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British Nationality
[LORD ELWYN-JONES.]
[ LORDS ]
hat the Act should contain a provision of alternate meanings to the same word throughout reminds me of the writings in 1066 And All That where I think for "pheasant" it read peasant' throughout; and it would not have been wholly acceptable. It was a suggestion was met with praising with faint damns. I think it is a very useful thing to have been done and we approve of it.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, before going further on this I must inform the House that there is a series of misprints on the Marshalled List in this series of amendemnts moved by my noble friend. They are Amendments Nos. 50, 67, 73, 74, 94, 95, 96, 97 and 98. Only half of these amendments have been printed and all should read leave out citizenship of the British Dependent Territories and insert British Dependent Territories' citizenship'.". I must apologise for this omission not only from the Marshalled List but from our presentation of the case.
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Lord Geddes: My Lords, I should like to thank my noble friend, Lord Belstead, and the Government for finding their way to bring in the necessary 98 con- sequential amendments. I know from the reports I have received how well that has been received in the dependent territories and how much they appreciate the effort that the Government have gone to. I should like to point out that Amendment No. 98 on the Marshalled List appears still to be defective.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, I should like to congra- tulate the noble Lord, Lord Geddes, on his initiative and persistence and I think everyone agrees that the result achieved is far better than in the original Bill. It was sensible for these amendments to be incor- porated in all the places where reference is made to British dependent territories rather than simply leaving it, as was originally suggested by the Government, as a substitution in one place.
If I may ask the noble Lord the Minister to give me his attention, I asked what was intended to be a serious question on the last occasion when we were talking about Lord Geddes' amendment when, although the noble Lord, Lord Geddes, said that he had done the donkey work in going through every clause where this phrase occurs and that he was in a position to hand the Minister a list of them, the noble Lord clearly did not wish to rely entirely on Lord Geddes' industry but had to have it checked himself. I can understand that this was necessary; but I asked the noble Lord whether the Government did not have available to them the services of word processors. This was not meant to be frivolous. If such devices were available, it would be simple to go through the text of the Bill and to find every reference to this particular phrase and to replace it with an alternative phrase such as was suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Geddes. As this is not the last occasion when your Lordships will wish to put in an amendment which occurs in several places in a Bill (although perhaps not on quite so large a scale) my question would be of great interest so that we can know in the future whether to accept a Minister's rejection of amendments at a late stage as being impracticable or whether we know that there are modern devices
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available to them to enable them to do the sort of thing suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Geddes.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, will have noticed from the consultations that were taking place on the Front Bench that we have not brought our word processor with us into this House. I must say although I should like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Geddes on this alteration that he has successfully made to the Bill, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, will not be correct and that there will not be several occasions in the future when we shall make a hundred or so amendments all at one go to a Bill. May I confirm to my noble friend that he is right in the point he put to me and that the point which he put will be correctly included as Amendment No. 98 in the corrections to which my noble friend Lord Skelmersdale referred.
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran: My Lords, I hesitate to add another voice from the Liberal Benches in con- gratulating the noble Lord, Lord Geddes, on the amendment that he has had accepted. As I come from a small nation, I should like to support what the learned and noble Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, said in regard to this matter because I was in Hong Kong in the early summer when these matters were discussed and I was asked to address the Reform Club of Hong Kong with its 25,000 members. When they met on their Annual General Meeting and I was invited to that meeting, I was surprised that there was a dinner party with over 1,000 Cantonese present. I was asked to speak. I followed a number of erudite people; my task was merely to propose a vote of thanks to the chairman and I did not know in what language I should speak. I spoke in Welsh and en- couraged a thousand Cantonese to follow me in
Jechid dda saying:
Good health" in Welsh --to the chairman. In relation to the association between this area of Hong Kong and our country the noble Lord, Lord Geddes, has made a great contri- bution.
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Lord Drumalbyn: My Lords, may I also add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Geddes, and concur entirely with what has been said because there is no doubt that what I may call his brilliant stroke of genius, his very happy thought, will confirm to all concerned to all the citizens of these territories-- that they are British and bring it far more to their minds and keep it before their minds which is what we believe they want.
May I also congratulate the Government on not only accepting this but in performing their task- perhaps not without blemish, but very nearly so. I have never seen an Order Paper such as the one we have today. It seems to me that my noble friend Lord Geddes has set the Government 100 lines! It is practically a 100 repetitions of the same correction. The Government have delivered their task on time.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
4.12 p.m.
99
LORDS AMENDMENT
Clause 14, page 15, line 40, at end insert-
"() Where an order in consequence of which any
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