EXEMPTION FROM DEPORTATION FOR CERTAIN EXISTING RESIDENTS (Hansard, 19 October 1971)

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson)
I think that it would be convenient to discuss at the same time Lords Amendment No. 20, in page 9, line 17, leave out "end of July 1971" and insert "coming into force of this 603 Act" and Lords Amendment No. 54, in page 35, line 35, leave out from "if" to "been" in line 36 and insert "it is more than five years, throughout the period since the coming into force of this Act".

§ The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Mark Carlisle)
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
These Amendments relate to Clause 7, which deals with exemptions from deportation for existing residents. The House will remember that the Bill as it left this place dealt with those who were resident here on 31st July, 1971. The effect of these Amendments is to provide that the date by which a Commonwealth or Irish citizen must have been ordinarily resident or settled in the United Kingdom in order to benefit from certain safeguards in the Bill shall, instead of 31st July, be the date of the coming into force of the Act.
As the House knows, under existing legislation, a Commonwealth or Irish citizen is exempt after he has been here for five years. Clause 7 preserves that right for existing residents, the exemption which they at present enjoy, provided that they are resident here at the time of coming into force of the Act and that they have been resident here for five years. The Bill's main provisions will come into force on a day to be appointed by the Home Secretary. It is too soon yet to say exactly when that day will be, but it is hoped that it will be during the early part of the coming year.

§ Mr. Peter Archer
Of course we do not disagree in principle with these Amendments. We simply exercise our legitimate right to wonder how the end of July came to be in the Bill in the first place. We suspect that it represented the Government's intention that the Bill would speed through the House at such breakneck speed that it would actually be in force by the end of July.
It may be that every Government is optimistic in that respect, but we cannot help reflecting that the Government possibly failed to appreciate the seriousness of some of the issues which are raised in the Bill. They were important for those seeking to come here as immigrants, for 604 those who are already here as immigrants and for the host community: they were not matters to be undertaken lightly. No one could accuse us of having wasted time in our discussions on the Bill.
When we look at the list of Amendments we cannot help but reflect—I do not blame the hon. and learned Gentleman for this; his Department cannot be held responsible—that at every stage we have wrung from the Government the very minimum of concessions, but invariably we have wrung them from them only after their protestations that what we were proposing was impracticable. Then, at a later stage, the Government have made what can only be regarded as the very minimum of concessions [Interruption.]
I think I heard the hon. and learned Gentleman say that those final comments of mine had nothing to do with the Amendment, but we wondered why this provision was in the Bill in the first place. It represented a form of optimism on the part of the Government which failed to grasp the seriousness of the points we had made.
It now appears that the coming into force of the Bill, which will govern this Amendment, is left to Clause 35, which permits the Home Secretary to appoint a day which, we are now told, may be at the beginning of next year.

§ Mr. Carlisle
In the early part of next year.

§ Mr. Archer
I will not say that that will exactly gladden a few hearts, but—

§ Mr. Carlisle
I regret having to interrupt the hon. and learned Gentleman. I should have said on a date during the first half of 1972. That is the hope.

§ Mr. Archer
I am grateful for that information. What puzzles me is that the Bill left another place yesterday and is in this House today, where we are expected, without any preparation and having mastered such half-baked documents as we got in the course of the last week, to debate the whole thing tonight. What on earth is the hurry?

§ Mr. Carlisle
I beg to move, that this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Agreement.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson)
I suggest that it would be convenient for the House to consider at the same time the following two Lords Amendments.
No. 22, in line 21, leave out from first "years" to "been" in line 23.
No. 23, in line 27, leave out from "years" to "been" in line 29.

§ Mr. Carlisle
I hope that the hon. and learned Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. Peter Archer) will not feel heated about these three Amendments because they deal with a narrow point and are designed to meet a point which was made by the Opposition, a point which, on consideration, was considered to have sound practical common sense behind it.
These Amendments also relate to Clause 7 and are tabled to meet a point made by Lord Brockway in another place. They concern the question of continuous residence and exemption from an Order for deportation. As I said when speaking to the last Amendment, under the existing law Commonwealth citizens are exempt from deportation if they have been here for a period of five years.
Under this Measure, that provision is continued for those who are here now, on the date of the coming into force of the Measure, and, by Clause 7, anybody here on the date of the coming into force of the Measure will not be liable to be deported on conducive ground if ordinarily resident here, provided he remains so resident until the question of deportation arises; and as the Bill was originally drafted he would not be liable to deportation for breach of condition, for overstaying, or as a member of a family of a person ordered to be deported, or on conviction and recommendation by a court if he had for the last five years been ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom. But if more than five years have passed since the coming into force of the Bill, he must have been continuously so resident from that time until deportation came into question.
606 6.15 p.m.
The effect of these Amendments is to provide that the Commonwealth or Irish citizen who is ordinarily resident here on the date of the coming into force of the Measure is to be exempt from deportation if he has been continuously so resident for the preceding five years, even if there has been a break in his continuous residence in this country, between the coming into force of the Measure and the later date, when he might otherwise have been liable to deportation. This is a sensible Amendment to make because a person may have been here for many years and then break that continuous residence, and have to re-establish his exemption by a fresh period of continuous ordinary residence of five years or more.

§ Mr. Peter Archer
I promise the hon. and learned Gentleman that I will not become heated over this issue. My only complaint is that this was not the only Amendment originally suggested by the Opposition which made sound, practical common sense. Our complaint is that too few of our sound, practical, common sense proposals have finally been accepted by the Government.
We are grateful for the clear way in which the hon. and learned Gentleman expounded what is a complicated Amendment. Perhaps I may be allowed to expound it historically because this was one of the concessions I was attempting to discuss earlier as something which we had wrung from the Government. We have had to seek improvements comma by comma, line by line.
Originally there was no protection in the Bill for those whom it was proposed to deport on non-conducive grounds. They were liable even in the first five years of their residence in this country. In Committee we prevailed on the Home Secretary to spell out what he had said earlier in more general terms, when he said that those who were already here would not be in a worse position than if the Bill had not become law, it transpired that that undertaking required spelling out in detail.
For that reason, those who were about to be deported on non-conducive grounds were brought into the scheme of protection, but there was still no joy for those who were not here continuously from the date when the Bill was to come into 607 force and the date of the Order for those who had a break at some future time in their residence in this country. I explained that this was a complicated matter.
That was not rectified until the Bill arrived in Committee in another place, and then, when it was rectified there, it was discovered that, once again, those who were about to be deported on non-conducive grounds had been left out; and that was not rectified until the Report stage in another place. I trust, therefore, that the hon. and learned Gentleman will not take it amiss if I am less grateful than his opening remarks indicated I should be.
A question raised in another place by Lord Brockway still puzzles me. It is the fact that the Government have in the end been forthcoming but have been less forthcoming than they might have been. Why have they not been completely open and generous on the subject, if they really wanted to set at rest the minds of many people who are worried about the Bill?
The purpose of the Bill as originally expounded was to equate the position of Commonwealth citizens and aliens, but whenever we looked at the details—this expression has often been used from the benches opposite—we discovered that there was a "levelling downwards". Nobody benefited from the equation. Now, as I understand it, the purpose of the Amendment is to improve the position, or to partially restore it, for certain Commonwealth subjects. Might it not have been rather more generous to have afforded aliens the benefit of this concession, too? Then, just for once, somebody might have received some benefit from the process of equating, rather than always somebody receiving a positive disadvantage.
The Government were invited to do that by my noble Friend Lord Brockway. All one can say is that, on reflection, even now, if there were time, this final concession in a whole string of concessions might commend itself to the Government. It is a complaint which some of us make from time to time that parliamentary procedure is somewhat cumbersome in that there are so many stages in the passage of legislation, but this Amendment is an object lesson demonstrating the 608 importance of having as many stages as possible, for the Bill really has been improved at every stage of its passage through both Houses. One can only wish that there were yet a further stage at which we might have won a further concession, but I must be content with the result as it stands now.

§ Mr. Carlisle
If he reflects for a moment, the hon. and learned Gentleman will realise that there were two principles underlying the Bill. First, it should equate the position of aliens and Commonwealth citizens in the matter of control of entry as from the coming into force of the Bill; and that it does. But it was equally a clear position taken by the Home Secretary that the Bill should not affect the existing rights of Commonwealth citizens who were here at the time when the Bill came into force. Clause 7 was provided to meet that point, and it is to meet it further and make sure that there is no reduction of existing rights that these Amendments are made.