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Hong Kong Bill
21 JANUARY 1985
in that process, and the influence of the people of Hong Kong in placing contracts, tendering and in general easing commercial relations with China for British business men will be enormous. That process will not be assisted by the attitude of the right hon. Member for South Down.
Two specific examples may illustrate the reason why the British are not privately as well thought of in Hong Kong as they might be. I am glad to see that my hon. and learned friend the Minister of State, Home Office is here. I have a Hong Kong business friend who happens to be a British citizen, as does his wife. He has a son who was born in Hong Kong and is, therefore a BDTC. No doubt he will soon become a BMO—which I hope will not be changed to "Beano". What will happen to that family? there is a second son who was born in the United Kingdom. He is also a British citizen. If anything happened, three members of the family would be entitled to come to the United Kingdom, and the fourth would not. My hon. and learned Friend will say that the Home Secretary has discretion in such cases. However, in 12 years' time the boy will have grown up. Can we be certain that the Home Secretary would use his discretion if the boy were no longer living at home? Such are the arguments that understandably consume conversation among those in Hong Kong who are not completely certain about their future.
My second example is close to home for the right hon. Member for South Down. One of the largest manufacturers of watches in Hong Kong wanted to set up a factory in Europe. He considered setting it up in the United Kingdom. No doubt he could have been persuaded to set it
up in Northern Ireland. However, he found that the rules and regulations surrounding coming to the United Kingdom, the bureaucratic way in which they were enforced and the amount of money that he had to show were such that it was incomparably easier for him to set up in the Republic of Ireland. A factory making watches and providing 60 jobs is now sitting outside Dublin, selling watches throughout Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom, when it could equally well have been set up in the right hon. Gentleman's constituency or in mine.
Mr. Budgen: Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Needham: No. My hon. Friend has not listened to the debate. He has already intervened once. I am delighted that he is here and is making such a useful contribution.
I had intended to call in aid the arguments of the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey). However, now that I have heard the right hon. Gentleman say that he is in favour of shooting both tigers and elephants, I am not sure that I should do so. Having also heard him refer to President Reagan as Senator Reagan on the very day of his second inauguration, I could only say to the hon. Gentleman were he here that if he had been in charge of the negotiations he would have given a completely new meaning to the phrase, "a bull in a china shop".
In the debate on 5 December the right hon. Gentleman said:
"However, many of those people have skills and energies that could contribute greatly to Britain's economy and social progress
We should not be indifferent to the contribution that Chinese people from Hong Kong can make, although we cannot issue any blank cheque to accept as many of them as might wish to come here at any one time.'
Later on the right hon. Gentleman said that
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we should be prepared to accept them, on a case by case basis. as the Americans have accepted hundreds of thousands of Asians from other western Pacific countries since the war."--[Official Report, 5 December 1984; Vol. 69, c. 401-4.]
We cannot compare ourselves with the United States, but we should do what we can to accept people who will come to this country, invest here and bring jobs. Why does a Hong Kong resident have to find £150,000 to come here, whereas in the case of the United States the amount is only £40,000? I am not sure. Furthermore, the cavilling by the right hon. Gentleman and others the implied assumption that large numbers of people will want to come here is degrading to the people of Hong Kong and also gives other countries the impression that they, too, may suffer a massive influx unless they take similar action.
The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber mentioned a friend of his who tried to go to Mexico but suddenly found that a visa was required. There are many other stories of people living in Hong Kong who are obliged to get visas to visit countries which have never required them before. One can understand the frustration of members of a nation based upon trade and commerce, who want to move around the world, when the behaviour of certain sections of British society denies them the ability to do so.
I
For practical, commercial, political and moral reasons we should support what the Government are trying to do. accept that the legislation is not legally or jurisprudentially-if there is such a word-as neat and tidy as it might be. However, it is overwhelmingly right that we should do what we can for the people of Hong Kong. I welcome the fact that they will be called British nationals.
8.18 pm
Mr. Ivor Stanbrook (Orpington): I apologise for my absence during the earlier part of the speech by my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary.
I support the main principle behind the Bill, but I strongly object to the way in which the Government propose to introduce alterations to our nationality law. My hon. Friend the Member for Wiltshire, North (Mr. Needham) devoted most of his speech to an argument in favour of a more liberal immigration policy. The Bill contains many more problems than are to be found in immigration policy alone. One of those problems is the way in which the Government are proposing to amend an important body of law which we eventually managed to codify after much delay, thought and consideration quite recently. Britain had no proper system of nationality law until 1948. It was previously supposed that everyone who was born in the United Kingdom or its territories was a British subject. Only when certain of our colonies achieved independence, whereupon they had dominion status, did it seem necessary to distinguish their nationality from ours. We evolved the notion that each Commonwealth country, on attaining independence, had its own citizenship. We all had British subject status, but for the United Kingdom and colonies there was citizenship of the United Kingdom and colonies. That appeared to cover the problem satisfactorily, apart from the fact that nearly 1 billion people around the world were entitled to the status of British subject until 1981, when we finally ed the problem and said that only people with a connection with the United Kingdom were entitled to British citizenship.
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