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Dependent Territories
15 APRIL 1983
rritories which conforms with the liberties and ideals to hich we all subscribe. We should have the same confidence.
The prospect of independence for Gibraltar should not be rejected out of hand. I endorse the sentiments in the preamble to the Order in Council that accompanied the referendum in Gibraltar, in which over 12,000 people voted to retain the British connection and 44 voted for the Spanish connection. It is important to put those figures on the record. The preamble said:
"Gibraltar will remain part of Her Majesty's Dominions unless or until an Act of Parliament otherwise provides, and furthermore that her Majesty's Government will never enter into arrangements under which the people of Gibraltar would pass under the sovereignty of any other state against their freely and democratically expressed wishes."
What a superb, clear and unequivocal statement. I hope that the Spaniards and anyone else who thinks that we will negotiate away the rights of the people of Gibraltar will be reminded of that preamble time and again. We must negotiate on the basis of an utter determination to respect the wishes of the people of Gibraltar.
However, if Gibraltar's independence within the European Community could become a sensible possibility, given the legal restraints of the Treaty of Utrecht, the people of the island would have rights as members of the Community, alongside Spain. That solution would be less of an affront to Spain than what it sees as the permanent colonial occupation of part of mainland Spain. As long as we do not undermine our absolute commitment to the people of Gibraltar, that possible solution should not be ruled out of court.
I regret the token strike by the workers at the Gibraltar dockyard, but their action was restrained and understand- able. Speaking parochially, with the Chatham dockyard in mind, I think that we impose a tremendous strain on dockyard workers. We demanded tremendous sacrifices and great work from them in support of the Falklands Islands task force. We expected them to make superhuman efforts to deliver the goods on time, which they did, and then we told them that the dockyards were to be closed. I regret the closures of the Gibraltar and Chatham dockyards.
I greatly admire the patriotism and determination of the people of Gibraltar and I am deeply sorry that it has been decided to close the dockyard there. I wish that we could have kept it open, not only because that would help Gibraltar's economy, but because I believe that the closure will be a false economy and, for defence reasons, we shall need that dockyard and the nuclear refitting facilities at Chatham.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) on introducing an important debate. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, will respond in like manner to the motion, which sets out clearly this country's resolve and self-confidence in dealing with our remaining dependent territories.
12.43 pm
Mr. Ivan Lawrence (Burton): I hope that the fact that I have risen to speak will not alarm the few hon. Members still in the Chamber. I do not intend to speak for more than a few minutes.
I compliment my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) not only on initiating an important debate, but on the terms of his motion. He has
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done the House a great service. It is sad that the House has become more of a legislative machine and less of the sounding board of the nation that it ought to be. It is also unfortunate that on Fridays, when such important issues are discussed, many hon. Members return to their constituencies and are unable to hear the sort of excellent speeches that I have been privileged to listen to in this debate.
The impressionn could be given by the attendance here today that the House does not care about the dependencies. It would be a false impression, just as it would be a false impression to accept the criticisms of the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) on the Falkland Islands campaign as though the sheer quantity of the words that he has spoken on this issue in some way reflected the feelings of the House-it does not. It is much sound and fury which signifies but a small view in the House.
When Dean Acheson said that this country had
"lost an Empire and has not yet found a role"
it was never true that we had lost an empire in the sense that somebody had taken it away from us. We had recognised that a wind of change had blown through the world and that people had a right to self-determination and independence, whether they wanted that to be democratic- ally based or not. Therefore, we surrendered our empire with all its many achievements and its great history because it was the right and proper thing to do. Ever to have categorised that as some act of seizure of a series of possessions that we did not want to give up was a grotesque distortion of the contribution that Britain had made to the world.
As for the second part of Dean Acheson's aphorism, when he spoke we had not yet found a role, but I hope that we have now. That role is in Europe and is a major one in the world. We never lost the role that we had always adopted towards our dependencies. That is why the motion is so important. It provides us with an opportunity for reasserting our utter and complete commitment to our responsibilities. It is an astonishing thing in this world that there are countries all over the globe that simply do not want to surrender their connection with Great Britain but want almost from time to time causing us embarrassment by the intensity of their wish-to remain part of Britain, and not only to be defended by Britain but have their interest represented by Britain.
I have a great deal of sympathy with the proposal made by my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington that .somehow we should reflect in the Parliament of Great Britain those countries as representatives. I do not think that it is particularly helpful, because it is not likely to be accepted, to suggest that the dependencies should send elected representatives to the House of Commons. The example of France is not one that we can readily follow. However, some positive demonstration that these dependencies can expect to send representatives, possibly elected, to the House of Lords where their views can be expressed and considered in the interests of those dependencies is well worth considering.
We are not so concerned with maintaining our control, because it does not necessarily follow that if there were elected Members of Parliament we should have control. It is important, however, that we should inject a confidence- building factor so that the dependencies throughout the world should know that Britain not only mouths words of concern, and from time to time manifests its intense concern by being prepared to send an armed force 8,000
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