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British Nationality
[22 JULY 1981 ]
The Lord Chancellor: I am very grateful to the noble Lord for the correction, and I am very glad to have it because he does thereby dissociate himself from some of the other things which have been said in the debate, because although there are in fact three categories of citizenship created by the Bill these are not first, second and third class, like the carriages of the London and South Western Railway Company when I was a boy. It does a real disservice to the United Kingdom, it does a real disservice to the Bill and it does a real disservice to the homogeneity and solidarity of the Commonwealth itself to be guilty of this error or to give the slightest countenance to it. There are no second-class citizens in this country in the sense that there are citizens with different rights.
This amendment would cause, as has been repeatedly said by those of my noble friends and others who have the very best reason to know that they are speaking the truth, the deepest resentment on the part of, let us say, the Falkland Islands, faced with the Argentine, Belize, for the moment a dependency but in future probably independent as an overseas territory, con- fronted with Guatemala, or Hong Kong, confronted with China. If the amendment were passed it would cause the deepest resentment. It is a discriminatory amendment. It discriminates not in favour of Gibraltar but against those other dependencies who have been given this category and who are similarly placed. It would cause the deepest resentment on the part of all those people to be stigmatised as second-class citizens simply in order to give an advantage to Gibral- tar, when the proposers of the amendment do not even dare mention Gibraltar in what they have written.
This amendment is, therefore, I hope I have persuaded the Committee, objectionable in principle. One sympathises with the motivation behind it. One agrees without qualification to the encomiums which have been placed upon Gibraltar and her citizens as a result of history, as a result of association and as a result of continued loyalty and friendship. But it is objectionable in principle, and the more I have listened to this debate the more I have become convinced that this is so. I therefore invite the Committee to reject the amendment.
Lord Bethell: I am very grateful to those noble Lords who have spoken in this important debate. I think one result that will come of it, whatever happens in a few minutes time, will be that the people of Gibral- tar will be flattered that so many big guns have been out and brought to bear on this question. Indeed, some of the artillery that has appeared could perhaps be compared with the very large guns that were trained upon them during the siege in which the ancestors of some noble Lords took part.
The speech of my noble and learned friend was characteristically vehement, and I would only take issue with him on one point, which I must say cut me a little bit to the quick, when he suggested that I did not dare to use the word "Gibraltar in this amendment put down by my noble friends and the noble Lord, Lord Hughes. The purpose of this amendment has been made clear in public utterances, in another place, by many of the people who support it, and by myself, in our speeches and elsewhere. There
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is no question of hiding behind a facade. On the contrary, the use of the words in question is simply to prove a principle. I know my noble and learned friend does not agree with me, but I believe it is a principle, and the principle is the Treaty of Rome, the constitution of Europe, the written constitution which we have signed, which was signed by the Government of which the noble and learned Lord was a member. I am sure that, since he was a member of that Govern- ment, the noble and learned Lord will remember that the preamble to that Treaty pledges us to lay the foundations for an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe and to eliminate the barriers which divide Europe. The signature of Britain was put to those ideals.
I would suggest to my noble and learned friend and those who have spoken against this amendment that it is not a very good way of building a closer union of Europe, and removing barriers to separate off, to hive off, a few thousand people out of the 260 million people of our European Community into a separate category. I know that provision will be made for the Gibraltarians, if this amendment fails, in a new declaration which will be prepared no doubt and annexed to the treaty, and on which discussions are now in progress with our Community partners. But that is a clumsy way to proceed, I suggest.
We have heard a long, interesting and emotional debate. I make no apology for the emotion expressed in my own remarks or in those of others who have spoken. Of course, emotion has been used and, as has been rightly pointed out, it should not carry the day in the end. Proper, legal, constitutional argu- ments have also been deployed and perhaps I might try to encapsulate the difference between our argument and that of those who have spoken from the Govern- ment Benches. It seems to me to be that those who moved the amendment set rather more store by our adherence to the Treaty of Rome and the growing union of the peoples of Europe, than do certain other people.
It was accepted by those who wrote the Bill that certain territories which, indeed, have internal self- government should have populations who are en- titled to British citizenship, such as the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey-British territories, admittedly within the common travel area traditionally which have internal self-government. The question being
put to the Committee is: should Gibraltar be taken into this family of common citizenship, common travel, or should it be kept on one side? I submit that the signature of the Treaty of Rome and the special mention of Gibraltar made in 1973 changes the issue completely. It changes the traditional attitude that this country had to Gibraltar. That is the argument. I believe that it has been put well and fairly, both for and against. The amendment is before us. This has been a well attended debate and one that will be followed, of course, with considerable interest in this country, but with deep concern in Gibraltar itself, I believe that the Committee must now pronounce its verdict upon the amendment.
5.42 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 111) shall be agreed to?