§ 2. Mr. Brockwayasked the Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations how many British protected persons from British Colonies and Protectorates have been arrested in the Union of South Africa since 30th March, 1960, for technical statutory offences, and indefinitely detained without appearing before any court.
§ The Minister of State for Commonwealth Relations (Mr. C. J. M. Alport)So far only one possible case of this kind has been brought to the High Commissioner's notice and he is making inquiries of the Union authorities.
§ Mr. BrockwayBut is it enough just to wait until the High Commissioner's attention is drawn to possible cases? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are 8,000 detainees and that from among the 60,000 protected persons there will obviously be some who are in this category? If they had been Europeans action would have been taken to protect them at once. Surely there is a similar duty in the case of protected persons from our Colonies and Protectorates?
§ Mr. AlportI think that the hon. Member is being a little unfair in this. Wherever we have found, or the High Commissioner has found, that a United Kingdom citizen or a British protected person has been arrested in these sorts of circumstances the High Commissioner has taken immediate action, but there is a distinction between the two categories of persons under arrest. There are those arrested under emergency regulations and those arrested for technical statutory offences. I am not aware that any of those arrested for technical statutory offences are not brought before the courts in the course of the normal processes of law. I know that this is a complicated matter and I do not want to appear to be in any way scoring off the hon. Member, but I think that in some ways he is mixing up the two different categories of people.
§ Mr. BrockwayIs it not the case that information on this matter is obtained from the taxes that are paid by these protected persons and therefore, with the aid of that information, it should be possible to discover whether any protected persons are detained in this way?
§ Mr. AlportThe information is in the hands of the Union Government.
§ Mr. BrockwayNot tax information about protected persons.
§ Mr. AlportIf attention is drawn to the fact that someone who is alleged to be a protected person has been arrested in certain circumstances it is up to the Union Government to make sure whether 1835 or not he is a British protected person and not a Union citizen. That is one of the difficulties involved in this matter.