IMMIGRATION CONTROL: E.E.C. AND COMMONWEALTH CITIZENS

HL Deb 06 December 1972 vol 337 cc290-362

4.45 p.m.

BARONESS WHITE rose to call attention to the need to review the law of citizenship in the United Kingdom and to amend the Immigration Rules for control on and after entry, so as to remove as far as possible disparities between citizens of the Commonwealth and those of the European Community and to preserve civil liberties, in particular in such areas as family deportation; and to move for Papers. The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I am sorry but I have to inflict another speech on your Lordships—I trust a shorter one this time. I have to explain that my noble friend Lord Shepherd is unfortunately languishing in hospital and the noble Baroness, Lady Llewelyn-Davies, who also intended to speak from our Front Bench has unfortunately fallen victim to the influenza germ. So neither is able to be present to-day. I had been hoping to be relieved of this particular task, but it was only shortly before the debate started that I knew for certain that my noble friend Lord Shepherd was not going to be able to be with us.

I know that Lord Shepherd regrets his absence very much indeed because, as noble Lords who took part in the debate on the Immigration Bill in this House will recall, my noble friend was very active indeed at all stages of that Bill; and I know that he very much wished to take part in this debate, which is really on the Rules, the drafts of which are before us, for control of immigration on and after entry to this country. I should perhaps explain to noble Lords—

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness at this early stage, but it might assist the House if we could get this point clear. It is not all about the Rules, as I read it; it goes a good deal wider than the Rules themselves. I hope that the noble Baroness will not discourage noble Lords from speaking about the wider aspects if they wish to. I certainly would not want to do that.

BARONESS WHITE

No, my Lords. I was about to try to explain to noble Lords the reason why we had changed the form of the Motion which was originally on the Order Paper. Originally we put this Motion down to consider the Rules formally. This was before a vote was taken in another place. When that vote was taken, on one set of Rules only—they did not vote at all on the other—various noble Lords seemed to suppose that because of that adverse vote in another place the Rules were thereby abrogated. But of course the Rules are not a Statutory Instrument. It should be made quite plain, because there has been some doubt or lack of information on this, that the Rules just continue. The fact that the other place voted against the Rules on entry although, as I say, they did not actually vote on the Rules after entry, does not mean that the Rules were thereby dissolved. As I understand it, they are still in effect. No doubt the noble Viscount will make this point absolutely clear.

If one looks at the present Act one sees it is quite clear that it is the duty of the Secretary of State to lay a statement of the Rules before Parliament, and If a statement laid before either House of Parliament under this subsection is disapproved by a resolution of that House passed within a period of forty days beginning with the date of laying … then the Secretary of State shall as soon as may be make such changes or further changes in the Rules as appear to him to be required in the circumstances and lay a further statement before Parliament accordingly. What we are awaiting now is the further statement. That can be laid by the Secretary of State within 40 Sitting days. We do not yet formally know the precise dates of the Christmas Recess. I am not certain of the exact day, but perhaps the noble Viscount can tell us. My reckoning is that it must be early in February, if the Recess lasts as we understand, to about January 23, because it is of course the Sitting days of the House that count. I do not think that this is of vast consequence but it might he helpful if the noble Viscount makes it as clear as he can.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, I do not know the length and dates of the Christmas Recess, either. The situation as the noble Baroness stated it is right. New Rules must be laid by some time in January or February—that is the latest—under the provision which the noble Baroness read out.

BARONESS WHITE

My Lords, if the Secretary of State is able to complete his consultations and lay the Rules a little earlier it would be for the general convenience, for we have then another 40 days. We can go on with this procedure, as I understand it, and can go on considering the Rules and giving advice to the Government. This is not our fault; it was in the Act that was passed. But it appeared to my noble friends and myself that, regardless of what might be done or said in another place, there was the advantage, before the Government proceeded to lay their revised version of the current Rules, that they should have the benefit of the advice of Members of our House who have considerable interest, and some of them considerable knowledge and experience in this field; and the list of those who wish to take part in the debate to-day is evidence of it. So I hope a broadening of the debate will be acceptable to your Lordships. It is partly to avoid misunderstanding—because so many noble Lords are saying that the Rules are dead and gone—and because we could not explain this individually to every one of your Lordships that it seemed simpler to change the terms of the Motion. I hope your Lordships will forgive that excursion into how the present Motion made its appearance on the Order Paper, but I thought it might be elightening.

The Motion starts with what I think many people who have studied this matter consider to be of considerable importance: that there really is a need to review not just the arrangements for immigration but the basis of our law of citizenship, because a good deal of the confusion and difficulty, and some of the heartburning that has been experienced during the past few years, really arises from the fact that in our usual British way we have muddled along in this matter of citizenship and at present there is no definition. I stand to be corrected by the noble Viscount, who is a lawyer, but I think I am right in saying that there is no definition of British citizenship as such. There are definitions of various categories of persons, but I make out that there are about five different types of what might loosely be termed "British citizens" plus patrials, and this in itself leads to confusion and possible irritation and frustration.

I do not propose to go into all the details, but I would remind your Lord-ships that a person claiming association with Britain may be either a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, a Commonwealth citizen, a British subject—for the purposes of free movement of labour within the European Community he has to be a British national—and, as we all know, in certain circumstances he can be a patrial. But there is a very confused area and, therefore, although this does not plainly come within the ambit of the original Motion on the Rules I think it underlines the feeling of unease as to the application of these Rules, and it would be encouraging to know that Her Majesty's Government were giving some thought to the question of pursuing a little further a Bill, not on immigration but on citizenship. I think this will require consultation (and much deeper and longer consultation than is likely to be taken in what remains of the 40 days) with other members of the Commonwealth, and we should welcome any positive steps that the Government may be contemplating.

Having said that—and I dare say that other noble Lords may wish to take up the point—so far as the Rules themselves are concerned there is no doubt from the correspondence which has appeared in The Timesand elsewhere that there is considerable concern about the natural and inevitable consequences of the decision to join the European Community and of the way in which our own immigration legislation has been framed over the past ten years, culminating in the Act of 1971. It will be observed that the terms of the Motion suggest that in their emendations to the Immigration Rules on and after entry, "the Government should remove as far as possible". I recognise that this is not an accurate phrase, but I realise that there are disparities between citizens of the Common-wealth and those of the European Community, and that these disparities are causing great concern to many people, and not only in this country. I know that there are one or two noble Lords who have connections with Australia and who have had very strong representations from their friends and family there. As I understand it, we cannot do anything about the favourable position, as it now is, of citizens of the European Community in regard to entry into Britain. If we go into the Common Market on January 1 this is part of the engagements we have entered into. What we should then ask ourselves is whether we can do anything to improve the position of citizens from Commonwealth countries. Then, of course, it is not only the people in the European Community who will have this favourable position. What many of us find harder to stomach is that not only can a national of one of the European Community countries come in by himself to take work, and to stay here as long as he likes, provided that he has a job and registers with the police, but he can bring in his family, up to the age of 21 (instead of 18); and he can bring in his parents and his grandparents—and those on his wife's side as well. When we look at the way in which we have examined the position of Commonwealth people who wish to come to this country and compare their conditions with the conditions which apply to people from the European Community I think it is quite natural that we should ask ourselves whether we can reasonably do anything further to redress the balance by improving conditions for citizens of Commonwealth countries which would make their position at least appear a little less inequitable.

This matter was debated at some length on Amendments put forward by my noble friend Lord Shepherd during the Committee stage (and there were further discussions on Report stage) of the Immigration Bill. I have before me here, for example, the debate on July 19, 1971, when an Amendment put forward, very much in this sense, was voted down in your Lordships' House. I do not know what is to be the basis of the consultation by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and the Foreign Secretary which is to take place in the very near future. Perhaps we may be enlightened. One basis of consultation could be a principle of varying our immigration procedures according to reciprocal arrangements between different members of the Commonwealth. I am not saying that that would necessarily lead to satisfactory results, but it is at least a possible and rational way in which one could proceed.

If your Lordships will permit me, I should like now to draw attention to something that I myself said on July 19, 1971, when the noble Marquess. Lord Lothian, was speaking for the Government, and he stressed that the advantages to nationals of the European Community countries were based on reciprocity, whereupon I was bold enough to intervene and ask: Have Her Majesty's Government had any consultation with Commonwealth countries as to possible reciprocity? They have spent a long time discussing it with European neighbours."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19/7/71; col. 775.] This was in July, 1971. Why did we have to wait, if the Government were going to proceed on the basis of reciprocity, until after one part of the Rules had been voted down in another place? And we should perhaps be told what consultations, if any, have taken place in the intervening 18 months or so since the Immigration Bill was debated in this House and the Government voted down the Amendments we moved in favour of the Commonwealth. The Government were fully aware that this was a matter causing considerable concern, and one would assume that, even if not in quite so dramatic a way as it may now have to be, there were some consultations. After all, the reaction which the Rules, as they have now been published, have aroused could have been foreseen, and it would be valuable and interesting if we could be told what the preceding consultations were and how far the present consultations are expected to go. Nigeria, Canada, and I think Australia have been mentioned. I am not sure about New Zealand, but presumably if one is going to Australia one might as well travel the extra 1,000 miles or so. We should know what is intended and whether it will be achieved within the 40 days.

Another matter which is perhaps not as important to this House as to another place and which was raised in another place—after all, we are to some extent trying to work together on these issues—is the suggestion which was made there that the Government might well consult the Select Committee on Immigration and Race Relations of another place, because that Committee has spent a great deal of time on this and other matters. It would be interesting to know whether that is one of the matters which the Government are proposing.

Having put the subject into what seems to us to be its setting, I do not want to take up too much of your Lordships' time dealing with the actual details of the Rules, because presumably we shall have some occasion in the next period of 40 days to look at them. The object of the exercise to-day is at least partly to draw the Government's attention to matters which we may find difficult. As your Lordships know, we cannot amend these Rules. That is not within the power of Parliament. We can only express approbation or disapprobation—and ask the Secretary of State to take them away and look at them again.

Having worked closely on the original Act, and having mentioned many of these points in our earlier debates, I admit that I am disappointed that a great many matters which we discussed very fully, particularly with the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham—who, with the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, worked extremely hard on the measure when it was before us—seem not to have been met. Consider, for example, our comments about civil rights. Family deportation is something which many of us found extremely distasteful. It has an element of guilt by association which we should not wish to have. It is particularly hard on a wife and her family if her husband is the one who has committed a crime or misdemeanour which leads to his being deported. I thought we should get an assurance that if a woman could show that she could support herself, and family if necessary, if allowed to stay in this country, that would he a strong prima facie case for allowing her to stay, but the words of the Rules are very weak indeed.

Coming to the question of children of one-parent families, one has to prove, unless the Secretary of State is willing personally to intervene, that the one parent settled in the United Kingdom has had the sole responsibility for the child's upbringing. In normal circumstances this is unreasonable, because often a grandmother or aunt has had that responsibility and not the particular parent. On the other hand, when the parent is in a position to take responsibility, he or she may say, "I now want to take over responsibility and look after my own child, because for some time I have not been able to do this." There are a number of matters of that kind. The right of appeal against refusal to admit while the applicant is still in this country is something which is grossly unfair as between the European Community and members of the Commonwealth. If their papers are not in order or if something has gone wrong, they may, in certain circumstances which noble Lords who are familiar with the Rules will understand, have to go all the way back before being able to institute an appeal. There are various matters of this kind about which we put the Government on warning that we are not happy. We feel that the Rules as so far amended do not take account of the strength of argument adduced in our debates on the Bill, and we hope that the Government will give the matter further consideration.

We are concerned not only with citizens of the countries of the European Community; we are very much concerned about what happens to others and to see that people who come in to work—the so called gästarbeiter,of whom there are nearly 2 million in West Germany—do not depress wages, social standards and so on. We feel that it would be a great pity if we admitted not just the people to whom we are obligated, the members of the Community, but in practice Turks, Greeks, Moroccans and the rest, not because they would be any more favourably placed than Commonwealth citizens, because they would not, but for various social reasons which have appeared in the countries of the Community. I have discussed this matter with people responsible for trade union organisation, which is very difficult in, for example, catering, some of the clothing industries and employment of that kind. They say they feel that while Commonwealth citizens undertake many of the jobs in this country which some of our own workers do not favour, we are likely under the new provisions—with the restriction on Commonwealth immigrants, no work permits and lack of security; at present this is their one great advantage—to find that work of this kind will go to what I call Mediterranean workers rather than to Commonwealth people.

Further afield, I do not know how many of your Lordships saw reports the week before last about people being brought in from the Philippines. Prior to this debate we were discussing the Uganda Asians. Surely they could he trained to do the work which these people from the Philippines are apparently being brought in to do. I understand that a clothing factory in the West Country is bringing in 400 of them.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

It is in Lancashire.

BARONESS WHITE

With respect to the noble Viscount, I spoke to the managing director of this firm—I will give the noble Viscount the details later—and I gather that they are planning to bring in 400 to the South-West. People from the Philippines are also going to the North-West. This is not just a question of kith and kin. We have people in the Commonwealth who are trainable and who are just as much in need of work of this kind, and we feel that the Rules as proposed by the Government for immigration will not help in this situation. Indeed, we think that they will make it more difficult, not only for what is incorrectly called the old Commonwealth but also for the citizens of other countries in the Commonwealth with whom we also have ties of very long standing. It is for these and many other reasons, which I am sure other noble Lords will wish to bring before the House, that we felt it right to table this Motion, which I have the pleasure of moving. I beg to move for Papers.

5.10p m.

LORD BALLANTRAE

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Foot, is not in the House, it falls to me to speak next, and I must ask your Lordships' indulgence on at least two if not three, counts. The first is because this is my maiden speech; and I am setting a precedent in a maiden speech, in that I must leave before the end of the debate to speak at a dinner to which I had accepted an invitation even before I was a Member of your Lordships' House. Then, I must declare an interest in that my father's father went to New Zealand as Governor in 1871; my mother's father went in 1892; my father went as Governor-General in 1924, and I myself in 1962. It would be incredible, therefore, if I were not to have strong feelings in this subject which your Lordships are now debating.

And before the charge is laid, I would plead "not guilty" to jumping on any recent bandwagon, because I have been hammering away at this subject ever since the 1962 Act was passed. I have been very worried about it. Two days after I got back from New Zealand in 1967, I went to call on the then Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations to express my concern and worry about the matter. I was given a very courteous and sympathetic hearing. During the time of the last Government, I had a courteous and sympathetic hearing from the Minister then at the Home Office; and during the present Government from his successor, who is now in Bermuda. I received every sympathy but no real encouragement. One of the people kind enough to give me a hearing said that we could not go in for "discrimination ". It had never occurred to me that discrimination was a dirty word (there are 14 letters in it for a start); others tried to fob me off with talks of the "patrials". That word was acceptable, I thought, if we could not get any better; but the "patrial" solution fell by the wayside.

There are things which New Zealanders cannot say for themselves, but which people like me and other Members of your Lordships' House with one foot in both camps, can perhaps say. When the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, the Right Honourable John Marshall, came to this country to ask for special consideration in the situation then developing, he did not remind us of our indebtedness to New Zealanders; he did not remind us of any blood obligation or any other obligation we might have; he merely stated his case with great dignity and very effectively, and never became a bore about it. Never did he push round a begging bowl or remind us in sentimental terms about our obligations. In 1939 when war broke out, the very day that Britain declared war, the then Prime Minister of New Zealand, the Right Honourable Michael Savage, head of the then Labour Government, contented himself with saying: "Where Britain goes, we go!" and throughout the war, New Zealand, that country so rich in foodstuffs, put herself on voluntary rationing in order to feed us. Those are things that New Zealanders will never remind us of, but I venture to remind your Lordships of them.

I have no time to waste on "hard cases" of immigration discourtesies or other difficulties which have arisen. We all have dossiers, a foot thick, about those, but I would remind your Lordships of some New Zealanders in this country who could not have come here under the present rules. I was going to refer to the late Chief of the Defence Staff, a Member of your Lordships' House; but I see that even under the present Rules they are privileged to go on serving us in the Armed Forces, in the police and in the Houses of Parliament. I could not detect many other privileges which still remain to them. But the present Governor of Northern Ireland, the present Dean of St. Paul's, two leading businessmen, the leading dancer at Sadler's Wells—all these are among the people who have made their careers in this country, have served this country, but who, under the Rules introduced in 1962, could not come into this country permanently. It seems to me absurd. In New Zealand there is no discrimination whatsoever about entry. It may be that they do not have the problems we have. But during my five years there scores, hundreds, thousands of people came in freely, some to settle and others—for example, many young men between school and university—to earn a living for a short time and then come back to this country if they so wished or to stay there if they so wished. We discriminate against them, but they do not discriminate against us.

Canada, no doubt for good reasons, does have strict rules of entry—work permits, and so on; but not New Zealand. Let me give your Lordships one more instance. The great-grandfather of the new Prime Minister of New Zealand, Mr. Norman Kirk, went to New Zealand from my native county of Ayrshire in the 1850s, and his great grandmother went out in the same decade from the Kingdom of Fife. So he is a fourth generation New Zealander. But when he was my guest in Scotland four years ago—and he had never been there before—his first concern was to trace his relations. And he found them. These are links of which he was proud and which he wanted to maintain. I believe that everybody with any soul at all will sympathise with him in that desire.

I believe that this question has become confused. The question I am pursuing has nothing whatsoever to do with matters of colour. I am not suggesting that we choose who conies in and out of Britain freely because of the colour of his or her skin. What I am saying is that people who have gone out from this country or whose forebears went out from this country, and who have retained their allegiance to the Sovereign of their country and ours, have every moral right to come in and out from here at will, as so many have done up until 1962.

So far, my Lords, I have stated the case on largely sentimental grounds. but I want to be constructive as well. First of all, what is my objective and the one which I think should be ours? It is to ensure the freest possible entry for the people I have been describing in the conditions in which we now find ourselves, even if it should mean new legislation. I am talking about those—and why is this phrase becoming unfashionable?—who are of our own "kith and kin ". What possible solutions, then, are there?

I can think of quite a number, but I imagine that it is impossible, perhaps, to go back to before the 1962 Act. But it may be possible to look at that Act again to see how it can apply to old Commonwealth countries only. I admit that that does not take care of those countries which have been part of the British Commonwealth for much longer—like Barbados, which has often been quoted. Perhaps some form of patrial solution can be found. It fell by the wayside without being properly considered, I thought. Or perhaps there could be some form of reciprocity with those countries who want it. Canada may not want it. I cannot speak for Canada, but I am sure that New Zealand wants it. I think that New Zealand ought to have it.

Your Lordships have been very patient with me and I will not detain you any longer, but I must say that I am sure that we ought to keep our eyes on the objective and not worry too much about the difficulties. In a famous minute during the war from Sir Winston Churchill to Lord Mountbatten referring either to Mulberry Harbours or to new landing ships—I forget which—Sir Winston Churchill said: "Do not talk to me about the difficulties; the difficulties will argue themselves". My Lords, thank you very much for your patience.

5.19 p.m.

LORD BARNBY

My Lords, I am fortunate in having the privilege of extending congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Ballantrae, on his maiden speech. He brings to this House a brilliant record of military achievement supplemented by administrative experience. He was naturally welcome in New Zealand where the admiration for prowess, both military and in sport, is of the highest order. His popularity was great. He endeared himself to everybody there and, accompanied by his gracious lady, who is a descendant of that eminent Scottish family which, as those of us who have taken the trouble to look in the Queen's Room in the Library will know, is one of the signatories of the Act of Union between England and Scotland. It has been my good fortune, for business reasons, over the last forty years frequently to visit New Zealand, and I know well his popularity and the good his Governor-Generalship did to that country. May he frequently deploy his talents in this House.

I would also congratulate the noble Baroness who moved this Motion on the not inconsiderable and certainly infrequent success in twice in the same afternoon moving Motions germane to the same topic. As I begin the few remarks I want to record my thanks to my noble friend who is to reply, and to the Minister of State in another place, because in recent times I have addressed to them many inquiries seeking interpretation of many aspects of this matter, and they have been receptive and indulgent. I hope that the noble Lord may be able to give me some help in interpretation, or, if he cannot do that now, he will give me some written replies.

The first Motion dealt with compassion and assistance for a situation already arisen, and while some of us may be confused as to the necessity of it, there can be no question that it achieved an exercise in logistics of movement which will attract credit from the whole world. The noble Baroness brought out the difficulties of interpretation of many aspects. I refer again to the Uganda incident. Surely the speed with which apparently the necessary papers for entry into this country were issued was outstanding. We have all had experience of the difficulty of getting passports in different parts of the world. One suspects that to some degree there must have been haste which overrode care. The fact that there have been many references in the Press regarding people who entered improperly surely illustrates the point that I am making.

With regard to this Motion, when I read the wording I was moved to put down an Amendment which would say "control before entry", instead of "control on entry". Surely we have in the past had a great deal of evidence of the scale of illegal entry, which to some extent approaches a scandal. How do these individuals reach our shores unless they have been inadequately screened or their papers insufficiently investigated before they embarked on the vehicle, surface or air, which was to bring them here? I would support the noble Baroness by referring, if I may, to the speech in another place of Mrs. Shirley Williams, in moving the rejection of the Order, and the remarks of several subsequent speakers. Those of us who have read those speeches carefully will have become sufficiently aware of the confusion, so often reiterated, which undoubtedly exists, and I would appeal to the Government for some manual of interpretation.

With the indulgence of the House, I will read from the official documents that have recently been put out listing the people who can enter the United Kingdom. They are: a national, a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, a Commonwealth citizen, a passport holder, a holder of a Home Office letter of consent (Section 12), a British-protected person, a passport holder subject to immigration control, and a resident or citizen of a British Crown Colony. Surely this suggests that we need some common factor of interpretation which will at least make it easier to understand the situation.

The noble Lord who has just made his maiden speech referred to the difficulties of interpretation. He brought out the particular point that he was interested in with regard to Australia, New Zealand and Canada. I know that my noble friend Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, who enlightened some of us in this House last week as to his feelings about this, will do justice to this particular subject, and I shall not spend time on it. Perhaps the noble Lord might suggest changing in some way the outside covers of passports for some different categories.

With regard to Uganda, some of us have been surprised from the beginning at the softness of the United Kingdom Government towards that ruthless, unprincipled dictator, despot, who surely long before this merited ejection from the Commonwealth, and should have attracted strictures of the most vehement kind from the United Nations, which has been conspicuously silent. That seems to be a clear example of double standards: criticism against whites, but complete silence about any discrimination or racialism, or whatever you like to call it, between blacks. The first Motion dealt with the unfortunates who have experienced rough treatment from Uganda. We should in this Motion be considering the subject of the total inflow in this year of non-whites of upwards of 60,000. There is no doubt that there are many who feel that excessive, and that it impinges on the formula of confining inflow to what the country can absorb without damage to its national character and its institutions.

That is why I suggest to the noble Lord that the Government give careful consideration forthwith to curtailing—some even go so far as to say completely ceasing—temporarily the inflow of what was expected from other quarters. I am unhesitatingly one who puts consideration of our own people first. Of course there is the danger of this large inflow, and with regard to which, let us note, there has been singularly little assistance coming to us in action or sympathy from other African countries. Had South Africa taken action towards expelling some of her Asian citizens, what a howl there would have been from the United Nations, as against the sinister silence experienced!

It is proper in a debate like this to mention the question of repatriation. I am firmly convinced that there are a great number of the non-whites in this country who, if they were offered sufficiently attractive conditions for repatriation, would take advantage of it and return to their own countries. I know that my noble friend Lord Clifford of Chudleigh will deal with the subject of reciprocity, and the noble Lord, Lord Ballantrae, recommended it in his maiden speech; and even the noble Baroness who introduced the debate referred to it. Reciprocity should be a possible way of dealing with this difficult position.

Again, I emphasise the danger from too large a flow—60,000 or upwards—to housing, which was mentioned by the noble Baroness; employment; education; accommodation in schools, and the illnesses which occur here to people unaccustomed to a cold country even if they are not actual carriers of the illness. There is another point; surely there is a lot of hypocrisy in the habitual attitude associated with racialism that we should assist dispersal and integration with our national population. This must mean complete physical integration, so then we shall have an increased number of mulattoes. I am against that; I believe that the country as a whole is against it, and I think that too many non-whites can be an actual danger from the security angle. Wherever you go in the world, you will find that these Asiatics have the tendency gregariously to concentrate; they want to maintain their national characteristics, culture, religion and education, and they do not want dispersal. If you are going to encourage too many of these non-white settlements, surely at some point that will introduce a security risk.

I have asked some questions which I hope the noble Viscount will be able to answer. Governments can always find reasons why this and that should not be done, but I believe there is a widespread feeling, for a revision of existing policy. One is confused by the 1962 Act, the 1968 Act, the 1971 Act, and all their mutations. I emphasise my belief that it would be wise for the Government to act drastically and swiftly. I will finish on a topical note. The night before last I attended outside London a political seminar, and I was interested to gather from several talks made that impatience with and uneasiness about immigration was the dominant topic. I hope that the noble Viscount may be able to deal with some of the suggestions advanced and which the noble Baroness also recommended.

5.37 p.m.

LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH

My Lords, I have two apologies to make to begin with. First, I have just risen from a bed of sickness, and I apologise for my voice; and secondly, I regret to say that I will have to "do a Goodman" and will not be able to make the end of this debate. The first thing that I should like to do is to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Ballantrae, on his maiden speech. I hope, trust and pray, that we hear from him often. He and I have quite a lot in common, as I will explain in a minute, so far as New Zealand is concerned; but I take a step further, over to Australia. He is a Scotsman, and he knows full well that most of the main builders of New Zealand and Australia were Scotsmen. But so far as New Zealand is concerned we, from the West Country, had a certain part to play. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Foot, is not here, because I was going to mention to him a long list of names from the West Country as he is a fellow West Country man.

May I also mention, as he cannot be here to-day, the noble Earl, Lord Buckinghamshire, who, for 30 years, toiled in Australia working, as I did, with his hands, and in the war served in the ranks of the Royal Australian Air Force. He has authorised me to say that he agrees 100 per cent. with everything that I am saying to-day; that he would have said it to-day, and he would have said it last week had I moved my Motion. While mentioning the noble Earl, one ought to congratulate him on "committing" matrimony in the fairly advanced years of his life, and, what is more, to congratulate him on marrying an Australian widow. Another person I know who would love to be here to-day but cannot, and who would have been here last week had that been possible, is the noble and gallant Viscount, Lord de L'Isle, who, as you all know, is an ex-Governor General of Australia. Another ex-Governor writes to me saying that he is precluded because of his position from taking part in the debate to-day, but says: I feel like Charles Fry, a most loquacious man, to whom during the two minutes' silence Neville Cardus remarked quietly, ' This must be killing you. Charles!'". What I mean to say is that there are many other people who feel as strongly as I and my noble friend Lord Ballantrae on this subject.

To get down to the facts, I should like to point out that for the last 8 years I have been hammering home this question in your Lordships' House. I have been trying to do something to improve relations between the country of my birth and the country of my forefathers. But, not being a great newspaper proprietor, most of what I have said has gone unheeded. As the person in the pulpit is allowed to choose a text, I wonder whether I may start my speech to-day by quoting something from a little village 14,000 miles away, which has a war memorial stating: Tell England, ye that mark this monument Faithful to her we died and rest content. Have we by our actions in the past ten years done anything, or will we by our proposed actions in the near future do anything, to return that faith? I leave that to your Lordships.

I have an interest to declare. I have declared it earlier and I shall declare it again to-day in a little more detail, for which I apologise. But I want to emphasise this point of how you get a British passport, or how you are allowed in. My interest is a matter of family history and I trust that I shall not be considered a "skite", which is Australian for a "show off" in what I say, because there are a thousand and one other families in like positions. By the same token, I must confess that I am not ashamed of my relations and fellow countrymen, or of their achievements.

Though I am not a "my country, right or wrong" individual, I am even less what is known as a "knocker", which I think is a word in common use here now but which I think also arose in Australia. Of course, Australia and New Zealand have their percentage of "knockers". Some even come over here and some end up on television. This country also has its "knockers". They are a small minority but they are very strident. I think the best definition I have found of a "knocker" is in one of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, and it is: The idiot who praises with enthusiastic tone All countries but this All races but his own. In 1842, a certain Charles Clifford went out to New Zealand and, with his partner and cousin William Vavasseur, opened up the first sheep run, which is now called a station. Vavasseur came back after a few years, married a daughter of the Lord Clifford of the time and his descendants are now throughout New Zealand. Charles Clifford then took on as his partner another West Country man and cousin called Frederick Weld and they flourished. Clifford became the first Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives; Frederick Weld became one of the first Prime Ministers and then went on to become Governor of Western Australia, Tasmania and the Malay States. There he got a young cousin called Hugh Clifford to enter the Colonial Service, and he added Pahang to the British Empire. I mention these facts only because I know that there are several other noble Lords here who started under that relation.

The next generation, my grandfather—another younger son—went out to the cousins in New Zealand, married in New Zealand, and my father and his elder brother were born there. He then moved on to Tasmania. The year I was born, his elder brother died and he came back here to take his seat in your Lordships' House. When I was 11, after my mother died, I was shipped over here—a latter-day "little Lord Fauntleroy". After I left university, I went into the Army. Towards the end of the war, I married the sister of another Member of your Lordships' House (I was still a serving soldier) and I produced a son—or rather my wife did. However—and this is where his mistake lies—he happened to be born in the British Military Hospital in Singapore and was entered in Part II Orders of the 1st Battalion, the Devonshire Regiment. I ask your Lordships to bear that in mind, if we are to look at how the system operates.

After I left the Regular Army, I went out to Australia for 8 years and my two younger children were born there. I then came back here, but when I tried to get my son a British passport I was told that he could not have one. This was after the 1962 Act. Not only was he not born in this country, but he made the awful mistake of having a father and a grandfather who were not born in this country. It was suggested that he was a Singaporean. I was quite convinced that the Singaporeans did not want to have anything to do with him. So after a great deal of trouble, I managed to go through the rigmarole of persuading somebody to let him have a passport. He had to have a passport, because he had just gone into the Army. So that even to this day, he has to have a little document in his passport stating that even though he was born in Singapore he is allowed to call himself British. This is not an isolated case, but it happens to be my son's case; and, to add insult to injury, I may say that it has not stopped the Government of this country sending him for three tours of duty in Northern Ireland. There are other examples of the position in which a lot of people find themselves, or have found themselves, and which emphasise the reason why something should be done urgently to correct these Rules which have done a great deal to make the relationship between our countries so much worse than it should be. Bear in mind, my Lords, that while all of this has been going on we have been issuing hundreds of thousands of British passports to other people. I am not complaining about that. All I am saying is that it is con- sidered insulting by some of us that this sort of thing is going on.

About five years ago, I returned from a visit to Australia. We had an almost empty plane as far as Karachi, where we filled up with, I presume, a lot of Pakistanis. Some of them had been there on holiday—and why not'?—and had probably been over here for the requisite time to get a British passport. But when we arrived at Heathrow and were going through the "Commonwealth" gate a whole lot of these other chaps were going through the "U.K. passport" gate. A young New Zealander behind me, in a voice a good deal louder than it should have been, looked at those fellows and said, "I suppose if I was Tariq Ali I, too, would get the V.I.P. treatment". Can you blame him, my Lords? Does Tariq Ali have a British passport and, if so, why? It would be interesting to know. In September, 1970, I returned from leading a three-man Parliamentary mission to Brazil. From time to time, I had had a bit of trouble with the two blokes from the other place, but they certainly had the last laugh on me when we arrived at Heathrow, because they went through a channel called "British Passports and Republic of Ireland" and when they looked back they held their sides with laughter while I spent 20 minutes trying to persuade an Indian immigration officer that I had as much right to be here as he had.

Four years ago a young Australian journalist on a South Coast paper, together with his editor, got in touch with me to ask whether I could do anything in the way of getting his permit extended. I said there was not much hope but I would do what I could. Two days later I had an urgent telephone call saying, "Don't do anything". I said, "All right", and then I made some surreptitious inquiries to find out what had happened. What had happened was that he had heard the buzz about the Republic; he had discovered a long-lost Irish grandmother; he had popped over to the Republic of Ireland; he had swapped his Australian passport for a Republic of Ireland passport; and he could then come and go as easily as he liked.

The Agent-General for Tasmania was staying with me last year, and we were discussing this particular subject and the ill-feeling it had caused between our countries. Suddenly his 14-year-old son said, "You know, you should not be here, Dad". His father said, "What?" The son said, "Your passport says you should have left". So we sent the boy upstairs for his father's passport. He brought it down, and there on the passport of the Agent-General for Tasmania, coming for at least a three-year appointment, was stamped, "Limited to six months only ". By all means insult your enemies, my Lords, but why your friends and relations? Why, also—and this is a matter to be borne in mind, I feel—your fellow subjects of the Queen? One of the most pathetic cases was the earliest, when a New Zealander wrote to me in November, 1967. He had fought for us, he said, in the last war; he had lost two brothers in that war; he was over here visiting a sister who was dying of cancer, and he found it most ignominious that, because his sister was lasting a little longer than was thought would be the case, he had to go to the Home Office to get his extension renewed. Of course he got it renewed: the point I am getting at is that it is damned insulting that he had to.

The other day I was reading an article by John Mossman in the Daily Telegraphof December 7, 1967, and it amused me. It was quoting the Press in Australia, especially the Sydney Bulletin.What amused me somewhat was that the scathing attacks on the Wilson Government at the time were, of course, practically word for word the attacks on the present Government which are going on both in the Australian Press and here. The earliest case I had was of the young Hobart boy. Hobart is where I was born and my noble friend Lord Rowallan was, of course, Governor of Tasmania. This boy, who had overstayed his welcome, broke his ankle and was taken to hospital. His friends missed him, and asked the police to find him. When the police found him in hospital they arrested him and put him inside for 30 days. I managed to raise that case in your Lordships' House, and that was the time when I stood up holding my Australian passport and said, "I have got one; I work here, and have no work permit. When am I going to be arrested?" It did not get much mention in the Press here, but it received quite a bit out there. What amused me, or amazed me, about that matter was that I later got a letter from the mother of this boy. Instead of being full, as might have been expected, of complaints, she said she was full of gratitude for the way everybody over here, as far as she could see, had reacted to this case, and for all the nice offers that the boy had had—which, of course, we did not hear about in the Press. What impressed her most was that an Army major serving in Germany at the time had written to her and offered the boy a home for as long as he liked. I wrote back to her and said, "Madam, our politicians and bureaucrats may have no sense of shame or gratitude, but you may be certain that the British soldier would never forget his comrades in arms in time of trouble ". I am quite certain that that letter was read at the local R.S.L. Meeting—that is the British Legion to your Lordships—fairly soon afterwards.

Now, my Lords, we come to this Parliament, and your Lordships will remember that late one night, ably supported by my noble friend Lord Cork and Orrery, I moved an Amendment which would have allowed these countries, on a reciprocal basis, to get over this insulting treatment. After a couple of rather nasty speeches—at least, they were nasty so far as I was concerned—the Government, in the person of the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, who should have known better, refused to accept it. Can you wonder at my scepticism when I read now that this question of reciprocity is one of the re-reforms that is being considered?

The latest case—and the last of the cases I am going to mention—occurred only three weeks ago and concerned my friend Bill Spowers. He had joined up at 16, and was wounded in what in Australia is called "the Islands ". While recuperating he went as A.D.C. to his godfather the noble Lord, Lord Casey, who I think was then Governor of Bengal. From there he transferred to the Grenadier Guards here, and he served for many years. Eventually he retired, and he is now a director and the chief book-man at Christies. But he is an Australian. He came here and married, and he has property here, children and all the rest of it. Late one night he flew in from Amsterdam. There was nobody opposite the Commonwealth passport entrance, but there was somebody opposite the British passport entrance. He went in. and there he was told by an Indian interrogator, "You get out of here! You bloody Australians want the lot"—and he was sent down to the aliens' entrance. Being a spirited ex-Grenadier, Bill Spowers then set about work, and I am quite certain that the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, knows of the letter he wrote to Mr. Carr, as the Australian Press know of the telegram he sent to Her Majesty the Queen. But what I liked best, I think, was that bit of his letter to the Foreign Secretary referring to his godfather's visit here (that is, Lord Casey) next June. He quoted what Lord Casey had written, saying that it was "with dismay that he saw in this legislation the destruction of all he has worked for over the last 60 years," and he wondered if, when he arrived, he, as a Knight of the Garter, would be asked whether he has a work permit.

My Lords, I had intended to end here and let these cases speak for themselves, but two things happened. One was the Amendment to my Motion by the noble Lord, Lord Walston, which altered things as they were last week, and the second was the appearance of an article in The Times of December 2, by a chap named Caminada—a nice Anglo-Saxon name—which was entitled, Kith and kin—A myth wearing thin He started by stating that 12 pet cent. of Australians are now ethnically not from this country. My Lords, so what? My last information is that it was 8 per cent., but even so that is a greater percentage than in England itself—probably greater now, with the recent influx. The next anti-Australian argument he makes is that Australia is now a bigger trading partner with Japan and the United States of America. Again, so what? When Australia saw the intentions of this country to join the Common Market, they naturally took the necessary steps. Surely it is the first duty of every Government to protect the standard of living of their citizens. But, even so, this article does not go on to mention the trade with this country. Last year Australia bought £365 million worth from us, and we bought £276 million worth from them. They are 1971 figures. But, of course, that information did not go in that article. If you want to lose that £100 million advantage which you have at present, then I suggest that you let the laissez faire business go on and do nothing about it.

Another complaint was that Australia was not buying British planes. How petty can you be? B.O.A.C. has bought more U.S. planes that has Quantas. If your Lordships or Caminada want another home truth, I can say that if you are referring to military planes, a friend of mine, Sir Valston Hancock, ex-chief of the Australian Air Staff, recommended the purchase of a certain British fighter on one condition. That one condition was that Britain herself would back it. They did not back it; so Australia went over to the second alternative. I think that these arguments are rather despicable.

The next thing Mr. Caminada tried to do was to denigrate the Australian and New Zealand war effort by comparing them with the Indian contribution. This ignores two factors: first, the comparison with the population of New Zealand (then one and a half million) with that of the Indian sub-continent with its three hundred million; and, secondly, that the pre-war forces from countries like India and West Africa were largely Colonial forces, mercenaries, officered entirely by people from these Islands—and very good they were! I have served with them and alongside them. But there is a difference between them and the forces of countries with freely-elected Governments, forces which are under their own officers.

On Monday last, I read something which it might have done the writer of this article some good to know. The Times has a little column called "25 years ago". On Monday, December 4, it read: From The Times of Wednesday, December 3, 1947. Food ships arrive. The ship' City of Ely' has arrived in the Thames with £25,000 worth of gift food from the Government of Victoria. She also has on board 3,864 parcels from the Returned Soldiers' League of Victoria for distribution by the British Legion. Seven other food ships from Australia are due to arrive in Britain within the next 10 days, and of a further 30 now on their way the majority should arrive by Christmas. I do not know the age of the writer of that article; but he might have read his own paper a few days later.

The letter from the noble Lord, Lord Walston—and I wrote to him saying—

BARONESS WHITE

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Walston is at Strasbourg on Parliamentary business.

LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH

My Lords, I am sorry that he is not here, but in that letter I am sure the noble Baroness will agree that he made some points which I feel I have a right to comment on. In that letter he said: the value of the Commonwealth is in its multi-racial aspect". The Commonwealth, Yes! But the Commonwealth, as we know it now, is a post-war invention of, to some, varying degrees of value. Before that we had the Colonial Empire and old Dominions. He has accused me, and presumably some of my friends, of meaning by "old Commonwealth" the white Commonwealth. What I mean is the old Dominions. The fact that those of British descent form, or formed, a large majority over the Maoris in New Zealand or the "Abos" in Australia or the French Canadians in Canada, is to my mind an irrelevance. The noble Lord, Lord Hale, aptly said that it is stupid to pretend that one does not get a warmer feeling when referring to the inhabitants of British Columbia as against those of Quebec. In other words, it is not colour but relationship. If I prefer my family to that of, say, the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, does that make me a racialist? If I prefer to have—

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, the noble Lord will recollect that I am Canadian.

LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH

My Lords, I am glad to hear it. Another one of us! If I prefer to have members of my family in my spare room to having, say, members of—who shall I choose this time?—the family of the noble Viscount, Lord Masserene and Ferrard—if that makes me a racialist then I am one.

One of my Ghanaian friends, an Ashanti, now in their Ministry of Agriculture, when staying with me—and mark that, anyone who "points the bone"! said: "You are a funny race. If one of your colour said in Accra what I heard those of my colour saying in Hyde Park last week"—and, my Lords, this was four years ago—"about you and your Government. he would be lynched, kicked out, expelled, with all his friends. I don't know how you put up with it" I thought that to recount that to those who try to "point the bone" might result in a slight balancing of feelings in this matter.

Lastly, the noble Lord in his letter said that those who believe, as I do, that I and my Australian and New Zealand cousins should get preference over the inhabitants of our ex-Colonies—some of whom are Republican and anti-British—are (and I quote) "taking the lead in killing the Commonwealth". Touché! The noble Lord is entitled to his opinions and I am entitled to mine. He can have his Amins and his Nkrumahs and his other preferences. If we were to be at war to-morrow, I bet that not many of his precious Commonwealth would lift a finger to help, no matter what the circumstances. The war would be branded a racialist, Colonist, Imperialist one. I bet that mine still would help.

My Lords, I end as I began. Please accept—late in the day as it is—the reciprocal Amendment that I put down to the last Immigration Bill. Remember, again, my Lords, my text from that New Zealand village war memorial: Tell England ye that mark this monument "Faithful to her we died and rest content. Remember that rather than the blandishments of the inverted racialists!

6.7 p.m.

LORD REAY

My Lords, the Motion standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady White, combines a number of propositions not all of which the individual Peer who speaks this afternoon can be expected to pursue. With the first of them, the need for us to review our law of citizenship, I have no hesitation in expressing my agreement. The position at the moment is quite ludicrous and the sort of courtly system of distinction by small gestures and favours distributed here and there to different groups, a privilege of one sort to one group, a privilege of another sort to another group, is a system out of another century and needs to be swept away in its entirety.

We listened to a most remarkable and engaging maiden speech from the noble Lord, Lord Ballantrae. This plainly carried the stamp of a speech by a distinguished and experienced public man. I agreed very much with what he said towards the end when he, like other noble Lords, indicated that we should look at the possibility of introducing some system of reciprocity, and also when he said that the method was less important than the acceptance of the principle. I think that if we decide to change some of the principles that apply in this field, we shall not have a problem in finding a method. But I wish basically to follow only one aspect of this problem; namely, the situation and background of the Ugandan crisis and our need to prevent its recurrence.

My Lords, the coloured immigration into this country within the last two decades is an experience without parallel in this country's history and perhaps without parallel in the history of any country. This is true, notwithstanding arguments used by, in particular, the official Opposition, that for us to continue to absorb large numbers of coloured immigrants is in accordance with our traditions. In the first place, there is a difference in scale. In the past, the largest number of foreign immigrants we took in were the Jews. In the 1930s, we added to our existing Jewish population by a factor of about 25 per cent.—a large increase. But even then, by 1939 our Jewish population was less than 1 per cent. of the total population. And we had absorbed that number over 300 years. There has been nothing to compare with the build up within fifteen years of 1½ million to 2 million immigrants from the new countries of the Commonwealth.

The second difference is that our previous immigrations were intra-European. No previous immigration has produced a gap in experience anything like so profound as that between the European and the races of Africa and of the Indian sub-continent. Of course, in our era, for the first time, those races in charge of their sovereign States have to come into contact with and to compete with the States of Europe and other States on the basis of equals, within the context of the ever-shifting pattern of power in the world. Those relationships will develop. We hope that some will prove friendly and constructive. But there is no prospect of, nor is there any evidence to expect, the integration of those elements resident here into our population within this country. As I have said on another occasion in your Lordships' House, for the most part they are not exiles severed from contact with their countries of origin. On the contrary, they have a constant temptation to continue to belong to the culture of the countries they have left, or, if they are negro, they have a tendency to be drawn into a sort of international brotherhood that refrains from accepting any national identity. These groups are, and will remain, foreign bodies in the structure of British society, and however stable that society and however strong its identity, its tolerance of such foreign bodies must be crucially related to their size and number.

The third factor which distinguishes this immigration from all previous immigrations—and this is perhaps the most important factor for all for an understanding of the British reaction to the Uganda crisis—is the unique historic fact that this country is expected to be the host to all immigrants from this source. In the great immigrations of the past, we were never the sole—we were never even the primary—recipient of the immigrants. In all cases we simply played our part as one of a number of sympathetic nations who saw it as their duty (or in some cases as their advantage) to provide a home for the dispossessed. I am sure that within the limits of our strained capacity, we should always be anxious to play such a role. British sympathy is quite sufficient to respond warmly to the episodic calamities that befall foreign communities. But what I understand the British people to want is for us to sever finally that link with the past that obliges us to be the unwilling victim of policies that were fashioned when an earlier political generation took a different and, let it be added, an unrealistic view of our position in the world.

At the present time the Government are trapped between, on the one hand, the knowledge that they are most unlikely to be able to admit again a similar influx and, on the other hand, the need to summon a certain amount of courage to introduce a policy which will prevent it. We are therefore floating, without a policy in which we believe, relying on good fortune to preserve us from another emergency—although good fortune is something which the older generation, who have lived through a period of unparalleled displacements, should be the last to count on.

We must be in no doubt that it is a great comfort to other nations of the world that we continue to be in the position of the country that has assumed responsibility in emergencies of this nature. It was no surprise that India—whose assimilation of the Uganda Asians would have presented no cultural problem—was initially silent on the matter of what she might be prepared to do if she had to. Her Foreign Minister was reported as saying in Parliament: "It would not be good for us to adopt a position which would relieve Britain of her responsibilities. The reason for this is that the world has changed. No longer do countries need numbers, as they did in the days when the United States lay open before the Jews expelled from Russia under the Czars. No longer can migrations be considered a transfer of strength from one country to another, as they were when the Protestant countries of Europe grasped eagerly the Huguenots driven from the menacing power of Catholic France. For this reason, until we change our policy, there is much less to be gained from international co-operation than might be inferred from Ministerial speeches. Despite the enormous Ministerial effort made, we have still taken—what?—some three-quarters or two-thirds of the Asians expelled from Uganda. Such a proportion is not an acceptable solution for future crises.

I should now like to turn to the question of our vulnerability. What are the possibilities which we are relying on fortune to preserve us from? As I understand it, the figures are these—although I find it impossible to reconcile Government figures issued at different times, and if these figures, in the opinion of the Minister, need correction I shall be most pleased to receive such correction. There are now about a quarter of a million people in Commonwealth countries who hold only British passports. In addition, there are a million or so who have British citizenship but who are also citizens of the countries in which they reside. How many of them actually hold British passports, as opposed to having the right to hold them, it might be interesting to hear.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, my noble friend means United Kingdom passport holders, does he not?

LORD REAY

Yes, my Lords. For the group as a whole, their very retention of a British passport is of course a provocation to expulsion; and so is the knowledge that we consider ourselves committed to receive them. But in addition, it is far from clear that at present we should not be vulnerable to a similar situation arising in the Colonies. There are perhaps 1 million British passport-holders in Dependent Territories, excluding Hong Kong—perhaps 3 million with Hong Kong. Now we are told that they are citizens of the Colonies they inhabit; but the fact, as I understand it, remains that they are in possession of that emotionally-loaded document, a British passport. And that fact is far more important than any qualifications introduced by legislation, any discreet symbols used to distinguish the passports of some of these holders from those of some others, as has been proved by what happened this August.

We cannot be certain, in an age when our military means has declined absolutely and when its geographic deployment has been contracted, that we can ensure through all circumstances the enjoyment by the populations of those Colonies of the undisturbed possession of their homes. For example, we could not pretend to challenge a serious threat to Hong Kong. Elsewhere in the Colonies, who is to say that a similar crisis, engaging the sympathy of the world for a group who are the victims of a situation that neither they nor we can control, will not arise? But if it does, what will happen? British passports will be waived and all eyes will turn to Britain and will wonder whether she dares to avoid a duty which the whole world says is hers and which she has never taken steps to deny is hers.

It is therefore absolutely necessary for Britain to bring to an end this liability and to do so in advance of the next crisis. Of course, I should not rule out, if the occasion arises, financial assistance; and if any Commonwealth country is going to expel any one of these groups I see no reason why we should not use money from our aid funds for such a purpose. But, for political and social reasons, we have reached the limit of our capacity to absorb them ourselves, and that fact, whatever the pressures, is paramount.

The problem, although Ministers seem at times to have implied the contrary, is not a legal one. It is a moral problem. The 1968 Act introduced the necessary legal authority to control as we chose the inflow of British passport holders. What it could not do was to arm us with the moral authority to apply its provisions in a crisis. That can happen only if we ourselves believe that what we do is right. The remark made by Mr. Callaghan in Committee in another place that in the event of expulsion we should be obliged to take the Asians—a remark which was only recently discovered to have been important—was not, as I see it, a legal comment, but a moral one. And morality does not lie in the adherence to a policy which we know to be an anachronism, undesired by the people of this country, humiliating to this country, dangerous for its future, and one which contributes to a distortion of international relations. Morality lies in the recognition that we committed an error that must be corrected out of a sense of responsibility of the most important kind we bear—that for our country's future.

But there will be another consequence if we act in the manner I am suggesting. For the problem of being able to set our own limits to immigration into this country and to select frankly those countries to which we wish to give preference is only a part of the total relationship we perpetuate with the developing world. For the system which exists is one in which we are vulnerable to more or less any political demand originating in the developing world. It is our hypocrisy, the fact that we claim to act according to a superior moral pattern, the fact that we claim to be uninfluenced by considerations of race when each immigration Act proves the contrary—it is this hypocrisy that has made it impossible for us to alter our policies long after the need to alter them has become plain. Yet this hypocrisy is itself, of course, extremely well understood by other countries, and itself continually provokes their aggression against us.

The consequence is a recurrent intrusion of impossible demands, protests, lectures and instructions, of no constructive value, from the developing countries towards ourselves, whether at Commonwealth Prime Ministers' conferences, or at the United Nations, or at any international conference, whatever the subject due to be discussed, provided the opportunity seems to them favourable. Of course this pattern of weakness before the demands of the de-colonised world is shared by the West as a whole, but it is Great Britain who has the widest range of post-imperial contacts in the world. So it is ourselves who have most of these experiences. Correspondingly, any changes in this pattern that we succeed in introducing will be of value to the Western world as a whole. And we will have taken a notable step towards bringing an end to this pattern and towards normalising relations between ourselves and countries in the developing world if we now make it plain that we will not take in any more coloured immigrants, except in so far as there are strong arguments for us to do so according to our own needs as we see them, and except in so far as existing arrivals need their spouses and their dependent children.

Of course if we act in this way there will be a row; consequences must be anticipated. If some countries—however many of them—wish to withdraw from the Commonwealth, or from the next Olympic Games, or any international conference of their choice, then, with due expressions of regret, we must permit them to do so. A Government that was willing to sustain the retaliation of Russia when she expelled a hundred diplomats, should be able to endure the reaction of the Commonwealth. The row will not last long. And when it subsides the Government will find that their recovery of a sense of reality in this field of foreign affairs will provide a sense of relief that will spread beyond this country; and we should find it possible to renew relationships with those countries to which our culture under our Empire has contributed so much, who need us still, and whose co-operation we also shall increasingly need in the great world problems of the future, and to do so on a franker, more equal and ultimately more dignified basis.

6.24 p.m.

LORD BROCKWAY

My Lords, I have listened to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Reay, with very great interest. His contributions to our debate are always stimulating. He has the type of mind which is alert, which is always inquiring and seeking facts. And because it is doing that, and because it has not a biased attitude in that search, it is always changing. While I have been in this House I have seen the noble Lord on the Liberal Benches urging the most tolerant liberal attitudes. I have been associated with him in some efforts. Then I have seen him go to the Cross-Benches, a little uncertain, but his mind still active. Then I saw him going from the Cross-Benches to the Tory Benches. When he first got to the Tory Benches he was very moderate, not quite sure whether he ought to be there. Then I heard him to-night expressing the attitude of the most right-Wing of the Tory Party—Powellite in the extreme. I do not quite know where he will go next. I am not saying that cynically, because that type of man has some advantage when we are discussing issues. I know many of them, and I always find them stimulating.

My Lords, we have not made much reference to-night to a subject which must be most in our minds: what is to happen in regard to immigration when, in the New Year, we go into the European Community? Because I had expected others to deal with that subject in some detail, I do not propose to discuss it at any length. But I do not think there is any doubt whatsoever that when we go into the European Community the citizens of European countries will have greater advantages than those who are citizens of Commonwealth countries. That applies first to those who were members of the white Dominions and, as I shall express later, I have great sympathy with the citizens of Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It applies secondly to a minority in the Commonwealth countries who are non-white patrials. It applies most deeply to the great majority of those from the non-white Commonwealth who are non-patrials. It would be entirely wrong for us to hide the fact that entry into the European Community will be to the disadvantage of citizens who belong to the white Dominions, as well as to the citizens of those who are in the non-white territories of the Commonwealth. If the Minister is able to reassure us on that point, it will be valuable, even though there has not been much reference to that subject during the debate.

I want to say at once in response to previous speakers, and particularly in response to the noble Lord, Lord Ballantrae—and I join with others in welcoming his maiden speech, and the clarity and force with which he expressed it—that I am in favour of greater immigration facilities for the white citizens of the Dominions of Canada, Australia and New Zealand. I recognise that there is an appeal in the kith and kin affinity. I have many relatives in Canada; I have relatives in Australia. If you go to Brisbane you will find a Brockway swimming club because one of the closest child comrades in my youth was Dorothy Brockway, who won the world's one mile women's swimming championship. I have my associations with Australia. I have not any closer friends in the world than those who are in New Zealand.

When we are looking at the old Dominions one has to recognise this fact, which was put very impressively by Mr. Richard Crossman in The Times this morning. While the old sentimental association of the older generations who have grown up in the Dominions with this country is very strong, in the younger generation of Canada, Australia or New Zealand it is less. It is less partly because of our entry into the European Community but also because of our immigration laws. We must face the fact that Canada, Australia and New Zealand are now going to become more self-reliant and more independent. It was reflected in the victory of Mr. Trudeau in Canada. It has been reflected—and on these Benches we welcome it—by the victory of the Labour Party in New Zealand and Australia. They are going to become more self-reliant, more independent, overthrowing the foreign policies which our Government, America and Western Europe are pursuing, standing for the new ideal of neutralisation between the two great Power blocs. Therefore, when we are thinking of immigration from the old Dominions, we must keep in mind those new tendencies which are taking place in their populations.

While I want to see open avenues of immigration from Canada, Australia and New Zealand, I do not want to see that on the basis of discrimination against the citizens of other parts of the Commonwealth which are non-white. Let us remember—the point was put by the noble Lord, Lord Walston, in his letter to The Times to which reference has been made—that, while we speak of the "old Commonwealth" (Canada, Australia and New Zealand) the origin of the Commonwealth began long before then. Columbus discovered the West Indies in 1492. Cook landed in Botany Bay only in 1770. The beginning of the Empire, of the Commonwealth, was not in the white Dominions; it was in the Caribbean territories.

If we look at these Immigration Rules, we shall see at once discrimination against the citizens of non-white territories of the Commonwealth. They are divided into patrials and non-patrials in the 1971 Act. The patrials are those who have fathers who were born in this country. If I were immigrating into this country at this moment, I should be a non-patrial because I was born in India and my father was born in Africa. If I were immigrating into this country now, I should have no right to be here unless I had contracted a job for one year with an employer. I am insignificant, but the same applies to the Duke of Edinburgh. Until next year when we go into the European Community, if the Duke of Edinburgh were to come into this country he would be a non-patrial because he was born in Greece and his father was born in Germany, and he would be under other disadvantages to which I will refer later in my speech. He would have no right to come into this country because he was going to marry. Under the immigration laws which we are now discussing, a woman has a right to come here to her husband; a man has no right to come into this country because his wife is here. If the husband of Her Majesty were entering this country now, he would be under all the disabilities which these immigration laws apply. My criticism of the present immigration laws is that they perpetuate and strengthen the discrimination which was in the 1971 Act.

I want to look particularly—and here I am making some comment on the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Reay—at the situation in Uganda. I am as distressed and angry as anyone in this House by the policy which General Amin has followed. It has left an Asian population there which is in a condition of confusion. Some of them at the time of independence said, "We will become British citizens". Some of them said, "We will become Ugandan citizens". They made their applications. But, as anyone familiar with that country knows, month after month has passed without that Ugandan citizenship being recognised ill such a legalised form that they can make an appeal to it. There is utter confusion regarding the status of the Stateless in Uganda.

From all the information which I have received, mostly from Mrs. Mary Dines, the Secretary of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Commonwealth Immigrants, there are at least 100 so-called Stateless Africans in Uganda who are undoubtedly British citizens, who applied for British citizenship, but because under Ugandan conditions they have not got the paper certificates, many stolen, they are denied the right to come here. I am asking that the Government in this situation shall allow representations to be made to the Nationality and Treaty Department of the Foreign Office to look into the claims by Stateless Africans who claim to be British citizens.

LORD AVEBURY

My Lords, may I intervene? Would the noble Lord perhaps deal with the situation of the persons of indeterminate nationality who are at present held in Pentonville Prison and who are denied any kind of representation except from Members of Parliament or Members of your Lordships' House? They are incarcerated in conditions which apply to criminals while the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, refuses to reply to letters which are addressed to him or to his colleagues in the Home Office after—

SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS

Order!

LORD AVEBURY

—after more than a month.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, the noble Lord has his name down to speak. If he is going to make a speech later, I think it might be more in order with our rules if he were to make these points then.

LORD AVEBURY

I am not interested in your rules of debate.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, with great respect, the noble Lord is subject to the rules of the House. If he is going to make speeches in this House, it is this House which supports its own rules of order, and I am only attempting to remind the noble Lord of what they are.

LORD AVEBURY

The noble Viscount may make his own rules. I am just intervening in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, and I am asking him a question. I am surely entitled to do that. I am asking him whether he has considered the case of these people who are in Pentonville Prison, locked up by Her Majesty's Government, kept in prison without the right of habeas corpus or anything else, incarcerated like ordinary criminals.

SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS

Order!

LORD GRIDLEY

My Lords, would it not be in order for the noble Lord to make his submission later, when he is down on the list to speak, rather than to make his remarks now, while the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, is speaking?

LORD AVEBURY

I am asking the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, a question, and if he deems it fit to answer my question he will do so. Is not that in accordance with the procedures of your Lordships' House? I am asking him——

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, will the noble Lord—

LORD AVEBURY

If the noble Viscount will excuse me—

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, the noble Lord was asking—

LORD AVEBURY

I am not giving way.

THE EARL OF ONSLOW

My Lords, the noble Lord is not in the House of Commons now.

LORD AVEBURY

I am asking whether he will not deal with a situation which is a shame and a blot on our reputation in this country, that these people are kept and incarcerated—

SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS

Order!

LORD AVEBURY

In prisons—

SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS

Order!

LORD AVEBURY

—and whether he might not—

SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS

Order!

LORD AVEBURY

The noble Viscount can go on saying "Order!" whether it might not be for the convenience of the House—

SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS

Order!

LORD AVEBURY

—if the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, might refer to this subject during the course of his speech.

THE EARL OF ONSLOW

My Lords, is it in order to move that his Lordship may no longer be heard?

LORD AVEBURY

It might be, if I sat down.

SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS

Hear, hear!

LORD BROCKWAY

My Lords, if the question is addressed to me, of course I feel indignant about the Uganda Asians who are now in Pentonville Prison. I had hoped indeed that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, would deal with that subject when he came to speak in this debate and it is only for that reason that I did not make reference to it. I want to assure him and the House that I feel as deeply about that as he feels.

A further point to which I wanted to address myself regarding these Immigration Rules is this obsolete idea that a man must necessarily be the head of the family, and that if a wife wishes to come to this country because her husband is here she is entitled to do so, but if a man wants to come to this country because his wife is here he is not allowed to do so. That is a 19th century attitude of judgment between a man and a wife and it is quite extraordinary that to-day it should be determining who is allowed to enter this country. This is not just an academic issue. One of the emotionally disturbing facts of the last four months has been the break-up of families from Uganda. The wife, a British Asian, the husband, not, and he is not allowed to join his wife in this country, even though if the husband is a British Asian his wife is allowed to join him. It is not only between husband and wife but between children. An 18-year old not enrolled as a British citizen is not allowed to join his parents here. I have had the most tragic instances—a youth sent back to Uganda in a psychology which is utterly opposed to him and in which he cannot hope to get on; families broken up by these obsolete rules about the relationship of man to woman and parents to their children. I beg the Minister to look at that.

LORD AVEBURY

A waste of good time.

LORD BROCKWAY

My Lords, I want to put another point to the Minister. In his document regarding these rules he says that immigration officers must not discriminate on the grounds of age, sex or race when they have entrants before them. But that phrase also includes that they must fulfil their duties, and it is the duties which are discriminatory. Does the Minister know that at this moment there are 200 husbands in refugee camps in Europe who are not allowed to come to this country, even though their wives are here? My appeal to the Minister is that he should look again, not only on the deeper issues of immigration policy and discrimination on the ground of colour, but that he should look again on this human factor of family life; the breaking up of families and the destruction of boys and girls, growing up in a climate which is against them and in which they have no one near them to encourage them in their growing years. That is a thing for which no Government and no Minister should be responsible without some sense of shame, and I am appealing to the conscience of the Minister—which I know will respond—and to Her Majesty's Government to put these wrongs right.

6.49 p.m.

LORD GORE-BOOTH

My Lords, it has been a special pleasure to be present on the occasion of the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Ballantrae. I suppose the appropriate adjective would be "masterly". The noble Lord spoke as though he had been with us already for a very long time, with great fluency and great authority; and as the author, Bernard Fergusson, is so versatile, I hope we shall see his successor, the noble Lord, often in this House and hear him on many subjects.

I seem fated on a number of occasions to follow the noble Lord, Lord Brockway. I regret very much that this debate did not take place about three months ago because I have just been to Brisbane and I would have enjoyed touching him for a free swim at the Brockway Swimming Club, which opportunity I have now missed. I will not follow the noble Lord in the account, in a voice of charming menace, with which he demolished the Common Market, the old Dominions and various other things, but simply say I feel that he raised a number of points of great importance to this debate but that it is wrong in this context to suggest that because there is this or that anomaly, one should have the impression that the whole apparatus of these Rules is out of joint.

My only justification for intervening in this debate is that when these Regulations were announced I happened to be in Australia, and it may he of some interest to your Lordships if I deal with the matter from the other end of the telescope. I wish also to deal with it on the basis, which I hope is correct—I think this emerges from the interchange between the noble Viscount and the noble Baroness, Lady White—that what we say in this House may he of value in the further consideration of statements on this subject which appear to be implied in the Prime Minister's concluding remarks in the debate in another place on November 22.

I begin my comments on a subject which has so far not been dealt with, and that is the public relations aspect of this extremely sensitive and difficult question. I am speaking now from the other end of my telescope. When the Regulations were published on October 23 and were reported direct, as best the correspondents could, the effect in Australia was consternation. Suddenly, overnight, Australians appeared to have become foreigners. Twenty-four hours later, and therefore 24 hours too late, there came a stream of explanatory and reassuring comments which were reproduced with great honesty in the Australian Press and on the Australian radio, but whereas the first reports had been on page 1 the 24-hour-later reports were, fatally, only on page 2, and therefore the first impression could never quite be caught up with. It may be thought by some that the first reports were some characteristic piece of carelessness or conspiracy by the media. I am not uncritical of the media, but in this case it certainly cannot have been wholly attributable to them.

At the peril of labouring this point a little, I will give two instances where I feel these Regulations, which are not only an administrative and legislative document but a public relations exercise, might have been looked at from this very important point of view. Paragraph 11 of the document Statement of Immigration Rules for Control after Entry deals with the question of people coming here on working holidays. It says that such people are not allowed to stay here indefinitely. It then points out that young Commonwealth citizens may like to come for a period of 12 months. Speaking as a former public relations officer, I must ask why that could not have been put the other way round. It says, in effect, "You are not welcome, but still you may stay for a certain time." Why does it not say, "You are welcome, but you cannot stay indefinitely"?

On the other hand, consider the back cover of the document Statement of Immigration Rules for Control on Entry. The title of that back cover is Foreign countries whose nationals need visas for the United Kingdom. It starts with the words "foreign countries." One reads down the table and against Australasia is written the word "None." I am neither particularly intelligent or particularly stupid, but my mind did a total double-take. Because it says "Foreign countries" at the top, I started looking for foreign countries in Australasia whose citizens do not need visas. I am sure many correspondents did the same. Again, if I may say so with some diffidence, there seemed to be a certain carelessness in the drafting of these documents vis-à-vis this sort of audience. I mention this first because I happened to be there, and secondly because I hope the Minister will feel able to give an assurance that if there is a revised edition of such things, as surely there is bound to be, this sensitive aspect of the matter will be attended to promptly and expertly at the time of the next publication.

I come to some administrative points which also seem to be of importance in any future handling of this matter. It may be logical in theory to say that people in the Commonwealth ought to know what the signature by this country of the Treaty of Rome involves in the matter of limitations on the free entry into this country of people from the Commonwealth. In this context, people in Australia and New Zealand, which I also visited, have a very thoughtful understanding of what they consider to be the necessity for this country to join the E.E.C. Nevertheless, somebody who is concerned from day to day with whether the rain will fall or what the price of wool will be will not read a great deal of the small print and will need help in understanding what it is that we are trying to do. I assure your Lordships that they, and particularly the older ones among them, feel that there is an alteration in the "feel" of coming to what they used to call "home" and that they are unhappy about it. However, they recognise that this is inevitable, but they have a certain right to demand that, in so far as it is possible, the limitations be handled courteously, understandingly and as simply as possible. I therefore welcome very much the institution at our airports of the special category of entry "Commonwealth citizens". This will cost more and be more complicated, but I am sure that it will be a valuable part of the public relations and administrative exercise of our new immigration policy; and I am encouraged to press this point by the instance quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh.

Another point which arose in Australia was the complaint by a number of people that in coming to this country they had gone through all the formalities necessary at a British High Commission but that when they arrived in Britain they were subjected to what might be called double processing—what seemed to them to be another interrogation similar to the one they had already undergone. I hope the Minister will give some reassurance that this is just part of the growing pains of the new Regulations and that it will be the aim of the Government to ensure that people go through these processes only once, and that if they have gone through them at the other end the examination of their documents at this end will be as far as possible a formality and not a second interrogation.

It may also help matters—and again the Minister may have some comment on this—to say that there should be as far as possible an obligation on travel firms, air lines and so on, to ensure that people coming to this country from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and elsewhere do not proceed without at least a certain check by those firms on whether they have fulfilled the necessary documentary procedure or not. I realise that this is not watertight, because the problem is probably much more difficult in the matter of a Commonwealth citizen coming to Milan, Frankfurt, Paris, or somewhere else, and then deciding to come to Britain. None the less, some later difficulties could be forestalled by the earlier application of some such precautions.

Now on the substance of the matter, I would certainly agree with the noble Baroness, Lady White, that it would be appropriate to have a look at our citizenship laws; but, of course, that is not going to rectify difficulties immediately. This will obviously be a long, complicated and expert process and should certainly be contemplated. But what we are talking about mainly, I should imagine, is the immediate effect of our immigration policy, and on that I join the noble Baroness in welcoming the idea that reciprocity should be considered also as applicable to this difficult question. I do not think it matters whether one considers reciprocity as a principle or as an expedient: I believe it is an application of a principle in the aid of expediency, but the definition does not matter very much. If it helps in this particular problem then I am sure that it should be seriously considered. Of course, there are a number of absurdities arising out of the present drafting of the regulation, and for these one has only to look at the speech of Mrs. Shirley Williams in another place. At the same time, as I have already suggested, that does not mean that the whole apparatus is an absurdity or a self-contradiction.

Then there is the question in the Motion put forward on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, by the noble Baroness, that there should be as far as possible an elimination of the disparities between the position of Commonwealth citizens and those of the European Economic Community. I would go along with the spirit of that, but in literal terms it could defeat its own object. One of the characteristics of the present regulations is that in certain respects—for instance, in not having to report to the police or in respect of voting—Commonwealth citizens still do better than the citizens of the European Community. I expect that these advantages will not naturally be removed for, certainly, a number of years; therefore, I doubt whether it is expedient to go all the way with that proposition, because it would not be to the advantage of Commonwealth citizens if we were to do so.

Then there is the emotional question which I hesitate to go into because it is not perhaps my field—the question of civil rights, such as, for instance, the deportation of a wife and family if a man is deported. It would seem to me that the Government must have the right to do this; but if one reads Regulations Nos. 55 and 56 carefully one is worried by the suggestion almost of prejudice. It may be legally accurate, but none the less it gives one a slight chill; there is a feeling in the reading of those articles that on the whole there is something of an obligation on the immigration officer when in doubt to expel them. That is the criticism which one could have of the whole drafting of these regulations. There is a little too much about them of the spirit, "When in doubt, take the hard line". I am not saying that Government in this convulsive age can deprive themselves of certain powers which in a tranquil period they do not need. Government have to do this. None the less, after reading the regulations several times I feel some anxiety at what I should call the "negative emphasis".

Finally, my Lords, may I try to sum up the problem in its larger framework? It is right to remember that this is not a superficial dilemma or a temporary dilemma; it is a real in-built dilemma for any British Government, of whatever complexion. We have the convergence at this time of various very important principles: we have the free entry of Commonwealth citizens which used to prevail before it became something which was no longer socially possible in this country; we have the obligation of indefinite duration to afford to East Africans an option to come here, an obligation which we now, with hindsight, can tell was taken somewhat unwisely; there is the successful negotiation for entry into the E.E.C.; and there is a strong and proper adherence by the people of this country to the principle of racial nondiscrimination. But when all these principles come together, it is no good being indignant if this convergence leads to anomalies and compromises which one would sooner be without. One has to admit that in this process somebody is going to get hurt, and the duty of your Lordships' House and another place and of all of us is to try to reduce this hurt as much as we possibly can.

If I were to conclude with a purely political observation it would be this. We have, as I mentioned, successfully concluded negotiations which give us a new status in Europe. Without doing anything inconsistent, it is important to lock back at people with whom we had and still have very close family, emotional, political connections and to make sure that the damage done to their welfare and to their sensitivities is as small as possible. I hope that that will be the spirit in which the Government reexamines these regulations: not to change anything unchangeable or to do anything inconsistent with our E.E.C. obligation, but, none the less, to make sure that any asperities which may be justifiably resented by our old friends, particularly our friends of the Commonwealth, are removed or softened, and that their legitimate feelings may be sincerely and effectively catered for.

7.9 p.m.

LORD GRIDLEY

My Lords, the reason why I feel that I should intervene for a very few minutes in your Lordships' House this evening is because my family has connections with the Commonwealth. I have a nephew at the present moment who is serving with a scientific team in Uganda. I have an uncle who died and was buried in New Zealand and I have been overseas for a number of years in Malaya. So I have a very warm affection for the Commonwealth and for its people in particular. We have had a very good, constructive debate this evening. It has been particularly interesting to listen to speeches from Members who have put forward the interests of the old Commonwealth, and I should hope that Her Majesty's Ministers will take notice of what has been said in this debate and of the feelings that have been expressed.

With regard to the new Commonwealth—and it is in the new Commonwealth where I spent all my service—I feel that there are a certain number of points which may be made with some justice. We have certain obligations to them. If we have reference to what has been achieved by the old Commonwealth and the services they have rendered to us, we also have an equal obligation to take into account the services which have been rendered by the new Commonwealth, and I particularly stress that in connection with the two world wars. We had a number of people from India who served with us and died for us, and certainly men of the Malay Regiment in Malaysia fought with great bravery and died out there when I was there. The end of all that was that many of us were overrun. I do not want to dwell on that. Just to keep the matter on an even tenor, the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, got worked up a moment ago about conditions he alleged in British prisons which contain some Uganda Asians. I did not want to accept what he said, and I suggested that he should bring the matter up later in his speech. But in passing I would make reference to this. I was in a gaol for four years and came out weighing four stone. I was kept alive by Asians, who helped me and a number of other people, so I have every good reason to feel strongly, as Lord Avebury does, in connection with Asians who may be incarcerated in this country. That is the point I wanted to make.

I expected the noble Baroness, Lady White, to develop in her speech a rather broader picture of the points that she wanted to stress, and I felt that she confined it to the simple issue of the Rules and how they might be improved, without considering what has been happening and the reason why we are considering this subject tonight in your Lordships' House. I cannot help feeling that if we had not had this appalling business of one member of the Commonwealth behaving as he did, expelling a minority of people and forcing about 27,000 Asians on to our shores, we probably would not be debating this subject in the way we have done.

This brings me to another thought which has passed through my mind, and it is because I value the Commonwealth that I think it is something we must strive with all our efforts to maintain. I would like to see the Government taking notice of a most sensible Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Hale, this afternoon as to what consultations Her Majesty's Government were carrying on with the Commonwealth at the present moment, with all the problems we are facing. I felt disappointed by the Answer that the Government gave, that certain heads of departments were visiting Britain and so on. There are these terrible complications with regard to citizenship and immigration. What is wrong with getting the Commonwealth together, getting its leaders together and threshing out some policy in an atmosphere of calm? I am quite sure that they want to see the Commonwealth go on. I am quite sure that they are not frightened of being spoken to in a normal way as friends round the table. Do not let us hide the issues and problems in this country. I am sure that the time has come for this. I wish Her Majesty's Government would feel that these problems would be better sorted out by meeting our friends at a conference round the table.

That is really all I have to say. I have enjoyed this debate, and I hope that the Minister who replies will have found it useful. I rather regret that the Minister of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is not here, because I feel that this is as much in her province as in the province of the Department of my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross. There is only one point that I would make in conclusion. I think we really have very nearly reached saturation point in this country with regard to immigration from the new Commonwealth at the present time. The noble Baroness, Lady White, who made a most touching opening in her first Motion this afternoon dealing with Uganda resettlement, drew attention to the shortage of housing at the present time and how that presented a problem. Of course this problem would be greatly accentuated if anybody else in the Commonwealth adopted the tactics we have had to face in recent months in connection with Uganda. If the Commonwealth and all the nations associated with the Commonwealth would come together and agree that each one of them would not do any act which would be of disadvantage to, or would interfere with, another's affairs, this might be useful. I quite see that there are difficulties about this, but surely we could start discussions on those lines and perhaps some good might come out of it.

7.18 p.m.

LORD AVEBURY

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Gridley, who has made such sense in the remarks he has made to your Lordships. In particular, may I comment on the remark he made that we must have some policy; irrespective of whether we agree with the present tendencies of Her Majesty's Government, at least they should come out with some ideas which are going to be accepted by the people of this country and by those who wish to come here, something clearly explicable to all concerned, so that we shall not have this area of doubt which afflicts us at the moment. I entirely agree with the noble Lord that we should aim at such a policy, so that the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, will not be in the position he is in this evening of trying to reply to the second debate in two days without knowing in the slightest degree what is the policy of Her Majesty's Government. He is not able to tell us that this evening, and he is not able to give us answers to the sort of questions which have been posed by the noble Lord, Lord Gridley.

Certainly I would agree with the noble Lord that we should consider whether or not we have reached saturation point with regard to the new Commonwealth. That was his own opinion. Let us look at the figures for a moment. We had, according to the Registrar General, a net outflow of 30,000 people per annum up until the last estimate he made of the future population of this country; that was for the years from 1970 to 2010. He has revised that to a net outflow of 50,000 for the years 1971 to 2011. So we are not talking about an enormous influx of people coming into this country from the new Commonwealth, or from the old Commonwealth for that matter, who are going to overburden the services provided by this country. Everybody is worried about over-population, and I quite agree with them that we should consider very seriously whether we are producing more people than this country can support, not whether we are importing from abroad more people than we can sustain in relation to the services that we provide for them.

When we look at this important question, we have to consider not only the fertility of the people in this country, the migration from overseas, the mortality, and so on; we have to consider all those questions together, and we have to consider what their net effect is. We find that, according to the Registrar General—and, after all, he is the most unbiased of all the authorities that have considered this subject—migration is of insignificant effect. What matters is the number of people that are born to women of childbearing age in this country. I would recommend to the noble Lord that he should consider how, in this country, we can convince people that they should have fewer children, how they could cut down to perhaps two or 1.5 children per family, so that—the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, laughs he thinks this is a very funny subject; it is not funny at all. I will tell him that in twenty years his children, if he has any, will be regretting the failure of the present Government to consider this as an important subject to-day.

It is not the number of people coming into this country or leaving this country that matter—and the noble Viscount goes on grinning—it is the number of people who are going to live in this country in the year 2000 and who are going to place pressure on the resources of this country that is going to determine the quality of life which our children and our grandchildren will enjoy in the year 2000. That is by way of an aside. I mention it only because I think that the noble Lord who spoke last ought to place the question of migration in perspective and consider it in relation to the number of people who are coming in and going out of this country, and to realise that, according to a completely unbiased authority, the Registrar General, we may anticipate that for the remainder of this century 50,000 more people will be leaving this country than entering it in every year between the years 1972 and 2000.

What I want to talk about, and I know that the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, attaches little importance to this, is the position of persons from Uganda who have entered this country—or, may I say, not entered this country but have arrived at the airports and ports of entry to this country and have not been admitted. They are treated as persons of indeterminate nationality, or persons who are stateless. We have flung them into our prisons. We have put them into Pentonville and Harmondsworth. We have treated them as persons who are, to use a phrase that was coined some time ago, "lower than vermin". I must ask the noble Viscount, when he comes to reply, whether he considers that this is conduct worthy of a civilised State; whether he thinks that it is proper for us, as a country which has always prided itself on giving asylum to persons who are refugees from dictatorships, whether it be Nazi Germany, Fascist Spain, or any other country that you care to mention. They have come here and we have given them asylum in the past, and we have prided ourselves on it. We have taken them in, and we have benefited from it.

Look at the people who came from Nazi Germany before the war and what they have contributed to this country. Perhaps I should be wrong to mention names. The noble Viscount, Lord Colville, will realise whom I mean, and I do not need to mention the names. There are important civil servants who came in the 1930s from Nazi Germany because they were refugees from Hitler. They happened to be of Jewish origin and they have contributed an enormous amount to our civilisation in this country. He knows whom I mean. He knows people who are in important situations in the Departments of his own Government. Now he is denying entry to people who have come from Uganda because they do not happen to possess the necessary papers. He has flung them into Pentonville or Harmondsworth because they do not have a nice, square, blue bit of paper which gives them the right to enter this country. And these people have wives and children who possess British passports, who are living in Golders Green, or Leicester, or many other places that I may mention to the noble Viscount. He knows. He knows that the wives and children are here and the husbands are in Pentonville, treated as ordinary criminals, forced to write letters on the sort of paper which is given to somebody convicted of a criminal offence.

I should like to ask the noble Viscount whether he has ever spent a couple of days in Pentonville, or in any other prison in the United Kingdom for that matter; whether he realises what this means, and whether he thinks this is an agreeable experience for somebody who has come from Uganda, having lost every penny he possesses, having been thrown out of his own country and flung on an aircraft in the shirt and trousers he stands up in. He finishes up in Saffron Walden police station, and because of our rules he can stay there for only five days. In the end, he ends up in Pentonville Prison. When he is there, what happens? Does the noble Viscount know? May I tell him? Is he familiar with the rules which apply to refugees from Uganda?

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, is the noble Lord asking a rhetorical question?

LORD AVEBURY

No, my Lords, I am asking, do you know?

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, of course I know. If the noble Lord wishes to skip this bit of his speech, he is entitled to.

LORD AVEBURY

Then I wonder whether other noble Lords are aware of these circumstances.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, that is a rhetorical question.

LORD AVEBURY

My Lords, I am not sure whether the noble Viscount does know, because if he did I should have thought that long ago he would have taken steps to remedy this situation. I have written him letters, and I have a great bundle of them here going back to October 23. It always takes the Home Office at least a month to answer letters. I have written letters to him asking about the situation of these people who are in Pentonville Prison, and he has failed to answer them. Why, when they have relatives and friends who are in this country who are prepared to look after them and to give them shelter, and to give the Home Office bonds which would take care of them for three months if they were admitted on a temporary permit, are these relatives and friends refused the right to look after them? There are responsible persons who are doctors, chemists, and so on, who have guaranteed to the Home Office that they would ensure that their relatives were taken care of and that they would be surrendered up if they had to be deported.

Why has the Home Office always refused to give any answer in these circumstances? Why has the taxpayer had to bear the expense of maintaining these people in prison, and why have you and I had to pay the cost of supporting people like Mr. Jethwa? The noble Viscount knows who I am talking about, because I have had a good deal of correspondence with his Department and many, many telephone calls with Mr. David Lane on this particular individual. Why has he had to be kept in Pentonville following his incarceration in Saffron Walden police station, in spite of the fact that he suffers from high blood pressure and serious nervous depression. Why, in spite of the United Nations' rules regarding the detention of persons who are not convicted, is it impossible to get proper medical treatment for him, apart from treatment by the prison doctors who have come to see him? Why can he not be released from Pentonville Prison, in spite of the fact that he is obviously suffering as a result of his incarceration? The Home Office of Her Majesty's Government go on treating him in this fantastic manner.

I feel so indignant about the way in which we have treated these refugees that it is very difficult for me to remain calm and to speak to your Lordships in a way which will appeal to you. But I hope that I have succeeded in conveying to your Lordships the fact that, although I have been talking about a simple human matter, I am not concerned merely about one or two individual cases. I am talking about refugees who have been deprived of every single penny they possess—and I ask your Lordships to put yourselves in their position—who have been thrown out of their country, who have arrived in Great Britain and who, because their nationality is indeterminate, finish up in Pentonville Prison or Harmondsworth detention centre, where they are treated as ordinary criminals and are subject to the same rules, having to write letters on prison writing paper, having to receive their visitors during a period of 15 minutes in the course of 24 hours, and where their visitors have to wait for two and a half hours to get to see them and are subject to all the ordinary rules under which the relatives of convicted prisoners may suffer. The noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, looks ashamed and may he well do so—

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, the noble Lord is just inaccurate. They are not treated as convicted prisoners. I am allowing the noble Lord to go on, but in fact he is just not telling the truth.

LORD AVEBURY

My Lords, I am saying that they are treated as such, and if the noble Viscount, Lord Colville looked at some of the letters which I have written to his colleague, Mr. David Lane, he would see that that is a fact. The noble Viscount objected strenuously when I intervened in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Brockway. But every single word that I have spoken is true, and I will prove it up to the hilt. I will produce to the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, every single letter which I have sent and I have a bundle of them here. He will see that it is true. He should be ashamed of it. He should hang his head in shame and should say, "This is a blot on the escutcheon of the British Government and the most appalling slur overseas on the reputation of Great Britain". That is all I want to say.

7.34 p.m.

LORD DE CLIFFORD

My Lords, I trust that I am intervening in this debate on a rather quieter note. I am doing so only because, during the Committee stage of the Immigration Act 1971, I ventured to compare the position of Common- wealth immigrants with that of citizens of the E.E.C. We were told that the Immigration Act would simplify the then existing procedures and, so far as I can remember, we were then told that the object of the exercise was to have two forms of person entering this country—the United Kingdom citizen and the alien. I suggested that there might be a third category, that of citizens of the E.E.C., and was told that that was correct. Of course we now have more categories. We have citizens of the common travel area, the E.E.C. area—and I am afraid that I am not at the moment looking very kindly towards that category; we have Commonwealth citizens and we have other nationals. We must appreciate that there is a tremendous feeling in this country that citizens of the Commonwealth, particularly those of the old Dominions, should not have lesser rights of entry to this country than members of the E.E.C.

One accepts the fact that we have joined Europe and that citizens of the E.E.C. will have these rights. But I suggest that there is great feeling in this country that members of the Commonwealth, particularly those who owe direct allegiance to the Crown, as we do, should have no less favourable treatment for entry into this country than citizens of the E.E.C. It is most difficult to understand how, after all these years and with all our connections, particularly with the old Dominions, we can treat as aliens people of any race or colour who, like ourselves, acknowledge the Queen as Head of State. We acknowledge that there must be control before entry, just as there must be control after entry; but my own personal view—and I appeal to the Government to consider it—is that all the Queen's subjects not domiciled in this country should by right have the same status as members of the E.E.C.

7.38 p.m.

THE EARL OF LYTTON

My Lords, it has been a difficult debate for one like myself to follow. I have missed very much the usual speech which we have early in these debates from somebody on the Government Front Bench, and the debate has rambled in such a way that I have been somewhat confused. However, the line which I should like to take is in pursuance of that followed by the noble Lord, Lord Reay, in dealing with general principles. I suppose that when the new set of Rules are presented for debate the Government will announce what are the principles on which they are founded. I take it that the principles regarding immigration are founded upon consideration of our vital national interests, and that that is what decided the Government in 1962 to terminate the right of 700 million people to come here when they pleased for as long as they pleased, without any particular conditions. That Act was opposed by the Opposition of that day who threatened to repeal it, but it has since been generally accepted as prudent.

There is a proviso with regard to this decision about who comes in, which I hold to be our business to decide ourselves; that is, that if we have made certain pledges we must honour them. As I understand, the pledges that we have made were first made in the very same year in which we barred the rights of the 700 million and accorded the right to Indians in East Africa to opt for local citizenship or for British citizenship. We did it knowing—and they knew—that something like what has happened since might happen. If, when that contingency occurs, we close the door, I would hold that we dishonoured the pledges we made to these people. I must say that I congratulate the present Government on the actions they have taken, I think with the concurrence of the Opposition and everybody else, to accommodate people who had a right accorded to them after we had acknowledged that we could not accept everybody and knowing that this might happen. It is, I believe, a fact that the people we accept are British passport holders, and they are not citizens of Uganda; that in so far as we refused to receive them but acknowledged their rights to come we were forming a queue many years long—it may be twenty or fifty years—and that de facto they would he Stateless. Therefore that category, it seems, we had an obligation to take; and we have met the obligation.

There is, I believe, another category. I do not know whether the obligations have yet been met, but in the time of under-employment after the last world war we accepted West Indians into employments which were unpopular in this country, and gave them undertakings that, bit by bit, as accommodation and services were available, we would receive their wives and their dependants under a certain age. That is an obligation, surely, which we cannot forgo. But subject to these obligations, these pledges, surely we have the right to decide who comes in to stay—how many and of what sort. I think we ought to be careful, in the light of having to fulfil these obligations, which we had hoped not to do, to see that we do not put ourselves in the position of incurring other obligations of a similar nature. I think that if, due to our actions, we were to place the white Rhodesians in such a position that they were rendered homeless refugees, we would have an obligation to take them; and we do not want another 250,000 people coming in, regardless of their colour. The numbers are too great.

So, my Lords, we join the E.E.C., and there, I understand, there are reciprocal priorities, although the word "reciprocal" is not used in the same sense as it is being used with regard to members of the Commonwealth. It means, as I understand it, that all the citizens of member states can travel in and out with certain priorities over everybody else. Surely that is also subject to a consideration of our vital interests. We have entered a Community of 200 millions. If anything like that number, or a fraction of that number, moved this way, into this country, our vital interests would be affected, as they would be if it happened to any other member of the European Community. Steps would have to be taken to stop it; otherwise, the Community would disintegrate. It seems to me that we go into the Community, each member of it, with our vital interests safeguarded; and surely the prevention of the overflowing of an unwanted population is one of our vital interests. We must secure it; and it seems to me that our position is secure. It is secure for us, for France, for Germany, for Italy—for the lot.

Now outside that there is the Commonwealth, and it is regrettable—this matter has a long history, of course—that the Commonwealth is not also in the E.E.C. as a member of the Community. They do not wish it. It would not be to their advantage. They could not cope with it. Therefore, there are certain handicaps which all, I think, accept and acknowledge as inevitable. If we decide to go in, they accept the position. Subject to that, it is surely still our option—and ours alone—who comes in, and how many. I see no objection whatever to choosing those whose cause has been so eloquently put by the noble Lord, Lord Ballantrae, and others—the "kith and kin" claim. The kith and kin claim is conditioned by two other factors. One is that more go out than come in; and, surely, what we are trying to safeguard is over-population of this country. Here, in parenthesis, I want to say from my study of what is happening and of our planning intentions, that we are capable and desirous of coping with the natural increase of our own people—for example, in the South-East region, of something near one million in ten years—and that if it did not arise Foulness would be off and other things would be off. Without more people you cannot do these things except to leave vacant spaces all over the place. But it is mainly for our natural increase that we want these things; and in so far as we choose to keep net immigration to a certain level, surely we have the right.

But, then, if we choose to give to kith and kin a special relationship, I cannot see why on earth we should not do that even without the argument of what they have done in the past, and even without the more cogent argument of what they are doing now, in the most vital sphere of our interests. Are they not all aligned? Are they not all committed to defend us in the only major conflict that we can foresee, and against which we are all preparing? And is it not a fact that all the rest of the Commonwealth is nonaligned? I read their speeches. There are denunciations of the warmongers, and so forth. They want to remain separate; they want to be out of it; they do not want to be committed. Is there not something, quite apart from the argument of kith and kin, quite apart from honourable obligations for past services rendered? There is the future: the decision now to be aligned with us and with the West in the direction which we regard as necessary for the salvation and survival of the West. Therefore, if anybody wishes to give a preference to these, it is not an impediment to the one thing we are safeguarding in this country on immigration—surplus numbers entering this country. That is not a risk; and, therefore, the board surely is cleared in future for giving a priority of consideration to Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians.

In this connection, I cannot help remembering the maiden speech of Lord Constantine, with regard to West Indians. He said: "We are not Africans. You have uprooted us from Africa, and from everything that Africa meant—our language, our nationality, our religion, our customs, even our cooking pots—and you have taught us your ways and given them to us. I speak English: I sneak no Nigerian, or any of the languages of the country my forebears came from. We are black Britons. With regard to these, what "(he asked)" will you do when you go into the Common Market, where Africans of French origin can walk in and black Britons from the West Indies cannot do so?" These are difficult problems; but surely the way to handle them is not to inundate our own country with people, white or black, but, if we have a debt to the former slaves—and I am one who thinks that we have—we should make sure that they are well established in the country and in the climate which suits them best.

7.51 p.m.

LORD ROWALLAN

My Lords, may I crave the indulgence of the House for a very few moments to tell a story which may be relevant to this special occasion. When I was in Tasmania, the Common Market news burst on to the political scene and I anticipated that there might be difficulties which I attempted to face. Quite the contrary! My Premier, my deputy Premier, the Leader of my Opposition and the leaders of the two main chambers of commerce came in deputation to me and asked me to write to Her Majesty to assure her that, although it might lead to a change in the pattern of trade, nothing would ever diminish their love for her person and her Throne and their respect and admiration for the British people who had helped them so much in the development of their primary and secondary production in the early days. They said, too, that they hoped that the British people would believe that it was not a cause for recrimination but a cause for sympathy for those people who had helped them in the early days and who now, through no fault of their own, were forced into a situation which caused them great consternation. That feeling is, I think, common to many Australians at the present time. They still have that love for the Throne and respect and admiration for the British people. They still wish to be with us and to help us in our problems in every possible way that they can.

7.53 p.m.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, I was very sad to hear that the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, is in hospital. I am sure that I am speaking for all Members of the House in sending him the message, "Get well soon!". The noble Baroness has gallantly taken his place and with respect I think that the broadening of the form of the Motion which she explained to us has had a very great advantage; because there is no doubt that the Government's approach to this whole subject has been substantially changed by what took place in the other place a couple of weeks ago and, as the noble Lord, Lord Gridley, said (and I agree) the whole Uganda question has focused our attention and concentrated our minds on another aspect of this very difficult problem. So it has been very useful to the House, and I promise it will be useful to the Government, that we have had a wide-ranging debate to-day in which we have collected some very useful views and had a good deal of early warning of things to come about which the noble Baroness was telling us.

While the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, is perfectly right—I do not know whether he is going to return to his place or not—in thinking that I have not many announcements to make to-night, this will not surprise anybody here. I can nevertheless assure the House—as I did in the debate earlier about the Uganda Resettlement Board—that it is not, as Lord Avebury suggested in a loud aside, a waste of time for views to be expressed. On the contrary, the Government are grateful for the speeches made. We will study them and pay attention to them because this is precisely the sort of thing on which your Lordships' views are valuable and welcome.

My Lords, I take the four aspects of the Motion. The first is on this exceedingly profound matter of citizenship. The noble Baroness mentioned this. One aspect of it was the theme of an almost classic exposition by my noble friend Lord Reay; and the noble Lord, Lord Gore-Booth, also welcomed the suggestion that we should look at this again. It was also raised in another place and both my right honourable friends, the Home Secretary and the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary, made it clear that the reasons underlying the suggestion were well known to the Government but that the problem raises profound difficulties, needs long and deep consideration and is not one on which an answer can be produced instantly. The noble Lord, Lord Gore-Booth, reflected that in what he said. It is really a continuation of the adjustment from Empire to Commonwealth which originated with an Act of, I think, 1914, now crystallised in the British Nationality Act 1948, which altered the whole basis of our nationality law in accordance with general agreement reached among what were then the relatively few independent members of the Commonwealth.

It is a very different situation to-day from that which prevailed when the 1948 Act was passed; so that it is not altogether surprising that some problems have cropped up in the last 25 years. I am sure that it is right now, as it was then, to proceed cautiously in this by looking at the legitimate interests of the other members of the Commonwealth and as far as possible consulting fully with them; because the problems that exist in this field are not necessarily amenable of solution simply by altering the law of this country. We may have to think of the international community as well. That is why I think my right honourable friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary was justified in saying that this was a very big problem indeed. That does not preclude the favourable reaction given in another place to the idea that we should look at this again without promising to be able to produce a new Act of Parliament to-morrow.

There is however a subsidiary point on the question of citizenship which, not surprisingly, has attracted a good deal of attention this afternoon. This is the question of a possible repetition of a Uganda. My noble friend Lord Barnby talked about this; it was the whole speech of my noble friend Lord Reay (and if I may say so I think he stated it quite clearly); the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, referred to it just now and I think that it has been probably in the minds of other noble Lords.

It is no use my pretending that I can go further at this stage than I went at Question Time last Thursday. This is a matter upon which the people of this country, or some of them, have real fears. Whether or not you agree with my noble friend Lord Reay, I think he put into words as well as anybody could what are the fears of some of the population of this country. It was a good speech, as my noble friend Lord Gowrie said. The Government, as I have said, are fully aware that these views are held and that these fears are entertained. And we do not idly stand by and allow ourselves to be gulled into thinking that there is nothing to worry about here. I assure the House that that is not so. I think my noble friend Lord Reay was perhaps a little inaccurate, if I may say so, about some of the Dependent Territories, because when you get to people who hold Governors' passports (for instance, in Hong Kong) you are not in quite the same category as when you are dealing with United Kingdom passport holders who are living in independent Commonwealth countries. All the same, it is a large problem and I am glad to have heard the exposition that he gave.

The other point about this subject is that whether or not we deal with it in this country, in the end we are almost certainly bound to need international cooperation. That was the other point that I made last week and it is one which emerges very clearly from the whole of the Uganda Asian situation itself. It is perhaps a little unfair of my noble friend Lord Barnby to say that there was no assistance from Africa, because apart from the efforts of President Mobutu of Zaire, for which we must be grateful even though they were not immensely successful, we should not forget what I feel was a very responsible initiative by President Banda of Malawi in offering to take some of the people expelled from Uganda. I urge that we should not forget these things, or suggest that there are not African Governments or African leaders who would come to our aid, as have others in the world.

We then get on to the part of the Motion which relates to disparities between citizens of the Commonwealth and those of the European Community. One of the points that has arisen as a result of the debate in another place—I do not think it should be said solely as a result of it, because consultations with Commonwealth countries go on the whole time—and that has become explicit, is that we shall concentrate on consultations with Commonwealth Governments on points arising as to disparity. So far as Canada is concerned, Mr. Trudeau has not expressed dissatisfaction with the treatment of Canadians in the United Kingdom. As regards Australia and New Zealand, my noble friend Lord Carrington is going there quite soon. He is going primarily in his role as Secretary of State for Defence, but he will be able to discuss other matters. I should tell the House that we have not received representations from either the Australian or the New Zealand Governments over changes in our immigration laws. This goes back over quite a long period and does not cover just the last few days or weeks. I cannot go into details off-hand because what consultations have taken place is really a matter for my noble friend Lady Tweedsmuir, but they go on all the time and there is a good deal of opportunity to make representations. All I can tell the House is that there have not been any from those three countries.

As for the alleged disparities—and I really take this debate to-day as being in part an extension of what was said in another place, because I suspect that we have been spared by the noble Baroness a repetition of the points made by the honourable Member for Hitchin—we have to realise that there are restraints on the manœuvrability of the Government in this issue. We have the 1971 Act which, whether one likes it or not and whether one likes its contents or not, is in fact the governing legislation; and we have also to conform with E.E.C. directives and decisions in this matter. For instance, one of the questions where we have not much room for manœuvre is that of patriality through grandparents, because this was taken out during the passage of the 1971 Act. But within these limits we do take account of what the House has been saying to-day and will continue to do so. This includes points like that made by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, over the method of drafting and the necessity to avoid asperity or the infringement of people's feelings merely by using clumsy wording. I am grateful to him for having drawn that particular point to my attention, and I will pursue it.

But, my Lords, we must face facts. The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, asked what principle underlay this whole matter. He suggested it was a vital national interest which caused us to legislate first in 1962. He is perfectly right: it is. It was then and it is still. We are bound to implement a policy which maintains a tight control over immigration, and the 1971 Act gives us more effective control than has ever existed before. Incidentally, I am very glad to see that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has come back, because I have to suggest to him that when one is talking about control, "control" includes the ability to deal with those who come illegally into this count try. If the Liberals formed the Government of this country, I do not know what the noble Lord would do about it, but I suspect that they would find that they had to have a Harmondsworth of some sort in order to deal with these cases. And if their Harmondsworth got full, they might have to make other arrangements.

I can tell the noble Lord—I am afraid it is a matter of dispute between us, but I think I am more likely to be right—that the people in Pentonville are not treated as convicted prisoners but as un-convicted prisoners. As I am in charge of the Prison Department, I think I am likely to know. But although the point is now wholly academic, I want to go on to say something further. We are conscious that the Uganda citizens who have attempted to come to this country without entry certificates are being entertained in difficult and crowded conditions. After careful consideration, my right honourable friend has decided, on humanitarian grounds, to transfer from places of detention to resettlement centres those citizens from Uganda who have arrived here with- out entry certificates and have been refused admission. The refusal to admission to the United Kingdom will still stand, however, and we shall continue our international consultations with a view to their resettlement in third countries. I must make it clear also that the Uganda citizens are in these centres under restriction and are not in them for the purposes of arranging their resettlement in this country. That is being made clear to each Ugandan transferred to a centre. But, as your Lordships will see, the noble Lord does not write in vain, and I am glad to have this opportunity, since he has made this passionate speech which I entirely appreciate, of showing him that I do not sit hanging my head in shame: I am merely awaiting my turn.

LORD AVEBURY

My Lords, it is very kind of the noble Viscount to say that what I have said in numerous letters has had some effect. May I ask him this question? Is it possible that all the people who are at present detained in Pentonville Prison could be given three months' visitors' permits, so that they could at least go and stay with their relatives in Golders Green, or wherever it may be, and, pending a decision by the Resettlement Board or the High Commissioner for Refugees, would not have to suffer the tortures to which they are subjected in Pentonville Prison.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, I do not think there is anybody else in this category in Pentonville Prison, so I am afraid I do not know whom the noble Lord is talking about.

LORD AVEBURY

Mr. Jethwa.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, I do not know about Mr. Jethwa or which particular category he is in, but if he is a Uganda citizen he falls in the category I have just been talking about; and if he is not, then I do not think he is in Pentonville.

LORD AVEBURY

He is there now, my Lords.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

Then, my Lords, he probably falls into the category which I have been dealing with.

That has been a diversion, and a very welcome one from my point of view, but I was talking earlier about the necessity for control. I think we should be failing in our duty to the people of this country—and whether it is overcrowded or not it is plainly a matter that even the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, is prepared to think about, but many people believe that it is—if we did not pay attention to the very considerable stress which exists in some areas already. When my noble friend Lord Gridley talks about "saturation", I cast my mind back a few hours to what the right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Leicester, was saying on the earlier debate.

That said, what we have to do is to try the difficult balance between firmness and humanity. As I have just pointed out, it is not a waste of time raising these matters because it is capable of solution on some occasions. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, when he said these things under his breath, perhaps now regrets the attitude he took. I have shown him that we are capable of taking a humane approach when we are able to do so. It tends to apply on a personal basis. These are all liable to be, and ought to be, individual cases. Our first line of defence, or reception, is the Immigration Service. I was very sorry to hear my noble friend Lord Clifford of Chudleigh reading out his series of calamaties that have taken place. The noble Lord, Lord Ballantrae, whose maiden speech I enjoyed and appreciated as much as other noble Lords, mentioned this, too. It is no use denying that there are bound to be mistakes and unfortunate incidents.

But on the credit side one ought to recognise the tact and good sense which in the vast majority of cases distinguishes the work of the Immigration Service, and results in the adverse criticism being so rare that it attracts what possibly is inordinate attention. Millions of people pass through our ports in the course of every year with never a word of complaint uttered at all. All the same, my right honourable friend has said that he has every intention of looking at, largely, the physical arrangements, apart from the drafting of the Rules, to see that we give a courteous welcome to our visitors at places like Heathrow. I personally have always got through quicker in the Commonwealth lane than my friends in the United Kingdom lane, so I have a counter story to tell over and above my noble friend. I will also draw to the attention of my noble friend the question of the double interrogation that the noble Lord, Lord Gore-Booth, raised. This seems to come into the same category, of a courteous and civil welcome without undue formalities and trouble being caused to those who come here.

The situation about disparities is not quite so simple as some people think. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Ballantrae, is in no way misled about this. But when we look at it—as I am going to in a moment—the situation will be seen to be not quite so bad as some may have thought. Before I do that, let me say something about reciprocity. This was a point raised by the noble Baroness; it is something my noble friend Lord Barnby is very keen on, and it seemed to come into the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Brockway. I am not sure whether he would approve of it or not; but the subject matter seemed to be very much on the list of matters in his speech. It is certainly true that there are aspects of this subject which it is right and proper to consider. This my right honourable friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary was saying the other day. If my noble friend Lord Clifford is sceptical because we would not go full scale for this in the course of the Committee stage and the Report stage of the 1971 Bill, I am very sorry. But that we are going to look at it again I should have thought would have pleased him, because this is something on which he has been very consistent.

I must warn those who take this view—and this has clearly come out of the debate—that by contrast the situation which those noble Lords who have been talking about reciprocity have in mind could possibly result in the descriminations which would make the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, very cross indeed. Therefore we have not necessarily here a course which would be agreed on all sides of the House, and we may have to come to some decision about it which will not suit everybody. It is worth while saying this, and it has been underlined by the speeches that have been made to-day.

Let us look at the situation concerning Commonwealth citizens. I was very interested in what my noble friend Lord Clifford was saying about this. One has to go back a little. It started in 1962, because Commonwealth citizens since then have only been allowed to settle here if they first obtained employment vouchers. There was no other way by which Commonwealth immigration could be brought under control and reduced at that time, and this was of vital national interest. It was a true and inescapable part of our Manifesto before the Election that we had promised to ensure that there was no further large scale permanent immigration from the Commonwealth. So, under the 1971 Immigration Act, the employment vouchers are issued to Commonwealth citizens. In the first place they are limited to twelve months and will no longer carry the right of permanent settlement, either for the immigrant or his family. That was a policy in our Election Manifesto, and it has been endorsed by Parliament.

But it is also said—and I think my noble friend Lord de Clifford and the noble Lord, Lord Brockway mentioned this—that we have to look at disparities with privileges for members of the E.E.C. countries. Certainly there is here inherently a free travel area where there will be free movement of labour. This will apply for the benefit of the British, including registered British. This will interest the noble Earl, Lord Lytton. People who come from Commonwealth countries, and have been here long enough to become registered, will be eligible to go to Europe. This will more than counteract the numbers of French people from the French overseas departments to whom the noble Earl referred. This freedom of movement will apply to the British. There is not any evidence that large numbers of people from other European members of the Community will want to settle permanently in Britain. If the situation arises, and there has been so much talk about it, we have the safeguards in the Treaty of Rome whereby we can protect ourselves from an undue influx.

But none of this, whether it is the E.E.C., the effect of the Immigration Act and the rules regarding employment vouchers, really affects the many important privileges which Commonwealth citizens enjoy, and are going to go on enjoying, and which E.E.C. nationals and aliens will not. In the first place we have the patrial arrangement under this Act. This is going to benefit five million people who will be able to come and go with no control at all. Lord Clifford's son is the absolutely perfect case in point. Whereas his father was born in Australia, and he himself was born in Singapore, I think I am right in saying his mother was born in Britain. For the first time patriality attaches to somebody with a British mother as well as a British father. Therefore if the noble Lord's son has not already overcome various complications, he will become patrial under the 1971 Act.

For people who are not partial, there are other things as well. They will continue to enjoy the civic liberties that have always been enjoyed by members of the Commonwealth, such as voting, filling posts not open to aliens, such as membership of the Armed Forces, Civil Service and police, and, I suppose, sitting in both Houses of Parliament. I suppose a minor point—one which could be counted in the language of the noble Lord, Lord Gore-Booth, as being a tiresome restriction—is that Commonwealth citizens will not have to fill in embarkation and landing cards. They will not have to report to the police while they are here. They will still be able to come to the United Kingdom as working holiday-makers for periods of up to three years. A tremendous number of Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians have taken advantage of that scheme. If there is redrafting on that which the noble Lord mentioned I should like to look at it. These are really quite substantial privileges. They are a mark of the value and the affinity that we continue to place on Commonwealth relationships and they are in no way limited by going into the E.E.C.

There is just one other point. I think it was announced in another place what an extraordinarily small number of people had actually been refused entry from the three old Dominion Commonwealth countries. Out of something in the region of 400,000 people coming into this country in 1971, I think 115 were refused entry. On a quick look round the major ports, there is an answer to another point which was certainly made in another place. There is said to be a problem about people being admitted for less than six months in the first instance. The researches we have made show that this is extremely rare, and happens in numbers of about the same order as I have been talking about for refusals. This is probably the case for 1971. So, again, if one looks at the numbers and the facts I do not think in practice that the people from the three old Dominion countries are being as hard done by, perhaps, as some of those who have written in the Press, at any rate—certainly not those who have spoken this afternoon—may have suggested.

My Lords, I have one or two other questions to answer but I will try to deal with them very quickly. My noble friend Lord Barnby asked about separate coloured passports. I do not think that this is a good idea, but from January 1 we are going to make it perfectly plain by a stamp in the passport whether or not a person is entitled to permanent residence in this country. My noble friend also asked for a manual or some method of elucidating the difficulties about citizenship. Probably there is material available which answers most people's practical questions. I have a couple of leaflets here and if my noble friend would like to look at them, I should be glad to show them to him. It is very complicated when one looks at the whole field, but fortunately only one situation ever applies to one person, so that at least if people can ask the right questions and find the answers in a fairly simple document it may not turn out to be so difficult for them.

We have not had examples of individual civil liberties that are said to be infringed by the draft Rules, but so many were raised in another place that I think we have plenty as a Government to look at. As for the question of family deportation, which was the last point on the list, I know that the noble Baroness, Lady White, will recognise that this is a matter which of course is covered in the Act already, so that there is a limit to the amount of room for manœuvre. I have always found it a little difficult to understand how those who say that when a man comes to this country his wife and children must be allowed to come as dependants here as well, say at the same time that when a man is deported in no circumstances ought his wife and children to go away with him. This may be a fault in my appreciation of the argument, but it seems to me that there is a certain illogicality about it.

The fact of the matter is, without wearying the House on this topic, that the noble Baroness will see that we have moved a little from the situation in the original draft White Paper to what is in paragraphs 54 to 59. We think it necessary to let the Appeal Tribunal deal with and consider in individual cases the question of the wife's earning capacity and whether she is really self-supporting and all that kind of thing. But, like so many of the other contents of both these sets of Rules, this will be looked at again in conjunction with all the other points that have been raised in both Houses in the debates.

My Lords, I am afraid that even in much too long a speech I have not been able to say a very great deal, but I have at any rate been able to answer some of the questions that have been put forward. I know the House will appreciate that some of the questions that have been asked raise profound difficulties which cannot be instantly dealt with. What we shall have to do is to come back (as the noble Baroness said, and I confirm this) with some more rules of some sort because the deadline, as we said at the beginning, is somewhere about January or February, according to the length of the Christmas Recess. We shall certainly be able to discuss their contents again on that occasion. I hope that we shall not have to go on doing it ad infinitum; because I hope we shall get it right next time. But, meanwhile, the suggestions that have been made by your Lordships this afternoon will be studied and will be treated with proper respect. I am grateful to those who have put them forward, and to the noble Baroness for persevering with the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd.

LORD BARNBY

My Lords, before the Minister sits down, may I thank him for the replies he has given. But in view of the expressions of opinion that have been given in this House and in another place on anxiety about the total inflow, can he give any indication of intention of some retardation this year, in view of the Ugandan surprise, of the formerly contemplated large total?

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, I do not think I can go beyond what I have said on this subject this afternoon. I note my noble friend's fear on this, but I dealt with this subject in some detail in my speech.

LORD BROCKWAY

My Lords, before the Minister sits down a second time may I ask him this question? While I appreciate the incidental references which he made to my questions, may I ask whether he could give some answer to one very specific point that I made, which is the confusion regarding Stateless Ugandan Asians; and whether those who are challenging decisions made in regard to them will be given an opportunity to appeal to the appropriate Government Department?

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, I am sorry; I beg the noble Lord's pardon. I was not purposefully disregarding his speech but it really was on a slightly different aspect of the matter; it was on current problems about immigration which are now before us rather than the theory of it. I do not truthfully know the answer to that. I will find out and tell the noble Lord. if I may; and if he wants to broadcast it further, a Written Question is a very good way of doing it.

8.28 p.m.

BARONESS WHITE

My Lords, I am not going to inflict on your Lordships a fourth speech as I have already made three this afternoon, but I should very much like first of all to thank the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, for giving us an extremely careful and thoughtful reply to a debate in which I am sure we all appreciate there have been very strong feelings, possibly with one exception moderately expressed. I am very sorry that I was not able to hear the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Reay, because I should have been very interested in what I understood his line of argument was. But I would suppose from the comments made on it that it would probably read extremely well, and I shall certainly make it my business to read it. I should like (although he is not able to be with us) from this Box to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Ballantrae, on his maiden speech. We were all impressed by his fluency and the confidence with which he delivered a very interesting speech based on his own and his family's experience. And we very much welcome him, of course, to this House.

We have benefited from the widening of the Motion, but I would hope that, valuable as I trust that has been to the Government in obtaining some expressions of view of your Lordships' House, it does not mean that the Government are not going to take the details of the Rules seriously. I did not go through all the points I might have gone through, but I have no doubt the noble Lord will not mind if I write to him about some matters of small detail with which one did not want to weary the House. After all, those of us who did a great deal of work on that Immigration Act naturally looked with attention at the rules when they came out, and particularly where there were points, some of them minor points but, as the noble Lord, Lord Gore-Booth, said, matters of drafting, which seemed to indicate an approach, an attitude of mind, and we could perhaps by agreement just draw attention to them in correspondence.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, I shall be grateful to the noble Baroness if she will write—and indeed if anybody else will—with that sort of detail, and I will gladly look into it.

BARONESS WHITE

Because, my Lords, owing to the accidents in another place it means that we have a further opportunity with these small, individual but very important points, of suggesting to the Government ways of improvement. The trouble is that when one gets Rules like this, as one does with Statutory Instruments, one cannot amend; therefore I think suggestions in advance have a peculiar value. It was partly for that reason, as well as our feeling that the House would like to express its views on this important problem, that my noble friend Lord Shepherd retained the Motion, even although the original situation had changed. I should like to thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this second debate and I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.