Prisoners, St. Helena (Hansard, 7 July 1960)

§ 12. Mr. Wyatt
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the cost of keeping the three prisoners from Bahrain on the island of St. Helena; and who bears the cost.

§ Mr. Iain Macleod
The amount paid by the Bahrain Government, which is responsible for meeting the cost, was£1,760 in 1958, the last full year for which I have figures.

§ Mr. Wyatt
Does it not weigh heavily on the conscience of the Minister, who is a humane and liberal man, that he should be acting as the gaoler for a tyrant in Bahrain, who rigged the trial of these men? Does he not realise that he has a responsibility, under the Colonial Prisoners (Removal) Act, 1869, to behave as if these men had been tried in St. Helena and not in Bahrain, and, if they had been, he would at once have released them? Will he not take some action, because this is one of the most disgraceful episodes that has taken place under his office for many years?

§ Mr. Macleod
No. Indeed, these people were moved in January, 1957, under the Colonial Prisoners (Removal) Act, as the hon. Gentleman has said, and an appeal in the case of one of them, as he knows, has recently been before the Privy Council. I do not think that my responsibility in relation to the trial goes beyond that.

§ Mr. Warbey
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his predecessor, through a notice published in an extraordinary 675 issue of the St. Helena Gazette, declared these men to be convicted before they were even tried, that the trial which took place has been declared by every competent observer to have been a sheer farce, that the men were shanghaied to St. Helena by a disgraceful piece of jiggery-pokery by the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor, the Foreign Secretary and the Ruler of Bahrain, all conspiring together? Is it not time that these men were released and compensation paid for the wrong done to them?

§ Mr. Macleod
These are matters that surely can be investigated, and were investigated very recently indeed, by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. They are not matters, in that sense, for the Secretary of State for the Colonies.

§ Mr. S. Silverman
Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the opinions expressed by both my hon. Friends in supplementary questions are shared very widely beyond the limits of any particular party, and that they raise questions of liberty and constitutional law of wide-ranging importance? Is he really satisfied, even though the Privy Council was unable to interfere with what was done in this case, and will he give the House an assurance that he will never again lend himself to such a manœuvre?

§ Mr. Macleod
I am afraid that I am not at all clear what the hon. Gentleman means by "such a manœuvre". I gather that he is talking about something that happened before these people came directly into my custody by going to St. Helena——

§ Mr. Silverman
No.

§ Mr. Macleod
As to the trial itself, that clearly is not a question for me, but there is another Question down on the Order Paper to my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary.

§ Mr. Silverman
Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the comments are not limited to matters which took place before the right hon. Gentleman had any responsibility, but to the alteration of our own law ex post factum in order to give us jurisdiction to imprison other people's subjects without trial, which, until then, we had not got?

§ Mr. Macleod
If I misunderstood the hon. Member's point, and if I have any responsibility in that matter, of course, I 676 will look at it again in the light of the supplementary questions that have been asked.

§ Mr. Wyatt
Does the Minister realise that these men would never have been convicted in a British court, and that he himself has a responsibility in this matter? Will he not promise the House, because he has a very good reputation for liberal behaviour, that he will look into the whole circumstances of this case and have these men released, because anybody who has been looking into this case, and I myself have interviewed these men—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—agrees that their only crime was that they were asking to have seats on a town council, on health and education committees and so forth, and that this so much irritated the Ruler as to prompt him to take the action he did, with the connivance of the British Government?

§ Mr. Macleod
I do not think that adds very much to the exchanges we have had. I am not going to try to usurp the functions of my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary or of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. So far as my own responsibility is concerned, I will look at the matter again in the light of the supplementary questions, and I have already given that undertaking to the House.

§ Captain Pilkington
On a point of order. May I draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, to the fact that there were some half-a-dozen supplementary questions from the other side of the House but that one of my hon. Friends who rose to his feet each time never caught your eye?

§ Mr. Speaker
I think the hon. Member will have to trust my discretion in these matters. I do not govern it by any irrefragable principle at any time.