§ Read 3a (according to Order).
§
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH moved, after Clause 6, to insert the following new clause:
888
.—(1) This section shall apply to every woman who at the time of her marriage to an alien, whether before or after the passing of this Act, was a British subject and who, by reason of her marriage, has acquired the nationality of her husband.
(2) Any woman to whom this section applies (whether her marriage is still continuing or not) may, at any time within twelve months after the passing of this Act (in the case of a woman married to an alien before the passing of this Act), or within twelve months after the date of her marriage (in the case of a woman married to an alien after the passing of this Act), or in either case at such later time as the Secretary of State may in special circumstances allow, make a declaration in the prescribed form and manner that she desires to retain while in the United Kingdom the rights of a British subject, and thereupon she shall, within the United Kingdom, be entitled to all political and other rights, powers and privileges, and be subject to all obligations, duties and liabilities, to which a natural-born British subject is entitled or subject.
§ The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving the insertion of this new clause I do not feel that I need offer any apologies to your Lordships for returning once again to a matter which I have endeavoured to present to your Lordships on two previous stages of this Bill. I would only remind your Lordships that I have two objects in view. The first object, which is of paramount importance to-day, is the more effectual prosecution of the war. Your Lordships do not need to be reminded that this is the moment at which the strain on the nation's man-power is going to be greatest. Every one of the participants in this war is putting forth at the moment his major effort, and anything we can do to add, in however small a degree, to the man- and woman-power of this country must be of assistance to the war effort: anything which hinders that maximum labour force being applied to the war effort is a thing which we ought to do away with.
§ In addition, this clause, if it can be agreed to in this form or whatever form may be legally correct, will help to remove a cause of a great deal of hardship to British-born women who have married foreigners. The hardship which I am endeavouring to relieve is to those women who are married to foreigners other than enemy aliens. That is the circumstance which gives rise to the efforts which I am making to rectify this injustice, because in 1914 an Act was passed whereby a British-born woman married to an alien who becomes an enemy has the right, 889 subject to certain precautions, to the restoration of British nationality. It seems to me hard that that right should be denied to women married, not to enemy aliens but to friendly or neutral aliens. I would only remind your Lordships that this step in the direction of allowing a woman to recover her British nationality is in line with the general declaration of policy which the British Government made as long ago as 1931 to the League of Nations on the subject of nationality, which I believe remains the general policy of the Government to-day. There was a Hague Convention, I think, on nationality in 1933. I speak entirely subject to correction, but I believe that the main achievement of that Convention was that the participating Governments agreed to do what they could to remedy the condition of Statelessness, which is a very distressing one to people who get into that position. I believe that the agreement did not go very much beyond that and that questions of nationality have proved to be so complicated that international agreement has not been secured. Even agreement between the British Government and the Governments of the Dominions has not been secured on the question affecting nationality of women.
§
I have once again to admit to your Lordships that in saying that the Dominion of New Zealand had gone a step further in the direction of allowing women to recover their nationality I was misled. This, therefore, is to-day not a question of altering nationality. But I found that I had been misled, possibly not without some excuse. The position appears to be that the Dominion of New Zealand were very anxious that a British-born woman, such as a New Zealand woman, married to an alien, should have the right of recovering her nationality, but there was an understanding or agreement with the Home Government that the particular step should not be taken until all could take it in unison. But so anxious were the Dominion of New Zealand to give effect to the substance of that, that they have apparently evolved the very ingenious formula embodied in the Amendment. That avoids carefully making a reference to nationality, but does say that the woman may
make a declaration in the prescribed form and manner that she desires to retain while in the United Kingdom"—
890
it is "New Zealand" in the New Zealand formula—
the rights of a British subject, and thereupon she shall, within the United Kingdom, be entitled to all political and other rights, powers, and privileges, and be subject to all obligations, duties and liabilities, to which a natural-born British subject is entitled or subject.
The layman, of course, at first reading of that sees no distinction between that and full nationality. You have got all the rights and all the liabilities of British nationality and British citizenship. You are, in effect, a British citizen, though not in law. That was where some misunderstanding, rather intelligibly I think, arose. If the Dominion of New Zealand could do that, it occurred to me that that might be a proper course for the Government of the United Kingdom to follow as far as citizens in the United Kingdom were concerned, and that led me to put down the Amendment which is before your Lordships.
§ There may be some objections; I have no doubt, if so, the Lord Chancellor will tell us what they are. At all events, the first objection that this does not deal with nationality and therefore should not be in a Nationality Bill, would not, I think, be a formidable one, This clause does appear in a Nationality Bill in New Zealand, and it touches so near to the question of nationality that I think in a hotch-potch like the Bill before your Lordships to-clay it might very fairly find a place. Then again, the uniformity argument which the noble and learned Viscount urged on the House on the previous occasion does not apply now as an objection because, firstly, this does not touch nationality and, secondly, the principle of uniformity is equally observed by putting it in, because Australia and New Zealand have already done it.
§ I conceive there might be an objection on the score that these women who have married foreigners are very numerous, and that consequently a great deal of work for the Home Office would be involved. I hope the Lord Chancellor will tell us, in the course of his reply, what numbers of women are involved, because I do not know. The Lord Chancellor told us that under the provision whereby a woman married to an enemy alien can have her nationality restored no fewer than 2,000 have had their nationality restored—I think he said during the war. That is a 891 considerable number. I should imagine that the wives of friendly aliens who may wish to take advantage of this provision would be greater. If so, all the larger is the potential accretion to the labour force of this country, a large proportion of which is being prevented from pulling its weight in the present war effort. On the subject of work for the Home Office I should imagine that in the long run it may save work, because it would avoid the necessity of these women having to register with the police and generally be subject to police supervision. That might save work on a considerable scale.
§ Finally, I have no doubt that the wording of the Amendment itself, which I have only had from the day before yesterday until to-day to prepare without the help of legal advice, may be open to objection. If that is the case, I hope the Lord Chancellor will do his best to help us by explaining how it can be improved, and if the general principle meets with approval the necessary alterations could be made in another place. I beg to move.
§
Amendment moved—
After Clause 6 insert the said new clause.—(Lord Balfour of Burleigh.)
§ VISCOUNT BENNETTMy Lords, I rise merely for the purpose of asking whether, in the opinion of the Lord Chancellor, there is any possibility of complications arising in connexion with the matter of divorce by reason of the amplitude of the terms at the end of the proposed clause. It has been held by your Lordships' House that the domicile of the husband is the domicile of the wife, and that she cannot acquire separate domicile. If she has all the rights of a British subject complications might arise by reason of that fact, and I should like the noble and learned Viscount to indicate what in his opinion would be the effect of this language.
§ VISCOUNT SAMUELMy Lords, I wish to support the Amendment which has been moved by my noble friend Lord Balfour of Burleigh, not especially on the merits of this particular Amendment, but because it is a step towards the assertion of the general principle for which he was arguing when the Bill was before the Committee. I greatly regret that a political engagement in a Committee elsewhere made it impossible for me to attend 892 on that occasion and to support the noble Lord. I have for many years been strongly in favour of the principle he is now defending. Indeed, when I was at the Home Office the Government of that day made a declaration of principle at the League of Nations at Geneva which has been quoted in these debates, and which really bound the Government of that day and has never been definitely repudiated by their successors—the principle of equality between men and women in the matter of nationality. It is wrong that a woman's nationality should be, in a sense, a by-product of marriage. It ought to be a thing standing on its own basis and within her own option.
It took very many years of bitter controversy before married women were given the right to the ownership of their own property, and it was after long debates in Parliament and great discussion in the country that the principle was at last recognized that the property belonging to a woman who married should not thereby pass to her husband and under his control. But a woman's citizenship is even more important than her property. It seems to me wholly wrong that, by virtue of her marriage, she may lose her citizenship and may be placed in the dilemma either of giving up the man to whom she is attached and wishes to marry or giving up her citizenship. Under the present law she is not allowed, in many cases, to retain both. Difficulty has undoubtedly arisen from the important principle that British citizenship should, as far as possible, be uniform throughout the Empire. That is a principle of great importance which ought not to be departed from if it can be avoided; but there is not complete uniformity now, because Australia and New Zealand have, as has been mentioned, to some extent infringed that principle.
In spite of what was said by the noble Viscount on the Woolsack, they do make a distinction in this matter of married women within their own areas. They are not behind us in this matter, but ahead of us. What is the position in Canada and South Africa I am not sure. I believe it has varied from time to time, but I am convinced that every effort should be made to persuade the Dominions to accept the principle of uniformity on different lines from that established in the present Act. We should all follow, in effect, the principle which 893 has now been adopted in Australia and New Zealand. It is not these two who are holding us back, it is we who are holding them back. I sincerely hope, if the Government hold that it is impossible in this Bill to achieve these purposes, that the matter will be carefully borne in mind, and that an early opportunity will be taken after the war to apply the principle embodied in the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act, 1919, that women and men are to be on the same footing in these matters; that a woman is not merely an adjective, and a man the only substantive, but that a woman is also a substantive in herself and entitled to the control of her own nationality.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT SIMON)My Lords, I must make a few observations because the Government cannot accept this Amendment. In view of the more general remarks made by my noble friend Lord Samuel, I may be permitted to say that my personal convictions, and I think I may claim my public: actions, have been most definitely associated with the movement towards the more equal treatment of women to which he refers—indeed almost at some stages when my noble friend took a slightly different view.
§ VISCOUNT SAMUELNo, no.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORNot on woman suffrage? I was including woman suffrage. I thought it was quite right that women should have the vote and as far as I could I helped to establish that principle. But we are not on personal records, or on political principles—we are on this Bill. I, too, regret that my noble friend Lord Samuel—for good reasons—was not able to be here on the Second Reading and on the Committee stage, because if he had been he would have fully heard the argument, which I do not expect he has had an opportunity of studying in any detail in the Official Report.
§ VISCOUNT SAMUELI have read it.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORI shall repeat it in ease it should have escaped his memory. In the first place, the proposal now being made is not that British women who marry aliens should remain British subjects. That proposal was made, discussed, and withdrawn. Indeed it was made by Lord Balfour of Burleigh, as he candidly said to-day, under some slight 894 misapprehension—any of us may suffer from that—because at the time he was under the impression that that was the law in New Zealand and Australia. I have pointed out already to the House that that is not the law in Australia and New Zealand, and that that was a mistake. The provision that is made in Australia and New Zealand—it is not made in Canada or in South Africa or, as far as I know, elsewhere in the Empire—is that for certain purposes a woman, albeit she has married an alien and therefore is an alien, has the rights and obligations locally of a British subject such as she originally was. I do not agree at all that it would be right for this country, because this has been done in two of the Dominions, to follow suit. On the contrary, this country inevitably has got to play in this matter a most important part. My noble friend Lord Samuel referred just now to the fact that in the year 1930, a time when he and I were colleagues, he at the Home Office was specially responsible for the declaration that was made at Geneva.
§ VISCOUNT SAMUEL1931.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORThat is so, and it bound the whole Government.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORThe Government of 1931 made this declaration at Geneva, but I am informed that that declaration is fulfilled under Section 10 of the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act, 1933. This is quite a different question. This is a question of whether in this island we should institute what has never hitherto been instituted—a third sort of individual between women who are British subjects and women who are aliens. The suggestion is that we should carve out between these two simple and opposed conceptions some middle stage. In the first place, I do not think it desirable that we should do anything of the kind. All sorts of difficulties will certainly present themselves if we do so. My noble friend Lord Balfour urged that one of the reasons for the Amendment was that British women who had married aliens and were in this country, were, as aliens, 895 debarred from employment in a civil capacity where the test was "Are you a British subject?" Let me relieve my noble friend's mind on that point. He has not read all the Defence Regulations and I should think no one has, but Defence Regulation 60D, subsection (2), provides as follows:
(2) A woman who, having been a British subject, has by, or in consequence of, her marriage, become an alien, may, during the continuance in force of this Regulation, be treated for the purpose of temporary employment in a civil capacity under the Crown as if she had not ceased to be a British subject.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHMay I interrupt the noble Viscount? It says "may be treated"; it does not say "shall be treated". I gave the House examples on the Second Reading of numerous women who were being debarred from war work.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORI do not think we can do more here than discuss the legislation proposed and the Regulations made. Nobody could say by Statute "shall be employed". The point is to provide that, notwithstanding that a British lady is married to an alien, she is to be in the same position as a British subject for the purpose of civil employment. To make a provision which would imply a great deal more than that is really a thing to which the Government could not consent to-day. The difficulty which many of us have—which I myself have—is that a general forward movement on the subject is not suitable under the terms of this particular Bill because it has nothing to do with the Bill, which is brought forward for a very specific object. Those of us who have been Members of the House of Commons have only to look at the title to know that this particular Amendment is not within the scope of the Bill. It quite plainly is not. This Bill is for a strictly limited purpose. This Bill is, firstly, to fulfil a pledge made on behalf of the country by the Prime Minister, and secondly, to make certain adjustments especially of a mechanical or administrative kind, such, for example, as may be required in connexion with the position of those who come here from the British Colony in South America and want to join the Forces. This Bill is not intended to alter the general law of the land about nationality. I will ask the 896 House to observe that distinction. Wherever our sympathies may lie on this subject, it really is not right to use a Bill of this perfectly limited character, passed in time of war for strictly limited purposes, as though it were a fit vehicle for making a fundamental change in the law relating to married women and their national responsibilities.
All sorts of difficulties will arise. I was asked a question by my noble friend Lord Bennett in regard to divorce. I say nothing about the drafting of this Amendment. However drafted, it is probably going to produce quite a number of conundrums of various kinds which have not in the least been thought out, but as regards the particular question which my noble friend put, I would say this. The point was with regard to jurisdiction in divorce. Speaking quite offhand, I should not have thought that these particular proposals would have created a new complication, for this reason. The jurisdiction to pronounce a decree in divorce depends upon the matrimonial domicile, and does not depend upon the nationality. If an Italian marries a Russian in accordance with an English ceremony in this country and if the home of the parties is British—that is to say the domicile—I apprehend that the right to entertain a suit of divorce would be unaffected by this Amendment and by the nationality of the parties. I do not wish in any way to mislead the House about that, of course; it is a natural question to put, but what I am clear about—and here I am speaking with the special knowledge of Home Office officials who have made a special study of this matter, and I say it on behalf of the Home Office—is that if we were to make an Amendment of this sort we should be bringing in a quite different department of law from anything which is in this Nationality Bill. I agree with my noble friend Lord Balfour that we should not in fact alter any one's nationality; we should really be making provisions which are not properly speaking part of nationality law at all, but something quite different.
I further respectfully but most firmly have to inform your Lordships that the authorities responsible are most seriously concerned at the idea that these complications should be raised which cannot very well be dealt with during the war, when the whole object of this measure is to create in detail cut-and-dried changes of moderate scope, every one of which has 897 been agreed to with the Dominions. This new proposal is not the law of Canada; it is not the law of South Africa; it has never been the subject, as far as I know, of any consultation between the Dominions and ourselves. Our whole principle in this Bill has been to try as far as we can to see that the general principle of the existing law of nationality is safeguarded. I fully admit that the provisions made in New Zealand, as in Australia, give to the British woman who is married a foreigner inside those Dominions, certain rights which attach ordinarily to a British subject. She can vote, for example; but is it really intended that in this Bill by the vote of the House of Lords we are going to increase the qualifications for the vote for members of the Commons? I do not think, with great respect to your Lordships, the House of Lords is primarily concerned with defining new categories of voters. The Amendment which has been moved is one which says in effect that a woman who could not at the last election vote because she was not a British subject shall now he able to do so. It is a proposal which has nothing to do with nationality.
I cannot reply to the noble Lord's question, how many such women there are, but what I do know is that the Government, under the Defence Regulations, are already taking advantage of the services of single-minded and devoted ladies who remain wholly British in sympathy notwithstanding the fact that they have married aliens. We have already provided for the case of a woman who is married to an enemy alien. This question is solely concerned with those married to aliens who are not enemies, and it is much too large a question to be dealt with on the Third Reading of this Bill in the House of Lords. Therefore, with great regret, because with much of what has been said I am in sympathy, I must ask your Lordships to be good enough to see that the Bill is preserved in its present state.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHMy Lords, I must admit that I am greatly disappointed at the reception my efforts have had at the hands of the noble and learned Viscount. I will not detain you more than a few minutes before withdrawing the Amendment, but I want to say that I was astonished to hear the 898 extracts read from the Defence Regulations because there are numerous examples—I will not take up time by repeating them, but there is one case from the Foreign Office and one from the Royal Institute of International Affairs—of women who are being prevented from doing war work because they are aliens and for no other reason. That seems flatly in contradiction of the Regulation read by the Lord Chancellor. There is one other point to which I must refer. I am not sure if I heard correctly what the noble and learned Viscount said, but I understood him to say that the declaration about nationality made by the Government at the League of Nations in 1931 had been given effect to in the nationality law of 1933.
§ THE LORD CHANCELLORMay I read the exact terms handed to me from the Foreign Office? Section 10 of the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act, as amended in 1933, is exactly in accord with the Convention of 1930. I think it may be that I was confusing this with what was said at the League of Nations in 1931.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHI am very glad to have that misunderstanding cleared up because the Declaration of 1931 is a very different matter. The Declaration says that
the British Government considers that it is right that all disabilities of married women in matters of nationality should be removed, and that in so far as nationality is concerned a married woman should be in the same position as a man—married or unmarried—or any single woman.I am very glad that matter is cleared up because I am sure the noble and learned Viscount would not claim that that is given effect to in the Convention. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.