COMMONWEALTH IMMIGRANTS BILL

HC Deb 28 February 1968 vol 759 cc1543-603

Again considered in Committee.

Question again proposed, That the Amendment be made.

Mr. Nott

Having just voted to curtail the business of the House and also my own speech, I must naturally thank the Government and their Whips for allowing me to continue with what I have been waiting to say for over twelve hours.

First of all I am delighted that the Home Secretary, who has had a fair amount of business with important Commonwealth gentlemen throughout the day, is now back in his place. We understand that he has had a number of important talks out of the Committee. I hope he has been having chapatties and other interesting delicacies with the visitors he has had. I want to take up one or two of the points which he made during the answers which he gave about an hour or two ago to some of the points which had been raised earlier.

Some of my hon. Friends have said that they voted for this Bill last night with a heavy heart. I only hope that when the devision on Clause 1 comes along some of them will vote against Clause 1 and go home to bed with rather lighter hearts, because certainly as the debate has proceeded I have felt that the concessions which the Home Secretary has made—

Mr. Hirst

On a point of order. Is it possible to have less noise without the Chamber? I cannot hear the speech.

The Chairman

Order. I am not the only one who is having difficulty in hearing the hon. Member. May I appeal for less noise?

Mr. Nott

I was just saying that I believe most of the concessions and the points which the Home Secretary has made add greater problems and more anomalies than faced us when we voted on the Bill last night.

The reason why I think this has arisen is that he has conceded that a man thrown out of Kenya will of course be received in this country. The Home Secretary has made this concession. He said, "It is not our wish to create Stateless people, and if someone is rejected and thrown out of Kenya by the Kenyan Government, then we are civilised men"—I believe those are the words he used—" and we will accept him into this country". I would like to ask him, if this is the case, what is the object of the 1,500 quota? Surely it makes a complete nonsense of what we were debating on Second Reading yesterday. If the number of Kenyan Asians who are to come into this country is to be based on need, is to be based on applications to the High Commissioner in Nairobi and in other places, and if there is to be a flexible quota, which is not going to have an upper limit or a lower limit or even a mean limit, then what does the quota mean? It becomes a completely meaningless figure. It has thrown up for the first time one of the most ludicrous anomalies of the Bill. Many of us who voted against the Bill last night saw what would develop as we went along.

10.15 p.m.

As the debate has proceeded, we have had a more reasonable view of what was the precise danger from the Kenya Asians. Before Second Reading, we had a campaign whipped up in the Press, which I regarded with some distaste, that there would be millions of people descending on this country unless the Bill went through. Many hon. Members opposite and many of my hon. Friends have dealt with this point. Had this Bill not been contemplated, I believe that no more than 40,000 Kenya Asians would have come here, and over a period of years. They could have been integrated easily into our national life if proper dispersal facilities had been provided for them at the ports.

For the right hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) to talk about Hong Kong and Mauritius is to draw a great red herring over the whole issue. Those of us who oppose the Bill feel no obligation to members of the New Territories who may receive British nationality at some forthcoming Independence. That is something which may happen later on, but we are not concerned about giving them United Kingdom passport rights when their Independence comes along. Neither are we concerned particularly with the Malays, the Fijians and the other million holders of United Kingdom passports, because they already have local citizenship in those countries. Our concern about the Kenya Asians is that an undertaking was given them by the British Government, and everyone agrees that it was an undertaking, except the right hon. Member for Streatham. Those people have United Kingdom citizenship because they believed that the British Government would honour their obligation. The whole question of the million people who hold United Kingdom passports is irrelevant, because we are not particularly concerned with those who have local citizenship. They will not become stateless persons. It is on that point that I and many of my hon. Friends oppose the Bill.

We accept and recognise the social tensions which are set up by unbridled immigration. We are as well aware of that as those hon. Members who support the Bill. I live in Islington, which has some of the worst social tensions in the country. As one hon. Member opposite said yesterday, I can be as pure as the driven snow, because there are no racial problems in my own constituency. That is fair comment. Nevertheless, I can understand the anger of a family whose child is in an immigrant class at school. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Gurden) seemed to think that people who oppose the Bill do not understand the social tensions which arise in a few of our great cities. Certainly we understand them, but that does not alter the fact that we have a solumn obligation to these Kenya Asians, whatever the Home Secretary may say.

There may be 200,000 of them in East Africa. In practice, however, probably there are not more than 100,000 in Kenya, and not more than half of them would want to come to this country had not certain people advanced these arguments in the Press and had this Bill not been presented. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) dragged in the French and Scandinavians in the course of his speech yesterday. He asked what would happen if Frenchmen and Scandinavians descended on the country—

Mr. Hogg

My hon. Friend is quite wrong. I did not ask that question. I said that, so far from being a racialist, which is what I understood both the Home Secretary and I were being accused of, if there were a comparable number of Frenchmen and Scandinavians, I should say exactly the same about them as I say about the persons affected by this Bill. That may be right or wrong, but it has no relation to what I am now accused of by my hon. Friend.

Mr. Nott

I was merely making the point to my right hon. and learned Friend that the majority of those who opposed the Bill were not advocating about unbridled immigration. We were concerning ourselves with the breaking of an undertaking to people holding United Kingdom passports. Therefore, to drag in the Scandinavians and the French and say that if they came to this country the same problem would arise, although it may be fair comment—

Mr. Hogg

I am sorry to interrupt, but I said nothing of the kind. I said that if persons of French or Scandinavian origin in comparable numbers were entitled to British passports and unrestricted entry I should say the same thing. I never said that they were entitled to British passports. My hon. Friend must not misrepresent me or I shall have to keep interrupting him.

Mr. Nott

I have no wish to misrepresent my right hon. and learned Friend. His was a purely hypothetical example. My right hon. and learned Friend said if the Scandinavians and the French had United Kingdom passports. They have not. I was using this as an example of the problems which have faced those who oppose the Bill. Unsophisticated people believe that we are advancing arguments on the basis of untrammelled immigration. We are not. We are on the narrow point of 50,000 Kenya Asians who might or might not have come during the next two years. I have no wish to misrepresent my right hon. and learned Friend, and I withdraw anything that may be inaccurate.

I do not regard the Bill as racialist. It is not about keeping Britain white. It is about keeping Britain honest. That is the whole burden of my case. We are not divided in wanting to keep the essential characteristics of the British nation, fair play, fair mindedness and good neighbourliness. We all appreciate that these will go unless we check unbridled immigration. Whether all these problems in our great cities do in practice allow us, as the British Legislature, to break a solemn undertaking and cancel the United Kingdom passport rights of these people, I very much doubt. I accept that the point has come when we have to cut down still further on immigration. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) and many other hon. Members who said that if we are confronted with this problem we must give an alternative. I reluctantly accept the alternative. If there are 60,000 people coming in under the Commonwealth Immigrants Act, I would rather see all of them stopped, other than the dependants of those already here, but that is a declining problem. The number of dependants is declining every year, as has been pointed out. [HON. MEMBERS: "No.] I am sorry. If we were to stop the number of people coming in from the West Indies and Pakistan under the Commonwealth Immigrants Act and if we were to curtail the number of vouchers, over a number of years the number of dependants coming in will decline. I am saying that if we have the problem of too much immigration I would reluctantly accept the unfortunate alternative of cutting back on those who receive vouchers and come in under the Commonwealth Immigrants Act.

The substance of the case of those who support the Bill, the Home Secretary and my right hon. and learned Friend, is one of necessity. The argument is that we have to break our word because of necessity. I well remember a debate on an entirely different topic in which my right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, West (Mr. lain Macleod) said that necessity has been the creed of tyrants throughout the ages. I am not suggesting that the Home Secretary has any of the attributes of a tyrant. Far from it. He is a charming man. Nevertheless, necessity is a dangerous argument, but that is the one which has been used.

Some people prefer the easier phrase. They would say that force majeure forces us to break a solemn contract which has been entered into freely, but this is the worst kind of force majeure. It is not the British Government renaging on a contract with another State, and we have seen enough of this over the last few years. It is the British Government reneging on a contract with a weak, oppressed, and dependent minority. It used to be—and I hope it still is—the mark of a civilised nation, a civilised Government, a civilised people, that it had respect for minorities.

As one of my hon. Friends said, there is no reason for a contract when both sides agree. The only reason for a contract is when one side does not agree. This is the whole basis of the law of contract. What is happening here is that one side does not like the contract, and so it is ratting on its obligations. I regard this as deeply offensive, and I do not think that the British nation will live this down.

I have stated my alternative. Reluctant though I would be to do so I would cut down the number of vouchers issued under the Commonwealth Immigrants Act.—[HON. MEMBERS: "And the number of dependants? "] I did not refer to dependants. I said that I would cut down the number of vouchers. I would not cut down the number of dependants.

Sir C. Osborne

The majority of people coming in now are dependants. Would my hon. Friend cut down their number?

Mr. Nott

If I said that, I did not mean it. At the moment 8,500 vouchers a year are issued under the Commonwealth Immigrants Act. I would cut that down to 3,000, or perhaps even 2,000.

Mr. Stanley Orme (Salford, East)

Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that not all the vouchers were taken up last year?

Mr. Nott

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I think that only about 4,000 were taken up, so perhaps there is a reason for cutting the figure down to 2,000. I do not advance this argument happily, but, if we are faced with a choice of alternatives, this seems to be less objectionable than what is now proposed.

It has been said before, but it needs to be said again, that every United Kingdom passport bears the request that the bearer of the passport should pass freely, without let and hindrance, and so on. How can the British Government claim that they are unilaterally going to cancel that passport right for people who, momentarily, are causing some discomfort because there are not proper arrangements at the ports to disperse 50,000 Kenyan Asians over a period of years to different parts of the country? How can they abrogate that undertaking, and expect English people, or Scottish, or Welsh, or Cornish people, to go to Kenya, India, or Malaya and hand their British passports in and expect the country concerned to let them pass freely without let and hindrance, when the British Government themselves have abrogated just these rights for their own citizens?

This is a bad Bill. I think that it is a racialist Bill, but that is not the burden of my argument. It clearly is against certain races. Why do not we say so? Everyone must make up his own mind on this issue. It is not for me to claim that my conscience is worse or better than anyone else's.

This is a dangerous thing to do. It has been the natural law of nations since Roman times that countries have an obligation to look after their own citizens. Maybe we did not mean these people to become our citizens in 1963. Maybe it was all a horrible mistake, but it arose, and we have this obligation, whether we like it or not. We cannot abrogate this moral obligation without retaliation over the years, and the British Government should recognise this if they intend to go through with this Bill tonight.

Mr. Richard

At this late hour, after what has been virtually a Second Reading debate, I shall not detain the House for long. I have sat through almost the whole of the debate. I have listened to all the Front Bench speeches, and to most of the back bench ones. I think that I am now more confused about the objects, the intentions, the purposes, and the provisions of the Bill than I was when I first read it yesterday before the debate started. The hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) said that we must try to get the figures right, because it is on them that one bases one's conclusions. Various different assessments have been given, inside and outside the House. One which was bandied about in the debate yesterday was that if we did nothing about the problem of Kenyan Asians, as many as 1¼ million people in comparable situations would have the right, under United Kingdom passports, to enter the United Kingdom.

10.30 p.m.

Is it not correct that the Kenyan Asians are in a unique and distinct position, because they are the only group among these people whose sole nationality is British, and that, in Hong Kong and Mauritius, and the other countries which have been mentioned, there is a dual nationality? Second, how many Kenyan Asians are there?

Sir J. Foster

The hon. Gentleman is not right. The 800,000 Tamils in Ceylon have solely United Kingdom passports.

Mr. Richard

I must say that that is the first time that that has been raised in the debate, but I will certainly check the matter to see whether I have made a mistake.

One estimate of the scope of the problem is that there are 130,000 Asians in Kenya, another that there are 200,000 in the whole of East Africa, another, given by the Asians themselves, that there are about 78,000 left in Kenya, of whom about 40,000 might want to come to the United Kingdom. These are all different statistics, but the crucial figure to which the Committee is entitled, and which we have not had, is the Government's expert assessment of the number of Kenyan Asians who might want to come. There is no point in arguing about how many there might or might not be in Kenya; we must decide what is the scope of the problem for the United Kingdom in the immediate future.

Therefore, I ask my right hon. Friend, in reply to the debate or at a later stage, to give us the Government's assessment. If that assessment is that the number who might come in the next 12 months is, say, 2,000 families, the Bill is a nonsense. Why are we spending two days discussing a problem of that size? If, on the other hand, it is that, within 12 or 18 months, as many as 20,000 families might come, that is a different problem and might give some support to the Bill. What is the Government's assessment?

Was a pledge given or not given? It has been said with great force, mainly by hon. Members opposite, that the only person in the Committee who does not now believe that a pledge was given by the previous Administration is the right hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys). But let us assume in his favour that no specific pledge was given to the Kenyan Asians. With deep respect, that makes the position worse and not better. What the right hon. Gentleman is then saying is that, during the negotiations, he never applied his mind to this problem. At least, I assume that he did not, because if he considered it and left it in this sorry state, he bears sole responsibility for this situation.

Moreover, he did it at a time when he left everyone else in ignorance of the situation, including the Kenya Asians, although the right hon. Gentleman is now apparently disclaiming responsibility. If he did not consider it and if they were left in the air, he must accept that he should have considered it. That being so, what has happened since? The answer is that a large number of innocent people relied on what they thought was the pledged word of Her Majesty's Government, who have altered their position to what has now turned out to be their detriment. That is the position, whether or not a pledge was given in legalistic terms and whether or not one reads the small print on the contract. Whatever is said about the obligation or non-obligation on the part of the Government, a large number of innocent people relied on what they letting them down. I therefore could believed to be our word, and we are not find it in me to support the Bill last night.

One might call this Clause the kith and kin part of the Bill. The criteria for the allotment of vouchers is now to be need rather than a straight arithmetical calculation of 1,500 people. That does not make the Clause better but worse because we are, in effect, saying to the people of Kenya—to the world if it has ears to hear and eyes to read—" For an Asian to come into Britain he must prove need. For a white man to come here, he does not have to prove need."

If need is to be the criterion of entry, the Clause becomes even more repugnant and repulsive than it was. Despite the generous concessions which the Home Secretary has tried to make tonight, I fear that, as the Bill stands, I cannot find it in me tonight to support the Clause.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. John Silkin) rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.

Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.

Question, That the Amendment be made, put accordingly and negatived.

Mr. Paget

I beg to move Amendment No. 14, in page 2, line 10, at the end to add: (2) (a) Nothing, in the foregoing subsection shall apply to any citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies or to a dependent of any citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies who has in the country of his residence—

1. (i) been expelled, or
2. (ii) been denied the right to continue in the employment or type of employment in which he has been wont to work, or
3. (iii) been prevented from carrying on the business he has been wont to conduct, or
4. (iv) has in any other way been denied the right to earn his living and support his dependants;

(b) any citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies shall be entitled to obtain from the Consul in the country of his residence a certificate stating that one of the conditions set out in the preceding subsection applies to him and such certificate shall be accepted by all immigration officers. The last two speakers pointed out that the real problem here is that we must protect people who have only one passport. I wholeheartedly support that view. These people need protection and they have been pledged protection. I have sought in the Amendment to put those who need special protection—either because their liberty or livelihood is threatened—in the same happy position as those with white grandmothers.

One should consider for a moment the circumstances in which this pledge was given and this protection granted. We were giving independence to the African Government of Kenya very shortly after the Mau Mau event; to people whose credentials did not give a great feeling of security to those placed under them, and particularly to an unpopular minority. The Indians in Kenya have always been an unpopular minority—not, I think, particularly because of their conduct, but because they were the middle-class of Kenya. The middle-class is always hated by a proletarian and peasant society—far more than an aristocracy. This may be one of the misfortunes of the Liberal Party. As Bismark observed, one could always dish the Liberals by granting universal suffrage—

Mr. Thorpe

If I may put the hon. and learned Gentleman right historically, Bismark said that the great danger was to fight a war on two fronts, and the events of the last 10 days have shown that the Liberal Party has only to fight on one front.

Mr. Paget

If I may say so, I entirely fail to recognise the relevance of that intervention.

My point is that here was an unpopular minority needing protection, and that it was promised protection could not have been made more clear than it was made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod) in the letter which he wrote to the Spectator. That letter is worth quoting because, oddly enough, it has not so far been quoted and written into the debate. In writing to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys), the right hon. Member for Enfield, West said: If I understand your position, correctly, it is, as you told the Sunday Telegraph, that it was certainly never intended to provide a privileged backdoor entry into the United Kingdom '. Leaving aside the emotive words. that is exactly what was proposed: special entry in certain circumstances which have now arisen. We did it. We meant to do it. And in any event we had no other choice. That was the situation: the rights, the protection, the circumstances, the pledge. Now those circumstances have arisen.

We have the case of Africanisation. It is called Kenyanisation, but it is only Kenyanisation to the extent that those Asians who have taken Kenyan citizenship get an advantage over those Asians who have not done so. It certainly does not mean that they get equality of treatment with the negro population of Kenya—they do not. The whole circumstances here are squeezing on the members of this Asian minority, who recognise and know that they are on the way out—

Sir Harmer Nicholls (Peterborough)

Could the hon. and learned Gentleman say how many Asians were accepted by the Kenya Government? I gather from his earlier intervention that 20,000 applied and were not accepted. How many were accepted?

Mr. Paget

I think that about 60,000 were accepted. None the less, for instance, in Nairobi the city council yesterday rescinded all licences of Asians in the city market. This is the kind of thing that is happening. It is only as between Asians that citizenship is proving an advantage.

Something else has to be recognised in order to put oneself into the position of these people, and by my Amendment I seek to do what I can to allay their fears in this dangerous position. Among the dangerous features of the situation there is not only the creeping Africanisation but doubt as to the capacity of the African Government to protect them. The record of Africa on this has not been a happy one. In the Congo, in Ghana, in Nigeria and in some of the former French colonies, the capacity to protect the alien went. The first to suffer were the Syrians and the Asians. We have not been entirely successful in Africa in finding a successor to the colonialism which we brought to an end.

10.45 p.m.

African nationalism has not really arisen from African institutions. The African nationalists are people who had a foreign education in mission schools and foreign universities. They are people who speak a foreign language. No Afri- can national has yet adopted an African language. Government is confined to that very small minority who can both speak and think in a foreign language. The institutions are foreign institutions. So all that we have is the colonial system taken over by a very small alien-trained African minority. It is a minority which has had difficulty in renewing itself, in refreshing itself, in taking support from a foreign country, and so this sort of black colonialism we have has proved unstable and a very poor defence of minorities.

Let us hope that Kenya will be the exception, but after four years there is little sign of it. We would not be human if we did not recognised the terrifying situation for an unprotected minority when it sees the escape hatch locked behind it. This is the terrifying thing here and I am seeking to provide that the people endangered shall have the right to escape. The movement of the Asians to what is their own country and their only country—that is, here—is not going to be decided by my right hon. Friend; it is going to be decided by the Kenyans.

I have heard various statements of the law, and I am bound to say that I have not gone along with them. I think the law here is perfectly plain. I will quote the relevant passage from Oppenheim's International Law, the eighth edition, volume I. There is the right in a nation to protect its citizens even when they are in other countries. It is coupled with an obligation of a nation to accept back its citizens when they are expelled or sent out of another country. That obligation is perfectly plain. It is set out here as the concommitant of the right to protect. There is the right and the duty: The duty is that of receiving on its territory such of its citizens as are not allowed to remain on the territory of other States. Since no State is obliged by the Law of Nations to allow foreigners to remain within its boundaries, it may, for many reasons, happen that certain individuals are expelled from all foreign countries. The home State of expelled persons is bound to receive them on the home territory. I do not think that there is any doubt about that. I have never heard it questioned as a matter of international law.

The situation, therefore, is simply this. If these people are sent here, we have no option but to take them. We cannot relieve ourselves of the law because we cannot send them anywhere else. They come here, and we must accept them. In the first part of the Amendment, therefore, where I provide that the Clause shall not apply to people who have been expelled, I am stating no more than the existing law. I hope that the Government will accept that.

Next, I deal with the person whose living has been threatened, who has been denied the right to continue in the employment or type of employment in which he has been wont to work, or been prevented from carrying on the business he has been wont to conduct, or has in any other way been denied the right to earn his living and support his dependants. I understood that a great deal of this, in theory and principle, was conceded by my right hen. Friend. I found myself far more moved by what he said tonight than I was yesterday, just as, conversely, I found myself much less moved by what the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) said today than by what he said yesterday. I thought that he was quite good yesterday, but not today.

It seemed to me that this principle was accepted. I believe that there would be a tremendous relief to the nerves of the people in Kenya if these assurances were accepted by the Government. In principle, I believe, they have done so. If they put it into the Bill, it would settle those nerves. If it settles the nerves, it stops the rush to come. There will not be a rush to leave. These people have roots. They have been in Kenya a long time. They are nervous and anxious. They do not want to go. They will hang on as long as they can. But if the door is to be locked, that is the fear, the terrifying claustrophobia, and they feel they must break out. The right hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) has a formidable responsibility here for the panic he has created.

Mr. St. John-Stevas

Does not the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that, if that kind of statement had been made with all the authority of the Government at an earlier date, the whole problem would never have arisen?

Mr. Paget

That may be so. I say frankly that, instead of falling in behind the right hon. Member for Streatham, the Government should have quietened the fears which he had so irresponsibly aroused. But that harm has been done. We have the Bill. Let us say how it will be operated and calm the fears now. That will be the most effective way of making it a relatively slow and ordered movement.

Even if it did build up to 100,000 people in the end—I think that that is very unlikely—these are economically valuable people. We have not got an excess of builders, plumbers or carpenters, the people who are being pushed out now. It is a relief to our economy. It is a relief to our housing problem, because these are well-to-do people who can not only build houses but can finance their own housing requirements. It is not a strain on our education system, because these are people speaking English as their first language and with the English educational background.

The only case against them is that their faces are the wrong colour. That is all there is. It is an appeasement of the Alf Garnett mentality, which does exist. It is an indecent feeling which can perhaps best be expressed in the words of Alf Garnett—too many bloody niggers. That is the kind of feeling we are appeasing, because there is no economic, housing or education case. We should not do it.

The Deputy Chairman

With the Amendment we are also taking Amendment No. 24, in Clause 2, page 3, line 5, at end insert: (c) any person who being a citizen of the United Kingdom and colonies has no right of re-entry to his country of domicile. and Amendment No. 25, in Clause 2, page 3, line 6, at end insert: (c)(i) holds a United Kingdom passport and is a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, or who holds such a passport issued in the United Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland, and (ii) has been deprived of his right to work or his citizenship by the country in which he was ordinarily resident immediately prior to his entry into the United Kingdom or at the time when he seeks entry into the United Kingdom. A provisional selection has been put up in the Lobby. Amendment No. 24 will not be for a separate debate, but a Division may be allowed if it is required.

Mr. John Fraser (Norwood)

On a point of order. You indicated, Mr. Irving. that a Division might be allowed on Amendment No. 24. Does the same apply to Amendment No. 25?

The Deputy Chairman

I am afraid not. The Chairman has not selected Amendment No. 25 for a Division.

Mr. Sandys (Streatham)

I wish to raise just one point which I believe needs elucidation. Hon. Members have referred to the question of the precedent we are creating.

Perhaps I should raise this matter later. Are we to have a debate on the Question, That the Clause stand part of the Bill?

The Deputy Chairman

Order. I cannot indicate that until the Question, That the Clause stand part of the Bill, comes on the Order Paper.

Mr. Sandys

I wish to raise what I believe to be a very important point on which I should like clarification from the Home Secretary. It has been alleged that a precedent will not be created for granting similar rights in the case of other colonies which may become independent. Yesterday I particularly mentioned Mauritius. Various hon. Members have said that that is not really relevant because Mauritius is in a different position.

The fact is that Section 2(2) of the Kenya Independence Act, 1963, is identical to Clause 2(2) of the Mauritius Independence Bill, which has passed through the House, has been approved by another place, and is awaiting the Royal Assent. Therefore, we shall find ourselves in exactly the same position with regard to Mauritius as we have with regard to Kenya. Am I correct in that interpretation?

The Deputy Chairman

Order. Would the right hon. Gentleman help the Chair by saying whether the Act which he has compared to the Mauritius Independence Bill refers to the matters in the Amendment?

Mr. Sandys

I thought that it did, Mr. Irving, but I have concluded what I wish to say.

The Deputy Chairman

I should indicate to the right hon. Gentleman that unless it relates to the Amendment I should be unable to allow a reply.

Sir Harmar Nicholls

On a point of order. I should have thought, having heard what my right hon. Friend said and read the Amendment, that it is relevant. The point is on all fours and should be answered on those grounds.

The Deputy Chairman

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would help me by passing me the Act so that I can see that that is so.

Mr. Heffer

I support the Amendment because it is extremely sensible. If the Government are prepared to accept it, it will go a long way towards solving the immediate problems concerning the Asian minority in Kenya.

During the previous debate my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary talked about a flexible approach to the quota. This was somewhat confusing, because on the one hand we were told that it would be flexible but on the other we were told that it was important to have a fixed figure. We were also told that if certain people found themselves in difficult situations, were losing their jobs and homes and so on, then they would be treated sympathetically and may be allowed in. When pressed on this my right hon. Friend made the point that this was what was meant by being flexible. If this is what flexibility means, then this Amendment covers that point and it should be accepted. If the Government reject it, we cannot have any confidence in the idea that the quota will be flexible.

11.0 p.m.

Mr. Callaghan

Why?

Mr. Heffer

Because the Amendment spells it out in detail. It talks of any citizen who has: … been expelled, or been denied the right to continue in the employment or type of employment in which he has been wont to work, or been prevented from carrying on the business he has been wont to conduct … And so on.

We are told that there is this quota, but people may find themselves in this situation, and the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel) has quoted examples of people already in this situation. It may be that there will be more people in this situation than is allowed for by the quota. If this is so, the acceptance of this Amendment means that they will be taken into this country.

Mr. Callaghan

Why?

Mr. Heffer

I have answered that once. If my right hon. Friend wants me to waste time so that I should go over it again I will do so, but I will not be very popular with my hon. Friends. I have explained very clearly, and I hope sensibly. why I am arguing this point. My hon. Friend can say why he disagrees when he replies. If I am wrong, let him convince me. I would like some assurance on this.

Mr. Callaghan

I have given assurances on the quota. What I am trying to understand, and I still do not understand, is why my hon. Friend cannot have confidence that a quota will be operated flexibly unless rigid conditions are written into the Bill.

Mr. Heffer

The point is very clear. We are not writing figures in but conditions in which people are likely to find themselves. If my right hon. Friend does not understand that it is unfortunate, but I assume that most hon. Members fully understand my point.

Mr. Thorpe

Is what the hon. Gentleman is seeking to say that, having heard verbal undertakings from this Home Secretary, he wishes to give statutory effect to them, so that this and any future Home Secretary will be bound?

Mr. Heffer

I wanted to allay the fears of the Asians and to help to stem the flow and ensure that the people involved in Kenya will understand that if they are placed in this position there genuinely is flexibility in the quota. That is the point I am trying to make.

Mr. St. John-Stevas

The point the hon. Gentleman is making is absolutely plain; he could not make it plainer. The confusion is in the statement of the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Heffer

I agree. When the statement was made, I said to one of my hon. Friends that I was in complete confusion about the statement of my right hon. Friend because it seemed that we would have a flexible quota and later we were told that it would be a fixed quota. Like the hon. Gentleman, I am a simple soul. I tried very hard to understand the state ment of my right hon. Friend. We should have this matter clarified, and the best way to clarify it is for the Government to accept this Amendment, which is a very good and important Amendment.

I should like to make a point about the Asians involved and why they should be allowed in, particularly under the Amendment. I remember very well the debate in the House on the immigration Act, and particularly the labour vouchers. We were told that the great problem was all the unskilled people coming here. It was all right to allow in skilled people, lawyers and doctors, but not unskilled people. Now we have the reverse. We are now told that the fact that they are unskilled makes no difference. We cannot have it both ways. The problem is that they both have dark faces.

Unfortunately, our politicians here are pandering to the more backward elements in the community, in the same way as the politicians in Kenya appear, unfortunately, to be pandering to the more backward elements in their community. Two wrongs do not make a right. I do not know whether "Kenyanisation" means "Africanisation". I have not gone into that matter as thoroughly as perhaps I should have done. There may be a racial element in it. But it does not follow that we must have a racial element—

The Deputy Chairman

Order. The hon. Gentleman is getting very wide of the Amendments, which are concerned with matters like expulsion, the right of re-entry in certain circumstances and employment. He must speak to the Amendments.

Mr. Heffer

You are quite right, Mr. Irving. But I think that I am speaking to them in the sense that I am trying to point out that the Asians are being expelled or being forced to leave the country on a basis of possible racial tension in the country. It does not follow that we should not accept them here.

I know that hon. Members who have been sitting in the Chamber for a long time wish to speak and therefore I will bring my remarks to a conclusion. No doubt they, like myself, wish to vote against the Question, That the Clause stand part of the Bill. But, meantime, I will vote for this Amendment, because it is better than nothing.

In a sense, the Amendment is still a restricting Amendment. We have always had a wonderful record in this country that anybody who had been oppressed, irrespective of whether he came from our Colonies or had a British passport, was likely to find a home here. This relates to the Amendment, Mr. Irving, because it proves the point which I am making why we should accept it.

We talk in terms of the Huguenots who came here. Somebody said to me, "Have you got any immigrants in your constituency?" I said, "They are all immigrants". He said, "What do you mean? They are all coloured?" I said, "Most of them happen to be white-faced, but their grandfathers and fathers all came from Ireland, North and South". I once said in the House that the problem was that of the mixed marriages between Catholics and Protestants.

So as far as I am concerned, we always welcome into our country people who—

The Deputy Chairman

Order. The hon. Member is not dealing with the conditions which should be applied for entry into this country which are specified in the Amendment. He must keep to the terms of the Amendment.

Mr. Heffer

With due respect, Mr. Irving, I am, because I am pointing out—

The Deputy Chairman

I must say with respect that the hon. Member is not keeping to the Amendment. He must do so.

Mr. Heffer

I am trying to point out, Mr. Irving, that people who previously have lost their jobs and their homes—for example, the people of Ireland, whom at that time we physically controlled—nevertheless were welcomed into this country. That is relevant to the Amendment because, if we accept it, we are accepting precedents which we have set and we will be continuing a tradition of which I am rather proud and of which everyone in the country should be proud.

To safeguard the rights of the Asians who are being subjected to all sorts of pressures, and also to stem the flow, because for them to have the knowledge that they can come here if they are subjected to those pressures is wise and sensible, the Committee should accept the Amendment.

Sir Harry Legge-Bourke (Isle of Ely)

In the remarks which I am about to make I will, naturally, try to keep as close to the Amendment as possible, but this is the first occasion when I have uttered in the debates of the last two days and I was one of those who supported the Bill on Second Reading. I did so with a heavy heart, however, because although I recognise that the subsequent Clauses eliminate certain anomalies which have crept in, and which certainly should have been dealt with long before, I felt that Clause 1 inevitably involved the breaking of a pledge.

I am sorry that my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) has left the Chamber—oh, I beg his pardon. [Interruption.]

The Deputy Chairman

Order. I ought to say to the hon. Gentleman that the pledge is not a matter which he can deal with on the Amendment.

Mr. Winnick

On a point of order. Is it true that the right hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) is now the Leader of the Conservative Party?

The Deputy Chairman

Sir Harry Legge-Bourke.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke

I would not, of course, wish in any way to disobey any Ruling which you might give, Mr. Irving, but in the Amendment we are dealing with certain qualifications to the Clause which, in the opinion of some hon. Members, would go some way to eliminate the disadvantages which flow from our having had to break our word. Therefore, I would humbly submit to you that to that extent the fact is relevant that a pledge has had to be broken.

11.15 p.m.

I am deeply conscious of the fact that when the passports were issued to people in Kenya those who received them assumed that they would have equal rights with those of anyone else in possession of a British passport. Because I assumed that they looked upon those passports—

Mr. Arthur Lewis (West Ham, North)

On a point of order. It has been noticed by many hon. Members that almost every time the right hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) gets up and is called and makes a speech he immediately goes out. Would it not be better if he would stay and listen to other hon. Members?

The Deputy Chairman (Mr. Sydney Irving)

That is not a matter for the Chair.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke

The speech I am trying to make is not an easy one. I would ask for a little indulgence from the Committee, and that there should be as few as possible interruptions on points of that sort. Having supported the Bill because of the other Clauses in it, I have had grave misgivings about this Clause 1 which we are now seeking to amend. I hope I shall be able to remain in order in expressing my views about this Amendment.

As I understand it, it is an Amendment trying to ensure that there is an element of compassion in the operation of the Clause. An element of compassion. This in itself brings into consideration other things than mere legality. Many criteria have been suggested for the application of the Bill, but throughout it all we have been trying to ensure that, so far as possible, everybody is clear what the law is. The Clause involves changing the law from what those who have British passports in Kenya thought the law was. What the Amendment seeks to do is to bring in an element of compassion in order to make the change in the law not quite as severe as otherwise it would be.

I am glad the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) has returned to the Chamber, because it is his Amendment, and I listened with the greatest care to what he had to say. In case he missed my last remark, let me repeat that, as I understand it, his Amendment is designed to bring in an element of compassion in order to ensure that the change we are by this Clause making in the law as it stood should bear less severely on certain people than otherwise it would. An element of compassion is brought in, for the sake of certain people who are not able to continue with what they were doing in their own country before their right of entry here was changed. It is also to ensure that if they are kicked out of the country in which they are working, or in which they are living in retirement, they can still use their British passports to get into this country.

Those are laudable purposes, it would seem to me, and it would seem to me that while we can accept the other Clauses in the Bill this Clause 1 should be dropped. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) said just now, had it been known some months ago by anybody expelled from his country, not able to continue earning his living in that country, not able to do the job he had been doing, not able to carry on the busines he had been wont to conduct, deprived of the right to earn his living and support his dependants, that we were to have this new sort of tribunal, we should not, I believe, have had this flood of emigrants from Kenya trying to get into this country.

If I had to choose between the opinions of two of my right hon. Friends on the matter, I would choose that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod) rather than that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham, because I believe that we have an obligation to these people. However, as Edmund Burke once said, any idealism which is impracticable is in fact spurious. Sometimes we have to recognise that, when circumstances change, we must change the law. As Clause 1 is drafted, we are changing the law drastically, whereas the Amendment introduces an element of compassion and a recognition of the fact that some people will be hurt more than others. While we cannot sustain the position that was capable of implementation before, at least we can cushion some of the ill effects which will otherwise fall upon these people to whom we have had to break our word.

For that reason, although I am not a lawyer and cannot adjudicate upon the correctness of the legal wording of the Amendment, I feel very much inclined to support the hon. and learned Member for Northampton in his Amendment.

Mr. Macdonald

If it is in order, I want to speak to Amendments Nos. 24 and 25, which I understand are being considered with this Amendment. Those two Amendments go to the heart of what many of us feel to be the profound fault of the Bill.

The previous lengthy discussion dealt with what some hon. Members feel to be racialism. We do not know if racialism is intended. I do not think that it is. But what seems much more important is the possession of United Kingdom passports by these Kenyan Asians and the rights which flow from that possession. The matter is mentioned expressly in Amendment No. 25 and, by implication, in Amendment No. 24.

During Second Reading yesterday, I listened with deep respect to the speech of the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg), in the course of which he made one remark which impressed me greatly. He said: If you intend to vote against this Bill on conscientious grounds, make sure that you endure to the bitter end."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th February, 1968; Vol. 759, c. 1263.] I have been turning that phrase over in my mind and applying it to the possession of a British passport. It occurs to me that, in 1962, we devalued the possession of such a passport. Now, we are—

The Deputy Chairman

Order. I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is not addressing himself to the Amendments, in which we are concerned with the conditions under which entry to this country would be allowed.

Mr. Macdonald

I am trying to do that, Mr. Irving, with specific reference to Amendment No. 24. I wanted to submit that, having devalued the possession of a passport and the rights of free entry without condition that ought to flow from it in 1962, and proposing to do the same again now, I wonder if we embark on this process what the bitter end will be. I am told, also, that on the previous occasion we spent many days discussing the matter, but now we are having only two days. Already the closure has been moved once. I wonder what the bitter end of this will be.

The Deputy Chairman

Order. I am afraid the hon. Gentleman is not addressing himself to either Amendment No. 24 or Amendment No. 25. Amendment No. 24 is concerned with the entry to this country of people who have no right of re-entry to the country of domicile, and is conditional on subsection (ii) which is concerned with employment. The hon. Gentleman has not mentioned either of these matters yet.

Mr. Macdonald

I am sorry if I am misunderstanding the Amendments, Mr. Irving. If I am out of order, I will sit down.

It seems to me that Amendment No. 24 refers to the question of a person who is a citizen of the United Kingdom and therefore has rights flowing from this; rights which the Bill proposes to take away, but which the Amendment, if approved, would mitigate.

The Deputy Chairman

Order. The hon. Gentleman I think has omitted to see subsection (ii) of Amendment 25, which says has been deprived of his right to work or his citizenship by the country in which he was ordinarily resident immediately prior to his entry into the United Kingdom or at the time when he seeks entry into the United Kingdom. This is the kernel of the Amendment, and the hon. Gentleman really is not addressing himself to it.

Mr. Macdonald

No, I was not, Mr. Irving—I was addressing myself to Amendment No. 24.

The Deputy Chairman

Order. I am afraid the hon. Gentleman is not doing so.

Amendment No. 24 is concerned with a person who "being a citizen of the United Kingdom and colonies has no right of re-entry to his country of domicile." The hon. Gentleman is discussing what happened in 1962, not the Amendments. If he cannot address himself to the Amendments he will have to resume his seat.

Mr. Macdonald

I am sorry I am being a bother to you, Mr. Irving. I will simply say this: surely the possession of a passport conveyed up to now the right to move freely in and out of the country. This would be restricted by the Bill. Amendment No. 24 refers particularly to people whom this debate is really all about. The Bill speaks generally, but we do know that we are speaking about the Kenyan Asians who, if expelled, will have no right of re-entry to the country of their domicile. They are at the heart of this debate. Whatever other extraneous matters we may talk about—such as when hon. Members opposite talk about Australian aborigines or Tamils—we are talking about Kenyan Asians, who are explicitly affected by this Bill and whom Amendment No. 24 will protect.

This is why it seems to me that Amendment No. 24 is the nub of the problem, and why we should support it if we wish to preserve rights of law—the importance of a passport, and the rights which flow from it. Once that is abrogated, shifting sands appear under our feet and the rule of law disappears.

11.30 p.m.

Mr. David Steel

I want to speak to Amendment No. 24, which broadly attempts to cover the same point as Amendment No. 14 moved by the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget). I hope the hon. and learned Gentleman will accept that my Amendment is more succinct in its wording, and clearer in its intention than his Amendment, although we have a right to ask for a Division on it, I would be happy to accept Amendment No. 14 in place of mine if that was the wish of the Home Secretary.

I hope that throughout the night's proceedings either the Home Secretary or the Parliamentary Secretary will be present. I accept that they both cannot be here, but the last time I spoke on this issue neither was here, and one feels that one is wasting one's sweetness on the desert air. I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman is here now, and I am forced to repeat a few of the points that I made on a wider Amendment.

Mr. Callaghan

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is not—at least I hope he is not—suggesting that I have not been present during the debate. I was absent for only a short time because I had to meet someone, as was explained to the Committee, and for 20 minutes since. I have sat here since 3.30. I assure the hon. Gentleman that there is no need for his observation. I know my duty to the House.

Mr. Steel

I was not being critical. I was hoping that the right hon. Gentleman could arrange for one Home Office Minister to be here. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will accept that in the spirit in which I meant it.

I repeat the point that I made earlier, arising out of the right hon. Gentleman's statement and that of his hon. Friend on the previous Amendment. The hon. Gentleman gave a clear undertaking that the Government would not allow a situation to arise in which people who had been expelled from Kenya would be refused entry. The hon. Gentleman made that pretty clear and precise. What I am seeking by Amendment No. 24 is to have that written into the Bill so that everybody in Kenya, and the people affected by the Bill, will know their rights.

I think that it would be wrong of the Government—and I am sure that this is not their intention—to say that they will act in this liberal-minded way only when people have actually been expelled. I do not think that people should have to go through the legal process of being expelled from Kenya before the Government act and accept them into this country.

Earlier today I read a certificate from the Department of Emigration in Nairobi requiring a person to leave on 30th June, 1968. It is at this point that the Government should act. They should not leave the matter uncertain and say that people with this certificate will be allowed here only if they come within the quota. Whether the quota is flexible or inflexible is not the point. These people will know that they have to leave Kenya on a certain date, and they should he assured by the House that they will not be left Stateless or without rights. They should be told that they will be admitted to this country.

This is the effect of Amendment No. 24. It is in many ways the most crucial Amendment that we are to discuss tonight. I have heard many speeches from hon. Members who support the Bill. Though they might be doubtful about voting against the Clause, they might support us on this Amendment, the purpose of which is to introduce an element of compassion into the Bill. If the Government do not give way, I hope that we will be able to get the support of hon. Members to carry the Amendment, but I trust the right hon. Gentleman will agree that we have a fair point. All that I want to do is to translate the Government's intentions into the effect of law to clarify the position for the benefit of the citizens whom we are trying to help.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon

My hon. Friends and I tabled Amendment No. 25 in the same spirit, and in virtually the same langauge, as the Amendment that we are discussing. We did so for the purpose which has been adduced, namely, to humanise the administration of the Bill. Having heard my right hon. Friend give the assurance that he did, I accept that he will administer the Act, if it comes into force, in the spirit of this Amendment. Had he chosen these words in the original Bill, I certainly would not have put forward any opposition to it. I am certain that the country would have understood the motives behind this Measure, and there would not have been the agitation and the searching of heart that the Bill has caused.

Mr. John P. Mackintosh (Berwick and East Lothian)

Does my hon. Friend agree that he should not change his mind unless these words are written into the Bill? A verbal assurance is not adequate. No one doubts the Home Secretary's word, but this must be written into the Bill so that it can be read by those who will be affected by this Measure.

Mr. Lyon

If my hon. Friend will be patient, I am coming to that point.

I take the point addressed to the Home Secretary by the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel). I accept my right hon. Friend's word. I believe that he is an honourable man. I know that he will fulfill the undertaking that he has given the House. But let us suppose that the country were misguided enough to return a Conservative Administration at the next election and, by an awful freak of chance, the right hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) became the Home Secretary and had to administer the legislation. In the event of that unfortunate occurrence. can we really believe that he would honour an undertaking given by a Labour Home Secretary three years before? We know from the history of this sad case that he is not even prepared to honour an undertaking given by the Conservative Government in 1963.

I do not believe that we can go through with this Bill simply on the basis of a verbal assurance given by the Home Secretary. I am prepared to accept that it will be administered in this way during the period of office of the Labour Government, but it is essential that it should be clearly established on the Statute Book before there is a change of Administration.

Mr. St. John-Stevas

I am grateful for that spontaneous demonstration of support—but the point that we are concerned with is not a question of any fantasy about the future of my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) or any other hon. Member, but the fact that unless this assurance is written into the Bill in the present situation—not here but in Kenya—it cannot have the desired effect.

Mr. Lyon

I am prepared to accept that if the Home Secretary of a Labour Government gives an assurance such as my right hon. Friend has given it will be carried out, in the spirit in which it was given by the Administration, by the High Commissioner in Nairobi. That is the crucial point.

I accept the point which the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles was seeking to make—although perhaps not explicitly—that it would be a further assurance to Asians in Kenya if it were written into the Bill instead of being a verbal undertaking. I can tell the House that the members of the Asian delegation in this country, who were listening to the earlier debate and heard the undertaking given by my right hon. Friend, were much relieved by it. I am sure, however, that they would be even more relieved if the undertaking were written into the Bill in words similar to those in my Amendment.

Since the Home Secretary has given this undertaking and has therefore sold the pass on this Bill, would he not go a little further and allow these words to be written into the Bill?

Sir J. Foster

I entirely agree with the object of the Amendment, but I ask the hon. Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon) whether his Amendment is not too widely drawn. It applies to any citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies; therefore, it means an amendment of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act, and would apply to people from Hong Kong. It covers people with United Kingdom passports, namely, people with passports issued by the United Kingdom or by a representative of the Queen, such as the High Commissioner, in another country.

I am glad to see that the Amendment refers to the country of residence. I do not know whether the Home Secretary's assurance covers the case of an Asian in Kenya who opted for United Kingdom citizenship and was resident in a third country, like the Congo, or Algeria, and who has been persecuted in that country.

The Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) covers that case, because on that hypothesis the person concerned would be deprived of the right to work in the third country. But I am not sure whether the Home Secretary's assurance covers Kenyan Asians with a United Kingdom passport, that is, a passport issued by the High Commissioner, or in the United Kingdom, who are persecuted in third countries.

I suggest that the wording of Amendment No. 25 would be more suitable, because it refers to a United Kingdom passport, which presumably means a passport issued by the High Commissioner, or someone like that, and goes on to refer to a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, which such a person would be, or a person holding such a passport issued in the United Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland. It would therefore cover the two cases of a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies whose passport was issued in the United Kingdom and a citizen whose passport was issued by a High Commissioner.

The hon. and learned Gentleman's Amendment also covers passports issued under local citizenship law, for instance, in Hong Kong or Gibraltar. I suggest that the words of Amendment No. 25 should be imported into the hon. and learned Gentleman's Amendment, because we are not concerned here with citizens of Hong Kong who may be persecuted in a third country.

Mr. Paget

I agree. The hon. and learned Gentleman is quite right and I hope that the principle will be accepted so that suitable wording may be found for Report.

Sir J. Foster

Hon. Members have stressed that it will be brought to the notice of Asians in Kenya that the Bill will be administered with compassion. I repeat that the Home Secretary's assur ance will give comfort to those hundreds of thousands of people who are entitled to ask for a United Kingdom passport, that is, a passport issued by the High Commissioner, in parts of the Commonwealth other than Kenya.

As some doubt has been expressed about my reading of the law, I ought to explain the effect of Section 13 of the British Nationality Act, 1948. Before the passing of that Act, everybody in the Commonwealth was a British subject. Section 13(2) says that after a Commonwealth country has become independent and has passed a citizenship law which does not include all the British subjects without citizenship in the newly independent country's citizenship law, those British subjects without citizenship shall automatically become United Kingdom citizens. An example can be found in the independence of India and Ceylon.

These Amendments will apply not only to persons such as those in Kenya who were given the option of becoming citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies, but also to those who automatically became citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies by virtue of Section 13(2) of the 1948 Act. This is another reason for having the Home Secretary's assurance put into statutory form, because the Amendments would enable the 500,000 to 800,000 Tamils in Ceylon who, out of 2 million Tamils in Ceylon, were left resident in Ceylon, without Singhalese citizenship and as British subjects without citizenship, automatically by virtue of Section 13(2) to become—

The Deputy Chairman (Mr. Sydney Irving)

Order. The hon. and learned Gentleman is getting wide of the Amendment. Perhaps he would tell me how he is relating his speech to the Amendment, which is, of course, concerned only with Kenya and with conditions in Kenya.

11.45 p.m.

Sir J. Foster

The Tamils in Ceylon became United Kingdom citizens by the automatic application of Section 13(2). Therefore, if the point were made more narrowly, namely, with regard to United Kingdom passports, a large number of people would still be affected who would be comforted by this evidence of compassion.

Mr. John Page (Harrow, West)

In giving this dramatic piece of new evidence, is my hon. and learned Friend happy that the Amendment might allow free access to this country to 800,000 more people than we were expecting would come?

Sir J. Foster

That is not the case, because the Singhalese Government will not expel these Tamils. I am more confident now than I would have been under a previous Government. A large number of Indians in South Africa are entitled to United Kingdom passports. When South Africa passed its citizenship law, it did not include quite a number of these Indians, who were therefore automatically entitled to United Kingdom passports. It will comfort those people to know that if they were prevented from earning their living, they could take refuge in the United Kingdom, as they deserve.

Mr. Michael Foot

I wish to return to the question which the Home Secretary put to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer): why should we prefer this Amendment to trusting to my right hon. Friend's general assurances—

Mr. Callaghan

The Question was the other way round. My hon. Friend the Member for Walton was saying—this was why I challenged him—that he had no confidence in my assurances and that they would be worthless unless written into the Bill.

Mr. Foot

If my hon. Friend said that they were worthless, he overstated his case. The question is, why do we prefer the Amendment to the assurances? This is the central argument. The first reason is that if they are in the Bill the facts are known in Kenya, where it is important that they should be known clearly as early as possible. Without casting aspersions on assurances which my right hon. Friend has given or may give, if these words were linked with those suggested by the hon. and learned Member for Northwich (Sir J. Foster) and reported in Kenya, they would have a better effect in allaying fears than a general statement of an assurance by my right hon. Friend that cases will be treated compassionately. That is the first ground on which it would be advisable for the Home Office, in its own interests, to accept the Amendment.

The second relates to the debates on the original 1962 Act, when much of the pressure exerted by the Labour Opposition was to try to extract from the then Home Secretary the detailed instructions which he would give his officers admitting people to this country. Eventually, after long debate—longer than we shall be permitted on this Bill—we got not merely a general assurance from the then Home Secretary of what was to be said to his officers who were dealing with people coming here, but a long statement, before the Bill was accepted, of the kind of instructions which would be given by him to those carrying out his administration.

On this occasion we have merely had—and these are instructions to be given to the people in Nairobi who will carry out the new measures—a general assurance which has not been broken down into specific undertakings, and for this reason I am surprised that the Home Secretary has not already accepted the Amendment, as I hope he will.

A further reason why it is so important—indeed, essential—that these commitments should be written into the Bill is that in the Measure we are dealing with a breach of faith; and when there has been one breach of faith, that is all the more reason for saying that the commitments which one is giving to mitigate that breach should be as specific as possible. If, without insulting my right hon. Friend, the people in Kenya say, "We are not prepared to accept what the Minister says will happen in the application of this Measure", it is difficult to argue with them because they can always reply, "We thought that no undertaking that could be possibly given by a British Government could be firmer than what is written on our passports." That is in much plainer language than anything in the Bill, and even plainer than the Amendment.

If that plain undertaking has been broken, we have the responsibility of trying to repair it—and we have a lot to repair among those thousands of people who are now terrified about what will happen to them. They do not know how their lives will work out as they queue up in Nairobi to make provision, as best they can, for their future. They do not know where they may have to live and in the last few weeks their whole lives have been uprooted. I refer to people who have relied on us but who are living in circumstances of great uncertainty, perhaps harshness, and certainly fear.

We must do everything in our power to allay these fears, however they may have been caused. The Government have a duty to specify as clearly as possible the commitments they are making. That would be better than the presence of just an assurance. I therefore hope that my right hon. Friend will accept the Amendment and that, if he does not, the Committee will vote so that we may incorporate this provision in the Bill.

Mr. Peter Hordern (Horsham)

It would be intolerable if the Amendment were not accepted. Indeed, the Home Secretary has already given an assurance that if such cases were to arise, he would give them the most favourable consideration possible; and the Committee must respect that assurance. However, we must also consider the position of the Asians in Kenya who, for the last three or four years, have been sustained in the hope of the justice of the assurance that they thought they had been given. It is in this light that the Amendment, or something like it, should be incorporated in the Bill.

In the application of the Clause to the Asians in Kenya, it is deeply offensive, and I mean no disrespect to my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) who, I am sure, gave no undertaking, specific or in private, at that time. While I accept that, I do not know why the Asians in Kenya could not have been told, after independence had been granted in 1963, that the choice of being able to come to this country was no longer available to them. I am certain they were not told that. Equally, how could those who now say that they were well aware of the obligations and the undertakings then given, have thought that the Kenyan Government would have acted as they subsequently have done? It is therefore not right for any hon. Member to cast blame on the motives that may have existed at that time.

I believe that the responsibility rests on this Committee and on the House to undo the severe damage done after in dependence was granted to Kenya in 1963; in those two years in which the Asians in Kenya thought that they had the alternative to come to this country if they were to be harshly treated. It is because there was an absolute obligation, though a residual one, that I think that we, as a Committee, cannot accept the assurances, positive and responsible though they were, of the Home Secretary unless some positive gesture is written into the Bill. For that reason, I hope that the Amendment will be accepted.

The Solicitor-General

I hope that it may be helpful to the Committee if at this stage I indicate our reaction to these Amendments. As I understand them they are intended to help certain categories of persons who are spelled out in them, but I suggest that the question arises whether that method of dealing with the matter may not of itself involve an undue measure of rigidity. I shall develop that point a little later, but that is my overall anxiety.

The Committee will appreciate that it is the intention of my right hon. Friend, as he has made perfectly clear, that there should be flexibility of treatment, and great importance has naturally been attached to what he has had to say in that connection. But, in the context of the flexibility which my right hon. Friend has promised will apply, it will be possible to give consideration to the categories of persons referred to in the Amendments.

It is the hope and intention, wherever it is possible, to give entry to the categories referred to, but the Committee may think that my right hon. Friend has been perfectly frank and candid in his treatment of the matter. He has said that if, for example, there are mass expulsions on a scale that is not anticipated, and which would be catastrophic, the consequence of such an event might well be to swamp the whole procedure provided for in the Bill. That would amount to a defeat of the plans which the Government have in mind, and one would have to deal with the new situation which on that hypothesis would arise. One cannot forecast in any kind of detail or with particularity in matters of that kind. All one can say is that in that kind of situation one would apply measures that seemed appropriate at the time, and which were compassionate and considerate in their content.

I ask hon. Members on both sides of the Committee who have addressed remarks to this Amendment, to give weight to the point I seek to make. If we begin to write into the Bill in the way that has been proposed the concept of flexibility, we may very well as a result have a situation which, by virtue of that attempt having been made, is less flexible than it would otherwise have been. I trust that that will not be regarded simply as a debating point for it is not intended as such. I think it a criticism which it is fair to make of the kind of approach of hon. Members who seek to have the sort of commitment which has been indicated, which is broad in character, written into the Bill.

12 m.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon

My hon. and learned Friend said that if we try to put into the Bill the provisions suggested in the Amendment that might make it less flexible, not more flexible. Why does it in any way limit the discretion of the Home Secretary if we have these provisions in the Bill? He will still have discretion.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke

Before the Solicitor-General answers that, will he allow me to say that what we have in mind is not writing in flexibility but criteria from particular acts of compassion? The flexibility will remain.

The Solicitor-General

On these points, I can only say that in the opinion that I hold on this matter the danger I have indicated really exists. It is a matter for judgment. I see the force of the proposition that something is gained by indicating the character of the criteria and so forth, but I think there is substance in the point that if we in this fashion indicate the criteria that are to be relevant in applications of this kind the result of so doing will be to cast a reflection and a doubt on others which might be legitimate.

There is an advantage here in leaving the matter in a condition in which flexibility can take practical effect. The merits of the argument I present are underlined by the language used in the Amendment. My hon. and learned Friend made a noble effort to pose appropriate conditions. He used expressions like this in Amendment No. 14: been denied the right to continue in the employment or type of employment in which he has been wont to work, or been prevented from carrying on the business he has been wont to conduct. I say this without any kind of disrespect to the composer of these Amendments. They induce and bring forward a whole lot of extremely argumentative and debatable matters. The overall objective of flexibility to which my right hon. Friend has committed himself in this matter is not assisted by a resort to provisions of the kind which are illustrated by the Amendments under discussion. In introducing a Measure of this kind, we are introducing a Measure which in all likelihood is going to be applicable in a whole variety of situations whose different phases and characters cannot be confidently foreseen. There must be flexibility, in the nature of things, for that reason. Again, I put it to the Committee that it would be undesirable, and might be full of peril, to try to spell out too far or too meticulously the kind of guarantee which so many hon. Members on both sides would desire.

Mr. David Steel

The criticism which the hon. and learned Gentleman has levelled at Amendment No. 14 does not apply to Amendment No. 24, where the sole criterion or condition which we seek to enter turns on the question of fact as to whether the immigrant concerned has or has not a right of re-entry to his country of domicile. It does not introduce any other complication.

The Solicitor-General

Even that Amendment is open to the reasonable and serious objection that, by spelling out that single factor, one may be regarded as derogating from others.

What we are offering here is a flexible system which is much more likely to be flexible in effect and in practice if the matter is left as it now is. That is the main answer which I put to the arguments which have been advanced. However, out of respect for my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget), I wish to say a word about what he said upon the international law affecting the question.

We do not want any splitting of hairs or undue legalisms in our consideration of this matter, perhaps, but, with respect, I thought that his statement of the law was a little broader in its effect than would be the generally held view of international jurists. I acknowledge that there is some authority for the wide proposition which my hon. and learned Friend put, that a State has a duty to admit its nationals in any circumstances, without qualification. I do not think that that view is universally held, but I acknowledge that it is held by some very distinguished jurists.

The Government do not regard a Measure which is aimed at regulating something which has the character of a sudden inrush of people who are strangers to this country in all but nationality as necessarily irreconcilable with the principle involved in the duty of a State to receive nationals. I hope that the Committee will think it perfectly proper that I should make that point on a matter of law. As a matter of law, this is not a refusal of entry Bill. My right hon. Friend has again and again pointed out that it has its origin in an exceptional situation, and that the remedy proposed is that there should be some ordering of the queue. As a matter of law, it cannot be regarded as contravening the principle in international law which has been referred to, even if it is expressed in the widest terms adopted by my hon. and learned Friend.

Mr. Paget

I did not make the statement of international law. I simply read the Oppenheim statement. I was not adopting it in its broadest terms, that a state is obligated to receive its citizens in any circumstances, because international law deals with obligations between States and not between a State and individuals. Therefore, strictly in international law that must always be a doubtful question. The proposition I made is that where one nation State expels the citizen of another and the citizen presents himself at the frontiers of his own State, that State is bound by obligation to the expelling State to accept him. I do not think that that proposition is challenged by any lawyer.

The Solicitor-General

I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for explaining the proposition. I think that my counter-proposition still stands, namely, that if the Bill is to be regarded as not being basically a refusal of entry Bill but a Bill for ordering the process of entry it does not contravene the principles in international law referred to.

It only remains for me to mention the point raised by the right hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys). He referred to the Mauritius independence legislation and drew attention to a Clause in it which is in identical languge to that employed in the Kenya Independence Act. I think that he is absolutely right. There is the same language and, as I understand it, there will be the same effects.

Sir Harmar Nicholls

Does that mean that the legislation we are now considering does not clear up something done only by my right hon. Friend but something the Government themselves did as recently as last year?

The Solicitor-General

So far as I am aware—and I am open to correction on the point—the right hon. Gentleman has no responsibility for events in Mauritius in this connection.

Mr. Hogg

The Solicitor-General is, of course, right in what he has just said, and, of course, the Bill has its wider repercussions, such as have been repeatedly put before the Committee in very sombre terms from the Front Bench opposite.

12.15 a.m.

I want to say something which I fear will leave me with relatively few friends in the Committee. I believe it honestly and I must say it. I have been deeply disturbed by the course that this debate has taken. I would have thought that there was one lesson that one ought to have learned from the unhappy events of the last two days, and it is a lesson which seems to be the opposite to that which the Committee is beginning to take. The lesson that I draw from the bitterly humiliating events to which we have been subjected is that one must never make promises that one does not intend to perform, and one must never make a promise that one cannot perform when the time for performance is due.

I do not dissent at all from my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) below the Gangway when he says that no expressed undertaking of any kind was given in 1963 in the Kenya Independence Bill. He has made his point there, but there is not a Member of this Committee who is not somberly aware that we are devaluing in one way or another the obligation which normally is expected to attach to a British passport. The reason why we are doing it, if the Government are right, is that we find that a situation is arising, either when we cannot do what we are expected to do, or we do not expect to be able to. That is the situation we are in tonight.

All that the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) has been doing is this. The Home Secretary has made a promise tonight. I would like to read the terms of that promise tomorrow. He spoke very quickly at the time and I am not sure what it amounts to. He is a compassionate man and he said yesterday that this Bill will be operated with compassion. I accept that. But if we are to learn any lesson of honour from what we have gone through in the last two days, we must learn, first, that we must not make promises that we may not be able to perform when the time for performance is due, and secondly we must not write them into Acts of Parliament, because that is where we are now and it is because we did not learn the lesson three or four years ago that we are in this position.

All that has been happening in this Committee, and I have been listening for the last hour, is that we have tried to reduce to terms which I do not believe that we could perform if the ultimate value of the cheque were demanded of us, something which the Home Secretary has said. In other words, the Committee is asking the Government to make the same mistake again.

Mr. Michael Foot

Before the right hon. and learned Gentleman sits down, would he answer this point? Does he not appreciate that what he is now saying, especially if it were generally accepted, diminishes the value of the undertaking that has been given by the Home Secretary, and thereby would greatly enhance the fears in Kenya, if his view of the interpretation of this Bill were to be believed?

Mr. Hogg

I have not said anything about the terms of the undertaking which the Home Secretary has given, except that I would like to see them tomorrow when I can appreciate them better. All that I am saying is that the sombre fear that I have drawn from this debate is that the Home Secretary is being pressed to make the very mistake which has got us into this mess. We have got into this mess because we have lost control of the situation, and he is being asked to write into the Bill something which will make his successors lose control again.

Sir Dingle Foot (Ipswich)

I take issue with the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg). He has mis-stated the position. This is not a case where we cannot carry out our obligations, it is a case where the Government do not choose to carry out our obligations. I want to return to what was said by my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General a moment ago. I fully appreciate the force of his argument, but it is difficult, in the Amendment which has been put forward by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) to cover every possible case. There may be some advantages in having a general assurance instead of trying to spell out everything in legislation. But I should like to know how far the assurance goes.

We are dealing with a situation which has been created by legislation in Kenya. I have in my hand the two Statutes with which we are concerned. The first is the Immigration Act, 1967, which provides in Section 4(2): Subject to this section, the presence in Kenya of any person who is not a citizen of Kenya shall, unless otherwise authorised under this Act, be unlawful, unless that person is in possession of a valid entry permit or a valid pass". All the people not already citizens of Kenya now have to apply for entry permits. In some cases they have been granted, but only for a very short time—sometimes for three months. In a few months, there may be people in this position: they have been born in Kenya, they have spent all their lives there or emigrated there at a very early age and have spent all their working lives there. Suddenly they are deprived of all status. In fact, their very presence there is declared to be unlawful. That is one class of persons—those refused a valid entry permit by the Kenya authorities.

The other Statute to which I want to refer is the Trade Licensing Act, which provides for an appointed day. Section 3 provides: The Minister may, by order, declare the area, or any part of the area, of any city, municipality or township to be a general business area for the purposes of this Act". Section 5(1) provides: After the appointed day, no person shall conduct any business, except under and in accordance with the terms of a current licence". It goes on in subsection (2): After the appointed day, no person who is not a citizen of Kenya shall conduct a business—

1. (a) in any place which is not a general business area; or
2. (b) in any specified goods,

unless his licence specifically authorises him to do so. He has to apply for a licence. If he does not get a licence, the business in which he may have spent the whole of his working life comes to an end; he is deprived of his livelihood.

Those are the two categories of people with whom we are concerned—those denied valid entry permits, and those whose business is taken away. I ask the Home Secretary or the Solicitor-General: are those the categories of people whom they have in mind in the assurance which they have given?

Mr. Ian Gilmour (Norfolk, Central)

The Solicitor-General complained that these Amendments would introduce rigidity. I do not think that he was right, for the reason given by the hon. Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon). But the Solicitor-General did not meet the point that what we need is rigidity. It is only because of the infinite flexibility of the Government that we are discussing this extremely bad Clause in a great hurry with considerable lack of dignity. Therefore, anything which introduces rigidity is highly desirable.

I voted against the Bill last night because I thought that it treated the Kenya Asians uniquely badly. The Home Secretary today has said some things which made the situation much better. But thereby he has shown great flexibility. The position has changed since yesterday. It may change again tomorrow. It may go on changing.

Mr. Callaghan

No.

Mr. Gilmour

The right hon. Gentleman says that in perfectly good faith.

Mr. Callaghan

The situation has not changed. I have spelt out today what I said yesterday.

Mr. Gilmour

If the Home Secretary yesterday said some of the things which he has said today, his Bill would have had a much better reception, a lot more of his hon. Friends would be in favour of it, and his prowess as a Parliamentarian would not have been called into question.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) said that the Home Secretary was now being asked to make promises which he would not be able to keep. That indicates that my right hon. and learned Friend thinks that the assurances given by the Home Secretary go much less far than the assurances which are being sought in the Amendments. If that is right, we should be told exactly how far short of the Amendments the Home Secretary's assurances go. If it is not right, there is a plain case for accepting one or other of the Amendments.

Mr. Callaghan

Perhaps I may deal with the point raised by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ipswich (Sir Dingle Foot). I indicated yesterday that the conditions under which vouchers would be granted would not be those of the employment voucher system. I made that clear yesterday. I said that new criteria would be established. I did not indicate in detail what those criteria would be because, in my view, as I said yesterday, they should be flexible and left to some extent to the High Commissioner, with his knowledge of local circumstances, to administer.

I went further than that tonight, however, because we have had discussions with the High Commissioner on this matter, and I can say, as I said in my earlier contribution to the debate, that certain of the criteria under which he will operate will include the conditions that my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General laid down.

I repeat what I said earlier: the United Kingdom citizens who will get first priority within the 1,500 allocation are those who are genuinely obliged to leave Kenya through refusal of entry permits or because they hold visitors' passes of short duration, or United Kingdom citizens who have applied for immigrant status and have completed arrangements for leaving Kenya and cannot support themselves.

They will not be the only categories. There will be others who may have very considerable need. My hon. Friends' Amendment relates to those who have been put out of employment. It is possible that a man who has been put out of employment and who has a private income—and some of our Asian citizens have private incomes—will be in less need than others. This is part of the case against the rigidity that an Act of Parliament would ensure. We must leave discretion with the High Commissioner within the general criteria which are being laid down and which I enumerated precisely to the Committee this evening.

I listened, naturally, with great respect to what my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General said, and I think that he is right about this. If we want the best administration of the arrangements, we should leave the position as flexible as possible in the light of the assurance which I have given and in the knowledge of the criteria that the High Commissioner will apply in doing his work.

I must come back to my earlier point. In my view, this Committee should not legislate on the assumption that the Kenya Government will behave in a manner that would be reprehensible to civilised opinion. Therefore, in discussing this matter, I do not accept that we shall have to have large numbers of people accepted into this country because of that kind of approach by the Kenya Government.

There is a whole group of criteria that will have to be considered by the High Commissioner. He will have to consider a great many of them. If the floodgates are broken down because of an approach by the Kenya Government, the system of control will clearly need to be reconsidered; the House of Commons would have to consider the matter again.

I repeat that the intention of the Bill—which can, of course, be thwarted—is to secure some control over the situation. That is what it is intended to do. As my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General said, it is not intended to keep people out for ever. It is intended to secure some control and to put us into a position where we can use the leverage of control.

12.30 a.m.

That is what I am trying to do, and in these circumstances, in the light of what the Solicitor-General said, in the light of the specific criteria which I have now read for the second time to the Committee this evening, in the light of what I have said, I would ask the Committee to accept that the best thing to do would be to permit the High Commissioner to administer the criteria in accordance with the local needs of the situation, in accordance with the developing and. may be, changing needs of the situation, with discretion to vary the priorities in favour of cases with compassionate circumstances as he sees them. For this reason. I would ask the Committee to accept that this is the best approach to the situation.

Mr. Thorpe

I want to make one point, and I want to make it in relation to Amendment No. 24, upon which, I understand, there will be a separate vote. I want to press the Home Secretary very hard on this point.

The right hon. Gentleman has given certain undertakings. I accept the wisdom of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) that we will want to read them in the morning, but I think it is right to summarise them by saying that he indicated that cases would be treated with compassion. The Committee accepts that. I think he went further and said that if a United Kingdom citizen were expelled we would be bound to accept him. I do not want to put words into his mouth but I think that that was the general tenor of his remarks in that connection.

What Amendment No. 24 is seeking to do is not to make the position rigid, is not to exclude other grounds upon which compassionate considerations may enter in, but to start with one very basic assertion, namely, that if a United Kingdom citizen, that is to say, a fellow citizen of this country, is in the position that he cannot go back to his country of domicile, which, in this case, would be Kenya, if he has nowhere else to go, then of course he can come into this country and of course we will allow him to come in and of course we are going to give that value to the United Kingdom passport. That is what the Home Secretary was in fact saying in his speech, and that is what we are asking him to accept in the Bill.

I accept the point of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for St. Marylebone that we do not want to make or give undertakings which we cannot honour, or, as was, I believe, the case with the right hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys), are not understood at the time. I think that that was the position of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Streatham. Had it been otherwise he would have been able to answer the question which I asked him on this point in the Second Reading debate on 22nd November, 1963. The record is there, and I remember the right hon. Gentleman saying he desired notice of the question.

May I just deal with the point which the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) raised. He quoted Oppenheim, and the Solicitor-General said we are not forbidding entry, we are merely regulating it. Well, if the Government's figure is 1,500 entries—which means, in effect, 6,000—per annum, given a figure of 200,000, this means upwards of a 33-year delay. Some regulating! It is getting pretty near forbidding some people, who will not live to take advantage of the Measure. Therefore I suggest to the Solicitor-General that that may be a jurist's point but it is not one which would commend itself to the man in the street. We know perfectly well that the effect will be to forbid certain United Kingdom citizens the right to come to this country because the delay is so long that death will overtake them before they have opportunity of availing themselves of their rights as United Kingdom citizens.

Therefore what I would say to the Home Secretary is that Amendment No. 24 is in no way restricting his discretion, is in no way derogating from all the compassionate grounds which he can call into aid. It is merely establishing a proposition that if a fellow citizen of this country has nowhere else to go, he will be able to come here, because he holds a British passport and happens to be a British citizen.

The advantage of doing that is twofold. At least we should salve some modicum of honour in this very shabby business. At least we should say that anyone who is a member of this United Kingdom and has no home to go to can come here. Secondly, at least we should give hope to those who might otherwise be stateless with nowhere to go, having been expelled from one country with a British passport that means nothing because it will not admit them here. At least we should say to those people that they will not be without shelter because, in the final analysis, a British passport means that this country will give them shelter.

The right hon. Gentleman has said that in so many words. We ask him now to write it into the Bill. If he will not, we shall divide the Committee.

Mr. Mackintosh

I want to support the right hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) in pressing my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary on this matter.

My right hon. Friend has just said that we must not act in a manner which assumes that the Kenya Government will legislate in a discriminatory fashion, but if they had not been legislating in that way, we should not be considering this Measure now. To assume that the Kenya Government will not push and challenge these citizens of Britain is a piece of nonsense. That is what they are doing.

If ever I heard a good argument for writing these safeguards into the Bill, it was that made by the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg). He knows the Home Secretary, and he knows that he is an honest man, yet, sitting opposite him, he says, "You are promising something which you may not be able to fulfil." If the right hon. and learned Gentleman believes that, how can the Asians of Kenya be expected to think anything else? If there is any possibility of the promise proving incapable of being kept, the only way to safeguard the position is to write it into the Bill.

Mr. Hogg

In 10 years' time, if it cannot be honoured, how does the hon. Gentleman think that writing it into the Bill will do other than heap more obloquy on this unfortunate country?

Mr. Mackintosh

I do not think that a position would arise where it could not be honoured. The numbers involved in this case are not beyond the capacity of a humane country to absorb. I deny the suggestion. I think that the whole situation is a spurious, trumped-up one. I do not know who has put the wind up the Home Office and destroyed the reputation of the Labour Party for non-racialism by suggesting that we could not absorb 26,000 people this year into a humane and reasonable society. After this performance I will certainly not listen to any more speeches from either Front Bench advocating multi-racialism in other countries. I feel humiliated to have to stand here and make this speech.

We are asked why this safeguard for those deprived of their jobs should be written into the Bill. It is not because of any lack of confidence in the Home Secretary, because we know his character. But we have lost the confidence of certin people overseas. We have to restore their confidence in this House, in the British people and in our word of honour.

Even if we had not destroyed that confidence recently, there is a special problem in that those who live overseas in multi-community countries feel that their rights are tenuous and always look carefully to the letter of the law. Those of us who have taught in Africa know that they are hyperlegalistic. They say, "We cannot understand the British Constitution, because it works on conventions, understandings and unwritten agreements."

They have said to me time and again when I taught in Africa Where does it say this, precisely what the Queen can do in law "? If we do not spell this guarantee out precisely they will not believe us.

The key point is the question of security. A Kenyan employer or official who is wanting to follow a Kenyanisation policy for reasons of his own, and is saying to an Asian "your face is not black, but brown", and is thinking of all sorts of methods of making the person's life difficult so that a job for a fellow Kenyan will be available can easily edge people out. We know, we who have worked in Africa; we have seen one African tribe do it to another. One does not require to sack people deliberately—one can make their lives impossible in a thousand different ways. One can edge a man out of a headship of a department, a consultancy in a hospital, a job selling merchandise, because one wants that job for somebody of one's own tribe or colour.

It is no good for the victim to be able to say "I have security, within a quota of 1,500; I will be treated with compassion by the High Commissioner on the assurance of the Secretary of State". We want to give people security. These people do not want to come to this country—they have built up businesses, homes and houses, their children are at school there. I have listened to some of my hon. Friends with multi-racial constituencies with great feeling, and I know the tremendous work they have done in amalgamating the races. But, when they consider the extra problem of another 1,000 or 2,000 Kenyans in their constituencies, let them weigh on the other side the panic they have caused in East Africa: people throwing away a lifetime's savings. They cannot get these savings out of the country, and are translating them into jewels and things of that kind, and buying tickets in round-about ways. We are trying to restore security to those who thought they had earned it, people who thought that because they had a British passport they could come here. Even if this Clause did mean a slight reduction in flexibility, which it need not—flexibility is in the hon. Gentleman's hands—the words "if you lose your job you will get into this country" actually written in would mean a fantastic amount to these British citizens in Kenya.

That is the security I feel the hon. Gentleman should restore. We have so many debts of honour to the last, residual remnants of our Empire which are now being closed down. There is a particular sense of humiliation if we cannot do this, with decency and principle particularly for those of us who belong to families that over the years made their livelihood in parts the Empire, who have gone to India and Africa and earned our living and have come back here. This is one of our small, residual debts. For heaven's sake, write it into the Bill, and let us end this long connection with some saving grace.

Mr. Sandys

I would like, if I may, to take up what I consider to be a very serious point.

Mr. John Fraser

On a point of order, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) was called at the beginning of the debate. It is true that on a technical point at the time there was doubt about whether it was in order or not. Is it in order that he should speak a second time, when there are other Members who wish to speak?

The Chairman

There is no rule that an hon. Member can speak only once on a Committee stage.

Mr. Sandys

I wish to raise what I consider to be a very important matter. The Solicitor-General has confirmed the point I put to him earlier, which is that Section 2(ii) of the Mauritius Independence Bill is identical with Section 2(ii) of the Kenya Independence Act. The Solicitor-General has confirmed that the effect of this Clause in the Mauritius Independence Bill is the same as that of the corresponding Section in the Kenya Independence Act, which we have been discussing during two days of debate—namely, it will allow those citizens of Mauritius who do not acquire Mauritius nationality to retain their status of citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies. It will give them the right of free entry here, and will exempt them from the provisions of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act.

Mr. Heffer

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Sandys

No.

Mr. Heffer

The right hon. Gentleman never gives way.

Hon. Members

Give way.

The Chairman

Order. There is no obligation on anybody to give way.

Mr. Heffer

The right hon. Gentleman never does.

Mr. Sandys

I am trying to deal with a rather difficult but important legal point.

Mr. Heffer

The right hon. Gentleman has to defend his own position. That is what he is trying to do.

Mr. Sandys

I think I am entitled to do that.

Mr. Heffer

And cause another stampede.

Mr. Sandys

Throughout the debate I have listened to accusations from both sides of the Committee that I have been guilty of dishonouring a pledge. I have explained that no pledge was given. The basis for this accusation is that it is alleged that a pledge was implicit in Section 2(2) of the Kenya Independence Act. I think that the hon. Members will begin to see the relevance of what I am saying.

The Government have told us that for many months past they have been worried about the growing influx of Asians from Kenya, who were taking advantage of their rights under Section 2(2) of the Kenya Independence Act and of their exemption from the controls of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act. Although the Government, as they have told us. had been preparing this legislation for a number of months, they themselves inserted this very same Clause, this very same provision, in the Mauritius Independence Bill.

If I am supposed to have given a pledge by virtue of Section 2(2) of the Kenya Independence Act, 1963, were not the Government giving exactly the same pledge in Clause 2(2) of the Mauritius Independence Bill? It may be said that in 1963 we could not foresee the developments in Kenya. But the Government inserted this provision in the full knowledge of what was happening in Kenya, and in the full knowledge that they were planning legislation to take away the right conferred by Section 2(2) of the 1963 Act?

This is a very serious matter. It seems to me most extraordinary that the Government, with the knowledge that they were planning to introduce a Bill to annul the right conferred by Section 2(2) of the 1963 Kenya Act, did not draw the attention of the House to the similar right which they were giving to Mauritius. They did not draw the attention of the House to the fact that they were conferring a right of entry which they were planning to remove by legislation, which was already being considered in the Home Office. I submit that the Government have absolutely no right to conceal this fact from the House. They told us that they were introducing a Bill to take away a right conferred by the Kenya Independence Act. But they did not mention the fact that this would also have the effect of withdrawing a right which they had put into their own Mauritius Independence Bill only a few months ago.

In order that they too should not be wrongly accused—I say "wrongly" because I maintain that there was no pledge—of having dishonoured a pledge, will they now withdraw the Mauritius Independence Bill, which has not yet received the Royal Assent and remove this Clause from it?

Mr. Paget

Having heard all three Front Bench speakers I am more convinced than ever that if we are to assuage the natural fears that have been implanted in the breasts of certain people in Kenya, first by the right hon. Gentleman and secondly by this legislation, this Amendment ought to be accepted.

On the other hand, I was impressed by what the hon. and learned Member for Northwich (Sir J. Foster) said—that this might have unexpected results in Mauritius and Ceylon, and possibly in Hong Kong. If the Government, by the time we reached Report stage, came to the conclusion that there was something in that argument I would agree that this

Division No. 72.]	AYES	[12.53 a.m.
Allen, Scholefield	Brown,Bob(N'c'tle-upon-Tyne,W.)	Eadie, Alex
Anderson, Donald	Buchan, Norman	Edwards, William (Merioneth)
Archer, Peter	Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James	Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)
Armstrong, Ernest	Cant, R. B.	Ellis, John
Atkins, Ronald (Preston, N.)	Carmichael, Neil	English, Michael
Bacon, Rt. Hn. Alice	Carter-Jones, Lewis	Ennals, David
Bagier, Gordon A. T.	Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara	Evans, loan L. (Birm'h'm, Yardley)
Baxter, William	Chapman, Donald	Farr, John
Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood	Coe, Denis	Fernyhough, E.
Bennett, James (C'gow, Bridgeton)	Coleman, Donald	Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)
Bidwell, Sydney	Concannon, J. D.	Ford, Ben
Biffen, John	Crawshaw, Richard	Forrester, John
Bishop, E. S.	Cullen, Mrs. Alice	Fowler, Gerry
Blackburn, F.	Dalkeith, Earl of	Gardner, Tony
Blenkinsop, Arthur	Dalyell, Tam	Ginsburg, David
Boardman, H. (Leigh)	Davidson, Arthur (Accrington)	Gordon Walker, Rt. Hn. P. C.
Body, Richard	Davies, Dr. Ernest (Stretford)	Gourlay, Harry
Bossom, Sir Clive	Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)	Gray, Dr. Hugh (Yarmouth)
Braddock, Mrs. E. M.	Davies, Harold (Leek)	Gregory, Arnold
Bradley, Tom	Diamond, Rt. Hn. John	Grey, Charles (Durham)
Braine, Bernard	Dickens, James	Gurden, Harold
Bray, Or. Jeremy	Dobson, Ray	Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Brooks, Edwin	Doig, Peter	Haseldine, Norman
Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.	Dunnett, Jack	Hattersley, Roy
Brown, Rt. Hn. George (Belper)	Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth (Exeter)	Hazell, Bert

assurance could be confined to Kenya, because it is in Kenya that the people have been panicking; it is in Kenya that people have been labouring under an injustice, and it is Kenya that needs the assurance.

But—oh, dear!—what an assurance they will get when they see that the Home Secretary says, "I am dealing with this on the basis that the Kenya Government will behave in a generous and humane way", when they know so well that that is exactly the opposite of what the Kenya Government are doing; when they know that they want protection from somebody who is not behaving in that way at all. What an assurance they will get when they are told that this is being administered on the basis that they have a good home already, when they know that they have not; when they know that they are in danger, and that their earnings and their jobs and their capacity to support their children are going. They are being told that we are going to shut our eyes to all this. That is what it will seem to them.

I ask my hon. Friends to vote for the Amendment if the Government will not accept it.

Mr. John Silkin rose in his place and claimed to move,That the Question be now put:—

Question put.That the Question be now put:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 186, Noes 40.

Heffer, Eric S.	McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, c.)	Shaw, Arnold (llford, S.)
Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret	McNamara, J. Kevin	Sheldon, Robert
Hiley, Joseph	Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)	Short,Rt.Hn.Edward(N'c'tle-u-Tyne)
Hogg, Rt. Hn. Quintin	Manuel, Archie	Short, Mrs. Renée(W'hampton,N.E.)
Hooley, Frank	Mapp, Charles	Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)
Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas	Marks, Kenneth	Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)
Howarth, Harry (Wellingborough)	Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.	Small, William
Howarth, Robert (Bolton, E.)	Mikardo, Ian	Snow, Julian
Hoy, James	Mitchell, R. C. (S'th'pton, Test)	Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael
Huckfield, Leslie	Montgomery, Fergus	Swingier, Stephen
Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)	Moonman, Eric	Taverne, Dick
Hughes, Emrys (Ayrshire, S.)	Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)	Taylor,Edward M.(G'gow,Cathcart)
Hunter, Adam	Morris. Charles R. (Openshaw)	Thomson, Rt. Hn. George
Irvine, Sir Arthur	Morris, John (Aberavon)	Thornton, Ernest
Jackson, Colin (B'h'se & Spenb'gh)	Moyle, Roland	Tilney, John
Jeger,Mrs.Lena(H'b'n&St.P'cras,S.)	Murray, Albert	Tinn, James
Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)	Neal, Harold	Urwin, T. W.
Jones,Rt.Hn.Sir Elwyn (W.Ham,S.)	Newens, Stan	Varley, Eric G.
Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, West)	Nicholls, Sir Harmar	Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)
Judd, Frank	Oakes, Gordon	Walker, Harold (Doncaster)
Kaberry, Sir Donald	Ogden, Eric	Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek
Lawson, George	O'Malley, Brlan	Wallace, George
Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry	Oswald, Thomas	Watkins, David (Consett)
Lestor, Miss Joan	Page, Derek (King's Lynn)	Wells, William (Walsall, N.)
Lever, Harold (Cheetham)	Paget, R. T.	Whitelaw. Rt. Hn. William
Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)	Palmer, Arthur	Whitlock, William
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)	Pavitt, Laurence	Wilkins, W. A.
Lomas, Kenneth	Pentland, Norman	Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Loughlin, Charles	Perry, Ernest G. (Battersea, S.)	Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)
Lyon, Alexander W. (York)	Price, William (Rugby)	Williams, Alan Lee (Hornchurch)
Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)	Probert, Arthur	Winnick, David
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson	Rees, Merlyn	Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard
McCann, John	Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David	Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.
MacColl, James	Roberts, Coronwy (Caernarvon)	Yates, Victor
McGuire, Michael	Rodgers, William (Stockton)
Mackenzie, Gregor (Rutherglen)	Ross, Rt. Hn. William
Mackie, John	Ryan, John	TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
Mackintosh, John p.	Scott-Hopkins, James	Mr. Neil McBride and
Maclennan, Robert		Mr. Joseph Harper.

NOES
Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton	Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)	Nott, John
Bessell, Peter	Glover, Sir Douglas	Orbach, Maurice
Biggs-Davison, John	Coodhart, Philip	Pardoe, John
Booth, Albert	Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.	Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)
Davidson, James (Aberdeenshire,W.)	Henig, Stanley	St. John-Stevas, Norman
Emery, Peter	Hooson, Emlyn	Sinclair, Sir George
Errington, Sir Eric	Hunt, John	Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy
Ewing, Mrs. Winifred	Johnston, Russell (Inverness)	Wainwright, Richard (Coins Valley)
Faulds, Andrew	Jopling, Michael	Walters, Dennis
Fisher, Nigel	Kerr, Mrs. Anne (R'ter & Chatham)	Whitaker, Ben
Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)	Langford-Holt, Sir John
Foot, Sir Dingle (Ipswich)	Lubbock, Eric
Foster, Sir John	Macdonald, A. H.	TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Fraser, John (Norwood)	Mahon, Peter (Preston, S.)	Mr. David Steel and
Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)	Marten, Neil	Dr. M. P. Winstanley

Question put accordingly,That the Amendment be made:—

Division No. 73.]	AYES	[1.2 a.m.
Anderson, Donald	Foster, Sir John	Lubbock, Eric
Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton	Fraser, John (Norwood)	Lyon, Alexander W. (York)
Bessell, Peter	Gardner, Tony	Macdonald, A. H.
Bidwell, Sydney	Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)	Mackintosh, John P.
Black, Sir Cyril	Cray, Dr. Hugh (Yarmouth)	Maclennan, Robert
Blenkinsop, Arthur	Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.	McNamara, J. Kevin
Booth, Albert	Henig, Stanley	Maddan, Martin
Brooks, Edwin	Hooley, Frank	Mahon, Peter (Preston, S.)
Crawshaw, Richard	Hooson, Emlyn	Mendelson, J. J.
Davidson,James(Aberdeenshire,W.)	Hordern, Peter	Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)
Dickens, James	Hughes, Emrys (Ayrshire, S.)	Newens, Stan
Ellis, John	Hunt, John	Orbach, Maurice
Ewing, Mrs. Winifred	Jackson, Colin (B'h'se & Spenb'gh)	Orme, Stanley
Faulds, Andrew	Johnston, Russell (Inverness)	Paget, R. T.
Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)	Jopling, Michael	Pardoe, John
Fisher, Nigel	Judd, Frank	Pavitt, Laurence
Foot, Sir Dingle (Ipswich)	Kerr, Mrs. Anne (R'ter & Chatham)	Perry, George H. (Nottingham, S.)
Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)	Lestor, Miss Joan	Rowlands, E. (Cardiff, N.)
Fortesoue, Tim	Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)	Ryan, John

The Committee divided: Ayes 71, Noes 196.

St. John-Stevas, Norman	Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy	Winstanley, Dr. M. P.
Scott, Nicholas	Wainwright, Richard (Coine Valley)	Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard
Shaw, Arnold (llford, S.)	Waiters, Dennis
Sheldon, Robert	Whitaker, Ben	TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
Sinclair, Sir George	Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick	Mr. Ian Mikardo and
Steel, David (Roxburgh)	Winnick, David	Mr. Eric S. Heffer

NOES
Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)	Ginsburg, David	Neal, Harold
Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)	Goodhart, Philip	Nicholls, Sir Harmar
Archer, Peter	Goodhew, Victor	Oakes, Gordon
Armstrong, Ernest	Gordon Walker, Rt. Hn. P. C.	Ogden, Eric
Atkins, Humphrey (M't'n & M'd'n)	Gourlay, Harry	O'Malley, Brian
Atkins, Ronald (Preston, N.)	Grant, Anthony	Osborn, John (Hallam)
Bacon, Rt. Hn. Alice	Grant-Ferris, R.	Oswald, Thomas
Bagier, Cordon A, T.	Gregory, Arnold	Page, Derek (King's Lynn)
Baker, W. H. K.	Grey, Charles (Durham)	Page, John (Harrow, W.)
Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony	Gurden, Harold	Palmer, Arthur
Baxter, William	Hamilton, James (Bothwell)	Pentland, Norman
Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood	Haseldine, Norman	Perry, Ernest G. (Battersea, S.)
Bennett, James (G'gow, Bridgeton)	Hattersley, Roy	Price, Christopher (Perry Barr)
Berry, Hn. Anthony	Hazell, Bert	Price, William (Rugby)
Biffen, John	Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward	Probert, Arthur
Bishop, E. S.	Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret	Pym, Francis
Blackburn, F.	Hiley, Joseph	Rees, Merlyn
Boardman, H.	Hill, J. E. B.	Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David
Body, Richard	Hogg, Rt. Hn. Qulntin	Ridley, Hn. Nicholas
Bossom, Sir Clive	Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas	Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)
Braddock, Mrs. E. M.	Howarth, Harry (Wellingborough)	Robinson, Rt.Hn. Kenneth (St.P'c'as)
Bradley, Tom	Howarth, Robert (Bolton, E.)	Rodgers, William (Stockton)
Braine, Bernard	Hoy, James	Ross, Rt. Hn. William
Bray, Dr. Jeremy	Huckfield, Leslie	Royle, Anthony
Brinton, Sir Tatton	Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)	Russell, Sir Ronald
Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.	Hunter, Adam	Sandys, Rt. Hn. D.
Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)	Irvine, Sir Arthur	Scott-Hopkins, James
Brown, Rt. Hn. George (Belper)	Jeger,Mrs.Lena(H'b'n&St.P'cras,S.)	Sharpies, Richard
Brown,Bob(N'c'tle-upon-Tyne,W.)	Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull W.)	Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby)
Buchan, Norman	Jones,Rt.Hn.Sir Etwyn(W.Ham,S.)	Short, Rt.Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)
Buck, Antony (Colchester)	Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, West)	Short, Mrs. Renee(W'hampton,N.E.)
Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James	Kaberry, Sir Donald	Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)
Campbell, Gordon	Kershaw, Anthony	Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)
Cant, R. B.	Kimball, Marcus	Small William
Carlisle, Mark	King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Carmichael, Neil	Kitson, Timothy	Snow, Julian
Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara	Langford-Holt, Sir John	Stainton, Keith
Chapman, Donald	Lawson, George	Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael
Coe, Denis	Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry	Swingier, Stephen
Coleman, Donald	Lever, Harold (Cheetham)	Taverne, Dick
Concannon, J. D.	Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)	Taylor,Edward M.(G'gow,Cathcart)
Cullen, Mrs. Alice	Lomas, Kenneth	Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret
Dalyell, Tam	Longden, Gilbert	Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.)
Davidson, Arthur (Accrington)	Loughlin, Charles	Thornton, Ernest
Davies, Dr. Ernest (Stretford)	Lyons, Edward (Bradlord, E.)	Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.
Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)	Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson	Urwin, T. W.
Davies, Harold (Leek)	McCann, John	Varley, Eric G.
Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F. (Ashford)	MacColl, James	Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)
Diamond, Rt. Hn. John	McGuire, Michael	Walker, Harold (Doncaster)
Dobson, Ray	Mackenzie, Gregor (Rutherglen)	Wallace, George
Doig, Peter	Mackie, John	Ward, Dame Irene
Dunnett, Jack	McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)	Walking, David (Consett)
Dunwoody, Mrs. Cwyneth (Exeter)	Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)	Weatherill, Bernard
Eadie, Alex	Manuel, Archie	Wells, William (Walsall, N.)
Eden, Sir John	Mapp, Charles	Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William
Edwards, William (Merioneth)	Marks, Kenneth	Whitlock, William
Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)	Maude, Angus	Wilkins, W. A.
Elliott,R.W.(N'c'tle-upon-Tyne,N.)	Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.	Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)
English, Michael	Mitchell, R. C. (S'th'pton, Test)	Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)
Ennals, David	Montgomery, Fergus	Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.
Errington, Sir Eric	Moonman, Eric	Worsley, Marcus
Evans, loan L. (Birm'h'm, Vardley)	Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)	Wylie, N. R.
Farr, John	Morris, John (Aberavon)	Yates, Victor
Fernyhough, E.	Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles
Ford, Ben	Moyle, Roland	TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Forrester, John	Murray, Albert	Mr. Joseph Harper and
Fowler, Gerry	Murton, Oscar	Mr. Neil McBride

Question proposed,That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.

Mr. Mendelson

On a point of order Sir Eric. You announced earlier that you would allow a Division on Amendment No. 24.

The Chairman

I will allow a Division on Amendment No. 24 when we come to it, but that Amendment is to Clause 2.

Division No. 74.]	AYES	[1.12 a.m.
Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)	Fowler, Gerry	Nicholls, Sir Harmar
Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)	Ginsburg, David	Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael
Allen, Scholefield	Goodhart, Philip	Oakes, Gordon
Archer, Peter	Goodhew, Victor	Ogden, Eric
Armstrong, Ernest	Gordon Walker, Rt. Hn. P. C.	O'Malley, Brian
Astor, John	Gourlay, Harry	Osborn, John (Hallam)
Atkins, Humphrey (M't'n & M'd'n)	Grant, Anthony	Oswald, Thomas
Atkins, Ronald (Preston, N.)	Grant-Ferris, R.	Page, Derek (King's Lynn)
Bacon, Rt. Hn. Alice	Gregory, Arnold	Page, Graham (Crosby)
Bagier, Gordon A. T.	Grey, Charles (Durham)	Page, John (Harrow, W.)
Baker, W. H. K.	Gurden, Harold	Palmer, Arthur
Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony	Hamilton, James (Bothwell)	Pentland, Norman
Baxter, William	Haseldine, Norman	Perry, Ernest G. (Battersea, S.)
Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood	Hattersley Roy	Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch
Bennett, James (G'gow, Bridgeton)	Hazell, Bert	Price, William (Rugby)
Berry, Hn. Anthony	Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward	Probert, Arthur
Biffen, John	Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret	Pym, Francis
Biggs-Davison, John	Hiley, Joseph	Rees, Merlyn
Bishop, E. S.	Hogg, Rt. Hn. Quintin	Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David
Blackburn, F.	Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas	Ridley, Hn. Nicholas
Boardman, H.	Howarth, Harry (Wellingborough)	Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)
Body, Richard	Howarth, Robert (Bolton, E.)	Robinson, Rt. Hn. Kenneth(St.P'c'as)
Bossom, Sir Olive	Hoy, James	Rodgers, William (Stockton)
Braddock, Mrs. E. M.	Huckfield, Leslie	Ross, Rt. Hn. William
Bradley, Tom	Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)	Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)
Braine, Bernard	Hunter, Adam	Royle, Anthony
Bray, Or. Jeremy	Irvine, Sir Arthur	Russell, Sir Ronald
Brinton, Sir Tatton	Jackson, Colin (B'h'se & Spenb'gh)	Sandys, Rt. Hn. D.
Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.	Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)	Scott-Hopkins, James
Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)	Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn(W. Ham, S.)	Sharples, Richard
Brown, Rt. Hn. George (Belper)	Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, West)	Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby)
Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne,W.)	Kaberry, Sir Donald	Short, Rt.Hn.Edward(N'c'tle-u-Tyne)
Buchan, Norman	Kershaw, Anthony	Short, Mrs. René(W'hampton. N.E.)
Buck, Antony (Colchester)	Kimball, Marcus	Siikin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)
Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James	King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)	Small, William
Campbell, Gordon	Kitson, Timothy	Snow, Julian
Cant, R. B	Langford-Holt, Sir John	Stainton, Keith
Carlisle, Mark	Lawson, George	Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael
Carmichael, Neil	Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry	Swingler, Stephen
Carter-Jones, Lewis	Lever, Harold (Cheetham)	Taverne, Dick
Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara	Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)	Taylor, Edward M.(G'gow, Cathcart)
Chapman, Donald	Lomaa, Kenneth	Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret
Coe, Denis	Longden, Gilbert	Thomson, Rt. Hn. George
Coleman, Donald	Loughlin, Charles	Thornton, Ernest
Concannon, J. D.	Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)	Tinn, James
Cullen, Mrs. Alice	Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson	Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.
Dalyell, Tarn	McCann, John	Urwin, T. W.
Davidson, Arthur (Accrington)	MacColl, James	van Straubenzce, W. R.
Davies, Dr. Ernest (Stretford)	McGuire, Michael	Varley, Eric G.
Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)	Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)	Mackenzie, Gregor (Rutherglen)
Davies, Harold (Leek)	Mackie, John	Walker, Harold (Doncaster)
Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F. (Ashford)	Maclennan, Robert	Wallace, George
Diamond, Rt. Hn. John	McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)	Ward, Dame Irene
Dobson, Ray	Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)	Watkins, David (Consett)
Doig, Peter	Manuel, Archie	Weatherill, Bernard
Dunnett, Jack	Mapp, Charles	Webster, David
Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth (Exeter)	Marks, Kenneth	Wells, William (Walsall, N.)
Eadie, Alex	Maude, Angus	Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William
Eden, Sir John	Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J	Whitlock, William
Edwards, William (Merioneth)	Mitchell, R. C. (S'th'pton, Test)	Wilkins, W. A.
Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)	Montgomery, Fergus	Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Elliott, R.W.(N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)	Moonman, Eric	Williams, Alan(swansea, w.)
English, Michael	More, Jasper	Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)
Ennals, David	Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)	Wood, Rt. Hn, Richard
Evans, loan L. (Birm'h'm, Yardley)	Morris, John (Aberavon)	Woodborn, Rt. Hn. A.
Eyre, Reginald	Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles	Worsley, Marcus
Farr, John	Moyle, Roland	Yates, Victor
Fernyhough, E.	Murray, Albert	TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
Ford, Ben	Murton, Oscar	Mr. Joseph Harper and
Forrester, John	Neal, Harold	Mr. Neil McBride.

Question put:

The Committee divided: Ayes 208, Noes 76.

NOES
Awdry, Daniel	Heseltine, Michael	Nott, John
Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton	Higgins, Terence L.	Orbach, Maurice
Bessell, Peter	Hooley, Frank	Orme, Stanley
Bidwell, Sydney	Hooson, Emlyn	Paget, R. T.
Black, Sir Cyril	Hordern, Peter	Pardoe, John
Blenkinsop, Arthur	Hughes, Emrys (Ayrshire, S.)	Pavitt, Laurence
Booth, Albert	Hunt, John	Perry, George H. (Nottingham, S.)
Crawshaw, Richard	Jeger,Mrs.Lena(H'b'n&St.P'cras,S.)	Price, Christopher (Perry Barr)
Davidson, James(Aberdeenshire,W.)	Johnston, Russell (Inverness)	Rowlands, E. (Cardiff, N.)
Dickens, James	Jopling, Michael	Ryan, John
Ellis, John	Judd, Frank	St. John-Stevas, Norman
Emery, Peter	Kerr, Mrs. Anne (R'ter & Chatham)	Scott, Nicholas
Ewing, Mrs. Winifred	Lane, David	Shaw, Arnold (llford, S.)
Faulds, Andrew	Lestor, Miss Joan	Sheldon, Robert
Fisher, Nigel	Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)
Fbetcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)	Lubbock, Eric	Sinclair, Sir George
Foot, Sir Dingle (Ipswich)	Lyon, Alexander W. (York)	Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy
Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)	Macdonald, A. H.	Vickers, Dame Joan
Fortescue, Tim	Mackintosh, John P.	Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)
Foster, Sir John	Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain	Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek
Gardner, Tony	McNamara, J. Kevin	Walters, Dennis
Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)	Maddan, Martin	Whitaker, Ben
Glover, Sir Douglas	Mahon, Peter (Preston, S.)	Winnick, David
Gray, Dr. Hugh (Yarmouth)	Marten, Neil
Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.	Mendelson, J. J.	TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Heffer, Eric S.	Mikardo, Ian	Mr. David Steel and
Henig, Stanley	Newens, Stan	Dr.M. P. Winstanley.

Mr. David Steel

I beg leave to move, That the Chairman do report Progress and ask leave to sit again.

The Chairman

I cannot accept that Motion.