HC Deb 07 April 1967 vol 744 cc639-50

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Ioan L. Evans.]

4.04 p.m.

Mr. Gerry Fowler (The Wrekin)

I am grateful for this opportunity to raise the case of my constituent, Mr. Ronald Ford, and his treatment by the British Consul at Tangier during September and October 1966.

Perhaps I might give a brief resumé of the case. My constituent, with some friends, was on holiday in Morocco in September. He was involved in an accident, and he was detained there pending the outcome of the prosecution for a driving offence. He was there for 13 weeks in all. He sought help from the British Consulate-General at Tangier. A Moroccan lawyer was provided, and helpful advice was given. Mr. Ford pays tribute to the Secretary General of the British Consulate at Tangier, and what is in dispute in this debate is certainly not the help which Mr. Ford received in general from the Consulate-General. What is in dispute will become apparent.

The case came up for hearing on 27th September. Neither Mr. Ford nor his lawyer was present. The same thing happened on 11th October. The case was settled on 8th November and 15th November, the verdict being given on the latter date. By then Mr. Ford was in hospital in Tangier. He returned to England on 26th November. I telephoned the Foreign Office asking for information on 14th October and received a reply from the then Minister of State, the hon. Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White), on 19th October in which she said: Our consul in Tangier has told us … that … (Mr. Ford) should have appeared in court on 11th October but failed to do so although his lawyer was present and he himself was aware that his presence was necessary. On 29th November, the following month, I received and forwarded to the Foreign Office a letter from Mr. A. E. Ford, the father of Mr. Ronald Ford, telling me that his son was now home, but that his mother and sister were ill in consequence of worry, and other things, and that they were receiving medical treatment. (The British Consul's) report to me by telephone was to the effect that it was my son's own fault that he was still in Morocco, because he should have been in court but was missing, although his lawyer was present; also that he was quite well sunbathing on the beach. Those are the words of Mr. A. E. Ford, and they accord directly with what was said in the letter written to me in the previous month by the Minister of State.

After writing to the son he was informed by his son that: Neither my son nor his lawyer was present in court because they had not been informed that a court sitting was to take place. He went on to say that his son then confronted the Consul, having been informed by his father of the story that they had given him, and at the second interview the Consul-General agreed to send an apology to his father for the misinformation given.

All this took place during the month of November. On the same day as I received the letter from Mr. A. E. Ford—29th November—I also received a letter from the Minister of State telling me that the hearing took place on 8th November, and that judgment was given on 15th November—that is to say, fourteen days before the letter to me was dispatched—this in a situation where the parents were extremely anxious. On 6th December I received a further letter from the Minister of State replying to Mr. A. E. Ford's criticisms, and in the course of this letter she apologised—I am glad to acknowledge this—for the delay in sending her previous letter, which, I gather, had been ready on 17th November, a few days after the verdict was given, but was not dispatched until 29th November, the Minister of State then being in Kuwait.

In the course of her letter of 6th December, my hon. Friend referred to The first two hearings of 27th September and 11th October which Ronald Ford did not attend because he was given inadequate notice. Without explicitly saying so my hon. Friend was endorsing the account given by Mr. A. E. Ford of his son's absence from the court, namely, inadequate notice of the court hearings. This should have been on the basis of a report from the Consul-General, confirming Mr. A. E. Ford's statement that his son Ronald had extracted a withdrawal from the Consul-General of the Consul-General's earlier statement that Ronald's lawyer was present in court and Ronald should have been.

After all this, on 6th January of this year I received a letter from my right hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (Mr. George Thomson)—then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster—in which he says: Mr. Ford alleges that the Consul-General gave him a false report that his son was on the beach when he should have appeared in court for the hearing of the case against him. The Consul-General has sent us a copy of a minute, dated 11th October, which records that on that day Reuters' correspondent, Mr. Robert Eliot, told our Consul-General that after the postponement of the hearing on 27th September, at which he was present, he went from the court to the beach at Rio Martil. There he found Ronald Ford who professed his ignorance of the court hearing that day. Mr. Eliot then told him that the case had been postponed until 4 p.m. on 11th October. Mr. Ford may possibly not have been told of the hearing on 27th September, although his lawyer, an interpreter and the victim of the accident appeared, but it seems clear that he was informed by Mr. Eliot of the hearing on 11th October, and no reason has been mentioned for his absence on that day. Ronald Ford is said to have "professed his ignorance" of the hearing on 27th September although he "may not have been told" of that hearing. There is an unmistakable sneer there. As for 11th October, I am told that no reason had been mentioned for his absence then.

But, as the Minister said in her letter of 6th December, she already accepted—this was a month before—that Ronald was given "inadequate notice" of both hearings. Second, she did not contradict his affirmation that his lawyer was not present in court. My right hon. Friend contradicts that assertion. Ronald asserts that the Consul knew this quite well by the time he left Morocco in November.

Thus, inescapably, we are left with a series of alternative explanations. One is that my right hon. Friend was not telling the whole truth when he suggested that the letter of 6th January was based on fresh comments by the Consulate-General on the letter of 29th November written by Mr. A. E. Ford. I cannot accept this.

Alternatively, the Consul-General having discovered the truth and having admitted it both to Ford and the Foreign Office during November, retracted this admission when under pressure from the Foreign Office in December and January. I find this also hard to accept, but there is a third explanation—that there was such slap-happy incompetence in either the Foreign Office or the Consulate-General that the records of the November investigation were mislaid by December or January.

I have great respect for the intelligence of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, but I do not see how he can find a fourth explanation of this extraordinary discrepancy—the retraction of earlier admissions in the letter from my right hon. Friend of 6th January. The Consul-General's minute dated 11th October and information received from the Reuter correspondent in Tangier on that day about the hearing on 27th September, recorded a fortnight after that happened.

That is to say, the evidence is dubious. It depends ultimately—this received, in its final form, the sanction of the Foreign Office—on the memory of a reporter extending over a fortnight. Second, why did the Consultate-General make no check on the court proceedings of 27th September before 11th October? This seems extraordinarily lax when the interests of a British subject were at stake.

I refer now to my right hon. Friend's reference to the beach at Rio Martil. The implication is the same as Mr. Ford's father claims was made by the Consul-General in telephone calls—that Ronald was lounging on the beach. But the beach is also the site of the municipal camping ground. My right hon. Friend may have been ignorant of this, but was the Consul-General? The evidence on which my right hon. Friend's assertions, damaging to Ronald Ford's character, were made was that of a newspaper reporter.

Not many of us in the House would wish to pass adverse comments on the reliability of the gentlemen of the Press, but when we rely for a statement which is meant to allay the anxiety of the parents of a lad of 20 or 21 upon the memory of a newspaper reporter—no doubt a brilliant man—who was not especially interested in this affair, over a fortnight, we are doing something which is very rash.

My right hon. Friend at my suggestion instructed the Consul-General: …to confirm with Mr. Ford's lawyer and the court officials the exact circumstances of the hearing of 11th October. But Ronald Ford had arranged for his lawyer to confirm his story with the Consul-General in November; it was now January and this had been done, as the letter from the hon. Member for Flint, East on 6th December clearly shows.

My right hon. Friend defended the use of a reporter by an overworked consulate, but went on to say, despite all the evidence which had by now emerged: I think that his evidence can be taken seriously. Eventually, by 13th February, my right hon. Friend wrote to me again, saying: I have now heard"— this did not surprise me— … that Mr. Ford was correct in saying that his lawyer was not present in court on 11th October and Mr. Eliot's"— the reporter's— statement was wrong. The lawyer said, according to my right hon. Friend, that the court had forgotten to send him notice of the hearing. Apparently that is not an excessively un- common occurrence in those parts. Mr. Eliot had confused the lawyer with another who previously acted for Mr. Ford. This, according to my right hon. Friend, was an understandable error. He added: Nevertheless we owe Mr. Ford an apology for this misunderstanding and I offer this to him unreservedly. That was somewhat graceless granted the extreme anxiety caused by these utterly erroneous reports to Mr. Ford's father, mother and sister. It was only a partial apology, because many points, not least the implication that Mr. Ford was lounging on the beach, were not dealt with by it. Even then, the letter did not make it clear that the original approach in clearing up the facts of the case came in November and not in January. It came from his lawyer, Maitre Cherif, who telephoned the Consul-General on Mr. Ford's insistence.

Neither Mr. Ford nor his lawyer were present on 27th September or 11th Octobe, because neither was informed by the court that the hearing was to take place. The fault lay entirely with the Moroccan court, not with the lawyer nor with Mr. Ford. The lawyer was not even in Tetuan when the court hearing took place on 27th September. He was on holiday.

Secondly, after the visit from Mr. Eliot, the Reuter correspondent, Mr. Ford saw his lawyer who told him to disregard Mr. Eliot's information that the hearing would be resumed on 11th October until this was officially confirmed by the court. But it never sent official confirmation, so once more neither Mr. Ford nor his lawyer was present in court.

Again, no blame attaches to my constituent despite the implications of the earlier correspondence on this matter from the Foreign Office, relying on reports from the Consul-General. The facts were made known to the Consul-General by Mr. Ford and his lawyer during October and November after Mr. Ford had received anxious and reproachful letters from his father in England. They were reproachful, of course, because Mr. Ford senior thought that his son was simply idling and refusing to appear in court.

The Consul-General then promised an official apology to Mr. Ford senior. That apology has never been dispatched. On 27th February, I asked in this House for a further investigation into this whole muddled affair—muddled because every letter from the Foreign Office tells a different story. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State replied, "No, Sir."

Here we are dealing with human emotions. Mr. Ford's mother and sister were ill with the anxiety caused by the conflicting reports, and on 4th January Mr. Ford senior told me: I in turn felt ashamed and angry that we his parents had been treated in this manner. He was referring to the manner of behaviour of his son on the basis of these erroneous reports suggesting that his son had deliberately absented himself from court and had been lounging on the beach. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State, in his letter of 26th January, blamed Mr. Ford for not keeping his father informed of his predicament. But he did. Worse worry was caused by the fallacious reports emanating from the Consul-General and the Foreign Office.

I ask for a complete retraction of all statements which could be construed to be detrimental to the character of Mr. Ford and for the dispatch of a letter to his father apologising for those statements and for the anxiety caused. I sympathise with my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State on his late involvement in this tortuous case. I sympathise with the House for having to listen to such a complicated resumé of the facts. I hope that my hon. Friend will now give his attention to ensuring redress for the wrong done to Mr. Ford and his family.

4.20 p.m.

The Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. William Rodgers)

It is typical of the proper and commendable concern for the interests of his constituents that my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Fowler) has chosen to raise this question today. If, at times, I felt that he did not wholly fairly represent the course of events as I see it, there is great advantage in his having taken this opportunity to clear up any misunderstandings and to put the position on record.

I say at the outset that if any good will come from a letter being sent to Ronald Ford's father very much in the terms of the apology already given by my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, I would be more than happy to send one. Certainly, we would like to allay any anxieties that still exist. I say firmly that none of the proceedings at any time ought to represent a stain on the character of Ronald Ford. I hope that my hon. Friend will be reassured that, as a result of his having raised this matter today, these two points will have been settled.

I do not think that there is any dispute about the facts. Mr. Ronald Ford was involved in an accident at Tetuan, Morocco, on 19th August. The story began in August and not, as my hon. Friend implied, in September. His car was in collision with a motor cyclist, who was injured. Mr. Ford's green insurance card was not valid for Morocco and this was clearly indicated on it. This should be mentioned, because, although the course of events was an unhappy one, it was certainly complicated by the fact that Mr. Ford went to Morocco inadequately prepared for his visit. In the event, he did not leave Morocco until 24th November, and, meanwhile, unhappily, he contracted jaundice, which added to the troubles in which he found himself.

As my hon. Friend pointed out, during the course of this period our Consul-General in Morocco received incorrect information on one occasion about Mr. Ford and his apparent attitude to the court proceedings, and this information was passed on to Mr. Ford's family. In his letter of 13th February of this year to my hon. Friend my right hon. Friend the Minister of State said that an error had been made. I repeat this because it was rather lost in my hon. Friend's explanation. My right hon. Friend said: We owe Mr. Ford an apology for this misunderstanding and I offer this to him unreservedly". My hon. Friend was, perhaps, rather unfair to my right hon. Friend in saying that my right hon. Friend was making a graceless apology. All those who know my right hon. Friend would agree that this is the sort of attitude which he never adopts.

On reflection, I believe that my hon. Friend will feel that he did an injustice in suggesting that this apology was given with anything other than a real desire to put the record straight. I do not regard it as a partial apology, but a full one for what had gone wrong. I hope that my hon. Friend, in the light of what I have said, and am about to say, will accept this apology in the spirit in which it was very honestly given.

Having said that, it seems that our Consulate did all that it could to help Mr. Ford during his unfortunate enforced stay in Morocco, and deserves full credit for this. Our Consul-General in Tangier did not know of the accident until told by the Moroccan police on 22nd August, three days after it had occurred. The following day, a member of the Consulate staff saw Mr. Ford and gave him advice about acquiring legal representation, and obtained his release from custody. Mr. Ford accepted the advice that was given to him and thanked his visitor for the help that had been given.

I do not think that there is any need for me to go in detail through the course of the subsequent events. In the first place, there was a problem concerning the court hearing, which eventually took place on 15th November, when Mr. Ford was fined £9, and in the second place there was a problem concerning financial guarantees in view of the fact that Mr. Ford was not properly insured.

It was not possible for the Consulate-General itself to give such guarantees so it was necessary for inquiries to be made of Mr. Ford's insurance company. Here again, the Consulate-General gave every help it could to Mr. Ford and, certainly, he made no complaint about the assistance he received.

There is the further question, which is an important one and has been touched on by my hon. Friend, of communications with Mr. Ford's family. When he was first seen by a representative of the Consulate-General he was told that as he was over 21 the Consulate would not inform his parents of his circumstances, but would leave this to him. This seems to have been reasonable advice and it appears that Mr. Ford was rather relieved to receive it. It is quite understandable that as a responsible adult who after all had chosen himself to visit Morocco Mr. Ford should feel that he should be left free to decide if, how and when he should get in touch with his family.

On a number of subsequent occasions he was encouraged to get in touch with his parents to put them in the picture and obtain money from them. On 15th September, a message was given to him that his sister wanted news of him, but later, in October, our Consulate remained puzzled by his apparent reluctance to keep fully in touch with his family. I should report this because it is clear from the full records kept at the time—I have looked at them closely in the light of today's debate—rightly or wrongly the staff of the Consulate-General felt that Mr. Ford was a little reluctant to make contact with his family although this was the obvious course to help him in his predicament and to relieve his anxieties.

Mr. Ford, was free at all times after his release from custody on 23rd August to write to them. We did all we could for the family. Mr. Ford's sister telephoned the Consulate on 15th September and was told the position. Four days later the Foreign Office, in London, sent a telegram to Tangier on behalf of the family and the Consul replied and he also sent a telegram to Mr. Ford's sister. On 12th October, a Foreign Office telegram was sent again to Morocco to obtain information for Mr. Ford's family.

When Mr. Ford's sister telephoned the Consulate-General on 7th November an account was given about his health and of the case. This record speaks for itself. Looking back and reflecting very carefully on all that my hon. Friend said this afternoon it seemed that we did at least as much as Mr. Ford himself did to keep his family in touch. I do not want to minimise the matter by putting it this way, but it was unfortunate that on one occasion, for which my right hon. Friend and I have now both apologised, incorrect information was passed on which could understandably have caused distress. My hon. Friend' explanation of how this occurred was broadly an accurate one, but I think that he treated the manner in which the Consulate had behaved as if it were more casual than, in fact, was the case.

Mr. Robert Eliot was not just a newspaper reporter, but he was a representative of a leading news agency and a local resident of good standing. It is the practice, and may be particularly necessary in a country like Morocco, when trying to help British citizens in the country, to depend on the help of British residents. I do not think it was unreasonable for the Consul-General, as he was trying to find a solution to a difficult problem and was unaware of the facts which have since come to light, to believe that the information passed to him entirely in good faith—as I think my hon. Friend will now agree—to believe that it was accurate and, therefore, information which he could reasonably pass on ultimately to the parents of Ronald Ford.

It has been suggested that misunderstandings of this kind could be avoided had a member of the Consulate-General staff been present at the hearings. Unfortunately, our consuls-general do not have sufficient staff to enable one of them to do this. Mr. Ford was represented by a lawyer and the charge was not very serious in that no death or serious injury was involved. Apart from the Consul-General himself, the consular staff in Tangier consists of only a Vice-Consul and a Pro-Consul. The consular district of Tangier includes more than 1,000 resident British subjects, a figure which is considerably increased during the holiday season by the presence of tourists and other transient visitors, and the work of the Consulate includes commercial information and shipping matters.

Perhaps I can add one personal note. It is only during the last three months, since I have been in the Foreign Office, that I have become fully aware of the nature and extent of the work which our Consuls do. Apart from business travellers, nearly 6 million British tourists go abroad every year and only a small minority find themselves in trouble of any kind. I fully appreciate the worry and tension which people may feel if as a result, for example, of a car breakdown, or luggage being lost, or money being stolen, they find themselves stranded and uncertain about the course which events will take. It is the proper duty of our consuls to give all the help they can in these circumstances.

I should like to pay my personal tribute to the way in which they give detailed and speedy attention to matters of a quite minor kind and the manner in which they accept responsibility, even when it may be occasionally argued that the person with whom they are dealing is responsible at least in part for the trouble in which he finds himself. However, at the end of the day our consuls have to reserve their time and energy primarily for dealing with those whose trouble is grievous—the bereaved and those involved in serious accidents, or in gaol for long periods. This is always a matter of priorities.

I can assure my hon. Friend that I have studied the papers relating to Mr. Ford with the very greatest care and that the whole sequence of events has now been gone into meticulously in detail both in Morocco and London. One error was made, for which we have apologised, and for that reason I do not feel that any useful purpose could be served by a further inquiry. I hope that my hon. Friend will now accept the assurances which I gave at the beginning of my remarks in the light of what I have said since.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-seven minutes to Five o'clock.