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Hong Kong (Nationality)
16 JANUARY 1986
by must make it work. They may come positively to enthuse about it in years to come, but they are not doing
so now.
This is an important subject, and it is a pity that we have only two and a half hours of debate on it. The legislative council decision was a unanimous one which was supported by the unofficial members and by the Government members. It must be taken seriously by this House and the Government.
If I may deal with the service men, there are 100 or 400 -it does not matter what the number is. I am sure that the Government, if they wanted to, could come to some agreement on what the status of service men should be and, if they want the right of abode in this country, they should be able to have it. It is not a question of whether 100 or 400 might be acceptable. Both numbers are very small.
With regard to the problem of the ethnic minorities, I will not repeat the points which have been made by other hon. Members. There is great concern in Hong Kong--- and it will grow unless the House does something about it about the effective statelessness of the ethnic minorities if nothing is done about their status. I realise that the Government have tried to put together a package which will accommodate the wishes of the ethnic minorities, but they have not succeeded. It is the continuing stability and prosperity of Hong Kong which is important. The Government must try again. The only answer in my view is to give to the minorities, if they want it and wish to take it up, the right of abode in this country. If we get things right in Hong Kong, no one will want to come to this country in any case, maybe a few hundred at the most. If we get things wrong, the ethnic minorities will have as a fallback position the assurance that they have somewhere to go and somewhere they can call their home. I confidently say that it is a right of abode which would be used by no more than perhaps a few hundred people.
Then there is the question of entry into the United Kingdom for Hong Kong people of Chinese origin. I came back from Hong Kong a few days ago through Gatwick airport. Only two windows were open for the passengers on the flight who were mainly Chinese. They queued up seven or eight deep. I watched for about half an hour. Everyone had to wait a minute and a half or two minutes. The details were handled expeditiously. However, if 70 or 80 people had been in each line, I imagine that it would have been about two hours before the last person passed through immigration-hardly something to get excited about when entering the United Kingdom.
One young boy appeared not to have his papers in order, he was led away fairly early and I did not see him again. This has been called hassle, and so it is. We have to do something about it. People from Hong Kong who come to this country not to stay but on business, to visit friends or on holiday should be able to do so without having to go through many formalities and feeling that they are being hassled. I know that it is dangerous to generalise on the basis of just one visit, but this has been not only my evidence but also that of other people. Something needs to be done about it. I support fully the legislative council decision to put into the passport the right of entry to the United Kingdom. That would be straightforward.
In this issue it is not right for the Government or Parliament to take all the decisions without paying attention to what might happen after the next general
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election or the one after that. We have up until 1997 1 suggest that the Government would be wise to discuss the matter with my hon. Friends on the Front Bench and see whether some common agreement might be attained. I am sure that my right hon. and hon. Friends would be more than happy to do this. Perhaps we can have a bipartisan policy. We are all on the same side. We want Hong Kong to prosper, and we want there to be stability in Hong Kong. We want the change-over in 1997 to go as smoothly and as quietly as possible. If the Government pay attention to what has been said in the debate, I am sure that that will happen.
9.40 pm
Mr. Andrew Rowe (Mid-Kent): I am confident that the people of Hong Kong and hon. Members would prefer to listen to the Minister than to me, so I shall be brief. I feel strongly that we have a duty to take care of the non- Chinese ethnic minority in Hong Kong. They have made their money, created their lives and brought up their families in Hong Kong. They owe their prosperity to Hong Kong. It would be wrong, when the future of Hong Kong seems to be moving more brightly than expected, and when things are getting better, to say to them that the need for a fallback position is so urgent and imperative that we should create it now. We should see whether the Chinese will move towards a clearer statement of the right of those people to Chinese citizenship in 1997 before we feel bound to take any action.
I have no way of knowing what electoral fortune will bring, but I hope that I shall still represent Mid-Kent in 1997. If I do, I shall certainly bring the issue to the attention of the Government of that day. If the non- Chinese ethnic minority are in danger of being harassed or persecuted, I shall say that we should pick up the obligation that we have incurred over the centuries. That will be the time to act, and I hope that we shall do so. 9.42 pm
Dr. Jeremy Bray (Motherwell, South): Like all hon. Members, I support the three proposals by the Legislative Council in Hong Kong. I spent some childhood years as part of a tiny ethnic minority in inland China as well as in Hong Kong. We were happy there, but I am sure that the safety valve that we had increased the harmony among the foreigners who worked to contribute to China.
The order is important for current political reasons within Hong Kong and for its relations with Britain and China. It is necessary to build substance into the joint declaration and the British and Chinese memoranda which it contains. That needs the support and confidence of China and, most important, of the people of Hong Kong. The changes will cause little difficulty in Britain, but if we are halfhearted in our commitment to the agreement, that will encourage China to be halfhearted in fulfilling its more important commitments. It will lead the people of Hong Kong now--not in 1997-to doubt the substance of the agreement, particularly about the positive contribution that they have to make to the future running of the special administrative region. The vital building up and the capacity of Hong Kong's peoples to look after the special administrative region will be set back at a critical stage. We must do everything that we can to build the people of Hong Kong's confidence and that of their elected representatives, so that they can speak and expect to be listened to by the sovereign power.
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