HL Deb 09 December 1970 vol 313 cc934-7

2.45 p.m.

LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH

My 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, in view of the thousands of immigrants Australia and New Zealand take from this country every year, they will now allow visitors from those countries to come and go to and from this country as they wish.]

THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD WINDLESHAM)

My Lords, visitors from Australia and New Zealand, as from other Commonwealth countries, are always welcome.

LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH

My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that somewhat unsatisfactory Answer (and I think he knows what the Question really was about), may I ask him, first: does not the Answer to the Question just asked by my noble friend, and the Answer to my Question, add insult to injury? Has the noble Lord read the report in last week's Times with the heading, "We will license Australians like dogs"? Will he consult with his noble friend Lord Carrington, who knows well the strength of feeling—or ill-feeling—in that country to find ways of removing this gratuitous insult? Secondly, how does the noble Lord reconcile the fact that half-a-million nationals of a foreign and historically unfriendly race have come and settled here since the war with these restrictions on our friends and relations?

LORD WINDLESHAM

My Lords, I make that three questions. The answer to the first is that increasing numbers of Australian and New Zealand visitors have been coming to this country. Last year there were 68,000 from Australia, and nearly 15,000 from New Zealand. My right honourable friend has seen the article in the Melbourne Age which was referred to in The Times. It speculated on the contents of the Immigration Bill, and it would not be right for me to comment on that. The third part of the noble Lord's question concerned, I think, people from Ireland, who have always been in a different position. Again, I think he ought to wait and see what is in the Immigration Bill.

LORD SHACKLETON

My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he will rebut the suggestion that people from Ireland are from an unfriendly race?

LORD STONHAM

My Lords, can the noble Lord confirm that genuine visitors from Australia and New Zealand, and indeed any Commonwealth country, have always been and still are welcome?

LORD WINDLESHAM

Yes, certainly, my Lords.

LORD SEGAL

My Lords, since the Question refers to immigrants from New Zealand and Australia who are coming and going, can the noble Lord say whether they are equally welcome in their going as in their coming?

LORD WINDLESHAM

My Lords, I do not know what that question refers to. The working of the immigration controls is something we debated on the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill. I think we all know that the Immigration Service have a difficult job when people are coming and going out of this country.

LORD ARWYN

My Lords, would not the noble Lord agree that if this country was once more in danger, as it was in the last two wars, we should very soon look to the Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians, and not so much to the many other members of the Commonwealth? If he agrees, does not this fact establish a priority in allowing visitors from those countries to come and go as they wish?

LORD WINDLESHAM

My Lords, citizens of many Commonweath countries helped this country in the last war.

LORD ROWALLAN

My Lords, when I was in Australia I had the privilege of getting to know the people there and their intense loyalty to the Throne and to Her Majesty. I was there at the most critical time—

SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS

Question!

LORD ROWALLAN

Is the noble Lord aware that at the most critical time of the negotiations about British entry into the Common Market I was told by Perth reporters that although it might make a difference to the pattern of trade, nothing would ever diminish in any way their loyalty to this country, and their affection and sympathy for the British people who had been driven into the critical position which was then apparent?

LORD WINDLESHAM

Yes, my Lords; my right honourable friend is well aware of the links between Australia and this country.