RUDI DUTSCHKE

HC Deb 19 January 1971 vol 809 cc743-808

4.20 p.m.

Mr. James Callaghan (Cardiff, South-East)

I am sure that there would be a lot of gratitude if the House did adjourn—certainly before we got to the Industrial Relations Bill—[An HON. MEMBER: "Why?"]—because it is irrelevant to the problems with which it purports to deal. I will not go into that matter now. I have never known so much time wasted by the House on a Measure so irrelevant. But that is another question.

What we wish to raise on this Adjournment Motion is the handling by, and the policy of, the Home Secretary in relation to the refusal to allow Mr. Dutschke to remain in this country as a student. We hope to get a satisfactory explanation from the right hon. Gentleman of his reasons and of his policy on these matters.

A number of people say, "Why bother? Why waste the time of the House with an obscure, or not so obscure, student who holds extremist views, is very unpopular, clearly commands very little support, and to whom we owe no hospitality?"It is a view which has been expressed to me in a number of letters. However, I think that it misunderstands both the nature of the British tradition and the nature and quality of our democracy. If a simple issue like this, as it is regarded, is to be dismissed without taking up the time of the House, even if it is thought to be important—I believe that it is important—then, in a time when standards are faltering, when a number of our traditions are being undermined—a number of them very desirable traditions—we should be taking one more step on a path which would lead downwards, not upwards.

It is important to go back to what the Home Secretary gave as his reasons for excluding Mr. Dutschke, when he ORDERS OF THE DAY was asked as long ago as last August, especially in view of the developments which have taken place since and all the other new issues which have been introduced.

The Home Secretary, on 25th August, in turning him down, said: Jim made it a condition of his admission"— that is, Dutschke's admission— that he should refrain from political activities and I should certainly not be prepared to withdraw any such condition. But I frankly do not believe that it is a satisfactory condition to make in any but the most exceptional circumstances. I think it is wrong in principle that people who come to this country should do so on the basis that they refrain from any activities which are lawful for the ordinary citizen. Nor do I think in practice that such a condition could be enforced. I am afraid, therefore, that I cannot agree that Mr. Dutschke should now continue to reside in this country as a student. As I understand that, the Home Secretary was saying that it was not satisfactory to require him to refrain from political activities, that it was wrong in principle, that it could not be enforced, and, therefore, he could not agree to him remaining.

That was the major issue which arose at that time. There was a subsidiary reason: that, as he is now fit enough to undertake full-time study, it is reasonable to conclude that his period of convalescence is complete and we should put a term to his stay in this country for that purpose.

Those were the only two reasons which were adduced at that time: first, that it was wrong, except in the most exceptional circumstances, to try to exact an undertaking of this kind; and, secondly, that it was unenforceable; and, subsidiary to that, that his convalescence was now complete.

Did the right hon. Gentleman have any other reasons at that time? If so, it would have been more open and frank if he had exposed them. Did the right hon. Gentleman have in mind that the nation's security was at stake—the very procedure which he has invoked—because he did not say a word about it? The right hon. Gentleman did not even say that Dutschke had failed to observe the conditions which had been laid down. I really find myself wondering—I must put this to the Home Secretary, and I expect a candid answer from him—why he did not at that time say that in his view the security of the nation was involved and that Dutschke had failed to observe the conditions.

Even if the right hon. Gentleman says that he did not want to raise the first question—I can understand the arguments, though I should not think that they were right, and I do not agree with them—it would have been more frank to say to those sponsoring Mr. Dutschke's entry, "This man has not observed his condition." But the Home Secretary did not say that. The nearest he got to it was to say that in practice such a condition could not be enforced. The right hon. Gentleman did not say, "And, what is more, he has not endeavoured to abide by it."

As far as I can see, this fact is hotly disputed. I shall argue in a moment that in my view—these are matters of judgment—Dutschke broadly kept to his undertaking. [Interruption.] If the argument is that he did not, then I should have expected him to be warned about it. I should have expected somebody to have said to those sponsoring him, "Look here, this man is having discussions in his study on political questions. He is sitting quietly at a meeting. We regard this as going beyond the bounds of the undertaking which he gave. If he is going to stay here, he should observe strictly the requirements which were laid down."

But not a word was said—[Interruption.] I will come to my part later. There is no reason why I should not. If the hon. Gentleman wants to say anything, no doubt he will.

That is the first question that I want to raise. I ask the Home Secretary clearly: on what grounds is he standing in refusing this man permission to study here?

Many people do not need any grounds or reasons. They just want to rely upon their prejudices. I have had letters from them. There are those for whom it is sufficient that Dutschke is a German or, as they more usually say, a Hun, and, therefore, he should not be allowed to remain in this country.

There are those who say that he is a student. That clearly condemns him out of hand—and a student who wants to study here clearly has committed a double error.

Then there is the—I should not dignify it by the word "argument"—prejudice that is exposed in some correspondence, "He is keeping our boys out of university. It is wrong that a German foreign student should keep a British boy out of a university."

Then there are those for whom it is sufficient to say—it is getting nearer to an argument, but it is basically a prejudice—"The man holds extremist views. We owe him nothing. Let him get out."

Then there are those who say, "We are in national danger. Our traditions are in danger of being undercut. Our values are being undermined. We do not want this man here to continue that process. Therefore, Dutschke should go."

The Home Secretary has given some countenance to this by using the procedure of hearing part of the case in camera and involving the security of the nation. I would never accuse the right hon. Gentleman of beginning to get anywhere near a smear. I do not say that the right hon. Gentleman was trying to smear the man, but he made a basic mistake in his handling of this case by introducing the state of the nation's security. It gives rise to all those who say, "The Home Secretary knows. There is never smoke without fire. There is much more to this than we think. He has involved the national security." It is that which is opened up by this reference.

Where does the Home Secretary stand in this gallery? Does he espouse any of these particular reasons or prejudices which my correspondents have adduced to me as the reasons for not allowing this man to stay here? It is a pretty odoriferous brew when one adds it up compounded by a mixture of hatred of foreigners and dislike of students. That is what it comes to. Some people will get an awful shock if the Government get their way and we go into the Common Market. Just think of all those foreigners we shall then have trampling over us throughout the counties and villages of this country.

What is the Home Secretary's attitude? We will hear later. I gather that one of the right hon. Gentleman's complaints, so it is said by the newspapers in the kind of statements which we get, is that he feels that his case has not been fully deployed, although those who are opposed to him have had their full say. I have seen that said more than once in the Press. I understand what he means after listening to the Attorney-General in the Tribunal, when I heard him floundering as he did. There is no other word to describe the manner in which he dealt with Mr. Dutschke. I think that the Home Secretary has a point, and he now has the opportunity of making the case which has failed to be made before. I hope that he will take advantage of this opportunity to explain it. I understand his policy, but I find his handling of the matter unsatisfactory.

The Chief Whip is sitting there looking as innocent as a new born babe. Was he responsible for the statement that the Whips were rubbing their hands at the prospect of a debate on this issue? Do they know something which the rest of us do not know? I understand that they do not, and I am glad to hear that. I should regard it as surprising if they did, but why are they rubbing their hands? Is it because they want to cash in on the anti-foreign feeling, the xenophobia, that exists beneath the surface in many people in this country? Do they want to do the job which the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) did on race? Let hon. Gentlemen opposite know of the passions and prejudice which they are arousing on this matter, especially by their intolerant handling of it, and the Attorney-General did nothing in his intervention in the Tribunal to allay those feelings.

Having gone very carefully into the facts, I do not know how much more we shall learn this afternoon about Mr. Dutschke and his activities, but I think the Home Secretary must take note of the fact that we shall learn a great deal about him. We shall learn what is his attitude and his approach to this issue. We shall learn, and it is important that we should learn, what is his future policy on these matters.

The right hon. Gentleman will have received a letter, as I have, signed by a number of. I hardly dare say it, students at Cambridge, who write to say that they have always associated the idea of tolerance of different political views with the United Kingdom and they ask the Home Secretary to make explicit the limits and conditions imposed upon foreign students with respect to political association, discussion, and other political activities. They go on to say: We hope that before Parliament enacts new legislation governing the entry and continued residence of foreign students you will encourage and participate in the widest possible discussion of it. That is signed by a group of students from many countries—Canada, France, the United States, Australia, Finland, Sierre Leone, Japan, Jordan, South Africa, Israel, Argentina, and so on.

Perhaps they ought not to be here at all, and there are many people who think that they should not. There are about 24,000 foreign students studying in this country, but are any conditions laid down for them? I expect and hope to hear the Home Secretary say "No". We are, however, entitled to expect a certain reticence from foreign students living in this country in relation to our domestic affairs and there would be.

An Hon. Member

What about Tariq Ali?

Mr. Callaghan

He is not a foreigner. He is a Commonwealth student who is registered as a British citizen, but that is another question. I am referring to foreign students who come here. We are entitled to expect a certain reticence from them. I do not dispute that but, in relation to what they do at their universities, and because they traditionally associate this country with tolerance, I should not expect any interference with their activities at university.

I remember that the first time I went to the Oxford Union I found that an American was president. I never had the good fortune to go there as a student—if it was bad fortune not to go there. The next time it was an Indian who was president. These students take an active part in our political affairs, and many of them hold different offices at our universities. What is to be the principle? We must return to this. The Home Secretary is nodding. He should tell us again whether the traditional view which has been observed in this matter will continue in relation to these foreign students. I do not suppose that it will be altered at all, but it is going to make a little more difficult this afternoon the right hon. Gentleman's explanation why he refuses to allow Mr. Dutschke to stay here if there is to be no alteration in our traditional approach to these matters.

Sir John Langford-Holt (Shrewsbury)

Is it not a fact that it was the right hon. Gentleman, when he was Home Secretary, who placed conditions upon this gentleman's right to stay in this country?

Mr. Callaghan

It is a slightly more complicated question than that.

Hon. Members

Answer the question.

Mr. Callaghan

I have listened to the hyena-like voices of hon. Gentlemen opposite for the last 25 years, and they get no prettier as time goes on. What happened was that when Mr. Dutschke's sponsors wrote to me originally they offered that he would not take part in political activities, and in the reply that I made I accepted the offer that had been made by him. In other words, I did not exact a condition from him. There is something to be said for the point of view that it is difficult to exact a condition from someone that he will not take part in political activities. The borderline is so difficult to draw. But if somebody volunteers to abstain from political activities, that is not such a difficult matter. After all, 95 per cent. of the people of this country abstain for five years from any political activity at all except for putting a cross on a ballot paper. They find no difficulty in abstaining, and if there is a voluntary abstenance, it is not difficult to carry out.

Mr. Dutschke came here on medical grounds, and because he was being harassed by the Press and by photographers in the country in which he was staying. He was a seriously wounded man who was pretty close to death at the time. I believe that allowing him in was a compassionate measure, and I hope that no one will disagree—I know that the Home Secretary does not—with allowing him in for medical treatment, for which he paid. I have had letters saying what a disgraceful thing it is that Mr. Dutschke should have been treated under the National Health Service. Let me make it clear that he paid his own medical bills for the treatment that he received.

Mr. Christopher Woodhouse (Oxford)

If there had been no medical grounds for Dutschke's coming to this country, and if he had applied to come here as a student in the first place, would the right hon. Gentleman have allowed him in?

Mr. Callaghan

That is a hypothetical question. I do not know what the answer would have been, but I think that my answer at that stage would have been "No". Does that surprise hon. Gentlemen opposite? I think that my answer would have been "No", and I mean "No". But what has happened—and this is a material point which the Home Office ought to take into account, and always does take into account—is that the man has lived here quietly for two years. He has broken no law. There is a difference of opinion about this, but in my view Dutschke's keeping broadly within the terms which he had laid down for himself creates a different situation. This is a hypothetical question. I do not know what would have been my answer. I am being as honest as I can with the hon. Gentleman.

If, without any knowledge of the man, just knowing what had happened, if he had not been wounded, if he had not needed medical attention, and so on, I had been asked to allow him in I should probably have said, "No, we do not need you, thank you very much. There are many competitors for our universities". But that is not the position today, and the hon. Gentleman knows it. The effluxion of time creates different conditions. That is my view, and we ought to look at the position differently, although I always made it clear that we had no moral obligation to keep him when he wanted to change his status.

The right hon. Gentleman was ready to continue to allow him to remain here as a convalescent, but not to study. That is a difference which I find difficult to sustain.

Mr. David Lane (Cambridge)

rose—

Mr. Callaghan

This is a very short debate.

Hon. Members

Give way. The hon. Member is from Cambridge.

Mr. Callaghan

I do not care a damn whether he is from Cambridge or Oxford—[Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson)

Order. There is widespread interest in this debate, but it does not help when interruptions of this kind take place.

Mr. Callaghan

I was educated in a secondary school, and that seems as good as Cambridge in these matters. That has nothing to do with it: the hon. Gentleman can make his own speech. I must pursue what I have to say on this. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to quote from the report, he will be able to quote it in his own speech later on, I hope.

In my view, what has happened is this: Dutschke has kept his undertakings. The Tribunal did not define what his undertakings were, but they took rather a different view. They said: It is clear from the Appellant's evidence that he has had meetings and discussions with a wide variety of people involved in political activities, some of whom he had not met before; some were British nationals, others were from overseas, who came to consult him, in his view quite naturally, when they visited Britain. I would ask, is to have discussions with people involved in political activities a political activity or a social activity? This is really the sort of level at which the Tribunal is arguing. I do not think that this is terribly important, the distinction between the two—this is the narrower point which I am now on—but I know that this is what the hon. Gentleman and others want to raise.

But it seems to me that, if the Tribunal did not define it any more closely than it did, we are not entitled to pay the respect to it that I do to the Tribunal on some other matters on which it expresses its views. It goes on: In our view these meetings and associations have far exceeded normal social activities and. whatever his intentions may have been, he did not abide by the assurance given by him and on his behalf not to engage in political activities. I wonder about that, I really do. I find it difficult to believe that whether a man stays here or goes should depend on whether he has been having political talks in his rooms or in his house. I regard political activity as a much more active pursuit than that, I must say. Otherwise, there would be plenty of people engaged in politics. What were his intentions? I notice that the Tribunal put in this qualification—"whatever his intentions may have been".

There is one item that I came across by accident the other day when looking through my cuttings which is illustrative of his intentions, and goes back as far as 7th January 1970. He was asked to join the editorial board of Black Dwarf. He did not make any public statement himself but the board did. Indeed, it was that dreadful character—as the hon. Member would probably view it—Tariq Ali, who said: He has now considered the situation carefully and has decided that the legal conditions on which he was allowed to enter Britain do not permit him to take part in any political activity. Though he regards 'Black Dwarf' very favourably, he must therefore decline to come on to the editorial board. [Interruption.] What I think hon. Members find it easy to confuse is their dislike of Black Dwarf, which they are entitled to have, and the evidence of his intentions.

It is quite clear that, on this count, having been asked to join the board in January, 1970, he said that this in his view conflicted with the legal conditions on which he was allowed to land. Is not that some evidence of intentions? It would have been more in accordance with our traditions if the man had been warned, if it was thought that he was exceeding what was regarded as the normal social activity to which he had undertaken to limit himself. So I hold the view that we are departing from a tradition which we have established for some time.

But I want to put this to the Home Secretary. Is it the fact that he departed, or is alleged to have departed, from the promise which he gave when he came here not to engage in political activities which is the reason for getting rid of him? Is that regarded as good enough? If so, perhaps the Home Secretary would say why. Why does he think that taking part in political discussion, however revolutionary it may have been, however childish it may have been, however ineffective it may have been, makes it necessary to get rid of the man? Is it that he had political discussions or is it that the Home Secretary does not like his views? Which is it?

I believe that, if this man held different views, we might not have heard so much about the case as we have done so far. I do not like his views. I do not wish to go into this, but no hon. Member would assume that I would agree with practically anything which Mr. Dutschke had to say on these matters I do not think that is the issue. I would regret it very much if hon. Gentlemen opposite try to make that the issue. I think that the issue is broader and wider than that—the traditions of this country.

So I take the view that it is not a sufficient reason for getting rid of him, without even a warning, to say, "You have been having discussions about these matters or have been attending meetings" He was not taking any active part, so far as I know.

Second, what is clear from the Tribunal's report is that his activities were in no sense a danger to the nation. What was their careful phrase— Up to the present time, the presence of the appellant in this country has constituted no appreciable danger to national security."? I do not know what anyone wants to make out of that, but a more unlikely spy I never saw.

I agree with the Tribunal: there has been no danger in what he has done since he has been here. Nor, I would add, is there any likelihood of it. So why did the Home Secretary introduce this question of the nation's safety? It has been found that the man did not transgress. We know why those words were put in. They were not to deal with a case like this or with that of a man caught in flagrante delicto, but with the case of an agent who may land here deliberately to challenge the authorities, so that he could try to establish in open court what was known about him by the security services if they tried to get rid of him. It was not to deal with a miserable case like this.

I complained about the Home Secretary introducing this issue in this way. It was a political decision. The Home Secretary on 25th August made it clear that it was a political decision. He may have been right or he may have been wrong, but I wish that he had stuck to it and not brought in this other question.

Dutschke wanted peace and quiet when he came here. He may be unlikeable, his views may be repugnant to many hon. Gentlemen, he may show no sense of gratitude or understanding of our way of life, he may wish to use this country as no more than a staging post—but none of that is sufficient reason for refusing to allow him to stay here as a student. That is the difference between us; that is my view, and it is important to state it.

It may be said that we owe him no hospitality, that he has no claim on us. That is quite correct: we owe him no hospitality and he has no claim upon us. Nevertheless, he was here and he lived here quietly and had not broken our laws. In my view, it would have been more in keeping with our traditions if we had allowed him to stay here with his wife and family.

I draw a clear distinction between this man and Dr. Hoch, who took part in those disgraceful scenes at the London School of Economics last year—an American student who was here, who was found guilty by the court and properly expelled by the Home Secretary. That was quite right. But if democracy cannot stand argument, if it cannot stand the expression of a contrary view, if our institutions are now so enfeebled that we have to deport a man who has done nothing to break our laws, so much the worse for us. I take a much more robust view of the health of British democracy.

Has the cause of democracy been strengthened by shutting Dutschke out? France shut him out. He is not allowed there. Does anyone believe that democracy in France is stronger than it is in this country? Is it to be argued that we strengthen our cause when we shut out a man like this from this country? Our strength lies in a democracy countering a man's arguments and not trying to shut them out.

The Times did us all a service when it published that full interview with him. When I saw his views set out there I could think of few arguments that would encourage me to accept what he had to say.

Nevertheless, I take the view that a democracy is entitled to take undemocratic action to preserve itself if the threat is at the gates. I firmly believe that a democracy cannot sit back and allow itself to be raped and destroyed by those who merely wish to use it.

Having said that, it must be accepted that nobody really believes that we are now at that stage. Our parliamentary system is under attack. It always is. There is a good deal of cynicism and talk of extra-parliamentary activity nowadays, but there always has been.

If anybody really wants to measure the strength of the revolutionary movement in this country, he should examine the handful of questions which the Attorney-General put to Rudi Dutschke—for reasons that are not quite clear to me—about his visit to Swansea, when he passed the steelworks at Llanwern[Interruption]—and I have no doubt that he passed the works at Port Talbot as well.

He was going to stay with an international revolutionary Socialist—[Laughter.]—and he wanted to meet some strikers at Port Talbot. This revolutionary Socialist had to tell him, "I do not know any". He had said that he wanted to meet them to discuss the sociological implications of strikers' motives in this country. Whether or not he did I do not know, but what a picture it paints of the revolutionary nature of British workers at Port Talbot.

Are we really saying that when the Left is so fractured and splintered that it could not even raise one striker for him to talk to at Port Talbot, we must get rid of Rudi Dutschke because he is a danger to our national security?

Parliament has been under attack and perhaps it is under attack more than for some time. However, we have no right—in my view we are betraying democracy and our past—to behave as the Government are behaving now—with all the reactions of a nervous and frightened tabby pussy cat.

4.53 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Reginald Maudling)

I shall compress my remarks as much as possible, though I know that the House will wish me to deal with this case thoroughly. I will do so myself because, first, this case has been the subject of the Tribunal and, then, I thought I should speak first in Parliament; I have not been able to put my side of the matter in public.

As I understand that the Opposition intend to divide the House on the issue that my decision was wrong, let us be clear about why I took it and what it was.

In late 1968, Mr. Dutschke was in Italy, where he had moved after the shooting incident in Berlin. On 25th October, 1968, somebody applied on his behalf for him to come to this country to consult a specialist. It was also suggested that he would like to undertake translation work and study at a university. It was volunteered on his behalf that he would not engage in political activities if he were admitted.

My predecessor agreed that he should come here for one month for medical consultations. His admission would be on the clear understanding that he would not engage in political activities and that he, the right hon. Gentleman, did not agree that Mr. Dutschke should engage in a course of post-graduate study at a British university. There was a little uncertainty when the right hon. Gentleman, in reply to questions at one stage, referred to what he had said on being asked whether Mr. Dutschke could engage in a course at a British university. In any event, the right hon. Gentleman said that he could not agree to his studying here.

What were the stringent conditions? They were no doubt imposed in the light of his political activities, and the nature of those activities, and his open advocacy of the use of force for political ends, which had already caused him to be declared inadmissible not only to France but to Holland as well.

Mr. Dutschke was admitted to the United Kingdom on this basis, which he freely accepted, in December, 1968. In January, 1969, my predecessor was asked to allow Mr. Dutschke to stay here for a further six months for convalescence on the continued understanding that he would not engage in political activities. This was granted, as was another six months' extension in July, 1969, on the same basis as before. It was clearly accepted on each occasion that Mr. Dutschke was willing to abide by the original conditions.

In January, 1970, somebody wrote to my predecessor raising the question of Mr. Dutschke's taking a university course. This, it was accepted, would involve a change in the original conditions. My predecessor told him that he would allow Mr. Dutschke a further extension on the same basis as before and that if he wished for a further extension to go to university, he should let the Home Office have full particulars.

Permission to stay here as a student would, of course, mean a change of status, and my predecessor made it quite clear that he could not, at that stage, say what the decision would be. This was my predecessor's last word on the case. At no time did he release Mr. Dutschke from the original condition that he would not be allowed to study at a university.

On 13th July, 1970, somebody wrote to me on his behalf hoping that I would agree that Mr. Dutschke should be allowed to stay in this country for the purpose of studying at a university, a clear change from the original conditions. I replied that I could not agree. I did not think that a condition of refraining from political activity was in principle desirable, or in practice enforceable for a long stay. That is my answer to what the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) said about the activities of students in this country and whether, when they are here, they should be allowed to enter into political activities.

If a man cannot be trusted to take part in political activities while he is here, why should he be trusted to be here at all? Political activities cannot be satisfactorily defined. They range from attending political meetings or making speeches to planning or even perpetrating violence for political ends. And if proof is needed that such a condition is unenforceable in practice, this lies clearly to be seen in the Report of the Tribunal.

Mr. Callaghan

If a man perpetrates violence, is not the proper course to bring him before the courts? That has nothing to do with this procedure.

Mr. Maudling

Naturally. I am saying that political activity in modern conditions ranges over a very wide spectrum, and I shall return to this subject later.

I was not—any more than my predecessor was prepared to do—prepared to agree that Mr. Dutschke should reside here with full freedom to engage in political activities. Mr. Dutschke then exercised his right to appeal against my refusal to allow him to become a student. Under the Act of 1969 and the Aliens Appeals Order made under it, a special panel of the Immigration Appeals Tribunal had been set up to hear any cases where the decision was taken in the interests of national security or on grounds of a political nature.

This was clearly a case of the kind covered by these provisions. What other reasons could there have been, from the beginning, for insisting on the condition that Mr. Dutschke should not stay here for any but medical reasons? The main feature of his appeal was the claim that he had kept to his promise not to engage in political activities. I therefore referred his claim to the special panel of the Tribunal, which had been set up by the previous Administration, and four members out of its five had been appointed by them.

After a hearing lasting five days, the Tribunal reached the conclusion that there was no essential reason for Mr. Dutschke to remain here on medical grounds; that he had not abided by the assurances given by him, and on his behalf, not to engage in political activities; and that if he were to remain for a further period as a student, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, there must without doubt be risk to national security in his continued presence. The Tribunal found that my decision was in accordance with the law and immigration rules and it did not consider that, in the exercise of my discretion in this matter, I should have exercised it differently.

The effect of the Tribunal's findings—that is, of a Tribunal chosen by the previous Administration—is to confirm my decision not to vary the original conditions which Mr. Dutschke accepted when coming to this country. In other words, the Home Office has kept rigorously to the original agreement and sought no changes. Mr. Dutschke was asked no more than on his part to do the same thing and to leave, as he originally agreed to do when his health had improved. Those are the facts of the case. I should now like to turn to the merits.

Mr. Reginald Freeson (Willesden, East)

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he has misquoted the Tribunal's findings? He has referred to a statement in paragraph 55 of the report that there would undoubtedly be a risk to national security. No such phrase is used in that paragraph, which states that: … there must without doubt be risk in his continued presence on a longer-term stay of this kind. Whatever that risk was, it was not stated by the Tribunal.

Mr. Maudling

I said that if he stayed on that basis there would, without doubt, be a risk to national security. If the hon. Member for Willesden, East (Mr. Free-son) will look back at an earlier stage, he will find that they said that there had been no appreciable risk to national security in his presence to date—and this I entirely accept, because if there had been risk either I or my predecessor would already have asked him to leave—but that despite that, if he remained here, there would without doubt be a risk.

I turn to the speech of the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East. I am a little surprised at his attitude in this matter. I have never criticised his actions in this case. I entirely agreed with them. What I have done is consistent with what he himself did. I followed the appeal procedure which he devised and put it to a Tribunal, most of the members of which were chosen by his Government.

He admitted Mr. Dutschke on compassionate grounds, subject to the most stringent conditions, even when, as he said, he was a very sick man and his convalescence had hardly started, whereas now it has been completed. There must have been very strong reasons in the mind of the right hon. Gentleman for him to impose his conditions in the first instance and to continue to reiterate them on each subsequent occasion.

The last occasion on which the right hon. Gentleman dealt with this case was in January, 1970, when he was not prepared to agree to Mr. Dutschke becoming a student. The right hon. Gentleman said that he could not say which way the decision was going, but if it were right, moral and proper for him to retain then the discretion to say "No", why is it wrong for me to exercise that discretion? He reserved his decision on the basis of the evidence available to him. There was a good deal more information available to me when I came to consider this case, in July and August, than there was in January, six months previously, when it was last decided by the right hon. Gentleman.

As the House knows, it is the constant tradition of Governments not to reveal the sources from which the security services obtain their information in any case. I should certainly not, nor would anyone else, dream of departing from that tradition. But in view of some things which have been said, I should make it absolutely clear that every scrap of information presented to me upon which I made my decision was collected under the personal authority and approval of my predecessor.

So what is the right hon. Gentleman complaining about? The Tribunal was established by him. The personnel of that Tribunal were chosen by his Government. In a debate in November, in what I thought was a slightly intemperate speech, he urged me to accept whatever the Tribunal said and to go along with its verdict. Having used the discretion which he retained, on his evidence, is he now saying that, having used that discretion in the way in which I thought fit on the basis of information not available to him but collected on a basis of which he approved, I should overthrow the verdict of a Tribunal which he established because the Tribunal confirms that I was right?

I turn to some of the matters which have given rise to proper concern over this case. Some of them are very genuine and important, and some are based on a misunderstanding. May I first clear up one or two misunderstandings? The word "deportation" is often used, and was even used, surprisingly, by the right hon. Gentleman this afternoon. There is no question of deportation. Mr. Dutschke came here as a temporary visitor for health treatment. No action of any kind has been taken by the Home Office to change the basis on which he came to this country. Sometimes it is said that this involves political asylum. There is no possible question of political asylum involved in this case. That has never been advanced on behalf of Mr. Dutschke, but it has been said on many occasions—and it could not possibly be advanced seriously—that the question of political asylum arose here. When coming here, Mr. Dutschke undertook that he would go away after medical treatment.

It is said that this decision is a threat to academic freedom. I do not accept that. I do not challenge for one moment the right of the universities to decide whom they would like to admit to their societies. But, equally, there can be no challenge to the right and duty of Her Majesty's Government, subject to Parliament, to decide who can reside in this country, if he is not a British citizen. I am sure that the universities would never wish to arrogate this right to themselves or, in any case, to claim special exemption from the normal law for those whom they have chosen as students.

Two very important issues about which the public is concerned are, first, the proceedings of the Tribunal and, second, the question of freedom of speech. May I dwell on these to some extent, because I should like to give them the seriousness which they deserve.

As for the proceedings of the Tribunal, no one is happy about this. I am sure that no one who has listened to and studied this Tribunal will think that it is the right answer to this problem. People are concerned especially about the fact that evidence put forward on behalf of the Government was not made available to Mr. Dutschke. This is a great difficulty which has been recognised by succeeding Governments. I have plenty of quotations from my predecessors concerning available and relevant information which comes from sources which cannot be disclosed without damage to the national interest.

That is precisely why the special Tribunal was set up. No security service can possibly work if its sources are destroyed by publication. I recognise that there is an argument for having no security services, though I doubt whether many people in present conditions would regard that as a reasonable proposition. But there can be no argument for having a security service working for the State and then attacking or traducing it. There can certainly be no argument for having a security service and then making it ineffective by forcing the disclosure of its sources of information upon which its effectiveness depends. This problem is well understood by both sides of the House.

Mr. Clinton Davis (Hackney, Central)

How does the right hon. Gentleman reconcile that argument with the fact that, in treason trials or trials involving breaches of the Official Secrets Act, when evidence has to be given in camera it is given in such a way that a defendant can answer it and cross-examine the witnesses who are giving evidence?

Mr. Maudling

That is my next point. In this case, there is no question of a trial. The Home Office were not seeking a change in Mr. Dutschke's position. The case arose from his desire to challenge my refusal to vary the conditions which he originally accepted for entry. All that could happen to him, if the Tribunal found against him, was that he would be held to what he agreed to do less than two years ago.

If sources cannot be disclosed without damage to the national interest, it is important that provision should be made for the reference of these matters to independent and judicially-minded people in whom the appellants can have confidence and whose advice will carry weight.

It is against that background that this Tribunal was chosen by the previous Government, and what happened was to carry out precisely the solution which they had proposed for what I entirely agree is a very difficult problem.

If we can find ways and means of preventing that situation, I for one would be happy to do so. Both sides would wish to reconcile what are genuine considerations of national security and the position of individuals.

I come finally to the basic issue of political freedom which has been raised in this instance. This is the issue of freedom of speech and political protest. Was my decision that Mr. Dutschke should not become a student here, like my predecessor's similar decision in the first instance, an affront to the rights of freedom of speech? By my unwillingness to allow him to reside in this country and take part in political activities am I, in fact, limiting the freedom of speech which our constitution should provide?

These are, without doubt, issues of profound importance for any democracy. But all freedom of speech and of protest must be subject to some limitation within the fabric of organised society. For freedom itself cannot exist without law to protect it, and to use freedom of speech or protest in order to undermine organised lawful society is, in my submission, something that is unacceptable. If we want to preserve freedom we must be prepared when necessary to protect it, and the freedom to impose by force one's views upon others is not a freedom that any democracy can accept. Freedom has traditionally been under threat from government, but it is also upheld by government, and in modern conditions particularly the threat to freedom may come from those who wish to overthrow or discredit democratic government itself.

There should be no limit on any advocacy of any changes in our society or our constitution by peaceful means. There should be no limitation on the basic freedom to hold political views, to propose, to argue, to persuade, even to protest, and all these freedoms should apply equally to those who live in this country, be they British citizens by right, or foreign citizens, including students, whom we have agreed to admit here. But to promote and, even more, to organise, the use of force for this purpose is an extension of political protest that is not acceptable in our democracy. This has always been recognised by our law and by succeeding governments. Whatever may be true in a country where government is tyrannical, in a country such as ours where the people can choose their own Parliament and their own Government, force can be the weapon only of the minority to deny freedom to the majority.

There can be no doubt that the concept of national security has been changing as the threat to our democratic society changes. The danger is no longer solely external. The most cursory look at the world shows the development of many groups of determined people openly devoted to the use of force in one degree or another for political ends. We have seen its advocacy and its use in North America, Latin America, the Middle East, and even in this country itself. And there can be no doubt that there are contacts between these various groups, whose circumstances may be different but who are united in the belief that they are entitled to promote their own political purposes, in which they passionately believe, by imposing their will on others. Any country is entitled to anticipate and forestall activities by such political groups. To do so is not to deny freedom but to protect it.

It seems to me, moreover, quite clear that countries are entitled to be specially careful when it comes to the admission of foreign citizens. This country has no obligation to admit anyone, leaving aside rights of political asylum which I agree must be inviolate. We have no obligation to admit anyone whose presence might lend itself to the activities of people hostile to our democratic system. There is no such obligation on any Government. Nor has any Government a right to take risks where national security is involved by admitting people as residents of this country who have no claim themselves upon our society and whose presence may be harmful or could be exploited by others for harmful ends. We believe in pursuing a liberal policy for admitting foreign citizens to this country, which has always been a soundly based tradition, but it is our duty to say "No" in circumstances where security considerations make this necessary.

This is my statement of how I believe freedom can be protected and preserved in this country. Only if we are prepared to defend the rights of free democratic decision against any who may use force to impose their political beliefs, only if we follow what all Governments have always done on this point, and only if we understand that national security involves this, can we hope to guarantee freedom of expression against the inevitable backlash which will come from right-wing views and which many would like to stimulate for their own purposes.

These are the considerations which I put forward. I was asked to say what I thought were the proper limitations on freedom of discussion in this country. I believe that this is the proper limitation on freedom of action, and it should not be used to undermine and take away the freedom of others.

To return to the issue raised by the right hon. Gentleman, I understand that we are to have a vote. I welcome that. If the Labour Party disagrees with my action and consider that Mr. Dutschke should be released from the undertakings that he gave freely to gain admission here, in the light of the Tribunal's findings first that he did not keep his under- takings and secondly that if he were allowed to remain there would without doubt be a risk, I hope that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite will vote to that effect.

5.17 p.m.

Mrs. Judith Hart (Lanark)

My remarks will be brief, because I know that many other hon. Members want to take part in the debate.

The debate is partly about a person, Rudi Dutschke, and the Home Secretary has given us his own account. It is partly about the principles of the matter, and the right hon. Gentleman spent a lot of time on his interpretation of the principles which he believes should govern his judgment in matters of this kind. I want to spend a few moments on both points.

In the light of what the Secretary of State said towards the end of his speech about the need to avoid violence and to oppose the use of force in our society, it is necessary and important for those of us who have not met Rudi Dutschke, as I have not, and as I imagine very few hon. Members have, to pay some regard to what has been written about him in papers such as The Times by those who know him. I will make one brief quotation from an article by Mr. Richard Davy in The Times of Saturday, 9th January, that seems to challenge the Home Secretary's assumptions about Mr. Dutschke's attitude towards violence, and which seems relevant in this matter. Mr. Davy wrote: Unlike many bored and frustrated middle-class students who gravitate to 'revolution' for the excitement of the game, he does not glamourise violence or advocate its use as a means of gaining power. In an interview with Dutschke which was published last weekend in The Times, he made his own views on this clear.

One either accepts what someone states to be his philosophy or one does not. If one does not accept it, we are on completely different ground. The Home Secretary has indicated that part of his ground is his view that Dutschke professes to believe in violence. Dutschke denies that that is so. We can only take what he and others say are their philosophies.

Having said that about Dutschke and leaving on one side the factors of his illness, that when he came to this country he had to learn English over again and, incidentally, to learn his own language over again, and leaving out of account the hardship which followed from an incident in which he was a victim and not a protagonist, I come to the principle which seems to govern the Home Secretary.

Listening to the right hon. Gentleman's speech, I began on the assumption that we should hear something which was at least a reasonable interpretation of his stance in the matter. I ended, when he sat down, dismayed by what seemed to be a complete reinterpretation of the principles of liberty in this country.

The first major change that the Home Secretary has made in the course of his handling of this case is that he has extended—he admits it and supports it—the whole concept of national security from those matters of State secrets, defence secrets and espionage which we have all understood to be encompassed by the necessary methods of State security. The right hon. Gentleman has extended the concept of national security to include political dissent and political militancy, whether or not force is used. He has extended it to cover merely the discussion of what principles should guide militants and dissentients.

I was particularly interested in one remark, and I am quite certain that the Home Secretary could not really have meant what he said here. He was explaining the difference between a trial and the tribunal in terms of the evidence not being available to the defence counsel in the tribunal. If I understood him correctly, he said that it was not a trial in a court of law but a tribunal. The implication is very clear, that if it is not a trial justice does not matter, that totally different approaches can be used if it is not a trial with a possible prison sentence at the end. According to the Home Secretary, the question whether the methods used are just is apparently irrelevant. That was the implication—[Interruption.] I qualify that by saying that it clearly emerged from what he said that the principles of absolute justice, the availability of evidence to the defence counsel, which is regarded as a principle of justice in the courts, is not so regarded in the tribunal. Therefore, we are bound to recognise that the principles of justice can be bent a little, that they are not pure and right in themselves, but are capable of adaptation to circumstances in the Home Secretary's view.

Mr. Maudling

All this was established by the Government of which the right hon. Lady was a distinguished member.

Mrs. Hart

I never heard, nor do I think I would ever hear, my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), the former Secretary of State, using the arguments that the right hon. Gentleman used this afternoon.

Let us be quite clear about this. I believe that in redefining the concept of national security in this way the right hon. Gentleman is taking a dangerous path, which represents a serious departure in British justice, in toleration, and in what we might broadly call methods of political control, which I think would be the words the right hon. Gentleman might care to use. The matter is fundamentally a question of definition.

The right hon. Gentleman has told us to some extent why he has taken the action that he has and adopted this view. He rightly says that the Government have a right to say who shall stay in this country and that they have a right to protect freedom of speech, but he added that the freedom of speech must be subject to some limitation. Indeed, it is already, subject to limitation by the laws of this country. There are many kinds of speech as a result of which police charges can be made, such as incitement to riot and to violence. We have our laws protecting us against any abuse of the freedom of speech, but the right hon. Gentleman said, and I think I quote him correctly, that freedom of speech cannot be allowed to undermine lawful society. I cannot believe even now that he understands the implication of what he says. If this is so, if freedom of speech is never to be allowed to undermine lawful society, the assumption is that whatever may be the concept of lawful society at any point of time is permanently to be so. Had this been the case we should not have had the social changes of the 19th century or this century. There were men and women, the predecessors of hon. Members on this side of the House, who sought to undermine lawful society as it was seen then. Is what the right hon. Gentleman says a recipe for the permanence of one particular philosophy? That is what it sounds like to me, and it is extremely dangerous.

The Home Secretary said that people from abroad who may be hostile to our country should not be allowed to stay, that people who discuss the use of force and violence should not be allowed to stay. I have dealt with that point as it concerns Rudi Dutschke, but our whole system of law gives plenty of opportunity to deal with anyone who either uses or threatens to use force. The Home Secretary must accept that I am sincere in what I say now. His speech can only smack of the beginnings of a trend towards the kind of McCarthyism that we must not permit to develop in this country.

Mr. Angus Maude (Stratford-on Avon)

The right hon. Lady talks about a threat to freedom of speech, but surely she recognises that it was not my right hon. Friend who silenced Herr Dutschke but his predecessor, who imposed the condition that he must refrain from political activity? All that my right hon. Friend has done is to confirm the original terms and conditions.

Mrs. Hart

The right hon. Gentleman knows very well that the issue here, and the reason for this debate, is that we have a different point of view on what political activity is. My right hon. Friend made it quite clear that his view of political activity is apparently very different from that of the Home Secretary, and therefore this is a relevant point to bring out in the debate.

It has always been my view that there are two high posts in Government which carry more responsibility, outside that of the Prime Minister, than any other. One is that of the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary and the other that of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, simply because both, aside from pursuing their own political policies, have a duty which transcends that to the whole tradition of Britain, which they have a duty to safeguard whatever their political party approach may be.

It seems to me—and I think that the Home Secretary revealed this to be so in much of what he said—that he recognises that there is in this country at present a wave of opinion that will undoubtedly agree with him. However, in playing to that gallery he is letting down his key post and the trust that we should be able to place in the Secretary of State for the Home Department even when he belongs to another party. He is making a great mistake about the reservoir of opinion, even though it may be a minority of opinion in this country, which totally disagrees with his approach on this case.

I had a recent experience in which the case of Rudi Dutschke emerged into public discussion, and as a result I have had one of the biggest posts I have ever had in my political life in the House. I have never had such a predominantly favourable, supporting post. There is no doubt that if the Home Secretary feels that he can play to a dangerous gallery he can carry others with him and gain the majority in the Lobby. The Times has said that any Home Secretary can do anything as long as he has a majority in the House of Commons. Of course he can. The responsibility is therefore all the greater upon him. I am sorry that we have not heard anything from him this afternoon that could reassure us about the underlying factors in his mind and about his approach to a fundamental question stretching far beyond the particular case of Rudi Dutschke.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson)

Order. Before I call the next speaker, may I remind the House of the strict time limit on this debate. Unless speeches are extremely short many hon. Members will be very disappointed when the debate ends.

5.28 p.m.

Mr. Harold Soref (Ormskirk)

I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for enabling me to face the House for the first time in debate. In rising to make my maiden speech I ask the indulgence of the House. It is something of an ordeal for anyone to address the House for the first time, as many would testify, but on such a subject as we are now debating, with a great deal of emotion involved, I shall do my best to see that there is no undue strain on the generosity of the House, for which it is renowned.

My predecessor was Sir Douglas Glover, who represented Ormskirk here for 18 years with great distinction. He endeared himself to the House and is greatly loved throughout South-West Lancashire. It is something of a challenge to succeed a man of his integrity, assiduity, popularity and near-omniscience, particularly his profundity on parliamentary procedure.

There are others in the House and in the other place who have represented Ormskirk. The predecessor of Sir Douglas Glover, the noble Lord, Lord Salter, was an illustrious Member for Ormskirk, and I understand that the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. Harold Wilson), who has not lost his nostalgia for Ormskirk, an increasingly contiguous constituency to Huyton.

I understand that it is customary for a maiden speech not to be unduly controversial. There have been modifications of this tradition during my short presence in this Parliament, but I am a traditionalist and I believe that it is a reasonable assumption that the maintenance of law and order and the security of the State are matters of equal interest to all three parliamentary parties. Therefore anything that I say on those matters surely falls within the parliamentary traditions of all three parties, which are equally wedded to a belief in parliamentary democracy, free speech, freedom of assembly, the right of political asylum and academic freedom. But it seems to me, as I am sure it did to many who entered the House after the last General Election, that of no less public concern than violent crime has been violence in politics and apprehension that certain people have a reluctance to condemn it unequivocally.

There is increasing fear, reflected in many manifestations in this country, of a threat of the break-down of democracy and of anarchy and a collapse of authority. In this context, the subject must be considered from the point of view of the feelings of the people. There are revolutionary groups, including student revolutionaries, who are promoting revolution in an endeavour to undermine our society. I do not think that it is going too far to say that its culmination was the attempt on the life of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment and his family last week, which symbolised the climate created by such people.

We in the House are increasingly aware of the danger of such guerrillas. Despite what has been said by the right hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Lady this evening, Mr. Dutschke, according to the interiew in The Times last Saturday and his television performance last evening with Mr. Paul Foot and Mr. Tariq Ali—predictable, on Granada Television—shows that he has not changed his views at all.

Mr. Dutschke is the guru of the guerrillas. He has shown, as evidenced in the document provided by the Tribunal, a history of turbulence and near-guerrilla activity. Both his appearance on television and his interviews in The Times show him to be a disciple of Professor Marcuse, who is the patron saint of the urban guerrillas and who is out to destroy the society we hold dear, even by the symbol of the oath we have all taken. It cannot be contradicted that Mr. Dutschke led student revolutionaries in Germany. He fomented demonstrations and advocated violence, and he is dedicated to the overthrow of our type of society.

On the legal aspect, I do not think that anyone could add a word to what my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has said this evening. He gave conclusive evidence for the wisdom of his action. Mr. Dutschke originally came here two years ago to convalesce for one month, and he has stayed under one pretext after another. Surely there is ample evidence from his behaviour and his activities that he does not have a suitable case for remaining in this country. When one reads the Report in 1962 of the inquiry headed by Lord Radcliffe into the alleged weaknesses in security provided in the public services, is that not an additional reason for the termination of the stay of Mr. Dutschke in this country?

My right hon. Friend, in accepting the decision of the Tribunal, acted justly and surely in accord not only with the will of the nation but in accordance with legislation on this matter introduced by the last Government. Is it not unthinkable that any other Home Secretary would have acted otherwise? In taking the course he has done, there is little doubt that my right hon. Friend will enjoy the thanks and congratulations of a grateful nation.

5.36 p.m.

Mr. Michael Foot (Ebbw Vale)

It is the custom of the House that the hon. Member who follows a maiden speaker congratulates him on his maiden speech. I do so formally to the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Soref)—I am not in that sense being personally offensive. I imagine that the best compliment I can pay to him is that his opinions are as far from mine as they could be, and in that case I am not sure whether the Home Secretary will welcome support from that quarter. We shall see. We shall be interested to hear the hon. Gentleman in future debates in which he takes part.

I wish to speak for a few minutes in the debate because I have been in the case from the beginning, but the whole case was expressed with such overwhelming effectiveness and force by my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) that I only wish to make a few minor additions to what he had to say. I may add that, in my opinion, during the whole period when he dealt with this case, my right hon. Friend dealt with it in accordance with the highest traditions of this country and that it is the departure from those traditions by the Home Secretary which is the cause of the debate.

The Home Secretary purported to give the facts of what had happened in this case, but he omitted to give many facts and he omitted to give any answer to the most serious question about the case itself which was posed by my right hon. Friend. As my right hon. Friend pointed out, when the letter of 25th August was sent, in which the Home Secretary stated the reasons on which he intended to deny Mr. Dutschke the possibility of staying in this country further, surely, if the right hon. Gentleman had objections then to the conduct of Mr. Dutschke in any sense at all, if he had any concern about national security arising in this case, he would have expressed them in that letter. Surely these matters should have been dealt with.

But, as the Home Secretary knows perfectly well, the case is even stronger than that. After receiving that letter, I immediately asked the right hon. Gentleman whether I could come and see him, and he readily agreed. The conversation I had with him then underlines afresh the point my right hon. Friend has posed because, as the right hon. Gentleman will confirm, I thought he treated me at that interview with the utmost candour and stated the position quite clearly.

First, I told the right hon. Gentleman that I wished to remove any question of there being any doubt about a complaint on the ground that the basis of the application for Mr. Dutschke to stay in this country had been changed. I wished to persuade him that that change had been made openly and in good faith, both by Mr. Dutschke and myself. He concurred that there had been no breach of faith at all. Then we had a discussion on the conditions. The right hon. Gentleman made no complaint to me then, just as he had made no complaint in the letter, about any breach of the conditions. Of course, if the right hon. Gentleman had raised any single case of a breach of the conditions, I would immediately have said, "I must take that up with Mr. Dutschke and see what is his retort." No such complaint was made by the Home Secretary, not in any sense whatever.

The right hon. Gentleman now says to the House of Commons that he had a good deal more evidence than my right hon. Friend had. If he had a good deal more evidence when he saw me on 7th September, or when he made his decision on 25th August, he should have told us then and we could have looked at the matter again. Moreover, in the discussion with the right hon. Gentleman, there was no reference whatever to the term "national security". I do not think that national security had ever occurred to him in this case.

As I have said elsewhere, I have seen earlier Home Secretaries on matters of this kind to try and persuade them to permit someone to stay in this country, and when matters of national security have been involved they have always said so. I remember Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, as he then was, saying to me, "It is a matter of national security", or "National security is involved and therefore I am afraid I cannot discuss that." But the right hon. Gentleman made no mention whatever of national security. What he did say, perfectly in accord with what he has said today, is that he treated the matter as if it were an original application for a student coming from abroad. That was the basis on which he was exercising his discretion and he said that he was doing so in a different manner from that of my right hon. Friend.

I think that the right hon. Gentleman exercised that discretion wrongly. Most of us on this side of the House believe that he did so. He says that he exercised it rightly, but that is not the end of the matter, indeed, as he will also recall from our conversation on that occasion, the last discussion we had on the matter was whether the decision was final, because I did not wish to mislead Mr. Dutschke in any sense. The right hon. Gentleman said, "I will consider what you have said if you wish, but I think that you must take it as final. I do not think that it will make any difference to my decision." He never mentioned to me any question of the Appeals Tribunal or that he had rights under it. Nor did I mention it because I did not know that he had them. [HON. MEMBERS: "You passed the Bill."] We passed the Bill, but he was supposed to be administering the Act.

I want to know whether the right hon. Gentleman knew on 7th September that there was going to be an appeal, because I must say that, if he did know at that moment that there was going to be an appeal, I would have thought, particularly since we had perhaps four or five minutes in the conversation on the question of whether the matter was final, that he would have told me: "Of course, you are aware that there is a possibility of an appeal to the Tribunal." My belief is that, when he saw me on that occasion, first, he did not believe that there was anything wrong in the way in which the basis of the application had been altered; secondly, he did not believe that Mr. Dutschke had broken any of his undertakings; thirdly, he did not believe that national security was involved in any sense; and, fourthly, he did not believe there could be any appeal. I think he believed that he was just exercising his discretion.

If the matter had been left there, it would have been solely a wrong exercise of his discretion by the right hon. Gentleman and the case would not have been so sinister as it has become, because the case against Mr. Dutschke has derived from the period after the interview of 7th September. If we put it the other way round, then the right hon. Gentleman was guilty of the gravest possible deception and bad faith.

Of course if the right hon. Gentleman had a complaint he should have said so. Of course if he knew there was to be an appeal to the Tribunal he should have said so. What was the purpose of our having a conversation if we were not to try to settle the matter? I cannot believe that the right hon. Gentleman thinks that this was a proper course for him in discussing the matter in those terms. I thought that he was dealing with me in good faith. If his defence now is that he knew that there were breaches of the conditions, that there was a good deal more evidence than he made available to me. I suggest that he has, in fact, cooked it up for this debate at this late date in the proceedings. If he really had such evidence, he should have said so then and not after the proceedings have gone to this length.

The result is that, if other countries and people throughout the world believe the Home Secretary and the Tribunal and their evidence, if they believe that Mr. Dutschke is the kind of man who breaks his undertakings for malevolent political purposes and that he is a danger to Britain's national security, Mr. Dutschke and his family—one of his two children, let us remember, was born in this country—are going to be harried from one country to another, are they not? For are there countries much more secure than we are which can withstand these perils?

The Home Secretary and the Tribunal have brought about a lamentable state of affairs. They have committed an outrageous defamation of character against Mr. Dutschke, a form of judicial defamation. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Yes. What about the individuals concerned? Individuals have rights. One of the great things about the House of Commons is that we should seek to protect the individual.

Echoing the remarks of my right hon. Friend, I believe that the Home Secretary has made the situation still worse by his speech today, not only by his failure to answer the question which was put to him by my right hon. Friend and which I have sought to reinforce by a description of our interview, but by the philosophical peroration which redefines supposedly the kind of people who may be allowed into this country and the kind of surveillance which may be made upon them. If that surveillance is to be carried out to the extent described by the hon. Gentleman, then the Special Branch will have to become a much more expensive affair. Public expenditure will have to go up on that account at any rate. The telephoning tapping which must be tolerated will have to be on a very much more extensive scale.

If this kind of definition of British freedom had been applied in the nineteenth century, not only Karl Marx would have been excluded—some may say that that would have been fine—but Mazzini, Garibaldi, Kossuth and Alexander Herzen would have been excluded, and the list includes some of the most famous names of that century, people now honoured in their own countries from which they had been driven at that time.

It is my belief that, thanks to the folly and worse with which the right hon. Gentleman has dealt with this case, the name of Rudi Dutschke will be added to those famous names. [HON. MEMBERS: "Rubbish."] Yes. Hon. Members opposite had better read, if they can, the reports and articles which have appeared in newspapers like The Times by people who know the man.

I say that a man should be dealt with fairly in this country, wherever he comes from. Mr. Dutschke has been dealt with most unfairly and if this new definition is accepted then, indeed, the restriction of British freedom which the Home Secretary is seeking to impose can be increasingly dangerous. I believe that this debate must be continued on later occasions so that we on this side can try to restore the freedoms which under right hon. and hon. Members opposite will be steadily eroded.

5.48 p.m.

Mr. W. F. Dudes (Ashford)

As he sometimes does, the hon. Gentleman the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) has overstated his case. He has sought to give us his reasons for believing, as he has said outside the House, that the case against Rudi Dutschke was concocted—that was his word—by officials in the Home Office. When I heard him deliver that charge on Sunday, I thought it disgraceful, and I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman, who often stands here for the defence of the individual and individual rights, should make a charge of that kind against public officials not able to defend themselves.

The hon. Gentleman has given us his reasons for believing that the case was concocted. They rest on the half-hour interview which he had on 7th September with my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. The hon. Gentleman makes one major error in the assumptions which he draws from that interview. He assumes that my right hon. Friend should have made plain to him the case which he had against Rudi Dutschke. The hon. Gentleman ought to be aware—I am sure that his right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) is—that even when Members of Parliament go to see Ministers at the Home Office and talk about personal cases of this kind they are not given the reasons held against the individual. That is an important part of Home Office tradition, and there is a good case for it. To give such reasons would be to be guilty of the very defamation of which the hon. Gentleman has just accused my right hon. Friend.

Such disclosures are not made. Because they were not made in this case, the hon. Gentleman went away and decided later on that the information not disclosed to him on 7th September was concocted subsequently. He arrogates too much to himself on that. His argument falls because my right hon. Friend would not have made him privy to the reasons why Rudi Dutschke was to be excluded. And how wise my right hon. Friend was in so doing.

I turn now to the place of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cardiff, South-East in all this. It seems ironic that in this debate my right hon. Friend should be in the dock being arraigned by the right hon. Gentleman, for the right hon. Gentleman knows very well that he had a big part in the background to it all. He is conducting an inquest into a mess partly of his own making.

In my view, the right hon. Gentleman made two important mistakes, two misjudgments. His first was on the terms on which Rudi Dutschke was originally allowed to stay. He told us this afternoon that he agreed to allow him to stay only on those conditions, that is, provided that he engaged in no political activity. I can only say that the Tribunal put a slightly different gloss on those words. In his letter, the right hon. Gentleman said that Rudi Dutschke's admission would be on the clear understanding that he would not engage in political activities. Clearly, that was an understanding which the right hon. Gentleman extracted and expected—

Mr. Callaghan

I did not extract it. It was volunteered by Rudi Dutschke and accepted by me. That is a very different matter.

Mr. Deedes

But it went into the letter, if the right hon. Gentleman now says that it had no meaning, what was the point of keeping it there?

What was the consequence of those conditions? What would the likely effect be? It would mean, in effect, requiring very close observation of Rudi Dutschke to see whether he fulfilled those conditions. In my view, it would have led to a requirement going far beyond the work which we normally carry out in relation to aliens allowed here on whom we keep watch. To ensure that Rudi Dutschke was not here engaging in political activity would have involved, if it has been faithfully carried out, telephone tapping, interfering with mail, and all the rest. In my opinion, the right hon. Gentleman was most unwise to accept those conditions in the first place.

There is a second and, perhaps, more important aspect of the right hon. Gentleman's misjudgment. He was responsible for the 1969 Act. In framing that Act, he set aside—I do not say that he rejected—two important recommendations by Sir Roy Wilson in the original Report on which the Bill was based. I remind the House of what Sir Roy Wilson said on this very type of case: Cases arise from time to time in which the Home Secretary feels justified in excluding a person from this country, or requiring him to leave, on grounds which are essentially of a political nature—for example, that his presence here is or would be harmful to international relations, or offensive to public opinion. We doubt whether the system of appeals which we are proposing would provide apt machinery for dealing with such cases. We would not therefore think it wrong in principle, or destructive of the general value of the proposed appeal system, to remove such cases from the scope of that system and leave them entirely to the Home Secretary's discretion subject to his responsibility to Parliament. That was one recommendation. There was a second recommendation in which Sir Roy Wilson said that it does not follow from that that a case should be excluded from the Tribunal merely because it affects security, but he said that, if a security case goes to the Tribunal, the Tribunal could hold its proceedings in camera, but there would be no question of withholding from the appellant particulars of what is alleged against him. I should like to know why those two recommendations of Sir Roy Wilson were omitted from the procedures on which my right hon. Friend had to work. In a sense, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cardiff, South-East gave us the worst of both worlds. He took away from the Home Secretary the traditional discretion in personal cases of this kind in which a Home Secretary, if he takes a decision, becomes answerable to the House. This is no light imposition. No one who has stood at that Box and tried to defend the Home Secretary on a personal case would say otherwise. It is not agreeable to defend a personal decision on exclusion or deportation in the House of Commons, when the Minister concerned cannot give the reasons for what he has done. There is, therefore, that safeguard. But it was lost, and the Home Secretary. I understand, was left with no reserve discretion at all.

The second point is even more important. None of us, I think, could defend the way in which the Tribunal was put to work. I say that with no derogation of the gentlemen involved. But the exclusion of Rudi Dutshke when the evidence was given in camera against him was something which, I think, no one could defend. Sir Roy Wilson recommended otherwise. What went wrong?

I hold the right hon. Gentleman, for those two reasons, guilty of part of the mess which we are discussing today, for, if those two recommendations had been adopted, we should have been dealing with a very different situation.

Mr. Callaghan

Will the right hon. Gentleman remind me whether he moved any Amendments on those lines during the passage of the Bill? There are reasons—if the right hon. Gentleman had listened, he would have heard the Home Secretary himself gives them this after- noon—for omitting those two recommended procedures. The Home Secretary see the difficulty of the situation, and so should the right hon. Gentleman; he was a Home Office Minister.

Mr. Deedes

Let me remind the right hon. Gentleman of what my right hon. and learned Friend, as he then was—now the Lord Chancellor—said to him on the Second Reading of the Bill. He warned him that he was confusing an administrative process with a judicial process. That is precisely what has been done. We have produced a hybrid, and a very bad hybrid.

The system devised by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cardiff, South-East has become a system which the right hon. Gentleman is now prepared to exploit at the expense of my right hon. Friend. That is where the humbug comes in. The right hon. Gentleman should be eating humble pie about it, not complaining and accusing my right hon. Friend of all manner of sins in the Home Office. My advice to my right hon. Friend is that he should as soon as possible scrap that system and put something in its place on which he and his successors can rely.

5.58 p.m.

Mr. Richard Crossman (Coventry, East)

We have reached an extremely interesting stage in the debate. At least, we have now had an admission from the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) that we are dealing with a mess. That is an advance. Also, we now have the alibi that this is really all the fault of the previous Home Secretary because of the structure of the 1969 Act and the Tribunal system.

That is an interesting point, and I think that there is something in what the right hon. Gentleman said, but, in support of my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), I must say that the arguments normally used about security and the Home Secretary's difficulties in such circumstances apply strongly to both the changes which have been proposed from the back benches opposite, and I doubt that we shall this evening have a clear statement that both those criticisms of the Act are accepted.

Next, the right hon. Gentleman took my right hon. Friend the former Home Secretary to task because, so he said, he had created all the difficulties. I agree to this extent: I do not think that my right hon. Friend would claim, or that we on this side generally would claim, that what we did about Rudi Dutschke was tremendously liberal. We were not giving sanctuary to a famous revolutionary like Marx or Lenin. What we did was much more limited. Here was a fellow who had had two bullets in his brain. He was in Italy, he was unlikely to survive, he was desperately ill, and there were people in this country who could look after him. People wrote and asked whether he would be allowed to come for medical reasons. That was the only reason why he was brought to this country. The only issue was whether that request should be accepted. No one suggested that he should at that time come to do post-graduate work. The question was whether he could be taken to a place where there was a surgeon who could handle his problem. There was such a surgeon here who dealt with him, and his life was saved.

What my right hon. Friend did—and he has had to say it twice—was to accept—not to impose—what was volunteered by Dutschke, namely, an assurance that if he came he would naturally not indulge in political activities. He was desperately ill and wanted his brain repaired. It was natural for him to say, "Of course I will behave myself if I come." That was accepted and, of course, written into the letter. There need have been only one issue for the present Home Secretary, whether after two years, in the new situation, he would make a new arrangement with the same conditions about political activities and allow him to convalesce, because he is not completely cured. He still has epilepsy, he is still near-blind, and part of the cure is a rest in the asylum of a university.

It was obviously desirable that he should stay at one of our universities. He first tried to go to Oxford, and it was only because they did not have the right kind of tutor—I have a letter from the Fellow who interviewed him at Oxford—that he went to Cambridge. They had the right man for this thesis. It was looked at from this point of view, and this was seen to be the second stage in his cure. It could have been possible for the Home Secretary to let the situation go on quietly. One of the things this man needs is not to be the centre of a political maelstrom but to be left to write his thesis, with the possibility that if he did he would not go back to being a revolutionary. These things happen to some people. In their lives they have a revolutionary period. I will go no further than that.

But that was not the issue. The Home Secretary decided not to do that, and I am rather convinced by what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot). It is possible that he was right about that. It was very odd of the Home Secretary not to mention the Tribunal, the appeal, but to discuss the decision as final. Anyhow it was not discussed—and suddenly there came the appeal. I am sure that the form of inquiry is not perfect but certainly it was used in a peculiar way, so that what should have been an inquiry, in a sense on behalf of the man, turned into a court in which he was a defendant. This is the point which many of us view with the greatest alarm—the procedure of the inquiry and the rôle of the Attorney-General, emphasising that slow, forensic procedure, as against an inquiry before the Home Secretary made up his mind or while he did so.

What is even more serious is what the Home Secretary concluded. If he had merely had a different view on Dutschke, on what is necessarily a balance, I should have said simply that it was wrong and a great pity; but that is not the situation. The Home Secretary has developed or is developing a new doctrine to justify his view, and it is this which is causing serious alarm in academic circles. I mentioned Oxford. I notice the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Woodhouse) in the Chamber. He does not take quite the same view as does the Warden of his College. While the hon. Member jeers at Dutschke in a letter to The Times and quotes Lenin in 1932 to prove that Dutschke was wrong—

Mr. Woodhouse

I did not jeer at Dutschke in The Times nor did I even suggest that the arguments which I presented in the letter to The Times had anything to do with whether he should be allowed to stay in this country. I think he should not be allowed to stay, but the reasons are quite simple.

Mr. Crossman

I do not quite know why the article was presented in The Times dealing with Dutschke and why he should

Mr. Woodhouse

The only reason why it appeared in The Times was that the interview with Dutschke appeared in The Times on the Saturday.

Mr. Crossman

It is nice to know that this is not the reason why the hon. Member thinks that Dutschke ought not to stay and that he has a different reason to give. We had a remarkable occasion in Oxford last night when the Warden of his College and of mine addressed a meeting and emphasised this single point as an academic—the seriousness of the new doctrine that a person does not have to do anything to be subversive, that it is sufficient if he is known to be conversing and discussing.

It is not denied that he has done nothing. He has not done anything that anyone would call "organization"; it is not denied that he has conversed a great deal. The hon. Member has not been a don as long as I was, but if a person is a student and is to write a thesis on revolutionary communism, it is a little difficult for him to do it without discussing revolutionary communism. He has to meet people and discuss.

If we are now to say that intimate, passionate discussion, going about meeting people and discussing is in itself evidence sufficient to justify someone not being allowed to study at British universities, then the Home Secretary is right in saying that in his view we are now in such a grave new period of security that new counter-measures must be thought about. The new counter-measures are a means of forestalling, getting in before the organisation, before the action, when people are doing nothing but discussing. That is a very important development indeed and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale that we should have another debate about it.

Let us hope that when the Home Secretary made that ill-considered and brief statement he had not thought it out, like his original statement to my hon. Friend, and that he can change a little and advance new theories. If this is his new idea, and if we are to look at every one of the 23,000 foreign students and then, if we can show that they have revolutionary thoughts, be able to disqualify, without stating reasons, anyone whom the right hon. Gentleman's security people say has had dangerous revolutionary thoughts and conversations, the right hon. Gentleman will destroy not only academic life in the country but the quality of liberty in this country and free discussion inside and outside universities.

6.7 p.m.

Mr. David Lane (Cambridge)

The issue today is, how can we ensure that Britain, and my constituency of Cambridge in particular, remains a citadel of freedom and a haven for refugees without also becoming a Mecca for revolutionaries? This is an exceptionally difficult issue, just as the case of Rudi Dutschke is an exceptionally difficult case. It calls for cool thought and judgment rather than the paroxysms of indignation into which the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) and others have been working themselves during the last two weeks.

I hope that the House will support my right hon. Friend tonight. To make my own position clear, I believe that on balance my right hon. Friend was wise to decide as he did, although I have several reservations and criticisms on certain aspects of the case. Over an issue of this kind I envy those who are quite sure that they know what is right and what is wrong, on either side of the argument. I have considerable hesitation before coming down on the side of my right hon. Friend. None of us can envy the responsibility of a Home Secretary in making these agonising human decisions.

The majority of my constituents will be relieved that Mr. Dutschke is not to remain in Cambridge. However, there are a substantial minority inside and outside the university who are very critical of the decision, a minority ranging in political viewpoints from the extreme Left to the moderate Right. Academic opinion in Cambridge is divided. Yesterday, although several hundred students protested by forgoing study, the majority of the university continued to work normally. May I say in passing, in view of what the right hon. Gentleman said when opening the debate, that there are many hundreds of foreign students who are welcome in Cambridge and I hope always will be. They make a great contribution to university life, from all political points of view.

I judge that the feeling in the country is broadly the same, a majority supporting the Home Secretary but an important minority uneasy. No hon. or right hon. Member of the House should under-estimate the extent of this anxiety or the need for reassurance that our traditional civil liberties are not being eroded by this decision. I hope there will be reassurance from what my right hon. Friend said this afternoon.

In our concern with these wider issues I hope we shall not overlook the personal side, that is, the impact on Mr. and Mrs. Dutschke. I have had only one short meeting with them. They are people of charm and ability, and one cannot fail to sympathise with them in the predicament in which they find themselves, or fail to realise what an ordeal these last few months have been for them. Mr. Dutschke, although his health has been largely restored after the deplorable shooting, is and will remain less than 100 per cent. fit. For him, particularly, the strain must have been great. I am sorry that it has taken so long for his appeal to be heard and decided, and sorry, too, that the direction of my right hon. Friend—understandably, and I support him in this—that the appeal should be heard by the Tribunal was not communicated to Mr. Dutschke before, or at least simultaneously with, its publication to Parliament and the Press. I hope in any similar situation in future the Home Office will not lay itself open to criticism on points such as these.

On the broader issues, we are dealing with this "grey area"in which Home Secretaries have to balance our liberal tradition with the needs of national security in the contemporary world. My right hon. Friend has already cleared up one misconception, the charge that Mr. Dutschke is being denied the right of political asylum. He also dealt with another, that the decision in this case is an insult to the judgment of Cambridge University and a blow against academic freedom. I do not see it in that light. Surely it is for the university to judge the acceptability of students on academic grounds and for the Home Secretary to look at other and wider considerations.

The crux is the exercise of the Home Secretary's discretion in this case. I must remind the House, as was made clear in the Tribunal's Report, of what the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) wrote to his hon. Friend in 1968 when Mr. Dutschke was originally given permission to come here for medical treatment. He made it quite clear that Mr. Dutschke would not be allowed to stay for academic study. The right hon. Gentleman has been much less than frank with the House this afternoon in saying to my right hon. Friend that he should not have made the decision this way. He owes it to us to explain why he told his hon. Friend in 1968 that he would have taken precisely the same decision.

The test for the Home Secretary is: is there a significant risk in Mr. Dutschke remaining here for a prolonged stay, not just for medical treatment but as a student? My right hon. Friend decided that there was a risk and the Tribunal came to the same conclusion in this key sentence: Having regard to all the circumstances of this case there must without doubt be risk in his continued presence on a longer-term stay of this kind. Reluctantly, because I would have liked to give Mr. Dutschke the benefit of the doubt, I too foresee a risk, small though it may be. Critics ask, what on earth is this risk; on what grounds is his presence undesirable? There seem to me to be two grounds, maybe slight grounds, but we are dealing here with a fine balance of judgment. The first is what Mr. Dutschke might do directly. He has said to me and to others, and he says it very persuasively, that he has no intention of engaging in political activity. Against that we have the view of the Tribunal after weighing all the evidence, which we have not heard, that whatever his intentions may have been, he did not, in fact, abide by his original assurances.

The second ground is the indirect effect of his prolonged presence here. There is a possibility, again small though it may be, that a number of individuals would be attracted to Britain to see and to meet Mr. Dutschke, whether or not he wished it, some of them active revolutionaries in a sense that he—I agree—may no longer be. So Mr. Dutschke might become, to put it bluntly, a magnet or focus for disruption.

The last point on which criticism has centred is the charge that the Tribunal was a travesty of justice. We must remind ourselves that its five members were men of great distinction and varied experience who certainly cannot be regarded as repressive reactionaries. Furthermore, it was the Home Secretary and not Mr. Dutschke who was, so to speak, on trial, because it was the propriety of the exercise of his discretion that was being questioned. Surely there is a distinction from a normal court of law. Also, from my reading of the Tribunal's Report, I believe it arrived at its conclusion mainly from the public evidence and was not greatly influenced by the evidence in camera.

But having said that, we cannot be satisfied with the procedure in the special Tribunal as we have seen it operate. In the Home Secretary's review of the machinery I hope that he will not without careful thought decide to abolish the right of appeal. If the right remains, subject of course to what he said this afternoon about the security services, I hope a way may be found for the appellant and his advisers to be given at least a broad indication of the evidence presented in camera.

It is quite wrong to allege on the basis of this one exceptionally difficult case that our civil liberties in Britain are being gravely threatened. For any of us who know my right hon. Friend and his general outlook it is absurd to picture him as a high priest of intolerance and repression. I am as anxious as anyone in this House to maintain our liberal traditions, to protect the rights of discussion, dissent and peaceful protest, and to defend academic freedom. Yet we should be foolish to ignore the threats to this very liberalism from the forces, national and international, which are dedicated to the overthrow of our system, by violence if necessary, and are only too glad to exploit our openness and our tolerance for this purpose. The British liberal tradition surely does not oblige us to offer unlimited scope to revolutionaries from overseas, and I do not think it illiberal to support a Home Secretary who, in an intensely difficult case such as this, gives the benefit of the doubt to the protection of our system and our society.

6.17 p.m.

Mr. John Pardoe (Cornwall, North)

I am happy to follow the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Lane), but I cannot possibly allow his arguments to stand, particularly that part of his speech in which he seemed to be accusing Herr Dutschke not of guilt by actual association but of guilt by prospective association. In other words, he was saying that at some time in the future rather unsavoury political characters may knock at his door in Cambridge and we shall all be threatened in our beds. That goes beyond any doctrine of McCarthyism which we may have heard in the debate this afternoon.

I want to make clear the things I do not care about in this case. I care nothing for Herr Dutschke's politics, whether they are called revolutionary socialism or, by some of his more sentimental supporters, Christian Socialism. I do not agree with his views, but I do not find them dangerous. They are not, of course, capitalist, unless one defines capitalism by the principles of an offshore company, but I do not have nightmares at the thought that Herr Dutschke is thinking his dangerous thoughts. Nor do I suggest that he has a better right to be here than any other would-be immigrant, whether temporary or permanent and whether for reasons of study or health. Thousands of people with as much right to come here as he has have been kept away from our shores and have been denied their rights because of the immigration hysteria of both the present Government and the Opposition party. Nor do I suggest that he is a saint or that he is Christ on earth. He has certainly advocated some pretty ferocious direct action.

What I care about is liberal Britain. I care about the preservation and propagation of liberal values, and my major purpose in this House is to preserve and propagate those values.

The Report produced by the Tribunal is a shameful document—and not only those parts which deal with the tenure of office of the present Home Secretary. If one looks at pages 3 and 4 which deal with the conditions laid down by the right hon. Gentleman who is now leading from the Opposition Front Bench one can see that these are a damning indictment of a Government which pretended to liberal values. On 6th December, 1968, when he was approached in his capacity as Home Secretary to allow Herr Dutschke to remain, he said: I could not agree to admit Mr. Dutschke for a long-term stay to carry out literary commitments or to engage in a course of postgraduate study at a British university. As a result of those comments Mrs. Dutschke's solicitors wrote to the Home Office promising that Herr Dutschke would not engage in political, literary or academic activities. I now turn to procedure. The issue of security was raised by the Home Secretary at a very late date. It was raised for no other reason than that he wanted to ensure that the appeal procedure would not back Herr Dutschke's appeal. He has even said that if it had backed Herr Dutschke's appeal he might have had to resign—what a terrible shame!

The secret evidence, the private hearing, is utterly monstrous in this country. It is totally against everything that one has ever been taught about British fair play and British justice. The Home Secretary has said that the Tribunal was not a court, but it had the effect of a court. I should like to hear from the Home Secretary whether all the members of the Tribunal were able to hear the secret evidence. Were they all there when it was given, and had they all been given security clearance?

How was the evidence, presented in camera, collected? It is impossible to believe that the evidence that has been leaked in the Press could have been collected other than by telephone tapping. If there were telephone tapping, who gave the authority for Herr Dutschke's telephone to be tapped?

Who gave the authority for the intensive shadowing that must have occurred to concoct—or, if hon. Gentlemen do not like the word "concoct", to gather together—the evidence?

I have said that this document is disgraceful. It runs totally counter to all the things which I wish to preserve when I talk of a liberal Britain. The whole procedure was a charade. We employed a quasi-judicial procedure to arrive at an undoubtedly political decision. The Wilson Committee separated political and security cases. If we are to have political cases of this sort, they must be held in public and they must be non-judicial. In security cases, there must be a proper judicial procedure.

The Tribunal expressed an extraordinary view in saying that, although Herr Dutschke was not an appreciable security risk nevertheless he might be in the future. This can be compared with the injunction procedure of a court where a court is asked to stop something happening that has not happened yet. If anybody wants an injunction of that sort in an English court, he must produce evidence very much more concrete than the evidence that was produced in this particular case.

This case has proved conclusively to me the truth of Bertrand Russell's remark that Men fear thought more than they fear anything else on earth. Secondly, it has proved that the Home Secretary is not a liberal. He is not even a National Liberal. No doubt that may please him. I am suggesting that part of the motivation behind his actions in this case was precisely to prove that point. It is very dangerous and uncomfortable to be labelled a liberal Home Secretary in the present atmosphere of the Conservative Party.

In his concluding philosophical treatise he set up a total Aunt Sally—namely, the suggestion that Rudi Dutschke has advocated violence, and is still doing so. There is absolutely no evidence that he is still advocating violence, or indeed that since he came to this country he has espoused a philosophy of violence. It was easy for the Home Secretary to knock down such an Aunt Sally. But his was a monstrous performance this afternoon and it did no kind of honour to his office.

6.27 p.m.

Mr. Angus Maude (Stratford-on-Avon)

I will be very brief since the winding-up speeches are soon to begin. There are two aspects of this case to which I want to address myself. The first is the question of what principles are involved. The second is the question whether Mr. Dutschke is or would be a threat to this country.

We have heard and read an enormous amount of emotional stuff about the principles involved. I beg the House before coming to a decision to ask itself carefully how much of this is justified.

We are told that the rights and freedoms of the individual are at stake, and that the liberty of the subject, the principle of free speech and academic freedom are threatened. I submit that not one of these is involved in this individual case. I will try to justify what I say.

The liberty of the subject cannot be involved, first, because Mr. Dutschke is not a subject and, secondly, because his liberty is not threatened. There is nothing here which involves or threatens the liberty of the subject.

Then it is said that people's rights are being threatened. Mr. Dutschke has no rights here. And there is no country in the world which recognises the right of any individual to come and settle in that country of his own free will. Every country recognises, and keeps the right to decide, who shall be allowed to stay. There is no right involved here which has been threatened.

On the question of freedom of speech, it was not my right hon. Friend who silenced Mr. Dutschke. This was done by, if anybody, the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), who put into his letter as part of the terms that he should refrain from political activities.

There is no threat to academic freedom because it cannot be held, and never has been held, that by accepting somebody in a course of study the authorities of any university could ever arrogate to themselves the right to act as the immigration authority of this country, which function resides in the Home Secretary.

The right hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) seemed to suggest that the present Home Secretary was being illiberal, whereas, apparently, the former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East would, if asked, have allowed Mr. Dutschke to come here as a student for a course of study.

Mr. Crossman

What I said was that there was a new doctrine which the Home Secretary emphasised this afternoon. The Home Secretary said that he had enunciated new measures, new thoughts, because of new kinds of danger. These new things were completely new to his predecessor. Therefore, those were the things we were discussing.

Mr. Maude

The point is that the Home Secretary's predecessor would not have taken Mr. Dutschke as a student. He has already said that he would not. Moreover, he made it very clear at the end of the first period of Mr. Dutschke's stay here as an invalid. The Home Office wrote in January, 1969, to the Dutschkes and said that the time was up and that they ought to go. The former Home Secretary made it clear that he would not have been prepared to allow Mr. Dutschke to come here as a student.

Mr. Michael Foot

May I correct the hon. Gentleman? It is not the case that he took that view throughout. He did take that view originally, but at the beginning of January, 1970, when we asked the Home Office about the situation if a different application were made, he said that he would be prepared to consider the matter. That puts a different complexion on it.

Mr. Maude

Any Home Secretary would say that he would be prepared to consider the matter; it would be unreasonable for him not to do so. The point is that he had not done so in the first place, and his attitude was fairly clear.

We come to the question whether Mr. Dutschke is, was, or could be a danger to the country. The right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East must have thought that, with Dutschke's record, he would be a danger—otherwise why was he so careful to keep down the periods of his stay? Why did he put into his letter the terms that he must refrain from political activities and so forth? The right hon. Gentleman must have thought that Mr. Dutschke's record meant that he could be a danger.

It is said that this is now all changed, that Mr. Dutschke has behaved himself here and has not been a danger. The Tribunal said so. But Mr. Dutschke was living life here for a period of one month to six months, and then for another six months, hoping to get a permanent permit to stay here. He has, of course, been extremely careful to refrain from political activities during this time. But my right hon. Friend has had to consider whether, when conditions improved, he could be relied on to refrain from political activities. On the basis of his past record he could not be so relied on.

Mr. Dutschke's interview with Mr. Davey of The Times has been mentioned in his support. I have read it carefully and it gives me no reassurance. On three occasions in that interview when Dutschke was asked whether he would renounce the use of violence, he refused in each case to do so. When he was asked for his views on the urban guerrilla movement, which we must remember threatens us as well as other countries, he went into a long, rambling, evasive sentence which suggested that he would be prepared to support it if the need arose.

It seems to me that we are in a situation in which my right hon. Friend will be blamed very much if he now takes a risk in security matters. He must balance the two things: the risk of affronting liberals in this country, who believe that freedom is being endangered, and the policy of reassuring the overwhelming majority of people in this country, who believe that there is an increasing security risk—which has got as near as Northern Ireland and an explosion the other night on the doorstep of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment. I believe that the Home Secretary is right not to take risks. He will not be forgiven if he takes them.

6.35 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Davidson (Accrington)

I was interested to hear the concluding words of the right hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude). I hope that he is not suggesting that Rudi Dutschke placed the bomb, which everyone of us deplores, on the Secretary of State's step. If he is making that suggestion, it is a smear and nothing else.

There have been several extreme reactions to the Home Secretary's decision, none of which I share. I do not regard this as the first step on the way to a police State, as perhaps many of Rudi Dutschke's supporters would imply. But the Home Secretary's decision diminishes by a small amount the great reputation of this country for the way in which it treats not only its own citizens, but those who enter this country from abroad. I think that his position can be criticised on that ground.

I do not, of course, share the other extreme viewpoint: "Rudi Dutschke was a foreigner and German; he was young, a student, and probably long-haired, though to his credit he was white". These are all automatic reasons for some people to want to get rid of him.

I do not subscribe to the view of many people in this country that it does not matter at all what happens, because this involves only one man and what happens to one man is of little importance. Of course, it is of importance. It is the very essence of democracy and is what democracy is all about.

It is not the first time that this House has discussed the fate of one man and how his future has been decided, not only by a tribunal, but by a court of law. Reference has been made to the methods used by the Tribunal. I was a little distressed at the cursory way in which the Home Secretary, for whom I have a great respect, dealt with the intervention of my hon. Friend. Everybody in the House has said that nobody could condone the fact that Rudi Dutschke was not allowed to hear the security part of the evidence against him.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, Central (Mr. Clinton Davis) interrupted to ask whether it is not the fact that in Official Secrets cases involving espionage and the security of the State not only is the accused allowed to hear the evidence but also the accused's barrister and his solicitors as well. If the accused is allowed to hear evidence in those cases—which are far more vital in the security of a nation than anything Rudi Dutschke ever did or is likely to do—why was his counsel not allowed to hear the evidence in the case?

We have not had a satisfactory answer from the Home Secretary. The trial might not have been a strict trial in that it was not conducted according to the strict rules of evidence, but so far as Rudi Dutschke was concerned it must have seemed very much a trial. The Attorney-General, for whom, again, I have great respect, was there in full panoply, so were defence counsel in wigs. gowns and the lot. If that is not a trial, I wonder what a trial is supposed to be? The fact is that this was the method by which the Dutschke case was heard.

No court of law would ever come to conclusions such as those reached by this Tribunal. Let me point out that I am not impugning their good faith or anything of the sort. One does not have to agree with what Rudi Dutschke stands for, or with his writings or his preachings, but one feels that an injustice has been done to him. I am not impressed with the arguments of those who say that if Rudi Dutschke were in charge of a State as Home Secretary he would not let in people who preached any sort of opposition to the regime. Of course, he would not, and 1 should not want to live in a State run by Rudi Dutschke. I should like to think that we are far more generous than France, which has turned him down. I do not see why we should be any less generous than Denmark, which has allowed him in.

I do not think that I need go over the evidence which has been given. I think that in all the circumstances this was an illiberal decision by the Home Secretary. It is a pity that the right hon. Gentleman has tarnished what I had regarded as a liberal image. I do not suppose that the right hon. Gentleman will particularly appreciate that compliment, but he may take it in any way that he wishes. I hope that he will reconsider his decision.

6.41 p.m.

Mr. Norman Fowler (Nottingham, South)

One of the most extraordinary features about the continuing debate on the case of Mr, Rudi Dutschke has been the changing path which right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite have taken. Before Christmas, in the debate on the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, many right hon. and hon. Members on this side of the House understood that the Opposition wanted an assurance that the Government would be bound by the Appeals Tribunal. However, when the Appeals Tribunal found for the Government, they changed their attack to the Appeals Tribunal, but not to its decision. Thus, we ended with the not-toounfamiliar situation of the Labour Party in Opposition attacking what had been done by the Labour Party in Government, for surely it cannot be denied that the Tribunal was a creature of the Labour Government.

It is not the inconsistency of approach which I regard as the strangest feature of this debate; it is the determination of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite to be seen as the liberal defenders of an oppressed student. They call the Dutschke decision, as it was called just now by the hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. Arthur Davidson), an illiberal decision. They pretend that it is a denial of justice. They say that a country which once housed Marx, as the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) said, could certainly afford Mr. Dutschke.

Above all, right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite try to imply that they are the true defenders of free speech in this country. But they forget that, in office, they did not allow Mr. Dutschke into this country without conditions, the main condition being one which went to the heart of the man himself. Although, as the Tribunal said, Dutschke was and is an exceptional, highly developed man politically, they made it a condition, or at least they accepted that it would be a condition, that he should not take part in any political activity. In other words, they told a politician that he should not take part in politics.

Such was the so-called liberal policy of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite that they could not steel themselves to allow him in without conditions, so they compromised. I suggest that that compromise was no more than a sham. First, because the condition is objectionable in principle. It made Dutschke, if not a second-class citizen, certainly a second-class resident. What is the definition of "second-class" in this context if it is not somebody prevented from doing things which are legal and proper for the rest of the population? Had Mr. Dutschke been allowed to pursue his studies, which I understand is the overwhelming feeling of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite, they would presumably have been content to allow him to be a second-class student deprived of following his interest in one of the most natural places in which it could be followed.

The second reason that the original condition of no political activity is objectionable is on the ground of practice. It is impossible to define "political activity". I suggest that the condition which was imposed on his entry could not be enforced. Therefore, it was a sham, for at one and the same time the Labour Government were saying that it was desirable that limits should be imposed upon his freedom but that the method by which those limits were to be imposed was unenforceable.

6.45 p.m.

Mr. Callaghan

With the leave of the House. I have only four or five minutes to speak if the Home Secretary wants 10 minutes in which to reply.

This debate has been disquieting in some ways, but in other ways valuable, too, because, even in the intemperate speech of the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes)—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] The right hon. Gentleman is just coming in. I was referring to his intemperate speech. But even that had the effect of focusing attention upon the defects in the tribunal procedure. It is all very well to be wise after the event. The right hon. Gentleman's hon. Friend who conducted the opposition on the Bill in Committee made none of these points before the event which he has made after the event. However, they were fully in all our minds.

The question is whether we can devise a better procedure. The Home Secretary has said that he would consider withdrawing these cases from the tribunal. I have considered that matter. We should consider whether the right hon. Gentleman should resume responsibility and the House be able to question him in the form of a debate like this. These are not open-and-shut matters, although the approach of the right hon. Gentleman would not assist a temperate discussion of the matter.

There is, then, the question of the hybrid procedure, which again is a difficult matter to decide. I certainly should not hold it against the Home Secretary if, when we have got away from heat engendered by this case, he wanted to have further discussions on the matter. On the whole, at any rate for some time, I should prefer to carry on the appeals procedure, with all the obvious defects, until we have had more experience of it.

I was alarmed at the way in which the procedure of the Tribunal was conducted. I did not think that it would go that way when we were discussing it in the House. I thought that the Tribunal would take charge of the proceedings, not the Attorney-General and defending counsel. I thought that the Tribunal would be putting the main points. The hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Lane) and I were present. What was painfully disquieting, like a trial, was the fact that the Attorney-General was putting his case, bringing out the questions as he saw them, and Mr. Dutschke's counsel was doing the same. That is not the way that the House—I hope that the Attorney-General will forgive me—saw this appeal tribunal going on when it was discussed. This matter should be looked into. We want, not necessarily, to bring in the atmosphere of the courts, but, if possible, to do justice to the man. With respect to the lawyers, the two things may not be the same in the end.

I hope that the Home Secretary will take the opportunity of spelling out again his philosophy on the matter. I feel sure that the right hon. Gentleman had thought about it carefully before, but he left the impression that in future the test is not what one does, which would be brought before the courts, but what one advocates and thinks. I cannot believe that the Home Secretary wants to go that way. I cannot believe that this would be it, although I see a philosophical difficulty where, on the one hand, a man advocates and instigates others to be violent and, on the other, he runs away and disappears behind the crowd when the trouble breaks out. There comes a moment when one has to say that the advocacy of violence can be more influential than carrying it out. I accept this, but I make two points.

First, I take a more robust view of our institutions and State than do the Government. I believe that the impression created by Dutschke on television and in the columns of The Times, for those who read it, is in itself a strengthening of democracy, not a weakening of it. The fact that the views which he advocated met with such repugnance is, in my view, a strengthening of our position—which is not strengthened by shutting out the man so that he cannot advocate them. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to spell that out again.

I believe that what the debate has revealed—and it has been an interesting debate—is that there is a difference between the two sides of the House. One side prefers security, while the other prefers our liberal traditions. I believe that what hon. Gentlemen opposite have done is to elevate security to a level that is not required by our people at the present time. In that sense—and they will constantly need to be reminded of this—freedom is committed to their care, but they must not panic at the first sign of any attack that is made on it and give way to the sort of correspondence which many of us have been receiving. I believe that there is this difference, and it is right that the House should mark it out.

On the issue as presented to us today, I am in no doubt that we should come down on the side of our liberal traditions, and that this country is in a position to withstand any attacks that are made upon it.

6.51 p.m.

Mr. Maudling

I hope that I may have the leave of the House to speak again.

I am not in very much disagreement with the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) on a number of things. The present situation with regard to the appeals tribunal is not right. I know that my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General feels that The situation is not satisfactory. He conducted the proceedings before the Tribunal with great dignity, and he took great care, in the way in which he conducted them, to see that everything that could be made public within the limits of national security was made public, but he feels, and he has so told me, that this is not working out as the House thought it would, and I think that further thought should be given to this matter.

I do not think that there is all that difference between us on the big issue of the concept of national security. What I say is not that I intend to extend the concept of national security, but that events have done that. We have seen it in Northern Ireland. We have seen how national security can be threatened internally as well as externally, and the security services must be deployed to protect the peaceful atmosphere against internal threat just as much as against external threat.

I give the House the assurance that as regards the activities of the security services there has been no change in policy or practice between successive Governments, but I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman's basic point that this is an issue between security and liberal tradition. The fundamental point is that without security one cannot, in practice have a liberal tradition.

I propose to say a few words about the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) who attacked me in terms which I thought were a little intemperate and, I would say, out of character. I do not think that he means it, but he always says it. I am concerned to answer the points made by him, as they are important.

The hon. Gentleman came to see me for what I understood to be a private discussion. Whenever I see an hon. Member I do not usually have anyone with me, and no record is kept. I therefore cannot quote the record, but my recollection is not the same as the hon. Gentleman's. I have not quoted from the discussion, because I thought that it was confidential.

The hon. Gentleman asked why did I not tell him that an appeal was pending. The answer is that at that time Mr. Dutschke had not decided to make an appeal. He asked why I said that what I then thought was final. The answer is that I did not want to delude him, but to make it quite clear that, having listened to his persuasive and sincere arguments, I intended to adhere to my own view. He asked why I did not say that an appeal was possible. The answer is that he was a Member of Parliament when the 1969 Act was passed and I assumed that he knew that. Finally, he asked why I did not specify the ways in which Mr. Dutschke had broken his undertakings so that, those having been specified, Mr. Dutschke could refute them. The answer is simple. It is that it would be wrong for me to do so and I would not contemplate giving the hon. Gentleman information of a security character. Those are the answers to his questions.

Mr. Michael Foot

Why did not the right hon. Gentleman mention the word "security"? He did not mention it at all then.

Mr. Maudling

I would not make known to him security considerations in a case of this kind. I gave the hon. Gentleman the reasons for my decision, and they remain the reasons for it.

I do not believe that it is right in principle, or enforceable in practice, to maintain a condition of no political activity on a person resident in this country, but when it was argued on appeal that Mr. Dutschke had kept his undertakings, when it was argued that this was the main reason why I was wrong, then it was necessary for me to produce the evidence, which I was able to get because of my position, to refute that argument.

We are coming to the end of the debate. I understand that there is to be a Division, and I want to be quite clear about the issue on which the House will be dividing.

There are many things on which we are agreed. There is agreement in our concern about reconciling national security with freedom of speech. There is concern about the way in which this Tribunal, set up by the House, has operated in practice. On what are we divided? I understand that we are divided on this specific case, and I understand, too, that my decision is being called into question, as it should be, by the House of Commons—because I believe that in matters of this kind the Home Secretary should take his decision on the information that he has available, and on the basis of what he believes to be right for this country, and that if he chooses wrongly, the House of Commons should condemn him.

Let us see what the issues are here. This gentleman, Mr. Dutschke, was admitted to this country when he was still gravely wounded. That was in late 1968. He was admitted on very strange conditions imposed by my predeccessor, conditions which derived from his political record in the past and, in particular, on his advocacy of the use of force to obtain political ends. These conditions were imposed, I think rightly, and my predecessor was right, on compassionate grounds, to admit him for medical treatment.

He came here for medical treatment, volunteering, and subsequently accepting in further letters, not to take any part in political activities, accepting quite explicitly that he would not become a student at a university, and accepting quite explicitly that when his medical treatment was over he would leave the country. Those are the simple facts, which cannot be denied, of the way in which he came to this country by my predecessor's decision which, as I say, I think was a right and proper decision.

On the evidence, upheld by the Tribunal, it appears that the condition of no political activity was broken. The decision which I took—not to allow him to depart from his original condition not to become a student—was based on information available to me from the security services, collected under the authority of my predecessor.

I believe that political restraint is wrong in principle, and unenforceable in practice. I agree that it would be wrong to withhold political freedom and the freedom of discussion about which people are talking. As my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Fowler) said, people would be second-class residents if they were able to come here to study or to train but were not entitled to talk about politics. I think, therefore, that the condition of "no politics" is unacceptable, and one has either to admit Mr. Dutschke without any limitations on his political activities, save those of the law, or not admit him at all.

This issue was submitted to the Tribunal appointed for this purpose by the previous Government in accordance with the legislation passed by the previous Government. The case was heard by a Tribunal of five people, four of whom were chosen by the previous Government. They found that I was right in my decision, that I was right in the exercise of my discretion. They found that Mr. Dutschke had not kept the assurances given on his behalf, and that if he were to remain there would be a risk to this country.

The simple fact in this case is that the Home Office kept its part of the bargain with Mr. Dutschke. All that we asked him to do was to keep his part of the bargain with this country. If hon. Members of the Labour Party like to vote against that, let them do so.

Question put, That this House do now adjourn:—

Division No. 58.]	AYES	[7.0 p.m.
Abse, Leo	Galpern, Sir Myer	Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)
Albu, Austen	Gilbert, Dr. John	Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)	Ginsburg, David	Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)
Allen, Scholefield	Golding, John	Moyle, Roland
Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)	Gourlay, Harry	Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Armstrong, Ernest	Grant, George (Morpeth)	Murray, Ronald King
Ashley, Jack	Grant, John D. (Islington, E.)	O'Halloran, Michael
Ashton, Joe	Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)	O'Malley, Brian
Atkinson, Norman	Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)	Oram, Bert
Barnes, Michael	Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill)	Orbach, Maurice
Barnett, Joel	Hardy, Peter	Orme, Stanley
Beaney, Alan	Harper, Joseph	Oswald, Thomas
Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood	Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)	Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, Sutton)
Bidwell, Sydney	Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith	Padley, Walter
Bishop, E. S.	Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis	Paget, R. T.
Blenkinsop, Arthur	Heffer, Eric S.	Palmer, Arthur
Booth, Albert	Horam, John	Pannett, Rt. Hn. Charles
Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur	Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas	Pardoe, John
Bradley, Tom	Huckfield, Leslie	Parker, John (Dagenham)
Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, W.)	Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)	Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)
Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)	Hughes, Mark (Durham)	Pavitt, Laurie
Buchan, Norman	Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)	Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred
Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)	Hughes, Roy (Newport)	Pendry, Tom
Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James	Hunter, Adam	Pentland, Norman
Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)	Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)	Perry, Ernest G.
Carmichael, Neil	Janner, Greville	Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg.
Carter, Ray (Birmingh'm, Northfield)	Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas	Prescott, John
Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)	Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)	Price, William (Rugby)
Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara	Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)	Probert, Arthur
Clark, David (Colne Valley)	John, Brynmor	Rankin, John
Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)	Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)	Reed, D. (Sedgefield)
Cohen, Stanley	Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)	Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)
Concannon, J. D.	Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)	Rhodes, Geoffrey
Corbet, Mrs. Freda	Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)	Richard, Ivor
Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth, C.)	Jones, Dan (Burnley)	Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Crawshaw, Richard	Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)	Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy (Caernarvon)
Cronin, John		Robertson, John (Paisley)
Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony	Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)	Roderick, Caerwyn E. (Br'c'n & R'dnor)
Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard	Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.)	Rodgers, William (Stockton-on-Tees)
Cunningham, G. (Islington, S. W.)	Kaufman, Gerald	Roper, John
Cunningham, Dr. J. A. (Whitehaven)	Kelley, Richard	Rose, Paul B.
Dalyell, Tam	Kinnock, Neil
Davidson, Arthur	Lambie, David	Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)
Davies, Denzil (Llanelly)	Lamond, James	Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)
Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)	Latham, Arthur	Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)
Davies, Ifor (Gower)	Lawson, George	Short, Rt. Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)
Davies, S. O. (Merthyr Tydvil)	Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick	Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton, N. E.)
Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)	Leonard, Dick	Silkin, Rt. Hn John (Deptford)
Deakins, Eric	Lestor, Miss Joan	Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)
Delargy, H. J.	Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham N.)	Sillars, James
Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund	Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)	Silverman, Julius
Doig, Peter	Lomas, Kenneth	Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.)
Dormand, J. D.	Lyon, Alexander W. (York)	Spearing, Nigel
Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)	Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)	Spriggs, Leslie
Douglas-Mann, Bruce	McBride, Neil	Stallard, A. W.
Driberg, Tom	McCartney, Hugh	Stoddarts, David (Swindon)
Duffy, A. E. P.	McElhone, Frank	Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John
Dunn, James A.	McGuire, Michael	Strang, Gavin
Dunnett, Jack	Mackenzie, Gregor	Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.
Eadie, Alex	Mackie, John	Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley
Edelman, Maurice	Mackintosh, John P.	Swain, Thomas
Edwards, Robert (Bilston)	McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)	Taverne, Dick
Edwards, William (Merioneth)	McNamara, J. Kevin	Thomas, Rt. Hn. George (Cardiff, W.)
Ellis, Tom	MacPherson, Malcolm	Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)
English, Michael	Mahon, Simon (Bootle)	Thomson, Rt. Hn. G. (Dundee, E.)
Evans, Fred	Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)	Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy
Faulds, Andrew	Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)	Tinn, James
Fisher, Mrs. Doris (B'ham, Ladywood)	Marks, Kenneth	Tomney, Frank
Fitch, Alan (Wigan)	Marsh, Rt. Hn. Richard	Urwin, T. W.
Fitt, Gerard (Belfast, W.)	Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy	Varley, Eric G.
Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)	Mayhew, Christopher	Wainwright, Edwin
Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)	Meacher, Michael	Walden, Brian (B'm'ham, All Saints)
Foley, Maurice	Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert	Walker, Harold (Doncaster)
Foot, Michael	Mendelson, John	Wallace, George
Ford, Ben	Mikardo, Ian	Watkins, David
Fraser, John (Norwood)	Millan, Bruce	Weitzman, David
Freeson, Beginald	Milne, Edward (Blyth)	White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)

The House divided: Ayes Noes 295.

Whitehead, Phillip	Williams, W. T. (Warrington)	TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick	Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)	Mr. William Hamling and
Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)	Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)	Mr. James Hamilton.
William, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)	Wilson, William (Coventry, S)

NOES
Adley, Robert	Fenner, Mrs. Peggy	Langford-Halt, Sir John
Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)	Fidler, Michael	Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)	Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead)	Le Marchant, Spencer
Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian	Fletcher-Cooke, Charles	Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)	Fookes, Miss Janet	Longden, Gilbert
Astor, John	Fortescue, Tim	Loveridge, John
Atkins, Humphrey	Foster, Sir John	McAdden, Sir Stephen
Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)	Fowler, Norman	MacArthur, Ian
Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)	Fox, Marcus	McCrindle, R. A.
Balniel, Lord	Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (St'fford & Stone)	McLaren, Martin
Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony	Fry, Peter	Maclean, Sir Fitzroy
Batsford, Brian	Galbraith, Hn. T. G.	McMaster, Stanley
Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton	Gibson-Watt, David	Macmillan, Maurice (Farnham)
Bell, Ronald	Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)	McNair-Wilson, Michael
Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)	Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)	McNair-Wilson, Patrick (NewForest)
Benyon, W.	Glyn, Dr. Alan	Maddan, Martin
Berry, Hn. Anthony	Goodhart, Philip	Madel, David
Biffen, John	Goodhew, Victor	Maginnis, John E.
Biggs-Davison, John	Gorst, John	Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest
Blaker, Peter	Gower, Raymond	Marten, Neil
Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S. W.)	Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)	Mather, Carol
Body, Richard	Gray, Hamish	Maude, Angus
Boscawen, Robert	Green, Alan	Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald
Bossom, Sir Clive	Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)	Mawby, Ray
Bowden, Andrew		Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John	Grylls, Michael	Meyer, Sir Anthony
Braine, Bernard	Gummer, Selwyn	Mills, Peter (Torrington)
Bray, Ronald	Gurden, Harold	Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)
Brewis, John	Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)	Miscampbell, Norman
Brinton, Sir Tatton	Hall, John (Wycombe)	Mitchell, Lt.-Col. C. (Aberdeenshire, W.)
Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher	Hall-Davis, A. G. F.	Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)	Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)	Moate, Roger
Bruce-Gardyne, J.	Hannam, John (Exeter)	Molyneaux, James
Bryan, Paul	Harrison, Brian (Maldon)	Money, Ernie
Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N & M)	Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)	Monks, Mrs. Connie
Buck, Antony	Haselhurst, Alan	Monro, Hector
Bullus, Sir Eric	Hastings, Stephen	Montgomery, Fergus
Burden, F. A.	Havers, Michael	Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)
Butler, Adam (Bosworth)	Hawkins, Paul	Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.
Campbell, Rt. Hn. G (Moray & Nairn)	Hay, John
Carlisle, Mark	Hayhoe, Barney	Mornis, Charles (Davizes)
Cary, Sir Robert	Heseltine, Michael	Mudd, David
Channon, Paul	Hicks, Robert	Murton, Oscar
Chapman, Sydney	Higgins, Terence L.	Nabarro, Sir Gerald
Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher	Hiley, Joseph	Neave, Airey
Chichester-Clark, R.	Hill, John E. B. (Norfolk, S.)	Nicholls, Sir Harmar
Churchill, W. S.	Hill, James (Southampton, Test)	Normanton, Tom
Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)	Holland, Philip	Nott, John
Clegg, Walter	Holt, Miss Mary	Ogden, Eric
Cockeram, Eric	Hordern, Peter	Onslow, Cranley
Cooke, Robert	Hornby, Richard	Oppenhelm, Mrs. Sally
Coombs, Derek	Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame Patricia	Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Cooper, A. E.	Howe, Hn. Sir Geoffrey (Reigate)	Osborn, John
Cordle, John	Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)	Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)
Corfield, Rt. Hn. Frederick	Hunt, John	Page, Graham (Crosby)
Cormack, Patrick	Hutchison, Michael Clark	Page, John (Harrow, W.)
Costain, A. P.	Iremonger, T. L.	Parkinson, Cecil (Enfield, W.)
Critchley, Julian	Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)	Percival, Ian
Crowder, F. P.	James, David	Peyton, Rt. Hn. John
Curran, Charles	Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)	Pike, Miss Mervyn
Dalkeith, Earl of	Jessel, Toby	Pink, R. Bonner
Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutsford)	Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)	Pounder, Rafton
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry	Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)	Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Maj.-Gen. Jack	Jopling, Michael	Price, David (Eastleigh)
Dean, Paul	Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith	Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L.
Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.	Kaberry, Sir Donald	Proudfoot, Wilfred
Dixon, Piers	Kellett, Mrs. Elaine	Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis
Drayson, G. B.	Kershaw, Anthony	Quennell, Miss J. M.
du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward	Kilfedder, James	Raison, Timothy
Dykes, Hugh	Kimball, Marcus	Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James
Eden, Sir John	King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)	Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter
Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)	King, Tom (Bridgwater)	Redmond, Robert
Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)	Kinsey, J. R.	Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)
Eliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)	Kirk, Peter	Rees, Peter (Dover)
Emery, Peter	Knight, Mrs. Jill	Rees-Davies, W. R.
Farr, John	Knox, David	Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David
Fell, Anthony	Lane, David	Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

Ridsdale, Julian	Stodart, Anthony (Edinburg, W.)	Walder, David (Clitheroe)
Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey	Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.	Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester)
Robersts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)	Stokes, John	Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek
Roberts, Wyn (Conway)	Stuttaford, Dr. Tom	Wall, Ptrick
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)	Sutcliffe, John	Ward, Dame Irene
Rost, Peter	Tapsell, Peter	Warren, Kenneth
Royle, Anthony	Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)	Weatherill, Bernard
Russell, Sir Ronald	Taylor, Edward M. (G' gow, Cathcart)	Wells, John (Maidstone)
Sandys, Rt. Hn. D.	Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)	White, Roger (Gravesend)
Scott, Nicholas	Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N. W.)	Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William
Sharples, Richard	Tebbit, Norman	Wiggin, Jerry
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & whitby)	Temple, John M.	Wilkinson, John
Shelton, William (Clapham)	Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret	Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick
Simeons, Charles	Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)	Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard
Sinclair, Sir George	Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.)	Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher
Skeet, T. H. H.	Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)	Woodnutt, Mark
Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington	Tilney, John	Worsley, Marcus
Soref, Harold	Trafford, Dr. Anthony	Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.
Speed, Keith	Trew, Peter	Younger, Hn. George
Spence, John	Tugendhat, Christopher
Sproat, Iain	Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.	TELLERS FOR THE NOSES:
Stainton, Keith	Van Straubenzee, W. R.	Mr. Regional Eyre and
Stanbrook, Ivor	Vaughan, Dr. Gerard	Mr. Jasper More.
Stewart-Smith, D. G. (Belper)