G
364
14 June 1989]
[Mr Rowlands Contd]
MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE
RT HON SIR GEOFFREY HOWE, QC, MP, MR R McLaren and Mr A Paul
be triggered off if a state of turmoil or martial law is declared in Hong Kong? In other words, if you can grant a right it is a sort of insurance but not one they can automatically claim at any time during the process?
(Sir Geoffrey Howe) I see the point you are mak- ing, but I do not think one wants to rely or can or should go beynd an understanding of what is the present state of affairs, because it is easy enough to talk about the theoretical situation that would arise in the event of cataclism and to discuss the responses and the responsibilities that might then be exercised. But one has only to see just how extremely difficult it is to turn that into practice in cases we already have before us to underline the un-wisdom of trying to give greater precision to the proposition than has already been given. I mean, do the people who have qualified for refugee status in the terms of boat people in Hong Kong have an incohate right or not? They have in fact. Those who achieved refugee status have got a Sheng cobate right but not many of them will be greatly comforted or encouraged by that. It is not a laugh- ing matter, it is a matter of great human serious- ness. That is why I cannot be drawn in to articula- ting further than I have.
Chairman: I am afraid we are going to have to leave this general point and come to the more specific suggestions that have been made, not so much to meet catastrophe but to meet the general uncertainty.
Mr Temple-Morris
997. Pulling back from what one could call the Doomsday scenario, political refugee status, and so on, and going on now to what the Government means by or what is in its mind when it instructed experts to look at this question of flexibility. Before I put the question and indeed lead on to one or two categories, I should remind the Foreign Secretary of what he said to us before and has said recently about this to set the scene, when in answer to our Chairman looking for a middle way or a way of getting away from the three point to eight million; when our Chairman asked about flexibility, using that very word on 22 March, the answer came back and I quote the Foreign Secretary “I think one has to recognise the difficulty of trying to identify any different resting point." By resting point, which is extremely vague terminology, I take that to mean the Nationality Act 1981 position and anything that might happen legitimately under it. The Foreign Secretary goes on to repeat himself later on. "It is extremely difficult to identify any legislat- ive change that would identify a resting point different from where we start." The Foreign Sec- retary again repeats the same point. Last week in the House the Foreign Secretary introduced the phrase which he had been asked about by our Chairman then, flexibility. But when I myself I think it was asked him how flexible is flexible, he was charmingly uncommunitative on the subject. The Prime Minister last Thursday went further down the line by talking about the urgency of the situation, the need for research as it were to be
[Continued
done into it by experts, the need for greater flexi- bility; and she also added the significant point that if further powers were needed, we would have to come back to this House. So if I may, Foreign Secretary, repeat the question, how flexible is flex- ible and what is the current thinking on it?
(Sir Geoffrey Howe) I think the question remains as difficult as when I first addressed it. If I addressed it to you personally the second time less courteously, I am sorry about that. But it is exceed- ingly difficult to try and define, as I said initially, a resting place. That is why we at this stage can do no more than say we are looking as urgently as we can at the possibility of achieving some defined categories which can sensibly be treated differently from the rest.
998. Because you would agree that the Government's position from what you have said, the line of quotes that I just gave in your evidence to us and in the House and what the Prime Minister happened in Peking the Government's intentions has said, it is quite clear as a result of what has
and to a certain extent actions have changed, have they not? I mean now rather than our Chairman talking about flexibility you, Foreign Secretary, are talking about flexibility; and the genius of the Home Office as we have heard has been unleashed to see whether categories can be identified. The significance is your position has changed, has it not?
(Sir Geoffrey Howe) Clearly, that which was put to me as a question by the Committee the last time I was here which I addressed with circumpection, we are now looking at more closely in order to see if we can find an answer. What we have not yet been able to achieve is a definition.
999. I do not mean in any way to be rude. Your talent for circumspection is still very much there, it seems to me, in your answers to these questions. I just want to take you on to one or two specific categories. I mean the obvious one which we have dealt with before and asked you about is of course Crown servants who would be right in the front line it seems to many of us from any benefit from a more flexible policy. How do you see them and how do you see the operation of Section 4(5) of the Nationality Act as part of the same question?
(Sir Geoffrey Howe) The other proposition is the extent to which some of those who are advocating more fundamental changes themselves reject any of the flexible alternatives. From the other end of the telescope they say you can find an immediate resting point. That does not mean we should not try. As for the example you have given, Crown servants, plainly we are all aware of the sometimes crucial importance of people like that in maintai- ning a smooth administration in a situation like Hong Kong. That is one of the reasons, indeed, why Section 4(5) of the British Nationality Act is there. I think Mr Renton told the Committee that clearly there is room for an improvement in the ratio of applications. That is an area that therefore deserves further examination.
Thani
inn.i myself
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