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4. It must also be recognised, my Lords, that the passage of the British Nationality Act 1981 has not changed the immigration position of people from the dependencies. People from our dependent territories who do not hold certain specified links with the United Kingdom have been subject to immigration control since the passage of the first Commonwealth Immigrants Act in 1962. The controls were confirmed in the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968, passed by the party opposite, and by the Immigration Act 1971.
5. All that the 1981 Act did was to change the title of the citizenship held by people who did not have the right of abode in the United Kingdom. I recognize that this change of citizenship title was resented by many people in the dependent territories. But it was essential if one of the main aims of the new nationality legislation was to be realised. That aim was to define as British citizens those people who had the right of entry here, and thus finally bring to an end the misleading and unsatisfactory situation whereby people were called citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies even though they had no right under our immigration law to enter the United Kingdom.
6. My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Bruce's Bill would make an exception for the Falkland Islanders. The Falkland Islands are only one among 15 dependent territories listed in Schedule 6 of the Act. But only their inhabitants would automatically become British citizens as well as British Dependent Territories citizens. Such exceptional and preferential treatment may or may not be justified in the circumstances. Before coming to that, however, I feel that I should mention briefly the main technical defects of the Bill. The Bill is similar to one introduced in another place just before the Summer Recess. It was because it would have led to some anomalier
and was defectively drafted, that the Government did not believe that it should pass through all its Commons stages without debate.
7. Firstly, my Lords, the Bill refers to the Falkland Islands only, although the dependent territory is described in Schedule 6 as "Falkland Islands and Dependencies". There might be individual cases where the distinction between the Falkland Islands and their dependencies turned out to be significant. I accept that the dependencies are probably uninhabited for the most part but it cannot be assumed that they will always remain so. I suggest that it was a little careless of the noble Lord to lose them.
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