HC Deb 14 June 1966 vol 729 cc1382-90

10.2 p.m.

The Minister of Overseas Development (Mr. Anthony Greenwood)

I hope that it will be for the convenience of the House if all the three Amendments which I have to move are taken together, since two are purely drafting Amendments consequential on the main one. I therefore beg to move the three Amendments on the Notice Paper—

Mr. Speaker

Order. The right hon. Gentleman may move only the first one, but we will discuss the other two with it, if no one has any objection.

Mr. Greenwood

I am obliged, Mr. Speaker. I beg to move, in page 2, line 14, at the end to insert: subject to the provisions of the next following subsection". With this, as you have said Mr. Speaker, we may take the two following Amendments, in page 2, line 18, to leave out "the said subsection" and to insert "subsection (1) above" and in page 2, line 20, at the end to insert: (4) The last foregoing subsection shall not prevent the Minister from making from time to time grants under subsection (1) above to any of the following governments, that is to say, the government of Aden and any government established for any part or parts of the Protectorate of South Arabia. for the purpose of enabling the government to defray any amount by which it appears to him that their resources are or will be insufficient to enable them to defray their administrative expenses; and the power to make such grants shall be in addition to the power to make grants under a scheme under the said Act of 1959. The need for these Amendments, for which I apologise to the House, has arisen because of an administrative change decided on and brought into effect since the Bill was published. Until recently, the responsibility for our political and economic relations with Aden and South Arabia lay with the Colonial Office. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister informed the House, in a Written Answer on 29th April, of the Government's decision that these responsibilities should be transferred to the Foreign Office.

Clause 1(1) would provide me with power to give assistance, whether financial, technical or of any other kind, to promote the development or maintain the economy of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom or the welfare of the people of such a country or territory. This, however, is subject to the reservations in other subsections of the Clause. Among these, the effect of subsection 3 is to provide that dependent territories which are eligible to receive assistance under the Colonial Development and Welfare Acts will not receive financial aid, although they may receive technical assistance under the powers given in subsection (1).

The purpose of the Amendment is simply the avoidance of duplication of powers. Financial aid to the Colonies is, broadly speaking, of two kinds—budgetary assistance to those Colonies lacking resources to discharge entirely from their own resources their own normal administrative expenses, and development and welfare aid which is provided under the authority of the Colonial Development and Welfare Acts. The Colonial Secretary provides budgetary assistance where that is necessary though its cost is counted as part of the total aid programme and he consults me on such assistance to individual territories.

Development aid to the Colonies is provided on Ministry of Overseas Development Votes under the appropriate powers in the Colonial Development and Welfare Acts, which were transferred to me from the Colonial Secretary by the Minister of Overseas Development (No. 2) Order, 1964. It was, therefore, considered unnecessary for me to seek general powers to give budgetary aid to Colonies, and it would not be proper for me to seek to duplicate the powers of the Colonial Secretary in this matter.

The change in departmental responsibilities means that this state of affairs no longer applies in the circumstances of Aden and South Arabia. It would not be appropriate for the Colonial Secretary to continue to provide budgetary aid to territories in regard to which he no longer exercises any departmental responsibility. It is desirable that responsibility for the administration of this kind of assistance, like that of development aid to Aden and the Protectorate, should be discharged by me and that the funds in question should be borne on the Votes of my Department.

I considered carefully whether the situation I have described could not have been dealt with in some way which would have avoided troubling the House with Amendments to the Bill. I concluded, however, that any alternative course, although technically possible, would be undesirable in principle and contrary to the principle of the Bill.

For my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary to provide aid on his Department's Votes, and for my Department, as the one responsible in general for overseas development, to administer it, would breach the principle of unity of responsibility for administration and finance; and even were it legally possible for budgetary assistance to be provided by me under the authority of the Colonial Development and Welfare Acts this kind of assistance was not one of the purposes for which that legislation was intended. Nor has it ever been used for that purpose.

The main general purpose of the Bill is to formulate and establish the powers which I exercise; and budgetary assistance to a territory which is not one of the responsibilities of the Colonial Office is clearly my Department's concern. In my view, the right course is to amend Clause 1.

The first and third Amendments therefore provide that the making of grants to Aden and South Arabia for budgetary assistance shall be within my powers, in spite of the provision of subsection (3) that such assistance to dependent territories generally will be outside them. The second Amendment is purely drafting.

Mr. Richard Wood (Bridlington)

I understand the right hon. Gentleman's explanation of the purpose of the Amendments. He was kind enough to write to me before the debate and to explain why he had tabled them. It seems logical that if the Ministry of Overseas Development is to be responsible for the administration of development aid to Aden and the Protectorate, the budgetary aid in mind should be borne on the Votes of the right hon. Gentleman's Department. Therefore, by tabling these Amendments I believe that the right hon. Gentleman has taken the right course, although I am disquieted by the wording of the third Amendment, particularly the phrase which states: …the government of Aden and any government established for any part or parts of the Protectorate of South Arabia… In the last Parliament the right hon. Gentleman must have acquired a considerable knowledge of the affairs of South Arabia. Indeed, as a former Secretary of State for the Colonies he shares the responsibility for the progressive decline of confidence, order and good government in that part of the world.

The Amendment from which I have quoted contains no reference whatever to the Federal Government of South Arabia and one would think that the present British Government would lean over backwards to avoid this further contempt of a Government which they have already treated with the utmost scorn and lack of consideration, ratting on a commitment, to use the words of the Secretary of State for Defence, which had been entered into by my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys), and not even taking the trouble to inform themselves with which Government that agreement had been made.

The right hon. Gentleman may argue that the words at the end of the sentence which I have quoted, any government established for any part or parts of the Protectorate of South Arabia include the Federal Government. So they may. But the fact remains that the Government of Aden, which is referred to first in the Amendment, while keeping its own budget, is, as the right hon. Gentleman well knows, subordinate to the Federal Government. My question to the right hon. Gentleman is this: Why i3 the subordinate Government specifically referred to while the superior Government remains unspecified?

It may well be that a new and larger Federal Government will one day come into being to hold sway over Aden, the States of the present Federation and the States which at present lie outside it. But what we are dealing with here are the realities of the present, and the realities of the present are, first, the Federal Government, second, the Aden Government, and third the States of the Eastern Protectorate. I find it impossible to understand why the right hon. Gentleman's draftsmen have omitted any reference whatever to the present superior Government in that part of the world.

The Government and their supporters have in recent months barely hidden their dislike of this Government which they have now omitted to name. I have already mentioned the dishonourable repudiation of the 1964 agreement, which, in the opinion of many of us has been aggravated by the devious smokescreen of double-talk behind which the Government now seem to be scuttling. But the right hon. Gentleman will agree that, after all we have seen and gone through, it is hardly surprising that we hold dark suspicions about this omission. At best it seems to us a discourtesy to a Government which has already been deeply wronged. At worst, it argues an intent to undermine the Federal Government still further. We on this side have no wish whatever to deny to the Federal Government and to Aden the budgetary aid which the right hon. Gentleman now asks power to give. but we are seriously disquieted by the drafting of the Amendment. If the Minister wants seriously to prove to us that out fears are without foundation, I ask him most sincerely to ensure that this Amendment is itself suitably amended as soon as possible in another place.

10.15 p.m.

Mr. Ronald Bell (Buckinghamshire, South)

It is most unsatisfactory that an Amendment of this kind should come forward virtually as a new Clause, for that is what it is, in effect, during consideration of the Bill on Report. It should either have been in the Bill when first introduced or it should have come in as an Amendment in Committee. Now, as the House of Commons, we are in a difficult position to deal with it. I am puzzled by the stage of the Bill at which the Amendment appears. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Bridlington (Mr. Wood) said, considerable suspicions are bound to be aroused on this side by the form in which the Amendment comes forward.

Has the production of the Amendment at this stage anything to do with the negotiations which have recently been taking place with the Government of the Federation arising out of the disgraceful repudiation by Her Majesty's Government of their clear commitment to continue to provide defence for an independent Southern Arabia? Is its appearance on the Notice Paper connected with the discussions which we believe have been going on?

The right hon. Gentleman will realise that what he is asking us to undertake by the Amendment is to cover out of the public funds of the United Kingdom any shortfall in the administrative expenses of the Government of Aden or the Federation. I imagine that he will confirm that the amount by which their resources may be insufficient to enable them to defray their administrative expenses would include the expense of defending themselves. Is that right? Is that covered by the wording of the Amendment? If it is—I do not complain of any recompense which we make to these people for the way in which we have been let down—it begins to look as though, as so often, the British taxpayer will get the wrong end of the stick. We shall not defend them as we promised to do. Because of what the Government did in repudiating their obligation, President Nasser and Egypt have been greatly encouraged, and we all know that the prospect of disorder in Southern Arabia is, unfortunately, greatly enhanced by what the Government have done. This, of course, will put an enormous burden on the finances of an independent Southern Arabia.

My question is simply this. Are we by this Amendment underwriting that additional liability which they are likely to incur? If so, I can only say to the right hon. Gentleman that, while I do not quarrel with it if we have obligations to them, it seems that the simplest way of ensuring the viability and continuance of the South Arabian Federation would have been for us to keep our pledged word and do as we said we would do. We might then not have had this Amendment brought forward now.

10.15 p.m.

Mr. John Biffen (Oswestry)

I tried to follow the right hon. Gentleman's explanation and although I am certain that it was a very lucid explanation and that it was deficiencies on my part which did not enable me to grasp the full significance of these Amendments, I would like to ask him whether I was right to believe that as a result of these Amendments certain responsibilities which hitherto have been discharged by the Colonial Office will in future be discharged by his Ministry. If that is so, will not this have some effect on the figure of £137 million mentioned in paragraph 9 on page iii of the Bill under the rubric "Financial effects of the Bill"?

Mr. Greenwood

The hon. and learned Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell) reproached me for having brought forward the Amendment at this stage. In my speech I twice apologised to the House for the fact that we had brought it forward now and I offered what I hoped was a satisfactory explanation of why this had been necessary. Nobody regretted the need for having an Amendment tonight more than myself. There is certainly nothing sinister in the fact that it has been brought forward now. The reasons are the reasons which I gave and the failure to appreciate at an earlier stage that the only way in which we could properly deal with this situation was by making an Amendment to the Bill.

Certainly, its timing has nothing to do with the negotiations with the Federal Supreme Council which have recently been taking place. I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Bridlington (Mr. Wood) has suggested that there is dislike of the Federal Government on the part of Her Majesty's Government. Nothing could be further from the truth. My own relations with the Federal Rulers have always been friendly and cordial and I certainly do not remember having had any charges of breach of faith made against me during the time when I was negotiating with them. I think that it would tend to get us off the main point of the discussion if we argued once again matters about our relations with the Federation of South Arabia which have been amply clear in the statement by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in the House and also by Answers to Questions by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary.

The right hon. Gentleman said that he wanted phraseology used in the Amendment which would cover the realities of the present and also likely future developments. Of course, that is something with which all of us would agree. When the right hon. Gentleman was courteous enough to tell me that he had this misgiving about the wording of the Amendment, I took advice upon it and I understand that the phrase the government of Aden and any government established for any part or parts of the Protectorate of South Arabia is an appropriate phrase to use in the circumstances.

It is designed to cover all the constituent parts of the territory generally known as South Arabia, that is to say, the Federation of South Arabia which includes the Colony of Aden, the unfederated States of Upper Yafa, Qaiti, Kathiri and Mahra and the outlying islands of Kamaran, Perim and Kuria Muria. If we were to mention one part of the area it would be difficult not to include all of them and I think that it is the general wish of both parties that ultimately there should be a united country moving into independence in unity and peace.

Mr. Ronald Bell

Would it not be much happier to use the phrase for the whole area, "any part of"? Is not the whole perhaps excluded by the form of words used?

Mr. Greenwood

I am advised not. I will certainly consider whether there is anything in what the hon. and learned Gentleman has said and, if necessary, I will see that an Amendment is introduced in another place, but as at present advised I do not think that the hon. and learned Gentleman is right.

I was also asked how this money was to be used. Part of it, of course, is going on budgetary aid to South Arabia at the present time. Altogether, the total this year is about £10½ million. Hon. Members will have noticed in the last day or two a statement by my hon. Friend the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs in which he has announced that Her Majesty's Government have offered to contribute up to £5,500,000 towards the capital cost of putting into effect the South Arabian proposals for expanding and re-equipping its forces and for increasing the present contribution to the recurrent cost of the Federal forces by up to £2,500,000 annually.

It is right that I should tell the House that in so far as additional financial aid is for the expansion of the armed forces in the Federal Regular Army and the intended air and naval forces it will be a charge on Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence Votes and in so far as it is applied to the Federal Guard, which, in effect, is a police force, it will be a charge on the Ministry of Overseas Development Vote.

Mr. Wood rose——

Mr. Speaker

The right hon. Gentleman has exhausted his right to speak and can do so now only by leave of the House.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: In page 2, line 18, leave out "the said subsection" and insert "subsection (1) above".

In line 20, at end insert: (4) The last foregoing subsection shall not prevent the Minister from making from time to time grants under subsection (1) above to any of the following governments, that is to say, the government of Aden and any government established for any part or parts of the Protectorate of South Arabia, for the purpose of enabling the government to defray any amount by which it appears to him that their resources are or will be insufficient to enable them to defray their administrative expenses; and the power to make such grants shall be in addition to the power to make grants under a scheme under the said Act of 1959.—[Mr Greenwood.]