EXPIRING LAWS CONTINUANCE [MONEY] (Hansard, 10 November 1964)

§ Mr. B. T. Parkin (Paddington, North)
It occurs frequently that when a Money Resolution is put to the House a back bencher will rise and ask a few questions about it usually directed to finding whether it is sufficiently widely drawn to enable Amendments to be introduced in Committee. Of course that procedure is not possible on this Bill because there is not a Committee stage which permits of Amendments to the Acts it covers.
At the same time I should like some reassurances from the Financial Secretary to the Treasury on one or two points which arise from the Financial Memorandum and the Money Resolution. We are told in the Memorandum, a little casually, that The continuance of section 1 of the Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act 1919 and of … 976 the Commonwealth Immigrants Act will involve the estimated expenditure of £2.5 million in 1965, consisting mainly of staff costs in the Home Office, Ministry of Labour and Commonwealth Relations Office. It is estimated that approximately one-fifth of the total cost is attributable to the control of Commonwealth immigrants. This in itself is an unfortunate confession that we spend four times as much on controlling aliens as we do on helping our own people, and there are questions which I should like to direct to the Financial Secretary.
Surely as policy develops administratively towards the control of immigrants and their activities here, particularly in the fields of education and employment, there must be a progressive expansion of the demands on the resources not only of these two Ministries but of others as well. It is not for me to debate now how that expansion will take place, but it is fair to submit that the expansion of that kind of assistance will take place with or without any major pronouncements of Government policy, because there are throughout the country a great number of people who are producing ideas in connection with this subject which have nothing to do with name-calling at General Elections and the broad sort of controversies which we have seen take place.
These are practical people in the localities concerned who are chockful of ideas which they now will hope to see implemented. Many of them will come to be implemented and I ask whether the Money Resolution will allow the expansion of the work of the Ministries concerned, plus some others, without having to wait for a Government statement and Supplementary Estimates later in the year.
I should like to think that if the Ministry of Labour has to do more than issue permits and looks after jobs, and if it is called upon to fulfil not special functions but some of the functions which it already exercises for the citizens of this country and which it has to exercise to a certain degree in certain neighbourhoods because of the demands and special needs of Commonwealth immigrants, it will be possible for the Ministry to do that without question. If, for example, the Ministry of Labour is to give grants to a local authority for workshops for the blind—

§ The Chairman
The hon. Member is an old Parliamentarian and he will know that this debate is very strictly confined to the money which we are voting for the purposes of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act. The hon. Member is going a little wide now. He began in order but he has moved a little out of order.

§ Mr. Parkin
I hope only a little way out of order.
I am saying that there are various devices now in existence which can be used for the purposes which seem to me to be covered by this Bill and by the Commonwealth Immigrants Act and by the duties of the immigration officers.

§ The Chairman
I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman again, but he will, I believe, have an opportunity during the Committee stage of the Bill to raise the issues which are very close to his heart.

§ Mr. Parkin
Yes, Dr. King, and that is why I am taking this early opportunity to try to ensure that any orations which I or anyone else might make in Committee will not be frustrated because no provision has been made to supply the necessary money to carry out one's proposals.
Perhaps I might be allowed to press the point regarding the immigration officer's duty covered by the Money Resolution. If, as a result of the development of policy, it were considered desirable to allow a permit to certain immigrants and to offer them the help of some kind of training course parallel in length and type of instruction with those already in existence, I should like to think that it would not be necessary to introduce a Supplementary Estimate to cover the cost either of the type of training which is available through grants from the Ministry of Labour under Vote VI, Subhead P, workshops for the blind, which is one parallel, or under Subhead N, rehabilitation for the disabled. Both of those devices could easily and smoothly be used in whatever area seemed appropriate, provided that there was no financial hold-up and no suggestion that we had run out of money for this year and it was necessary to ask for a Supplementary Estimate.

§ The Chairman
Order. I have been very generous to the hon. Gentleman. 978 [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I do not need the approval of the Committee. I advise the hon. Gentleman to keep to the terms of the money which is to be provided for the purposes of the Acts the renewal of which we are discussing. This is no comment on the merit or demerit of what he is attempting to argue. My duty to the Committee is to confine him to the terms of the Money Resolution before us, which is closely confined to the Measures mentioned on the Order Paper.

§ Mr. Parkin
I am very grateful, Dr. King, and if I have attempted to argue, then I have erred. What I was trying to do was to ask whether we might have from the Financial Secretary tonight an undertaking that this Money Resolution will cover any developments of policy, any enrichment of the services at present offered under the provisions of the existing Act, starting with the duties of the immigration officer who has to decide whether or not to admit an immigrant, whether he will come in for a job which he has found or is about to find, whether it is his intention to attend a course of training at a university or technical college, whether he has found such a place or not—

§ The Chairman
Order. The hon. Gentleman is now trying to discuss the details of the Act itself. All that the Committee is considering at present is the supply of money under the terms of this Money Resolution for the purposes of the Measures mentioned in the Motion before the Committee. The hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity at the Committee stage, if an appropriate Amendment is then before the Committee, of discussing any of the various Acts which it is proposed to renew. For the moment, we are merely discussing the provision of money according to the terms of this Resolution. It is not in order to discuss details of any Act.

§ Mr. Parkin
May I conclude, then, by asking the Financial Secretary whether such money will be available under this Resolution? I shall then look forward, as, I am sure, other hon. Members will, with much greater relish to proposing ways in which it could be spent when the Act itself comes up for discussion.

§ The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Niall MacDermot)
All I can say to the Committee, in answer to 979 my hon. Friend the Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin), is that that is precisely what we are asking the Committee to do, to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament for such expenses as may be occasioned by the continuance of the Act in question. Of course, the only moneys with which we are concerned and which we can discuss now are those which would be incurred under the Act, and they would be the moneys necessary to give effect to the provisions of the Act for the control of immigrants.
All the other questions to which my hon. Friend alluded—I appreciate that they are matters of great concern to him—would fall outside the framework of the 980 Act, and I cannot, therefore, deal with them on this Resolution.

§ Mr. Speaker
I should be grateful if the House would forgive me and waive whatever the rules of order are to allow me to put right an error of mine. I denied the Government an opportunity of saying what should be done about the Committee stage of the Bill.
Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Lawson.]