Clause 16.—(IMMIGRATION OFFICERS AND MEDICAL INSPECTORS.)

HC Deb 27 February 1962 vol 654 cc1145-79

3.58 p.m.

Mr. Donald Wade (Huddersfield)

I beg to move, in page 11, line 36, at end to insert: The power to give instructions under this subsection so far as they relate to the exercise of the powers conferred by section two of this Act shall be exercisable by statutory instrument and any statutory instrument setting out such instructions shall be subject to annulment by resolution of either House of Parliament". For the information of the House, Mr. Speaker, may I ask whether the proposed Amendments in page 11, line 31, to leave out subsection (3), and in page 11, line 36, at end to insert: The power to give instructions under this subsection shall be exercisable by statutory instrument and any statutory instrument setting out such instructions shall be subject to annulment by resolution of either House of Parliament. will be considered with the one I am moving?

Mr. Speaker

The Amendment being moved by the hon. Gentleman has been selected, and it is permitted, if the House agrees, to discuss with it the two other Amendments mentioned by the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Wade

I am obliged, Mr. Speaker.

We are not now discussing whether there should be immigration laws for Commonwealth citizens, but to what extent, and by what method, the carrying out of these laws should be controlled and supervised by Parliament. The object of this Amendment is to ensure that the instructions to immigration officers about the carrying out of their powers under Clause 2 of the Bill—which deals with the refusal of admission and with conditional admission—should require the prior consent of Parliament, to be exercisable by Statutory Instrument subject to annulment.

This procedure has been accepted in principle in Clause 17 (4), dealing with certain exemptions. Clause 17 itself provides that additions may be made to the exemptions, and that this shall be by the procedure for Statutory Instruments. The point at issue now is whether the instructions and the wide discretion involved should be left to the Secretary of State and his officials and the immigration officers, or whether there should be some form of control exercised by Parliament.

4.0 p.m.

When we were discussing this subject in Committee, we were very much in doubt as to the nature of the instructions to be given to the immigration officers. We now have before us the draft instructions, and I recognise that some of them are not—as I think the Home Secretary put it—in "legal form". In this connection, the Home Secretary said in the debate on 13th February, when referring to the instructions: They are, in the nature of things, working rules as to the actions which immigration officers should take in certain specified circumstances and, as hon. Members will see when they read these instructions before the week end, they are not expressed in legal or formal language."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 13th February, 1962; Vol. 653, c. 1147.] I appreciate that, and I agree that some of the statements in the instructions are not in the normal legal form. For example, paragraph I of the instructions states: Immigration Officers will of course carry out their duties without regard to the race, colour or religion. … I am sure that all hon. Members agree with that sentence. And in paragraph 5 we read: The need to impose a control on immigration for settlement in no way diminishes the Government's desire to welcome visitors. I hope that that will always be the Government's desire. But it would seem that some of the instructions involve, or may involve, some important questions of general policy. Perhaps I might give some examples of these. In paragraph 7 we read: The Immigration Officer has power to impose a condition limiting a visitor's length of stay in the United Kingdom. Where this power is exercised, he can in addition impose a condition limiting or prohibiting the visitor's employment or occupation. And the paragraph goes on: It will not be necessary to use these powers frequently. This limiting or prohibiting of a visitor's employment or occupation raises an issue of principle and represents more than day-to-day instructions to immigration officers. I agree that this paragraph refers to visitors, and I am also aware that paragraph 19, which deals with employment, states: … an Immigration Officer must not refuse admission to, or admit subject to conditions, a Commonwealth citizen who is coming to the United Kingdom for employment and is the person described in a current Ministry of Labour voucher. But there is power in Clause 2 of the Bill to impose conditions on the type of employment a Commonwealth citizen coming to this country may take up, and there may be a limitation on the time he will be allowed to remain in this country subject to the type of employment which he is able to obtain. While I do not have a great deal of complaint about these draft instructions, we have no guarantee that they will not be altered in the future. A future Home Secretary might decide to limit immigrants to certain menial jobs. I do not think that that is the intention of the present Home Secretary, but it is possible that such a thing could happen under the powers contained in Clause 2—and Parliament would have no right to prevent that being carried out since they are part of the discretionary powers which the Minister will have.

Against the background to our discussions is the reserve power to impose some form of quota. In the debate on 13th February, the Home Secretary also said: I hope that in arranging our business for the Report stage we will give more time to Clause 2. The hon. Gentleman referred to the remarks of the Attorney-General, and I can only say that, in column 354 of the OFFICIAL REPORT, if he will turn to the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum of the Bill, he will see the following words: The Home Secretary went on to quote those words, which concluded: '… subject to any limit which the Government may from time to time consider necessary '. And the Home Secretary continued: It is this last quota, as I understand it, to which my right hon. and learned Friend was referring. If that enlightens the hon. Gentleman in any way, that is the best answer that I can give at short notice on this point. I underline the words in the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum: '… subject to any limit which the Government may from time to time consider necessary.' We must reserve this as a Government decision, and that is the answer to the intervention of the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade)."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th February, 1962; Vol. 653. c. 1152 and 1153.] It may be that if instructions are issued in the future on the subject of quota they may be given to representatives of Her Majesty's Government overseas in the countries of origin. I do not know, but if so, perhaps it will not come under this provision. Therefore, it would be helpful if an answer could be given to this question.

I can see issues of importance arising if there is to be any kind of quota over and above the question of whether a Commonwealth citizen has a job available. If there is a quota, how is it to be fairly distributed as between one Commonwealth country and another? That seems to raise matters of principle about which Parliament should be consulted.

Mr. Speaker

Surely the only point of the Amendment is that of Parliamentary procedure for dealing with a Statutory Instrument when it is made and whether the instructions are to be given by way of a Statutory Instrument. The hon. Member cannot discuss on this Amendment what the contents of the instructions will be.

Mr. Eric Fletcher (Islington, East)

On a point of order. It was made clear in Committee, before the instructions were published, that there would be an opportunity of discussing them in the House either on Report or Third Reading. The Home Secretary referred to this in columns 1148 and 1152 of the OFFICIAL REPORT for 13th February. The instructions to be given to immigration officers were not available to hon. Members when we last debated this matter. All hon. Members expressed their desire to discuss them. This is really the only Amendment before the House which will provide us with an opportunity of commenting on the instructions, unless you rule, Mr. Speaker, that they can be discussed on Third Reading.

Since under the Guillotine we have until 6 p.m. substantially to discuss the Amendment—and the Amendment only—before Third Reading begins, I respectfully submit that, on this Amendment, it would be in order to discuss the instructions because that is related to the whole question of whether or not they are subject to a Statutory Instrument.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. R. A. Butler)

Perhaps I can help the House and you, Mr. Speaker. It was agreed that there should be an opportunity provided to discuss the instructions and I naturally very much hoped when we arranged business like this that there would be a gap when they could be discussed. I shall be ready later to answer any points that arise out of comments on the instructions, and there is only one slight inflection of difference between the hon. Gentleman the Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade) and myself on this.

The actual system of granting vouchers arises under Clause 2, and there is only an indirect reference to this in the instructions. You were correct, Mr. Speaker, in saying that the whole system of granting vouchers was discussed on 22nd February when the points raised were answered by the Minister of Labour. I do not think that it would be in order to go into that in detail on the Amendment, but I think that it would be in order to discuss the instructions.

Mr. Speaker

I accept that that is the right position. The matter concerning the instructions is made clear when I remind myself that I said that the Amendment in line 31 could be discussed with this one.

Mr. Wade

I am obliged, Mr. Speaker. I was not intending to pursue the subject of the quota. I merely mentioned it as a point of principle which might well arise and which I hoped would come before us and would not merely be dealt with by instructions.

The difficulty before us is this. Obviously, part of these instructions concern detailed day-to-day matters which cannot easily be incorporated in a Statutory Instrument. On the other hand, parts of them involve matters of principle which I should have thought could more fittingly be dealt with by a Statutory Instrument.

I should like to make just one more quotation from HANSARD. Here, I wish to quote from my own observations. I said: Would not it be practicable to make some distinction between instructions dealing with the day-to-day duties of the immigration officers, and those involving important questions of policy? In the latter case, surely it is not sufficient merely to inform the House."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th February, 1962; Vol. 653, c. 1151.] I suggest that the best way round this difficulty is to incorporate the instructions in a Statutory Instrument but to delegate certain powers to the Minister by that Statutory Instrument. In that way, I think that we get the best of both worlds. The main points could be incorporated in a Statutory Instrument, but it would still be open to the Home Secretary to lay down rules for the benefit of immigration officers. I hope that this suggestion will be favourably considered.

Although we have had helpful and liberal expressions of view from the Home Secretary, we must consider the future. May I put the problem in a very hypothetical way. Suppose that the Home Secretary were succeeded in office by the hon. Member for Louth (Sir C. Osborne). In that case, would we be entirely satisfied to leave such wide discretions in the hands of the Home Secretary? Unless we are satisfied with this point, I think that we should insist that a Statutory Instrument should be laid.

Mr. Donald Chapman (Birmingham, Northfield)

I join with the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade) in thanking the Home Secretary for publishing the instructions. They have been very helpful, and I think that the latter stages of our debates on this complex Bill have been helped a good deal by knowing the sort of information which is contained in the White Paper. However, I should like to ask the Home Secretary a few questions about the White Paper, because I feel that it is not clear on a number of difficult points which need a personal explanation from the right hon. Gentleman.

First, the final sentence of paragraph 20 of the White Paper reads: Persons who require vouchers but have not obtained them should normally be refused admission. This is backed up in paragraph 28, the first sentence of which reads: The general rule is that persons of eighteen or over must qualify for admission in their own right, for example, as the holders of Ministry of Labour vouchers or entry certificates, or as students. Taking those two sentences together, but particularly the first, I should like to know whether my impression of them is right. Does the White Paper mean that what we have called in our discussions the balanced quota of people without skill or without a job to come to here will never be admitted unless they have obtained a voucher before leaving their Commonwealth country? May we be clear: is this the end of free entry at the ports if a person has not a voucher of one kind or another? Or is it still possible for people to leave their home country, to come here and take advantage of some quota figure which the Home Secretary may have laid down and say, "That quota figure has not yet been exceeded. I wish to apply for admission to this country and I shall seek a job when I land."

Dr. Alan Glyn (Clapham)

Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that it would be undesirable to let people come to this country on the off-chance of getting a job? Surely it would be better to ensure that they would be admitted here before they left their own country.

4.15 p.m.

Mr. Chapman

I am not arguing the case. I am merely asking for information. I wish to know whether the system which has applied so far under which people come here freely and search for jobs when they get into this country is at an end and whether only people with vouchers will be allowed in. I did not want to be drawn into an argument on the matter—we have had arguments throughout the Bill—but my answer to the hon. Member for Clapham (Dr. Glyn) is that I should have thought it would be wrong to close the door entirely to people who might wish to come here without going through official machinery in their own country. Provided the quota figures which the Home Secretary has in mind have not been exceeded, there should be considerable latitude at the ports, depending on how the figures are going in any period, to allow people to be admitted under a system such as that which operates at the moment.

The second question which I should like to ask the Home Secretary concerns relatives. The paragraphs in the White Paper on this subject are clear enough. They set out the people who have the right to come here to join residents here or to follow accepted immigrants. Has there been any discussion with Commonwealth countries about how this can be facilitated? May we know, for example, whether the Home Office agrees with Commonwealth countries that relatives, when they travel separate from the immigrant worker, should carry a document stating who they are so that all the difficulties at the ports can be ironed out in advance?

I have in mind particularly certain wives, common law wives for that matter, coming here to join an immigrant. Will such women be able to obtain without difficulty and carry a piece of paper issued in a Commonwealth country saying that she is the wife of a certain man who has been admitted here or who is a resident of this country? If so, everything at the ports will be plain sailing. I think that we all wish that to be the case. I hope that there has been consultation about this so that specific categories of people of this kind will be admitted by immigation officers and that Commonwealth countries will help the process by providing them with pieces of paper certifying the position, thus helping their progress through the ports.

My third question concerns paragraph 7 of the White Paper. Immigration officers are told in the middle of the paragraph that they should consider imposing a condition limiting the period of stay where the visitor's intentions are not clear, and he thinks it important that the visitor should appreciate that he is permitted to stay only for a limited period. What further instruction is being given about this? Surely that is a wide discretion to give to an immigration officer. Shall we follow the procedure adopted in the application of the aliens legislation, with periods of three months and six months being allowed, with facilities for renewal? What further guidance is being given to immigration officers about the limitation of the period?

In commenting on the Amendment which seeks to leave out subsection (3), I come back to the general instructions to immigration officers and their power to admit persons subject to restrictions on employment. What sort of restrictions will these be? Will the right hon. Gentleman give us some examples of the type of restriction which, under Clause 2 (1, b), immigration officers will impose on employment under the Bill?

We have been worried all the way through about how Parliament at any time will know the numbers which the immigration officers are being told to admit. We raised this matter with the Minister of Labour when we debated the question of vouchers. The Home Secretary has not been forthcoming on this issue. It may be right from an administrative point of view for him to refuse to commit himself in advance, but we are reaching a stage at which somebody must know, all things being equal, or if events are similar to those of the recent past, what regular flow of immigrants the right hon. Gentleman expects to be tolerable to this country. What is his judgment on this issue? How will be give instructions to immigration officers about the precise numbers to be admitted? How will they know when the numbers are being exceeded? Will they be given definite instructions to cut immigration off at a certain number? How will Parliament know the numbers which the right hon. Gentleman has in mind at any time? This is important.

I come specifically to the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade). The Home Secretary's answer has been, "Do not put these things in Statutory Instruments. You always have the power to question the Home Secretary." But we cannot question him until he gives some information about the policy to which he is working in terms of total numbers. That is the crucial point of the Bill. Are the numbers to be cut to 10,000 a year or will 50,000 a year be tolerable? No one is asking the Home Secretary to commit himself now to a precise figure, but we must be informed how he will let us know later which of those two figures he has in mind—or any other figure. So far we do not know.

What about the Irish under the instructions? There is nothing about them in the Bill or in the instructions to the immigration officers. The right hon. Gentleman said that he will admit the Irish; even though they are covered by the Bill, he intends to make an exception of them. Surely that should have been in the White Paper. Somebody must say somewhere what is to be done about the citizens of Northern Ireland and Eire. Why was it not in the instructions to the immigration officers? How will the Home Secretary work that? Is it to be the case that at the ports they are to be entirely free from restriction and omitted from the Bill altogether, or is any part of the general restrictions, for example the restriction on visitors to a particular length of time, to apply to citizens of Eire? Or are they to be totally exempt from every restriction under the Bill? This is a very important matter, and I hope that the Home Secretary will reply frankly at least to that part of my question.

I apologise for giving him a catalogue of questions, but I hope that he regards them all as relevant.

Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth (Hendon, South)

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Chapman) is under a misapprehension about the way in which the instructions will work. Presumably they will go to immigration officers and they will be at ports other than those receiving ships from Southern Ireland. I therefore assume that the Southern Irish who choose to come in through some other way will be treated as any other Commonwealth immigrants under the instructions, which are entirely non-discriminatory.

I join the hon. Member for Northfield and the hon. Member for Huddersfield. West (Mr. Wade) in thanking my right hon. Friend for dealing with this matter by making the draft instructions available to us this afternoon. That is an exceptional action on his part, and it has done a great deal in all parts of the Committee to relieve anxieties about the way in which this scheme will work. Now that they have read the instructions, many people who had serious misgivings feel that many of those misgivings have been removed.

Having had some experience of the way in which somewhat similar instructions have worked in the case of aliens policy, I believe that when this policy is brought into operation it will work smoothly and there will be very few complaints about it. But that is prophesy. These instructions are a good deal more liberal in character than those which the immigration officers have about aliens.

Mr. Jeremy Thorpe (Devon, North)

I should certainly hope so.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth

I agree, but it was worth pointing out that they are. It is a point which the hon. Member for Northfield did not make in his speech, and it is a point which we should note and on which we should express approval.

The hon. Member for Huddersfield, West said that he would have preferred the scheme to be embodied in a Statutory Instrument rather than in instructions of this character. I do not think that he is right. These instructions are of a kind which must be entirely flexible throughout—flexible in themselves and flexible in that they may be varied from day to day to meet particular hard cases. Everyone who has experience of this sort of policy knows that new types of case regularly arise. If one has to deal with them under hard-and-fast regulations, one is bound to cause hardship.

An example of what I mean is to be found in paragraph 25, on page 7: A woman who has been living in permanent association with a man, even if not married to him, should be treated for this purpose as a wife. Immigration Officers should bear in mind any local custom or tradition tending to establish the permanence of the association. It is clear what that means. Everyone knows that immigration officers will interpret it liberally, but it would be quite impossible to reduce it to the kind of language which would have to be embodied in a regulation. There are plenty of other similar passages, but that is a very striking example. The hon. Member suggested that parts of the scheme should be embodied in a Statutory Instrument and that other parts might be left to the discretion of my right hon. Friend, with instructions being given through him to immigration officers. That would not be a very good idea. It would be the introduction of two-tier government in this connection. We should find that parts of the rules were hard and fast and that parts were subject to alteration in the light of particular hard cases. It is very much better to deal with the matter as it has been dealt with by my right hon. Friend. I am glad that he has seen fit to deal with it in this way, and I hope very much that the regulations will work as smoothly as I believe they will.

4.30 p.m.

Mr. Charles Royle (Salford, West)

. Could the hon. Gentleman tell the House, in view of the speech which he has just made and the blessing which he has given to the draft instructions, why he has tabled an Amendment to leave out the subsection which seems to establish them?

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was in his place when a point of order was raised earlier. The Amendment was tabled so that it should be possible to discuss the instructions. If the Amendment had not been tabled, such a debate would have been out of order.

Mr. Royle

I am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth

I certainly should not wish to press that Amendment, because it would run precisely contrary to the sense of the speech which I have made.

Mr. Peter Walker (Worcester)

I support the remarks which have been made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth) in congratulating my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary upon the production of the draft instructions. As one of those who viewed the Bill with a great deal of apprehension and considered that it would have a detrimental effect on Commonwealth relations, I greatly welcome the liberal attitude of the instructions.

I should like to put one point to my right hon. Friend. As a great deal of anxiety has been caused in Commonwealth countries about the possible racial effects of the Bill, I wonder whether he could make some arrangements whereby the instructions or something similar to them could be given wide circulation in Commonwealth countries.

Mr. W. R. van Straubenzee (Wokingham)

I intervene briefly. I should not have intervened at all had it not been for something said by my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth) which leads me to ask my right hon. Friend whether he can explain the point more clearly. It is the narrow point concerning the Southern Irish.

As I understood my hon. Friend, it was his interpretation of the present legal position that—although the Bill, as drafted specifically includes the Southern Irish, and we have the Government's declaration that they do not intend to operate it, at any rate at the present time—if a Southern Irishman chose to sail from Southern Ireland to, say, Southampton he would be subject to the regulations but if he chose to travel on one of the ordinary routes to a West Coast port he would not be subject to them.

That interpretation may or may not be right. I differ from my hon. Friend with very considerable hesitation in view of his long experience, but if his interpretation is correct I hope that my right hon. Friend will make it clear, because it does not sound a workable proposition to me. I am under the impression—though I should be most grateful for clarification about this—that the Southern Irish are not in any circumstances at present to have the provisions of the Bill or the instructions applied to them, and that in that respect they will be in precisely the same position as Ulster men. It is on that point that some of us will hope to catch Mr. Speaker's eye on a subsequent occasion.

It is because I think it is most important that neither the House nor the public should be in any doubt about precisely what the application of the regulations will be that I intervene briefly to ask for further clarification. Perhaps I might add, in one sentence, my very real sense of appreciation for the tenor of the regulations, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker) has just said, has greatly helped many of us.

Mr. Percy Holman (Bethnal Green)

I feel rather concerned about paragraph 25 of the instructions. We want to encourage immigrants from other parts of the Commonwealth to adapt themselves to our normal way of life, and I consider that it would be a good thing if they were encouraged, if at all practicable, to marry the women with whom they are associating before coming to this country. Otherwise we shall be faced with an ever-increasing illegitimacy rate, especially in London, where it is already much higher than the rest of the country, and where about a quarter of all these immigrants are at present living.

I should like a little more information about another part of the paragraph which says that immigration officers should bear in mind any local custom or tradition tending to establish the permanence of the association. I have at least two constituents who have brought with them one wife and family but have left at least one other wife and family in India. I want to know whether this other part of the instruction has any relevance in that respect. In other words, shall we in future be taking into account conditions and associations in some parts of the Commonwealth and be admitting immigrants who have several wives and considerable families?

Mr. Fletcher

Congratulations have been tendered to the Home Secretary both upon having published the draft instructions and upon their tenor. I do not demur from those congratulations at all. In fact, I add mine to them.

However, I think it fair to add that at any rate some of the congratulations are due to the Opposition and to some back bench hon. Members opposite for the pressure that we maintained during earlier stages of our discussions for the publication of the draft instructions and also for their drafting in the most humane, liberal and enlightened manner possible. Consequently, I think we may all legitimately participate in the happier position in which we find ourselves today compared with when we originally discussed the Bill.

Having said that, I do not think it in any way detracts from the arguments put forward by the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade) in support of the Amendment. A similar Amendment in the name of some of my hon. Friends and myself is being discussed with that Amendment. I still think that on the whole it would be an advantage if the instructions were embodied in a Statutory Instrument and, therefore, had the form and force of a Statute and required the sanction of Parliament. I do not accept the view that the fact that the instructions, necessarily in some paragraphs are couched in vague non-legal language, in itself is a reason why they should not be embodied in a Statutory Instrument. I accept the advantages of flexibility, but that does not mean that they should not be in the form of a Statutory Instrument.

Nor do I think that the plea for flexibility detracts from the argument, because we all have experience of Statutory Instruments having to be varied and amended time after time, as the Minister of State knows perfectly well, and there are instances in other forms of subordinate legislation where amendments are repeatedly made—in the Customs Acts and some of the Road Traffic Acts. Therefore, that is not an argument for refusing to put these instructions in the form of a Statutory Instrument.

But the references to flexibility, which, I think, were made on both sides of the House, raise in my mind a question to which I hope we shall have an answer from the Home Secretary. It is: granted that there has to be flexibility, and granted that experience may show the necessity for some revision of these instructions from time to time, may we have an assurance that if and whenever the instructions to immigration officers are varied or changed, any such variation or amendment of the instructions will be published and made available? That seems to me a very modest request to make.

I should also like to ask the Home Secretary for an assurance that when these draft instructions take their final form, which will presumably be not before this Bill has emerged from this House and another place, the Home Secretary will make such revisions in the draft instructions as appear to represent suggestions and ideas which have been put forward in our debates here and other suggestions which, no doubt, will be put forward in another place, because—and I say this in no disrespectful manner—there is evidence in the drafting of these instructions that there has not been the fullest possible consideration of them. I imagine that this is the first draft, and I think the Home Secretary has said on more than one occasion that he was anxious to know the views of Members on the draft instructions.

I share the sentiments which have been expressed about the general, liberal, humane and sensible tenor of the instructions, but, nevertheless, there are a number of instances in which the duties of immigration officers could with convenience be clarified. It is of the greatest importance that any intending immigrant should know with the greatest amount of precision what his chances are of getting into this country if he takes the trouble to come 3,000 or 4,000 or 12,000 miles.

It is my belief, having studied these draft instructions pretty carefully, that there will be two classes of person. There will be those Who come to work and have a voucher; and those Who come because they are self-dependent, or as students, or because they are relatives of somebody and have a right to be here. Leaving aside the class of those who will come under the voucher system, it is most important that all the others should know with the greatest degree of certainty that, subject to some medical inspection or some security ground, they will be admitted. I am bound to say that, with the one exception about students, the situation does not appear to be as clear as it might be. I would have thought that any reasonable immigration officer reading these instructions would give the benefit of the doubt to any intending immigrant who arrived under these categories. If that is the intention, I welcome it.

That brings me to the point about vouchers. This is really the only opportunity we shall have of clearing up some of the points which arise on paragraph 20 and the points which have been raised by my hon. Friends and hon. Members opposite. When we first discussed this the Home Secretary rather put us off by saying that we should in due course have a clear statement about this voucher system from the Minister of Labour. We had a statement from the Minister of Labour one day last week. With the greatest respect to the Minister of Labour, I do not think his most fervent admirer would say, Whatever his gifts are, that the gift of clear, lucid and precise exposition is one of his most obvious gifts. Therefore, I think that some of my hon. Friends and hon. Members opposite are justified in feeling that this question of the vouchers, and the interpretation of paragraph 20, is still obscured in a certain amount of mystery.

4.45 p.m.

I think we can best analyse it in this way. Those who come here to work under the voucher system will be either skilled or unskilled. If they are skilled no problem will, I think, arise. Either they will have a job to go to because an employer wants them, or they will have some obvious skill such as that of an architect or a nurse, or some professional or technical qualification, which will qualify them to come in, and they will, no doubt, get employment. But what about the unskilled?

It is now clear that the way in which the Home Office intends to work this voucher system is by fixing in its own mind, and presumably, at some date communicating to this House and the public, the number of people who will be admitted as unskilled immigrants. That is the way the control will be exercised. That is why the Home Office wants powers in this Bill, in order to control the inflow of unskilled immigrants. We have repeatedly asked that the Government should tell us two things: first of all, what kind of numbers they propose to fix for the unskilled immigrants, whether they propose to fix these numbers monthly or quarterly; and whether they propose to fix them in relation to the countries from which the intending immigrants come.

At the moment, unskilled immigrants come from all over the Commonwealth and from Ireland. This is where this Irish question is so important. The Bill at the moment does not relate to Ireland—at any rate, the Bill itself does not relate to Ireland in the sense that the instructions to immigration officers relate to Ireland. Irish unskilled immigrants will, as I understand it—I hope that the Home Secretary will correct me if I am wrong—for the time being at any rate be able to come to this country without a voucher and without any limitation of numbers and without restrictions when they get here. Therefore, it follows that the degree of control which the Home Office will exercise over unskilled immigrants from the Commonwealth will depend, at any rate in part, if not in whole, upon the number of unskilled immigrants who come into this country from Ireland, as they will be entitled to without a voucher, without control, without limitation of numbers.

Will the Home Secretary please say whether that is his understanding also of the operation of the Bill plus the draft instructions as we now have them? If it is, then I think we are entitled to ask the further question: to what extent will unskilled immigrants from the Commonwealth be prejudiced by the numbers of unskilled immigrants who continue to come into this country from Ireland? Will there be in the mind of the Home Secretary a point notionally at which the advent of unskilled Irish immigrants will thereby inevitably prejudice and limit the number of unskilled immigrants from—shall we say?—Jamaica or the West Indies? Is there a point at which some control over the Irish is, in the view of the Home Secretary, found to be necessary? That is the point which troubles my hon. Friends and myself. It is on that subject that the Bill and the instructions are silent, and we have had no clear indication from the Home Secretary of what is intended.

On one occasion the Attorney-General told us that some immigrants would be turned back through no fault of their own but because the quota had been satisfied. That would be a great hardship to any immigrant. What is far more likely to happen, however, is that some unskilled immigrants from the West Indies and elsewhere who have been able to enter the country quite easily up to now will find difficulty in obtaining vouchers in future.

Intending immigrants will like to know what plans they can make for the future. Hon. Members on both sides of the House realise that for economic reasons, quite apart from moral and Commonwealth reasons, we shall still require—and perhaps we shall not be able to dispense with—a certain number of unskilled immigrants. It is, therefore, important that intending immigrants should be given some idea—something that they cannot possibly discern from any speech so far made by the Government—of the approximate number who would be admitted, and whether there would be an aggregate limitation or a limitation based upon countries of origin.

These are the chief questions which concern my hon. Friends about these draft instructions. One reason why we press the Amendment is that, in the absence of clarification, Parliamentary control would obviously be far more satisfactory. This could be achieved if the Amendment were accepted. The House would then decide what instructions to immigration officers were to be embodied in Statutory Instruments.

Mr. R. A. Butler

I will endeavour to answer as many as possible of the detailed points which have been raised. The debate has taken place as a result of an undertaking that there would be time to consider the instructions before we began the Third Reading debate, in case it should prove to be out of order to consider those instructions during that debate.

Last week several hon. Members expressed their satisfaction at the fact that the Government had felt it right to make available a White Paper containing the draft instructions. The hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. C. Royle) said that as a result of their publication he at least felt less miserable, if not happier. I will not put it higher than that. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Chapman) said much the same thing, but was a little more cheerful than his hon. Friend.

Mr. Royle

It was before the Minister of Labour made his announcement.

Mr. Butler

My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth) has expressed satisfaction that we have published a White Paper. It has made a considerable difference to our discussion. It has enabled the House to see the humane and, I hope, sensible way in which we hope to carry out the Bill's provisions. It has been said that we did not have in mind many of these points in the original instructions, and that they have been extracted from us by the House. We had in mind a policy exactly of this type when we introduced the Bill, but we have had the sense to listen to the points made by hon. Members on both sides of the House, including the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher), and we have attempted to frame the instructions so that they will be in tune with the criticisms made.

The hon. Member for Islington, East asked whether the House could have an assurance that if amendments were made in the instructions, or they were revised, particulars of the alterations would be made available to the House. I have already said that we shall keep the House informed. That is equivalent to the pledge for which the hon. Member asked. We must make available to the House, in whatever is the most convenient form, any considerable amendment to the published instructions to immigration officers.

The hon. Member also asked whether the instructions, in their final form, would be made available. We rightly said that they would not be finalised before the Bill had been passed by another place. That is obvious, because it must go through the full Parliamentary process. When that has been done we shall finalise the instructions, and if it is the wish of the House we can make those available as well. I do not think that they will be fundamentally different from these, but we may have to take account of points which are raised in this debate and in debates in another place.

It has been our object to place as few restrictions as possible upon Commonwealth citizens coming here, subject to the primary object of the Bill, which is to control entry, fundamentally by employment. I emphasise this because the instructions to immigration officers, especially those governing the exercise of their discretion, are likely to cover only a relatively small, although important, part of the field. They cover cases where immigration officers have discretion. If a man has a voucher or an entry certificate he just comes in. To that extent a large proportion of the field lies outside the terms of the instructions, although they are important.

The purpose of the Amendment is the same as that of the Amendment which we discussed on 13th February, when the Committee accepted my view that it would not be right that all the instructions to be given under this subsection should take the form of statutory instruments. In moving the Amendment today the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade) quoted what I said on 13th February, namely, that the instructions were not suitable for expression in a legal way. I am sure that bon. Members who have read them will agree that they would be less useful as a guide to immigration officers, and as an indication to immigrants of our general policy, if they were put into the language of statutory instruments.

But there are other reasons why the Amendment is not acceptable. They have been hinted at by some hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South. It is likely mat we shall need to alter instructions to immigration officers from time to time, or to amplify certain paragraphs. For instance, in a recent debate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) asked about organised training schemes, and the production of documentary evidence of sponsorship.

I myself referred to certain schemes operating under the Colombo Plan. I have since been looking into the right hon. Gentleman's representations about apprenticeships, and I think that they would be covered by the certainty that such people would be admitted in the A category, but in case they are not covered I should like to reserve the position and to keep the instructions fluid, so that before finally publishing them—or even afterwards—I could meet cases of that sort which were not otherwise covered.

It is therefore important that I should not be tied down too much by the Statutory Instrument procedure. It would be cumbrous and tiresome in the extreme if we had to lay a Statutory Instrument before we could make any adjustment in the relationship between the Secretary of State and his officers. The Amendment would cover all the instructions to officers relating to their functions. I must reserve the position in relation to the later paragraphs of the White Paper. Paragraphs 40 and 41, for instance, which deals with refusal on grounds of criminal record and on grounds of security, respectively, will not be published. They must be reserved. I do not think that anybody would expect an instruction concerning security to be published by the Secretary of State.

5.0 p.m.

I think that it is pretty clear from the debate that the instructions are on more or less the right lines, but I should make it clear again, in addition to what I have said in answer to the hon. Member for Islington, East, that if there are any other points raised even on Third Reading which seem to be unsatisfactory we shall take account of them in making the final instructions.

The hon. Member for Huddersfield, West raised the question of paragraph 7 of the instructions which contains references to employment conditions and so forth. I want to stress that in that paragraph these words are used: It will not be necessary to use these powers frequently. This is clearly the case. When the Bill was brought before us there was some feeling in Committee that to control and regulate employment was undesirable. We have entirely accepted the wish of the House of Commons in that matter. These powers are held completely in reserve so that an employment condition now can be applied only when there is a time condition. This means that it can apply only to visitors or students and it could apply to them only if the immigration officer thought that candidates for entry as visitors or students were going behind the voucher scheme and were attempting to get in illicitly in that way. Paragraph 7 is one of the most difficult paragraphs in the White Paper, and that is my answer to the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West.

The hon. Member for Northfield raised the question of an important sentence at the end of paragraph 20, which he read with paragraph 28 of the White Paper. My answer to his point is definite, and I hope that attention will be paid overseas as well as here to what I now have to say. Paragraph 20 says: Persons who require vouchers but have not obtained them should normally be refused admission. I want to make clear that the way in which the Bill operates is through vouchers. Although the hon. Member for Islington, East was somewhat derogatory about the explanation given by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour, and although it is not in order to go into the matter in detail here, I should like to make it clear that my right hon. Friend described how A vouchers would be obtainable from employers, B vouchers from countries of origin or through the centre here, and C vouchers would be provided by the centre under arrangements made in consultation with authorities overseas.

This is the method by which the Bill will be operated. Therefore it is wise to give notice to intending immigrants that it is wiser to obtain a voucher or entry certificate—because we accepted the purpose of the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) about entry certificates. If a person obtains an entry certificate he can be certain of getting in past the immigration officer without trouble. All he has to do is to obtain the certificate from the country of origin.

It is not wise therefore for an immigrant to come into this country without making any arrangements at all. It is all right if he comes as a visitor or student or in the class of residents and relatives who are covered by these instructions. It is only when he tries to come on the basis of employment that it will be unwise for him not to get the matter regulated before he comes. I would advise students always to try to obtain entry certificates with the aid of their own universities or authorities in their own countries so as to save themselves doubt at the ports, but if they come and there is doubt at the ports then paragraphs 13 and 14 in particular will show that every care will be taken to let them in if we possibly can.

This is so much the case that although there is a reference to hours of study in paragraph 12 it is our intention that fewer hours should be accepted by the immigration officer at the port if it is thought that the immigrant is a genuine student in search of genuine study. There is always the opportunity to chance one's arm when one arrives at the port of entry, but it is essential, in the case of employment, for the immigrant to get himself fixed up with a voucher before he comes and advisable, in the case of an entry certificate, to obtain that certificate, especially if he is a student The whole aim of an entry certificate is to get the idea of the Bill understood overseas and then dealt with as sensibly as possible.

Mr. Fletcher

Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves the question of students, will he be good enough to deal with the rather unfortunate expression in paragraph 13 of the White Paper Which refers to a student and where it is provided that the immigration officer must be satisfied that his principal object in coming to the United Kingdom is to study …"? We have urged that there are a number of cases where people come partly to work and partly to study. They would not be able to say that their principal object was to study but it might be one of their two only objects in coming here. This is a point on which we think an Amendment is required.

Mr. Butler

I shall, of course, think about what the hon. Member has said before we make the final version, but the object of the words is to stop students coming here who are not genuine and who want to avoid the voucher system. The case of the Kennington Commercial College, to which the hon. Member referred and which I have personally investigated, and other cases, will be covered.

If there is doubt, my advice to students would be to get either an entry certificate or a voucher. The right way for people who are trainees or who are taking up apprenticeships is to obtain a voucher, and I should like to make it clear that they will be given an A voucher if they seek a genuine objective. It is our desire to encourage Commonwealth students. There are a great many here today and we do not want the Bill to have the effect of stopping young Commonwealth men and women coming here to study. There is no reason why we should stop them. It would be contrary to our object.

The hon. Member for Northfield raised the question of relatives and I will see whether it is possible for relatives to carry with them the documents to which he referred. That is the main point, but I should also stress that in addition to trying to see that they carry the documents with them, of which I will take a note, I should say that any relative who is in doubt should obtain an entry certificate before entering the United Kingdom. The hon. Member asked whether consultation was going on with overseas countries. This point has been raised by two speakers. We are having full and detailed consultations with all the Governments overseas on these matters. I think that that partly accounts for the greatly improved attitude overseas as well as in the House, because it is now seen how it is intended that the Bill should work and it is seen that we must work it with overseas authorities as well as our own. This is having a good effect overseas.

Another point raised by the hon. Member for Northfield was the question of a limit period under paragraph 7, and he asked whether there would be restrictions on employment. I think that I have answered that in dealing with a previous point. The hon. Member went on to raise a question which he attempted to raise when my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour was speaking. He attaches it to this Amendment and he wants to know how Parliament will know the number. The Amendment provides a convenient peg on which to hang a question like that. The hon. Member says that if Parliament cannot know the number it should be regulated by statutory instruments.

I do not accept that the instructions should be under Statutory Instrument. It would spoil them. Nor can I go further than the Minister of Labour and say that we can announce ahead the number in category C. There is a slight misconception in the language of the hon. Member for Northfield which it is very valuable for me to correct before the Bill goes to Third Reading. He asked, and used the expression, how the immigration officers could know how many they would be permitted to admit and how entries would be cut off at a particular figure. We were also asked by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) how the situation would be dealt with if one person rolled in at Southampton and another at Newcastle-upon-Tyne at the same time and how the immigration officer would know whether he should out one of those off. That implies a misunderstanding of the system. It also means that my opening remarks have not been fully understood. It will be seen that I have attended almost every hour of the debate and know most of the speeches.

The sphere of discretion for immigration officers is only in relation to the classes referred to in the instructions. When a voucher is granted, it will be granted by the Ministry of Labour. Therefore, the limitation in class C, which is the only place where there will be a limitation, is made by the Ministry of Labour. Therefore, the immigration officers simply have to judge whether a person has a voucher or an entry certificate. They have to concern themselves not about numbers, but only about credentials.

I hope that I have made the situation plain and thereby removed a considerable doubt about the operation of the Bill, which has been difficult to understand. I only hope that it will work out well. As my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour said, it is our wish that it should work out well.

Mr. C. Royle

Does this mean that there will not be any actual figure of limitation? The figure of 40,000, for example, has been used constantly.

Mr. Butler

It means that I cannot announce the number ahead, nor could the Minister of Labour, because that would be unfair both to us and to the immigrants. We want to control category C in the interests of the immigrants, socially and economically, and in the interests of this country. If the position is that in some year we think that the number coming in can be enlarged, the discretion will be left to the Government of the day. That is much fairer both to immigrants and to the country.

An important corollary to this is the means by which the House will know the details. I have sufficient knowledge of this House to know that if it wants to know something, it finds it out. It will be open to hon. Members, on either side, to put down questions or otherwise to interrogate the Government about the operation of the Bill. In that way, and in the early review which we have arranged—it will be remembered that we have arranged a review of Part I of the Bill at the end of 1963—we shall be able to give the information that hon. Members desire. That, however, is a different matter from deciding the number today, which would be as unfair to the immigrants as to the administration. I hope that I have made the position clear to the hon. Member for Northfield, who raised many interesting points in his address.

A detailed question has been asked concerning the Irish. I must make it clear that if the Irish come to an ordinary port—that is to say, not one of the Irish ports, where there is no immigration control—they will be governed, like anybody else, by paragraph 3 of the instructions. This is the legal position under the Bill. ID those instructions, the term "Commonwealth citizen" is used as an abbreviation for a Commonwealth citizen who by virtue of Clause 1 is subject to immigration control. What is meant, therefore, as will be seen from Clause 1 (4) in particular, is that the Irish would be subject to the Bill if they chose to come in by one of the other ports.

My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker) asked whether wide circulation could be given to the instructions. I have already arranged that that shall be done. When the final version is made, we shall see that it is widely distributed overseas. The hon. Member for Bethnal Green (Mr. Holman) referred to various aspects of marital associations. The words used by the hon. Member—" tending to encourage permanence of association"—will be taken into account by the immigration officers. These are the points which have been raised in the course of the debate and which I have been only too pleased to answer and, I hope, clarify.

Mr. van Straubenzee

May we be just a little more clear on what is for some of us the surprising discovery that if a Southern Irishman arrives at a non-Irish port, he will come in under paragraph 3 of the instructions? How will a Southern Irishman coming in in those circumstances be distinguished?

5.15 p.m.

Mr. Butler

To explain how the Bill will operate, I must refer to Clause 1 (4), which states: This Part of this Act applies to British protected persons and citizens of the Republic of Ireland". They can, therefore, be identified at these ports and will be treated the same as any other Commonwealth citizen.

Mr. C. Royle

The Home Secretary knows that I sit at his feet in this House and always take great notice of everything he says; in fact, some of the things he says I really believe. This afternoon, however, the right hon. Gentleman has rather blinded us on technical points Like the hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee), I am still a little concerned about the Irish situation. This is an illustration of the right hon. Gentleman's earlier remark, that if hon. Members want to find things out they have a way of doing so. On the Irish question, we seem to be in the position that we cannot find out the exact position. It may well be too late before we can get the information, and it certainly will be too late to use Question Time in the House for this purpose.

The Home Secretary's objections to the Amendments seem to be based purely on technical difficulties. He has spoken of the situation arising that we cannot put all these matters into a Statutory Instrument. I should like to remind the right hon. Gentleman of the halcyon days of 1950–51, before the House had an 11.30 p.m. limit to Prayers, when hon. Friends of his used to keep the House up all night against the Labour Government praying against our Statutory Instruments. I was a Government Whip at the time, and I know well what that meant.

In those Statutory Instruments, and particularly in the Explanatory Memoranda, there was not a shortage of words. I clearly remember hon. Members opposite, who were then in Opposition, occupying the time of the House on purpose to read paragraph after paragraph from the Explanatory Memoranda of those Statutory Instruments. I suggest to the Home Secretary that we should have the instructions, as we now see them or in their ultimate form, in the shape of a Statutory Instrument.

We have had a good debate, and our position has been made clear. Even at this late stage, however, I ask for fresh consideration to be given. Great anxiety has been shown from many parts of the House about the terms of the Bill and the circumstances in which immigrants will enter the country. Our anxiety is by no means allayed. Because of that anxiety, which still exists, we are concerned that the House should have as much power as possible.

Throughout our debates, on Second Reading, in Committee and on Report, the Home Secretary has spoken about the liberal application of the Bill. I pay him the compliment once more that it seems that there will be liberal application of it arising from the instructions. That does not, however, alter the fact that this House will lose its control completely, when the Bill goes through in its present form, if the instructions are not tabled as a Statutory Instrument. That is a safeguard that the House should have in a Measure which affects the whole Commonwealth. It would be another way of liberally applying the terms of the Bill.

I cannot help but express deep disappointment that the right hon. Gentleman has not seen fit to accept the Amendment proposed by the Liberal Party and Amendments which have been tabled in similar terms by my hon. Friends. I wish that at this moment, or if not at this moment when the Bill reaches another place, steps might be taken to see that the Statutory Instrument procedure shall obtain, and I make that appeal in the hope that a change of view will come about in the mind of the Government.

Mr. Ede (South Shields)

I have listened to this debate this afternoon with great interest. It reminds me of some of the problems which confronted me from 1945 to 1948 with regard to aliens. It was at the time when, if there had been no aliens law, the only restriction on people coming into this country from Europe would have been the carrying capacity of ships and aeroplanes. It was necessary, though very much against the grain in my case, to impose at first very severe restrictions in view of the plight this country was in, and then steadily to ease them.

I think that what will be required here will be administration by common sense, and I hope that I am not giving any secret away when I say that the heaviest burden will fall on the Minister of State or on the Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office, in dealing with the awkward requests that come from immigration officers. On occasion, they will have to go to the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary and say, "This is a very tricky one. There are arguments on both sides, and my inclination is to go one way. What do you think about it?" I have no doubt that the Secretary of State, if he is wise, would say, "Seeing that you have considered this at considerable length, I think I had better adopt your recommendation." There might be an occasion when that is not very easy for the Secretary of State, because in the end he will have to answer in this House for any mistake that might be made by an immigration officer or by the Under-Secretary. I hope I am not infringing trade union rules too much in giving that indication of the way in which, so far as I can gather from my negotiations with the Home Office in regard to the admission of aliens, the work still seems to be done.

The worst possible thing that could happen would be if somebody is ruled out on a mere technicality. It is a very serious thing if, no matter with what care the statutory instrument or some other document that is generally available is worked out, on a pure technicality some wretched girl is ruled out, possibly in the kind of case mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green (Mr. Holman). When people whose religion allows them to have more than one wife in other countries turn up here, we admit one of them and then the other applies, we know that we cannot refer it to the Archbishop of Canterbury. This is something which has to be settled, first, by the immigration officers themselves, and, if there is some difficulty about it, by one of the Under-Secretaries, and finally by the Secretary of State.

Sir H. Lucas-Tooth

Would the right hon. Gentleman say what he would do in that particular case?

Mr. Ede

I would want all the details in front of me, but I am inclined to recognise that some of these things in other countries are decided not by a Statute, but by custom, and that is particularly true in the West Indies. I have explained this twice before to the House, and will not delay the House any further now.

Therefore, while I hope that the final version of the instructions will give as much information as possible, I still hope that they will be mainly settled by rules of common sense at each stage. I have no doubt that if that is done, in the course of a little while, a kind of case law will be built up which all the people who actually have to take decisions will know, and they will then apply common sense to the kind of very intricate problem presented. If they get involved in any particularly difficult problem, I have no doubt that the hon. Member for Hendon, South (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth), in view of his former association with the Department, will always be willing to give them counsel's opinion, even on the difficult kind of point which I have just raised.

I am still not clear about the quota, because the Minister of Labour, in a speech which I found singularly obscurantist, used the words and said there would be a quota. I gathered that, whether there is a quota or not, everybody wanting to come to this country will be well advised to get either a voucher or a certificate before coming here. I hope that there will be some arrangement inside the various Commonwealth territories in which this Measure will operate at long range whereby people can get the kind of assurance that will enable them to feel when they come here that they will be admitted, and that there will not be too much of what the right hon. Gentleman called "chancing the arm". Unnecessary trouble and friction at the ports of entry could quite easily make this Bill, when it becomes an Act, a very considerable cause of friction between the various

parts of the Commonwealth, unless some such arrangement as that is made.

I am bound to say that what the right hon. Gentleman said this afternoon about the Irish has not cleared my mind very much. In his Second Reading speech, he quoted what I said in 1948 about the Irish in this particular category of things, and I have heard nothing in the course of discussions on this Bill that has made me think that that is not still the best way in which to approach the problem. In the past few days, I have been reading the account of Peel's difficulties with the Irish, first as Chief Secretary in Ireland and afterwards when he was Home Secretary. I find that even as long ago as that, before Roman Catholic emancipation, he had reached the conclusion that it is no good trying to adopt logic as one's guide when one is dealing with Irish problems, because the Irish will always find their way either through or under any logical application or any rule that one attempts to make.

I shall vote for this Amendment in the belief that there are some things that can be better done by Statutory Instrument, but I would not like to see Statutory Instruments applied to the whole range of the difficulties that arise on this particular phase of this Bill.

Question put, That those words be there inserted in the Bill:—

The House divided: Ayes 184, Noes 271.

Division No. 108.]	AYES	[5.30 p.m.
Abse, Leo	Cullen, Mrs. Alice	Grimond, Rt. Hon. J.
Ainsley, William	Darling, George	Gunter, Ray
Albu, Austen	Davies, Harold (Leek)	Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley)
Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)	Davies, Ifor (Gower)	Hamilton, William (West Fife)
Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)	Deer, George	Hannan, William
Awbery, Stan	Delargy, Hugh	Hart, Mrs. Judith
Bacon, Mite Alice	Dempsey, James	Hayman, F. H.
Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)	Diamond, John	Henderson, Rt. Hn. Arthur (Rwly Regis)
Beaney Alan	Dodds, Norman	Herbison, Miss Margaret
Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.	Driberg, Tom	Hilton, A. V.
Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)	Ede, Rt. Hon. C.	Holman, Percy
Benson, Sir George	Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)	Holt, Arthur
Blackburn, F.	Edwards, Robert (Bilston)	Houghton, Douglas
Blyton, William	Edwards, Walter (Stepney)	Howell, Charles A. (Perry Barr)
Boardman, H.	Fernyhough, E.	Howell, Denis (Small Heath)
Bowden, Rt. Hn. H. W. (Leics. S. W.)	Finch, Harold	Hoy, James H.
Bowles, Frank	Fletcher, Eric	Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Boyden, James	Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)	Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Braddock, Mrs. E. M.	Forman, J. C.	Hunter, A. E.
Brockway, A. Fenner	Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)	Hynd, H. (Accrington)
Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)	Gaitskell Rt. Hon. Hugh	Hynd, John (Attercliffe)
Brown, Thomas (Ince)	Galpern, Sir Myer	Irving, Sydney (Dartford)
Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)	George, Lady MeganL.loyd (Crmrthn)	Janner, Sir Barnett
Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)	Ginsburg, David	Jeger, George
Callaghan, James	Gooch, E. C.	Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)
Castle, Mrs. Barbara	Gourlay, Harry	Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Chapman, Donald	Grey, Charles	Jones, Rt. Hn. A, Creech (Wakefield)
Cliffe, Michael	Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)	Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Cronin, John	Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)	Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)
Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)	Owen, Will	Stones, William
Kelley, Richard	Padley, W. E.	Strachey, Rt. Hon. John
Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.	Paget, R. T.	Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Vauxhall)
King, Dr. Horace	Panned, Charles (Leeds W,)	Stross, Dr. Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)
Lawson, George	Pargiter, G. A.	Swain, Thomas
Lee, Frederick (Newton)	Parkin, B. T.	Swingler, Stephen
Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)	Pavitt, Laurence	Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)
Lipton, Marcus	Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)	Thomson, G. M. (Dundee, E.)
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson	Peart, Frederick	Thornton, Ernest
MacColl, James	Pentland, Norman	Thorpe, Jeremy
McInnes, James	Plummer, Sir Leslie	Timmons, John
McKay, John (Wallsend)	Popplewell, Ernest	Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn
Mackie, John (Enfield, East)	Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)	Wainwright, Edwin
McLeavey, Frank	Probert, Arthur	Warbey, William
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)	Randall, Harry	Watkins, Tudor
Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)	Rankin, John	Weitzman, David
Manuel, A. C.	Redhead, E. C.	Wells, Percy (Faversham)
Mapp, Charles	Rhodes, H.	White, Mrs. Eirene
Marsh, Richard	Roberts, Albert (Normanton)	Whitlock, William
Mason, Roy	Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)	Wilkins, W. A.
Mayhew, Christopher	Robertson, John (Paisley)	Willey, Frederick
Mellish, R. J.	Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)	Williams, D. J. (Neath)
Mendelson, J. J.	Rogers, G. H. R. (Kensington, N.)	Williams, LI (Abertillery)
Milne, Edward	Ross, William	Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)
Mitchison, G. R.	Royle, Charles (Salford, West)	Williams W. T. (Warrington)
Monslow, Walter	Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.	Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)
Moody, A. S.	Short, Edward	Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)
Morris, John	Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)	Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.
Mort, D. L.	Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)	Woof, Robert
Moyle, Arthur	Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)	Yates, Victor (Ladywood)
Mulley, Frederick	Snow, Julian
Neal, Harold	Spriggs, Leslie	TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
Oliver, G. H.	Steele, Thomas	Mr. Wade and Dr. Broughton
Oram, A. E.	Stonehouse, John
NOES
Agnew, Sir Peter	Corfield, F. V.	Hall, John (Wycombe)
Allason, James	Costain, A. P.	Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N. W.)
Arbuthnot, John	Coulson, Michael	Harris, Reader (Heston)
Ashton, Sir Hubert	Courtney, Cdr. Anthony	Harrison, Brian (Maldon)
Atkins, Humphrey	Craddock, Sir Beresford	Harrison, Col Sir Harwood (Eye)
Barber, Anthony	Critchley, Julian	Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)
Barlow, Sir John	Crosthwalte-Eyre, Col Sir Oliver	Harvie Anderson, Miss
Barter, John	Cunningham, Knox	Hastings, Stephen
Batsford, Brian	Curran, Charles	Hay, John
Baxter, Sir Beverley (Southgate)	Currie, G. B. H.	Heald, Rt. Hon Sir Lionel
Beamish, Col Sir Tufton	Dalkeith, Earl of	Hendry, Forbes
Bell, Ronald	Dance, James	Hill, Dr. Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)
Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald	d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry	Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)
Biffen, John	de Ferranti, Basil	Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)
Biggs-Davison, John	Digby, Simon Wingfield	Hirst, Geoffrey
Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel	Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.	Hobson, Sir John
Bishop, F. P.	Doughty, Charles	Hocking, Philip N.
Black Sir Cyril	Drayson, G. B.	Holland, Philip
Bossom, Clive	du Cann, Edward	Hollingworth, John
Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. J.	Duncan, Sir James	Hornby, R. P.
Boyle, Sir Edward	Eden, John	Hughes Hallett, Vive-Admiral John
Brewis, John	Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)	Hughes-Young, Michael
Bromley-Davenport, Lt. -Col Sir Walter	Elliott, R. W.(Nwcstle-upon-Tyne, N.)	Hulbert, Sir Norman
Brooman-White, R.	Emery, Peter	Hurd, Sir Anthony
Brown, Alan (Tottenham)	Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn	Hutchison, Michael Clarke
Browne, Percy (Torrington)	Errington, Sir Eric	Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Buck, Antony	Erroll, Rt. Hon. F. J.	Jackson, John
Bullard, Denys	Farey-Jones, F. W.	James, David
Bullus, Wing Commander Eric	Farr, John	Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)
Burden, F. A.	Finlay, Graeme	Jennings, J. C.
Butler, Rt. Hn. R. A. (Saffron Walden)	Fisher, Nigel	Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)
Campbell, Sir David (Belfast, S.)	Fletcher-Cooke, Charles	Johnson, Eric (Blackley)
Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)	Forrest, George	Johnson Smith, Geoffrey
Carr, Compton (Barons Court)	Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)	Kerans, Cdr. J. S.
Cary, Sir Robert	Freeth, Denzil	Kerby, Capt. Henry
Channon, H. P. G.	Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.	Kershaw, Anthony
Chataway, Christopher	Gammans, Lady	Kimball, Marcus
Chichester-Clark, R.	Gardner, Edward	Kitson, Timothy
Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)	George, J. C. (Pollok)	Langford-Holt, Sir John
Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)	Gilmour, Sir John	Leather, E. H. C.
Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)	Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham)	Leburn, Gilmour
Cleaver, Leonard	Goodhart, Philip	Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Cole, Norman	Goodhew, Victor	Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Collard, Richard	Cough, Frederick	Lilley, F. J. P.
Cooke, Robert	Gower, Raymond	Lindsay, Sir Martin
Cooper, A. E.	Grant-Ferris, Wg. Cdr. R.	Linstead, Sir Hugh
Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.	Gresham Cooke, R.	Litchfield, Capt. John
Cordle, John	Gurden, Harold	Longbottom, Charles

Longden, Gilbert	Pike, Miss Mervyn	Talbot, John E.
Loveys, Walter H.	Pilkington, Sir Richard	Tapsell, Peter
Lucas, Sir Jocelyn	Pitman, Sir James	Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh	Pitt, Miss Edith	Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)
Mac Arthur, Ian	Pott, Percivall	Taylor, Frank (M'ch'st'r, Moss-Side)
McLaren, Martin	Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch	Taylor, W. J. (Bradford, N.)
McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia	Price, David (Eastleigh)	Teeling, Sir William
Maclay, Rt. Hon. John	Prior, J. M. L.	Temple, John M.
Maclean, Sir Fitzroy (Bute & N. Ayrs.)	Prior-Palmer, Brig Sir Otho	Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)
Macleod, Rt. Hn. lain (Enfield, W.)	Profumo, Rt. Hon. John	Thomas, Peter (Conway)
MacLeod, John (Ross & Cromarty)	Proudfoot, Wilfred	Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)
McMaster, Stanley R.	Quennell, Miss J. M.	Thompson, Richard (Croydon, s.)
Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)	Ramsden, James	Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. Peter
Maddan, Martin	Rawlinson, Peter	Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin
Maltland, Sir John	Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin	Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)
Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn Sir R.	Rees, Hugh	Tilney, John (Wavertree)
Markham, Major Sir Frank	Renton, David	Touche, Rt. Hon Sir Gordon
Marlowe, Anthony	Ridley, Hon. Nicholas	Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.
Marples, Rt. Hon. Ernest	Ridsdale, Julian	Tweedsmuir, Lady
Marshall, Douglas	Robinson, Rt Hn Sir R. (B'pool, S.)	van Straubenzee, W. R.
Marten, Neil	Roots, William	Vane, W. M. F.
Mathew, Robert (Honiton)	Ropner, Col Sir Leonard	Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon Sir John
Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)	Royle, Anthony (Richmond, Surrey)	Vickers, Miss Joan
Mawby, Ray	Russell, Ronald	Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.	Sandys, Rt. Hon. Duncan	Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)
Mills, Stratton	Scott-Hopkins, James	Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St. M'lebone)
Montgomery, Fergus	Seymour, Leslie	Walker, Peter
More, Jasper (Ludlow)	Sharples, Richard	Wall, Patrick
Morgan, William	Shaw, M.	Ward, Dame Irene
Morrison, John	Skeet, T. H. H.	Webster, David
Nabarro, Gerald	Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'd & Chiswick)	Wells, John (Maidstone)
Nicholls, Sir Harmar	Smithers, Peter	Whitelaw, William
Nicholson, Sir Godfrey	Smyth, Brig, Sir John (Norwood)	Williams, Dudley (Exeter)
Nugent, Rt. Hon Sir Richard	Spearman, Sir Alexander	Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)
Oakshott, Sir Hendrie	Speir, Rupert	Wise, A. R.
Osborn, John (Hallam)	Stanley, Hon. Richard	Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick
Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)	Stevens, Geoffrey	Woodhouse, C. M.
Page, Graham (Crosby)	Steward, Harold (Stockport S.)	Woodnutt, Mark
Page, John (Harrow, West)	Stodart, J. A.	Woollam, John
Panned, Norman (Kirkdale)	Stoddart-Scott, Col Sir Malcolm	Worsley, Marcus
Peel, John	Storey Sir Samuel
Peyton, John	Studholme, Sir Henry	TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth	Summers, Sir Spencer (Aylesbury)	Mr. Frank Pearson and
		Mr. Michael Hamilton