§ 2.38 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGHMy Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
§ [The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make a statement 788 on the reports of beating of political prisoners in Aden, and also upon the reasons for the resignation of the Minister of Education in the Aden Government.]
§ THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF DUNDEE)My Lords, on November 12 and 13 canings were administered to nine prisoners in Aden gaol. They were not political prisoners but were serving sentences for breaches of the law. The prisoners had concerted together to commit the aggravated prison offence of insubordination. The canings were carried out on the instructions of the Superintendent of Prisons, an Adeni officer, in accordance with the prison rules after medical examination. It is a matter of regret that the Superintendent overlooked the requirement of the Prison Ordinance that there should be a delay of 24 hours before the sentence was executed. He was, however, faced with concerted ill-discipline, which he feared might spread unless he at once asserted his authority.
Before this incident, the Governor had been asked to review the provisions for corporal punishment for prison offences. The Executive Council have now agreed to certain amendments of the prison rules. Henceforth offences for which corporal punishment may be awarded will be restricted to mutiny, repeated assault on another prisoner and attacks on a prison officer. Sentences of corporal punishment will require to be confirmed by the chief magistrate; and it will be forbidden to combine corporal punishment with other serious punishments.
In reply to the other Question coupled with this one, before the recent debate in another place, Mr. Husseiny, the former Minister of Education and Information in Aden, informed my right honourable friend that he and other Adeni Ministers would resign unless the merger plan which those Ministers had recommended last August was postponed. At the same time he informed my right honourable friend that he and other Ministers had been subjected to intimidation by opponents of merger. No other Ministers have in fact resigned. I wish to pay tribute to them for the steadfast manner in which they are holding those opinions in spite of improper pressures upon them.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGHMy Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Earl for the Answer he has given. I would say, on the first part of my Question, that I welcome very much the steps Her Majesty's Government have taken to remove what would have been a permanent stigma on our good name throughout the world because of the manner in which the prison regulations were obviously not being carried out.
It is well that Her Majesty's Government have been so frank and so reasonably quick in taking such action to get this put right. I think the description given a week ago to-day by the very trustworthy Labour Member for East Leeds gave great cause for anxiety to all of us who value the good name of Britain in these matters. So far as I can tell from the Answer, the new arrangements will now accord almost exactly with the steps that have to be taken in British prisons before corporal punishment of this kind is administered.
§ THE EARL OF DUNDEEI have looked that up in case the noble Viscount might ask about it. As he says, they are certainly in accordance with, if indeed not exactly parallel to, regulations in the United Kingdom. Mutiny, incitement to mutiny and gross personal violence to an officer of the prison are the offences for which corporal punishment may be administered here.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGHMy Lords, I should like to thank the noble Earl. I would ask in reference to the resignation of the Minister of Education whether this does not indicate very strong feeling in the Aden Territory against the proposals which have so far been made for federation. And may I take it that the Government are really going to reconsider this whole position in the light of events?
§ THE EARL OF DUNDEEI think the only question I can answer arising out of that on the Paper is concerned with the intimidation of which Mr. Husseiny complained. I cannot, of course, give any assessment of the extent or strength of feeling on the subject; how far it is genuine and how far manufactured. The noble Viscount will be aware that all the Ministers, including Mr. Husseiny, recommended this idea of federation last August. The noble Viscount also asked 790 whether the Government would reconsider their policy. I think that the answer to that is, No. I do not want to quote unnecessarily, or out of order, from another place, but I think it is right in this context to quote from a Ministerial statement made during a debate in another place last week by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations. In referring to this question which the noble Viscount has just asked about policy, he said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 667 (No. 11), col. 252]:
But I must say that the more I study the problem, the more I become convinced that the British Government could not escape responsibility for this important decision and that in view of the present internal situation in the Colony it would not be fair or possible to shift that responsibility on to the shoulders of the electors.
§ LORD OGMOREMy Lords, is it not a fact that to use the word "merger", as the noble Earl has done, is rather misleading? Is it not a fact that the proposal is for federation between the Colony of Aden and the Protectorate of Southern Arabia? Thirdly, is it not also a fact that no one has objected to the proposal for a Federation but what they are objecting to is the timing of it?
§ THE EARL OF DUNDEEMy Lords, on the verbal point, I should be quite prepared to accept the noble Lord's correction. "Federation" is a more accurate word than "merger". With regard to the second part of his question, that is what I was referring to just now when I read out my right honourable friend's statement in another place.
§ THE EARL OF LISTOWELMy Lords, may I ask the noble Earl another supplementary question? Is he aware that Mr. Husseiny, in a public statement, has said that the reason for his resignation was disagreement with the Government's policy about the merger? If he is, was the noble Earl then misleading the House—unintentionally, of course—when he said, as he did in his reply, that the reason for Mr. Husseiny's resignation was both disagreement and fear of intimidation?
§ THE EARL OF DUNDEEMy Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl for pointing out that this word "merger", which 791 I agree is a less accurate word, is Mr. Husseiny's. It was quoted and did not originate with Her Majesty's Government. I think that "federation" is better. He may, as the noble Earl suggests, have unintentionally misled people by using this word.
§ THE EARL OF LISTOWELMy Lords, I suggested that the noble Earl has unintentionally misled the House by saying that the reason for Mr. Husseiny's resignation was both fear of intimidation and disagreement with Her Majesty's Government's policy, whereas, as the noble Earl is no odubt aware, Mr. Husseiny made a public statement to the effect that his sole reason for resignation was disagreement with Her Majesty's Government's policy.
§ THE EARL OF DUNDEEMy Lords, he also made a private statement to the Secretary of State saying that one reason was the intimidation.
§ THE EARL OF LISTOWELMy Lords, may I ask whether the noble Earl is authorised to make this private statement public? It would be very unusual if a private statement made to the Secretary of State were divulged to either House of Parliament without the agreement of the parties to the statement.
§ THE EARL OF DUNDEEMy Lords, I have certainly been authorised by my right honourable friend to make it public.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGHMy Lords, I should like to revert for a moment to the first part of my Question. I have already said how gratified I am that certain steps have been taken on the first part of my Question, but may I be sure that the term "mutiny" will be interpreted as we should interpret it here, because it seems to me a shocking thing that corporal punishment could have been inflicted at all on men on hunger strike for what they thought was injustice to another prisoner. Would that be treated as mutiny?
§ THE EARL OF DUNDEEMy Lords, if your Lordships want me to give a legal interpretation of the word "mutiny" as it applies to prison law, it would probably be advisable for me to do so in reply to another Question. But the decision of the Executive Council in Aden was that 792 henceforth offences for which corporal punishment will be awarded will be restricted to mutiny, repeated assault on another prisoner and attacks on a prison officer. I should not have thought that there was any dubiety about the way in which the word "mutiny" would be interpreted. If there is, perhaps another Question might be required, to which my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor could reply.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGHMy Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Earl. In the statement which has been made the reference to indiscipline might be interpreted very broadly. That is the only thing I am afraid of.
§ THE EARL OF DUNDEENo, my Lords. I think that the conclusion drawn from my original answer is that in future under these rules corporal punishment could not be administered for the indiscipline in respect of which it was administered in the case referred to in the Question.