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British Nationality (Hong Kong) Bill
19 APRIL 1990
respect. We must return to the main point and say that we must have a scheme to help to stem the exodus of key personnel from Hong Kong.
It has also been said that the proposal is elitist, not merely selective. In a sense. it is because the people concerned are key personnel. However, the House should bear it in mind that the main categories cited in the Bill and in the supporting papers are very similar to those in the work permit scheme, which we have operated under successive Governments for the past 20 years. I shall read out the list in the latest 1980 edition of the work permit scheme. Whom do we allow in other than reiatives-who are a separate matter? We allow in
"(a) those holding recognised professional qualifications;
(b) administrative and executive staff:
(c) highly qualified technicians having specialised
experience:
(d) other key workers with a high or scarce qualification in an industry or occupation requiring specific expert knowledge or skills:"
Sir Eldon Griffiths: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Shore: I am sorry. I cannot give way because of the time factor.
I do not accept that the scheme can be described as elitist because of the perfectly sensible and open categories that are established. The scheme includes-and we must be clear on the range of peopie-judges. civil servants. Customs and Excise officials. the fire service. the immigration department, the Independent Commission Against Corruption, the Royai Hong Kong Police. the military garrison. engineers. architects. air traffic controllers, editors, doctors, chemists, midwives, nurses, physiotherapists, teachers and education administrators. Those categories add up to no fewer than 24.000 of the 50.000 promised passports. Many of the remaining 26.000 passports will have to go to managers and executives, but the balance may be wrong and overloaded in favour of those categories. That is a matter to be debated later.
The scheme has a number of obvious defects and some have been well expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden). The lack of review procedure and clause (5) are intolerable, as is the lack of help for people who may be in political danger in Hong Kong because of their expression of opposition to the Chinese Government. Such heip must be included. There can be no guarantee that the Bill will succeed, but no serious alternative has been proposed. It is essential that the people of Hong Kong should not be given the impression that we have washed our hands of their problems. That would have a disastrous effect on the people there and on the international community, whose help we may need far more in 1997 if the Chinese tear up the joint declaration. For those reasons. I shall not vote against a Second Reading and I hope that many of my right hon. and hon. Friends will join me.
7.22 pm
Mr. Nigel Forman (Carshalton and Wallington): I had prepared some remarks today that sought to expose the rather hollow and internally contradictory nature of the speech by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) on the basis of what he had said before about the Labour Government's contradictory position on the issue. However, it has turned out to be unnecessary for me to make a speech because the right
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hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore) has just made it for me most persuasively. I hope that Opposition Members have listened carefully to what he said. His speech was most persuasive and could be taken as an argument in support of the Bill, although he has said that he intends to abstain.
As we debate the Bill today, people are leaving Hong Kong at the rate of about 1,000 a day and it is important to bear that background in mind. Many are the most able and entrepreneurial people whom the colony badly needs to keep it going as a thriving community. It is, therefore, not a day too soon for the House to be asked to approve the Bill, which has my strong support. It is clear that the Bill's prime purpose is to staunch the outflow of people from Hong Kong and to encourage what the Americans call the "movers and shakers" to remain in the colony until 1997 and, we hope, well beyond that. The Bill will help to do that and it is a necessary confidence-building measure.
The upper limit of 50.000, which is on the face of the Bill, is fewer than many in the Hong Kong community would have liked and it is certainly fewer than they argued for originally. However, it is equally far fewer than the number who might have to come here in a future crisis if the policy goes wrong. On the other hand, the figure is many more than some of my right hon. and hon. Friends seem prepared to accept, for the reasons set out so cogently by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit). Ministers may be tempted to feel that they have got it about right as they find themselves between the Scylla and Charybdis of the two positions. I believe that it is the least that we should be offering in the circumstances to the people of Hong Kong and I shall explain why briefly.
First, the Bill is an insurance policy, as many other hon. Members have said, which should give many of the key people the confidence to remain in Hong Kong. That is the cardinal point. Whether it will succeed in that venture is a matter of judgment and cannot be proved at this stage. Secondly, it is only if Britain takes the lead in this way and at least in part fulfils one of its last colonial responsibilities that we shall be able to look to other nations to play a fuller part in any rescue operation that may be needed in the event of the Peking regime reneging on its solemn commitment of 1984. I strongly hope that does not happen. but when one enters the realm of insurance policies, one must guard against all risks and one has to think of the chances of the Government persuading their partner nations such as the United States and those in the Commonwealth and elsewhere to pull their weight in the event of that coming about.
Thirdly, the Bill is wholly consistent with the terms of our agreement with the Chinese, which never precluded our right to grant full British citizenship to people in Hong Kong. Fourthly, it can always be argued that any immigration arrangements run the risk of causing bitterness and resentment for some, especially those who cannot fulfil their wishes or who fall just the wrong side of some official dividing line. The point was made by the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney and it is not an adequate argument against having the criteria for selection that are envisaged in the Bill. As the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney said, all such measures from time immemorial have involved a degree of selection and the house must face that reality.
Fifthly, even if as many as 250,000 people, as distinct from passport holders, come from Hong Kong to Britain
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