Lords Sitting of 3 August 1971

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop
of Bristol.

MOTOR CAR STEERING LOCKS
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when it is proposed to make steering locks compulsory on all new cars.]
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, manufacturers already fit steering locks voluntarily on all new cars.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that thefts of cars are still quite a frequent occurrence, and would it not be advisable to make this provision compulsory in order to avoid a lot of needless trouble for the police?
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: Yes, my Lords; we are aware that there are many thefts. The voluntary fitting of locks on cars has taken place only from January 1, 1970, if the cars were of new design. But, of course, as from January 1, 1971, even cars of existing design have had them fitted. I am advised that the Home Office and the police wish to have this fitting made compulsory. But we are just feeling our way.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, arising out of that reply, may I ask what is the good of making the fitting of locks compulsory unless you also make the use of those locks compulsory, which would be a gross interference with the ordinary common sense conduct of citizens?
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: Yes, my Lords. But once we have introduced
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the compulsory element I think this will be automatic. Many of these steering locks operate automatically when you take the key out.
LORD SLATER: My Lords, the noble Lord has talked about compulsion, and it seems that successive Governments have got into the habit of making compulsory things which interfere with the liberty of the subject. I think we ought to be giving more consideration to the liberty of the subject, and allowing a person to make up his own mind about whether he ought to do this or that with whatever is in his possession.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, before my noble friend replies, may I ask him two questions? First, if he makes fitting of locks compulsory will he see that the keys are different, because every key for almost every car in Britain opens every other car. Secondly, is it not very dangerous to lock the wheel? If you do you cannot drive the car.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government have every sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Slater, and understand his feelings on this matter. Equally, we all feel as citizens that we should not make crime too easy, and the fitting of locks would help stop motor theft which is a very serious matter. In reply to my noble friend Lord Fraser of Lonsdale, the problems of keys are a detail which I think we shall be able to overcome in due course. The only reason why we have not gone fully ahead with the European regulations is that we are not 100 per cent. satisfied that there are no slight risks that the steering might be locked while the engine was still running. But those are small details.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, at the same time, could some indication be placed on the car to denote that it is fitted with a steering lock, which would act as a deterrent to some sections of the community who are frequently involved in exchanges with the police authorities?
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I think those are words of wisdom. Speaking for myself, my car has always had a sign on the window advertising that fact and, touching wood, since I have displayed the sign nothing has happened to the car.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that love laughs at locksmiths, and that the gentlemen who go about stealing cars usually have a ring of 50 or 60 keys in their pockets?
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: Yes, my Lords; I am aware of that, but we can only do our best.

CAR RADIO THEFTS
2.41 p.m.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many thefts of car radios were reported during each of the last three years.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD WINDLESHAM): My Lords, I regret that the statistics at present collected do not provide this information. I can, however, say that the number of offences of stealing from all types of vehicle known to the police decreased in 1970.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that somewhat negative information, may I also ask him whether he can, nevertheless, say how many prosecutions have occurred for thefts from cars and how many convictions have followed?
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, I do not have those figures with me, but I can send them to the noble Lord. What I can give him, which I think will be of interest to the House, is the incidence of thefts reported to the police over the last three years. In 1968 the total was 188,000; in 1969 it was 176,000, and in 1970 it was 175,000. The clear-up rate—that is, the number of cases the police have been able to clear up—has been increased. Of course the success rate here is marked by the fact that the number of vehicles on the roads has been increasing in each of those three years, so that although the numbers are still large the trend is quite an encouraging one.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, as these thefts are still very prevalent, would it
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not be worth while for the Government to attempt to categorise them to ascertain how many cases of thefts of car radios have occurred? Also, are Her Majesty's Government aware of the location of second-hand markets in car radios: and how far have they been successful in tracking down the receivers of this type of goods?
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, the current statistics do not distinguish between thefts of car radios and other thefts from vehicles. The classifications are based on the legal definition of the offence, which is theft, rather than on the article which is stolen. Again, I should like to consider the second half of the noble Lord's supplementary question and to write to him. I am sure I can give him for the Metropolitan Police District—I do not know whether I shall be able to do it for the whole country—the number of prosecutions and the number of successful convictions.

WATER SUPPLIES
LORD ROYLE: 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 a statement can now be made on the Government's plans for the supply of water to the nation as a whole, as promised in reply to a Question in this House on June 23, last.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT (LORD SANDFORD): My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment intends to make a Statement soon on the future organisation of water services in England and Wales, following the Report by the Central Advisory Water Committee. There are a number of complex considerations involved, however, and it will not be possible to do this before the Recess.
LORD ROYLE: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware of the Answer I received on June 23, which distinctly said that a Statement from his right honourable friend could be expected before the Recess and a Statement on final policy probably before Christmas? May I ask whether

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the Government are"thinking big"about this question, which is a very serious one indeed? I wonder whether the noble Lord would agree with me that the Water Resources Board recently advocated a national water authority instead of the regional boards. Is he further aware that at this time the nation is using 14,000 million gallons of water per day, and that the danger areas at the moment include Devon, East Anglia, the Pennines, the Lake District, Newcastle, Liverpool and many parts of Scotland? Would the noble Lord try to press his right honourable friend to get on with tackling this very big question?
LORD SANDFORD: Yes, my Lords, I am aware of most of those factors, and I dare say the noble Lord is right about the particular figures he quoted, but without notice I cannot confirm them. The Statement made by my noble friend Lord Mowbray and Stourton was made in good faith: it had been our hope and expectation that we should be able to make a Statement before the Recess. This expectation has not been fulfilled; but that has not been due to any lack of awareness of the urgency of the problem. I can confirm that my right honourable friend is fully aware of the urgency; but the considerations are most complex and it is important to get a solution, which must be a long-term solution and not merely the solution of particular problems of shortage, on the right lines.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the future organisation of the water industry has to fit in with the future reform of local government? Is my noble friend also aware that he and his noble and right honourable friends have indicated that they intend to legislate on that matter next Session? Is he aware, therefore, that it is most urgent that the Government should make up their minds what is to be the future reorganisation of water—which of course includes the sewerage function—very quickly now, because all local authorities, as all the other authorities engaged in the matter, require to know?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, we are only too aware of this particular factor, which is one that presses on us very much indeed.
LORD ROYLE: My Lords, can the noble Lord say whether consideration is being given in these days to proposals for barrages at Solway Firth and Morecambe Bay? Such proposals were being discussed many years ago and they might help very considerably to solve our problem.
LORD SANDFORD: Yes, my Lords. A week or two ago I answered a Question not only about barrages—with particular reference to the case of the Wash—but about the proposed desalination plant at Ipswich.
LORD ILFORD: My Lords, do the Government plans include consideration of the Report published some months ago by the Central Advisory Water Committee? Does not that Report include plans for the supply of water to the nation as a whole?
LORD SANDFORD: Yes, my Lords. This is the Report on which these considerations are chiefly based.
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that if the Government's eventual pronouncement should foreshadow anything like the nationalisation of water supplies there will be a great deal of well-deserved opposition to it?
LORD SANDFORD: That is another consideration, my Lords.

CANCER INSURANCE POLICY
2.48 p.m.
LORD AMULREE: 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 the attention of the Ministry of Trade and Industry has been drawn to the activities of Blue Seal Plans (U.K.) Ltd. in promoting insurance against cancer.]
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD DRUMALBYN): Yes, my Lords. Blue Seal Plans (U.K.) Limited are a firm of insurance brokers who made arrangements with Consumers Life Insurance Company Limited to market a policy issued by the latter which provided certain fixed benefits to the insured

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in respect of confinement to hospital by reason of cancer. There was considerable criticism of the selling methods employed in marketing these policies, and the Secretary of State will bear this aspect in mind in the review currently being made of the Department's powers over insurance companies. I understand that sales of these policies have now been discontinued.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply, which I think will allay a good deal of anxiety. But I should like to ask him whether it is not possible for some kind of consideration to be given to the type of person who is made a director of these companies under the terms of, I think it is. Section 54 of the 1967 Companies Act.
LORD RUMALBYN: Yes, my Lords. My right honourable friend always has this under review.
LORD BURNTWOOD: My Lords, the noble Lord mentioned the general review of insurance policy attitudes by the Government. Can he say whether a reduction in premiums is being considered for those who do not smoke; and, if not, why not?
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, that question is very wide indeed of the Question on the Order Paper. If the noble Lord would like to put it down, I will consider it but I should say that under the Insurance Companies Acts 1958 and 1967 the Department of Trade and Industry do not have powers enabling them to control policy conditions or premium rates.
VISCOUNT MONCK: My Lords, would my noble friend agree, particularly so that we should avoid showing favouritism to Lord Aberdare, that we be permitted to wish him many happy returns of the day?
LORD DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am most grateful.

KILLINGHOLME GENERATING STATION (ANCILLARY POWERS) BILL [H.L.]
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL): My Lords, in moving this Motion, I should like to explain the purpose of the two Motions standing in my name. They are to enable two Private Bills to continue their progress through Parliament in the next Session. It is not due to the fault of the Promoters that the Bills have not been through both Houses of Parliament before the end of this Session. A similar Motion to carry over the two Bills into the next Session has been agreed in another place. If your Lordships agree to this Motion I will formally move the sub-sequent Motion on the Clyde River Purification Bill.
Moved, That the Promoters of the Bill have leave to suspend any further proceedings thereon in this Session, in order to proceed with the Bill, if they shall think lit, in the next Session of Parliament, provided that notice of their intention to do so be lodged in the Office of the Clerk of the Parliaments not later than three o'clock on the 4th August 1971;
That such Bill shall be deposited in the Office of the Clerk of the Parliaments not later than three o'clock on or before the third day on which the House shall sit after the commencement of the next Session of Parliament, with a declaration annexed thereto, signed by the Agent, stating that the Bill is the same in every respect as the Bill at the last stage of the proceedings thereon in this House in the present Session;
That the proceedings on such Bill shall, in the next Session of Parliament, be pro forma only in regard to every stage through which the same shall have passed in the present Session, and that no new fees be charged in regard to such stages;
That the Standing Orders by which the proceedings on Bills are regulated shall not apply, in the next Session of Parliament, to such Bill in regard to any of the stages through which the same shall have passed during the present Session.—(The Earl of Listowel.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

CLYDE RIVER PURIFICATION BILL
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I beg to move this Motion formally.
Moved, That this House do concur with the Commons in their Message of yesterday.—(The Earl of Listowel.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) (No. 2) BILL
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (EARL JELLICOE): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Earl Jellicoe.)
On Question, Bill read 2a: Committee negatived.
Then, Standing Order No. 42 having been suspended (pursuant to the Resolution of July 22), Bill read 3a, and passed.

SOCIAL SECURITY BILL
2.54 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL SECURITY (LORD ABERDARE): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Aberdare.)
On Question, Bill read 3a.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Aberdare.)
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I should like to thank the Minister for the courtesy that he has extended to this side of the House throughout the passage of this Bill. As I said earlier, we are very fond of the Minister but not very fond of his Bill. We appreciate that it is part of the package deal known as New Policies for Public Spending. I should like to reiterate our thanks for his courtesy and helpfulness.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Baroness. I had not expected this ill-deserved tribute. I recognise that we had certain differences of opinion on the policy, but I am grateful for her kind remarks.
On Question, Bill passed.

HOUSING BILL
2.55 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now received.
Moved, That the Report be now received.—(Lord Sandford.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Clause 1 [Housing improvement in development areas and intermediate areas]:
LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved Manuscript Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 12, leave out from beginning to (" before ") and insert (" the works have not been begun ").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the first of five Manuscript Amendments. Perhaps I ought to explain that these Amendments are all consequential upon the acceptance by the Government of the Amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Derwent yesterday. The purpose of this Amendment is to give more precision in two respects to the Amendment made to Clause 1(1)(a) at the Committee stage. The use of the term"works"in place of"work"in that Amendment will bring it in line with the drafting of the earlier part of the clause. This applies the Act to"works eligible for financial assistance"and so on. The omission of the phrase"on the improvements"in the Amendment made at Committee stage is designed to avoid any risk of misunderstanding. As the Amendment stands, it might be thought that the provision related only to works eligible for assistance by means of a discretionary improvement grant. In fact, it applies to works eligible for assistance by means of all three types of grant: standard (basic amenities) and special (for houses in multi-occupation) as well as improvement grants. I beg to move.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, may I thank my noble friend and his advisers? We improved the Bill with the help of noble Lords opposite and behind him, but, obviously, nobody expected that the drafting would be correct. I am very grateful to my noble friend and to his advisers for getting the Bill in the proper form. I only regret that his advisers—at any rate the noble Lord himself was

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sitting up late last night—may have had to sit up late. I apologise for that; but it was well worth it. They improved the Bill. So far as I am concerned, I agree with the other Amendments, but this particular Amendment is the main one applying to the Amendment we passed yesterday.
LORD GREENWOOD OF ROSSENDALE: My Lords, I should like to add our thanks to those of Lord Derwent to the Under-Secretary. We are all glad that the Government have resigned themselves to accepting the views of the House, and although a much more wide-spread resignation would be even more welcome we are at this stage grateful for small mercies. We appreciate the help and efforts of the noble Lord, and I should like to endorse what Lord Derwent said about the civil servants. We placed a considerable strain on them at very short notice when they are already overworked and must be looking forward, as we are, to the Recess.
LORD FLETCHER: My Lords, may I add my congratulations and thanks to the noble Lord for the wisdom shown in acceding to the wishes expressed by your Lordships yesterday.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 2 [Increase in financial assistance]:
LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved Manuscript Amendment No. 2:
Page 3, line 21, at end insert: ("(2) Where this Act applies, so much of Section 5(1) of the Housing Act 1969 as requires the local authority to fix the amount of an improvement grant at the time when they approve the application for the grant shall not apply, and the amount fixed at that time may be varied by the local authority, subject to the provisions of the said Act, at any subsequent time.")
The noble Lord said: An Amendment of this sort, again consequential on the Amendment made yesterday in Committee by my noble friend Lord Derwent, is required to make works eligible for assistance under the provisions of the Bill, provided they had not been started by the relevant date, June 23, 1971. The Amendment allows a local authority, where this Bill applies, to vary at any subsequent time the amount of grant fixed at the time of approval, in the normal
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way of settling the rate of grant, subject to the provisions of the Bill. Without this Amendment, a local authority who had already approved a grant under Section 5(1) of the Housing Act 1969 and, as they are required to do under the terms of that subsection, had at the same time fixed the amount of the grant, would have no power to fix a higher amount under the provisions of the Bill with which we are now dealing. This is because, having given the original approval, they would have discharged their statutory function so far as the particular application was concerned (a point I made in my letter to my noble friend) and would have no power to vary the terms of that approval subsequently. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved Manuscript Amendment No. 3:
Page 3, line 42, after (" and ") insert"begun and ").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is an Amendment directly consequential on the Amendment made to Clause 1(1)(9) at Committee stage, as now amended. The latter part of subsection (3) of the clause makes clear that for the purpose of the higher rate of grant towards the cost of environmental improvements in a general improvement area, expenditure on providing land for this purpose incurred during the period for which assistance is given under the Bill will be eligible, equally with the cost of works on environmental improvement, even although in the period no works are carried out on the land acquired. It is necessary that this provision should repeat the new provision incorporated in Clause 1(1)(a), by which entitlement to the higher rates of grants is made to depend on the date of commencement of the works instead of the making of the application. Precisely the same change is made for the same reason in the parallel Scottish provision in Clause 3(3). I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 3 [Increase in financial assistance in Scotland]:
LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved Manuscript Amendment No. 4:
Page 4, line 30, at end insert—
(" ( ) Where this Act applies, so much of section 29(1) and of section 42(3) of the said

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Act of 1968 as requires the local authority to fix the amount of an improvement grant or a standard grant at the time when they approve the application for the grant shall not apply, and the amount fixed at that time may be varied by the local authority, subject to the provisions of the said Act, at any subsequent time.")
The noble Lord said: I think your Lordships will readily see that this Amendment applies the effect of Amendment No. 2 to Scotland, and the next Amendment I shall read applies the effect of Manuscript Amendment No. 3 also to Scotland. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved Manuscript Amendment No. 5:
Page 4, line 43, after (" and ") insert (" begun and ").
The noble Lord said: This produces in Scotland exactly the same effect as Amendment No. 3 produces in England and Wales. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Then, Standing Order No. 42 having been suspended (pursuant to the Resolution of July 22), Bill read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

IMMIGRATION BILL
3.8 p.m.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do again resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Windlesham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL OF LISTOWEL in the Chair]
Clause 26 [General offences in connection with administration of Act]:
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: I should point out to the Committee that if Amendment 107B is agreed to I cannot call No. 108.
LORD BROCKWAY LORD BROCKWAY moved Amendment No. 107B:
Page 25, line 37, leave out paragraph (a).
The noble Lord said: It may be for the convenience of the Committee if I move this Amendment in association with Nos. 108A, B and C. These paragraphs indicate offences which are incidental to the major offence of illegal entry. I submit to the Minister that they are covered by the penalties for the overriding offence and it appears to be undesirable that persons should also be subject to criminal liability for offences which are all in reality part of the basic charge. On those grounds, I beg to move.
LORD DENHAM: The noble Lord, Lord Brockway, says that all these offences are incidental to the main offences under the Bill, and therefore feels that they are not necessary. We feel strongly that they are necessary for a variety of reasons. First, a patrial may refuse to submit to examination, or refuse to register at an hotel, and he cannot be refused permission to enter. The offences under Clause 26(1)(f), in connection with police registration or hotel registration are committed by people already in the United Kingdom, and so it cannot be argued that they could be adequately dealt with by refusal of permission to enter. Some of these offences might be quite trivial, and the court might think it adequate punishment to inflict a fine. To argue that the person concerned should not be allowed to stay in the United Kingdom at the cost of a small fine, but should be refused permission to enter, cannot be in the best interests of those for whom the noble Lord is concerned.
LORD BROCKWAY: As on other occasions, I do not propose to press this Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD FOOT LORD FOOT moved Amendment No. 108:
Page 25, line 37, after (" he ") insert (" without reasonable cause ").
The noble Lord said: This is a fairly small point, but I think it is not unimportant. Clause 26 provides that a person shall be guilty of an offence in certain circumstances, and the first of these is
" if he refuses or fails to submit to examination under Schedule 2 of this Act ".
In some of the subsequent types of offences the words"without reasonable excuse"are included. The whole object

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of this Amendment is to insert the words"without reasonable cause"in relation to in the first of these offences, so that it will read:
" if he without reasonable cause refuses or fails to submit to examination under Schedule 2 of this Act."
The types of examination with which Schedule 2 is concerned are examinations, first, by an immigration officer, and secondly, by a medical inspector. It might at first sight seem that where such an examination takes place at a port of entry, either by the immigration officer or by the medical inspector, it would be difficult for a person to have a reasonable cause for refusing or failing to submit to such an examination. That I accept. But if your Lordships look at Schedule 2, you will see that there are some medical examinations which can take place not at the port of entry, but after the person has come into the country: that is under paragraph 7 of Schedule 2, by which directions can be given to a person who has been permitted to come in that he shall at some subsequent date or dates present himself to a medical inspector in order that a further or initial medical examination can be made.
It is not difficult to imagine circumstances in which a person might inadvertently, because he is ill, or detained, or cannot keep the appointment, fail to present himself for such an examination. All that my Amendment is designed to do is to enable it to be a defence to any such charge that he can say that he had a reasonable cause for not presenting himself for such examination. I daresay that this is something which is acceptable to the Government, and I hope that it is. It does not involve any matter of principle, but it would avoid the possibility of somebody being foolishly prosecuted when he commits this offence by pure inadvertence.
LORD DENHAM: This Amendment was moved in Standing Committee in another place, and after discussion it was generally agreed that nobody could think of any occasions when the words"without reasonable cause"would really be necessary. The noble Lord, Lord Foot, has introduced some new arguments on this, and we should like to look at what he has said. We do not think there is
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any real worry here, but if the noble Lord will withdraw the Amendment, perhaps we can look at the matter again. I am advised that failure to submit to a medical examination could come under Clause 24(1)(d), which provides for"reasonable excuse ". We are almost certain that there is an answer to the noble Lord's suggested new case but, as I say, we should like to look at the point again. I will let him know how we feel about it.
LORD FOOT: I am obliged to the noble Lord, and I am almost satisfied with that answer. But I suggest that if your Lordships look at Clause 24(1)(d), which deals with failing to comply with a requirement imposed under Schedule 2 to the Act to report to a medical officer of health, where the words,"without reasonable excuse"are included, and you compare it with Clause 26(1)(a), where the words are not included, there is a conflict in the two clauses:"without reasonable excuse"applies in one case and not in the other. If the noble Lord will look at this point again, I think he will find that the way to put it right is to insert the words"without reasonable excuse"into this clause, so that the two clauses fit together. However, in view of what the noble Lord has said, I am happy to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
3.19 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY LORD BROCKWAY moved Amendment No. 108D:
Page 26, line 21, leave out (" or other person lawfully ").
The noble Lord said: I think the members of the Committee will realise that this is a point of substance and importance. Clause 26 begins by saying that a person shall be guilty of an offence, and then there are listed the causes. The last of these causes, in paragraph (g), is:
" if, without reasonable excuse, he obstructs an immigration officer or other person lawfully acting in the execution of this Act."
It is the words"or other person lawfully acting"that I wish to delete. I wish to do so because the provision as it stands would extend the protection to members of private organisations. They are employed by such organisations as Securicor. Curiously enough, I have been in close association with Securicor from its inception, and I want to pay a tribute

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to the bravery of their staff. Nevertheless, it is a private organisation and the public have no control either over the organisation or the selection of its personnel. This applies not only to Securicor, which is the best known, but to other organisations. I suggest that it is wrong in principle that special powers or protection should be given to other than police officers, who are public servants and under public control. I suggest that this is a principle of great importance and that it is the duty of Her Majesty's Government to justify any departure from it. I beg leave to move this Amendment.
LORD WINDLESHAM: Under Clause 26(1)(g), the paragraph to which the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, has drawn our attention, it is an offence to obstruct without reasonable excuse an immigration officer or other person lawfully acting in execution of this Act. As the noble Lord has explained, he would like to see the deletion of the words"or other person lawfully ". Under the existing law it is an offence against the Aliens Order 1953 to obstruct any officer or person in the exercise of his functions under the Order; and it is also an offence against Section 4 of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 to obstruct an immigration officer or other person lawfully acting in the execution of Part I of that Act. So it is worth noting that these provisions not only exist in the present law but that the present law does not qualify them in the way that the Bill before your Lordships does; because here we have the words added without reasonable excuse ". So there is an additional safeguard in the wording of the Bill. Clause 26(1)(g), like the corresponding provisions of the existing law, is not intended to confer any personal immunity either on the immigration officer or on anyone else who is concerned with the operation of the Act, but only to provide a sanction against attempts to disrupt or impede the operation of immigration control.
The"other persons"mentioned in the provision would not only include the employees of private organisations such as Securicor which the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, mentioned—and he is quite right: it does include them, but it would be wrong to give the impression that it covers only people in that position—it would also include the port medical
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officers and their assistants acting under paragraph 2(2) of Schedule 2, and also the employees of shipping companies and State airlines who are responsible under paragraph 16 of Schedule 2 for ensuring that a person leaves the country in accordance with removal directions that have been made. It seems right that any deliberate attempt, without reasonable cause, to hinder any person in one of these categories in carrying out his lawful duties should continue to be an offence, as it is under the present law.
LORD BROCKWAY: Without support from other parts of the House, I will not press this Amendment and now beg leave to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 26 agreed to.
Clause 27 [Offences by persons connected with ships or aircraft or with ports]:
LORD DENHAM LORD DENHAM moved Amendment No. 109:
Page 26, line 31, at end insert (" in the United Kingdom ").
The noble Lord said: On behalf of my noble friend I beg to move Amendment No. 109. This is a paving Amendment for Amendment No. 128. The second Amendment affects paragraph 17 of Schedule 2 and its purpose is to ensure that where directions are given under paragraphs 8 to 14 (after refusal of entry or illegal entry) or under paragraph 1 of Schedule 3 (on deportation) for the removal of a person from the United Kingdom, the captain of the ship or aircraft should be required to prevent him from disembarking until the directions are fulfilled, and has express legal authority to detain him on board until he reaches his destination. As the Bill stands there is the anomaly that although the removal directions will specify a destination and the person concerned has an appeal as to destination under Clause 17, though in some cases exercisable only after removal, the captain of the ship or aircraft to whom the directions are given has no clear authority to enforce them by restraining the person from attempting to disembark at some other destination.
The Amendment is being made at the request of the Chamber of Shipping and

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B.O.A.C., in order to ensure that a carrying company is not put at risk of a legal action being taken against it in this country because it has sought to enforce directions given to it by the Immigration Service. Clause 27(a) makes it an offence for the captain of a ship or aircraft knowingly to permit a person to disembark when required to prevent it. The first Amendment ensures that the scope of this offence remains limited to disembarkation in the United Kingdom, because it is not necessary or desirable to apply Clause 27(a) to acts committed outside the United Kingdom.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 27, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 28 agreed to.
Clause 29 [Contributions for expenses of persons returning abroad]:
3.27 p.m.
BARONESS WHITE BARONESS WHITE moved Amendment No. 110:
Page 28, line 16, leave out from (" may ") to (" to ") in line 18, and insert (" subject to the following provisions of this section, provide funds to the extent that he may, with the approval of the Treasury, determine ").
The noble Baroness said: This Amendment is, in effect, a paving Amendment to Amendment No. 113. As your Lordships will observe, there are two other Amendments to this clause which in part, though not entirely, meet the points mentioned in our Amendments. Clause 29 is a very short clause, but it has caused as much controversy as any clause in this Bill because it deals with the proposal that the new authority should contribute to the expenses of persons being repatriated. As your Lordships will now be aware, there are already arrangements for persons who are in receipt of social security benefits to receive some assistance if they desire to return to their home countries; but the object of this clause is to extend such a provision to persons who are not patrial, who are not covered by the social security provisions, but who may wish to leave the United Kingdom and go to a country or territory where they intend to reside permanently. Such a payment is intended not only to cover their travelling expenses but also the expenses of members of their families or households.
I think most of us would be in general agreement with the idea that if someone had come to this country and found it really impossible to settle satisfactorily, for whatever reason, and who therefore wished to return home or perhaps to go elsewhere—and I will touch on that point in a moment—it would be in the public interest for help to be given to them to do so. Therefore the reasons why we are querying this clause and propose to amend it fairly extensively lie in the references that have been made to the provision for repatriation by spokesmen in the Conservative Party, and of course most particularly by the right honourable Member for Wolverhampton, South-West, Mr. Enoch Powell. We have to take his remarks seriously because he does, after all, represent a certain section of opinion in this country. He has made very clear in what he said, both in Committee and on Third Reading in another place, that he does not accept what we entirely believe to be the attitude of the present Government; namely, that these provisions should be used only for those who wish to go and that there should be no kind of pressure upon them.
I have no doubt that the attitude, not only of the Secretary of State but of Ministers representing Her Majesty's Government in this House, would be in line with ours, that these provisions should never be used except for those who wish voluntarily to leave and that they should not be under any sort of pressure, but unfortunately the Bill does not say that. This is why we are anxious about it. It is quite plain that those who hold the views of Mr. Powell wish to make this not just a safety net clause, but an instrument of policy deliberately to return as many as possible of those who have settled in this country from the new Commonwealth, and to return them from whence they came. Mr. Powell makes no bones at all that this is his view of what would be desirable. He has made various observations—I shall not worry your Lordships by quoting too many of them, but among other things he is quoted as having said—
LORD ABERDARE: Will the noble Baroness—
BARONESS WHITE: I am not quoting directly from what he said in the House, but I believe that I can quote what he

1017
said outside. He said outside the House, and I understand that I can only refer to what he said outside the House:
" Nobody who has listened to what the Conservative Party has said on this subject both during the General Election and before could have supposed that there was any intention to limit the availability of assistance for any immigrant who voluntarily applied for it. Such limitation would in effect be a serious breach of what I understood to be the undertaking of this Party when it went to the electorate ".
LORD ABERDARE: Will the noble Baroness say from what she is quoting?
BARONESS WHITE: This was a speech which I understand the right honourable Member for Wolverhampton, South-West, made outside the House. It was quoted in another place, but from a speech which he had made outside the House. On Third Reading in another place—which of course one cannot go into in precise words but I think it perfectly proper to indicate—the right honourable Member for Wolverhampton, South-West, made it very plain that his view differed entirely from the attitude of the Government and that in his view this provision should be used, not as a social service safety net, but as a deliberate instrument of policy.
For these reasons, therefore, I think we must look much more closely at this clause than one would have done had one taken it just at face value, which suggests that help might be given in suitable circumstances for people who wish to return home. We feel that in view of the statements which have been made by certain members of the Conservative Party it is most important that we should include in this clause a reference to a voluntary principle and make it perfectly plain that these provisions are intended to apply to those who, as I say, not having settled here satisfactorily wish to return home and who may be able to show that they are not in a position to meet all the expenses even though they are not in receipt of social security benefits.
We also wish to know how the Government propose to work this scheme because, again in the debates in another place, the Secretary of State indicated that he had had preliminary discussions with International Social Service and that he was minded to use that organisation (which is a very reputable organisation with considerable experience) to operate this part of the Bill. But we are not at
1018
all clear what the relationship would be between the Home Office and that organisation, or any other organisation that the Home Secretary might have in mind. We should like to have a great deal more information. Some time has elapsed since the discussions in another place and I hope very much that the Minister can now tell us just what is proposed.
From such inquiries as I have been able to make, I understand that International Social Service would not act directly as an agent for the Secretary of State; that it would be available to help in making arrangements if requested to do so, and would hope to receive some contribution to its administration expenses in performing this service, but that it would not itself, I understand, administer these grants, if it did not administer them, I am not quite clear in what way they would be administered, and we should like to know what sort of arrangements the Home Secretary has in view. This may be a very expensive and sensitive operation in certain circumstances.
We should also like to know whether other organisations might possibly be used for this purpose. The one I have mentioned has its headquarters in London. I am not sure whether its operations extend, for example, to Scotland. We should like to have more information about this aspect because there is nothing at all in the Bill as it stands to indicate that such provisions may be made. It is for this reason that we have suggested in the second of the two Amendments—I think it convenient to refer to the second of them while proposing Amendment No. 110—that the Secretary of State should clarify this matter by making regulations which can be placed before Parliament and should be approved by Parliament, and that in making such regulations he should make it plain that such assistance is for voluntary repatriation, and specifically only for voluntary repatriation, and that there should be no suggestion either of a threat or an inducement to people to apply other than the straightforward payment of necessary expenses.
There are one or two other points on which we would like further clarification. I think I am correct in supposing that if someone came to this country and did not settle here, but did not wish to

1019
return to the country from whence he came—for example, someone who when he found he could not stay in this country, if he were a Jewish person coming from one of the Iron Curtain countries, wished to go to Israel—assistance would be available for such a person and his family to go to Israel rather than to the country from which they originated. That is one point.
Another point that we should be quite clear about is again on this technical conception of"patrial"which the Government are putting forward and the fact that there will be mixed families some of whom are patrial and some are not. Presumably in the fourth line of the clause, where reference is made to the expenses of persons who are not patrial, whereas a couple of lines further down reference is made to"expenses for members of their families or households ", it is the head of the family who is considered non-patrial. There may be patrial members of the family who would be included in the expenses of"members of…families or households ". We should be quite clear about what is meant here before passing this clause, for it is not quite clear as the clause stands. When we were discussing another matter concerning families it was said that there could be some families who were pa trial and some who were not. We should like to be entirely clear on this point.
From what I have said, I am sure that in the immigration community in this country, because of the speeches to which I referred earlier in my remarks, there has been considerable distress and apprehension about this clause. So far as the Government are concerned, I am sure that their intentions are not unreasonable. But the clause, unless it is amended and improved in various respects, could leave the way open to some restrictive behaviour on the part of a future Administration, if they were prepared to yield to political pressure. Therefore we feel it is essential that this clause should be significantly amended before the Bill leaves your Lordships' House. I beg to move.
3.41 p.m.
LORD WALSTON: May I support my noble friend, and add one particular point which she barely touched upon at the
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end of her speech? It is with regard to the effect on the immigrant families in this country. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, and his colleagues are as anxious as any of us that those who come to this country should feel that they are at home here and are not in any way being persecuted. I am afraid, largely for the reasons which my noble friend has given of the speeches that have been made in another place and outside of it, that that feeling has to a great extent been dissipated, and this repatriation clause is, understandably, looked upon by those who do not go into the full details of it, but simply hear about it from outside, if not as the intention of Her Majesty's Government to get rid of a significant number of existing immigrants, at least as a taking of power by the Government to enable them to do this at any time that they wish. I agree entirely that that is not the intention of Her Majesty's Government, and is certainly not the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, but I assure noble Lords that what I have described is the reaction of many immigrants to this country. The acceptance of this Amendment would allay those fears, unjustified though they may be, and make it abundantly clear that this is a clause which is designed to help and not in any way impede or pursue the immigrants with any form of vendetta. I urge the Government to accept the Amendment.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: I should like to support my noble friend's Amendment, but not in quite such mild terms as she moved it. This is one of the shabbiest provisions in the Bill. I cannot believe that such a provision has ever before been put into an Immigration Bill. We all know the politics behind this provision; we know the kind of people which it is meant to appease. We are all being rather careful in not describing these people, or talking about them, but we all know them. The truth is that when an immigrant wants to go home—and I quite understand that after this Bill has been passed it may be that more may want to go home than have previously wished to do so—he saves up, and may apply to voluntary organisations which can help, and he does this of his own accord. Then he goes home to his sunny island, or wherever he came from. This clause can only make community relations

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worse; it can do nothing to help race relations, and I deplore it. I strongly support my noble friend's Amendment.
LORD BARNBY: The noble Lord, Lord Walston, said that this clause would increase rather than dispel apprehensions about the Bill. I find it hard to understand why there should be so much apprehension about it. I am not quite clear about the mechanics of its implementation, but the bare proposal in Clause 29 is to provide means whereby those who have come to this country and wish to go back to where they came from should be assisted. I was perplexed by the noble Baroness, Lady White, when she used the phrase"to be compulsorily returned ". The whole point is that they should have the opportunity to return, and the Government propose to provide funds for them to go back. With regard to migration, we know that there are a great number of people who embark on such a course—whites or non-whites—and after the first part of the experience they feel they wish to go back to where they came from. It would be logical that we should he as generous as possible so as to enable people to obtain the resources with which to go back. Far from being concerned as to whether too many people will be involved, we all know from the discussions on this Bill that long talks have been carried out on matters which could affect relatively small numbers of people compared with the large migration that has taken place.
I cannot refrain from interpolating now that when I was a young fellow I lived in the United States. I saw 900,000 people a year entering the United States. That is a lot of people. Of course conditions were very different. We all remember the move from Turkey back to Greece—that was not voluntary but was obligatory repatriation. To return to the point, need we be unhappy? We are not short of population in this country. I read the other day that in the past five years 76,000 people were killed on the roads in this country against 122,000 who were killed in the same period in France. That seems pretty substantial warfare on the roads. I am among those, quite candidly, who think we should not be any worse off if we had fewer people in this country. There are those who suggest methods of birth control,
1022
and other ways of immigration restriction. We are applying ourselves at the moment to the simple matter of assisting the repatriation of possibly a few people from this country.
For a large part of my life I have been associated with migration—I was on the Migration Council for a long time—from this country to the Dominions. I have always believed that it is good for the country because those people will purchase British goods in the countries to which they go. We have evidence of that in the States and in the Argentine. The records show that of those people who migrated, whether to New Zealand, Australia or Canada, a proportion always wanted to come back. They were un-happy, they thought they had taken a wrong decision. If that happens with white people in the Dominions, surely it is much more certain that a great number who have come to these shores, who find themselves in a country very different from their own, often talking a different language, and with a different outlook, will want to go back.
May I give a personal instance? I was in Bradford, Yorkshire, the other day. I was at the airport and hired a taxi. A non-white was standing there who wanted to get transport to the city. I said to him,"Join me in my cab." So he did. I said,"Where do you come from? ". He said,"I have just come from Jamaica; I have been on vacation "."Had a good time? "."Yes. I'm glad to get back now to see my family, but I should have liked to stay there ". I said,"Are you married? ". He said,"Yes, I have three children ". Then I said,"What happened to your wife and children? He answered,"Of course, I couldn't afford to take them. I just saved enough for my own holiday to Jamaica and the wife and children were put on National Assistance. But if I only had the money or could get it I would willingly take the whole family back to Jamaica. That's where I should like to go." I suppose that is one instance of a great number.
I have already suggested to the Committee that a great deal of time has been taken by a number of these Amendments which would affect a very small number of people. If the noble Baroness is right in suggesting that a great number of people might be affected, I am one of

1023
those who would not shed tears. If there are a great number in this country, nonwhites, who are not happy here, it is much better that they should go home, and I should be among those who would genuinely support public funds to make them happy and help them to go back to places where they would be happy. I am very much surprised at the attitude taken by the noble Baroness. When it comes to the noble Lord, Lord Walston, with whom I find myself in agreement on many questions and disagreement on others, I doubt whether he is right in saying that more restriction on this clause would be helpful rather than the reverse.
LORD WADE: After listening to the noble Lord, Lord Barnby, I can only say that I hope his views do not represent the views of Her Majesty's Government. If they do, I should feel even more disturbed at the inclusion of Clause 29 in this Bill. He referred to a very small number of persons, but I would suggest that this clause has had a considerable effect on the minds of, I think, the great majority of communities from the Commonwealth who are living and settled here. The clause has been interpreted very widely as having been inserted for more sinister motives than would appear from the reading of it. Personally, I think it might well have been better if this clause had not been included at all, as it is clear, as the noble Baroness, Lady White, has said, that it may be used as an instrument of policy.
Most of us in taking part in these debates have drawn upon personal experience, and I can only add to the words of others that in speaking to members of the Commonwealth communities who have settled here—and I am thinking of those who have been settled for a number of years—I find the almost unanimous fear that this is the thin edge of the wedge and is going to be used in a way that I do not think the Government intend at the present time. I hope the clause will be amended if it is not thrown out altogether. I support the Amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady White. An an alternative, there is an Amendment which my noble friend Lord Foot has on the Marshalled List, but certainly I should like at this stage to impress on the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, the need for some amendment
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of this clause in order to clarify the position and remove some of the very real misunderstandings that exist as a result of what has been said outside the House as well as inside as to the purpose of this clause.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: I very much enjoyed the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Barnby. I had some difficulty in relating it to the clause we are discussing, but one of the beauties of your Lordships' House is that we are allowed to range fairly wide. The purpose of this series of Amendments is perfectly specific. It is to clear away the fear in the minds of immigrants that this opportunity offered to help them to go home is a means of getting rid of them. It is as simple as that. This series of Amendments turns on the fact of those who voluntarily wish to leave. Or, in the words of Amendment No. 113, that no funds are to be made available except to a person applying therefor voluntarily. This is the whole point of this series of Amendments. As things of a kind which most Members of your Lordships' House would not agree with have been widely said and widely publicised, suggesting that the best thing we could possibly do with a large number of our black population is to send them home, it seems extremely important that we should make it as clear as a bell in this Bill that any assistance we give them in getting them home is only given if they want to go. It seems to me that Her Majesty's Government should accept this series of Amendments, or modify the Bill in that direction.
3.57 p.m.
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: I think we shall get the clause right only if we are in agreement about what we are trying to do. I am in close agreement with what the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, has just said. My interest in the matter arose first, as I said on Second Reading, when years ago it came home to me that those who had come to this country from the Commonwealth and, after experience of this country, found they had made a mistake, either because of the climate or their reception or because of difficulty in getting work, or for some other reason, were unable to get assistance to go back to their own country unless they first became destitute. This seemed to me to be

1025
absurd, and seemed to be doing no good to anybody; certainly it did no good to race relations. Those people had to hang on in this country with their resources dwindling until, when they had virtually nothing left, what was then the National Assistance Board would help with their passage home. I am sure we all ought to want to bring that situation to an end, and if a clause of this kind is required in the Bill let us have it. There should of course be no compulsion or harassment of anybody to go home.
I know that not so much this clause as earlier speeches of Mr. Enoch Powell have caused dismay. I am bound to say that the principal cause of dismay was produced by people, who ought to have known better, who instantly misrepresented Mr. Enoch Powell's first speech on this subject by saying that he was advocating compulsory repatriation. If anybody cares to read that speech carefully he will see that Mr. Powell never said that; indeed, I think he threatened an action for libel against anybody else who repeated that misrepresentation. I never believed in Mr. Powell's idea of a Ministry of Repatriation, or anything like that, but in my view Mr. Powell and others have been quite right in drawing attention to the future dangers of race troubles if the coloured population in some of our big cities rises, as it seems likely to do, to one-third or more of the whole. Those will be very different cities from what we have hitherto known them to be, and a tremendous amount of tolerance will be required if those difficulties are to be overcome.
LORD O'HAGAN: May I ask the noble Lord on what figures he has based his estimate of some of our cities having a one-third coloured population, and by what date?
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: Nobody can say for certain what it will be. The best means of resolving this problem is by dispersal. The total population of coloured people is extremely small and if they were evenly spread through the country there would be no race problem at all. The real difficulty is that the coloured population is so strongly concentrated in a relatively small number of big centres of population. I
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myself do not have a solution for this; I do not know how one can effectively encourage dispersal. Nevertheless, that would be a much better solution than any form of pressure on the coloured population to leave these islands altogether.
LORD WALSTON: May I interrupt the noble Lord again to pursue this particular point, which the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, has just raised, because I am quite sure that Lord Brooke does not want to be misrepresented or misunderstood in any way. But when somebody of his eminence and experience goes on record, as he appears to have done now, as saying that it is most likely (I think those were his words) that in some of our cities the total coloured population will rise to one-third, that is something one can well envisage as making headline news in certain papers and causing a great deal of alarm. Unless the noble Lord has substantial figures and estimates and projections with which to substantiate such a figure, I am sure he would be much happier if it were not put in such a concrete and absolute form as he put it.
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: I am grateful for what the noble Lord has said. I hardly think it would make headline news because I said exactly the same in your Lordships' House four years ago, and have been saying so ever since. I do not think one can escape the fact. Whether it is 33, 30, 25, 37 or 40 per cent., I do not think anybody can determine with certainty at the present time, but as things are going there is likely to be a situation in which something like one-third of the population in some of our big centres of population will by the end of the century be coloured. I greatly hope not only that tolerance will prevail but also that the coloured population will gradually disperse itself, so that these high concentrations, which are centres of potential trouble unless everybody is very wise, will be diminished. But the right way to diminish them is not by harassing people or seeking to send them abroad compulsorily. There should be an absolute denial from the highest possible authority of any talk that there is to be either compulsory repatriation or any sort of pressure to make them go.

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My concern is to see this clause so drafted that it will adequately and successfully provide for the kind of case I mentioned in the first instance; that is, the man or the family who have come to this country, have been disappointed by it, for one reason or another, and feel that they would rather go home but are not in a position to afford to remove themselves there—just as my noble friend Lord Barnby described a little time ago. It ought not to be beyond the powers of Parliament; it ought not to be beyond the powers of the Parliamentary draftsman, and it certainly ought not to be beyond the powers of people of good will so to provide, whether by legislation or otherwise, that this object, on which I think we are all universally agreed, shall be accomplished. If this clause, either amended or unamended, can achieve that object, I should have thought we should all be satisfied and have done a good day's work.
LORD REDCLIFFE-MAUD: May I, as a Cross-Bencher who has listened with great admiration to speeches on both sides of the Committee, and in particular to the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, just now, put in one word on the side of those who say that not only do we want this clause to do what the Government say they want it to do—which objective Lord Brooke has so admirably set out—but we also want it to be impossible of being used to do something that this House would not want, which, as Lord Brooke said, was to drive anybody out or harass immigrants if they did not want voluntarily to go. To me as a Cross-Bencher that is the one point that is before us. If the Government can assure us that they will bring forward an Amendment of their own, or will in some other way ensure that the word"voluntary"is used, and if it is made abundantly plain that this clause cannot be used to harass or evict anyone, I shall be very happy.
THE EARL OF BALFOUR: May I say one or two words here? First of all, on Amendment 110 I presume that the noble Baroness, Lady White, means it to refer to the first"may"because the word"may"occurs twice in line 16. Secondly, the noble Baroness and one or two other noble Lords have mentioned the words"returning home ". I must respectfully state that there is nothing about returning
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home either in the clause as it stands or in her Amendment No. 110, or indeed in her Amendment No. 113. The clause as it stands refers to a person going to
" a country or territory where they intend to reside permanently ".
The noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, pointed out that many people may have emigrated here and then made a tremendous effort to save up enough money to return home. A great many people from this country have decided to emigrate to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Newfoundland or elsewhere, and have then discovered that they are not happy there and so they return home. How much better if Lady Gaitskell's idea were that immigrants could save some money and have assistance to return home so that they do not arrive back in their own country completely destitute! It costs a great deal of money to travel across the seas, and if people do not fit in and want to return home it is only right that they should have the encouragement to do so. In respect of putting people's minds at rest, as the noble Lord, Lord Wade, said, I feel that this clause as it stands would put my mind much more at rest if I were an immigrant in this country. I should realise that there was a chance that if I came here and was not happy I might manage to get some money to help me go back home again. This is the important point of this clause.
The noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, touched on the question of climate. I am certain that many immigrants to this country had no idea before they came how cold it is compared to, say, India, Pakistan, or those glorious islands in the West Indies with probably the mildest climate in the world. They may be thoroughly unhappy here, but because they do not have enough money to go home they must remain. From all that has been said in your Lordships' Committee, from both sides, I ask your Lordships to accept one thing. If people are going to emigrate here they must either mix with us and become part of our society, or go back to where they came from. We cannot afford to have separate little cities of different colours, which I am afraid is exactly the sort of thing that is building up. This is disastrous. We have been told by so many noble Lords how worried they are about immigrants reporting to the police, and how

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they do not fit in. I feel we should give every possible encouragement to immigrants to mix in our society—except possibly for marriage; that is the only case where I hold some reservations. Lastly, having listened to everything that has been said, may I suggest altering Clause 29 by these few words: In line 19, leave out the words"in leaving"and substitute"voluntarily wishing to leave ", and otherwise leave the whole provision strictly alone.
LORD FOOT: Would the noble Earl look at the Amendment I am proposing. Is that not exactly what he wants?
THE EARL OF BALFOUR: I apologise to the noble Lord, and I think there is a great deal in what he has to say.
LORD FOOT: May I interrupt just to say that it is to my absolute astonishment that I find, when I propose to move this Amendment in a moment, I am going to receive the assistance and support of the noble Earl?
4.10 p.m.
LORD ABERDARE: Before we come to the Amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Foot, we are now discussing Amendment No. 110, coupled, I understand, with Amendment No. 113, for which it is a paving Amendment. These are identical Amendments to those that were moved in another place. In moving Amendment No. 110 the noble Baroness, Lady White, drew attention to the fact that this particular subject of repatriation had been the centre of a great deal of controversy, and indeed that has been reinforced by what has been said throughout this short debate. To start with, I should like to quote verbatim from the words of my right honourable friend the Home Secretary in another place on June 17, just for the sake of the record in regard to Government policy:
" The Government do not believe in the concept of large scale repatriation as an act of policy designed to change the pattern of population in this country…. It would be inimical to a policy of better community relations to give the impression that, by the action and policy of Government, our first purpose was to get rid of the people whom we are trying to make welcome here."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons; 17/6/71, col. 697.]
We are talking in this clause about what was so admirably described in the
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opening words of my noble friend Lord Brooke of Cumnor. We are attempting to provide a social service to help those immigrants who want to go home, who are not happy here but who have not got the means to do so.
LORD WALSTON: May I—
LORD ABERDARE: May I just finish? It is a little early to interrupt me because I have not really got going yet. May I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, that there really are such cases. Several of them were quoted in another place, and I think Members of Parliament who have immigrants in their constituencies would vouch for the fact that there are people who want to go home, but who have not got the means and cannot even save the means to do so. As things stand at present, the only ones who can be helped are those who are destitute, whom the Supplementary Benefits Commission have power to help. It is to allay all these suspicions, and at the same time to accomplish the object which the Government have in view, that my right honourable friend has decided to try to find some independent international voluntary organisation to handle the whole of this social service. The one mentioned by the noble Baroness, the International Social Service, is the one of which we are speaking at the moment.
LORD WALSTON: The noble Lord is very kind and I am sorry that I tried to interrupt him before he had really got going. I only wanted to question him a little further on the quotation from his right honourable friend the Home Secretary. The point at issue as I understand it, and as the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, and also the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, so clearly put it, was the voluntary principle—that there should be no repatriation unless it were voluntary. The quotation that the noble Lord gave us from his right honourable friend spoke solely of large-scale repatriation—that there was no intention on the part of the Government to have any large scale repatriation. He did not bring forward any evidence to show that his right honourable friend was thinking of voluntary or involuntary repatriation. If he could provide a quotation to the effect that it would be only voluntary repatriation I would be a little more satisfied.
LORD ABERDARE: I think I gave way to the noble Lord a little too early after all. Of course it is voluntary repatriation that we are talking about, but I will come to that a little later. This is the main reason why International Social Service has been selected. It is a body which, as the noble Baroness, Lady White, said, we all hold in the highest regard, and it would take the whole of this controversial matter out of politics, I would hope, and make it what it should be—a social service to help those who really need it. If we are successful in our talks with International Social Service—and I am afraid I must say to the noble Baroness, Lady White, that we are still talking to them: there are no snags but the time has not been sufficient to finalise any scheme with them—I hope that this will allay many fears and will help towards what the noble Lord, Lord Walston, was suggesting.
The difficulty with these particular Amendments is that I am afraid they would not help in our dealings with International Social Service or with another voluntary body. They suggest a fairly massive administrative machinery of regulations which would be all very well and quite acceptable if this was to be a Government scheme, but where it is a voluntary welfare organisation such a rigid arrangement of rules and regulations and annual reports would not be right. It would not help us, and it would not help the voluntary organisation. Indeed, it might well deter them from undertaking this very scheme which we have in mind. That is the reason why I am unable to accept the two Amendments, Nos. 110 and 113. But if one agrees, as I hope your Lordships will, that the best way of achieving an aim which I think we all have in mind, and the best way of allaying everybody's suspicions, is by putting the administration of this scheme in the hands of an independent voluntary organisation, I suggest that it is not right to saddle that voluntary organisation with a lot of rules and regulations. May I now answer two small points that the noble Baroness, Lady White, asked me specifically?
LORD ROBBINS: Before the noble Lord does that, would he perhaps answer a question which I think is directly on the point he is now making? What he has said already has persuaded me—if
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I needed persuasion, which I did not—that he and his colleagues on the Government Front Bench are entirely in harmony with the sentiments which have been expressed in all parts of the House. What I do not quite understand is the objection to inserting somewhere the adjective"voluntary ", so that this can be pointed out to those unfortunate, simple-minded members of the coloured community who think that somehow they are being"got at ".
LORD ABERDARE: I appreciate what the noble Lord, Lord Robbins, has said and I will try to come to that point, which of course is bound up with the next Amendment.
LORD FOOT: If the noble Lord will indicate that he is going to accept my Amendment we could get on with the business much more rapidly.
LORD ABERDARE: I am sorry; I cannot give that indication at this moment. May I quickly answer the two points made by the noble Baroness, Lady White. The first is that such assistance would be available to any person who wished to settle permanently in a country other than the one from which he had come originally. The second point is that the head of the household must be non-patrial but members of his family could be patrial; in other words, that children who were born here, if the family wished to take them also, would be eligible for assistance.
Perhaps after what has been said I really ought to answer something of what the noble Lord, Lord Robbins, and others have said, although it does trespass slightly on what I was going to say about the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Foot. This proposal to add a few words to the clause, particularly the word"voluntarily ", was in an Amendment put down in another place, although it was not selected, and my right honourable friend has given it extremely careful consideration. As I have indicated to your Lordships, I do not think there is anything between us anywhere in principle on this matter. But we really feel that there is not any very great need to amend the clause as it stands.
The clause itself contains no power to compel anybody to do anything; it

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is entirely a permissive clause. Assistance can be offered only to those who desire to have it, and even in the unlikely event of a most illiberal Home Secretary having office the clause would still give him no powers to force non-patrials to leave. The real difficulty is that there is no compulsion in this clause and, therefore, there does not really seem any need to alter it. The Home Secretary of the day is responsible to Parliament for his actions. The present Home Secretary is going to put matters in the hands of a voluntary organisation so that power is removed from any pressure groups. Any other action that might be taken in the future by any other Home Secretary would necessarily mean taking that power away from the voluntary organisation, and that of itself would be very clearly a matter in which Parliament would be vitally interested.
We believe that, in view of the fact that there is no power of compulsion in this clause, that it is entirely a voluntary offer of help, that it will be in the hands of a voluntary body and that the Secretary of State will be responsible to Parliament for its administration, there are already adequate safeguards here and that it is not necessary to add anything further.
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: Before my noble friend sits down, can he explain to your Lordships why, if this clause can only be used to help people who voluntarily wish to leave and if that is the intention of the Government, the word"voluntary"should not be somewhere inserted?
LORD FOOT: I very much welcome that intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, because that seems to me to sum up the whole point that we are discussing here to-day. There are two issues, as I understand it, before the Committee on this Amendment and on this clause. The first of them is the issue as to whether the Government are right in providing that public funds shall be made available to people who want to go back home or to some other country. There are a few people who dissent from that. For myself, I think it is right that the Government should provide money to enable people to return home if indeed they voluntarily want to go. I accept that,
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and I think that the arguments for it are really overwhelming.
I think noble Lords on all sides of the House are agreed that no pressure should be brought to bear on people to go home; that they should go home only if they want to go home. I think this represents the general view on all sides of the House. The only remaining question is whether there is some way of writing it into the Bill, into this clause, and is it indeed desirable to do so? As to whether it is desirable to do it, I suggest that we are back on the same argument that we had on the first Amendment moved from these Benches at the beginning of this Committee stage; the Minister will remember what we were urging then. We were saying that the Government have said over and over again that they do not intend anything in this Bill adversely to affect the status or rights of the Commonwealth immigrants already here, and the purpose of our Amendment was—and this was the only Amendment which I think we succeeded in getting, because it received support from all sides of the House—to say,"If it is your intention, what harm is done by writing it into the Bill, thereby allaying the fears, possibly groundless fears, of so many of the immigrant community? ".
The point this afternoon, as I understand it, is precisely the same. The Government have said over and over again that they do not want to pressurise anybody; they do not want anybody to be induced to leave unless they really want to go. The question which we have to resolve this afternoon in these Amendments is whether it is right and the sensible thing actually to write it into the Bill. The way proposed by the Amendment we are now discussing the Minister says that there are objections to, because it raises up a superstructure of rules and regulations and that therefore practically and administratively it is undesirable, if that is so, none of those objections can be raised against my Amendments when we come to them, because they do not propose any superstructure of rules and regulations, but merely that we should write the word"voluntarily"into the clause; that is all. The answer given by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, is this, as I understand it,"Well, it is not really necessary, because

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there is nothing in this clause which talks about compulsion; it means voluntarily ". If it means voluntarily, why not say so?
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: I find the Government's reply very disappointing at a moment when there seems to be widespread agreement about two things in your Lordships' House. The debate has revealed widespread agreement that it is desirable that people who want to go home should be helped to go home before they have become destitute in order to get home. The debate has also revealed widespread concern not only that the law should concern voluntary going home, but that it should be made abundantly clear to the general public that the voluntary principle is there. It seems very odd that there is an unwillingness to write that into the Bill by two or three words. I believe that in itself the reluctance to do so causes unnecessary misgivings, and will do so in a wider public.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: May I thank my noble friend for his answer on this very important point. He certainly reassured me as to the Government's intentions. The point which is being pressed upon him now from all sides is purely a matter of presentation. I speak of the point in Lord Foot's Amendment, as we are now dealing with a general debate on the whole clause. I wonder whether my noble friend would be good enough to agree to take this back and look at it again before Report stage. It is purely a matter of presentation. I am entirely in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Robbins, that the general public do not understand this point, and if we are not going to alter the substance, putting in some such words as Lord Foot's would be a very great help, I am sure, to get over to the general public the very sentiments my noble friend expressed when he was explaining the Government's intentions. I ask my noble friend to be kind enough to take it back and look at it again before Report.
4.30 p.m.
BARONESS WHITE: We have had a debate which has shown how necessary it was to discuss this particular clause, because we have given voice to anxieties which I think have been felt in all
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quarters of the House. May I first refer to our own Amendments? I appreciate the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, that these discussions with the International Social Service are still proceeding and he is not therefore able to tell us very much about it. I appreciate also his point that our Amendment, as it stands, would perhaps be over-elaborate for its purpose. On the other hand, I am sure that he will understand that we are anxious to know what exactly is to be the relationship between the Home Office and this particular body, or any other bodies that might in the future be employed for such a purpose, and exactly who is going to handle the money, and on what basis and on what principle of accountability to Parliament, and so on. As, plainly, it would not be fair at this point of time to press any such matter, I shall in a moment ask the leave of the Committee to withdraw our Amendments, because I do not think it would be opportune to press them now. I think we might return to this subject on Report, when we may hear more from the Government as to what precisely their arrangements are going to be.
On the point which surely we all agree is the main one, and which really arises under the next Amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Foot, I would strongly urge my noble friends to support that Amendment. It seems to me that we ought to make it quite clear to the public that we feel this is something that should be put into the Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, said, perhaps one may regard it as a matter of presentation rather than principle, but I think some of us go further and regard it as a matter of principle. We feel that it should be made abundantly clear and positive that there is no intention to coerce. I do not believe for a moment that there is, but if there is no intention to coerce what possible harm can there be in making it plain, in words, that these provisions are to apply to those"who voluntarily wish to leave "? Having said that, and making it plain that if the noble Lord, Lord Foot, moves his Amendment we shall support it, if necessary in the Division Lobby, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment No. 110.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4.33 p.m.
LORD FOOT LORD FOOT moved Amendment No. 111:
Page 28, line 19, leave out (" in leaving ") and insert (" who voluntarily wish to leave ").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 111. Some of your Lordships may have observed that a strange thing happened to me just now. When I was turning round in order to pick up this copy of Hansard in order to quote from it, the most reverend Primate mistook me for intending to bring my remarks to an end. There is no need for him to apologise about it, because I regard it as a great honour to be interrupted in that way by the supreme Prelate of the land. I think I can be quite brief now in moving this Amendment, because I only want to add the things that I was going to say if I had not been so nobly interrupted. The point 1 was endeavouring to make was that it has been said over and over again by the Government, both in the other place and here, that they are determined that the provisions of this clause shall only be available to people who voluntarily want to return. I should just like to take up a few seconds of the Committee's time in quoting some of the things that were said on this subject by the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, on the Second Reading debate, because, if I may most respectfully and sincerely say so, I do not see how this matter could have been expressed better than he expressed it on that occasion. It seems to me to be the expression of a proper and liberal attitude to this matter, and I should like to quote one or two things he said.
First of all, he made the point that the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, was making, that the Government do not accept any proposals for large-scale repatriation as an act of policy, and so on. Then he went on to say:
" What we believe, however—and I have some personal experience of this—is that there are circumstances when it is only plain common sense to be able to give travel assistance to an immigrant who himself wishes to depart."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24/6/71, col. 1000.]
Later on he said:
" But what about the man who comes here, who does not settle down, who is not happy even though he may have a job of sorts, whose wife is homesick and who wants to return home…. Is it not desirable to be able to give some financial help towards travel costs when people genuinely ask for it…."
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Over and over again the noble Lord was emphasising,"We want to make these monies available only to people who really voluntarily want to go home ".
He finished off, when he was referring to International Social Service, by saying that he wanted to make arrangements for financial contributions to be made available under the power contained in this clause:
" where I.S.S. was satisfied, first of all, that the applicants genuinely wanted to leave and needed help to do so…."
Over and over again that has been said. What possible harm is there in transferring those assurances from Hansard and from the noble Lord into this clause of this Bill? That is all that is sought to be done, and in view of the very wide range of support which this Amendment has received in the course of the discussion of the previous Amendment—and I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for indicating that she and her friends will be giving their support—I hope that the noble Lord is not going to make it necessary to force this issue to a Division. As a matter of fact, I have a suspicion we might win, but I do not want to win. I should be far more grateful if the noble Lord would give way over this. I do not think any major matter of principle is involved, and it would be a much greater victory if the noble Lord were persuaded by argument rather than if we had to force it to the Division Lobby.
LORD ABERDARE: Naturally I have been greatly impressed by the words that have been spoken and the advice that has been given to the Government from all sides of the House. My noble friends, Lord Brooke of Cumnor and Lord Nugent of Guildford, have been joined by the most reverend Primate and the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, the noble Baroness, Lady White, and the noble Lord, Lord Foot. I certainly take deep note of what they have said, and if the Committee will allow me, I will take this matter back to my right honourable friend and draw his attention to the weight of feeling in this Committee this afternoon. May I make one point to the noble Lord, Lord Foot, about his Amendment. It is a technical difficulty but it is worth drawing attention to the fact that in deleting the words"in leaving"he actually broadens the scope of the clause, and an unscrupulous Home Secretary of the

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future could make grants of a rather wider character, such as resettlement grants, whereas as the clause stands the payments are limited to the travel expenses of the people concerned. By deleting these words"in leaving ", which limit the clause, he could make it even more undesirable from his point of view. I could not accept the Amendment for that reason. As I say, I have been impressed by what has been said, and if the noble Lord is willing to withdraw his Amendment I will certainly draw the attention of my right honourable friend to everything that has been said.
LORD ROBBINS: May I urge the noble Lord, in making representations to his right honourable friend, to emphasise that what is crucial is not the words,"in leaving"or anything of that sort, but the word"voluntarily ". The argument there is not, I am sure, from any side of the Committee, based on any suspicion whatever of the intentions of the Government. This is a matter of presentation. If any one of us is approached by some unfortunate coloured person who has been bemused by malicious rumours as to the Government's intention, it is true that we can say, as the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, said,"There is no reference to compulsion in this clause. The clause is perfectly innocent of any such intention. Anybody who tells you that is a liar." But how much stronger the argument would be if one could say,"Look at the clause itself. It has the word voluntarily ' in it."
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: I should like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Aberdare on recognising what is the obvious will of your Lordships. I confess I had hoped, at the beginning of the debate on this clause, that we might reach unanimity. It seemed to me that there was scope for doing so. I cannot think that it is beyond the bounds of human possibility to produce an amended draft for this clause which will meet the main point which the noble Lord, Lord Robbins, has so admirably expressed. If we can do that on the Report stage, then I venture to think that your Lordships will have done a very good piece of work to-day.
LORD O'HAGAN: In thanking the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, very warmly
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for the assurance and undertaking that he has given, may I raise one more point on this matter of voluntary repatriation? The noble Lord said that the Government are seeking no powers to force non-patrials to leave. I wonder whether I may ask him to include in his deliberations during the Recess a subject mentioned by his right honourable friend during the Twenty-second Sitting of the Standing Committee on this Bill in another place. The noble Lord's right honourable friend was talking about supervised departures—not repatriation, but voluntary self-induced repatriation and this is what I, and I am sure many of your Lordships, would like more information about. He said:
"…where it has been decided by a court that a young person should be deported we may exercise our discretion and decide that it is a case where voluntary departure under supervision is adequate, rather than deportation. Where the person, say a youngster, has no money, if he is deported one can pay his fare, but if he goes under supervision voluntarily, then without this provision "—
and by"without this provision"he is referring to Clause 29—
" there is no statutory power to pay the fare, although it is done at present by extra-statutory concession."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Standing Committee B, 25/5/71; col. 1303.]
I am not of course attributing to the right honourable gentleman any motives other than those which have been attributed to him by the rest of your Lordships. But I would ask the noble Lord to spell out on Report stage whether the sort of procedure that was mentioned by his right honourable friend could be used as a Powellite technique for repatriating people against their will, even though, apparently, it is not intended to do so.
LORD ABERDARE: I shall certainly look into the noble Lord's remarks. Of course, supervised departure is an alternative to deportation. It is used only to help where the members of the family are leaving with somebody who is being deported; or a young person who would otherwise be deported is helped by this method to avoid the stigma that might be thought to attach to deportation. But I shall certainly go into the matter.
LORD O'HAGAN: I just wanted to make sure that that was voluntary, as well as everything else.
LORD FOOT: If no other Member of the Committee wants to speak upon this Amendment, may I say that I am very grateful to the Government for the concession which they have made. At this stage, I am very happy to beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Clause 29 shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD BROCKWAY: I am so happy with the result of the earlier discussion that in making my few remarks I shall not press for the deletion of this clause. The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, has made my speech for me. I regard this matter as a social service, as he emphasised, and my regret is that it is included at all in an Immigration Bill. The fact that it is so included has contributed to the doubts and suspicions that have arisen. At the present time, the Department of Health and Social Security has considerable powers in these respects but they are inadequate. None of us who has any knowledge of immigrant communities doubts that there are among them, for reasons of inability to earn a living, for reasons of health, for compassionate reasons of family association, or inability to acclimatise to our way of life, many people who wish to return, and we should want to assist them in doing so. But I should have sought to urge that this is a matter not for an immigration Bill, but for the type of social service which the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, has himself emphasised. It might have been possible to extend the powers of the Department of Health and Social Security and speed up their methods, which are now deplorably delayed, in order that this matter could have been dealt with in a way that would not have caused doubt. The noble Lord may wish to comment.
LORD ABERDARE: I wish only to say to the noble Lord that I am back on my familiar ground if he is talking about the Department of Health and Social Security. But the scope for the Supplementary Benefits Commission in repatriating people is very limited. I shall not go into details, because I am sure the noble Lord knows them. There have to be very many conditions satisfied and a man has to be pretty destitute before the Supplementary Benefits Commission can pay his fare. I really think that we are
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going to get further by working through International Social Service, if we can make an agreement with them, than by any other way.
LORD BROCKWAY: I recognise at once that it is good that we are going to do this through the International Social Service, but there is no reason why it should not be done through the Department of Health and Social Security. If it had been done in that way, the present suspicions would not have arisen. But in view of the happy conclusion to our previous debate, I shall not press for the deletion of this clause.
Clause 29 agreed to.
Clause 30 [Return of mental patients]:
4.49 p.m.
LORD ABERDARE LORD ABERDARE moved Amendment No. 114:
Page 28, line 33, at end insert—
(" (2) Under section 90 of the Mental Health Act 1959 (as under section 82 of the Mental Health (Scotland) Act 1960) the Secretary of State shall only authorise the removal of a patient if it appears to him to be in the interests of the patient; and accordingly in section 90 after the words"and for his care and treatment there"there shall be inserted the words"and that it is in the interests of the patient to remove him ".")
The noble Lord said: This is an Amendment which I hope your Lordships will accept, because it is to meet a point that was made in another place on the Report stage. At column 711 of the OFFICIAL REPORT, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary undertook to introduce an Amendment of this sort to meet the point that he should authorise the removal of a patient under this clause only where it is quite clearly in the patient's best interests medically to do so. I hope your Lordships will agree that this Amendment meets that point, that the Home Secretary's power should be strictly limited to the cases in which removal appears to him to be in the interests of the patient.
I notice that noble Lords opposite have set down an Amendment following this one, and perhaps I could make a quick comment on that Amendment, No. 115, because there are two points, I think, on which it differs slightly from what I am proposing. One is that it includes a requirement that there should be evidence from two doctors. But I would emphasise

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that this is not the only type of medical evidence that the Home Secretary will be taking: he will go rather wider than that. He will have to take other expert evidence—particularly as to what facilities exist for care and treatment in the country to which the patient is going to go—so this also has to be taken into account. Nevertheless, on behalf of my right honourable friend I can give an absolute assurance that he will in all cases proceed on the basis of the medical advice tendered to him by those in charge of the patient and will, if necessary, call in independent medical opinion. He has no intention of initiating any action under this clause unless he is first approached by the patient's medical adviser.
The Opposition Amendment would also allow an appeal to an adjudicator. This is another matter to which we have given very careful consideration, and we have concluded that it would not be right to do what is proposed. Since neither the adjudicators nor the Appeal Tribunal would be qualified to reach decisions on matters which primarily hinge on medical evidence, we feel that these are best decided by the Secretary of State in the light of medical advice given to him, including advice about the standard of mental health care in the receiving country. We feel that to allow such appeals to adjudicators would present them with formidable difficulties in the case of mentally ill patients, often coupled with linguistic difficulties. I hope that your Lordships will accept this Amendment, which meets the commitment entered into by my right honourable friend. I beg to move.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: I think one must welcome this Amendment, but I wonder really whether the clause is worth keeping in. If the Government's promise is properly exercised, I cannot conceive of a single case in which a Commonwealth or United Kingdom and Colonies citizen or patrial could be sent home as a mental patient to his benefit, because the facilities in this country are, in nearly every case, very much better than in the countries from which these people have come. The form of mental illness which is most common nowadays is of the kind that yields to treatment, so that most persons concerned
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are people who will get better if they are properly treated; and as they will be better treated here than anywhere else, there seems to be absolutely no case for sending them away in their own interest. But I do not want to be difficult about this. I think the noble Lord has given a very full assurance which we can accept. I would only point out that I think very few people will be sent away if the assurance is acted upon.
LORD O'HAGAN: The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, remarked the other day how silent I was being on the Committee stage of this Bill. I took that as an invitation to speak more frequently, and I hope that the noble Lord is not regretting it. All I am going to say now is that I am authorised by the National Association for Mental Health to say that they like the Government Amendment. Whether they would like the Opposition Amendment even more, I do not know; but they like the noble Lord's Amendment.
LORD ABERDARE: I am very grateful to both noble Lords. I think the answer to the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, is that it will involve very few people indeed. Under the existing power something like eight foreign nationals are removed each year. They really are very much happier sometimes to go home, and it also speeds their treatment just because these people who are mentally ill very often recover very quickly at home, provided that the facilities are good. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan. I hope that when he speaks in future he will be equally helpful.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
On Question, Whether Clause 30, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD BROCKWAY: Again, I have only a few words to say on this Question. My desire to see this clause deleted is on the same grounds as I put forward on the previous clause: that I regret to see it included in an Immigration Bill. It is a matter of health, and it would have come much more naturally, and without arousing any suspicion, if it had been a subject for the Department of Health and Social Security. It is an intensely personal and an intensely sensitive matter, and I would have hoped

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that the welfare officers, many of whom are very experienced, who would be reporting to the Department of Health and Social Security would have been the source of initiative on decisions in this matter. I do not entirely agree with what my noble friend Lord Donaldson has said, although his argument would rather favour my proposal for the deletion of this clause. I do not entirely agree with him, for this reason: from my own experience I have found immigrants who were suffering from mental illness when the cause of that mental illness was the conditions under which they were living in this country and the different way of life in this country from the way of life to which they had been accustomed. Because of that. I feel that it might be desirable, and help their recovery, if they did return home. My regret, I repeat, is that this provision is included in an Immigration Bill, which in my view gives a wrong impression of the purpose which we have in mind. Again, if the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, wants to make a comment. I will withhold my objection. The noble Lord indicates that he does not wish to do so. I do not press my objection to this clause.
Clause 30, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 31 and 32 agreed to.
Clause 33 [Interpretation]:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD HATLSHAM OF ST. MARYLEBONE)THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD HATLSHAM OF ST. MARYLEBONE) moved Amendment No. 116:
Page 30, line 29, leave out from (" means ") to (" adopted ") in line 31.
The noble and learned Lord said: On behalf of my noble friend I rise to move this Amendment. I am afraid that this and the next one are rather dull little Amendments. Amendment No. 116 is paving for No. 117, and is rendered necessary because there was a race between Section 4 of the Adoption Act 1968, which has not yet been brought into force, and the coming into law of this Bill. A commencement order has not yet been made for Section 4, but it is likely that the section will be brought into force some time this summer; that is, probably before this Bill becomes law. Once one has accepted this as a probability, the two Amendments become drafting Amendments,
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necessitated because of this fact. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I beg to move Amendment No. 117.
Amendment moved—
Page 30, line 32, at end insert (" or by any adoption specified as an overseas adoption by order of the Secretary of State under section 4 of the Adoption Act 1968; ")—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
5.0 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY LORD BROCKWAY moved Amendment No. 117B:
Page 31, line 20, leave out subsection (5).
The noble Lord said: I desire to move this Amendment largely to obtain information. Subsection (5) of this clause reads:
" This Act shall not be taken to supersede or impair any power exercisable by Her Majesty in relation to aliens by virtue of Her prerogative ".
I want to ask what these powers are. The powers which are in the Bill already are so comprehensive and of such detail that I find it difficult to think that any additional powers are necessary. When immigration is to be regulated by the rules under the Bill, why should it be necessary to have extra powers of this kind, powers of which we have no knowledge? Why should these powers be extended by the Royal prerogative?
LORD WINDLESHAM: I think I can answer the noble Lord quite briefly. The prerogative powers in question have existed for very many years. They include the power in the Crown in times of war to intern, expel or otherwise control enemy aliens at its discretion, which is exercised on the advice of the Home Secretary. As noble Lords will know, the power of internment was exercised during the Second World War; its legality was tested in the courts and was accepted by the Court of Appeal. It is possible that these powers might have to be invoked again in some future war—although we hope that such a time may never arrive. The Government do not think it necessary to surrender these powers, which go back many years. We are talking about residuary prerogative powers for the kind of exceptional circumstances which have

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arisen in this century only on the occasion of the two World Wars.
LORD BROCKWAY: I am relieved to know that this refers only to circumstances of war. I will make this comment. Surely in those circumstances a State of Emergency would be declared which would give this power; and this power would therefore still be unnecessary in this Bill. But in view of the assurances given by the noble Lord I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 33, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 34 [Repeal, transitional and temporary]:
5.5 p.m.
LORD WADE LORD WADE moved Amendment No. 119:
Page 32, line 22, at end insert (" and such leave shall not be revoked.")
The noble Lord said: Subsection (4) of this clause reads:
" A person who at the coming into force of this Act is neither patrial nor exempt under any provision of this Act from the provisions relating to those who are not patrial, but is then settled in the United Kingdom, shall for the purposes of this Act be treated as having been given indefinite leave to enter or remain."
The Amendment proposes that there should be added the words:
" and such leave shall not be revoked ".
When on an earlier debate we discussed the word"indefinite"and I suggested that it should be replaced by the word"unlimited ", I withdrew the Amendment; but the noble Viscount, Lord Boyd of Merton, regretted that I had not pursued the matter further. My reason for not doing so was partly because I was anxious to get to another important Amendment and partly because the noble Lord opposite had drawn my attention to the definition on page 30 of"limited leave ". I am still not absolutely satisfied. In the interpretation clause
"' limited leave ' and ' indefinite leave ' mean respectively leave under this Act to enter or remain in the United Kingdom which is, and one which is not, limited as to duration."
Does that mean that it can be withdrawn? I am raising this point in order to ascertain whether the position is completely
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clear. For that reason I am proposing the addition of the words"and such leave shall not be revoked ". I beg to move.
LORD DENHAM: I am advised that this Amendment is not necessary. There is no difference between us on this point, but the Amendment is not necessary because there is no power in the Bill as it stands to revoke an"indefinite leave"to enter or remain.
LORD WADE: I think we are getting into the realms of semantics. In spite of the fact that I am always a little suspicious when the Government say that anything is unnecessary, I will pay heed to the advice and ask the Committee's leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 34 agreed to.
Clauses 35 and 36 agreed to.
Clause 37 [Short title and extent]:
LORD O'HAGAN LORD O'HAGAN moved Amendment No. 120:
Page 34, line 1, leave out (" Immigration ") and insert (" Migrant Workers ").
The noble Lord said: Stimulated by the sudden appearance and the equally sudden disappearance of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack I am almost tempted to embark upon a Third Reading speech now to get him back again; but I will restrain myself and speak briefly to this Amendment which is designed to make things clear. I hope it will commend itself to the Committee. Recent immigration Bills have had a marked impact on numbers; this one will not, and the Government have said so repeatedly. I think that many people believe that the words"Immigration Bill"and the concept of an Immigration Bill mean automatically a reduction in the numbers of black immigrants or in the numbers of black people here. In the interests of clarity and in order to help the Government carry out the intention of promoting good community relations, I think it would be helpful for the general public if the Bill were to have a different name, as it is so different in character from previous immigration Bills.
The Bill does not entirely replace the present legislation: the administrative

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procedures which control numbers and the regulation and registration procedures are not affected. Really the Bill states which classes of persons are here as of right and which classes of persons are not here as of right. It is mostly concerned with those who come here, without security of tenure, to work and without the right to bring in their families. In short, it is mostly concerned with migrant workers. Thus the title"Migrant Workers Bill"expresses both the objectives and the results of this Bill and explains how aliens and most Commonwealth citizens will in fact become migrant workers and nothing else. The title"Immigration Bill"is misleading. It would be both within the spirit of the Trade Descriptions Act and the new style of Government if the title could be altered to"Migrant Workers Bill ". I beg to move.
LORD WINDLESHAM: The title"Migrant Workers Bill"would imply that this Bill provides solely for workers from overseas to be admitted for limited periods only, after which they would have to return to their countries of origin. There is nothing to that effect in the Bill. On the contrary, the draft immigration rules published with it make clear the Government's intention that overseas workers from all countries should he able, as are aliens at present, to qualify for permanent residence after four years' approved employment here. The noble Lord, as he said earlier, has been silent during the Committee proceedings. I think that he was here for a good deal of the time, but he must have had some fairly protracted absences if he thinks that the title of"Migrant Workers Bill"would be appropriate. The Bill deals with the whole structure of immigration control; with the people who are exempt from control and the grounds on which they are exempt, and with people who come here for visits or for any reason other than work. We have spent about two days discussing the appeal system, which has nothing whatever to do with work permits and migrant workers. The Bill consolidates and continues the immigration appeal system set up under the 1969 Act while making some changes. It deals with the whole question of deportation and with criminal proceedings. How could we have deportation in a Migrant Workers Bill? No, my Lords;
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this Bill is what the Government said it would be a comprehensive review of the law, temporary in character as that law is at the moment, which has been written on to the Statute Book in the course of over half a century. I think that the existing Title of the Bill is more appropriate.
LORD O'HAGAN: I thank the noble Lord for giving a serious answer to my Amendment and giving me such a kind and magisterial lecture on the merits, as he sees them, of the Bill. I have a little lecture which I have stored up for Third Reading, in which I explain what ought to be in a proper Immigration Bill, but for the time being I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 37 agreed to.
Schedule 1 [Registration as citizen by reason of residence, Crown service, etc.]:
5.12 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY LORD BROCKWAY moved Amendment. No. 121A:
Page 35, line 37, leave out from"(Kingdom ") to end of line 39.
The noble Lord said: The effect of this Amendment would be to remove he requirement of residence without conditions for five years as a ground for registration as a British citizen. I do not intend to make the argument long. Surely, if residence has been continuous, it is irrelevant whether conditions have been imposed during that period. Is it really necessary to have this condition? I beg to move.
LORD WIN DLESHAM: In rising to reply to this Amendment I think I really must regiser a protest. This Amendment is the first of 33 Amendments which were tabled yesterday and appeared on the Sixth Marshalled List for the first time. We know the noble Lord's interest in this subject and we are always ready to discuss with him and answer his questions on matters about which he feels strongly, but I feel that to put down, not just one or two, but a complete set of 33 independent Amendments the night before puts a great strain on those who are trying to make sure that the noble Lord has a full and accurate answer, apart from anything else.
LORD BROCKWAY: I recognise the strength of what the Minister has said. I have already paid tribute to the way in which he has conducted this Bill. I would just say this to him. Those of us who are Back Benchers do not have the service which he and the Government and some other Members of the House have, and it has been extraordinarily difficult during the proceedings on this Bill to prepare all the Amendments and briefs in favour of them. I regret very much that these last Amendments to the Schedules have been put down so late. This was not because of any deliberate intention, but because on previous days I was so much involved in the other issues before the Committee. I assure the Minister that I have no intention of being unfair in this matter or unsympathetic to him or to the civil servants who have had difficulties as a result.
LORD WINDLESHAM: I will not pursue this matter any further. Of course I accept what the noble Lord has said. In reply to the Amendment which he has just moved, the present situation is that Commonwealth citizens are entitled to be registered as citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies on completion of five years' residence in the United Kingdom. Under the Bill, they will be able to apply for registration after five years' residence, but registration will be at at the discretion of the Secretary of State. Paragraph 2 of Schedule 1 makes transitional provision whereby Commonwealth citizens resident at the end of July 1971 are to be entitled to registration on completion of five years' residence free of conditions.
This Amendment seeks to provide that in these transitional cases there is to be an entitlement to register on completion of five years' residence whether or not any part of that time is spent subject to conditions. The Schedule is another example of where the Bill provides safeguards for Commonwealth citizens. There is an automatic entitlement to acquisition of citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies, when five years of residence free of conditions ends. The Amendment is based on the view that, provided residence has been continuous, it is irrelevant whether or not conditions have been retained on the person concerned. But this seems to miss the point; it is only when a person's conditions have been
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cancelled that he can be said to be accepted for settlement in the United Kingdom. The Amendment would, for example, give an automatic entitlement to registration to a person resident here at the end of July 1971 who had succeeded, by various temporising devices, in spinning out his stay for five years, notwithstanding that at no point had he ever been accepted for permanent settlement. The Government do not accept that such a person would be appropriate for registration as provided under the Schedule.
LORD BROCKWAY: I thank the Minister for his explanation and beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.20 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY LORD BROCKWAY moved Amendment No. 121B:
Page 37, line 5, leave out (" may ") and insert (" shall ").
The noble Lord said: In moving this Amendment, may I speak also to Amendments Nos. 121C and 123A, which deal with a similar point. This Amendment is designed to give the right of registration irrespective of national origin. Amendment No. 121B, which is now before the Committee, removes the Secretary of State's discretion in regard to registration, and makes this automatic provided that the individual has been here continuously for five years and has enjoyed the relevant employment. Why necessarily should there be doubt about this, and why are the qualifications which are in the Bill necessary? I beg to move.
LORD WINDLESHAM: The current position is that an alien may apply for naturalisation after five years' residence, the decision being at the discretion of the Secretary of State. A Commonwealth citizen is entitled, as I explained on the last Amendment, to registration after five years. Under the Bill, leaving the transitional cases which we debated on the last Amendment on one side, Commonwealth citizens are brought broadly into line with aliens, their registration becoming a matter for the Secretary of State's discretion. This Amendment seeks to provide that any person, whether an alien or a Commonwealth citizen, shall be entitled to registration on completion of five years' residence without any discretion in the Secretary of State to refuse the application.

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The Amendments would seem to us to be defective in applying registration to aliens, since registration is a procedure which applies only to Commonwealth citizens. But this technical defect apart, the Amendments would not be acceptable in substance, since they would seek to reverse the decision which has already been taken by your Lordships and by Members of another place, to the effect that registration for Commonwealth citizens in future is to be discretionary. They would also be unacceptable, in the view of the Government, in that they would give aliens an automatic entitlement to registration on completion of five years' residence. It is the verb"may"in paragraph 5(1) which introduces the discretion, and the conditions that have to be fulfilled are set out in heads (a) to (e) of that sub-paragraph.
BARONESS WHITE: Did I hear my noble friend say that he was proposing to move Amendment No. 121C as well?
LORD BROCKWAY: Yes.
BARONESS WHITE: That being so, if by any chance that Amendment were carried, Amendment No. 122 would be subsumed under it. So perhaps it will be for the convenience of the Committee if I discuss Amendment No. 122 at this point. This is one of the conditions included in those which will be required in future for Commonwealth citizens who wish to register as citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies; it refers to"sufficient knowledge of the English language ". I raise this point for two reasons. One is to ask the Government about their attitude towards the Welsh language. This is not a purely frivolous point, because the Welsh language is recognised by statute in Wales as being of equal validity with English. Therefore it seems to me perfectly proper that in a situation of this kind the Welsh language should be regarded as having equal validity with English; and if we are to make any conditions concerning knowledge of language, anybody who has sufficient knowledge of the Welsh language would surely be entitled to be registered as almost anything. It is an extremely difficult language to learn.
But there are Welsh persons living in communities in various parts of the world where Welsh is maintained as the family language. Some years ago, a relative
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of mine came back to this country from Patagonia; he could speak only Welsh and Spanish, and had no knowledge at all of English. His father had been born in the United Kingdom, but he had been born in Patagonia. There are other Welsh communities in various parts of the Colonies where it is reasonable to suppose that the children would have been brought up with Welsh as the language of the home. As the Welsh language is, as I have said, recognised by statute as having equal validity with English in the Principality of Wales, and as these conditions apply to citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies, it seems to me that we ought at a later stage to insert a reference to Welsh as well as to English. I do not think that would cause undue difficulties. I hope that the Government will take notice that we may wish to do this.
I turn now to the words"sufficient knowledge of the English language ". We should like some further information as to how the Government propose to deal with this matter, because I think it is causing a good deal of concern in certain quarters."Sufficient knowledge"is not an easy term to define. Sufficient for what? Sufficient to shop in the supermarket? Sufficient to go to the post office? Sufficient to claim sickness benefit? Sufficient to carry on a philosophical conversation? There are so many degrees of"sufficiency ", according to the circumstances in which the language is to be employed. I think we should have some indication as to what sort of standards are to be applied, and who is to apply them; and also what steps the Government might he taking—although obviously they would not be referred to directly in the statute—to assist in teaching English as a second language to those who come here as adults. I am not speaking of those who are in school, for tuition in English is provided for them. I am thinking particularly of women, who often find it difficult to obtain much knowledge of English because, naturally, they are confined much more to their homes; they do not have occasion, by going out to work, to pick up some smattering of the language.
Before we agree to this condition as being a requisite for registration as a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies I think that we should hear a

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little more from the Government as to how they propose to deal with it. I might also say that there are parts of the Commonwealth where English is spoken, but it is a rather different kind of English from that commonly spoken in parts of the United Kingdom—and I am thinking more particularly of the Caribbean. Can we be assured that those who believe they speak English, and in their own eyes certainly do so, will not be put at a disadvantage by any sort of test or examination that the Government propose to conduct?
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: I think I am right in saying that we are now discussing Amendment No. 122. If that is the case, I should like to go rather further than my noble friend has done. The Amendment asks that the condition that the applicant for registration should have knowledge of the English language should be omitted. This, I think, is really the point at issue. If there is a qualification of this kind, it is important to see what the point of it is. Everybody, I suppose, would agree that people who come to live here would do well to speak the language. But that is not the issue. The issue is whether it is sound to make it a condition that they shall do so.
One has to visualise that the person who comes here and applies for registration has been here for five years. Whom do the Government say this provision is aimed at? I suppose that any worker would be on a work permit for five years, which means that at the end of the first year he would have had a satisfactory report from his employer (otherwise he could not continue his employment) and at least speaks the language well enough to get on with his work. So it is not likely to be such a man who is involved. I suppose it might be his aunt or his mother. Is it really worth putting in a qualification of this kind for one or two old people? They have probably learned to shop, anyway. It seems to me that we should be clear what we are going for. Is this provision a plus or a minus? I think I have said enough to show that it can hardly be much of a plus. It cannot affect many people whose absence of knowledge of the language would do any harm to anybody. I think we must next
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consider whether it is a minus. The Community Relations Commission do not like it. They have said they think that it ought to be removed and they do not see the reason for it. On the whole, I can think of no reason for keeping it and of several reasons for keeping it out.
There are two practical reasons for keeping it out. The first was touched on by my noble friend: if you have to satisfy someone that you have a sufficient knowledge of something you have to satisfy a test, and if you have to satisfy a test somebody has to apply that test. At the moment this is done, not very satisfactorily I may say, in the case of students coming in, by immigration officers. There have been a number of cases that have given rise to serious complaints because a student with a short-term permit, who has been accepted by a university, has been turned down on language grounds by an immigration officer. I do not want to go into this at the moment, but I can give noble Lords three examples.
LORD WINDLESHAM: I am baffled by the references made by the noble Lord. We are talking about applications for naturalisation, or registration in the case of Commonwealth citizens, where a language condition has to be fulfilled. I do not see how such a condition could conceivably apply to a student entering this country and having discussions with an immigration officer.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: The only relevance is presumably that the immigration officer will be the person who has to be satisfied.
LORD WINDLESHAM: No. If I may say so, this displays a total lack of comprehension. The provision has nothing to do with immigration officers or the entry of students. We are talking about people who have been in this country for five years, and very often a good deal longer. When the time comes they may decide to take up British citizenship and apply to do so. There is no question of students talking to immigration officers at the ports.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: I accept that with pleasure. It is very much better if that is so; but the noble Lord still has not told us who conducts the examination. I do not know

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whether he would like to do that now or later. I find it difficult, if there is to be an examination in the English language, to visualise the kind of standard that would give satisfaction. I really believe this to be quite an awkward matter. Secondly, if the standard is not absolutely rigid there is cause for complaint, because people will say,"He passed, and I did not ", and in the long run you are really dropping a piece of gravel into the wheels. You are making it more and more difficult for these people to become citizens in a convenient way. I cannot understand what is to be gained by this action. If I could, I should feel less hostile to it. I feel that there are objections here and the fact that somebody has got to conduct an examination is one of them. The fact that there are no firm standards of examination means that this could he used like a potato riddle—if you have too many immigrants you can make it more difficult, whereas if you have too few you can make it easier. It may never in fact be done, but it would be thought to be done. I think these are great disadvantages and I am unable to see the point of retaining this condition. I should be grateful if this matter could be explained.
LORD GRIDLEY: Might I just put forward this point of view in connection with this Amendment? It seems to me that there is a need that a person who wishes to become a citizen of the United Kingdom should know enough about our customs, our laws and so on, to be able to speak our language. Perhaps my noble friend will correct me if I am wrong about this, but it seems to me that a citizen would have the power to vote in elections. He would be playing his part in the community; he would, we hope, be fully settled and integrated with this country. Therefore I think it would be quite reasonable to have this provision in the Schedule that such a person, before he becomes registered, should have sufficient knowledge of the English language and accordingly I would support this provision. May I say, in conclusion, that it was an essential requirement for many of us who served overseas that in the performance of our duties we should understand the customs and the cultures of the country in which we served and that we should make a very close and efficient study of the language of the country.
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For those coming to this country, I think this is an essential requirement if they are to share all the privileges, and indeed the responsibilities, of citizenship.
5.35 p.m.
LORD SLATER: I was very interested in the observations and comments made by my noble friend Lady White when she talked about the Welsh language, because we know that the Welsh language is recognised in Wales, although it is part of the United Kingdom. I remember some years ago sitting on a Committee, of which my noble friend Lord Diamond (Jack Diamond as he was then), was chairman. My noble friend Lord Maelor, who was known as Tom Jones at that time, was also a member of the committee. He wanted to know why he could not speak in his own native tongue and why he had not the right to do so. But, to come back to the particular point of speakers of English, there are many forms of dialect; I could myself speak in a form of dialect which noble Lords would be unable to understand. I should be speaking English, though it might not be recognised as English, and it would be divorced from the way in which English is usually spoken, in grammatical terms.
As regards immigrants coming into this country, I have attended many meetings of the Council of Europe, and have also been to Moscow with the Leader of the Opposition; and what I discovered was that the second language, which students now learn at their universities for purposes of travel, is English. The two classified languages in the whole of Europe are French and English. This is what we had in the Council of Europe; so I cannot see any great difficulty regarding immigrants and others coming to this country. There should be no great difficulty in regard to our particular language. I have much sympathy with the ideas expressed by my noble friend Lady White. I have no doubt that, as she said, this point will come up eventually, if not in the near future. It has arisen in Wales, as we have found already, because post offices have Welsh names; there are Welsh stamps and Welsh facilities for the people there, although they are still part of the United Kingdom. It is possible that we may find this spreading to Scotland where, for example, you have the Gaels, who do not speak one

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word of English yet are connected with the United Kingdom. I certainly wish to support what was said by my noble friend Lady White.
LORD WADE: We have had quite a wide discussion on Amendment No. 122 although we have not yet reached it. It would be helpful—perhaps this is what the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, is about to tell us—to know how this test is to be applied. I can see many practical difficulties, but we are in the dark until we know how it will be done. In dealing with that there is one small point to which probably I should know the answer. What is the position when a man has been here for more than five years and satisfies all these conditions but whose wife scarcely speaks any English at all? There are a good many cases. Does that affect the position?
LORD GARDINER: Apart from the language we are supposed to be discussing, can the Minister give any indication of the sort of case in which the Secretary of State would refuse naturalisation although all the conditions are met? Is there any real reason why"may"should not be"shall "? Secondly, are these requirements there simply because they have always been the requirements for naturalising aliens and it is many years since anyone really applied his mind to whether any of them was actually necessary?
LORD STONHAM: Having listened to what the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, has said, I wonder whether there is any justification for including this language requirement at all. As he said, we are considering only people who have lived here, got their living here and worked here for at least five years, and in many cases a good deal longer. It is scarcely conceivable to me that they should have lived here and worked here and got jobs here without having acquired a working knowledge of the language that might not even satisfy an academic but it would satisfy most people. It might even satisfy Welsh-speaking people because the same applies to them. I think they would have to acquire a working knowledge of English. It seems therefore that not only do we want to know why this proviso is in the clause but what is the justification for it. Would it not be much better
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to meet the problem by deleting it and accepting Amendment No. 122?
LORD WINDLESHAM: If I may take my theme from what the noble Lord, Lord Gridley, said, which I thought struck home at the purpose of this part of the Bill, if someone is a citizen of another country and has come to live and work in the United Kingdom, and if after a period of not less than five years—very often more—he decides that he would like to be a citizen of this country, he is taking a big decision. Very often we allow dual citizenship in our law but many other countries do not—it is rather the exception now. The decision will mean giving up his own citizenship or nationality and becoming a full member of our society. Throughout the world I am told that it is a common requirement that there should be a standard of language which the applicant should achieve. I shall come to the question of why that should be so, which was correctly and interestingly raised by the noble Lord, Lord Wade; but it is a general requirement of citizenship proceedings and applications for citizenship in other parts of the world that there should be a knowledge of the language.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, asked me about the sort of cases in which the Home Secretary decided not to grant an application for naturalisation. There are a certain number of these cases which I see in my Department, and they are difficult ones. These are decisions taken by the Secretary of State, and he is relieved by Statute from the obligation to give reasons, specifically relieved by Statute, and he does not do so. Although there is not very frequently a large number of these cases, when refusals do occur they are normally quite controversial. Someone who has made an application and has been refused naturalisation naturally feels strongly about it and wants to know why the Secretary of State has so decided and why he should be relieved by Statute from giving his reasons. But the grounds for refusal would generally, I think, fall under paragraph (c), that the applicant was not of good character.
LORD GARDINER: I am sorry to interrupt, but what I asked was what were the circumstances in which the

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Home Secretary would refuse naturalisation although all these conditions were met, because if he does not refuse"may"ought to be"shall ".
LORD WINDLESHAM: I cannot answer that question without notice. I think the quick answer would be that it would be difficult to have a list which was absolutely inclusive and covered all possible circumstances. There would almost always be the probability that something would lie outside that list, although normally I think it would be because one condition was not met. I will look into that point and, having done so, will write to the noble and learned Lord and give him the result of my researches.
Under the Bill, the requirements for registration will be broadly in line with those at present applying to the naturalisation of aliens; and they will be identical on this question of the language requirements. The Second Schedule to the British Nationality Act 1948 requires an alien applying for naturalisation to have sufficient knowledge of the English language. In making registration for Commonwealth and Irish citizens discretionary, the Government think it reasonable to require that applicants wishing to throw in their lot with this country should acquire a knowledge of the English language. I say in passing to the noble Lord, Lord Wade, that I am advised that for the purposes of this Bill English does not, we think, include Gaelic or Welsh.
BARONESS WHITE: But will it include those languages if we put down an Amendment to that effect? I might pursue this. There is the Welsh Language Act which gives equal validity in the Principality to the Welsh language and that is of some substance.
LORD WINDLESHAM: I will certainly look at that. It is an extraordinary point to come up, and I take it. I only question the last comment of the noble Baroness, that it is a point of some substance. I think it is one that will occur in very few instances indeed, but there is one point, to which I shall come, bearing on that. A fear has been expressed, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Wade, said, that this requirement of ability to speak English might be a bar to assimilation, particularly of people from the
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Commonwealth. But, on the contrary, we believe that the requirement of knowledge of English is, if anything, likely to encourage assimilation. It is a general requirement of most countries that applicants for citizenship should have mastered their language. As to jury service, it is open to the appropriate authorities to satisfy themselves that people selected as jurors can follow the proceedings intelligently and in matters of that sort, as in other aspects of citizenship, a knowledge of the language is a crucial instrument by which these civic privileges and rights may be fulfilled.
The noble Baroness, Lady White, and some noble Lords who have spoken in the debate asked me what the words"sufficient knowledge of the English language"in the Bill amount to in practice, and how the Secretary of State will satisfy himself on this point. This, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner has just pointed out, has for many years been a requirement when aliens have applied for naturalisation. As a result, the Home Office has long experience of applying the requirements. I may say, in passing, that there is a separate department of the Home Office, the Nationality Department, which handles these applications for citizenship from aliens and from Commonwealth citizens. The requirement is not applied in an exacting way. When inquiries are made in the course of an application for naturalisation, the applicant is personally interviewed. Provided that he is able to understand what is said to him by the interviewing officer, and to answer questions and give an account of his life without the aid of an interpreter, we shall be satisfied on this score. Only if the applicant obviously has an extremely poor grasp of the language is a dictation test applied.
As to the knowledge of English required, the applicant is expected to be able to make himself understood for normal everyday purposes. While the detailed arrangements for registration in the future (because what I have been saying applies only to aliens at the moment) have not yet been settled, it is envisaged that the procedure for registration may well be rather less rigorous than that for naturalisation, which involves, for example, placing public advertisements in the Press. It might perhaps be based simply on an interview with the

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applicant and a check on records, and provided that the applicant was able to make himself understood without an interpreter at the interview this would be the end of the matter, so far as knowledge of English was concerned. The requirement of knowledge of English will not apply to any Commonwealth citizen who at the end of July, 1971, was lawfully in the United Kingdom and ordinarily resident here free of conditions. The position of such a person is safeguarded under paragraph 2 of Schedule 1; he will continue to have an absolute right of registration on completing five years' residence without having to satisfy any requirement as to knowledge of English.
May I now come on to the important point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Wade, about wives? If it is accepted that it is reasonable to expect heads of families to acquire a knowledge of English if they wish to register and so acquire our citizenship, it may nevertheless appear unreasonable to expect their wives to acquire a second langauge, since they may not have the same opportunities to learn from English speakers as their husbands and children will. We can satisfy the noble Lord on this point because once the husband is a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies—in other words, if he has been accepted by this process of registration—his wife will have an automatic right to register under Section 6(2) of the British Nationality Act 1948, irrespective of the length of her residence, her character or her knowledge of the English language. This automatic right is not affected by the Bill. The matter of her language ability would not be relevant, although from what I have seen in the Midlands and elsewhere—and the noble Lord, Lord Wade, knows about this from his experience in Yorkshire—local education authorities and community relations councils are making considerable efforts among the wives, especially of Asian families, for small groups of four or six people to meet together in their homes to try to help with language teaching and to familiarise people with British customs.
LORD BROCKWAY: We are getting a little confused in our discussion because the Amendment before us is Amendment No. 121B.
LORD WINDLESHAM: Yes; I replied fully because the noble Baroness moved her Amendment No. 122.
BARONESS WHITE: I did not move it.
LORD WINDLESHAM: No. The noble Baroness, quite properly, spoke to the Amendment because it was on a related point. It seemed both to the noble Baroness and to myself that it was as well to have one general debate—and we have had a very interesting one—rather than to take the Amendments one by one.
LORD BROCKWAY: I agree entirely. The last thing I wanted to do was to create more controversy. I want to help by saying that I will withdraw Amendment No. 121B, and I will not move Amendment No. 121C. That means that we shall have Amendment No. 122 before us. May I express appreciation of the contribution which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, made on my Amendment? When the Minister communicates with the noble and learned Lord would he also communicate with me about the conclusions of his inquiry? I beg leave to withdraw No. 121B.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
BARONESS WHITE BARONESS WHITE moved Amendment No. 122:
Page 37, leave out line 12.
The noble Baroness said: We have had a full discussion on this Amendment. In the circumstances, I will refrain from moving—
LORD O'HAGAN: I wonder whether I may ask a further question of the Minister?
BARONESS WHITE: In that case, to put us in order, I will move Amendment No. 122.
LORD O'HAGAN: I wonder whether I may ask the Minister for a little more detail about the nature of the test so far as character and, particularly, knowledge of English is concerned? I understand that at present in some circumstances a policeman calls at the house and makes an on the spot test of an alien to see whether he fulfils the requirements for good character and knowledge of the English language. Is this procedure going to be extended? Are there going to be special training programmes

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for people carrying out these duties? What qualifications will they be required to have so far as the use of language is concerned? In short, could the noble Lord outline the practical aspects of the tests? If he has done so already, and I have missed his answer, then I apologise.
LORD WINDLESHAM: I have referred to this matter, but I was speaking rather quickly at the time and was not as specific as the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, would like me to be. I said that the detailed arrangements for the future had not yet been settled and that it is envisaged that the procedure for registration may be rather less rigorous than that for naturalisation, perhaps based simply on an interview with the applicant and a check on the records. The interview may well be at the Home Office rather than with the police, or whatever seems to be the simplest and most straightforward way of making these inquiries. It is our hope that it may be somewhat less formal than the procedure which has applied in the past.
LORD O'HAGAN: I heard that reply on the first occasion and I will not detain the Committee. Will the noble Lord be able to give more details when we get to the next stage of the Bill? Will these procedures have been worked out by then?
LORD WINDLESHAM: I should like to take note of that point; I know the noble Lord's interest in this subject. At whatever time I am in a position to tell him what the proposed procedure is I shall do so, but I should not like to tie myself down necessarily in October.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: I am not happy. We have not had any reason for including this clause. The noble Lord has said nothing to refute my view that there will be practically nobody to whom this requirement will apply after five years. If this is the case, is there any point in having a possible irritant in the Bill?
LORD WINDLESHAM: In the case of aliens, I am afraid that, strange though it may seem, there are people who have been here for five years who do not have a knowledge of the English language. I have seen such cases.
BARONESS WHITE: We have indicated that some of us are not happy about this condition. I do not want to press the Amendment at this point, but should like to consider more carefully what the noble Lord has said. A number of us are not fully convinced that this is really worth the trouble or the apprehensions involved. At this point I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
BARONESS WHITE BARONESS WHITE moved Amendment No. 123:
Page 37, line 25, at end insert (" in the Dependencies or ").
The noble Baroness said: I beg to move the Amendment standing in the names of my noble friends and myself. We should like to know why it is that in certain circumstances"relevant employment"includes work in a Colony or Protectorate, or service in the employment of a society, company or body of persons established in a Colony or Protectorate, but when we come to Crown service there is no reference to Crown service other than in the United Kingdom itself. In the changed circumstances of the Commonwealth, those territories which remain as Colonies and/or Protectorates are few in number nowadays and, with the exception of Hong Kong, are small. As we have taken away from the citizens of those areas rights which they have previously enjoyed, so that there is not very much left for them by way of benefit of being Colonies or Protectorates of the United Kingdom, surely in this relatively small sphere we might include Crown service in the Dependencies as one of the qualifying factors that should be taken into account for registration. I do not want to make very heavy weather of this point. The sort of people one has in mind are the citizens of Gibraltar, and it seems to us that this might be a gesture. In our disintegrating Commonwealth, surely Crown service in one of the Dependencies, not only in the United Kingdom, should be allowed to count for virtue, so to speak, in this field of registration. We should like to know what the Government think of this.
LORD DENHAM: Appendix A to Schedule 1 of the Bill is to form Section 5(1)(a) of the British Nationality Act 1948, and there is a definition of"Crown

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service"in Section 32(1) of the 1948 Act which is as follows:
"' Crown service under His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom '"—
which are the words the noble Baroness is seeking to amend—
" means the service of the Crown under His Majesty's government in the United Kingdom, or under His Majesty's government in Northern Ireland, or under the government of any colony, protectorate, protected state, United Kingdom mandated territory, or United Kingdom trust territory, whether such service is in any part of His Majesty's dominions or elsewhere; "
I think the noble Baroness's worries will be covered by that.
BARONESS WHITE: I am delighted to hear it. The confusing thing in other parts of this Appendix to Schedule 1 is that there is specific reference to employment in a Colony or Protectorate. It is confusing to someone who is not necessarily knowledgeable about the other Statutes, and I wondered whether the Government could not look at this and make it clear in this Bill that the words"in the United Kingdom"mean something very much broader than the words actually say; or if we could have a cross-reference to the Act from which the noble Lord has just quoted it might help. People, community relations officers and the like, will have to be advising immigrants in this country on these matters, and it would help public relations if we could at least have a cross-reference.
LORD DENHAM: I will certainly look at that. I do not know whether one could have a footnote or something like that in a Bill of this kind, but the Amendment from noble Lords opposite would I think do slightly less to cover the point than is done at present.
LORD SLATER: Would the noble Lord inform us what classification will be given, if we join the Common Market, to people who come from various countries to this country? How will they fit in with the Act already quoted to the noble Baroness, Lady White?
LORD DENHAM: I cannot see that it will make any difference.
LORD SLATER: They will not be citizens of the United Kingdom and they are not members of the Colonies or even
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of the Commonwealth. They belong to other States which are outside and they will be more or less immigrants. They will not have been members under the Constitution which we have always been accustomed to and worked with for generations. How are those people to have the same freedom in this country unless there is special legislation?
LORD DENHAM: This Amendment refers to Crown service under Her Majesty's Government.
BARONESS WHITE: I appreciate the explanation given by the noble Lord, but I hope he will seriously take into account the point I have made in regard to the drafting, to see whether he cannot bring in at least a reference to the other Statutes. In the confident hope that he will do something about it I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 1 agreed to.
Schedule 2 [Administrative provisions as to control on entry and departure]:
6.5 p.m.
LORD DENHAM LORD DENHAM moved Amendment No. 124:
Page 39, line 6, at end insert—
(" (5) An immigration officer, for the purpose of satisfying himself whether there are persons he may wish to examine under paragraph 2 below, may search any ship or aircraft and anything on board it, or any vehicle taken off a ship or aircraft on which it has been brought to the United Kingdom.")
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 124 on behalf of my noble friend. Under the present law, and under the Bill as it stands, immigration officers have no power of search for smuggled immigrants such as customs officers have to search for smuggled goods. Their only power of search (under paragraph 4(3)) relates to passengers and their baggage. The growth in recent years of a traffic in illegal immigrants makes it desirable that there should be the power given by the Amendment to search ships, aircraft and vehicles: the power to search vehicles is particularly needed in dealing with car ferries, where there is always a risk of illegal entrants being concealed in car boots, caravans, et cetera. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD BROCKWAY LORD BROCKWAY moved Amendment No. 124A:
Page 39, line 42, leave out sub-paragraph (1).
The noble Lord said: I beg to move this Amendment very briefly. The point I want to put to the Committee is that in the difficult circumstances of immigrants coming to this country—difficulties of language and of background—to say that refusal on their part to co-operate with an immigration officer should be relevant to refusing entry seems to me to be going too far. This could easily be due to misunderstanding, maladjustment, tiredness after the journey, strange conditions. I would hope that we would not regard this as a condition under which entry would he refused. That is the purpose for which I am moving this Amendment, and it may save time if I take Amendment No. 124C with it.
LORD WINDLESHAM: In the Government's view it is in general right that a person entering or leaving the country should be obliged to give the immigration officer who examines him the information that the officer needs for the purpose of his functions. Withholding such information only slows down the operation of the control and so causes difficulty not only for the passenger himself but also for his fellow-travellers. The same obligation as appears in the Bill is now imposed by Article 7(2) of the Aliens Order 1953 and also the First Schedule to the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962; and its existence has not given rise to serious complaint. Therefore this power has been on the Statute Book for a number of years and immigration officers have not misused it.
The Wilson Committee, which has been referred to several times in the debate, said in their Report at paragraph 162:
" the impression we have received in the course of our inquiry is that, generally speaking, immigration officers act with fairness and respect for the rights and feelings of the people with whom they have to deal. In questioning people about their intentions and family circumstances, the officers are only carrying out duties laid clown by Parliament."
Clause 26 (which relates to this Schedule, as amended in another place) makes it a defence to a prosecution for refusing or failing to provide information that there was a reasonable excuse for the refusal or failure. We feel that this added protection should cover any exceptional cases
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of the type that the noble Lord may have in mind.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: I will not delay the Committee, but may I say a practical word on this matter as somebody who has suffered? I hope the Government will keep in mind the possibility of allowing a little time lag to somebody who has made a long journey. On one famous occasion I flew all the way from Sydney, in Australia, to London, pretty well without a break; I had been practically all round the world, having had cholera injections and so forth. I arrived at London Airport, and a careful medical officer noticed that my vaccination card had not been stamped months previously in the city of Stoke on Trent by a little wench behind a counter. I was tired; I had been flying for 36 hours. I was hungry, dusty and dishevelled. I did not want to"pull rank ", for I like to be treated as anyone else is. However, he said to me,"Why haven't you done this and why haven't you done that?" I felt like exploding, and I said that I was tired. In the end I co-operated by pulling up my shirt sleeve and saying to him,"Make another hole in my arm." Those who are the least irate of people sometimes need time when they arrive in a foreign country, and I hope that some kind of provision to cover that situation will be made, so that the human situation is covered for people arriving in a strange country from afar. That is all I would ask the Minister.
LORD WINDLESHAM: That is a very reasonable request. The Immigration Service tries to operate on exactly that basis. There is a power whereby, if the immigration officer decides on the face of it not to admit somebody, the person can be held at the airport so that he can go to bed for the night if, say, an interpreter is needed, or if a friend or a solicitor or somebody of that kind is coming to make representations. The noble Lord, Lord Foot, is with us. His service comes into play here. The United Kingdom Immigrants' Advisory Service has counsellors at the ports who are there to help in these difficult cases. As I have mentioned previously, as a matter of practice no immigration officer on his own authority refuses entry to anyone into this country; the matter has to be referred to the chief immigration officer.

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But I entirely take the spirit of what the noble Lord has said, and it would not be challenged by the Immigration Service.
LORD BROCKWAY: In view of what the Minister says I ask leave to withdraw this Amendment. I shall probably be worrying him, as he anticipates, about the way in which these assurances are dealt with.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.15 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY LORD BROCKWAY moved Amendment No. 124B:
Page 40, line 12, leave out (" appearing to the immigration officer to be ").
The noble Lord said: Noble Lords will see at the top of page 40 of the Bill a description about the procedure followed on the examination of an immigrant arriving in this country. Subparagraph (2)(b) refers to a person,
" conveying documents of any relevant description ";
and"relevant description"is defined as:
" any description appearing to the immigration officer to be relevant ":
My Amendment would delete the words"appearing to the immigration officer to be ". I seek that deletion on the grounds that it is a very unsatisfactory phrase which is indefinite and bad to have in an Act of Parliament. I would urge upon the Committee that if this phrase were deleted the clause would not suffer and there would not be this suggestion of the right of the immigration officer to decide this issue in a subjective way. I beg to move.
LORD GRIDLEY: In answer to the observations made by the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, I personally have had some experience overseas in a customs and immigration service of knowing what is required by persons entering any country; and this must equally apply to entry into the United Kingdom. If one wishes an immigration service to carry out its duties, the first requirement is obviously to obtain officers and members of that service of the highest qualities, capabilities, integrity and honesty. I am quite sure that in this country the members of the present Immigration Service—the officers at the ports of entry—are of the highest calibre. If we want to
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administer any Act and carry it out dispassionately, and in the interests of people coming here and of our own citizens, then we should obviously take care to ensure that we have the right people in the right place. I personally feel that, although the noble Lord has always exhibited so much interest in our overseas friends and people who come from the Commonwealth—indeed in anybody who is coming to this country—he is seeing behind this requirement difficulties and anomalies which do not exist. If we wish to administer such a Bill we must necessarily give these powers of discretion to the immigration officers, and I can see no objection to this provision remaining as it is.
LORD SOMERS: May I add to what my noble friend has just said? If it is not to be the immigration officer who decides what is relevant, then who does decide?
LORD STONHAM: I suggest that it is far better if the immigration officer does so decide. We have already agreed to an Amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Denham, which gives the officer very considerable powers and responsibilities as regards search and investigation. We agreed to that without a whisper simply because of our confidence in immigration officers—a confidence that is very well founded. I am extremely sorry to disagree with my noble friend Lord Brockway in this matter, but when I first read the Amendment I thought it was to insert the words concerned, and I felt that it was very good. Now that I realise we are asked to leave out these words, I feel, and I am sure that anyone who has had experience of immigration officers also feels, that we should be well content to leave them to decide in their judgment what papers or documents are relevant. I hope that we shall keep the provision in the Bill.
LORD WINDLESHAM: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, for his support and I will pass on what he said about the Immigration Service to the Chief Inspector, because I know, in view of his own connection with the Service and his long tenure at the Home Office, that that comment will be particularly appreciated. Here again, these are features of the present law going back to 1953 and 1962. The subject was

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discussed at some length in another place in 1962 when a similar provision of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act was amended, and welcomed by spokesmen on both sides of the House in its final form as being a reasonable accommodation. The words"appearing to the immigration officer to be ", which Amendment No. 124B would delete, are needed because it is right that the power to ask to see documents should depend on the officer's assessment of their relevance as it seems to him at the time. It may be that when his examination is concluded, and he has a more complete picture of the facts, it will emerge that the documents were not as relevant as they seemed to him when he first started it. But it would not be right in those circumstances to say that he in asking for the documents had exceeded his powers.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: Although there can be no reflection on the difficult task of immigration officers in these cases, it seems to me that these words in a legal document are open to objection. I do not know what other words could be used, but such loose and fluid words as"appearing to the immigration officer to be relevant"become very subjective and it would be a good thing if other words could be found to replace them.
LORD BROCKWAY: I think the Minister knows my intention. I do not wish in the least to criticise the Immigration Service. He was kind enough to say the other day that he would pass on to them what I had said, just as he has now done in the case of the noble Lord, Lord Stonham. I was not directing attention to the immigration officer. I was directing attention to the word"appearing ". The criticism would be just as strong if it were"appearing"to a group of Members of Parliament, or to a group of Members of the House of Lords or, I would even say, to the British Lions Rugby Team.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: Oh no, we cannot have that.
LORD BROCKWAY: They are my heroes at the present moment. The entire object of the Amendment is, as my noble friend Lady Gaitskell has said, to find more definite terms which are not so subjective and so vague. I hope that the Minister will look at this before the
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Report stage, and on that optimistic note I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: I had hoped that the noble Lord would look at this again, and—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Oh!
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: I am sorry, I will not detain the Committee if the noble Lord has withdrawn the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD BROCKWAY LORD BROCKWAY moved Amendment No. 124D:
Page 40, line 18, leave out from (" or ") to end of line 19.
The noble Lord said: If the Committee will refer again to the Immigration Bill itself it will be found that in paragraph 4(3) of Schedule 2 rights of search are given in the case of baggage which may convey documents that would be illegal. To that one does not object. What one does object to is that this power is given not only to the immigration officers but to a person acting under the directions of the officer. He may not be an immigration officer; he may not be a constable; he may not be a public servant. He is much more likely to be an individual employed by a private agency such as that to which I referred earlier. It seems to me that in this task the State should employ only its own staff and should not employ persons who belong to private agencies. It looks to me as though that is the meaning of the present clause and I shall be interested to hear the Minister's explanation of it. I beg to move.
LORD WINDLESHAM: I think I can give the noble Lord the assurance for which he asks. Securicor employees are not in fact used to carry out searches under the present law, and will not be so used under the Bill. The persons who conduct searches under the direction of immigration officers are usually employed by the Board of Customs and Excise, so that they are State employees; but where such a person is not available and a woman or girl has to be searched, the Immigration Service will ask the help of, for example, a police matron or a woman police officer.
LORD BROCKWAY: I am entirely satisfied, and with the goodwill of the Committee I ask leave to withdraw this Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.25 p.m.
LORD DENHAM LORD DENHAM moved Amendment No. 125:
Page 40, line 27, leave out from (" with ") to (" proceedings ") in line 28.
The noble Lord said: On behalf of my noble friend Lord Windlesham, I beg to move Amendment No. 125. Paragraph 4(4) of Schedule 2 in its present form provides that any documents produced by or found on a passenger when examined by an immigration officer may be detained by the officer for up to seven days in any case, and for longer if he is of the opinion that they may be needed in connection with legal proceedings. At the Report stage in another place Opposition Members criticised this provision, and said that an immigration officer should not have power to retain documents in connection with civil proceedings. My right honourable friend promised to consider this point. The effect of this Amendment and the next one is that documents may be retained only in connection with
" any proceedings on an appeal under this Act or for an offence ".
I think that that meets the criticism made in another place. I beg to move.
LORD GARDINER: I wonder whether the noble Lord can help me. Possibly I am being very stupid, but I seem to have got this wrong. With these Amendments, will not the second half of the paragraph now read:
"…and if on examination of any document so produced or found the immigration officer is of the opinion that it may be needed in connection with on an appeal under this Act or for an offence, he may detain it…"?
It does not seem to me to work out right. I should not have thought that one would need a document for an offence, but I have probably got it all wrong.
LORD STONHAM: I think we should use the word"proceedings"to make it read:
"…if on examination of any document so produced or found the immigration officer is of the opinion that it may be needed in connection with any proceedings…"
LORD GARDINER: That has been deleted.
BARONESS WHITE: It is the first word,"proceedings ".
LORD STONHAM: No, it is not deleted.
LORD DENHAM: My reading of the words is somewhat different. The words removed were the two words"any legal ", and I think the noble and learned Lord will find that makes sense.
LORD GARDINER: But the word"proceedings"is deleted in line 28.
LORD DENHAM: This is only a drafting point and I will look at it. If the noble and learned Lord is right we will certainly put in a drafting Amendment at another stage.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD DENHAM LORD DENHAM moved Amendment No. 126:
Page 40, line 28, after (" Act ") insert (" or for an offence ").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 126, which is consequential.
LORD GARDINER: With great respect, this Amendment is only consequential in that neither Amendment makes sense. I can understand that one needs a document for proceedings, but what do the words"or for an offence"mean? It really does not seem to me to make sense.
LORD DENHAM: I am advised that the effect of these Amendments would be that documents may be retained only in connection with any proceedings on an appeal under this Bill when it becomes an Act, or for an offence.
BARONESS WHITE: As my noble and learned friend has said, it would be much clearer if it were differently drafted—putting the"offence"before the"Act ", making the sentence read:"on an appeal or for an offence under this Act ".
LORD GARDINER: I should be quite happy if it could be looked at.
LORD WINDLESHAM: Of course we shall study what the noble and learned Lord has said. If the drafting turns out to be not correct, we will certainly come back with drafting Amendments at another stage.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD BROCKWAY LORD BROCKWAY moved Amendment No. 126B:
Page 41, line 40, leave out (" an immigration officer ") and insert (" the Secretary of State ").
The noble Lord said: This Amendment is for the purpose of substituting"the Secretary of State"for the term"an immigration officer ". I think it is worth while reading the present terms, in line 40 of page 41. They are these:
" Where a person arriving in the United Kingdom is refused leave to enter, an immigration officer may, subject to sub-paragraph (2)…"
do a whole series of things. I suggest that these powers are too great, too important for an immigration officer, and that instead of the immigration officer"we should here use the term"the Secretary of State ". With all the duties that the immigration officer has to perform, it seems to me that to give him these additional powers would be demanding too much of him. I beg to move.
LORD WINDLESHAM: Paragraphs 8 and 9 of Schedule 2 give an immigration officer power to arrange for the removal of persons refused leave to enter and illegal entrants, by giving the captain of the ship or aircraft removal directions. These Amendments, rather like the earlier ones we discussed, are based on the view that immigration officers should not have some of the powers that they do have, and that removal directions should be given by the Secretary of State. I am advised that here again the powers are, in substance, no greater than those already possessed by immigration officers, and that as a matter of practice it is not possible for any one other than the Immigration Service to give removal directions promptly to the carriers in these cases, which occur at any time of the day or night, weekday or weekend.
I think the noble Lord would recognise that even if this Amendment were carried it would not be the Secretary of State personally who would give the removal directions. The directions would be given by officials in the Immigration and Nationality Department of his office. In practice, there would not really seem to be very much difference. As the noble Lord knows, in these cases the Immigration Service are guided both by their own senior officers, and, in very many individual cases, which raise questions of
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policy, by officials of the Immigration and Nationality Department of the Home Office. So I think in practice there is not a great deal between us, whether one uses the words"the Secretary of State ", to include Home Office officials acting under his authority, or whether one uses the words"immigration officer ".
LORD BROCKWAY: I think there is a difference. The Minister knows that sometimes I come into conflict with a decision of an immigration officer and refer it to the Home Office, and it is always considered immediately and deportation may be deferred. The responsibility of the Home Office is much nearer to the Home Secretary, even if the Home Secretary does not give the decision, than is an immigration officer at the airport, I think. Therefore there is a real distinction between the use of the term"immigration officer"and the words"Secretary of State ". I should like some comment from the Minister on that point.
LORD WINDLESHAM: I really have not got very much that I can add. I think it is really a distinction that seems much stronger on paper than it is in real life. As I said in replying to the Amendment, the Immigration Service are day and night, weekdays and weekends, at the ports, and they are the people who exercise the immigration control. I have given the figures before; last year 14 million people came in through 50 different ports which are permanently staffed day and night by the Immigration Service. So in most cases it would seem right that they should carry out the law. Where there are difficult cases, such as those the noble Lord referred to, which are taken up by Members of your Lordships' House or of another place, they are then invariably examined by Ministers; and when representations are made by others they are examined by senior officials. But one must not get the impression that this is only done where representations are made. If the Immigration Service are in doubt they will refer to the Department for guidance, and the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, will confirm that there are many difficult cases referred by the Service to the Department. So in practice I think the difference is not quite as much as would appear.
LORD BROCKWAY: I thank the Minister. I did speak from experience

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rather than from what I read on paper. In view of his assurance, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.39 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY LORD BROCKWAY moved Amendment No. 126D:
Page 43, line 14, leave out from (" leave ") to (" an ") in line 15.
The noble Lord said: I should like to have the attention of the Committee for a moment or two on Amendment No. 126D; it relates to line 14, page 43, and seeks to leave out the latter sentences. These latter sentences refer again to vague phrases—" intentions ","reasonably suspect ", and so on. It is always difficult to judge whether or not someone is intending to do something. This phrase asks only that there should be reasonable suspicion that someone is intending to do something. That again seems to me very vague language for an Act of Parliament. We know that other legislation with the concept of"reasonable suspicion"has been found unsatisfactory, and I would urge that nothing of substance would be lost by deleting these vague sentences. I beg to move.
6.40 p.m.
LORD GRIDLEY: May I make one very short intervention in connection with this matter, and refer again to what I said when I spoke to another Amendment a short time ago. Here again it seems to me that you must give a certain amount of authority to the qualified and responsible immigration officers on the spot, to exercise the powers which Parliament bestows upon them under this Bill. It is up to them to assert what is a reasonable suspicion of intention on the part of anybody coming into this country. If anybody is aggrieved by any action taken by the immigration officer, I understand that there is a power of appeal against any decision made at the port of entry, and in the circumstances this would be sufficient to see that justice was done. That is all I want to say on this particular Amendment.
LORD GARDINER: It had not seemed to me that we could really ask the Committee to re-write Schedule 2 this afternoon. There are always limits to everything, and I suppose that when the
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noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor or I describe our immigration law as the most liberal in the world, the sort of thing we have in mind is more, perhaps, to be found in Schedule 2 than anywhere else. Immigration officers who are civil servants, can arrest as if they were policemen, and arrest without warrant. Whereas a policeman usually must have reasonable cause to believe a crime has been committed, he can act on suspicion, and even when he is off duty. I hope that in this particular case the Government will consider this point. I appreciate that nobody has really tried to humanise this part of our law. As we all know, it took this extreme form originally because it was passed on the night of August 4, 1914, and it has been re-enacted under Expiring Laws Continuance Bills more or less every year since. That was its origin. Nothing really could be done until one had got a right of appeal, and the real breakthrough came with the Wilson Report, after many had been fighting this issue for twenty or thirty years. The Immigration Appeals Act for the first time provided that somebody could look at what the civil servants were doing, which somebody who was not a civil servant did not know before. There was an independent adjudicator to see what was actually happening.
Having declined eight offers from publishers for my biography, I do not propose to explain how that came about, though it obviously would not have come about if we had not had a Home Secretary who was both interested in civil liberties and a strong Home Secretary, because the pressure of civil servants not to give up powers which all their predecessors had was immense. We recognise now that we are very lucky in having Mr. Maudling as Home Secretary, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of St. Marylebone, as Lord Chancellor, and, if I may say so, the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, as representing the Home Office here. If, before we finally leave this Bill, we could cut out some of the worst excesses, it would be something. Here is a man who has done nothing wrong at all, and the immigration officer, if he suspects him, has the considerable power of directing the captain of the ship to take him away. That is that; he is gone. I have the highest regard for the way the immigration officers work, but

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this really, for any system of law, is a very fierce power when the man has done nothing wrong at all. He has not broken any condition, he has been given leave to enter, and simply because the immigration officer is reasonably suspicious that lie may be going to do something wrong he can order the captain of the ship to take him away to some other country, and that is that. This being such an extreme case, I hope that the Government will be prepared to meet it.
LORD WINDLESHAM: The noble and learned Lord has gone very wide on this Amendment, to paragraph 12 of Schedule 2, which is confined to seamen and air crews. He took this as an example of, as he regarded it, Parliament having given too great powers to immigration officers in the past and continuing them from year to year. I think in nearly all this list of Amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, the power has been not only in the aliens legislation but in the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962, and that applies here. Paragraph 8(3) of the first Schedule to the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 is in similar terms.
Very often there is a practical reason behind these particular provisions which it is rather difficult to be aware of just from looking at the words on the paper. It is my responsibility, as it was of the noble Lord, Lord Stonham (who was present in the Committee earlier), when he stood at this Dispatch Box for five years for the same Department, to point this reason out. This Amendment, No. 126D, and the two after it, 126E and 126F, which really have a cumulative effect, would delete from paragraphs 12(2), 13(2)(a) and 13(2)(b) of Schedule 2 the words,
" or is reasonably suspected by an immigration officer of intending to do so ".
The provisions affected are those which empower an immigration officer to give directions for the removal of a person who, having arrived to join the crew of a ship or aircraft, overstays the time allowed to him for that purpose; or having arrived as a crew member, overstays shore leave; or having arrived as a crew member, overstays a limited leave given to him for the purpose of joining another ship or aircraft or for the purpose of hospital treatment or for repatriation by the shipping company; or
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who is reasonably suspected of intending to overstay. Noble Lords who have looked at the Schedule and the Bill itself will know that there are certain special categories of immigration control for the crews of ships and aircraft. They are, after all, in a different position from visitors and other passengers intending to enter this country. The crew of an aircraft or a ship do not intend to remain in this country, and do not intend to land for any purpose other than perhaps to spend a period of a few hours; so our immigration laws make special provision.
It has been suggested that the concept of"reasonable suspicion"is one that confers too great a power on the immigration officer. I do not know how far one can really counter that argument. I remember the noble Lord, Lord Foot, on at least two previous measures before your Lordships (the Misuse of Drugs Bill, and the Fire Precautions Bill), arguing very strongly for the insertion of words of this kind, that people should act only on"reasonable grounds"or on"reasonable suspicion ". The word"reasonable"is one I know noble Lords felt very strongly about. We have that word here in the Schedule before us. It appears in the formula,"reasonably suspected "—not just"suspected ", but"reasonably suspected by an immigration officer ". What would be lost by these Amendments, if they were accepted, is the power of the Immigration Service to forestall desertion by a seaman by taking action before the due date of departure to ensure that he sails on his ship. Once a seaman has remained behind after the ship on which he was due to go has sailed, there are often, understandably—noble Lords will appreciate this—great practical difficulties in then effecting his removal. The owners of the ship may be overseas; they may have no agents here; the shipping line may be one that very rarely sends vessels to this country.
It is for practical reasons of this kind that the power exists in the present law (in the Aliens Order 1953, Article 9(1), and as I mentioned in reply to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner—in Schedule 1 of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962) to give removal directions in respect of a seaman who is reasonably suspected of intending to overstay. The exercise in the past of this power to I take preventive action has not given rise

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to complaint and the power, it seems to us, is still needed. I hope that noble Lords will find this explanation of the practical need for a power of this sort helpful, and that it may meet the purpose of the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, in putting down this Amendment.
LORD GARDINER: My noble friend Lord Brockway will decide what course to take, but I should have thought the noble Lord might have said that he really would consider all these"reasonable suspicion"cases. I quite agree that with crime as it is, and with overworked police, obviously there is a lot to be said for sending somebody to prison, not because he has done anything wrong, but because a policeman reasonably suspects that he is going to do something wrong. But none of us would stand for that for one moment. I cannot see any real moral distinction between that and saying,"It is handy for the immigration officer to be able to put somebody on a ship and pack him off on reasonable suspicion, because if he deserted and committed an actual offence he would have to be fined."
This thought could be applied equally well to all criminals. It would save a lot of trouble if they could be sent to prison before they committed an offence. On the other hand, it obviously would not be just to send anyone to prison merely on suspicion, however reasonable the suspicion was. This is a case in which the man has done nothing wrong. He has not overstayed his leave. All that has happened is that the immigration officer reasonably suspects that he is going to, and to make sure that he does not he pushes him on a ship and sends him off. It is not right.
LORD WINDLESHAM: The noble and learned Lord is at his most persuasive. But really, this analogy of a policeman saying, I reasonably suspect that you may be about to commit an offence and I think you should go off to prison"will not do; it is a ludicrous over-statement of the position. Let us pause and think over what we are talking about. We are talking about the crews of aircraft or ships. For years the immigration laws have made special provision for seamen so that they can land and spend a few hours or days here before their ship
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sails again, without going through the whole formal process of examination by an immigration officer. I speak subject to correction, but I am not sure that they even need to have a passport stamped. It is made as easy as possible for the crews.
If the immigration officer had, not suspicion, but reasonable suspicion (because it is a qualified phrase) that the seaman was likely to desert or to remain here after his ship had gone this special leave to enter on reasonable grounds would be terminated. This is not a question of punishment or of saying,"You must go to gaol because I think you are about to commit an offence "; it is saying,"I have reasonable suspicion that you are going to desert, and before your ship sails I think you ought to get back on to it."
LORD BROCKWAY: Before the Report stage, I hope that in quieter retreat the Minister may be able to consider what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, has said. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.54 p.m.
LORD GARDINER LORD GARDINER moved Amendment No. 127:
Page 45, line 13, at end insert—
(" Provided that such person may not be detained for a period in excess of seven days unless—

(a) a justice of the peace is by written information on oath satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for so detaining him; or

(b) in Scotland, a sheriff, or a magistrate or justice of the peace, having jurisdiction in the place where such person is detained, is by evidence on oath so satisfied.")

The noble and learned Lord said: This is an Amendment to provide that persons here referred to could not be detained for a period in excess of seven days unless they were taken in England before a justice of the peace who is,
" by written information on oath satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for so detaining him:
or
(b) in Scotland, a sheriff, or a magistrate, or justice of the peace, having jurisdiction in the place where such person is detained, is by evidence on oath so satisfied."
I have not discovered the ultimate limits, if any, on the power of an immigration officer to detain people in this regard. It appears at first sight to be unlimited. But

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it is an ordinary principle of justice, even where people are arrested by the police, that they must be brought before a court within a certain limited time. It is recognised as part of the rule of law in, I think, all civilised countries. Therefore, it seems right, unless the Government have any particular explanation for the present position, that after seven days the detention should not be continued unless a justice of the peace is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for the detention. I beg to move.
LORD JANNER: I should like to support this Amendment, for the very simple reason that it is proper that a person who is detained should have an opportunity of putting his case before an impartial person within a certain time. I am not suggesting for one moment that there would be any partiality on the part of the people concerned, but a person should be able to put his case before a justice of the peace who has reasonable opportunities to decide issues of this sort. We are discussing here the possibility of a person being detained longer than the law allows in other respects, so I hope that this concession will be made.
LORD WINDLESHAM: I think I can meet the points of view expressed by noble Lords by referring them forward to the Government's Amendment No. 131. It might be for the convenience of the Committee if we debated Amendments Nos. 127 and 131 together.
LORD GARDINER: I see a possible disadvantage in that course, in view of the time. The debate could be rather long.
LORD WINDLESHAM: I was hoping to satisfy the Committee with what I have to say now about Amendment No. 131, because I think it meets what noble Lords are trying to do by Amendment No. 127. There is one change, but it might be an acceptable one.
LORD GARDINER: But it is rather long, is it not?
LORD WINDLESHAM: What I should like to do, if I may, is to speak for about five minutes. If noble Lords feel that what I have said meets their point, they might then wish to withdraw Amendment No. 127. But if they feel that it does not meet their point, then we can adjourn for an hour for the other business and
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resume the debate on the Amendment. That would enable us to dispose of this Amendment if what I have to say meets the noble and learned Lord's point, as I hope it will.
The Government's Amendment No. 131 provides that a person who is still detained under paragraph 16(1) seven days after his arrival in the United Kingdom, without his examination under paragraph (2) having been completed, is to have the same right to apply to an adjudicator for bail as is given by paragraph 24 of the Schedule to someone appealing against refusal of entry. For technical reasons, it is necessary to set out very fully in the Amendment separate provisions corresponding to those of paragraphs 26 to 28 about the consequences of bail-breaking (the forfeiture of the recognisance and the arrest of the bail-breaker).
The way in which the Government's Amendment differs from the Opposition's Amendment No. 127 is in that the question of continued detention or release is to be decided by an adjudicator rather than by a magistrate. In other words, having heard the debate in another place, my right honourable friend accepted the case on its merits. But he felt that the most appropriate body of people to consider applications of this sort would be the adjudicators within the immigration appeal system, rather than the magistrates. The adjudicator has special knowledge of immigration control, and we believe that he would be better qualified than a magistrate to assess the need for continued detention and the degree of risk involved in releasing the person concerned before a decision on his admission is reached.
That, I think, is all I need say, since we are now coming up to seven o'clock. We accept the principle. We feel that the adjudicator would be a more appropriate person than a magistrate to decide.
LORD GARDINER: There are a number of points which I should like to raise, if I may.
LORD WINDLESHAM: In that case, I beg to move that the House do now resume for an hour until eight o'clock.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

FARM CAPITAL GRANT (VARIATION) SCHEME 1971
7.0 p.m.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I beg to move that the Farm Capital Grant (Variation) Scheme 1971, which was laid before the House on July 8, be approved; and perhaps it may be for the convenience of your Lordships' House if, at the same time, we discuss the Farm Capital Grant (Variation) (Scotland) Scheme 1971, which is the subject of the next Motion.
My Lords, if I may, I will deal' at the outset with a minor drafting point which these two Statutory Instruments seek to clarify in relation to paragraph 5(1) of the principal Farm Capital Grant Schemes, which are now the unified Schemes for grant aid. This is to be found in paragraph 2(a) of the Variation Schemes, and makes it clear that applications made under the principal Schemes before the closing date qualify only for consideration for grant, and would not qualify automatically for grant solely by virtue of being made before the closing date.
The main purpose of the Variation Schemes is to provide a special rate of grant to growers as an incentive to grub up unwanted apple and pear orchards of dessert and culinary varieties. The apple and pear industry to-day contains many growers who have equipped and improved their businesses, at no small cost to themselves, to a high level of competitive efficiency. The industry has done a great deal to help itself by introducing better methods of husbandry, better methods of storage and better methods of grading their produce. The Apple and Pear Development Council, while devoting itself primarily to the promotion of home-grown fruit, has also carried out research and other tasks important to the organisation and development of a competitive and effective industry. But, my Lords, these efforts by growers are being undermined by the haphazard marketing of mediocre fruit from orchards which are commercially barely viable or from pockets of old orchard land on farms which receive little care and attention. Such orchards are a burden on the rest of the industry. Their fruit reaches the market during the autumn and early winter, when supplies from the regular commercial growers are most
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freely available; and since the growers concerned have little or no interest in the long-term commercial future of apple production, they are often adequately satisfied to take whatever short-term return they can get. This, of course, can be highly disruptive of the market, and can have a serious effect for the regular supplier, on whom we must in the end depend for our supplies of good quality, home-grown fruit.
The new grant is intended to remove this source of weakness by encouraging the owners of these barely viable orchards to get rid of them once and for all. The grant will be at the full rate of standard grubbing costs, as fixed by Ministers. The standard costs run from 13p to £1·82 per tree, according to the tree's girth, and they are based on direct labour costs. The grant will become payable, if your Lordships approve these Orders, from September 1, and applications may be made up to March 31, 1973. Its life will therefore be quite short, for the aim is to encourage something of a crash programme of grubbing. It is no part of the purpose of these Schemes for orchards which are grubbed up with their assistance to be replanted with new apple and pear trees. The grant will therefore be subject to a no-replanting condition which will run for five years from the completion of grubbing. I would stress that this is a major difference from the old and lower grants for orchard grubbing, which will still continue to be available. Indeed, the present grubbing grant will continue to run concurrently with the new grant. Fruit growers who want to grub up trees in order to renovate their orchards as a matter of good husbandry will still, therefore, be able to apply for grant under the existing Schemes. There have been full consultations with the farmers' unions over the new Schemes, and they have been welcomed by the horticultural industry. I hope that the need for them cannot be doubted, and I invite your Lordships to approve these two Statutory Instruments. I beg to move the first Order.
Moved, That the Farm Capital Grant (Variation) Scheme 1971, be approved.—(Earl Ferrers.)
7.7 p.m.
LORD HOY: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, for

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explaining these Orders. There are only one or two points I wish to put to him. First of all, I should like to associate myself with the tribute, if such it was—and I think he meant it as such—to the Apple and Pear Development Council, because I think that this Council, under the chairmanship of Sir Richard Boughey, has really done a first-class job at minimum cost for the apple and pear industry, and I am grateful to have the opportunity once more, and for the first time in your Lordships' House, to put my personal appreciation on record. We are grateful to the noble Earl for the clarification he gave when introducing this Order, because without it I think it might quite well have been misunderstood. I can only hope that the Order in fact carries out what the noble Earl has told the House, and that we shall not get into further trouble over some interpretation.
As I understand it, what is being done is to provide an Order which will enable the grubbing of trees to be carried out once and for all; so that it is entirely different, really, from the present Order, with which it will run concurrently. The present Order, of course, provides grants of something between 33⅓ per cent. and 40 per cent., but this is for people who really are in business, to encourage them to take out trees which have become less productive and to replace them. This Order will apply only to those who, I understand, will remove the trees once and for all; and for that reason I found it just a little difficult to understand the last two words of the Explanatory Note, which says that this is subject to a specified condition"restricting planting ". I take it from what the noble Earl has said to your Lordships this afternoon that"restricting planting"is equivalent to the prohibition of planting; but it seemed to me to be a peculiar phrase to use in the Order. As I see it, however, and as I gather from what the noble Earl has had to say, what this will do will be to remove what on the whole are regarded as uneconomic orchards—that is, those of a smaller type—and take them out of production altogether.
As a result of this, I do not think it will have any great appeal to the larger grower, who will in fact be prepared to carry on under the Orders at present in operation. But inasmuch as it appeals to those people who produce uneconomically
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and bring their produce on to the market at particular times, which frequently causes disruption and which indeed makes it non-profitable for those who really are engaged in the industry not only to provide food but to earn their livelihood, and inasmuch as it goes any way to meet that difficulty, then we welcome it. I thought we might have had one word of explanation as to why cider apples and other things did not qualify for this particular grant. Obviously, there must be a good reason for it, and perhaps when the noble Earl comes to say just a word or two in reply he will be able to tell us. We will then all understand completely what the Order is about.
7.10 p.m.
EARL FERRERS: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hoy, for the welcome he has given these Orders. I should like to clarify the point about which he seemed to be in doubt. The purpose of the original scheme, which is going to run concurrently, is to encourage existing commercial apple growers to grub up old orchards which are no longer particularly fruitful and to replace them with new. But there are a number of growers who have had their orchards going for some years, sometimes for as much as forty years, who do not bother to take much care of them and who at harvest time collect apples and dump them on the market. This"mucks up"the whole market organisation—usually at a time of glut. Therefore the object of this Order is to encourage these people by means of a grant higher than the existing grant to remove their apple trees once and for all.
The noble Lord was right to interpret the last two words of the Explanatory Memorandum as restricting replanting operations. That is so. It is the principle of the Government to prevent people who do apply for such grants from replanting the same area of land within five years. Of course, should a person accept the grant, grub up his orchards and later sell his land to somebody who may wish to go into apple growing, this will not restrict the new owner from so doing. The whole purpose of the Order is to exclude the possibility of persons getting a larger grubbing-up grant and then re-planting their orchards. The

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noble Lord asked why cider apples were not included in this scheme. The reason is a simple one: that those who grow cider apples usually do so on contract, with a firm base for their outlet. It is not considered that those people are usually the cause of market disruption. I hope that with that explanation the noble Lord will be happy.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, may I ask one question? Is it estimated, calculated or considered that the disruption of the market caused by these people with inferior orchards will be greater than the disruption to the market, when we are in the Common Market, caused by supplies from Europe.
EARL FERRERS: The noble Lord has put forward a crafty point, but I think that even he would agree that if these apples were on the market at the same time, even if we were in the Common Market, it would lead to greater disruption than was in the mind of the noble Lord when he asked the question.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

FARM CAPITAL GRANTL (VAR IATION) (SCOTLAND) SCHEME 1971
THE MINISTER OF STATE, SCOTTISH OFFICE (BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE): My Lords, I beg to move that this Order be approved. It has been considered with the first Order.
Moved, That the Farm Capital Grant (Variation) (Scotland) Scheme 1971, be approved.—(Baroness Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

WHITE FISH (INSHORE VESSELS) AND HERRING SUBSIDIES (UNITED KINGDOM) SCHEME 1971
7.14 p.m.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I beg to move that the White Fish (Inshore Vessels) and Herring Subsidies (United Kingdom) Scheme 1971 be approved. The Scheme before your Lordships to-day provides for the payment of operating subsidies to the inshore and herring fleets for the
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twelve months from August 1 next. The Scheme covers white fish vessels under 80 ft. in length and all herring vessels, although almost all of the latter are also under 80 ft. The Government propose that for a further year the subsidy rates now payable should remain unchanged. In the review on which we based this decision, account was taken of profitability in 1970, when average profits, before depreciation, showed a further healthy increase of about 30 per cent. compared to 1969. Earnings in 1970 from white fish and herring catches for the vessels concerned by the Scheme were £22·8 million: an increase of £3·5 million over 1969. Since the beginning of this year, earnings have continued to rise, and at present stand about 24 per cent. higher than the same period of last year.
In the Government's view, the industry is generally in a very healthy state financially, and it is our policy to try to ensure that this continues. I therefore suggest to your Lordships that the subsidy settlement is a generous one, and I commend it to your Lordships. The Scheme itself, apart from some very minor drafting changes, is in the same form as that approved by your Lordships a year ago. I beg to move.
Moved, That the White Fish (Inshore Vessels) and Herring Subsidies (United Kingdom) Scheme 1971, be approved.—(Baroness Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie.)
7.16 p.m.
LORD HOY: My Lords, it has been the custom for as long as I can remember that when we came to deal with fish Orders of this kind—and those who were Members of another place will confirm this—we regarded it as an opportunity for saying something about the fishing industry in general. This was the Order on which we always"hung our hats ". The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, replying to the debate in the other place on this particular Order, said that it provided an opportunity of discussing everything about the fishing industry. I do not propose to discuss everything; but there are certain points arising from it. First, as to the health of the industry: one is delighted to note that it is doing so well, that the foundation which one had some hand in laying has provided the results which the noble Baroness was able to announce one year later. I was grateful to her for the most

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recent figures that she gave. I was glad that she left out of her remarks something put in by the Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, who, in introducing the Order into the other place, said that the industry has done rather well and"we are leaving them with the money ". He issued a kind of warning that the Government might not be so generous next year. All I can say is that these words take away a little of the gilt from the ginger bread. Let us consider that matter next year. If the industry has not done well in the concluding part of this year perhaps it will come back and ask for additions.
It is good to know that the industry is in a fairly healthy condition, but there are one or two things worrying those concerned at the moment. First, the industry would like to know what its position is going to be if we go in the Common Market because subsidies play a considerable part in its net earnings. I think it is true to say that without the subsidies the industry would have been in a very nearly impossible position. Obviously, if this change into a wider market is going to take place, the industry would want to know what is going to be its position vis-à-vis subsidies. Secondly, the industry has been troubled, I think unnecessarily, about the extent of fishing limits. Under the new agreement, as I understand it, the present limit up to six miles is the strict preserve of the British fishing fleets; no one can come inside that 6-mile limit. Between 6 miles and 12 miles there are certain countries with historical fishing rights who, even at the present time, can come in and fish. If any alteration is going to be made, perhaps the noble Baroness might spell out just what other countries may be entitled to come inside this band in addition to those which at present enjoy that right.
A third problem has been raised recently. It is the announcement by Iceland that she proposes to extend her fishing limits to 50 miles. I do not want to say anything which would cause any trouble about this proposal, because it is only a short time ago since I had the privilege of visiting Iceland as the guest of the Government and met a warm and kindly welcome from the people there. When we remember the troubles we faced together in time of war, we are grateful
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for the friendship that existed between the two countries. But if they are proposing to extend their limits to 50 miles, this will have grave repercussions on our fishing industry. It is not good enough for people to claim limits for themselves without thinking of the repercussions that will follow. Our distant water fleet depends on fishing grounds in that band, and if changes are going to take place it means that the distant water fleet will have to concentrate on the fishing grounds which are already available to us and the situation will become more and more difficult for the industry as a whole, because of the intrusion of the distant water fleet into the grounds used by the middle water and even near water fleets. So this proposal does not fill the fishermen with great happiness.
One or two points arise from such a decision. These limits are fixed by the Law of the Sea Conference and I understand that the next conference is not due until 1973. I should think that the decisions made at the last Law of the Sea Conference were binding on all the countries concerned, but it would be as well if the noble Baroness could say to-night that it is the view of the Government that that decision is binding and that any proposed changes to be made before 1973 should be challenged at the International Court. It is difficult for an industry like the fishing industry to plan its future and the building of boats if it does not know what fishing grounds are going to be available to it. This is a repercussion which can have disastrous effects not only on the fishing industry as such but also on boat builders and all the ancillary industries. While we are all glad to know that the industry has done so well over the past 12 months, we must not shut our eyes to what is worrying it at present.
Though this is not in the Order, I was glad to hear announced only to-day by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food an increase of £400,000 in the grants to the distant water fleet. I have no objection to this. They do a very good job of work. But even with all the success they have had over the past 12 months, it seems that the Government have had to provide another £400,000 in subsidies and, as I know from my experience in the Ministry and certainly from my experience of the Treasury, the fishermen would not get that increase if the

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Minister had not put up a very concrete case. If the noble Baroness could reply to these points, we should all be grateful to her.
7.23 p.m.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I have always been told that there are not quite the same strict rules of order in your Lordships' House as can be found in another place, and on this Order, which is limited to the white fish and herring industry subsidies for next year, we have given ourselves an opportunity of what I think is a useful discussion on some of the main problems which are before the fishing industry as a whole. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hoy, for having welcomed the Order. I should also like to pay tribute to the fact that he was responsible for the foundations of the successful operations, the results of which have been given to the House tonight.
The noble Lord asked me four main questions. The first is: what is the position of the fishing industry under the Common Market regulations and what is the position of subsidies? This is a very important point. It is true that there is nothing yet definite, because the E.E.C. still has to agree on the forms of the Community subsidies to the fishing industry. On the other hand, at the moment it appears unlikely that the United Kingdom would be able to continue the operating subsidies, either for the inshore or the deep-sea fleets, after entry into the E.E.C. That is as we see it at present, but if we did abolish the subsidies we could raise fishermen's incomes in two main ways: first, by increasing grants and loans for vessels and equipment or by price support for minimum prices, while not necessarily increasing the prevailing market prices, which would cut out low prices owing to glut conditions and would give compensation under such conditions. Thus fishermen's average earnings might be expected to be at a higher level.
The noble Lord also asked about fishing limits and said, quite rightly, that there is a good deal of confusion about them. There is considerable confusion in the public mind. It is not realised that the United Kingdom has a 12-mile limit, which was agreed at the 1964 Fisheries
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Convention and which reserves to the United Kingdom all waters within 12 miles measured from base lines. As the noble Lord will know, as the base lines were drawn on the West side of the Long Isle, this has the effect in practice of including within our exclusive limits a greater area than might at first be supposed. Following the 1964 Fisheries Conference, the United Kingdom granted a number of specific rights to other countries who, as the noble Lord said, base their claims on historic rights. This was fishing for certain species of fish in defined areas between the 6-mile and 12-mile belt; and because these concessions exist around our coast there has grown up a kind of notion in the public mind of an exclusive 6-mile limit.
The noble Lord asked which countries would be likely to come in, were we to allow fishing between the 6-mile and the 12-mile belts beyond those members already fishing there, who are Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Eire, and whose rights are in perpetuity. There is also Norway, which has rights up to 1984. The noble Lord, Lord Hoy, will recall that Norway did not sign the 1964 Convention. The country which would be most interested in being able to join us in fishing between the 6-mile and the 12-mile limit would be Denmark. I do not think that Italy or Luxembourg would be very interested in this method of fishing.
But we did not ask for an exclusive 12-mile limit, because it would diminish the rights of the Community countries who have already got rights between the 6-mile and the 12-mile limit. If we look to the status quo as a permanent solution, this would imply a measure of discrimination between those who have already the right to fish in the 6-mile and the 12-mile belt and, for example. Denmark, the country most likely to wish to have that right. That is why we put forward a compromise proposal and suggested that the only satisfactory way of resolving the Community's fishery problem, as an enlarged Community, is to restrict fishing in waters within our 6-mile limit, as measured from the base lines, to vessels belonging to the ports from which these waters are now being fished—in other words, our own vessels—and that therefore we would consider opening the 6-mile to 12-mile fishing

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limits to those countries who apply to join the European Community.
The noble Lord asked me about Iceland. I must say that I am glad he has raised this question, even if it does refer particularly to the deep water fleet, because it is an important matter to our fishing industry. As the noble Lord has said the Icelandic Government has announced its intention of extending its limits up to 50 miles by September, 1972. The noble Lord asked me to give the Government's position on this matter. I would say quite categorically that we consider that to extend fishery limits beyond 12 miles is contrary to international law and is also contrary to the 1961 Agreement, which first of all said that we should have consultation and at least six months' notice, and that if no agreement was reached then, we should bring the matter to the International Court. At the moment, we have made our position on this matter quite clear through our Ambassador in Iceland, and we are trying hard to clarify the position.
The noble Lord mentioned the United Nations Law of the Sea Conference in 1973, and that brings back memories of when the noble Lord and myself were members of the Council of Europe at Strasbourg. We raised the question of fishing limits, and I think there were few countries on the Continent at the time who realised the importance of fishing to some of the nations represented round that conference table. We have a preparatory committee at work at the moment in Geneva, and it is here that we shall hope to get the preliminary statement of Iceland's position, when we shall of course make our own position absolutely clear. On this point I would say that in 1970 the distant water fleet took off Iceland about £12 million worth of fish from the waters in that region: the corresponding Scottish figure is considerably less, but it is also of great significance to us namely, £750,000.
Lastly the noble Lord mentioned the fact that he had seen on the tape—and I think he must have had word of this before—
LORD HOY: No.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: All I can say to the noble Lord is——
LORD HOY: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness, but the tape apparently had more information than your Lordships' House. I had to go out and get it from the tape.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I think it was probably because it was in answer to a Written Question which should have become available at six o'clock in another place. It is quite true that my right honourable friends have decided to make a change in the deep sea subsidy arrangements for the two years commencing August 1 of this year, which will have the effect of increasing the operating subsidy by £400,000, subject to the existing maximum of £4 million in any 12 months' period. There are considerable details as to this, but I do not think at this hour the House would wish me to go into them. The position in the deep water fleet, as the noble Lord knows well, is that these subsidies are payable for three years at a time, while the subsidies which are before the House and we are now discussing are reviewed every year. Therefore, I would return the House to the Order which is before us, and hope that your Lordships will approve it.
LORD BURTON: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, may I ask her two questions? She has given us some interesting facts on the limits to the fishing, but I believe that one of the things that concerns the public at large is the type of fishing, and in particular the mesh of the nets used by a number of Continental countries which will come within the area. Will there be any restriction on these? Furthermore, there is concern about the amount of poaching and illegal fishing at night around our coast. I wonder whether anything further will be done to try to improve our fishery protection.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, in answer to my noble friend's first question, as to the limitation of net size and the type of fishing, this of course is subject to the international agreements on this matter to which we are a party. On the second question, about trying to contain poaching, I cannot at this moment give any indication that we are about to start on a large building programme of more fishery protection vessels. However, I

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would say that we are well aware of the necessity not only of trying to contain poaching through our own fleet, but also with the help of the Royal Navy.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

PRICE STABILITY OF IMPORTED PRODUCTS (SPECIFIED COMMODITIES) (POULTRY MEAT) ORDER 1971
7.35 p.m.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I beg to move that the Price Stability of Imported Products (Specified Commodities) (Poultry Meat) Order 1971, laid before your Lordships' House on July 20, be approved. The Order is made under Section 1 of the Agriculture and Horticulture Act 1964 which enables Ministers to make Orders introducing minimum import price and levy arrangements
" in the interest of maintaining in the United Kingdom a stable market for agricultural and horticultural produce of any description produced in the United Kingdom ".
As your Lordships will see from its title, this Order is about poultry meat; and I shall start by explaining why the Government are now asking your Lordships to approve it. Imports of uncooked poultry meat into the United Kingdom have been prohibited on veterinary grounds from most countries in the world since 1955. During that time the Government have tried to control fowl pest, first by a policy of slaughter and compensation, and more recently by the use of dead vaccine. Either policy would have been prejudiced if we had allowed the import of birds from countries allowing the use of live vaccine. However, the Government decided last December to allow the use of live vaccine in this country, and in announcing this decision my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food announced that once live vaccine was effectively in general use the present veterinary controls on imports would no longer be required or indeed be justified. From October 1 imports will be permitted, subject to official veterinary certification, from countries which have not in the past been able to send poultry meat to this country.
However, my right honourable friend also made it clear that, before the time came to remove the present veterinary restrictions, the Government would be
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considering what measures were necessary to prevent"unduly low-priced"imports. There is no doubt about the need for such measures. In all the highly developed poultry industries of the world there are periods of over-production. When that happens, one way of bringing the market into equilibrium again is to export some of the excess stocks. But the number of export markets is very small—many countries have import restrictions of one sort or another—and so the competition for export markets is intense. When the prime object is to liquidate excess supplies, export prices may be accepted that are very low indeed. This can have very disruptive effects even on a highly efficient poultry industry like our own. The interests of producers and consumers alike require that the industry should operate in conditions of reasonable stability. These conditions cannot be maintained if the market is undermined by the threat of disruptive imports. We are therefore anxious to ensure that our industry can continue to meet—as it has in the past—the needs of virtually the whole of the home market at very reasonable prices.
With this end in view, the Government have decided to introduce minimum import price arrangements, and my right honourable friend gave details of the proposed arrangements to the House of Commons on July 19. The first step in introducing them is to specify the commodities concerned, and that is what this Order does. It specifies dead poultry—fowls, ducks, geese, turkeys and guinea fowls—as commodities for which Orders may be made prescribing minimum import price levels and charging levies to maintain those levels. The Order covers all uncooked poultry meat, whether fresh, chilled or frozen and whether in the form of whole birds or parts of birds. The further Orders prescribing the actual levels of minimum import prices and the arrangements for charging levies will be laid before Parliament in due course; but, as I said, the details of the Government's proposals were announced on July 19 so that your Lordships should be in a position to see how the Government intended to use these powers. With that explanation, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Price Stability of Imported Products (Specified Commodities) (Poultry Meat) Order 1971, be approved.—(Earl Ferrers.)
LORD HOY: I am grateful to the noble Earl for what he has said about this Order and the proposals which were announced on July 19. Indeed, when the Order came to be presented in another place on, I think, July 30, not a single word was said, because on Friday afternoons Members are all in"another place"and if you want to get an Order through, that is the time to take it. So there was no debate at all upon this Order and this is the first time it will have been discussed in either House. One sympathises with the poultry industry because of the tremendous slaughter that took place due to fowl pest disease. Indeed the Government, I think even against their will, adopted the policy of using dead vaccine to cope with the trouble, because up until then its use was not permitted in this country. As a consequence, obviously we did not allow importation from other countries where the vaccine was used. This was the sole reason for the tremendous slaughter which the industry had to bear.
May I ask one other question? It is true, of course, that one ought not to allow the whole industry to be disrupted by very cheaply produced or subsidised exports from countries other than our own, countries that may well be faced with surplus quantities and who might decide to get rid of them at cheap prices by exporting them to this country. It seems to me that we must not reach a position where this is used as a reason for allowing prices to get out of balance in this country. This is the second Order of this kind that we have had—at least we had a similar one on meat prices—and the more we restrict the industry in this way quite obviously the higher prices are going to get. At the end of the day it is the housewife who will have to pay these increased prices. The production of poultry in this country has made remarkable strides. Its contribution to the meat supply of the country is very great indeed compared with a few years ago. We are entitled to ask the Government for an assurance that, while they may be protecting our home industry, which is a first-class industry, producing very efficiently indeed, advantage will not be taken of that position to pass on further increases to the housewives of this country. Therefore, while we may have no objection to the Order on that
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score, at least we are entitled to ask for an assurance.
Indeed, I should like to put one further question to the noble Earl, because while he says that this Order is made under Section 1(2) of the principal Act, under a further section—and he will know the one to which I refer—provision is also given to the Government to cancel these levies for certain reasons. As I understand it, if this has to be done, again it must be done by Order. Subsection 3(a) says that the Government
" may by order provide for the granting…of allowances or reliefs in respect of the levy (if any) chargeable on the imported commodity."
So obviously, having taken that provision under the principal Act, it was done for some reason. I should like to know, if in fact it was found that these levies were proving impossible and were putting up prices to the consumer and the housewife, what powers the Government have to remove them, apart from another Order, because subsection 3(a) says that,"it may by Order provide ".
I wonder whether this is the quickest way to deal with this problem if it should arise. I ask this not only so that we may have an assurance about prices, but also to inquire what will happen if they reach the stage at which prices are rising and levies are not required. What speedy action can we then take to protect the housewife from the high prices she would be asked to pay? I am sure that the House will be grateful if the noble Earl can reply to these points.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his welcome of this Order. At the outset he referred quite rightly to the fact that this was required because of the problems of fowl pest by which we have been beset in this country over the last few years. It is a measure of the effectiveness and indeed the efficiency of the British poultry industry, that, despite the ghastly problems of fowl pest—and they have been monumental: first of all with the slaughtering and compensation policy, whereby huge numbers of birds were slaughtered, and then by means of the dead vaccine which was not wholly effective; then by the current use of the live vaccine, which is not 100 per cent. effective either—they have

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managed to overcome these problems and still remain highly competitive. I can assure the noble Lord that the minimum import prices which it is intended to lay on the poultry industry will not result in a method of subsidising unfairly the home-produced commodity because if he knows, as I am sure he does, of the complexities of the poultry industry, he will know that in fact they have run into considerable problems in the past and that it is not an industry where vast sums of money are readily to be made, simply because there is always the ever-present danger of over-production.
LORD HOY: I think the noble Earl has misunderstood me. I was not talking about a subsidy: what I wanted was an assurance that this Order will not result in unfair price increases to the housewife. Someone has to carry the burden if levies are imposed—someone has to pay for them—and all I ask for is an assurance that this will not be used as a method for increasing prices to the housewife.
EARL FERRERS: I did not misunderstand the noble Lord, but probably I did not express myself quite accurately enough. This will not be used as a method of keeping up prices, or rather charging an unfair price to the housewife. All that it will do is to prevent very low-priced imports coming into this country which may be almost equivalent to dumping. This, as I am sure the noble Lord will appreciate, is not something which is required in order to keep any form of market stable.
On his second point about the alteration of the levies, this is done by Orders which are subject to the Negative Resolution procedure, and a new Order can be laid very quickly should it be found that any untoward effect is occurring. I think the noble Lord need have no doubt of the fact that it is the Government's intention that the minimum import prices should be such as to make the home-produced product adequately and reasonably competitive and merely to prevent the virtual dumping of unduly low-priced poultry meat.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

MEDICINES (RETAIL PHARMACISTS—EXEMPTIONS F R 0 M LICENSING REQUIREMENTS) ORDER 1971
7.50 p.m.
LORD ABERDARE LORD ABERDARE moved, That the Draft Medicines (Retail Pharmacists—Exemptions from Licensing Requirements) Order 1971, laid before the House on July 21, be approved.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Order makes certain modifications of exemptions from the licensing provisions of the Medicines Act 1968, under which, in general, persons manufacturing and dealing in medicinal products will require to hold licences. The exemptions in the Act mainly relate to small scale activities carried on by persons who prepare or supply medicinal products as part of their professional functions as medical and veterinary practitioners, nurses and pharmacists, and the Act enables orders to be made modifying or extending these exemptions. This draft Order is to be made in pursuance of this power so as to modify the provisions about retail pharmacists. During the extensive consultations with representative bodies which have taken place in the last year or so, it became evident that the provisions on this matter were unsatisfactory in certain respects. This Order embodies the results of those discussions. It restricts and clarifies the provisions in some respects and extends them in others. If any of your Lordships want a further explanation of various articles in this Order, I shall be happy to explain them, but I understand that they are entirely acceptable to the representative bodies. I therefore beg to move.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords. I wish to thank the Minister for his very clear explanation. In the event of our needing further information we shall certainly know where to seek it.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
LORD ABERDARE: I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until 8 o'clock.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House adjourned during pleasure.
8.0 p.m.
House resumed.

IMMIGRATION BILL
House again in Committee on Amendment No. 127.
LORD GARDINER: We have had an opportunity during the adjournment of considering both Amendment No. 127, which is ours, and Amendment No. 131 which will be proposed later. I appreciate that the point which we were seeking to make has been sought to be met by the Government. When we come to deal with that in detail there are one or two criticisms I will make. For the time being, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD WINDLESHAM: This Amendment, No. 128, is consequential on Amendment No. 109 on which my noble friend Lord Denham spoke earlier. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 45, line 28, after (" Kingdom ") insert (" or before the directions for his removal have been fulfilled ").—(Lord Windlesham.)
LORD GARDINER: I am sorry, but neither my noble friend Lady White nor I can understand this. I am sure that it is our fault. We understand subsection (4) as it is in the Bill:
The captain of a ship or aircraft, if so required by an immigration officer, shall prevent from disembarking in the United Kingdom any person placed on board the ship or aircraft under paragraph 11 or 15 above, and the captain may for that purpose detain him in custody on board the ship or aircraft.
If after the word"Kingdom"you insert:
" or before the directions for his removal have been fulfilled "
I do not understand where the alternative comes in:
"…shall prevent from disembarking in the United Kingdom or before the directions for his removal have been fulfilled…".
It is probably entirely our fault, but it is not so worded to be clear to us.
LORD WINDLESHAM: The Amendment was debated earlier and it may be for the convenience of the Committee if I repeat the explanation. Amendment 128, in paragraph 17 of Schedule 2, has as its purpose to ensure that where directions are given under paragraphs 8 to 14 of the Schedule after refusal of entry or illegal entry, or under paragraph
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1 of Schedule 3, which concerns deportation, for the removal of a person from the United Kingdom, the captain of the ship or aircraft may be required to prevent a person from disembarking until the directions are fulfilled; and the captain has express legal authority to detain him on board until he reaches his destination. I understand that as the Bill stands, unamended, there is the anomaly that although the removal directions will specify a destination and the person concerned has art appeal as to destination under Clause 17 although in some cases exercisable only after removal, the captain of the ship or aircraft to whom the directions are given has no clear authority to enforce them by restraining the person from attempting to disembark at some other destination.
The Amendment is being made, as my noble friend Lord Denham mentioned earlier, at the suggestion of the Chamber of Shipping and B.O.A.C., in order to ensure that a carrying company is not put at risk of legal action being taken against it in this country because it has sought to enforce directions lawfully given to it by the Immigration Service. Noble Lords will appreciate that we cannot give protection against legal proceedings brought overseas. I hope that that explanation is helpful to the Committee.
BARONESS WHITE: I am sorry, but perhaps as we are getting towards the end of the Bill we are becoming peculiarly dense. If the noble Lord would be good enough to read sub-paragraph (4) of paragraph 16 in the Schedule (the noble Lord referred to paragraph 17, but according to us it is paragraph 16) he will appreciate that while from the point of view of drafting it may not be inaccurate, it is surely inelegant. It does not seem to flow at all, with the peculiar alternative suddenly coming in the middle. My noble and learned friend and I do not wish to make heavy weather of the Amendment, but on reading it we both find it extraordinarily difficult to follow.
LORD WINDLESHAM: I will certainly arrange for this to be checked with the draftsmen. If two noble Members of the Benches opposite, after study, have found it difficult to follow, it may be that some small rearrangement of the words would make the matter clearer. If things can be expressed more clearly I am sure that it would be in all our interests.
LORD GARDINER: The word"or"ordinarily postulates an alternative; it appears to be an alternative as to the time when something can be done. It says:
" or before the directions for his removal have been fulfilled ".
But there is no alternative of time. The sub-paragraph simply provides that the captain can prevent from disembarking in the United Kingdom
" any person placed on board the ship ",
and so on. But I think the noble Earl, Lord Balfour, has an explanation.
THE EARL OF BALFOUR: I win sorry to interrupt, but I am wondering whether line 28 should in fact have been line 23. It seems to fit in there very well.
LORD WINDLESHAM: I will take note of that observation as well, and if there is a need for clarification I will come back at Report stage.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
8.10 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY LORD BROCKWAY moved Amendment No. 128D:
Page 46, line 7, leave out (" photographing, measuring or otherwise ").
The noble Lord said: This is a new matter. It refers to paragraph 18(2) on page 46, which reads:
" Where a person is detained under paragraph 16, any immigration officer, constable or prison officer, or any other person authorised by the Secretary of State, may take all such steps as may be reasonably necessary for photographing, measuring or otherwise identifying him."
Paragraph 16(1) on the previous page reads:
" A person who may be required to submit to examination under paragraph 2 above may be detained under the authority of an immigration officer pending his examination and pending a decision to give or refuse him leave to enter."
That is to say, he has not been found guilty; he is to submit to examination pending a decision.
My concern here is that it would be undesirable to create a"rogues' gallery ". I recognise that it is not disputed that reasonable steps should be taken to identify persons, but only in the last resort should these means of photographing, et cetera, be applied. There is too much tendency to-day to use photographs to identify suspected persons and I hope that the Minister may be able
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to give us an assurance that this is not going to become a general practice. I beg to move.
LORD WIN D LESHAM: Paragraph 18(2) of the Schedule to which the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, has drawn our attention provides that where a person is detained pending a decision on his entry, or pending removal from this country, steps may be taken to photograph, measure or otherwise identify him. These steps may be taken by an immigration officer, a police officer, a prison officer or any other person authorised by the Secretary of State.
Here again, corresponding powers are given by the existing law—the Aliens Order 1953, and the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962. I understand that these powers are used, in practice, primarily for providing the passport-issuing authorities of other countries with the information they need to issue a travel document to one of their own nationals who has arrived here without documents and has been refused entry. They can also be used to identify a person for other purposes: for example, in order to determine whether or not he is identical with someone who has a criminal record in this country. In practice, any photographing is normally done by an immigration officer, a police officer or a prison officer; but there have been occasions on which it has been convenient to have it done by others, such as police civilian employees. I can assure the noble Lord that this work does not form part of the duties of any Securicor employees. The words in question,"photographing, measuring or otherwise ", to which the noble Lord has drawn attention, are taken from the existing law and, because of the requirements of the passport-issuing procedure, it is important that the scope of the power under paragraph 18(2) should be not less than that of the existing provisions.
There is no question of a"rogues' gallery"being built up here. Failing the power sought to be deleted by Amendment No. 28D there would inevitably be increased delay, involving longer detention. When a passenger arrives without a passport or travel document—and unfortunately, as the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, knows, there are such cases—if he is refused entry the Amendment would mean that he would be likely to be

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held in detention longer while arrangements were made for him to return to his own country. Without a power of this sort it is difficult to envisage how the passport-issuing authorities in the countries concerned would be able to issue a passport to one of their nationals who was not in their country but who might be held in detention at London Airport. With that explanation I hope that the noble Lord may be satisfied and feel able to withdraw his Amendment.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: In relation to getting a passport from the original country, of course no-one will have any objection to that; but that should be covered by saying"with the person's consent ". Where it is not with the person's consent my noble friend is worried. I am not absolutely happy to think—I am open to conviction—that somebody who has not been convicted of anything should be photographed or otherwise measured. I am not sure that this is a good thing from the point of view of civil liberties. I do not wish to make a case of it but I would like to hear a little more about what other purposes this might be used for and which a person may not consent to.
LORD WINDLESHAM: The only information I have before me is what I have given. I am informed that the powers are used primarily for providing the passport-issuing authorities of other countries with information. There was a second point I mentioned, that the provision could be used to identify a person for other purposes, for example in order to determine whether he was identical with someone with a criminal record. I think we must take it that the first category would be the largest. I can envisage, as no doubt the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, can, the case of a person who seeks entry to this country without a passport or entry documents. These are persons who for various reasons feel compelled to come and there has to be some way of arranging for them to be documented if they are to return.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: That would be with their consent, would it not?
LORD WINDLESHAM: Some people have arrived in desperate conditions; they have sometimes travelled halfway
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across the world to try to gain entry into this country. They may have defaced or destroyed their passport in the process. If they have gone to those lengths they might easily feel they were not willing to consent to any measure which might lead to their being returned to their own country. I am afraid that in some cases it would be without the consent of the individual.
LORD BROCKWAY: Paragraph 16 concerns people who have not been found guilty. They are only under examination. Of course I accept the Minister's statement, and I would like to believe that the primary purpose is to supply passport photographs. If that is so, the phrase"with consent"would meet that situation. But one is concerned that people who have not yet been found guilty should have to pass through this identification procedure which, to put it mildly, must be humiliating to them. However, in view of the fact that the Minister says that the majority are desired for passport photographs, and hoping that he may consider the proposal to adopt the words"with their consent ", I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD DENHAM LORD DENHAM moved Amendment No. 129:
Page 47, line 4, at end insert—
(".—(1) Subject to the provisions of this paragraph, in either of the following cases, that is to say,

(a) where directions are given in respect of an illegal entrant under paragraph 9 or 10 above; and

(b) where a person has lawfully entered the United Kingdom without leave by virtue of section 8(1) of this Act, but directions are given in respect of him under paragraph 13(2)(a) above or, in a case within paragraph 13(2)(a), under paragraph 14;

the owners or agents of the ship or aircraft in which he arrived in the United Kingdom shall be liable to pay the Secretary of State on demand any expenses incurred by the latter in respect of the custody, accommodation or maintenance of that person at any time after his arrival while he was detained or liable to be detained under paragraph 16 above.
(2) If, before the directions for a person's removal from the United Kingdom have been carried out, he is given leave to remain in the United Kingdom, no sum shall be demanded under sub-paragraph (1) above for expenses incurred in respect of that person and any sum already demanded and paid shall be refunded.

1111
(3) Sub-paragraph (1) above shall not have effect in relation to directions which, in consequence of an appeal under this Act, are for the time being of no effect; and the expenses to which that sub-paragraph applies include expenses in conveying the person in question to and from the place where he is detained or accommodated unless the journey is made for the purpose of attending an appeal by him under this Act.").
The noble Lord said: On behalf of my noble friend, I beg to move Amendment No. 129. This Amendment inserts in Schedule 2 an additional paragraph relating to the liability of carrying companies for detention costs. Paragraph 19 of the Schedule already provides, with certain exceptions, that where leave to enter has been refused, the cost of detaining a passenger pending removal is to be borne by the carrying company which brought him here. The corresponding provisions of the existing law—that is, the Immigration Appeals Act 1969, Section 21(1), and the Aliens Order 1969, Article 2, subsection (1)—apply not only where entry has been refused but also where directions are given for the removal of an illegal entrant or crew member without an express refusal.
These cases were overlooked when paragraph 19 of the Bill was being prepared. It is the Government's intention that the scope of the carrier's liability for detention costs should be no less and no greater than under the present law. The purpose of this Amendment is to give effect to this intention by making provision, parallel to that made by paragraph 19 for ordinary passengers, for detention costs in respect of illegal entrants and crew members overstaying shore leave. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD DENHAM: Amendment No. 130 is consequential on Amendment No. 103, which has already been accepted by your Lordships. I say that with slight trepidation. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 47, line 13, after (" police ") insert (" or an immigration officer ").—(Lord Denham.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
8.22 p.m.
LORD WINDLESHAM LORD WINDLESHAM moved Amendment No. 131:
Page 47, line 14, at end insert—
(" 20A.—(1) A person detained under paragraph 16(1) above pending examination may,
1112
if seven days have elapsed since the date of his arrival in the United Kingdom, be released on bail by an adjudicator on his entering into a recognizance or, in Scotland, bail bond conditioned for his appearance before an immigration officer at a time and place named in the recognizance or bail bond or at such other time or place as may in the meantime be notified to him in writing by an immigration officer.
(2) The conditions of a recognizance or bail bond taken under this paragraph may include conditions appearing to the adjudicator to be likely to result in the appearance of the person bailed at the required time and place; and any recognizance shall be with or without sureties as the adjudicator may determine.
(3) In any case in which an adjudicator has power under this paragraph to release a person on bail, the adjudicator may, instead of taking the bail, fix the amount and conditions of the hail (including the amount in which any sureties are to be bound) with a view to its being taken subsequently by any such person as may be specified by the adjudicator; and on the recognizance or bail bond being so taken the person to be bailed shall be released.
20B.—(1) Where a recognizance entered into under paragraph 20A above appears to an adjudicator to be forfeited, the adjudicator may by order declare it to be forfeited and adjudge the persons bound thereby, whether as principal or sureties, or any of them, to pay the sum in which they are respectively bound or such part of it, if any, as the adjudicator thinks fit; and an order under this sub-paragraph shall specify a magistrates' court or, in Northern Ireland, court of summary jurisdiction, and—

(a) the recognizance shall be treated for the purposes of collection, enforcement and remission of the sum forfeited as having been forfeited by the court so specified; and

(b) the adjudicator shall, as soon as practicable, give particulars of the recognizance to the clerk of that court.

(2) Where a person released on bail under paragraph 20A above as it applies in Scotland fails to comply with the terms of his bail bond, an adjudicator may declare the bail to be forfeited, and any bail so forfeited shall be transmitted by the adjudicator to the sheriff court having jurisdiction in the area where the proceedings took place, and shall be treated as having been forfeited by that court.
(3) Any sum the payment of which is enforceable by a magistrates' court in England or Wales by virtue of this paragraph shall be treated for the purposes of the Justices of the Peace Act 1949 and, in particular, section 27 thereof as being due under a recognizance forfeited by such a court and as being Exchequer moneys.
(4) Any sum the payment of which is enforceable by virtue of this paragraph by a court of summary jurisdiction in Northern Ireland shall, for the purposes of section 20(5) of the Administration of Justice Act (Northern Ireland) 1954, be treated as a forfeited recognizance.
20C.—(1) An immigration officer or constable may arrest without warrant a person

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who has been released by virtue of paragraph 20A above—

(a) if he has reasonable grounds for believing that that person is likely to break the condition of his recognizance or bail bond that he will appear at the time and place required or to break any other condition of it, or has reasonable ground to suspect that that person is breaking or has broken any such other condition; or

(b) if, a recognizance with sureties having been taken, he is notified in writing by any surety of the surety's belief that that person is likely to break the first-mentioned condition, and of the surety's wish for that reason to be relieved of his obligations as a surety;

and paragraph 17(2) above shall apply for the arrest of a person under this paragraph as it applies for the arrest of a person under paragraph 17.
(2) A person arrested under this paragraph—

(a) if not required by a condition on which he was released to appear before an immigration officer within twenty-four hours after the time of his arrest, shall as soon as practicable be brought before an adjudicator or, if that is not practicable within those twenty-four hours, before a justice of the peace acting for the petty sessions area in which he is arrested or, in Scotland, the sheriff; and

(b) if required by such a condition to appear within those twenty-four hours before an immigration officer, shall be brought before that officer.

(3) An adjudicator, justice of the peace or sheriff before whom a person is brought by virtue of sub-paragraph (2)(a) above—

(a) if of the opinion that that person has broken or is likely to break any condition on which he was released, may either—

(i) direct that he be detained under the authority of the person by whom he was arrested; or

(ii) release him, on his original recognizance or on a new recognizance, with or without sureties, or, in Scotland, on his original bail or on new bail; and

(b) if not of that opinion, shall release him on his original recognizance or bail.

20D. The power to make rules of procedure conferred by section 22 of this Act shall include power to make rules with respect to applications to an adjudicator under paragraphs 20A to 20C above and matters arising out of such applications.")
The noble Lord said: This is the Government Amendment to which I referred when the noble Baroness, Lady White, moved Amendment No. 127. I explained that in the course of proceedings in—
BARONESS WHITE: My noble and learned friend moved that Amendment, not I.
LORD WINDLESHAM: I beg your Lordships' pardon—the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner. I explained the concern that had been expressed in another place, and that where somebody had been held for over seven days while inquiries were still being made or pending his removal, the Government accepted in principle the arguments that there should be some arrangements on these lines; that there should be a form of appeal. The noble Lord, Lord Janner, spoke on the matter earlier. Members of another place felt that the appeal might be to the magistrates' court. As I explained before the supper recess, the Secretary of State feels that on balance the immigration appeal authorities are those who have special experience in this field. They are an independent body of people who have the confidence of immigrants and others using the appellate procedure, and we feel that it is more appropriate that the appeal should lie to the adjudicator than to the magistrates' courts. I beg to move.
LORD GARDINER: I must confess that where the physical freedom of the individual is concerned I have a preference for ordinary courts rather than for administrative machinery of this kind. On the other hand, I quite understand that it is possible to take the view that an adjudicator is an experienced kind of judge in this particular field. But I shall be grateful if the Government will reconsider the wording of some of this provision, because there is no doubt that once you embark on the field of our present immigration law you are providing a much lower standard of justice. It is provided here that the adjudicator can release on bail, on a man's entering into a recognizance in addition to his appearing before an immigration officer. Then it provides:
" Where a recognizance entered into under paragraph 20A above appears to an adjudicator to be forfeited…".
The Committee have already seen many examples of the standards which are required before either an adjudicator or an immigration officer can act. He very rarely has to decide that something has happened; it depends upon what appears to him. This is the ordinary immigration formula. It does not depend on whether the recognizance is forfeited or not, but whether it appears to the adjudicator to be forfeited.

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Then there is a pretence—well, I say pretence—in that he has to"specify a magistrates' court"and then one has to deem the order to have been made in that magistrates' court, although of course he has never been anywhere near the magistrates' court. Then he can declare the bail to be forfeited. Then it is provided that any sum the payment of which is enforceable is to be treated for the purposes of the Justices of the Peace Act 1949 as being clue under a recognizance forfeited by such a court. Then we get the usual provision again in paragraph 20C:
" An immigration officer or constable may arrest without warrant "—
there is this passion for civil servants to have powers of arresting people without warrant—
" a person who has been released "—
that is, on bail—
" (a) if he has reasonable grounds for believing that that person is likely to break the condition of his recognizance or bail bond that he will appear at the time and place required or to break any other condition of it, or has reasonable ground to suspect…"
et cetera.
The Committee has seen this afternoon that there is another refrain that runs through our immigration law. I know they are foreigners—we would not stand for it for ourselves. A police constable may in some circumstances arrest without warrant if he has reasonable cause to believe that a crime has been committed, but the standard of our immigration law is reasonable suspicion that somebody who has done nothing wrong at all is going to do something wrong in the future. It is because of the repetititon in this new Amendment of what is such a familiar and objectionable feature of our immigration law as a whole that I venture to hope that the Government—and particularly, if I may say so, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, whom I know to be as devoted to civil liberties as I am and to have entertained in the past the same sort of view about our immigration law as I have entertained myself—will reconsider whether these extreme powers of arresting without warrant, on a mere suspicion that somebody who has done nothing wrong may be going to do something
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wrong, are justified, in which event I shall be grateful.
LORD WINDLESHAM: I must take up the noble and learned Lord on this point. He has made the allegation several times that the immigration laws are illiberal and intolerant and that Governments which come forward with proposals of this kind are insensitive to the rights of the individual. He diverged temporarily from that line of criticism earlier in the evening to pay tribute to one of his former colleagues in introducing the immigration appeals system during the previous Administration. The Immigration Appeals Act 1969, unlike the aliens legislation and some parts of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act, which were based on it, is fresh. It contains a bail provision for the cases of appellants whose appeal is pending, and the criteria, as set out in Schedule 3 to the Immigration Appeals Act, were placed before Parliament and approved when the noble and learned Lord opposite was himself the Lord Chancellor.
I did not have warning of this and therefore I have been unable to make extensive researches, but as the noble and learned Lord was giving examples I checked through the 1969 Act and found that most of the points he raised are in it. Forfeiture of recognisances, for example, we find in Schedule 3, paragraph 8(1) of the 1969 Act, which says:
" Where a recognisance entered into under this Schedule conditioned for the appearance of an appellant before an adjudicator or the Tribunal appears to the adjudicator or the Tribunal, as the case may be, to be forfeited,…".
This is the same provision. Then we find in paragraph 9(1):
" An immigration officer or constable may arrest without warrant a person who has been released by virtue of this Schedule ".
I daresay the other points raised by the noble and learned Lord are either contained verbatim in his own Act or are closely modelled on it.
Of course we are all concerned to see that proper expression is given in Acts of Parliament to the rights of individuals, but at the same time we have to ensure that the immigration service, the police, the immigration appeal authorities, all have sufficient latitude to carry out the tasks which have been placed upon them by Parliament. The way in which people

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carry out their duties is sometimes more important than what is contained in the Statute, and we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, and others with considerable first hand experience. They have all gone out of their way to pay tribute to the considerate and courteous way in which the Immigration Service have carried out the duties placed upon them. I do not think it would be right for anyone to challenge the noble and learned Lord on what he is saying, because that is exactly what Members of Parliament and particularly members of the Opposition should always say, but at the same time there is another side to this matter.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
8.34 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY LORD BROCKWAY moved Amendment No. 131A:
Page 49, line 6, leave out (" not ").
The noble Lord said: This Amendment refers to paragraph 23(5) which appears in the Bill at page 49 and reads:
"…where an appeal to an adjudicator is dismissed, an appeal shall not be regarded as pending unless forthwith after the dismissal—

(a) the appellant duly gives notice of appeal against the determination of the adjudicator; "

I hope I may be allowed at the same time to speak to Amendment No. 131B, because No. 131A does not make sense unless it is read in conjunction with 131B. If these two Amendments are taken together the new wording would read:
"…where an appeal to an adjudicator is dismissed, an appeal shall be regarded as pending unless forthwith the appellant duly gives notice that he does not wish to appeal against the determination of the adjudicator."
My main purpose in moving this Amendment is to be quite sure that no person shall be removed from this country without being informed of his right to appeal, and that therefore it should be assumed that he does appeal unless he actually indicates, in the words of this Amendment, that he does not wish to do so. If this change were made there would be no doubt that all the persons concerned would be well aware of their right to appeal. I beg to move.
LORD WINDLESHAM: The effect of paragraph 23(5) of Schedule 2 is that, when an adjudicator dismisses an appeal against refusal of leave to enter or against removal directions, the appellant may be
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removed unless he gives immediate notice of appeal to the Tribunal against the adjudicator's decision or, if leave to appeal is required, he obtains leave from the adjudicator.
As the noble Lord has explained, the Amendments would convert this into a provision that the appellant may not be removed unless he gives notice that he does not wish to appeal against the adjudicator's decision. If, as I think is the case from what the noble Lord has said, his purpose is to ensure that no person is removed from this country without being informed of his rights of appeal, his mind can be put at rest. In practice when an adjudicator dismisses an appeal he always informs the appellant, either, as the case may be, that he is entitled to appeal to the Tribunal or that he may ask for leave to appeal to the Tribunal. If this is what is causing the noble Lord concern I think he can rest assured that this is a statement of the actual practice of the adjudicators.
LORD BROCKWAY: My only concern is that there are difficulties of language and of circumstances, and sometimes I think the individual, even though he is informed in that way, may not be quite clear about the consequences thereof. But in view of what the Minister has said, I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
8.39 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY LORD BROCKWAY moved Amendment No. 131D:
Page 50, line 6, leave out (" may include ") and insert (" shall be ").
The noble Lord said: This Amendment refers to line 6 on page 50, and proposes that the words"may include"be left out and that the words"shall be"be inserted. This issue has been much discussed; namely the conditions under which bail is given. The present wording says that bail"may"include the purpose of the attendance at the relevant Tribunal. As amended the paragraph would read"shall include ", and it should be related only to this factor—that bail should be decided on no other issue than that of ability to attend the Tribunal. I beg to move.
LORD WINDLESHAM: Paragraph 24(5) of the Schedule dealing with the

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grant of bail pending an appeal to the immigration appeal authorities, provides that the conditions of a recognisance"may include"conditions appearing to the person fixing the bail to be likely to result in the appearance of the appellant at the time and place named. This Amendment seeks to insert the words"shall be"for the words"may include ", for the reasons the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, has expounded.
The purpose of the provision that the conditions of the recognisance may include conditions appearing to the adjudicator or Tribunal to be likely to result in the appearance of the appellant when required is to ensure that in a case in which there might otherwise be difficulty in granting bail this may be overcome by the adjudicator applying some such conditions as that the person shall live at a particular address or report at stated intervals to the police or the Immigration Service. It is not clear to us what the effect of the Amendment would be, but it would not appear, at first sight, to result in decisions by the adjudicator to grant bail in a greater proportion of cases than if the Bill were left unamended. There is no question of bail being used for any improper purpose, and indeed it is difficult to see how it could be.
LORD BROCKWAY: I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD BROCKWAY: The only point here is that surely a man could be released from his obligations at his own request if he feels unable to continue them and to fulfil them. Why should he be asked to provide a reason for doing this? Is it not enough for him to say he is unable to do it? I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 51, line 45, leave out from beginning to (" or ") in line 47.—(Lord Brockway.)
LORD WINDLESHAM: Perhaps this is a good opportunity to say a word or two about the subject of bail in the immigration law. It is a matter that has been discussed in a number of recent Amendments, and it may be helpful if I give a brief explanation.
Paragraph 28(1) makes provision for arrest of appellants who have been released on bail. It provides that an immigration officer or a constable may
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arrest without warrant a person who has been released on bail if he has reasonable grounds for believing that that person is likely to break the condition of his recognisance that he will appear at the time and place required, or to break any other condition of it, or has reasonable ground to suspect that that person is breaking or has broken any other condition; or, if, a recognisance with sureties having been taken, he is notified in writing by any surety of the surety's belief that the person on bail is likely to break the condition requiring his appearance and of the surety's wish for that reason to be relieved of his obligations.
The provision for the grant of bail in certain immigration appeal cases was introduced under the Immigration Appeals Act 1969, to which I referred in an earlier reply to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner; but at present it applies only to deportation cases. The provisions in the Bill follow closely those in the Act of 1969, which have been re-enacted largely in their existing form, there having been little experience on which any Amendment might be based. I understand that the provisions in the Act of 1969 were themselves based on the provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 1967 relating to bail in ordinary criminal proceedings. In the circumstances, the Government do not at present see grounds for amending the procedure which commended itself to Parliament in 1969. The occasions on which the immigration officer would wish to arrest a person believed to be likely to break a condition of his recognisance would no doubt be very rare, but they cannot be ruled out altogether. In such a case a constable might not be available. For the constable himself not to have power to arrest without warrant would mean that in practice no effective steps could be taken when the constable first had reasonable grounds for believing that the person was likely to abscond. It would be wrong to allow a surety to renounce his obligations, thus putting the person on bail in danger of immediate arrest, on any ground except that the belief was that the person did not intend to surrender to his bail.
Therefore, in brief, these provisions in this part of the Bill, and those which have been inserted also by the Government Amendment No. 131, which are

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largely similar, are based on the Act of 1969, but are an extension. I think this should be welcome to noble Lords in this Committee. The Act at the moment applies only to deportation cases. This Bill applies to cases where somebody is held pending inquiries or is being detained for some other purpose of the immigration control not connected with deportation.
LORD GARDINER: The noble Lord is, of course, quite right in saying that the 1968 Act, and indeed the 1969 Act, contain a good deal of the old immigration jargon of which I have been for so long ashamed; that is quite right. The 1969 Act was a breakthrough, because at least for the first time it provided a right of appeal. This was absolutely basic to all subsequent reforms. In the ordinary course, if a person skips his bail, there is no difficulty in the police getting a warrant and going to arrest him. I am not quite clear why in the case of immigration these arrests have to take place without warrant. This occurs all the way through; I am not sure that there is any place where the arrest is with warrant. It is always the immigration officer or a constable; it is always without warrant. It is always not something you do, but something he thinks you are going to do or that maybe he reasonably suspects you are going to do. In relation to the question of registration with the police, as I understood it, one of the arguments for registration with the police was that if the person disappears it is the policeman who will have to find him and arrest him.
I cannot make out why in a case like this the immigration officer has to arrest anybody at all. There are grave civil liberties objections to anybody except the police arresting people. The first of all civil liberties is that of physical freedom as against detention. I do not know why one always has to have an immigration officer as well as a constable and arrest always has to be without warrant. If I may say so respectfully, this is not at all a Party political point; most of the division on this Bill has not been on Party lines, but between those who believe rather more in civil liberties and those who feel less concerned about that matter. It would be of great help if the Government would go through the Bill, particularly Schedule 2, which I
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think has always been the worst part, to see whether this old immigration lore, such as the immigration officer always being treated as a policeman and having powers of arrest without warrant and arresting the person because if he does not the person might do something, could not really be overhauled.
LORD WINDLESHAM: The noble Lord asked why an immigration officer should have powers of arrest. Just consider a case at an airport, where in the course of examining a passenger it is decided that he is not entitled to enter the United Kingdom. He is held for further inquiries; the case has to be referred to a chief immigration officer; the man absconds. If the immigration officer had no power to apprehend him, he would have to call in a police officer. If the police officer could not stop the man without a warrant, the police officer would then have to apply to a magistrate for a warrant. In the meantime the passenger would presumably be able to go on his way unhindered. The immigration officer would have said,"I do not think you are entitled under the current laws of Great Britain to enter the United Kingdom ", but he would say,"You try to stop me!". He would he through the airport, in a taxi and have disappeared before any of this process had been set under way. The policeman would still be looking up the address of the nearest magistrates' court to try to get a warrant. Therefore, some powers are needed.
As the noble and learned Lord will know, the Criminal Justice Act 1967 contains in Section 23 and following sections provisions about bail in criminal proceedings, which correspond very closely to those in the Bill about bail in this proceeding. These include provision for arrest without warrant by a police officer on reasonable suspicion of breach of recognisance, or reasonable cause to believe that future breach is likely. I do not think that this is a question of one law for foreigners and another for ourselves. The system is really very close in both cases.
LORD BROCKWAY: After the days the Minister has had on this Bill, I hope he will have a period when he will be able to forget it. Following that, I hope that he will give his mind—because I

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know how conscientiously he approaches these things—to the whole question of these doubtful restrictions in Schedule 2. They really cause disquiet in those of us who believe in civil liberties. In the hope that he may be able to do that, I will withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 2, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 3 [Supplementary provisions as to deportation]:
8.52 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY LORD BROCKWAY moved Amendment No. 131K:
Page 52, line 37, leave out (" either ").
The noble Lord said: I am moving this Amendment with some hope that the Minister may be able to accept it. This paragraph in the Schedule gives the Secretary of State power to direct that anyone who is deported shall be sent to a particular country. It gives two alternatives: either,
" (a) a country of which he is a national or citizen; or
(b) a country or territory to which there is reason to believe that he will be admitted."
The purpose of this Amendment and the next one is to delete the words"either"and"or ", and not make these alternatives but to make the country of which he is a national also a country where there is reason to believe that he will be admitted, and that the latter condition should apply to the country of which he is a national.
The reasoning behind the Amendment stems from the recent terrible experience of British Asians who have just been shuttled backwards and forwards; leaving Uganda and Kenya and trying to come into this country illegally, being refused entry, and being sent back to Uganda and Kenya; being again refused admission there, and again sent back here—countinuous journeys to and fro. No Member of this House wants that kind of system to continue. The purpose of this Amendment is to ensure not only that the country to which the deported person goes is that of which he is a national citizen, but that the Secretary of State shall come to the conclusion that it
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is also a country to which he will be admitted. I beg to move.
LORD WINDLESHAM: Paragraph 1(1) of Schedule 3 dealing with the removal of persons liable to deportation, provides that the Secretary of State may give directions for the removal of a person, against whom a deportation order is in force, to a country or territory specified in the directions, being either a country of which he is a national or citizen or a country or territory to which there is reason to believe that he will be admitted. This Amendment seeks to provide that the removal directions must be given for removal to a country of which the person is a national or citizen being a country to which there is reason to believe that he will be admitted.
United Kingdom passport holders were in the mind of the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, as he spoke. They are not, in fact, deported at all from this country. I know it may seem a somewhat fine distinction to him, but I do not think that these Amendments would have any impact on the people he is trying to help, because they are not deported under the equivalent provisions of the present law. What happens is that they are removed under provisions which are the equivalent of paragraph 8 of Schedule 2. They are never admitted to the country at all. They are not admitted here and then deported again; they are not admitted at all.
The only consolation I can offer to the noble Lord and I think he will probably know this from his own resources—is that since my right honourable friend's decision to double the quota of special vouchers, and to provide a once-and-for all allocation for the most extreme cases, the numbers of those seeking to enter without proper entry documents, and who therefore are sent back, have been very greatly reduced. This is an indication, at any rate, that the rate at which people are leaving East Africa is now getting closer to the rate at which they, are properly admitted to this country with vouchers for work and settlement.
Another point is that people are not deported to a particular country. They are deported from the United Kingdom and removed to a country, normally being the country of which they are a national. But in some circumstances removal to

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some other country may be more appropriate—for example, a person may have lived for years outside his own country and may have facilities to re-enter the country of his last residence. In those circumstances, and certainly where the person concerned wishes to return to his country of last residence, return will be arranged to that country. But the effect of the Amendment would appear to be that return would have to be to the country of nationality. This would not be in the interests of those for whom the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, is concerned.
He can be assured that the Home Office is not concerned to remove people being deported to any particular country, and that such people are always given the opportunity to state the country of their choice; and if they are admissible to that country the Home Office will raise no difficulty about their going to it, provided that no extra charge on public funds is involved. It is further relevant that a person being deported has a right of appeal as to the country of destination, a right of appeal that is continued under Clause 17(1) of the Bill.
LORD DONALDSON OF KINGSBRIDGE: I do not think there is any real difference between the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, and my noble friend. But it seemed to me that what my noble friend was trying to effect in his Amendment was that somebody should not be deported to a country which would not admit him. This is a situation which could arise and which the Bill ought to meet, but I do not think either paragraph 1 or the Amendment meets it. I do not know whether the noble Lord agrees with me that that is probably the intention of the paragraph, but I do not think it is what comes out.
LORD WINDLESHAM: We are in deep territory here, and I should not want to be specific without checking further. But I am assured that the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, will not do what he wants. I say that for two reasons. First of all, it would not affect United Kingdom passport holders at all, because they are not deported anyway; and, secondly, it would narrow the range of destinations to which a man could go, because he would have to fulfil both paragraphs (a) and (b). Therefore, if he
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was not a national or a citizen of the country to which he wished to go and which was willing to receive him, he still could not go to it. At the moment, that option is open to him and it seems better to preserve that flexibility.
LORD BROCKWAY: It seems to me that under the original terms of the Bill the choice of going to a country which will admit him is also excluded. I listened with very great care to the Minister and I supported what he said in his concluding remarks, that a person could go to the country of his choice if it was willing to admit him. I have had many cases where I have succeeded in getting that right. But that does not even seem to be in the terms of the Bill itself, so will the Minister look at this point again before the Report stage?
LORD WINDLESHAM: I shall certainly look at it to see whether I have misled the Committee in any way, but I do not think I have. It would fall within paragraph 1(1)(b) of Schedule 3, would it not, if the person said that he wanted to go to a particular country or territory which was willing to admit him? He could be deported to that territory under paragraph 1(1)(b).
LORD BROCKWAY: I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 3 agreed to.
Schedule 4 [Integration with United Kingdom law of immigration law of Islands]:
LORD BROCKWAY LORD BROCKWAY moved Amendment No. 131M:
Page 54, line 42, leave out paragraph 2.
The noble Lord said: I am moving this Amendment largely in order to get some clarification. The first part of paragraph 2 suggests that a person who has decided to go abroad—perhaps on holiday or on business—does not automatically have the right to return, and that the process of obtaining Leave to enter this country will have to be repeated. That is rather qualified by the last three lines of the paragraph and I shall be glad to hear from the Minister exactly what they mean. I beg to move.
LORD DENHAM: This Amendment applies to a man who, on leaving the United Kingdom, as is visualised under Clause 3(4) which we have already discussed, is able to re-enter without seeking new leave—in other words, he can go off to Paris for the weekend because he is one of the exceptions under Clause 8. Under paragraph 2 of this Schedule, if instead of coming straight back to the United Kingdom he goes to one of the Islands where he needs permission, his previous permission to come back to the United Kingdom is cancelled. The reason for this is that if he needs to get leave under paragraph 1 to go to the Islands and gets it, that leave will extend to the United Kingdom. He will not need his former leave and it will be cancelled so as to make matters easier and avoid confusion. If, on the other hand, an Island refused him leave to enter, then it is thought by Her Majesty's Government that there would probably be good reason when he came back to the United Kingdom to see whether his leave should be granted again here. I hope that that has explained the position to the noble Lord.
LORD BROCKWAY: Yes, I think so. Will the noble Lord tell me whether a refusal to go to the Island is a refusal by the Island, or a refusal by us to allow him to go there?
LORD DENHAM: The Island will be refusing him leave to enter, although he already has leave to enter the United Kingdom. We have no jurisdiction over whether or not the Island accepts him, but if the Island accepts him then his leave to the Island will extend to the United Kingdom.
LORD BROCKWAY: I am not quite satisfied, but I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 4 agreed to.
Schedule 5 agreed to.
Schedule 6 [Repeals]:
9.6 p.m.
LORD GARDINER LORD GARDINER moved Amendment No. 132:
Page 58, column 3, leave out lines 6 to 9 and insert (" The whole Act ").
The noble and learned Lord said: In moving this Amendment may I also speak to Amendment No. 133? I am sorry to have to take up time at this hour of the night with what are probing Amendments. May I assure the Government that I do not expect any answer at all to-night. I said a word about this matter on Second Reading, which I think was misunderstood. There are two different questions here. There is the question whether, in a particular field of law, the whole of that law needs an overhaul in the sense of substantial alteration; and there is the question whether, in a particular field of law, the law is all right but is all over the place and needs consolidating and putting together in one place. In relation to our law of citizenship and our law of immigration, which are quite different, there is a division of opinion between the Government and the Opposition. As the Committee knows, our view is that an Immigration Bill is quite unnecessary. The numbers are down and there is now no problem there at all; race relations are never better and we do not need an overhaul of our immigration law. But what we do need—and we said in our Election programme that we were going to prepare this—is a new citizenship law, because I imagine that we must be the only country which has no clear statement as to who our own citizens are. In recent years both America and Canada have overhauled their citizenship law. But this is a difference of opinion between the Parties, and I am not going to say any more about it.
On the other point, which is quite a different one, as to whether we ought not, in either or both of these two fields, to put all our law together in one place, I am not in the least surprised, of course, that the Government have left our various British Nationality Acts exactly as they are, because they say, quite rightly,"This is not a citizenship Bill at all; this is an Immigration Bill ", and I accept that that is so. But, being an Immigration Bill, I am a little puzzled at the statutory course which they have taken. They have repealed the whole of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968, and that is quite right because here is an entirely new immigration code. They have repealed the whole of the Immigration Appeals Act 1969, and that is also quite right because it is in here. But when it comes to the 1962 Act, they have

1129
repealed the whole of it except for two subsections of two sections. One of them is Section 20(1) and (3), and so I looked to see what those subsections did in the 1962 Act. What they did was to omit two words with regard to deportation from Section 18(1) of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1950. That rather puzzled me, because the Matrimonial Causes Act 1950 was repealed by the Matrimonial Causes Act 1965. I am not quite sure where we are getting to.
The position with the old Aliens Restriction Acts is even more curious, because they have repealed altogether the Aliens Restriction Act 1914 but have left three or four little bits of the amending Act, which was the Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act 1919. They have left bits which puzzle me very much. I am not clear, therefore, why, in the field of immigration as such, all these provisions have not been repealed and put into this new code. As I have said, I am not expecting any answer to-night. These two Amendments are intended to be probing Amendments, and if necessary we can proceed with them when we come to the Report stage of the Bill. I beg to move.
9.10 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: As I have been awaiting this, my great moment, for some hours, I shall not take advantage of the generous leave which the noble and learned Lord has given me not to reply to his interesting comments. I shall not reply to the Second Reading points at any length. I should dearly have liked to have a citizenship law, but for reasons I explained in a lecture to the Race Relations Institute some little time ago I think it is not a feasible proposition, since we made the cardinal error of not having one in 1948 when it was still, I think, a relatively easy thing to unravel the knots which we had begun to tie. But our idealism about the Commonwealth then, although it was genuine at the time, is quite different from what our idealism about the Commonwealth is now, or what the facts have turned out to be, and I very much question whether we can unravel the knots at the present time. I do not want to go into the details, because they are highly technical, but I should dearly have liked to achieve that result, if not in this Bill at least in another one.
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In the meantime, I think the noble and learned Lord was a little less than generous in not acknowledging that it really is intolerable that the whole of the control into this country of the entry of aliens should depend upon the old Defence of the Realm Act 1914. That was passed in a single night when we were expecting a war with Germany which took place but which has now finished for the greater part of a human lifetime. That Act has never been repealed but, with small amendments, has remained in the Expiring Laws (Continuance) Schedule enacted by Parliament year by year. Whatever the merits or demerits of the Bill, the noble and learned Lord really ought to recognise that that position is at least theoretically intolerable even if in practice it leads to rather less injustice than you would expect.
To revert now to the noble and learned Lord's particular points, the Bill as it stands repeals the provisions of the 1919 Act which were concerned with immigration control. That is because it is an Immigration Bill. The sections concerned are Section 1. Section 2(1), Section 13(3) and Section 14(1). Sections 2(2), 7, 14(2), 15 and 16(2) are being repealed in this Session's Statute Law (Repeals) Bill (Part V of the Schedule). That leaves me with Sections 9 to 12 and certain others to which I will come. Sections 9 to 12 related only to former enemy aliens and these were repealed between the Wars. The remaining sections containing substantive provisions deal with the following matters—I have taken these matters from the side notes. Section 3 deals with incitement to sedition; Section 4 with pilotage certificates; Section 5 with employment of aliens in ships of the mercantile marine; Section 6 with the appointment of aliens to the Civil Service; Section 7 with restriction of change of name by aliens; Section 8 with provisions as to aliens on juries. Of these Section 5 is repealed by tile Merchant Shipping Act 1970 although it has not yet been brought into force. Section 7 is being repealed in this Session's Statute Law (Repeals) Bill. The other restrictions on aliens contained in Sections 3 to 8 are not part of the law of immigration control and I am advised that provisions for repealing or amending any of these would be outside the

1131
proper scope of an Immigration Bill. The need for continuance of these restrictions has been re-examined and will continue to be re-examined from time to time as the appropriate field of law comes under review; an example being jury service, to which Section 8 of the Act of 1919 refers.
Under E.E.C. regulations, the phrase"our own nationals"may be favoured so far as public employment is concerned (that is to say, employment in the Civil Service), in that the free movement of labour provisions do not apply to posts in the public service. But in introducing this Bill it was no part of the Government's intention to make any change in the relative position of British subjects and aliens under the general law of this country, and it was not therefore appropriate to carry out a general review of the position of aliens in fields of law, other than immigration control, before the Bill was introduced.
As the noble and learned Lord pointed out, the Bill as it stands repeals the whole of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962, to which I now come, except for a few provisions which amend other legislation that is not affected by the Bill. Section 12(2) of the Act of 1962 is repealed only in part; in so far as this provision deals with the qualifying period for naturalisation of British protected persons it is not superseded or otherwise affected by anything in the Bill, and so it would not have been appropriate to repeal it and re-enact it in this Bill. Section 12(4), I gather, is still needed as an ancillary provision to Section 12(2). The noble and learned Lord referred to Section 20(1). This amends the Matrimonial Causes Act 1950 and the Matrimonial Causes Act (Northern Ireland) 1939. These enactments, I am advised, are still in force for certain purposes and consequently any provision amending them has to be preserved. Section 20(3) is still needed as an ancillary provision to Section 20(1). It is thought, therefore, that it is not possible—or, if it is possible, not desirable—to sweep away the whole of the 1962 Act. But, as I have said in earlier portions of this fascinating discourse, the relative portions of the Act will be re-examined from time to time when we examine the field of law to
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which they apply. In the meantime this is an Immigration Bill.
LORD O'HAGAN: As the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor is in a forthcoming mood, may I ask whether he can help me on a question of citizenship? I am sure that he will tell me if I have it wrong. Shall we not have to evolve a de facto citizenship law when we come into the Common Market, defining those who are and those who are not our nationals for the European Economic Community? As I understand it, we shall have to tell them which of these various types of British citizen we say do belong and which do not. They may say to us,"You cannot have all these patrials. There are far too many of them to come into Europe. We must keep them out. And we do not like the idea of these Kenya Asians ". Whatever happens we shall have to produce something that satisfies them, and it must not be a makeshift form of citizenship law.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I do not really know the phrase "de facto" law; I know only the type of law we call de jute law. It is true that we already have a jungle of regulations which people might mistake for a citizenship law if they did not think deeply enough about it. This was what my lecture to the Race Relations Institute was about, up to a point. We never have had citizenship as a legal concept in this country. It started with the idea of mediaeval allegiance and this is the basis on which the whole thing is founded, in rather a complicated kind of way. The matter first came to a head at the Union of the Crowns between England and Scotland. The question then arose as to the status of Scotsmen in England. An interesting case was heard in the Court of King's Bench in 1607, about a class of people called post-nati, a case which goes through about 50 pages of Coke's Reports, in which all the arguments are set out at length, beginning at the Book of Genesis. It was eventually decided that Scotsmen were not aliens even if they were post-nati. Of course, this might have been very beneficial, but from the point of view of the clarity of our jurisprudence it might not have been quite so good as it sounds. Your Lordships will remember that the King at that time was a Scotsman.

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I have always thought that the moment at which we went wrong in modern times was in 1948, when we enfranchised India and Pakistan. I think that we should have said, rather crudely and logically, that however many benefits we conferred on the citizens of countries which were enfrancised, we should start with the proposition, which I have always been brought up to believe but which was not universally approved, that the human race could be divided into two classes—British subjects and aliens. Instead of that, we said that persons in Schedule 1 of the 1948 Act should be citizens of the Commonwealth, thereby for the first time introducing the concept of citizenship, and in order to make things abundantly clear we said in the same section of the Act that, being citizens of the Commonwealth, they should have the same rights as British subjects, which did not, I think, clarify the issue at all.
Then we had the Commonwealth Immigrants Act of 1962. Under this Act, as subsequently interpreted by the courts, the human race was divided into several categories. There were the aliens, assuming they were not sub-divided into friendly and enemy aliens. There were the Commonwealth citizens and the United Kingdom and Colonies citizens. Unfortunately, again no opportunity was taken to clarify the legal issue, and all the United Kingdom and Commonwealth citizens are again sub-divided. I am speaking of the situation before 1968, when the right of entry was unrestricted. Anyone from Gibraltar, which was still a Colony, became subject to immigrant control as a Commonwealth immigrant. This means that there was a further subdivision of the human race. It become even more complicated with the legal decisions. Suppose one started in Gibraltar and went to the Seychelles Islands (I hope I am getting this right), if you got your passport from the United Kingdom High Commissioner you were all right and could come in; but if you got it from the Governor of Gibraltar without going to the Seychelles Islands you could not.
BARONESS WHITE: With respect to the noble and learned Lord, the Seychelles are still a Colony. There is no High Commissioner there.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I may be wrong. I think Mauritius is what I
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have been thinking of. I am grateful to the noble Baroness. If you got it through a Governor it did not work; but if you got it from a High Commissioner, it did, even though you came from a colony. This led to intense confusion about the 1968 Act, which was passed in an emergency without clarifying the law. When we have gone into the Common Market, of course, there will be a further sub-division of humanity, because the aliens will begin to proliferate; hitherto it has only been British subjects who have proliferated. If the noble and learned Lord can really suggest that you can simplify that at all easily, I think he is making a mistake. I do not think our entry into the Common Market will do more than add another sub-division to the human race.
LORD GARDINER: Returning, if I may, to the mysteries of Schedule 6, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for all the homework that he has evidently done on this point. The situation under that Schedule is now crystal clear to the whole Committee, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 6 agreed to.
In the Title:
9.27 p.m.
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS moved Amendment No. 134:
Line 3, after (" law ") insert (" to restrict the immigration of coloured persons into the United Kingdom ").
The noble Viscount said: It has long been our custom in Parliament that the Long Title of a Bill should contain the purposes of the Bill. It seems clear to many noble Lords on both sides of the Committee that one of the effects of this Bill is to restrict, or possibly control, the immigration of coloured persons into the United Kingdom. It is for that reason that I am suggesting that these words be added to the Long Title. There appear to be four possible lines of opinion on this. There are those, largely on this side of the Committee, who are opposed to the Bill having this effect. Nevertheless, if the Bill has this effect—and we believe that it does—and also has this intention, we hold that this should be

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added to the Long Title simply as a matter of common sense.
There is a second possible opinion, mainly held, I believe, on the other side of the Committee, but also by certain noble Lords on these Benches. They believe that the Bill should restrict the immigration of coloured persons into this country. I am not saying that they hold this view for any bad reason; it may be for the honourable reason that they believe that better race relations will result if this is done. If they believe that this is a right thing to do, then they should be happy to say so in tile Long Title of the Bill.
It seems to me, in logic, that there are possibly two other opinions on this. One is that the Bill does not do these things, and is not meant to do them. I suppose that is a point of view that may be held in logic, but I do not think that if any noble Lord gets up and suggests that the Bill does not do these things he will be believed by many people. Most people in this country believe that this is one of the major purposes of the Bill, and indeed it has been extensively canvassed in the country on this basis.
There is also a possible fourth opinion, which I do not think much of myself but which nevertheless may exist; that is, that the Bill does these things but that we should not say so. This slightly takes my breath away, because any attempt to hold that opinion is an attempt to perpetrate just about the worst kept secret in history. I do not believe it is really possible for anyone to hold that the Bill does these things but that we should somehow make a secret of it. Who on earth will not have heard of the purposes of this Bill and who on earth will not believe that this is not one of the purposes of it? For that reason, I believe that this point of view is completely out of court. Now I come to think of it, that is possibly the limit of the possible arguments on this point. I shall be intensely interested to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, intends to say on this matter. I will say nothing more. I beg to move
LORD BEAUMONT OF WHITLEY: I hope that the noble Viscount and his noble friend will not pursue this line of argument any further. They must know
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that they have great sympathy from us on these Benches, but I suggest that this particular Amendment, and even this debate, if persisted in, can do nothing but harm. This is a discriminatory law. I think it is a bad law and I dislike it intensely; but one thing that it does not do is to restrict immigration. It has been totally accepted on all sides of the House at every stage that in fact immigration is already restricted without this Bill and this Bill has no significant effect upon it. It is true, as the noble Viscount pointed out, that the Government have got a great deal of kudos from a large number of ill-disposed people who believe that it does exactly that. I do not think that we should reinforce this by changing the Title of the Bill to make them believe it more strongly. To start with, I am not in favour of this Government getting any undeserved kudos from any quarters, no matter how ill-disposed, nor am I in favour of these ill-disposed people thinking that the Government necessarily agree with them and back them up. Therefore although I sympathise intensely with the aim behind the Amendment of the noble Viscount, I sincerely hope that he will not press it any further.
LORD CONESFORD: Arthur James Balfour once described a deplorable scene in the House of Commons which he had witnessed by saying that they had reached the very dregs of debate. He evidently foresaw Lord St. David's speech.
LORD O'HAGAN: I should like to be a little more polite and to associate myself with the words used by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley. Whatever people outside this Chamber and in another place may think, this Amendment is by implication an attack on the integrity of the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, and his right honourable friend Mr. Maudling. Although I believe this Bill is unnecessary and undesirable and I share many of the apprehensions of the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, and the noble Viscount, Lord St. Davids, I do not think this Amendment would improve things very much.
LORD BROCKWAY: During the Committee stage of the Bill I have tried to be co-operative but I did not want to hide the fact that I regard this as a bad Bill in itself and one which will have a very bad effect on community relations

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in this country. As I see it, the Amendment which has been moved by the noble Viscount, Lord St. Davids, is a plea for honesty. Ever since we had our first Immigration Bill in 1962 I think we have all been hypocritical in this matter. These Bills have not been introduced to deal with the problem of immigration. Except for two years, in every year since the war more people have left this country than have come in. The problem, therefore, is not one of immigration.
If we are all honest with ourselves we know that this is a problem of colour. Before the Act of 1962 we had the"Keep Britain White"campaign. It was that campaign and the apparent response to it which created the atmosphere in the House of Commons which led to the Act of 1962. The noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, has said that this Bill does not restrict immigration. What it does is to continue the restriction of immigration. The Bill co-ordinates the various immigration Bills which we have had and maintains the restrictions which they have imposed. It does therefore restrict coloured immigration. Take the factor which has been mentioned by the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, the new division between patrials and non-patrials. Is there anyone in this Committee who believes that that will not work against the non-white populations in our Commonwealth more than against the white populations? One can become a patrial if one's father was born in this country, and can be admitted to this country. How many of the non-white citizens of the Commonwealth are able to take advantage of that clause and come to this country?
The clause in the Bill which outrages me perhaps more than any other is that which provides a condition over labour vouchers by which an immigrant can come for a year and be tied to a particular employer. I have described that as"indentured labour ", and it fulfils all the conditions of indentured labour—
LORD BARNBY: If the noble Lord will give way for a moment, I wonder whether he could give me some help in this matter. Is he speaking to the question of the Title of the Bill, or is he treating us to a general review of the effects of the Bill?
LORD BROCKWAY: I am speaking to the Title of the Bill. If what I have said is true, then the real purpose, among others, of the Bill, the real core of the Bill, is the restriction of the entry of coloured immigrants into this country. If there was not the feeling in the country on that matter which has been whipped up by Mr. Enoch Powell, we should not have had so many clauses in this Bill. I believe that to be honest we should recognise that and say that. Politicians to-day, particularly the young politicians, are suffering because we are not honest and because we hide our intentions. It is because of this that I support the Amendment which has been moved by my noble friend Lord St. Davids.
LORD SHACKLETON: I intervene only because of the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Conesford. It is certainly not the view of my colleagues on the Opposition Front Bench that we should support this Amendment, for the reasons given by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley. It would be inappropriate to support the Amendment, although I fully acknowledge the sincerity of my noble friends in this matter. The case against this Bill was fully put by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, at the moment when he said that we should not support this Amendment.
I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, for whom I have deep affection and the greatest respect, that if he had continued with his remarks I should have asked for the reading of Standing Order No. 30, which clearly lays down that the type of remark he made about my noble friend Lord St. Davids is not something that your Lordships do. It may be that the noble Lord wishes to withdraw the remark.
LORD CONESFORD: Such is my respect for the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition, and also because I have given further thought to the final sentence of my intervention, that I unhesitatingly withdraw the remark. May I say what I had in mind without detriment to that withdrawal? Of course it was not meant to be—and in so far as it was I withdraw it—a comment on the character of the noble Viscount, Lord St. Davids, with whom I have had, and hope to continue to have, friendly relations. It was a comment that I thought

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we had reached the very dregs of debate. Having said that, and cordially agreeing with the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition, I beg to withdraw my remarks.
LORD SHACKLETON: I am sure that the Committee appreciate that generous withdrawal. I realised, watching the noble Lord across the Floor of the House, that he was getting somewhat incensed, and at such a moment one occasionally utters words which one might have put in another way. I am sure that my noble friend Lord St. Davids will accept that as a most generous withdrawal.
I do not think I need detain the Committee much longer, and I may save the time of the Committee and of the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, if I speak on behalf of my noble friends in these, the final stages of the Committee stage. Our objection, and the objection of many noble Lords in all quarters of the Committee to this particular Bill, has been made clear. I do not think it is appropriate again to voice this objection in trying to amend the Title of the Bill. The Government know full well that there will be opportunities for amendment when we come back on Report, and we hope that we shall have seen wisdom by then. I urge upon my noble friend who has moved this Amendment, who I know feels deeply on this matter, that the question here is not one of sincerity or honesty, but of the appropriateness of this particular Amendment. Therefore, so far as the official Opposition is concerned, we are not proposing to support the Amendment if my noble friend divides the Committee. In the light of this discussion and of the arguments he has heard, and in the light of what the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, may wish to say, I hope he will decide that he has made his point with sufficient vigour.
9.45 p.m.
LORD WINDLESHAM: This is probably an appropriate time for me to intervene on this last Amendment to a long Committee stage. I do not think a very long speech is called for. I have spoken so often during the six days of Committee that I think noble Lords who have been present know what my views are. The Bill establishes a new single system of control over all immigration
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from overseas and does so by creating a right of abode. It is a law reform measure; it brings together 50 years' worth of legislation, much of it quickly put on the Statute Book in response to events. All those who have this right of abode are described by the word"patrial"and they will be completely free to come and go and work here as they wish. We might just bear in mind that Clause 2, the patrial clause, is an exempting clause. It is a clause which exempts people from immigration control and does not subject them to it. We have seen as we have gone through the Bill that the visitors, the passengers, the normal tourists, the working holidaymakers, the students—people of this sort—are hardly affected by the Bill.
LORD SHACKLETON: If I may interrupt the noble Lord, I have tried to be as helpful as I can in this matter. I beg him not to make a Third Reading speech on this particular Amendment. I realise that he has had to put up with a lot on this and he will have to put up with quite a lot more. If he is going through the whole of the Bill on an Amendment to the Long Title I think it is likely that some of my noble friends will wish to reply to him.
LORD WINDLESHAM: I regret that intervention. I hope that the noble Lord will not jump the gun on this. He has joined the Committee, if I may say so, at a very late stage. He is quite right to come in and express the views of his Party on the Bill. I was about to make two general observations. He can be sure that I was not going to make wide ranging remarks. I think that noble Lords who have heard the debate will agree that it is a general one. The noble Viscount, Lord St. Davids, intended it to be a general debate—I do not criticise him for that—arid the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, had a rather similar Amendment in the Short Title to the Bill which we debated in these rather general terms. We got through it in 10 or 15 minutes and without any heat being generated, and I certainly do not want to do that now.
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: The noble Lord referred to me. I intended it to be a very short debate on this particular point. I did not intend it to turn into a Third Reading of the Bill. No doubt we shall have that in due time after many

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other proceedings during which we hope to further amend the Bill because I hope that this Bill will in fact be considerably further amended. I shall not take this Amendment to a Division to-night, although it would be fascinating to me to see how many noble Lords there were in the House—
LORD WINDLESHAM: I was giving way to the noble Viscount because I thought he wished to interrupt me. I am afraid I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, that I had not come to the end of my remarks. When I do, I have no doubt that the noble Viscount may wish to say whether or not he wants to divide. That is for him and his own Party. I was addressing myself to the Amendment, admittedly in rather general terms. The wording of the Amendment is to restrict the immigration of coloured persons into the United Kingdom and to insert these words into the Title of the Bill.
I was talking about the nature of Clause 2. The noble Lord, Lord Brockway, devoted most of his remarks to the patrial concept. I do not criticise him for that. I think the concept is the essence of the Bill. Here is, the difference between us, and it is one that we are entitled to debate. However, I am not, as I said at the beginning, going to make a long speech; in fact very much the contrary. I wanted to end on one particular note. I think that noble Lords who have been sitting throughout the Committee stage will share the view that we have in this country done a remarkable job over the last ten years in absorbing so remarkably quickly a large number of immigrants from different cultural and racial backgrounds, with surprisingly little tension. We can continue to do this; we can continue to provide an example of how these problems can be treated in a civilised society. But we cannot take this process of absorption for granted and we must devote our thoughts and actions and priorities in this direction. That is what the Government intend to do.
If the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, will bear with me for two minutes more on this last Amendment, we are at the end of a very long Committee stage and I should like to thank noble Lords who have taken part for their patience and tolerance. Issues of principle are involved. I know how deeply noble Lords
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opposite feel. We had the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner, speaking this evening on the civil liberties aspects of the Schedule—what might appear to be in many ways very detailed points. But underneath them all, as he told us—he has told us forcibly on a number of occasions—there was his concern that officials should not have too much power over people coming into this country who may have difficulties in understanding languages and customs, and that they should have the same rights as other people have.
Our Report stage is not to take place until October. There will therefore be a very much longer interval than would normally be the case, but it gives me an opportunity to study what has been said during the Committee stage. The Government have given a number of assurances, some on major issues of principle, and we will of course want to consider them very carefully indeed. I am sorry if I have gone a little wide on this, but it is the end of our proceedings on this stage and I think it is appropriate to make some general observations of this kind.
9.52 p.m.
BARONESS WHITE: Before my noble friend Lord St. Davids has his say, I should like to reciprocate our thanks to the noble Lord for the careful and courteous way in which he has dealt with Amendments during the Committee stage. But he was making what sounded to me much more like the kind of speech one makes at a much later stage.
LORD WINDLESHAM: We have the Recess.
BARONESS WHITE: We have a Recess; indeed we have. And we hope very much that during the Recess, and refreshed by it, the noble Lord will look very carefully indeed at the many points which have been made, not by any means only from the Opposition Benches. What has been so remarkable in this Committee stage is that there have been expressions of concern and disquiet on certain aspects of this Bill from all quarters of the House. Therefore we are particularly disposed to hope that when we return in October the noble Lord will already have himself placed upon the Order Paper a number of constructive Amendments.
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: I am sorry if I started rather too early under the impression that the noble Lord. Lord Windlesham, had sat down, when according to our custom he had not, but I thought it was necessary to put something on the Paper at the end of this Bill to show that a large portion of this Bill has been an effort by the Party opposite to win favour with some most disreputable political—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Order!
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: If the noble Lord proceeds, I shall ask that the Standing Order be read.
LORD SHACKLETON: If I may interrupt at this point, may I say that Standing Order No. 30 does not apply. And if the noble Lord cannot control himself it might be a good idea to have it read, because I can see that he is getting very excited.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am not getting excited at all. If we read it, we can see whether it applies or not. If I may say so to the noble Lord, the Leader of the Opposition, he is getting into the frame of mind in which he is beginning to dictate to people, not only the form of their speeches but the content of their speeches. This is not the first time he has attempted to do it. He has attempted to do it to my noble friend Lord Windlesham, and I am bound to tell him that he is exceeding the power even of the Leader of the House by so doing.
LORD SHACKLETON: I hoped that my interventions earlier were intended to be helpful to the Government. I will not pursue this matter any further. I am only pointing out that the noble and learned Lord has forgotten what Standing Order No. 30 contains. I think probably we had better bring this debate to an end.
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: I am sorry if I have aroused too much ire on the part of the noble and learned Lord. I was in fact briefly recapitulating what the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, had said. But since obviously it excites a great deal of heat, and possibly it would be better if we had less heat, while still continuing to say that it is my belief and the belief of many noble Lords that this is one of the purposes of the Bill and
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therefore it should go into the Title, in order to try to get a slightly better state of affairs in this House I shall at present withdraw this Amendment.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: With leave.
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: With leave, if I may, so that we may possibly reach a somewhat calmer atmosphere at a later stage.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD ALPORT): Is it your Lordships' pleasure that this Amendment be withdrawn?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Object!
BARONESS WHITE: How childish!
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: The Question is, That this Amendment be agreed to.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
House resumed: Bill reported, with Amendments.

BRITISH TRANSPORT DOCKS BILL
CITY OF LONDON (VARIOUS POWERS) (No. 2) BILL
ISLE OF WIGHT COUNTY COUNCIL BILL
LONDON TRANSPORT (No. 2) BILL
OXFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL (No. 2) BILL
TORBAY CORPORATION (No. 2) BILL
Returned from the Commons with the Amendments agreed to.

BOURNEMOUTH CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
EXETER CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
FLINTSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL BILL [H.L.]
MANCHESTER CORPORATION (GENERAL POWERS) BILL [H.L.]
SCUNTHORPE CORPORATION BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons agreed to, with Amendments: the said Amendments considered and agreed to.