COMMONS AMENDMENTS (Hansard, 9 April 1968)

§ LORD SHEPHERD
My Lords, I beg to move that the House doth now agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 1 to 5. These Amendments are all related to each other. The purpose of Clause 4 of the Bill is to enable Her Majesty's Government to provide by Order in Council for the partial relinquishment of jurisdiction over certain disputes about wages and contracts of crew members on board foreign ships in British waters. Provision is made for this on a reciprocal basis in most of our consular conventions. The effect of the Amendments is to extend the clause so as to enable an Order to be made in the case of civil aircraft as well as in the case of ships. It is not usual for us to include civil aircraft in this type of provision, but we have two Conventions, one with Poland and the other with Bulgaria, signed on February 23, 1967, and March 13 last, respectively. We think it right that we should make this provision so that we may ratify those Conventions. I beg to move.

THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, for having explained the Amendments to this Bill which were made in another place. Of course we accept them since they were originally proposed by the Opposition there. I am glad that the Government have accepted the extension of the provisions of Clause 4 to aircraft, but I see that they have not accepted the extension in regard to Clauses 5 and 6.
I understand that the argument is that Clause 4 deals with civil proceedings, whereas Clauses 5 and 6 are concerned with criminal proceedings, but, apart from stating this obvious difference, the Minister in another place and the noble Lord to-day did not explain why a ship should be treated differently from an aircraft. Surely, with the great increase in air transport there is little point in differentiating between the two. The most 176 recent incidents concerning consuls have been in aircraft, not in ships. The case was argued fully in another place and I do not propose to repeat the arguments in this House, but I should be interested to know whether the noble Lord has anything to add on this point. Could he also say something about hovercraft? It is still not clear whether hovercraft are to be counted as aircraft or ships. As we know, there is likely to be a considerable increase in the use of hovercraft, so I hope the noble Lord may be able to tell us something about that point.
I hoped on this occasion to say something further about the cases of Mr. Gerald Brooke in Russia, and Mr. Watt, Mr. Grey and Mr. Barrymaine in China, but although their cases are certainly relevant to the Bill, and particularly to Clause 3, I do not think they are relevant to the Amendments which we are discussing. All I would say, therefore, is that those British subjects are a matter of great interest to your Lordships; their fate is of interest to us all, and I hope that the Government will continue to press for our consuls to have access to them. But so far as the Amendments are concerned, we accept them.

§ LORD SHEPHERD
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl. I fear that I have nothing further to add about the case of Mr. Gerald Brooke, but the noble Earl may be assured that we have this matter very much in mind. I do not think I have anything further to add to what was said in another place in regard to bringing aircraft under the provisions of Clause 4. As the noble Earl himself said, this is a matter which was raised by the Opposition in another place, and after careful consideration we felt it right that we should accept their point of view. The subject of hovercraft is well beyond the scope of the Amendments which are before your Lordships. But I will confirm to the noble Earl that a hovercraft is neither ship nor aircraft; it is something which has a special nature of its own. I believe that there will be further legislation in future which will deal with the position of hovercraft. Having said that, I hope that the House will accept the Commons Amendments.