1077
Spearing]
Dependent Territories
15 APRIL 1983
Gentleman mentioned our dependencies, but I had better list them again, because it is important to put them on the record. They are Bermuda, British Antarctic territory, British Indian Ocean territory, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands and dependencies, Gibraltar, Hong Kong, Montserrat, the New Hebrides condominium, Pitcairn, St. Helena and dependencies, Turks and Caicos Islands and Anguilla.
Mr. Stanbrook: The New Hebrides condominium is no longer part of our dependent territories.
Mr. Spearing: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He is technically correct, but he will agree that we have a locus and responsibility there. The New Hebrides are not wholly dependent, but we know that the Foreign Office had to deal with an emergency there two or three years ago.
The word "colonial", particularly on the world scene and in the United Nations, summons up a vision of the grasping planter and the idea of money coming back to Britain from the exploitation of the natural resources of the colonies and of the work of those living there. I objected earlier, perhaps in a heated way, because that is summed up in the phrase "belonging to us", to which I took exception.
I did not realise, alas, that the Falkland Islands still fell into broadly that financial category. It was not until hostilities had broken out just over a year ago that it became clear that in principle, if not in extent the colonial circumstances of the Falklands were still in 1782, in some respects at least, and in governmental development, until fairly recently, when there have been changes, in 1882. That came as a surprise and shock to some of us. I do not wish to put a great deal of emphasis on that, but that was the case, because the Shackleton report shows beyond doubt that there has been a financial movement from the Falklands to this country rather than the reverse.
I should like to think that in the other remaining dependencies it is at least even-Steven, or at least that the support that we are giving them, which we might be giving to non-dependent territories and independent countries through overseas development aid, is more than we get in return. Even if that is not so now, it should be shortly. Leaving aside the Falkland Islands, the facts of which we now know, can the Minister assure us that there is a net movement of funds from this country to the dependent territories which are not, therefore, in economic terms colonies any more?
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Cranley Onslow): I should not want the hon. Gentleman to live in false expectation. I am not sure that I shall be able to give a case-by-case answer, but in due course I shall answer him as best I can.
Mr. Spearing: I am grateful to the Minister. I understand that he cannot give me the information, and perhaps it was a little unfair of me to jump that point on him. However, this is an important and significant matter for this country's status, role and potential in the United Nations. In that place, let alone here, there is some confusion of mind about what constitutes a colony and what constitutes our moral responsibility to our dependencies in these days of North-South dialogue.
Dependent Territories
1078
Sir Bernard Braine: I can remove the confusion in everybody's minds about the Falklands, because before the uncertainties created by vacillating British Government policy helped to wreck the Falkland Islands economy, it was the one colony that was debt free, made a net contribution to the British balance of payments, and made no demands for aid upon the British Treasury.
Mr. Spearing: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, because it confirms the world view, and that held in the United Nations, that the Falkland Islands maintain the old style of colonial status, not only in law but in economics. That places an onus of responsibility on the country and the House.
The hon. Gentleman's intervention and the example of the Falklands raise another important matter about the future of our dependencies and the North-South issues. This is the problem of economic and political dependency in the strict sense of that term and not the constitutional sense. We know that one of the world problems today is the small countries which have a vote at the United Nations and are represented there but which feel that they are not free because they are still tied in some way, or other to some other financial, economic, political or defence system.
I am not sure that the hopes of these small countries for "freedom" were not overblown when that happy day of release came, because we all know that freedom is relative. Clearly, dependency in the strict world political sense now depends on a multitude of matters. The control of currency, the control and generation capital, and reliance upon a central banking system, or whatever, may make even quite a sizeable country entirely dependent on some other country's system of which it is a part, satellite or appendage. That is true perhaps inside Europe itself. This is a condition which, as the hon. Member for Essex, South-East reminds us, is paradoxically one to which the population of 1,800 in the Falklands were not subject. It is interesting to think that the Falkland Islands were not subject in that sense as some very much larger countries are that are notionally independent.
This matter is very important, because it leads to my next point about what we might call the de facto or the de jure Government of a country. Many years ago Mr. Henry Fairlie invented the phrase "The Establishment", which has now gone into the language. I suppose that it means a nexus of people, institutions or whatever who were there irrespective of the Government and the constitution. We all know that this happens in almost any country. They are the people who control property, capital resources, natural resources, resources of skill, information, the media- and have the ability to put them together and sometimes the Government themselves.
We all know that inside towns or communities it is not just the majority on the local authority that has the say. There are many things relating to institutions, clubs, societies, firms and so on. Ten years ago we had debates in the House concerning standards in public life. There were various towns, and I can recall two in particular, whose affairs were subject to some particular scrutiny.
If that happens within the United Kingdom, imagine what can happen to a much smaller community than, say, Newcastle or Birmingham, surrounded by sea, where there is relatively little movement in and out and where the extremes of wealth and poverty are much greater. We all know that small countries, whether they are notionally
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