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a separate arrangement and not come out of the existing quota of 50,000 to be granted to those from elsewhere in Hong Kong and for other reasons.
Finally, I emphasise that in granting this we would only be doing what the people of Hong Kong themselves feel is a fair and just solution.
7.28 p.m.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, earlier this afternoon I was told that 18 speakers had to be fitted into an hour. According to my calculation, each would have 3.3 minutes if we all had the same amount of time. I knew that would not be the case, so I prepared a speech that would last 30 seconds. As the position now appears to be slightly different I ask your Lordships' indulgence if I multiply that by a small figure.
I am afraid that I do not rise to speak in favour of the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey. Having listened as carefully to his speech as I was able to, frankly I could not understand what he was getting at, but I am sure that that was my failure. However, I rise to support strongly the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter. It was almost exactly 30 years ago that The Times contained a leading article-probably one of the most influential leaders that it ever had-under the title, “It is a moral issue". I suggest that that is the theme of this debate. Having listened to the noble Baroness, Lady Dunn, and the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Tillyorn, it is clear to me that there is a very real obligation to this small number of people.
I make two or three rather obvious points. First, I do not believe that China has any obligation to those people in comparison with Britain's obligation. Secondly, they are not, and we should not see them as, economic migrants. Indeed, if they were economic migrants Hong Kong of all places would fully understand why we were not prepared for that reason to admit them. That does not mean I do not believe that if they come to this country-probably not many of the 7,000 will do so they will make a very considerable economic contribution, because practic- ally everybody who comes to Britain from Hong Kong does this country nothing but good.
What I say to my noble friend who is to answer this debate is that I for one will not be happy if the House is told that under the arrangements to be made for these people they will get passports that give them the right to come to Britain and that if they are here for a sufficient length of time they will then qualify for British nationality. I am not prepared to accept an undertaking that in the unforeseeable circumstances of three or four years' time there would necessarily be ---under the administrative procedures which could well then be in force-agreement for them to stay for long enough to get that right of British citizenship.
Therefore, I must say to my noble friend that unless we get a firm and watertight commitment to fulfil an obligation which is a very small one-when I say “a very small one" I suggest a perhaps fanciful analogy: that somehow there is something worse about someone who robs an old lady for a few pennies than someone who robs a bank manager for several thousand pounds; both are wrong but the first is, in
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my view, worse than the second-I would be prepared to support the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, should he choose to divide the House.
7.31 p.m.
Lord Chalfont: My Lords, I am not quite sure of the implications of the somewhat convoluted procedures of the Motions and the amendment, but if it is in order I should like to support both the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, and the Motion introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter.
The noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, referred to The Times leader which was headed "It is a moral issue". Perhaps I may remind the noble Lord that that leader was in fact about what was then called the Profumo affair. Nevertheless, I agree with him entirely that this also is a moral issue.
Speaking generally, before addressing the terms of the Motion and the amendment, I have had experience of Hong Kong for around 40 years since I first went there as a British Army officer. I have been on many occasions since in various incarnations. I have grown to have an enormous admiration for the people of that island. They are industrious, ingenious and attractive people. I have to say that the arrangements that have been made for them after 1997 when the island is quite understandably handed over to the Chinese have been somewhat less than generous.
A comparison was made in the debate with Portugal and Macao. Perhaps it may seem to your Lordships somewhat extreme but I should have thought it quite acceptable that all the citizens of Hong Kong should have been given the right of abode in this country if they so wished it. They are, as I have said, industrious and ingenious, and as has already been suggested, if they all descended upon us—not a likely eventuality—I cannot help thinking that they would have an enormously beneficial effect upon the somewhat battered economy of this country. They would not, of course, exercise that right because there is reason to believe that after 1997 most of the citizens of Hong Kong of all ethnic categories will want to stay there. But they may not, and it is for that reason I believe that we have been less than generous and less than imaginative in our treatment of them.
I have a special reason for speaking about the discipline forces-and especially the armed forces-in Hong Kong, many of whom will have special difficulties when the Chinese take over in 1997. I know that some special arrangements have been made, especially for people who have been working in sensitive appointments and areas, but I still think that we have not done enough. For example, there is a military unit in Hong Kong which is in the order of battle of the British Army. It is a unit of the British Army. When I visited the unit recently at its base in Stonecutters Island I discovered that the men were perplexed and surprised that they, who are serving Her Majesty's Government not as mercenaries or as attached personnel but as a unit of the British Army, were not being given the right of citizenship or of abode in this country after 1997. I believe that they have a quota. A certain number of them may apply for