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British Nationality Bill
26 OCTOBER 1981
causing alarm and despondency in the immigrant community about the contents of the Bill. I am happy to say that the members of that community have not been misled and that they hold in contempt those who have been trying to deceive them in this way.
There is nothing in the Bill that is racially motivated. There is nothing in the Bill that discriminates against the ethnic minorities. There is nothing in the Bill that will in any way permit the devious goings on alleged by the right hon. Member for
for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley). I support the Bill, and I hope that the House will support the Government's motion.
11.2 pm
Mr. John Tilley (Lambeth, Central): In many ways, this debate shows how inappropriate is the parliamentary convention of describing a motion of this kind as a guillotine. Even at the height of the terror, no one was guillotined twice, which is what has happened to the debates in this House on this Bill. It is clear from this debate, as it was from the last occasion on which we debated a guillotine motion, that it is a gag to stop further discussion of the Bill.
In trying to justify the motion, Government supporters have shown considerable inconsistency in the last few minutes. For example, after complaining in what I thought was fairly clear code language that the Bill was not sufficiently racist and that further racist measures were wanted from the Government, the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) went on to say that of course the Bill was not racially motivated. I found that difficult to understand.
I do not suggest that the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) shares the views of the hon. Member for Northampton, North, but even he, after throwing me a bouquet of what I thought was rather sharp barbed wire, said that it was so important to discuss the Falkland islanders and the way that their problems and those of the other remaining colonies related to the Gibraltar amendment that he intended to support the guillotine. However, the motion makes it clear that the debates about Gibraltar and the Falkland islands come right at the end of the first slice of amendments that we are to discuss and that, if the hon. Gentleman supports the motion, he will almost guarantee that we are unable to have the full debate that he is concerned to have.
Sir Derek Walker-Smith (Hertfordshire, East): The hon. Gentleman started by denouncing the principle of double guillotining as it it was applied to the Bill. Is he not aware that the precedent for double guillotining was created in the Attlee Administration in 1947 in the double guillotining for the first time in parliamentary history of two major measures in that Parliament-the then Transport Bill and the then Town and Country Planning、 Bill?
Mr. Tilley: I was not aware of that, I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman. [Interruption.] The distinction being muttered behind me that they were not constitutional Bills is fair, but I shall not be diverted from my remarks.
The contribution of the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) contained a strange inconsistency. The hon. Gentleman said that while the Labour Opposition had acted reponsibly, Church leaders, who ought to know
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better, should have read the Bill. Yet, as he rightly pointed out, we came to the same conclusion. Why does he believe that we reached that conclusion after reading the Bill while Church leaders, through some presumed guidance from above rather than from along the corridor, came to the same conclusion without reading it?
I would only say to the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) that we believe that the realities of the life of the nation, to use his phrase, are different and will be different. Our proposals not only to repeal but to replace large parts of the Bill are intended not to weaken British citizenship but to strengthen it and to make it one that all British people can be proud of. The details have been passed by the Labour Party conference, we are not talking about wild or unsubstantiated promises. The details, at the price of 20p, are available from Labour Party headquarters.
Our reason for opposing the guillotine motion is that the Government are trying to cut short what has been a long and embarrassing debate for them throughout the 10 months that we have been fighting the Bill here and in another place. During that time, the churches, the ethnic minorities and those concerned with civil liberties have coine round to our view. They know that the result of the Bill is at best confusion and at worst fear and anger about the future, particularly of black and brown people who live in this country.
The North Islington Law Centre undertook a campaign of leaflets, discussions and advice centres. Its conclusion was that
"despite numerous Government 'assurances' to the contrary, most immigrant communities, even those which include people settled here for decades, see the Nationality Bill and its possible implications as a major threat to their continued security in this country. However much the Government may justify the Bill as a legalistic tidying up exercise' its overall effect has been to induce further fear and hostility among people who already suffer discrimination and hostility, official and otherwise, as part of their daily lives."
The Opposition still believe after long debate that the Bill is racialist in effect. I wish to consider the groups that the badly affected. Once the Bill is law, hundreds of children will be born stateless in Britain every year. The best estimates show that the majority will be those of black and brown parents who are students or work permit holders. Seventy per cent. will be black or brown.
Secondly, the husbands of British women who were not born here will not be able to get British nationality because the immigration rules already keep them out so that they cannot begin to get the three-year residence qualification needed for naturalisation under the Bill. About 80 per cent. of this group are black or brown.
The law takes away the right to register as British citizens tens of thousands of Commonwealth citizens who originally came, particularly from India, Pakistan or the West Indies. I would estimate that 95 per cent. of those people are black or brown-skinned.
Finally, there are the 20,000 East African Asians already accepted here for settlement and living in the United Kingdom who will become British overseas citizens only when the new law comes in with no nationality right. They are 100 per cent. black.
The Government cannot escape, even now, the accusation that the Bill was racialist in conception and that it is still racially discriminatory against many individuals in many parts of the world particularly the groups I have mentioned. We know that the Government fear that, if this
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