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[LORD SAINT BRIDES.] was finally provoked into using methods of lawless cruelty against its own young fellow citizens. The massacre of the students has, very understandably, caused the people of Hong Kong to look for reassurance from this country. We are in duty bound to provide it. Indeed, I am sure that there is no disagreement on this point in any quarter of this House. How can we best do so?
Again, like the noble Baroness, Lady Young, I can see no sensible grounds and no demand that I am aware of in Hong Kong, for us to abrogate or seek to re-negotiate the agreement. Indeed were we to do so, Hong Kong's position could well be impaired, not improved. As we all know, what most Hong Kong people do not now have, and fervently hope to be granted, is the right of abode in Britain. That is not so much because they want to exercise that right now, but because they fear that one day they may desperately need to do so.
In my view there are three considerations we would do well to bear in mind when deciding how to respond to the anxious appeals of which a crescendo is currently reaching us. First and foremost, as the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs quite rightly told us, Hong Kong's situation is indeed unique. Never before during the whole process of British decolonisation did we plan to hand over a sizeable number of British citizens to an uncertain destiny under foreign rule. So we should not consider ourselves as tied to precedent, or inhibited from developing special solutions to a special problem.
Secondly, on balance Britain has gained by taking in people from abroad, and enabling them to blend their talents and culture with our own. Not perhaps all, but at any rate the large bulk of immigration into this country during my life-time has been a success story of which the immigrants and ourselves can be proud. Thirdly, I believe that we have a special obligation to the young people in Hong Kong; namely, those between the ages of 15 and 25, who stand at the threshold of their careers. Their elders have already lived much of their lives under British rule in conditions of freedom and justice. Rightly or wrongly, the young people-and we have all seen. their worried faces on television-fear that after 1997 freedom and justice will be denied them.
I should very much like to see a scheme or an organisation-such as the one suggested by the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough-brought into being in this instance. It would perhaps be an example of the flexibility which the Government have undertaken to show. By virtue of such a scheme a substantial number of these young people, or perhaps all of them who care to apply--and not on a once-and-for- all-basis, but on an ongoing basis over the next years--would be given the chance of coming to Britain in order to complete their education and to fill their first jobs. They would gain by recovering the hopes of a better life, which many of them now expect to forgo, and we should gain by adding a vigorous, gifted (and incidentally English-speaking) young element to our society. I believe that by encouraging generous private giving by individuals and firms, in order to fund scholarships, for instance, we could add a useful bipartisan element to the
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scheme. It could also include family hospitality on a nationwide scale. Some such scheme could be made flexible time-wise by phasing, and the incoming numbers could be reviewed and adjusted according to absorbability, into which a special inquiry should be made.
My Lords, as I have said, it is the youngsters in Hong Kong who form a major element in the chorus of dismay that the thought of 1997 is now triggering off. It is clearly in their minds that there is anxiety and fear. It is by easing the plight and reducing the claustrophobia of these young people whose hopes have been so cruelly dashed, that I feel we should now in the first instance proceed.
4.11 p.m.
Lord Derwent: My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness for enabling us to debate Hong Kong today. I should declare an interest in view of my close association with one of Hong Kong's largest business groups, one controlled by Hong Kong Chinese and one whose commitment to Hong Kong is total.
I should like to comment on only three of the main points, much more ably covered by previous speakers. First, on the moral question, which is loosely called the question of honour: in recent days I have been asked by many noble Lords why we should give to the people of Hong Kong something which we have refused to some of the people from our other colonies. The answer is that our disposal of Hong Kong cannot be compared with our disposal of any other parts of the empire. In all other cases, we have moved towards independence. In this case, we are giving up Hong Kong because our lease of part of the land runs out, and Her Majesty's Government can in no way be criticised for that; but it is the land that is leased, not the Hong Kong people.
Britain has no legal obligation, or moral right, to dispose of the people without taking account of their wishes. We should be conscious that we are handing them over not only to a foreign country but to one from which many themselves and their families are refugees. That is why the British Government have tried so hard to find a formula satisfactory to the people of Hong Kong as well as to Britain and China, and full credit to them. Unfortunately, recent events have caused the Hong Kong people to lose faith in that formula. We cannot salve our consciences merely by pretending that we have no legal choice.
Secondly, I wish to say a word on the issue of democracy. There are many views on how fast it is wise for Hong Kong to move towards democracy. In certain circumstances, too rapid progress could even be counterproductive. However, of one thing I am certain: it is for the Hong Kong people to decide the pace at which they want to move, and it is not for us in Britain to gainsay them. I am therefore delighted that Ministers have committed themselves to give priority to ascertaining the current views of the people of Hong Kong and have indicated that on that issue at least they are prepared to listen.
I now come to the third and far the most important point upon which I want to comment. Here I speak not for the Hong Kong business community but as