PAKISTAN BILL (Hansard, 9 July 1974)

§ THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD HARRIS OF GREENWICH)
My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. This, My Lords, is a short Bill, and its purpose is to extend the transitional period during which voting rights, given to certain citizens of Pakistan under the Pakistan Act of last year, may be enjoyed. These voting rights depend upon applications for citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies being determined by the qualifying date for the 1975 electoral register; namely, October 10 this year. In the event, for administrative reasons, it has proved impossible to deal with all outstanding applications by that date, so the present Bill is needed to make sure that citizens of Pakistan who were eligible to vote as British subjects and who would regain the right to vote if registered as citizens of the United Kingdom and 497 Colonies are not deprived of that right simply because, although they have applied for citizenship, the Home Office will not be able to deal with all the applications which have been received before the qualifying date for elections held in 1975.
Noble Lords will recall that under our predecessors' Bill, which became the Pakistan Act 1973, following Pakistan's withdrawal from the Commonwealth in the previous year, citizens of Pakistan who were not also citizens of another Commonwealth country ceased to be British subjects as from September 1, 1973. The Act also provided a period of grace during which the people affected, if appropriately qualified, might apply to be registered as citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies and so to reacquire the voting rights which they had lost. Many Pakistanis had of course been here for years, and on the electoral register, but a consequence of their ceasing to be British subjects would have been their being unable to vote at Parliamentary and local elections. A transitional provision was therefore included in the 1973 Act to allow citizens of Pakistan who were already on the 1973 register to vote while that register was in force; that is, up to February 15 of this year. It was also laid down that the same would apply to those who, on the qualifying date for the 1974 register (October 10, 1973) were awaiting determination of their applications for citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies to be treated as British subjects for the purposes of inclusion in the 1974 electoral register.
My Lords, we are approaching the qualifying date for the 1975 register, and it is clear that, despite special arrangements which have been made in the Home Office to deal with the influx of applications for citizenship—arrangements which necessitated the recruitment and training of a substantial number of additional staff—not even a crash programme involving extra manpower could guarantee the completion of even the bulk of the operation by October 10 next, which, as I have indicated already, is the qualifying date for next year's register. The problem has been caused by the fact that the original estimates were upset by changes made during the course of the 1973 Bill. The size of the problem can be shown by the number of applications 498 received. No fewer than 57,000 applications were received before October 10 last year; over 83,000 have been received to date; and by September 1 this year, which is the end of the period of grace allowed by the 1973 Act for applications for citizenship, the total is expected to be in the region of 90,000.
The processing of an application for citizenship is not by any means a straightforward matter. Although leaflets and instructions are sent out with application forms setting out the documentary evidence that must accompany them, barely 50 per cent, of applicants send in satisfactory evidence in the first instance. This of course necessitates a substantial amount of correspondence with the applicant; replies are sometimes slow to come, and frequently more than one letter is needed. All this inevitably adds to delay. So far, 31,500 applications have been finally determined, but this still leaves about two-thirds of those applying within the period of grace who, through no fault of their own, could lose the right to vote as from next February. To allow this to happen would in fact be contrary to the spirit of the 1973 Act, which envisaged that all applications would have been dealt with in time for the 1975 register. So far has the number of applications exceeded what was expected that some, I fear, may not have been determined even by October 10, 1975, the qualifying date for the 1976 register. The Government therefore thought it right to introduce legislation to extend the protection given in the 1973 Act in this respect to those who will have applied for citizenship by September 1 this year but whose applications have not yet been determined by the qualifying date for any register.
I will explain briefly how the Bill seeks to achieve this purpose. The provisions of the 1973 Act which preserve the voting rights of citizens of Pakistan awaiting determination of applications for citizenship are contained in Section 3(5) of that Act. The Bill inserts a new paragraph (c) to Section 3(5) which has the effect of extending the period during which those voting rights are preserved to cover elections held during the currency of the 1975 and subsequent registers, providing that on the qualifying date in the relevant year a person is still awaiting determination of an application for citizenship received by the Home Office before 499 September 1 this year and providing that, in those cases where an application for citizenship requires a period of residence, he has been ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom throughout the period of five years ending on August 31 of this year. As I have said, we cannot at this stage foresee when all, or virtually all, applications for citizenship received by September 1 this year will have been determined, and so the Bill does not specify when these provisions should cease to apply. The Secretary of State is to do this by making an Order—a Statutory Instrument subject to Negative Resolution—and the provisions for this are contained in the new Section 3(5A) which is to be inserted in the 1973 Act.
Clause 2 of the Bill is concerned with minor amendments to the 1973 Act and repeals. Subjection (1) is made necessary by the Representation of the People Regulations 1974, which have replaced the 1969 Regulations cited in Section 3(6) of the 1973 Act, while the Regulations for Scotland and for Northern Ireland, also cited in that subsection, are still in force. Subsection (2) repeals the spent provisions of the 1973 Act, including Section 3(5)(a), which was concerned with the 1973 register.
My Lords, this is a small but, I think, worthy Bill whose object is simply to ensure that people are not deprived of voting rights because of administrative problems in the Home Office. It was given a friendly reception in another place, where it passed without amendment, and I believe that noble Lords will welcome it as a necessary complement to the 1973 Act. I beg to move.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS
My Lords, the noble Lord has explained this Bill very fully. That, I think, is right because, were it not for the Explanatory Memorandum, it would be totally incomprehensible, and we are therefore very grateful to him. There are three points which I should like to make, apart from the fact that I entirely recognise that the provisions are within the spirit of the legislation which we passed, which was in turn consequent upon Pakistan's leaving the Commonwealth.
500 My first point relates to the figures which the noble Lord gave us. I must say that I am surprised to hear that there have already been 87,000 applications for citizenship, and that 90.000 are expected. Can the noble Lord tell us whether this figure refers to applications by heads of households and, if so, how many citizens of Pakistan origin in all we are likely to have gained as a result of the determination, supposing that they are all granted citizenship? It seems to me that under the present rules, if the father and husband applies and obtains citizenship, his wife and children will automatically gain it, too, and one application only is therefore necessary.
It would be interesting to know, in the light of some of the discussions which are taking place on the general immigration front, and on the ability of this country to assimilate yet further people from overseas, to know what has been (he effect of this action of the Republic of Pakistan, over which we had no control at all. If the noble Lord can tell us that, we should be very interested.
I wonder whether, by any chance, the noble Lord can also tell us if the citizens of Jammu and Kashmir—or, at any rate, the Pakistan part of it—are included in those figures, or are they to be dealt with by some other means? I seem to remember that they fell to be determined under the ordinary procedures, and not under the Pakistan Act itself. While the answers to those unforeseen questions are being fetched—and I apologise for having thought of them only as the noble Lord's speech was in progress—may I make my other two points? The first relates to Clause 2. When we were dealing with this subject this was, for obvious reasons, a Foreign Office Bill and my role was very much in the supporting cast. But I should just like to say to the noble Lord and to those who draft Bills that the incorporation in main legislation of direct amendments and repeals of Statutory Instruments is highly undesirable.
I remember, not very long ago, eyebrows being raised in the Consolidation Bills Committee when, for inevitable reasons of tidiness, a Statutory Instrument had to be dealt with in a Consolidation Bill. It was thought to be a very dubious process even in that rarefied Committee. But to have the matter dealt with in main 501 legislation is really most unsatisfactory, for the reason that those who wish to look up the law will look up Acts of Parliament and their various repeals and amendments under Acts of Parliament, and will tend to look up Statutory Instruments and their amendments and repeals under Statutory Instruments. A person who knows his way about very well can achieve both at the same time, but this does not by any means follow for everybody and they may not have the necessary books. Therefore, I suggest that if we can avoid mixing these two forms of legislation it will add to the ease of discovering what is the law on any particular subject.
My last point is that it is evident from what the noble Lord has told us that the inhabitants of Lunar House, Croydon, who are processing these applications, have been working very hard indeed and I suspect that most members of this House who are not directly involved may be unaware of the extreme degree of skill, patience and persistence needed by the people who do this job. They are all too seldom thanked for their efforts. They work very hard, they are extremely percipient and they are up to all the tricks, and it is not surprising that, as the noble Lord said, they needed to be trained. I should like on this occasion to offer a word of thanks to them, because it is on them and their other colleagues in the Immigration Service that the whole of our control over citizenship in this very prized and difficult area depends. I believe that they are worthy of our thanks on an occasion like this. With those words, I am glad to welcome the Bill in the spirit in which the noble Lord introduced it. I certainly see no way of putting down Amendments to improve it, and indeed I doubt whether I should be able to draft any Amendments to it at all.

§ LORD HARRIS OF GREENWICH
My Lords, in reply to the points which the noble Viscount has just made, I am most grateful to him for having given notice of at least one of them and he will be glad to know that I can now even answer the other two. First, the figures I gave included all the numbers involved, not just heads of households, and the two territories which the noble Viscount mentioned are also included in the numbers which I have given to the House. On the third point which the noble Vis- 502 count made just before he sat down, this is a difficult matter. The bridging provision in this Bill applies only to those who have made application for registration as citizens of the United Kingdom by September 1, 1974. That is the effective cut-off date, as I hope will be clear to all concerned. Secondly, I think it is only fair to say that once a provision of this kind is spent—which will be the effect of the Order of my right honourable friend the Home Secretary when he comes to the effective cut-off date—the normal practice is to repeal it formally in a miscellaneous Statute Law Revision Act. These Acts are passed fairly regularly, as your Lordships will be aware. This, I hope, will ensure that the repeal is carried through the Statute Book itself, so I trust that that will to some extent answer the point made by the noble Viscount.
I shall end by saying that I will pass on the gracious words expressed to the staff of the Home Office at Luna House. I think that the only occasions when their work is discussed in this House and another place is when they are criticised for their actions in particularly difficult cases. They have to deal with these every day and they are under the most tremendous pressure, as any of your Lordships who have had any experience at the Home Office will be aware. Also, those noble Lords who approach Home Office Ministers will be aware, I fear, that there is a delay in replying to correspondence because of the immense backlog of work at Lunar House. I very warmly thank the noble Viscount for what he has said, and I will pass on his words to the staff concerned.