}
773
British Nationality Bill
27 OCTOBER 1981
Sir Bernard Braine (Essex, South-East): Like most hon. Members, I was shocked by the comments of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Edge Hill (Mr. Alton). Hong Kong is not in Europe, as is Gibraltar, neither is it part of the EEC. There is no possible argument that could be adduced along the lines the hon. Member advanced.
My comments will be brief because I know that some hon. Members who have played a notable role in bringing about this welcome change of heart by the Government wish to speak. I am glad that the Government are not seeking to reject the spirit of the Lords amendment, and that the people of Gibraltar will now be able to enjoy the right to apply individually to be registered as British citizens. That is a wise decision and I warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary on it. I am not surprised. I felt all along that he would see the justice of our argument. It is wise because Gibraltar was and is a unique case, especially since our entry into the EEC. How could one defend a situation where Gibraltarians were part of the EEC but were denied representation in the European Parliament?
It is wise, above all, because the decision takes into account the overwhelming wish of the people of Gibraltar to be regarded as British, if not in blood, certainly in spirit, culture and allegiance for a long time past. Certainly the overwhelming majority of people on the rock are not Spaniards. The origins of the people who settled there under the protection of the British Crown were anything but Spanish. They were Italian, Portuguese, Maltese, Moorish, Jewish and British. In short, the Government's decision is a recognition of the right of a people to proclaim their identity and, if they are denied sovereign independence, as the people of Gibraltar are under the treaty of Utrecht, to say where they want to belong.
However, I have one reservation. I am astonished that the Government have done nothing to meet the similar wishes of the Falkland Islanders, whose origins are wholly British and whose present insecurity is due entirely to the failures of successive Administrations to create the conditions that would ensure for them a viable economic future. It is, for example, a very sad commentary on the way in which British interests have been safeguarded in the Falklands that external communications, which are vital to the islanders, are now almost entirely dependent upon the Argentine.
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My correspondents in the Falkland Islands-I have letters from people there more or less weekly-tell me repeatedly that, despite all that has happened, they are determined to remain British. They reject the preposterous notion of lease-back, do not want to be part of the Argentine, and are now and wish to remain British.
I should like to quote from the last letter that I have received. It is from a lady in the Falkland Islands. She writes:
"We are told that if we refuse to co-operate with the Argentines we must take the consequences. Ridley said it on the stage at a public meeting, others in authority have said it since. No one says exactly what those consequences will be."
It is shameful that a people of wholly British stock--and I do not apologise for using that term-should have been put in this position of uncertainty. If the Argentine were a democracy, such as Australia or New Zealand, this situation would never have arisen, but it is not. It is a military dictatorship in which thousands of people in recent years have been arrested, have been
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imprisoned without trial. Many have been tortured. Several thousand of them-as the Liberal Party should know, if it is at all interested in human rights-have disappeared altogether.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Falkland Islands are not directly included in the amendment, therefore I think that the hon. Gentleman is out of order.
Sir Bernard Braine: Indeed, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you are right, but I have travelled down this road very largely because of the remarks of the hon. Member for Edge Hill. You did not call him to order, and he was calling in aid not just a remote group of islands in the South Atlantic but a vast range of territories, stretching from east to west and from north to south. I shall not pursue the matter save to say that in the Bill the Government have lost a great opportunity in not listening to this cry from the heart from our own people in the South Atlantic and in not giving them the same rights as we are now giving to the Gibraltarians.
The Falkland Islanders and the Gibraltarians have one other thing in common. They have played a notable part, particularly in this century, in the maritime defence of the people of these islands. They have made sacrifices for us. Where is the objection to giving the Falkland Islanders the right to British citizenship? There is none, save from those who have forgotten our history and come perilously near to forgetting our national honour.
Sir Paul Bryan (Howden): I sincerely congratulate Gibraltar on securing the amendment, but I must point out the effects of the amendment on other dependent territories. The House will not be surprised to hear that I have in mind Hong Kong, although the words I use will be a good deal more temporate than those we have heard from the Liberal Benches.
During the passage of the Bill through both Houses there have been frequent assurances of non-discrimination between the different dependent territories. For instance, the Home Secretary stated:
"I recognise the deeply held feelings in some of the territories concerned that the Bill should have given them more. It would, however, have been difficult to devise a scheme for separate citizenships for all the dependencies”-
and here I emphasise the Home Secretary's words— "and invidious to single some out from all the others. For that same reason, it would have been discriminatory to make some but not others British citizens."-[Official Report, 4 June 1981; Vol. 5, c. 1152.]
Similar sentiments have been expressed by other members of the Government when speaking on the Bill. Nevertheless, the Bill before us now includes a specific discrimination in favour of Gibraltar.
My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary also gave a special undertaking on 28 January in respect of the Falkland Islands, but I shall not go further in that direction for fear of being out of order. But here again we have an instance of specific assurances being given to one territory under one sort of pressure but not to others who may well feel that the pressure on them is just as great.
I assure the House that there is no ill-will for Gibraltar in Hong Kong, or any wish to remove from Gibraltarians what they have been given in the amendment. But after repeated assurances that Her Majesty's Government would oppose the amendment, the fact that it is now accepted, together with the principle of discrimination that it embodies, has obviously caused profound disillusionment in Hong Kong.
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