ISLE OF MAN (DETENTION) BILL. (Hansard, 8 April 1941)

§ THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA AND BURMA (THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE)

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a second time. I ought, perhaps, to give your Lordships some few words of explanation about the Bill, which is purely an enabling Bill designed to remove the technical and legal difficulties in the way of moving to the Isle of Man persons detained under various orders and powers of the Home Secretary. The Bill is necessary because, as many of your Lordships, more learned in these matters than I am, are aware, the Isle of Man forms no part of the British Isles. No difficulty arises about enemy aliens who are detained under the Prerogative, many of whom, indeed most of whom, are already interned in the Isle of Man, but there is no provision under the law as it stands whereby either non-enemy aliens or British subjects may be sent outside the United Kingdom.

The Bill may have an effect upon about 1,100 persons—about 800 persons who are detained under Regulation 18B, and about 240 non-enemy aliens detained under Article 12 of the Aliens Order. This Bill will enable the Home Secretary to arrange for such of these persons as he thinks desirable to be detained in the Isle of Man. There are many obvious advantages in the removal of some of these persons to the Isle of Man. One is that the camping equipment in this country is very urgently desired by the military authorities for the housing of the rapidly extending Armed Forces of the Crown. Another is that the administrative and managing staff who deal with interned persons is to a large extent now centralised in the Isle of Man, and the control of administration will be very much easier if all the internees and detained persons are in the same island. Moreover, on security grounds, I need not stress the point that there are advantages in having these persons detained in an island separated by a broad stretch of water from the mainland or anywhere else, rather than having them in places where it is conceivable they might do damage in this country.

The Bill deals only with the arrangements for the custody of persons who are already detained and it does not touch the grounds upon which they are detained or any other subject. It merely enables the Home Secretary to remove to 1029 the Isle of Man persons already under detention in this country. I am very jealous of the rights of citizens, even if they are treacherous citizens, and I have satisfied myself that a citizen will suffer no loss of civil rights by his detention in the Isle of Man. Indeed in many ways his position will be somewhat better. The necessity for supervision will be somewhat less, and he will enjoy, I think, on the whole more comfortable conditions of detention in the Isle of Man than he has in this country. The only disadvantage he will suffer will be that visits from friends and relatives will be more difficult in the Isle of Man, but my right honourable friend the Home Secretary assures me that he is endeavouring to make arrangements to overcome this difficulty. With these few words of explanation I hope your Lordships will agree to give the Bill a Second Reading.

§ THE EARL OF LISTOWEL

My Lords, I am sure you will give this small and useful measure the same wholehearted assent as it received in another place and that no one who heard what the noble Duke had to say will disagree with any part of his remarks. I think 1030 his statement in relation to the preservation of civil rights for those who are transferred to the Isle of Man will remove any conceivable objection such as that suggested in another place. There is just one small point to which I should like to draw the attention of the Government There are a certain number of women who have been detained for several months in Holloway prison. These women fall under one of the categories mentioned by the noble Duke. They are British citizens technically, but their allegiance in fact is owed elsewhere. It is clearly undesirable for them to be kept any longer than is absolutely necessary under the penal conditions of a prison régime. I very much hope that the passage of this Bill will enable the Government to transfer them to another and more suitable place of detention. I should also like to express the hope that when this Bill becomes law it may be put into operation as speedily as possible and that there may not be any serious delay, as there sometimes is, between the passage of an enactment into law and its operation by those responsible for its administration.