MR. DAVIDSON, KENYA (DEPORTATION) (Hansard, 6 May 1953)

§ Mr. A. Fenner Brockway (Eton and Slough)
I do not make any apology for raising on the Adjournment the question of the deportation of Commander Struan Robert Davidson from Kenya, but I should like to apologise to the right hon. Gentleman for keeping him in his place tonight. As he indicated in his speech during the day, he had a heavy day on Friday, arising from my Motion on the colour bar, he had a heavy day on Monday in connection with the debate on the proposal that the Nyasaland chiefs should come to a Select Committee, and he has had a heavy day today on the enabling Bill in connection with Central African Federation.
I know that the right hon. Gentleman's duties are not only those of attending debates in the House of Commons, but that many of us—and I acknowledge that I am one of the greatest offenders in this respect—send him a great deal of correspondence, which means that he must be in his office for long hours in addition to all the tasks of administration in the Colonial Office. This is particularly heavy upon him at the present time because of the absence of the Minister of State.
I feel impelled to express what has been uttered during the day, our sympathy with the Minister of State. I have had some associations not only with him but with his son, and I would like him to know that on this side of the House, just as deeply as on the other side of the House, we have an intense sympathy in regard to the tragedy which he and the son have suffered.
I am raising the case of Commander Struan Robert Davidson not only as a personal matter but more because it is an illustration of the powers of deportation to which I have drawn the attention of the House on a number of occasions, and which this case illustrates. I take the view that issues of liberty are important, even if they affect only one individual, but in this instance it is an 534 illustration of a power which is applied in other cases as well, and therefore becomes of greater importance.
I do not think there is any dispute about the facts. Commander Struan Robert Davidson served in the Australian Navy. On demobilisation from 1945 to 1947 he served on the Gezira scheme in the Sudan. He went to Kenya in 1947 and was there for three years, first as a price control official at Mombasa, and later as an assistant superintendent of prisons at Nairobi.
After serving for three years in Kenya he went to Northern Rhodesia, where he was employed by the firm of S. & S. Carrs (Northern Rhodesia) Ltd. In August, 1952, he left Northern Rhodesia travelling through Nyasaland with his African servant, Yatima, and he appears to have crossed from Nyasaland into Kenya at a point where there were no customs or immigration posts.
According to his own statement, it did not enter his mind that an entry permit was necessary in his case because he had been resident in Kenya between 1947 and 1950, and he had only two years previously temporarily gone to Northern Rhodesia. According to his own statement, he did not realise that an entry permit was necessary for his African servant. Nevertheless they were both arrested. Davidson was fined £50, and Yatima was detained for deportation, both on the grounds that they had entered Kenya without an entry permit.
On 5th November deportation orders were issued against both of them. Davidson had not paid his fine, and in consequence had been kept in prison for one month, but he was held in prison altogether for three months and two days before he was deported. I heard only last Friday that Yatima had been kept in prison for four and a half months before his deportation by air to Nyasaland took place on 11th March.
To that story I think I need only add in this particular case that Davidson himself makes the complaint that he was beaten up while he was in prison. When he arrived in this country he had to go to hospital for treatment. The doctor there said that his ligaments were torn. The doctor could not say, of course, how that injury had occurred, but he said it 535 was not inconsistent with the story Davidson had told.
Those appear to be the facts—at least as they have been reported to me. Upon them I want to make two comments. The first is the incidental one that it seems to me a little extraordinary, even if the decision to deport Davidson and the African Yatima was justified, that Davidson should have been kept in prison for three months and two days before the deportation order was carried out, and that Yatima should have been kept in prison for four and a half months before being deported to the neighbouring country of Nyasaland.
But it is the much bigger issue of deportation itself which I want to emphasise. As I think the right hon. Gentleman knows, and certainly as other Members know, I have raised this issue of deportation without trial from our Colonies again and again in the House of Commons. I have raised it not only when I have been in opposition, but I have raised it from the opposite benches very vigorously.

§ The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Oliver Lyttelton)
The hon. Gentleman said "without trial." He is not suggesting on this occasion that this gentleman was deported without trial?

§ Mr. Fenner Brockway
What I suggest is that the trial took place for entry without permit, and for that he was fined £50 with the alternative of one month's imprisonment. What I am suggesting is that the subsequent deportation took place without a specific trial. That is the point which I am making at the moment. I am not raising this matter because the right hon. Gentleman is the Secretary of State for the Colonies and because I am on the Opposition side of the House. I raised it just as vigorously, perhaps even more vigorously, when I was on the Government side of the House and my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) was Secretary of State.
It is the principle of deportation itself against which I am very strongly protesting tonight, and though the right hon. Gentleman may complain because I have not given him notice of this, I should like to ask him this question. Perhaps if he 536 has not got the facts immediately before him he will reply later. What has happened as a result of the inquiry of the Governors in the various Colonies regarding the power of deportation? A report was requested from the Governors. That report was initiated, I think, because I raised the matter in the House, and even if the right hon. Gentleman cannot answer that question now—I admit I have not given him notice of it—perhaps at some later stage he can inform the House what was the result of the inquiries which were made to the Governors in this respect.
This issue seems to me to be a very essential issue of human freedom. It does not only apply to those who are in the Colonies. I have become concerned at the restriction on human movement which is now taking place in all parts of the world, and I hope that it is as a part of the bigger issue that the right hon. Gentleman will meet the points which I have endeavoured to raise tonight.

§ The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Oliver Lyttelton)
First, let me assure the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway) that no apologies are at all necessary as far as I am concerned. One of the things which any Minister and the House as a whole will understand is the necessity of raising, at whatever inconvenient hour, any matter concerning the individual liberty of anyone. Therefore, no apologies are necessary on the hon. Member's behalf for having happened to have had a series of draws on the Adjournment. In fact, I had seriously considered whether I would advance the proposition that we might go into partnership on the Calcutta Sweep next year, so successful does the hon. Member seem to be.
I would also like to thank the hon. Gentleman for the very kind words that he spoke about the tragedy which has fallen on my right hon. Friend the Minister of State for Colonial Affairs. I shall make a point of telling him of the very generous references which the hon. Gentleman made to him and to his son.
Before I go into the actual details of this case, I want to make one point clear, and that is on the larger issue which the hon. Member was raising, that of deportation. In this case, this is not a deportation case within the ordinary connotation 537 of the term. Deportation applies to those who are legally inside a terrritory. Persons can be deported only if they are legally resident in a place. That does not arise with this particular gentleman. He was an illegal immigrant, and in order that the hon. Member should know what my information is, I must recite the actual circumstances.
Mr. Davidson was not a permanent resident in Kenya. There is no question of deportation in the ordinary sense of the word. I informed the House on 15th April, 1953, that Mr. Davidson was evicted under the Immigration Control Order for unlawfully entering the Colony without an entry permit or pass. Mr. Davidson might be right in his allegation that there was no control at the point where he entered the Colony, but it was his duty, as every citizen knows, to present himself in person to the nearest immigration officer immediately on arrival. He was sentenced at his trial to pay £50 in fines or, in default, to serve one month's imprisonment. He did not pay the fine and was committed to prison. Any person whose entry is unlawful is under the Order a prohibited immigrant, and, in the loose sense of the term, may be deported as such. It is not strictly accurate to say he was deported without a trial. His deportation, in the loose sense, came as a result of the trial in which he was sentenced and in which he was found to be illegally in the Territory.
To get things in chronological order, I think I ought to deal with the complaint Mr. Davidson made about his treatment in prison. He made a complaint about his treatment, which was investigated in the ordinary way by the Resident Magistrate in Mombasa. The report shows that he refused to leave the prison superintendent's office when ordered to do so, resisted eviction from the office and tried to prevent the prison officials taking him to his cell. The Magistrate held that the force used was not in any way excessive or beyond what was strictly necessary in the maintenance of prison discipline. I cannot think how his complaint could have been dealt with in a more regular way, or that there could have been more convincing evidence.

§ Mr. Fenner Brockway
Could the right hon. Gentleman say whether he had complained about conditions of his imprisonment or about his cell?

Mr. Lyttelion
I think so, yes. He complained about his treatment in prison. That was covered by the two points the hon. Gentleman was making. I wish to go back to the chronological order. The Order for the deportation—again I am using the term loosely—was signed by the Governor on 5th November, 1952, and the Order provided that his detention in prison should be extended while arrangements for his deportation were made. I think when I replied to questions before in this House, that some surprise was expressed, and I think one hon. Member described it as astonishing procedure to keep in prison someone who was about to be deported—again I use the word in the loose sense. But it is common practice in all Colonial Territories and also in this country. It is not at all unknown in other countries. The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the accommodation provided at Ellis Island for people who have not complied with the United States immigration legislation.
What happens is that, when someone is to be deported, the civil authority generally applies powers to keep that person in some form of detention so that he does not circulate with the rest of the population and put the police to the trouble of picking him up again when the time comes for his deportation. This is much more like a remand prison, and that is what happened in this case, and why it happened. He was nominally kept in prison longer than the actual sentence that non-payment of the fine would otherwise have entailed.
In brief, Mr. Davidson was legally deported under the provisions of the Kenya Immigration Control Order, and I do not propose to take any action in the matter. I hope that the hon. Member will rest satisfied with my answer, which is purely factual, and I am reluctant to expand it. I have particular inhibitions upon this subject of individuals. We must be very careful on personal matters to go no further than is absolutely necessary to satisfy hon. Members, like the hon. Member for Eton and Slough, who are absolutely right to be extremely 539 vigilant in all matters involving personal liberty.
I must ask him sincerely if he is satisfied with the answer so far. For reasons which do not apply to this case more than to any other, we in this House are protected from being pursued—in the Scottish sense—by persons whose actions or character may be impugned before this House. I am not thinking of Mr. Davidson in particular. I should like to con- 540 tent myself upon these personal matters, now and in the future, with a bare recital of the facts and of the legality of the actions taken by the Kenya Government, rather than enter into a controversial picture of the circumstances surrounding these events.