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26 OCTOBER 1981
British Nationality Bill
Mr. Hattersley: The hon. Gentleman's comment on His Grace's speech will go down for posterity.
I share the view that the Bill was complicated and bad at the outset and remains so. The damage done to community relations is compounded by the way that the Government have dealt with the Bill in this House. Tonight's supplementary motion is another step along that path. The Government have created the impression, intensified by this motion and the timetable motion, that the Bill is needed to meet desperate
emergencies--immigration, the presence of descendants of immigrants and the occasional application for relatives to visit or join immigrants here.
The emphasis on speed rather than careful deliberation heightens the belief that it is an immigration Bill by a different name. It encourages those who believe that ethnic minorities are a liability, it deepens apprehension among ethnic minorities, and it does little to assuage the feelings on the Government Back Benches, where it is still believed that the steps in the Bill are inadequate to control and prohibit immigration.
I shall not deal at length with the amendments that we shall discuss tomorrow. However, I understand from the Minister of State's speech that there is one issue of absolute contention between the parties-Lords amend- ment No. 61. A similar modified amendment was carried in Committee. The amendment could dispel much of the doubt, apprehension and fear among minority com- munities and help to establish beyond doubt that the Government propose that the Bill should be applied without bias because of the race or ethnic origin of the individual.
Mr. Stanbrook: It is meaningless.
Mr. Hattersley: It would place an important obligation on the Government to ensure that ethnic minorities feel and believe that they propose to treat them in an even- handed way. Were the amendment incorporated in the Bill it would do an enormous amount to allay the fears of members of the immigrant communities, their children and grandchildren.
I ask only for the absolute assurance inherent in the motion that, if the Government are not prepared to accept the amendment, at least there will be adequate time for it to be debated. That is the minimum requirement. In one day we are to discuss 90 amendments that have been moved and carried in the House of Lords. The Minister of State does not need me to tell him that in the brief period allotted he cannot adequately describe the meaning of each amendment, let alone hear criticisms and opinions related to it.
I end as I began. I understand very well why the Government move the motion. Had they not done so, I do not believe that they would have got the Bill through. They want the Bill. I regret the fact that, thanks to the motion, it is likely to pass into law. However, it must and will be repealed and replaced by a less racist measure.
10.29 pm
Mr. Michael Shersby (Uxbridge): The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) said that in his view it was the duty of the Opposition to kill or maim the Bill. That is a perfectly reasonable attitude for an Opposition to take. He prefaced his remarks by
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describing the situation with which we are faced tonight and explained that he well understood why the Government had tabled the motion.
I was a member of the Standing Committee which considered the Bill from 12 March to 14 May this year. For that considerable period, in which the Committee sat until a very late hour on many occasions, we discussed the amendments tabled by the Opposition and indeed by Conservative Members in great detail. We now move on to the important stage of considering the amendments proposed by their Lordships. As the right hon. Gentleman fairly pointed out, we are reaching the end of this Session of Parliament and we have to consider the Lords amendments in the time available to us. I therefore share with him at least the parliamentary understanding whereby the Government of the day have to try to obtain a Bill, with discussion so far as is possible, within the time available.
I take issue with the right hon. Gentleman, however, on the question of community relations. I believe that there has been entirely adequate opportunity during the passage of the Billin Committee, on Report and on Third Reading, and indeed outside the House-for important matters concerning community relations to be discussed in great detail. I do not believe that the Bill has been unduly hurried through Parliament. There has been so much opportunity for discussion, for the Committee and the House as a whole to clarify the situation, that it is now time that Parliament decided to get on with the job and to pass the Bill. The Government were given a very considerable mandate for the Bill. When I stood for election in May 1979, I made it absolutely clear to my electorate that I stood for reform of the out-dated British nationality laws. I do not think that my constituents in Uxbridge are in any doubt whatever that there is a need to reform the outdated citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies existing under the 1948 Act.
My recollection of the remarks of the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook today does not quite tally with my recollection of his attendance at the Committee. As I recall it, he was not present during many hours of the Committee sittings and left discussion of the Opposition amendments to his hon. Friend the Member for Lambeth, Central (Mr. Tilley), who bore the main burden of handling the Opposition's divided views on the Bill. It therefore does not lie in the mouth of the right hon. Member to talk about lack of time to discuss the Bill when he was frequently absent from the Committee for long periods, as is on record at, a number of points in the Committee proceedings.
It was not only the views of the hon. Member for Lambeth, Central to which the Committee listened with great interest. The hon. Member for Preston, South (Mr. Thorne) gave us the views of his section of the Labour Party, and the hon. Member for York (Mr. Lyon) again had different views to express. We thus had the tremendous benefit of a great variety of different and divided views from the Labour Party throughout the long sittings of the lengthy Committee stage in the House of Commons. We now move on to the very important amendments proposed by their Lordships.
One of the amendments concerns the position of the British citizens of the British dependent territory of Gibraltar. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. McQuarrie) was one of the architects of that amendment, which failed in the Commons but which was passed in another place, and we shall have to consider it
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