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Dependent Territories
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9.34 am
Dependent Territories
House of Commons
Friday 15 April 1983
The House met at half-past Nine o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
Dependent Territories
15 APRIL 1983
Mr. Ivor Stanbrook (Orpington): I beg to move, That this House affirms its concern for the well-being and security of all Her Majesty's subjects resident in British dependent territories; assures them of its support for their economic and constitutional development; asserts the paramountcy of their interests in all matters affecting their future; expresses its determination to defend their territorial integrity by force if necessary; and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to consider proposals for a closer permanent association with the United Kingdom for all such territories as do not desire or are precluded from seeking independence on their own account.
The general subject of Britain's dependent territories is rarely debated by Parliament. It sometimes has to consider a crisis affecting a specific territory. When that happens the whole attention of the House is given to the problem of that one territory. In this way, the House has recently been concerned with the Falkland Islands, and hon. Members occasionally refer to Hong Kong and Gibraltar, but the rest of what used to be called our colonial empire has not been a subject of debate in the House for many years. I trust that the House will agree that a debate on the whole subject is timely.
Perhaps I may remind the House of what are officially regarded as our dependent territories. My hon. Friend the Minister of State informed me in a reply to a written question:
"The remaining British dependent territories are Anguilla, Bermuda, British Antarctic Territory, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, Falkland Islands Dependencies, Gibraltar, Hong Kong, Montserrat, Pitcairn Group of Islands, St. Helena and Dependencies (Ascension and Tristan da Cunha are dependencies of St. Helena), Turks and Caicos Islands."-[Official Report, 14 April 1983; Vol. 40, c. 443.]
I am especially pleased to have secured this debate because I was a member of the Colonial Administrative Service and served happily in Nigeria for 10 years in the capacity of a district officer before I had the good fortune to be elected to this place. I helped in a small way to prepare that great country for self-government and I believe that my colleagues and I in the Colonial Service contributed, also in a practical way, towards the improvement of the condition of the people for whom we were responsible. The Colonial Service the ad- ministrative, professional and technical staff, who served and continue to serve the Governments of our dependent territories has never had the credit that is due to it for the almost wholly peaceful transition from empire to self- governing Commonwealth. It provided the millions of
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people in our overseas territories with standards of skill and integrity which are sorely missed in most of our former colonies nowadays.
In this connection, it is a great pity that Sir Richard Attenborough's much-praised film gave a misleading impression of the quality of the Indian Civil Service during the period of British rule in India. The Indian Civil Service was not a part of the Colonial Service, but its members were similar and recruited in the same way. Its members were, on the whole, people of great intelligence and sound judgment, who were devoted to India. They left a legacy of honest and impartial government of which we can be proud. It is sad that a British film director should have given such a false and discreditable picture of his fellow countrymen.
Mr. Nigel Spearing (Newham, South): Without commenting further on those remarks, which are relevant to the film, does the hon. Gentleman agree that it was a great pity that the film did not show the activities, for example, of the Simon commission and especially the endeavours of Clement Attlee when he became Prime Minister, and the events in the House and in London generally surrounding the freedom of India, which was bestowed by a Government who were led by my party?
Mr. Stanbrook: I agree with the hon. Gentleman, except that the ideal of self-government for India was shared by many on both sides of the House. There were many attempts to provide self-government in a peaceful and acceptable climate in India, which unfortunately failed until the denouement, which some said was a tragedy anyway. In other words, I heartily accept what the hon. Gentleman has said.
The subject of our remaining dependent territories and their problems is vast. I propose to refer only to certain general aspects before commenting briefly on individual territories. As I am a lawyer by profession, the House will not be surprised if most of my points have a legal complexion.
All our dependent territories, from Hong Kong with its huge teeming population of over 5 million to the scattered uninhabited islands of the southern oceans, are covered by the terms of article 73 of the United Nations charter, which rightly asserts the paramountcy of the interests of the inhabitants. It should be noted that the charter does not denounce colonialism-we have nothing to be ashamed of in our record in this respect--or colonial status, but so long as any of our overseas territories retains that status, express or implied, we are vulnerable to attacks at the United Nations at the behest of covetous neighbours and political enemies.
The first article of the charter makes it clear that self- determination should be the guiding rule, but where self- determination means the preservation of colonial status, little notice is taken of article 1. So Latin American hostility to our presence in the Falkland Islands, which may have been sharpened by but did not originate with the recent armed conflict there, is founded on an obsession about colonialism which every Latin American state has nurtured since it rejected its own European sovereign.
So one of our first problems is how to evolve a relationship with those of our remaining dependancies which do not seek independence, or which are precluded by their small size or by international agreement from doing so. We should clearly assist a territory towards
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