1643
British Nationality (Hong Kong, Bill
19 APRIL 1990
British Nationality (Hong Kong) Bill
1644
1
scheme that divides employees in both the private and public sectors into selected and rejected will make the colony harder. not easier to run.
I cannot understand the Home Secretary's argument that the 96 per cent. of the Hong Kong population who will not qualify will somehow gain confidence from the knowledge that 4 per cent. of their wealthier and more influential compatriots are to be passengers on Waddington's ark.
No doubt it is that adverse reaction among alleged beneficiaries that led the Minister of State. Foreign and Commoneath Office. the hon. Member for Warwickshire. North (Mr. Maude) to indulge in Hong Kong last week in his comedy performance, when he went around blithely promising Hong Kong residents passports from West Germany. Belgium. Canada. Australia. France. Luxembourg and numerous other countries, amounting to 50.000 passports in all. All the countries concerned instantly repudiated what the Minister of State had said. For example, the West German Government stated with some perplexity that the Minister of State's statement was "a strange thing". More curtly they describe it as nonsense. No wonder the Minister of State gave journalists a telling off for what he called
interpreting the syntax in an excessively fastidious way."
It seems inat the Minister of State picked up his strange :deas from reading newspapers-a method of acquiring information that the Prime Minister would certainly not recommend. We are toid that the Foreign Secretary will deal with that subject when he replies tonight. I hope that any information that he has for the House is more firmly based. The fact is that the Government's policy has been an inconsistent mess.
Hon. Members: What is your policy?
Mr. Couchman rose-
Mr. Ian Bruce rosc-
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Kaufman: I give way to the hon. Member for Dorset (Mr. Bruce).
Mr. Bruce: Whether it is true or not, the people of Hong Kong believe that the Labour party would take away the right of abode in the United Kingdom from people for whom that was included in their passports. It would be helpful if the right hon. Gentleman could state whether that would be Labour policy.
Mr. Kaufman: That is a useful intervention and I shall certainly respond to it. [HoN. MEMBERS: "When?"] Now at this moment. When the Foreign Secretary made his statement about the scheme on 20 December. I said:
"If the scheme is embodied in an Act, a Labour Government. on coming to office, will examine how far it has gone and how it has worked A Labour Goverment will not be bound to continue it".—{Official Report, 20 December 1989: Vol. 164. c. 366.]
By that we mean, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham. Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) repeated earlier. that we shall of course observe the law as passed by Parliament. but as the Bill expressly provides for alterations to the scheme of allocation, I am sure that the Government would not abdicate the right to alter the scheme, and neither shall we. That is our position.
Mr. Marlow: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
837 CD31 46 Job 12-11
Mr. Kaufman: No I shall not give way to the hon. Gentleman: I am afraid that he is rising to be helpful. which I should much prefer him not to be.
On the one hand, the Foreign and Commonweath Secretary offends the Chinese by the passport scheme, but in every other way the Government cosy up to them and bend the knee to them.
When. immediately after the Tiananmen square massacre. I urged the present Leader of the House. then the Foreign Secretary, to cut off Government funding for a trade mission that was soon to go to China. the right hon. and learned Gentleman called in aid
"the advancement of the cause of respect for human rights in China-[Official Report, 12 July 1989; Vol. 156, c. 967]. as justification for the Department of Trade and Industry financing a mission that was planned to meet the man who gave the orders for the massacre.
Then, in September. I revealed the breach of the Government's own arms embargo on China with the sale of head-up displays and radar equipment for use with Mig fighter planes. We all know that, a couple of weeks ago, the Prime Minister slipped out of Downing street to attend a private dinner with the Chinese ambassador at his embassy. What signal was that cosy social occasion meant to send to the people of Hong Kong?
The Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have long been determined to "converge"-to use the fashionable word-with China at all costs. The most unforgivable seil-out has been on progress in establishing democracy in Hong Kong. I state clearly that, in the past, Governments of both parties have had a sorry record on this issue. My hon. Friends the Members for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden) and for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing), as well as the right hon. Member for Brent, North (Sir R. Boyson) were right about that. Both parties have failed to give Hong Kong citizens the right directly to elect their Legislative Council. I readily acknowledge the culpability of past Labour Governments on that matter.
However, with the signing of the joint declaration in 1984. a new opportunity arose for direct democracy in the colony. We in the Labour party joined representatives from Hong Kong in urging the holding of elections. The present Leader of the House brushed aside our plea for elections to begin in 1988 and eventually announced that only 10 Members-18 per cent.-of the Legislative Council would be elected in 1991.
After the Tiananmen square massacre. we urged the Government to give confidence to the people of Hong Kong by speedily increasing the number of Legislative Council Members who were to be elected. When, in June last year, the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs recommended that 50 per cent. of the Legislative Council should be directly elected in 1991 and 100 per cent. in 1995, on behalf of the Labour party I gave immediate support to that recommendation.
When representatives of OMELCO came to Britain this January and called for one third of the Legislative Council to be elected in 1991, 50 per cent. in 1995 and 100 per cent. in 2003, we supported their case, although it was a retreat from our position and that of the Select Committee. Indeed. the present Leader of the House, when speaking to the House last June seemed to favour OMELCO's 2003 target for 100 per cent. direct elections. [HON. Members: "What about the policy?"] We shall come to the policy.
When, after eight months of procrastination. the present Foreign Secretary announced the Government's
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