Sitting of 11 June 1979

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

COMMITTEE OF SELECTION
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That Mr. Ronald W. Brown, Mr. Walter Clegg, Mr. A. P. Costain, Mr. Ifor Davies, Mr. Paul Dean, Mr. James Hamilton, Mr. Philip Holland, Mr. Harry. Lamborn and Mr. Kenneth Lewis be members of the Committee of Selection.—[Mr. Cope.]
Objection being taken to further Proceeding, the debate stood adjourned.
Debate to be resumed tomorrow at Seven o'clock.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  ENERGY

    Wave Energy
    Mr. Jesselasked the Secretary of State for Energy what progress is being made in assessing the prospects for generating electricity from sea waves.
    Mrs. Renée Shortasked the Secretary of State for Energy if he is satisfied that Great Britain's wave energy research is proceeding fast enough to ensure that the United Kingdom is in a position to gain from this potential source of power.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. John Moore): Results so far in the wave energy programme suggest that costs will be higher, and the quantities of energy obtained smaller, than initially estimated. There are grounds for believing that improvements can be made, and present research is being concentrated on the areas of design which will be most important in doing this. I am satisfied that work on this new technology is being pursued as fast as is practicable, and intend to keep progress under review in the light of advice from the advisory council for research and development.
    Mr. Jessel: As Britain leads the world in research into wave energy, which experts estimate could produce a substantial proportion of our electricity requirements at today's levels—say, 30 per cent. to 50 per cent.—and as in the next century the costs of coal and oil may increase faster than the cost of energy from this new source, should we not go flat out towards producing it?
    Mr. Moore: With my very limited experience in the subject, and knowing my hon. Friend's experience as author of a specific report on wave power for the Western European Union, obviously I listen carefully to what he says. On the basis of the limited advice so far received from the ACRD, the Department is very conscious of the importance of wave power. All that can be done technically so far has been done and is being pursued. We shall certainly watch the matter, however.
    Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Does that reply take into account the experiments conducted at Strangford Lough, and will they be continued?
    Mr. Moore: I am not personally aware of the details. I shall pursue the matter immediately and come back on it at a later date.
    Mr. Hooley: What is the revision of costs now being made? What is the scale of the change in estimates from those that were made before?
    Mr. Moore: Clearly the hon. Gentleman would not want me to go into too much detail. The original suggestion was that we were talking about considerably lower costs than suggested by the initial technical estimates which now put the figure at about 20p to 50p per kilowatt hour. It is suggested that, with further engineering work, that figure might ultimately be brought down to the range of 5p to 10p per kilowatt hour. It is on that basis that studies will be pursued.

    Alternative Sources
    Mr. Knoxasked the Secretary of State for Energy what discussions he has had with the European Commission regarding alternative sources of energy.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. Norman Lamont): Neither my right hon. Friend nor I have yet discussed this specific topic within the Community forum. A Council of Research
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    Ministers is planned for 27 June, where a Commission proposal for a second four-year energy research and development programme, mainly on alternative energies and energy conservation, is likely to be considered.
    Mr. Knox: Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be much better for the member countries of the EEC to pool their resources in this research rather than have individual countries pursuing it, with the inevitable duplication that that involves?
    Mr. Lamont: I agree with my hon. Friend. Given the scale of money involved and the distance of the likely returns from these projects, this is an area where it makes sense for individual countries to pool their resources.
    Mr. Cook: Can the Minister give the current figures for the proportion of the research and development budget of his Department which is being spent on research into alternative sources and conservation, and say how it compares with the proportion being spent on research into nuclear power?
    Mr. Lamont: There is a substantial difference. In the EEC context, we have provisionally allocated £15·7 million over three or four years to research and development. These amounts will be increased as progress justifies. The current energy research and development programme of the Community itself amounts to 59 million European units of account for the four years ending 30 June 1979.
    Mr. Rippon: Will my hon. Friend give priority to research into the development of the electric motor car?
    Mr. Lamont: That subject falls within the Department, although not specifically within the matters which it is at present intended to discuss at the Council of Research Ministers. But I can assure my right hon. and learned Friend that it is a subject into which a lot of research is being done by the industry.
    Mr. Christopher Price: Will the hon. Gentleman not get too obsessive about putting all our energy into these programmes through the European Economic Community? Is he aware that there are many forms of alternative energy which are especially applicable in Britain, and that the research for them in many

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    ways is better done here, where we know our needs, than in Europe, where they may not focus on our real needs?
    Mr. Lamont: My hon. Friend explained earlier that there is a national programme of research into alternative sources of energy. In this question, we are discussing a few specific areas where we have decided to pool resources. Obviously, care is taken to see that these research programmes are complementary to national programmes and do not merely duplicate them.
    Mr. Forman: Will my hon. Friend ensure that the interests of energy storage are not lost sight of in this work with our EEC partners, since they form a vital part of the future success of alternative sources of energy?
    Mr. Lamont: This is a matter which is being reviewed in our national programme. I shall see whether it is one which can also be considered in the Community collaboration.

    Coal Liquefaction
    Mr. Gwilym Robertsasked the secretary of state for Energy what steps he is taking to encourage the extraction of oil and chemicals from coal.
    Mr. Eadieasked the secretary of state for Energy if he will make a statement on the progress of the two United Kingdom projects involved in the extraction of oil and chemicals from coal.
    Mr. Moore: A Government-aided consultancy study for the design of two National Coal Board pilot plants to extract oil and chemicals from coal began in April this year.
    Later this week, I intend visiting the coal research establishment of the NCB to learn, at first hand, of the board's work on coal liquefaction.
    Mr. Roberts: But in view of changing economics, is it not time rapidly to speed up this development and move from research into production? If we are moving into the production stage, will the hon. Gentleman favourably consider areas such as Cannock Chase which are on the borders of the growing Midlands coalfield?
    Mr. Moore: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will recall from previous years
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    that the location will be a matter for the NCB, which obviously is considering a number of sites and hopes to reach a decision this summer. Our advice so far suggests that there is no lack of interest and concern about this vital project, which will have our urgent attention. However, there seems to be nothing specific which can be done at this stage to quicken the process.
    Mr. Eadie: But is the hon. Gentleman aware that the process of extracting oil from coal now ranks in importance with the development of the silicon chip? Will he assure the House that in any public expenditure cuts the oil-from-coal technology will be left untouched?
    Mr. Moore: I hope that I may be permitted to say how much I recognise the responsibility of following in office the hon. Member for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie) after all his work, not only in this area but in the coal industry as well. Recognising that work, I can assure him that the Government will support the pilot plant design studies, bearing in mind the vital importance of those developments for our country.
    Mr. David Price: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that many years ago we were making oil from coal? The process is well known; it is all a question of relative economics.
    Mr. Moore: I am aware of what was going on in the 1930s and 1940s. It is always difficult to give a rule of thumb, but one thing which is coming from the study by the NCB is more specific detail; if one can today assume processing costs of about $15 to $20 a barrel and fuel costs, at £30 a ton production, of about $20 to $25 a barrel, we are already talking in terms of a not-too-distant possibility of price of $35 to $45 a barrel for synthetic crude, so it is more than in the hereafter.
    Mr. Gordon Wilson: Remembering that about £300 million worth of natural gas will be flared in the North Sea this year, will the Minister give attention to the commercial possibilities of producing chemical by-products from natural and petroleum gases and making sure that this valuable product is not wasted in that way?
    Mr. Moore: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is aware of the research being

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    done at Stoke Orchard. I shall give this as much attention as the other areas, but it is clear that the scientific development in NCB laboratories is far in advance of that of many of our competitor nations.

    Council of Energy Ministers
    Mr. Arnoldasked the secretary of state for Energy when he expects next to meet his colleagues in the EEC.
    Mr. Proctorasked the secretary of state for Energy when he expect next to meet his colleagues in the EEC.
    The Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. David Howell): I shall be meeting my EEC energy colleagues at the next meeting of the Council of Energy Ministers which is presently expected to be on 18 June.
    Mr. Arnold: When my right hon. Friend next sees his EEC colleagues, will he press for an across-the-board reduction in oil consumption of about 5 per cent. throughout the Community?
    Mr. Howell: An across-the-board 5 per cent. reduction is already an accepted and agreed target with the EEC Ministers, as it is with the International Energy Agency countries as well. Different national programmes, including our own, are directed at achieving demand restraint and a cut in demand of that order in the present year.
    Mr. Proctor: Will my right hon. Friend give a simple and clear assurance that Britain will retain control over her own oil supplies?
    Mr. Howell: Of course, we must see that the needs of British industry and the consumer are met. That is certainly my determination, but we intend to do it in line with our international and EEC obligations. I think that that is the right way forward. I believe that we shall make more progress on that basis than by, as it were, declaring war on the EEC the whole time.
    Dr. Bray: Will the right hon. Gentleman explore with the European energy Ministers how they have managed to prevent the oil companies from putting their customers on to allocation while in Britain the oil companies have put their customers on to allocation?
    Mr. Howell: I shall be making a statement on precisely this point later today, if I have your permission, Mr. Speaker, and certainly I shall expand upon it then. But the hon. Member is right. The position which the new Government faced when we came into office on 4 May was very unsatisfactory. It does not meet aims of the kind that I wish to see for British industry and for the British people.
    Mr. Hordern: What discussions has my right hon. Friend had with his colleagues in the European Community about making the strongest representations to the Government of the United States, who seem to be following a policy of increasing consumption at home while forcing up the price abroad?
    Mr. Howell: I share the thought behind my hon. Friend's question. I have had discussions with other energy Ministers in the EEC. On behalf of EEC Ministers collectively, in the role of the presidency, the French energy Minister flew to Washington to make the strongest possible representations and to point out the dangers of unilateral action of this kind.
    Dr. J. Dickson Mabon: May we take it from the Secretary of State that, in view of his chairmanship of the IEA in Paris 19 or 20 days ago on the subject of coal, he will try to make a major initiative on the Council of Ministers, as his predecessors did, to get a European agreement on coal production?
    Mr. Howell: I should like to make progress in an EEC context on the production of coal. I believe that we stand a better chance, although I am sure the right hon. Gentleman understands the difficulties, if we start from the proposition that it is in our national interest to work with the EEC rather than against the EEC.

    Central Electricity Generating Board
    Mr. Mike Thomasasked the Secretary of State for Energy when he expects next to meet the chairman of the Central Electricity Generating Board.
    Mr. David Howell: I meet the chairman from time to time.
    Mr. Thomas: Can the right hon. Gentleman reassure my constituents in Newcastle that, when he next meets the chairman of the Central Electricity Generating Board, it will not be to cancel

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    the orders for the advance gas-cooled reactor power stations at Torness and Heysham, especially the turbine generator orders, which are so important to them and to the power plant industry as a whole?
    Mr. Howell: The approval for the new AGR turbine generators is going forward, and the generating boards are still assessing the tenders for the units. But this is a matter on which the Government's position is still being considered. The long-term health of the suppliers is a matter of importance to the Government, as it must be also to the generating boards.
    Mr. Rost: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that Dr. Walter Marshall's report on combined heat and power is about to be published, and will he have discussions with the CEGB to ensure that we in this country attempt to stop the disgraceful waste of fuel in our power stations which could be making such a major contribution to solving our energy problems?
    Mr. Howell: I understand that Dr. Marshall's report will be published in the next three months. Thereafter I hope very much that constructive proposals and ideas will develop from it.
    Mr. Palmer: When the right hon. Gentleman meets Mr. England, the chairman of the CEGB, will he discuss the Government's plans for the reorganisation of the National Nuclear Corporation—a matter with which the CEGB is vitally concerned?
    Mr. Howell: I agree strongly with the hon. Gentleman that these matters are linked closely and that the CEGB is vitally concerned with them. The Government are considering them urgently, and I hope to be able to make a statement on our decisions in the next few months, because these are crucial matters for the long-term health of our energy policy.
    Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: Will my right hon. Friend remember how much more efficient it is to concentrate nuclear power generation at places such as Heysham where the expertise is already established?
    Mr. Howell: First, may I congratulate my hon. Friend on the position which she has acquired over the weekend as a result of the outcome of the elections? I accept that what she says has great
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    validity, and certainly I shall bear it in mind.

    Oil Supplies
    Mr. Hal Millerasked the Secretary of State for Energy, in the light of the restrictions which some suppliers have imposed on the delivery of petrol to garages, if he will make a statement on the availability of oil fuels.
    Mr. David Priceasked the Secretary of State for Energy what steps he proposes to take to ensure that Great Britain does not suffer from an energy shortage, in view of the current uncertainties over the future of world oil supplies.
    Mr. Viggersasked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will make a statement on the supply situation for petroleum products.
    Mr. Skeetasked the Secretary of State for Energy what is the supply position of petroleum products; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. David Howell: The matters raised in these questions will be dealt with in a statement which, with permission, I will be seeking to make to the House this afternoon.
    Several Hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Speaker: If the hon. Members whose questions are being answered will wait, I shall call them when the statement is made.

    Energy Conservation
    Mr. Formanasked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will make a statement setting out the Government's policy on energy conservation.
    Mr. Moore: We shall pursue a vigorous policy to promote greater energy efficiency in all sectors of the economy. I am particularly concerned that the public sector should set an example in the drive for more economical use of energy.
    Mr. Forman: While welcoming that statement most warmly, may I ask my hon. Friend to confirm that it will be the practice of this Government to make the Secretary of State personally responsible for giving a lead in the matter of energy conservation? Does my hon. Friend accept that the maximum efficiency of energy use is really the best

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    principle for the application of energy saving?
    Mr. Moore: Whichever figures one takes, whether 14, 15 or 30 per cent., as some optimists suggest, for energy conservation by the end of the century, there is no question but that there is considerable scope in this area. My right hon. Friend made quite clear last week the importance that the Government attach to energy conservation when he took the lead in this area and decided that the Secretary of State would lead on energy conservation matters.
    Mr. McNamara: If the right hon. Gentleman is leading on energy conservation matters, can he inform the House whether it is his intention to reduce speed limits in order to conserve energy?
    Mr. Moore: Basically we are examining all aspects of energy conservation, as I am sure the hon. Member will recall from the statement of my right hon. Friend last week. A reduction in speed limits, would have only a very minor short term effect in view of all the bureaucratic involvement that might be associated with it. I should have thought, from experience, that the compliance feature attached to it would make one question very seriously the relative degree of importance of introducing such a limit at this time.
    Mr. Rost: If the Government really wish to set a good example in the public sector on energy conservation, will the Minister initiate immediate inquiries and find out why the central heating system is on today in the Palace of Westminster?
    Mr. Moore: I should be happy to pursue that point, but I draw my hon. Friend's attention to the fact that in his statement on energy conservation last week my right hon. Friend announced the continuation of the ministerial committee that was established under the previous Government. My right hon. Friend has asked me particularly to monitor the results from the public sector.
    Dr. John Cunningham: Does the statement mean that the passage of measures which were in preparation under the Labour Administration on road transport, on building regulations and for industry will be followed by this Government? Does it also mean that there will
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    be no public expenditure cuts affecting resources for energy conservation policy?
    Mr. Moore: There is no question but that the measures of the previous Government are still being examined. Our initial conclusions were that they were not sufficient and that it was necessary to reexamine this whole area and have the lead of the Secretary of State in doing so. That process is still under review. We are continuing to do it.

    Diesel Fuel and Paraffin
    Mr. Hannamasked the Secretary of State for Energy what representations he has received concerning the current shortage of diesel fuel and paraffin; and if he will make a statement.
    The Minister of State, Department of Energy (Mr. Hamish Gray): I have been approached by a number of representative organisations such as the Road Haulage Association, the Freight Transport Association and the British Hardware Association, as well as by a number of individual consumers. I have undertaken to help sort out problems where there may be some special role for Government, but there is no getting away from the basic shortfall in supply which is something to which all consumers have to adapt.
    Mr. Hannam: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that reply. Will he take account of the fact that in the outlying regions such as the South-West many firms and industries seem to be experiencing up to 25 per cent. cuts in the supply of diesel fuel and paraffin? Will he try to ensure that the distributive companies in this country give a fair distribution of fuel to these areas?
    Mr. Gray: Yes. I can assure my hon. Friend that the Government are doing this. Both my right hon. Friend and I have had meetings with the petroleum industry advisory committee and we are keeping in very close contact with the industry. Our Department is monitoring the situation in various parts of the country. We are doing everything we can to ensure that the supply is spread evenly and that no specific area suffers more than any other.
    Mr. Spearing: The Minister said that consumers should adapt, but is it sensible, when everyone wishes to conserve energy, for British Rail allocations to be liable

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    to be cut when people are being encouraged to use public transport more? Does he agree that his statement should not apply to British Rail?
    Mr. Gray: The public services will be required to make economies just as economies are required in other areas. I understand that the British Rail services which are to be reduced are not operating in peak hours.
    Mr. Beith: Is the Minister aware that the uneven distribution of diesel fuel applies in Northumberland as well? Why does he not reactivate the kind of regional organisation that was used during recent emergencies so that the difficulties, when they arise, can be handled more quickly by his Department?
    Mr. Gray: Each case is being carefully monitored by my Department, which is intervening as and where necessary. However, we do not believe that direct intervention by the Government will make petrol more readily available. That is why we have decided that nonintervention is likely to be the best answer in this case.

    Oil (Sufficiency)
    Mr. Greville Jannerasked the Secretary of State for Energy when he expects the United Kingdom to be self-sufficient in oil.
    Mr. Gray: I expect North Sea oil production will reach the same volume in 1980 as United Kingdom oil consumption. However, imports will still be required of grades of oil not available from the North Sea.
    Mr. Janner: Can the hon. Gentleman assure the House that, when we produce enough oil for our own consumption, we shall retain enough of it so that we do not become the only net oil exporter in the world with oil shortages?
    Mr. Gray: The policies which will be followed at that time will be monitored carefully by the Government. At present, many of the contracts entered into were engaged upon some time ago. Obviously these will be reviewed in the future.
    Mr. Skeet: Would not the Minister agree that the question of self-sufficiency is a bit of an illusion as we have to import the heavier oils? Does this not involve a problem of presentation if the public fail to appreciate the need for
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    restraint when we have an abundance of oil available from the North Sea?
    Mr. Gray: My hon. Friend is perfectly correct. Self-sufficiency can only be maintained by means of swaps. Since the North Sea oil is the light end of the barrel, there will always be a requirement for certain imports of heavier Middle Eastern oil in order that the refining model may be followed.
    Mr. Gordon Wilson: Does the Minister not think it lunatic that oil will be exported during the 1980s whereas there will be a shortfall of about 50 per cent. in the 1990s, when the United Kingdom will be importing oil which may be difficult to obtain and very much more expensive? Does he not think that the Government should try to change the policies which have been in force?
    Mr. Gray: The latest estimate of oil production in 1980 is between 90 million and 110 million tons. It is unlikely that Britain will remain self-sufficient after the 1990s, but I do not think that the hon. Gentleman's estimate is accurate.
    Mr. Skinner: Why should the French, who have no oil resources, seemingly have enough oil for their inhabitants, while we in this country have to go short? Can the Minister explain why the Conservatives are now suggesting that Government intervention is needed to resolve this problem instead of allowing free market forces to operate? Or is that what he is trying to tell us now?
    Mr. Gray: The hon. Gentleman has misinterpreted what he reads in the press. It is certainly not the position that this Government are advocating intervention. Quite the contrary. We have laid down certain guidelines for oil companies, consumers and distributors. At present, these are working without too much difficulty. We are confident that our position in this matter will ultimately prove successful.
    Mr. Ronald Bell: Will the Minister consider incorporating oil in the common agricultural policy to ensure that there is always a surplus?
    Mr. Gray: No doubt the whole question of oil will be related to other questions within the EEC.
    Dr. J. Dickson Mabon: Will the Government seriously consider making an

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    early statement on depletion or conservation policies for oil? We do not want to export enormous amounts of oil in the 1980s and be left with little oil in the 1990s.
    Mr. Gray: The Government are at present carrying out a general review of oil policies. A statement in accordance with their findings will be made in due course.

    Gas Supplies
    Mr. Dudley Smithasked the Secretary of State for Energy what steps he proposes to ensure that those urban and rural areas currently without a gas supply have one provided to give them parity with the majority of United Kingdom citizens.
    Mr. Norman Lamont: I am satisfied that the British Gas Corporation meets its statutory obligation with regard to the supply of gas.
    Mr. Smith: Is my hon. Friend aware that about a quarter of the population of this country does not have a gas supply and that many of those who are deprived live in villages near large urban areas? Does he not think, in view of the fuel crisis, that the gas industry should be playing a much more significant part in providing alternative sources of energy, particularly for heating?
    Mr. Lamont: I am aware of the position. Under the Gas Act 1972 the Gas Corporation has a statutory duty to supply gas on request only to any premises within 25 yards of the gas main currently in use. The position on electricity is different. As my hon. Friend will know, the cost of a gas main is considerably more than that of an electricity main. In deciding whether to ask people for a contribution to link them to the gas main gas boards have to take into account both the capital cost and the revenue that might arise from such sales.
    Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Is the Minister aware that the responsibilities of the British Gas Corporation do not extend to all parts of the United Kingdom to which this question refers? Will it be the policy of Her Majesty's Government that all parts of the United Kingdom should
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    be considered on the same basis regarding access to sources of natural gas?
    Mr. Lamont: I am aware of that problem. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the problem is a longstanding one, which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is considering.
    Mr. Hannam: Does my hon. Friend accept that an important factor in the choice of fuels is the provision of chimneys or flues in housing? Will he pursue a policy of persuading local authorities to provide chimneys in as much housing as possible?
    Mr. Lamont: I note what my hon. Friend has said. I am sure that this matter will be carefully studied by my hon. Friend who has particular responsibility for conservation and conservation standards in public buildings.
    Dr. Edmund Marshall: In view of the high cost of providing gas mains compared with the cost of connecting other fuels, would it not make for fair competition between different fuels if there was a policy of grants and subsidies to provide connection to gas supplies?
    Mr. Lamont: I do not believe that grants and subsidies would make for fair competition. The profits of the Gas Corporation contribute to the national interest both by tax revenue and by reductions in Government borrowing.
    Dr. John Cunningham: Given the availability and competitive position of gas, the further constraints on oil supply and the fact, as the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Smith) pointed out, that large areas of the country have no gas supply, would it not be fair to those consumers if the Government reviewed the provisions of the Gas Act 1972?
    Mr. Lamont: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the management of the Gas Corporation is anxious to maximise its share of the market. The management has every reason to want to do so. As I said in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Smith), in deciding whether someone should or should not be connected to the main, the management balances the cost with the revenue that is expected. There is every competitive incentive to the Gas Corporation which does not need

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    subsidies suggested by the hon. Gentleman.

    North Sea Oil (Refining)
    Mr. Michael Spicerasked the Secretary of State for Energy whether he is satisfied with the capacity of the British oil refining industry to refine North Sea oil.
    Mr. Gray: The capacity of the British oil refining industry is more than sufficient to refine our current North Sea production. However, this would not be the cheapest way of meeting our demand for refined products, nor, because of the composition of North Sea oil, could it supply all of them. That is why we use a mixture of indigenous and imported crudes. The economics of British refining will be improved by current investment in plant to convert some less valuable heavy products into more valuable lighter products such as petrol.
    Mr. Spicer: Have the Government any specific measures in mind to encourage the oil industry to increase its refining capacity to provide more North Sea oil in this country?
    Mr. Gray: My hon. Friend raises an interesting point. The most important point of all is to increase confidence in the industry and this, by future Conservative policies, we hope to do.
    Mr. Rooker: Will the Minister state what is Government policy towards the construction of independently operated oil refineries such as that proposed at Nigg Bay?
    Mr. Gray: The Government have not taken any view on such a subject but would obviously consider every issue on its merits.
    Mr. Emery: While dealing with refining, will the Minister say whether he or the Secretary of State have been able to obtain assurances from the international oil companies that they are not cutting supplies of crude oil into British refineries by more than 5 per cent.?
    Mr. Gray: My right hon. Friend has had regular meetings with representatives of the major oil companies, and I can give my hon. Friend that assurance.

    Stirlingshire-Clackmannan Coalfield
    Mr. Canavanasked the Secretary of State for Energy whether he will
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    arrange to meet the chairman of the National Coal Board to discuss the future development of the Stirlingshire-Clackmannan coalfield.
    Mr. Moore: The National Coal Board is still appraising these reserves, and it will be some time before it can come to a conclusion.
    Mr. Canavan: In view of the estimated 400 million tons of coal reserves in the Stirlingshire and Clackmannan coal basin, will the Minister consider supporting the proposal that these reserves should be used to feed a new or refurbished power station at Kincardine, which would help to ensure better employment prospects for miners at Polmaise colliery and elsewhere? Does he accept that what is required is public investment in the coal industry as a planned public enterprise rather than the crazy laissez faire economic theories recently expounded by the Secretary of State for Industry?
    Mr. Moore: The hon. Member will be aware that only three boreholes have so far been drilled; one is still to be drilled. I shall of course draw his particular geological knowledge to the attention of the chairman of the National Coal Board when I meet him tomorrow morning to illustrate his views on the degree to which there are reserves. However, it is premature. We have still not had the details of the possibility of the reserves. When we do, we shall bring the issue forward very quickly.
    Mr. Eadie: Can the hon. Gentleman assure us that when he meets the chairman of the NCB he will discuss the expansion, not the contraction, of the coal industry? Did the Minister see the report of the speech of the Secretary of State for Employment, winding up one day's debate on the Queen's Speech, when he prayed in aid a quotation from Ernest Bevin: "Give me 200 million tons of coal and I will give you a foreign policy."? Is this a forerunner of the Government's policy—expanding to a target of 200 million tons?
    Mr. Moore: With all his experience in the coal industry, the hon. Gentleman will not want me to deprive my hon. Friends of his later comments on "Plan for Coal". Suffice it to say at this moment that when I meet the chairman of the NCB tomorrow, as I did with Mr.

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    Gormley this morning, we shall be concerning ourselves in detail with the exciting prospects in our coal industry and the real reserves of coal in the United Kingdom.

    National Coal Board
    Mr. Skinnerasked the Secretary of State for Energy when he expects next to meet the chairman of the National Coal Board; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. David Howell: I meet the chairman of the National Coal Board frequently. I have also met the president of the National Union of Mineworkers. As I have told both of them, a competitive and efficient coal industry has an important part to play in meeting future energy demand. I propose continuing with the tripartite machinery and to arrange a meeting soon.
    Mr. Skinner: Can the right hon. Gentleman guarantee that the 200 million tons of coal per annum referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie) will be the target for the new Tory Government? Will he also tell Derek Ezra when he meets him next that he will allow the trade unions involved in the mining industry freely to negotiate their wage increases on the basis of the £80 a week extra that Derek Ezra got last week?
    Mr. Howell: Pay negotiations are a matter for the NCB and the NUM. Guaranteeing targets so far ahead as suggested is hazardous at any time, but the Government believe that an efficient and competitive coal industry has an important role to play in meeting future energy demands and that the objectives planned for coal investment, which point in the direction the hon. Gentleman mentions are right and that we should work towards them.
    Mr. Dykes: After his initial examination of the prospects of the industry for this year and next, can my right hon. Friend say what he foresees as the percentage increase in productivity this year and next in terms of output per man shift?
    Mr. Howell: I think that we are looking for about 2 per cent., although we hope for more, but obviously we are
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    monitoring the situation closely. Productivity is the key. We need the coal and we should like to see improvements and developments on this front.
    Mr. Mike Thomas: Will the right hon. Gentleman be discussing with the chairman of the National Coal Board the future for coal in electricity generation and the future programme for coal-fired power stations? Will he say something about that now and amplify his earlier remarks on the AGRs which were so Delphic that they will cause great concern in my constituency?
    Mr. Howell: I cannot say anything now about coal-fired power stations. I have discussed the question of coalburn with the chairman of the CEGB and the chairman of the NCB. It is our intention that the coalburn plans should head for the 70 million to 80 million tons level which the CEGB is looking for this year. That is the correct target and is part of the opportunity to cut down on oil consumption.
    I am not sure what the hon. Gentleman wants me to clarify on the question of the AGRs. I said that the Government were considering this matter. I did not say that there was any decision that I could give him. But perhaps the matter does not arise on this question. If the hon. Gentleman wants clarification, perhaps he will write to me about it.

    Quangos
    Mr. Englishasked the Secretary of State for Energy for which quasi-autonomous national government organisations he is responsible.
    Mr. David Howell: Apart from the nationalised energy industries and the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, I appoint the members of eight advisory bodies, the full titles of which I will circulate in the Official Report.
    Mr. English: I am grateful. Does the right hon. Gentleman favour greater parliamentary scrutiny in this area? Is he one of those Cabinet Ministers who favour the setting-up of a Select Committee related to his Department? Does he favour these quangos being brought within the scope of public audit?
    Mr. Howell: Without committing myself to specific Select Committees—it

    21
    is hardly my place to do that, for it is a matter for Parliament to decide—I think that the hon. Gentleman knows from experience that I favour closer and greater parliamentary scrutiny and debate of the complex issues which many of these boards are considering.
    Following is the information:

    Advisory Committee on Fixed Offshore Installations.

    Advisory Council on Energy Conservation.

    Advisory Council on Research and Development for Fuel and Power.

    Energy Commission.

    Offshore Energy Technology Board.

    Offshore Industry Liaison Committee.

    Offshore Safety Inquiry.

    Severn Barrage Committee.

    Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunication and Plumbing Union
    Mr. Thomas Coxasked the Secretary of State for Energy what plans he has to meet the general secretary of the Electrical, Electronic and Plumbing Trade Union.
    Mr. David Howell: I plan to meet Mr. Chapple on 14 June.
    Mr. Cox: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that reply. Does he not agree that at this moment the closest possible co-operation is needed with unions involved in the energy-producing industries in an effort to reduce the energy gap? I am sure that he will find among those unions a willingness to work with this Government, providing that the suggestions that the Government make are constructive and for the benefit of the industries and the people.
    Mr. Howell: I agree. I have already met other union leaders in the industry.

    Pressurised Water Reactor
    Mr. Cookasked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will make a statement on his attitude to the construction of a pressurised water reactor plant, in the light of the recent incident at Harrisburg.
    Mr. David Howell: The full facts about the Harrisburg incident are not yet known, and it would be premature to reach conclusions at this stage. The important thing is that the lessons should
    22
    be learned and the implications fully assessed when we have the facts. I await the considered views of the nuclear installations inspectorate and the other bodies concerned.
    Mr. Cook: When the Secretary of State reaches those conclusions, will he bear in mind that 16 pressurised water reactor stations in the United States have been closed on safety grounds? Is he aware that 14 separate American studies are being carried out into the Three Mile Island incident, all of which will be published? Can he give the House an assurance that at least one of the four British studies will be published, especially that from the nuclear installations inspectorate?
    Mr. Howell: I shall consider the suitability and timing of publishing all those studies. I believe strongly that these are centrally important matters which should be the subject of full and open debate, otherwise the safety aspect will not receive the attention that it deserves.
    The Government believe that nuclear power has a vital long-term role to play in energy policy. We must take into account all these lessons and all the reports that the hon. Member mentioned when considering our reaction to the Harrisburg incident.
    Mr. David Price: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the experience of Harrisburg shows that the PWR is not as good a reactor as the American industry made out, and that the British advanced gas-cooled reactor has proved to be better, both in results and reliability, than its American competitors?
    Mr. Howell: I do not wish to draw any firm conclusions until I have studied fully the safety aspects of the Harrisburg incident.
    Mr. Palmer: Is the Secretary of State aware that the Central Electricity Generating Board sent a team of experts to the United States to study the Harrisburg incident? That team has now returned. Will he make its report available to the House in a White Paper or in some other way?
    Mr. Howell: I shall consider that suggestion.
    Mr. Emery: Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that he will do everything possible to bring forward the fast-breeder reactor so that we can move into that era of electricity generation which will be of considerable benefit to everybody?
    Mr. Howell: The Government are committed to a full inquiry into the fast-breeder reactor. I am discussing the matter with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment.
    Mr. Stoddart: Is the Secretary of State aware of the great pressure from industry and the CEGB to introduce the PWR into Britain? Will he resist those pressures until the safety aspects have been examined fully? In the meantime, will the Secretary of State urge upon the CEGB and the industry the further development of the advanced gas-cooled reactor? Will he also urge the industry to develop export markets for this excellent reactor?
    Mr. Howell: I am aware of the recent history of this development, including the position that obtained under the previous Government. The Harrisburg incident imposes a period of reflection. That must be used to clarify and to make a right decision on reactors generally.
    Mr. Eadie: Will the Secretary of State inform the Prime Minister that she did great damage by what appeared to be ill-informed comments when she visited a French nuclear establishment last week? Will he tell the Prime Minister that the French chose the nuclear power road because, unlike Britain, they have few indigenous sources of energy? Is the Secretary of State aware that to hint that we are involved in a substantial nuclear power programme is sheer irresponsibility?
    Mr. Howell: I know of the hon. Member's major role in the coal industry, but I think that he has this matter out of perspective. In earlier answers I recognised the central importance of coal to our future energy policy. Beyond that, if we are objective, there is a case for low-cost nuclear energy. I do not see that these need to be rivals. The hon. Member's worries are misplaced. His views about the Prime Minister's observations are ill-founded.
    Mr. Cryer: Is there not a case for postponing any moves towards further nuclear reactor installations until these safety aspects are clarified? Is the Secretary of State aware of the strong industrial pressures, notably from GEC, about the installation of PWRs? May we have a categorical assurance that the Secretary of State's sole criterion is safety and that neither market considerations nor the multinationals' influence will be taken into account?
    Mr. Howell: The central concern must be safety. But it is wrong to jump to conclusions before receiving the report from the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate and seeing some of the other observations and reports. One cannot reach decisions before one has the facts.

  HOUSE OF COMMONS

    Members' Pay
    Mr. Peter Bottomleyasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will make a statement on hon. Members' remuneration.
    The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas): The report on Members' pay from the review body on top salaries is imminent, but has not yet actually been received.
    Mr. Bottomley: May I declare a formal interest in this question? Will my right hon. Friend give the House an early opportunity to restore hon. Members' salaries to the level that obtained in October 1964?
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: I sympathise with my hon. Friend, but I cannot make a comment until we have seen the report.
    Mr. Stokes: Since any increase in salaries for hon. Members is bound to be extremely unpopular with the British public, will my right hon. Friend ensure that an announcement about increases is made as soon as possible?
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: I do not know whether I accept the premise of my hon. Friend's argument. I do not see how his conclusion flows from it. Certainly we shall take action when we have received the report.
    Mr. Charles Morrison: Will my right hon. Friend undertake that the House

    25
    will be allowed to consider the report and to influence the Government if necessary before they come to conclusions about the recommendations in the report?
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: I shall consider that suggestion.
    Mr. Mike Thomas: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there will be a wide measure of support from all sides of the House for remunerating hon. Members properly, and wide support for him if he takes that step when the time comes?
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: I am grateful for those remarks.

    Back Benchers
    Mr. Englishasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what proposals he has for consulting Back Benchers about their rights.
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: As Leader of the House, I shall keep in mind the interests of all hon. Members, and in particular I will do all I can to see that the rights of Back Benchers are respected.
    Mr. English: In thanking the right hon. Gentleman for that reply, may I ask him whether, while he is waiting for a new Boyle report, he is prepared to implement the last one? He may recollect that the last one was published before phase 1 of the last incomes policy began, and that we are the only group of people in the United Kingdom who have not been accorded our just rights.
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: The hon. Member has made his point extremely well. I wish that he had made it more successfully to his right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson), who had responsibility at that time.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: When does my right hon. Friend expect to receive the Boyle report?
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: I am hopeful that it will be received very soon, and in this case my hopes are matched by my expectations.

    London Affairs
    Mr. Stallardasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will
    26
    consider the establishment of a Select Committee for London affairs.
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: The House will soon have an opportunity to consider the general question of our Select Committee structure and the proposals made by the Procedure Committee. I suggest that hon. Members await that debate.
    Mr. Stallard: I am grateful for that reply. Is the Chancellor of the Duchy aware that the only chance that a London Member has to initiate a debate about London is to win a prize in Mr. Speaker's raffle for Private Members' motions—a 630-to-one chance? Does he agree that that is an inadequate procedure? May we have an assurance that we shall establish a Select Committee to consider London affairs?
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: The hon. Member underestimates his own success in this regard. This question, along with the question of other Select Committees, should be considered when we debate the report of the Select Committee on Procedure.

    Procedure
    Mr. Skinnerasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster when he expects to introduce measures for reforming the House of Commons.
    Mr. Dalyellasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he intends to introduce measures for reforming the House of Commons in the present Session of Parliament; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Hooleyasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will bring forward proposals on the future of Select Committees of the House before the Summer Recess.
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: As I have previously assured hon. Members, the House will have an early opportunity to debate the recommendations made by the Procedure Committee in the last Parliament for the reform of our procedures.
    Mr. Skinner: Is the Chancellor of the Duchy aware that before we reform the House of Commons we must get rid of the

    27
    House of Lords? Since the right hon. Gentleman is unlikely to recommend that, will he guarantee that the terms of reference of any Select Committee on Procedure will include the proposal that all Members of the House of Commons shall be full-time Members and there shall be no moonlighting on the side?
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: I am sure that Members of both Houses will have heard the hon. Member's remarks and that they will pay them the attention that they deserve.
    Mr. Dalyell: Will the right hon. Gentleman give his mind to a mundane but deserving subject—namely, the way in which tickets are allocated to visitors? Did he see the empty seats in the Strangers' Gallery even at three o'clock? Does he know how many hon. Members queue for tickets but cannot get them, and what queues there are outside? We are all guilty of pocketing tickets from time to time and the system does not lead to an efficient allocation of seats.
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: I will certainly, in view of the hon. Gentleman's representations, look into the whole question.
    Mr. Hooley: Would the right hon. Gentleman be a little more explicit about his previous answer? Can he give an assurance that the House will have an opportunity to decide on the structure of Select Committees before the Summer Recess, so that if a new system is agreed, which I hope will happen, we can proceed to implement it from October when the House resumes?
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: I can give the hon. Gentleman that assurance.
    Mr. Cormack: Can my right hon. Friend define "imminent", "soon "and "early"—all of which terms he has used this afternoon—and tell us which comes first?
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: I think that they come in the ecclesiastical order of precedence, with the greatest at the end.
    Mr. Hooker: Will the Chancellor bring forward a proposal to put the register of Members' interests on a statutory basis? Most new hon. Members will have filled in a form recently which is an absolute scandal. It is a farce that the register has not been published. In all equity,
    28
    the register ought to be put on a statutory basis so that all hon. Members know where they stand and the House can then explain to people outside what the present position is, and so that the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) is not left in the position in which he finds himself. I happen to support his stand on this, but the register ought to be put on a statutory basis.
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: I will certainly consider what the hon. Gentleman has said.
    Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Will my right hon. Friend, within the next week, please, give the House the opportunity of deciding a quite simple matter—that is, the recommendation of the Procedure Committee of a change in the hours of sitting on Fridays—so that this question, which is of great importance to hon. Members whose constituencies are a long way from London, can have the decision taken one way or the other and make their arrangements in their constituencies accordingly?
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: As my hon. Friend knows, there are 76 recommendations in the report. We have to arrange them in some order of priority. We are following the priority as suggested by the Procedure Committee, but I shall certainly bear in mind what my hon. Friend has said.

    Questions (London)
    Mr. Thomas Coxasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what plans he has to introduce a question day for London.
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: I have no such proposals at present.
    Mr. Cox: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that that is a most disappointing reply? Is he further aware that the allocation of time in this House for London, although London sends the largest number of Members, has been an utter disgrace under successive Governments? Before he makes a final decision, will he seek the views of the London Members and also the views of industry and commerce in London, which, I can assure him, urgently believe that there is ground for the allocation of a specific question day for London?
    Mr. English: And for the East Midlands.
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: I am afraid that I cannot agree with the hon. Gentleman. If London were to be treated in a special way, all other regions of the country would be making the same claim. The tradition of this House has long been that Question Time is arranged on a subject basis and not a topographical one.

HONG KONG (VIETNAMESE REFUGEES)
Mr. Ennals (by private notice)asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement about the settlement of Vietnamese refugees in Britain and if he will say whether the Government have yet taken a decision about admitting to Britain those refugees, mainly children, rescued by the British ship "Roachbank".
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. William Whitelaw): The ruthless behaviour of the Vietnamese authorities is creating a major problem in that region which must be of deep concern to the whole world. The Government will continue to bring the maximum international pressure on the Vietnamese to cease their shameful activities. Meanwhile we shall, of course, honour our international obligations in accordance with the law of the sea.
The refugees from the MV "Sibonga" will be arriving in this country over the next two weeks. They will be received by the British Council for Aid to Refugees and the Ockenden Venture, to whom the Government are making available practical help and financial assistance. They will be accommodated initially at reception centres in Hampshire and Staffordshire.
As regards the refugees on board the "Roachbank" anchored in international waters off Taiwan, the Government have been using their best endeavours to persuade the Taiwan authorities to accept their responsibilities, and we hope that some at least will be granted refuge there. However, in view of the time that has elapsed and in consideration for the captain and the crew and the passengers, many of whom are children, the Government have decided that those not accepted by Taiwan will be brought to this country as soon as possible. They will be received in accommodation provided by the Save the Children organisation.
The Government would like to take this opportunity of expressing warm appreciation of the efforts being made by the voluntary organisations.
Mr. Ennals: I am sure that the House will agree with the right hon. Gentleman

31
in his criticism of Vietnam and the policies and pressure that should be brought to bear. The House will welcome his decision to allow the refugees from the "Roachbank" to be admitted to this country. I am certain that all sides of the House will pay tribute to the work of the voluntary agencies.
Will the Home Secretary answer three questions? Does he accept that, although the problem of Vietnamese refugees must be dealt with on an international basis, the numbers so far accepted for admission to Britain are relatively small compared with those accepted by some other countries?
Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the voluntary organisations to which he has referred, together with the Save the Children Fund, have already indicated their readiness to accept a significantly larger numbers of refugees than has so far been authorised by the Government, including those from the "Roachbank"?
Will the Government now agree to stand by the principles laid down by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Rees) when he has Home Secretary that Britain would be prepared to accept for settlement refugees picked up on the high seas by ships registered in Britain and not acceptable elsewhere? Is this not a time for firm British leadership on this humanitarian issue, rather than for a retreat from the clear position that was taken by my right hon. Friend?
Mr. Whitelaw: The problem of refugees is certainly an international one. We must accept it on that basis. I think that we in this country are entitled to say that we have many other pressures and that there are many other claims on our resources, and we have to regard them on that basis.
The voluntary organisations have said perfectly properly that they can cope with the refugees from the "Sibonga" and the "Roachbank", but if it were to go further they would be subjected to very great strains that are well beyond their resources to cope with.
As for our saying that we would, irrespective of the circumstances, take people for settlement, I must tell the right hon. Gentleman that of course our international obligations require the master
32
of a British ship to assist those in distress at sea but that normal international practice is for the country of the next port of call to take in people so rescued.
Mrs. Knight: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the extremely heavy cost, both in terms of money and delay, to the shipping companies involved in this matter? Is anything being done by the United Nations or any other international agency to encourage those shipping companies to pick up the refugees?
Mr. Whitelaw: There is an international obligation on the master of a British ship to assist people in distress at sea. It is also a matter for the international organisations and for the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees thereafter to do everything they can to help companies in a very difficult situation.
Mr. Grimond: I welcome the Home Secretary's statement, but I should be grateful for any more information he can give on what the United Nations is doing either to protest against the savage brutality of the Government of Vietnam or about the refugees. We are always hearing about world opinion. Is not this the moment when world opinion should be mobilised?
Mr. Whitelaw: That is exactly what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister sought to do in her communication to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dr. Waldheim. That was and still is our position. We shall do everything that we can to condemn the Vietnamese action by international opinion. That is very important, and it is a major first step in dealing with this problem.
Mr. Patrick McNair-Wilson: My constituents living around the Sopley resettlement camp, whilst looking forward to welcoming the refugees fleeing from Communism and starting to arrive tomorrow, nevertheless are concerned that unless firm quotas are set at some point that camp may become a permanent refugee camp with all the attendant pressures on local services and employment.
Mr. Whitelaw: It was at that point that part of the answer I gave to the right hon. Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Ennals) was directed. If we had to go further, that would place a very great strain on the resources of this country in many different ways.
Mr. McNally: I think that everyone accepts that the scale of this problem is beyond the capacity of any one country to deal with. However, if the Home Secretary and his colleagues are to mobilise world opinion they will have to lead by example. Does he accept that the previous Government's willingness to take 1,500 land-based refugees, as well as those picked up on the high seas, is not beyond the capacity of a country which is genuinely willing to mobilise world opinion? Does he agree that if we do not do that we are not only not leading but are going back on previous commitments?
Mr. Whitelaw: We have accepted that commitment.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. There is another private notice question and a statement still to come. We must now move on to the second private notice question.

DC10 AIRCRAFT (GROUNDING)
Mr. Clinton Davis (by private notice)asked the Secretary of State for Trade if he will make a statement on the grounding of DC10 aircraft operated by British airlines.
The Minister of State, Department of Trade (Mr. Cecil Parkinson): The grounding of the British-registered DC10s by the Civil Aviation Authority is the direct consequence of the withdrawal by the Federal Aviation Administration of the aircraft's type certificate.
Because the CAA is substantially influenced by the type certificate issued by the country of manufacture when first issuing a certificate of airworthiness for an imported aircraft, the withdrawal of the type certificate was naturally an important development, and the CAA, having considered the matter, decided that it was necessary to suspend the United Kingdom certificates of airworthiness for the time being for DC 10s registered here.
A vigorous technical evaluation of the DC10 problem is being carried out in the United States and in the United Kingdom. The CAA is doing all that it can and has been in constant touch with the FAA. It has sent two airworthiness experts to the United States to learn at first hand whether the evidence avail-
34
able to the FAA indicates a need for continued grounding of the aircraft on the United Kingdom register.
I very much regret the inconvenience caused to the public and the economic loss to the airlines affected by the groundings. The safety of passengers must, however, remain the first consideration of the CAA, which must be convinced that the DC10s on the British register are fit for flight before they are reintroduced into passenger service.
Mr. Davis: Is the Minister aware that we are pleased that the CAA has effected this close liaison with the FAA over this important matter and with his statement that safety must be the paramount consideration here?
The inconvenience to the public and the real blow that this must be to the two main British airlines operating DC10s—British Caledonian and Laker Airways—must be recognised, but does the Minister agree that the FAA has taken a courageous decision, despite the commercial pressures that have been put upon it?
Will the Minister give some indication, if he has any news to this effect at the moment, whether the FAA has formed a view that the DC 10 suffers from a serious design fault rather than having been simply subject to operators failing to follow correct maintenance procedures? What discussions have taken place between his departmental officials and/or the CAA with the British airlines involved, especially on the question of insurance?
Mr. Parkinson: First, I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he said about the close co-operation between the CAA and the FAA. Both are working to deal with this problem as a matter of great urgency. I echo what he said about the courageous decision to ground this plane when commercial pressures must have been considerable.
We have no information at present from the FAA. As soon as we have, of course we shall communicate it to the House.
The Department is keeping in close contact with the CAA, which is keeping us informed of every development.
Mr. McCrindle: I echo the Minister's welcome to close co-operation between

35
the CAA and the American authorities. Has there been any move for the CAA to engage in independent technical investigation of the DC10, especially as the version of the aircraft operated by British Caledonian and Laker Airways is the DC10-30, which has not been the source of any complaint until now?
Will the Minister comment on the likely effect of the suggestion made this morning that other wide-bobied aircraft were to be the subject of investigation by the United States aviation authorities, and whether that is likely to have any effect on the services of British Airways?
Mr. Parkinson: These are very much matters for the CAA, which was set up by Parliament to take decisions on these matters. It would be improper for Parliament to attempt to bring pressure to bear on the CAA or try to hasten it in doing the job given to it by Parliament.
On the question of an independent consideration, when the certificate of airworthiness is granted, the facts and the technical details which have been discovered by the country of origin are made available to the CAA and form the main basis of the decision that is taken.
The CAA needs to have access to the findings of the FAA before it can arrive at an independent decision on this matter. It will need to know what the FAA is finding out and use its own judgment in arriving at a decision.
Mr. Stephen Ross: May I press the Minister on the question of insurance, which was not answered? Will the Minister confirm that Laker Airways and British Caledonian are not covered by their loss insurance and say what help the Government and the CAA may give to those companies in this obviously great loss to them?
Mr. Parkinson: The insurance of the aircraft is a matter for the companies concerned and their insurance companies. We have no information on whether this risk was covered by the companies' insurance policies.
Mr. Neubert: Without seeking to minimise the gravity of the issues raised by the DC10 crash, may I ask my hon. Friend whether he agrees that we should not underestimate either the potential inconvenience to the travelling public or
36
the commercial damage done by the doubts now raised about all types of wide-bodied aircraft? Does he agree that it is imperative that the limits of these doubts should be circumscribed as quickly and as progressively as possible?
Mr. Parkinson: My hon. Friend is correct in saying that it is important for the travelling public to have confidence in wide-bodied aeroplanes. I am sure that his remarks have been noted and that the CAA will do what it can to reassure the public, to whom it is answerable.
Mr. Whitehead: Will the Minister think again about his remark that it would be improper for Parliament to bring pressure to bear on the CAA? Surely the concern of this House must be with the safety of passengers. There are many pressures in the other direction. Does the Minister agree that if the FAA had grounded the DC10 in 1972 many people would not have died in Paris as a result of the second of eight in-flight accidents that this type of plane suffered?
Mr. Parkinson: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity of clearing up any misunderstanding that may have arisen from my earlier remark. I was trying to say that we must express the concern of the public to the CAA, but we must not put any pressure on it to bend any rules which it has established for ensuring that aircraft meet the required safety limits. I was trying to make that point.
Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Will my hon. Friend take all steps within his power to ensure that the decision taken by the CAA results from its own stress analysis rather than that of the manufacturer? Will he bear in mind that many British subjects died, quite avoidably, as a result of the lack of integrity of the McDonnell Douglas company—there is no other word for it—after it was aware of the design defects in the door locking arrangements in the DC10? Will the Minister do everything in his power to ensure that the CAA's decision in this country does not rely upon technical information supplied by the manufacturer that has not been checked independently by the CAA?
Mr. Parkinson: I am sure that the CAA will have noted my hon. Friend's remarks, but I am equally sure that in arriving at its decision the CAA will

37
take account of all available data and will arrive at its own independent conclusion.
Mr. Dalyell: Is the Minister happy about the obligation that a British technical evaluation programme must await American findings? Is that necessary?
Mr. Parkinson: The aeroplane crashed in America. The detailed investigation is being carried out by the FAA, which is the responsible authority. Our access to the information that is obtained must be through the FAA. Therefore, the CAA is bound to work closely with the FAA in arriving at the facts.
Mr. Skinner: In view of these great matters of air safety that have arisen, will the Minister give a guarantee that there will be no cutbacks in public expenditure as it affects the CAA?
Mr. Parkinson: No, Sir.

OIL SUPPLIES
The Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. David Howell): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement about the oil supply situation.
Following disruption of oil supplies from Iran from the early part of the year, a tight world oil situation has developed, with total supplies on present estimates likely to be well short of expected demand world-wide. The position in Iran could easily worsen again and the prospect from the other suppliers is at best fragile.
Against this background the United Kingdom position is as follows. Supplies are currently coming into the United Kingdom market at about the same rate as this time last year, but demand is well up, we have had a cold winter, and it is obviously vital now to rebuild stocks for the autumn. This means that actual supplies to United Kingdom consumers are on average about 5 per cent. below the increased levels on which people were counting. However, this does not give the full picture, since the supply position stemming from Iran has affected different oil companies supplying the British market in very different ways. This has led to serious shortages for some particular customers and some particular regions, especially as the first effects work through.
38
The oil companies have been rationing their allocations to their customers and the Government have specifically requested the United Kingdom Petroleum Industry Association to achieve a more even and effective distribution overall and to meet particular difficulties as a matter of urgency where customers are threatened with real hardship.
At the same time, the Government have taken steps to achieve an overall cut in demand of 5 per cent. in line with our EEC and international obligations. It is both in our interest and in the world's interest to ease oil pressures by working with our trading partners to prevent a panic scramble for oil.
I have made it clear that in the public sector measures must be taken to cut down by the 5 per cent. overall, consistent with the maintenance of essential services. In industry, on the roads and, we hope, in the home, we must strive to achieve a cutback of at least 5 per cent. by all, so that the limited allocations will bite more evenly than if some consumers simply carry on as normal and leave others seriously short. In all this the oil companies—both major and independent—plainly bear a heavy responsibility.
Looking immediately ahead, I am not satisfied with the arrangements that I have found for supplies of oil into the United Kingdom market, particularly when we are a major oil producer. We certainly have to trade North Sea oil internationally and with commercial skill to live and to invest. But we must get the balance right. I am also considering taking royalties in kind which may help United Kingdom refineries and suppliers meet their customers' demands. But, even with these measures on the supply side, energy conservation must now be given a permanent and central place in our policy, and I shall be proposing more measures on this front.
As for rationing, or Government-organised priorities for whole categories—with, of course, tighter cuts for those not in the preferred categories—I believe that at present levels of shortfall this would lead at once to far more rigidity and unfairness, quite apart from the cost to the taxpayer and the economy of the necessary paraphernalia. Nor would it produce a drop more oil. If the world situation deteriorates sharply again, we

39
may be forced to pay that price, but in the present conditions the sensible way forward is through steps to improve supplies in the United Kingdom market, combined with economical use of oil by everyone and strong conservation measures. I shall, of course, seek to keep the House fully informed of the situation in the coming weeks.
Dr. J. Dickson Mabon: May I thank the Prime Minister for responding, at least on the second occasion, to the request we made to have this positive statement, of a kind, made by the Secretary of State this afternoon? Regrettably, we find the statement extremely disquieting. We feel that the Government's standing back from the situation will embarrass many essential services quite considerably.
The most important part of the statement, perhaps, is the part where the Secretary of State rejects any Government-organised priorities. Is he aware that hospitals and ambulance services, and other essential services, are today either short in supply or being held to ransom? These matters have been recorded in the press.
Is the Secretary of State aware that we reject the idea, enunciated by the Minister of State this afternoon, that the railways should be subject to a cut in oil? That is a complete nonsense. To withdraw railway services would make the congestion on the roads greater and increase the demand for petrol.
Is the Secretary of State also aware that many farmers are desperately anxious now for diesel oil, because the seasons cannot stand still and it is important to get on with essential services?
I appeal to the Secretary of State to withdraw the part of his statement to which I have referred, and to look seriously at trying to help indentifiable parts of our economy.
Mr. Howell: The right hon. Gentleman, from this statement and others that he has made, seems to be asking that the Government should move from their policy of helping individual customers' needs evenhandedly, working with the oil industry to that end, as we are doing, and working with suppliers to look at regional difficulties, and to go instead
40
for full-scale official priorities for certain categories nationwide.
At present levels of shortfall, that would be wasteful, unfair and highly inefficient. It would mean deciding between who is essential and who is not. It would mean downgrading in priority categories such as people going to work, essential members of the motoring public, and it would mean downgrading the tourist industry. It would mean giving priority to whole categories, even where there was not a shortage of oil.
I take the view that the people I have mentioned—motorists, and people going to work by car—are just as vital to the British economy as are other areas. The right way forward, I am convinced, is to stick to the working arrangements between the oil industry and the Government, and to protect the country from being saddled with an enormous and expensive apparatus at this present level of shortage. [Interruption.] Rationing may be the instinct of the Opposition on these matters, but rationing would not produce a drop more oil and is not our instinct. I do not believe that it is the right way forward.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. Those hon. Members who were here at Question Time will know that on Question No. 4 I undertook that four hon. Members who waited, rather than asking a supplementary question at that time, would be called later. I will fulfil that promise in the course of these supplementary questions.
Mr. David Steel: Is the Secretary of State aware that he must not be surprised that the House expects the Government to take decisions in this matter? I rather thought that that was what Governments were for. Most hon. Members would agree with me in this. When those running ambulance services are paying £1·80 a gallon for petrol, does he not accept that that is not a free market but a black market?
The Government say in their statement that they are aware of the shortages in particular regions and for particular consumers, and the Secretary of State said that he has made requests to the petroleum industry to achieve a more equitable distribution. What has been

41
the result of that request? That is what we are waiting to hear.
Mr. Howell: The right hon. Member knows that the particular problems in his own constituency are ones to which I have given special attention. While the Government are perfectly prepared to take decisions, we do not believe that the answer to every problem is to spend more taxpayers' money and to increase planning. Our aim, as I said very clearly in the statement, is to meet particular customer problems wherever they are raised. We are doing that and we are meeting them swiftly. That is why I mentioned the right hon. Gentleman's constituency. There are other constituencies and other areas where particular problems have arisen. We have moved to help them.
There was mention earlier of British Rail. The Government intervened there, and as a result essential services have not been cut. The only cuts made were ones that would probably have had to be made anyway in the light of sensible economy. [Hon. Members: "Oh."] The reality must be faced that the shortfall of oil will affect all users of oil and oil products throughout the economy. That has to be faced. If there are attempts by the Opposition or by the country to push us into working out particular priorities, others who are not lucky enough to be in the priority areas will suffer, and suffer severely. With the present level of shortfall, that would not make sense.
Mr. Hal Miller: I thank my right hon. Friend for the action that he has taken so far. Does he accept that there is disquiet, particularly among smaller garages, about allocations by their suppliers which, it is feared, may be based on a distorted pattern of trade which obtained at this time last year and is aggravated in particular parts of the country? Will he ask his oil industry advisers to look carefully at the pattern of allocations? Will he further ask them about allegations of distortion of trade to take advantage of higher prices obtaining elsewhere?
Mr. Howell: I have raised both these issues with the oil industry. I shall certainly continue to press the industry on the question of meeting particular regional problems and needs. As for the distortion of trade aspect—unfair competition is a
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matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade—I have had no clear evidence of profiteering. Clearly, in some areas price has been used as a mechanism rather than handing out available supplies to first comers and having none for later purchasers. That is common sense. That is a reasonable way of operating.
Mr. Benn: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Oil Industry Emergency Committee was set up by the industry to deal with distribution problems, that the previous Government put my right hon. Friend the then Minister of State in charge, and that he himself has a clear duty to see that a Minister supervises the activities of the committee?
Secondly, Parliament has entrusted the right hon. Gentleman with powers under the Energy Act which are sufficient for the control of a situation such as this, which may not call for rationing, and it would be a sheer abdication of his responsibilities to say that overcharging is for competition.
Mr. Howell: The Oil Industry Emergency Committee and the taking of powers under the Energy Act are matters which would be justified in a major oil emergency. We are now in a period of shortfall of the level that I have described, as the right hon. Gentleman knows. He also knows that it should be possible, through the oil industry and existing machinery, to manage sensible and fair treatment for customers throughout the country wherever there is hardship. But if there are difficulties in this matter and in the way in which our oil industry is organised which apparently have given us these problems—in contrast, we are told, to lesser problems in neighbouring countries—they arise in part from the nature, structure and organisation of the oil industry which we have inherited. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh"] Oh, yes. That is why we are looking carefully and rapidly at the structure of the oil industry and reviewing the functions and finances of the British National Oil Corporation to find more satisfactory and flexible methods than those that I found when I took office on 4 May this year.
Mr. David Price: In his statement my right hon. Friend referred to international co-operation. Does he agree that American action in subsidising imports

43
of oil into the United States of America is thoroughly counter-productive to international co-operation? Will he join the French and German Governments in making stern representation to Washington?
Mr. Howell: As I told the House at Question Time, I have been in contact with other EEC Energy Ministers. The French Minister of Energy, on behalf of the EEC Ministers, in the role of the presidency, flew to Washington to make the strongest possible protest to the United States about their unilateral action. I agree with my hon. Friend that that kind of action, particularly without prior consultation in the International Energy Agency, is likely not to prevent the scramble for oil, which we must prevent, but to cause greater instabilities.
Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Were the requests to the oil companies made in statutory form? If statutory powers exist for such directions, why were they not used? If, as I understand, the Government believe in the price mechanism, why do they not use it?
Mr. Howell: The price mechanism is not the whole answer, because obviously there are problems of transition and easing the impact of the higher prices which are bound to come, but the price mechanism is part of the situation. I am surprised that the right hon. Gentleman felt it necessary to raise that question.
On the question of representations to the United Kingdom Petroleum Industry Association, once powers under the Energy Act are taken and directives given, the Government are then in the position of allocating and organising priorities. In that situation, it will be necessary for the Government and, indeed, hon. Members to justify choices in essential priorities between one user and another which may in practice not be justified and may create more injustice. With the present levels of shortfall, I am convinced that that kind of full panoply of apparatus of allocation by Government officials would create more difficulties and rigidities and undermine the work that is being done by the Government, the Department and the oil industry to meet customer needs and combat hardship during this first impact from Iran which has been working through this
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economy for many months. Let no one be under any illusion that it has suddenly sprung up during the last few weeks.
Mr. Viggers: Does my right hon. Friend agree that our present difficulties, highly inconvenient though they may be, are but a pale shadow of the problems which will face us or our children when the oil and gas supplies actually run out? Will he confirm that the Government are giving proper priority to really long-term strategic planning?
Mr. Howell: The formulation of a long-term energy policy is the responsibility not of one Government but of successive Administrations and Parliaments. We are dealing with a 10, 20 and 30-year span in which we have to take major investment decisions on colossal sums and find a balance which will ensure that for our children and their children there will be a variety and flexibility of supply, without which our civilised standards of living and pattern of life as we know it will be undermined. I fully recognise that responsibility and we are working on it.
Mr. Rowlands: Does the Secretary of State realise that his remark about even-handedness will be treated with total derision in South Wales valley communities which this weekend have suffered cuts not only in their rail transport but in their bus services in areas which are totally or heavily dependent on public transport? In addition to essential services, such as ambulances and farmers' needs, will he try to give some priority to public transport services in valley and other communities which are heavily dependent on them?
Mr. Howell: As I said earlier, where a particular bus or public transport service is in difficulty, much the swiftest way is for it to be dealt with specifically with the oil supplier and, if necessary, with the Department. Where the hon. Gentleman is at fault, or perhaps has not received the right information, is in implying that all bus and public transport services are in grave difficulties and that they should all become an essential priority. That is not so. A general categorisation and preference for those would merely divert petrol, oil and diesel from farm tractors, from people trying to drive to work over the mountains in Wales and from others

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who are doing work just as valuable in our economy as those driving buses. The hon. Gentleman must understand that a fair share of the cutback of 5 per cent. has to be borne by all those using oil and oil products, but, of course, we must give priority to the emergency services. That is the commonsense way.
Mr. Skeet: As about 60 per cent. of naphtha goes into petrol, what assurance is my right hon. Friend prepared to give to the petrochemical industry that it will be able to get its feedstock? Has he made use of section 4 of the 1975 Act to ensure that the BNOC receives a direction on oil pricing and on the export of its own products?
Mr. Howell: We are reviewing the functions and activities of the BNOC. I shall take into account the point made by my hon. Friend. It is obviously relevant to the review.
On the question of naphtha supplies, the basic shortage is of crude oil from which naphtha and other fractions of the barrel come. Therefore, there is a shortfall of 5 per cent. right across the board.
I have urged all industry, including those companies using oil products, to seek to make economies and to do so—as many of them tell me they can—without necessarily cutting back production. There are many ways in our society—and we need only to stop and ponder these—of operating existing services and levels of production while cutting back on the use of oil by the sort of amount I mentioned.
I freely concede that if we were to have a far greater cut, and if there were to be another major shortfall in the Middle East, it would be different. However, to handle the present shortfall, I am convinced that it is far better to use the approach that I have outlined to the House, which I believe is more even-handed and fairer than any kind of rationing and allocation being pressed on the public, as is suggested from the Opposition Benches.
Mr. Gordon Wilson: Is the Secretary of State aware that the oil companies will be the beneficiaries of 65 million tons of oil produced in the Scottish sector of the North Sea this year? In those circum-
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stances, why is it that the Government have allowed those companies to cut the supply of oil to the United Kingdom? Has the right hon. Gentleman considered instructing the British National Oil Corporation to take up its allocation of participation oil in order to satisfy the needs of the domestic market?
Mr. Howell: North Sea oil is traded internationally and commercially, and contracts are entered into. As I said, I take the view that the balance is not entirely right. I have looked at the structure of the oil industry, including the very over-extended State oil apparatus which our predecessors deemed to be right but which I personally question, to see in what way we can change the balance—as I said in my statement—in a way consistent with our commercial requirements and interests, our international interests and the need for security of supply. If we are concerned with the national interest and the interests of the British people, including the Scottish people, it is a change in this area that is required. That is something that I and the Government are rapidly setting about doing at present.
Mr. Emery: Does not the Minister consider that there is much greater concern than he is expressing regarding certain distribution problems? It must be unacceptable that certain farming interests are told that they cannot have diesel from their normal suppliers for one month. Will the Minister consider using the co-operative mechanism of the Oil Emergency Committee which previously—in 1974—was able to ensure, without Government directives, that there was an evening out of supply and that those oil companies which were short were matched by other oil companies which could import a larger amount of oil? That type of co-operation should be monitored by the Ministry.
Mr. Howell: I am certainly prepared to continue pressing the oil suppliers, as I have for several weeks, to try to even out the first impact of the Iranian crisis, particularly in the way that my hon. Friend rightly describes. We can work all the time to improve distribution and see that it is more even-handed. That is the aim of my talks with the oil industry, and I shall continue to press

47
those points. The oil companies are very much aware of the need to meet particular regional problems and the needs of farms, although they, too, recognise that to stand up and say that a whole category is in difficulty and must be given priority would be quite wrong and would create the kind of injustices that Opposition Members, by their noise, seem determined we should wish on the British people.
Mr. Robert Hughes: As the Minister seems to be saying that the shortfall is approximately 5 per cent., and agreeing that the difficulties arise primarily from distribution in rural areas, certain sections of the Health Service and the public sector, may I ask him to stop being mealy-mouthed and admit that the free market economy in petrol has failed abysmally in its job? This must be due to either bungling incompetence at being unable to organise a rational system of distribution in a country as small as ours or to crude, naked greed which he and his friends support.
Mr. Howell: What I do freely admit is that the allocation and rationing system, with which Opposition Members seem determined to try to saddle the British people, would create greater difficulties and more unfairness in the public services and to the farming industry than the present situation. I believe that the right way forward is the one that we are now pursuing.
Mr. Patrick McNair-Wilson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in the rural areas a great deal of fuel is wasted by motorists who are looking for fuel? Will he, therefore, have discussions with the appropriate authorities to ensure that proper opening times are published outside garages, so that people know when they can buy petrol?
Mr. Howell: I have had discussions with the oil industry and with the motor agents and those who operate the forecourts of the filling stations to see whether they can organise a better and more effective system of information both about fuel economy—to avoid people driving around wasting fuel whilst looking for fuel—and about driving in a way which would reduce the shortfall of 5 per cent. In other words, I have asked
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them to encourage people not to keep their foot flat on the floor when they race away from traffic lights and to organise supplies between local garages more effectively. I believe that this is being done and will be done more effectively. The last thing that is needed—although no doubt the Opposition would wish it to happen—is a law promulgated from Whitehall ordering how all our garages should behave.
Dr. John Cunningham: Is the Secretary of State aware that the public would prefer the Government—even this Government—to dictate the levels of public transport and the availability of petroleum products, rather than leave it to the multinational oil companies, as he has done? Has he not provided those companies with a licence to determine not only the supply of petroleum products but also the price of those products? Is he not hooked on an ideological kick here? How does he reconcile his determination not to intervene with his statement that a major conservation programme is necessary? Is that not a contradiction of his earlier remarks? Will he not have to intervene in order to produce it?
Mr. Howell: The hon. Gentleman says that he thinks that the public want the Government to dictate. It is my view that the public do not want that and, indeed, expressed their wish against dictation of that kind in recent opportunities at the polls.
The hon. Member asks "Is it not desirable to go for some system of rationing?" [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Does he not realise that the cost of following such a path would involve at least 2,000 extra civil servants and an extra £1½ million per month in salaries? As regards the multinational oil companies, which he believes are at the centre of this, let me explain to him again that the system I found when I arrived in this job on 4 May included not only the traditional oil suppliers but a new major oil company—the BNOC. That company is also a major influence on supplies to the British market. If the hon. Gentleman is going to start complaining about oil companies and their behaviour, he should be even-handed and look at the behaviour of all oil companies in the present complex with which we have to deal.
Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in my constituency quite a number of the rural garages have been told that they will receive no further supplies of petrol this month and that some have had their normal deliveries cut by more than 30 per cent.? Will he publish the guidelines to which he has referred several times in the House? If my right hon. Friend makes reference to a document, as he knows, he is bound to lay it on the Table of the House. Will he publish the guidelines so that individual garages can see whether they are receiving fuel in accordance with them?
Mr. Howell: The cuts imposed by certain oil companies have been unacceptably high in relation to the overall shortfall that I described earlier. That is why I said that, although there has been an average shortfall of 5 per cent.—that includes the amount taken off for stockpiling because stockpiling for the winter is obviously vital—in some areas, because some companies have been unevenly hit by the Iranian crisis, there has been a much greater shortfall. I have been pressing the oil industry—I do not think I mentioned any document, with respect to my hon. Friend—to take action to meet the substantial disparities between one oil supplier and another. It cannot be right that some customers have all their needs fulfilled and more besides when others, such as the garages mentioned by my hon. Friend, are in great difficulties. I believe those difficulties are being overcome and can be further overcome.
If my hon. Friend finds the difficulties and unevenness persisting, I urge him, or the specific garages, to get in touch with their suppliers, to try other suppliers if that is not satisfactory or to come to the Department of Energy and we shall sort it out. That seems to me a sensible way of handling the matter. I cannot see that that is a reason for issuing a mass of national Government priorities—I know that my hon. Friend is not suggesting that, but others are—and saddling the country with a gigantic apparatus. I do not know what the love of Opposition Members is for this type of bureaucracy. It costs a great deal of money.
Mr. Bagier: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that it is much more
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important to keep public transport and public utilities going than to provide petrol for the Rolls-Royces attending the Derby, Royal Ascot, or whatever? As the present Minister of Transport has been excluded from the Cabinet, will the right hon. Gentleman explain what sort of communication he has with him, what representations have been made by him with regard to petrol supplies for the public utilities, and what reply has been given?
Mr. Howell: I am obviously in close contact with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport about these matters. However, I deplore the hon. Gentleman's suggestion that motorists on the road are in all cases in some way inessential or a down-graded category.[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman was implying that there was an absolute priority and preference for public transport over private motorists. I deplore that suggestion. Many people who travel on the roads as motorists are doing vital work in the national interest and are helping our economy. I do not believe that on a 5 per cent. shortfall it would be realistic or fair to go around trying to draw the line between the private motorist—however vital his or her role may be—and public transport. There is a much more sensible approach, which is to ask those in public transport also to seek to make this small economy. Where they are in real difficulties, let them take the procedure that I have outlined, as some have done, and many have been helped.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. We have discussed this for half an hour, and I propose to call four more hon. Members from either side, which I think is a fair crack of the whip.
Mr. Hordern: One of my right hon. Friend's interesting proposals was that a proportion of the royalties should be taken in the form of product rather than cash. Bearing in mind that BNOC exports half its production, will my right hon. Friend say whether there is sufficient refining capacity if these interesting proposals are carried out? If so, is there any reason why he should not get on with this straight away?
Mr. Howell: There is refining capacity which would now be available for oil

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from the United Kingdom continental shelf to be refined and sold into the British market, where there is demand. That could be met. I think that that is something which could go forward if the crude oil was available. On the royalties issue, I should make it clear that royalty in kind has been taken, by decisions of the previous Government, for the second half of this year. What I mentioned would affect the first half of next year. I said that this may help United Kingdom refineries and suppliers, because there is no guarantee, when the royalty oil is taken, that it would not necessarily have come to the United Kingdom market anyway. Therefore, I do not regard this as anything more than a marginal help, and it may be marginal help in the first half of next year. But, as of now, I can tell my hon. Friend that refinery capacity is available to handle North Sea oil which could come into the United Kingdom market.
Mr. Faulds: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that if, under Right-wing pressures, foolish decisions are reached about Southern Rhodesia, Nigeria may well decide to make life much more difficult for the West, including Britain, by restraints on her oil and commercial benefits?
Mr. Howell: That is a speculation by the hon. Gentleman, on which I am not prepared to comment.
Mr. Faulds: Wait and see.
Mr. Rippon: Will my right hon. Friend give the same consideration to my constituency as he has given to that of the Leader of the Liberal Party, because we face exactly the same sort of difficulties? Is he aware that in sparsely populated areas such as Northumberland it is not possible for people to go around topping up because it takes a gallon of petrol to get to the nearest garage and there are no opportunities for public transport or the kind that are available elsewhere? Does my right hon. Friend accept that there is a strong feeling in Northumberland that the present distribution is not even-handed, and that very great difficulties are being caused to both fanners and other individuals? Will he try to help?
Mr. Howell: I have already looked at the problems in my right hon. and learned
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Friend's constituency, as I have in regard to the constituencies of many other right hon. and hon. Members. Where there are particular supply and customer difficulties—this by no means extends over all consumers of oil—I have sought to take steps to help, and will take further steps. I recognise that during the period in which the impact of Iran has fed through, the even-handedness was not in the first stage at all satisfactory. Of course there were major shortages in certain areas, but I am convinced that as we work on this system, with all the difficulties that have faced us, we shall succeed in getting a fairer spread of the allocations and cutback. If there are further difficulties, my right hon. and learned Friend should raise them with me again, as he has already done, because that is absolutely right.
Mr. Stoddart: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he has shown amazing complacency in handling this problem? His abdication of responsibility to the oil companies is offensive to this House of Commons and will be offensive to people throughout the country, who will resent being told that public transport in particular, and other essential services, should not have priority. The right hon. Gentleman should remember that one bus will take 72 passengers and one train 600 passengers, but under his free marketing system they might well be pushed into 600 cars on the road.
Mr. Howell: The hon. Gentleman talked about complacency. He should perhaps reflect on the five years during which the affairs of this nation were in the charge of his right hon. Friends—including four months after the Iranian crisis was perfectly in prospectߞwhen very little was done to prepare the country for the difficulties we now face. If the hon. Gentleman talks about complacency, that is where it should lie. As to particular allocations for public services or public transport, I have explained that the public transport services use oil and are capable of saving oil without cutting essential services. Practically all parts of industry and the public services are capable of achieving these savings, and many have done so already. It is a perfectly sensible way forward, and is infinitely preferable to going for the full range of allocations and priorities—declaring all public transport operations to be good, whether or

53
not they are needed or wasteful, and all private motorists and other down-graded priorities apparently put in the background. That seems to be a silly way of handling this present situation.
Sir Anthony Meyer: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there will be general support for his resistance to panic measures which demand a siege economy? However, will he explain to the oil industry that the needs of the tourist industry, which is a vital industry in terms of both exports and employment, are not adequately met by a system of allocation based on the previous month's consumption? In the case of that industry, it would be far better to use last year's consumption for an equivalent month.
Mr. Howell: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's opening remarks. Of course, he should realise that tourism would be precisely the category which would get it in the neck if Labour Members were allowed to go for their priorities.
The truth is that tourism is a vital industry in our country. While it too must make sacrifices, and to some extent cut down, it must be wrong to suggest that the whole of this industry should be downgraded in favour of some declared essential services which Labour Members have in their minds. That is what they have been arguing, and those are the consequences of the decisions that they are trying to press upon the British people. I am, therefore, grateful to my hon. Friend.
There are certain areas where tourism demands are creating problems. The oil companies have been asked to look at them and are doing so. They are certainly trying to maintain last year's allocations, which are deliberately geared up for the high season in the tourist resorts, and, if possible, to improve on them. In the particular areas where there are particular problems, we are attending to them. That is probably a better deal than they would hope to get from the kind of recipes that have been advanced by Labour Members this afternoon.
Mr. English: The right hon. Gentleman is to be congratulated on arriving at a position in which he is entitled to expound the views of the Cabinet on the effectiveness of the free market price mechanism. Did the Cabinet express
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those same views to its subordinate Ministers, such as the Minister of Transport, or did the right hon. Gentleman decide off his own bat not to follow Conservative Party policy?
Mr. Howell: I am not aware of the particular item to which the hon. Gentleman is referring, although I can guess. That matter is a question for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport, who has told the House that he is reviewing the whole matter which I think the hon. Gentleman has in mind. I see no reason why my right hon. Friend should not review an issue and a position that were wished on him and that he inherited when he came into government. There is no reason why he should not look at this again.
Mr. McQuarrie: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in the North-East of Scotland, particularly my own constituency, many villages have only one service station and that for periods of between 12 and 17 days those stations have been without supplies? What steps does he propose to take to alleviate the situation?
Mr. Howell: I am aware of particular villages and areas where there have been very serious supply problems. We are taking immediate steps with the oil companies—and have done already, several days back—to try to help these villages and supply areas where the previous supplier has found himself completely out of oil supplies. This is the action that we have taken. I believe that it will be effective—infinitely more effective than declaring general priorities from Whitehall and then hoping that something will happen.
Mr. Foulkes: Prior to the recess the Minister gave an assurance to one of his hon. Friends that he would give special consideration to the problems of disabled drivers, who cannot take part in the panic scramble for petrol. Will he now give an indication of the result of that consideration and what action he proposes to take to help disabled drivers?
Mr. Howell: Garages and filling stations and those who supply and distribute to them have been asked to look particularly at and take particular care of the problems of disabled customers

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who are in difficulties. Where they are in difficulties, garages, filling stations and forecourts have been asked to take particular care. I believe that that is the right way to help the disabled, who obviously have a special problem and a special difficulty in a situation of this kind, if they are in an area of shortage. They may not be in such an area, but, if they are, that is how they will be helped.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS
Mr. Cryer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It will be within your recollection that in a supplementary question to the Secretary of State the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) asked for the guidelines to be laid on the Table of the House. This is a custom of the House. The Minister has referred to them on several occasions. He was specifically asked by one of his hon. Friends whether he would place the guidelines on the Table. He made absolutely no reference whatsoever to that. I ask for your guidance, Mr. Speaker, on the question whether the Minister is required to place the information before the House, as is the custom, and whether you will so direct him.
Secondly, I ask for your guidance, Mr. Speaker, on another matter. During questions on this issue and the private notice question, several hon. Members who have known financial interests asked questions. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to ask hon. Members—as a voluntary code; I know that the House did not pass a resolution on this matter—to volunteer their financial interests where they are absolutely essential to the question, as with some of the occasions during the past hour, so that people outside the House—and we serve the public—have a correct knowledge and understanding of the reasons why questions are raised.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman has raised two matters. First, with regard to the guidelines to which the Minister referred, the Minister made no quotation from them, and, as far as I am concerned, he is not obliged to lay them on the Table.
Secondly, with regard to declaring personal interests in matters that are raised, this is always a matter for hon. Mem-
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bers concerned and for the House itself rather than a matter for me to rule upon.
Mr. Cryer: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am grateful for your comments. You said that the Minister did not quote from the guidelines. In fact, the Minister indicated that the guidelines contained some sort of guidance, quite obviously. We do not know whether he was quoting directly, because we do not know the content. Therefore, if the Minister was using the guidelines in any sense—he may well have been using a direct quotation; we have no knowledge—he ought surely to be required to place them in the Library. Will you, Mr Speaker, ask the Minister whether he used a direct quotation from the guidelines and whether he is prepared to place them on the Table?
Mr. Speaker: It is not for me to question Ministers about statements that they have made.
Mr. Ioan Evans: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. We have had a statement from the Minister outlining the problem. Could we, through you, ask the Minister tomorrow what the Government will be doing about this?
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member cannot ask the Minister anything through me. I am not that invisible.

OIL SUPPLIES
Mr. Christopher Price: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 9, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the refusal of the Government to set priorities for emergency and public services during the present oil crisis".
I am sorry that I have not been able to give you notice of this application, Mr. Speaker, but in the circumstances, because the application arises from the questioning that we have just heard, it has not been possible to do so.
The exchanges across the Floor of the House today have made clear what an urgent problem this is. It is an immediate problem, because we have heard today that public transport in many parts of the country and ambulance services

57
in some parts of the country are under threat.
When the present Government came into office they gave one emergency service—the police—some priority in terms of pay. The House has a right to expect the Government to set priorities for the other emergency services, particularly the ambulance services, so that those services can be maintained.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price) asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 9, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he believes should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the refusal of the Government to set priorities for emergency and public services during the present oil crisis".
I listened with care to the exchanges this afternoon and to the arguments advanced by the hon. Gentleman. As the House knows, under Standing Order No. 9 I am directed to take into account the several factors set out in the order but to give no reasons for my decision. Although I have listened with great care to what has been said, I have to rule that the hon. Gentleman's submission does not fall within the provisions of the Standing Order, and therefore I cannot submit his application to the House.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  KIRIBATI BILL
  Considered in Committee.
  [MR. BERNARD WEATHERILL in the Chair]

Clause 1

  INDEPENDENCE FOR KIRIBATI
  4.37 p.m.
  Sir Bernard Braine: I beg to move amendment No. 1. in page 1, line 8, at end insert
  'as defined in Clause 7(1) of this Act'.
  The Chairman: With this amendment it will be convenient to take the following:
  Amendment No. 2, in clause 2, page 1, line 12, at beginning insert—
  '1) Subject to the provisions of subsections (2) and (3) below'.'
  Amendment No. 5, in clause 2, page 1, line 14, at end insert—
  '(2) The constitution of Kiribati to be made under subsection (1) above shall make provision for a compact of free association between the Gilbert Islands (other than Banaba) and Banaba which grants self-government for the Banabans on Banaba under the overall sovereignty of the Government of Kiribati.
  (3) Such constitution shall include provision that—

  (a) the Kiribati Government's authority over and responsibility for Banaba shall be confined to matters relating to external security, defence and citizenship, the special citizenship rights of the Banabans being entrenched in the Kiribati Constitution; and

  (b) the Government of Banaba shall have sole authority and responsibility for conducting their foreign affairs and sole jurisdiction over Banaban marine resources; and

  (c) the compact of free association between the Gilbert Islands and Banaba may be terminated unilaterally by either party after a period of three years.'.

  Amendment No. 16, in clause 7, page 4, line 37, at end insert '(other than Ocean Island)'.
  New clause 1—Report of the Gilbert Islands Constitutional Conference, November-December 1978.
  Amendment No. 17, in title, page 1, line 2, after 'Islands', insert '(other than Ocean Island)'.
  I indicated on the selection list issued this morning that I would be willing to

  59
  allow a separate Division on amendment No. 2, if required. I have since heard that the hon. Members interested might prefer to divide separately on amendment No. 5 instead. As this is the amendment of substance to which amendment No. 2 relates, this will be quite in order, and I shall therefore give an opportunity for amendment No. 5 to be moved and divided upon when it is reached.
  Sir B. Braine: Perhaps I may preface my remarks, Mr. Weatherill, by saying that it gives me great joy—and I think that I speak for all hon. Members present—to see you presiding for the first time over a Committee of the whole House. Those of us who have had the privilege of knowing you for some years are aware of your great qualities of heart and mind, your kindness and generosity and, above all, your dedication to Parliament. You are truly a parliamentary man, and we should like to wish you a long, happy and successful enjoyment of your office.
  What you have just said, Mr. Weatherill, about the arrangements for the debate is wholly acceptable to me and, I trust, to those of my hon. Friends who are supporting this group of amendments.
  These amendments seek to prevent an injustice to a small Pacific community, the Banabans, who have already suffered grievously enough at the hands of successive British Administrations. The amendments concern their claim to return to their orginal homeland, Ocean Island, or Banaba, seized by Britain for its phosphate wealth three-quarters of a century ago and which, now ravaged and well-nigh destroyed, is to be included in the new Kiribati or Gilbertese Republic.
  The amendments would effectively prevent the Banabans, who are mainly Fijian citizens, from being forced to live in a State to which they do not wish to belong and they would go some way towards making amends for a long and sordid record of maladministration almost without parallel in our history.
  If carried, the amendments would not frustrate or delay Gilbertese independence, planned for next month. Neither would they slam the door on a reasonable compromise solution. On the contrary, they should clear the way for an inde-
  60
  pendent Kiribati Republic to enter into a constitutional arrangement with the Banabans on an equal footing, which alone can ensure a peaceful and harmonious future for both peoples.
  The Banaban people have only one request to make of Parliament. They make it with dignity despite all that they have endured and in the profound belief that, once the truth is known, Parliament will not let them down.
  I do not say this with any relish, but the Second Reading debate was remarkable for the way in which the case for the separation of Ocean Island from the Gilbert Islands colony to which it was attached in 1916, without Banaban consent or even knowledge, was totally ignored by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Blaker), who is in charge of the Bill, and his platoon of ex-Foreign Office Ministers.
  It was an astonishing performance. If the facts fitted the brief, well and good; if they did not, so much the worse for the facts. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Surrey (Sir A. Royle) let the ministerial cat out of the bag when he told us that it did not matter what hon. Members said; the Foreign Office had always acted in a practical, right and just manner. Anyone who has bothered to study the facts of this case knows that that is precisely what it has not done. I invite the Committee to consider whether it can recall any other instance in modern times of a High Court judge censuring successive British Governments for their breach of trust towards a small, defenceless people.
  My hon. Friend the Minister of State contended that to grant the Banabans' request would run contrary to the long-established practice of British Governments not to fragment colonial territories when granting independence, to maintain existing boundaries, and to respect the wishes of the inhabitants as a whole. He was
  "unaware of any case in which separation has been pushed through in defiance of the wishes and without the consent of the elected Government of that territory."—[Official Report, 24 May 1979; Vol. 967, c. 1333.]
  I am sorry to have to say that such a statement was palpable nonsense, as any student of Commonwealth history could have told him. Indeed, he was told in the debate that that was exactly what had

  61
  happened when we assented to Pakistan seceding from the Indian Union against the wishes of the Hindu majority, and when Nyasaland seceded from the Central African Federation and Jamaica seceded from the West Indian Federation against the wishes of the properly elected Governments concerned.
  My hon. Friend was also told that his sacred principle of non-fragmentation had been shattered in the case of tiny Anguilla, where one of his precedessors was chased off the island by a small community who were determined to have nothing to do with another of our Whitehall concoctions, the associated State of St. Kitts-Nevis Anguilla—a situation which we had finally to accept. The experience had its comic aspect, but it was humiliating indeed to the Government at the time and I can well understand that my hon. Friend does not wish to recall it.
  What the Anguilla episode did, however, was to teach the lesson that people who feel that their freedom and identity are threatened will protest and rebel. I find it sad in the extreme that in some quarters that lesson has still not been learned.
  My hon. Friend the Minister of State derived some comfort and support from the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil (Mr. Rowlands), who spoke of the 1960 General Assembly resolution condemning disruption of the territorial integrity of a country. That, if I may say so with respect, was a somewhat one-sided view of the resolution. As the Wooding Commission on Anguilla put it squarely,
  "There is … an unresolved conflict between the pursuit of the right of self-determination and the preservation of the national unity and territorial integrity of an established state."
  The truth is, of course, that both these contradictory principles are enshrined in the United Nations resolution. It would have been fairer had the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and my hon. Friend told the House that the United Nations also certainly endorses the inalienable right of self-determination.
  4.45 p.m.
  I mean no disparagement of the United Nations when I say that it is essentially a political organisation, and that its resolutions are not sacrosanct; nor are they consistently interpreted. The United
  62
  Nations recognised the secession of Bangladesh from Pakistan, but not that of Taiwan from China. It was not prepared to accept the 1967 referendum in Gibraltar which had resulted in an overwhelming vote in favour of staying with Britain rather than joining Fascist Spain. These examples hardly suggest that my hon. Friend was on firm ground when he called the United Nations in aid.
  It is not for us, I suggest, in this sovereign Parliament to explain United Nations attitudes. Our task surely is to decide for ourselves what are the merits of the case and, if I may borrow the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Surrey, to determine what is "practical, right and just".
  Here, alas, my hon. Friend the Minister of State was not very helpful. When he sought to show how wrong we were to fragment the Gilbert Islands colony against the wishes of the majority of its people, he cited at length the case of Kenya, where at the time of independence we refused the Somalis of the Northern Frontier District permission to secede and join their brothers in Somalia. In defending that decision, he made no pretence, as he has done in the case of the Banabans and the Gilbertese, that the Somalis were of the same race and spoke the same language as the Kikuyu, the Masai or the Kamba. On the contrary, in Kenya the ethnic principle was totally ignored because to have recognised it would have violated the principle of territorial integrity. It was the colonial boundaries that had to be respected there, not the principle of ethnic affinity, let alone the wishes of a minority.
  It is true, of course, that frontiers which divide distinct ethnic groups are treated as sacrosanct in the Third world. The Somali nation is but one victim; there are many others. But the Minister's contention and that of the Gilbertese Government that the Banabans should be forcibly confined within Gilbertese frontiers because they are ethnically similar is a novel one indeed. It is not only a novel argument but a dishonest one fabricated in order to conceal the true motive—the need to justify past and future exploitation of Banaban resources.
  In any event, as the Minister of State admitted, both the principles of territorial integrity and of self-determination

  63
  have already been breached in the Gilberts by allowing the secession of the Ellice Islands, now known as Tuvalu.
  I am not forgetting that my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal anticipated the point by telling us that the Tuvaluans are Polynesian as opposed to the Gilbertese and the Banabans who are Micronesian, and, what is more, they separated with the consent of the Gilbertese. In a tight corner, all Ministers choose whatever argument suits them. None must mind, therefore, if we probe a little deeper, as I intend to do, and uncover the whole truth.
  Why was it that, with the encouragement of the British Government, the Gilbertese were willing to let the Tuvaluans secede but have been adamantly opposed to letting the Banabans go? The answer has nothing to do with ethical considerations but everything to do with money. The Tuvaluans were allowed to go because they agreed to give up any claim to their share of the remaining revenues from Banaban phosphates. Not only would this ensure that the Gilbertese would be able to enjoy these revenues, building up a massive reserve fund until the phosphate deposits were exhausted—I do not hold that against them—but the British Government would be relieved thereby from the cost of administering a poverty-stricken State. That was the reason why the Banabans could not be released, and everyone in the Pacific knows it. It is greatly to the credit of the Tuvaluans that they preferred to take their freedom rather than to continue drawing the phosphate money.
  Greed has been the motivation for denying Banaban self-determination, and nothing else. A fortnight before Mr. John Lee, who was an hon. Member in the last Parliament, and I visited the area in March 1975, the then Prime Minister of Australia told the House of Representatives in Canberra that for decades since the First World War the inhabitants of phosphate islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans—and he specifically mentioned Ocean Island—had subsidised Australian and New Zealand farmers. He could have added that they had also enabled the British Government to run the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony on the cheap.
  64
  In our report to the British Government in April 1975, following our visit to the Pacific and discussions with Australian Ministers and officials and New Zealand officials, there and elsewhere in the Pacific, Mr. Lee and I stated that we had
  "the distinct impression that their governments are profoundly uneasy about what has happened in the past to the remote island peoples of the Pacific"
  and that
  "a readiness exists in Canberra and Wellington to join with the United Kingdom in accepting a settlement which would enable Ocean Island to become associated with Fiji (which is what the Banabans always wanted) provided the Gilbert and Ellice Islands were given both compensatory support and continuing aid for some years ahead."
  Accordingly, we recommended that there should be immediate discussions between the Governments concerned with a view to wiping the slate clean and making a fresh start. It is our belief that had that recommendation been accepted the Banabans would have called off the proceedings they were taking against the British Government and the British Phosphate Commissioners. Alas, our report was totally ignored. The Banabans plunged into their long High Court actions and the opportunity to resolve the problem in a statesmanlike way had been thrown away.
  I have stated this at length because I must put a question to the Committee: if the United Nations fails to provide us with a clear guide as to how best to proceed, and if our decolonising experience elsewhere is of little help, to whom and to what principle can we turn for guidance?
  My hon. Friend was, I thought, a little over-sensitive when I suggested on Second Reading that we might seek the advice of our Commonwealth partners in the Pacific with whom the new Kiribati Republic will have to live after our withdrawal. I had in mind the States closest to the problem in both the political and geographical sense—Fiji, Nauru and Tuvalu.
  I find it disturbing that Ministers and their predecessors have deliberately not consulted the Fijian Government on the possible separation of Banaba from the Gilberts. With respect, I think that this is a case of not asking a question to

  65
  which they already know, and do not like, the answer.
  The Prime Minister of Fiji, a greatly respected figure in the Commonwealth and a good friend of our country, has behaved impeccably throughout these years. He has never openly criticised the British Government, but he certainly has views on the subject, as many of us know, and it would be surprising if he had not, for most Banabans are Fijian subjects.
  Let me remind the Committee of what the Fijian Prime Minister told his own Parliament as recently as 7 March, shortly after the abortive visit of Mr. Evan Luard. He reported that he had told Mr. Luard that his Government fully sympathised with the position now taken by the Banabans, and said:
  "The Banabans were bent on demanding separation of Ocean Island because they had never been governed by the Gilbertese. They felt that if Britain, which had governed Ocean Island for the Banabans and on their behalf since 1916"
  —the year in which they were attached to the Gilbert Islands—
  "now wanted to withdraw constitutionally from the region, Ocean Island should be returned to the Banabans, and not handed over to the Gilbert Islands Government. After all Britain had agreed to return sovereignty over the Ellice Islands to the Ellice people."
  The Prime Minister went on to say:
  "As far as the Government of Fiji was concerned, I told Mr. Luard that we could not remain insensitive to what the Banabans feel strongly to be just and fair. As island peoples we are all extremely sensitive to our homeland and heritage. We have never submitted ourselves to be ruled or governed by outsiders."
  This Parliament has never been told of those strong feelings. Ministers have chosen not only to ignore Fijian susceptibilities but to conceal from us the unease that their policy is causing a respected Commonwealth partner. And there is good reason for unease, since the ludicrous constitutional proposals in this Bill will divide the Banabans, who by law have two homes—one on Rabi in Fiji and one on Ocean Island in the Gilberts—between two independent sovereign jurisdictions.
  Ministers have also chosen to ignore requests in the past from both the Gilbertese and the Banabans for a round table conference bringing together all concerned, including the British, Austra-
  66
  lian and New Zealand Governments, as the partners in the BPC, first to discuss the financial issues which lie at the root of the problem and then to deal with the constitutional future of Ocean Island. While this has caused great and continuing concern to Fiji, it is apparently a matter of no concern to British Ministers.
  What is the attitude of the other Commonwealth countries in the Pacific? Has my hon. Friend informed himself of the views held by President Hammer De Roburt of Nauru? Is it not the case that the President would be happy to see Banaba detached?
  What is the attitude of Tuvalu? When I indicated on Second Reading that its Prime Minister had made it plain that the problem was not difficult to solve—that Ocean Island should be allowed to separate from the Gilberts and that this was a matter which should be decided solely between Her Majesty's Government and the Banabans—my hon. Friend said that he had no evidence of this. He went further and claimed that to allow separation would not please other countries in the Pacific. What countries are they? Where is his evidence? The three countries closest to the Gilberts, the three most likely to be disturbed by any unrest caused by the Government's insensitive policy of forcing the Banabans into a State to which they do not wish to belong, would have no objection at all.
  So much for my hon. Friend's arguments. If he is unable to convince us as to what should be our guide in deciding where the path of duty lies, there is, I suggest, one infallible counsellor:
  "Conscience",
  Coleridge told us,
  "is but the pulse of reason."
  To get at the heart of the matter, I suggest that we seek the answers to three questions. First, are the Banabans so distinct a community that their right to self-determination should be conceded? Secondly, have the Banabans been so ill used by successive Administrations that Britain must make amends now while we still have the power to do so? Thirdly, have we an obligation to conduct our withdrawal from the South-West Pacific in a way which leaves the area in a state of peace and tranquillity; and, if so,

  67
  is the final betrayal of the Banabans proposed in the Bill likely to strengthen or weaken that obligation?
  Let us take first the question of identity. Hon. Members may have noted the repeated suggestions by Ministers and ex-Ministers, on both sides of the House, that Ocean Island is, and always has been, an integral part of the Gilbert Islands. The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil described it on Second Reading as
  "an integral and intrinsic part"—[Official Report, 24 May 1979; Vol. 967, c. 1256.]
  of the Gilbert community and State. It is neither.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Kershaw), who is not favouring us with his presence this afternoon, described Ocean Island as merely one of 33 Gilbert Islands. It is not.
  The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Peter Blaker): My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Kershaw) has sent me a note to say that he is very sorry not to be able to be here. He is abroad on duty. I think that he is a member of the Western European Union.
  Sir B. Braine: Perhaps we can jointly ensure that what I am about to say is conveyed to my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud at the appropriate time, because it needs to be said.
  Sixteen of the islands are the Phoenix and Line Islands, none of which has an indigenous population. My hon. Friend told us that he had heard no criticism of the inclusion of either group in the new Kiribati State. That is hardly surprising, because there is no one to complain. The Phoenix Islands, as far as I am aware, have no permanent population, while the Line Islands are mainly populated by a few imported copra workers.
  Having disposed of the Phoenix and Line Islands, we are left with 17 others. One of these is Ocean Island. The remaining 16 are known as the Gilbert Islands as a result of a visit by Captain Thomas Gilbert in 1788. He did not include Ocean Island in the Gilberts for the simple reason that he knew nothing of its existence. It was not discovered until 1804, some 16 years after the -Gilberts had been discovered, listed and named to the satisfaction of Western navigators.
  68
  Consider, too, Mr. Weatherill, the authoritative view of Professor H. E. Maude, the distinguished Pacific historian and former Resident Commissioner in the Gilberts:
  "Banaba was not one of the 16 Gilbert Islands given by informants from Kuria and Butaritari to the ethnographer Horatio Hale in 1841 as constituting the Group, nor was it included in the list given by Captain Richard Randell, the most knowledgeable European connected with the Gilberts prior to annexation, to the Rev. L. H. Gulick in 1861. Nor was Ocean Island included among the 'Gilbert Islands' which Captain E. M. Davis was directed to declare a British Protectorate over."
  I must go into this detail in order to dispose of the kind of arguments that the Government and their predecessors have seen fit to place before Parliament on the rare occasions when we have had the opportunity to discuss the matter.
  I appreciate that to establish that Ocean Island is not one of the Gilbert Islands, which I think I have done, does not necessarily prove that Banabans are not Gilbertese. There have been strenuous efforts on the part of Ministers and ex-Ministers—no doubt on the advice they have received; they are honourable men, and no doubt they believe what they were told—to suggest that the Banabans are the same people as the Gilbertese and that they have no separate identity. Indeed, my hon. Friend had the temerity to call Professor Maude in aid of his argument. My hon. Friend should have pursued his researches further, for in 1968 the professor wrote:
  "The Banabans had never at any time formed a part of the Gilbert Islands, whether geographically, politically or through social cohesion … the community is basically composed of a non-Gilbertese stock on which has been superimposed an overlay of Gilbertese driftaways and a single party of settlers from Beru. The racial composition of the Banabans is therefore similar to that of the Nauruans. …"
  5.0 p.m.
  For full measure, the professor added:
  "Forgotten in Gilbertese tradition, unrecorded in the Gilbertese genealogies, it may be doubted if a single Gilbert Islander was aware of the existence of the Banabans at the time of their first contact with Europeans."
  There is no need to provide the Committee with further evidence, except to comment upon the fact, so often mentioned by British and Gilbertese Ministers, that the Banabans speak the same language as the Gilbertese as though that was a convincing argument.

  69
  Professor Maude compared the loss of the Banaban language, due to the introduction of the Gilbertese Bible, of the use of Gilbertese in mission schools and the influence of Gilbertese phosphate workers, to the loss of the Cornish and Manx languages.
  The hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Penhaligon) and other colleagues from the far West of our country might well remind us that the Cornish revolted against the new liturgy in 1549 on the grounds that
  "we Cornish men (whereof certain of us understand no English) utterly refuse this new English",
  and that William Scawen, writing in the late seventeenth century, attributed the decay of the Cornish language to the neglect of the Church to translate the Prayer Book into Cornish.
  Professor Maude concluded that the former existence of the Banaban language
  "is an indication of separate identity while its extinctioin is attributable to pressures emanating from European contact".
  Thus there can be no doubt that Banaban identity was distinct and separate from that of the Gilbertese until we Europeans arrived and linked the two peoples for our commercial and administrative convenience and advantage. It is contemptible for Ministers and officials to deny that identity, as they have done consistently, as an excuse for what they have done in the past and now for their final act of betrayal.
  Having established Banaban identity beyond peradventure, let us not be led astray by observations, such as those made by hon. Member for Farnworth (Mr. Roper), who made such an excellent speech on Second Reading, to the effect that the Banabans have Gilbertese blood. They have. It is hardly surprising that they have intermarried due to the contacts forced upon them by us between 1900 and 1942 when we abandoned them to the mercy of the Japanese. There is no significance whatsoever in this intermingling of two distinct peoples, save perhaps that it augurs well for future collaboration between them once the idea of forcing the Banabans into a unitary state is abandoned.
  I would only add that, whatever admixture of blood there may have been in the early decades of this century be-
  70
  tween Banabans and Gilbertese, the Banaban community has been living now in Fiji for the past 34 years. It has therefore been separated geographically and politically for more than a generation from the Gilberts colony and is indelibly identified by its connection with Fiji.
  Mr. John Roper: Although the Banabans have been living on Fiji, together with quite a number of Gilbertese who moved to Fiji with them, is it not the case, as I pointed out on Second Reading, that when a party of Banabans went to Rabi Island—I believe at the time of the House of Lords Second Reading debate—and were taken back to Tarawa prior to their trial, most of them were able to stay with their own families, so that the closeness of this relationship continues, despite the fact that they have been living some way away for quite a time?
  Sir B. Braine: I do not deny that. All I am saying is that the fact that there has been intermarriage during a brief period in their history does not deprive them of the identity to which they lay claim.
  The hon. Member for Farnworth knows a great deal about this part of the world. Let me say to him that it is not what I or anyone else thinks about the Banabans that should influence our judgment. In the end, it is what the Banabans believe themselves to be, and nobody who has had any dealings with them, as I have, can doubt that they believe passionately both in their own separate identity and in the need, if they are to survive spiritually, for the return to them of the island where the bones of their ancestors lie.
  A final irony is that as far as the British Government are concerned it is only in these last few years when the Banabans have been demanding that justice is done to them that we have heard suggestions that they are Gilbertese. They were not considered so when we seized their land; they were then regarded as Banabans, and we did not link them with the Gilberts until 16 years later and then so that we could exploit them more easily. They were not Gilbertese when we inveigled them into transferring to Rabi in Fiji so as to make exploitation of their sole resource easier still. It was, in fact, a "Banaban"

  71
  ordinance, not a Gilbertese ordinance, that was introduced by the Fiji Colony Government of the time to regularise their position in their new home.
  I turn to the second question, which is whether the Banabans have been so ill used that we must make amends by heeding their plea for separation. My hon. Friend the Member for Somerset, North (Mr. Dean), whom I do not see here today, thought it wrong to stir up past grievances. He is not the first when faced with a moral dilemma of this kind to suggest that the slate should be sponged clean and that no good is done by recalling the past. That is easy enough for people who themselves have not suffered pain or deprivation.
  It would be easier still if we could make amends for all that had gone before, but that is not proposed in the Bill. On the contrary, the Bill sweeps Banaban claims aside and adds one last final injury to all the others inflicted on defenceless people. In conscience, I cannot go along with that, and I hope that there are sufficient hon. Members in this Committee who will not go along with it.
  I see in my mind's eye weeping Banaban women, clinging to their fruit-bearing trees in a last attempt to resist the bulldozers of the BPC, being dragged away by force.
  I recall the infamous letter from the Resident Commissioner threatening the Banabans with the destruction of their most fertile village unless they agreed to sell their land at an enforced low price.
  I assert that after the war the Banabans did not agree to go to Rabi with joy in their hearts, as hon. Members have been told, but were bullied into going. They were told that if they did not go they would be left to fend for themselves, as they had done under the Japanese, and the Committee should remember that only a few short years before large numbers of their friends and relations had been murdered by the Japanese.
  I recall the lie they were told in 1945 that they could not go back to Ocean Island because it was devastated, and how, while they were being shipped off to Rabi, the BPC was recruiting 1,700 Gilbertese labourers to mine their phos-
  72
  phates, a decision which, incidentally, was taken in advance of getting rid of the Banabans. It follows that it was completely untrue to say, as was said on Second Reading, that the Banabans could not have survived on Ocean Island after the war. Up to 2,000 workers and their families did so, and still do today. It was a lie—a lie perpetrated for a specific reason.
  I remember how, after the Banabans were moved to Rabi, the British adviser attached to them was expressly instructed by his superiors in writing to withhold advice and information from them which was crucial to their economic future. The irony was that they were paying his salary.
  I recall that when British officials went to talks with the BPC in 1964 to discuss the division of phosphate royalties between the Gilbertese and the Banabans, one of them minuted in his elegant Colonial Office prose—and I can produce the evidence—
  "we must be prepared to ditch the Banabans"—
  and ditch them they did.
  We must make amends.
  Sir Raymond Gower: I agree with my hon. Friend in nearly all that he says. However, one feature disturbs me. Does he consider that, by acknowledging the identity of the Banabans in the way that he and I would like to see, we would be making amends for this terrible history and for all the wrongs which were done in the past? I do not consider that it would go nearly far enough.
  Sir B. Braine: That is a good question. It is one straight from my hon. Friend's heart. I understand it. The answer is that it is quite impossible to make full amends for past injuries. But the amendment is what the Banabans and their friends in the Pacific want. It would provide an honourable way out of the difficulty. We shall be coming later to suggestions of a positive kind. This is the best that we can do. The evil that has been done cannot be undone. What we can do is to prevent the final and crowning injury that the Bill seeks to inflict by voting for this amendment.
  Finally, there is the question whether what is proposed in the Bill will ensure

  73
  peace and tranquillity in the South-West Pacific after our departure. If the Bill passes unamended, we shall be dividing the Banaban people between two sovereign jurisdictions. That, in itself, is a lunatic provision without parallel anywhere else in the world. It is also fraught with obvious dangers. The Government have not consulted the Fijian Government about the implications. They have ignored the views of others in the Pacific. They have brushed aside as of no consequence the views of the unhappy Banabans themselves. All that, I suggest, is a sure prescription for trouble in the future, although when it comes Her Majesty's Government will have washed their hands of all responsibility. Such conduct is more than unworthy. It is a disgraceful abdication of responsibility, all the more so because during the week beginning 14 May—before the Second Reading of the Bill—there was an important development in the Pacific.
  At the request of Gilbertese Ministers, the Fijian Prime Minister presided over a conference in Suva between them and the Banabans. Discussion ranged over three days. The Banabans made a significant concession. They said that they were now prepared to consider a free association arrangement with the Gilberts rather than with Fiji, but only after Ocean Island had been separated from the Gilbert Islands colony. The association would then be between two separate but equal political entities. This would be facilitated by my amendment No. 5.
  I should perhaps say, in passing, that, although the Banabans have long sought the separation of Ocean Island and its return to their control, they have been campaigning for the last five years for this to be followed by association with Fiji, where the majority of them live, on a basis not unlike that of the Cook Islands with New Zealand. The Fijian Government had taken a decision in principle in 1974 to offer such status to the Banabans, subject to the British Government agreeing to separate Ocean Island from the Gilberts. The Banaban contention was then, and still is, that the question of separation was a matter solely for the British Government and that the consent of the Gilbertese, who had never ruled them, was not necessary.
  The idea of association with Fiji was sensible for two reasons. First, it disposed
  74
  of the silly charge some people were making that Ocean Island, a mere speck on the map, could hardly enjoy independence on its own. That had never been proposed. Second, it ensured that the Banabans' two island homes, Rabi and Ocean, were brought under the ultimate sovereignty of a single State, namely Fiji, and, of course, would have only one citizenship.
  In the Suva talks, the Banabans were ready to drop the idea of association with Fiji and to enter into a similar arrangement with the Gilberts. As chairman of the Justice for the Banabans Campaign, I am pleased to see present several of the trustees of the campaign, including my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury (Sir J. Langford-Holt) and the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley). We were delighted to hear this proposal, as it seemed to offer a sensible way out of a difficult and worrying situation.
  The Gilbertese Ministers, on the other hand—surprisingly, in view of the fact that they had called for the conference in the first place—said that they had no mandate to consider such ideas, although they were prepared to consider some kind of autonomy within a unitary State after independence. An impasse was reached. There the matter might have rested had not the Fijian Prime Minister tabled a set of compromise proposals of his own. After discussion, the Banaban leaders accepted these proposals. It says a great deal for the Fijian Prime Minister that he was able to produce a set of proposals which, seen by any unbiased observer, would do justice to the Banabans and, at the same time, keep Ocean Island within the overall sovereignty of the new Kiribati Republic.
  I forbear to comment on the fact that successive British Governments have never been able to come up with proposals of this kind. One reason is that the official mind has nearly always been prejudiced against the Banabans. I come back to the reason for not letting them go. They were an obstacle from the very beginning to the ruthless exploitation of their phosphates. In short, they were a nuisance. We should be grateful for the imagination and the statesmanship of the Fijian Prime Minister.
  I realise I have talked at considerable length, but it might be helpful to the

  75
  Committee if I were to explain the Suva proposals. They were advanced because, in the Fijian view, there are two reasons why the Bill's proposal to safeguard Banaban interests on Ocean Island through entrenched clauses in a unitary Gilbert Islands constitution cannot be regarded as just and fair. First, the British Government's decision that, when they withdraw, sovereignty over Ocean Island will be passed to a Gilbertese State and not revert to the Banabans is, in the Fijian view, an act of unilateral imposition by Britain and ignores Banaban claims. Secondly, the Banabans could not possibly accept the proposed safeguards as they had no part in drafting them.
  5.15 p.m.
  Accordingly, the Fijian Prime Minister proposed that there should be an agreement or compact of free association between the Gilberts and the Rabi Council of Leaders on behalf of the Banabans. This agreement would be based on the following principles: Banaba shall be self-governing but not independent; the Gilbert Islands will retain authority and responsibility for security, defence and citizenship matters and the Gilbert Islands constitution will have entrenched clauses on the citizenship rights of the Banabans; Banaba will have authority and responsibility for external affairs, including marine resources; both parties will agree on a mutual sharing of phosphate royalties from Ocean Island and on consultation on such matters as access to, or exploitation of, marine resources in their respective economic zones; this compact of free association could run for a specified period and then be renewed. Alternatively, it could provide for unilateral termination by either party or termination by mutual agreement of both parties.
  A great deal more has come out in other speeches—
  Mr. Roper: I am following the hon. Gentleman with great care. Will he explain to what document he refers? The communique I have seen, issued at the end of the talks, does not refer to the proposals in the detail he has outlined.
  Sir B. Braine: These are the proposals which the Fijian Prime Minister made at the Suva talks. I am afraid that I cannot assist the hon. Gentleman. I felt
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  that I should put the proposals before the Committee. I will try to find copies for the hon. Gentleman, but I should perhaps explain all the suggestions.
  Although the Banabans would assume full responsibility for promoting economic and social development on Ocean Island and its administration and although they would still be obliged to allow the Gilbertese a continuing share of Ocean Island phosphate royalties, the British, Australian and New Zealand Governments could undertake to provide, under the six-nation treaty, financial support to assist the Banabans in carrying and meeting these obligations.
  These arrangements are not entirely new. Similar free association relationships already exist in the Pacific—between New Zealand and the Cook Islands and Niue and between the United States and Micronesia. The only difference is that the Suva proposal includes Australia, New Zealand and Britain in a joint arrangement for providing some financial support to the Banabans and the Gilbertese after independence. That is only right, for it is these three countries that have benefited on a massive scale from past exploitation of Banaban phosphates. The time has now come to make restitution.
  What is needed here and now is an explanation as to why the Government have ignored this timely initiative from Fiji. The Banaban leaders came to London straight from the Suva talks with the proposals and sought a meeting with my hon. Friend. That meeting took place on 22 May, two days before the Second Reading debate. I was present. I was astonished to hear my hon. Friend say during the debate that the idea of the British Government bringing the parties together before the Committee stage, in order to see if the Suva proposals would be acceptable, was suddenly sprung on him. It was not. The whole purpose of the meeting he had with the Banaban leaders was to hear their plea for separation followed by association as between equals. In any event, I had written to my hon. Friend on 16 May about the Suva proposals and the need for some new initiative by the Government.
  Since my hon. Friend saw fit to tell the House that no such proposal was made to him until my speech on Second

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  Reading, I think I should read the relevant paragraph of my letter. It said:
  "I understand that the Banabans"
  who were coming to London within the next few days
  "are going to propose, and it seems more than probable that the Fijian Government will support them in this, that since the new Conservative Administration has had no time to study this matter in detail or the Fijian Prime Minister's new suggestion, Her Majesty's Government calls a meeting in London next week. The request is that the meeting be between Her Majesty's Government, the Rabi Council of Leaders and representatives of the Gilbertese Government, all of whom will be here at that time. This will give everyone a chance for final reflection before the issue is resolved. I sincerely hope that Her Majesty's Government will accede to this request in order to avoid a worsening of relations, not only with Fiji but also with other Commonwealth Governments in the Pacific who support Banaban aspirations."
  That letter was a sincere attempt on my part to steer the Government towards a more constructive attitude on this question. It was bad enough for my hon. Friend not to respond, but to assert to the House, as he did on Second Reading, within the hearing of some of my hon. Friends, that the first time he had heard my suggestion was in my speech that afternoon was utterly misleading. He had had a week's notice in writing.
  Worse still, my hon. Friend's failure to respond to my letter threw away a golden opportunity to build on the constructive initiative of the Fijian Prime Minister and to bring together both the Gilbertese Chief Minister and the Banaban leaders who were in London at the same time. There was time to hold such a meeting. The leaders of both sides were here. Bearing in mind the Government's constant references to the tightness of the timetable for the Bill, it is inexcusable that no action was taken.
  The Committee will doubtless come to its own conclusions on the way in which the Suva proposals have been treated by Ministers. The Committee should bear in mind that these proposals are the first attempt ever to find an honourable solution based on mutual agreement.
  If the Government lack the imagination to see the possibilities the proposals open up, if they lack the political will to insist that something like them is agreed before we finally enact this Bill, I respectfully submit that it is the duty of right hon. and hon. Members to take the
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  initiative and to do the Government's work for them by voting for this amendment.
  Of course, the Minister will argue that the Government have provided generous safeguards for the Banabans which will be entrenched in the Kiribati constitution. But the Banabans simply do not trust these safeguards.
  Nor should we. For one thing, there are no proposals for safeguards before the Committee. Parliament is not being given safeguards. They are not being published. I am told that a copy of the constitution is available in the Library, but the details are not being set before Parliament for scrutiny. Nor is it intended, as the Bill is drafted, that the constitution shall be debated in the House. For another, we know from experience—
  Sir Raymond Gower: Is it not a fact that by passing this legislation we will give away our power to apply this kind of desirable safeguard? We are abrogating our responsibility and throwing away all positive chance of enforcing any safeguards.
  Sir B. Braine: My hon. Friend has crystallised the issue. I could not add to what he has said: he is absolutely right.
  The Banabans do not believe—nor should we—that any faith can be put in the entrenched clauses. No Government can bind their successors, and the world is littered with torn-up constitutions devised by Whitehall.
  The only real safeguard—the Prime Minister of Fiji alone has had the good sense and vision to propose itߞis one which enables the Banabans and the Gilbertese to be separated ab initio and then to come together in an association as equals. No future Gilbertese Government would then be in a position to take away Banaban rights and to justify it at the bar of world opinion. The Suva proposals would underwrite Banaban identity. They would safeguard Banaban freedom, but they would also preserve for the Gilbertese ultimate sovereignty over the area as a whole. It is an honourable compromise and one that is, to borrow those words again, practical, right and just.
  If Ministers will not listen to reason, it seems only right that Parliament should assert itself. These amendments, if carried,

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  will not delay Gilbertese independence but will enable the future relationship of Banaba to the Kiribati Republic and to Fiji to be considered at leisure, without duress, so as to enable an agreed solution to be reached in the Pacific way.
  Such a course will not only ensure justice at long last to a grievously wronged people; it will enable us to ensure that Britain's duty, interest and honour are no longer in conflict.
  Mr. Frank Hooley: One aspect of this business which disturbs me is that we are getting into a conflict between Parliament and Whitehall. In all my readings of the documents and papers on this matter over 10 years, I have been impressed by the desire of Ministers and Parliament to come to a reasonable accommodation with Banaban requests and the sympathy of Ministers for the Banaban case as they become more closely acquainted with it.
  This was particularly the case with my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Miss Lestor) and with the former Member of the House of Commons, Evan Luard, as with the noble Lord, Lord Goronwy-Roberts. I felt, in conversations with all three, that they had a great deal of sympathy with the Banaban case and were anxious to find a solution to a difficult problem and to put right a grievous injustice as far as they could.
  However, I did not get the impression that the Foreign Office—the Civil Service—had any such intention. It had fixed and definite ideas about what should be done to the Banabans, or to the Gilbertese for that matter, and was prepared to push on with those ideas irrespective of the damage that that might do to our relations with Fiji and other countries in the Pacific, and irrespective of the need to make some fair recompense and acknowledge the hardships caused to the Banaban people themselves.
  I hope that, on this occasion, Parliament will show itself capable of asserting its own authority in these matters and come to a conclusion which I believe would not only be more acceptable and fair to the Banabans, the Gilbertese and the Fijians but show at long last that the House of Commons was willing itself to recognise, as the courts of law have
  80
  already recognised, the grievous injustice done to the Banabans and to make a serious attempt to put this right, or to help to put it right, even at the last moment.
  I was disturbed to learn that the Foreign Office had brought pressure to bear on the BBC not to show the television film "Go Tell It to the Judge", which had considerable impact on public opinion in this country.
  One problem on Second Reading was that those who wanted to secure a fair deal for the Banabans—and for the Gilbertese, of course—were appearing perhaps to obstruct, or to hold up, independence for the Gilbertese themselves. By voting against the Kiribati Bill, we were accused of trying to stop the Gilbertese from achieving independence and indulging in a unique obstructionist exercise against all the traditions of independence Bills.
  That criticism made against what was said on Second Reading cannot be levelled against the amendments. If amendments Nos. 1 and 5 are carried, as I hope they will be, they will in no way impede Gilbertese independence. They will exclude Ocean Island, certainly, but they will not prevent the 50,000-odd Gilbertese people from going ahead with their constitution and becoming the fortieth, I think, member of the Commonwealth or from joining the United Nations if they so wish. The amendments will mean that the road is clear for the Gilbertese people to go ahead as an independent nation. That is not in dispute.
  The arguments against the amendment, against allowing the Banabans to express their own identity as they wish to do, fall under three or four heads, but the one most vigorously advocated so far by the Foreign Office—and indeed by some hon. Members—is the notion of territorial integrity.
  5.30 p.m.
  Anyone who reads a Foreign Office brief from the Dispatch Box about territorial integrity is Satan discoursing on sin with a vengeance. In Ireland, Pakistan and India, in federations in the Caribbean, Central Africa and the Far East, peoples and territories have been lumped together and split up, cobbled together again and chopped to bits without any interest in the folk involved. For the Foreign Office

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  now to talk about territorial integrity is an exercise in unctuous humbug. I guess that Genghis Khan, Tamerlane Alexander and Cyrus did not cut to pieces as many countries and as many peoples as the Foreign and Colonial Office did in its imperial heyday. To talk of territorial integrity in this context is nonsense.
  Of course, an important principle is involved once a State has been constituted with recognised international boundaries. As the OAU, the United Nations and other bodies have said, it is wrong to lop or hive off pieces.
  It is nonsense to say that because, from historical colonial accident, an Imperial Power has grouped together several islands—as in this case out of sheer greed—there is a divine right for that grouping to last for ever.
  As the hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Sir B. Braine) said, some of these islands have been hived off already. Other islands which were in dispute with the United States have been either lumped together or hived off, even when they were 2,000 miles apart. There is no territorial integrity issue. The whole issue involves the convenience of the Foreign Office.
  No one can argue seriously that allowing Ocean Island a separate identity, as the Banabans wish, will in some way infringe the fundamental rights of the Gilbertese. The Minister's claim that this will spark off independence rebellions and break-ups across the Pacific it nonsense.
  I cannot see how the separation of one small atoll which has been made derelict through the greed of the Imperial Power, can constitute a precedent which will be dangerous in other parts of the world. In any case, as my hon. Friend the Member for Farnworth (Mr. Roper) said, before Britain took over the islands they were independent entities.
  In a learned speech on Second Reading, my hon. Friend the Member for Farnworth said that all the islands in the Gilbert and Ellice group, quite apart from Ocean Island, were regarded as autonomous and self-governing units. The territorial integrity issue is an invention by the Foreign Office to justify a policy which has been pursued ruthlessly over the past 60 years and which depends entirely upon greed for the phosphates.
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  The Committee should not take seriously the suggestion that if this little island does not remain within the Gilbertese complex some great principle involving territorial integrity will be infringed.
  The second argument is that the Banabans have a distinct identity. The tenor of the Second Reading debate rotated round that distinct identity. The argument is that to preserve or protect that identity the new constitution should contain some entrenched clauses to protect the Banabans' rights.
  The record of entrenched clauses is not happy. One has only to look at South Africa to see what can happen to minorities or, indeed, majorities whose interests are supposed to be protected by entrenched clauses. Constitutions have been torn up all round the world. One cannot argue that the entrenched clause notion gives real protection to a minority or, in the case of South Africa, to a great majority when the sovereign Government take upon themselves the full powers of sovereignty and decide to do what they wish once Imperial control is relinquished.
  Even the proposed entrenched clauses are not particularly inspiring. The Minister sent me a note at the weekend saying that the draft constitution was available in the Library. It is a substantial document, but the clauses which relate to the Banabans are not particularly extensive. Clause 119(3), relating to land, states:
  "Where any Banaban possesses any right over or interest in land in Banaba, no such right or interest shall be compulsorily acquired other than a leasehold interest and in accordance with section 8(1) of this Constitution, and then only where the following conditions are satisfied, that is to say—

  (a) the Banaba Island Council has been consulted; and

  (b) every reasonable effort has been made to acquire the interest by agreement with the person who possesses the right over or interest in the land".

  The only obligation on the Gilbertese Government in relation to the land rights of the Banabans, if that Government wish to make a compulsory purchase of land, is to consult. But they do not have to reach an agreement.
  The Government must also at least go through the motions of a purchase by agreement before exercising compulsory

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  powers. That is not a solid protection to the Banabans in terms of land tenure but it is part of the entrenched clause provision.
  I am sorry to detain the Committee with lengthy quotations, but they are important. I assume that the Government intend to enact these clauses since they have taken the trouble to put the document in the Library. Clause 124 provides that:
  "(1) A Bill for an Act to alter any of the provisions of—

  (a) this Chapter; and

  (b) Chapter III, to the extent that the provisions of that Chapter confer rights on Banabans,

  shall not be passed by the Maneaba ni Maungatabu except in accordance with this section.…
  (3) At its second reading in the Maneaba the Bill shall not be passed if—

  (a) it is not supported by the votes of at least two-thirds of all the members of the Maneaba; or

  (b) either the nominated member or a Banaba elected member votes against the Bill."

  There are also certain provisions about the days on which it must be read. It continues:
  "if the Bill is supported by the votes of at least two-thirds of all the members of the Maneaba and the nominated member does not vote against it, the Bill shall be passed;"
  Mr. Roper: The passage continues to state that if he does not cast his vote against the Bill it shall fail.
  Mr. Hooley: It is the same as saying that it shall not be passed.
  A further clause states:
  "references to altering provisions of this Constitution include references—

  (i) to repealing them, with or without re-enactment thereof or the making of different provision in …

  (ii) to modifying them, whether by omitting or amending any such provisions or inserting additional provisions in the Constitution or otherwise;

  (iii) to suspending their operation for any period, or terminating any such suspension; and

  (iv) to making any other provision that is repugnant to them or otherwise inconsistent with them."

  A sovereign Government are expected to take steps to alter or modify their constitution, and the sole voice of one Bana-
  84
  ban can stop them. Can we really envisage a situation in which this happened, a situation where the elected Parliament of the United Kingdom, wishing to make some change in our procedure or constitution, perhaps relating to the composition of the House of Commons or that of another place, would actually listen to the veto of a solitary Member—the veto of one West Indian or one Pakistani, perhaps? I have nothing against West Indians or Pakistanis, but the situation is that in this constitution one person, who might be a Fijian citizen—since Banabans can be Fijians—can in effect prevent changes that might be regarded as important by the Gilbertese people and by their Parliament. These could be changes that the Gilbertese Parliament might have approved by a two-thirds majority.
  This constitution, however, solemnly says that if the specially elected Banaban representative says "No, I do not like this", that is the end of it. Politically speaking, this is absolute nonsense. This Parliament would never tolerate such a situation and I cannot imagine any Parliament in the world tolerating an arrangement under which one individual—even an elected representative—can effectively prevent a constitutional change which two-thirds of the members of that country's Parliament have decided is necessary and essential. That, however, is the provision in the constitution as I understand it, and I have taken the trouble to get the documents from the Library, an opportunity afforded me by the Minister.
  Sir Bernard Braine: The hon. Gentleman is making absolute mincemeat of this Gilbertian constitution, but has he in his researches discovered whether a like provision is found anywhere else in the world, and, if so, where?
  Mr. Hooley: I have not had the time to do research of that kind but it will astound me if any other country in the world gave the power to a single member of its Parliament to veto constitutional change which had the assent of two-thirds of the members of that Parliament. Politically speaking, I think that this is a most extraordinary proposition.
  Mr. Roper: I have been following my hon. Friend very carefully in his quotations from the constitution and I was interested to see that he has his name

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  attached to new clause 1, which we are debating with this amendment. I think that if he looks at the paragraph in the White Paper on the report of the Gilbert Island constitutional conference he will see that these clauses, which he has been quoting with such ridicule, are precisely the ones which, in new clause 1, he wants to insert into the constitution.
  Mr. Hooley: If we were forced into a situation in which the Government and this House absolutely refused to separate Ocean Island, we might be forced to accept something like this. I maintain, however, that the argument against it is as strong as before. It is not something for which I would vote with any enthusiasm.
  Sir Bernard Braine: The hon. Gentleman could have replied to his hon. Friend that the only way in Which we could focus the attention of Parliament on these ridiculous, almost lunatic proposals was to table an amendment of that kind. It was tabled deliberately for that purpose. One tables amendments not knowing whether other amendments will be selected by the Chair. That is the reason. If it is thought to be odd behaviour, let us accept that we are dealing with a very odd situation.
  Mr. Hooley: We are indeed dealing with a very odd situation. I am trying to deal with the question of the extent to which the interests of the Banabans would be protected by entrenched clauses. I think that the general argument against them from history, and known political events in the world in the last 30 years, is almost overwhelming. I would have thought that the arguments against this particular provision were so powerful that it really would not be worth while for the House to proceed with that line of argument.
  Another argument has been advanced against allowing the Banabans their independent identity, namely, that they have close ties of kinship with the other Gilbertese. On that basis the Irish Republic could hardly claim to have any independence at all. The people in the Republic of Ireland probably have more cousins, aunts, grandparents and friends in the United Kingdom or the United States than in Ireland itself. The idea that, somehow, cross-marriage, kinship and blood links between two peoples
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  invalidate any independence of the one group as against the other is absolute nonsense.
  5.45 p.m.
  That proposition would straight away rule out not only the independence of Ireland but that of New Zealand and Australia, to mention only two countries. There are the most elaborate and extensive links of kinship across the world between Canada and the United Kingdom, between New Zealand and the United Kingdom and between Australia and the United Kingdom, quite apart from the Irish who have links all over the place. No one suggests that because of these extensive ties of kinship the independence of Australia, New Zealand and Ireland is in any way called in question. That is totally absurd. Of course the Banabans have blood links with the other Gilbertese. That is no reason why they should not be treated fairly, and it is no reason why their claim to independence should be ignored by the House of Commons.
  Then there is the question of the phosphate revenues, which I think is now very largely settled to the great advantage of the Gilbertese, who now have the Gilbertese reserve fund of £40 million. This will provide them with quite a handsome income for 10, 20, 30 or even 50 years. That is not called in question. But, even allowing for that, the Banabans have said that if they are granted the separate identity that they seek they are perfectly willing to have talks with the Gilbertese about any future share in, or arrangement concerning, revenues which either side might consider desirable.
  I have learned over the weekend that the question of phosphate revenues is going to cause serious trouble in another part of the Pacific, namely, Christmas Island, where there are accusations against the British Phosphate Commission that it is exploiting workers there as ruthlessly as it exploited the Banabans on Ocean Island. Perhaps I had better not pursue that or I shall be out of order.
  Mr. T. H. H. Skeet: Is the hon. Gentleman referring to Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, where there are phosphates, or the Christmas Island that is part of this group?
  Mr. Hooley: I refer to Christmas Island where the British Phosphate Commission now operates.
  Mr. Skeet: That is in the Indian Ocean.
  Mr. Hooley: Fair enough. I come again to the Suva talks, which were referred to in the Second Reading debate and on which the Minister gave a specific assurance. He was kind enough to say:
  "Between now and 11 June, when the Bill is due to be considered in Committee, I undertake to give further careful consideration to what the Chief Minister has said and what the chairman of the Rabi Council of Leaders has said to me, the results of the Suva meeting and the points raised by hon. Members." [Official Report, 24 May 1979; Vol. 969, c. 1339.]
  It is important, therefore, to refer back to the correspondence that took place between Ratu Mara and the British Prime Minister on 16 and 18 May. I make no apology for quoting again from that correspondence. The letter from the Prime Minister of Fiji to the British Prime Minister said, among other things:
  "It would be particularly helpful to the current Gilbert/Banabans talks if your Government could indicate whether it shares the view that the only solution to the future of Ocean Island is that envisaged in the Gilbert Islands Constitutional Conference report or whether your Government would be prepared to consider new proposals emanating from the Gilbertese and the Banabans themselves. In seeking this clarification I recall past assurances from the British Government that a fair and lasting solution to the Ocean Island issue would only be one reached in full agreement between the Gilbertese and the Banabans."
  The British Prime Minister's reply to that letter was conveyed by the acting British High Commissioner:
  "The agreement reached at the constitutional conference last year between the Gilbert Islands Government and the then British Government has been accepted by my Government. However, my Government would be prepared to consider new proposals if these were fully endorsed by the Gilbert Islands Government and the Rabi Council of Leaders. In so far as they placed any new obligations on my Government or still further on other Governments, I would of course need to reserve my position. Nor would my Government wish to dictate to the Gilbert Islands Government what they should accept."
  I suggested on Second Reading that that indicated that there was room for further discussion and negotiation on the issue, and that it might be possible to have a last-minute agreement which would satisfy the Gilbertese and the Banabans as well as the Pacific islands people at large.
  The hon. Member for Essex, South-East referred to some of the proposals
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  made at that meeting, but it is worth rehearsing some of the points again. I hope that if the Government reject these propositions the Minister will say why. If they accepted our amendment, the way would be open for further exploration of the proposals. If the amendment is rejected, however, that will be the end of the matter and there would be no possibility of a reasonably fair settlement being reached between Fiji, the Gilbertese and the Banabans.
  The main proposal is that Ocean Island shall be self-governing, and that that would be provided for in a Banaba or Ocean Island Act, passed by this Parliament. That would not be possible unless we amended the present Bill. The Gilbert Islands would retain authority and responsibility for security, defence and citizenship matters. Banaba, or Ocean Island, would have authority and responsibility for its foreign affairs and marine resources. Both parties would agree on a mutual undertaking on the sharing of phosphate royalties from Ocean Island and on consultation on matters such as access to or exploitation of marine resources in their respective economic zones.
  This compact of free association could run for a specified period and then be subject to review. Alternatively, it could provide for termination by either party or by mutual agreement by both parties. The Government-to-Government compact of free association between the Gilbert Islands Government and the Rabi Council of Leaders on behalf of Ocean Island could be underwritten and guaranteed by a six-nation treaty embracing the Gilbert Islands Government, the Rabi Council of Leaders, Fiji, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia. The advantages to the Banabans would be that although this fell short of their aspirations for full independence, it would give them a full internal economy.
  The signatories of a bilateral compact of free association and of the six-nation treaty would be recognised as of equal status with the other parties, though in some areas their legal status would be short of that of a full sovereign State. Through a compact of association with the Gilbertese it would be the Banabans, not Britain, who would freely delegate the exercise of overall sovereignty to the Gilbert Islands Government, at least for

  89
  the period during which the agreement would run.
  The principles set out in these suggestions offer a way forward which I think the Banabans, perhaps with some reluctance, would accept and which would not impair the basic interests of the Gilbertese in any way and would allow of a friendly resolution of the problems as between Fiji, the Gilbert Islands and the Banabans themselves, but if the amendments are defeated that way of reconciliation and mutual agreement is barred. If the Bill is enacted in its present form, those propositions are ruled out because they envisage a separate identity for Banaba for which the Bill does not provide. Therefore I hope that the House will pass amendments Nos. 1, 16 and 17 and will seriously consider amendment No. 5 as an alternative to those if amendment No. 1 is not carried.
  Mr. Tristan Garel-Jones: I am grateful to you, Mr. Weatherill, for calling me to speak, and I hope that I may be allowed to say, having known you in your previous incarnation, that one of my first experiences of the wisdom of the House was that it should have elected you to the high office that you now hold.
  My hon. Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Baker), in seconding the motion on the Queen's Speech, warned new Government Members of the difficulties in alighting on that narrow strip of ground which runs between rebellion and sycophancy. The traditions of the House prescribe that in a maiden speech that narrow strip of ground should be the only runway open for a safe landing. I confess that it is with a feeling of some relief that one initially fixes one's gaze on the friendly beacon that is the indulgence with which the House traditionally listens to maiden speeches.
  Other right hon. and hon. Members will be able to speak with more knowledge than I of the contributions made to the proceedings of the House by the previous hon. Member for Watford, my predecessor Mr. Raphael Tuck. Having "shadowed" him for a period of five years as the Conservative candidate for Watford, I am able to tell the Committee that the standard of service that he gave to the people of Watford was so high, so devoted and of such humanity that he has
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  become something of a legend within the borough of Watford.
  Raphael Tuck has a reputation, justly gained, which not only brought credit on the Member himself but brought credit on his party and, more important, on this House and on the whole institution of parliamentary democracy. It is a standard that I shall do my utmost to maintain, and it is an example set to me for which I am extremely grateful.
  The borough of Watford is a considerable distance from the island of Banaba, but I promise the Committee that I shall be returning to the question of Banaba shortly. The borough of Watford has taken its place along with the borough of Clapham as a part of one of those catch-phrases to which political journalists and commentators are so prone. The expression "north of Watford" enjoys a currency today which rivals that which was once enjoyed by the legendary figure who used to travel on the top of the Clapham omnibus.
  Watford has become a sort of political frontier town, though it is never actually vouchsafed to us whether we are regarded as the last outpost of southern gentility or perhaps the first pothole on the road to Wigan pier. But there is a sense in which Watford can be regarded as a barometer of the success or failure of the nation. Within the borough there is one of the most highly skilled work forces in the country. Men and women travel from Watford daily to take part in many of the sophisticated service and professional industries in the City.
  The town contains the two most important gravure printing firms in the country as well as a host of other important industries providing employment to thousands of people from the surrounding areas. My constituents have the skill, the ingenuity and the will to succeed, and if the Government give them the incentive to do so, they will. I venture to suggest that if Watford prospers Britain will prosper with it.
  One of my first pleasant duties as the new Member of Parliament for Watford was to send a telegram of congratulations to Watford football club on its achievement in moving from the fourth to the second division in two seasons. I wish that I could have claimed some of the credit for that, but this achievement, like

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  most of human endeavour, was not inspired by Government plans or blueprints. It was brought about by the hard work, support and striving of many thousands of individuals who possessed the will and determination to succeed. Unaided by the House, and even without the help of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Howell), the people of Watford pulled off that remarkable feat. I hope that the success achieved on the playing fields of Vicarage Road will prove to be a happy omen not only for the borough that I represent but for the nation that we all strive to serve.
  6.0 p.m.
  I never imagined that I would be making a maiden speech on the issue of Kiribati. I do so with a heavy heart. Having negotiated myself towards that narrow strip of ground to which my hon. Friend the Member for St. Marylebone alluded, I am now obliged to gather speed and hurtle dangerously forward. Like many of my new colleagues, I hoped that I might have caught Mr. Speaker's eye in the debate on the Budget. I hope that I may be allowed to give some indication of the subjects that I would have raised in that debate, but not, of course, in any detail. My reasons for raising these subjects are precisely those that make it most difficult for me to support the Bill in its unamended form.
  I would have associated myself with the moving plea made in his maiden speech by the hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. Welsh) on behalf of the Third world. I would have expressed the hope that my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer might continue to provide financial support for the development education fund that is doing so much to promote wider understanding of the need for aid to the developing world. Although I feel no need to apologise for our Imperial past, there is an imperative, both practical and moral, when it comes to settling up the accounts, always to see that we should err on the side of generosity and magnanimity.
  I would have mentioned the plight of widows in this country, afflicted as they are by a taxation system that is administratively incapable of treating them sympathetically. My reason would have been that I believe that where a minority
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  group was made to suffer for the sake of administrative convenience, it should be supported.
  Finally, I would have asked my right hon. and learned Friend to ensure that resources were made available to meet the Government's pledge to maintain the Welsh language. If the small and powerless are threatened by the great and mighty, unless the argument is overwhelming I believe that we should support the small.
  I spent a good part of the recess reading again and again the arguments on this issue. I do not take the simplistic view that large organisations, and the bureaucracies that go with them are always wrong. Members of Parliament will know that from time to time bureaucracies can gather momentum and build up an ethic all of their own which may run contrary to the aspirations that they purport to represent and the people whom they purport to serve. In this case, I found that the arguments were finely balanced.
  I have been especially influenced by the fact that the case for the Bill was argued by my right hon. Friends the Lord Privy Seal and the Foreign Secretary—two members of my own party for whom I have great respect and admiration. They were supported by members of the previous Administration, including Lord Goronwy-Roberts, of whose integrity and good judgment I have personal experience. It is no light matter for a new Member of Parliament to refuse to support a measure that is supported by men of such experience and integrity. However, in the final analysis I have come to the conclusion that where the interests, hopes and identity of a small, helpless people are at stake, it is not enough for the arguments for tidiness and conventional wisdom to be finely balanced. They must be overwhelming. I do not believe that in this case they are so.
  I have never met a Banaban. I may never do so. But if this Bill finally passes unamended I hope that the Banabans will recognise two things. First, there can be no doubt that those who supported the Bill did so from the highest motives and in the best faith. Secondly, I hope they will recognise that their cause did not go by default. My hon.

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  Friend the Member for Essex, South-East (Sir B. Braine) saw to that.
  I hope that my modest support for the Banabans' cause may entitle me to urge the Banaban people, in the event that the Bill passes unamended, to work loyally within the new Kiribati Republic. Metaphorically, if not geographically, the new Republic of Kiribati will be a long way north of Watford. For that reason, I am sure that the Committee will join me in urging the Government to give it every support in the future.
  Mr. Roper: It is a pleasure to speak after the hon. Member for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones) and to congratulate him on such an elegant and eloquent speech. Certainly his Welsh origins, to which he alluded in his reference to the need to support the Welsh language, are clear in the eloquence he showed in his contribution. The Opposition are especially appreciative of the remarks he made about the energy of his predecessor, Raphael Tuck, whom we saw in this House and elsewhere. In spite of ill health in recent years he was always energetic here as well as in Watford.
  We look forward to hearing more speeches from the hon. Gentleman. Whether he will be allowed to get away with quite so many procedural innovations in any speech other than his maiden speech, we shall have to see in the future, but we congratulate him on the ingenuity that he demonstrated this evening.
  As in the Second Reading debate—which this resembles, to some extent—there is a danger that it might be thought that those who oppose the amendments are taking a hard-hearted and anti-Banaban line. There is a general view in the House that we want to see fair and satisfactory treatment for the Banabans. Where we disagree is as to what remedy will provide most satisfactorily for peace in that part of the Pacific and a framework in which fair financial treatment may be provided for the Banabans.
  What divides those of us who are doubtful about the amendment from those like my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley) and the hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Sir B. Braine) is the problem of assessing the correct framework. The hon. Member for Essex, South-East was right when he
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  put forward three questions which, he said, we needed to consider in looking at the amendment. First, are the Banabans a sufficiently distinct community to form a separate State? Secondly, should we make amends for the physical and financial hardships that they have suffered over the years by creating what may be a constitutional difficulty in a constitutional innovation? Thirdly, will the adoption of the amendment be more likely to leave the Pacific in a state of peace after we leave? Those three questions, which were posed by the hon. Member for Essex, South-East, were right and were ones to which we need to address ourselves. The hon. Gentleman will not be surprised if on some of them I come to slightly different conclusions from his.
  First, I refer to the question whether the Banabans are a sufficiently distinct community to justify creating the constitutional innovation that the hon. Gentleman suggests. That is an important point. The hon. Gentleman rightly stressed the possible difficulties that could arise if some members of the Banaban community continued to live on Rabi Island. Probably the bulk of the community would remain, unless remarkable achievements could be made in terms of restoring and reinvigorating the economy of Banaba. Others would continue to live on Banaba.
  The hon. Member for Essex, South-East asked whether it was not nonsense to have this small community of Banabans living in two sovereign States and having rights and responsibilities with respect to two sovereign States. Quite clearly, it is not particularly satisfactory, but I do not think that it is altogether a novelty in the Pacific. The hon. Gentleman knows that part of the Pacific much better than I do and he will know that the island adjoining Rabi Island, in Fiji, is Kioa Island. The people of Kioa are all citizens coming originally from Tuvalu, so that in their case we have precisely the same problem as we have with the Banabans. Some of them are living on Kioa, some are living in Fiji, and some are living in what were the Ellice Islands, now called Tuvalu.
  Although I agree that this is a problem, I do not think that it is unprecedented, nor is it necessarily a problem that should lead us to create a position

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  that may lead to more constitutional complications in the future.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Heeley quite rightly pointed out that there are other families of nations in which there are people with close ethnic ties living in separate countries, but whether we really need, in the case of the Gilbert Islands, to divide these people in this way is a matter on which there will be divided judgment among hon. Members. Many of us will have read the evidence and will reach different conclusions. I do not think that we can do any more than say that the evidence can be read in different ways.
  The hon. Member for Essex, South-East referred to the evidence from the distinguished social anthropologist, Professor Maude, who had been an administrator in the Gilbert Islands during his career. I also quoted from it on Second Reading, when I said that the difference between the Banabans and the population of the Gilbert Islands was rather similar to the difference between the Cornish people and those in the rest of the United Kingdom. This evidence, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out, can be read in one way or in another way, and on that there will be an honest difference of opinion in the House.
  Sir Raymond Gower: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree that, in the context of the Pacific, that difference may be deemed to be considerable. The people who are settled in Tahiti, in Hawaii and in New Zealand are basically the same people, although they are thousands of miles apart. In the context of a limited distance, the difference between the Banabans and their neighbours is considerable.
  Mr. Roper: I am grateful for that intervention. I considered some of these points in rather more detail on Second Reading, especially the links of religion, language and culture that run through these people. I find that there is a greater degree of homogeneity between these people than among those to whom the hon. Gentleman referred, but this is a matter upon which there are honest differences of opinion, and different people read the evidence in different ways. I do not find that the differences between the Banaban community and the rest of the Gilbert Islands community are suffi-
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  ciently great to justify the constitutional innovations proposed in these amendments, but that is a matter of difference of opinion in the Committee.
  The hon. Member for Essex, South-East asked whether we should make amends to the Banabans for the physical and financial hardship they have suffered over the years because of the way in which successive Governments have raped Banaba and taken the phosphate away. Should we make amends to them by agreeing to the proposal that they now have for a constitutional measure? I do not feel that a constitutional solution that is more likely, in my judgment, to lead to continuing conflict in the south Pacific and to continuing difficulties in the South Pacific for the Banabans and others is the best way for the Committee to make amends to them. I believe that there are other ways.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil (Mr. Rowlands), speaking from the Front Bench on Second Reading, referred to some of the financial ways in which amends could be made. We have an obligation to consider the position of the Banabans—particularly their financial position. We have an obligation to ensure that resources are provided for them, to be used properly and in a responsible way, to help the development of their economy. I am sure that that sort of thing is necessary.
  Mr. A. J. Beith: Will the hon. Gentleman say what kind of a position he thinks would arise if Ocean Island were separated once and for all from the Gilbert Islands?
  6.15 p.m.
  Mr. Roper: I think that there would be conflicts of various sorts. As I said earlier, there are the problems of precedents. I am talking not about the Phoenix and Line Islands but about the problems that could well arise in the not-too-distant future in the New Hebrides. We shall be facing New Hebridean independence within the fairly close future. There are in that group of islands the problems of particular communities who might want to leave.
  There are also questions concerning the relationship between the Banabans and their Gilbertese cousins. I believe that in the proposals which were put forward at the successive conferences the Gil-

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  bertese have shown a great deal of good will and of trust. By making the proposed amendments we should be showing that we did not believe in the Gilbertese. That would poison relations between this country and Kiribati at the moment of independence and would show a fundamental lack of trust in this country. It would poison continuing relations between the Gilbertese and their cousins in Kiribati.
  Mr. Beith: Do I understand the hon. Gentleman to say that no conflict would arise directly between the Banabans and anyone else if they were given what they are now asking for, and that the problem to which he is referring is the precedent that we might set for other constitutional settlements and, indeed, any strain that it might put on our relations with the Gilbertese, but not any conflicts arising directly from the position of the Banabans?
  Mr. Roper: I do not think that the relationship between the Gilbertese and the Banabans would be improved. I would go as far as to say that it would be worse if we were to introduce the amendment proposed by the hon. Member for Essex, South-East. But this is like the earlier question whether they are a homogeneous community, and it is a matter of judgment for each hon. Member to make. I believe that it would be more likely to lead to conflict.
  The last question asked by the hon. Member was whether by doing this we would be likely to leave the Pacific in a state of peace or in a state of conflict. I believe that we would create a problem still to be resolved in detail. The point made by Mr. Posnett in his important report—I referred to this on Second Reading—was that what is needed in order to come to a peaceful settlement is for decisions to be made, and to be made clearly. The proposal here would create a new situation of continuing negotiation to work things out. I do not believe that this would be resolved quickly. It would lead to a very considerable period of difficulty in the South Pacific.
  Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Will my hon. Friend tell me why the Gilbertese want to retain their hold over Ocean Island? In that context, can he tell me what he thinks the future will be for the new State if a great number of its
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  citizens have been forced into the State against their will? I know of no section of the Banaban people that wants to respond to the system that is being organised for them by the British Parliament.
  Mr. Roper: The Gilbertese have a feel for land, and they feel that this is part of the land of the Gilbert Islands collectively. Hon Gentlemen may disagree, but this is the view that they hold. They would feel that its removal from the Gilbert Islands would be an infringement of the territorial integrity of those islands. My hon. Friend the Member for Heeley made a number of points about what has been done in the past by this country in terms of territorial integrity. We are talking here about the attitude of the Gilbertese to this matter. We need to consider the substantial population of the Gilbert Islands as well as the problems of the Banabans.
  Mr. Hooley: On Second Reading my hon. Friend pointed out that before there was any interference by the United Kingdom various of the Gilbert Islands regarded themselves as autonomous anyway.
  Mr. Roper: Indeed; but they have a sense of collectiveness.
  Mr. Hooley: Have they?
  Mr. Roper: Indeed. That is the argument that I am putting forward.
  I suggest that, despite what was said by the hon. Member for Essex, South-East, it would have been possible for the Banabans, had they wished, to be present at that section of the London constitutional conference which considered the precise safeguards that are now being written into the constitution. It was they—I do not know on whose advice—who left the conference and were unable to be present when the detailed discussions on these matters were going on.
  It is important, on the very points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Heeley, to look at the protection in the constitution—in particular, the protection of land that he quoted. The paragraphs quoted by him from the draft constitution follow exactly paragraph 64(b)(iii) in the London constitutional conference White Paper—Cmnd. 7445—which he wishes to incorporate into the

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  constitution by way of new clause 1. The part quoted by my hon. Friend about the protection of land is important. Beyond what he was able to say about the procedure for compulsory acquisition, the constitution earlier provides that such acquisition can only be on the basis of leasehold. Therefore, there is a further safeguard beyond those that he quoted. It is not in the particular safeguards for the Banabans; it is in the general part of the constitution as a whole.
  In section 8 of the constitution there is a statement of the fundamental right to property, providing all citizens of the Gilbert Islands, whether they be from Banaba or elsewhere, with protection from the deprivation of property. Therefore, within the constitution, beyond the special provisions that apply to the Gilbertese, there are a number of other specific protections regarding property. That limits the possibility of compulsory acquisition and further reinforces the additional safeguards that have been given to the Banabans and were quoted by my hon. Friend.
  The essential point on the question of land is that all Gilbertese—people living on islands which are often little more than strips of sand—have a particular feeling for or association with land.
  The hon. Member for Essex, South-East referred to the real association that the Banabans still have with their island of Banaba, even though it has been demolished by the phosphate mines. This feeling for land is general to all the people of the Gilbert Islands. Therefore, they would be the last to wish to deprive people of their land.
  It would be a mistake to accept these amendments. We would be delaying the final decision on this matter and, instead of moving to a peaceful settlement, creating opportunities for further conflict in the Pacific and doing no good for the people of the other Gilbert Islands or of Banaba.
  Mr. Skeet: I listened to a most interesting maiden speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones). One of his remarks was unique: that Her Majesty's Government must err on the side of generosity. We must bear that in mind. I am not sure
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  that I shall pursue the arguments which have been put forward by the Opposition and my hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East (Sir B. Braine).
  The two countries which must bear in mind the extraordinary financial situation which is likely to evolve are the Gilbert Islands and Fiji. Considerable sums were allocated to Banaba. As I said on Second Reading, about 11·8 million Australian dollars were credited to the Banabans in phosphate royalties between 1 July 1920 and 30 June 1976, and after that, to the end of mining, there was added another 9·6 million Australian dollars.
  Now that mining is coming to an end, one would have thought that the Banabans would be perfectly secure if they had independence. Unfortunately, that is not so. Her Majesty's Government were able to establish a trust in colonial days for looking after the affairs of the Banabans, but it was put aside when Fiji acquired independence in 1970 and the Rabi Island Council took over responsibility. The funds which were secured from the phosphates were granted to a body named Rabi Holdings Limited which had a number of subsidiaries: Home Enterprises Limited, Rabi Enterprises Limited, Union Cabs Limited, Rabi Finance Company Limited, Rabi Islands Limited, Rabi Engineering and Metalising Services Limited. Unfortunately the situation has materialised in a way which has not led to security for the Banabans in future. We should remember that they have not got 20 years more of mining. Mining is now finished.
  The Minister of State misled the House on 24 May 1979. I asked:
  "Is it not true that, when the compensation payments cease, after a few years the standard of living of those living in Fiji will fall quite dramatically unless something is done to build up the investment fund?"
  To that the Minister replied:
  "I do not think that that necessarily follows. It depends very much on how the investment fund is managed. It is intended to provide an investment income for the Banabans for a long time."—[Official Report, 24 May 1979; Vol. 967, c. 1329.]
  My hon. Friend did not tell the House that the losses to date from this company had totalled 4½ million dollars by the end of 1978, that no annual returns had been made since 1975, that there had been no audit, that there was evidence of gross mismanagement and that there was

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  thought to be misappropriation of funds. Also, investment by the Council, including Rabi Holdings, was required to have the approval of the Fiji Minister of Finance, but on no occasion had such approval been sought or granted. In fact, it is possible that the losses may equal as much as £10 million.
  According to the Fijian Times of 4 January 1979, a receiver has been appointed to the parent company. The hearing in the Fiji courts for liquidation of the enterprise was alleged to be on 6 June this year. I assume that it has now taken place.
  The fund which was intended for the future security of the Banabans was put into this company. It was expected in the course of time to pay substantial dividends. It has paid none. It was intended to have considerable funds which would be available to the Banabans, possibly for the benefit of Rabi Island in Fiji, but they have all been lost. Now we are wondering what should be done.
  6.30 p.m.
  The British Government will have to consider this matter very carefully indeed. If they are prepared to make the ex gratia grant of 10 million dollars, with the accrued interest, it should be put aside into a trust fund, with the trustees being probably the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, to ensure that no misappropriations can take place in future.
  Mr. Hooley: The Crown Agents.
  Mr. Skeet: I am not for one moment suggesting the Crown Agents. I am suggesting a body which can look after the budgets.
  There are two matters here. Hon. Members have talked about having clauses written into the constitution to guarantee the integrity of Ocean Island, inside or outside the new Kiribati community. I suggest that it is more important to consider what will happen to the funds so that the Banaban people, as opposed to the land owners, have a little to rely upon in future years.
  Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: That is right.
  Mr. Skeet: The hon. Member for York (Mr. Lyon) suggests that I am right in what I recommend, but I do not find one amendment here to support that. This
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  must be an error in the constitutional arrangements which are being provided.
  Mr. Lyon: The hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet) has a remedy. He should vote against the Bill. These people are not fit to look after themselves. They need the wise prescience of Englishmen of the ilk of the hon. Gentleman before they can look after their own funds.
  Mr. Skeet: I am interested in the observations of the hon. Gentleman. However, either the Banabans should be associated with the Fijian Islands, where most of them live—after all, there are only a few of them on Ocean Island at present—or they should be associated with the Gilbert Islands. Possibly the best solution is the Gilbert Islands. We should utilise the suggestion I made on Second Reading that there should be a lease, or the provision of amendment No. 5, in which there should be a perpetual association terminable, perhaps, on a broader period, would be suitable in such a case.
  Mr. Ian Gow: My hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet) said that the Banabans should be associated, possibly, with the Gilbertese. How much weight does he attribute to their own wishes in this respect?
  Mr. Skeet: The interesting thing is that if there is only 1,000 of them in Fiji at present and they were so desirous of being closely associated with Ocean Island, many of them would have returned. But the Minister indicated the other day that the sustainable population is between 300 and 400, yet the actual population of the island is no more than 50. I should have thought, therefore, that one would have to consider it as an island which had been despoiled by phosphate mining. It is there and one has to find a future for it.
  There are problems for the Gilbertese, such as defence problems. If it is conceded that it must be handed over to Fiji, one would then have to take into account the views of the Fijians in future years. What are they to do about the liabilities imposed by a small unit within their midst which is on the point of being ravaged?
  Surely, if a fund was set aside and all those funds have now been lost, or potentially lost, either the Fijian Government

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  will have to provide the administrative background and social services, or the Government of the Gilbert Islands will have to do it. All I say is that this matter will be considered very firmly by the Government before we move any further.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East indicated that, to all intents and purposes, Ocean Island has never been a member of this group. I do not know how he will get round one of the major obstacles, because in 1900 the Colonial Office attached the group to the Gilbert Islands and Banaba was the capital of the territory between 1908 and 1942, when it was ravaged by the Japanese. In legal terms this was conceding part of the property to the group, and whatever they may argue in future it will be very difficult to get round that proposition.
  Sir Bernard Braine: I would hate my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet) to persist in error during what is otherwise an interesting speech. Ocean Island was annexed in 1900. It was not attached to the Gilbert Islands colony until 1916, at which time the Banabans were not consulted, nor did they know anything about the action taken at that time. Therefore, Ocean Island was treated as part of the Gilbert Islands administratively from then until 1945, the year in which the Banabans were removed to Rabi. The Gilbertese, as a self-governing people, have never governed the Banabans. The Banabans, therefore, object most strongly to being forced into an independent Gilbertese State against their will. That is the truth of the matter.
  Mr. Skeet: My hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East has indicated his views.
  Sir B. Braine: No, facts.
  Mr. Skeet: I understand that the Banabans are very keen to start a new action in Australia where this matter will be litigated. That is where they will have to test their case. I dare say that today they must ensure that they are in an independent position if they are to argue this matter in a court of law in Australia. We shall have to wait to see how it turns out, but I should have thought that the legal
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  implications would be that their position was not secure.
  I indicated on Second Reading that it was very important indeed that the British Government give Banaba—whether it be part, as I recommend, of the Gilbert Islands—sufficient money to secure the future of its people, otherwise their standard of living will decline seriously. It is also important that there be a substantial trust, administered by independent authorities, to ensure that the money is not wasted. I should have also thought that if the Banabans are to consider themselves continuously associating with an island which is now derelict, that will move them away from their future, which should be closely associated with Fiji and its future. I am attracted by amendment No. 5, which is similar to a proposition which I put forward on the basis of a lease. That is an amendment which could possibly be pursued.
  Taking into account the wider implications here, I think that in future—bearing in mind the smallness of the population on an island which is no more than approximately two miles by one and a half miles—Ocean Island should remain inside the Gilbert group.
  Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: The proposal contained in these amendments is that Ocean Island should be treated separately from the rest of the Gilbert Islands and that there should be association with the islands of Fiji. If we were to pass the amendments the Bill could continue, there could be independence for the Gilbert Islands in time for independence day ceremonies, and the people of Ocean Island at present living on Rabi would be able to obtain their most earnest desire, which is to have within the same legal group of islands on which they live their former homeland which they themselves recognise they can no longer live on, but an island where their ancestors are buried and with which they have strong emotional ties.
  Having read their request—which seems so patently reasonable—against the horrifying background of the history of this matter so ably argued today by the hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Sir B. Braine), I cannot see that there is one argument against the Banabans having what they want. I could if the great majority of the people affected by the Bill—the Gilbert Islanders—had any cogent

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  argument for keeping Ocean Island within their group of islands.
  I listened with the greatest attention to the Minister of State when he closed the debate on Second Reading. I listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil (Mr. Rowlands) explaining the attitude of the former Labour Government—indistinguishable, of course, because it is the Foreign Office view. The real argument has been raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Farnworth (Mr. Roper). I am surprised at him, frankly. In these debates he has become the spokesman for the Gilbertese. He has set himself against the great wave of Back-Bench opinion which has argued the Banaban case. Therefore, it behoves him to give an articulate explanation, as distinct from the arid legality of the Foreign Office, why the Banabans should be denied what seems to me to be an overwhelmingly reasonable case.
  The only reason that my hon. Friend could give was the argument of precedent. That is the last argument of the faded lawyer in any case. Of course, it is seized upon by any civil servant in any Department, but most of all in the Foreign Office, in order to justify an unarguable case. That argument is "If we do this, Minister, other people will come along in a little time and they will want to do something else". The only sensible thing for a Minister to do in those circumstances is to say "Nonsense, no one is ever bound by precedent". If any hon. Member thinks that legal precedent is totally binding in a court of law, he should listen to the Master of the Rolls. He overturns precedent like costermongers' barrows in the East End.
  Mr. Christopher Price: I think the argument holds together even less, because this is the last colonial territory in the Pacific with which we are dealing. I know that the New Hebrides have been mentioned, but there is already agreement between the British and French Governments about the complete transfer of sovereignty of the New Hebrides. Therefore, if there is a separation, there is no future territory that could possibly take advantage of any precedent.
  Mr. Lyon: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I was coming to precisely that point.
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  My hon. Friend the Member for Farnworth referred to the New Hebrides and gave us unattributable fears of possible cessations that there would be in the islands, but he did not name any. Where are the people who will secede from Kiribati? Where are the people who will secede from the New Hebrides? Who are the people who have independence movements, apart from the Banabans? If there are other people, let them argue their case.
  The hon. Member for Essex, South-East has indicated on many occasions that in our Imperial past there have been a number of instances where we have acceded to the request of a minority people to secede from the dominant group, because on the whole we thought it was right or, more often, because the pressure was so intense, and they had taken up arms themselves, that they persuaded us that we ought not get in their way. If the Banabans had a few atomic bombs, we would have the Foreign Office Minister presenting perfectly legitimate arguments about the precedent for letting them secede. The real reason is that they are just a poor, pillaged people who are dependent simply upon our good will. If one contrasts the illuminating and high-minded speech from a man who has just entered the House—the hon. Member for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones)—with that of the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet), one sees why it is that the Banabans have so little hope of getting their cause.
  Mr. Nigel Spearing: I have been listening to my hon. Friend's argument, and those of my other hon. Friends who support the amendment, with some sympathy. Does my hon. Friend not agree that the last statement that he has made is not entirely correct, in that, as I understand it, whatever the misdeeds of the past, on a per capita basis the Banabans, relative to the Gilbertese, are not too badly off? Might that not, rightly or wrongly, be one of the reasons why, in looking to an uncertain economic future, the Gilbertese are perhaps less willing in this matter than they might be?
  Mr. Lyon: That slur was put to me on a number of occasions before we had the debate on Second Reading. I am afraid that my hon. Friend was not here at the time. I asked the Lord

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  Privy Seal, who speaks for the Foreign Secretary in this place, to clear up that matter. He said that there would be no significant financial effect upon either the Gilbertese or the Banabans, whichever course we were to take today, and that the arrangements with regard to the royalties from the phosphate have been arrived at in such a way that both of them would benefit in the same measure, whatever we did about their land title to Ocean Island. Therefore, we are not arguing about money.
  6.45 p.m.
  At one time I thought that the argument was about mineral rights from the sea. I thought that it concerned oil or something of that sort, but not at all. No one can say of this island that it will give the people anything. If we give it to the Gilbertese, they will get nothing, apart from a barren rock in the ocean which is 200 miles from their nearest island. If we give it to the Banabans, they will never be able to go and live on it. It is a barren rock for them. The only thing is that it is their ancestral home and they want it. If they want it, and if it is no good to anyone else, why not give it to them? That is the point.
  The hon. Member for Watford saw that clearly. In all his innocence, the child who saw the emperor's new clothes looked at the Foreign Office argument and saw what had to be done. If I may say so to the hon. Gentleman, he should not make speeches such as that if he ever wants to be Minister of State at the Foreign Office. He might get into the Cabinet by that kind of attitude, but he will never become Minister of State. To be Minister of State one has to read the brief and do as one is told—not by the Prime Minister but by the civil servants. They have told all our Ministers, both Conservative and Labour, about the precedents, the United Nations' resolution and the committee on colonialism. The fact is simply that there is no fresh view about the issue before us, apart from that of the hon. Member for Watford.
  There is a moral issue here. It cannot be reduced to legalism or to precedent. If my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil thinks that is cheap, all I can say is that that is what is at the root
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  of this matter. I have asked my hon. Friend on previous occasions what overwhelming reasons the Gilbertese can produce to ask for the retention of Ocean Island within the group. There are none. There is the argument, which is constantly put forward, that they have a feeling for land. That is the argument of my hon. Friend the Member for Farnworth. He has alluded many times to the report of Mr. Richard Posnett, but, as I pointed out on Second Reading, Mr. Posnett makes it perfectly clear that the Gilbertese never bothered about Banaba until the Banabans started kicking up a fuss. They then asked "What is it all about?" and said "Well, if they kick up a fuss, we shall kick up a fuss." That is basically what Mr. Posnett said, and that is what this is all about.
  It is not about any deeply held feeling for land. I have never yet met a Gilbertese who has said that he has a deeply held feeling for this bit of rock 200 miles from the nearest island. It is not that at all. The truth is that it has nothing to do with precedent. No one can point to any real fear of a disintegration of the rest of the Gilbertese if Ocean Island goes to Rabi. All we have is the constantly reiterated phrase about territorial integrity. Frankly, I do not think that that is enough. We must say here and now that it is not good enough. This whole story is a blot upon the history of this country. We must at any rate take away that stain by letting the Banabans have what they want.
  Sir Raymond Gower: I echo the commendation that has been made in regard to the first speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones), and I express admiration for the way in which he reconciled the needs of a maiden speech with a contribution to this debate. As a fellow countryman who also comes from the Principality, I echo a lot of his argument in his admirable first speech in this Chamber.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East (Sir B. Braine) has fought manfully in this cause. It is a cause which, as the hon. Member for York (Mr. Lyon) intimated, we should fight collectively. We have a tremendous responsibility. The first question posed by my hon. Friend was "Do the Banabans constitute a separate identity?" I think

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  that his speech alone effectively demonstrated the extent of that separate identity. I disagree with those who suggest that there is no real difference between these people and their neighbours. Indeed, any group of people who had suffered as bitterly as this group have suffered would be almost certain to have a sense of separate identity, and it would be a real sense based on their harsh experience in the last half century.
  I am sorry that the hon. Member for Farnworth (Mr. Roper) has left the Chamber. He seemed to think that there was no evidence of any separateness. But, in the context of that part of the Pacific, I think that it is a fairly definite separate identity. The hon. Member also considered the question: should we make amends? I think that we ought to make amends before we lose the power to do so. That is the vital question and the present position. This is our last opportunity to make amends. If this Bill is passed unamended, we shall no longer have not merely any power but any real influence on the future of this unhappy people.
  The hon. Member considered that the incorporation of the amendment would ensure the creation of stress in that part of the Pacific, although he adduced very little evidence to support his statement. He even went so far as to suggest that the Gilbertese believe that Ocean Island is a part of their group. Frankly, all of us who have looked up the history of this part of the Pacific and of these events, as admirably set out in some of the literature that has been put before us, have found absolutely no evidence that this has ever been effectively a part of the larger group. Its whole history has been different. For a long time the people were almost unaware of the existence of the other part of the so-called group.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East asked whether the amendment would ensure a permanent settlement or make such a settlement likely. I do not think that he could answer that question. That is the one doubtful part of his argument. Nothing that we can do can make a satisfactory settlement certain. I think that my hon. Friend would agree with that. It is the one part of his admirable argument that he could not finally answer, because nothing that we can do can ensure that. However, we should try to
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  the best of our ability to achieve the best settlement. That is the point.
  I often listen to my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet) with a good deal of agreement. Today, however, I thought that he was completely astray in his argument. I could not see how one could ensure any permanent assurance of help merely by providing a small fund for these people, in the hands of trustees, if we do not grant what is basically their most passionate wish. My hon. Friend seemed to attach very little importance to this matter. What they want most passionately is the constitutional settlement to be assured, in the terms of the amendment or as near as we can achieve it to meet their wishes.
  The history of this matter has been deplorable. The hon. Member for Sheffield. Heeley (Mr. Hooley) expressed his anxiety about the fact that, whereas Ministers and Opposition leaders who were Ministers recognise our guilt to some degree, he was not satisfied that this recognition went below ministerial level into the official servants.
  Mr. Skeet: Let me make my point perfectly clear. The situation of the Banabans is very serious. That is a point which apparently the Committee does not appreciate. Therefore, it behoves the Government to be particularly generous in a settlement. If the money has been lost over past years, something must be done to ensure that the future association, whether it be with Fiji or the Gilbert Islands, is rendered on a secure basis.
  Sir R. Gower: I appreciate that point. However, it will be much more difficult to make effective separate financial provision for this group of people if they have no separate constitutional identity, which is what they want and require. In future, it will be more difficult to ensure financial help.
  Sir Bernard Braine: I could not agree more with what my hon. Friend is saying. However, in order that the Committee should get this matter back into perspective, and before any hon. Member castigates the Banabans for alleged mismanagement of their modest funds, will my hon. Friend remind the Committee that for years the British Government deliberately cheated these people? In order that the matter should be seen in perspective, we should first acknow-

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  ledge our own shortcomings and our own guilt before casting stones on a people so grievously ill used by successive British Administrations.
  Sir R. Gower: I agree entirely. On the whole, I should have liked to hear that sort of passionate admission coming from both Front Benches. I appreciate that there have been statements acknowledging that all has not been well and that perhaps things might have been better. But what has not been admitted is that this has been one of the most disgraceful episodes in our history and in the history of some of the other associate territories of the Commonwealth and that, had these people been granted the proper reward for what was taken from their territory, much more money would have been involved than anything that has been contemplated for any kind of settlement in their favour.
  The point of these amendments is not the financial point which my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford made. Here again he was in error, because he was dealing with something that is not related to the amendments. His speech was completely detached from the content of the amendments.
  Mr. Skeet: It had a bearing on them.
  Sir R. Gower: Very little. I suppose that my hon. Friend could have argued in some obscure way that his point might be related somehow, but I could not see how.
  These are vital amendments. The Bill should not be passed in its present form. We are now at the very last moment when we can do something to guide future events. We owe such a terrible responsibility to these people that we should bend over to meet their wishes, as my hon. Friend the Member for Watford said, even if we think that their wishes may not be sensible. We should not now try to arrogate to ourselves superior wisdom. These people have been so hurt and unnecessarily punished that it is their wishes that should be paramount. I hope that it will be in that spirit that the Committee will accept these admirable amendments, which were proposed so effectively by my hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East.
  7 p.m.
  Mr. Christopher Price: Just before the general election, following an intervention of mine on this subject, the parliamentary column in The Daily Telegraph made fun of the mention of Kiribati in this House. The columnist asked what interest the electors of West Lewisham had in the affairs of Kiribati. Somewhat to my surprise, in view of the course that the election took, I find myself back in this place. I was particularly surprised to find, from talking with a number of Christian groups during the election campaign, that they knew all about the fact that this Bill was going through the House of Commons. They were very concerned that, whoever their Member of Parliament might be after the election, that Member should treat this issue as a moral issue which should be decided on its moral and ethical merits and not as an issue which should be decided in some sort of realpolitik manner. The implication in The Daily Telegraph could not have been more wrong.
  I was not able to be here for Second Reading, so may I say in preface that I have never been associated with what might be described as the Banaban lobby or with the Gilbertese lobby, although I have followed these matters carefully. As secretary of the Anglo-South Pacific group of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, I have met many Gilbertese who have put their points to me and I have talked to some Banabans, but I do not approach the debate with my mind particularly made up as to the correct course to follow. My interest in the South Pacific is the same as that declared by my hon. Friend the Member for Farnworth (Mr. Roper) on Second Reading. I spent much of my youth putting pennies in London Missionary Society boxes for the various Congregational churches in the Gilbert Islands and other parts of the South Pacific.
  I should like to give the Committee some of my experience of the bearing of the Foreign Office on this issue over the past two years. Although many of the individuals concerned in the Foreign Office are people of the highest esteem and reputation, the actions of both British Governments in the past two years have made the problem immeasurably more difficult to solve than it need have been and in some of their actions they have

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  behaved in a way in which Governments ought not to behave.
  I do not know what has inspired the pro-Gilbertese speeches, but I felt that the contribution of the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet) was not a worthy sort of speech to make in this debate. It did not go to the issue at all.
  Everyone who has been engaged in these affairs knows that there has been difficulty with Banaban and Nauruan investments in Australia and elsewhere. It is an area of investment which is uncertain anyway and, given the problems that we have had with the Crown Agents and so on, I do not think that it lies in the mouth of anyone in the House to start preaching to the Banabans, the Gilbertese or anyone else about how they should conduct their investments. There is a great deal to be said for us putting our own House in order before telling other people what they should do.
  One problem throughout the independence of the Gilbert Islands, Tuvalu, the Solomon Islands and the Pacific group of independence Bills that have gone through the House has been that the Foreign Office has been under pressure to rush things at a far greater pace than was sensible if we were to get an agreed solution. That has been a particularly grave problem in relation to the Gilbert Islands.
  As was mentioned on Second Reading, the new State of Kiribati will be the biggest island State in the world in terms of its sea area. It is having the Phoenix and Line Islands just thrown in. In defence and economic terms, there is not much that the Gilbert Islands can do about keeping together the territorial integrity of the State. There has been virtually no discussion of that issue in the House of Commons, yet it is said that it is impossible to give an inch on the issue of Banaba.
  Every time the Banabans have come to London, immense pressure has been put on them by the Foreign Office to fall in with the Government's views. It says a tremendous amount for the Banabans' obstinacy, which would do the British Nonconformist tradition proud, that they have stood up to that pressure. From time to time I have been invited to luncheons which I discovered were methods of trying to put pressure on the
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  Banabans. I have admired the way in which, in circumstances alien to those they are used to, the Banabans have stood up to the pressure.
  Hon. Members may have read the recent story in Private Eye about the public relations company that was brought in to support the case of the Gilbertese. It was not subsidised by Gilbertese money. They are quite honest when they say that they do not have the money to pay for the public relations company of Maurice Chandler. The firm engaged no less a figure than Arnold Goodman to support the Gilbertese case in the conference—and he does not come cheap.
  We must realise that the Bill comes at the end of a long period when, in spite of greater pressure by the Government on a minority to give in than we have ever seen before, that minority has said that it is not giving in and that it retains its original view that it wishes to be separate.
  The other fascinating Foreign Office phenomenon in the story is that the longer that the various Ministers who have been involved in it—and there are, by now, quite a lot—have lived with the problem, the more complicated and the nearer to a moral issue they have realised it to be. Any hon. Member who talked to Evan Luard before he went to Fiji and after he came back will have found a very different Minister on his return. He realised that the issue involves deeply held feelings of a sort not found in other places.
  However, the Foreign Office makes a deadline and says that we must keep to it. I suspect that there are other issues in the background. One is citizenship, and whichever party had won the general election would have wanted to bring in a citizenship Bill. In order to pave the way for such a Bill, we have this mad rush to get rid of our remaining colonies in the rest of the world on whatever terms we happen to make them independent. I do not think that that ought to be the correct criterion.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Farn-worth mentioned precedent. There were precedents and dangers of the Balkanisation of the Pacific. When Papua New Guinea went independent, there was a real danger of Bougainville becoming independent. When the Solomon Islands became independent there were movements

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  there. When the New Hebrides' independence was being considered two or three years ago, there were problems—though they were generated not by the New Hebrideans but by American speculators trying, through French rather than British influence, to buy islands to set up tourist paradises.
  Those problems of the Balkanisation of the Pacific have largely disappeared. It is quite untrue to say that any serious precedent would be set if we passed the amendments. Indeed, I would go in exactly the other direction. It would be a very serious precedent for us to pass into law an independence Bill against bitter opposition on the Floor of the House when amendments of the kind we are considering are before the Committee. I remind the Committee of the last time that happened in this atmosphere. That was when the independence of Cyprus was fixed in 1959, after Archbishop Makarios had been bullied, in much the same way as the Banabans have been bullied, into signing a constitution that he did not believe in, because he felt it to be unworkable. It was unworkable.
  To its credit, the Labour Party, in those days the Opposition, voted in 1959 in an unprecedented way on an amendment on the Floor of the House in an attempt to prevent that piece of lunacy from happening. What has happened in Cyprus is common knowledge. We made independent a State that could not become independent. There was no viability in that State.
  The great danger here is that if we do something which is constitutionally unprecedented—that is, if the Government say "We shall push this through because we have made a date and must stick to deadlines"—we shall create problems. I do not say that we shall create problems as great as those that we created in Cyprus, but problems will occur in the Pacific over the next 20 and 30 years, serious strategic problems and other similar problems.
  There is an unwritten convention in the House that if the Government want to carry an independence Bill they should be able to do so in the end, after all the consultations, with the broad, full assent of each side of the House. They are not
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  doing it on this occasion. They have the majority—I am sure that they will be able to wheel the troops in at the appropriate moment—but my instinct is that if they do it they may well live to regret it.
  I should like to emphasise the point made by the hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Sir B. Braine) about the position of Ratu Mara in Fiji. If the Government are unable to carry the whole Committee with them, they should at the very least come here carrying with them the Prime Minister and the Government of the only State which, although not very strong or powerful, is of any international influence in the area. Once again, they have not done so. I very much agree that Ratu Mara has behaved absolutely properly throughout the whole proceedings. The Government do not have the full-hearted assent of the Government of Fiji to the arrangement, assent which they should have. For that reason also, I believe that they may be asking the House to assent to an extremely unstable arrangement.
  The Government could take a leaf out of the Americans' book. The Americans have been negotiating with the people of Micronesia in the Marshall and Caroline Islands for 10 or 15 years, and with many of the groups of islands they will go on negotiating for a very long time. The American Congress has a committee system properly to scrutinise such issues, and it does not allow things to go through until everyone is satisfied that they are properly organised.
  I greatly fear that we are letting something slip through long before the reaching of fruition of the sort of slow consultation under which one could have secured agreement between the Gilbertese and the Banabans on an arrangement satisfactory to both sides. But, no, the British Government could not wait, for the various reasons stated and, I suspect, one or two that have not been stated on the Floor of the House. They have pushed ahead, and so we are faced with the amendments.
  The amendments do nothing to impair the complicated arrangements that have already been made for Gilbertese independence. That can go ahead, but they allow the situation to be resolved properly in the future, in whatever way it is resolved.

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  7.15 pm.
  I agree that there is no guarantee that either the Government's formula or the formula proposed in the amendments will work. If the Government had taken my advice, they would have spent another 12 months over the matter and told the Gilbertese "We are sorry. We want to obtain the full-hearted assent of both sides." The people of the Pacific do not feel the need for this sort of mad rush.
  The matter is not like the independence of some of the African countries, where there are riots and people demanding independence tomorrow. The truth is that there is time, but the Government have decided that there is not. They have fixed the date and have gone ahead on a bipartisan basis.
  Although there is no guarantee that the amendments will solve anything, they at least hold out a better hope of a peaceful solution of the problem than anything else. Hon. Members should not vote on the basis of any nice, nit-picking view of constitutional law and territorial integrity or anything like that. The Banabans have stood up manfully against massive pressure. They feel deeply about the issue.
  The amendments give us a chance to leave a little more time to get the matter sorted out properly, instead of pushing ahead in such a way that the grievances will go on for generations, and perhaps even centuries, because people in the Pacific remember for a long time. The Imperial Power caused the whole problem in the first place, by the most appalling instance of economic exploitation. In these circumstances, we should vote for leaving the options open rather than closing them. That is why I shall support the amendment.
  Mr. Michael Neubert: My interest in the Banaban issue was aroused in the first weeks of 1977 by the BBC television documentary "Go Tell It to the Judge". To this day I have not seen that documentary, but it obviously struck the conscience of the country. It certainly caused many of my constituents to write to me to express their concern. Neither have I any familiarity with the islands in the Pacific that we are discussing. Despite the handicap of not having had those two vital experiences, however, I am amply convinced that the
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  Banaban people have been done a grave injustice and that we should do nothing consciously to perpetuate or aggravate that injustice.
  It is no longer in dispute that the Banaban people have been exploited. Their assets have been expropriated at less than their value. It is not a very creditable chapter in our Imperial history. That is a matter of great regret to me, because if this is not to be the final chapter of our Imperial story it is likely to be one of the last chapters, and it is a great disappointment to me that we should near the end with such a shabby episode. It will be for ever on the record for the opponents of empire to point to as an illustration of the way in which subject peoples were exploited by empire.
  That is not something that I believe. I believe that the benefits of empire are well known and can be demonstrated. But there will always be a doubt if such episodes are allowed to remain on the record with those concerned unrecompensed. I believe that there is no dispute about that. At least, few care to dispute it in public, elsewhere or in this Chamber. The dispute is about whether the two issues—the making of amends for the past and dealing with independence now—are separate or combined. In my view, they must be combined. Having once pillaged the island of Banaba, are we now to deny the Banaban people their legitimate aspirations for independence? Surely this is our opportunity—a very timely one after all these years—to make amends to them.
  It is not easy for Ministers coming new to office to grapple with problems of this complexity and of this long standing. I do not envy them, because problems come to their desks with a rush. By convention, Ministers are allowed a honeymoon period. Unlike convention, they are not allowed the normal two weeks' paid leave which goes with a honeymoon. In consequence, they have to make decisions quickly.
  Not the least unfortunate aspect of this issue is that it should be the very first Bill that the new Conservative Government have brought before this House to be passed through all its stages in two parliamentary days.
  Sir Bernard Braine: If it were the case that Ministers had come fresh to this

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  issue, there might be some force in what my hon. Friend said, though I think that a prudent Administration would have taken a little time to reflect. In fact, the Banaban case was put to the Shadow Cabinet in detail in the autumn of last year, and there is no excuse for the present Administration claiming that they have come fresh to the issue and that they inherited from the previous Administration a Bill that had very nearly completed its stages in Parliament. It is not the case that Ministers have come fresh to this. The issue has been known to them for months.
  Mr. Neubert: I admire and respect my hon. Friend's integrity in this matter. Unlike him, however, I prefer to be a little more charitable to our new Ministers. It is one matter to face these issues in Opposition, without responsibility, as I did when I committed myself to the cause of the Banabans by becoming a patron of the Justice for the Banabans Campaign. It is quite another, suddenly and unexpectedly, as a result of a Government defeat on the Floor of the House—the first in more than 50 years—to have the responsibility of decision-making not only on a Minister's desk but awaiting a decision within a matter of days, if not hours. I think that some consideration must be given to that point of view.
  The consequence of this has been that the new Government have taken over the Bill which was already going through both Houses at the time of the Dissolution, and it is unfortunate that Ministers should come forward, apparently with their minds made up, not prepared to accept that there have been new developments even within recent weeks and months. I was not satisfied at the time on Second Reading, nor am I satisfied now, that the new initiatives do not offer a better prospect of settlement than what is proposed in the Bill.
  I recognise that there is one precedent here that we ought to observe. It is the precedent of the exploitation of the Banabans. I hope that there will not be any other such episodes in our history. If we are to talk of precedent, that is the precedent, and we ought to match it to another precedent, which is quite exceptional treatment for the Banabans in these circumstances. If they wish to have
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  a more independent existence than is allowed for hi the Bill, in justice we ought to allow it to them. There will be counter-arguments, and we have heard many of them, but none is so important as the need to make amends and to set these matters right.
  The Banabans are perhaps not the best protagonists of their own cause. They are Pacific islanders. They are not used to the niceties of parliamentary consideration in the United Kingdom, at the other end of the world. I have no doubt that the Banaban people—by and large uncomplicated people—are no match for the pink-shirted, space-age sophisticates of the Foreign Office, but I worry whether our Ministers are any match for those same sophisticates in the Foreign Office.
  On the very day—it was a Thursday—that this House gave a Second Reading to the Bill, we had a statement from the Lord Privy Seal about the Vietnamese refugees. On the following Monday there was a change of heart, if not a change of course. I genuinely sympathise with a new Ministry, endeavouring to find its feet and to start as it means to go on, having to take firm decisions in the very first days of a Government. We have seen the energy crisis that has landed on another Minister's desk. It is unenviable. Nevertheless, the opportunity should be taken to say "We have the schedule set out. We have the momentum built up for independence. We have the date fixed. We have a Royal personage to be present at those independence celebrations. We recognise all that, but if there is a chance offered by this amendment or by the initiative of the Fijian Prime Minister to meet the grievance of a minority island people, surely we should take it."
  We were told today that we are to offer homes in this country to Vietnamese refugees. The Banabans are also refugees. They were refugees from their island. To be consistent in the spirit if not in the letter of the law, surely we should offer them their home—an independent home, which is their aspiration. Anything less would not be ample recompense for all that they have suffered in recent months at our hands.
  Mr. Spearing: My few comments will be brief, but I think that they reflect those of my colleagues. I ought perhaps

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  to add that I have not followed this matter quite as closely as some of my hon. Friends have. However, most hon. Members and most United Kingdom citizens want to see Britain leave the Pacific with clean hands and give it the maximum chance of maintaining peace and the brotherhood of its people.
  A couple of years ago, it was my hope that when we came to discuss this Bill we would feel that here was a Bill which in itself and in the actions of our Ministers in the Pacific reflected the best chance of doing that. I regret that this Bill, even if it is amended in the form proposed by my hon. Friends, will not do that.
  The plight of the Banabans has been well ventilated both inside and outside the House of Commons. I remember asking some questions on the subject two and a half years ago, and I referred to them obliquely when I intervened in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Lyon).
  Someone who knows the Pacific very well has said to me that the problem of the Banabans is one not of poverty but of demoralisation. If that is so, it is the duty of the House of Commons to make sure that that demoralisation no longer exists. I feel sure, because I know indirectly of their views, that members of the Gilbert Islands legislature and the political parties share that wish. But again I fail to see in the Bill and in the general arrangements which have been made the constituents which will provide the maximum hope for that solution.
  It was my hope that Her Majesty's Government could have invented some imaginative gesture towards the ravaged Ocean Island. After all, the plight of the Third world and the interrelationship of the peoples of planet Earth is now a well-known theme. Here was one of the best opportunities for the United Kingdom to illustrate its beliefs. Yet it appears that the opportunity, physically at least, has not been taken. It may be that the Government of the Gilberts will enter into some arrangement with the Banabans to make that very type of gesture. Indeed, they may have done so already. If they have not done so already, I hope that they will. But what a pity that it was not Her Majesty's Government who did it first as part of an overall settlement. It
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  appears from what my hon. Friends have said—I shall listen carefully to what the Minister says—that the only reason why they did not do so was lack of imagination and that they thought they did not have the time. I shall be listening carefully to hear whether the Minister says anything that counters that argument.
  7.30 p.m.
  There is no imaginative de-escalation of this difficult problem in the Bill. We have to ask ourselves whether the position will be made better or worse by the amendments of my hon. Friends, which may be the only Division tonight, although that is not entirely certain. There may be other colleagues in the building who have not heard the debate but who will support the Government, or perhaps I should say both Governments, come what may. Because of a feeling of foreboding, if not dismay, among several hon. Members, and although the noses of the Gilbertese may be put slightly out of joint, I feel that the amendments should have some support. If this is to be the only Division, those who feel that our Government and Whitehall have let down the British people and the British Parliament are left with that one alternative.
  Mr. Edward Rowlands: I add my congratulations to those offered to the hon. Member for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones) on an eloquent maiden speech. It is said that the Welsh export preachers, poets and politicians. Clearly, one of our best exports has been to Watford, in the form of the hon. Gentleman. His maiden speech was appreciated for the tribute that he paid to his predecessor, Mr. Raphael Tuck, who, as hon. Members on both sides will know, worked hard and assiduously to ensure the interests of his constituents. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will do likewise.
  The hon. Member for Watford stated that the arguments were finely balanced and that no overwhelming case had been made out. The hon. Gentleman came down on the side of the Banaban cause and the amendments to the Bill, but said that it was a finely balanced decision. He appreciated and sympathised with some aspects of the case presented by the Gilbertese or by the Government.
  I interrupted my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Lyon) from a sedentary position and dubbed as cheap one of his

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  remarks in reference to Ministers of State in the Home Office and the Foreign Office. He might have been describing his experiences and relationships, as a former Minister of State, with civil servants. He was certainly not describing mine as a former Minister of State in the Foreign Office. On the Banaban issue, at no time did I feel that I was a prisoner of the civil servants in the advice that I received. It would have been one of the easiest things in the world for hon. Members like myself, now free from that imprisonment of official advice in the Foreign Office and not having been associated with the problems of Ocean Island and the Banabans for two or three years since I was the responsible Minister, from 1975 to 1976, to lie low on this emotional issue, especially when some of my hon. Friends and close friends feel so strongly about the issue. In the Labour Party there is a strong feeling in favour of the Banaban cause. It would have been the easiest thing in the world for a former Minister to have lain low rather than stand up and argue the case against the amendments and in support of the Bill.
  The reason why I am not lying low is not that I was a prisoner of official advice, or that I felt that I had been whitewashed by a succession of officials. Indeed, I saw off most of the Foreign Office officials. One of the great qualities of being a Minister in the Foreign Office is that if one stays as long as I did one becomes the fixed point in the system and the officials keep on moving around.
  My support of the Bill is based upon my own personal experiences. Like some hon. Members of the House who have drawn different conclusions, I have at least been to Rabi, Ocean Island and Tarawa, and I have consulted at considerable length with the distinguished Prime Minister, Ratu Mara. I could not understand the references by the hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Sir B. Braine), who implied that Ministers had not taken Prime Minister Ratu Mara seriously or consulted with him at great length. There have been deep consultations at ministerial, official and high commissioner level with Prime Minister Ratu Mara. If we do not agree on the course forward, that is reasonable and honourable. It is not due to absence of extensive consulta-
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  tion between ourselves and the Fijian Government.
  I had the chance, albeit almost four years ago, to go on a month's visit to see matters for myself. I reported back to the then Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), now Leader of the Opposition, at the end of 1975. I re-read that personal confidential minute to the Foreign Secretary of the time recently to remind myself of what I felt. My hon. Friend the Member for York and the hon. Member for Essex, South-East will know that such minutes are written by Ministers on their own and not by officials. If one has been sent on an assignment, the minute is written by oneself.
  The situation may have changed in three years, but the arguments are very familiar. The hon. Member for Essex, South-East spoke with eloquence on previous occasions in making similar speeches on the Banabans. I visited Rabi. I found a community with a refugee mentality—a community that has not developed and has not got on with the job of adjusting, over 20 or 30 years, to its environment. It was not because people believed that they would go back to Ocean Island. It was because there had continually been held out the hope, the fiction and belief that somehow there would be another homeland. They have not come to terms, after 30 years, with living and working on an island that in material, physical and environmental terms is infinitely better than Ocean Island itself.
  I explained on Second Reading that I was horrified by what I saw when I visited Ocean Island. I saw an island physically wrecked and raped by commercial development in the manner in which nineteenth century South Wales valley communities were raped for their basic mineral resources. I saw an island totally desolate. It caused me to disbelieve a lot of the propaganda coming out of the Banaban lobby, which implied that there could be large-scale rehabilitation of the island and that large numbers of people could return to their homeland.
  If this were a question of people being able to return in large numbers to an island about 2,000 miles from where they now live to re-establish themselves

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  as a community and society in a meaningful sense and to become a State, a lot of different arguments could be put forward. The truth is that this is just not so. None of the evidence that came out during the extensive court case and none of the evidence seen by visitors like myself and other hon. Members, who have spoken in favour of the amendments, suggests that Banaba would ever become a community and a State inhabited by the citizens of that State. In these amendments, we are talking about creating by some association or separating and making independent a territory 2,000 miles away—
  Sir Bernard Braine: It is 1,400 miles.
  Mr. Rowlands:—or 1,400 miles away from where almost every Banaban is likely to live now and in the future.
  Sir B. Braine: Does not the hon. Gentleman recall the solemn declaration of intent by the British Government in 1947, reiterated in 1967, mentioned at the constitutional conference, that the Banabans have two homes—that whether it is poor, ravaged and incapable of development or not, the British Government have recognised honourably that the Banabans have a right to their home in Ocean Island? That being so, by what right do the British Government transfer those solemn obligations to the Gilbertese Republic without Banaban permission?
  Mr. Rowlands: I shall come in a moment to the hon. Gentleman's distinction between the rights of land, ownership and access and the emotional attachments of the Banabans to Ocean Island. That was the essence of many of the detailed recommendations in the report of the constitutional conference. The point that I am making is a personal one and it is the reason why I shall not support the amendments. By my definition, "territory"—an independent State or an association between States 1,400 miles apart—means a significant number of the citizens of that State living and working in the territory defined as a free and independent State. That is not ever likely and cannot be, alas, in the case of Ocean Island and the Banabans.
  Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: I have waited until my hon. Friend gave his explanation—as he said, personally devised by
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  him—why the Banabans cannot have what they want. We all recognise that they cannot live there; they just want that relationship with their former homeland. My hon. Friend says that it is because they cannot live there that they cannot have it. Why on earth is that a factor when that is what they want? Let them have it.
  Mr. Rowlands: If my hon. Friend, who makes the same intervention every time, will allow me to complete my case as he was allowed to complete his, I will expand my argument.
  I am saying that after my visit to Ocean Island I made a straightforward recommendation, based on no official influence of any kind, that Ocean Island as it was had been irredeemably destroyed and that, except for the most marginal number of people, it could not be reinhabited. If that was the case, I concluded, it was nonsense to try to devise an independent Ocean Island or a completely separate new constitutional relationship between that island and a group of islands 1,400 miles away.
  I also concluded that the only way in which Ocean Island could carry on and be inhabited, serviced and supported administratively and technically would be if it were done from Tarawa and the Gilberts themselves. After BPC packs up and goes away—it is not understood how much it has provided, although I shall have some harsh things to say about it—
  Sir B. Braine: Oh.
  Mr. Rowlands: I have said it before, and I will say it again: without the BPC workings and facilities, the island will be even less habitable than it is now, and those workings will be closed within the next 12 months or so.
  The basic administrative and technical services—anything which is likely to be provided to support Ocean Island—will come from Tarawa. Therefore, on administrative and technical grounds and because for 60-odd years—and under the progressive constitution approved by this House after successive conferences—the Gilbertese Government have assumed Ocean Island to be an integral part of their territory, I concluded that the just and historic concerns and the problem of the injustices conducted against the

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  Banabans should be met by economic and financial means.
  That is why I referred on Second Reading to the use of all surpluses that BPC has accrued in the workings of this area. The Minister of State corrected me and said that the money had not been generated from Ocean Island itself, but there are surpluses in the BPC account created by its workings throughout this area. I do not believe that a penny of that money should be returned to the Exchequers of Australia, New Zealand or the United Kingdom. I believe that it should be used completely—"compensation" is not the word that one should use—as the answer of those three Governments to the needs of that part of the Pacific.
  That is a much more practical approach than any constitutional fictions such as the amendments would create. That is the practical answer to the problems of the Banabans and the Gilbertese and others in this region.
  7.45 p.m.
  Sir B. Braine: That very suggestion was made by me and by Mr. John Lee in a report to the hon. Gentleman's Government five years ago. When we were in Canberra, we had warm approval from Australian Ministers and officials for the idea of the British Government's calling a round-table conference with Fiji, Australia and New Zealand where all these matters could be discussed. That report was never even considered by the British Government. Why is the hon. Gentleman so much in favour of all this now when it could have been considered five years ago?
  Mr. Rowlands: The hon. Gentleman spends a great deal of his time maligning people. We pay him tribute for his work for the Banabans, but he might sometimes pause to consider what action we were taking. We were taking considerable action. My noble Friend Lord Goronwy-Roberts carried out detailed negotiations with the Australian and New Zealand Governments. The hon. Gentleman's assessment of their attitude towards the Banaban problems, and particularly to the BPC surpluses, was not recorded or subsequently verified either at official or at ministerial level in our contacts with our Australian and New Zealand counterparts.
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  The United Kingdom Government have given the lead in utilising the surpluses generated by the British Phosphate Commission for Banaban and Gilbertese development. There have been some detailed and difficult negotiations to persuade our two Commonwealth partners to go along.
  Sir B. Braine: With what results?
  Mr. Rowlands: They have had $10 million worth of surpluses. As I said on Second Reading—I had said it before, in 1975—it was part of the efforts of the United Kingdom Government, as it should be now, to ensure that all the surpluses should be used for the development of the region and particularly for Banaban and Gilbertese causes. That is what I believed in 1975 and what I believe now to be the practical way to redress the historic and justified grievances about the injustices suffered by the Banabans.
  Mr. Hooley: I in no way impugn the integrity or judgment of my hon. Friend. As he said, he no doubt made up his mind on these matters on his own judgment, and that is fair enough. But two points arise. First, it is no use pretending that the United Kingdom Government were anxious to make financial recompense. That did not arise effectively until the scathing Megarry judgment was published and startled the entire country. It was only then that the Government woke up to their financial obligations.
  The other point is more important. My hon. Friend has, rightly, gone to great pains to describe what he saw on Ocean Island—I have not seen it, but he and others have—and I do not query for a minute his description of the island as a desolate, wrecked rock. How on earth can he or anybody therefore pretend that there is some great constitutional issue with the Gilbertese, that if this rock is separated out—if we do for the Banabans what they ask us to do—it will create a great constitutional precedent that will spark off revolutions across the Pacific and call in question the principle of territorial integrity?
  Mr. Rowlands: My hon. Friend made his speech, and I hope that he will allow me to make mine. I shall explain why the Gilbertese feel strongly about this issue, as do the Banabans. It is not

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  accurate for my hon. Friend the Member for York to say that the Gilbertese did not feel strongly until late in the day. Understandably, the Gilbertese believed that there would be no question of chopping up the territory in the process of independence. They made that reasonable assumption on the basis that that had been the policy of successive British Governments. They believed that there would be no fragmentation and no hiving off of territory. The Tuvalu arrangements were made by agreement. The Gilbertese said that they would defend their territorial integrity. It is wrong to imply that their attitude was taken at the last minute.
  Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: I did not imply that. I quoted from the report made by the official observer who went to the area at the behest of the British Government and was a member of the United Kingdom delegation at the independence negotiations. He made the statement, not me.
  Mr. Rowlands: The overwhelming conclusion of the report was that the islands should not be separated. Until late in the day the Gilbertese believed that there was no question that there would be a dismemberment or severance of any part of their territory in the process of independence. Only when they saw a passionate and mounting lobby in the House of Commons and the British media which distorted the situation did the Gilbertese take up the cudgels and launch a public relations exercise similar to that of the Banabans.
  The hon. Member for Essex, South-East and others have raised the question of the Banaban home, their land, access to land and rights of citizenship. They have referred to the fundamental and historic rights of the Banabans. If the Banabans' rights to land ownership or their historic burial places were in danger, I should oppose the Bill. But they are not. As a result of the constitutional conference, those fundamental rights are ensured. The Banabans' rights of land ownership, access to land, and representation in the Kiribati Assembly are 100 per cent. ensured.
  Hon. Members have used a "no lose" argument. They argue that the entrenched provisions are so powerful that we cannot believe them, but if those provisions were
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  any less powerful hon. Members would demand that they be made more powerful. The provisions ensure that nothing can happen to the rights of Banabans or to their homeland short of separation of the territory from the Gilberts. This and the financial provisions that we must make justify the Bill. We should vote against the amendments.
  I turn to the question of territorial integrity. I agree with the hon. Member for Essex, South-East that frequently there is a conflict between self-determination and territorial integrity. The United Nations and the British Government have often had to grapple with the conflicting demands of the people of a State and its territorial integrity.
  The arguments used by the supporters of the amendments can be used by a host of small secessionist movements in islands in the Pacific and Caribbean. The people of Nevis, in St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Kitts and Barbuda, or Antigua, could use the same arguments. One must make up one's mind whether one should support such ideas, which will be read and used to trigger off events in other societies. It is a question not only of precedence but of experience. Experience has shown repeatedly that secessionist movements are a powerful development internationally, particularly in island communities.
  I was not conscious of this in 1975, when I went to the Pacific. I became more conscious of it when I was a Minister and involved in the Caribbean. Experience should teach us to be cautious before embarking upon any type of territorial dismemberment or fragmentation.
  For these reasons and because I believe that the provisions decided at the constitutional conference, enshrine the rights of the Banabans in their homeland—the rights that have caught the imagination and emotions of everyone—have been fully met, I shall oppose the amendments.
  Mr. Blaker: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones) on his excellent maiden speech. He was witty, fluent and confident. He said that he would try to find the narrow landing strip between sycophancy and rebellion. I am not sure that he found it, but if there was a rebellion it was one of the most courteous rebellions that I have experienced for a long time.

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  I was not entirely happy about his reference to Watford being the first pothole on the road to Wigan pier because it seemed to have implications for my constituency, which is further north. My hon. Friend also mentioned the admirable record of the Watford football team. I am confident that he will rise in the House of Commons, although perhaps not with the speed with which his football team has risen in a brief period of two years. I congratulate my hon. Friend and look forward to hearing him again.
  The amendments have three purposes. Amendment No. 1 and the related amendments propose the separation of Banaba. Amendment No. 5 provides as an alternative that we should incorporate in the constitution of Kiribati provisions derived from the paper tabled by the Fijian Government at the Suva conference. New clause 1 provides that if the first two proposals are not accepted, the constitution should contain certain provisions taken from the report of the constitutional conference in London last year.
  I shall deal first with the last of those three suggestions. Paragraphs 62 to 69 of the report of the constitutional conference contain not only constitutional proposals. Therefore, they would not all be suitable for inclusion in a constitution. Some of them are simply descriptive, as for example paragraphs 62, 63 and 65. However, if hon. Members have looked at the draft constitution, which, as the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley) has said, I have placed in the Library, they will find that those provisions from the report of the constitutional conference, which are properly constitutional as opposed to descriptive, have been incorporated in the draft.
  8 p.m.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East (Sir B. Braine), speaking on the main question—that is, the separation of Banaba—used language about myself and Ministers which I found rather surprising. He said that the arguments used by Ministers were dishonest. He said they were designed to justify past and future exploitation and that it was contemptible for Ministers to deny a Banaban identity. I am an old friend of my hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East, and I must say that I am surprised and disappointed at remarks of that kind. I very much pre-
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  fer the approach adopted by my hon. Friend the Member for Watford in his maiden speech and that of the hon. Member for Farnworth (Mr. Roper), which is that, even though people may disagree on this important issue, we would at least be wise to give credit to those with whom we disagree for having similarly honest motives as ourselves. I am quite prepared to do that with my hon. Friend.
  Sir Bernard Braine: I accept the spirit in which my hon. Friend makes his strictures, but if he genuinely means what he says will he now withdraw what he told the House on Second Reading, namely, that the first occasion he had heard my reference to the Suva proposals was during the debate? He knows perfectly well that I had written a letter to him before Second Reading to which I did not receive an answer.
  Mr. Blaker: With regard to the question and answer I was speaking to my hon. Friend on the telephone almost daily at that time. I may not have sent him a written answer, but I was talking to him on the telephone—if he remembers accurately—at least three times that week.
  Sir B. Braine rose—
  Mr. Blaker: Perhaps my hon. Friend will do me the courtesy of allowing me to deal with his point.
  I acknowledge that I received a letter from my hon. Friend in which he proposed a suggestion on the lines he has described. This letter arrived at the same time as the communique of the Suva conference. I naturally gave important consideration to the communique of the Suva conference. The next thing that happened was that the hon. Member came with the leaders of the Rabi Council to see me a few days later. What I said on Second Reading was not what my hon. Friend has just attributed to me. I did not say that he had never made that suggestion. I said this suggestion was not made to me by the Chief Minister of the Gilbert Islands or the Chairman of the Rabi Council of Leaders. After an intervention from my hon. Friend, I then said that I thought that my hon. Friend would agree that when he came to see me with the Chairman of the Rabi Council of Leaders two days previously that suggestion was not made. I thought that it was not unreasonable of me to imagine that his suggestion

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  had been overtaken by the communique from Suva, to which I will come back at greater length later.
  Sir Bernard Braine: There was no need for me to repeat what I had already written to my hon. Friend. I was expressing the view not only on behalf of the Campaign for Justice for Banabans but also on behalf of the Rabi Council of Leaders whom I am empowered to represent. My hon. Friend accused me in the House of making a proposition to him for the first time on the Floor of the House. He knew perfectly well that I had written to him weeks before.
  Mr. Blaker: With great respect to my hon. Friend, I did not accuse him of making the proposition for the first time. I have just read out what I said and I think that if he looks at Hansard he will see that I am justified in what I have been saying.
  Reference has been made frequently today to the fact that both Governments have taken the same view. Generally speaking, those who have made this point have regarded it as rather sinister. I think that it is an important fact that both Governments came independently to the same conclusion on the merits of the case. When we came into office we did not simply take up the previous Government's Bill because it happened to be convenient. As my hon. Friend said, we had studied this matter when we were in Opposition. We had studied it very carefully and when we had the fuller resources available to us as a Government we came to the same conclusion as the previous Government.
  A number of hon. Members, including the hon. Members for York (Mr. Lyon) and for Heeley, have implied that Ministers are run by their officials and he blamed Ministers of both Governments. I rather wonder, having heard all this, why I ceased to be an official and became a politician. If the proposition were true, obviously it would have been right for me to continue in my seat of greater power and to have remained an official. It certainly did not look like that to me at the time and it does not look like that now. It is here at this Dispatch Box that the responsibility lies and I take full responsibility for the decisions I have taken. My right hon. and
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  hon. Friends take full responsibility for the decisions that this Government have made, ft is wrong to blame officials for the decisions of this Government.
  It is necessary to restate some of the basic facts. Banaba has been administered as part of the Gilbert Islands protectorate or colony since 1900. For over 30 years it was the administrative capital of the territory. No matter how that came about, it is history. Nevertheless, the Banaban community of about 2,500 people want the separation of Ocean Island from the rest of the Gilberts group. Almost all the Banabans live on Rabi Island, which is 1,400 miles away. In a free vote in 1947 they chose to live on Rabi, which is 10 times the size of Banaba and more fertile. The Banabans have maintained only a rotating presence of about 100 Banabans on Banaba though this has recently been increased as a political gesture.
  Most of the people who now live on the island are not Banabans at all. They come from other islands in the Gilberts group or they are expatriates employed by the phosphate company. Nevertheless, I recognise the desire of the Banabans that the island should be separated and that that desire is deeply felt. However, and this point was very well made in a distinguished speech—the second one—that the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil (Mr. Rowlands) made on this matter, the desire of the Gilbert islanders, who number 56,000, that the island should not be separated is equally deeply felt as is the desire of the Banabans. The Gilbertese regard Banaba Island as an integral part of the territory, as in their lifetime it has always been. Just because it is an island there is no reason to imagine that the feelings of most of the Gilbertese against separation are any less strong than would be the feelings of any who were threatened with the loss of part of a mainland territory.
  Mr. Christopher Price: On what evidence does the hon. Gentleman base the statement that he has just made? We have had the experience in Britain of being lobbied very hard by the Banabans over a number of years about their very deep feelings about Ocean Island. There has not been similar lobbying of anything like that intensity by the Gilbertese as to their deep feelings about Ocean Island.
  Mr. Blaker: I have talked to the Chief Minister, who certainly has very deep feelings, and I have reports from Tarawa. I would add that the vigour and the frequency of lobbying is not necessarily a reflection of the feelings of those who are doing the lobbying. People may very well have strong feelings about the matter though they do not have the resources with which to lobby. The Gilbertese very reasonably ask, if Banaba were to separate, why should not some of the other Gilbert Islands do the same? Before the British came—this is a point I think which has not been made except perhaps by the hon. Member for Farnworth—most of the Gilbert Islands were separate States. Therefore, it would be foolish to imagine that Banaba could be separated without implications inside the Gilbert Islands themselves.
  Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Which other island in the Gilbert Islands has threatened to secede if Banaba goes?
  Mr. Blaker: I am not aware that any has, but the history shows that they were a separate State. Hon Members have discussed the ethnic connections between the Banabans and the other Gilbert islanders. I thought that the hon. Member for Farnworth was right in saying that this is a matter which can be read either way. It is true that they have the same language and that they are of the same race. It is true that the principal god of the Banabans lives in another of the Gilbert islands, not on Banaba. It is true that there has been a great deal of intermarriage, and I gave the House the figures on Second Reading. But whether one says that because the relationship is like that between the Cornish people and the rest of the United Kingdom there is good cause for separation or there is not good cause for separation is a matter of choice. Therefore, on that issue I go along with the hon. Member for Farnworth to say that the honours are even.
  The important point was made by the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil that nobody seriously suggests that, even if it is possible to rehabilitate Banaba afer the end of phosphate extraction, any more than a relatively small number of Banabans can possibly be expected to go back and live there.
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  Two of the main concerns of the Banabans are that they should continue to have their rights to ownership of land on Banaba and to be able to come and go to Banaba when they wish. Both of these rights are safeguarded in the constitution. Successive British Governments have taken the view that if agreement could be reached by negotiation between the parties, with or without the assistance of the British Government or another Government, that would provide the best solution.
  I join in paying tribute to the Prime Minister of Fiji for the statesmanlike role he has played on a number of occasions in trying to get an agreed solution, not least in Suva last month. But unfortunately an agreed solution has not emerged, even after the 10 years or so over which this problem has been discussed. Therefore the British Government have had to take a decision. This matter has been going on for a long time, and that is why at the constitutional conference at the end of last year the then Government undertook that the Gilbert Islands would achieve independence by early July 1979 as one territory.
  I should like to go once more into why the Government have taken the view that the Bill should be put forward in its present form. First, the safeguards for the Banabans to which the Gilbertese Government have agreed are unprecedented in their generosity: entrenched rights in relation to land and access to Banaba; a Banaba Island Council; a veto for the Banaban representatives in the Gilbert Islands Assembly on any change in the entrenched positions—and there might be two representatives, not one; the right of appeal to the Privy Council; and an international commission to review the carrying out of the safeguards for the Banabans after five years.
  When the Bill was first debated in another place the Conservative Party spokesman suggested that a Minister might visit the area to see if these safeguards might be strengthened. As a result of the visit by Mr. Evan Luard, the Gilbert Islands Government made even further concessions. They agreed that substantial powers of self-government would be given to the Banaba Island

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  Council; that the international commission should review the carrying out of the safeguards for the Banabans after three years instead of five; and that a treaty would be signed with another Power to safeguard the rights of the Banabans.
  I would like to inform the House that, since the Second Reading debate on 24 May, I have been in touch with the Chief Minister of the Gilbert Islands about two of these matters. The Chief Minister has reaffirmed his Government's firm commitment to the establishment of the international commission and their desire that it should be a truly independent commission. The Gilbertese recognise that the commission should not only be independent but should be seen to be independent. Therefore, the Gilbert Islands Government have given an undertaking that, in exercising its power as a sovereign State to appoint the commission, Kiribati will take advice, as to the chairman of the commission, from the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth Secretariat. The chairman will be a person who holds high judicial office. The two other members of the commission will be appointed only after the Governments of two Commonwealth countries have been consulted.
  Second, the Chief Minister has informed me that when the Kiribati Bill, to include Banaba, is enacted by the United Kingdom Parliament, his Government will be ready, if the Banabans wish to take advantage of the special arrangements proposed, to conclude a treaty with the United Kingdom or another Commonwealth country to secure the special rights of the Banabans within a united Kiribati republic.
  8.15 p.m.
  Such a treaty would refer to the special safeguards to be included in the Kiribati constitution and the other assurances given by the Gilbert Islands Government described in paragraphs 64 to 68 of the conference report. Any complaint by the Rabi Council or the Banaba Island Council, other than ones which were susceptible of resolution by the courts, would be raised first in the Kiribati Assembly through a member representing the Banabans. If the complaint was not resolved by this reference, the Council could raise it with both Governments.
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  Every effort would be made to resolve the complaint amicably between the Council and the Kiribati Government, for which the good offices of Her Majesty's Government or another Commonwealth Government could be requested. If no agreement were reached within a specified period—say, three months—the two Governments would be obliged to consult together and with the Council with a view to the appointment of an independent mediator. In the event of failure to agree on a mediator, the Commonwealth Secretary-General would be invited by the two Governments to appoint one.
  The mediator, who would be assured of access to Kiribati and every facility necessary to carry out his task, would make recommendations in a report to the Assembly. The report would also be available to Her Majesty's Government or the other Commonwealth Government.
  I hope and believe the House will agree that these undertakings represent further generous gestures by the Gilbert Islands Government to underline their good faith.
  Sir Bernard Braine: We are now being given some very interesting information about a somewhat belated but nevertheless encouraging development. Bearing in mind that the bulk of the Banabans are Fijian citizens, has my hon. Friend utilised the time available to him before this debate to consult the Government of Fiji as to whether they approve of these proposals? Can he convey that approval to the Committee?
  Mr. Blaker: These are offers; they are not ultimatums. They will be discussed with the Government of Fiji, with whom I have been in touch—
  Sir B. Braine: They have been or will be?
  Mr. Blaker: They have not yet been discussed with the Government of Fiji. They are an offer which is available to be taken up by the Banabans if they wish to do so. They are not inconsistent with anything that has previously been proposed. They are an elaboration of the three proposals which were brought back by Mr. Luard after his visit to the Pacific, and I have only recently obtained confirmation of the offer from the Chief Minister of the Gilbert Islands.
  Sir B. Braine: If these offers have not been discussed with the Fijian Government, who have a direct interest in the matter in that the Banabans are Fijian citizens, will my hon. Friend advise the Committee to vote for the amendment so that the options can be kept open and so that the Committee does not take a decisions which would prevent these matters from being properly discussed, ventilated and thought through?
  Mr. Blaker: These are offers which are based on the assumption that the Bill will be passed in its present form. I therefore do not understand what my hon. Friend is saying in relation to the proposals.
  Mr. Christopher Price: Will the Minister go a little further about the other Commonwealth country? I assume that it could be Australia or New Zealand, but is it contemplated that Fiji might be the other Commonwealth country in these arrangements?
  Mr. Blaker: I think that I had better go no further than saying "another Commonwealth country". There is certainly no objection to Fiji by our Government, but that would be a matter very much for the Government of Fiji and for further negotiation.
  The second main reason why, in the absence of agreement between the parties, we have introduced the Bill in its present form is that it has been the practice of successive British Governments when granting independence to dependent territories to respect the existing colonial boundaries and the wishes of the people of the territory as a whole.
  Reference was made to United Nations resolution 1514 of December 1960 on independence for colonial countries and peoples. My hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East claimed that there were two principles of the United Nations that were in conflict—that of self-determination and another, to which I referred. However, the principle of self-determination appears in the same resolution, which suggests that the United Nations, when passing that resolution, did not believe that those matters were in conflict. When talking about the principle of self-determination the United Nations expressed its desire that dependent territories should
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  come to independence, but when they did so the United Nations wished them to come to independence as integral territories.
  Territories have been hived off before independence. Examples have been mentioned. I repeat the proposition that I am unaware of any case in which separation has been pushed through in defiance of the wishes and without the consent of the elected Government of the territory as a whole.
  If Banaba were to separate before independence without the consent of the Gilbertese Government, that would have repercussions elsewhere. There are other separatist movements in the Pacific, in the Caribbean and elsewhere. To mention those in the Pacific, there are separatist movements in Papua New Guinea, the New Hebrides and the Solomon Islands.
  Mr. Rowlands: The Minister dealt with the Gilbertese position. Many hon. Members on both sides said that if these amendments were passed the Bill could still pass, giving independence. Has the Minister had any indication from the Gilbertese Government whether they would wish the Bill to proceed if the amendments were carried?
  Mr. Blaker: I have not discussed that question with the Gilbertese Government. It is clear that they would be extremely distressed if these amendments were carried.
  My hon. Friend claimed that I could have convened a conference between the Gilbert Islands Government and the Banabans in the past two weeks. It would have been impossible to convene such a conference. I discussed my hon. Friend's proposal with the Chief Minister, who was here accompanied by only one ministerial colleague. I understand that he had no mandate to negotiate further. In the past the two sides have been prepared to negotiate only when accompanied by a substantial number of their colleagues. The Chairman of the Rabi Council was not accompanied by any of his councillors at that time. Members of his team told me that they were planning to leave England without delay after the debate. They made no attempt to contact me again with a view to a conference.
  Sir B. Braine: Is my hon. Friend saying that the Chairman of the Rabi Council made preparations to leave England? He had full authority to deal with my hon. Friend—and so had I. If the Chief Minister of the Gilbert Islands was not disposed to talk, that is his affair. I would not criticise him for that. But it seems incredible to me that, following the Suva talks, no attempt was made to get the parties together, even unofficially, to discuss the brave initiative made by the Prime Minister of Fiji.
  Mr. Blaker: I shall come to the initiative of the Prime Minister of Fiji. The Chief Minister said that he had no mandate to negotiate at that time. He had to return to his own country. He had been away for three weeks. The team of the chairman of the Rabi Council told my staff that they were planning to leave England without delay.
  My hon. Friend proposed that a conference of the kind he suggested should consider whether the proposals made by the Prime Minister of Fiji at the Suva conference might be implemented. I can see no reason why a conference in London, following immediately on that in Suva, would have had more success. It is true that the Suva communiqué reported that the two sides agreed to carry on a direct dialogue between them. But everything in it pointed to these talks being continued after independence, with the assistance of the Prime Minister of Fiji.
  I should like to read a couple of extracts from the communiqué. The first reads:
  "The two sides recognise that the issues were too complex and complicated and would need to be considered and examined exhaustively in further meetings in future. In this regard, they accepted in principle and without any commitment, a working paper circulated by the chairman of the meeting as a possible basis for those future consultations, together with the relevant provisions of the Gilbert Islands Constitutional Bill."
  The second extract reads:
  "It was his sincere hope"—
  that refers to the Prime Minister of Fiji—
  "that as there was now a better understanding of all the issues involved, and with the goodwill and mutual resolve which had emerged at the meeting, they would continue their dialogue."
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  That refers to the two principal parties.
  "He personally would be prepared to make himself available, if the two parties so desired, to assist in these consultations. He was confident that through this process of continuing dialogue a solution acceptable to both sides would eventually emerge."
  I should like to take up a point made on Second Reading and again today by my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet), who again made an interesting speech. It was about the suggestion that there might be a long-term lease. I considered this matter. There are three points to be made on it. One is that unless it involves separation it would be of no interest to the Banabans. Secondly, the Banabans already own the land on Banaba. Therefore, it is difficult to see what advantage a lease would give to them. Thirdly, there are strong guarantees about land and the ownership of land in the proposed constitution.
  We heard again today the argument that the entrenched causes in the constitution were so strong that they could not be credible. The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil dealt with that argument. If the safeguards had been less strong, we should have been told that they should have been made stronger. Hon. Members suggested that constitutions all over the world had been torn up. Indeed, that is true in some parts of the world. But seven territories in the Pacific have become independent in recent years. In none of them has a constitution been torn up. Perhaps what is true in other parts of the world is not true in the Pacific. We have, in addition, the proposals for a review by an independent commission, after three years, of how the constitution is working, and we have the proposal for the exercise of good offices by an outside Government.
  8.30 p.m.
  As for the danger of land nationalisation, the hon. Member for Heeley quoted only part of the constitution. Sections 8 and 119 are also relevant and they strengthen the provisions about land holding compared with the passage that he quoted. Those who know the Pacific assure me that the nationalisation of land has no place in the thinking of the people. The land is identified with the man, and there is no difference that I am aware of in their view of that matter between the Banabans and the Gilbertese.
  Mr. Hooley: If that is so, why does the constitution specifically refer to the compulsory acquisition of land? If there is no general desire, no provision, no history of compulsory acquisition or nationalisation, why is it written into the constitution?
  Mr. Blaker: It does not rule it out, but it surrounds it with very careful safeguards.
  I come now to the financial position and I think it right to make the point that there is no direct connection between what is proposed on the financial side and the proposals for independence for the Gilbert Islands, including Banaba. The two matters are separate, and, as I understand it, the Banabans also take that view. They are not saying that they could be compensated for accepting the provisions in the Bill as it now stands by an extra grant of money.
  It might be useful for the Committee if I were to review the financial arrangements. After the unsuccessful legal action against the Crown, the partner Governments of the British Phosphate Commission—Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom—made an exgratia offer in May 1977 of A$10 million, or £6·7 million, for a fund for the Banabans' future. This was in addition to the funds which have been paid to the Banabans for many years from the phosphate revenues. Over the last seven years, these revenues have amounted to about A$2⅓ million per year. In addition, the phosphate commission has made an ex gratia payment of A$1·25 million in settlement of the Banaban action against it, although the court awarded damages of only A$14,000.
  The British Government have also offered up to £1 million for the development of Rabi Island. We have also offered to finance a survey for the potential use of Banaba after phosphate mining ceases. This offer has not, nor have the A$10 million and the £1 million for Rabi Island, yet been taken up.
  The income that the Banabans have been receiving from the phosphate revenues has given them one of the highest standards of living in the Pacifiic, second only to Nauru. It amounts on average to A$915 per person per year, or A—3,600 per family of four. This is equal to some
  144
  £2,000 per year of investment income free of tax, because it is understood to be free of tax.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Bedford referred to the financial condition of the Banabans. It is not for me to comment on that, but he suggested that there should be a trust to look after the A$10 million. Regrettably, the Banabans have not yet been prepared to discuss the management of that fund with us, but certainly we do not exclude the suggestion of my hon. Friend.
  It was suggested by the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil that the whole of the surplus of the phosphate commission should be returned to the Banabans and the Gilbertese and that not a penny should remain with the three partner Governments. I pointed out on Second Reading that there is no plan for the winding up of the phosphate commission when mining ends on Banaba. It covers other territories and other activities. Nor does its surplus derive from activities on Banaba, as I think the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil now accepts. The suggestion, therefore, is premature. In any case, if the surplus were eventually to be used for the benefit of other people than the three Governments, I am not sure that it would be right to use it only for the benefit of the Banabans and the Gilbertese. I cannot say what the reaction of the Australian and New Zealand Governments would be to such a suggestion. But, as I said to the hon. Gentleman on Second Reading, I have taken note of his suggestion.
  I understand the strong feelings which have prompted hon. Members to put down these amendments. The Banabans are the underdogs. The House of Commons has always been ready, to its credit, to listen to a plea on behalf of the underdogs. Hon. Members have referred to the role of the British Governments in the past in relation to the phosphates. We have had reference to the judgment of Vice-Chancellor Megarry. It would be wrong to imagine that it contained only criticism of British Governments. In any case, the vice-chancellor was dealing with financial claims and not with the issue now before us.
  We should not confuse the standards of one age with the standards of another. Undoubtedly things were done in past

  145
  years which we view with astonishment and regret. Our standards are higher now than they were then.
  However that may be, our task now is not to make an act of expiation for the past; it is to deal fairly with the constitutional problems of the present not only of the Banabans but the Gilbertese—56,000 of them. What we do is relevant for the people of the Pacific, too.
  We should beware lest a feeling of guilt about the past drives us into errors in the present, because guilt is a dangerous teacher. It would be no way of making amends to the Banabans for us now to be unfair to the Gilbertese.
  We have to take a cool decision in the circumstances of today. It is not easy. I believe that on balance the best course is to reject the amendment. That does not mean an end to negotiations. Both sides committed themselves at Suva to further negotiations. Ratu Mara has said that he is willing to help and that, through a process of continuing dialogue, a solution acceptable to both sides will eventually emerge. I endorse those words.
  Mr. Robert Rhodes James: I attended the whole of the debate on Second Reading and the whole of this debate today and this is the first intervention that I have made. I supported the Bill on Second Reading because I did not wish in any way to impede—only to support—the advance of the Gilbert Islands to independence.
  Frankly, I must tell my hon. Friend the Minister of State, for whom I have great regard and affection, that I found his answer to the debate unsatisfactory. I am concerned that the Bill was presented so quickly after the formation of the new Government. It is remarkable that the Government were elected on 3 May, that Ministers took up their positions on 7 May and that the Bill was presented to
  the House on 17 May. It clearly is the same Bill as before.
  It is obvious that the profound concern which has been expressed on both sides of the Committee has not been met. The point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East (Sir B. Braine) and by others—perhaps most eloquently of all by my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones) in a remarkable maiden speech—was that amendment No. 5 would give the Banabans and, indeed, the House of Commons the opportunity of again looking at the implications of this important Bill. When the Bill leaves Parliament and the constitution conies into play, the role of the House of Commons will have come to an end. That is what concerns all hon. Members on both sides of the Committee. It is not, as the Minister said, a feeling of guilt about the past, although one may have that; it is a much deeper concern to ensure that our position now and in future, and above all, that of the people of the new countries, will not be compromised by any errors that we make here today.
  I have become increasingly convinced that the Government would be well advised to review the Bill and to reconsider seriously the points made by hon. Members on both sides of the Committee and by the Prime Minister of Fiji. It is not my intention, nor that of any other hon. Member, I am sure, to try to delay the passage of this important Bill, but it is our responsibility to try to ensure that the Bill adequately meets the problems of the hour and of the future. I am not convinced by my hon. Friend's reply. Therefore, I shall support the amendment in the Lobby tonight.
  Question put, That the amendment be made:—
  The Committee divided: Ayes 58, Noes 150.

  Division No. 4]

  AYES

  [8.39 p.m.

  Atkinson, Norman (H'gey, Tott'ham)

  Dobson, Frank

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  Beith, A. J.

  Dubs, Alfred

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Benyon, W. (Buckingham)

  Ellis, Raymond (N. E. Derbyshire)

  Holland, Philip (Carlton)

  Body, Richard

  English, Michael

  Howells, Geraint

  Braine, Sir Bernard

  Fell, Anthony

  Leighton, Ronald

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Flannery, Martin

  Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

  Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc'thorpe)

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Cadbury, Jocelyn

  Foulkes, George

  Lyon, Alexander (York)

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  McKelvey, William

  Canavan, Dennis

  George, Bruce

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester South)

  Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth, Tooting)

  Gower, Sir Raymond

  Maynard, Miss Joan

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

  Morgan, Geraint

  Cryer, Bob

  Grimond, Rt Hon J.

  Neubert, Michael

  Newens, Stanley

  Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)

  Tinn, James

  Penhaligon, David

  Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

  Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)

  Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

  Skinner, Dennis

  Wright, Miss Sheila

  Prfce, Christopher (Lewisham West)

  Spearing, Nigel

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Stallard, A. W.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES

  Richardson, Miss Jo

  Stewart, Rt Hon Donald (W Isles)

  Mr. Frank Hooley and

  Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

  Taylor, Mrs. Ann (Bolton West)

  Sir. John Langford-Holt.

  Rooker, J. W.

  Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

  NOES

  Alexander, Richard

  Greenway, Harry

  Patten, John (Oxford)

  Ancram, Michael

  Grist, Ian

  Pollock, Alexander

  Aspinwall, Jack

  Gummer, John Selwyn

  Porter, George

  Atkins, Robert (Preston North)

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

  Atkinson, David (B'mouth, East)

  Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

  Proctor, K. Harvey

  Baker, N. (North Dorset)

  Hawksley, Warren

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW.)

  Banks, Robert

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Roper, John

  Berry, Hon Anthony

  Heddle, John

  Rossi, Hugh

  Best, Keith

  Henderson, Barry

  Rowlands, Ted

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Hill, James

  Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Hogg, Hon Douglas (Grantham)

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Blackburn, John

  Hooson, Tom

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge-Br'hills)

  Blaker, Peter

  Hunt, David (Wirral)

  Silvester, Fred

  Bright, Graham

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Sims, Roger

  Brinton, Timothy

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Brooke, Hon Peter

  Lang, Ian

  Speed, Keith

  Budgen, Nick

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Speller, Tony

  Butcher, John

  Lee, John

  Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)

  Carlisle, John (Luton West)

  Le Marchant, Spencer

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcestershire)

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

  Lester, Jim (Beeston)

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Channon, Paul

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)

  Chapman, Sydney

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  Clegg, Walter

  Luce, Richard

  Tapsell, Peter

  Cockeram, Eric

  Lyell, Nicholas

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs. Margaret

  Cocks, Rt Hon Michael (Bristol S)

  McCrindle, Robert

  Thomas, Rt Hon Peter (Hendon S)

  Colvin, Michael

  Macfarlane, Neil

  Thompson, Donald

  Cope, John

  MacGregor, John

  Thorne, Neil (Ilford South)

  Corrie, John

  McQuarrie, Albert

  Thornton, George

  Costain, A. P.

  Major, John

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Dean, Paul (North Somerset)

  Marlow, Antony

  Trippier, David

  Dickens, Geoffrey

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Viggers, Peter

  Dodsworth, Geoffrey

  Marten, Neil (Banbury)

  Waddington, David

  Dormand, J. D.

  Mather, Carol

  Wakeham, John

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Maude, Rt Hon Angus

  Waldegrave, Hon William

  Dover, Denshore

  Mawby, Ray

  Waller, Gary

  Dunn, Robert

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Ward, John

  Eggar, Timothy

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Watson, John

  Emery, Peter

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Wells, P. Bowen (Hert'rd & Stev'nage)

  Eyre, Reginald

  Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)

  Wheeler, John

  Fairgrieve, Russell

  Mills, Iain (Meriden)

  Whitlock, William

  Faith, Mrs Sheila

  Moate, Roger

  Wickenden, Keith

  Fenner, Mrs Peggy

  Molyneaux, James

  Williams, Delwyn (Montgomery)

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Morrison, Hon Charles (Devizes)

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chester)

  Wolfson, Mark

  Forman, Nigel

  Murphy, Christopher

  Younger, Rt Hon George

  Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

  Myles, David

  Gardiner, George (Reigate)

  Neale, Gerrard

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Goodhew, Victor

  Needham, Richard

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton and

  Gow, Ian

  Newton, Tony

  Mr. Robert Boscawen.

  Graham, Ted

  Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Parris, Matthew

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2

  POWER TO PROVIDE FOR CONSTITUTION OF KIRIBATI AS REPUBLIC
  Sir Bernard Braine: I beg to move amendment No. 3, in page 1, line 12, leave out
  'which shall be laid before Parliament after being made)'.
  The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 4, in page 1, line 14, at end insert:
  (2) No such order shall be submitted to Her Majesty in Council unless a draft thereof has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament or has been approved with such amendments as may have been agreed to by each House.
  Sir B. Braine: Perhaps I may join with others in referring to the maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones). It was a brave speech of a kind that we do not

  149
  often hear in the House. It was modest and witty. It was a clarion call for simple justice. It did my heart a great deal of good to hear it. Those who were privileged to hear my hon. Friend will remember that speech for many years to come.
  I turn to the amendment. As hon. Members know, normally when a colonial territory goes into independence with the broad agreement of all its peoples, there is no need for Parliament to concern itself with the minutiae of the proposed constitution. This would have been agreed with the parties and Her Majesty's Government at a constitutional conference. If there were political parties in the territory, they would have been consulted. Clearly, if they are agreed and if the minorities are satisfied that the proposed constitution is good and should be proceeded with, it is surely not for us to interfere.
  In such circumstances, all that remains is for Parliament to recognise, in its usual warmhearted way, that in one more case tutelage has given way to partnership, and in doing so we usually pay a tribute to the way in which the decolonisation process has been conducted in that territory, and we recognise that as sovereignty passes from our hands to those who lead the new State, friendship and understanding between our two peoples is, if anything, enhanced. That is what has happened in almost every case of an independence constitution that I can remember.
  Unhappily, in the case of the Bill before us the situation is very different. It is not that any one of us on either side of the Committee wishes to delay the granting of independence to the Gilbertese people. They are entitled to their independence. But for the failure of successive British Governments to solve the Banaban problem in a generous spirit, they would have received it long since.
  The situation here is unique. We have established that the Banaban people have two homes, one in Fiji and one in the Gilbert Islands colony, to which they have inalienable rights. As I reminded the Committee a short time ago, those rights were affirmed by the British Government in 1947, again in 1967 and again in the constitutional conference. The rights are inalienable, and it is our submission that
  150
  no British Government have the right to hand over guarantees of those rights to an independent State without the consent of the Banabans.
  We have established that they are for the most part citizens of Fiji and will not qualify for full Gilbertese citizenship unless they surrender their Fijian citizenship. We have established that they are unwilling to be dragooned into the Kiribati unitary State. We have also established that they see their enforced inclusion in that State as a final act of betrayal after a long series of injustices inflicted upon them by successive British Administrations. If there are any doubts about that, I advise hon. Members to read and read again the long historic judgment of Mr. Justice Megarry as recently as 1976, when he accused successive British Administrations of breaches of the higher trust towards a small defenceless people.
  I found it rather sad that the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil (Mr. Rowlands), for whom I have great respect and, indeed, affection—we have crossed swords on a number of occasions—should use, as an illustration of the way in which the British Government are trying to make amends for all that they have done before, the fact that they have made available 10 million Australian dollars. He failed to tell the Committee that this action followed some months after the strictures of Mr. Justice Megarry, who had taken the most unusual course of drawing the Attorney-General's attention to the fact that in the case that the Banabans took against the Crown, his court was powerless to right a wrong done by the Crown.
  Mr. Rowlands: Negotiations with partner Governments in relation to the fund and the obtaining of the initial 10 million Australian dollars had begun even before the court case was finalised.
  Sir B. Braine: There need have been no court case at all if the suggestions that Mr. Lee and I made in our report in 1975 had been accepted by the Government It is true there have been long-drawn-out negotiations, and I am sure that the hon. Member has played an honourable role in this sordid affair, but the fact is that we are talking about a small community which has been grievously wronged and there is nothing that Ministers or former Ministers can say that can deny that.

  151
  If all this is true, I submit that it is sufficient reason why a special obligation rests upon us to ensure that the safeguards which the Government and their predecessors have devised to take care of Banaban interests after our transfer of sovereignty to the Gilberts are adequate and are likely to be effective.
  I cannot recollect a debate in which an important constitutional Bill has been before the House and so many hon. Members on both sides have criticised the Bill, thought it inadequate and asked for it to be amended, and a deaf ear has been turned by the Front Benches. No doubt it has happened before, but in my 29 years as an hon. Member I cannot recollect another such occasion. The reason, as my hon. Friends the Members for Barry (Sir R. Gower) and for Cambridge (Mr. Rhodes James) made clear, is that once we have passed the Bill there is nothing more that the House, or, indeed, this country, can do about the situation. We will have washed our hands, Pontius Pilate-fashion, of the whole miserable grisly business.
  It behoves us, therefore, to see that the entrenched clauses—the guarantees—are of such a nature that we can say with truth that we have ensured justice at long last to these people who have been our wards and who have been so ill used for three quarters of a century. How can we be sure unless we make this amendment?
  9 p.m.
  Had the Committee accepted the earlier amendment the difficulty that we are now seeking to overcome would not have arisen, but we must deal with the Bill as it is. That is the parliamentary way. It means that Parliament is being asked to rubber-stamp constitutional safeguards that it will not have the opportunity to examine or amend. It is true that one copy—or were there two copies?—of the proposed constitution was placed in the Library last Friday, I believe? My hon. Friend told us earlier that he was on the telephone to me almost daily, which is a slight exaggeration. In our last telephone conversation he told me with great courtesy that a copy of the constitution was in the Library. I have heard in the course of the debate that one other hon. Member, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley), has had the oppor-
  152
  tunity to take a cursory glance at the constitution.
  Sir John Langford-Holt: If at a future date the Kiribati Assembly were to withdraw the entrenched clauses, what would be the position of Her Majesty's Government? Have they any power or duty whatsoever?
  Sir B. Braine: The Government's position would be unenviable, because they would have been warned in advance that that could happen and would have chosen to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear. Of course, they could do nothing about that. It is no use my hon. Friend the Minister shaking his head. Once the Bill becomes law, that is the end of the matter.
  I should like to know how many hon. Members here, whose presence demonstrates that they are closely interested in the matter, have been to the Library and seen the constitution. I see that the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil is indicating that he has read it, but one would expect him to know it from A to Z. After all, the whole wretched business started with his Government. He told us that the new Administration had studied the matter in great detail, but in fact all that they have done is to reproduce a Bill which was considered by the late Government and which got through all its stages in another place.
  Sir Raymond Gower: Has my hon. Friend any information as to the approximate date on which an Order in Council is likely to be laid? What is the time element in this matter?
  Sir B. Braine: The Government are operating within a very tight timetable. They are adhering to the date of independence that they inherited from their predecessors, which I think is 16 July or 17 July. I make no complaint. It has never been part of our case that we should delay Gilbertese independence. The people of the Gilbert Islands are as entitled to their independence as anybody else in the colonial empire. In fact, they would have had it long ago if British Governments had had the courage and imagination to grasp the Banaban nettle and deal with the matter in an honourable and practical way.
  The amendments would have the effect of ensuring full debate of the draft constitution in both Houses. I need not

  153
  argue that aspect further. Everything that I have said in this Committee stage about the need to safeguard the interests of a grievously wronged people, so preventing unrest and disturbance after we have withdrawn from the area, argues in favour of our subjecting the proposed constitution to the closest scrutiny—and doing it now, for the reason that my hon. Friend the Member for Barry has just suggested, which is that the timetable is very short.
  My complaint against my hon. Friend the Minister is that there has been lime in which these matters could have been considered. I fully accept that my hon. Friend believes what he says, but there has clearly been a misunderstanding. That must be so, for I wrote to him immediately after the Suva conference drawing his attention to it and asking that the Government should use their good offices to bring the parties together, and yet then the impression was given to the House on Second Reading that somehow or other I had sprung these ideas upon him. That is not so. I say that the least we can do is to accept the amendment.
  There is one other consideration which should perhaps persuade hon. Members to vote for the amendment. It has long been the contention of the Banabans—and I supported it strongly at the constitutional conference held at Marl-borough House last year—that the British Government's statement of intention in 1947, reaffirmed in 1967, cannot in truth, justice and morality be transferred to a new Kiribati Republic unilaterally by Britain against the wishes of the Banabans.
  I say with all the emphasis at my command that the course taken by the late Government and that taken by the present Government on this is one of dishonour. I can find no other word than "dishonour", because we are repudiating unilaterally an agreement made with the Banabans without their approval.
  Let me remind the Committee of the three solemn promises made in the 1947 statement. The first was:
  "The Banabans' decision to reside on Rabi Island shall in no way affect any rights to lands possessed by the Banabans on Ocean Island."
  So much for the assertions made in this debate that Ocean Island is worthless,
  154
  anyway, and that very few Banabans could live there, even if they wanted to go.
  The second promise was:
  "The title to all worked-out phosphate lands which have, or may in future, come into possession of the Crown shall revert to the Banabans."
  It is no use talking about leases, therefore. They are the owners of the land, and that was recognised in 1947.
  The third promise was:
  "The Banabans shall be permitted, subject to the provisions of the laws of Fiji and further subject to shipping being available, to travel freely between Rabi Island and Ocean Island, and, subject to the rights of the British Phosphate Commissioners over any lands purchased or leased to them, to reside on Ocean Island."
  It is relevant to the Banaban story to realise that the 1947 undertakings were a bargain. I want the Committee to understand that this was no act of magnanimity or generosity on the part of the British Government of the day. On the contrary, it was part of a bargain. In effect, the British Government were saying "If you will agree to stay on Rabi, we will ensure that your rights to land on Ocean Island and your freedom to travel and live there will not be in any way affected by the decision to make Rabi your second home."
  I remind the Committee that the distance between the two is 1,400 miles. The reference to shipping difficulties in 1947 indicates that in the minds of those who concluded this agreement there was very little chance that Banabans would be taking trips every weekend from Rabi to Ocean Island. It was a safe promise to make.
  But what was the object of the exercise? The Committee will appreciate that in 1947 the question of citizenship did not arise. Fiji, like the Gilberts, was still a Crown colony. By 1967, when the declaration was reaffirmed, we were within three years of granting independence to Fiji.
  Most of the Banabans today are subjects of Her Majesty the Queen—the Queen of Fiji. By transferring the 1947 guarantees unilaterally to a Kiribati Republic, the Government are proposing a constitutional monstrosity and, unless we here take action, we assent to it. It may be that it does not matter very much to many people nowadays to take

  155
  a people who owe their ultimate allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen of Fiji and say that in future, under this wonderful constitution which we have devised for them, the like of which has never be seen again, those subjects of Her Majesty the Queen of Fiji are to have their allegiance divided between Her Majesty and the President of the Kiribati Republic, whoever he may be.
  This consideration never entered the minds of Ministers, because it had never been discussed with the Fijian Government. We heard a most extraordinary winding-up speech by my hon. Friend. In the event, he won. The battalions marched. He got his vote, but he did not win a single argument. There is no doubt what has been happening in this place. This is a sad day for the House of Commons. It is a sad day for the British people. It is our reputation that is on the line. This day will not be allowed to be forgotten. The Government will rue what they have done.
  We are faced with the ridiculous situation that the Bill proposes to divide a small people, who for 34 years have lived away from the Gilberts, in harmonious, friendly relationship with Fiji, between two sovereign jurisdictions. It would have been difficult enough if the Banabans agreed to this, for clearly Fijian nationality law, which, as one would expect, is not referred to in the Bill, will prevent a Banaban taking up Kiribati citizenship without renouncing his Fijian citizenship. This means that the 1947 undertakings will be void. Unless a man is free to move between one island home and another and back again, the 1947 undertakings are null and void. The hon. Member for Farnworth (Mr. Roper) shakes his head. But a man will not be free to move unless he renounces Fijian citizenship or alternatively there is an agreement between the Fijian Government and the Kiribati Republic to have some arrangement for dual citizenship.
  One would have thought that this was precisely the sort of question that the British Government should have been discussing with the Fijian Government before putting an idiotic constitutional Bill of this kind before the House. They have not done so. We are forced, as
  156
  legislators in this Committee, to take action to put the matter right.
  Can my hon. Friend give an unequivocal assurance that under the safeguards that he proposes a Banaban, who is a Fijian subject, will be able not merely to live on Rabi, which is agreed, but will be able to work on Rabi and, having lived and worked on Ocean Island, will be free to go back to live and to work on Rabi? If my hon. Friend cannot give that assurance, the 1947 agreement guarantees cannot in morality or justice, or in law, be transferred to the new Kiribati Republic, and the House of Commons will be asked to sanction something that is totally dishonourable.
  Mr. Roper: Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that any restriction upon a Banaban would be a matter for the Fijian Government and not for either the Kiribati Government or the British Government? The Kiribati constitution makes clear that anyone born in Banaba or whose parents or grandparents were born in Banaba would have a right to return and work on Banaba. That is ensured in the Bill. The only restriction that could exist is nothing that the House could do anything about. It could only be a restriction imposed by a sovereign Government, the Fijian Government.
  The Chairman: Order. I remind the Committee that we are discussing parliamentary approval of the constitution and not the merits of the constitution.
  9.15 p.m.
  Sir B. Braine: I will, of course, accept your guidance in the matter, Mr. Weatherill, but in order that there shall be parliamentary approval, which is not provided for at the moment, I have to show why the constitutional arrangements are defective. The hon. Member for Farnworth, with his usual sagacity, put his finger on a good point. Of course this is a matter that common sense and constitutional propriety suggest should be discussed between the Gilbertese and the Fijian Government. No one argues about that.
  What I criticise is the disposition of the previous Government and this one to rush into a Bill of this kind and to bring forward a constitution that has not, in all its implications, been discussed with the principal Government concerned other

  157
  than the Gilbertese—namely, Fiji. We are being asked to take on trust a constitution which, without my amendment, will never be discussed in this House. No one has seen it, apart from the hon. Member for Heeley, who went to the Library and looked at it.
  Hon. Members should ask themselves why Parliament should not be able to debate a constitutional instrument, to be made by Her Majesty in our name, and why we cannot agree that the matter should be subject to an affirmative resolution. What is the reason for this? The Government have argued throughout that there is insufficient time before the agreed date for Gilbertese independence. But this is Parliament. There is no excuse for Parliament mutely to acquiesce in dubious proposals of this kind.
  What are we? Every now and again a bold spirit gets up and says that the Executive has become too powerful for the legislature. It is about time that we started to assert ourselves. Why not start with this iniquitous proposal? We have the opportunity tonight to strike a blow for Parliament as well as for the Banabans. Will the Government say that to give Parliament the right to amend an Order in Council has not been done before? It has; there are precedents.
  Sir Raymond Gower: Does my hon. Friend appreciate that we have to cope with an unholy alliance between the two Front Benches?
  Sir B. Braine: We always have to cope with that. Indeed, when the two Front Benches are seen to be in alliance, democracy had better watch out. This is one of the most unsatisfactory features of this unhappy business—although I am beginning to detect in the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil a slight detachment.
  It is a fact that many of those Ministers who have had to handle this matter from time to time and have been able to study the papers put before them by their Foreign Office advisers have after a time concluded that perhaps something was wrong.
  The hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Miss Lestor), who is not with us today, is nevertheless a strong supporter of the Justice for the Banabans Campaign, and no doubt voted in the Lobby a few moments ago. She became convinced after she had studied these matters—I do
  158
  not think I am saying anything out of turn—that there was something in the case. She was shifted. There is no doubt that the former Member for Oxford, a delightful man of personal integrity, became more unhappy the more he probed the matter. My complaint is that present Ministers have not studied the matter in the depth required.
  Ministers do not dare to expose the fatuity of what they are proposing for the hapless Banabans to the scrutiny of Parliament. Is that why we are not being given the opportunity to discuss the constitution? We hear much these days about the way in which the executive lords it over the legislature. As legislators we must assert ourselves, or we deserve to see a further decline in our influence and power in relation to government.
  I commend the amendment to the Committee.
  Mr. Hooley: The amendment deals with parliamentary scrutiny of legislation. It is an important general issue, apart from its great importance to the Bill. What we are being asked to do is pass an enabling Bill. Much of the substance of what will happen in terms of the constitution of the new Gilbertese State will be included in the details of the constitution. No one can claim that Parliament has had the opportunity to scrutinise those details.
  The Minister was courteous and sent me a note, which I picked up by accident at midday today, saying that the constitution was available in the Library. Out of curiosity I asked for it, but the Librarian did not know whether it was available. After a few inquiries, it was found under the counter. I examined briefly that section relating to the Banabans.
  The document runs to 60 or 70 closely printed pages. I have seen the document, but it would be untrue to say that I have read it. I am sure that, apart from the Minister—and I am not so sure about him—no one else has really read the document. It is an indictment of our procedures that we should purport to legislate on constitutional matters in this fashion when the details of a complex and lengthy document such as the constitution of a new State are not subjected to scrutiny by Parliament.

  159
  The hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Sir B. Braine) said that normally no great scrutiny is required when the two Governments involved are in broad agreement about the nature of the constitution. Usually there is no great controversy in the country or in the House of Commons about the terms of an independence arrangement. But on this occasion there is considerable controversy. There is disquiet in the country and in the House. That the Minister has secured a vote ratifying his view with the customary help of the Whips does not dispose of the disquiet or of the argument. There is still a duty on the House of Commons, if it wishes to legislate sensibly, to arrange for a careful scrutiny of the constitution to ensure that it is fair not only to the Gilbertese but to the Banabans.
  I do not withdraw the remarks that I made earlier about the weakness and insufficiency of entrenched clauses. I stand by what I said. This is not a satisfactory device by which to secure the rights of minorities or, indeed, of majorities. The notion that rights can be safeguarded by one man standing up in a sovereign Parliament and saying "No, I do not agree with that" and the rest of that Parliament saying that if that one man does not agree the thing cannot be done is political nonsense. It may make sense to Foreign Office lawyers and to the colonial mentality of the men who write these things down, but to any practising politicians the suggestion that such an arrangement will defend the rights of minorities is political nonsense. It is the sort of nonsense that everyone would accept as such in this place if a proposition were ever put concerning our own affairs that one hon. Member—on a matter concerning the constitution of the United Kingdom—should be able to veto a two-thirds, or even a simpler, majority wish of the House of Commons. The place would echo with laughter.
  Yet here we are solemnly writing into the constitution of a new State, for which we have had responsibility for a long time, this absolutely ridiculous proposition. On that ground alone, I think that the Committee would be entitled to have a look at this lengthy and complicated document and possibly suggest amendments to it. Certainly this is a very weak and insufficient second best. The main proposition which the Committee
  160
  has now defeated was a much better arrangement and I am sorry that we lost that vote, though I hardly think that we lost the argument.
  If we are now going ahead on the basis of incorporating the Banabans into the Gilbertese State, whether they like it or not, the least that the Committee can do is to scrutinise with some care the small print of the arrangement. It is always possible—though, as I say, I do not withdraw my previous argument—that, if that small print is carefully devised and sensibly arranged, there will be some safeguards which international opinion, or opinion in this country, or in Fiji and the Gilberts, will make stick over a reasonable period of time so that the Banabans and the Gilbertese and the Fijians can come to some amicable, pacific arrangement. I believe that they would have done so long ago but for the meddling interference of the Foreign and Colonial Office over the years.
  I am quite clear that not only does the Committee have a duty, which it is discharging tonight, to scrutinise the Bill—which is in effect an enabling Bill—but it also has a very specific and precise duty to scrutinise the constitution and possibly to amend it, though I am not sure that this is procedurally possible. At least the Committee has the duty to approve or reject it as an adequate instrument to safeguard the rights of the Gilbertese and the Banabans. It is more particularly necessary because of the point made by the hon. Member for Essex, South-East about what I think he called the "constitutional monstrosity" in which citizens of one Commonwealth country will be lumped in as citizens of a newly emerging Commonwealth country.
  This will cause difficulties and problems and I am sure that the Committee ought to look very carefully at this curious constitutional instrument that we are, apparently, expected to accept on the nod. The House should look at it with very great care, if possible amend any fault or failing which may be found in it, and certainly have the right to reject it if it feels that, as an instrument, it is improper, unsatisfactory or incomplete.
  Sir Raymond Gower: The hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley) suggested that we are to be asked to

  161
  pass this clause on the nod. As I read it, it is even worse than that, because the clause says:
  "Her Majesty may by Order in Council (which shall be laid before Parliament after being made) …"
  That is much worse than on the nod. In other words, we are being asked to look at it after the evil deed has been done. That is the situation, and if there is anything defective it will be too late for us to do anything about it. That is why this is vital. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that this is a second best. This is indeed such a modest amendment that I would have hoped that the Government—indeed, the two Front Benches, if I may so describe them—would be prepared to accept it.
  We are asking only that Parliament shall have some means and right to examine these proposals in detail and, if necessary, to amend them. As my hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East (Sir B. Braine) said on the first amendment, the agreement of 1947, which was called a covenant, was entered into in response to certain undertakings that were given by the British Government of the day. Those undertakings guaranteed the right of these people to return to their ancestral homeland if they so desired. I appreciate that this is the difficulty of this kind of legislation, in that nothing that we can write into the Bill can preserve that right against a decision of the Gilbertese, as they will be a sovereign State. I may be wrong on that, but that is the way that I read it.
  9.30 p.m.
  As my hon. Friend has pointed out, however, it may be possible, after we have had an opportunity to examine the provisions in detail—they have been put in the Library, but so far few hon. Members have had an opportunity to see them—to frame safeguards that will be so prominent that they will become established in people's minds and in that way, over a period of time, stabilise the position.
  We are asking only that we shall not be requested tonight to pass this objectionable clause as it stands. What is the use of the order being laid before Parliament after it has been made? What could Parliament do about it then? Is it designed just to give Parliament information? The order should be tabled in
  162
  such a way as to give Parliament a genuine opportunity to debate it. When it is passed it cannot be revoked, and so there will be nothing that Parliament can do about it.
  I hope that the Minister will consider this minor and reasonable proposal to be one to which he cannot object, and I hope that he will agree to its incorporation in the Bill.
  Mr. Blaker: The object of the amendments is to ensure that there are proper constitutional safeguards for the Banabans. Reference has been made to the fact that I arranged for two copies of the draft constitution to be placed in the Library. As one of my hon. Friends has conceded, I stated last week that this was being done. I sent messages to all the hon. Members whose names appear on the amendment, and I am sorry if my message reached the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley) only at lunch-time today.
  If hon. Members had had the time to look at the draft constitution, which has been in the Library since last week—and I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East (Sir B. Braine) has not done so—they would have seen that all the safeguards for the Banabans that are listed in the relevant paragraphs of the report of the constitutional conference are included in the draft constitution. There is one change. It is that the provision for a review by an independent commission is now to take place after three years instead of five. All hon. Members will welcome that change.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury (Sir J. Langford-Holt) asked what was to prevent the Kiribati Government from reneging on the safeguards in the constitution. That was a regrettable question. It reflected adversely on people who went out of their way to be as generous as they conceivably could have been to offer safeguards to the Banabans. Those safeguards are unprecedented. That was said by Lord Brockway, who has had much experience of these matters over 16 years. He said that the safeguards were unprecedented in their generosity.
  There is the safeguard of the independent inquiry after three years. That factor prevents any reneging on the undertakings, if the Kiribati Government had

  163
  it in mind to renege, which I am convinced they do not. There is also the provision for the United Kingdom or other independent Commonwealth Government to use their good offices to see that if there are problems about the implementation of the constitution they are resolved.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East referred to the 1947 covenant. He referred to three provisions: the right to the land, the fact that the land reverts to the Banabans after the end of phosphate mining, and the right to travel freely and reside on Ocean Island. Those provisions are contained in the safeguards in the draft constitution and in the report of the constitutional conference, which was published over six months ago.
  My hon. Friend raised the question of the Fiji Government and their nationality law. Whatever Fiji law may say, the Fiji Government allow Banabans to move freely to and from Banaba. They treat all Banabans as if they were Fiji citizens, and draw no distinction between those who were or were not citizens. I see no reason to expect the Fiji Government to change their practice in that respect. It is for the Fiji Government to decide, but I can see no reason to expect a change.
  My hon. Friend appeared to complain that the safeguards were being transferred to the Kiribati Government. He has great experience of Commonwealth history. It is normal for a Government on becoming independent to inherit obligations from the colonial Government. Here we have the extra safeguards to which I referred. In 1947 we gave safeguards to the Banabans in relation to Fiji, which was then a colony. Those obligations were accepted by Fiji without any safeguards of the kind proposed in relation to Kiribati. Here we have a stronger position for Banaba than we had for Fiji.
  Sir Raymond Gower: In 1947 Fiji was still a Crown colony.
  Mr. Blaker: Indeed. However, I do not think that that detracts from the point I made. The safeguards were given in 1947 by the British Government to the Banabans in relation to the Gilbert Islands and Fiji. There were two sets of safeguards. They were inherited by Fiji when it became independent. It is now proposed that the other set of safeguards
  164
  should be inherited by the Gilbert Islands. The situation is parallel, except that now we have extra safeguards for the Banabans which did not exist before.
  Sir Bernard Braine: I do not quarrel with what the Minister said. However, the situation will change when this matter is controlled by two independent sovereign Governments. I agree that the undertakings were given at a time when the Gilbert Island and Fiji were Crown colonies and ultimate sovereignty rested with the United Kingdom. What one wants to know is whether there is any assurance that the Banabans, in order to enjoy these rights, will have dual citizenship, and I have not heard my hon. Friend say anything about that. If there are no arrangements for dual citizenship, how can he tell the Committee that there will be complete freedom of movement?
  Mr. Blaker: Perhaps my hon. Friend was not listening to me. I have dealt with that question exhaustively in the last five minutes. There is no reason to expect that the Fijian Government will change the practice they have followed over past years, but it is in any case a matter which rests with the Fijian Government.
  Hon. Members have spoken as if the Government were doing something underhand and unusual by saying, as we do, that the Order in Council would be laid before Parliament after being made. This is not at all unusual. My hon. Friend must know this. He must have followed the process towards independence of the many tens of Commonwealth countries which have achieved independence since the war. The practice is the standard practice. The only unusual thing that has happened, and for which I have been criticised, is that I have put the draft constitution in the Library. That has never been done before, as far as I know. I did it because I thought, when I saw these amendments tabled, that it would help hon. Members. I thought it would be an advantage for hon. Members, and that if they had time they could consult it. There is no departure from practice in the relevant clause in the Bill. I give way, for a change, to the hon. Member for Heeley.
  Mr. Hooley: The point that I was making was not that the procedure in itself was unusual but that it is unusual

  165
  for there to be a serious dispute within the House of Commons—and, indeed, within the country—when a former colonial territory becomes independent. Hitherto, on nearly all occasions, there has been no dispute at all in the House. What I am saying is that where there is a very serious difference of opinion—and a perfectly honest difference of opinion—about these matters in the House, some extra parliamentary scrutiny should be allowed.
  Sir Bernard Braine rose—
  Mr. Blaker: I hope that my hon. Friend will not mind if I answer that intervention. He intervened seven times in my speech on Second Reading, and I hope that he is not trying to beat that record. Perhaps I can deal with the point that the hon. Member for Heeley made.
  The safeguards which it was intended to provide for the Banabans in the constitution have been known to the House of Commons and the country since the publication of the report of the constitutional conference, so it is not a question of sneaking up on the House suddenly and springing something unknown on it. All the constitution does is to set out the safeguards for the Banabans, with the one small change to which I have referred, plus all the other provisions. The document is a very long one but the Banaban section is quite small and easy to find. I will now give way to my hon. Friend.
  Sir B. Braine: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but he will persist in making statements that do not reflect correctly what I or others have said. I said that this was a unique situation. There never has been a constitutional Bill brought before ths House dealing with the subjects of a colony and at the same time making special provision for the subjects of an independent State. When will my hon. Friend realise that this is a unique Bill? It is a unique situation and it requires unique safeguards.
  Mr. Blaker: The safeguards, as I have said several times, are indeed unique.
  Sir B. Braine: They are empty.
  Mr. Blaker: They were described by Lord Brockway as unprecedented.
  It is not the usual practice for the House of Commons to debate the con-
  166
  stitution of a territory which is about to become independent. I know that hon. Members will not be satisfied with that bald statement and, therefore, I will attempt to say why it is not the usual practice. There is a very good reason for it.
  The text of a constitution of a territory which is about to become independent is agreed between the British Government and the Government of that territory. It must be, for practical reasons, a constitution which is accepted by the territory which is about to become independent, for otherwise it will not last. Our practice, as my hon. Friend will know well, is that the principles of a constitution are agreed at a constitutional conference before independence, and then points of detail—very seldom points of substance—are settled between that constitutional conference and independence day.
  As I have said, in the case of the Gilbert Islands the report of the conference was written with great care and in great detail, so that it could be incorporated in the constitution more or less as it stood. That was done so that all who were interested in the matter should know precisely what had been agreed and what would appear in the constitution. That was why it was all set out in the report of the constitutional conference.
  9.45 p.m.
  As I have said, the provisions of the conference report are faithfully incorporated in the constitution. A draft has been approved by the Government and House of Assembly in the Gilbert Islands. The document is 65 pages long. It would be an impossible situation if we were now to propose amendments to a constitution which has been worked out over a long period and accepted by the House of Assembly and Government of the Gilbert Islands and to have a ding-dong process between the Parliaments of the two countries over changes to the constitution.
  I hope that what I have said has made clear why it is not and never has been the practice for the House of Commons to approve a constitutional document or to propose amendments to it. There is no precedent for that. Therefore, I ask the Committee to reject the amendment.
  Question put, That the amendment be made:—
  Question accordingly negatived.
  The Committee divided: Ayes 50, Noes 143.

  Division No. 5]

  AYES

  9.47 p.m.

  Beith, A. J.

  Grimond, Rt Hon J.

  Rooker, J. W.

  Benyon, W. (Buckingham)

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)

  Braine, Sir Bernard

  Holland, Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)

  Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Howells, Geraint

  Skinner, Dennis

  Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc'thorpe)

  Jones, Barry (East Flint)

  Spearing, Nigel

  Cadbury, Jocelyn

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Stallard, A. W.

  Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

  Leighton, Ronald

  Stewart, Rt Hon Donald (W Isles)

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  Lyon, Alexander (York)

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton West)

  Canavan, Dennis

  McKelvey, William

  Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester South)

  Tinn, James

  Cryer, Bob

  Maynard, Miss Joan

  Torney, Tom

  Dobson, Frank

  Morgan, Geraint

  Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)

  Dubs, Alfred

  Penhaligon, David

  Woolmer, Kenneth

  English, Michael

  Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

  Wright, Miss Sheila

  Foulkes, George

  Prfce, Christopher (Lewisham West)

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Race, Reg

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Gower, Sir Raymond

  Richardson, Miss Jo

  Mr. Frank Hooley and

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

  Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

  Mr. Clement Freud

  NOES

  Alexander, Richard

  George, Bruce

  Parris, Matthew

  Ancram, Michael

  Golding, John

  Patten, John (Oxford)

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Goodhew, Victor

  Pollock, Alexander

  Aspinwall, Jack

  Gow, Ian

  Porter, George

  Atkins, Robert (Preston North)

  Graham, Ted

  Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

  Atkinson, David (B'mouth, East)

  Greenway, Harry

  Proctor, K. Harvey

  Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)

  Grist, Ian

  Ridley, Hon Nicholas

  Banks, Robert

  Gummer, John Selwyn

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)

  Berry, Hon Anthony

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Roper, John

  Best, Keith

  Hawksley, Warren

  Rossi, Hugh

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Heddle, John

  Rowlands, Ted

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Henderson, Barry

  Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)

  Blackburn, John

  Hill, James

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Blaker, Peter

  Hogg, Hon Douglas (Grantham)

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge-Br'hills)

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Hooson, Tom

  Silvester, Fred

  Bright, Graham

  Hordern, Peter

  Sims, Roger

  Brinton, Timothy

  Hunt, David (Wirral)

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Brooke, Hon Peter

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Speed, Keith

  Budgen, Nick

  Lang, Ian

  Speller, Tony

  Butcher, John

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)

  Carlisle, John (Luton West)

  Lee, J.

  Spicer, Michael (S. Worcestershire)

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Le Marchant, Spencer

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Chalker, Mrs Lynda

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Stevens, Martin

  Channon, Paul

  Lester, Jim (Beeston)

  Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)

  Chapman, Sydney

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  Clegg, Walter

  Luce, Richard

  Tapsell, Peter

  Cockeram, Eric

  Lyell, Nicholas

  Thomas, Rt Hon Peter (Hendon S)

  Colvin, Michael

  McCrindle, Robert

  Thompson, Donald

  Cope, John

  Macfarlane, Neil

  Thorne, Neil (Ilford South)

  Corrie, John

  MacGregor, John

  Thornton, George

  Costain, A. P.

  McQuarrie, Albert

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Dean, Paul (North Somerset)

  Major, John

  Trippier, David

  Dickens, Geoffrey

  Marlow, Antony

  Viggers, Peter

  Dodsworth Geoffrey

  Marten, Neil (Banbury)

  Waddington, David

  Dormand J. D.

  Mates, Michael

  Waldegrave, Hon William

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Mather, Carol

  Walter, Gary

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Maude, Rt Hon Angus

  Ward, John

  Dover, Denshore

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Watson, John

  Dunn, Robert

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Wells, P. Bowen (Hert'rd&Stev'nage)

  Dunnett, Jack

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Wheeler, John

  Eggar, Timothy

  Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)

  Wickenden, Keith

  Eyre, Reginald

  Mills, Iain (Meriden)

  Williams, Delwyn (Montgomery)

  Fairgrieve, Russell

  Moate, Roger

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Faith, Mrs Sheila

  Morrison, Hon Charles (Devizes)

  Wolfson, Mark

  Fenner, Mrs peggy

  Morrison, Hon Peter (City of Chester)

  Younger, Rt Hon George

  Fletcher-cooke, Charles

  Murphy, Christopher

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Myles, David

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Forman, Nigel

  Needham, Richard

  Mr. John Wakeham and

  Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

  Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)

  Mr. Tony Newton

  Gardiner, George (Reigate)

  Neale, Gerrard

  Amendment proposed: No. 5, in page 1, line 14, at end insert—
  (2) The constitution of Kiribati to be made under subsection (1) above shall make provision for a compact of free association between the Gilbert Islands (other than Banaba) and Banaba which grants self-government for the Banabans on Banaba under the overall sovereignty of the Government of Kiribati.
  (3) Such constitution shall include provision that—
  (a) the Kiribati Government's authority over and responsibility for Banaba shall be confined to matters relating to external security, defence and citizenship, the special citizenship rights of the Banabans being
  entrenched in the Kiribati Constitution; and
  (b) the Government of Banaba shall have sole authority and responsibility for conducting their foreign affairs and sole jurisdiction over Banaban marine resources; and
  (c) the compact of free association between the Gilbert Islands and Banaba may be terminated unilaterally by either party after a period of three years.'.—[Sir Bernard Braine.]
  Question put, That the amendment be made:—
  The Committee divided: Ayes 45, Noes 142.

  Division No. 6]

  AYES

  [9.58 p.m.

  Beith, A. J.

  Grimond, Rt Hon J.

  Rooker, J. W.

  Braine, Sir Bernard

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Holland, Stuart (L'beth, Vauxhall)

  Skinner, Dennis

  Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc'thorpe)

  Howells, Geraint

  Spearing, Nigel

  Cadbury, Jocelyn

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Stallard, A. W.

  Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

  Leighton, Ronald

  Stewart, Rt Hon Donald (W. Isles)

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  Lyon, Alexander (York)

  Taylor, Mrs. Ann (Bolton West)

  Canavan, Dennis

  McKelvey, William

  Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Maynard, Miss Joan

  Torney, Tom

  Cryer, Bob

  Neubert, Michael

  Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)

  Dobson, Frank

  Penhaligon, David

  Wright, Miss Sheila

  Dubs, Alfred

  Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

  English, Michael

  Price, Christopher (Lewisham West)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Foulkes, George

  Race, Reg

  Mr. Frank Hooley and

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Mr. Clement Freud.

  Gower, Sir Raymond

  Richardson, Miss Jo

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

  Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

  NOES

  Alexander, Richard

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Mawhinney, Dr. Brian

  Ancram, Michael

  Forman, Nigel

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Aspinwall, Jack

  Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Atkins, Robert (Preston North)

  Gardiner, George (Reigate)

  Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove & Redditch)

  Atkinson, David (B'mouth, East)

  George, Bruce

  Mills, Iain (Meriden)

  Baker, N. (North Dorset)

  Goodhew, Victor

  Moate, Roger

  Banks, Robert

  Gow, Ian

  Morrison, Hon. Charles (Devizes)

  Berry, Hon Anthony

  Graham, Ted

  Morrison, Hon. Peter (City of Chester)

  Best, Keith

  Greenway, Harry

  Murphy, Christopher

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Grist, Ian

  Myles, David

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Gummer, John Selwyn

  Neale, Gerrard

  Blackburn, John

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Needham, Richard

  Blaker, Peter

  Hawksley, Warren

  Newton, Tony

  Bright, Graham

  Heddle, John

  Page, Rt. Hon. R. Graham (Crosby)

  Brinton, Timothy

  Henderson, Barry

  Parris, Matthew

  Brooke, Hon. Peter

  Hill, James

  Patten, John (Oxford)

  Budgen, Nick

  Hogg, Hon. Douglas (Grantham)

  Pollock, Alexander

  Butcher, John

  Hooson, Tom

  Porter, George

  Carlisle, John (Luton West)

  Hordern, Peter

  Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Hunt, David (Wirral)

  Proctor, K. Harvey

  Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Ridley, Hon Nicholas

  Channon, Paul

  Lang, Ian

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)

  Chapman, Sydney

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Roper, John

  Cockeram, Eric

  Lee, John

  Rossi, Hugh

  Colvin, Michael

  Le Marchant, Spencer

  Rowlands, Ted

  Cope, John

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)

  Corrie, John

  Lester, Jim (Beeston)

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Costain, A. P.

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge-Br'hills)

  Dean, Paul (North Somerset)

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Silvester, Fred

  Dickens, Geoffrey

  Luce, Richard

  Sims, Roger

  Dodsworth, Geoffrey

  Lyell, Nicholas

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Dormand, J. D.

  McCrindle, Robert

  Speed, Keith

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Macfarlane, Neil

  Speller, Tony

  Dover, Denshore

  MacGregor, John

  Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)

  Dunn, Robert

  McQuarrie, Albert

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcestershire)

  Eggar, Timothy

  Major, John

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Eyre, Reginald

  Marlow, Antony

  Stevens, Martin

  Fairgrieve, Russell

  Marten, Neil (Banbury)

  Stewart, John (East Renfrewshire)

  Faith, Mrs Sheila

  Mates, Michael

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  Fenner, Mrs Peggy

  Mather, Carol

  Tapsell, Peter

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Maude, Rt Hon Angus

  Thomas, Rt Hon Peter (Hendon S)

  Thompson, Donald

  Waldegrave, Hon William

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Thorne, Neil (Ilford South)

  Walter, Gary

  Wolfson, Mark

  Thornton, George

  Ward, John

  Younger, Rt Hon George

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Watson, John

  Trippier, David

  Wells P. Bowen (Hert'rd&Stev'nage)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Viggers, Peter

  Wheeler, John

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton and

  Waddington, David

  Wickenden, Keith

  Mr. Robert Boscawen.

  Wakeham, John

  Williams, Delwyn (Montgomery)

  Question accordingly negatived.
  It being after Ten o'clock, The Chairman left the Chair to report Progress and ask leave to sit again.
  Committee report Progress.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Ordered,
That the Kiribati Bill may be proceeded with at this day's sitting, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Wakeham.]

KIRIBATI BILL
Again considered in Committee.
Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 4

  CONSEQUENTIAL MODIFICATIONS OF BRITISH NATIONALITY ACTS
  Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: I beg to move amendment No. 6, in page 2, line 35, leave out from "Kiribati" to end of line 37.
  The Chairman: With this we are to take amendment No. 7, in page 2, line 39, leave out from "Colonies" to end of line 40 and insert
  "and become a citizen of Kiribati".
  Mr. Lyon: I tabled this group of amendments and the group that follows it in order to limit more closely the proposals in the constitution for nationality to what the law on nationality is in most parts of the world and should be in this country. The normal requirement for nationality is that a person was born in the territory of which he is a national or that his parents were born in that territory. Normally the descent is through the father, but there is an increasing tendency to trace descent through the mother as well. It is a rare nationality law that goes outside those two provisions.
  What has happened over the years since 1948 is that, as independent Commonwealth territories took their nationality law on precise terms similar to the ones I have indicated, Britain has been left with the ragbag of those people whom the independent Commonwealth countries did not want. We all know what happened with the East African Asians because of that.
  Therefore, it has gradually dawned upon successive British Governments that we should have a law on nationality of our own. The Labour Government put forward a Green Paper and the present Government have said that in the course of this Parliament they will introduce a
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  law of nationality of their own. But when they do so they will have the gravest difficulties, not in defining who should be our citizens—that is easy—but in defining what should be done about the people who acquired citizenship of the United Kingdom and colonies and therefore certain nationality rights in English law but would not acquire British citizenship under the test that I have suggested.
  When we discuss the nationality law in due course we shall find real difficulty in dealing with those cases. Because of that, and because of the relationship between nationality and immigration, there have been difficulties in the past, and there will be difficulties in the future. Therefore, I have consistently argued that when we give independence to any new territory we should make sure that the nationality law that it takes as part of its independence should cover all the citizens of that territory who come within those two requirements—that they were born there or that their parents were born there.
  In the Solomon Islands Bill that principle was not honoured by the negotiations of the British Government, and when the Bill came to the House I and a number of other hon. Members raised questions about it. We indicated that we hoped that in future there would be no repetition of that looseness in language, because we were left with 7,000 citizens of the Solomon Islands who would not receive the nationality of the independent territory and would therefore be our future responsibility if they were ever put out of the Solomon Islands. We said then "There are not very many, and perhaps it does not matter too much, but remember it in future."
  In this case, the proposal for the nationality law that was negotiated, and is in annex D of the report of the constitutional conference, is tighter than the Solomon Islands negotiations but still leaves considerable loopholes. One of them is that nationality will be given to the citizens of Kiribati if they are persons of Kiribati descent, and by that is meant any persons whose ancestors were born in Kiribati before 1900. If their ancestors were born elsewhere than in Kiribati before 1900—and that must include a fair number, I should imagine—they

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  do not automatically become citizens of the new Kiribati Republic.
  10.15 p.m.
  In addition, a person may become a citizen if he is an eligible person. Under the annex, an eligible person is a person who is a citizen of the United Kingdom and colonies and has no other nationality, provided that neither he, his father nor his father's father was born in the United Kingdom or was registered or naturalised in the United Kingdom as a citizen of the United Kingdom and colonies as a British subject.
  It will be seen immediately that there are considerable loopholes in these provisions which go wider than the twin test which I outlined at the beginning of my remarks. I do not know how many people will not become citizens of Kiribati as a result but will retain their right to be citizens of the United Kingdom and colonies and as such will have some rights, not necessarily under the 1971 Act, to be patrial and therefore have an automatic right to enter this country, but, rather like the East African Asians or the citizens of the United Kingdom and colonies who live in Malaysia or in Hong Kong, will have some kind of moral claim to come here and perhaps, if they are expelled, some legal claim to come here.
  I want to get the matter straight at this stage. Therefore, I have tabled these amendments.
  The first area of dubiety which I came across, although I may have missed a few, concerns those who are the subject of this group of amendments. The two go together because under clause 4(3)(b) a person who is a citizen of the United Kingdom and colonies and who on independence day does not become a citizen of Kiribati shall on independence day cease to be a citizen of the United Kingdom and colonies if he is then a citizen of some other country.
  The implication of that is that it is fine, because we are dealing with someone who has a right to go somewhere. But it may be that the State of which he is a citizen has immigration rules which prohibit his entry or changes its rules so that nationality is removed where there is a dual nationality and the person concerned is left in the position in which
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  citizens of the United Kingdom and colonies are left, with no other State to go to than this.
  It seems to me that the proper way to deal with that is that such persons should become citizens of Kiribati unless and until they choose to retain the citizenship of the other country to which they would be allotted. If they are to have dual nationality, the Republic of Kiribati could make provision that they should elect, and that would be perfectly easy to do. That is the purpose of this set of amendments.
  I shall not go on to describe my purpose in tabling the other group of amendments, although they could be discussed together. I shall listen to what the Minister has to say about this group. But I indicate again that my concern is the general one which I voiced at the beginning of my remarks that the citizenship of Kiribati should be wide enough to take everyone who was born there or whose parents were born there. On that basis, we would have no responsibility for anyone living in Kiribati at the moment.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Richard Luce): I have considerable respect for the hon. Member for York (Mr. Lyon), who has persistently raised questions about our nationality law and exposed many of its weaknesses. I recall that when we debated the Solomon Islands Bill, to which he referred, in May last year, he also raised these questions. I will seek to answer to the best of my ability these complex points about citizenship on these first two amendments, although I suggest to him—I think by his remarks that he had partially accepted it—that what is really needed is a much wider debate and discussion, and legislation for that matter, to rationalise the laws about nationality. I do not want to put words into the hon. Gentleman's mouth but he is perhaps seeking here to put down a strong marker on this matter.
  The hon. Gentleman raised valid points. I thought that it would help if I clarified the purpose of the clause before commenting on the two specific amendments, Nos. 6 and 7. The purpose of the clause is to remove citizenship of the United Kingdom and colonies from those who do not become citizens

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  of Kiribati on independence but who owe their United Kingdom citizenship to a connection with the Gilbert Islands, provided that they are at independence also citizens of some other country. The required connection with the Gilberts is birth there, or descent from a father born there, or marriage to a man who, or whose father, was born there. It is primarily designed to deal with a number of people who are now citizens of Tuvalu, which is the main point of this provision, who, or whose fathers, were born in the Gilberts.
  Since, at the time of Tuvalu independence last year, the Gilbert Islands continued to be a United Kingdom dependency, these people were, under the normal saving provisions in the Tuvalu Act 1978, saved from loss of United Kingdom citizenship by virtue of their connection with the Gilberts. Unless they are of Gilbertese descent, the Gilbert Islands Government are not prepared to accept such people as citizens of Kiribati on independence unless they first renounce their Tuvalu citizenship. The question is what to do with those who will not become Kiribati citizens at independence. Since these people owed their United Kingdom citizenship to connections with Tuvalu or the Gilbert Islands, or both, it is not considered right that they should continue to be citizens of the United Kingdom and colonies, and thus our responsibility, after these two countries have become independent.
  This is subject to two provisos. First, if any has a close connection also with the United Kingdom or remaining dependency within the terms of clause 5, to which there are amendments that we shall debate shortly, he will be saved from loss of United Kingdom citizenship by that clause. Secondly, in order to avoid leaving anyone stranded, those who have no other citizenship at Kiribati independence will be able to retain citizenship of the United Kingdom and colonies.
  I now come to the hon. Gentleman's amendments. The amendments which the hon. Gentleman proposes to clause 4 are designed to give citizenship of Kiribati to this class of people as well as taking away from them citizenship of the United Kingdom and colonies. The purpose of an independence Act, so far as nationality is
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  concerned, is to determine who should remain and who should cease to be citizens of the United Kingdom and colonies. It is for the independence constitution of Kiribati to determine who should become citizens of Kiribati. If the amendments were accepted, the citizenship provisions of the constitution agreed with the Gilbert Islands Government would require substantial renegotiation and amendment. I think the hon. Gentleman would agree to accept that.
  This would take considerable time and there would be no guarantee of success. This reflects the views of the Gilberts Government. The citizenship provisions of the constitution were agreed at the constitutional conference in December last year only after the most exhaustive negotiation led by the previous Labour Government. Moreover, the result of accepting these amendments, even if they could be agreed with the Gilbert Islands, which is questionable, would be that persons who already have citizenship of another country would have Kiribati citizenship thrust upon them.
  The solution which was reached at the conference for the category with which this paragraph is concerned—that is, Tuvalu citizens—is in every way preferable, since it will enable them to opt for Kiribati citizenship if they wish to do so by taking steps to declare that they do not wish to retain Tuvalu citizenship.
  I acknowledge that in this subsection we are dealing with a unique situation affecting Tuvalu citizens. What the Gilberts Government want—they have every right to propose it because it is that Government who have to determine what kind of citizenship laws they have in future—is to give these Tuvaluan people, who may, incidentally, have been working in the Gilberts in previous years, perhaps in Government service or for the phosphate company, a clear choice whether or not to exercise their right to continue their Tuvalu citizenship or to opt for Kiribati citizenship.
  I have thought about these points carefully since the hon. Member tabled the amendments and on reflection I do not think it right to reverse the decision taken after the constitutional discussions last December.
  Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: I can accept the Minister's explanation in relation to

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  this limited matter of dual citizenship. Most of the people will be citizens of Tuvalu and will opt for one or the other, although I suspect that there may be some slight difficulty over the odd one. However, my main concern is with clause 5, and perhaps we had better get to that now.
  I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 5

  RETENTION OF CITIZENSHIP OF THE UNITED KINGDOM AND COLONIES IN CERTAIN CASES
  Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: I beg to move amendment No. 8, in page 3, line 8, leave out
  "his father or his father's father"
  and insert "or his father".
  The Chairman: It will be convenient to discuss at the same time the following amendments:
  No. 9, in page 3, line 10, leave out "or a relevant territory".
  No. 10, in page 3, line 14, leave out "or a relevant territory".
  No. 11, in page 3 line 16, leave out "or a relevant territory".
  No. 12, in page 3, line 18, leave out from "Colonies" to "or" in line 20.
  No. 13, in page 3, line 21, leave out paragraph (d).
  No. 14, in page 3, leave out lines 23 to 28.
  No. 15, in page 3, line 29, leave out subsection (2).
  Mr. Lyon: This clause raises the issue that I have just been trying to outline. It enables people who will otherwise become citizens of Kiribati to have the right to remain citizens of the United Kingdom and colonies and, with that, the prospect of migration to this country. I am anxious that this should be kept as tight as possible.
  I accept that if a person was born in this country or was adopted by someone born in the United Kingdom or was
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  registered as a citizen of the United Kingdom in the United Kingdom, he is entitled to remain a citizen of the United Kingdom and colonies. However, under subsection (1), the inclusion extends not only to the person who was born here or to his father who was born here but to his father's father. That proposal is not in the nationality law of this country. One does not get citizenship of the United Kingdom and colonies through one's grandfather.
  In 1971, when the then Government introduced their Immigration Bill, they proposed that such a person would be a patrial for the purpose of immigration. He would not get nationality but he would become patrial. There was considerable discussion of this and, largely at the instance of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), that proposal was abandoned.
  Then, after it had been abandoned and it was indicated that such a person would not have free right of access to this country, there was a debate in 1973 about the immigration rules and the prospect for people from Australia and New Zealand coming in, and the rules were changed because of a Back Bench rebellion in the Conservative Party. People who could link to this country through their grandparents were given the right to enter Britain even though they were not citizens of the United Kingdom and colonies.
  10.30 p.m.
  There is a reference to that relationship in the clause. By a relationship through a grandfather a person can claim citizenship of the United Kingdom and colonies. This applies where the grandparent was born in the United Kingdom, was naturalised in the United Kingdom, or was in the United Kingdom registered as a citizen of the United Kingdom and colonies, or became a British subject by reason of the annexation of any territory included in a relevant territory.
  That is far too wide, and it would not be allowed under the proposals, although one cannot see the proposals. I have no doubt that it is not intended that citizenship can be claimed through a grandfather. Therefore, if that right cannot be claimed under the proposals put before the House this Ssession, why are we allowing somebody to retain

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  citizenship of the United Kingdom and colonies when he can claim only through that remote link? We are doing it, apparently, because the Kiribati Government will refuse to take such people as their citizens.
  This principle was described by the Minister when he replied to the last debate. He speaks as all Foreign Ministers must. It is up to the Government of the newly independent territory to decide on nationality. We have to take what is left. That is absurd. I have often argued against it. There is no reason why we should not say that since we must take responsibility for anybody whom that Government fail to take in as a citizen, we have a right to say where the line shall be drawn.
  We did not do this with India in 1947. As a result, India created the stateless British subject, without citizenship. Such a person is not even a citizen of the United Kingdom and colonies. It was always intended that a British subject without citizenship would become an Indian citizen in due course, but the Indians would not accept such people. Because they would not have them, and nobody else would have them, we must take the responsibility for them. As a result, many thousands of people who are British subjects without citizenship in various parts of the world have a claim upon our country as a haven.
  We have the same problem with the Solomon Islands. People there are British subjects without citizenship because the independent territory did not honour the promises made in 1948.
  We also have the same problem in East Africa. It is absurd that after our experience we should still negotiate settlements under which it can be said "We don't want these people but because you are the Imperial Power you must take them". But we still tell newly independent Governments that their nationality laws are up to them.
  We should say clearly that we have no intention of giving our citizenship through a second generation and that we do not propose to do it under this Bill. We should say that those people who will become citizens of the United Kingdom and colonies, and not citizens of Kiribati under this Bill, in the autumn, when we pass the British citizenship Bill,
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  will not become British citizens. They will enter a no-man's land. They will become British overseas citizens, remain citizens of the United Kingdom and colonies, but not British citizens, or we shall give them some other generic title. Because they cannot be citizens of Kiribati the position will be made even more difficult.
  The same is true of all the references to which I have tabled amendments. A person will remain a citizen of the United Kingdom and colonies
  'if he, his father or his father's father—(a) was born in the United Kingdom or in a relevant territory".
  According to clause 5(2)
  "'relevant territory' means any territory which on Independence Day is a colony or an associated state".
  That means that if a person was born in Hong Kong, was living in Kiribati and was a citizen of the United Kingdom and colonies, or even if his father's father was born in Hong Kong, he would remain a citizen of the United Kingdom and colonies. Because of the immigration controls he would not be allowed to enter Hong Kong. Therefore, if Kiribati decided to turn that person out he would have to join the boat people and come to the United Kingdom.
  I am putting this point so that the Government can recognise what we are doing. I have been blamed in the past for allowing in too many people from the new Commonwealth. I am saying only that I recognised the responsibilities that came to us because of the decisions of Governments in the past, and I thought that we ought to honour those obligations. If the Government tonight want to take on further obligations, they will pass this Bill in this form.
  There is also the question of registration. In certain circumstances one can register as a citizen of the United Kingdom and colonies in a colony or in a high commission of an independent Commonwealth territory. According to this clause, people who live in Kiribati, or their fathers, or their fathers' fathers who were registered by a high commissioner under these powers in, say, India, the West Indies, Australia or New Zealand, will all be excluded from being citizens of Kiribati but will remain citizens of the United Kingdom and colonies. That

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  is a bit barmy, and I do not think that we really intended that that should happen.
  We then go on to the even wider matter which is contained in the rest of subsection (1), which continues:
  "or if his father or his father's father would, if living immediately before the commencement of the 1948 Act, have become a person naturalised in the United Kingdom and Colonies under section 32(6) of that Act (previous local naturalisation in a colony or protectorate) by virtue of having enjoyed the privileges of naturalisation in a relevant territory."
  So the fellow did not even have to have lived in an independent Commonwealth country; he could have lived in any colony or relevant territory. He or his father or his father's father could have been naturalised and he would then have been made a citizen of the United Kingdom and colonies.
  This is the time to draw the line. I said that at the time of the Bill dealing with the Solomon Islands. I accept that there has been some tightening up in this draft, but I do not think that it is good enough for the Minister to say that Ministers from Kiribati would not accept a tighter provision. They should be told that it is we who will not accept their point of view. We were part of the negotiation, and I accept that it was a Labour Minister who was involved.
  I hardly dare say this, in view of what my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil (Mr. Rowlands) said to me. He was given the same brief as the Minister who now holds that position, which was that we should accept whatever the independent territory wants to define as its nationality law. I say "Not on your life." We have the right to say that we will not take any more, that these people are that territory's responsibility. That is where these people were born, where their fathers were born and their fathers before them. We should say that we will give a territory independence because we want it to be independent—but independence for all the people who live there. If we had said that in the late 1950s and early 1960s we would never had had the problem of the East African Asians. It is time we said it now.
  Mr. Luce: Perhaps even more on this set of amendments I express my respect for the hon. Member for York (Mr. Lyon), who, at the Home Office, has had the
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  experience of dealing with immigration problems. Like other hon. Members, he is deeply anxious to seek clarification of the laws of nationality.
  The fact remains, however, that many of the amendments tabled by the hon. Gentleman conflict with the British Nationality Act 1948. It is important that Parliament should discuss the nationality laws as a whole. If Parliament determines that they need rationalizing—as many Members of Parliament and the Government feel—that is surely the time to scrutinise the proposals carefully and determine what course we should follow in the future on nationality laws.
  The purpose of subsection (1) is enable a person who becomes a citizen of Kiribati on independence to retain his citizenship of the United Kingdom and colonies if he has a close connection with the United Kingdom or a remaining dependency by virtue of birth, naturalisation, registration, annexation, or descent from a father or paternal grandfather with such a connection. Similar saving provisions for such people are customarily made in independence Acts. Subsection (1) enables a person with such a connection to retain citizenship of the United Kingdom and colonies who would otherwise lose that citizenship under the special provisions of clause 4(3).
  The purpose of amendment No. 8 is to restrict the retention of citizenship of the United Kingdom to the first generation born outside the United Kingdom or a remaining dependency. The provisions of the clause do not differ from those in previous independence Bills. It has been established policy since the Nigeria Act 1960 to provide that those whose paternal grandfathers were born in this country, or remaining dependency, retain their citizenship of the United Kingdom and colonies.
  This raises the broader aspect of our nationality policies. It indicates the urgency of giving Parliament an opportunity to debate the proposed legislation.
  In presenting amendments Nos. 9, 10 and 11, the hon. Gentleman referred to "relevant territory". A relevant territory is any territory which, on independence day, is a colony or an associated State. Persons born in the United Kingdom or a relevant territory are, by virtue of section 4 of the British Nationality Act

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  1948, citizens of the United Kingdom and colonies by birth. Some of the amendments conflict with the 1948 Act.
  A child born abroad to a father who is such a citizen is a citizen of the United Kingdom and colonies by descent. A person who derives a status from a connection with the United Kingdom has no more claim to citizenship than a person born in a dependency. The substance of subsection (1) follows the policy consistently adopted in previous independence Bills.
  Amendment No. 12 is designed to omit reference to registration as a citizen of the United Kingdom and colonies effected by a British high commissioner in another Commonwealth country. A high commissioner who effects a registration does so on behalf of the Home Secretary. Consequently the registration has the same effect as the registration effected by the Home Secretary himself in the United Kingdom. That is the present position.
  Amendment No. 13 is designed to exclude from those who retain their citizenship of the United Kingdom and colonies those whose status derives from annexation. There can be very few, if any, such persons. It has not been possible to identify any individual who possesses citizenship of the United Kingdom and colonies by virtue of his or an ancestor's connection with a territory that was annexed. Nevertheless, there may be such persons. Provision needs to be made for them to retain their present citizenship. Again, this follows the precedents of previous independence Bills.
  Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: How many people would be affected by my amendments?
  10.45 p.m.
  Mr. Luce: As I understand it, having checked on this, there is no indication that anyone is likely to be affected in this particular provision.
  I propose, unless the hon. Gentleman wishes it otherwise, to give him a proper answer on amendment No. 14, which is important. The amendment seeks to exclude from the saving provisions those who acquired citizenship of the United Kingdom and colonies and who derive their citizenship from naturalisation in a colony or protectorate before the commencement of the British Nationality
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  Act 1948. The last six lines of subsection (1) include in the saving provisions the special case of a person whose father or grandfather was locally naturalised in a remaining dependency which had, prior to the British Nationality Act 1948, local naturalisation laws and where that ancestor died before the Act came into force.
  I am sorry that this is so complex but I am trying to give the hon. Gentleman a proper answer. Before the 1948 Act, aliens in certain colonies could become naturalised British subjects under local law having effect only in that colony. This was local naturalisation as opposed to Imperial naturalisation which was of general effect. Both forms were superseded in the 1948 Act by naturalisation as a citizen of the United Kingdom and colonies.
  The present position preserves the position of descendants of those who died before the 1948 Act came into force but who would have become citizens of the United Kingdom and colonies had they lived. It is standard practice again to include it in the independence Acts.
  In dealing with all these amendments, I reiterate to the hon. Gentleman that I entirely respect the point that he is seeking to raise, but, as I have said, if any of these amendments were to be accepted, we would be conflicting with existing laws, and in particular the British Nationality Act 1948. He is raising, in my view, perfectly legitimate and very important issues, but surely the time at which to debate these is when the Green Paper is discussed and when the legislation is proposed by our Government this Session.
  Mr. Lyon: If I understood the assurance that the hon. Gentleman gave to me a moment ago, nobody is affected by these amendments—the totality of them. Is that right?
  Mr. Luce: I cannot say that in the case of every amendment. The one the hon. Gentleman asked me about was with regard to annexation of territory. As far as I am concerned, no one in that context is affected.
  Mr. Lyon: I understand that perfectly well, but on the others there could be substantial numbers involved, certainly hundreds. I am not suggesting that thousands are involved. That it what

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  seems to me to have escaped the hon. Gentleman's understanding. If we were to pass the Bill unamended, those people would retain their citizenship of the United Kingdom and colonies, they would not become citizens of Kiribati, and then in the autumn, when we had the great discussion, the hon. Gentleman or his Government would have to deal with these very people. He would have to say what kinds of citizens these people were to be.
  That will be a big enough problem for those who are living in Malaysia. Why should we add to that problem by including this group? There may not be as many as are living in Malaysia but they still form a group. Why not deal with it now? Why not say "All right, they are your citizens, they are citizens of Kiribati", and get rid of the matter in that way? All these included in my amendment are people who would not become British citizens under any new law introduced either by the hon. Gentleman's Government or by the Labour Government.
  Mr. Luce: In answer to the specific amendment on annexation, I have explained that, as I understand the position, not a single person is concerned, but if we take it wider, as the hon. Gentleman wishes me to do, I understand the position to be that there are literally only a very few people. It is not like the case of the Solomons when there was quite a sizeable number of people involved. I do not think it was 7,000, as suggested earlier, but more like 2,500. I am subject to correction on this. We were talking then about British protected persons as opposed to United Kingdom and colonies citizenship. Here we are talking of only 10 or possibly 20 people.
  I have had this question examined and I find that there are very few people involved. Indeed, those who come into that category, as I understand it, are more than likely to qualify for citizenship of some other country, possibly the United Kingdom, possibly Australia or New Zealand. There are very few Chinese involved. There were far more in the case of the Solomon Islands. We are talking about a tiny number of people in this case.
  Mr. Lyon: I accept that assurance. In the circumstances, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
  Clauses 6 to 8 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
  Schedule agreed to.
  Bill reported, without amendment.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
  10.50 p.m.
  Mr. Blaker: I recognise that some hon. Members on both sides of the House, having shown strong feelings in our debates on the Banaban issue, are still reluctant to accept that we have reached Third Reading and with the prospect, I hope, that the Bill will go through the House and rapidly go to another place.
  Our debates have shown the care that the House traditionally takes and, I am proud to say, has taken again today in defending the interests of the people who need protection.
  The Banabans have had a troubled history. Some hon. Members may have misgivings about the prospects that face us. Indeed, some hon. Members do not have confidence about the future. I do not share those misgivings. I look to the future with confidence.
  I believe that the Government of Kiribati intend to fulfil the undertakings which have been given, which are exceptional in their generosity. I believe that they are people of honour and that they will be prepared—as I hope the Banabans will be prepared—to pursue the negotiations, which were foreseen in the Suva communique, and will bring them to fruition. It is too facile to look on these matters with Western assumptions, because, in what has been constantly described to me as the Pacific way, the two sides will be able to reach a consensus over the coming weeks and months.
  I pay tribute again to the work which the Prune Minister of Fiji, Ratu Mara, has done to help solve this problem. I welcome the fact that he took the chair

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  at the recent Suva conference and that in the communique he has expressed his willingness to help again if his help should be required.
  I think that if Kiribati proceeds to independence on the basis proposed in the Bill, it will have a stabilising, not, as some hon. Members have feared, a destabilising effect in the Pacific.
  At all events, we must now look to the future. We must remember that Her Majesty's Government may be called upon to accept certain obligations and we must be prepared to accept them.
  What has struck me as significant in the last few weeks, since I have been concerned with this matter, is that all the countries of the Pacific want Britain to retain its presence there. We must recognise that universal view and do our best to meet it.
  I hope that hon. Members who have taken the Banaban cause today will put their differences behind them. The question we now face is whether we approve the proposition that Kiribati should proceed to independence as a member of the Commonwealth. I hope that the House will approve the Bill on its Third Reading, and thus give confidence to all the people of Kiribati that they will soon be able to proceed to independent status as a nation.
  10.55 p.m.
  Mr. Rowlands: I add my words to those of the Minister of State in wishing the Gilbertese and Banaban people well in proceding to independence. I hope that the Bill will now receive its Third Reading and go to the other place where it will likewise be approved.
  This has been the sixth or seventh measure during the past few years designed to bring to independence small communities that were once part of a great empire. Each act of decolonisation throws up its special problems. Each one in which I have been involved has had its special problem, but none has been more excruciating and difficult than the one we have faced in dealing with the emotional, genuine and historic feelings and grievances associated with the Banaban cause.
  I, too, pay tribute not just to the Prime Minister of Fiji but to other Ministers who have been involved. There are
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  absent friends of the cause, particularly Mr. Evan Luard, who during his years as Minister in the Foreign Office devoted a great deal of time to this matter, as did Lord Goronwy-Roberts, who chaired the constitutional conference.
  It is rather sad that in some ways the arguments advanced in this House and in the media have, genuinely and under standably, given the impression that this is the Gilbertese versus the Banabans. Generally speaking, there is nothing further from the truth. Leaving aside the argument about the Gilbertese and Banabans being ethnically the same or different, the Banabans and Gilbertese, as individuals and communities, have, can, and, I am sure, will work together to make a united community in the Pacific. We must now ensure that the safeguards and responsibilities that have been accepted in the understandings and undertakings that have been made are fulfilled.
  Above all, as a result of the Bill's passing, we should bear constantly in mind not just the constitutional aspects but the social and economic well-being of a small number of people who live far away on small islands. Anyone who has the privilege to go to Tarawa or any of the other islands will be shaken not by the marvellous, beautiful Pacific views and scenery but by the incredible difficulty of trying to scratch a living from a group of little atolls—the term "islands" is a misnomer—of coral which stick out a couple of inches above the Pacific swell. He will be struck by the resilience of these island and atoll people.
  Leaving aside the constitutional arguments, the past and the emotions that have been expressed during our discussions on the Bill, and whatever the arguments about how wealthy or poor we are, let us ensure that in future we do not forget—financially, socially, economically and personally—the peoples for whom we have had responsibility for so long. With those comments. I give full support to the Third Reading of the Bill.
  11 p.m.
  Sir Bernard Braine: I echo the closing words of the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil (Mr. Rowlands). Certainly this should be a moment of rejoicing for the peoples of the Gilberts, and there cannot be any hon. Member who has either taken part in the debate or listened to it

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  who does not wish them a fair wind and good fortune in the years that lie ahead.
  My hon. Friend the Minister expressed confidence in the future. I wish that I could share that. Alas, the reality of the position is that this House has now decided to force the Banaban community into a unitary Gilbert State. For the first time in history, the Banaban people will be governed by the Gilbertese. Against the strenuous will and determined opposition of her people, Banaba is, by legislative act of this House, to be made an integral part of the new Kiribati Republic.
  I think that I may be permitted to say that I have warned the Government—first the previous Labour Administration and now the present Administration—that if they ride roughshod over the innermost desires and aspirations of a people—true, a small people—they will, after the transfer of sovereignty, leave behind in the Western Pacific a source of unhappiness, a cause of friction and the possibility of continuing unrest in the future.
  That is an act of crass and mulish stupidity which could open the door to those outside influences which our friends in the region fear most. It is inexpedient to the point of folly as well as being a moral outrage.
  All the arguments against pursuing this course have been put. They have been put here in this House with force and eloquence from every side. They have been put in the Pacific. The overwhelming weight of the argument in this debate tonight and on Second Reading was against what the Government propose. Let there be no mistake about that. Yet those arguments have been totally and wantonly ignored.
  The Labour Administration was deaf to our pleas, and now the present Government have followed faithfully and mutely in their footsteps. I say with great regret that this has been a sad day for Parliament.
  The present Government will have no excuse later. They will not be able to say "We did not know. We were too new to these complex problems to understand them fully." The Conservative Front Bench received from my hands the full and undeniable case as early as September last year. The undeniable case
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  has now been denied. It has been denied with little or no argument or reason by this, as by the previous, Administration.
  I would simply say that in time the full picture will be revealed. If things go badly those who follow us here will more clearly see the mean nature of the policy, the sordid and greedy reasons, which succeeded in achieving, at one and the same time, the inexpedient and the immoral.
  Let me make it quite plain that in all this the Gilbertese people and their Council of Minisers are not in one whit to blame. They have been told by the present Government and by their predecessors, and by their expatriate advisers, that all that they should do is to resist steadfastly and they would not need to concede a thing. In the report that Mr. John Lee and I made to the previous Government in 1975, we did not argue for Banaban against Gilbertese or Gilbertese against Banaban. It was clear to us that both peoples had suffered neglect from British administration. Our report—I wonder whether it was read in the Foreign Office at all—made quite clear that there was a case for generous and timely assistance to be given to both peoples. As I said earlier, it was totally ignored.
  If it had not been for the strictures of Mr. Justice Megarry in the High Court, over a very limited field of grievance—not over the political grievances, because the High Court was not concerned with them; it was concerned only with certain economic matters—we would not have had the previous Foreign Secretary offering A$10 million in part compensation on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. The Banabans did not take it on those terms. If it had not been for the High Court case, I doubt whether the offer would have been made.
  Mr. Spearing: With his experience of overseas development, will the hon. Gentleman confirm that in absolute terms, whatever may be due to the Banabans, the moral responsibility for the area from this House may be greater for the Gilbertese than for the Banabans?
  Sir B. Braine: I do not deny that. The hon. Gentleman speaks with some knowledge of the problem. I fully accept the description of the Gilbert atolls given by

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  the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil. I have been there. I have seen land that rises a few inches above the Pacific swell where the ocean is constantly encroaching on one side and building up on the other. Heaven knows how these people live. If they are to survive as an independent State, they will need generous and continuing aid, and why should they not expect it? After all, the former Prime Minister of Australia has admitted to his own Parliament that Australia and New Zealand have ridden on the backs of the Pacific and Indian Ocean phosphate islands. We, too, have been the beneficiaries. Not only the Australian and New Zealand farmers have had subsidies with phosphates being sold at below world prices, while the Banabans were denied knowledge of the price at which their phosphates had been sold. We had the benefit of cheap food.
  I am not prepared to go over the sordid story again. The House has pronounced its judgment. The power passes from our hands and the sceptre falls from our grasp. We no longer have any responsibility. I only hope that those hon. Members who blithely trooped into the Government Lobby, whether they listened to the debate or—more likely—did not, know what they have done.
  Had the Gilbertese been given the opposite advice, they would, albeit with reluctance, have accepted it and let Banaba go. Of course, that is mere speculation now. The Suva proposals, which I suggested might be a basis for a solution, have been rejected by the House. They would have meant that, if Banaba were allowed to go, it could then come together with the Gilberts in a free association of equals. Our Government had not the wit, the imagination or the energy to seize the initiative provided by the distinguished Prime Minister of Fiji.
  That is my charge against the Government and it has not been answered. I have never known another debate in which questions have been put and charges have been made but no answers have been given. All we have had is a Minister reading a Foreign Office brief—the same script as that read by those on the Opposition Front Bench when they were in office.
  The Government's coercion of the Banabans is Britain's decision and
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  Britain's alone. In the long run, it will be as unfair to the Gilbertese as to the Banabans. The new Kiribati Republic will have little enough to help it in a hard future. Its resources are minimal. It will have to receive, and deserves to receive, the most generous help from Britain and its larger Pacific neighbours to face the challenge of the future. Yet this House has today decided that the new State will be launched into independence with a minority that is bitterly opposed to inclusion, and with all the dangers that flow from that. What is more, it has decided to guarantee Banaban rights on Ocean Island in a way that is calculated in the long run to stir up the maximum trouble among the Gilbertese as a whole.
  References have been made to over-generous safeguard provisions. Why in a democratic State is it necessary to have entrenched safeguards? I have some sympathy with the Gilberteese point of view on this. Lord Goronwy-Roberts had to explain in another place that he was in the middle of the road. He was leaning over backwards to try to help the Banabans, and was being accused by the Gilbertese of putting interfering restrictions on their sovereignty.
  The reality is that no service has been done to the Gilbertese people. How long will a provision in a constitution remain when it gives special privileges to a minority, where a veto can be exercised by a nominated member, who as far as I can see need not even be a citizen of Kiribati? The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil can help us if we are in any difficulty about the constitution, which is not before us. He has seen it, but hon. Members who have not been to the Library will not have seen it.
  I understand that there will be one member elected to the legislature from Banaba, who will presumably be a citizen of Kiribati, while another is nominated by the Rabi Council of Leaders in Fiji. We have had no answer from the Front Bench as to whether a Banaban who is a Fijian subject can not only live in the new State but can work there. No answer has been given, because those on the Front Bench do not know the answer. They have not consulted the Fijian Government on the matter. They have the infernal gall to bring to the House a statute of this kind, which is fraught with the gravest difficulty for the future.

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  It is no use my hon. Friend the Minister shaking his head. As soon as the Bill becomes law, responsibility passes from his hands. He will never need to worry his head again about Banaba and the Gilbertese.
  Therefore, I cannot conceal my sadness that the Bill has not been amended. It would be arrogant to assume that those of us who have sought justice for the Banabans, over a long period now, had the best of the argument in the debate, that we were morally right but unable to prevail against the big battalions marshalled by the Whips. Others will judge the matter. But I say this in all seriousness: if aught goes wrong in this area of the Pacific, history itself will pronounce the verdict.
  11.13 p.m.
  Mr. Hooley: I certainly wish all good fortune to the Gilbertese people and the Banabans, and to the Fijians, who are caught up in the present situation. It may well be that the good sense and civilised attitudes of the Gilbertese and the Banaban and Fijian people will contrive a solution to this matter which will be satisfactory and enduring. What I regret is the record of successive British Governments and, unfortunately, the record of failure of this House to sort this problem out in a civilised and reasonable manner.
  I have been involved in the argument for 10 or 11 years, since my fellow Methodists in London drew my attention to the problem and introduced me to Tebuke Rotan. Since then I have had many conversations with Ministers—with Lord Shepherd, Evan Luard, Lord Goronwy-Roberts and others—in which I have tried to explain what I thought was wrong and looked into the various documents and facts presented by many people, including the hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Sir B. Braine) and the former Member for Birmingham, Handsworth, Mr. Lee.
  I have studied these matters with great care, and I remain convinced that gross injustice has been done to the Banabans and that some remedy at least might have been provided in the constitutional sense had this House been willing now to separate that community from the Gilbertese State.
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  The House has decided otherwise, and I am sure that we have not heard the end of this argument. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office seems to be totally unable to learn from its past mistakes of forcing peoples together who do not want to be together. In the Caribbean, in Central Africa, in the Far East and elsewhere we have railroaded groups of peoples together who had no desire to be united constitutionally and who proceeded, as soon as they had the opportunity to do so, to break up the arrangements which the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said had been devised for their benefit.
  In this case, it may be that the more civilised attitudes of the Fijians, the Banabans and the Gilbertese will lead to a more harmonious development over the next few years which will deal with the resentments and solve the problems that British Governments and this House of Commons have signally failed to do. But, although I wish all good fortune to the Gilbertese, Banabans, Fijians and other people in the Pacific, I cannot regard with any sense of satisfaction the decision of the House on this Bill.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

  FIRE SERVICES (LONDON)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Berry.]
  11.17 p.m.
  Mr. Ted Graham: I begin by acknowledging that I have no quarrel with either the Home Office or its officials, even less with the Minister, who I am delighted to see here ready to take part in this short debate. However, it appears to be only through the hon. and learned Gentleman that I can influence the Greater London Council and its leader, Horace Cutler, who in my view are the villains of the piece.
  I am grateful for this opportunity to raise an issue of concern to all Londoners. In essence, London tonight stands less protected against fire, flood and disaster than at any time in the post-war period.

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  My charge against the GLC and its leader is that they have decided as a matter of policy to gamble with my constituents' lives to save on the rates, and that they have been more concerned to score points against the London Fire Brigades Union than to provide full cover against disaster. Even now, they are engaged in a process of deception and delay designed to hoodwink the Home Office and put the lives of Londoners at risk. I want the Minister to help me stop this outrageous confidence trick.
  Many organisations have expressed their fears to me, and I urge the GLC to act responsibly and promptly to put safety first. Amongst those organisations are the council of the London borough of Enfield, the Enfield Federation of Ratepayers' Association and the Federation of Enfield Council Tenants. They and many other separate community organisations have written to me. I am delighted to see in his place the hon. Member for Southgate (Mr. Berry), whose constituency takes in part of the London borough of Enfield, and I am sure that he has received many similar expressions of concern about this matter.
  I quote from the Edmonton Weekly Herald of 15 March, reporting some comments of the Haringey area health council administrator, Mr. Don Gardiner:
  "He admitted that fire service cuts were worrying. 'We are not happy about any cuts that will reduce the speed in which fire appliances can reach our hospitals.'"
  At this stage, I want also to acknowledge the debt which we in London owe John Ayres, the Fire Brigades Union branch secretary at Edmonton fire station, who has proved a credit to all London firemen and has served his community well.
  We know that the present crisis—I call it a crisis—arises directly out of the introduction of a 42-hour week following the national firemen's strike in January 1978. We know that the National Joint Council for Local Authorities reached agreement for this to be implemented on 1 April 1979. The Minister will know that the former Government encouraged authorities to recruit the additional men required to man a 42-hour week—as distinct from a 48-hour week—by announcing that the additional expenditure would be forthcoming in the 1979–80 rate support grant setttlement.
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  Six out of the major metropolitan authorities were able to negotiate and recruit up to the level required. Alone, the GLC dragged its feet, leaving Londoners in danger. It is not without significance that the GLC fire brigades committee censured its own chairman last year for wasting six months before taking action. The Minister should know that the GLC, in most arrogant fashion, summoned the Fire Brigades Union to tell the union how it intended to meet the nationally negotiated date for the 42-hour week. This it did in December 1978, six months after other authorities had begun their work and less than four months before April 1979, when, one recalls, the London Fire Brigade was already undermanned for a 48-hour week.
  One can appreciate the impossibility of meeting the April deadline. Why, it may be asked, was London left in such a dangerous state? Let me quote from a statement issued by the Fire Brigades Union in December 1978 concerning the undermanned London fire brigades:
  "This is due to the fact that the Brigade in the past 14 months have not made, despite continual requests by the Fire Brigades Union, a genuine attempt to man up to the 48-hour week and, in our opinion, have not at this time even seriously considered agreeing a permanent establishment figure for the 42-hour week."
  What has happened since 1 April? There have been, first, a reduction in first-line appliances from 215 to 187; secondly, a reduction in turntable ladders from 26 to 18; and thirdly, a reduction in specialist support appliances from 27 to 20. What has this meant in practice? I am told that Edmonton used to be able to respond to a fire call on its patch with two fire appliances—a pump escape and a pump—within three to five minutes on 85 per cent. of all occasions. Edmonton has now been reduced to one appliance, which also has to act as reinforcing appliance to adjacent stations for fire calls.
  This has meant that since 1 April Edmonton has been without an immediate response to calls on its own patch for periods up to three hours. Edmonton has had to rely on appliances covering from places as far afield as Hendon. I want the Minister to bear in mind that the main access routes for Edmonton are along the A406, the North Circular Road, and the A10, the Great Cambridge Road, two of the most congested roads in Greater

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  London. With a 10-ton fire engine, it is at times an impossible task to battle through these conditions.
  Last month, Edmonton fire station was called to a fire at the premises of MK Electric, a large and important employer in my constituency. Its one appliance arrived but its 1,000 ft. of hose was unable to be used: it could not reach the fire as the hydrant was situated too far away. The officer in charge asked for five reinforcing appliances and the first arrived five minutes later, eight minutes into the fire. An effective attack on the fire could not be mounted until the other appliances arrived 15 minutes later. The damage was estimated at £100,000.
  I should like to draw the Minister's attention to the alarming losses that are suffered nationally from fires and paid out by insurance companies. In 1976, the nation's insurance companies paid out £231 million for fire losses. In 1977, the figure was £261 million, and in 1978, £309 million. No account is taken of property not insured. No account is taken of losses of export potential. No account is taken of losses of employment. Last year the London Fire Brigade attended 98,000 calls. If ever there was a strong case for more men and appliances rather than fewer, it is made by those figures.
  Another example which would not have posed a problem before 1 April arose when Edmonton's one appliance was not available recently because it was out of Edmonton on a four-pump fire. A constituent of mine was trapped in a high-rise development in a lift in Walbrook House. The nearest vehicle available was Hendon's pump at Finchley Central. This was called for at 17.14 and arrived at the scene at 17.38. The Building Research Station has shown that the average modern house can be totally destroyed in 12 minutes. The chief fire officer of London told the Court of Appeal in 1971:
  "The snatching of a fellow human life from a terrifying death may easily turn on a quarter of a minute—a matter of seconds."
  I am told that there was a large fire in Brantwood Road, Tottenham, just over the border from Edmonton, on 3 May and the firemen requested urgently a turntable ladder. None was available in the whole of J Division—that is, the whole of
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  North London. When one eventually arrived, 40 minutes later, it came from Soho.
  I am told that before 1 April there were three in J Division, yet when that situated at Tottenham went out of action on 28 April it meant that a call on 5 June to the Prince of Wales hospital to which a turntable ladder is normal provision could not be supplied. It was only when Tottenham station made strong representations that a turntable ladder was resituated from Soho to Tottenham.
  Incidentally, I am told that, of about 100 50-ft. escape ladders supposed to be available to London at this time, 12 are off the run due to age and disrepair.
  Will the Minister also investigate reports that I have received that a number of fire appliances lie condemned as beyond repair at the Ruislip workshop? Since the GLC has said that vehicles taken off the run will form a pool of reserve vehicles, I fear that the reserves appear to be exceedingly thin, if not non-existent.
  Will the Minister also comment on the device being used by the GLC to avoid having its actions studied by the Home Secretary? By declaring that the changes now made are temporary—this is one of the crucial points that I beg the Minister to study and understand—the GLC avoids the Home Secretary examining in detail the consequences of the changes. The position is summed up in a letter from the former Home Secretary on 30 April to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish):
  "Under Section 19 of the Fire Services Act of 1947, as amended by the Fire Services Act 1959, a fire authority may not vary the establishment scheme for their area by closing a fire station or by reducing the number of whole-time members of any rank of their brigade or of part-time members or of appliances without my approval. If, therefore, the GLC wish to vary their establishment scheme by making any such reductions to it, they need to come to me for my approval."
  He added:
  "They have not done so."
  He went on:
  "The Home Office has been informed by the GLC they intend to replace the interim arrangements as soon as is practicable by a permanent revision of their establishment scheme, taking into account the experience gained of the interim arrangements and that the new establishment scheme will be submitted to me for approval. Until such formal proposals are received from the GLC, however,

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  there are no powers under the Fire Services Acts for me to intervene."
  The leader of the GLC has made allusions to some kind of approval or seal of authority that he has received from various places. In the same letter of 30 April, the Home Secretary wrote:
  "The Home Office Fire Service Inspectorate, through the normal liaison which they maintain with all fire brigades on a regular basis, have had informal discussions with senior officers of the London Fire Brigade about the GLC's interim arrangements. The fact that information has been given to the Inspectorate and their opinion sought about the operational implications of these interim arrangements should not be construed as implying that approval has been given to them by me or by the Home Office."
  I appreciate that the Home Office lays down standards. I draw the Minister's attention to the feasibility study into a 40-hour week which reported to the former Home Secretary in January 1978. Paragraph 15 of that report is clear that those standards must not be construed as inviolate. The report said:
  "With few exceptions fire authorities consider it necessary to make provision for first attendance in C and D areas somewhat in excess of the minimum standards recommended in appendix B. … Generally they provide for second supporting appliances to attend incidents."
  The report also referred to the possibility of one appliance failing to arrive or being delayed because of traffic congestion, road accidents and mechanical defects.
  Of crucial significance, in the context of the action by the GLC, is paragraph 16, which says:
  "There is no scope for savings under existing fire cover provision which might be used to finance a reduction in firemen's working hours."
  This, I submit, is precisely what the GLC is attempting to do. The leader of the GLC has never hidden his view that substantial cuts can be made in personnel. Indeed, he wrote to the secretary of the Edmonton trades council more than a year ago and said:
  "As to the London Fire Brigade, I have expressed my belief that, given certain operational changes, we will be able to achieve a service as good as, if not better than, the present one with about half the men."
  I come to what I would like the Home Secretary to do. I would like him to insist that the GLC brings forward its proposals for these calamitous reductions immediately, to allow them to be reviewed by the Home Secretary. I hope that they will be rejected as wholly inadequate if
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  London is to be provided with a proper level of cover for fire, flood and disaster.
  Second, I would like the Home Secretary to insist that appliances taken off the run be returned piecemeal as and when the trained manpower becomes available. Third, I would like him to see what he can do to speed up recruitment. God forbid that London must suffer a disaster of the Moorgate tube crash proportions, or those—more recently—of the Manchester Wool worth's fire before the GLC puts people before plans. I believe that it may come to that before action is taken.
  11.33 p.m.
  The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Leon Brittan): I am delighted to learn from the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Graham) that he has no quarrel with the Home Office. I am even more delighted to learn that he has no quarrel with me. It is apparent that he has a considerable quarrel with the GLC. I do not answer for the GLC and it is, therefore, inevitable that the instances he has mentioned are matters with which I cannot deal. It is also fair to say that the GLC is not in a position to deal with them in this House.
  Of course, those concerned with matters in London, including the GLC, will have heard what the hon. Gentleman has had to say and will no doubt wish to consider carefully whether the examples he has given—which he fairly said were what he had been informed of and of which he could not have personal knowledge—were accurate and whether those events which occurred would not have occurred if the changes he deplores had not taken place. Those are matters which, if they are to be looked at, must be looked at in another quarter.
  I think it will help the House if I make clear what the nature of the Government's involvement in this matter is, and how far it extends. We start from the position that responsibility for providing and maintaining public fire brigades rests with fire authorites—that is, with county councils and, in London, the Greater London Council. They are required under the Fire Services Acts 1947 and 1959 to make provision for fire-fighting purposes in their areas and, in particular, to maintain a fire brigade of sufficient strength to meet efficiently all normal requirements. My right hon. Friend has certain

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  powers and duties relating to operational efficiency under the Fire Services Acts, but in general he has no authority to intervene in the discharge by fire authorities of their functions under the Acts or to give instructions to them. His powers are largely negative or advisory in character. I will come back a little later to those powers which relate to fire cover provision and how they bear on the situation in Greater London which the hon. Member has described. Broadly speaking, however, it is for an individual fire authority to decide on the numbers of personnel, of appliances and of fire stations which are needed to enable the authority to discharge its statutory obligations.
  Fire authorities also have responsibility for the pay and conditions of service of members of their brigades, including their hours of work, although in practice these are negotiated in the National Joint Council for Local Authorities' Fire Brigades, on which the two sides are the local authorities and the fire service representative staff organisations. As the hon. Member has already made clear, the reason and occasion for the changes in the London Fire Brigade recently made by the Greater London Council is the agreement reached in the National Joint Council that firemen's working hours should be reduced from 48 to 42 per week. Agreement in principle upon this reduction in the working week was reached in January 1978, as part of the agreement on pay and conditions of service which ended the firemen's strike, but the agreement was subject to further negotiations on the problems which, as both the parties to the agreement recognised, would be associated with the introduction of the 42-hour week. Further agreement was reached in December 1978 on the broad terms on which the 42-hour week was to be introduced, including the date of its introduction, which was to be no later than 1 April 1979. That was part of the agreement.
  Although in the formal agreement reached in the National Joint Council there is no reference to the exent of any increase in manpower which might be needed for the introduction of the 42-hour week, I think it is fair to say that the local authorities' representatives had it in mind to introduce the 42-hour week
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  on the most cost-effective basis possible—that is, with the minimum increase in manpower necessary to maintain fire cover and the most productive use of working time. Although additional recruitment was envisaged, it was certainly no part of the agreement that this should be on the scale which would be required if the existing methods of working were simply to be continued on the basis of the 42-hour week instead of the previous 48-hour week.
  It was therefore open to fire authorities to make adjustments to their fire service provision to facilitate the introduction of the 42-hour week, and the Government are aware that most have done so in varying degrees. Indeed, fire authorities have had to do so, because the national agreement obliged them to introduce the shorter working week on the basis of the resources available to them at the time. The Greater London Council introduced the 42-hour week in the London Fire Brigade on 31 March this year, and it is from the attendant adjustments to the level of services made by the council that this debate arises.
  The arrangements that have been made by the GLC to permit the introduction of the 42-hour week have, as the hon. Gentleman rightly pointed out, so far been only interim ones. Although the Home Office has not been informed of the full details, naturally some information about the arrangements has been made available to it and Her Majesty's inspectors of fire services, who have a statutory responsibility under the Fire Services Acts to obtain information about how fire authorities are carrying out their functions under the Acts, have been in touch both with senior officers of the brigade and with members of the GLC about their interim arrangements, as part of the normal liaison which they maintain with all fire brigades on a regular basis.
  The fact that information has been given to the inspectorate, however, does not commit the Home Secretary to a view one way or the other on the interim arrangements. Still less does it commit him to any proposals for reduction in the brigade's permanent establishment scheme that may be submitted to him in the future. It is at that stage that my right hon. Friend's powers arise.
  Mr. Graham: How interim is "interim"?
  Mr. Brittan: I shall come to that shortly.
  I understand that to reduce the working week in London without making any adjustment to services or working routines would have required the GLC to recruit approximately 1,400 more firemen but that the figure which the GLC actually has in mind is of the order of 350 extra. It intends to take some specialist appliances, including a fireboat, out of service and to reduce the number of appliances operating from some fire stations from two to one.
  The GLC has not yet placed these interim arrangements on a permanent footing and I understand that it does not intend to do so for some time. What it has in mind is that time should be allowed for experience to be gained of how the arrangements work in practice, and for an assessment of progress in recruiting additional manpower.
  Only then will the GLC be able to revise the permanent establishment of men and machines in the light of the experience gained in the operation of the interim scheme.
  Any changes in a service which exists to protect the lives and property of the public are rightly liable to excite public interest and concern. I understand that, particularly during the months which led up to the introduction of the 42-hour week in London—that is, during the previous Administration's term of office—a considerable number of representations were received in the Home Office from members of the public and from the Fire Brigades Union, and that the GLC was made aware of the burden of these representations. I am aware also that the hon. Member and a number of other London Members properly represented their own and their constituents' concern to the previous Administration. Some of those representations revealed differences of view about the proper role of the Government in relation to changes of the kind being made by the GLC.
  It is, therefore, important for me to set out, in the limited time available, the respective roles of the Government and the GLC under existing legislation. Arising from his powers under the Fire
  206
  Services Acts the Home Secretary has, of course, a general responsibility for the fire service and concern with the operational efficiency of fire brigades. He has the professional assistance of the chief inspector and inspectors of fire services, who maintain a close liaison with brigades and inform the Home Office and the Home Secretary about technical matters. The inspectors are also available to fire authorities and chief fire officers for advice and guidance. The Home Office has issued advice to fire authorities, after appropriate consultations, on recommended minimum standards of fire cover. It is up to the fire authorities to determine how to ensure that those standards are maintained. These minimum standards provide for the number of appliances and time of first attendance according to the category of risk of the area.
  The risk category of an area may, of course, change from time to time as the density of population and the number and type of buildings in an area change. So also may the speed with which fire brigades can attend incidents. This does not, however, mean that the standards themselves necessarily are out of date or need to be changed since, as I have said, they are expressed not in terms of the number of men and appliances which must be kept available but in terms of the number of pumping appliances which should form the first attendance at a fire and the time limits within which they should attend. Those standards remain. If there are any changes in the area it is the responsibility of the fire authority in maintaining fire cover to apply these standards to the new situation and to keep its fire cover arrangements continually under review to ensure that the minimum standards continue to be met.
  The Home Secretary has no power to direct a fire authority as to the numbers of firemen, of appliances or of fire stations that it should maintain, nor how these should be deployed. His specific powers are confined to those set out in the Fire Services Acts, to which the hon. Member referred. If a fire authority wanted to vary the establishment, it would have to obtain the consent of the Home Secretary. But until an application is made to him the Home Secretary has no authority to interfere in the determination by a fire authority of an establishment scheme of its fire brigade.

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  In the present case, the Greater London Council, like any other fire authority, would need to come to my right hon. Friend for his approval. It has not done so yet, but it has introduced interim fire cover arrangements which at this stage do not involve any variation of the establishment scheme of the brigade.
  The Home Office has been informed by the GLC that it intends to replace the interim arrangements as soon as practicable by permanent revision of the establishment scheme, and that the new establishment scheme will be submitted for approval when that occurs.
  Naturally the public are concerned with safety matters generally, rather than with a particular division of responsibility, and
  208
  in considering the matter I simply ask the House to take note of a number of points which should go a long way towards reassuring the public. The GLC has a clear statutory responsibility for the provision of fire cover. I have no doubt that it fully appreciates the gravity of the responsibility it has and has satisfied itself that it is maintaining a brigade of sufficient strength to meet all—
  The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at thirteen minutes to Twelve o clock.

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