergency at once. I understood him to mean that we should release the detainees, this hard core—

Mr. J. Johnson indicated dissent.

Mr. Amery

If I misunderstood the hon. Gentleman, I shall be happy to give way to allow him to explain.

Mr. J. Johnson

I believe that there is a hard core of Mau Mau thugs who were psychologically and physically brutalised. There is a hard core; let there be no mistake about that. But I was talking about the political detainees —Mr. Oneko and others.

Mr. Amery

I am glad that the hon. Member has made his position clear. It helps us to this extent, that at any rate part—I cannot give the figure—of the 2,000 still under detention will in our view—and in the view of the hon. Member—have to remain under detention. Some special provision will have to be made for them even though the State of Emergency were lifted for the rest of the country.

Mr. Foot

Presumably the hon. Member is referring to the decision announced by the Governor of Kenya on 4th November. Are we to understand that those persons are to be kept in prison for the rest of their lives without trial?

Mr. Amery

If the hon. and learned Gentleman had listened, he would have heard me say that in the view of the Kenya Government, and of Her Majesty's Government, nobody can be regarded as permanently irreconcilable.

Mr. Foot

Then for how long?

Mr. Amery

It is a question of whether they become reconcilable or not.

The hon. Member for Rugby was expressing agreement with the view that there were certain hard core elements who, unless they became rehabilitated, could not safely be released.

Mr. H. Hynd (Accrington)

That is what Hitler said.

Mr. Amery

This is one problem, the problem of the hard core of unrehabilitated Mau Mau. That is one side of the argument. There is a second problem concerning the application of detention powers to the rest of the community. The House must recognise that one of the reasons we have been able to release as many detainees as fast as we have done is that the detention powers still exist. We have been able to take risks by releasing some people about whose rehabilitation we have not been absolutely sure, because, were we proved wrong, we still had power to take them in again.

Kenya, as a country is normal, but there is still a pretty serious tension under the surface. Last year 1,700 K.K.M. elements had to be arrested and the great majority of them were convicted in the courts. About 350 were detained. These were the leaders of the organisation against whom it would not, I think, have been possible to produce a criminal charge. Without the emergency regulations we should not have been able to detain them. Had we not been able to do so—I do not want to exaggerate— I think it quite possible that there might have been serious trouble and bloodshed, and a halt called to much of the constructive work which has been going on.

The right hon. Member for Wakefield said that the 800 detainees who had never been tried should be released.

Mr. Creech Jones indicated dissent.

Mr. Amery

I understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that. Does he wish to withdraw that statement?

Mr. Creech Jones

I said their cases should be reviewed.

Mr. Amery

The Motion calls for a review, but I understood the right hon. Gentleman to say clearly that the 800 who had not been tried should be released. I am glad to understand now that that is not his view. In an intervention during a speech by one of my hon. Friends the right hon. Gentleman said that people had been detained for ten years. The right hon. Gentleman spoke mildly, but that is an exaggeration. No one has been detained for more than six-and-a-half years.

Mr. Creech Jones

I said restrained.

Mr. Amery

The emergency only began in 1952.

The hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) described some of the hard core who were detained as among the noblest of characters. I do not know individually those of whom the hon. Gentleman spoke, but it should be remembered that some were the hard core thugs to whom the hon. Member for Rugby referred. Some are more political in character and perhaps carry the greatest responsibility for the bloodshed—above all among their own people—which ensued from the Mau Mau outbreak.

Mr. Brockway

Not those whom I have in mind.

Mr. Amery

I do not know whom the hon. Gentleman has in mind, but I am coming to one of them in a moment. I refer to the case of Mr. Oneko, to whom the hon. Member for Rugby referred. I will deal with the case right away because that may be convenient in this context.

Mr. Oneko was secretary of the organisation from which, in a sense, the Mau Mau movement sprang. He has been in detention since the early days of the emergency. His position has been twice reviewed, once in 1954 and again last year, but it has not been possible to recommend release. The Governor has been considering what could be done 'to ease Mr. Oneko's situation and have recently decided that he should be moved as a detainee to Marsabit. We hope that his detainee status may be changed to one of enforced residence so that his wife may join him there. The hon. Member for Rugby asked what had happened to letters he had addressed to Mr. Oneko. If our hopes materialise as to the way in which Mr. Oneko's status can be changed, it should be possible for the hon. Member to see him when the hon. Member goes to Kenya.

Mr. J. Johnson

I would sooner have Mr. Oneko out of the camp. That would be much better.

Mr. Amery

The last thing that the Government want to do is to detain anybody for a day longer than is necessary. The speed with which the camps have emptied speaks for itself. We shall get rid of all the detainees, release them all, as soon as possible, but responsibly. That time has not yet come. To turn back into the Kenya community 2,000 cases, be they of hard core thugs or unrepentant political adherents or sympathisers of the Mau Mau movement, could at this stage interfere with the constructive attempt being made to rehabilitate Kenya.

It is essential, however, that there should be checks to ensure that the power of detention is not being abused. What are the checks which we have? First of all, there is the ordinary administrative review. There is, I know, a tendency to believe that administrative reviews may be biassed, but the fact remains that it is by administrative review that well over 90 per cent. of the releases have already been secured. The next check is the Advisory Committee, headed by a judge of the Supreme Court. About 2,500 appeals have been heard by this Committee, and more than 1,000 individuals have been released. The Committee is now hearing again a number of cases.

We can claim, I think, that the power of detention is still necessary to hold the unrehabilitated Mau Mau elements until they are rehabilitated. It is necessary, too, to enable releases to take place as soon as possible, occasionally running a risk, and to enable us, in case there should be a more eruptive development of the K.K.M., to safeguard the security of the community.

We do not regard this detention as a normal or permanent feature of Kenya life. I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East, who raised the question, that as soon as we possibly can we shall end the Emergency and give up the detention powers, but the time has not yet come for that. Meanwhile, I suggest that there is an adequate check against abuse and that no special review such as the Motion calls for is required.

I come now to the second part of the Motion which calls for an independent inquiry into the conditions and administration of prisons and detention camps in Kenya. The hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who put their names to this Motion will realise that this is a pretty grave censure on the Kenya prison service.

Before the House makes up its mind on this proposal there are two points which, in fairness to the Kenya Prison Service, it has to consider. First, it has to consider whether the system under which the Kenya prisons and camps operate is properly designed and has proper machinery for ensuring that abuses are checked. Secondly, it has to consider whether in practice that machine is working effectively.

Every prison system under British control provides machinery for investigating complaints and checking abuse. Have we the right machinery in Kenya? The administration of the prisons operates under ordinances and Rules which were made in 1948 and 1949 by the Government of the day. The system is broadly similar to ours in this country. Instead of a visiting committee or board of visitors which we have in the United Kingdom, Kenya has visiting justices and official visitors to prisons. They have wide powers to see for themselves what is going on in the prisons they visit and to call for papers. Visiting justices are judges, magistrates and Ministers. Official visitors are mostly "unofficials". Detention camps have a similar system of committees of inspection. Official visitors and committees of inspection include Asians and Africans. In addition, ministers of religion are allowed in, as are senior prison officers on routine tours of inspection.

A question has been raised by the hon. Member for Rugby about permission for members of the Legislative Council to go to the prisons and camps. There have been a number of visits by members of the Legislative Council—members of all races—to the prisons in the last year. They have not been allowed to go to the detention camps. I should like to explain why that is. The essential purpose of the camps is to rehabilitate the Mau Mau detained there and to persuade them to give up the doctrine of Mau Mau. Some of the members of the Legislative Council have been making what I can only call pro-Mau Mau speeches. Some re- ferred at Accra to Mau Mau as freedom fighters. If they were to go to the camps and were to say these things in conversation with detainees or to a larger audience, that could have a disturbing effect on the whole process of rehabilitation. That is why members of the Legislative Council have not been allowed in the camps whose chief duty is rehabilitation. They have been allowed to go to the prisons and to make suggestions, which in many cases have been adopted.

Mr. J. Johnson

What about political camps like Takwa and the Manda Island?

Mr. Amery

I should have thought that to go to political camps and refer to Mau Mau as freedom fighters would not help the rehabilitation or the orderly release of the Africans whose welfare the hon. Member has so much at heart.

All prisoners and those detained in detention camps have the right to petition the Governor of Kenya, just as prisoners here have the right to petition the Home Secretary, and they have also the right to petition the Secretary of State for the Colonies. In one respect, the practice is more liberal than it is here. Some years ago the Home Secretary of the day laid it down: that a prisoner shall not be allowed to make complaints about his prison treatment in a letter to an M.P. unless he has already exhausted his right of making the complaint through the proper channels". The reason, I think, is worth quoting in the context of this debate. It was: if a prisoner is to be allowed to use a letter to an M.P. for the purpose of making complaints about his treatment which he would not be allowed to make in an ordinary letter and which he has never made to the prison authorities, the result would be that a prisoner could by-pass the appointed channels for the investigation of such complaints and could make with impunity the most malicious and unfounded allegations against particular officers. This seems … likely eventually to undermine the authority of the Visiting Committee and Board of Visitors who are the independent check on prison administration for which Parliament has made provision. This is the rule and practice in the United Kingdom. We have always been ready, in Kenya, to investigate even anonymous allegations, but the process has encouraged more unfounded allegations.

Mr. Creech Jones

I understand that in the case of a number of prisons and prison camps the visiting magistrates consist of the provincial commissioner and the district commissioner. I believe that no provision is made for independent non-official visitors to perform the function of visiting and inspecting. That provision is made by the visiting magistrate in this country, but it is not made in the case of Kenya.

Mr. Amery

The right hon. Gentleman has not heard what I said. I said that there were several categories—the visiting magistrate; official visitors, who, curiously enough are in most cases "unofficial"; ministers of religion; and senior prison officers on routine tours of inspection. Further, members of the Legislative Council visit prisons. That is a quite wide range of visitors.

In all this procedure we are advised by an advisory committee on the treatment of offenders, and that committee includes the legal adviser of my right hon. Friend; the adviser on social welfare; Colonel Heaton, who spent a life-time studying and working in the prisons of East Africa; Sir Lionel Fox, Chairman of the Prison Commission; the wife of the right hon. Member for Wakefield; the President of the Bar Council, Mr. Gardiner, and a principal probation officer from this country, Mr. MacRae. Three of them have been to Kenya to see things for themselves, and Colonel Heaton's report is in the Library.

The answer to the question whether, theoretically, the organisation of prisons and camps is adequate is therefore undoubtedly "Yes".

How has this worked out in practice? In 1952 there were 43 European officers, 1,100 Africans working with them, and 9,000 prisoners. Then came the Mau Mau emergency. I will not recall at this hour all that that meant, but in terms of the prison problem it meant that by 1954, the number of European officers had risen from 43 to 457; the number of Africans from just over 1,000 to 14,000, including officers and warders, and the number of prisoners from 9,000 to 87,000. This expansion was met by local recruiting; secondment from the police reserve, and the Kenya Regiment, and contract recruiting in the United Kingdom. Most of those recruited had no previous experience of prison work. There was little or no time to train them.

The House can imagine the implications of this for the African prison staff, who required longer training in pre-emergency times than did the European staff. Camps had to be improvised, and one camp received about 5,000 prisoners in five days. There were attacks on prisons by Mau Mau from outside, and mutinies inside. Hon. Member know the sort of character that some of the prisoners had.

Inevitably, as Colonel Heaton's report makes clear, in these circumstances there undoubtedly was some malpractice, which was not brought to light. It is not surprising that this should have been so. Like Colonel Heaton, I am much more surprised at how little there was. But in remembering that there was malpractice which was not brought to light we should salute the 99 per cent. of the prison service which did an extremely difficult job in an exemplary manner.

In his report Colonel Heaton admitted that mistakes were made at the height of the emergency, but since then matters have been taken in hand. The load on the prisons and camps has been greatly reduced. Only 2,000 are left in detention, as well as an ordinary prison population of criminals which is slightly higher than it was before the emergency. Standards have been raised and indiscipline has been punished by prosecution or dismissal. The right hon. Gentleman said that the Kenya Report said that there had been dismissals from the prison service and that there had been convictions. In 1956 there were fifty-six convictions in the courts against prison staff. In 1957 there were seventy-three convictions. I pass over dismissals or ordinary reprimands. Not all of these, not even most of them, sprang from ill treatment of prisoners. They were the result of acts of indiscipline of various kinds. Several cases were brought before the House.

The right hon. Gentleman suggested that this was a sign of the need for an inquiry. I submit to him and to the House that the fact that there have been these prosecutions and dismissals shows that the Government of Kenya and the prison service in Kenya is perfectly capable of keeping its own house in order and is doing so. Our contention is that the organisation of the prison service is right and is what it should be and that the safeguards against abuse are effective. The expansion under the Emergency caused very great difficulties, but these have been and are being overcome and the Kenya Government have shown themselves ready, not only to set high standards, but to maintain them.

This is not only the opinion on this side of the House and in the Colonial Office. It is an opinion that has been confirmed by three members of our Advisory Committee—Sir Lionel Fox, Colonel Heaton and Mr. Chin—who have been out. As my noble Friend the Member for Hertford (Lord Balniel) explained, quoting the Report of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Delegation, of which he was a Member, it was confirmed by that Delegation. It was also confirmed by the two delegates from the International Red Cross.

The hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) rather tended in one of her interventions to brush aside the value of the Report of the International Red Cross by quoting an allegation in an affidavit which she had that in that particular camp the worst cases were kept out of their way. That may or may not be true. That point has not yet been fully investigated. If the hon. Lady believes that of the International Red Cross, does she think that another impartial inquiry cannot be fooled in the same way? One has to have faith somewhere in this if one is to arrive at an answer and at a judgment.

Mrs. Castle

That statement was not made in just one of the affidavits. It was in the affidavit of a prison officer of Kenya, against whom no criminal charge has been brought and whose name therefore cannot be smeared in the way in which some hon. Gentlemen tried to smear the makers of some of the other affidavits. Surely the question is what power the visiting committee has and whether all our attempts at supervision have foundered on the fact that the Committee has not had wide enough powers?

Mr. Amery

The two delegates from the International Red Cross were there for three months, and I should have thought that they knew their job well enough.

In spite of these views expressed by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Delegation and by the International Red Cross, the Opposition now calls for an independent inquiry. It bases its demand upon two sets of reasons; first on allegations which come in the form of letters to Members of Parliament; and, secondly, upon statements by certain individuals with experience of Kenya prisons. The right hon. Gentleman said that he had no wish to denigrate the Kenya prison service. He succeeded at one moment in denigration by innuendo. I was a little surprised at his readiness to believe information which came from what he said were tainted sources. He told us that he also had affidavits from men of strong character and trustworthiness. I am surprised that he did not do the House the honour of quoting from those.

I should like now to deal with examples of the two sets of allegations on which the Opposition base their case. First of all, there is the case that the hon. Lady developed at some length. The detainees who wrote to her also wrote, a little earlier, to my right hon. Friend. As soon as he got their letters—one on 15th September and another on 20th October—my right hon. Friend referred them to Kenya. The hon. Lady also sent him a letter which we in the Colonial Office received on 22nd October. The hon. Lady has explained how in the first reply from Kenya it was stated that death had been due to pulmonary infection. We informed the hon. Lady of this on 31st October. On 5th November, we heard from Kenya that death had been due, not to infection but to infarction. The hon. Lady was informed on 12th November. We asked the Kenya Government to carry out a further inquiry, and, on 14th January, Kenya reported the results, and the news that they were to prosecute Mr. Githu, one of those concerned in the case and the hon. Lady was again informed.

I want to make it quite clear to the House that I am not giving this information in any spirit of trying to score off the hon. Lady, but the right hon. Gentleman has said that but for her intervention these facts would never have come to light. On the contrary, we were already acting in this matter, and I can assure the hon. Lady and the House that the result would have been the same even without Parliamentary intervention; that the normal process of checking on reports of malpractice was going on, and that the Kenya Government were taking action in the ordinary course.

The hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) expressed surprise that no murder charge had been brought. He said that, as far as he could remember, on six occasions a murder charge had not been brought for deaths in prison—

Mr. Paget

No, not all in prison.

Mr. Amery

There have been only two deaths in prison, apart from the one that we are investigating now. In each case a murder charge was brought, although, in the event, it was rejected by the jury. What I want to emphasise in this case is that a full report was sought by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State before the case was originally taken up, further investigation was ordered by the Kenya Government, and the new and regrettable facts that came to light as a result of that inquiry were promptly made known to the hon. Lady.

Before 10 o'clock, I should like to answer a question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East about the reliability of the gentlemen whose names have been put to the affidavits. Mr. Bird, who had been a former Kenya Labour Officer—and who, if I remember aright, the right hon. Gentleman said had been guilty of a small theft—was found guilty of converting to his own use £400 deposited on behalf of a Kikuyu detainee. Incidentally, this shows that we do fall

down pretty hard on those who do that sort of thing.

I should like to go on with the others, though time presses. The allegations made by Mr. Shuter are being most carefully examined now, and it would be quite wrong to think that we are not treating them with due seriousness. In Kenya and Uganda, 83 statements have already been taken, and another 12 have been taken here.

In conclusion, I submit that our system is sound, and practice is proving that it is reliable. In those circumstances, an inquiry could only shake public confidence in the Government of Kenya, and weaken the morale of the prison service. We cannot advise the House to accept the Motion.

Mr. Bowden

rose in his place, and claimed to move. That the Question be now put.

Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.

Question put accordingly, That this House urges Her Majesty's Government, with a view to allaying public anxiety, to institute an independent inquiry into the conditions and administration of prisons and detention camps in Kenya; and also to review the prolonged detention of men against whom no charges have been made.

The House divided: Ayes 232, Noes 288.

Division No. 51.]	AYES	[9.59 p.m.
Abse, Leo	Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)	Finch, H. J. (Bedwellty)
Ainsley, J. W.	Callaghan, L. J.	Fitch, A. E. (Wigan)
Albu, A. H.	Castle, Mrs. B. A.	Fletcher, Eric
Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)	Champion, A. J.	Foot, D. M.
Awbery, S. S.	Chapman, W. D.	Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
Bacon, Miss Alice	Chetwynd, G. R.	Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.
Balfour, A.	Cliffe, Michael	George, Lady Megan Lloyd (Car'then)
Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.	Coldrick, W.	Gooch, E. G.
Bence, C. R. (Dunbartonshire, E.)	Collick, P. H. (Birkenhead)	Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.
Benn, Hn. Wedgwood (Bristol, S.E.)	Corbet, Mrs. Freda	Greenwood, Anthony
Benson, Sir George	Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)	Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.
Beswick, Frank	Crossman, R. H. S.	Grey, C. F.
Blackburn, F.	Cullen, Mrs. A.	Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)
Blenkinsop, A.	Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.	Griffiths, William (Exchange)
Blyton, W. R.	Darling, George (Hillsborough)	Hale, Leslie
Boardman, H.	Deer, G.	Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley)
Bonham Carter, Mark	de Freitas, Geoffrey	Hamilton, W. W.
Bowden, H. W. (Loicester, S.W.)	Delargy, H. J.	Hannan, W.
Bowen, E. R (Cardigan)	Diamond, John	Harrison, J. (Nottingham, N.)
Bowles, F. G.	Dodds, N. N.	Hastings, S.
Boyd, T. C.	Donnelly, D. L.	Hayman, F. H.
Braddock, Mrs. Elizabeth	Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.	Healey, Denis
Brockway, A. F.	Edelman, M.	Henderson, Rt. Hn. A. (Rwly Regls)
Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.	Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)	Herbison, Miss M.
Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)	Edwards, Robert (Bilston)	Hewitson, Capt. M.
Brown, Thomas (Ince)	Edwards, W. J. (Stepney)	Hobson, C. R. (Keighlev)
Burke, W. A.	Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)	Holmes, Horace
Burton, Miss F. E.	Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)	Holt, A. F.
Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)	Fernyhough, E.	Houghton, Douglas
Howell, Charles (Perry Barr)	Messer, Sir F.	Silverman, Julius (Aston)
Howell, Denis (All Saints)	Mikardo, Ian	Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)
Hoy, J. H.	Mitchison, G. R.	Skeffington, A. M.
Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)	Monslow, W.	Slater, Mrs. H. (Stoke, N.)
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)	Moody, A. S.	Slater, J. (Sedgefield)
Hunter, A. E.	Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)	Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)
Hynd, H. (Accrington)	Morrison, Rt. Hn. Herbert (Lewis'm, S.)	Snow, J. W.
Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)	Mort, D. L.	Sorensen, R. W.
Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)	Moss, R.	Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank
Irving, Sydney (Dartford)	Moyle, A.	Sparks, J. A.
Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.	Mulley, F. W.	Spriggs, Leslie
Janner, B.	Neal, Harold (Bolsover)	Steele, T.
Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.	Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)	Stewart, Michael (Fulham)
Jeger, George (Goole)	Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. (Derby, S.)	Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.
Jeger, Mrs. Lena (Holbn & St. Pncs, S.)	O'Brien, Sir Thomas	Strauss, Rt. Hon. George (Vauxhall)
Johnson, James (Rugby)	Oliver, G. H.	Stross, Dr. Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)
Johnston, Douglas (Paisley)	Oram, A. E.	Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.
Jones, Rt. Hon. A. Creech (Wakefield)	Oswald, T.	Swingler, S. T.
Jones, David (The Hartlepools)	Owen, W. J.	Sylvester, G. O.
Jones, Jack (Rotherham)	Paget, R. T.	Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)
Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)	Paling, Rt. Hon. W. (Dearne Valley)	Taylor, John (West Lothian)
Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)	Palmer, A. M. F.	Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)
Kenyon, C.	Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)	Thompson, George (Dundee, E.)
Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.	Pargiter, G. A.	Thornton, E.
King, Dr. H. M.	Parkin, B. T.	Timmons, J.
Lawson, G. M.	Paton, John	Tomney, F.
Ledger, R. J.	Peart, T. F.	Usborne, H. C.
Lee, Frederick (Newton)	Pentland, N.	Viant, S. P.
Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)	Plummer, Sir Leslie	Warbey, W. N.
Lever, Harold (Cheetham)	Popplewell, E.	Weitzman, D.
Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)	Prentice, R. E.	Wells, Percy (Faversham)
Lindgren, G. S.	Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)	Wells, William (Walsall, N.)
Logan, D. G.	Probert, A. R.	White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson	Proctor, W. T.	White, Henry (Derbyshire, N.E.)
McAlister, Mrs. Mary	Pursey, Cmdr. H.	Wilcock, Group Capt. C. A. B.
MacColl, J. E.	Rankin, John	Wilkins, W. A.
McInnes, J.	Redhead, E. C.	Willey, Frederick
McKay, John (Wallsend)	Reeves. J.	Williams, David (Neath)
McLeavy, Frank	Reynolds, G. W.	Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)
MacMillan, M. K. (Western Isles)	Rhodes, H.	Willis, Eustace (Edinburgh, E.)
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)	Robens, Rt. Hon. A.	Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)
Mahon, Simon	Roberts, Albert (Normanton)	Winterbottom, Richard
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)	Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)	Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.
Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfd, E.)	Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)	Woof, R. E.
Mann, Mrs. Jean	Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)	Yates, V. (Ladywood)
Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.	Ross, William	Younger, Rt. Hon. K.
Mason, Roy	Royle, C.	Zilllacus, K.
Mayhew, C. P.	Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.
Mellish, R. J.	Shurmer, P. L. E.	TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
		Mr. Pearson and Mr. Simmons.
NOES
Agnew, Sir Peter	Brooman-White, R. C.	Dugdale, Rt. Hn. Sir T. (Richmond)
Aitken, W. T.	Browne, J. Nixon (Craigton)	Duncan, Sir James
Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S.)	Bryan, P.	Duthie, W. S.
Alport, C. J. M.	Bullus, Wing Commander E. E.	Eccles, Rt. Hon. Sir David
Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)	Burden, F. F. A.	Eden, J. B. (Bournemouth, West)
Amory, Rt. Hn. Heathcoat (Tiverton)	Butcher, Sir Herbert	Elliot, R.W.(Ne'castle upon Tyne, N.)
Anstruther-Gray, Major Sir William	Butler, Rt. Hn. R.A. (Saffron Walden)	Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn
Arbuthnot, John	Carr, Robert	Errington, Sir Eric
Armstrong, C. W.	Cary, Sir Robert	Erroll, F. J.
Ashton, H.	Channon, H. P. G.	Fell, A.
Astor, Hon. J. J.	Chichester-Clark, R.	Finlay, Graeme
Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M.	Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)	Fisher, Nigel
Balniel, Lord	Conant, Maj. Sir Roger	Fletcher-Cooke, C.
Barlow, Sir John	Cooke, Robert	Forrest, G.
Barter, John	Cooper, A. E.	Fort, R.
Batsford, Brian	Cooper-Key, E. M.	Fraser, Hon. Hugh (Stone)
Beamish, Col. Tufton	Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.	Freeth, Denzil
Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)	Corfield, F. V.	Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.
Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)	Crosthwalte-Eyre, Col. O. E.	Gammans, Lady
Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)	Crowder, Sir John (Finchley)	Garner-Evans, E. H.
Bennett, Dr. Reginald	Crowder, Petre (Ruislip—Northwood)	George, J. C. (Pollok)
Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)	Cunningham, Knox	Gibson-Watt, D.
Biggs-Davison, J. A.	Dance, J. C. G.	Glover, D.
Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel	Davidson, Viscountess	Glyn, Col. Richard H.
Bishop, F. P.	D'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry	Godber, J. B.
Black, Sir Cyril	Deedes, W. F.	Goodhart, Philip
Body, R. F.	de Ferranti, Basil	Cough, C. F. H.
Bossom, Sir Alfred	Digby, Simon Wingfield	Gower, H. R.
Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. J. A.	Dodds-Parker, A. D.	Graham, Sir Fergus
Boyle, Sir Edward	Donaldson, cmdr. C. E. McA.	Grant, Rt. Hon. W. (Woodside)
Braine, B. R.	Doughty, C. J. A.	Grant-Ferris, Wg Cdr. R. (Nantwich)
Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W. H.	Drayson, G. B.	Green, A.
Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry	du Cann, E. D. L.	Gresham Cooke, R.

Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)	Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)	Rippon, A. G. F.
Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.	Lucas, P. B. (Brentford & Chiswick)	Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)
Gurden, Harold	Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh	Robson Brown, Sir William
Hall, John (Wycombe)	McAdden, S. J.	Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)
Hare, Rt. Hon. J. H.	Macdonald, Sir Peter	Roper, Sir Harold
Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)	Mackeson, Brig. Sir Harry	Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard
Harris, Reader (Heston)	McLaughlin, Mrs. P.	Russell, R. S.
Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)	Maclay, Rt. Hon. John	Sandys, Rt. Hon. D.
Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)	Maclean, Sir Fitzroy (Lancaster)	Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.
Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)	McLean, Neil (Inverness)	Sharples, R. C.
Hay, John	Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)	Shepherd, William
Head, Rt. Hon. A. H.	Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)	Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W.)
Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel	Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)	Smithers, Peter (Winchester)
Heath, Rt. Hon. E. R. G.	Maddan, Martin	Smyth, Brig. Sir John (Norwood)
Henderson, John (Cathcart)	Maitland, Cdr. J. F. W. (Horncastle)	Soames, Rt. Hon. Christopher
Hesketh, R. F.	Maitland, Hon. Patrick (Lanark)	Spearman, Sir Alexander
Hicks-Beach, Maj. W. W.	Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hon. Sir R.	Speir, R. M.
Hill, Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)	Markham, Major Sir Frank	Spence, H. R. (Aberdeen, W.)
Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)	Marlowe, A. A. H.	Spens, Rt. Hn. Sir P. (Kens'gt'n, S.)
Hill, John (S. Norfolk)	Marples, Rt. Hon. A. E.	Stevens, Geoffrey
Hirst, Geoffrey	Marshall, Douglas	Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)
Holland-Martin, C. J.	Mathew, R.	Steward, Sir William (Woolwich, W.)
Hope, Lord John	Maudling, Rt. Hon. R.	Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm
Hornby, R. P.	Mawby, R. L.	Storey, S.
Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P.	Maydon, Lt.-Comdr. S. L. C.	Stuart, Rt. Hon. James (Moray)
Horobin, Sir Ian	Medlicott, Sir Frank	Studholme, Sir Henry
Horsburgh, Rt. Hon. Dame Florence	Milligan, Rt. Hon. W. R.	Summers, Sir Spencer
Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire)	Moore, Sir Thomas	Sumner, W. D. M. (Orpington)
Howard, Hon. Greville (St. Ives)	Morrison, John (Salisbury)	Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)
Howard, John (Test)	Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles	Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)
Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral J.	Nabarro, C. D. N.	Teeling, W.
Hughes-Young, M. H. C.	Neave, Alrey	Temple, John M.
Hulbert, Sir Norman	Nicholls, Harmar	Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)
Hurd, Sir Anthony	Nicholson, Sir Godfrey (Farnham)	Thomas, P. J. M. (Conway)
Hutchison, Michael Clark (E'b'gh, S.)	Nicolson, N. (B'n'm'th, E.& Chr'ch)	Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)
Hutchison, Sir James (Scotstoun)	Noble, Comdr. Rt. Hon. Allan	Thompson, R. (Croydon, S.)
Hylton-Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Harry	Noble, Michael (Argyll)	Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. P.
Iremonger, T. L.	Nugent, G. R. H.	Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)	O'Neill, Hn. Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.)	Tiley, A. (Bradford, W.)
Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)	Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. W. D.	Tilney, John (Wavertree)
Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)	Orr, Capt. L. P. S.	Turner, H. F. L.
Johnson, Eric (Blackley)	Orr-Ewing, C. Ian (Hendon, N.)	Tweedsmuir, Lady
Johnson, Howard (Kemptown)
Jones, Rt. Hon. Aubrey (Hall Green)	Osborne, C.	Vane, W. M. F.
Joseph, Sir Keith	Page, R. G.	Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.
Kaberry, D.	Pannell, N. A. (Kirkdale)	Vickers, Miss Joan
Keegan, D.	Partridge, E.	Vosper, Rt. Hon. D. F.
Kershaw, J. A.	Peel, W. J.	Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St. M'lebone)
Kimball, M.	Peyton, J. W. W.	Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Derek
Kirk, P. M.	Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth	Wall, Patrick
Lagden, G. W.	Pilkington, Capt. R. A.	Ward, Rt. Hon. G. R. (Worcester)
Lambton, Viscount	Pitman, I. J.	Ward, Dame Irene (Tynemouth)
Lancaster, Col. C. G.	Pitt, Miss E. M.	Watkinson, Rt. Hon. Harold
Langford-Holt, J. A.	Pott, H. P.	Webbe, Sir H.
Leather, E. H. C.	Powell, J. Enoch	Webster, David
Leavey, J. A.	Price, David (Eastleigh)	Whitelaw, W. S. I.
Leburn, W. G.	Price, Henry (Lewisham, W.)	Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.	Prior-Palmer, Brig. O. L.	Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)
Lindsay, Hon. James (Devon, N.)	Profumo, J. D.	Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick
Lindsay, Martin (Solihull)	Ramsden, J. E.	Wood, Hon. R.
Linstead, Sir H. N.	Rawlinson, Peter	Woollam, John Victor
Lloyd, Maj. Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.)	Redmayne, M.
Longden, Gilbert	Rees-Davies, W. R.	TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Loveys, Walter H.	Renton, D. L. M.	Mr. Legh and Mr. E. Wakefield
Low, Rt. Hon. Sir Toby	Ridsdale, J. E.