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British Nationality
[LORD MISHCON.]
[ LORDS]
say the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, and others. The noble Lord was frank enough to say with the courage written as it has been throughout all his public career-on his face: "I shall have to vote against this Bill on Third Reading unless there are substantial amendments made to it ".
I turn to the bishops, if I may. It may be a rather foolish phrase for me to utter but I say thank God for the bishops tonight. We are not dealing with the representatives of ethnic groups; we are not dealing with people who have some sordid idea that you can use a Bill like this to stir up political unrest. What did the bishops have to say? Incidentally, the noble Lord who delivered one of his usual glorious speeches --and I am obviously referring to a gentleman who has I suppose given more of his life to his idea of world citizenship than anybody else and it is a delight always to hear him (I refer of course to Fenner Brockway)— complimented so rightly the most reverend Primate who delivered I thought one of the finest spiritual. messages that I have ever heard in this House.
What did he have to say? It was that he had heard from the clergymen of all denominations and that led to the declaration to the Council of Churches; the Roman Catholics said it; the Church of Scotland said it; and the Jewish community said it: "Please, we are getting reports of the utmost insecurity felt as a result of this Bill". The most reverend Primate said: "I ought to know, I am getting these reports from people engaged in race relations work. Please do something about at least telling the people of the provisions of this Bill and explaining it to them, because they feel insecure". He gave good reasons as to why they should feel insecure. Noble Lords opposite who queried the relevance as did the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, in his opening remarks-of the Scarman inquiry to this Bill ought to have listened to the most reverend Primate when he said in very clear terms that only last week seven clergymen from Brixton were asked to see the Home Secretary. They told him what were the anxieties that they found in the Brixton area. They all men- tioned this Bill as causing the utmost anxiety and feeling of insecurity.
I am not on the point of the racial content of the Bill. I am on the point that this measure is, if you like my Lords, misunderstood. Many of us feel that possibly it is rightly understood. Take it for granted that it is misunderstood. We are asked to pass a measure now amid all the difficulties of racial relation- ships in this country at the moment. We do all this before Scarman's recommendations, in spite of, as I said, what the seven clergy men from Brixton reported to the Home Secretary only last week. We are doing it with no public relations at all.
That brings me, as your Lordships may be relieved to know, to the Motion that stands in the name of my noble and learned friend Lord Elwyn-Jones. This is not meant and I ask your Lordships to take this seriously as a wrecking Motion. Whatever else may be before your Lordships tonight, this Motion is not a wrecking Motion. It cannot wreck the Bill if it is passed. It does not ask for the Bill to be deferred until the next Session. It does not say it has to be referred to the next Session. It is an expression of view that until there has been carried out the public
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relations exercise of explaining this measure to those who are so concerned about it and until Scarman has, had an opportunity or reporting, until all of us have had an opportunity of considering-with the dependent territories, it may be-all the Government have to do as a result of this Motion being passed is to have an expression of opinion before them of this House and to decide themselves what they ought to do with regard to the rest of the programming of this Bill.
It has not been a very good management exercise by the Government on programming so far, to have brought this matter before another place when they did and to have guillotined a Bill of this kind. It was described in a leader in The Times of 29th April in the following terms:
"The British Nationality Bill is the most complex and the most controversial piece of legislation in the current Session". A guillotine Motion on that; no reference to the new Standing Committee procedure so that evidence could, be taken and rushed through another place; so that even though there were, I have no doubt, 200 hours spent on it, vital clauses were not fully debated.
Let the rest of the programming of this Bill be done: against the background of a Motion that implores the Government to see to it that our ethnic minorities- and it may be Hong Kong, Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands and the rest of them-will have an opportunity of expressing their view and of knowing that when we pass constitutional measures of the importance of a nationality Bill, we have given them great consideration and have had the decency to consult those who are going to be affected. In that spirit I commend this Motion to your Lordships when it is moved; but as your Lordships know, in accordance with our tradition, the Opposition will not vote against a Second Reading of this Bill.
10.14 p.m.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, first I should like to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan. As the noble Lord is a former Minister at the Home Office, I am bound to admit to him that I feel myself to be rather in the position of a conjuror who is wel- coming someone who is in fact seeing behind his hand. Nevertheless my welcome to the noble Lord has no reservation. He made a most distinguished speech and throughout the rest of the day he has shown that he is a very good listener. The House very much enjoyed listening to the noble Lord this afternoon and I hope-indeed, with this Bill before us, I am sure that he will return to take part in our affairs again. very soon.
The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, has just made to your Lordships, typically, a most able speech. The noble Lord called in aid all the critics of the Bill, but he did not reveal what the Labour Party, for their part, would do about bringing our nationality law up to date. I say that, because we need nationality legisla- tion. We need it, because citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies has lost almost all its meaning. Those who are such citizens are rarely connected with a colony, many are not eligible to enter the United Kingdom and that is not good for race relations. We need a new law to cure old anomalies, of which, of course, the absence of the right of a woman to pass on her nationality is the most obvious; and we need
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