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[13 DECEMBER 1993)
introduced from the Conservative Benches. Surely with the support of so many Conservative Members during the debate of 15th July, and following the excellent speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Geddes and Lord Willoughby de Broke, the Government should take the idea of a flexible approach more seriously. It is for those reasons that I support the Bill.
9.31 p.m.
Lord Marlesford: My Lords, I suppose that there are a number of us on this side of the House, and the other side as well, wh.. believe that a strong and rigid immigration policy is desirable for this country. They believe it for the obvious reasons that immigration from other countries, especially countries where people are badly off, seldom helps those countries. They believe it also, because it does not always help us. It sometimes damages race relations in this country.
I start from the proposition that a strong immigration policy is desirable. It was first introduced some 30 years ago, I think, with much opposition from the then Opposition parties, but has subsequently in general become accepted by all parties in this country. Having said that. I believe that there are exceptions. So what are the circumstances in which there should be exceptions?
First, a need has to be shown. The debate in this House on 15th July, and elsewhere, has proved clearly that there is a need for these people to be given die right of sanctuary. We also have to be satisfied that we in this country have an obligation to these people. If we were in doubt this evening, we should have been persuaded by the words of the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Tillyorn, who described the particular obligations which exist in respect of this group of people. Were we to abandon them when we leave Hong Kong, that would, without doubt, be an act of dishonour which I should have thought we would all be reluctant to see as one of the last acts of decolonisation for this country. I should have thought that we would do much to avoid such an action.
The third criterion for making an exception is that it should not create a difficult-to-fulfil precedent of obligation. There has been no suggestion that to do what is asked for in the Bill would create such a precedent.
Sadly, I feel that we all have a pretty shrewd idea as to what my noble friend the Minister is likely to say at the end of the debate. He is likely to say that the Home Secretary has considered carefully what was said in the debate on 15th July; that he recognises the strength of feeling in the House and elsewhere; but that he has concluded that no new considerations have been advanced which would lead him to take a view different from the view which was taken when the whole marter was considered in 1990. Indeed, he may say that he sees no grounds for changing the Government's long- standing policy on this issue and therefore will not support the introduction of legislation.
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In a way the problem is iustrated by the fact that lie will be referring to his right honourable friend the Home Secretary. It was interesting that when the batting order for the debate was published we were offered as the chief Opposition spokesman the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone. That is understandable because it is seen by
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many of us to ve aij issue icidung su Tivng Kinę mn the relationship between Hong Kong and Britain. But of course it is a Home Office issue and that is why the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, will reply to the debate.
I believe that the issue should be decided by Ministers collectively. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has many admirable qualities. I am not sure that flexibility is one of them. He is a personal friend of mine and I admire him for much of what he stands for. But he is by instinct and by trade an advocate; to him winning his case is a great deal, if not everything. He will take a bad brief and make the best case for it. The worse the case the heavier the blinkers with which he enters the court room. We saw that and the disastrous results that followed in respect of the poll tax, when he led for the Government in arguing the case for it. I believe that flexibility in the design of the poll tax could well have enabled it to work. Indeed, it might have enabled the Prime Minister of the day to survive. I do not ask for a unanimous view about whether that would have been the outcome; I merely give it as the view of one who in those days was not part of the political frame but was a mere observer of politics.
To a lesser degree we saw it when the present Home Secretary. who was responsible for taking the legislation for water privatisation through the House of Temmons, was exuemely relucian to concede wnat was politically essential; that was the access to land owned by water undertakings which were to be privatised. Although the legislation came to this House before I became a Member, I believe that it was in this House that the Government were forced to change their minds on that issue too.
Of all the departments of state, the Home Office has the longest track record of putting forward bad cases for Ministers to argue. The Home Office, as I saw when I spent three-and-a-half years in Whitehall some 20 years ago, is a reactionary, indeed inward-looking---one might almost say constipated-department. There are few Home Secretaries who master it; for far more Ministers it is a political graveyard.
The issue which we are discussing tonight will not go away, nor should it. I support this Government; I want this Government to succeed. That is why I believe that this issue should once again be reconsidered by Ministers collectively but not with the Home Secretary in the chair.
9.40 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am sorry to disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, by not being my noble friend Lady Blackstone. Aithough my defects are so much greater than hers, I assure the noble Lord that my noble friend's views on this matter are the same as mine. To drag the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, into such an attack not just on the Goverment in guuvai bui un paüdü Cabinet requires quite some skill by the Government as regards the way in which they have misunderstood the political and moral climate of this country.
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The case for the Bill has been so convincingly made out that very little can be added to that. The noble Lord,
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