1641
British Nationality (Hong Kong) Bill
19 APRIL 1990
[Mr. Kaufman]
42,000, in 1988 the number emigrating was 3,600 higher, at 45,800. I do not seek to minimise the understandable apprehension caused in Hong Kong by the massacre but it was always inevitable-even without such horrific events -that there would be substantial emigration as 1997 approached. The Bill will not stem that emigration; it will give it added impetus.
Mr. Roger Sims (Chislehurst): The right hon. Gentleman seems to be suggesting that people who obtain passports will come here as quickly as they can. Is he aware that. since last July, the Singapore Government have accepted applications from 17,000 heads of household in Hong Kong, of whom 600—just 3.5 per cent.-have taken up passports? Is it not likely that the same would occur here?
Mr. Kaufman: The fact is that China will not take over Hong Kong until July 1997. so there will be a considerable period during which passports will be available after the Bill is passed. All the indications are that the impetus will be there for those who are awarded the passports to use them for travel while the Chinese Government will not prevent them from doing so.
Mr. Budgen: Will the night hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Kaufman: I shail give way to the hon. Gentleman. but after that I hope that the House will forgive me if I impose a moratorium on interventions.
Mr. Budgen: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will deal with the Opposition's important motion proposing that the Bill should be committed to a Committee of the whole House if it gets its Second Reading. He will reflect that the House recently spent four days debating the Budget, which is likely to be a matter of transitory interest within two or three months. The Bill will affect the whole country for a generation. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will do his best to persuade as many right hon. and hon. Members as possible that it would be a grave abuse of Parliament were the Bill merely pushed upstairs into a Standing Committee.
Mr. Kaufman: This is a constitutional Bill dealing with nationality, and I should have thought that the Government would volunteer to have it dealt with by a Committee of the whole House. The Government not having done that. I am surprised that the Liberal Democrats-the Liberal party was once 1 great constitutional party-should be voting with them to smother debate on the Bill.
There are some Conservative Members who seek to use the possible arrival in Britain of those holding passports under the Bill to provoke a racist scare. Any debate on Tory manifesto pledges on immigration must be a matter for disputation on the Conservative Benches; it is no concern of ours. The Opposition are concerned about the serious and unfair distortion of immigration policy that the Bill will bring about.
It is no good saying that the Bill does not have an immigration policy aspect. Let me tell the House about my constituent. Koon Tai Chan, a Hong Kong Chinese about whom I have received a letter from the Manchester law centre only this week. He is the brother of a British citizen, the husband of a British citizen and the father of a baby
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British Nationality (Hong Kong) Bill
born here. He is at present subject to a deportation order. Unless the Home Secretary relents, which so far he shows no sign of doing, Koon Tai Chan will soon be permanently separated from his wife and child and sent back to Hong Kong. The only way in which his British family can stay united with their husband and father is to accompany him to Hong Kong-a place whose future the Government regard as so precarious that they propose to provide a lifebelt under the Bill for 225.000 of the colony's most influential and affluent citizens.
Koon Tai Chan is not essential to Hong Kong's business life or administration: he is simply a cook. The Home Secretary would no doubt add that, as an overstayer under the terms of the Immigration Act, he is what the Home Office calls a "bad case". To me. Koon Tai Chan. with a British wife and a child in my constituency, is a better "case" than all those who will receive passports under the Bill, and there is no way that I propose to agree to the passage of a statute that will perpetuate-indeed. make far worse-the heartless injustices of the Government's immigration policies.
Such injustices apply to citizens and residents of this country originating not only from Hong Kong, but from the Indian sub-continent and from other areas as well. Those who will get passports under the Bill will not have to submit to DNA testing. to humiliating medical examinations or to the primary purpose rule. They will not be subjected to offensive questioning of the kind that I heard in the immigration department of the British high commission in New Delhi last week. A man who wanted to come here for a short visit to attend a wedding was subjected to a catechism that included inquiries about how many acres of land he rented and what the annual return was on that land.
The people who receive passports under this Bill will not have to wait hours in a hut for an interview, as did an Indian university professor last week at the New Delhi high commission. Under this Bill, if he was a Hong Kong Chinese, he would probably get enough points to qualify for a British passport. However, as an Indian, he had to wait for hours simply to plead for a tourist visa.
In any case, the Bill is not even increasing confidence among its prospective beneficiaries. While awaiting publication of the Bill. Dame Lydia Dunn of OMELCO stated on 4 July last year that the creation of categories would be divisive and difficult to defend. She said that the creation of such categories would make it more difficult to govern Hong Kong. I am baffled as to why she has gone back on a series of such statements.
Many of her fellow residents of Hong Kong continue to be uninspired by the Bill. A trade union leader. Lee Chuk-Yan, said:
"It gives one more choice to people who already have lots of choices. It gives nothing to those who have no choice." An opinion poll in Hong Kong a few weeks ago showed that 90 per cent. of executives. professionals and entrepreneurs-the people whom this scheme is designed to impress-doubt whether the package will achieve its objective. while 86 per cent. of younger Hong Kong residents regard the passport plan as irrelevant.
Rev. Lo Long-Kwong who leads a group called “Hong Kong People Saving Hong Kong" said of the Bill:
"It is unbalanced and people who do not fall within these categories will feel deserted and unimportant. This does not help the whole society to face the confidence crisis."
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