233
Hong Kong
[LORDS]
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, the noble Lord beguiles me with various tempting opportunities for the heritage, the Revenue, the World Service and all kinds of other things which are very dear to my heart. But unlike the noble Lord, I am rather keen on foreigners and they are certainly doing the economy in this country a lot of good at this moment.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, without wishing to invite the noble Earl to anticipate his right honourable friend's Budget Statement, may we have his assurance that when it comes to interpreting "socially useful purposes", as mentioned in this particular Question, the ambit of the Government will go rather wider than that proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Monson?
The Earl of Gowrie: My Lords, I shall look at what the noble Lord has said. I rather suspect that the second part of his supplementary question was not logically consistent with the first part; but I shall do my best.
Schoolchildren: Ethnic Minorities
3.27 p.m.
Lord Denham: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 this afternoon, my noble friend Lord Swinton will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement that is to be made in another place on ethnic minority pupils.
Easter Recess
Lord Denham: My Lords, it may be for the convenience of your Lordships if I announce that it is proposed that the House should rise for the Easter Recess on Thursday, 4th April and return on Monday, 15th April. The House will sit at 11 a.m. on Thursday, 4th April.
3.28 p.m.
Hong Kong Bill
Baroness Young: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.(Baroness Young.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD ABERDARE in the Chair.] Clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.
Schedule [Supplementary Provisions.]:
Lord Avebury moved Amendment No. 1: In the Schedule, page 2, line 33, at end insert-
(“(5) An order made under this paragraph shall make provision for a British National (Overseas) who cannot claim citizenship of any other country to be entitled to be registered as a British Citizen if an application is made for his registration as such a citizen.")
Bill
234
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 1 on the Marshalled List. In so doing, I wish first to remark that this is a question that has already been ventilated by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham in the Second Reading debate a short while ago. He then referred to the citizenship of St. Paul. In the days of the Roman Empire people could move freely from one place to another and, as far as I am aware, the Romans did not have the strict immigration laws that prevail throughout the whole of the civilised world today. Therefore, citizenship is, if anything, more important than it was in the days of St. Paul, when he was able to appeal to the protection of Caesar, as we hope that people who are given the new citizenships under this Bill will, in the last resort, be able to appeal to the protection of the Crown. But the protection that the Crown is able to afford to people on whom this new citizenship is conferred unfortunately is not parallel with that of Caesar. Therefore, I am afraid that we must depart from the analogy with St. Paul and look at more recent events in history.
One might do no better than to see what happened in the aftermath of independence in certain countries in East Africa where former Conservative Government, in their wisdom, did allow certain people to retain British citizenship even though, at the time, they had no intention of leaving the country of their residence and coming to take up residence in the United Kingdom. I wish to underline the fact that I am instructed by the Council of Hong Kong Indian Associations, on whose behalf I hope that your Lordships will agree to this amendment, who say that those it represents do not want to come to England but wish to continue with their lives and their businesses in Hong Kong. Those were the very words used when I spoke to the council on the telephone this morning. It wants an assurance that, if things did not work out, these people would have "somewhere to hang their hats". That is what we did for an earlier generation of people from the Indian sub-continent whom we caused to take up livelihoods in another part of what was then the British Empire. All that we are now asked to give is the same kind of privilege as was conferred on the East African Asians. They want to know that if anything should go wrong in Hong Kong-I hope, of course, that this is a very remote eventuality—there will at least be somewhere, as the council puts it, to hang their hats.
I wrote to the Foreign Secretary on this matter. I received a reply from Mr. Richard Luce, expressed in his usual courteous way, seeking to allay the fears expressed by the Council of Hong Kong Indian Associations. He started by underlining the fact that no British Dependent Territories citizens would be left without a nationality or place to call their home as a result of the provisions of the Sino-British Joint Declaration on the future of Hong Kong and the related memoranda. He went on to state that anyone who, on 30th June 1997, was a BDTC by virtue of a connection with Hong Kong would be eligible to retain British nationality under a new form to be called British National (Overseas) for the rest of their lives. Even if such persons did not acquire this new status, he added, there would be no question of them being rendered stateless, because the Government intended that any such persons who would otherwise become