HC Deb 08 November 1945 vol 415 cc1442-3
37. Mr. Haydn Davies

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will now state the policy of His Majesty's Government, with regard to the reopening of naturalisation

93. Miss Rathbone

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects' to announce the future policy of His Majesty's Government regarding the naturalisation of desirable aliens and the reception into this country of liberated victims of concentration camps who have near relations here willing to receive them and who are unwilling on grounds of racial prejudice, or for political reasons, to return to their countriesof origin.

Mr. Ede

I am anxious to make statements as early as possible on each of these two matters, and on the second point raised in Question No. 93 I hope to do so next week.

Mr. C. S. Taylor

Will the right hon. Gentleman consider particularly those-people who have applied for naturalisation who served with the British units, and fought with great gallantry in the front line with the British troops?

Mr. Ede

That and various other aspects of this matter are under active consideration, and will, I hope, be included in the statement which I hope to make next week.

Mr. Osbert Peake

Does the Minister not think that some of his staff at the Home Office would be better engaged in dealing with cases of these Allied nationals, who served us so well in the war, rather than in preparing schemes of police amalgamation which nobody wants?

Mr. Ede

No, Sir. I am not sure that the staff at the Home Office is quite as interchangeable as that; and I have every evidence that the only people who do not desire police amalgamation are the criminal classes.

Mr. Cobb

Will the right hon. Gentleman remember that a number of poor persons are deterred from applying for naturalisation on account of the high cost?

Mr. Ede

I cannot undertake to make a statement on that aspect of the matter now.