Lords Sitting of 22 July 1981

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR Oil the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Lichfield.

The Lord Bishop of London
Graham Douglas, Lord Bishop of London—Was (in the usual manner) introduced between the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Bishop of Norwich.

Consumers and Nationalised Industries
Baroness Burton of Coventry: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will now make a statement on the report dealing with the position of consumers and the nationalised industries.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Trade (Lord Trefgarne): My Lords, we will do so as soon as possible.
Baroness Burton of Coventry: My Lords, I have a list of dates on a paper here, but as I expect the noble Lord has them in his file I shall not enumerate them. But may I ask him whether he would agree that this has been going on for some nine months, since I was told by his noble friend Lord Trenchard last October that the report was expected before the end of the year? Does the noble Lord recall that he himself told us in March that it would not be very long, and in May that he hoped it would be before the Recess? As the Government now appear to have gone back even on that, and in view of the concern of the consumer organisations, could he be a little more helpful?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I must confess that my best expectations have not been realised in this matter. It is still just possible that we shall be able to say something before the Recess, but I am afraid I cannot guarantee that.
Baroness Burton of Coventry: My Lords, while being glad that the noble Lord has expectations, as I have, and hoping that they will be better fulfilled, may I ask him whether "before the Recess" means before we rise for the summer Recess, or before the end of the overspill in the autumn?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, in view of the past disappointments, the noble Baroness may forgive me
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if I am not too specific on this matter. But I should say that this is a problem of very considerable complexity. I think the noble Baroness knows how many bodies we have to consult, how many major industries are involved and, indeed, how many Government departments.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord what regard the Government pay to reports from consumer bodies? Also, what is the attitude of the Government to the report from the consumers' committee for the gas industry, which strongly criticised the closing down of the gas showrooms?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, as the noble Lord will remember, the Government had to consider a number of reports on this matter, including, in particular, the report from the Monopolies and Mergers Commission —a very powerful report—the main thrust of which we decided to accept.
Lord Paget of Northampton: My Lords, is not the truth of the matter that, in a monetarist society, the interests of consumers rank very low indeed?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, it is certainly not the case that the interests, wishes and views of consumers rank low in the consideration which the present Government give to these matters. As the noble Lord will be aware, my honourable friend Mrs. Oppenheim is specially charged with looking after these matters and, in my opinion, does a very good job.
Baroness Elliot of Harwood: My Lords, would it not help the Government very much indeed if they got out this report, in view of all this speculation? There is, no doubt, a very good reason for the decision about the gas showrooms and this could be explained. If the Government would only get the report out immediately, I should have thought there would be an enormous advantage.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, the report which the noble Baroness, Lady Burton, is asking me about is not specifically aimed at the gas industry, but goes far wider than that, encompassing the position of all the main consumer consultative bodies and the nationalised industries which they represent. The question of the gas showrooms is a much narrower one, on which your Lordships expressed your view when I repeated the Statement the other week.
Baroness Burton of Coventry: My Lords, in view of the long disappointment over this matter, would the noble Lord be generous enough to let me know when it would be useful to put down a Question, so that we might spare the House further boredom on this matter?
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, I shall be happy to let the noble Baroness know a little way in advance when the announcement is in prospect.

HM Inspectors of Schools
2.46 p.m.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they appoint Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools and, if so, whether they have appointed one with special responsibility for overseas affairs.
The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Baroness Young): My Lords, Her Majesty's Inspectors in England are appointed by Order in Council on the recommendation of the Secretary of State for Education and Science. Their assignment reflects the range of educational provision they are called upon to inspect. The deployment of individual inspectors is a matter for the Senior Chief Inspector. At present, one staff inspector includes among his duties specific responsibility for aspects of international relations in education. Other members of the inspectorate continue to be called upon to undertake specialist assignments within this field.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that Answer. Does she recall that on 9th April this year, in answering a related Question, she had this to say:
"It is not my business to decide how HMIs are deployed"?—[Official Report, 9/4/81; col. 674]
Would she care to revise that assertion now? Further, is she aware that there was, traditionally, an HMI with special responsibilities for international affairs who sat on the Advisory Committee for Development Education, and who was moved and has not been replaced? Is it purely coincidence that he was moved at the time when the present Government destroyed that Quango?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I do not believe there is any contradiction in the two Answers that I have given to the noble Lord—either my earlier Answer or the one today. I would confirm that the deployment of individual inspectors is a matter for the Senior Chief Inspector. On the noble Lord's second point, it is true that since last summer the staff inspector with general oversight of international relations in education no longer holds this as his sole responsibility. But he continues to devote part of his time to it and, as I have already indicated, other specialist HMIs continue as before to take on ad hoc assignments in the field as required. The change was made very largely for staffing reasons and in the light of competing demands on HMIs' time.
Baroness David: My Lords, may I ask the Minister, as her Government are so keen on keeping up the quality and standards of education, whether they will continue to reduce the number of HMIs? I understand that we have 18 fewer in 1981 than we had in 1980, and it seems to me very important for the education service that HMIs are kept up to strength.
Baroness Young: My Lords, the noble Baroness's question is very much wide of the original Question that I was asked. But HMI staffing matters are considered in the overall complement within the DES.
Lord Brockway: My Lords, is the Minister aware of the remarkable interest which there is among fifth formers and sixth formers in schools about overseas problems? Did she note Mr. Heseltine's visit to a comprehensive school in Toxteth yesterday, when he was so deeply impressed by the width of knowledge of the students? Will she do her utmost to get our inspectors to encourage this interest?
Baroness Young: My Lords, the HMI's interests cover a wide range. These include education for international understanding and relevant academic subjects, such as languages, history, geography and politics, all of which are subjects which are taken in some schools.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, may I press the noble Baroness one stage further? Is she aware that her Answer has justified the suspicions of some people that this Government are less interested in the development of international education than previous Governments, as the HMI now has to split his time between his international responsibilities and other duties? Is it not also the case that the HMI concerned who was a member of the Advisory Committee on Development and who did a most excellent job, was concerned not simply with formal education but also informal education, or adult education as it is often known, and that the description which she gave in her previous Answer of the advisory committee as a Quango should not be taken to indicate that any single member of that committee was paid a penny, because in fact they were not?
Baroness Young: My Lords, as I indicated to the noble Lord when he asked a Question about education for international understanding some weeks ago, the Government do see that this has a part to play in the curriculum and have said so in their curriculum document. We believe that this is an important part of the curriculum. The noble Lord needs to read the curriculum document in its entirety to see the role which we have attached to it.

Ante-Natal Health Services
2.52 p.m.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will consider taking positive action to overcome the increasing widespread dissatisfaction with antenatal health services.
Baroness Young: My Lords, this is a matter of great concern to the Government, who have made clear their

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support for the detailed and practical recommendations which the Social Services Committee made last year for improving ante-natal care. They have commended these recommendations to health authorities and believe that a great deal can be achieved at comparatively little cost.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: My Lords, I thank the Minister for her Answer. Would she accept that there is widespread concern among many expectant mothers? They feel that attendance for pre-natal care is time-consuming, that it is not enjoyable, that there is a lack of educational facilities and that this is due mainly to the shortage of staff and the lack of space. What are the Government doing to overcome those two problems?
Baroness Young: My Lords, the Government are aware of precisely the points which the noble Baroness has identified. My honourable friend Dr. Vaughan, the Minister for Health, has expressed his misgivings about what happens. On 16th July the Government announced the establishment of the Maternity Services Advisory Committee which was recommended by the Social Services Committee in their report on peri-natal and neo-natal mortality. This will be of importance to the Government in their sustained campaign to achieve further reductions in peri-natal death and handicap which are often a consequence of mothers not attending ante-natal clinics.
Lord Wallace of Coslany: My Lords, will the noble Baroness give an assurance to the House that when health authorities are faced with economy cuts—many of them are facing severe financial difficulties—on no account will this service be cut, but will be expanded?
Baroness Young: My Lords, the Government are supporting the health education Mother and Baby Campaign which is designed to encourage women to make use of ante-natal facilities. In 1980–81, £375,000 was allocated to the campaign and in 1981–82 a further £325,000. They have also agreed to fund for six months a project by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations to explore further the role of voluntary bodies in ante-natal care.
Baroness Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe: My Lords, would the noble Baroness understand—I am sure she does—that it is not only money which is needed, although that is important? One thing which I hope she will agree would be appreciated would be if the appointments system could be improved. Could she offer any sort of hope to those of us who campaign on these issues that, say, 30 patients are not all summoned for 9.30 and another 30 for 10? Is there anything which the Ministry can do to ensure that the doctors are there when the patients are there?
Baroness Young: My Lords, nobody who has ever attended any kind of an outpatients clinic can be aware of other than the long wait, whatever the circumstances. However, the Government feel that health authorities are best placed to consider what steps are needed locally in the light of local circumstances. Some area health authorities are managing to effect better im-
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provements in the appointments system and are also making better use of the time that mothers have to wait.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: My Lords, while appreciating all that the noble Baroness has said and realising her great concern, and also her Minister's concern, may I ask whether she could try to get a little humanity back into the large hospitals where many expectant mothers feel that they are just like a parcel on a conveyor belt, operating a system?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I shall certainly draw the attention of my honourable friend in another place to the remarks which have been made on this matter. I feel certain that he will have the means of passing it on to those in the authorities who have responsibility for this. I am sure that we all share the noble Baroness's concern. I do myself. The consequences of mothers not attending ante-natal clinics are very serious. It is a most serious problem which we all need to consider carefully.

Cigarette Advertising
2.57 p.m.
Lord Airedale: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware that a leading cigarette manufacturer is supporting pornographic magazines with advertising revenue; and whether progress is being made towards further restricting the advertising of cigarettes.
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, until the noble Lord drew the matter to our attention, we were not aware that cigarettes were advertised in pornographic magazines. New restrictions on cigarette advertising were included in the voluntary agreement with the tobacco industry which my right honourable friend announced in another place on 21st November 1980. This agreement will last only until 31st July 1982 and we shall be considering what should follow it.
Lord Airedale: My Lords, I am grateful for that reply. Is it not generally accepted that British industry has not only a responsibility to its workpeople and its shareholders, but also a social responsibility which is not being met by propping up sleazy magazines?
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, I certainly agree that all companies have responsibilities to the general public as well as to their shareholders. However, I doubt whether I should comment on whether or not tobacco companies should advertise their products in pornographic magazines. I should have thought that that was a matter for them.
Lord Leatherland: My Lords, can the noble Lord tell us the names of these magazines so that we may take steps to avoid reading them?
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, I do not think that I should give a "plug" to the pornographic magazines in that way.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that advertisements by tobacco companies in pornographic magazines would be likely to cancel out the enhancement of their image which these companies derive from their prestige promotion of grand opera and other valuable activities? In his coming review would my noble friend consider requiring a double health warning: "Cigarettes can seriously damage your physical health and pornography your mental health"?
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, that is a very interesting suggestion.
A noble Lord: My Lords, how is the noble Lord to tell?
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, I will try to get on. It might also be wondered whether the health warning on advertisements in pornographic magazines should be removed.
Viscount St. Davids: My Lords, while the noble Lord will no doubt deprecate the fact that bad purposes are supported by the tobacco manufacturers, will he not also agree that it is very sad that good purposes also have to be supported by the tobacco manufacturers? Nevertheless, would he also agree that what is really important is the final part of the noble Lord's Question, which implies that tobacco advertising ought to be decreased to the point where finally it stops?
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, I know there are many people who take the same view that the noble Lord takes. My right honourable friend made a voluntary agreement last November. He did not manage to achieve all that he wanted to achieve, which is why the agreement is only going to last until July 1982. There are perpetual talks going on with the industry. At the moment negotiations are going on about sports sponsorship, the details of which are being kept confidential in the meantime.
Lord Paget of Northampton: My Lords, sharing the noble Lord's views of this subject and his dislike of nicotine- and other dope-peddlers, does he not think that if there is to be advertising at all, pornographic magazines form a far more suitable medium than sports sponsorship?
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, I do not think I really see the point of that question. On the other hand, I should like to say that the Question seems to be directed to whether tobacco companies should advertise in these magazines, and I should have thought that that also applied to other companies, such as car manufacturers, manufacturers of hi-fi equipment, and so on.
Viscount Barrington: My Lords, is the noble Lord the Minister in a position to assure the House that
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pornographic magazines are not advertised in cigarette packets?
Lord Cullen of Ashbourne: My Lords, they are certainly not advertising.

Business
Lord Denham: My Lords, it may be for the convenience of the House if I announce that dinner will be available today at the usual time. The Committee stage of the British Nationality Bill will adjourn at approximately 7 o'clock for a short period; during the adjournment the Third Reading of the Atomic Energy (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill will be taken.

British Nationality Bill
3.2 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Belstead: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Belstead).
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The Lord ABERDARE in the Chair.]
Lord Bethell Lord Bethell moved Amendment No. 111:
After Clause 9, insert the following new clause:
("Right to registration by virtue of United Kingdom nationality for European Community purposes
. A person who is a United Kingdom national for European Community purposes by virtue of the operation of Article 227(4) of the Treaty of Rome or who has a right of abode in a British Dependent Territory to which the provisions of Article 227(4) of the Treaty of Rome apply shall be entitled, notwithstanding the provisions of Part II of this Act, on application, to be registered as a British citizen.").
The noble Lord said: I beg leave to move this amendment standing in the names of my noble friends and the noble Lord, Lord Hughes. The effect of the amendment, as I am sure most of your Lordships will appreciate, would be to give to the people of Gibraltar the right, if they so wished, to apply for British citizenship under the new Act and to have it granted as of right and not as a privilege. It is the belief of those of us who have put forward this amendment that this is a correct procedure in equity and in the law of Europe, as I shall endeavour to demonstrate in these few opening remarks.
I think it would be appropriate for me to say a few words about the history of the problem and the situation generated by it. The territory of Gibraltar became British nearly three hundred years ago, in the year 1704, and the Britishness of Gibraltar was confirmed by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, since when there has been an unbroken British sovereignty on the Rock and its hinterland. Indeed Gibraltar has been British longer than it ever was Spanish and, while it is true that Spain has maintained a claim to Gibraltar ever since the treaty, it is also true that Spain has not possessed, by

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legal rights, any treaty right to the Rock. Britain has remained in control of Gibraltar ever since and the people who came to live in that area are British today. They wish to remain British and they wish this amendment to be passed.
Many of your Lordships will have received letters from Gibraltar Ministers, from the Chief Minister, from the leaders of the political parties and from ordinary citizens of the colony. I believe it is safe to say that the representations made from Gibraltar have been more intense and are more unanimously felt than the feelings on this subject from other dependent territories. We have all received representations about this Bill over this territory and that territory and my noble friend the Minister will contradict me if I am wrong, but my clear impression is that it is Gibraltar where the feelings expressed and the representations made to his department have been the strongest and based in the broadest spectrum of political life.
This feeling was given clear arithmetical voice in 1967 when, during a referendum, 12,138 people in Gibraltar voted to retain their link with the United Kingdom and 44 voted to establish a link with Spain. Anyone who has visited the Rock will know the gut emotional feeling of Britishness which almost all the people there feel. In some ways one can be forgiven for feeling, when one goes to Gibraltar, that they feel themselves more British than some of us do. Their Britishness is proclaimed by the flags they fly, by the look of the institutions, the policemen, the shops, the language that they speak—either as their main language or their second language—and even the political slogans that they write on parts of the city.
There is a very real debt of mutual gratitude linking this country and Gibraltar. Several times during her history Gibraltar has been under siege and Britain has defended the Rock. Then in the early 1940s this island was under seige and it was during that period that the people of Gibraltar selflessly offered their territory for the use of the British armed forces and most of the people of Gibraltar had to be evacuated from their homes to this country, perhaps not even expecting that they would ever see their homes again. The view has been expressed in another place that had it not been for Gibraltar it would not have been possible for Britain to have launched the landings in North Africa that turned the course of the Second World War and that indeed without Gibraltar we might not have won the Second World War. So we have helped one another under siege, in bad times as well as good, and this feeling, emotional though it be, is none the less valid and is something which should be taken into account by your Lordships when you come to decide upon this matter later this afternoon.
In 1973, Gibraltar, being the only European British territory outside the common travel area, joined the EEC under Article 227, paragraph 4, of the Treaty of Rome. But it was then that we in this country came up against a certain embarrassment, because at the moment British nationality law is a very complex matter and of course that is the reason for the Bill which we are at present debating. I personally voted for the Bill on its Second Reading and will vote for it in its remaining stages, but the complexities have had a special effect on Gibraltarians. Those com-
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plexities made it necessary for the United Kingdom Government to sign a special declaration which is annexed to the Treaty of Rome, defining what a United Kingdom national is. In the case of other member states, of course, this was not necessary because the nationality of the citizens of those member states, whether on the continent of Europe or outside it, is clear: a person from Martinique is a Frenchman; a person from Greenland is a Dane; a person from Heligoland, which has a separate customsrégime, is a German. There is no division between the citizens of other member states as to where their nationality lies.
The main objection to the Bill as it stands vis-á-vis Gibraltar is that unless this amendment is passed the anomaly of dividing British members of the European Community will be perpetuated, and it is the purpose of this amendment to do away with this anomaly. Unless this amendment is accepted by the Government and passed, we shall have a situation in which 17,000 citizens of the European Community have one type of citizenship of their member state and the other 260 million citizens of the European Community have another type of citizenship, full citizenship, of their member state. So this, I believe, is an anomaly which we should correct, and which I hope we will correct later on today.
I want to come very briefly to the matter of the sad events of yesterday and the announcement that their Majesties the King and Queen of Spain will not be coming to London next week. I want to mention it only in passing as I think it illustrates an important principle at which this amendment is aimed. I personally see this as a shame, a pity, to see a fine and courageous King of a great and friendly country being so badly advised. But the effect of it on Gibraltar is, of course, more of the same; it is very threatening, and it seems to them, in their minds, very menacing. It seems to them that again there are some advisers to the Spanish Government and to the Spanish King who believe that the claims of Spain to Gibraltar can he pursued by the old methods used under the Franco régime.
This is deeply depressing to those of us who hoped that with the collapse of the Franco régime and the restoration of democracy in Spain other methods, political methods, gentlemanly methods would be employed to build up a rapprochement between Gibraltar and her large neighbour. Indeed, I believe this is the only way by which the solution can be found. Of course, this increases the concern felt by Gibraltarians, because they think to themselves, "What is our future? What is going to happen to us? On the one hand, menacing voices are coming from Spain; on the other hand, we have no guarantee that we will be allowed to retain our British identity and British citizenship, or even the right to enter the United Kingdom". They say to themselves that they have no guarantee, and this worries them very much.
I know that the Home Secretary in another place said, in reply to a similar amendment to ours:
"Speaking for the Government, we have made it clear that we do not foresee that Gibraltarians would normally"—
normally!—
"face any difficulty in entering the United Kingdom as they wish".

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This—perhaps I should not call it an assurance—qualified statement also causes great concern among Gibraltarians, because it is precisely an abnormal situation which they fear, and should such an abnormal situation come to pass then, according to the assurance given by the Home Secretary—and, of course, Governments change and Home Secretaries change—it might be possible for the right to enter the United Kingdom to be denied to the people of Gibraltar.
It is true that under present regulations Gibraltarians have a right to move and work freely in the European Community. However, we read recently in our newspapers a blueprint put out by the party opposite indicating their intention to withdraw from the European Community, and of course Gibraltarians have read that blueprint as well. So they have no guarantee, either under British law or European law, that they will have anywhere to go; and of course the dark thought rises in their minds that they might at some point be coerced, pushed, blackmailed, into allowing themselves to be absorbed into Spain. Indeed, various sections of the Spanish press have made capital out of the present situation and the Bill as proposed. They have indicated that the Bill as it stands would leave the people of Gibraltar more or less without a country, without a full citizenship of any country. And of course they say, "We, the Spanish, are prepared to offer them our citizenship, because the British have denied it to them". This is something I believe your Lordships will probably put right later today.
We have been told in debate that this is an anomalous situation, singling out one dependent territory from the others. I know the arguments about Hong Kong will be deployed by my noble friend the Minister in a few minutes. I put it to your Lordships that other territories, Hong Kong and elsewhere, do not have the same preoccupation, the same historical background, the same position as Gibraltar has under the treaty within the European Community, with a clearly defined status, signed by the United Kingdom Government, as United Kingdom nationals for European Community purposes. It will be necessary eventually, when this Bill is passed, for the United Kingdom to clarify and to re-state its position on United Kingdom nationals for Community purposes. How much better it will be if this amendment were passed and the Government can state clearly to our Community partners that a United Kingdom national for EEC purposes is a British citizen, full stop, and not go on to several other paragraphs about this type of citizenship and that type of citizenship, which no other member state possesses.
I know there are many other noble Lords wishing to speak. I will sit down now and hope that we shall have a stimulating and helpful debate on this matter, which is of such deep concern to a small but loyal group of British subjects. I beg to move.
3.18 p.m.
Lord Hughes: During the Second Reading of this Bill I incidated that I would support an all-party amendment on behalf of Gibraltar. My speech then was a short one, and I do not believe that in the circumstances even strong feelings or sincerity require me to make a long speech today. I said then that it
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was an appropriate subject for all-party support, and I am very glad to be able to agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, has said, because what he has said is in the best non-party spirit, putting forward what I believe is really a non-party matter. Incidentally, it is probably the first time that I have ever found myself agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Bethell; but if he continues along this line, it may happen again.
Gibraltar has been British for a very long time and I do not think it is necessary, any more than the noble Lord did, to recapitulate the whole of its history during the centuries. But during the last four decades how they have behaved has been a continuation of the colony's past devotion to Britain. During the last war the bulk of the civilian population was evacuated. This they accepted loyally as part of the war effort. When the war was over they returned, and they returned as British as they had left. When the Spanish dictator found it politically necessary to divert attention from his domestic scene he declared economic war on Gibraltar. Did the Gibraltarians then weigh very carefully the advantages and disadvantages of acceding to the Spanish demands?—certainly they did not. But they acted as we ourselves had done in 1939 when we decided that no longer could we bow before the dictation of Germany. For the Gibraltarians the hardships of the Spanish frontier closure was something to be tackled and overcome, and overcome they certainly have been, not without cost to them. They cannot get their foodstuffs as cheaply as when they came in from Spain, but they have accepted all these consequences.
The Gibraltarians are peaceful, hardworking people and as such I have no doubt that they would welcome a return to normal relations with their Spanish neighbours. The closure, however, is not now for them the mortal blow which General Franco had hoped and expected it would be. Why then have they done all that they have done during the last 40 years? Why have they acted as they have acted during the last 14 years? The answer is simple, or at least it seems to me to be simple. They are British. They do not wish to be other than British, and they have demonstrated overwhelmingly that when a price had to be paid for being British they were willing to pay it. This is not a ploy of one political party in Gibraltar and I suggest sincerely that this Committee is a very appropriate place to show that it need not be a ploy of one political party in this country.
Along with my CPA colleagues on the delegation last October, I found that the subject that all four parties wished to discuss with us was not the closed frontier with Spain, but the then White Paper on British Nationality. We found ourselves in serious and long talks with members of those four political parties, three of them represented in the Assembly. They were people from what I think I could correctly describe as the moderate right to what I think I could equally correctly describe as the extreme left. We met representatives of the chamber of commerce and we met representatives of the trade union movement. In all there was unanimity in the view expressed that they did not wish to become what Spanish television propaganda dinned into them day in, day out, week in, week out, that what they were being offered from their British friends was second class citizenship.

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They said, "Come into Spain; you will have exactly the same rights as all Spaniards".
The wish for full British citizenship is not dictated by any desire on the part of Gibraltarians to leave their home—the home they love. They do not wish to come here to live and work in Britain. After all, if they did wish to do that they could do it at present without let or hindrance as EEC nationals. Their wish is dictated, I believe, by something not so materialistic as that: not something you can put a cash value on, but something which they could share with all your Lordships—an indefinable inner pride at being British.
Apart from the seven years for which I was a Scottish Minister, my interventions in debates in this House have been almost always on Scottish affairs. It has perhaps not escaped your Lordships' notice that, from my accent, I am a Scot and from some of the debates which I have taken part in as regards Scottish affairs your Lordships will have gathered the impression that I am proud to be a Scot. But I am proud of the fact that on my passport I declare myself to be British. I do not say that I am Scottish on my passport and I do not say that I am Scottish when I am abroad although I do not conceal the fact that I am a Scot. However, I am proud to be British. I can understand fully why the people on the Rock say that they are Gibraltarians but, like me, and like all of us in this Committee, they are proud to be British.
Gibraltar is described in this Bill as a dependent territory. When there was a delegation here from Gibraltar the other week one of the members—the leader of the Opposition who at one time campaigned in an election for integration into Britain—said that he did not like the word "dependent" because he certainly did not feel that that was a proper description of their relationship with Britain. In this matter, however, I think that I can emphasise on their behalf that Gibraltarians are dependent; today they are dependent on your Lordships for the continued right to be what, at the last official count—the referendum to which the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, referred—all but 44 of them decided they wished to be British citizens, first class. I hope that this Committee will not let them down.
3.27 p.m.
The Lord President of the Council (Lord Soames): I wondered whether it might not be for the convenience of the Committee if I were to intervene at an early stage of this important debate so that I could give the Committee some indication of how the Government view the amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Bethell to insert a new clause. The purpose of this amendment was well explained both by my noble friend and by the noble Lord, Lord Hughes: it is intended to give all the people of Gibraltar an immediate entitlement to British citizenship on application.
Her Majesty's Government yield to none in their admiration, respect and affection for Gibraltar and its people and had the case rested solely upon what was put forward by my noble friend Lord Bethell, and had the case been, indeed, what he did put forward, then I think that there would be a case for his amendment. However, it was not all totally correct and it left a
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good deal out and it is to those aspects of the case that I think it would be a help to the Committee if I were to address myself.
First, I want to say, and most emphatically, that this nationality Bill does not in any way weaken the commitment of Her Majesty's Government, or of this country, to the people of Gibraltar. It does not affect Gibraltar's position as part of the European Community—it has nothing to do with it—or, in particular, the rights of Gibraltarians to free movement of labour within the Community. We shall certainly ensure that, when this Bill is passed, our definition of "national" for European Community purposes continues to include the people of Gibraltar as it does at present. Noble Lords need have no fear on that score. Nor is there any question of the immigration arrangements, under which Gibraltarians come here quite freely, being in any way affected by the Bill. The Government have given these assurances, but I am glad to have this opportunity to repeat them, for I think that they cannot be given too often.
However, we must consider the amendment against the central objectives of the Bill as a whole. I want here to address myself to the three factors involved: what is equitable; what is realistic; and also there are all our deep feelings for the peoples of Gibraltar. I think that all of those three aspects must be covered. I think that there is general agreement that today our present citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies is misleading and unsatisfactory for a number of reasons. Being, as it is, indeed, a remnant—a hangover—from colonial days, it is held today by many people, citizens of independent states, who do not have the right to enter either the United Kingdom or a dependent territory. What is more, it does not distinguish those who belong to the dependent territories and, therefore, have a particular and continuing relationship with the United Kingdom in the way that the people of Gibraltar do.
The previous Administration in their Green Paper canvassed the idea—because that is all that the Green Paper did—that all those citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies who did not become British citizens should be known as "British overseas citizens", be they then residing in independent nations or a still dependent territory—either. The present Government's view is that this did not adequately reflect our strong and still special ties with our dependencies. So in the White Paper which was published last year we said that we wished the status of the peoples of the dependent territories to be positively recognised as such, as being different from those citizens of what were colonies and what are now independent states. Therefore, we proposed—and have created in this Bill—a distinctive citizenship of the British dependent territories which is to be held by those, and only those, who have close personal ties with the dependent territories. This, surely, has the advantage of accurately reflecting their status, for it is what they are; they are people of those territories.
Thus, we now recognise that those who will hold citizenship of the British dependent territories have a special tie with us, one of quite a different character from that of citizens of former colonies which are now independent. When they come to this country to live—if that is what they choose to do—we think that

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this close association, combined with a period of residence here, would justify, and does justify, conferring British citizenship on special terms—and by "special terms" I mean without any impediment whatever. So we have provided in Clause 4 of the Bill that citizens of the British dependent territories will, after five years' residence here, be entitled as of right to British citizenship, on application.
Thus, the Government have created a citizenship for those whose close personal connections lie with the British dependent territories and have provided that they shall enjoy access to British citizenship on special terms should they wish to come and live in this country. My noble friend Lord Bethell now proposes, in this amendment, that the people of Gibraltar—and Gibraltar alone—should be given extra and special privileges as regards acquiring British citizenship, and that they, alone, of all the people of the dependent territories, should be eligible for British citizenship without establishing any residential or other links with this country, beyond what all Gibraltarians and, indeed, all citizens of all dependent territories still have.
I must say to your Lordships that although the Government yield to none in their feelings towards Gibraltar, this immediate entitlement to British citizenship would most seriously undermine what is, in our view, the most important principle of all in this Bill; namely, that British citizenship should be held only by those whose most intimate connections are with the United Kingdom itself and the territory of the United Kingdom itself. Under this Bill the people of Gibraltar, who after all are living in Gibraltar, not in the United Kingdom, would acquire citizenship of the British dependent territories. However, they would continue to be able to come and go to and from this country as they wish, and if after a period of five years' residence they wish to assume British citizenship, they will have the absolute right to do so.
This seems to us to be the right and proper balance, taking account, as I say, of reality, of equity and of special relationship. The fact that they are Gibraltarians, normally living in Gibraltar, gives them citizenship of British dependent territories. But in view of their special relationship, if they wish to come here and live here for five years, then British citizenship is open to them.
It was argued—if I understood him aright—by my noble friend Lord Bethell that Gibraltar already enjoys a special status among the dependencies as it is the only one covered by Article 227 of the Treaty of Rome. This, I think he said, justifies according preferential treatment to the people of Gibraltar and those who have ties with her. But this does not follow in nationality matters. The inclusion of Gibraltar in the European Community stems from the provisions of the Treaty of Rome. The status of a territory under the Treaty of Rome does not affect the status of that territory in our nationality law or have anything to do with it.
The fact that people from Gibraltar are included in the definition of "national" for European Community purposes does not mean that they should have particular privileges in acquiring our citizenship. It means one thing and one thing only—that the people of Gibraltar should enjoy the benefits of membership of
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the European Community in the same way as do the citizens of the United Kingdom. That is what it means. In no way will this be altered when this Bill is enacted.
Nor, I submit, will the other dependencies be prepared to accept this argument either. I really must stress this point firmly. The other dependencies, and in particular Hong Kong, do say and will say that if all Gibraltarians are automatically to have British citizenship enshrined in legislation, and the right of abode here merely on application, then they will want similar privileges. What we grant to one we shall—to put it no higher—certainly be under great pressure to concede to others. The other dependencies do not accept the primacy of Gibraltar in this respect. I question very much whether the Committee would think that we were wise to try to pick and choose between dependencies.
If there are to be special cases, then every dependent territory will make its special case. The Falkland Islands view their relationship with the Argentine as putting them in no less unique a position than that of Gibraltar in relation to Spain. Nor is Gibraltar the only dependent territory whose chances of becoming independent are, in practice, almost non-existent. The same can be said of at least five others: of St. Helena, the Falkland Islands, Pitcairn Islands, Montserrat and Hong Kong. Let there be no doubt that the dependent territories all feel very strongly on this issue, and in this Bill as it stands we are treating them all alike.
My right honourable friend the Home Secretary told another place that he knew that Hong Kong felt strongly because they had told him so. I can assure noble Lords that the Government have received representations from other territories too. If your Lordships were to accept this amendment, we should open the way to vigorous pleas for similar treatment from other dependent territories.
However, such treatment for all dependent territories would lead to a situation which I am sure your Lordships would consider to be very serious indeed. For there would be a wholly new immigration commitment of very substantial proportions. I join with my right honourable friend the Home Secretary in suggesting that this would be unacceptable. I should like to quote just a couple of sentences of what my right honourable friend said in another place:
"We would have a new British citizenship with immigration commitments for the future which, I am sure, nearly every hon. Member would regard as unacceptable. It is important that I say that to the House. That is why I do not believe that we should give way on the amendments".
I must assure your Lordships that the Government fully appreciate the deep and sincere concern of people in Gibraltar about the British Nationality Bill. We have sought to meet this concern in the following ways, and we believe them to be effective. First, we made it clear from the start that the creation of citizenship of the British dependent territories would in no way alter the relationship between dependent territories and the United Kingdom, nor would it affect our obligations and commitments to the dependent territories and their citizens. These assurances apply to Gibraltar as much as to any other dependent territory.
Secondly, so far as Gibraltar itself is concerned, successive Governments have given repeated and specific

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assurances to Gibraltarians that Gibraltarians are able to enter the United Kingdom freely and without impediment. The Labour Government gave such an assurance in 1968 and the Conservative Government confirmed it in the Immigration Act of 1971—and I gladly reaffirm it today. That undertaking is in no way affected or diminished by anything in this Bill, nor is it affected by any relationship we may or may not have with the European Community.
We all respect and admire the courage and tenacity of the people of Gibraltar. Their commitment to the United Kingdom is undoubted, and our commitment to them, that Gibraltar will not pass under the sovereignty of any other nation against the freely expressed wishes of her people has been said and said again. It was clearly demonstrated in the 1967 referendum and by the recent unanimous vote for British citizenship in the Gibraltar House of Assembly. We are committed to Gibraltar in many ways, but we must bear in mind all our responsibilities—not only those to Gibraltar but also those to the other dependent territories, and indeed to the people of this country, which badly needs a proper citizenship law and effective immigration control. Finally, let me repeat that the Bill as it stands reflects reality; namely, that the people of Gibraltar—most of whom actually live in Gibraltar—will have a citizenship of British dependent territories which reflects that fact. But should any of them wish to have British citizenship to the point that they wish to come and live here, which is what British citizenship is about, they may do so, whenever they wish—and after a period of five years, they would have an absolute right to British citizenship, which would again reflect reality. I submit that what we are suggesting to your Lordships in this Bill as it stands reflects the reality of the situation and is equitable both to the people of Gibraltar and to the other dependent territories as well as to this country. On those grounds, I would urge your Lordships to reject the amendment.
3.44 p.m.
Viscount Thurso: In rising to confirm that we on these Benches support this amendment, I feel entitled to do so for a number of reasons—not least of them being the fact that I flew to Gibraltar to start my honeymoon. My support for this amendment also arises from the fact that I live in a part of the United Kingdom over which the Norwegian flag flew longer than flew the Scottish flag or has yet flown the Union Jack. I desire to share the privileges of United Kingdom citizenship and of being British, although I am proud to be Scottish and to belong to a part of Scotland which has a great Viking heritage. I share the sentiments which were expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, earlier, and like him, I do not intend to keep your Lordships long, because I do not consider that the issue we have to decide here is a very complicated one. The complication arises from the fact that the Government are regarding the British Nationality Bill as though it were an immigration Bill.
The point of the Bill now before us, as I understand it, is to confirm the grounds on which one can regard oneself as being British. It seems to me that the arguments which have been put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, for the people of Gibraltar are sound,
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because, as one of the dependent territories, Gibraltar is different from all the others. There is a considerable difference—not the least of them being that Gibraltar is the only dependency to which the Government are going to grant the privilege of allowing free entry into this country; the only country to have that privilege of right of access. The "United Kingdom" is what we here in the United Kingdom choose it to be. The fact that the people of Sark, the Isle of Man, the Fair Isle or the Shetlands are part of the United Kingdom is because they choose to be part of the United Kingdom and, secondly, because we choose to have them. There is nothing umbilical about their connection with us; it is a voluntary connection and one that is made voluntarily by them and accepted voluntarily by us. We have the total right to decide what we wish for the Gibraltarians, who fought with us and for us, who have supported us over hundreds of years of our history, and who regard themselves as being British. We have a perfect right to accept them into the fold of British citizenship. That is what we on these Benches intend to vote for.
Lord Carver: I also urge your Lordships' Committee to support this amendment. My interest in it is not merely a long and close association with Gibraltar, through the armed forces and particularly with the Army, but also a personal one because my father was born in Gibraltar. His father lived there all his working life, died there and was buried there. He actually married a lady from Spain, who was mostly of Irish but also partly of Belgian extraction, whose ancestors had lived in Spain for more than one generation. My father worked in Egypt and in Switzerland and, had it not been for the outbreak of the First World War, I would probably have been born outside this country. Fortunately for me I was born in this country, but if the law proposed in this Bill, as unamended, had been the case when I was born, I fail to know what nationality I would have been!
There are three important aspects from the point of view of the Gibraltarians which one should bear in mind. First, in no circumstances should they find themselves liable to become Spanish citizens against their will. Secondly, nothing we do should make it more difficult for Her Majesty's Government to come to a sensible arrangement with Spain about the future status of Gibraltar. I regard that as being equally important. Thirdly, any Gibraltarian who wishes to come to this country and be a citizen of this country, whether temporarily of permanently, should be able to do so. It seems to me that the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, is a very ingenious way of meeting all three of those principles. The noble Lord the Leader of the House posed the possibility that, if this amendment was passed, we should he opening the door to some uncontrollable immigration commitment. He talked about St. Helena, the Falkland Islands, the Pitcairn Islands and Montserrat as well as Hong Kong in his plea that Gibraltar should not be treated as a special case.
However, the fact remains that if all those except Hong Kong were granted the same status as Gibraltar, for instance, it could not conceivably be said to produce an immigration problem in this country. It is the problem of Hong Kong. Surely what is happening

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is that it is the special case of Hong Kong which is determining the attitude of the Government in this Bill to Gibraltar and the other dependencies. I feel that there is every reason to treat Gibraltar as a special case. As has already been pointed out, it is treated as a special case already, and therefore I would strongly urge the Committee to support this amendment.
Baroness Trumpington: I find the term "second class citizenship" to be somewhat offensive and, as I see it, inaccurate. My instincts were to go along with this amendment but the reference made by the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, to second class citizenship has reinforced the other side of the argument as put forward by my noble friend Lord Soames on behalf of the Government. Once that term has been used in the context of Gibraltar, it will certainly be regarded as such by the other dependent territories.
I do not regard the provisions made in this Bill to be unreasonable since provision is made, and is clearly made, for those people who wish to be citizens of this country by actually living here, by actually having personal ties with this country, and by actually playing a day-to-day role in the life of this country. This is a most emotional issue and one's sympathies are naturally with what one might describe as "the few". It is such an emotional issue that even the heavens are weeping, but I hope that this amendment will not be pressed and will in due course be withdrawn.
3.52 p.m.
Viscount Boyd of Merton: I rise to make, if possible, a short intervention in favour of the amendment. I listened with great care and interest to what my noble friend Lord Soames said in reply to my noble friend Lord Bethell and to the noble Lord, Lord Hughes. The noble Lord, Lord Soames, and I once shared in another place the representation of the county of Bedford in Parliament. It therefore is rather difficult for me to take a view alien to that held by him.
He has made, as we could have expected, a reasonable and logical speech. Of course, it is a tidy way to deal with the nationality status of dependent territories to create what the Home Secretary called, "A coherent and logical system of citizenship for British dependencies". But often in life a tidy solution is not necessarily the wise one, and this can be especially true when dealing with a very small population living under siege conditions, for a blockade is a siege, and who have cherished for nearly three centuries their shared nationality status with the United Kingdom.
The Committee can be in no doubt about the strength of feeling in Gibraltar. Strong feelings are also felt here at home, as witnessed in another place where the vote in the Standing Committee on a similar clause was defeated by only the chairman's casting vote. On the Report stage—I was renowned in the other place for a loud voice; it is being put to the test now. I hope the heavenly forces are on my side. In another place 521 Members of the House took part in the vote, and the amendment in similar terms was only defeated by a majority of 25.
The Home Secretary argued that the Government decisions on the status of Gibraltarians had nothing
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whatever to do with Spain or the Spanish attitude to Gibraltar. Of course, I believe fully anything and everything that the Home Secretary says, and I am not tempted to say seriously, "Tell that one to the marines", but it is certainly not an accepted view in Gibraltar itself. Gibraltarians on the Rock know that the defeat of the amendment in the House of Commons was interpreted immediately in the Spanish press within the wider political context of Spain's claim to Gibraltar.
Of course, I recognise that some difficulties will arise for the Government if this amendment is carried. But the status of Gibraltar can be said to be quite unique, and has been so described by successive Governments. Indeed, we have recognised this, as other noble Lords have pointed out, by their status as Community nationals by virtue of the Treaty of Rome. No other dependent territory has the same concession, and to include the people of Gibraltar in the category of British citizen would not be an act of deliberate discrimination but would arise, as the Prime Minister of Gibraltar himself said, as a natural consequence deriving from the particular circumstances in Gibraltar. I very much hope that this amendment will be pressed to a Division and will win the vote.
Lord Home of the Hirsel: If the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, wants evidence that this is a non-party matter he is shortly going to find it. I do not believe that I have disagreed even in a shade of opinion with my noble friend Lord Boyd of Merton in our political lives in over 50 years, but this afternoon the position of the Gibraltarians—and this has been confirmed by what my noble friend the Leader of the House said this afternoon—it is that they have an absolute right of entry into this country.
That was confirmed I think first by the noble Lord, Lord Thomson of Monifieth, in the socialist Government of the day. That still stands. Now, under Clause 4 of this Bill—and I shall be corrected if I am wrong—they have an absolute entitlement to citizenship and abode if they reside here for five years after entry. Therefore, this is a non-party matter. One side conceded the entry; another is now attempting to give them the right of citizenship with the right of abode.
If I were a Gibraltarian, I would rather have that assurance from the British Government—and it is inconceivable that any British Government would go back on those assurance—than the general cover provided by the Treaty of Rome. I would far rather have that, and feel much more reassured by it. Although we are debating it in the context of this Bill, this is not a new matter. At the time when Lord Thomson of Monifieth was negotiating, Gibraltar had stated a claim to be integrated economically, politically and socially into the United Kingdom. They have done that before, and they have done it since. It is, so to speak, a standing claim.
For a number of reasons no British Government in the past 25 years have been able to concede such a status, and some of them were stated by my noble friend the Leader of the House. It is not that any British Government, or indeed any Parliament in this country, have doubted the loyalty of the Gibraltarians to the Crown, or the service given in war, to which the

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noble and gallant Lord, Lord Carver, referred. But it is that there are other territories, British dependent territories, in exactly parallel constitutional circumstances who would advance the same claim, and indeed have done so and are doing so.
Your Lordships are aware in relation to this Bill that Hong Kong, for example, is insistent that, whatever the conditions laid down by Parliament, there should be no exceptions for them. I think all of your Lordships know—we all know for certain—that we could not concede the status now asked for Gibraltar to the colony and dependent territory of Hong Kong. We could not do it. Therefore, I come to the conclusion that, although one may argue in sentiment for Gibraltar, or the Falkland islands—because the Falkland islands are a rather parallel case—or argue expediency because there is pressure on either of those two territories, that sentiment and expediency are an unsound ground on which to build an edifice of nationality and citizenship. Therefore, the test must he equity and justice as between territories of exactly the same constitutional status. If those be the criteria, I must conclude that exceptions must not be made in this case. In relation to Gibraltar, as I said earlier, should prefer to stand on the very special status, the very special relationship which has been woven between us in this matter and on the certainty of British citizenship that any Gibraltarian citizen needed. But I cannot vote for an amendment which has made exceptions in our protected territories.
Lord Campbell of Croy: I also should like to support my noble friend Lord Soames in urging the House not to accept this amendment. A very good case has been put for Gibraltar, and the whole House will accept the Britishness of Gibraltarians and their loyalty to the United Kingdom. But I am one of those who is concerned about another overseas dependent territory—namely, Hong Kong. I am worried about the effect there if some special exception were made for Gibraltar. For both Gibraltar and Hong Kong, the people concerned do not expect a right of abode in the United Kingdom automatically in the future. Neither can they expect to become independent. I will not pursue in detail the reasons where Hong Kong is concerned; it is a matter of the relations between this country and the Peking Government which are of immense importance in the balance of influence in the world—influence so far as the Soviet bloc and the Western Alliance are concerned. If Hong Kong could become independent, there is no doubt that it would have no difficulty in governing itself efficiently and well and in continuing as a leading industrial state in the world. But independence is not possible for Hong Kong and it is not possible for Gibraltar; in the case of Hong Kong for reasons of history and in the best interests of the United Kingdom and the Western Alliance. Only about half of the population of Hong Kong are now citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies and would therefore under the Bill become citizens of the British Dependent Territories. In general, they do not seek a right of abode in this country, nor, I understand, do Gibraltarians seek an immediate and automatic right of abode in this country.
If the exception were made for Gibraltar, I believe that citizenship of the British Dependent Territories
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would be regarded as second class. There is no need for that; it is different and it does not provide immediate and automatic right of abode, but there is no reason why it should be regarded as second class. If this exception were to be made, I believe it would undermine the status of citizenship as outlined now in Part II of the Bill. I would deplore such a development and therefore support the Government in opposing this amendment.
4.3 p.m.
Lord Stewart of Fulham: There was one passage in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Home, which I did not quite follow. He said he thought Gibraltarians would rather have the guarantee they have now, and the special status granted to them now, than the cover provided through their membership of the European Community. But they are not being offered one instead of the other. It is not a question of them being offered a choice. No one doubts at all that they have the guarantees already given: that is not in dispute at all. The question is whether we ought to give this further consideration. There is no question of the present guarantee being in any way put in jeopardy or exchanged for what is now offered in the Bill. Therefore I did not feel there was weight in that argument.
There is only one special consideration that I want to advance. For many years the Gibraltarians have been under attack and criticism in that organ of the United Nations that deals with the problem of anti-colonialism. The Gibraltarians have been endeavouring to explain to the members of that committee that they positively want to be a British possession. This assertion has often been received with incredulity and sometimes with rudeness. They have resolutely persisted in that view, and with good reason both from their point of view and ours.
It is not going to be a very pleasant situation for them in that committee if their critics are going to say, "Well, you have told us how attached you are to the British and they to you. Where have they put you? In the second class carriage." It is all very well the noble Lord, Lord Soames, shaking his head: I am telling him what will happen in this particular theatre to which no consideration has as yet been given, and I do not think they should be subjected to that degree of obloquy.
As to their being a special case, it is already admitted that they are a special case. The Government say over and over again, "We cannot draw distinctions between one territory and another", and then in almost the same breath they say, "This amendment is not necessary because we already do treat them in a different way from other dependent territories".
They are asking in effect for the stamping and sealing of something a good deal of which they possess already, and rightly possess. In view of the special consideration we have already given to them, and rightly given to them, it is a triviality to refuse this particular concession. The Government have become enslaved to its own formulae by treating all dependent territories alike, and they have omitted the obvious fact that they have already accepted that Gibraltar cannot be treated in exactly the same way as all the others.
One noble Lord compared its position to that of

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certain other British possessions. It takes no longer now to travel from London to Gibraltar than in the Middle Ages it took to travel from London to the Channel Islands. Our general approach to them puts them much more nearly in the same box factually and emotionally with those near-at-hand territories than with the more remote territories over the ocean. There is no practical reason for refusing this amendment. The Government are frightening themselves about possible reactions, and refusing the amendment will be treated and regarded by the Gibraltarians, by their critics abroad and, I am afraid, by the Spanish Government as an affront to the Gibraltarians which this House ought not to put upon them.
Lord George-Brown: May I say something very briefly, because I do not want to repeat the arguments already made? I should like to say with great respect how much I disagree with what has just been said by my predecessor and my successor at the Foreign Office in the 1960s.
I can very easily understand the sentiment which lies behind this amendment. All those of us who have had to deal with the Gibraltarian situation and negotiations over it at various times have been torn between the sentiment which arises when the Gibraltarians are considered and the practical problems that arise if you seek to settle it in the way in which this amendment would do. It is very difficult indeed to come down on the side of the practical problems when everything inside one urges one to come down on the side of sentiment, affection and so on.
However, I am bound to say I agree absolutely with what the noble Lord, Lord Home of the Hirsel, said this afternoon and the same considerations swayed me and weighed with me when I held the office which he held in so distinguished a manner for such a long time. There is no way out of this. If he will forgive my saying so, it is useless for the noble Lord, Lord Carver, to say rather airily, "We all know Hong Kong is a special problem, so don't mix up the problem of Gibraltar with the special problem of Hong Kong". You cannot just wave it away like that. May I say, as somebody very involved in multicolour, multiracial associations, that I should be very unhappy if we were willing to take a different decision about the Gibraltarians and find it very easy to say, "Of course, Hong Kong is a separate case, so we won't consider them", if the considerations are the same—and they are very nearly the same.
On the acceptance of such an amendment as this, it would follow immediately that we should be pressed from elsewhere, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Carver, and those who take that view would then have to find the answer to the Hong Kong people. It is not a very comfortable answer to have to find, because there is only one answer, and it is the one we all denounce as the least acceptable answer. You cannot just wash it away like that. One will complicate the situation, so far as Gibraltar is concerned, even though the Gibraltarians do not like it when one puts this argument to them (they did not when I put it to them), but, nevertheless, the fact remains that some day a solution has to be found. Some of us have thought at various times that we were getting near to finding it,
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and I still think it may well be found, but it would not be made easier by the passage of an amendment of this kind.
As for the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Stewart, about that rather splendid body of people with whom we have all "hassled" from time to time—the United Nations committee concerning itself with colonial matters, whatever it calls itself, which was such a great "help" to me over the subject of Aden—I would make it quite clear that, even if we passed this amendment, that would not turn them on to the side of either the Gibraltarians or the British. They would turn the argument which Lord Stewart was using round the other way and say, "You see just how colonial you are. You have now been taken into the colonial oppressors' maw"; they would still go on denouncing us and they would still go on denouncing the Gibraltarian position.
Considering the whole matter, trying to weigh the good one would do for Gibraltar and the good one would do for British relations generally, the consequences one would be faced with from other territories and how one would answer them and so on, I feel bound to say—I thought I should declare it as there have been references to whether this is or is not a party issue, and I felt it would be unfair for somebody like myself to cast a vote virtually into the anonymity of the register without saying why one has cast one's vote in that way—with all my sentiment being so engaged with what has been said for the amendment, nevertheless for every kind of practical, sensible, realistic reason, I invite my colleagues in all parts of the Committee to reject the amendment here as it was rejected downstairs.
Lord Avebury: Can the noble Lord recall whether the French have the same difficulties in the Committee of 24 in respect of their Overseas Département such as St. Pierre and Miquelon as we do in the case of Gibraltar? If not, does he think it is because the French accord those territories full citizenship?
Lord George-Brown: I have always been rather puzzled that the French, who were much harsher colonialists than we ever were, have always been so willingly accepted by the United Nations committees in terms of their relations with their ex-colonial territories, whereas we are always accused of being the oppressors, when in fact we have a very much better record. I think the answer to the noble Lord's question goes a good deal deeper than that and has something to do with much wider relationships between France and its territoires outre-mer than the issue we are now discussing. I do not think it is very relevant.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: As my name appears to the amendment, I will try to deal with what appears to be the substantive argument that has been adduced against it both by my noble friend the Leader of the House, and, with his characteristic effectiveness, my noble friend Lord Home of the Hirsel. Their argument, as I understand it, which was summed up by Lord Home, is that there must be no exception, and my noble friend Lord Soames really argued the same point, if he will allow me to say so at somewhat greater length. That argument, with respect, is not tenable for the Government because exceptions are being made

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at the moment. If the amendment fails and is defeated, very substantial exceptions will be made, for example in the treatment between Gibraltar and Hong Kong. I support that assertion by quoting from a letter I received dated 18th February from Mr. Timothy Raison, the Minister of State at the department concerned, in which he said:
"There is no question in present circumstances of the immigration practice being changed or the administrative concession for entry into the United Kingdom arising from the unique circumstances of Gibraltar"—
I ask your Lordships to note that ministerial acceptance of the unique circumstances of Gibraltar—
"being withdrawn. They will still be able to enter the United Kingdom to seek and take up employment".
As we know, that is not the position in respect of Hong Kong. Indeed, an argument which one of my noble friends who opposed the amendment adduced was that there would be a flow of immigrants from Hong Kong if this status of British citizenship were granted to them. If the position is now, as it clearly is, that there is a totally different treatment of Gibraltar and Hong Kong from the extremely important point of view of movement, immigration and coming to take up work, then, if that is the existing situation (which the Government have gone out of their way to say they intend to perpetuate) it clearly will not do, if I may say it with great respect to my noble friends, to say you cannot make any exceptions and that if you grant a particular concession to the Gibraltarians you will have the remaining dependencies pursuing you, because the exception on what is perhaps the most important aspect of all has been made and will continue.
One of my noble friends may object and ask, "What is all the fuss about? Have not the Gibraltarians got all they need?" The answer is no, for two reasons, one the fact that a ministerial assurance, however sincere, is not as good as an Act of Parliament, and Mr. Raison himself prefaced the undertaking I read with the words:
"There is no question in present circumstances".
If the Gibraltarians have British citizenship, as this amendment would give them, there would be no question of that qualification about present circumstances.
Secondly, there is the question of feeling, the desire to be British subjects. It seems a little strange that in a world where for the last 35 years countries in the old British Empire have been falling over themselves in their eagerness to get away from us, here is a community which is anxious not only to be with us but to tighten the bonds of loyalty and citizenship which bind us. It would seem odd to a visitor from Mars that having gone through the whole process of decolonisation all over the world, we should reject the desire to continue with the same status as ourselves of this small community which, as several noble Lords have said far more eloquently than I could, has proved its loyalty to us both in peace and war.
Those of us who know Gibraltar, those of us who in recent weeks have been meeting the Chief Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Labour Party, know the passionate feeling which this matter gives rise to among the Gibraltarians. They
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have that sort of feeling which can come up in a man's mind only when someone who has been a close friend and associate suddenly decides to distance himself from you, because that is what the Bill proposes to do. Today the Gibraltarians have the same citizenship as your Lordships. If the Bill goes through unamended, they will not. I am not using the prejorative word "second-class", but it will be different.
After all that has happened in recent years—the loyalty of the Gibraltarians in peace as in war, as the noble and gallant Lord opposite so well pointed out—at this stage to say that, in the interests of a very fragile and precarious argument about no discrimination, we are going deliberately to put these people in a different citizenship status than they have would be a very real blow to them, and would be regarded by them (I say this deliberately) as a display of ingratitude unworthy of a great nation.
4.20 p.m.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: In my respectful submission, one of the difficulties that confronts us in considering this matter is that the concept of a generic citizenship of all the dependencies is meaningless and is bedevilling our discussions. In my view there should be separate citizenship of each dependency while asserting the British association of each one of them, and in Amendments Nos. 119ZA and 119A we have sought to achieve that by providing that,
"the expression 'a citizen of the British Dependent Territories' means a citizen of any one of the British Dependent Territories",
and that,
"A passport issued after commencement to a citizen of the British Dependent Territories shall designate the holder as",
for instance, a British Hong Kong citizen,
"inserting within the parentheses the name of the dependency of which the person is a citizen".
That is what they are asking for in Hong Kong, and I should have thought that if we moved in that direction, a sense of the special privileges that might be obtained by the Gibraltarians if the amendment is passed would be considerably diminished, if not eliminated.
The concept of citizenship of the dependent territories is a somewhat meaningless one. It confers no rights, no special privileges—it is a mere umbrella; and until it is eliminated I do not think that we can really come to grips with the question of how we can provide the special status which I submit Gibraltarians do derive by virtue of their existing status as EEC nationals. My view on the matter is that, while I support the amendment, nevertheless in order to equalise, at any rate somewhat, if not completely, the position in the other dependencies, we should achieve the changes which we on this side of the Committee also recommend.
Lord Merrivale: Since I do not wish to repeat my observations on Second Reading regarding Gibraltar, I propose supporting the amendment and the principle of Gibraltarians in their desire to be registered as British citizens on application, by highlighting very briefly other matters which are of concern to them and which, in my humble opinion, increase the indispensability of not letting them down on this citizenship issue. As has been previously mentioned, it is for

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them a very strong point of principle. I believe that this is highlighted by a small leaflet produced in Gibraltar, which reads:
"Gibraltarians are British to the backbone. Are in the EEC with Britain. Have withstood 14 years of siege in defence of a British Gibraltar. Cannot aspire to independence. Wish to continue their 300 year old heritage of standing rock solid with Britain and must not be betrayed".
First of all, those Gibraltarians who have read the Official Report of 28th April of Standing Committee F have been rather shocked by what was said at col. 1390. It was a statement by Mr. Richard Luce, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, in answer to a question regarding international law concerning the event of Spain occupying Gibraltar and Gibraltarians deciding to leave. It concerned the question of the binding obligation of Her Majesty's Government to take them in. The Minister said:
"I certainly do not wish to state (at this stage) that we have any special obligation of that nature".
That caused considerable concern in Gibraltar among those who learnt of it.
Secondly—and I think it is relevant—there is further concern in Gibraltar as to what are, or could be, economic alternatives to the support and sustenance provided by dockyard work. I am sorry that I mention this today, but it was not referred to during the debate on Monday by either of the Government spokesmen, and I think it opportune now to mention the concern that is felt in Gibraltar. It stresses the importance of the possibility of their being granted British citizenship. I am advised that the dockyard work is responsible for 60 per cent. of the economy. One should heed this concern, because we have been told, in effect, that there has just been set up a consultative committee under the chairmanship of the Governor, General Sir William Jackson, and the committee will include representatives of the Government, the Opposition, commerce, the trade union movement, the banks, and, where appropriate, the services.
But, on the other hand, we have the Defence White Paper (Cmnd. 8288) and what it entails for Gibraltar. I shall quote very briefly from paragraph 40:
"…consideration will be given to alternative ways of fulfilling the Government's obligation to support the economy of Gibraltar if it is decided that the dockyard work there cannot be kept up indefinitely. This consideration will be undertaken in closest consultation with the Gibraltar Government".
Regarding that statement, may I add that I have been advised by the Institution of Professional Civil Servants that during the course of their meeting with Mr. John Nott, the Secretary of State for Defence, he told them, in effect, that had consultations already taken place with the Gibraltar Government, that paragraph would have been much more strongly worded vis-á-vis Gibraltar. Furthermore, in a letter dated 26th June 1981 to their members, relating to paragraph 40 of the White Paper, the institution stated:
"The reference to Gibraltar is vague, but it is the intention to give up the dockyard subject to further discussions with the Gibraltar Government and Spain. The naval stores and depots will start to close in 1983".
Also Rear-Admiral Mackenzie, when speaking to trade union representatives on 25th June last in Gibraltar, said:
"We expect there to be a significant reduction in the number of jobs we shall be able to offer".
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I am sorry to have introduced a different aspect to the discussions, but this is an extra concern for the people of Gibraltar. It was mentioned to me when a delegation was over here and I thought it only right that it should be raised today. Furthermore, there has been a fall-off in tourism, and I understand, too, that the number of cruise liners and so forth is definitely not on the increase.
I have, very sketchily, touched upon our economic obligations towards Gibraltar, and Gibraltarians' concern for the future, for I believe that they both reinforce our moral obligation, earned over the centuries by Gibraltarians, to grant to those who so wish the possibility of registration as British citizens, taking into account the added "fact of life" that they cannot aspire to independence.
4.30 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Rochester: I intervene in the discussion on this amendment with more hesitation than usual but only because church members in the Colony of Gibraltar, and both the Anglican and Roman Catholic bishops in Gibraltar, have expressed their deep concern about the added distress which this matter has caused to the people of Gibraltar after their 12 years of enforced isolation from the mainland. It was unfortunate, to say the least, for it caused an unnecessary amount of concern in Gibraltar, that the news media there gave credence to a rumour that the bishops in your Lordships' House were not prepared to seek any redress for the people of Gibraltar during this present debate in your Lordships' Committee. The Bishop of Gibraltar received a number of agitated telephone calls, some of them during the night; and one of my lay correspondents even suggested that the Prime Minister had canvassed the bishops in your Lordships' House to vote against this amendment.
We on these Benches are used to being chided by one side for not speaking enough and by the other side for speaking too often. We are sometimes disappointed when some of your Lordships seem surprised at the unanimity of Anglican, Roman Catholic and Free Church opinion which we sometimes seek to reflect; and I would be less than honest if I did not add that we sometimes try hard not to be irritated when we are patronised by Ministers. But the one thing to which we are never subjected is deliberate lobbying, for we are recognised as truly independent Members of your Lordships' House—dare I say independent about bishops and cardinals as well?
So for the sake of our friends in Gibraltar I want to say that at no time has the Prime Minister or anyone else sought to influence our vote, and I am sure my colleagues on these Benches would want me publicly to exonerate the Government from any such suggestion. I hope that this will be read and understood by those in Gibraltar who have been misled. Having said that, I hope very much that at the eleventh hour the Government will be prepared to think again about the very special case that has been made out by so many Members of your Lordships' Committee about the Colony of Gibraltar.
Lord Wade: I hope the Government may think fit to change their mind with regard to this amendment. Obviously, this is not the time to go over the ground

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that has been so well debated. In my opinion there are two aspects to this: one is psychological and the other is legal. There are few subjects more complex than constitutional law. I think it might be expedient from a legal point of view if this amendment did not exist and we had not to debate it; but I think this subject today is primarily one of the psychological approach to this problem. That is partly due to the very nature and structure of the Bill that is before us; but there it is, it is before us.
We should keep in mind the undertakings that have been given over the years, and I think everyone in this Committee is in sympathy with the undertakings that have been given to the people of Gibraltar. I think they are clear, and as a consequence I think this is a special case. I do not think we can get away from the fact that it is a special case. Gibraltar is geographically a link, a part of Europe. Its community regards itself as British, and is linked with us in that respect, just as the people living in the Shetlands regard themselves as British. Therefore, putting aside all the legal and technical arguments that may be forthcoming about this amendment, I believe that it would be psychologically unwise to reject it and I would be very happy if the Government could see their way to accepting it.
Viscount Eccles: We have seen from this debate how strong is the sympathy for the people of Gibraltar. I share that myself. Sir Winston Churchill, in the second volume of his History of the War, wrote:
"Spain is the key to all British enterprise in the Mediterranean".
By that he meant that if the Straits of Gibraltar were closed the war would be harder and longer. Then we have that famous letter of 30th December 1940 from Hitler to Mussolini, in which Hitler tells his partner that General Franco has let them down and will not invite the German troops to cross the Pyrenees and capture Gibraltar, and in which he says they had made all preparations to start that assault in the early days of February 1941.
I was there at the time, and frequently stayed in Gibraltar with the Governor, Lord Gort. I can feel exactly what the Rock meant to us then; and if it was a fact that we were considering only Gibraltar, then, as my noble Leader said, we should probably accept this amendment. But we are not. We are bound to look at Schedule 6, at the other dependent territories; and we must, if we can, make out a reason why Gibraltar should be exceptional in that list. We should have to give British citizenship to the Falkland Islands—only a handful of them, bravely resisting the pressures from the Argentine. If to the Falkland Islands, then obviously to Gibraltar; and if to Gibraltar, why not to the others?
But, of course, the one that really matters is Hong Kong. As the noble and learned Lord has just told us, he has an amendment under which the only thing that really matters is: would he introduce a special citizenship, British—Hong Kong citizenship? But then he would have to attach to it conditions about immigration which are not attached to Gibraltar, because we are not really considering only nationality. Though this is the purpose of the Bill—to give us a good framework of nationality—alongside it is our policy on immigration.
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That brings us up against our situation here. We have enormous unemployment—technological unemployment, which is not going to go away. We have the problem of the racial minorities that we have not yet properly integrated into British society, but which we intend to do. These are the first problems that we have to consider. If we are going to accept this amendment, it would be impossible, as I think my noble friend Lord Soames said, to do the same for Hong Kong. The reason is an immigration reason. Why do some noble Lords say, "But Hong Kong is quite different", though it is a dependent territory and might be taken over by China under the law? Is it because it is so far away—out of sight, out of mind? It takes less than 24 hours to come from Hong Kong to London in an aeroplane. Is it because so many of the citizens of Hong Kong are refugees from Communist China and have yellow faces? If that is the reason it is a very bad reason. How are we going to explain it if we accept this amendment and do not then extend it to the other dependent territories?
Our first duty in the circumstances in which we are —overcrowded, with enormous unemployment and difficult racial problems, and not nearly as efficient as we should be—is to get our own situation right in order that we may help other people in the third world. We cannot get our own situation right, we cannot be a peaceful, harmonious and strong country, unless we have a sound nationality and immigration policy as a framework within which to achieve that end. My heart is on the side of the mover of the amendment, but common sense and reason tells me to support the Government in the Lobby.
4.40 p.m.
Lord Mishcon: Sometimes I am sure the Committee will feel that one is confronted with a problem which can be solved emotionally. The Committee on a matter of this kind would say, "If emotion alone rules us, we may come to a wrong decision". But if logic and justice happen to be on the side of emotion, the Committee is making a very good decision having regard to those three entities in making up its mind. The noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, opened his speech by saying that he had sympathy with the people of Gibraltar. The people of Gibraltar do not need our sympathy, and they did not sympathise with us in the days when they stood with us and in the days too when, not long ago—and I do not want to over-emotionalise, but these are facts—the barriers were put up and when the borders were closed. Then the people of Gibraltar looked to what they regarded as literally their mother country, and quite openly unfurled Union Jacks and quite openly sang the National Anthem. In this day and age one can laugh at that kind of reaction, one can call it jingoism; one can call it many things; but one has to admit that that showed that the people of Gibraltar regarded themselves as being in the family.
My noble and learned friend Lord Elwyn-Jones talked very wisely in terms of the dependent territories' nationality so-called in this Bill, and he referred to the wisdom of at least giving them some individuality. If one is talking in terms of a family, I wonder how many of us would like our children to refer to themselves as being dependants of their father, instead of members of the family and our sons and our daughters?

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I am criticising the term of dependent territories' citizenship without any other label at all, and our amendments will deal with that hereafter. I am decrying the fact that the people of Gibraltar are being asked to be members generally of a dependent territory status.
That is the emotional side. To the emotional side must be added that we have done a pretty poor job, as I said on Second Reading, on public relationships when there is not one single party of which I am aware in the Gibraltarian democracy which does not decry the provisions that we are looking at and criticising in this amendment. The plea has been from the chief minister of Gibraltar, the leader of the Opposition, the leader of the Labour Party and the Church. All entities in Gibraltar have decried what we are being asked to pass today and what is being dealt with, I think effectively, by this amendment.
If I may move from emotion to logic and justice, it can be argued—and we have heard the argument—how can one do this when there are other dependent territories which also have been loyal and whose citizens regard this country too as their mother country? The amendment was specifically worded in the way that it was in order to show that there is not an identity between Hong Kong and Gibraltar. Hong Kong is not a member of the EEC, and the right of an EEC member—which has been repeated to the Committee —is precisely to do with what we are giving to the people of Gibraltar which we are not giving to any other dependent territory. The noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, pointed that out with his usual effectiveness. The people of Gibraltar are entitled through two sources to enter and work in this country. That is not the position of any one of the other dependent territories, because they do not come through the route of the EEC. It may be said, as another reason logically to go against this amendment that it upsets Spain. It may create difficulties. It may make the Spanish Government feel that what we are doing is pushing British nationality in order to pre-empt an issue which has to be negotiated—obviously one hopes amicably.
The amendment clearly lays down that it is not an automatic right of British nationality that is given. It is the right to apply to register a British national as a British subject. Therefore, it cannot possibly be argued that this in any way goes against the principle that we as a Government, when my party was in power, outlined very clearly, that it is to be the choice of the people of Gibraltar what they do with their future. This is in accordance with that proposal.
In those circumstances, one must bear in mind that the people of Gibraltar are looking to this House at this moment to put right what another place nearly put right and failed to do by a very, very, narrow majority—if I am not being too dramatic about it—to call this Gibraltar Day. We ought to remember that in the Division Lobbies. Without any doubt at all, they are the people above all who stood by us, and, in regard to this amendment, I hope that we shall stand by them.
4.48 p.m.
Lord Renton: The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, has
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let the cat out of the bag. He has pointed out that the movers of the amendment have chosen to base it upon action taken in the European Community as a way of getting round the difficulty regarding Hong Kong. That is the clear conclusion from his speech. To the extent that the amendment makes the qualification for the right of registration as a British citizen action taken by the EEC under Article 227(4), then I would say that that in itself could be a cause of serious misunderstanding. We should all acknowledge—because it is the case—that the European Community has no power to change the nationality laws of any of its member countries or the nationality law of any of the dependencies of its member countries. Nor has it power to insert any condition in those laws. Are we therefore right to be basing our own law upon a qualification which has been laid down by the EEC in relation to Gibraltar?
I should point out that the use of Article 227 is a somewhat limited one. I shall not weary the Committee with the detailed quotations; but, partly as a result of Article 227 and partly as a result of Article 28 of the Accession Treaty—I say this merely for example—Gibraltar is not part of the common agricultural policy and the Community rules with regard to VAT do not apply to Gibraltar—lucky people! I am not registered for VAT. Therefore to say that we should base this very important change in our own nationality law and the law that we are making for other British territories dependent upon that rather vague premise seems to me to be legislating in a rather strange way on our part. For that reason I would be opposed to the amendment, but of course showing—
Baroness Elles: What my noble friend Lord Eccles said I think should move the House, because it was our hearts that were deciding upon the outcome of this amendment—
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone): I think that the noble Baroness may have thought my noble friend Lord Renton had sat down but he was in fact pursuing his speech. I believe that my noble friend Lady Elles wants to make a speech of her own, but perhaps we should first listen to the peroration of the noble Lord, Lord Renton.
Lord Renton: I had not finished. I thought that my noble friend was asking me to give way on a matter, and indeed I would gladly do so. But to spare your Lordships further discussion on this matter so far as I am concerned, may I simply say that it must be some reassurance to the people of Gibraltar that they are going to have a citizenship which is parallel with British citizenship but which is made different for the geographical, historical and realistic reasons that we have been given; that they are going to continue to have the right of immigration to this country under our law, the right to work and settle under European law; and the right to apply under Clause 4 of the Bill (regarding which the conditions in their case will not be onerous) for full British citizenship. Incidentally, as I understand it, that would mean they would then have to relinquish their proposed citizenship for

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Gibraltar because I do not know that there is anything in the Bill which enables one to have both British citizenship and citizenship of a dependent territory. Being proud people of Gibraltar, I should have thought that most of them would prefer to remain so.
Baroness Vickers: Having put my name to this amendment, I have two points I should like to put forward. One is to enable us to put this question of Hong Kong into proportion. We have been told that there are 5 million people in Hong Kong and 2·6 million who are at present citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies because they were either born in Hong Kong or acquired United Kingdom citizenship through naturalisation. But of those numbers very few have been able to come here owing to the Commonwealth Immigration Acts of 1962 and 1968 and the 1971 Immigration Act. It is stated that these three Acts have gradually eroded the right of Hong Kong citizens to come to the United Kingdom. At the present time I understand that the number coming from Hong Kong to the United Kingdom to work each year under the special quota system for dependent territories is restricted to 150, so we cannot say that we are dealing with vast numbers. Last year only 100 people entered the United Kingdom from Hong Kong with work permits, and they mainly work in the restaurant trade. Another 890 dependants—that is, children and some ageing parents—entered the United Kingdom under existing immigration provisions. The total number from Hong Kong coming to the United Kingdom who have a chance to settle here, therefore, is less than a thousand a year, so I do think that the figure has been greatly exaggerated. Also, they will have something that no other dependent territory will have; they will have a Life Peer sitting in this House. He will be able to put forward the opinions of Hong Kong and he will be able to see that they are fairly treated.
Lord Soames: May I intervene for one second? I am sure that the noble Baroness would like to get this right. It is, of course, correct that there are limitations on the people of Hong Kong immigrating into this country, but I hope that she will not forget that the whole purpose of this Bill is to alter British citizenship to those who are specifically and intimately connected with the United Kingdom, and only with the United Kingdom. If we were to give British citizenship to, say, the people of Hong Kong, that would be ruining the whole thing and going right back to where we are today, where a lot of people have citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies but have no right of entry into this country. That is one of the reasons why the present arrangements are so unacceptable.
Baroness Vickers: I am sorry, but I think that my noble friend has mistaken what I said. I said they would have representation through a Life Peer in this House; so they will have some representation, and he can look after their welfare and I am sure he will do so. What would be the point of having a Life Peer appointed to this House if he were not going to take action to safeguard the interests of his people and to sefeguard the Immigration Acts as they are now? It
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seems quite unreasonable if he is to come here and have nothing to say at all.
The other point I should like to make concerns Gibraltar and I should like to quote from what was said by Mr. Sam Benady QC, the Leader of the Bar in Gibraltar, who said in his address at the opening of the legal year in Gibraltar in 1980:
"We have had many verbal assurances that the Gibraltarians would be afforded special treatment if they wish to enter or reside in the United Kingdom. These are mere assurances, but in law they have no right. Great Britain has said time and time again that it will sustain and support us, but I as a loyal British subject say to Britain—from these ancient Benches of our Supreme Court—it is no use sustaining the body if you do not sustain the spirit".
Today we are really asking that the spirit of the Gibraltarians shall be sustained, and I hope that at the end of this debate we shall see that it is.
Baroness Elles: First, I must apologise to my noble friend Lord Renton, because when I attempted to speak earlier I was not aware that he had not terminated his speech. I think we are all agreed on the political and strategic importance of Gibraltar, the loyalty of its citizens and their devotion to the United Kingdom and, above all, to the Crown. We are also aware of the loyalty and respect that we in this House have for those citizens of Gibraltar. But I think it has also been accepted by all sides of this Chamber and by another place that the purpose of this British Nationality Bill is to define for the first time in our history our nationality by our territory—that of the United Kingdom—and for the time being at any rate Gibraltar is not a part of the United Kingdom. From this, of course, many consequences flow from the terms of the Bill as it stands at present.
The second principle which I believe has been accepted by all Members of this Chamber and of another place is the other principle of this British Nationality Bill regarding British citizens whose children are born overseas. After the first generation, British nationality will not be granted to them, nor if they do not get British citizenship will they have the right of abode. I should like to point out the very special position in which Gibraltarians find themselves both under the terms of this Bill and under the guarantees given to them both by former Labour Ministers and by Ministers of the Crown in the present Government. I do not think there is any reason to believe that Ministers of future Governments will not maintain and support those guarantees.
The Gibraltarians are the only British citizens of dependent territories, or of any other, who for successive generations will have the right of abode in this country although they will not be born in the United Kingdom. My own prospective great-grandchild will not have the right of abode if it is born outside the United Kingdom, because my grandchild happens to be a British citizen by descent under the terms of this Bill. This is not sour grapes on my part, but I would point out, with regard to many thousands of British citizens whose children are born abroad, that none of them will have the privilege which is being accorded—and rightly so—to the people of Gibraltar under the guarantees of former Governments and of the present Government. Furthermore, they have a right which, again, is not accorded to future children of children who will be

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British by descent. They have a right to come to this country and live here for five years and have British citizenship other than by descent, which means that they can have children who will, again, be British citizens, possibly by descent if they are born outside the United Kingdom, or British citizens fully if they are born in this country. But that is not accorded to children of present British citizens by descent, under the terms of this Bill.
In fairness, the many privileges which Gibraltarians are receiving under the terms of this Bill, under the terms of the Treaty of Rome and under the guarantees given by this Government should be pointed out, because I do not think it has been sufficiently realised how this Bill will operate against other British citizens who are not horn outside this country.
Finally, I wonder whether this amendment has really been considered seriously. Of course, it is a romantic idea and a wonderful idea that we should absorb Gibraltarians within the family and call them British citizens. But are they to be the only people in the world who will be entitled on application to be registered as British citizens, regardless of where they are born, regardless of how long they are in this country, and regardless of whether they have any connections at all with this country and whether they have ever been here? This is not a serious amendment before a legislative body and I beg to support the Government.
Lord Ferrier: I have listened to every word of this debate and I hesitate to intervene, except for one factor which has not been mentioned. There have been references to the sentimental, the political, the legal and the economic considerations which affect this issue, but nobody has mentioned the Rock itself. I rather hoped that the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Carver, would have mentioned it. I had a lifelong friendship with General Mason-McFarlane, who spent many years there during the war. But the reason why I support the amendment of my noble friend Lord Bethell is that I feel that nothing should be done which in any way weakens the bonds which bind Gibraltar to our country.
5.2 p.m.
Lord Hankey: May we have an intervention from the Cross-Benches at this time? I do not want to increase the length of the debate, but I have had a very long connection with this question, because I was sent by Mr. Bevin to Spain to make things better after the period when we had withdrawn ambassadors at the end of the war. I made it my business to go all over Spain to try to understand the Spaniards and, naturally, I went to Gibraltar and studied the problem in depth. I have retained close connections with Spain ever since, and I should like to say that I have great understanding of the Spanish point of view. But I do not think that the Spanish point of view can be taken into too much consideration in connection with the position of the Gibraltarians.
I say that because the Gibraltarians really have stood by us in very bad times indeed. I ask your Lordships not just to go back to thinking about the war, when many of them were evacuated to this country. You
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must think of that tiny area—I think it is not much more than two square miles—which has been, more or less, in a state of siege for many years. They cannot go in and out, they cannot use their passports to go to Spain and they have stood by us through thick and thin. I do not think you can afford to disregard these issues, when people are so much on your side.
If I may be rather critical, I think we were extremely hardboiled with the Maltese. They were extremely good to us in the war and I do not think we were very generous to them after the war. I saw a lot of the negotiations in the Foreign Service, though I was never directly mixed up in them, but I was very sad that we did not do more for the Maltese. I was not surprised that, at the end, they got a Government which was extremely tough with the United Kingdom and, for that matter, with the whole of NATO.
Gibraltar is extremely important to the United Kingdom—and I am going to change the bowling a bit now. Only on Monday, we had a very important debate about defence, in which great attention was drawn to the Soviet pressure on this country, more particularly with submarines and missiles. I find it impossible to believe that, if the international situation got worse, we would really be talking about laying off the activity of the dockyard in Gibraltar. I believe it is extremely important that we should be able to operate in those waters, with reliable maintenance facilities. For us to disregard that at this time would be sheer folly.
We really want a loyal and fine population there, which is what we now have, but if we make them become what they consider to be second-class citizens it will be a very great mistake. We shall need in Gibraltar absolutely first-class facilities under British control, for controlling the movement of submarines through the Straits of Gibraltar. That is a strategic point of outstanding importance. I do not believe that, when the time comes, the Navy will want to relinquish that control in any way. They will need a loyal and enthusiastic population, which is what we now have, and I do not think we ought to risk it.
I always hesitate to disagree with the most distinguished chiefs that I have had, on both sides of the House, neither of whom is here at this moment, but I find it impossible to believe that we really have to give fewer facilities to Gibraltar on account of Hong Kong. This amendment is very cunningly conceived. Gibraltar is a part of Europe; Hong Kong is not. Gibraltar has a population of 19,000 or so; the population of Hong Kong is, I believe, 5 million. The two just are not on the same level. I find it impossible to believe that the extremely clever people that we have in the FCO and the Cabinet would not be able to draw a valid distinction on which we could stand. On all these grounds, I urge your Lordships to back this amendment. I shall certainly vote for it myself and I hope that the Government will think twice about it.
Viscount Massereene and Ferrard: Before the noble Lord sits down, may I say that he should have given credit to Spain in the last war for refusing passage to German troops to attack Gibraltar and to close the Mediterranean, which would have prolonged the war

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for a long time. But I agree that, with the defence cuts, the docks will be short of work in a few years' time; and over half the population of Gibraltar is employed in the docks. We must look ahead and, if Spain eventually joins NATO, then I suppose that one day the docks in Gibraltar might be used for NATO purposes and the Spanish navy might use those docks, which would employ the people of Gibraltar. I just wanted to make that point. However, we must be fair and give credit to Spain for what she did in the war.
Lord Hankey: I am very glad of the intervention of my noble friend. I started by saying that I have great understanding of the Spanish position; and I really have. But we have to ask them to live with this problem in the interests of Europe as a whole, and of a civilisation of which they are most distinguished exponents.
Lord Geddes: It is as difficult to get an innings in your Lordships' House as it was in Leeds on Monday afternoon. Of all the arguments that have been put to your Lordships' Committee in favour of making Gibraltar an exception, I suggest that, with possibly one exception only—that of numbers, which was effectively dealt with by my noble friend Lady Vickers—every one of those arguments can be stood on its head.
The only real exception that has been brought forward has been Gibraltar's membership of the EEC and that, as has been said by many of your Lordships, is already dealt with within the Bill as it stands. With that exception, it seems—and many of your Lordships will be aware of my close affinity with Hong Kong—that it is grossly unjust to make an exception so far as Gibraltar is concerned, and not for the other dependent territories. With the greatest respect to the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Carver, I was frankly horrified at the implications of what he had to say, if I understood him correctly, that it was Hong Kong that was causing the other dependent territories not to get full British citizenship, and that only on full weight of numbers. There does not seem to be any justification for using the argument of numbers—which the noble Baroness has very ably pointed out is not a sequitur anyway—to justify an exception being made.
The only other point upon which I wish to detain the Committee is that which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, made. Perhaps, though, it is best to go into this point in detail on another occasion. If I heard the noble and learned Lord correctly, I think he said that it was the wish of the people of Hong Kong to be named as citizens of Hong Kong. I should like to leave with your Lordships' Committee the statement that this is not the advice which I have received and that it has very serious political overtones so far as Hong Kong is concerned. Perhaps we should raise this matter when an amendment is tabled at another time.
My only other point—I advisedly call him my noble friend Lord Kadoorie whom I was delighted to see receive a Life Peerage—is that I think my noble friend Lady Vickers went a little far when she said that he could speak for his people. As I understand it, every Member of your Lordships' Committee, or House, speaks personally and not directly for others.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: Before the noble Lord sits down, could I point out that what in fact I said was that the desirability for the passport to bear the designation "A British Hong-Kong citizen" is, I understand, precisely what our friends in Hong Kong want?
The Duke of Wellington: My family has been associated with the Iberian Peninsula, and the Rock is part of the Iberian Peninsula, for 120 years. I would suggest to your Lordships that this amendment should be considered also, as has already been mentioned, in an Iberian context. I was a member of Her Majesty's Embassy in the mid-1960s at a period when Anglo-Spanish relations were extremely bad over what has become known as "the Gibraltar Question" One noble Lord said—I forget who—that one day a solution will have to be found to that problem. I would suggest most strongly to your Lordships that if this amendment is accepted that solution will recede into the far distance and the problem may well become altogether insoluble. Therefore, I would urge most strongly that your Lordships should reject the amendment.
5.13 p.m.
The Lord Chancellor: After so many strongly supported and powerfully argued speeches, it is rather difficult to pull the debate together. If I do not mention by name all my noble friends and all noble Lords opposite who have participated in the debate, I hope that they will excuse me and acquit me of any discourtesy whatever. I shall speak strictly to the amendment and will try to put the arguments more or less in my own way.
I hope that on reflection the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, will cease to accuse the Government of confusing nationality with immigration. Obviously nationality and immigration have repercussions on one another. Every country in the world would have to say the same. However, I should have thought that the one thing which stood out a mile from the speech of my noble friend Lord Soames and from the speeches in support of the Government from various quarters of the Committee, including that of the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, on the Cross-Benches and my noble friend Lady Elles, is that we have precisely not done this. The Bill is about citizenship. There can be, of course, either in the long or the short run, implications for immigration, but they are quite different conceptions and we have kept them separate. The only person who, I think, blurred the distinction was my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter who definitely, I thought, committed the sin of which the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, accused us.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: As my noble and learned friend—
The Lord Chancellor: I thought my noble friend would get up!
Lord Boyd-Carpenter:—has been so characteristically kind as to mention me in despatches, may I point out to him that so far from blurring the citizenship and migration argument I was simply pointing out that the general statement being made by members of the Government, that no exceptions can be made in

271
out treatment of these dependencies, is in fact vitiated by the completely different treatment which they are giving to Gibraltar and to Hong Kong in this crucially important respect.
The Lord Chancellor: I perfectly understood my noble friend the first time he said it and it still seems to me that he blurred the distinction. His argument appears to be that because you deal with immigration with exceptions, you have got to deal with nationality with exceptions. That appears to me to be exactly the sin of which the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, was complaining.
If the noble and learned Lord directly opposite me will forgive me, I do not propose to pursue the particular line of thought which he very interestingly, if he will allow me to say so, put forward because it seemed to me to vitiate the whole case for the amendment. He was, if he will forgive my saying so, sufficiently intelligent to realise that the amendment wrecks the whole conception of the Bill, unless we remodel it on the lines which he was about to propose in another amendment, which of course he would like the Committee to do. But I would say respectfully to those who may at a subsequent stage differ from the noble and learned Lord that he, like the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, to adopt Lord Renton's phrase, "let the cat out of the bag".
The point which we all understand about the amendment is that it is motivated by a sincere feeling of friendship and loyalty for the people of Gibraltar. That we all recognise. Although, unlike my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter, I cannot claim an ancestor actually present at the siege, if only because I do not know who at the date of the siege my ancestors were, I have no doubt at all that if this point were the true and only issue under debate the amendment would be carried nemine dissentiente. We would all of us, I think, express undying attachment to our friends on the Rock. We all remember their sojourn here in exile during the war. We are all aware of the hardships and annoyances they have sustained as a result of the restrictions placed upon them by the Franco régime and not, so I understand, yet lifted, contrary, at least to my belief, to the gentleman's agreement arrived at with the present régime. I believe we would all assent to the doctrine that there can be no question of the completion of the Spanish application to join the European Community until these questions are resolved honourably. This is a fact which I think the new Spanish democracy which, like my noble friend who moved the amendment, I wish so well would do well to ponder, quite independently of the result of this debate. I make no reference whatever to the events reported today in the newspapers. I would only say that bad manners usually constitute bad diplomacy.
So far, there can be no controversy whatever between us. However, my own suspicions with regard to the amendment begin to be aroused when I examine its actual terms. In relation to its avowed object its terms are, to say the least, somewhat surprising for, strange to relate, there is no reference at all in the amendment to Gibraltar. I was brought up to believe that one does not take advantage of inadvertent mistakes by one's opponents. That is the tradition of
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my profession. But this was not an inadvertent mistake. That became obvious as the debate went on. It was not that they forgot to mention Gibraltar in the amendment. It was no oversight. The amendment was, and is, deliberate and therefore has become of the essence of the case which they are asking the Committee to accept.
They realise, of course, as did the noble and learned Lord opposite, that if an amendment had been introduced mentioning Gibraltar by name—and how easy it would have been to draft such a document—it could not have been justified on principle. It would have been wholly unjustifiable. There is no reason, if it was stated in bald and unambiguous terms, to justify an amendment in favour of Gibraltar so described. Therefore, they have had to invent a different principle in order to justify what they want to do, and the whole issue at stake in this debate is whether the new principle which the amendment contains is one which can be accepted as a principle.
It is stated to be an amendment in favour of two particular classes of persons, both described by reference to Article 227(4) of the EEC treaty, the nationals and the persons entitled to abode of a particular type of British dependency of a particular class. For reference, the article of the treaty provides that the treaty shall apply to the European territories for whose external relations a member state is responsible.
I will pause here to make two points in answer to two of the points raised by noble Lords who have supported the amendment. In the first place I must tell the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, that he was, for once, in error when he suggested that the Gibraltarians can derive from the European treaty their right to enter this country. They cannot. They can derive their right to enter France, Germany, Holland, Luxembourg, or Denmark by reference to Article 227(4); they cannot derive their right to enter this country, which depends in law upon the very assurances upon which so much cold water has been poured.
I pause, secondly, to say to my noble friend Lord Bethell that to try to build an edifice on Article 227(4) of the Treaty and then to talk about the reference in the Labour Party Manifesto to withdraw from the Community altogether, as if he was giving the citizens of Gibraltar something desirable or additional or permanent, was one of the most startling pieces of inconsistency I have heard in debate during the course of my experience in this House. I hope, of course, that it will never happen, whether because they change their minds or because they are defeated by the electorate. But, of course, if the Labour Party succeeded in pulling this country out of the EEC, they would pull this amendment out of the Bill altogether. The fact is that the insecurity—whatever it may be—which the manifesto of the Labour Party gives to our membership of the Community is precisely something which no Member on this side of the House, or of the Liberal Party, ought to seek to build into this Bill by reference to the very principle upon which the amendment is based.
The two classes of person I mentioned earlier are the nationals of Gibraltar and the persons entitled to abode of a particular type of British dependency of a particular class. Again may I pause to reassure the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Carver, that if the

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facts be as he has stated, his British citizenship would not be in doubt, whether this Bill passes through Parliament or not. He would have at least two titles to British citizenship; I think by birth under Clause 1 and by descent under Clause 2, on the facts which he has stated.
But it is true, of course, that the class, by reference to which the two classes of persons are designated, is a class of one member only, and that Gibraltar. But the matter is put forward by the amendment, not because of Gibraltar but by reason of Gibraltar being a member of a particular class of dependency, on two conditions; one, that we are responsible for its external relations and one, that it is a European dependency. That is the only ground of principle upon which the amendment is based and once that has been said it seems to me that the amendment has been made wholly indefensible in principle. There is and there can be no reason whatever by reason of Article 227(4) entitling Gibraltarians, either by virtue of their own "citizenship— and I use the word in inverted commas—or by reason of any right of abode which gives them right to any special treatment at all under this Bill. To some extent, as I shall show, they have special treatment from various sources: from the treaty itself, but subject to the qualification which I have thought right to make to the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, from the assurances given, and by virtue of the constitution of Gibraltar itself.
By contrast the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man have not the relevant rights under the treaty because they are not dependencies to which Article 227(4) refers, by their own choice; the Orkneys and the Shetlands, to which reference has also been made, have rights as part of the United Kingdom but there can be no question of Gibraltar asking for the same treatment either as the Channel Isles or the Isle of Man or the Orkneys and Shetlands, because in both cases the reference would be totally inappropriate. The cases are distinct, not merely in law but in actual practice.
What the amendment would in fact do is to give the Gibraltarians the best of both worlds although only "under the counter"—the "counter" being the reference to Article 227(4) of the treaty. But, with respect, they are not entitled to the best of both worlds. They are a dependency and therefore are not as such entitled to the benefit of Part I, and because they are dependent they are entitled to the benefit of the treaty, though their status is declared under Part II.
First, in order to establish the point I should like to establish the advantages enjoyed by Gibraltarians of both classes independently of this Bill, although in fact those advantages have been enumerated at one time or another in the debate. They are threefold; the first two are guaranteed by the British Government and the last, subject to the one qualification I have made, by the treaty. The first—and in some ways the most important—is that contained in the preamble to the 1969 constitution following the referendum of 1967 and the assurances given on behalf of the Labour Government at that date. The preamble states without qualification:
"Her Majesty's Government will never enter into arrangements under which the people of Gibraltar would pass under the sovereignty of another state against their freely and democratically expressed wishes".
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That is where their right not to be deprived of their relationship with this country derives from. It does not derive and it cannot be made to derive from Article 227: it derives from the constitution and the assurances given thereunder.
I was a little disappointed in this connection to hear from behind me, and I think from one of the Cross-Benches, promises given by Her Majesty's Government—of whatever party—referred to as "mere assurances". They are not mere assurances. By whichever party the assurance is given, it is a solemn promise given by the people of this country through their freely elected representatives, and I was very sorry indeed to hear those promises denigrated or said to be qualified in any way. The amendment itself depends on something which is far more insubstantial than a mere assurance of Her Majesty's Government, if "a mere assurance" is the proper term, as I think it is not; it depends on Article 227 of the treaty, because, whatever may be true of the constitution and the assurances, without Article 227 of the Treaty the amendment would be nothing.
I come now to the Bill itself. The amendment would give the right of registration on application, but only on application. So, with respect to my noble friend Lord Bethell, his claim that it removes all the anomalies disappears at one breath, because a new category of citizenship is thereby created; namely, those who are Gibraltarians and have not applied. But the assurances give the right of settlement conveyed by the assurances, and thereafter, if they then choose to be associated with the territory of this country, the right of citizenship, which is exactly what we are told they want. That is something far more than is given to Hong Kong, far more than is given to Montserrat, far more than is given to the Falkland Islands or St. Helena. All these are subject to immigration control; Gibraltarians are not subject to immigration control, either in practice under the assurances or in any other way.
This is exactly the point, surely, at which the amendment is objectionable in principle. May I say here again in passing that I was very glad my noble friend the Duke of Wellington reminded us that if we do wish the restrictions to be removed harmoniously this amendment may not be the easiest or best way to do it. I can express no opinion about that; I am not qualified to do so. I was very glad that he did make the point, as he is qualified to do so. But Gibraltar is a dependency and the Bill is about citizenship. The Gibraltarians already enjoy the privileges I have indicated, and now we are being told we must give them the best of both worlds. The Bill does create three categories of British subjects, but I was very sorry indeed to hear the noble Lord, Lord Stewart of Fulham, the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, and I think the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, give endorsement to the phrase "a second-class citizen".
Lord Hughes: If the noble Lord will allow me, I did not describe them as second-class citizens. What I said was that the people of Gibraltar were having it dinned into them every day by the Spanish television authorities, who said they were getting second-class citizenship. That is an entirely different thing from my so commenting.
The Lord Chancellor: I am very grateful to the noble Lord for the correction, and I am very glad to have it because he does thereby dissociate himself from some of the other things which have been said in the debate, because although there are in fact three categories of citizenship created by the Bill these are not first, second and third class, like the carriages of the London and South Western Railway Company when I was a boy. It does a real disservice to the United Kingdom, it does a real disservice to the Bill and it does a real disservice to the homogeneity and solidarity of the Commonwealth itself to be guilty of this error or to give the slightest countenance to it. There are no second-class citizens in this country in the sense that there are citizens with different rights.
This amendment would cause, as has been repeatedly said by those of my noble friends and others who have the very best reason to know that they are speaking the truth, the deepest resentment on the part of, let us say, the Falkland Islands, faced with the Argentine, Belize, for the moment a dependency but in future probably independent as an overseas territory, confronted with Guatemala, or Hong Kong, confronted with China. If the amendment were passed it would cause the deepest resentment. It is a discriminatory amendment. It discriminates not in favour of Gibraltar but against those other dependencies who have been given this category and who are similarly placed. It would cause the deepest resentment on the part of all those people to be stigmatised as second-class citizens simply in order to give an advantage to Gibraltar, when the proposers of the amendment do not even dare mention Gibraltar in what they have written.
This amendment is, therefore, I hope I have persuaded the Committee, objectionable in principle. One sympathises with the motivation behind it. One agrees without qualification to the encomiums which have been placed upon Gibraltar and her citizens as a result of history, as a result of association and as a result of continued loyalty and friendship. But it is objectionable in principle, and the more I have listened to this debate the more I have become convinced that this is so. I therefore invite the Committee to reject the amendment.
Lord Bethell: I am very grateful to those noble Lords who have spoken in this important debate. I think one result that will come of it, whatever happens in a few minutes time, will be that the people of Gibraltar will be flattered that so many big guns have been out and brought to bear on this question. Indeed, some of the artillery that has appeared could perhaps be compared with the very large guns that were trained upon them during the siege in which the ancestors of some noble Lords took part.
The speech of my noble and learned friend was characteristically vehement, and I would only take issue with him on one point, which I must say cut me a little bit to the quick, when he suggested that I did not dare to use the word "Gibraltar" in this amendment put down by my noble friends and the noble Lord, Lord Hughes. The purpose of this amendment has been made clear in public utterances, in another place, by many of the people who support it, and by myself, in our speeches and elsewhere. There
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is no question of hiding behind a facade. On the contrary, the use of the words in question is simply to prove a principle. I know my noble and learned friend does not agree with me, but I believe it is a principle, and the principle is the Treaty of Rome, the constitution of Europe, the written constitution which we have signed, which was signed by the Government of which the noble and learned Lord was a member. I am sure that, since he was a member of that Government, the noble and learned Lord will remember that the preamble to that treaty pledges us to lay the foundations for an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe and to eliminate the barriers which divide Europe. The signature of Britain was put to those ideals.
I would suggest to my noble and learned friend and those who have spoken against this amendment that it is not a very good way of building a closer union of Europe, and removing barriers to separate off, to hive off, a few thousand people out of the 260 million people of our European Community into a separate category. I know that provision will be made for the Gibraltarians, if this amendment fails, in a new declaration which will be prepared no doubt and annexed to the treaty, and on which discussions are now in progress with our Community partners. But that is a clumsy way to proceed, I suggest.
We have heard a long, interesting and emotional debate. I make no apology for the emotion expressed in my own remarks or in those of others who have spoken. Of course, emotion has been used and, as has been rightly pointed out, it should not carry the day in the end. Proper, legal, constitutional arguments have also been deployed and perhaps I might try to encapsulate the difference between our argument and that of those who have spoken from the Government Benches. It seems to me to be that those who moved the amendment set rather more store by our adherence to the Treaty of Rome and the growing union of the peoples of Europe, than do certain other people.
It was accepted by those who wrote the Bill that certain territories which, indeed, have internal self-government should have populations who are entitled to British citizenship, such as the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey—British territories, admittedly within the common travel area traditionally which have internal self-government. The question being put to the Committee is: Should Gibraltar be taken into this family of common citizenship, common travel, or should it be kept on one side? I submit that the signature of the Treaty of Rome and the special mention of Gibraltar made in 1973 changes the issue completely. It changes the traditional attitude that this country had to Gibraltar. That is the argument. I believe that it has been put well and fairly, both for and against. The amendment is before us. This has been a well attended debate and one that will be followed, of course, with considerable interest in this country, but with deep concern in Gibraltar itself, I believe that the Committee must now pronounce its verdict upon the amendment.
5.42 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 111) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 150; Not-Contents, 112.

CONTENTS

Alport, L.

Kilmarnock L.

Amherst, E.

Kimberley, E.

Ardwick, L.

Kinloss, Ly.

Auckland, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Avebury, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Aylestone, L.

Leatherland, L.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Lee of Newton, L.

Banks, L.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Barnby, L.

Listowel, E.

Barrington, V.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Bethell, L. [Teller.]

Lockwood, B.

Birk, B.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Bishopston, L.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Blease, L.

MacLeod of Fuinary, L.

Blyton, L.

McNair, L.

Boothby, L.

Mayhew, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Melchett, L.

Bowden, L.

Merrivale, L.

Boyd of Merton, V.

Mersey, V.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Mishcon, L.

Briginshaw, L.

Molloy, L.

Brockway, L.

Monson, L.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Newall, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Ogmore, L.

Byers, L.

Oram, L.

Carver, L.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Chelmsford, Bp.

Pargiter, L.

Chitnis, L.

Peart, L.

Collison, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Cooper of Stockton Heath, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Craigavon, V.

Raglan, L.

Craigmyle, L.

Rathcreedan, L.

Darling of Hillsborough, L.

Reading, M.

David, B.

Robertson of Oakridge, L.

Diamond, L.

Rochester, Bp.

Dundee, E.

Rochester, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Ross of Marnock, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Rugby, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Seear, B.

Energlyn, L.

Sefton of Garston, L.

Erroll, E.

Sempill, Ly.

Evans of Claughton, L.

Shinwell, L.

Ewart-Biggs, B.

Simon, V.

Falkland, V.

Soper, L.

Ferrier, L.

Spens, L.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Stamp, L.

Gaitskell, B.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Galpern, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Gifford, L.

Stone, L.

Glenamara, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Glenkinglas, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Gosford, E.

Strauss, L.

Granville of Eye, L.

Swinfen, L.

Gray, L.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Greenway, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Grey of Naunton, L.

Terrington, L.

Hale, L.

Teviot, L.

Halsbury, E.

Thurso, V.

Hampton, L.

Tordoff, L.

Hankey, L.

Tweeddale, M.

Hanworth, V.

Underhill, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Vickers, B.

Hayter, L.

Wade, L.

Hirshfield, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Walston, L.

Howie of Troon, L.

Wedderburn of Charlton, L.

Hughes, L. [Teller.]

Wells-Pestell, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Whaddon, L.

Ilchester, E.

White, B.

Jacques, L.

Willoughby de Broke, L.

James of Rusholme, L.

Wilson of Langside, L.

Janner, L.

Wilson of Radcliffe, L.

Jeger, B.

Young of Dartington, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

John-Mackie, L.

278

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdeen and Temair, M.

Lane-Fox, B.

Allen of Abbeydale, L.

Lichfield, Bp.

Ampthill, L.

Long, V.

Avon, E.

Loudoun, C.

Bellwin, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Belstead, L.

Lyell, L.

Bessborough, E.

McAlpine of Moffat, L.

Blake, L.

McFadzean, L.

Cairns, E.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Carrington, L.

Mancroft, L.

Cathcart, E.

Margadale, L.

Cawley, L.

Marley, L.

Chelwood, L.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Clitheroe, L.

Mills, V.

Cockfield, L.

Milverton, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Morris, L.

Craigton, L.

Mottistone, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Mountgarret, V.

Daventry, V.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Davidson, V.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

de Clifford, L.

Nathan, L.

De La Warr, E.

Northchurch, B.

Denham, L. [Teller.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Dilhorne, V.

Orkney, E.

Dormer, L.

Pender, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Penrhyn, L.

Eccles, V.

Plummer of St. Marylebone, L.

Elibank,L.

Elles, B.

Portland, D.

Fairfax of Cameron, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Faithfull, B.

Rawlinson of Ewell, L.

Fortescue, E.

Renton, L.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Richardson, L.

Gage, V.

Robbins, L.

Gainford, L.

Rochdale, V.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Romney, E.

Garner, L.

Sandys, L. [Teller.]

Geddes, L.

Sharples, B.

George-Brown, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Glendevon, L.

Soames, L.

Gore-Booth, L.

Southwell, Bp.

Gormanston, V.

Stodart of Leaston, L.

Gowrie, E.

Stradbroke, E.

Gridley, L.

Thomas of Swynnerton, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Thorneycroft, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Tranmire, L.

Trefgarne, L

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Trenchard, V.

Hatherton, L.

Trumpington, B.

Henley, L.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

Vivian, L.

Hooson, L.

Ward of Witley, V.

Inglewood, L.

Wellington, D.

Kemsley, V.

Westbury, L.

Kinnoull, E.

Young, B.

Resolved in the affirmative, and amendment agreed to accordingly.
Clause 10 [Citizens of UK and Colonies who are to become British citizens at commencement]:
5.52 p.m.
Lord Avebury Lord Avebury moved Amendment No. 112:
Page 11, line 25, leave out ("subject to subsection (2)").
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 112 is a paving amendment for an amendment later on to leave out subsection (2) of Clause 10. Subsection (2) of Clause 10 refers to certain people who acquired citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies by virtue of the British Nationality (No. 2) Act 1964.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: I wonder whether the noble Lord would come nearer to a microphone because it is a little difficult to hear him.
Lord Avebury: I am very sorry if I was inaudible, but I was explaining that this, in fact, is a paving amendment for the later one which leaves out subsection (2). It deals with the position of citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies who acquired that status by virtue of the British Nationality (No. 2) Act 1964. That Act was passed in order to enable the United Kingdom to comply with the obligations which we undertook on ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, which I believe was in the same year.
What the British Nationality (No. 2) Act did was to make children who were born stateless overseas to mothers who were citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies entitled themselves to be registered as citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies. In addition, of course, that made them patrial within the meaning of the Immigration Act 1971, so that they always have the right of abode in the United Kingdom and Colonies.
Therefore, at first sight you would have thought that they would have been covered by subsection (1) of Clause 10 because it says:
"(1) Subject to subsection (2), a person who immediately before commencement—
(a) was a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies … shall at commencement become a British citizen".
But that then is said to be subject to subsection (2), which deprives certain of those people who had the status of citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies of the rights that they then possessed.
I must say, this is yet another example of the way in which persons with existing rights are being deprived of them, contrary to the assertions which were frequently made by Ministers in another place, that nothing which was to be found in this Bill in any way impaired the rights of the persons already held at the time.
What happens under this provision of subsection (2) is that the child does not become a British citizen unless his mother does at commencement. So he loses a right that he already possessed prior to the passing of the Act. We are talking about a very small number of people because, as I understand it, the number who did, in fact, register under the British Nationality (No. 2) Act 1964 was fewer than 1,000. That figure of 1,000 is the absolute maximum and, of course, that would have included these mothers who will become British citizens on commencement.
Therefore, the number of people who the Government seek to deprive of their rights to register as British citizens in subsection (2) must at the very most be a few hundred. This is really a very mean and petty provision, and one which I hope that your Lordships' Committee will see fit to reject. I beg to move.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: I rise to support this amendment. It deprives the child—and there are only a few hundred with whom we are concerned—of entitlement to register as a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies. The subsection would not have the effect of making these children all British citizens. Their status is to follow the status of the mother under this
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Bill. For example, if a child was born before commencement in the Bahamas to a mother who becomes a dependent territory citizen under the Bill, the child in turn would become a citizen of the British dependent territories and lose the right of entry that he now has by virtue of the British Nationality (No. 2) Act 1964, which gave children born abroad to British mothers and born stateless an entitlement to register as citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies. This is uncharacteristically mean, if it is the case that the noble Lord on the other side—who is not a mean person—is to oppose the amendment.
Lord Belstead: I hope that the Committee will take the view, after I have explained the Government's position, that no meanness is either intended or inherent in subsection (2) of Clause 10, but rather that it is putting right a legacy of the (No. 2) Act 1964, which I think was unforeseen at the time.
The subsection which the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, would sweep away provides for a small exception to the general provision that people who are citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies with the right of abode should become British citizens. It seems to the Government that this should not necessarily be the case for children who have been born to women who are citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies and who would otherwise have been stateless when they were born. These are children who were entitled to be registered and are entitled to be registered under Section 1(1) of the British Nationality (No. 2) Act 1964, which was designed to prevent statelessness arising.
This registration may carry with it the right of abode under the 1971 Act, no matter where the child was born and no matter what the links of the child's mother with the United Kingdom. It happens in this way. If registration takes place at a High Commission, it, of course, confers the right of abode because registration at a High Commission in these circumstances is the equivalent of registration in the United Kingdom. If the application is made from a foreign country, then registration is, in fact, effected in the United Kingdom, even though the mother may have no ties with this country.
Finally, of course, there can be a case in which the mother could bring a child affected with her to this country and have it registered here during that visit. The child when registered would thus have the right of abode even where the mother has no ties with this country and holds her citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies through her links with an existing or former dependency. Here we are talking about children who, when they were born, had mothers who were citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies but whose fathers were not citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies; indeed in many cases, their fathers were not known at all because they had simply disappeared from the scene. Because of the provision in the British Nationality (No. 2) Act 1964, these children were not only registered as citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies, like their mothers, but, unlike their mothers, they had conferred upon them the right of abode in this country. So one has the strange situation where a child has the right of abode

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in this country, has only its mother to look to, and yet the mother does not have the right of abode.
That situation really does seem illogical and accordingly subsection (2) provides that when the Bill comes into force these children should acquire the same citizenship as their mothers and not British citizenship in all cases, as would otherwise happen. Thus a child registered in this way whose mother, through her ties with an existing dependency, becomes a citizen of the British dependent territories will become such a citizen himself. Similarly, a child whose mother becomes a British overseas citizen will become a British overseas citizen himself. But I should like to make the point that subsection (2) ensures that children registered in this way who themselves have settled here and been resident here for at least five years, and who therefore have the right of abode in their own right anyway, will of course become British citizens—as will those children whose mothers become British citizens.
If I may sum up, the only reason why subsection (2) is included in Clause 10 is that it seems to the Government wholly illogical that a child should not have the same citizenship as its mother when the father is no longer with the family and cannot for that reason transmit his citizenship. Of course, if the mother becomes a British citizen then so will the child. Otherwise, citizenship of the British dependent territories or British overseas citizenship will be conferred on the child together with the mother. If under the other rights contained in the Bill the child is entitled to British citizenship, then of course British citizenship will come to him or her.
I really do not consider that subsection (2) is a mean subsection. It merely shows that the Government believe that the citizenship of the child should be the same as that of the mother—particularly bearing in mind that we are talking about cases in which the father is simply not there. If the child looks to the mother, then surely the child should have the same citizenship as she does?
Lord Avebury: The noble Lord the Minister has not convinced me because he failed entirely to deal with the main point of my argument, which was that by incorporating this provision the Government are withdrawing from certain of our citizens a privilege which they have enjoyed ever since the implementation of the 1964 Act. As I have pointed out several times, this is contrary to the assertions made by Ministers in the other place—that nobody, but nobody, was going to be disadvantaged by any of the provisions in this Bill.
The noble Lord says that this situation is a legacy of the 1964 measure which was unforeseen at the time and that it is a small exception to the principle that citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies with the right of abode should become British citizens. I do not accept that there should be some exceptions; and I do not accept that because we made a commitment in the 1964 Act which may turn out to be inconvenient, in such a minor way that I cannot understand why the Minister should resist this amendment, we should not proceed to include that category of citizenship in this Bill.
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The Minister said that registration carries with it the right of abode. The point is that citizenship carried with it the right of abode under the Immigration Act 1971 and what the Minister is now seeking to do is to remove that right of abode. It is all very well for him to say that a child will assume the citizenship of its mother and that, for example, where the mother becomes a British overseas citizen the child will do so as well. In that case, as the Minister knows—and we shall come to this aspect a little later when we discuss British overseas citizenship—that child will have no right of abode anywhere on the globe. The noble Lord, the Minister has failed to convince me and I believe has failed to convince your Lordships' Committee. I propose to test the matter in a Division.
6.5 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 112) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 86; Not-Contents, 125.

CONTENTS

Amherst, E.

Lee of Newton, L.

Ardwick, L.

Lichfield, Bp.

Avebury, L. [Teller.]

Listowel, E.

Aylestone, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Birk, B.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Bishopston, L.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Blease, L.

Lockwood, B.

Blyton, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Bowden, L.

MacLeod of Fuinary, L.

Briginshaw, L.

McNair, L.

Brockway, L.

Mayhew, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Melchett, L.

Chelmsford, Bp.

Mishcon, L.

Chitnis, L.

Molloy, L.

Collison, L.

Ogmore, L.

Cooper of Stockton Heath, L.

Oram, L.

Crowther-Hunt, L.

Peart, L.

Darling of Hillsborough, L.

Phillips, B.

David, B.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Diamond, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L. [Teller.]

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Evans of Claughton, L.

Rochester, L.

Ewart-Biggs, B.

Ross of Marnock L.

Foot, L.

Sefton of Garston L.

Galpern, L.

Shinwell, L.

Gifford, L.

Simon, V.

Gladwyn, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Gosford, E.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Granville of Eye, L.

Stone, L.

Hale, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Hampton, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Hanworth, V.

Thurso, V.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Tordoff, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Underhill, L.

Hughes, L.

Wade, L.

Jacques, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Janner, L.

Wedderburn of Charlton, L.

Jeger, B.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Whaddon, L.

John-Mackie, L.

White, B.

Kennet, L.

Wilson of Langside, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

Wilson of Radcliffe, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Young of Dartington, L.

Leatherland, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aberdeen and Temair, M.

Barnby, L.

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Bellwin, L.

Alport, L.

Belstead, L.

Ampthill, L.

Bessborough, E.

Avon, E. [Teller.]

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

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Brabazon of Tara, L.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Cairns, E.

Long, V.

Caithness, E.

Loudoun, C.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Lyell, L.

Campbell of Croy, L.

McFadzean, L.

Carrington, L.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Cathcart, E.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Chelwood, L.

Marley, L.

Cockfield, L.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Merrivale, L.

Craigavon, V.

Mills, V.

Craigmyle, L.

Milverton, L.

Craigton, L.

Monson, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Morris, L.

Davidson, V.

Mottistone, L.

de Clifford, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Dilhorne, V.

Nathan, L.

Dormer, L.

Newall, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Northchurch, B.

Eccles, V.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Elibank, L.

Orkney, E.

Ellenborough, L.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Elles, B.

Pender, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Portland, D.

Erroll, E.

Rankeillour, L.

Fairfax of Cameron, L.

Rawlinson of Ewell, L.

Faithfull, B.

Renton, L.

Falkland, V.

Robertson of Oakridge, L.

Fortescue, E.

Rochdale, V.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Romney, E.

Gainford, L.

Rugby, L.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Saint Oswald, L.

Garnder, L.

Sandys, L. [Teller.]

Geddes, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Glenkinglas, L.

Shannon, E.

Gormanston, V.

Sharples, B.

Gowrie, E.

Skelmersdale, L.

Gray, L.

Soames, L.

Greenway, L.

Spens, L.

Grey of Naunton, L.

Stamp, L.

Gridley, L.

Stodart of Leaston, L.

Hailsham of Saint Maryle-bone, L.

Stradbroke, E.

Strathclyde, L.

Halsbury, E.

Swinfen, L.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Terrington, L.

Hatherton, L.

Teviot, L.

Henley, L.

Thomas of Swynnerton, L.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

Thorneycroft, L.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Tranmire, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Trefgarne, L.

Ilchester, E.

Trenchard, V.

Inglewood, L.

Trumpington, B.

James of Rusholme, L.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Kemsley, V.

Vickers, B.

Kinloss, Ly.

Vivian, L.

Kinnoull, E.

Ward of Witley, V.

Lane-Fox, B.

Westbury, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Young, B.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
6.14 p.m.
Viscount Colville of Culross Viscount Colville of Culross moved Amendment No. 114:
Page 11, leave out lines 29 and 30 and insert—
("(b) (i) had the right of abode in the United Kingdom under the Immigration Act 1971 as then in force; or
(ii) had been born in the United Kingdom before commencement.").
The noble Viscount said: This is another point which is markedly similar to a matter which has just been raised by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and lost on that Division. I did not make a speech on Second Reading of this Bill because there were so many of your Lordships who wished to do so, and I certainly
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shall not do it now. On the other hand, while I very much support the move of the Government under the Bill away from jus soli to something which I think is not quite jus sanguinis, the law of close connection or however it might be described, by the same token in making a major shift of that sort it seems to me that your Lordships ought to be particularly careful about the transitional provisions and about any safeguards that can be built into the legislation to deal with cases where, for one reason or another, the issue is a difficult one.
It is certainly in the spirit of looking after the transitional provisions that I have put down this amendment. I can only suppose that since neither the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, nor noble Members of the Labour Opposition have spotted the point there is the strong probability that I have got it wrong, but nevertheless I believe it to be a point of substance and I hope I may elaborate upon it. It concerns a comparatively small number of people—at least I would think it was a comparatively small number—most of whom are already in existence. They are children born in this country to persons who subsequently turn out, I think after the commencement of this Act, whenever that may be, to have failed to fulfil some provision of the immigration rules and turn out, contrary probably to what they think in some cases, to be illegal immigrants of one description or another.
I think I saw in a Written Answer in another place the other day that last year there were about 1,500 such people who were detected. It stands to reason that some such of the immigrants—and it does not matter where they come from—will have had children born in this country since they arrived and before the commencement of this Bill. The point goes to the status of that child. As the law is at the present moment, and will be until this Bill becomes law, that child born in this country will have the right of abode here simply by virtue of producing a birth certificate.
Whatever may or may not be the position about his parents, he would be entitled, possibly by himself, to stay in this country. Clause 10, as it is drafted, removes that right, because if it turns out that he has been born to people who are here in breach of the immigration rules then he will not fulfil the requirement to have the right of abode in this country any more than his parents will. Therefore, retrospectively he will have been deprived of a status which he had at birth and which he retained up until the day when this Bill became an Act in operation.
I am very concerned about changes in status brought about retrospectively, rather the same as the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, speaking a few moments ago. I know that it means that when the case of the possible deportation of the child's parents comes to be looked at there could be difficulties after the Act comes into force, just as there are difficulties in a similar case now, because it will be difficult for the Ministers in the Home Office to decide to deport a complete family, the child of which is a citizen with a right of abode in this country. If this amendment is accepted that would be the same then as it is now, and it will mean that in some cases hard decisions would have to be taken.
If we are going to make a major transformation of our citizenship law from the age-old principle that was

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discussed so much by the right reverend Prelates in front of me and by many others of your Lordships at the beginning of this Bill, and if we are going to take all the enormous amount of trouble that has been taken over questions of registration and such like that have been discussed under the previous amendments, which are after all, mainly concerned to see that the people who want to live in this country and have got close connections with it are allowed to do so, then I find it less than easily acceptable that a child born here to people who may in some cases have thought that they were genuinely allowed to be in this country, though for some technicality afterwards it turns out they may not be so entitled, shall be, some time after his birth, deprived of a right which he has hitherto always enjoyed. That is a change of status.
Ministers, my noble friends in this place and my honourable and right honourable friends in another place have sought to say, as the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has just reminded the Committee, that nobody will be the worse off as a result of this legislation. But I think the people I have just been referring to, small children, will be. I should like my noble friend or perhaps my noble and learned friend, if he would be so kind, to say what the situation would be and how it is—if I have my facts right—in the light of the various assurances that have been given, that nobody would be the worse off and how they can justify the change that I think will inevitably take place unless this amendment is incorporated in the Bill. I beg to move.
The Lord Advocate (Lord Mackay of Claslifern): I think we would share the concerns of my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross if the basic assumption he was making was correct. But if I may take the words of his amendment, he is seeking to add to the clause
"or
(ii) had been born in the United Kingdom before commencement".
My understanding is that that is already included under the first branch of the provision if we look at it in his amendment. In other words, children who are citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies who were born in the United Kingdom before commencement have the right of abode in the United Kingdom under the Immigration Act 1971 as enforced at commencement. Accordingly, his amendment adds nothing to what is in the Bill already, because it does not matter that a child's parents are in this country in breach of some of the technicalities of the immigration law. If the child attains citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies by birth in this country before commencement, then that child has a right of abode under Section 2(1)(a) of the Act of 1971 and therefore becomes a British citizen at commencement under our clause.
Of course, as my noble friend has so clearly pointed out, this is a transitional provision and we are dealing with children in existence at commencement. The provisions that obtain from commencement onwards are in Clause 1 and they may be different. But as far as the subject matter of this amendment is concerned, we believe it is already covered by what we have in the
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Bill. I hope that in the light of that explanation my noble friend will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Viscount Colville of Culross: I am very much obliged to my noble and learned friend. I shall of course look this up; he has given me the reference so that I may do that. Of course, if he is right that completely meets the point, and perhaps he would allow me to pursue the matter further with the necessary book.
It is not easy, I think, to work out the cross-relationship between this Bill and the Immigration Act 1971, and that is obviously where I have failed. But at any rate, as I understand my noble and learned friend's answer, he does not intend that there should be any retrospective change. If I find that that is the effect of the legislation as it stands, of course I shall not pursue the matter. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Jacques): The next amendment should read Amendment 114ZAB.
Lord Mishcon: We are dealing with Clause 10—
Lord Belstead: May I just ask the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, whether it is his understanding that this is Amendment No. 114 ZAB? If so, could the noble Lord tell us, so that we are absolutely certain, what the terms of the amendment are? I am only seeking clarification. My understanding was that this was Amendment No. 114ZB and that we came to Amendment No. 114ZAB at the next amendment. I should just like to be certain of that when I am listening to the noble Lord.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees: The next Amendment is No. 114ZA and the amendment after that is No. 114ZB starred, because it is new.
Lord Mishcon: May I, with the permission of the Committee, say what is on my Marshalled List and what I understand to be the position. I am about to move, however inadequately, Amendment No. 114ZB. Amendment No. 114ZA is now merely a number and has no amendment against it. The next amendment is No. 114ZB with a star against it, and I am endeavouring to move Amendment No. 114ZB.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees: For the purposes of the record that amendment is No. 114ZAB.
6.28 p.m.
Lord Mishcon Lord Mishcon moved Amendment No. 114ZAB:
Page 11, line 31, at end insert—
("( ) A person shall at commencement become a British citizen if—

(a) immediately before commencement he was a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, who did not have the right of abode in the United Kingdom under the Immigration Act 1971 as then in force, or a British Protected Person and

(b) he or his father was born, registered or naturalised as a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, or born as a British Protected Person in any of the territory now included in Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda or Zimbabwe.").

The noble Lord said: I am absolutely sure that the Committee is positively clear as to the amendment I am about to move and what it should be called. But we are at this moment dealing with Clause 10, and Clause 10 as it stands is fundamental to the scheme of the Bill as a whole. The first assumption on which this measure has been designed is that there should be a new citizenship of the United Kingdom alone, separate from the citizenship in the remaining dependencies and clearly marked off from the rest of the Commonwealth. It is this clause which spells the end of the old citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies which was laid down in the 1948 Act.
We on these Benches have no objection to the establishment of a new British citizenship. What we do object to is the way the Government are dealing with all those people who are British nationals at present but who will not get the new citizenship. We object to this unnecessarily complicated structure, as we see it, of three different kinds of citizenship, two of which are going to be almost meaningless, existing alongside two left-over forms of British nationality from the past.
Five kinds of British nationality are defined in this Bill and four of them confer no right of abode anywhere on their holders. The law of nationality at the moment—and we have said this many times in the debates in this House on this Bill—is quite admittedly obscure and confused; in many respects it is also out of date. So far we agree wholeheartedly with the Government: we do need a new, clear, up-to-date law. But is this the best that we can produce within that definition? The Government have frequently complained that this Bill has been misunderstood. So it has been and so it still is, and no wonder. Anyone who has attended the debate so far in your Lordships' Committee must be aware of the difficulties in understanding it which we in this Committee ourselves have experienced.
I can see that the details of a measure of this kind are bound to be complicated, but surely there is no need at all for the basic plan of a new Bill to be complex or hard to follow. Our amendments to this clause, and to Clause 14 later when we come to the dependent territories, represent an attempt to simplify and make clear the new structure of British nationality.
Let us look for a moment at the important matter of just who is to get what status under the Bill at present. On the Government's own figures—they are given in the White Paper of July 1980 (Cmnd. 7997)—there are in the world 57 million patrial citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies. All of those—except for a few hundred children who are still unfortunately, as a result of the last Division in the Committee, the subject of Clause 10(2)—will get the new British citizenship under subsection (1). Most of those 57 million are of course living in the United Kingdom. About 3 million out of the 57 million are living abroad. I wish to make it clear that that is not a figure which is given in the White Paper, but perhaps the Government will say if their own estimate is very different from the figure I have just given.
In evidence to the Select Committee for Home Affairs in another place earlier this year, Professor Clive Parry, who is recognised as the leading academic expert on British nationality, said that about 1 million
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white South Africans would acquire British citizenship under this Bill, most of them people born in the United Kingdom or whose fathers were born here. In other words, one-quarter of the white population of South Africa will acquire British citizenship and the right of abode here. Let me make it perfectly clear that my noble friends and I have not the slightest objection to that happening.
But, then, there are of course many people living in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand who were born here or whose fathers were born here; there are British expatriates scattered round the world—in West Germany, Belgium, Malaysia, in the Gulf States and so on—and they will get British citizenship under Clause 10 with the right of abode here. Incidentally, all those people will have freedom of movement rights in the EEC. Again, my noble friends and I have no objection to that.
But now we come down with a bump, from the 57 million to the other White Paper figures of those who will not get British citizenship. About 3 million people in the dependencies will get citizenship of those territories. The great majority of those, as we heard in a debate on a previous amendment, are in Hong Kong, about 2½ million there and a mere ½ million in all the other dependencies put together. Now we come down sharply again; the number who are to get British overseas citizenship—that is their sole nationality—is a mere 200,000. I must emphasise again that that is the Government's own estimate in the White Paper. It is admitted there that the estimates are all rough ones, but other sources have suggested that that estimate of 200,000 is too high. But let us take that figure of 200,000 and compare it for a moment with the 57 million who will get British citizenship; and remember that out of that 57 million there are about 3 million British citizens living abroad. Why is it necessary to create a special status for the 200,000 instead of simply making them British citizens? The 200,000 are, in the words of the White Paper:
"Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies, mostly in Malaysia, India and Africa, who, deriving their status from former Dependencies, have no right of entry to the United Kingdom or to an existing Dependency".
What the White Paper does not say is that they are almost all people of Indian descent. The Select Committee obtained evidence in some detail of who the people were who would get British Overseas citizenship under the Bill. That evidence suggested that there are very small groups in some Commonwealth and some foreign countries of other origins who will get British overseas citizenship; an estimated 2,000 of Cypriot origin in Cyprus, for example, and about 1,000 of Maltese origin in Greece.
But most of this group, as I have said, will be of Indian ethnic origin and are living in East Africa, India and Malaysia; those in India are, almost all of them, persons originating from East Africa who went under pressure to India after they had lost their right of entry to the United Kingdom and to whom the British Government are committed to admit to this country at some time. Those in East Africa are also to be admitted at some time, and as we know, there is a voucher scheme for gradual admission which was introduced in 1968. It applies mainly to East Africa, but vouchers are issued also, at a much slower rate

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and outside that quota, for those in India. Those in East Africa and India who are eligible to apply for vouchers to come here and to whom the Government have often reiterated their commitment to give them entry eventually, number at the very most 70,000 souls.
It is not easy to present the situation to the Committee in clear and simple terms, but perhaps it can be summarised like this: the new citizenship structure in the Bill is based on that of the Immigration Act 1971; it takes patrial citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies under that Act and makes them British citizens; and it takes non-patrial citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies (people who are British but who have no right of entry to this country) and divides them between citizenship of the British dependent territories and British overseas citizens.
The effect of the Immigration Act 1971 is that most British patrials are white people, while virtually all British non-patrials are of non-European descent. The division—I want to be frank with the Committee about this—is not exact; some people of non-European descent (those born, registered or naturalised in the United Kingdom) are patrial and will become full British citizens under the Bill with just the same status as the white majority. But they represent a terribly small fraction, perhaps 3 per cent. or at most 4 per cent. of British citizens living in the United Kingdom. But the other two new categories of citizenship will consist overwhelmingly of non-Europeans. I think I can truthfully say that we are dealing with a figure of 98 per cent. While the Government may want to give their own estimate, it can surely not be very different so far as dependent territory citizens are concerned; they obviously will be of non-European descent. At least 98 per cent. of those who get British overseas citizenship, therefore, will be of non-European descent.
In this and our subsequent Amendment No. 114ZB starred, we are proposing that at the very least the Government should confer British citizenship now on all those people with British nationality who have either been admitted for permanent settlement already or whom the Government are committed to allow into this country under the voucher scheme.
These are not very radical amendments. All they would do would be to confer British citizenship on some thousands of people—thousands as compared with the total of 57 million who already get it under the Bill; and those thousands will either have settled here already, or they are people whom the Government have already promised to admit. If the amendments are not passed, the thousands of people in question would be left with a status that gives them no right of abode in any territory in the world, no right to transmit citizenship to a wife or children, nothing but a meaningless name, a handle with nothing attached to it, to the people concerned worthless, and to the world at large incomprehensible, and so far as I know, unmatched by any parallel example.
British overseas citizenship as established by the Bill will not be a true nationality at all. It is not attached to any territory. It confers no rights on the holder, except the right to apply for a passport. That is not at all the same as the right to obtain a passport; but even those who apply successfully will get passports
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that admit them to the land of nowhere. For those who acquire British overseas citizenship and who are already dual citizens, having the citizenship of another state, this will simply mean that they effectively cease to be British for all practical purposes. It might not quite mean that because although they will have no rights under our law, they might still owe the obligations of allegiance in some circumstances. But if we leave out of consideration these dual citizens, we are left with 200,000 people who will receive—and I repeat it—British overseas citizenship and nothing else. One hundred and thirty thousand of these are in Malaysia, where they have a right of residence, but not of citizenship under Malaysian law. So we come back to the 70,000 originating from East Africa. Our amendment proposes that they should be given British citizenship.
It has been the habit, perhaps understandably, in debate in your Lordships' Chamber for the Minister—who always does it courteously—to refer to the Green Paper of a previous Government. I hope that the Minister carefully listened to the Leader of the House when in the previous momentous and possibly historic debate on Gibraltar he referred to the Green Paper and said, very fairly, that the Green Paper canvassed ideas; and I took a note of exactly what he said. Of course it did; it canvassed ideas. The Government of the day were not bound, and we are not bound, by any of the proposals set out in the Green Paper, and therefore I hope that quotations from the Green Paper will not discolour this debate.
Since 1977 there has been an awful lot of discussion of, and much information made available on, what form our nationality might take in future, and the view to which we are committed is that nobody should be left without the right to live somewhere as a result of the Bill. If I am required to concede it—and I readily do—we ought to put right the wrongs that have been done to those citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies who lost their right of abode in their country of nationality in 1968.
Lastly, it might be said, "Oh dear! This is going to create a great problem. We are going to admit 70,000 people"—covered by our amendment—"to British citizenship straight away. We are going to do it at a time of high unemployment and we cannot afford the immigration commitment that this would involve". There is not the slightest doubt that many out of the 70,000 will not want to avail themselves of this right. They are well established in their countries of residence and they have no wish to come to a country which at this moment is in the depths of an economic recession. They are known to be mostly professional business people. What they want is a feeling of some kind of fall-back security should things go wrong in their own countries of residence. By and large they are employers of labour, not themselves employees. Indeed, those who have come from East Africa have, for instance, stimulated employment in Leicester, where I believe what is the largest East African community in this country resides. I do not think that those objections are tenable to the amendment. I commend the amendment to the Committee, and I hope that the Government will have the breadth of view, the sense of justice, and, if I may say so to the Committee, the humanity to accept it. I beg to move.
6.47 p.m.
Lord Avebury: I wish very briefly, but none the less warmly, to support everything that has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, and first to endorse the epithets that he has applied to the new form of citizenship which confers no rights of residence on a person anywhere in the world. This British overseas citizenship is a pitiful sham and a fraud, and I am ashamed to see it appearing in legislation coming before the United Kingdom Parliament. I am particularly ashamed that it is the intention of the Government to apply this to people whose rights were already undermined by the infamous 1968 Act, which we vigorously opposed at the time. When in our paper of July 1977 we commented on the previous Government's Green Paper we said:
"We are opposed to the concept of dividing citizens into sheep and goats. The proposal seems to us just as objectionable as it was when it was first advanced in the 1962 Immigration Act and extended in the infamous 1968 Act".
We on these Benches believe that there should be only one citizenship and that we should not consign the individuals who are affected by the amendment to the second-class British overseas citizenship as proposed.
I want to refer to something else that was said by the noble Lord the Leader of the House in his very able speech in defence of the Government's position on Gibraltar. He said—and I quite agree with him—that the people of this country badly need a proper citizenship. Surely the people we are concerned with badly need a proper citizenship as well. They have suffered tremendous ordeals in some cases from the events in East Africa, where successive laws have been passed limiting their rights to work in professions, to engage in trades, to play their full part in the life of the community to such an extent, as your Lordships will remember, that many thousands of them had to leave Uganda abruptly in the period of General Amin's rule, and many other thousands had previously left Kenya, partly in response to the 1968 Act, which created the feelings of insecurity about which the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, has spoken.
What happened was that very many of those people went to India, and I wish in particular to refer to the position of the alleged 39,000 people who are still resident there. The figure was given by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to the Select Committee in another place, and I believe that it was no more accurate than some of the other figures that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office gave. The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, referred to the figure in Malaysia of 130,000 which was given to the Select Committee. That may be compared with the figure of 110,000 which was given in a parliamentary Answer in 1975. It is not at all clear to me how the number of our citizens in Malaysia could possibly have increased over this period bearing in mind that, as we have heard previously in this Bill, at the moment a person can transmit his citizenship only to the first generation born overseas in a Commonwealth country. Therefore, it is obvious that the number of citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies in Malaysia must be diminishing, and cannot possibly have increased since 1975. So I say that all the figures given by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to the Select Committee must be taken with a pinch of salt.
But if one accepts the figure of 39,000 citizens of the
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United Kingdom and Colonies at present resident in India, first of all I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, that they are certainly not all going to come here at once. I was in Bombay in early 1978, and I had the opportunity of meeting representatives of the community of United Kingdom and Colonies citizens there. Many of them were engaged in business, as the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, says. Another factor which would prevent them from exercising the rights which it is proposed should be conferred on them by this amendment is that if you have built up a substantial business in India you are not entitled to sell up and take capital abroad, because there is very strict exchange control. Therefore, the most successful of the businessmen in Bombay who are our citizens would not wish to exercise the rights at all; but what they want is the absolute certainty, as the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, says, of having a proper citizenship—and this is what the amendment is about.
I want to say only one further word about the position of our citizens in India, and I think the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, will be aware of this problem. Because the number of quota vouchers allocated to people in India has been limited to 500 a year, the entry of our citizens into this country has been a steadily lengthening process, with the picture that in November 1977 people admitted for settlement had waited for three and a half years. The most recent figure I have, for persons who will be admitted in August, is that they will by then have waited for five years and eight months. Can this really be fair, when you have some members of the family resident in the United Kingdom and others, who are our citizens and have always been our citizens, waiting to come for these immense periods?
For example, I know a person whose elderly mother, who has been in bad health, wanted to join him in the United Kingdom. He is perfectly prepared to look after her; but the Minister said that her health was not bad enough for her to qualify to come here as an elderly dependant parent in sympathetic circumstances, and she had to wait her place in the queue. This old lady is well over 70; her son longs to be responsible for looking after her, as is the practice in the Indian communities; and I think it is utterly shameful that he should be prevented from doing so.
Another case is that of a mother and sister of a man who has been settled here from Goa for very many years. They have been waiting since November 1975, and I believe they are about to be interviewed in Bombay, so it will be five years and eight months before they could exercise that right. I really do think that it is impossible to explain to anyone overseas how we can treat our own citizens in this manner; and for us now to say that they are not going to be given the privilege of British citizenship is an additional blow to that community which it will be very hard for them to hear.
Very much more could be said in support of this amendment, but I think the arguments have been so well advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, that I can only say that I fervently hope that your Lordships will accept this amendment.
Lord Gifford: In considering this amendment we have to review the history of our treatment of a group

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of our citizens who over the past 13 years have been shamefully abused. We gave to them a commitment when the East African countries in which they lived became independent. Unlike other countries when they became independent, we gave to the peoples of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania an option that if they did not take up the citizenship of the country in which they lived they would be able to remain citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies. As we all know, a great number of them, mainly of Indian extraction, availed themselves of that option and did not become citizens of their country of residence.
Then, in the 1968 Act we passed a measure which prevented them from gaining access to their country of citizenship. That measure was a breach of faith, because it went back on the clear commitments that we had in our independence laws given to them. It was a racialist measure, because it was based on a discrimination between citizens, as to whether they had a grandfather or a father born in this country. It was fought hard in your Lordships' House. In this debate I seem to be something of a veteran of the 1968 Bill, but I am glad that, for instance, the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, is in his place, because he is one of the 85 on the roll of honour of those who stood out against the Front Benches of the Conservative and Labour Parties of that time, along with other luminaries of the Conservative Party such as the noble Earl, Lord Perth, the noble Marquess, Lord Hertford, and the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham. I am glad that the Front Bench of the Labour Party has accepted that that measure was wrong, and that they would wish to undo the damage which it has caused; and I hope that that goes also for those on the other side of the Committee who took the same view as I did at that time.
But since 1968 these people have had to undergo great hardships to wait their turn in this long queue to be admitted to this country, and they have borne it with patience and with fortitude. They have, many of them, come here, and they have established themselves as hardworking, honourable citizens of this country.
Lord Drumalbyn: Would the noble Lord forgive me for interrupting? Can he explain why they had to wait all this time in great hardship? Was it not because they were deprived of their livelihoods where they were, and that that is where the hardhip came from?
Lord Gifford: The countries in which they lived drew a distinction between those who were their citizens and those who were not, and imposed certain penalties on those who were not citizens. That was their right as sovereign states; and, just as it was their right, so it was our duty to protect our citizens by allowing them to come to this country. It was only in the case of those who were actually expelled by the Amin Government that we accepted any responsibility other than to impose a long queue, in which many are still waiting.
Now we come to this Bill, which as I said on Second Reading (and I repeat my phrase) adds to that injury that we have done the insult of British overseas citizenship. It not only proclaims that the people of these territories of Indian extraction are no longer our citizens, but even those who have been admitted to
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settlement who have waited their turn, have come to the head of the queue and have arrived here—are still not to be allowed to be citizens until after a five-year period, at the end of which they are entitled to register. It is something of a scandal.
One understands what British overseas citizenship is meant to deal with. There may be—and we are not dealing with it on this amendment—certain other anomalies arising from people who would be British citizens and also Malaysian, or citizens of other countries; but for those who are the subject of this amendment, who have no other citizenship to turn to, let us undo the damage of 1968, let us recognise them as full citizens without discrimination, and let us admit them as soon as they are ready to come here.
7 p.m.
Lord Belstead: We have listened to a debate which has surprised me. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said quite clearly that he believed that there should be one citizenship. The noble Lord used the word "we". Whether it was the royal "we" or whether it was meaning both the noble Lord and the other noble Lords on the Opposition Front Bench, all of whom have their names to this amendment, I do not know.
Lord Avebury: I am so sorry. I should have made it clear in that part of my speech that I was speaking for the Liberal Party.
Lord Belstead: I am grateful to the noble Lord for clarifying that. The noble Lord is consistent in being open-hearted, kindly and wanting to let as many people into this country as it is possible; but when the noble Lord says to the Committee that he believes that there should be one citizenship and one citizenship only, all can say is that the noble Lord is in a minority of one. No one—not even the previous Government in their Green Paper—has suggested anything quite like that. Yet, when I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, it sounded to me for a moment or two as though he was coming perilously close to the line which the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, had taken.
The noble Lord, early in his remarks, ranged widely and I really did not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, was suggesting that those who will be British overseas citizens under this Bill and would have been British overseas citizens under the Labour Party's Green Paper should also all become British citizens now. The noble Lord mentioned Professor Parry. My memory is that Professor Parry was the very distinguished witness who made it perfectly clear to the House of Commons Select Committee that there were 1.3 million Malaysians who, if they held British citizenship in Malaysia, would undoubteldy be encouraged by the Federation to divest themselves of any connections with Malaysia and would want immediately to have entry into this country.
I think I can be forgiven for being in some perplexity having listened to these extraordinary statements which have come from those who have put their names to what is a more limited amendment.
Lord Mishcon: I cannot allow myself to be misinterpreted, however innocently. I hope that I made

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it perfectly clear in my remarks that I was saying that British overseas citizenship meant nothing. I also tried to deal with the question of figures involved in this amendment and I said that we were dealing with thousands as against the 50 million-odd with which the Minister was perfectly happy regarding their having full British citizenship.
Lord Belstead: I accept that, but if the noble Lord says that British overseas citizenship means nothing, then presumably the only alternative is to make it, in the view of the Opposition, mean something. In this particular amendment we now find—partially at any rate—what it is that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and the Opposition believe that British citizenship should mean for two different sets of people.
First, there are those future British overseas citizens and protected persons in East Africa, or who have gone from East Africa to India, who are currently able to come to this country under the special voucher scheme. Secondly, there are those future British overseas citizens and British protected persons who are already admitted for settlement into this country. But the amendment goes even wider than that, for it would confer British citizenship on all future British overseas citizens or British protected persons who hold that status by virtue of their ties with the countries concerned regardless of their current place of residence or whether or not they hold another citizenship at all.
Perhaps I am beginning to reveal why I consider this to be an extremely important and very disturbing amendment. It would benefit some people not currently eligible for special vouchers who are settled in a third country and who even hold citizenship of that country. This would not seem either desirable or necessary.
Leaving aside that difficulty, may I deal in turn with the two major groups.
Lord Mishcon: I thank the noble Lord for the courtesy of allowing a short intervention. At the very beginning he very frankly told the Committee that he was confused in regard to Amendment ZB and ZB with a star. There is every reason why he should be. He may not know that the wording of these amendments is rather different in the present Marshalled List from that upon which I believe his brief is based. I think that he will find that he is now talking extremely eloquently and effectively but in regard to another amendment, which is ZB with a star.
Lord Belstead: I am replying to the noble Lord on the amendment which reads:
"A person shall at commencement become a British citizen if—

(a) immediately before commencement he was a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, who did not have the right of abode in the United Kingdom under the Immigration Act 1971 as then in force, or a British Protected Person and

(b) he or his father was born, registered or naturalised as a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, or born as a British Protected Person in any of the territory now included in Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda or Zimbabwe".

Why Zimbabwe comes into this I am not sure, but that
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is the amendment to which I am replying. Am I correct?
Noble Lords: Yes.
Lord Mishcon: The reading of the Minister is absolutely perfect. It was that I was unable to relate his speech to his reading.
Lord Belstead: Let me now continue. Let me deal first with the 75,000 or so future British overseas citizens from Africa who have gone from there to India who hold no other citizenship and are currently eligible to come to this country under the voucher scheme and who fall within the terms of this amendment. To grant British citizenship to this group would enable them to enter this country immediately and to settle here at any time and it would be possible for all of them to come here at once. This would not be acceptable, particularly at the present time, to the country at large, and I do not think it would be in the interests of those concerned at the present time.
When we were on the Second Reading of this Bill, my noble friend Lord Home of the Hirsel said that he felt that he had some right to say something about United Kingdom passport holders because he had held office as Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary at the time when special arrangements were made for United Kingdom passport holders, for Ugandans, to come immediately to this country. On this side of the Committee we are not unsympathetic to those who find themselves in need to come to this country as United Kingdom passport holders. The effect that this would have on the 75,000 or so British citizens that I have mentioned would not be beneficial.
We said in the White Paper to which the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, has referred, that we were committed to the continuance of the special voucher scheme, and of course we stand by that pledge. Over the past eight years some 59,000 voucher holders and their dependants have been admitted to this country under this scheme, and this does not include the roughly 25,000 Uganda Asians admitted in 1972. Moreover, those who came to this country under the voucher scheme and are settled here will, under Clause 4 of the Bill, be entitled to British citizenship after five years' residence here.
May I now turn to the other group of people who, I think I am right in saying, come under this particular amendment: those future British overseas citizens and British protected persons already admitted to this country. Now those who have been admitted to this country under the voucher scheme and have been ordinarily resident here for five years or more at commencement, will, as citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies with the right of abode, become British citizens. Those who have been here for a shorter period at commencement will be entitled to British citizenship on application once they have completed five years' residence. British protected persons will similarly be able to acquire British citizenship after five years' residence here. They will be considerably better off under the Bill, since at present their only avenue to citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies is by naturalisation, and I am surprised that has not been mentioned this afternoon.

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I believe that these avenues to British citizenship really are preferable to those that are mentioned in the amendment. So what I am saying is that we on this side of the Chamber stand by our commitment to admit people under the special voucher scheme; but we do not believe that it would be in the interests of this country, or indeed in the interests of people generally in this country, to accept this amendment.
Lord Mishcon: I have the feeling that the Committee has an appetite for other things than a further speech of mine, and in those circumstances I feel it is for the Committee to come to a decision.
7.11 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 114ZAB) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 64; Not-Contents, 97.

CONTENTS

Amherst, E.

Lockwood, B.

Ardwick, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Avebury, L. [Teller.]

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Banks, L.

MacLeod of Fuinary, L.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Melchett, L.

Bernstein, L.

Mishcon, L.

Birk, B.

Mountevans, L.

Bishopston, L.

Nathan, L.

Blease, L.

Ogmore, L.

Bowden, L.

Oram, L.

Brockway, L.

Peart, L.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Phillips, B.

Chitnis, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Collison, L.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L. [Teller.]

David, B.

Elwyn-Jones, L.

Raglan, L.

Galpern, L.

Ross of Marnock, L.

Gifford, L.

Seear, B.

Gladwyn, L.

Simon, V.

Glenamara, L.

Southwell, Bp.

Gosford, E.

Stewart of Alvechurch B.

Hale, L.

Stewar of Fulham, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Stone, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Hughes, L.

Thurso, V.

Jacques, L.

Tordoff, L.

Jeger, B.

Underhill, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

John-Mackie, L.

White, B.

Kirkhill, L.

Wigoder, L.

Lichfield, Bp.

Wilson of Langside, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Wilson of Radcliffe, L.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Alport, L.

Craigton, L.

Ampthill, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Auckland, L.

Davidson, V.

Avon, E. [Teller.]

de Clifford, L.

Barnby, L.

De La Warr, E.

Bellwin, L.

Denham, L.

Belstead, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Bethell, L.

Eccles, V.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Elles, B.

Cairns, E.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Caithness, E.

Elton, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Erroll, E.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Fairfax of Cameron, L.

Chelwood, L.

Faithfull, B.

Colville of Culross, V.

Falkland, V.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Ferrers, E.

Craigmyle, L.

Ferrier, L.

298

Fortescue, E.

Milverton, L.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Monson, L.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Mottistone, L.

Geddes, L.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Gormanston, V.

Northurch, B.

Greenway, L.

Orkney, E.

Gridley, L.

Pender, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Portland, D.

Rankeillour, L.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Rawlinson of Ewell, L.

Hatherton, L.

Renton, L.

Henley, L.

Rochdale, V.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Romney, E.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Saint Oswald, L.

Inglewood, L.

Sandys, L.

Kemsley, V.

Sharpies, B.

Kinloss, Ly.

Skelmersdale, L.

Kinnaird, L.

Stodart of Leaston, L.

Lane-Fox, B.

Stradbroke, E.

Lauderdale, E.

Strathclyde, L

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Swinfen, L.

Long, V.

Thomas of Swynnerton, L.

Loudoun, C.

Thorneycroft, L.

Lyell, L. [Teller.]

Trefgarne, L.

McFadzean, L.

Trenchard, V.

Mackay of Clahfern, L.

Trumpington, B.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Marley, L.

Vickers, B.

Marshall of Leeds, L.

Vivian, L.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Ward of Witley, V.

Mills, V.

Young, B.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
Lord Skelmersdale: I think perhaps this might be a convenient time to adjourn the Committee stage. I would suggest that we might reassemble at twenty minutes past eight o'clock. I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Atomic Energy (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill
7.19 p.m.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, that the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Skelmersdale.)
On Question, Bill read 3a.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill do now pass.
Moved, that the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Skelmersdale.)
Lord Strabolgi: My Lords, before your Lordships pass the Bill, I should like to just briefly congratulate the noble Lord in piloting his small ship safely into port. This seems to be a case of youth at the prow and pleasure at the helm, if I may say so, because this totally unneecessary privatisation of a successful and profitable public company, such as Amersham, is little more than a piece of Government self-indulgence and

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pandering to some ancient Tory folk-lore which has little relevance to the modern world.
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran: My Lords, may I join the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, at any rate in his first sentence, in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, on the skill which he has shown in piloting this Bill through. In the early stages of the discussions on this Bill, I referred to this Bill as being dangerous, a kind of wolf in sheep's clothing, and I hold this view largely because of the broad definition of "atomic energy" in Clause 4, and because of the vague generalisations contained in the Bill relating to the control of company activities in relation to atomic energy authorities. It seemed to me also that the Bill might have international repercussions, in encouraging countries abroad to feel that the strong control, political as well as technical, as exercised by previous Governments was being relaxed, and that this could lead—albeit unwittingly—to proliferation of atomic energy activities in wider fields than those at present envisaged or desired by the Government.
Accordingly, in the spirit characteristic of this House, I submitted a number of amendments to try to help clarify the Government's position. But, of course, my submissions received little support from the Government in the many courteous speeches which the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, made on these problems. However, in fairness to him, he had emphasised on behalf of the Government that the products now manufactured by Amersham International are not relevant to the Government's atomic power programme. But he stated that the activities of other companies with which the Bill is concerned are, in fact, relevant to the Government's atomic energy power programme, but that these activities have nothing to do with weapons associated with atomic energy. In my view, these oral assurances, in themselves, are not enough and some amendment of the Bill should have been made.
The noble Lord also made clear that, at the present time, the Government hold shares only in the three companies mentioned in the Bill and in no other company. In these circumstances, I cannot understand why it was necessary—as he said, merely to save future parliamentary time—to contend that it was undesirable to limit this Bill merely to the activities of the three companies named. I feel that this is a wholly unsatisfactory and potentially dangerous situation. Of course, there is nothing further that we can do about this in your Lordships' House.
But, apart from questions of safety and control of atomic energy activities, we on these Benches expressed concern about the position of the 2,000 or so employees of the Amersham company. We were somewhat encouraged by the sympathetic views expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, on these matters. He undertook on behalf of the Government, during the Committee stage, to look at a variety of ways in which employees of the Amersham company could be assisted and encouraged to share in the ownership of the company. I hope, therefore, that full attention can be given to the ways to this end which have been suggested by the Co-operative Development Agency,
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about which the noble Lord, Lord Oram, spoke so ably, and also to the suggestions emanating from Participating Consultants Limited.
7.24 p.m.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, I am very grateful to both noble Lords who have spoken for the very kind references that they have made to me personally. I am only sorry that their welcome to this final stage of the Bill was somewhat muted. I have said, often enough, that the purpose of this little Bill is very simple—to enable the disposal of up to 100 per cent. of Amersham's shares and, while we are at it, to clarify the present disposal powers of the Secretary of State and the Atomic Energy Authority to sell shares in other companies, although there are no plans to do that at the moment.
I know that, throughout the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, at all stages of this Bill, has been the very important matter of safety and I hope that what I can say now will, at least, do something to reassure him on this matter. I fully accept that safety in nuclear matters is of paramount importance. Noble Lords on all sides of the House will, I am sure, agree with me on that. The point is that every company covered by the Bill which is engaged in nuclear work involving safety considerations is, and will continue to be, covered by the terms of the Nuclear Installations Act 1965. This Act requires every such company to operate only under a licence granted under Section 1 and, as appropriate, under a permit under Section 2. The following four sections make further provisions about safety.
The licences are granted and their conditions are enforced by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate which has an excellent worldwide reputation. This enforcement is carried out regardless of who owns the shares of any particular company; and this includes Amersham International. British Nuclear Fuels and Amersham International are both required to operate under a licence and this would continue after any disposal. Therefore, the disposal of a company under the powers in the Bill will, in no way, change the safety position.
To get back to the main purpose of this Bill, we firmly believe that it will benefit Amersham International by allowing it full commercial freedom. It is, after all, very successful and able to stand up for itself, like any other company. To say that it cannot would be insulting, and neither noble Lord has suggested that. The Bill will also benefit the country by releasing much-needed public funds for use elsewhere where the national interest is directly involved. That is the role of Government—not to use public funds to act as a banker. My Lords, I commend the Bill to the House.
On Question, Bill passed.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, I beg to move that this House do now adjourn during pleasure until 8.20 p.m., as I understand was agreed through the usual channels.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
[The Sitting was suspended from 7.27 until 8.20 p.m.].

British Nationality Bill
House again in Committee, on Clause 10.
Lord Avebury Lord Avebury moved Amendment No. 114ZB:
Page 11, line 31, at end insert—
("(1) A person who immediately before commencement—

(a) was a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies who did not have the right of abode in the United Kingdom under the Immigration Act 1971 as then in force; or

(b) was a British Protected Person; or

(c) was British Subject without citizenship

and who before commencement had been admitted for settlement to the United Kingdom, shall at commencement become a British citizen.").
The noble Lord said: The Minister said in his speech on the last amendment that the Government were sympathetic to the position of United Kingdom passport holders and British protected persons, yet he was unable to accept an amendment which would have enormously benefited them and given them citizenship which meant something instead of one which was absolutely meaningless. Although we were unable to persuade him on that amendment, I hope none the less that when he comes to look at this amendment he will carry his sympathy into practice.
We are suggesting here a far more limited step than we should have taken under the previous amendment. In fact, we are considering only those United Kingdom passport holders, British protected persons and British subjects without citizenship who, immediately before commencement, had been admitted for settlement in the United Kingdom. So we are not in any way adding to the immigration commitment, as we should have been in the last amendment, by conferring British citizenship on persons who would become British overseas citizens. We are simply giving it to people who are at present resident in the country and who have a permanent right to remain here under the existing law.
At the end of the remarks which he made in response to the previous amendment, the noble Lord rather anticipated the discussion, in the sense that he pointed to the benefits which British protected persons would have under the Bill which they do not at present enjoy. That is to say, within the period of live years after the Bill comes into force they would be permitted to register as British citizens. Nevertheless, there is a process which they will have to go through and a process which persons who are already citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies will have to go through in order to become British citizens after the Bill becomes law. We are saying that as those people have already demonstrated that they wish to have a close connection with the United Kingdom—if they did not they would not have come here—they should have our new citizenship as of right and that they should have it from the day that the Bill becomes law.
I emphasise that they would be entitled to register, anyway, and the presumption is that they would do so if they knew that this was necessary. We discussed this point yesterday. In 99.9 per cent. of the cases which we are concerned with they certainly have nowhere else to go. Apart from giving to these people the peace of mind to which I believe they are absolutely entitled, we should remove one brick in the huge
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edifice of bureaucracy which the Government are proposing to create and which, as I said previously, has resulted already, even before the Bill has become law, in an enormous increase in the waiting period during which people have to remain in the queue for citizenship, Instead of adding this additional commitment of registration of British protected persons, United Kingdom passport holders and British subjects without citizenship to those who will have to go through the bureaucratic procedures, under this amendment we should allow them to become British citizens at commencement.
This is such a straightforward and common sense amendment that the Government can hardly refuse it. I beg to move.
Baroness Birk: I have my name down to this amendment and I should like to support what the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said in moving it. As he has pointed out, it is perfectly correct that the effect of the amendment would be to make British citizens of all those persons with British nationality on commencement day who have been admitted already for permanent settlement into the United Kingdom. Under the Bill as it stands, it will not be the case that they will be citizens.
If the Bill goes through unamended, there will at commencement be somewhere in the range of 20,000 people—perhaps a few more but certainly not many more—holding British passports and living in the United Kingdom without any restriction on their stay who will not be British citizens. Most of them will be British Asians admitted from East Asia under the voucher scheme who have lived here for less than five years on the day that the new law comes into force. At present, most of them are United Kingdom and Colonies citizens who will become British overseas citizens at commencement, even though they are legally and permanently resident here. Some of them will be British protected persons who will remain British protected persons even if they have already lived here for five or 10 years. There will be another category who will be British subjects without citizenship of any Commonwealth country. These are people mainly originating from the Indian sub-continent, some of Indian descent, some of entirely British ancestry who were born and whose fathers were born in India and who have not registered here.
I would emphasise the point that it is in everybody's interest to give British citizenship straight away to all these people. It would he much simpler; it would be easier for everybody involved to understand the position; it would provide a sense of security; it would also mean that it would be unnecessary, for all these 20,000-odd people (or for those who wanted. out of that number, to obtain British citizenship) to have to go through the process of registration, which they would have to do under the Bill as it now stands.
Again I ask the Minister—I have asked him on some of the other amendments—whether the Home Office wants up to something like 20,000 completely unnecessary extra applications for citizenship from people who are going to be given entitlement to registration, anyway? Why not make all the people concerned British citizens under the Bill and have done with it? One is not increasing the numbers. It is a limited

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number. Those people are here already. As I am quite sure the Minister appreciates, it is rather different—although there was an understandable confusion about the numbers—from the amendment which we dealt with before the supper break. This is an enclosed, neat package of people who are here, anyhow, and it will save a great deal of trouble all round. They will know exactly where they are and the Home Office will save a great deal of time and, again I would stress, a great deal of expense.
Lord Belstead: The people who are covered by this amendment are of a group which is married. The largest element referred to in the amendment are citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies and British protected persons admitted on special vouchers and their dependents who are citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies or British protected persons.
The noble Baroness, Lady Birk, asked me a direct question: Why is it necessary to provide the period of five years in the Bill and to end up with registration? May I say two things in reply. First, in case a different impression has been gained from this very short debate, the Government are not in some way adding on a period of time that those who come in under the voucher scheme have to wait until they can acquire British citizenship. Certainly the prospect of saving the Nationality Division of the Home Office the labour of processing applications for registration sounds most appealing, particularly when it is put to me in the way in which the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, has put it.
However, we are speaking here, as I have said, after the same period of time as somebody coming under the voucher scheme has to wait. We are speaking here not of acquiring the right of abode under Section 2 of the 1971 Act, but of acquiring citizenship and really the two things are not the same. People like to know where they stand on citizenship matters. They do not want the issue to depend just on the passage of time, and I genuinely believe that if there were not a registration process there would be numerous requests to the Home Office by people in this group seeking confirmation that they really were now British citizens.
In addition to those people, there are others who would benefit from this amendment. There are people who have come here from the dependancies and are settled here under the provisions of the immigration rules. I know that their numbers are relatively small. In 1980, for instance, just over 700 people were admitted from Hong Kong for settlement as compared with nearly 2,700 special voucher holders and dependants and most of those were wives and children of men settled here. As it stands, the amendment would only cover people in these groups admitted for settlement and not those who were accepted for settlement after a stay in this country which had been subject to time limits. I think probably that is an omission which is accidental. I assume that it is, and I do not think it should divert us from discussing the merits of the amendment.
The major drawback of this, as we see it, is that the whole effect of the amendment would confer British citizenship on people who may have just arrived in this country and been admitted for settlement and cannot be said to have had time to develop any real link with
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this country. Indeed, they may well plan to go abroad shortly after commencement and this is perhaps particularly true of special voucher holders and their dependants, who may well regard this country as a temporary halt on the way to a new life elsewhere.
The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said that one of the great merits of this amendment was that it would not add to the immigration commitment. If the noble Lord will forgive me, he is a little inclined to look at the face of the words of an amendment and, for some reason, not to trouble to look at the effect of the words. I put it to the noble Lord, that because people happen to be here at the appropriate time for a short period, and thereby acquire British citizenship and the right of abode in this country, they would, under the amendment, then be able to transmit (because of their citizenship and the right of abode) to their children, who could be born overseas and who would thus be able to come and go as they pleased into and out of this country, and again they would be able to transmit to their children abroad. Therefore, it is not the case that the effect of this amendment would not increase the immigration commitment of this country.
We consider that British citizenship should reflect a real tie with this country and that is why we have put Clause 4 into the Bill, which gives an absolute entitlement to registration to British citizenship to all those who will benefit from this aspect of these amendments—but after they have completed five years' residence in this country. It is the essentially random nature of this amendment which would very considerably extend the law as it stands at the present time, which concerns us and which I think runs contrary to trying to create a citizenship which creates a close tie with this country. It is on those grounds that I must resist this amendment.
Lord Gifford: I was astonished to hear the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, a moment ago say that the people who are being considered in this amendment do not have close links with this country. Are these not people who have, in the first place, opted for British citizenship many years ago? Secondly, they have waited for years in the queue to come here and endured enormous strains and hardships in order to settle in the country of their citizenship. Really, when one thinks of the people involved I ask the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, to reconsider what he has said about a category of people of whom I should have thought over 99 per cent. have shown that they have close and surprisingly loyal links with this country, in view of the way they have been treated.
Lord Belstead: I suspect that the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, is very much more expert in the immigration and nationality law than I am, and I am not saying that out of politeness because I have heard the noble Lord make speeches in the past from which I recognise the noble Lord's expertise in this matter. Therefore, the noble Lord will know very well indeed that there are circumstances under the law at the moment in which a person who claims to have acquired the right of abode is required to prove it. That is why at the moment a period of time is required from somebody before they can move on to citizenship, and that is why we are requiring precisely the same thing now.

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This amendment would extend the law. The Government do not believe that is right, for the reasons that I have tried to outline.
Baroness Birk: Before the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, replies to the amendment standing in his name, the Minister said that there would be numerous requests from people asking whether they were British citizens. That does not seem to me to be a good reason for turning down an amendment which is going to help a lot of people. In any case, there will be a great many people under the Bill as it stands, who will request registration anyhow, so the Home Office will be inundated with requests in that way. Therefore, why not do it in a more equitable and just way as we have suggested? If the Minister says that he accepts the principle on which the amendment is based, but he thinks that it ranges too wide, will he undertake to look at it and, if the drafting is not quite as exact as it should be, will he perhaps let us consider a tighter version rather than throw the baby out with the bathwater?
Lord Belstead: To reject any appeal to me from the noble Baroness goes to my heart, but I hoped I had made it clear that because this amendment goes infinitely further than the law as it stands at the moment, and because we believe that the way in which we have re-interpreted the law as it stands at the moment in Clause 10 is fair and just, we would not agree to this amendment on principle.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: I am really torn two ways in listening to the debate on this amendment, because I think the point that is being made, that everyone would automatically become a British citizen, as described, is an interesting one; but I want to raise rather the reverse point with the Minister and I should like him to consider this point in the context of the amendment. Of those who are quite legally settled here, there may be a number—I have people who come and speak to me about this—who do not particularly wish to become British citizens and in fact they are rather concerned as to what will happen to them if they do not elect within five years to become a British citizen. Therefore, I am asking the Minister to clarify this point, and to make it clear to people. I think the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, about the worries that people have at the present time is very real.
I have attended a great many meetings. In particular, I can quote the Ethnic Minorities Committee of the Greater London Council, where the GLC Police Committee chairman, who I believe is also vice-chairman of the Ethnic Minorities Committee, stated that this Bill would take away all sorts of rights from people who are settled here; not only might it not give them citizenship but it would take away so many rights of people who had every right to be in this country. In particular, he quoted that after this Bill became law, they would have no right to vote. I questioned that and pointed out that it bore no relationship to one's right to vote or indeed to one's right to stand for election. He then conceded that. He said that it was true, but the Government secretly had that in the back
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of their minds and every person who was concerned about ethnic minorities in this country should immediately think of this as the next stage. I would again ask the Minister to clarify that there is no thought at this time of taking away people's right to vote.
I think the point made about whether or not one should automatically become a citizen or apply for registration is a very interesting one. I personally have a preference for the right to apply because I think in that way you know exactly where you stand. Immigrants to this country—and I speak as one—very often have doubts about their exact situation unless it is set out and recorded on paper. To become something automatically is rather less definite than to see that it is approved and agreed as a fact. For that reason I think it would be quite good to have the application for registration.
I think, too, that many people, like myself, really rather like to have their cake and eat it. We quite like to have all the best of this country without taking out citizenship. I think that is rather unfair on our part. I do genuinely believe that there are some people, such as have been referred to in earlier debates, mothers of families, where the language barrier would be great if they applied for naturalisation. Presumably those cases would not have to do a language test at the present time. I would like clarification of that. There are other people in this country who have been here a long time, and who perhaps have not got all that much longer to live, and they do not really want to change their status. But they want to be assured that if they are settled here they are entitled to remain settled here.
On an earlier amendment Lord Colville brought up the topic of deportation. This is such an emotive word and such a worry to people. I would again ask the Minister to make quite clear that there is nothing whatever in this Bill to do with that. We are talking about the technicalities of citizenship. I think this whole nationality Bill has been greatly exaggerated in terms of worry to people. I think when it is actually law people will realise that they have worried quite unnecessarily about many aspects of the Bill. It certainly is worrying. Every individual here today—we are all worried if we feel there is something threatening our future security. I would ask the Minister to reassure those people who are settled here, who perhaps may not qualify for British citizenship, and the others who would qualify but would not apply.
8.43 p.m.
Lord Belstead: My noble friend asks me on this amendment what is the position of people who are settled here and do not choose to take up citizenship. I would make it crystal clear that there is nothing in the Bill which would jeopardise the position of people who are settled in this country and do not choose to take up citizenship. And there is nothing in the Bill which would in any way detract from such rights of people who are settled here and have not taken up citizenship here.
There are, however, several avenues in the Bill through which people can take up citizenship. As I tried to make clear yesterday, we are trying to encourage them to take up citizenship. For instance, they can become citizens under Clause 1, or—and this is an

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entirely new provision—as citizens of the British dependent territories or British overseas citizens. They can become by entitlement citizens registered under Clause 4. For some of the British overseas citizens that will be the first time they have ever had that entitlement. They can become citizens also through Clauses 6 and 7, which we debated yesterday. And of course for those who decide that they do not want to become registered, who perhaps leave it for a lone time and maybe the time runs out, or they simply do not want to, there is ultimately, if they change their mind, the avenue of naturalisation under Clause 5.
I would add one thing, if I may. When people do decide that they want through these various avenues to become British citizens, there is also nothing in this Bill which will take away from them the citizenship which they may already have. In this we are unlike many other countries which remove the citizenship from somebody if they become a citizen of that country. We do not. It was a conscious decision of the Government before the Bill was introduced into another place that we would stick with what is called dual nationality. I believe that was right and in the traditions of this country.
Lord Avebury: The Minister astonishes me when he says he is not going to take away the citizenship somebody already has. That is precisely what is going to happen unless this amendment is accepted. Persons who are citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies and are resident here, and settled here for some years, will lose that status and will become British overseas citizens, extraordinary as it may seem, on the date of commencement of the Bill. These are people living here, resident in the country, who have made their lives here.
The noble Lord has said that they have gone through immense hardship and waited in the queue for as long as, at the moment, five years and eight months. The noble Lord says these people have not got a tie or connection with the country, and he says that at any moment they may suddenly fly off somewhere else and give birth to children who will then be citizens by descent. What sort of people are these? I do not know what circles the noble Lord moves in, if he has come across people who, having waited the five years and eight months in Bombay and then finally having been enabled to join their relatives in the United Kingdom, suddenly walk into the Canadian High Commission and by some miracle gain admission to that country, people who disappear after spending a few months in this country having acquired British citizenship. I cannot imagine what the noble Lord is thinking of. I have never heard of such a case.
Lord Belstead: If the noble Lord will look at Clause 4, to which the Committee has now agreed, the remarks he has made about people being made to be British overseas citizens when they have been here for many years of their lives are not in fact accurate.
Lord Avebury: I am talking about the people we are concerned with in this amendment, citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies, British protected persons, who are actually resident here at the time of commencement. I am saying I want these people to
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become British citizens. I cannot understand why the noble Lord is resisting this, why he is suggesting that any substantial fraction, more than one in 10,000 or 100,000, of these people who have waited in the queue for so long are going to remove themselves to some other country. How could they, anyway, the immigration restrictions being what they are in, say, the United States or Canada? People do not just walk into the embassy or high commission of those countries and gain admission after a few months.
What the noble Lord says is utterly misleading to the Committee; I must say that. I must quite frankly use that word. There are no such individuals as he imagines, who are going to arrive here after this long waiting period as United Kingdom and Commonwealth citizens and then, having acquired British citizenship, as they would do under this amendment, are going to fly off overseas and give birth to British citizens by descent. The picture is utterly bizarre and far removed from anything which happens. We are talking about people who have decided to make their lives in the United Kingdom and settle here.
The noble Lord says the amendment is probably defective in that we are only concerned with people admitted for settlement on arrival, and we do not speak here about those who have been allowed to settle on removal of time limit. Is he suggesting that if we had put down a totally different amendment, in which, instead of talking about people settled on arrival, we had merely said that anybody who had been admitted for settlement on removal of time limit should become a British citizen, he would have accepted it? By definition those people would have had to wait for some considerable period. The noble Lord encourages me, I take it, to put down such an amendment on Report and he is saying that the Government will then accept that, because we are not then talking about people who have only recently arrived.
Of course, we do not say in this amendment that the people we are addressing ourselves to are those who came here within a certain specified time. They will in many cases have been here for some years already. If they did come within the last few months then certainly they are intending to remain for the rest of their lives. I think the noble Lord's reply has been completely unsatisfactory, but I get the feeling that your Lordships would like to return to this subject at a later stage, when we are able to improve the drafting, and we can then incorporate, either in this amendment or a separate amendment, the people who have been admitted for settlement on removal of time limit. I hope that when we do return to it the Minister will take a more reasonable line.
Lord Belstead: I must not mislead the noble Lord. The amendment which is being moved is wholly unacceptable to the Government in whatever way it is drafted.
Lord Avebury: I shall not be deterred by what the noble Lord says from putting down two separate amendments when we come back to the matter on Report: one dealing with those who are admitted for settlement on arrival, and a separate one, encouraged by the Minister, to take care of those who are admitted for settlement on removal of time limit.
Lord Belstead: In order to help the noble Lord let me say that in that event both amendments will be unacceptable.
Lord Avebury: We shall have to argue about that at perhaps some length when we get to the Report stage. With that I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Principal Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness White): The next Amendment is No. 114ZC.
Lord Avebury Lord Avebury moved Amendment No. 114ZC:
Page 11, line 32, leave out subsection (2).
The noble Lord said: On an earlier amendment the noble Lord seemed to think that there was something extraordinary in the fact that the Liberal Party had always favoured a single citizenship and that we viewed the creation of a British overseas citizenship, whether in the form which the Green Paper sets forward or in the shape which we now find in this Bill, as being objectionable in principle.
I do not know whether the noble Lord read the submissions on the previous Government's Green Paper. They are, in fact, referred to in their own White Paper (Cmnd. 7987) and so I assume that the papers must have been available to him. In paragraph 2 of Appendix A he will find the following sentence:
"A few correspondents advocated a single British citizenship with the right of entry to the United Kingdom for everyone who is at present a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies".
I think that it would have been useful—and this is not the first time that I have had to say this—if the representations which had been made to the previous Government on the Green Paper, could have been published so that instead of seeing a report of the Government's analysis of those comments, people could have read them in the original for themselves. If the noble Lord had had the advantage of reading our document Who's Your Father? published in July 1977 in response to the Green Paper of April 1977, he would have found that we set out our views on a single British citizenship there perfectly clearly and there was no reason for the noble Lord to have been so astonished, as he appeared to be, when he gave the impression that he was learning about the Liberal Party's policies on this matter for the first time.
However, I must take this opportunity of correcting something which the noble Lord said about our policy which is extremely misleading. In referring to the position of Malaysia in particular he talked about the 1·3 million dual nationals who were alleged to be resident in that country according to the Parliamentary Answer given on the matter in 1975. In this amendment we are talking only about the persons who hold citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies only, and not that of any other state. So the 1·3 million dual nationals that the noble Lord tried to drag in on the previous occasion, were a complete red herring.
There are, in fact, persons in Malaysia who are citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies alone. There are said to be 130,000 of them. Quite frankly, I do not believe that figure as I have explained previously. The figure is an increase of 20,000 on that which was given in an answer to the Select Committee in 1975, and I have already explained the reasons why the
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number of our citizens in Malaysia cannot be increasing, but must, in fact, be decreasing with the efflux of time.
Also there is the evidence of the number of persons who possess citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies both in Malaysia and Singapore who have, in fact, applied for passports to our High Commissions there. The number is utterly trivial—I think it is a few dozen in the course of a year in either Malaysia or Singapore. Incidentally, talking of Singapore, the latest figure of citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies which was given to the Select Committee in another place, as was referred to just now, was "a few hundred" and that compares with a figure of 30,000 that was given to the Select Committee in 1975. I just mention that as another illustration of how one has to take all the Foreign and Commonwealth Office figures for citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies with a pinch of salt.
However, primarily we are still talking about the alleged 39,000 people living in India and the alleged 36,000 people who live in the various countries of East Africa. I know what the noble Lord's answer to that will be because we heard it earlier. However, for the sake of completeness I want to get it on the record that we still maintain our objections to any kind of second class citizenship whatever, and we believe that all those who are at present citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies and who are entitled to no other citizenship should not be deprived of their privileges by being cast into the dustbin of the second class citizenship created under the Bill. I beg to move. The noble Lord may not like my speech, but that is our policy.
Lord Belstead: On the contrary I liked the noble Lord's speech very much; it was an impassioned speech about British Overseas Citizens, but I thought the noble Lord was moving Amendment No. 114ZC, which is all about children who have the right of abode in this country when their mothers do not.
Lord Avebury: I am so sorry; I was addressing myself to Amendment No. 114A.
A noble Lord: That was the wrong one.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: Can we take the amendment that we have already discussed—Amendment No. 114A?
The Principal Deputy Chairman of Committees: The amendment that I quite distinctly called the noble Lord to move was Amendment No. 1 I 4ZC.
Lord Avebury: Yes, I did not move that.
The Principal Deputy Chairman of Committees: That was not moved? In that case we are now considering the question of Amendment No. 114A and I must assume that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, moved:
Page 12, line 21, at end insert—
("(4) A person who immediately before commencement—

(a) was a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies; or

(b) was a British Protected Person without the right of

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abode in the United Kingdom under the Immigration Act 1971 as then in force.

and who does not under this Act become a citizen of any of the British dependent territories shall at commencement become a British citizen;
Provided that he does not then hold the nationality or citizenship of any other state."),
which is now the Question before the Committee.
Lord Belstead: I should like to reply to the noble Lord. I am afraid that the Government see grave difficulties in a provision of this kind. To confer British citizenship and hence the right of abode in this country on those concerned would, as I indicated previously, enable some 210,000 or more people, mainly in Malaysia, India and East Africa to enter this country freely and settle here at any time. I do not think that that would be either acceptable to the country or in the interests of those concerned.
On Question, amendment negatived.
On Question, Whether Clause 10 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord Geddes: I am not entirely certain that this is the right moment, by which I mean place, to raise what I think the lawyers might call "a nice point", but I can see no other logical section in which to do so. I have given notice of this question to my noble friend on the Front Bench. My question is simple to ask and, I hope, to answer. It concerns those presently enjoying British nationality through the 1705:
Act for the Naturalisation of the Most Excellent Princess Sophia, Electress and Duchess Dowager of Hanover and the issue of her body".
Your Lordships will recall that the 1705 Act was repealed under the British Nationality Act, 1948. But under a celebrated case on which final adjudication was given by your Lordships' Appellate Committee in December 1956, it was ruled that all those who were British subjects before the passing of the 1948 Act should continue so to be. Schedule 9 to this Bill seeks to repeal the 1948 Act. As matters presently stand, it would appear that Prince Ernest Augustus of Hanover—the successful respondent in the 1956 case—and others, are, provided that they were born before the commencement of the 1948 Act, entitled to British nationality, and a number have successfully so claimed.
Taking the present wording of Clause 10(1)(a) and (b), such a person is, or is entitled to be, a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, and also has the right of abode in the United Kingdom under Clause 2(1)(a) of the Immigration Act 1971, as then in force. If I am right so far, would the noble and learned Lord the Lord Advocate, or conceivably the noble Lord the Minister, please confirm that, first, such a person who has successfully claimed British nationality under the 1705 Act shall at commencement of this Bill become a British citizen? Secondly, that this Bill, after commencement, will not deny the right of a person previously eligible, having been born before the passing of the 1948 Act, still to claim British nationality? Thirdly, would the noble and learned Lord, or conceivably the noble Lord the Minister, please advise the Committee of the status of children of such a British national?—that is, a person who has successfully
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claimed, or has the right so to claim, British nationality by virtue of the 1705 Act, that person or parent havine been born before commencement of the 1948 Act.
It would apear that the children of such a British national would themselves be British, either by dint of Clause 1(1)(a), if they were born in the United Kingdom, or British by descent by dint of Clause 2(1)(a) if they were born outside the United Kingdom. I should be most grateful for the opinion of my noble friends on the Front Bench.
Lord Belstead: I owe my noble friend an apology because he warned me that he was raising a series of points which, of course, all stem from the position of the Electress Sophia, and I am afraid that I am not yet in a position to give my noble friend replies on the points that he has raised. If it is acceptable to my noble friend, I shall most certainly write to him. However, it is conceivable that I might even be able to let him know what the position will be before this evening is over.
As an interim, may I say this. They will not become British citizens unless they have the right of abode here, and when I say "they" I am of course referring to the descendants of the Electress Sophia. Many will not, because they do not have a parental or a grandparental connection with this country. These people would become British overseas citizens. Their children might be registered as British overseas citizens under Clause 26. That advice has been given to me very hurriedly and I must apologise to my noble friend because, as I say, he did warn me that this point would be raised and I am afraid that this is a sin of omission on my part. I should like to write to my noble friend in addition to what I have said from the Dispatch Box, and I shall undertake to do so, I hope, before we finish the Committee stage, if the Committee stage is finished next week.
Lord Geddes: I am most grateful to my noble friend and I shall certainly not pursue this matter at the expense of much more important amendments to be dealt with in your Lordships' Committee. I should like to point out that the wording of Section 2(1) of the Immigration Act 1971, as it presently stands, says:
"(1) A person is under this Act to have the right of abode in the United Kingdom if—
(a) he is a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies who has that citizenship by his birth, adoption, naturalisation, or (except as mentioned below) registration in the United Kingdom or in any of the Islands".
I think that at this stage we had better close this discussion. I am most grateful to my noble friend.
Clause 10 agreed to.
Clause 11 [Renunciation]:
[Amendments Nos. 115 and 116 not moved.]
Clause 11 agreed to.
Clause 12 [Resumption]:
On Question, Whether Clause 12 shall stand part of the Bill?
9.4 p.m.
Lord Renton: I have some reason to doubt whether this clause is necessary at all. I think that we are entitled to some kind of explanation from the Government as to why we should have it. Of course, the numbers involved might be relevant, and even if there are small numbers, it might perhaps be worth having this opportunity for resumption of British citizenship. But bearing in mind the numerous opportunities that are given in the Bill to obtain British citizenship, I should have thought that it was possibly inviting people to blow hot and cold—to fail to make up their minds—if we also have a clause which enables them, having renounced citizenship, to resume it again.
Citizenship should surely be a matter of pride; something to be cherished; something not easily to be renounced. If we give this easy opportunity for resumption of citizenship, we are merely encouraging renunciation and in a sense devaluing the very status which we are trying to enhance.
Lord Belstead: I am grateful to my noble friend for raising this because if, for no other reason, I found when I was trying to study the Bill that I was not entirely sure of the difference between the clause which my noble friend is questioning—Clause 12—and Clause 9, to which the Committee has now agreed, both of which are to do with resumption.
Perhaps it might be for the convenience of the Committee if I simply give my understanding of the difference between these two clauses. One refers to those who have a right to resume before commencement, and Clause 12—which my noble friend is questioning—now deals with people who wish to resume citizenship after commencement. Having said that, Clause 12 reproduces, with modifications, the provisions on resumption which, of course, are in the existing law at the present time.
But there are two changes. The first of these is that people who have renounced their citizenship in order to acquire a foreign nationality will in future be able to resume on the same terms as those who have acquired a Commonwealth citizenship. Previously, if one renounced to acquire a foreign nationality one was left out in the cold, but now the Bill is saying that people who not only wish to renounce their citizenship but who perhaps feel they have to do so at some point during their life for family reasons, or for business reasons, or for some unlooked for reason, and who may genuinely want to resume that citizenship again, should be treated on all fours as to whether they renounced citizenship in order to take up a Commonwealth citizenship or the citizenship of a foreign country. If I may say so, this is one of the liberal aspects of the Bill which we hoped your Lordships would see as a step forward.
The other change is that Clause 12, unlike Section 1 of the 1964 Act, does not specify any qualifying connections to be held by those who wish to resume. That is because such a proviso is unnecessary given that British citizenship has been so framed as to confer the right of abode on those who have the requisite connections with the United Kingdom and islands. When my noble friend asks me in more general terms, is it right to have this clause in the Bill at all? the answer
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is dealt with in general terms in the Government's White Paper, Cmnd. 7987, in paragraphs 91 and 92, where the general case is put for having Clause 12 in the Bill.
Clause 12 is really a restatement of the law as it is now. In some ways it strikes me that there is some parallel between the clause and the right to which I referred about ten minutes ago for dual nationality. If we do take the view in this country that people should be allowed to have both our citizenship and the citizenship of another country, we should also take the view that if people have to renounce their citizenship they should have the chance to resume it, and it is for this that Clause 12 provides.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: I do not find my noble friend's explanation wholly satisfying, and nor do I accept his argument that there is a relationship between renouncing British citizenship and the arrangements for holding dual nationality. To me, these seem to be quite different concepts. With respect, nor did my noble friend Lord Belstead deal with the argument made by my noble friend Lord Renton, that British citizenship is a thing to be prized, to be regarded as something of great value, and not lightly to be discarded. After all, we spent a good deal of this afternoon dealing with the position of some 26,000 people who desperately want British citizenship. So to say that just because resumption is in the present law we must facilitate its continuation by those who, for some reason, like to shed British citizenship is not, I think, a complete answer.
I must say that I am a little unhappy about this provision. It must be an encouragement to those who do wish to drop citizenship to know that it may be resumed, but does it not underrate the value of British citizenship? I notice that two of the right reverend Prelates are present and they, together with other Members of your Lordships' House, will recall that St. Paul attached great value to his Roman citizenship. I should like to think that our contemporaries attach great value to our own citizenship. At a time when the Government are priding themselves on this great reform of our laws on citizenship and nationality, it is not perhaps a slightly lame excuse just to say that this provision is in the existing law?
Lord Renton: I a m grateful to my noble friend Lord Belstead for his explanation, such as it was. I feel at least equal gratitude towards my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter, because I share his doubts about the explanation which has been given. Perhaps he was not in a position to do so, but my noble friend Lord Belstead has not given any indication of the numbers involved in, for example, each of the last years for which figures are available of the people who, under the present law, have renounced citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies and then claimed to resume it. If we could have some information of that kind it would help us in reaching a decision—if not now, then at a later stage.
I believe that this matter is one to which we should return. It is right that we should follow our generous and liberal traditions which we, as a nation, have followed in so many ways to the benefit of the rest of the world, but not always to the benefit of the people

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of our own country. Perhaps on this occasion generous liberality will cost us practically nothing, but it is rather a flagrant example of that liberality. I feel that I must give notice—if that is the right expression to use—that at Report stage I may put down an amendment to leave out Clause 12 altogether.
Lord Drumalbyn: I wonder whether my noble friend on the Front Bench would be able to tell us which countries do not allow dual nationality? I do not expect him to give a complete list, but the point is that there are many countries to which people from this country may go where there would be strong pressure on them to acquire the nationality of the country they have gone to if they want to make their career a success there. Those same countries may be countries which do not allow dual nationality to be held.
Circumstances can change completely. Health may go. The husband may want to come back. The husband may die and the wife may want to come back to this country. There are many cases like that where a person has been almost forced to take the nationality to start with, and then circumstances change and he, or she, finds that it would be much better to come back to this country. In that case I would be strongly in support of their being allowed to resume their original nationality if only on blood grounds, which I believe my noble friend thinks is a good idea.
Of course, nobody wants to encourage the almost flippant abandonment of nationality. There are people who go abroad and do not care very much about their nationality anyway, but I think they are a minority. However, where a person genuinely adheres to his original nationality and has in fact, as one finds often, reluctantly changed his nationality, surely it is right for him to be allowed to resume his original nationality. I do not say that one should do it more than once, and in fact the Bill does not allow one to do it more than once, but surely a person should be allowed to do it once.
Lord Belstead: I would only say that I think that my noble friends Lord Boyd-Carpenter and Lord Renton have perhaps not given quite the weight that I would have given to the words of my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn, and I will not repeat them or try to better them at all. I would only add that, although my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter is assiduous in asking in cases where he believes it right that there should be proper discretion in the Bill, I should have thought that under Clause 12 these are cases that could arise in the sort of way that my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn has outlined where some discretion would be both compassionate and right. I know that my noble friends will be looking again at this clause—and now that I have been warned, so will I.
Lord Tordoff: I wonder whether the noble Lord would confirm to his noble friend that, had this Bill gone through the Roman Senate in time, St. Paul would very likely not have been a Roman citizen.
Clause 12 agreed to.
Clause 13 [Meaning of British citizen "by descent"]:
9.18 p.m.
Lord Gifford Lord Gifford moved Amendment No. 116A:
Page 13, line 21, leave out ("3(2) or").
The noble Lord said: Clause 13 deals with the question who should be citizens by descent, and therefore be citizens who would not be able to transmit their citizenship to their children unless special conditions were applied. Clause 13(1)(a) deals with the main categories of people who will, after commencement of the Bill, be citizens by descent, and there are three different categories. The first are the people who are children of United Kingdom citizens born abroad without there being any special circumstances about their birth, and they come under Clause 2(1)(a). The second are children who are born abroad of fathers who are citizens by descent and who benefit by the transitional entitlement contained in Clause 8. The third category are the people who come under Clause 3(2); that is to say, children who are born abroad to United Kingdom citizens by descent and who will have fulfilled the stringent requirements of proving, or their parents have proved, that they have a close connection with this country.
Everybody else under the Bill will be citizens in effect by birth—that is to say, citizens otherwise than by descent—and have the right to transmit their citizenship. That goes for the servants of the Crown under Clause 2(1)(b) and to various other people who can register for naturalisation as citizens. What this amendment seeks to say is that the close connection people, the children born to parents who are in relevant employment, are in the wrong category. They ought to be in the category of citizens otherwise than by descent.
If one looks at the three categories set out in Clause 13(1)(a) one sees there are two completely different groups. They are first of all those who are born abroad who have no special connection, whose parents and themselves may never come back to this country; they may have emigrated for good. One sees the intention of the Bill that they should not be able to further transmit their citizenship to their children. But the people who come under Clause 3(2) are by definition people who have satisfied the Secretary of State that they have a close connection with this country, that they are employed in relevant employment with a British company or some other similar employment, and not only that, but the employment must have a close connection with this country so that they are very much people who ought to be citizens in the full sense of the word.
On an earlier Committee day a number of criticisms were made of the scheme of the Bill, in Clauses 2 and 3, and a number of criticisms were made particularly in amendments moved by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, to the effect that we have not given sufficient consideration to the position of those who are working and raising families abroad but working for British companies. This amendment seeks to throw in a different way of approaching that problem, which I would suggest is a very neat and satisfactory way; that is to say, to narrow the gap and lessen the disadvantages which people working abroad will have by allowing their children, once registered, once having been put through the stringent tests, to be citizens in

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the fullest sense of the word, citizens otherwise than by descent.
In connection with this, when it was being discussed earlier, the Minister said something which I found rather curious about citizens by descent, namely:
"I agree that the citizenship under Clause 3 is of course different from the type of citizenship that we are now considering, but I do not necessarily accept that this is necessarily an inferior citizenship, although I accept that it is different".
The only difference between citizenship by descent and other kinds of citizenship is that the citizens by descent have the disadvantage of not being able to transmit their citizenship to their children. Of course, that is a disadvantage, and of course the resulting citizenship is an inferior citizenship by comparison with citizenship by birth or by naturalisation.
Another way of approaching this problem has been suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, and other noble Lords in a later amendment. They have suggested ingeniously, if I may say so, or perhaps rather cumbersomely, that these people whose children are registered under Clause 3(2) might have a chance to re-register them and therefore to upgrade their children's status under Clause 3(2)(b). I do not know whether that is something which commends itself to the Government. I would suggest that my amendment contains a very satisfactory solution to many of the problems which have been raised on Clause 3, and I hope that it will therefore be favourably considered by the Committee. I beg to move.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern: I should like first of all to make what I think is an important preliminary point. It has been mentioned already by the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, in moving this amendment, although I think, with respect, perhaps not quite accurately. The only relevant difference between citizenship by descent and citizenship otherwise than by descent is in the transmission of citizenship to children born outside the United Kingdom. So far as children born inside the United Kingdom are concerned, there is no relevant difference whatsoever. Accordingly, it is only when one is considering the situation of children born outside the United Kingdom that this point arises.
I suggest there are certain factors which point to children registered under Clause 3(2) being British citizens by descent. First, they would not need to be registered under this provision at all but for the fact that neither of their parents was a citizen otherwise than by descent. If either of their parents, mother or father, was a citizen otherwise than by descent, they will automatically transmit to these children. We are, therefore, considering the case of a child born abroad of two British citizens who themselves were born abroad, or one such citizen married to a person who is not one of our citizens at all. Those would be typical cases.
The amendment would make such a child a citizen otherwise than by descent—that is, able to pass on citizenship automatically at birth to the third generation born abroad—in other words, be better off from this point of view than the parent on which his citizenship depends. That would surely be an odd result and would need considerable justification where a child had been born abroad to parents neither of whom had been
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born here. Not only would that be an odd result in itself; it would also be anomalous in comparison with the child of a parent born in this country. Under Clause 13(1)(a) as it presently stands—and this amendment does not suggest any amendment to it—such a child would, as acquiring British citizenship under Clause 2(1)(a), be a British citizen by descent, unless a parent was in Crown service or in service closely associated with the Crown at the time of birth.
But it is not only British citizens by descent who go to work overseas; British citizens born here do so also. Surely it would be an indefensible result if someone born in the United Kingdom and working overseas had a child born to him who was a British citizen by descent under Clause 13(1)(a), because his child was covered by Clause 2(1)(a), whereas, working in the same firm perhaps, a British citizen by descent was able to register his child under Clause 3(2) as a citizen otherwise than by descent, because Clause 3(2) applies to the situation of a British citizen by descent as the parent.
It strikes us, therefore, that these provisions, and in particular the provision which is under attack by the amendment, are sensible and fit in properly to the scheme of the Bill. The general scheme is that citizenship should be passed on for one generation overseas, and the people to whom it is thus passed on will be citizens by descent. That should be enlarged to later generations provided there is a close connection, and what should be passed on to later generations surely should be the same thing as is passed on automatically to the first generation, namely, citizenship by descent. I hope that in the light of that explanation the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Elles: My noble and learned friend has been discussing the question whether a descendent should be in a better position than a parent; that if you have a British citizen by descent, it would be unfair if he could then have a child who was a British citizen. I think that is roughly the argument. How, then, would you compare somebody who becomes a full British citizen by naturalisation neither of whose parents had anything to do with this country? Would my noble and learned friend say that was also unfair? I do not think we can talk about parallels of that kind and whether anybody improves the situation between themselves and their parents.
What we are talking about are individuals who are caught in a trap created by certain anomalies in this measure. If you become a British citizen by descent under Clause 3(2)—I do not want to speak about an amendment of mine which we shall come to later—it must be possible at some stage that children who are born abroad have the possibility of becoming full British citizens, just as today the Committee decided, under the amendment which was adopted with regard to people living in Gibraltar, that people who have nothing to do with this territory will be full British citizens for ever and ever. So it seems to me that the argument that the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, has put forward has some relevance to the way that the Bill is now drafted.
Lord Gifford: I am grateful for the support of the noble Baroness, and I very much look forward to

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hearing her move her amendment and to the Government's reply to it. The whole point is that the people who are registered under Clause 3(2) are by definition the children of families who have demonstrated a close connection, which the ordinary citizens by descent are not. That is why, with respect to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Advocate, it is not absurd that one should be a citizen in the full sense and the other a citizen only by descent.
I am conscious that the whole scheme of Clauses 2 and 3 is up for review, and I do not intend to press this amendment this evening, but rather to come back to it when we see exactly how the categories under Clauses 2 and 3 have been finally defined, and whether, in the light of that, Clause 13 needs to be amended at that stage. So I now beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
9.31 p.m.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern Lord Mackay of Clashfern moved Amendment No. 117:
Page 14, line 25, leave out ("(i) or (ii)").
The noble and learned Lord said: The amendment is intended to cure what is virtually an anomaly in the Bill. It seeks to ensure that all those who, but for renouncing, would have become British citizens by descent and who subsequently are registered as British citizens under Clause 9, are then regarded for the pur-poses of the Bill as British citizens by descent. That seems to be the correct way to effect the reregistration; in other words, registration in respect of a renounced citizenship should not put a person in a better position than he was in before the renunciation. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Elles Baroness Elles moved Amendment No. 117A:
Page 14, line 38, at end insert ("or in another member state of the European Community.").
The noble Baroness said: The amendment has been tabled to draw attention to the debate that we had on Clause 2 and the position of servants of the Crown who are employed abroad. The matter was raised concerning those British citizens who are working in the European Community institutions, and the effect of the amendment as worded would be that anyone who was serving in a European Community institution would be able to ensure the British citizenship of his child born abroad during the time of service in one of the institutions. Therefore there would have to be consequential amendments to Clause 2(1)(b) and (2), and a list of European Community institutions would have to be included in Clauses 2(3) and 13(3). I have sent a list to my noble friend the Minister, and I hope that he has a copy of it before him.
I put down the amendment not only because of the way that the debate went the other day, but also in the light of an extract from a letter that was read out by the noble Baroness, Lady White, who in view of her position in the Chamber this evening is regrettably not able to take part in the discussion. As reported at col. 1016 of the Official Report of 13th July, the noble Baroness referred to a letter written by the Minister, Mr. Raison, to a British citizen working in the European
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Community, who was expressing concern about passing on citizenship to his children while he was in the service of the institutions. Mr. Raison said:
"We do not think it right that employees of the European institutions, who, after all, have voluntarily taken up employment overseas with an international organisation, should benefit from such a provision".
Not for a moment do I think that there was any intention to mislead the person concerned. Nevertheless, I think it has slightly misled your Lordships, because the fact of the matter is that I personally know several British citizens who are working in the European Community institutions and who have been seconded from British Government departments. They have come from the MAFF, from the Foreign Office and from other Government departments.
I have had slightly varying versions from different individuals because they are not certain of their positions back home, but I have been given to understand that their posts are kept open for them in some form or another—naturally, not the exact jobs that they left three or four years previously, but perhaps that a place would be found for them—though, of course, during their employment by the European Commission, particularly, they are serving a European institution. They are not serving the British Government, but they have been seconded by the British Government to exert British influence so that the Community should benefit from British experience and, particularly, British administrative experience.
So the words used by the Minister are not strictly accurate, as I understand them, and I think that noble Lords should be aware that there are people working in the Community institutions who have served in the administration of this country—they have, for instance, served clerkships in another place—and who have gone to work in the European Parliament. I must say, in parenthesis, that perhaps they have not been able to do as much as they might to make it a more reasonable and orderly body, but they have undoubtedly been trying in the short time that that body has been in existence to bring to bear British experience and British influence.
So my recommendation is that these people who go from this country to work in the Community institutions should be put on a parallel basis to those who are serving the Crown overseas. By no means can it be said that they go voluntarily to these places, any more than one goes voluntarily into the home Civil Service and is then sent abroad. After all, anybody who goes into the Foreign Office must know from the very nature of the job that he or she undertakes to do that he or she will be sent abroad; and, after all, nobody is forced to join the Foreign Office.
Another point in connection with this is that perhaps people in this country do not realise the great interchange that there is among those who are working in the institutions of the Community and going back to their national member states. After all, your Lordships have only to turn your minds back a few days, to Warrington, to recall one of the leaders of the SDP who, until quite recently, had been employed in the European Commission for four years—Mr. Roy Jenkins. There is a typical example of somebody who, having served the Community, has come back to this country; and, of course, he is by no means the

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only one. We have five members of the European Parliament from the United Kingdom delegation who have been in European Community institutions working in Brussels and who have now come back to this country, and nobody can say that they do not have a very close connection with this country considering that they have been elected, between them, by about three million British citizens to serve as British representatives in the European Parliament.
In the last month, eight members of the European Parliament have gone back to serve in the Governments of their various countries: three to the Irish Republic; four to the French Government; one, a Frenchman, to the Commission in Brussels; and one French Commissioner in Brussels has gone to take the role of Minister of External Affairs in the French Government. I could go on ad infinitum, but I do not want to bore your Lordships with a whole list of people. But all those seconded from the member states, including the British, have a very close connection with their administrations back home, let alone their ordinary homes in the villages and towns from which they come. They are members of a service in their own country as a member state who have then gone to serve for some time in the European Community institutions. I very much hope that the Government will realise that the words of Mr. Timothy Raison, although I am certain they were written in perfectly good faith. do not represent the reality.
Thirdly, this amendment is not quite on all fours with Amendment No. 71, which my noble friends and I have tabled, as have noble Lords opposite, because it sometimes happens that these members serving in the European Community institutions are sent outside the Community to serve the general interests of ourselves and the Community. There are delegations, for instance, in Washington and in the Far East; and, above all, there are delegations in what are known as the ACP countries. That, I am sure, is a term which is known to your Lordships—the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries who are members of the Lomé Convention. It is of vital importance that we have British representatives in these delegations because one of the areas in which Britain has done particularly badly has been in getting contracts under the European Development Fund. This is one way of increasing the possibilities of British businessmen, construction engineers and so on, doing very much better than we have been. We shall not do better if we do not have British members in these delegations. They are not being encouraged to go under the terms of this Bill.
It cannot be repeated too often to Members on the Government Front Bench that those working abroad attach greater importance to the nationality of themselves and their children than people sitting back home who take it as of right. It is something that the Government should recognise and accept. Those serving Britain, particularly in Europe, attach the greatest importance to retaining British nationality not only because of their own feeling of patriotism but also because in an atmosphere working with other countries all eager for their own interests, it becomes a "peaceful battle" for the benefits of one's own country.
We are the only country which is not going to allow descent through our British citizens after the first generation. There is not a single country in a member state which does not have jus sanguinis in the fullest sense of the term. Every other member state whose citizens are working in these institutions, the French, the Dutch, the Germans, and so on, will be able to pass on citizenship to their children wherever they may be, whereas the British will not only not be able to pass it on but if the children are in Belgium or Denmark they will for some considerable number of years be stateless. I hope that my noble friend will take note of this point.
Since the Committee today has been willing to grant British citizenship—anyway so far as the Bill is concerned at its present stage—to over 25,000—the number seems to have increased this afternoon from 19,000—the number of people affected by this amendment will be considerably smaller. At the moment the total number of employees in the whole of the European Community institutions is somewhere around 18,000 of which 9 per cent. are British which equals a number of about 1,500 to 1,600. Naturally enough, I need hardly tell the Committee that not all of them will be having children every year. So the actual numbers of children affected by this amendment will be extremely small. It is difficult to hazard a guess, but it will not be more than 150 or something of that order. I very much hope that my noble friend will take this amendment on board and see what he can do with it. I beg to move.
Lord Ardwick: Briefly, I should like to support the noble Baroness. It seems incredible and ludicrous that any British citizen who serves an institution of the Community of which we are an integral part should suffer any disadvantage in passing on his citizenship. It is not going to happen to the nationals of any other country. The Government ought to think again about this matter.
Lord Drumalbyn: I warmly support what my noble friend said. She emphasised that the scope of the amendment is relatively small because this paragraph seems to relate only to persons born outside the United Kingdom before commencement. At an earlier stage, in Clause 2, we had raised the matter of a person born outside the United Kingdom after commencement. I hope that my noble friend will be able to look at both these amendments in parallel and together because it is going to be important for recruitment in the future and for the service of this country.
There are some appointments that are made not merely by the Commission but by agencies of the Commission abroad. They would also have to be covered particularly in the service of ACP countries. Therefore I hope that my noble friend will look at this very closely indeed, to ensure that people who are born in these two categories before and after the commencement do retain their full British citizenship.
Lord Renton: I wonder whether I may follow up what my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn has said, because I have found some difficulty in understanding this subsection, quite apart from what has been said

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by my noble friend Lady Elles—with whom, incidentally, I agree with regard to people serving in the European Community. If we look at line 34 and the words "his father", I assume we have to understand by implication that the father concerned is a person who, before the coming into force of the Act, would have been a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies. I should have thought it would be better if that were stated in the subsection; we could then understand it better. As it reads, as far as I can see, it might be a father born anywhere in the world. If that were so, of course, it would give rise to all kinds of implications. Subsection (2) purports to make an exception to parts of subsection (1), but in any event, and quite apart from the point made by my noble friend Lady Elles, I think this subsection needs further elucidation.
Lord Avebury: Does not the noble Lord, Lord Renton, think that if the person were a citizen of any country other than the United Kindgom he would not have been recruited to Crown service or to service of the kind designated in Clause 2(3)?
Lord Renton: That is a possibility. Other possibilities arise as well, and I should like to know which ones the Government have in mind—or perhaps all of them.
Lord Wilberforce: May I assure the noble Baroness that, speaking for this evening at any rate, she has 100 per cent. support from the Cross-Benches.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern: My noble friend Lady Elles has once again eloquently demonstrated both her knowledge of this matter and her very good support for something being done for the people of whom she has spoken. I think perhaps it is fair to say that this amendment might not carry with it all that she has been talking of, as my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn has pointed out.
Regarding the point made by my noble friend Lord Renton, I think the structure of the subsection, as he very correctly said, has the effect of making
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a qualification on subsection (1). Therefore you need not bother about subsection (2) if the person you are seeking to deal with is one who may fall under subsection (1) and is then taken out of subsection (1) if he additionally qualifies or answers the description given in subsection (2). Therefore, in a sense, for the purposes of subsection (2) it does not matter where his father was born, because in order to come under subsection (1) his father must have been a British citizen.
However, the main matter that my noble friend Lady Elles has raised is of course associated with the general question that we debated under Amendment No. 71. In answer to that amendment, I pointed out some of the difficulties the Government saw in arrangements for passing on citizenship which applied in the European Community but not elsewhere. I do not think I need repeat those arguments here. They are equally applicable to some of the things my noble friend Lady Elles was saying, though perhaps not to all of them. It might be sufficient if I repeated what I said at the end of my remarks on that occasion, that we appreciate the very real problems that these amendments seek to cover and that we will give very serious consideration to all that has been said to see to what extent we can meet these difficulties. I hope that in the light of this assurance my noble friend will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Elles: I am very grateful to noble Lords who have supported the principle of this amendment from the Benches opposite. I very warmly welcome the 100 per cent. support from the Cross-Benches, and I am most grateful to my noble and learned friend the Lord Advocate for his comments. He will, of course, appreciate that I recognised that the drafting was not perfect; that it would not, as it stands at the moment, cover those coming after the Bill has been passed. But I hope he has taken on board the principle on which I have been seeking to impress the Committee, that some action should be taken by the Government. On the understanding that my noble and learned friend will look at the purpose of this amendment, I beg leave to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
9.51 p.m.
Baroness Elles Baroness Elles moved Amendment No. 118:
Page 14, line 44, at end insert—
("( ) A British citizen by descent by virtue of section 13(1)(a) and (b) shall be entitled, on an application for his registration as a British citizen as such to be so registered if the Secretary of State is satisfied that

(a) that person was in the United Kingdom for a period of two years prior to the date of application and that

(b) the number of days on which the person in question was absent from the United Kingdom does not exceed 90 days.").

The noble Baroness said: This is an amendment which seeks, as the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, inferred on an earlier amendment, to upgrade those who have become British citizens by descent. Under Clause 3(2), a British citizen by descent has the opportunity to register a child born abroad, provided that the other conditions under Clause 3 are observed in relation to employment. As the Bill stands, a British citizen by descent working abroad will have the option of registering the child within 12 months, or, if he or she thinks that there is a possibility of returning to this country within the next three or four years, that child may not be registered at all, because, as I and other noble Lords have repeatedly said, it is the wish of most British parents that their children should be British and should be able to transmit British citizenship.
So there is a very great danger, as the Bill is now drafted, that somebody will not register a child under Clause 3(2) and it may, therefore, be stateless for some time. That child will then be brought, by hook or by crook, to the United Kingdom—I am not sure how this will happen—and be registered under Clause 3(6), after the residential period has been fulfilled, and the child will then become a full British citizen. So that the British parent by descent has these options from which he or she has to choose.
It seems to me a very unreasonable option to put before parents of children being born abroad, when these British citizens by descent are, even in the terms of the Bill, bound by close connection with the United Kingdom through the kind of employment which they are undertaking. So this amendment seeks to upgrade those children who would become British citizens by descent by registration under Clause 3(2), and by the consequential effect of Clause 13(1)(a), if their parents brought them back to this country and they stayed here for the necessary number of years.
I quite accept that the effect of the drafting may not be totally in accord with what the Government or I desire, or that they may require a slightly longer term of residence. But, surely, it cannot be right—if you have to have a child abroad registered so that it becomes a British citizen by descent, and you then come back to this country and have the child educated in this country and brought up as a British citizen—that children who are alien and spend the same amount of time in this country should have the right to become full British citizens after the requisite number of years as residents in this country, although they have previously had no connection at all with this country.
Similarly, under Clause 4 a citizen from a British dependent territory also has the right to come to this country and, after five years, to become a full British citizen. I must say that there is a very strong feeling,
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certainly among those British citizens I have met abroad, particularly in the circumstances of the European Communities, that their children, who are British citizens by descent as from the date when the Bill comes into force, will be deprived of the right of transmission of nationality through their children. This is a piece of retroactive legislation which nobody would support with equanimity. It works very inequitably against those who have been serving overseas, who have very close connections with this country and who do not want to lose links with this country either on social, economic or political grounds—and certainly not on nationality grounds. Even if the Government do not like the wording of the amendment, I hope that they will accept the principle that those who have been born abroad and who are British citizens by descent shall have the right to upgrade their nationality, like anybody else who comes from any other part of the world who does not have the benefit or even being a British citizen by descent. I beg to move.
Lord Avebury: A very important question occurred to me as I listened to the speech of the noble Baroness in moving the amendment. She outlined the dilemma which might face parents serving overseas for some considerable period of years who have a child out there and who then have to make up their minds whether the child is to be a British citizen by descent, as it would be if it were registered overseas, or whether at some stage during the child's minority they will bring it back to the United Kingdom and wait the requisite number of years so that it can be registered as a full British citizen with the right to transmit that citizenship to the child's own descendants.
The point I want to put to the Minister is this: under the immigration rules as they stand at present, a child may be admitted to the United Kingdom to accompany a single parent only if that parent has the sole responsibility for the child's upbringing. This means that if, half-way through the child's minority, the parents were to decide that it was so important that the child should acquire full citizenship that, say, the mother was going to return to the United Kingdom—the child might be going there, in any case, for the purposes of education and the mother would accompany the child to look after it during the holidays—the child would not then be eligible for admission to the United Kingdom because it could not be claimed that the parent in question had the sole responsibility for that child's upbringing. Therefore, during its minority, unless both parents return to the United Kingdom, at the possible sacrifice of the career of the working parent overseas, the residence qualifications could never be fulfilled. May I ask the noble Lord whether the Government are prepared to entertain any modification of the immigration rules so as to make it possible for one parent, in the circumstances which I have outlined, to return to the United Kingdom with the child for the purpose of gaining first-class citizenship for that child?
Lord Drumalbyn: Further to what the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has said, may I ask my noble friend what exactly is the status of a child born to a parent

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of British descent overseas with regard to coming back? It is not just a question of granting special immigration facilities—or it certainly ought not to be. I should have thought that that child, if application has been made for registration in the ordinary way, should from that time have the right of abode. This would get over the difficulty altogether. It seems absurd that the parents should have the right to come back with the child but that the parents have no right to send the child back to somebody whom they trust, even for term time. It certainly looks as though they have no right to do that. Children can go out again—and many children do under commercial contracts, service contracts and the rest—during the holidays to join their parents.
I have the feeling that this matter has not been fully thought out. My noble friend the Minister knows how enthusiastic I am that there should be something along the lines of the amendment which has been moved by my noble friend Lady Elles, and so far as they have had time during the course of the Bill I hope that my noble friend's department has already started to think about it. At any rate, I warmly support what the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, has said and I hope that the Government will he able to make it even more generous.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern: The structure of the Bill as it stands means that a British citizen is either a British citizen by descent or a British citizen otherwise than by descent. In other words, these two classes make up the whole class of British citizens and the classes are mutually exclusive. As I have said before, the distinction is however relevant in one context only. A British citizen otherwise than by descent can transmit his citizenship to a child born overseas, whereas a British citizen by descent cannot. As I have already said, it is only children born overseas who are affected. A child born in this country to a British citizen would be a British citizen otherwise than by descent, whether his parent was a British citizen otherwise than by descent or a citizen by descent.
It follows that a British citizen by descent who comes to live permanently in the United Kingdom will be at no disadvantage at all as regards any children born to him in this country. Nor is there any other disadvantage which he would suffer in this country as a citizen by descent. If he took advantage, therefore, of a provision such as is suggested by the amendment, he would be given a certificate of registration which he would not in fact need, so far as this country is concerned. I think it very likely that that would happen in very many of the cases which would fall to be registered under a provision such as my noble friend has suggested. But an extra registration procedure would mean an extra administrative burden, which in turn would mean more staff or longer delays or possibly, if there was not sufficient staff, a little of both. I think that your Lordships should question whether this is really justified when so many applicants will derive no real benefit from their registration.
I accept, however, that for some applicants improvement of their status as proposed in this amendment would bring some advantage. There are the people
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who, after their two-year stay here, would wish to go overseas again with the ability to pass on their citizenship to any children born to them abroad later, and I suppose it is those that my noble friend has in mind. In such cases the provision would not be in any real sense recognising any deeper commitment to this country on the part of the person registered. It would instead he something that really contemplated a person thinking of leaving again. In other words, it is not something that suggests a continuing link but rather suggests that it would only be of use where the person in question was proposing not to have a continuing link with this country.
Therefore, in our view, the result, if this amendment were passed, would be to extend down the generations British citizenship, although the real links with this country were extremely tenuous. I think your Lordships should note that it would be possible under the amendment for the transmission of citizenship otherwise than by descent to be acquired by a child during his minority after two years at school here, whereas his parents might well be living overseas all this time, his real future lying with them there. I suggest to your Lordships that it is highly questionable whether a link of this sort, which might not be lasting, should be sufficient to enable British citizenship, containing, as we know, the right of abode, to be passed on for a further generation. Our view, for the reasons I have given, is that a provision on the lines of this amendment is not necessary and certainly is not desirable.
With regard to the question put to me by my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn, the situation is that for these children the Bill intends that they should be registered under Clause 3(2) if their parent in question has the right kind of connection with the United Kingdom. Of course registration as a citizen under that clause will carry with it the right of entry and abode in the United Kingdom. So that the problem he had in mind would not arise if that course were taken. I appreciate that there might be some problem if someone wanted to keep his options open after that stage, in the manner suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury; but the ordinary procedure under the Bill would be for registration under Clause 3(2) as a British citizen by descent, which would carry with it right of abode in this country. In the light of that explanation I hope that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Avebury: Could the noble Lord deal with the point I made as to how the parents would exercise their right to bring the child back into this country so that it fulfilled the residence requirement for full citizenship, bearing in mind the sole responsibility rule which we find in the present immigration rules? If the two parents are overseas at the time of the birth they may decide they do not want to follow the Clause 3(2) procedure—because, whether the noble Lord likes it or not, it confers in their minds an inferior brand of citizenship; they want while the child is still a minor to bring the child back into the United Kingdom, which they may in any case have intended to do for the purposes of education, and that education may proceed for long enough to fulfil the necessary residence qualification. But as long as one parent continues to

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remain working overseas, I believe they would at present fall foul of the rule that a child may only be admitted for settlement if both parents are settled here in the United Kingdom, or if the one parent he is coming to join is solely responsible for his upbringing.
Bear in mind that this child is not a citizen of any country; by definition, if the parents have not exercised their rights under Clause 3(2) to register him, what we are talking about is admission of a stateless minor to accompany one of his parents in the United Kingdom. I am asking the noble Lord, will any modification to the immigration rules be entertained by the Government to permit that to happen where the parents do want to use this method of acquisition of full citizenship for their child?
Lord Mackay of Clashfern: I am not absolutely clear about what method the noble Lord is referring to for acquisition of citizenship, because if it is not Clause 3(2)—and I am assuming that from his example—it must be, I would think, Clause 3(6). The necessary condition for Clause 3(6) is that the parents accompany the child, assuming there are two parents, and that is the situation the noble Lord is contemplating. So the Clause 3(6) provision appears to me to fit reasonably well with the present immigration rules, and it cannot be too surprising if the noble Lord is thinking of some different arrangement from the one in the Bill and then finds that it does not fit with the present immigration rules, which I think is the dilemma he is putting to me. I am not sure that that is an entirely fair proposition, because the only method of acquisition that I can see that would apply in the circumstances is the Clause 3(6) procedure.
Baroness Elles: I was asked whether I was satisfied with the explanation given by my noble and learned friend the Lord Advocate, he will understand if I say I was not. We have not been given very much guidance as to the choice parents would take between registering by entitlement under Clause 3(2) when the child is born abroad, and hopefully waiting and trying to smuggle this stateless child into the United Kingdom in order to be able to register after a suitable number of years under Clause 3(6) to become a full citizen. I think these options are undesirable without benefit of remedy, which this amendment would give the opportunity to the parents to do.
The noble Lord said that it might be administratively difficult and might entail one or two more civil servants to deal with this type of registration. First, I believe the number of cases would not be very many, and, secondly, if there are many, then we should have the civil servants. Civil servants are here to serve the public and British citizens, not the other way round. Thirdly, the fact of the matter is that under the Bill, as noble Lords know, on the day that the Bill comes into force there will be several hundreds, if not thousands, of young people who will be British citizens by descent. Many of my friends have said, "My child was horn in Rome", or, "My child was born in Japan", or, "My child was horn"—wherever it happened to be— "and he will not now be able to transmit British citizenship under this Bill. When my children come home, of course, I shall not want them to work in any
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international firm or any firm which sends them abroad, because I do not want to risk them having children who will not be British, or having grandchildren who will not be British citizens".
We are not all sitting in the Home Office or wherever. We are a trading nation. Most of our people who are earning benefits for the prosperity of the citizens of this country are not in this country at all; they are outside this country earning money by exports and by helping employment in this country. We shall not continue to have employment in this country if a good many people are not prepared to sacrifice many days or years of their life outside it.
I would put it to my noble and learned friend the Lord Advocate, who is, after all, a Scotsman: does he really imagine that although he is spending several years in the South, he does not have an intention to return to Scotland? I cannot believe that that would be so. Although he may be said to have no connection at the moment with that country, f cannot believe that any good Scotsman—and my own family have many Scotsmen in it—does not dream of returning to Scotland and spending the rest of his days there. This is equally true of British citizens who are abroad. They may spend 30 or 40 years of their working life abroad, but they have been educated in this country. Their roots are in this country. Their family and relations are in this country and they have every intention to return to this country, and often they have a second home which they come back to for their holidays or they send their children back.
I think that Ministers must be a little more aware of what is happening on the Continent in particular, and in British business. The prosperity of this country does not rest in this country; it rests outside it. Therefore, the least that could be done is to have a serious look at the type of amendment which is to protect those of our British citizens who are contributing to our prosperity and sacrificing a large section of their working life outside this country.
Lord Drumalbyn: It seems to me that both of my noble friends have rather a fixation about the possibility that a child who comes home for education here is almost certain, because of the fact that he was born abroad, to go abroad again. That seems to me to be quite extraordinary. It seems that the options should be kept open the whole time and that the methods adopted to judge whether or not the child should himself become a British citizen or even a British citizen by descent, must leave the option open to the latest possible moment. The idea that the choice should be made within three years, or whatever, is just absurd.
I cannot refrain at this stage from giving a slight personal reference. I was born abroad. I was one of seven children. My father spent all his working life abroad. My mother came home at equal intervals: she spent half her time at home and half her time with her children. Not one of the seven children went to work abroad afterwards. I ask the noble and learned Lord to bear that type of case in mind because it is upon that sort of case—and I may say that the next generation have gone abroad—that the future of this country is bound to depend.
I must say that one reason why my generation did

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not go abroad was the difficulty created by my father's absence abroad all the time. That is a great handicap that has to be overcome, but at the same time it is all the more important to make it as easy as possible, not more difficult, for people from this country to spend their working life abroad.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern: On the point raised by my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn, far from having a fixation of the kind he describes, I am saying that people in that category will have no disadvantage at all. People who come back and stay on in this country will have no disadvantage at all because, as I have sought to point out, a British citizen by descent who then remains in this country and has children here will of course have children who will be British citizens otherwise than by descent. So far as my noble friend Lady Elles is concerned, I well appreciate the dream of Scotland that so many of her family have. I only hope that it will be fully realised.
Baroness Elles: I very much hope that my noble and learned friend the Lord Advocate will look a little more closely at this amendment in the light of the comments that have been made during these past few minutes; that he will realise that nowadays we live in a very mobile society; that because of unemployment people are very willing to go to the Continent for a short period of time; and that people want to be able to take their families with them: they do not want to have to leave them at home in order to have children born in this country; they want to have them wherever they may be.
I very much hope that in view of this debate my noble and learned friend will be able to look at this amendment in a slightly more favourable light. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 13, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 14 [Acquisition by birth or adoption]:
[Amendment No. 119 not moved.]
10.17 p.m.
Lord Elwyn-Jones Lord Elwyn-Jones moved Amendment No. 119ZA:
Page 15, line 4, at beginning insert—
("( ) In this Part of the Act the expression "a citizen of the British Dependent Territories" means a citizen of any one of the British Dependent Territories.
( ) A passport issued after commencement to a citizen of the British Dependent Territories shall designate the holder as a British (…) citizen, inserting within the parentheses the name of the dependency of which the person is a citizen.").
The noble and learned Lord said: We now come—at last, if I may say so—to Part II of the Bill. During the debate on the Gibraltar issue I ventured to express the opinion that a generic citizenship of the dependent territories was meaningless. The largest of them all, Hong Kong—and I know that the noble Lord, Lord Geddes, is interested in this matter—has been particularly concerned at what it feels to be a distancing of the United Kingdom from association with Hong Kong. So long as Hong Kong and the United Kingdom enjoy a common citizenship with each other, as they
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do now, even the fact that this common citizenship has been, in effect, split up by immigration law has not taken away altogether the feeling that the United Kingdom is committed to a connection with the people of Hong Kong, which is a feeling of great importance in view of the events which will occur by the end of the century.
However, there is a real worry now on the part of the Hong Kong Government that as a result of the Bill it will appear less British in the eyes of the world and the people with whom the people of Hong Kong have dealings. One effect of the amendment which I now move would be to meet that anxiety by emphasising the British connection in the name of the new citizenship status. As your Lordships will see:
"In this part of the Act the expression "a citizen of the British Dependent Territories" means a citizen of any one of the British Dependent Territories".
So it is an attempt to identify a citizenship in each particular territory; and, secondly:
"A passport issued after commencement to a citizen of the British Dependent Territories shall designate the holder as a British—
I have mentioned Hong Kong—
"(Hong Kong) citizen, inserting within the parentheses the name of the dependency of which the person is a citizen".
We make this proposal in order to emphasise the word "British" in this connection. A Gibraltarian would be called a "British Gibraltar citizen", although after the success of the Gibraltar amendment today, that may no longer be necessary. Indeed, I should have amended my note in the light of that event. But a Burmudan citizen would be a "British Burmuda citizen". That description would be clearly enough differentiated from the British citizenship description that will apply to most of us in this country, to ensure that no confusion results. At the same time, we feel that the use of this formula will assert the reality of the British connection in a way that the generalised citizenship of all the dependencies does not do. Although we believe that the name is in itself important, we are suggesting in this amendment an improvement that will provide that a particular status is attached to each dependency in something more than name.
One of the drawbacks of generalised citizenship in the Bill is that it does not give holders of this category of citizenship rights in all dependencies. Clearly it does not do that. Furthermore, it does not give them clear rights in any one dependency. To achieve right of abode anywhere at all, holders will have to depend not on their citizenship but on the particular immigration ordinances of the relevant dependent territory.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: Quite right too.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: These ordinances vary enormously. Some citizens of the dependent territories will have no right of abode anywhere—not even in the territory where they were born. Clauses 15 to 24 make provision for the citizenship of the dependent territories being acquired in future, and to us these clauses appear to be almost incomprehensible. If we are not to have a truly common citizenship, which we shall not have in spite of the generality of this classification, let us at least be clear about the separate status of citizens in

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the dependent territories and give them all something which relates clearly to a particular territory so that they may know where they stand.
Whether what I have suggested in regard to Hong Kong will be the formula most acceptable to Hong Kong, I do not know; but we put this forward as an important provision to ensure that the peoples of the dependencies are given a status which confers a clear right of abode in a particular territory, which the present language and plan and structure of the Bill does not, in our submission, provide. I beg to move.
Lord Geddes: It will not surprise the noble and learned Lord opposite, nor indeed my noble friends on the Front Bench, that I warmly support the principle lying behind the aims of this amendment, particularly as it refers to Hong Kong. I believe that the noble and learned Lord was right in concentrating on Hong Kong when making his remarks. As was said during a brief interjection in the debate on what one might call "the Gibraltar amendment", I too am not totally certain whether the wording suggested by the noble and learned Lord opposite in respect of Hong Kong is entirely correct, but the spirit behind the amendment is the point to emphasise.
There is very real concern—and I have felt this concern among my own many connections in Hong Kong—and a strong wish among the people there to remain being seen as British. The wording on the present Hong Kong British passport, as I demonstrated to your Lordships during the Second Reading, is:
"British citizen, subject of the United Kingdom and Colonies".
If that wording is not permitted to continue as a result of the passing of this Bill, then some such wording—emphasising in particular the words "British" and "subject"—is of very real importance to the people in Hong Kong, for reasons that may appear to your Lordships to be inconsequential here, but which are of extreme consequence to the people of Hong Kong in their position, both geographical and political. The important point—it has been said many times before and I make no apologies for saying it again; my noble friends Lord Campbell of Croy and Lord Boyd-Carpenter have said it—that Hong Kong is most anxious to hear (the noble Lord the Lord President referred to it earlier today) is repeated affirmation of the British responsibility towards the people of Hong Kong.
It is of great importance to them, and that is why I warmly support the principle behind this amendment. What happens now after the Gibraltar amendment vis-à-vis the other dependent territories I think best to leave for discussion other than this evening. But it is important for Hong Kong in particular—and I am sure that will apply to the other dependent territories—that they are seen not only in this country, not even in their own dependent territory, but by the third world to continue to have close associations with Britain and therefore be deemed to be British.
10.27 p.m.
Lord Trefgarne: This amendment falls into two parts, and I shall, if I may, deal with them separately. The first would provide a new definition of citizen of the British dependent territories. It would be interpreted
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as meaning a citizen of any one of the dependent territories. This in turn would require a scheme of separate citizenships for each of the dependent territories, since the holder would only be a citizen of the British dependent territories if he or she were a citizen of one of them. We do not think that separate citizenships for each of the dependent territories is a practical option, since many of the territories are very small and they differ radically in structure and expectations. The existence of separate citizenships would not mean that every citizen of the British dependent territories would have the right of abode in one of the dependent territories unless each citizenship was defined by reference to the immigration ordinances of the territory concerned. This would lead to intolerable confusion, and would be fundamentally incompatible with the status of the dependent territories which after all are not sovereign states. So I am afraid that we see real difficulties in interpreting citizenship of the British dependent territories in the limited way proposed in the amendment.
The second part of the amendment would weaken the concept of a coherent and distinctive citizenship of the British dependent territories still further. It would mean that citizens of the British dependent territories would be described in their passports as British citizens with the name of the territory from which they derive their citizenship in parenthesis between the words "British" and "citizen". So a citizen of the British dependent territories from Hong Kong, for example, would be described as a British (Hong Kong) citizen. Now I appreciate that the peoples of the dependent territories are anxious, first, that their passports should make clear that the dependent territory from which they derive their status is British, and that the passport should also make clear the connection which they hold with this territory. This can, we believe, be done, under the Bill as it stands. The outside cover of a passport issued to a citizen of the British dependent territories in, say, Hong Kong would include the words "British passport" and a reference to Hong Kong, as at present. The description of citizenship held, on the first page inside, would refer to the holder as a citizen of the British dependent territories, and would indicate that he was from Hong Kong.
But, we believe that it would be wholly inappropriate and indeed misleading to describe citizens of the British dependent territories as British citizens in their passports. Part I of the Bill sets out very specific provisions for British citizenship and Part II does the same for citizenship of the British dependent territories. This amendment would confuse the two and would jeopardise one of the main aims of the Bill—to replace the present citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies with three citizenships which make clear how the holder derives his status. This amendment would be misleading in precisely the same way as the existing citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies is misleading. Describing a citizen of the British dependent territories as a British citizen, even with the name of the dependency inserted, would inevitably suggest that the holder had the right of abode in the United Kingdom.
Of course, elsewhere in the Bill the holder might be denied the right of abode in the United Kingdom. But the impression given by a phrase of this kind could be

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very different. Accordingly, therefore, we see considerable difficulties in this part of the amendment too, which would, we believe, undermine one of the basic principles of the Bill, and risk nullifying much of our work. I am afraid therefore that this amendment taken as a whole raises very considerable difficulties and I hope that, in view of what I have said, the noble and learned Lord and his colleagues will see fit not to press their amendment.
Lord Avebury: If this amendment undermined one of the principles of the Bill, and that was all it did, would be warmly in favour of it. But the trouble is that it leaves another of the principles of the Bill unimpaired and that is the creation of two different classes of citizenship which is what we objected to in the Green Paper of April 1977. The reason why I could not support the creation of separate citizenships for each of the dependent territories is because in the Liberal response to the Green Paper we called for a unified citizenship with those who lived in all the dependent territories, except Hong Kong, which would have its own citizenship entitled to exactly the same quality of citizenship as people who live in the United Kingdom itself. That, of course, includes the right of abode in the United Kingdom.
So we believe that the right course of action is not to have a number of separate citizenships for the Falkland Islands and so on but to incorporate them all in the British citizenship provided for under this Bill, to grant them the right of abode. We believe, incidentally, that the people in the other dependent territories would be no more likely to exercise the rieht of entry into the United Kingdom, and no less likely for that matter, than the people of Gibraltar would be after the concession we made to them this afternoon.
Lord Mishcon: Earlier I told the Committee of a recollection that I have of a beloved figure in this House, the first Viscount Samuel who, when proposing a toast to the Civil Service, paid them a very warm tribute and then said that the one thing he would always remember them for is that they had a problem for every solution. Whoever prepared the brief for the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, belongs high up in that category.
I do not intend at this hour to debate the issue which is contained in the first part of this amendment. I say that because it is so important that I think we would do an injustice to the dependent territories if this matter were debated in Committee distinguished by its quality but not its quantity at this hour. I think that the best thing we can possibly do, in view of Lord Trefgarne's answer to the first part, is to leave this to the report stage, if the noble and learned Lord who moved this amendment happens to be of that mind when we have completed our speeches on this amendment.
But, on the second part, I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, with absolute amazement. I do not think he could have had his head, let alone his heart, in the speech that he made. The noble Lord, Lord Renton, I think, earlier on accused me on the Gibraltar debate of letting the cat out of the bag. The whole
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of the case of the Government in regard to this Bill, as the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, in his short speech said, was that really, although there were categories of British citizenship in this Bill, everybody had very considerable rights and they were admitted to British citizenship in one form or another, and indeed it was ridiculous even to say that British overseas citizens had no rights at all and that it was a mere name.
We are now dealing with citizens who belong to the British dependencies; I will not again at this hour go into the desirability of that name. We are talking about a passport and about the ability of those citizens of British dependencies coming within that category to show without any mystery when they travel abroad—the name "British dependent territories" might be known by now to members of your Lordships' Committee, but it is not equally familiar, and will not be for many years, to immigration officials of high intelligence throughout the world—their attachment and the fact that they belong in one way or other to the great British family.
With great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, who travels abroad regularly and, I am told, pilots himself with great skill, I am sure he has many a time shown his passport with great pride to immigration officials. As he will agree, usually they do not even look at the outside; they immediately turn to the first page to which he referred. Is it really beyond the power of the Government, within the principles they have tried to outline for the Bill, to agree to a formula on page one of that passport saying "British citizen" and then in brackets the dependency concerned? That would give no rights, it would not mislead the intelligent immigration official, and it would not mislead the holder of the passport. It would make him just that much nearer a member of the family and, as I said, able to go with dignity throughout the world with the passport he holds.
The noble Lord, Lord Geddes, is an expert on Hong Kong. I have had the opportunity, as he and other noble Lords, of meeting those who are fairly high up in the representation of Hong Kong in this country. I do not want to identify any nearer than that. I know of the concern that the people of Hong Kong have—and, I am sure, the people of other dependencies have—about this very small concession in regard to the wording of the passport in the way that was indicated by my noble and learned friend. I hope that at this hour some of us who feel very much about this matter will have at least influenced the Government Front Bench to have a little more breadth of view and understanding in the matter and that there will at least be an undertaking to look again at the second part of the amendment so that we do not have to argue this case again on Report, as we certainly will do if the Government do not make that concession.
Lord Geddes: I would go further than the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon; I would, certainly in the case of Hong Kong (and I speak personally, as each member of the Committee does) be loath to see any reference to the country itself on the inside page. On the outside cover, as Lord Mishcon rightly said and my noble friend Lord Trafgarne agreed, there is printed the name of the country concerned. Surely that is sufficient for the passport. What I was trying to put

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in my earlier intervention was that there should just be the words, "British subject" or "British citizen" or whatever the phrase might be, on the inside. My noble friend will correct me if I misrepresent him, but I thought I heard him say that to do that would give the impression that the holder had the right of abode in the United Kingdom. But the present Hong Kong British passport states:
"British subject, citizen of United Kingdom and Colonies".
The people of Hong Kong, effectively all of the 2·6 million people who are eligible, know very well that they do not have the right of abode in the United Kingdom; and they are not looking for it, either. They are looking for a clear-cut statement from the Bill that they are British and will remain so.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: After hearing the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, I wonder how much consultation there has been with the relevant dependent territories about this kind of matter; nil, I would imagine. I regard this as a very important matter, and I am deeply dismayed by the total indication of non-co-operation from the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne. But for the lateness of the hour, I would be tempted, out of sheer irritation, to test the mood of the Committee, but I am not so easily irritated. We have all had communications—well, I have certainly had a number of communications—especially from Hong Kong, confirming the anxieties expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Geddes. One of my few claims to respectability is that my daughter once taught in the Diocesan Girls' College in Hong Kong, and so I have a very keen feeling about it. But, seriously speaking, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, will at least say that he will look again at this matter, not only in regard to the passport aspect but also the first part of the amendment.
Lord Nathan: There is one point I should like to ask the Minister about, and it relates not to the privileges of the passport holders, but to the effect of the passport on the countries to which a visit is made. I certainly support the thoughts behind the amendment, but what worries me about a passport which states in effect that the holder belongs to the dependent territories is that it does not identify with any particular country. As I understand it, one of the basic concepts relating to how a passport works in a country being visited is that the receiving country—it matters not which; it might be France, Germany, or Belgium—is aware on the face of the passport that in certain circumstances the holder can be deported. Under the concepts of international law as generally accepted the country which issues the passport is bound to to accept the return of the holder. If the passport refers merely to British dependent territories, what will be the effect on the immigration authorities in France, Germany, Belgium, or wherever it might be? In those circumstances will there not be difficulty in regard to receiving visitors, for the reason that I have given?
Lord Trefgarne: I shall deal with some of the points raised in the last few moments. The main thrust of the amendment is to provide and to create a separate citizenship for each of the dependent territories, and the proposal in the second part of the amendment to
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provide a passport for each of those citizenships of course flows from the first part of the proposal. Several noble Lords, especially the noble Lord, Lord Geddes, have attached particular importance to the second part of the amendment, but I should say that it flows essentially from the first part of the amendment, and therefore I shall address my remarks to that particular proposal.
As we have been told on various occasions during the passage of the Bill, the dependent territories vary very much indeed in size. Some contain only 1,000 or so inhabitants, and there are others, such as Hong Kong, for example—the biggest one, I think—where 2½ million or so people live. Is it really suggested that each and every one of those dependencies, from the very smallest to the largest, actually merits the creation of a separate citizenship? I suggest to your Lordships that that is not so, but that is the effect of the amendment that we are asked to consider, and I hope your Lordships will take note of that.
On the second passport point, which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, and other noble Lords referred to, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, that, of course, is a different and separate matter, but as noble Lords already know (because I explained it in my opening remarks) the people of Hong Kong, for example, already have the name of their country shown on the passport, and I do not think that the different arrangements which are proposed in the amendment really would make that much difference.
But the important point is that it would be wrong to put in the passport something that would be misleading, and to suggest, with the form of words that has been incorporated in the amendment, that the person concerned was a British citizen would not be accurate and would not be a proper thing, I would say, to include in the passport, because they will not be British citizens. That is the fundamental objection to that part of the proposal contained in the amendment. For those reasons, I hope the noble and learned Lord and his colleagues will not see fit to press this amendment now.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: I am bound to say that that message would be a very depressing one to be heard in all the dependent territories. I hope it will not become too widely known. What is disturbing is that the noble Lord the Minister did not say whether there had been consultation with the Government of Hong Kong or the other territories.
Lord Trefgarne: I apologise for not covering that point. I can assure the noble and learned Lord that there have been very close consultations with the Government of Hong Kong, including, in particular, of course, the Governor himself.
Lord Elwyn-Jones: It seems to have been the dialogue of the deaf so far as the communications that I have had from Hong Kong are concerned; but I will ask leave to withdraw the amendment, with the undertaking and the threat (if that is the right word) that I will return to it again in some form or another at Report stage.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Elwyn-Jones Lord Elwyn-Jones had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 119A:
Leave out clause 14 and insert the following new clause:
("Citizenship of dependent territories
14. The Secretary of State before commencement of the Act, shall proclaim by orders subject to the approval of both Houses of Parliament, schemes for the citizenship of each of the dependent territories specified in Schedule 6.").
The noble and learned Lord said: It is evident from what has transpired already that I have very little prospect of receiving the support of the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, on this amendment, either. All I can say is that from such knowledge as I have of the reactions outside Government circles, few people have had a good word to say about the Government's plan in the Bill for the dependencies. It is almost universally disapproved, in the dependencies and elsewhere. I have heard no praise for the plan, but a great deal of criticism. But I think that as to this, again, the better course is for us to hold our gunfire until the Report stage, in view of the obvious indication from the Government Front Bench that we shall get nowhere tonight on this matter.
[Amendment No. 119A not moved.]
Clause 14 agreed to.
Clause 15 agreed to.
Clause 16 [Acquisition by registration: minors]:
Lord Trefgarne Lord Trefgarne moved Amendment No. 120A:
Page 16, line 37, after ("or") insert ("the").
The noble Lord said: This amendment is consequential on one moved earlier in our proceedings by my noble friend Lord Geddes—Amendment No. 46—which added a definite article to Clause 3(2)(c). The Government accepted that amendment, and it is clearly desirable that a corresponding amendment should be made to the equivalent provision in the scheme for citizenship of the British dependent territories. Otherwise, it might be thought that there was some significant difference between the two provisions because one had a definite article and the other did not. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
10.50 p.m.
Lord Trefgarne Lord Trefgarne moved Amendment No. 121:
Page 17, line 2, at end insert ("(whether or not in a dependent territory)").
The noble Lord said: This is a minor change which corresponds to that your Lordships' Committee agreed to in Clause 3(3). Like that amendment, it is designed to make clear that the period of relevant employment, which is one of the requirements a citizen of the British dependent territories has to meet to secure citizenship under Clause 16(2) for his child born outside the dependent territories, can be undertaken in a dependent territory or elsewhere. The Bill as it stands in fact already achieves this, but it was put to us, in connection with the definition of relevant employment in Clause 3(3), that this was not entirely clear. The Committee agreed to amend Clause 3(3) to remove any uncertainty on this point and a corresponding amendment is now needed to Clause 16(3), so that the two schemes of citizenship are on the same footing in this respect. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 16, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 17 agreed to.
Schedule 1 agreed to.
Clauses 18 to 23 agreed to.
Clause 24 [Meaning of citizen of the British dependent territories "by descent"]:
10.52 p.m.
Lord Trefgarne Lord Trefgarne moved Amendment No. 126:
Page 24, line 28, after ("(d)") insert ("subject to subsection (2),").
The noble Lord said: With the permission of the Committee, I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 126, 127 and 128. These are minor amendments which are needed to ensure that Clause 24(1)(d) applies only to those for whom it is intended and to no one else. Clause 24(1)(d) is intended to ensure that women who become citizens of the British dependent territories on commencement become citizens by descent if their claim to citizenship rests solely on their marriage to a man who becomes a citizen of the British dependent territories by descent on commencement, or would have done so but for his death.
The first of these amendments ensures that no woman in this group becomes a citizen by descent if she was born outside the dependent territories before commencement and her father was at the time of her birth in Crown service under the Government of a dependent territory (or was in associated service which had been so designated), and had been recruited for such service in a dependent territory. This is in line with the arrangements we are making generally for the children of such officers, where those concerned were born before commencement, and is part of our policy that the children of such people should not be at any disadvantage in transmitting their citizenship because of their parent's occupation at the time of their birth. It is right that these principles should apply to this group.
The second of these amendments ensures that this paragraph covers only a woman who, on commencement, becomes a citizen of the British dependent territories under Clause 22(l)(c), solely because of her marriage to a man who becomes a citizen of the British dependent territories and is a citizen by descent. An example would be a woman born in a foreign country who has married a man who is descended from a father born in the dependent territories and has taken up her entitlement to her husband's citizenship under our present nationality law. Clause 24(1)(d) as at present drafted, however, covers not only a woman of this kind but also a woman who, while she becomes a citizen of the British dependent territories at commencement under Clause 22(1)(c) and her husband is a citizen by descent, also has a claim to citizenship under Clause 22(1)(a) because she was born in a dependent territory. Now this woman would not be a citizen by descent; she was born in a dependent territory and should be able to transmit her citizenship like anyone else who is a citizen by birth. So it is necessary to make this amendment to Clause 24(1)(d) to narrow its ambit only to those women whose claim to citizenship rests solely on their marriage, and to

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exclude from it women who have a claim to citizenship in some other way.
But if it is vital that this provision does not go too wide, equally it is vital that it is not too narrow and fails to cover women who should be citizens by descent. That is why we have proposed the third amendment. This provides that a woman who becomes a citizen of the British dependent territories on commencement through marriage to a man who is such a citizen, will be a citizen by descent if her husband is a citizen by descent under paragraph (b) of this subsection—or would have been but for his death. At present, this provision only covers women in this situation if their husbands are citizens by descent under paragraph (c) of this subsection—or would have been but for their death. This would lead to indefensible anomalies, for we need to treat the wives of these two groups of citizens by descent on the same basis. I appreciate that these are not altogether easy to follow, but I assure your Lordships that they are essential if this provision is to work fairly and equitably, and reflect the general principles governing the transmission of citizenship under this Bill. I beg to move.
Lord Mottistone: I find it difficult to follow my noble friend, as he suggested, but I think I can take it that Amendment No. 127 does not challenge the virtue of the ladies to whom he was referring.
Lord Trefgarne: Naturally.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Trefgarne Lord Trefgarne moved Amendment No. 127:
Page 24, line 30, leave out ("by virtue only") and insert ("only, and did so only by virtue").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Trefgarne Lord Trefgarne moved Amendment No. 128:
Page 24, line 35, after ("paragraph") insert ("(b) or").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Trefgarne Lord Trefgarne moved Amendment No. 129:
Page 24, line 35, at end insert—
("(dd) subject to subsection (2), being a woman born outside the dependent territories before commencement, she is a citizen of the British Dependent Territories as a result of her registration as such a citizen under section 19 by virtue of being or having been married to a man who at commencement became such a citizen by descent or would have done so but for his having died or ceased to be a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies as a result of a declaration of renunciation; or").
The noble Lord said: This is a minor amendment to the arrangements for citizenship of the British dependent territories by descent. It is needed to rectify an anomaly and brings the scheme of citizenship of the British dependent territories into line with that for British citizenship in this respect.
Those covered by the amendment are women married before commencement to men who become (or would have become) citizens of the British dependent territories by descent and who are themselves registered as such citizens after commencement under Clause 19 of the Bill. This clause enables a woman who has been married to a man who becomes (or would have become) a citizen of the British dependent territories
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to acquire citizenship of the British dependent territories, if certain conditions are met. This amendment simply provides that such a woman will be a citizen of the British dependent territories by descent if her husband is a citizen by descent (or would have been). I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
11 p.m.
Lord Trefgarne Lord Trefgarne moved Amendment No. 130:
Page 24, line 42, at end insert (", (c) or (d)").
The noble Lord said: This amendment is the counterpart of Amendment No. 117 to Clause 13, which your Lordships agreed earlier. It amends Clause 24(1)(e) which is intended to ensure that citizens of British dependent territories are citizens by descent if they have renounced citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies before commencement; are registered after commencement as citizens of the British dependent territories under Clause 21; and if they would have become citizens of the British dependent territories by descent if they had not renounced. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 24, as amended, agreed to.
Lord Denham: We have made fairly satisfactory progress today, and although I have, I know, threatened your Lordships with a rather later sitting, I think that as we have got a certain way we might possibly leave matters here for the time being. I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

United Reformed Church Bill [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons agreed to with an amendment: the said amendment considered and agreed to.