TNAG-1087-FCO40-1337-Implications-for-Hong-Kong-of-changes-in-the-British-nationa-1982 — Page 81

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British Nationality Bill

[Mr. Michael Shersby]

26 OCTOBER 1981

with great care. It is an interesting amendment because it discriminates between the citizens of the British dependent territory of Gibraltar on the one hand and the citizens of the other British dependent territories-the Falkland Islands, from which I have just returned, the Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie, and Oeno Islands, Hong Kong and a few others on the other.

All these matters concerning their Lordships' amendment on Gibraltar were discussed at length in the Commons Committee and on Report, thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, East. When we return to the matter tomorrow I do not think that any Member of this House will be able to claim that we have not gone over the arguments very carefully.

Mr. Albert McQuarrie (Aberdeenshire, East): My hon. Friend said that the amendment proposed by the Government was a reflection on the other dependent territories. However, does he not agree that the amendment that the Government have now introduced, which slightly changes the wording of the amendment passed by a considerable majority in the other place, states that the people of Gibraltar are United Kingdom nationals for Community purposes and that none of the other dependent territories that my hon. Friend mentioned are in any way connected with the European Communities or are ever likely to be? There is, therefore, a case for saying that Gibraltar should have special consideration. I am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has decided to accept, in a way, the Lords amendment—although he has slightly changed the wording. That amendment, which will be presented to the House tomorrow, will be greeted with joy in Gibraltar and I sincerely hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House will support the people who are more British than the British and who have remained so for many hundreds of years.

Mr. Shersby: While, like my hon. Frietid, I greatly admire the people of Gibraltar and wish them nothing but good will and look forward to their British citizenship, I cannot accept the claim that they are more British than the British. There is only one British dependent territory that has that claim the Falkland Islands. However, we shall debate that important matter when we consider the Lords amendment on the subject, for which my hon. Friend the Minister of State has provided adequate time during the remaining stages of the Bill.

I believe that we, as a Parliament, have had a long time to consider the details of the Bill. We have taken into account very fully all aspects of community relations. We regret that the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook was not present more often during the discussion on the Bill, but we have had the benefit of the divided views of the Labour Party, and the time has now come for us to deal promptly and with all due considerations with the Lords amendments. I look forward to that and hope to have the opportunity to speak further about the matters that exercise my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, East, as I am sure they exercise other hon. Members: I have pleasure in supporting the motion.

10.39 pm

Mr. J. Epoch Powell (Down, South): I opposed the original guillotine motion, believing that a measure of this

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constitutional importance should be dealt with by the House without restraint of time and that that was perfectly possible and could have been contrived by the Government if in the planning of this Session they had set out to do so. On the other hand, I believe that the step that is taken in the Bill, which constitutes for the first time a citizenship of this country parallel to the citizenship of other countries, is step that was necessary, and that this Bill, which although it has deficiencies--some of them serious—in the definition of that citizenship and in the entrenchment of that citizenship, should not be lost. I am sure that, this step having been taken, we shall not again divest ourselves of a separate, defined citizenship of this United Kingdom. If anyone listening to the remarks of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) was disposed to fear for the future fortunes of this Bill on the statute book, there is one consolation that I recommend to him. I remember sitting in this House and haring the then Leader of the Labour Party state that not only would the Commonwealth Immigration Bill of 1961 be opposed line by line and word by word but that it would be repealed by a Labour Government as soon as they had the opportunity when they came into office. Not only did that not happen, but shortly after coming into office that Labour Government were persuaded by the facts of the situation as they found them that it was right to intensify some of the controls which that Bill for the first time made possible by law in this country..

I do not state this a matter of reproach to the Labour Party or to the then Leader of the Labour Party but as an indication that, irrespective of what parties may say in Opposition, the realities of the life of the nation come to dominate them when they, in the course of time, enter upon responsibility. I do not believe that, there having been placed upon the statute book a citizenship of the United Kingdom, that citizenship wil be weakened or diluted by further legislation. I believe that, if there is to be further legislation, that citizenship will be more closely defined and more deeply entrenched.

10.41 pm

Mr. Ivor Stanbrook (Orpington): I agree that the motion is necessary and should be supported, because the progress of the Bill has been accompanied by a great deal of opposition, mostly ill-informed, and it is necessary that it should be passed and enacted in this Session.

There has been disgraceful opposition to the Bill as a whole. It has been mostly ill-informed. I do not say that it has been ill-informed on the part of the Opposition spokesmen. They think that they are doing their duty in, opposing the Government in their propositions, but these propositions resemble very closely those of the Labour Government that preceded this Government. It is, therefore, cause for surprise and concern that the present Opposition think that they have to oppose the Bill simply because they are now in Opposition.,

Much of the opposition to the Bill has been ill-informed and disgraceful in many respects on the part of many responsible people, including leaders of the Church, who ought to have known better and who ought to have read the Bill and reasoned it out for themselves. It is not a racist Bill or likely to be discriminatory in its effect on the ground of race. The opponents of the Bill should have welcomed it as an attempt to give an identity to the British people for perhaps the first time in our history.