COMMONWEALTH IMMIGRATION (Hansard, 6 April 1965)

§ LORD ELTON
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

§ THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE EARL OF LONGFORD)
My Lords, in his speech at Sheffield on March 28, my right honourable friend the First Secretary of State emphasised the need for economic expansion and greater industrial activity and the consequent necessity to create social conditions in which workers could move freely to the areas where they were needed. My right honourable friend was not making a speech about immigration policy, but made the obvious point that problems in such fields as housing were not confined to areas in which immigrants from overseas settled but arose wherever economic development required an influx of new workers.

§ LORD ELTON
My Lords, I thank the noble Earl the Leader of the House for that somewhat Delphic utterance. We know, of course, that however, obscure some of his statements may necessarily be, he at any rate will always be "Frank". I hope I may deduce from that Answer (and it needs a good deal of deductive work) that the mission under Lord Mountbatten is not excluded from discussing the possible limitation of the inflow of legal immigrants, which, after all, according to a Public Opinion Poll as long ago as last July, was desired by a majority of the electorate.

§ THE EARL OF LONGFORD
My Lords, I am, of course, deeply grateful to the noble Lord for his personal references. I know that women like to be thought mysterious, and I suppose men must not object to it. The Mountbatten Mission will certainly discuss with Governments of the Commonwealth countries to be visited what measures may be taken to reduce the substantial numbers who are believed to be evading our controls, as well as possible new measures for regulating the flow of immigrants. The question of the actual number of immigrants who should be admitted is primarily for Her Majesty's Government.

§ LORD CARRINGTON
My Lords, I found the first Answer of the noble Earl the Leader of the House rather difficult to follow; I hope that he will forgive me. Is he telling us that the First Secretary of State was misreported?—because, as I read my newspapers rather carefully, the First Secretary said, in point of fact, that the limiting of Commonwealth immigration to Britain was absolutely mad.

§ THE EARL OF LONGFORD
My Lords, I am sorry the noble Lord found my remarks difficult to follow. I am sure it was my fault; perhaps, if I may put it in this way, they were not any more easy to follow than usual. I can quote something which the First Secretary of State was reported as saying soon after he made this speech. He said, as reported in the Daily Express: The remarks were reported accurately, but they were out of context. That is what he himself said. I do not want to suggest that he was criticising the Press, or the reporter at any rate, whatever may have been thought of the selection. I think it is worth mentioning, without trying to quote the whole speech and in that way providing the context, that he was reported in the Daily Express and other newspapers—the Daily Express gave it in direct speech, and this was the remark to which the noble Lord referred—as saying: It is absolutely mad that, at a time when our labour force is allegedly over used and when our new force is going to rise but slightly, that we should be talking about limiting the number of people who can be used. I know that the word "immigration" came in elsewhere, but what he actually said was that it was mad that we should be talking about limiting the number of people who can be used. While he is not complaining of a misreport, I think I must point out that the words used were not quite those which the noble Lord had in mind.

§ LORD CARRINGTON
My Lords, I am grateful for that help. Does that mean that when the First Secretary of State talks about immigration in the context of employment he can say something quite different from when he talks about immigration in the context of immigration?

§ THE EARL OF LONGFORD
My Lords, it would be unwise to draw that conclusion. To be honest, if the noble Lord wants to know exactly what he said, he will perhaps allow me to give him a transcript from the Press. There was no form of transcript available. I rely on the Press reference, and I have given the most relevant passage, in which it is clear that when he used the expression "mad" he was talking about use in general and not immigration. It would be difficult to pursue it further.

§ BARONESS HORSBRUGH
My Lords, could the noble Earl say whether there are any other parts of Her Majesty's Government's policy which Mr. Brown thinks are "absolutely mad"?

§ THE EARL OF LONGFORD
My Lords, I think it would be a mistake to suppose—and it shows that I have been all too Delphic—that Mr. Brown said that any part of Her Majesty's Government's policy was ill-judged. I should have thought that whatever noble Lords may think about some of us in the Government, most of them have a great regard for the particular job that Mr. Brown is doing.

§ LORD BARNBY
My Lords, would the noble Earl feel himself in a position to say, when dealing with matters affecting immigration from the Commonwealth as a whole, that those remarks apply equally to the population of Hong Kong as to the other parts of the Commonwealth?

§ THE EARL OF LONGFORD
My Lords, Mr. Brown was not confining his remarks to immigration from abroad, and least of all from Hong Kong. He was making a general remark about the need to give the fullest opportunities to using manpower in a very flexible way in this country.

§ LORD BARNBY
That was not the point of my question. The real point was to ask whether the noble Earl was able to confirm that there is no distinction or discrimination between Hong Kong and other parts of the Commonwealth.

§ THE EARL OF LONGFORD
My Lords, I am afraid I am not following the noble Lord as closely as usual. I do not know why anybody should wish to distinguish between Hong Kong and other parts of the Commonwealth. I am not entirely "with" the noble Lord there. Certainly there is no attempt to distinguish. Let me repeat, if I have not made it quite clear, that the First Secretary's statement was in no way intended to modify existing Government policy in regard to immigration, as stated very recently in this House by my noble friend Lord Stonham and other Ministers.

§ LORD BARNBY
My Lords, the noble Earl asks me whether I would elucidate 6 the point. I was asking whether he would confirm that there is no discrimination or distinction in his remarks between immigration from the Commonwealth as a whole, and immigration from Hong Kong.

§ THE EARL OF LONGFORD
My Lords, the noble Lord can set his mind completely at rest on that point.

§ LORD ALPORT
My Lords, may I ask the Leader of the House whether it is the view of the Government that it is the responsibility of Commonwealth Governments to prevent their nationals from evading the immigration regulations of the United Kingdom; or whether that is not essentially a problem for the United Kingdom which cannot be transferred to Commonwealth Governments?

§ THE EARL OF LONGFORD
My Lords, certainly we should not wish to place the sole responsibility on Commonwealth countries, but we hope for their co-operation in that task.

THE EARL OF SELKIRK
My Lords, would the noble Earl agree that there are many parts of this country where there is no shortage of labour, where some of these activities could well have been carried on that are being carried on to-day in heavily over-employed areas?

§ THE EARL OF LONGFORD
To be absolutely honest, the noble Earl has me beaten. Could he amplify his question?

THE EARL OF SELKIRK
There are many parts of this country where there is already no shortage of labour but ample labour to be employed. It does not require people from outside to fulfil the duties. There are places in this country where opportunities for labour arcs urgently required.

§ THE EARL OF LONGFORD
My Lords, to the best of my belief, immigrants are not creating employment problems in that sense at all.

§ LORD BLYTON
My Lords, does my noble friend not think that there should be mutual agreement between ourselves and the Commonwealth in arriving at a good solution to this problem, instead of our trying to make a multiracial issue of it in this country?

§ THE EARL OF LONGFORD
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, who has brought his usual common sense to bear on the difficulties.

§ LORD ELTON
My Lords, without wishing to prolong these exchanges, I have been waiting to put one supplementary question. Having had, for whatever reason—I am still not entirely clear what the reason was—madness and the policy of Her Majesty's Government in this respect associated widely in the public mind, I should like to ask the noble Earl whether he recalls that, according to a Government spokesman, and quite apart from, say, 20,000 voucher holders and an unknown quantity of illegal entries expected this year, there are up to 500,000 potential immigrants, now overseas but with an unehallengeable right to permanent settlement here as dependants? And does he consider that bringing in immigrants in such great numbers and, therefore, having in perpetuity to import the food and so forth necessary for them, is an economic method of obtaining more cheap labour—if more cheap labour is desirable, which is to say the least of it open to argument?

§ THE EARL OF LONGFORD
My Lords, the noble Lord has raised a very wide question, and I can only say what I said just now: that I have nothing to add to the Statement of policy made recently. I do not want anything that has been said by me this afternoon to give an impression that there is some new emphasis. As the noble Lord is aware, voucher holders are not coming in at present without jobs to come to, and I hope he will realise that efforts are being made to cope with the problem.