§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.
§ 1.39 a.m.
§ Mr. James Callaghan (Cardiff, South-East)On this Clause, we are back to nationality and citizenship again. We have the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department with us, and I want to ask him a very simple question which relates to our earlier discussion. Subsection (9) speaks of the operation of particular subsections to the Protectorates of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
The Joint Under-Secretary accused me of importing a lot of difficulties into the discussion last time. I do not know about that, but I do ask why it was necessary, in the Bill we have been discussing, to include the reference to the convention about the position of the Federal Legislature in Clause 3 (6). whereas in Clause 2 (9) of this Bill there is no reference to the Federal Legislature at all. I should have thought that if the Convention applied in one case it should have applied in the other, and I should have further thought that there was much more likelihood of acts of the Federation having a consequence on the 448 people of Nigeria than of acts of the Federation having a repercussion on the people of Cyprus. It is in the Cyprus Bill, but not in the Nigeria Independence Bill. Perhaps there is a simple explanation, in which case we can get on very quickly.
§ The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Iain Macleod)I think that there may be. The difference between the Cyprus Bill and the Nigeria Independence Bill, in relation to the Federation and the Protectorates, is that they are dealing with different matters. In regard to Cyprus, the long and elaborate explanation which we had some words about earlier dealt with the operation of existing laws. In the Nigeria Independence Bill, as the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) will see, it is a matter of nationality.
The reason that the Protectorates of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland are, by Clause 2 (9), excepted is that the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland has a citizenship of its own and, therefore, the two Bills deal with different matters.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.
§ Clauses 3 to 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
§ Schedules I and 2 agreed to.
§ Bill reported, without Amendment: read the Third time and passed.