House Of Commons
Thursday, 16th November, 1961
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
Prayers
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
Oral Answers To Questions
Basutoland
Mr Ganyile, Mr Botofo And Mr Majola
1.
asked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations what has been the result of his inquiries into the kidnapping from Basutoland of Mr. A. K. Ganyile, a British protected person, a leader of the African Congress Youth League, and two colleagues by six South African political police.
5.
asked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations whether he will now make a statement on the kidnapping by police from the Union of South Africa of Mr. Anderson Ganyile and two others on 26th August whilst they were within the British territory of Basutoland.
12.
asked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations whether he will now make a statement on the abduction from Basutoland of Mr. Anderson Khumari Ganyile, Mr. Paul Botofo and Mr. Majola by agents of the South African police on 26th August.
Inquiries into allegations of kidnapping are still in progress. Her Majesty's Ambassador has asked the South African Government for information on this matter and their reply is awaited. Mr. Anderson Ganyile's uncle has applied to the South African Supreme Court for a writ of habeas corpus. The application was heard on 13th October and judgment was reserved. In these circumstances, there is no comment I can properly make on what is said to have occurred.
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this alleged incident took place as far back as 26th August? Does he remember that he received a deputation consisting of a number of us on 29th September and that we were then very impressed by the urgency and seriousness with which the hon. Gentleman dealt with the subject? But is he now aware of very disturbing evidence in South Africa of inactivity upon this matter? In particular, may I point out to the hon. Gentleman that he gave us a promise that blankets on which there were bloodstains in the huts of these men would go to the Institute of Medical Research? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that on 5th October the Institute said that the blankets had not been received, and will he speed up activity in this matter?
The allegation which the hon. Member has just made is quite untrue. The blanket was sent to the Institute for analysis, and this was stated in a Press release issued on 7th October from the High Commissioner's Office. A report has just been received in regard to the analysis, and this is now being studied.
Is the Minister aware that those of us who were on the deputation share the view of the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) that the Minister was most anxious that an inquiry should be pursued with vigour and speed? Can the hon. Gentleman give us a little more information as to why it has taken some six to eight weeks to get the information? Is it that the South African Government are refusing to give it or are claiming that the matter is sub judice? Can the hon. Gentleman say when we are likely to have information on the point?
The South African Government have replied to the Ambassador that as the matter is before the South African courts it is sub judice. As Mr. Ganyile is a South African, was apprehended by the South African authorities and is held by them, only he and the South African authorities know precisely what took place. It is a well understood convention in this House that we do not comment on court proceedings while they are still in progress.
Is the Minister aware that the first and most solemn duty of every Government is to protect their citizens from attack by foreign maurauders, whether their colour be black, yellow or white? In this case there has been procrastination and evasiveness. There is evidence of this in the possession of the hon. Members who have just spoken, and if the Minister persists in sheltering his officials, will be consider that only one honourable alternative remains to him? This is to uphold the high standards of the House in this matter by resigning?
I entirely repudiate the suggestion that we are not anxious to protect the interests of British subjects. This man—if, in fact, he was abducted from British territory—is not, of course, a British subject. We have asked the South African authorities where and when and in what circumstances these men were apprehended. The matter has been raised in a South African court and the circumstances in which this man was apprehended is, of course, part of the proceedings. Judgment has been reserved, and I suggest that instead of making extravagant remarks like that we should await the judgment and then consider our attitude.
Does the hon. Gentleman think that he might be in a position to answer a question on the subject next Thursday? If not, and as Commonwealth Relations Questions will then go to the bottom of the list, will he undertake to make a special statement to the House at the first opportunity.
The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that we shall be ready to give all information as and when it is available. In the circumstances, I cannot say when it will be available.
In view of that very unsatisfactory Answer, I beg to give notice that I will raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest opportunity.
Commonwealth Relations
Mr Hammarskjöld (Death)
2.
asked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations what reports he has received regarding the inquiry and official examination of the aircraft in which the late Mr. Dag Hammarskjöld was flying.
We have received a number of reports on the progress of the Investigation Board set up by the Government of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. The latest and most comprehensive report was published on the 18th October; and I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
As this matter has received world-wide publicity, may I ask whether my right hon. Friend will undertake now to deny the criminal and wicked allegations made in some parts of the Commonwealth and elsewhere that this aircraft was shot down? The sooner this is made public and the good name of our citizens in Rhodesia cleared, the better. What has been said against them is absolutely criminal.
Unfortunately, a number of very wild and extremely irresponsible statements and allegations have been made about this very unfortunate accident, which we all mourn. All I can say, and I cannot go beyond the reports that have been published, is that as far as I know not one single scrap of evidence has been produced to suggest that there was foul play of any kind, or improper action, or anything other than a normal accident.
Following is the Report:
Investigation Into Hammarskjoeld Aircrash
1. The Federal Government of Rhodesia and Nyasaland appointed an Investigation Board, under the chairmanship of Lieut.-Colonel M. C. H. Barber, D.F.C., the Director of Civil Aviation, to investigate the cause and circumstances of the accident. Representatives from Sweden, the state of registry, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (I.C.A.O.) on behalf of the United Nations (U.N.), the International Federation of Airline Pilots' Associations (I.L.A.L.P.A.) and Transair, the operators of the aircraft, were invited to participate in the investigation.
2. The Investigation Board has been in continuous session since 18th September and is still in the process of collecting all the available evidence. Investigation up to the present date has established that the aircraft left Leopoldville with Mr. Hammarskjoeld's party at 1551 G.M.T. on Sunday, 17th September, 1961. A flight plan indicating the destination airfield as Luluaborg, with Leopoldville as alternate, was filed by the crew before departure. The true destination of Ndola and the route to be flown were kept secret from the aeronautical authorities for security reasons.
3. After clearing the Leopoldville tower frequency radio silence was maintained until the aircraft called Salisbury Flight Information Centre at 2002 G.M.T. and stated the place of departure was Leopoldville and the destination Ndola, with an estimated time of arrival of 2235 G.M.T. At 2035 G.M.T. the aircraft reported over Lake Tanganyika, indicating that it was not flying on the direct route from Leopoldville to Ndola.
4. Radio contact was made with Ndola Tower at 2135 G.M.T. During subsequent conversations weather and landing information, and descent clearance from 16,000 to 6,000 feet were given. The aircraft reported when it was overhead Ndola descending, with airport lights in sight. The altimeter setting was confirmed by the aircraft and at 2210 G.M.T. (0010 hours September 18, local time) the aircraft was requested to report reaching 6,000 feet. No such report and no further radio communication was received from the aircraft.
5. Eye witnesses saw the lights of the aircraft pass over Ndola airport on a westerly heading and disappear from view. The aircraft failed to land as expected. Overdue action was initiated but no general alarm was felt for the safety of the aircraft until the following morning, when it was established that the aircraft had not landed elsewhere.
6. The wreckage of the aircraft was located approximately nine miles from Ndola Airport on a bearing of 278 degrees true. Police arrived on the scene of the accident at 1545 hours local time. Only one of the occupants was found to be alive and he subsequently died.
7. Up to 14th October, 1961, the Investigation Board has established the following:
8. In their preliminary report the medical team of pathologists stated:
"All casualties, with the exception of the temporary survivor, were completely X-rayed with a view to determining the presence of any metallic fragments. Two bodies (No. 1 and 2) were thus found to have bullets, fragments of exploded cartridge cases and percussion caps in the skin, the subcutaneous tissues or the muscles. Two or three of the severely burnt bodies were found to have pieces of partially melted aircraft metal superficially sited on the charred remains. Bodies 1 and 2 were those of guards, with ammunition in their vicinity in the wreckage. In view of the relative lack of penetration and the presence of fragmented cartridge cases from which the percussion caps had exploded, we consider that these injuries have resulted from explosion of ammunition in the fire. With regard to the portions of fused alloy in superficial positions on the charred bodies, we are of the opinion that this has resulted from the incineration of bodies in the presence of aircraft wreckage, and in no way suggests an explosion." The final medical report is not yet available.
9. Extensive investigation has so far failed to determine any positive cause of the accident.
10. The Federal Government has announced that as soon as possible it will invite nominations to a public Commission of Enquiry, consisting of five members, set up in terms of Federal legislation, to enquire into the cause and circumstances of the crash. Nominations will be invited from the Swedish Government, the International Civil Aviation Organisation and the Government of the United Kingdom. The General Assembly of the United Nations will also be invited to nominate a member of the Commission, which will be under the chairmanship of the Chief Justice of the Federation.
Staff
8.
asked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations how many former members of the Colonial Overseas Service are at present on the staff of the Commonwealth Relations Office; what posts they hold; and where they are serving.
I will, with permission, circulate a detailed statement in HANSARD.
While thanking my right hon. Friend for that illuminating reply, and while being convinced that when I read it I shall find it no less illuminating, may I ask whether he concedes that there is a very real need in our diplomatic missions of men experienced in African affairs? Is he not aware that I have recently received a letter from a distinguished former Colonial Governor, who retired last year, in which he said that it is as difficult to transfer from the Colonial Service to the Commonwealth Relations Office as it was for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle? Will my right hon. Friend not consider arranging with his noble Friend the Foreign Secretary and his right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary for a joint committee to be set up to conserve what is an irreplaceable asset, namely, men of experience in African affairs who are at present serving overseas?
I said that I have circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT a lot of figures for which my hon. Friend asked. In the administrative class, 34 officials out of about 160, that is, about one-fifth, were drawn from the Colonial, India or Burma Services. But if you would allow me, Mr. Speaker, I should like to take this opportunity to reply—because it is closely connected with this series of questions—to the remarks made by my hon. Friend in a speech the other day in the House which cast the gravest aspersions on the experience and quality of the staff of the Commonwealth Relations Office. I should like to take this opportunity to inform him that his remarks have been deeply resented by the Service, and to tell him that I have the highest confidence in the capabilities of those serving at home and overseas in the service of my Department.
Following is the detailed statement:
Excluding clerical and subordinate staff, there are 33 former members of the Colonial Overseas Service at present on the staff of the Commonwealth Relations Office.
Details are as follows:
- High Commissioner in Cyprus.
- 6 First Secretaries (Principals) in Calcutta, Dacca, Karachi, the Maldives, Nicosia and Ottawa.
- 14 First Secretaries (Principals) in the Commonwealth Relations Office.
- 11 First Secretaries (Information) in Accra, Calcutta (2), Canberra, Chittagong, Delhi, Johannesburg, Madras, Nicosia, Penang and Salisbury.
- 1 Second Secretary (Information) in Bombay.
9.
asked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations why it is necessary for senior members of the Colonial Overseas Service to sit for a written examination in order to transfer to the staff of the Commonwealth Relations Office.
The Commonwealth Relations Office is part of the Home Civil Service, and recruitment to its permanent and established staff, from whatever source, is therefore conducted through the Civil Service Commission who carry out such tests for this purpose as they consider necessary to maintain the accepted standards for the grades concerned. For posts which involve an appreciable amount of written work, the Commission normally include written tests of a general, non-academic character.
Would my right hon. Friend not agree that there must be records and confidential reports available about members of the Overseas Service which should be at least an adequate substitute for written examination? Is he aware of the case of the Director of Information Services in a territory, which is at present a dependent territory, who has served with great distinction, who has applied to join the Commonwealth Relations Office Information Service and has been told that if he wants to do this he must return home at his own expense and take a written examination?
All I would say is that the qualifications for the Colonial Service and the qualifications for possible work in the Commonwealth Relations Office in London are not entirely the same. As I have explained, the Commonwealth Relations Office is part of the Home Civil Service, and anybody who gets into the Service may go to the Treasury or the Inland Revenue, or wherever it may be. I think that it would be quite unreasonable not to ask for some assurance that these men, however good their service in Africa may have been, have qualifications for the Home Civil Service as a whole.
Immigrants
10.
asked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations what consultations he has had with Commonwealth Governments in order to promote a full understanding by them of the problems facing Her Majesty's Government with regard to the provision of adequate accommodation for immigrants.
The housing problem created by uncontrolled immigration has been explained to Common wealth Governments, and is, I am sure, well understood.
May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the term "Commonwealth Governments" includes also those other territories which are not as yet completely independent? In any case, has he taken steps towards securing a reconsideration of this matter and consultation not only at high level but at assistant level as well?
On what matter?
On the question of houses.
If the hon. Member is referring to the general problem of providing houses in this country, he will have to refer that to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. If he is referring to special accommodation provided mainly for students, we are, as he knows, making a considerable effort. I announced the other day that large sums of money were being set aside to provide additional hostel accommodation for overseas students.
Are we to understand from that reply that it is housing shortage that is the limiting factor in the Government's policy on how many immigrants will be allowed into this country?
I was trying to reply to the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Sorensen).
I apologise if I have not made myself clear. I asked whether the Minister had had persistent consultation at high level with all Governments in the Commonwealth, whether independent or otherwise, on the precise question of housing as affecting immigrants.
What I was saying to the hon. Member was that we have made it clear to Commonwealth Governments that uncontrolled immigration has serious repercussions on our housing problem here at home, and I think that they understand that quite well.
European Common Market
11.
asked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations what requests he has refused from Commonwealth countries to see documents or reports of negotiations concerning Britain's application to join the Common Market.
We are keeping Commonwealth Governments very closely informed of the progress of the negotiations. It would be contrary to our well-established practice for me to refer to confidential communications between Commonwealth Governments. However, I can assure the House that close contact is being maintained. Meetings were held with officials from most Commonwealth Governments in London in September. In the case of Governments which did not send representatives, consultations took place through our High Commissioners in the capitals concerned.
Since the negotiations have started my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal has, after each of the first two meetings with the Six, given a detailed account of the proceedings to Commonwealth High Commissioners in London. In addition, I have sent messages to Commonwealth Ministers telling them of our views about the progress of negotiations.Is my right hon. Friend aware that that answer has put me in some confusion? I was expecting to be able to congratulate him on giving a very short and straight answer, which would have been "None", but in his long answer, which was satisfactory as far as it went, he has not said that no request by any Commonwealth Government for information has been refused. Has it?
I think that I answered my hon. Friend to this extent, that we try to keep the Commonwealth Governments in the closest possible consultation on these matters. I think that what my hon. Friend is referring to is a point which has already been dealt with in the House by my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal. Perhaps my hon. Friend will look up what he said. That is the question of circulating a verbatim report of my right hon. Friend's speech at the opening meeting. These delicate negotiations could be very easily prejudiced if there were a leakage of documents from the conference. For that reason we have agreed that none of the six Governments nor ourselves will circulate the official documents of the conference outside the Governments concerned. I am sure that that will be of advantage to all. On the other hand, we give the Commonwealth Governments summaries of all matters which are of concern to them. In addition, we have had confidential talks, and confidential messages are passing between us all the time. I think that the Commonwealth Governments are very well informed about what is going on.
Swaziland
Railway Equipment
3.
asked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations what equipment and rolling stock will be provided by the British Transport Commission for the Swaziland railway scheme.
None, Sir.
Would it not be fitting to amend the Transport Bill which is to come before the House so that the Transport Commission can supply materials to Swaziland, both for the convenience of Swaziland and this country?
That is not a question for me or my right hon. Friend. It should be addressed to the appropriate Minister.
What equipment is wanted by this railway? When is it envisaged that the equipment required can be delivered, and how much is really necessary?
Permanent way for about 140 miles of track will be required, about 400 general purpose wagons, and a variety of equipment including signalling equipment. Tenders for equipment and rolling stock for the railway will be called for as soon as practicable and I hope that British suppliers will tender.
Rhodesia
Federal Review Conference
4.
asked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations when it is intended to resume the Rhodesian Federal Review Conference.
I would refer the right hon. Gentleman to my statement in our debate on 19th October.
Education
Weekly Boarding Schools
13.
asked the Minister of Education what plans he has for the development of weekly boarding secondary schools in country districts where at present transport difficulties prevent after school activities and interfere with homework.
I recognise how beneficial weekly boarding can be, but it is expensive to provide, and at present priority must in general be given to the provision of day school places.
Is the Minister aware that in some country districts the problem is becoming very acute? Is it not a good idea to plan ahead? Has he any plans? If so, what are they? Will he tell us?
If any local authority likes to submit a plan to me, of course I look at it. Where these weekly boarding schools exist—it is certainly so in my own county—they are of very great value. I hope that the time will not be too distant before we can do something about it.
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in respect of Wales some of Her Majesty's inspectors are very much concerned about the problem, especially in the upper forms of grammar schools? Can he be a little more flexible about it? Is he aware that some students are missing opportunities of adequate science-teaching, for example, because they have no arrangements of this kind?
Yes, Sir; I agree. I think that these will be a very valuable addition to boarding schools in these areas. That certainly is the case with the one in my own village. That is why I know about it. I hope that local authorities will submit some plans, but I cannot promise them priority.
What about taking over a public school or two?
Burnham Committee
14.
asked the Minister of Education if he is aware that his refusal to accept the recent Burnham Committee award in full is detrimental to the negotiating machinery for the teaching profession which has been the accepted method of negotiating teachers' salaries for 42 years; and what steps he proposes to take to remedy this matter or to set up an alternative method of negotiations acceptable to the teaching profession.
20.
asked the Minister of Education what proposals he has for maintaining the independent authority of the Burnham Committee.
I would refer the hon. Members to what I said in the House in the debate on the Address on 3rd November.
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is a month since I put down the Question and that things have changed since then? Is he aware that the drastic action that he took against this delicate negotiating machine, the Burnham Committee, has created very bad feeling and amazement in the minds of the teaching profession? Is he aware that it has caused more friction in our education system than anything done hitherto? Is he also aware that confidence in the machine has been impaired? What steps is he taking now to restore that confidence, or is he going to build up another negotiating machine for the teaching profession?
I am now engaged in friendly discussions with both sides of the Burnham Committee, and I think the hon. Gentleman would be well advised to allow me to get on with the talks.
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the manner in which he cut the agreed award and then threatened the teaching profession with legislation if it did not accede to his cut has undermined the profession's confidence in him? May we take it from his reply that he will now begin sensible negotiations and will not treat the profession to further blackmail and bludgeoning?
It can hardly be called "threatening the profession" when I told it that if I did not bring in the Bill it could not have the £42 million.
In view of the enormous harm done in the profession, will the right hon. Gentleman give us an assurance that there will be further and satisfactory consultations with the parties to the Burnham Committee and that he will not introduce any legislation before he has made a statement to the House about the result of those consultations?
I can give the first assurance that the hon. Gentleman asks for. I should say that the second will probably follow, but we must see how we get along.
Gypsies
15.
asked the Minister of Education in respect to the gypsies and other travellers living in caravans in a place in north-west Kent, details of which have been sent to him, how many children of school age were not attending school at the latest convenient date; how many were refused admittance to local schools; and what action is being taken to ensure that the children receive education services in accordance with the statutory obligation.
Thirty-nine children living in Darenth Woods were recently found not to be attending school. Twenty-two children were presented without notice at Stone Church of England Primary School on 6th November but could not be admitted on the spot. The Kent Local Education Authority is taking steps to accommodate in suitable classes those children who are not already in a school.
Will the right hon. Gentleman explain when these suitable classes are to start? Is he aware that the people who live there are threatened by the local authority, which says that when it has bought the land it will have them turned off in seven days? Also, will he explain why, since the people have been there so long, the education authorities did not get the children to go to school before I spoke to the people and advised them to send their children to school?
The hon. Member's interest in the gypsies is very well known, and I am glad that he has found these children. I have written to him about the circumstances and about placing them in schools. I really think that the Kent Education Authority does its best when it knows that the children are there.
16.
asked the Minister of Education if he will request all local education authorities to supply him with details of the number of children of gypsies and other travellers, of school age, living in caravans, shacks or motor vehicles in England and Wales, not attending schools, and of how many, who have reached eight years of age, who have never registered for or attended school.
The figures which the hon. Member asks for would soon be out of date. Local education authorities try to make the best arrangements they can for such children whey they can trace them.
Does not the right hon. Gentleman know that there is a statutory obligation about all children going to school? Is he aware that other countries have provided special schools for such children and that we are the worst country in the world in dealing with them? I shall produce evidence of that in our debate on 1st December.
I do not think that any local authorities knowingly fail in their statutory duty to provide suitable education for nomadic children, but they must first know that the children are in their area.
Classes (Size)
17.
asked the Minister of Education how many classes in primary schools have more than 40 and more than 50 pupils, respectively.
In January, 1961, 18,244 classes in primary schools had more than 40 pupils. Included in this number are 131 classes with more than 50 pupils. These figures represent, respectively, 14·3 per cent. and 0·1 per cent. of classes in primary schools.
Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that this is a rather staggering and disgusting figure? Does he not also agree that in the main the children who are in large classes are in working-class areas and that they are the very children who ought to be getting privileges instead of treatment of this kind? How soon does the right hon. Gentleman think he will be able to alleviate this dreadful problem?
I feel with the hon. Lady that we must do all we can to alleviate the problem, but she knows as well as I do that in the year of intermission we shall not be able to do very much.
Teachers (Married Women)
18.
asked the Minister of Education what facilities at present exist to enable married women with responsibilities for children of school age to train themselves as teachers.
The eight day colleges, of which six have opened this year, have 1,700 places and are intended for older students, particularly married women. Married women can also take advantage of some 2,300 day places for women in the colleges which are primarily residential.
Will the right hon. Gentleman see whether these facilities are available as widely as they could be? Is it not clear that the shortage of teachers is likely to last for a very long time? In the light of the figures he has given of over-sized classes, should we not tap the reservoirs which exist in many areas, where married women with young children would, if the facilities were available, be prepared to train as teachers. Will he expand these facilities?
We have begun by setting up these colleges in areas of most concentrated population. If they are a success, I hope that we shall be able to go further.
Technical Colleges And Schools
19.
asked the Minister of Education how many technical colleges and schools there are in Great Britain; what is the number of students attending them; how many are in course of construction; and how many are planned.
As the Answer contains a number of figures, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
Has the right hon. Gentleman any hope to give to the House that we shall catch up on the present serious leeway we have lost to other countries? I think I am right in saying that we have about one-third of the number of full-time technical students which France has. Is the right hon. Gentleman's programme designed
| GRANT-AIDED MAJOR ESTABLISHMENTS OF FURTHER EDUCATION | |||
| — | England and Wales | Scotland | Total |
| Number of establishments | 761 | 92 | 853 |
| Number of students attending these establishments in the 1959–60 session:— | |||
| (a) Full-time | 112,768 | 12,549 | 125,317 |
| (b) Sandwich | 10,038 | *
| 10,038 |
| (c) Part-time | 501,003 | 35,609 | 536,612 |
| (d) Evening | 784,584 | 52,696 | 837,280 |
| Number of projects included in major further education building programmes where construction is in progress | 126 | 18 | 144 |
| Number of projects approved under further education building programmes up to and including 1962–63 on which work has not yet started | 217 | 25 | 242 |
* No separate figures in respect of sandwich students are available for Scotland. Few such courses are now available and virtually all students are attending three-term full-time courses. | |||
| SECONDARY TECHNICAL SCHOOLS: ENGLAND AND WALES* | |||||||
| (a) Maintained secondary technical schools | … | … | … | … | … | … | 232 |
| (b) Direct grant secondary technical schools | … | … | … | … | … | … | 5 |
| Total | … | … | … | … | … | … | 237 |
| Number of students at (a) at January, 1961 | … | … | … | … | … | … | 97,039 |
| Number of students at (b) at January, 1961 | … | … | … | … | … | … | 838 |
| Total | … | … | … | … | … | … | 97,877 |
* There are no comparable schools in Scotland, where technical education forms part of the general secondary curriculum. | |||||||
Non-Teaching Staff (Pay)
21.
asked the Minister of Education whether he will take steps to ensure that the wages of school care- to put us at least on a par with other European countries?
I cannot accept the comparison with France, because any comparison would depend on the kind of courses one is comparing. The present programme is about £100 million in England and Wales and £19·4 million in Scotland, and about one-third has been completed. The programme is a large one, but I am not denying that it may be possible to go faster in certain areas.
Do my right hon. Friend's figures include extensions to existing technical colleges as well as new ones?
They include what are known as major projects, some of which are extensions.
Following is the information:
takers and other non-teaching staff employed by local authorities are so increased as to ensure that they will be earning not less than £1,000 a year in 1971.
School caretakers and other non-teaching staff may be expected to share in the benefits of the economic growth which will result from the financial and economic policies of Conservative Governments over the period to 1971.
In view of the fact that the increase that will have to be given to them in order to achieve this figure which the Prime Minister has promised them will be in the region of 5 to 6 per cent. a year, when will they begin to get the increases, and bow does the right hon. Gentleman expect to influence the wages settlement machinery so that they can reach this figure, promised by the Prime Minister, by 1971?
This is an interesting point. The basic wages for full-time caretakers range from £9 16s. a week in a small rural school to £16 4s. a week in a large school in a city, and that is with no overtime. I think we might get there.
Further Education (Women Students)
22.
asked the Minister of Education to what causes he attributes the slow growth since 1952 in the number of women students attending part-time day courses in establishments of further education; and what steps he is taking to increase the number of such students.
I attribute this disappointing growth to the fact that employers have not yet appreciated the benefits of giving day release for continued education. Rather more teenage girls than boys take full-time courses in colleges of further education.
Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that the Conservative Government's policy of imposing much greater fees on students in part-time evening institutes caused the drop from 815,000 in 1950 to 670,000 and 674,000 in successive years? The figure has now only reached 683,000. Would that explanation not be nearer the mark?
When the fees were raised there was a great falling off in ballroom dancing, but the number of students attending vocational courses went up.
Northern Rhodesia
Constitution
23.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will now make a statement on measures for the reconsideration of the constitution of Northern Rhodesia.
Following his announcement on 1st November to the effect that law and order have been restored, I have informed the Governor of Northern Rhodesia that Her Majesty's Government are now ready to receive further representations on those aspects of the constitutional proposals on which divergencies of view persist.
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is some danger of delay now, partly arising from the death of the leader of the African National Congress? Would it not be possible for the right hon. Gentleman to speed up decisions, now that peace has been restored throughout the territory, by going on to Lusaka after visiting Nairobi?
It is important to get as much speed as we can. I deeply regret the death of Mr. Katilungu, which will also cause added complications. I believe that there is some chance of local agreement, and I am still convinced that that is the best possible solution that could be achieved.
Gambia
Economic Discussions
24.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will make a statement on the results of his discussions with Gambian Ministers about the economic needs of that Colony.
As a result of discussions of the development needs of the Gambia over the next year or so, I have made a further allocation of £600,000 from colonial development and welfare funds.
What increase does that represent on what was already promised to the Gambia? Can the right hon. Gentleman confirm that it is his settled policy to try as rapidly and as hard as possible to develop the economy of the Gambia before any discussions are entered into with Senegal?
I think that that latter point goes beyond the Question on the Order Paper, which was concerned with the economic needs of the Colony. As far as they are concerned, the allocation should allow development to continue at about the present rate until about March, 1963. What happens after that will depend on the passage of the new Colonial Development and Welfare Bill.
Is there special provision in these additional funds for the expansion of education, for the development of rice growing and for the encouragement of the co-operative movement in the rural areas?
I have given the figure of the amount we are allocating which will continue the present rate of development. If the right hon. Gentleman wants further details, I ask him to put down a Question.
Yundum Airport
25.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, as a result of his recent discussions with Gambian Ministers, it will shortly be possible to proceed with the modernisation of Yundum Airport; and if he will make a statement.
The recent discussions did not involve decisions on the airport. The Gambia Government are at present considering a report on the subject.
Would my right hon. Friend not agree that, owing to its geographical position, Bathurst could become a most important international airport? Can we have an assurance that help in modernising Yundum would not be limited by reluctance on his part to upset any other nation by the possible diversion of air traffic to Yundum?
This is a difficult problem. There are considerable attractions in having a better airport in that part of the world. However, it would be near to the existing and important airport at Dakar, and we must consider this matter on grounds of competition as well as on grounds of economics. Whether there is need for two international airports so close together in this part of Africa, I do not know. All these matters need careful study.
The present state of the airport is deplorable. I say that as one who has recently been there. It undoubtedly needs improvement and repair. While considering that matter and looking to the future, will the right hon. Gentleman look perhaps 25 years ahead and do a good job now?
Yes. There are two separate issues here. First, the state of the airport for local needs is open to considerable criticism because conditions are not all they might be. Secondly, there is the separate question of whether this should be the site for an international airport with all the enormous capital outlay involved.
Kenya
Famine Relief
27.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make a statement on the famine conditions in Kenya.
29.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what financial assistance Her Majesty's Government are giving towards measures to deal with the famine in Kenya; and whether he will make a statement.
31.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what action he has taken to relieve the famine now taking place in Kenya.
There has been famine in various parts of Kenya during the greater part of this year as a result of drought. In February, Her Majesty's Government made £60,000 available towards the cost of famine relief measures, principally for transportation and distribution of maize given by the International Co-operation Administration of the United States. In July, Her Majesty's Government undertook to provide up to another £235,000 in grant in aid for this purpose, if necessary. Both the Army and the Royal Air Force have been giving continuous assistance in distributing food supplies in remote areas.
During recent weeks, heavy rains have led to wide-spread flooding in many districts, and surface communications have been disrupted; food is having to be dropped by air. I am considering urgently in consultation with the Service Departments how the help which they are already giving can be supplemented. The aircraft carrier H.M.S. "Victorious" is now on its way to Mombasa so that her helicopters can be used in relief operations. There is no immediate shortage of basic foodstuffs. The problem is one of distribution under adverse conditions, and of supplementing the basic maize issue. We shall need to consider, in due course, what the effect of famine and flood relief will be on Kenya's budgetary position, but I would emphasise that the essential work of relief on the part of the Government is not being hampered for lack of immediate funds. Aid from private and charitable sources, which is already being offered will, however, be welcome.I thank my right hon. Friend for that statement. I am sure that the House would wish to congratulate the Services in Kenya on the fantastic job which they have been doing under the most trying conditions. Surely it is not unfair to remark how well that compares with the lack of example, apparently, given by Africans and Asians there, and notably the lack of example given by Kenyatta. When my right hon. Friend goes to Kenya, will he try to find the time to visit at least some of the stricken areas?
I will try to visit some of these areas myself, and I am very glad to join my hon. Friend in his tribute to the work done by the Services, which has been magnificent. However, he is not fair in his strictures about what has been done, or not been done, by other people.
May I thank my right hon. Friend for his detailed Answer? Is it his view that the new Department of my right hon. Friend the Secretary for Technical Co-operation should be brought into these operations so that we may learn something which will enable us to stop famine in the future?
I will consider that suggestion.
Can my right hon. Friend say what was the extent of the casualties in the famine area? How many people are seriously without food in the area now? How serious is the position? He has not mentioned that in his reply and I should be most grateful if he would do so.
The position is that adequate food for everyone is available, but the problem is distribution. It would be difficult to give any fair assessment at the moment of how far we are succeeding in getting food to the people in isolated communities, to whom it has to be dropped from the air. So far, by the use of helicopters and other aircraft, the Services are managing to provide the basic food requirements of pretty well everyone.
As the right hon. Gentleman finds himself in the position of having to help British Honduras, Tanganyika and Kenya, as the result of widespread distress, and Uganda, as a result of the movement there of large numbers of refugees from the Congo, does he not find that the resources of his own Department are at full stretch in this matter? Have the Government appointed some sort of combined committee within the Government to carry on large-scale co-ordinated action of the Army, Navy, Air Force and all likely to be concerned so as to tackle all these problems systematically and thoroughly?
The basic co-ordination is done on the spot in both the West Indies and Africa, but there is constant consultation among Departments here. I do not think that there is any lack of co-ordination, and I have the assurance of the Governor of Kenya that lack of money is not in any way impeding rescue or relief operations.
Has the right hon. Gentleman been in touch with the Council of Free the World from Hunger Campaign, which was set up by his right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food? Is not there a need for co-ordination not only within Government Departments, but among private agencies who are interested in helping?
If anything can be done to improve that, I will be glad to do so.
African National Union (Talks)
28.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make a statement about his talks with the delegation from the Kenya African National Union.
An agreed press announcement was issued at the conclusion of my talks with the delegation from the Kenya African National Union. I will, with permission, circulate the text with the OFFICIAL REPORT.
Will my right hon. Friend say whether any commitments were entered into with this delegation and whether any undertaking was given about any future constitution?
I am glad of the opportunity of saying that no secret undertakings of any kind whatsoever were entered into.
Following is the Press announcement:
Kanu Delegation's Visit
Talks With Mr Reginald Maudling Concluded
The following is the text of an agreed statement issued at the conclusion of the Secretary of State for the Colonies' talks with the K.A.N.U. delegation which ended today, Friday, 10th November, 1961:
The delegation gave at length their appreciation of the Kenya situation and above all they represented that the holding of a constitutional conference was a matter of urgency and expressed the strong hope that it could be held before the end of this year if at all possible.
The question of amendment of the law governing qualification for membership of the Legislative Council was raised. The Secretary of State said that the matter was receiving his attention and that he would be making a statement on it shortly.
The Secretary of State assured the delegation that Her Majesty's Government had no intention of delaying constitutional progress in Kenya. He fully accepted that it was important to hold a constitutional conference as soon as possible, but it was also essential, if the conference was to be successful and and not unduly prolonged, that the ground for it should be adequately prepared.
Mr. Maudling stated that he himself would visit Kenya before the end of this month and that an announcement of the date would be made tomorrow. He would be ready during his visit to Kenya to consider the position in the light of progress made by then and he would hope then to announce the date on which he would hold the Conference in London.
Meanwhile, Mr. Maudling was making urgent preparations for a constitutional expert to go to Kenya and he welcomed this opportunity of making it clear that the expert's function would be to assist the groups concerned to formulate detailed proposals as a basis for consideration at the forthcoming conference. The name of the expert and the date for his arrival in Kenya would be announced as soon as possible.
The Secretary of State undertook to invite the Governor to ask each group to start the preparation of documents in advance of the expert's arrival.
10th November, 1961.
Aden
Constitution
30.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what further proposals for constitutional advance in Aden Colony and the Protectorates were considered at the discussions under the Governor's chairmanship in August.
Informal constitutional talks between Ministers of Aden Colony and of the Federation of Arab Amirates of the South, which were held in Aden under the Governor's chairmanship in August, gave particular attention to matters connected with closer association between the Federation and the Colony. Several Working Parties of Ministers and experts have been set up to study and report upon a number of detailed questions related to closer association.
Was this conference very representative of both the Colony and all the Protectorates? When is the report likely to be made, and will it cover a wider range than simply closer association of the two territories?
The conference was certainly representative. It is continuing its work. I would not like to say when the working parties will conclude their studies which are primarily concerned, although only primarily, with the question of closer association, which seems to be very important.
Minister Of Health (Lecture)
Q1.
asked the Prime Minister whether the Lloyd Roberts lecture given by the Minister of Health to the Royal Society of Medicine on the subject of expenditure on the National Health Service represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.
My right hon. Friend the Minister of Health made no pronouncements of policy in this lecture.
Is the Prime Minister aware that the impression has been given by this speech that it has been announced that Government policy will be to restrict the increase of expenditure on the National Health Service to a rate of 2½ per cent. for the next four years? Is he further aware that that has had wide publication in medical journals and that the Health Service will be given the impression that it is Government policy so to restrict? Is he further aware that if the Government were to decide to restrict to this rate of 2½ per cent., in terms of real money that would mean an actual decrease and the Health Service would have to be cut?
That raises much wider questions. As I understand it, my right hon. Friend delivered a carefully thought-out lecture, with many interesting philosophic observations, advancing the thesis that there were no objective criteria by reference to which the right level of total Health Service expenditure could be determined. It was intended to be not a declaration of policy, but a lecture on a very interesting and serious subject.
Nato Powers (Political General Staff)
Q2.
asked the Prime Minister whether he will now propose to the heads of governments of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Powers that there should be established a political general staff to co-ordinate the external policies of the member countries.
As I told my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Chatham (Mr. Critchley) on 15th June, there are regular consultations at every level between us and our allies, and we are all the time trying to strengthen our methods of consultation. In particular, we are working to extend and develop political consultation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation with a view to harmonising, as far as possible, the policies of its members. But it would, in my view, be a mistake to duplicate existing machinery. It is better to keep trying to improve what we have got.
Is the Prime Minister aware that that is precisely what I am pressing him to do, but that it needs something much more than the existing machinery? Can he say how he hopes that Western Governments can possibly co-ordinate their policies in the absence of a standing group of political staff able to prepare to meet eventualities as and when they occur?
The hon. Member recognises that these problems affect different countries very differently. There is the N.A.T.O. group, there are countries interested in the Middle East and those interested in the Far East. As he is probably aware, there are difficulties, inherent in any alliance of free nations, in asking them to hand over these matters to four countries.
In the event that the Prime Minister gives further consideration to my hon. Friend's proposals and creates such a political general staff, would he consider the advisability of appointing as chief of such a general staff a man with the greatest experience and qualifications, such as Lord Montgomery?
Am I not right in supposing, nevertheless, that there exists a military planning group in Washington which has solved the problem posed by the Prime Minister so far as military affairs are concerned? Is there not a good deal to be said for having a corresponding political standing group, probably also in Washington?
Yes, Sir, but this Question refers only to the N.A.T.O. Alliance, not to all the other world problems with which, I thought, the hon. Member for Pembroke was dealing.
Minister Of Defence (Speech)
Q3.
asked the Prime Minister whether the speech by the Minister of Defence at Winchester on 5th November, on the call-up of reservists, represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.
Yes, Sir.
Can the Prime Minister tell the House exactly how much all this call-up of reservists and retaining of National Service men in the Army is likely to cost?
I was asked whether I agreed with the speech of my right hon. Friend. He summarised the measures which, as he and I explained fully to the House recently, the Government have decided to take in order to strengthen the Army quickly in case of need. But the full details of these proposals will, of course, be discussed when the Bill is debated.
Is it not very revealing that so many hon. Members opposite seem to think that it is normal practice for Ministers to make statements not in conformity with Government policy?
Radioactivity
Q4.
asked the Prime Minister whether he will instruct the Ministers of Health, Science, Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and other Ministers concerned to prepare a White Paper containing in non-technical language full scientific information on the amount and effect of radioactive fall-out over the United Kingdom, and on the appropriate counter measures, consequent on all the nuclear tests held since 1957.
A statement on the lines suggested by the right hon. and learned Gentleman will be issued shortly by my noble Friend the Minister for Science.
I thank the Prime Minister for that reply, but in view of the vital importance of bringing all this information to the attention of the public, will he take steps to ensure that this statement is widely distributed?
I think that it is my noble Friend's intention to make a statement in another place and to publish a suitable form of pamphlet or statement of some kind so that it can have a wide circulation.
Nuclear Tests (Geneva Conference)
Q5.
asked the Prime Minister whether he will communicate with Mr. Khrushchev express. ing the readiness of Her Majesty's Government to participate at once in a resumption of the Geneva tests conference, as called for in the resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations of 9th November, and inviting Mr. Khrushchev to participate.
Her Majesty's Ambassador at Moscow and the United States Ambassador delivered Notes on 13th November to the Soviet Government, inviting them to take part in resumed meetings of the Conference on the Discontinuance of Nuclear Weapon Tests to begin on or about 28th November. I do not consider it necessary for these negotiations to be opened by Heads of Governments.
May I ask the Prime Minister, first, whether any reply hag been received from the Soviet Government, and, secondly, whether it would be the policy of Her Majesty's Government to maintain the tests moratorium provided the Soviet Government return and participate in the Geneva Tests Conference?
As regards the first question, we have not yet had a reply. As regards the second one, we have been fooled once and I am not sure that we ought to allow ourselves to be fooled again.
European Economic Community
Q6.
asked the Prime Minister which Minister is responsible for informing the Canadian Government of the progress being made in the negotiations on Britain's entry into the Common Market.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations is responsible for keeping Commonwealth Governments informed of aspects of British policy which are of concern to them. Both he and my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal, who is in direct charge of our negotiations with the European Economic Community, have been at great pains to ensure that Commonwealth Governments and their representatives in London and on the Continent are kept fully and promptly informed of the progress of those negotiations. In addition, I have myself exchanged certain messages with other Commonwealth Prime Ministers, and no doubt those exchanges will be repeated on appropriate occasions.
May I ask the Prime Minister two questions? First, is he aware of the publicly expressed concern of the Canadian Government at the failure of the Government to give them information with reference to the negotiations now proceeding about Britain's accession to the Rome Treaty? Is he also aware that the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, in answering Question No. 11 today, spoke of the fear in those countries that there might be a leak if the information were given to all Commonwealth countries? Will he give the House a categorical assurance that he is not afraid that the Prime Ministers of Commonwealth countries will leak secret information given to them?
There is always a danger, when passing round documents to a wide circulation, that something comes out. That is different from the messages and communications which are made at a high level. I think that it is the passing of long and much duplicated documents which has certain dangers, and we try to restrict them.
The Prime Minister said that all Commonwealth Governments are kept fully informed. It depends on what one means by fully informed. If they are kept fully informed, does not that mean that they know precisely what is in these documents concerned in the negotiations between the Lord Privy Seal and the Six? If they are told precisely what is in them, there is no argument, but the argument has been that they have not in fact seen everything in these documents.
That is not the position. The object of holding meetings of Commonwealth High Commissioners is for the purpose which the hon. Gentleman has in mind, namely, to give them full information. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, in his speech in the foreign affairs debate, recognised that while they should be given the fullest possible information, there may be aspects of certain documents which could not be freely circulated.
That was referring to completely free publication. What this Question is about is keeping the Canadian Government properly informed. Is the Prime Minister aware that there is a good deal of concern about reports that the Canadian Government are extremely dissatisfied with the present arrangement? Will he give further thought to the best way of ensuring that the Commonwealth is continuously kept in consultation? Is he satisfied that meetings of the High Commissioners in London provides the best way of doing this? Cannot there he some body which could meet in Brussels or Paris during the negotiations which take place there?
I understand that that is exactly what is done. There are meetings both here and on the Continent.
Would it be a fair statement of the Government's position to say that consultation with the Commonwealth has been equally close or equally distant in respect of Common Market negotiations and the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill, and vice versa?
No, Sir. In reference to these negotiations, I see that the Prime Minister of Australia, and now the Prime Minister of Canada, have recognised in public speeches that we have tried, over the long period that this matter has been under discussion, to keep the fullest consultation and information with our Commonwealth friends.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that if any leaks take place they are much more likely to come from certain Continental sources than from Commonwealth sources?
Why have the Government, as the Lord Privy Seal said, refused to make available confidentially to the Commonwealth Governments the detailed statement of our proposals affecting Commonwealth trade which has been made available to all the six members of the European Community?
The Lord Privy Seal explained, I think on 23rd October, that he had made available in writing a full summary, but not the actual verbatim report, of his opening speech, and he has discussed it in full with the Commonwealth Governments.
What is the reason for the distinction? If we want to carry the Commonwealth with us in these negotiations, there must be no room for any lack of confidence between the Commonwealth representatives and the Lord Privy Seal. Why should not the Lord Privy Seal have given the representatives the full text of his speech?
I think he gave them exactly what he gave the others, and I think that he was perfectly correct. So far as I understand it, no objection was raised. As regards the more recent case, I understand that the High Commissioner has issued a statement denying that his absence from a particular meeting had any significance.
Order. I think that we had better get on to the next Question.
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Owing to the unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I beg to give notice that I will raise this again at the earliest opportunity.
Scotland
Q7.
asked the Prime Minister if he will instruct the Secretary of State for Scotland and the President of the Board of Trade to set up an immediate inquiry into Scotland's present and future economic prospects, with special reference to the social responsibilities of the nationalised industries, the problems of depopulation, the rate of emigration from Scotland, and the need for public enterprises to be initiated in areas of unemployment to which the Board of Trade is unable to attract new private industry.
No, Sir. The social and economic needs of Scotland are under continual examination, and I do not think that at this time our consideration of these problems would be assisted by the setting up of an inquiry on the lines the hon. Lady suggests.
Is the Prime Minister aware that as a result of the proposed pit closures and what we are told we must expect next year, and as a result of the closure of branch railway lines, the people of Scotland are becoming convinced that Scotland has no place in the conscience of this Government? Is he further aware that it is only the doctrinaire policies of the Government which are preventing a Socialist solution which alone can solve the needs of Scotland?
On the setting up of an inquiry, an able and responsible committee known as the Toothill Committee, set up by the Scottish Council, has for the past two years been reviewing the position and prospects. Its report is expected next week. Clearly, the first thing to do is to study this report. As regards the general position, I am happy to say that the employment situation in Scotland has steadily improved during the last two years.
Is the Prime Minister aware that housing conditions in Scotland tend to make 6eople emigrate from there? Is he aware that we were told yesterday about a family living in a room 9 ft. by 9 ft. in Glasgow —a family of two and the woman about to give birth to a child—whose rent has been increased? When are the Government going to do something to end this shocking position?
I would not say that housing conditions, which are still deplorable in certain cases, would necessarily make it easier to find better housing accommodation by coming South to an equally crowded city. I think that there are many reasons which over the past century have led to the emigration of Scotsmen.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the emigration to which the hon. Gentleman refers, and which has caused depopulation for a long time, has been due to the adventurous spirit of many first-class citizens of Scotland who have left to lead in other parts of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth and to add great lustre to the leadership of the Government in this House.
Q8.
asked the Prime Minister if he will seek a meeting with representatives of the Scottish Trades Union Congress to discuss current economic problems.
No, Sir. But the Government are always glad to know the views of the Scottish Trades Union Congress.
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is considerable disquiet in Scotland consequent upon his visit there on 3rd November, when he met Charles Clore, Sir Hugh Fraser, Jack Cotton and the chairman of the Unionist Association, principally to raise Tory Party funds and to reorganise the Tory Party in Scotland? Does he regard that as having a higher priority than meeting the Scottish T.U.C. to discuss economic questions concerning Scotland?
I had the pleasure of meeting the Scottish Trades Union Congress in Scotland in May, 1959, when we had a long and fruitful discussion. The rate of unemployment in Scotland then was 4.7 per cent. We talked over a lot of plans, and the rate is now down to 3 per cent.
But does not the right hon. Gentleman think that his visit on 3rd November would have been more profitable if, instead of talking to the take-over bidders, he had talked to the people who really matter and who are concerned about conditions in Scotland, namely, the Scottish T.U.C.?
It is quite a good thing to get business developing in Scotland, as in England.
Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us what was the purpose of his visit to Scotland? Was it to increase Tory Party funds?
The purpose of my visit to Scotland was to meet at luncheon a lot of very distinguished and important people, and to make an inspiring speech about the future of Scotland, in the hope that they would act up to their responsibilities.
Business Of The House
May I ask the Leader of the House whether he will state the business of the House for next week?
Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY, 20TH NOVEMBER and TUESDAY, 21ST NOVEMBER—Second Reading of the Transport Bill, and Committee stage of the Money Resolution. At the end of the proceedings on the Bill on Monday, we propose to consider the Motion relating to the Motor Vehicles (Tests) (Extension) Order. WEDNESDAY, 22ND NOVEMBER—Second Reading of the Housing (Scotland) Bill, and Committee stage of the Money Resolution. THURSDAY, 23RD NOVEMBER—Supply [1st allotted Day]: Motion to move Mr. Speaker out of the Chair, when a debate will arise on an Opposition Amendment relating to civil aviation. Consideration of the Motion to approve the Import Duties (General) (No. 7) Order. FRIDAY, 24TH NOVEMBER—Second Reading of the Health Visitors and Social Workers Training Bill, and Committee stage of the Money Resolution. It may be found possible then to obtain the Committee and remaining stages of the Civil Aviation (Eurocontrol) Bill. MONDAY, 27TH NOVEMBER—The proposed business will be: Second Reading of the Army Reserve Bill, and Committee stage of the Money Resolution.Will the Leader of the House confirm that, before the Christmas Recess, in addition to the Supply day next week, there will be one other Supply day, a nationalised industries day, and also a day to debate public expenditure under the new arrangements made last year—one of the three days allocated for that subject?
I think that that is right, I can certainly confirm the first part of the right hon. Gentleman's question. We hope to have a day before Christmas to discuss the matter referred to in the other part of his question.
As my right hon. Friend has apparently not been able to find a day to debate shipbuilding, coastal shipping, ship-repairing, shipping and the like, is he aware that when Private Members' Bills come up later in the Session, I shall, to protect the interests of back benchers against the Executive, try to vote against every such Bill, in an effort to disrupt the programme so that we may have an opportunity to debate matters of national importance, in which many of us are interested?
rose—
May I have an answer?
Will the right hon. Gentleman be kind enough to say whether the Committee stage of the Army Reserve Bill will be taken on the Floor of the House? If it is not, will he bear in mind the advisability of having it dealt with not by a Standing Committee upstairs, in the ordinary way, but by a Select Committee?
It will be taken in Committee of the whole House.
Does the Furnished Houses (Rent Control) Act, which we discussed during the early hours of this morning, extend to the Palace of Westminster? Is that the reason why the Home Secretary will not give up his tenancy of the Leader of the House's room to the right hon. Gentleman?
Order. I am sure that in the common interest we must confine questions on this statement to the business for next week.
On a point of order. Mr. Speaker. I am sorry that you anticipated the prefatory remarks I was about to make on this matter, namely, that the whole House is inconvenienced because hon. Members have to go to the basement—the floor below—to find the Leader of the House.
I seem to remember that in the last Session the hon. Member and I had some discussion about those hon. Members, if any, who were entitled to make prefatory remarks. As far as the hon. Member is concerned, this is the time for a question.
Will the Leader of the House tell us when he is prepared to find time to debate the Motion standing in my name, criticising the conduct of the Attorney-General in regard to the Southall air disaster?
[ That this House deeply deplores the failure of the Attorney-General to institute proceedings for breaches of the Air Navigation Order and Regulations following the Southall air disaster on the 2nd September 1958 as a result of which 7 people lost their lives; draws attention to the fact that clear and documented evidence of overloading was submitted to the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation on 11th October 1958 and the Director of Public Prosecutions on 30th October 1958 and at the same time attention was drawn to two other serious breaches which required investigation; requests Her Majesty's Government to make available to the House the whole of the documents relative to this case either in the Department of Public Prosecutions or the Ministry of Aviation, then the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation, including any correspondence that may have been written by Members of Parliament and replies thereto; and further regrets that the Attorney-General allowed inaccurate information to be given to the House on 14th July 1959 which remained uncorrected until the Attorney-General's reply to a Question from the honourable Member for Southall on 5th June 1961.]
I have studied the Motion that the hon. Member has put down, but it will not be debated next week.
The Leader of the House has announced a number of Bills which are to be debated next week. Can he give an assurance that when these Bills are debated the Ministers responsible will reply to the debates? As one of those Members who was present during the early hours of this morning, may I ask him whether he is aware that we debated an Act for eight hours, and then, although the Minister concerned had promised to give us a reply, the Closure was moved and carried without a Ministerial statement having been made and without one back bencher opposite having taken part in the debate? For your guidance, Mr. Speaker—
Order. I shall be obliged for the guidance of the hon. Member privately, but this is the moment when he must confine himself to asking a business question.
I meant that I was asking for your guidance, Mr. Speaker.
This is the moment for the hon. Member to ask a question of the Leader of the House.
On a point of order. I was putting to the Leader of the House a question, and then I was asking for your guidance, in furtherance of that question, Sir. May I therefore ask you whether the point that I am now going to put—[Laughter.] It is quite simple. I am asking, Mr. Speaker, whether the point that I am now going to put should be directed to the Leader of the House or to you. I shall now put my point. [Laughter.] This is a serious matter. When Bills are thoroughly discussed, and Ministers have promised to reply to the debates and then do not attempt to reply, what remedy have ordinary Members? Do I put that question to the Leader of the House or to you, Mr. Speaker?
The House decides whether or no the Question should be put when the Closure is proposed. It would be easier if the hon. Member were at this time to ask the question, if any, that he desires to ask of the Leader of the House.
Will the Leader of the House make certain that when each of the Bills to which he has referred is debated next week the Minister responsible will reply to the debate? Will he see to it that when hon. Members are taking part in the discussion of serious matters Minsters will reply, after having promised to do so?
I think that last night's operations, in which the hon. Member took part, were conducted with great skill on both sides of the House.
Will the Leader of the House have another look at the Motion on the Order Paper relating to the social and economic consequences of the proposed pit closures in Scotland? Is not he aware that these are not the responsibility of the National Coal Board or of the British Transport Commission or even. particularly, of the Minister of Power and the Minister of Transport; but are the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Scotland and the President of the Board of Trade, and, generally, the Government as a whole? In all the circumstances, will the right hon. Gentleman undertake to find time for a debate on the Motion?
[ That this House calls upon Her Majesty's Government to appoint an independent committee to inquire into and report upon the social and economic consequences of the pit closures in Scotland proposed by the National Coal Board and the railway closures and curtailment of services in Scotland proposed by the British Transport Commission; and further calls upon Her Majesty's Government to direct that these closures and curtailment of services will not take effect until the report of the committee has been received and considered.]
I cannot give that undertaking. I did promise last week that I would discuss this with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State particularly in relation to the Scottish Grand Committee. I do not think that that procedure would be appropriate. The Minister of Power and the Minister of Transport do not appear before the Scottish Grand Committee and, therefore, I do not think that that is the appropriate vehicle. But I did say that I would consult my right hon. Friend, and I have done so.
Does my right hon. Friend really think it fair to ignore the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward)? Is he aware of the great concern in shipbuilding areas about the future of the shipping industry? Could not we have a definite statement that time will be found to have a debate on this very vital subject?
I have some hope that I may be able to satisfy hon. Members—including my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward)—on this matter before Christmas, but I cannot promise. The House must realise that having taken a decision, which both sides of the House seemed to think right, regarding the Committee stage of the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill, it restricts the time available for other debates in the House.
May I put a question further to that put by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition about a day for debating Government expenditure as part of the three days which the previous Leader of the House said would be available each Session. Did I understand the right hon. Gentleman to say that one of those days would be allocated in the next week or so, or, at any rate, before Christmas? Is he giving an undertaking that since last year we had only two days instead of the three we were promised, one of the last Session's days will be carried forward to be added to the three days to which we are entitled this year?
Three days are normally earmarked, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, for debates on these matters and we expect that one of the days will be taken before Christmas.
Will the right hon. Gentleman answer my second question? It is no use saying "normally", because we started the system only last year. Since we had only two days instead of three days last year, may we have four instead of three this year?
I would rather go into that matter. At the moment, three is what I am promising.
Last week my right hon. Friend seemed to be so clear in his own mind that he was prepared to honour the pledge given by his predecessor. I hope that he is not slipping back.
I am not. I was dealing for the moment with the business for next week, and the hope of a debate before Christmas.
May I ask the Leader of the House whether he is aware of the great alarm and despondency which has been caused throughout Scotland as a result of the statement of the Minister of Power about pit closures in Scotland? Will not he reconsider the question? We are being forced to discuss Scottish housing legislation next Wednesday. Would not he agree that we should be far better employed discussing the grave economic position in Scotland rather than housing Measures, which will bring still further hardship to the people of Scotland?
No. I am sure that the hon. Member knows that we cannot do that at this time of the year, when the Government must ask the House to take Second Readings of Bills. It may happen, I think it likely, that there will be a short Bill concerning the finances of the National Coal Board, when it is possible that an opportunity will arise to discuss some of the matters referred to in the hon. Gentleman's question.
May I ask two questions which, I think, are of importance? First, in relation to homeless families. In view of the fact that we did not receive a reply during the debate last night, may we have a proper debate on this matter in the early future and receive an adequate reply?
My second question is one which I have asked of the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor time and again. I never got any satisfaction, so I am now asking the right hon. Gentleman. May we have time to debate the question of the very serious unemployment in Northern Ireland? Northern Ireland shipbuilders are not to get that for which they hoped and prayed, the opportunity to build a new "Queen" liner, because the liner is not now to be built. When are we to discuss the economic plight of this part of the United Kingdom?Certainly not next week, and I cannot see any possibility of our doing so before the Christmas Recess. I hope that hon. Members will read HANSARD and study the events of last night and draw their own conclusions.
Will the Leader of the House arrange for the Prime Minister to be present on Wednesday and, if not actually to introduce the Scottish housing Bill, to sit through the proceedings, so that we may improve his knowledge of the true state of Scotland; and disprove some of the information which he probably got from Mr. Cotton and Mr. Clore, whose connections with Scotland, to my mind, are fairly remote?
Can the Leader of the House say whether we may have an early debate on agriculture, in view of the failure of the Milk Marketing Board and the unions to reach a price solution as requested by the Minister, and of the staggering rise of agricultural subsidies forecast for this year and the slowness of the arrival of anti-dumping measures?
Not next week.
Is the Minister aware that there is a Motion standing on the Order Paper containing an accusation against two of Her Majesty's judges in Scotland and calling for their removal from the bench? Is he prepared to give time for a debate according to precedent and tradition before Christmas, so that these gentlemen will not be left in suspense?
[That this House is of the opinion that the sheriffs substitutes in Argyll who passed excessive sentences on persons demonstrating at Holy Loch should be removed from the bench.]No, Sir.
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I think that this is a case where you, Sir, might be able to offer some assistance to hon. Members. There is, of course, an absolute rule that an hon. Member cannot question or criticise the actions of a judicial officer except upon a substantive Motion. That being the rule, if hon. Members wish to criticise they must put down a substantive Motion; and my hon. Friends have done so. If no time is found for it, the right to criticise the conduct of judicial officers is utterly lost. Is there no way in which time can be found to question this conduct in the only constitutional way open to us?
There are Private Members' Motions days. Apart from that, I do not allocate time, and I cannot involve the Chair in any dispute about that.
Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Do you recollect that it was on your advice that we put down this Motion, as that was our only constitutional remedy?
I do not dispute what the hon. Member says, if, by "advice", what is meant is that I indicated that the other method which hon. Members were seeking to adopt was out of order.
The net result would appear to be that private Members will have no way whatever of exercising rights which are traditionally the rights of the House. It would appear to follow from your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, that only "official" Members can put down this kind of Motion with any chance of it being heard. This, Sir, would surely be wholly out of accordance with the traditions of the House.
I cannot help remembering that the hon. Gentleman himself yesterday drew a place in the Ballot. But I expect that at that moment this was not in mind.
Reverting to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) and the invitation of the right hon. Gentleman to hon. Members to look at HANSARD; is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the trouble is that the speech we all want to read will not be in HANSARD, because the Patronage Secretary prevented it from being delivered? As the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government was pregnant with a speech which had taken a great deal of time to prepare, would it not be in the interest of the House, of public health and the people of London, that time should be found for the hon. Gentleman to deliver that speech?
That is precisely why I advised the House to read HANSARD, where they will find the most convincing reasons why that speech was not delivered.
Is it now your definite Ruling, Mr. Speaker, that when this Motion is put on the Order Paper it cannot be discussed in the House unless the hon. Member concerned succeeds in winning a place in the Ballot?
All I said was that the Chair does not allocate time, and that I cannot allocate time for that or any other Motion.
Opposition Front Bench
We are beginning a new Session, Mr. Speaker, and I wish to raise a matter with you which I would like you to consider. In doing so, I make no reflection on the Chair whatever, nor am I expecting a reply today.
Earl Attlee was responsible for the introduction of some ideas into this House which, in my view, have led to an organic weakness in Parliamentary practice. Tonight, there will be announced the names of the Labour Party committee which will be elected to represent those on this side of the House. I shall accept the constitutional results of that ballot and make no complaint about it, but I make a fundamental objection to what I am going to say now— [Laughter.]—which is the result of what I complained about earlier and which, in my view, is completely out of harmony with established Parliamentary practice. It is that a number of hon. Members of this House are selected and not elected. They sit on the Opposition Front Bench, which is quite out of harmony with historical Parliamentary practice. As a result of this practice, Mr. Speaker and other occupants of the Chair call them both at Question Time and to speak in debates. In consequence, they get preferential treatment over many other hon. Members who have served this House in many ways and for so long. Therefore, I ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether you will be good enough to consider this practice and give us your views upon it so that we may eradicate this weakness which I have seen grow up in Parliamentary procedure.Surely the hon. Member would not wish to put upon me and my office things which are not my concern. I do not in any sense direct where hon. Members sit or what hon. Members should sit on either Front Bench. I do my best, in allowing hon. Members to catch my eye for supplementary questions, not to bestow all the benefits upon the Opposition Front Bench, but the burden at the moment is very great. We are not making very good progress with Questions. I hope to have the help of the whole House on this, including the Front Benches.
What my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith) is trying to bring to your notice, Sir, is that some hon. Members occasionally leave their back bench positions and go on to the Opposition Front Bench and then are fortunate enough to catch your eye. Is it absolutely necessary, to achieve that object, for hon. Members to go on to the Opposition Front Bench when they are not entitled to sit there by a prescriptive right? Could they not make their speeches, possibly just as effectively, from the back benches?
I think that the right hon. Member is referring to a matter of a private arrangement within the Opposition, about which I know nothing. As for this business of dodging on and off the Front Bench, I am not quite sure whether it works invariably to advantage, because, in practice, when one looks for an hon. Member where he was a moment ago he is not then there.
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it not a fact that for a great many years the prescriptive right to sit on the Opposition Front Bench, apart from that of a Privy Councillor, has resided with the Leader of the Opposition? That has happened under successive Leaders of the Opposition other than those of the Labour Party.
I do not think that I should be involved in matters of this kind.
Further to the matter raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ellis Smith), is it not the invariable practice of the Chair—apart occasionally from Privy Councillors, about which there is a great deal of controversy and also a great deal of confusion—to grant preferential treatment in calling hon. Members who sit on the Front Bench from time to time? Is not that the position?
Is not my right hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger) correct in his assumption that if those who are assigned—not elected—by the constitutional methods practised by the Labour Party to sit on the Front Bench— [Interruption]. I am addressing you, Mr. Speaker, and I am not to be deterred by any murmurs from the other side of the House.Not even from the noble Lord the Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Hinchingbrooke).
I shall continue to address my remarks on this subject to you, Sir.
I am asking whether it is not the invariable practice of the Chair to do as I have suggested. Would it not be rather more conducive to the harmony in the House, and a less objectionable practice, if those who sit on the Opposition Front Bench were selected in a constitutional fashion by all the Members of the Oppo- sition and the rest were allowed to sit on the back benches and take their chance along with others? Would that not be preferable?There are a very large number of hon. Members wishing to speak today in the debate which is to follow. In so far as this is a matter for the Chair at all, I find there was a Ruling by my predecessor in 1939–40, OFFICIAL REPORT, Volume 361, c. 27–28. I wonder whether, to save the time of the House, I might in that way answer the right hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members by giving that reference?
Following the point raised by hon. and right hon. Members opposite, it will be in the recollection of hon. Members present that only ten minutes ago you, Sir, called the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) before calling the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition. I think that that answers the point.
What happened then was that I saw the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) first. I should not like it to be regarded as a precedent in any direction whatsoever.
Orders Of The Day
Commonwealth Immigrants Bill
Order for Second Reading read.
3.58 p.m.
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
It is only after long and anxious consideration and a considerable reluctance that the Government have decided to ask Parliament for power to control immigration from the Commonwealth. We all know that throughout the continuous evolution of the Commonwealth, citizens of member-States have always been free to come here and stay here as long as they like. This has been a cherished tradition of the Mother Country and there is little doubt that it has been an important link binding the Commonwealth together. But I sometimes wonder whether the House or the country realise what, in fact, this doctrine of the open door has involved. The justification for the control which is included in this Bill, which I shall describe in more detail in a few moments, is that a sizeable part of the entire population of the earth is at present legally entitled to come and stay in this already densely populated country. It amounts altogether to one-quarter of the population of the globe and at present there are no factors visible which might lead us to expect a reversal or even a modification of the immigration trend which I am about to describe. The Government do not believe, therefore, after very serious consideration, that any country would permit an indefinite continuance of virtually limitless immigration. Most people, I think, would agree that eventually an influx on the present scale would have to be controlled. I think that the House knows well that all other Commonwealth countries have power to restrict immigration and all of them, in practice, exercise this power either generally or in respect of citizens of particular Commonwealth countries. Some of them—I should like to pay tribute to them—have been par- ticularly generous in not exercising their powers against United Kingdom citizens. The Government have now come to the decision that the time has come for us to take some necessary powers. These, as I shall explain later, in the first place are for a temporary period. They will apply to all Commonwealth immigrants and are more liberally conceived than the present power of control of aliens. That is the general introduction which I want to make before coming to the figures so that the House may assess the extent of immigration. We start from the fact that we are a thickly populated country and certain to become more so. There are fewer countries more densely populated than our own. Over the past ten years the population here has increased by 2½ million, to reach more than 51¼ million. Immigration is becoming an increasingly important factor in this problem. We have long been familiar with the control of the immigration of aliens; it has been controlled in modern times since 1905. An alien is not allowed to stay in this country unless he makes a case, first, for admission and then for permanent residence in this country. Under this system about 16,000 aliens a year settle here as permanent residents. I should like to refer to the fact that this country has probably as noble and as good a record in introducing refugees to our shores as any other country. Taking the immigration figures, there are immigrants from Canada, Australia and New Zealand; the total of these is not accurately known. Some come here to work for a short time and then return. The best estimate which I can make of people coming from these countries is about 50,000 a year, but many of these are not immigrants. Then there are workers from Ireland, about whom I shall speak, and many of these also come for a short while and then go back. The number coming in any one year for the first time is roughly between 60,000 and 70,000 in so far as we can calculate it.From all Ireland?
From the Republic of Ireland. Many of these are going backwards and forwards, and we cannot be certain about the numbers. We have no check as many are seasonal workers who come and then go back, but we calculate that the figure is about 60,000 or 70,000 who pass through our ports, in so far as we can calculate it.
A new factor in the last eight years or so is immigration from other parts of the Commonwealth, notably the West Indies, India, Pakistan and Cyprus, and to a lesser extent, from Africa, from Aden and from Hong Kong. Immigration from these sources first became a noticeable figure in 1953, and since 1955 we have endeavoured to keep figures of the numbers going in and out. The net intake in 1955 was about 43,000 and an inflow of approximately the same dimensions went on for the next two years. The figure dropped to 30,000 only in 1958 and to 21,000 in 1959. This striking drop was attributable in part to a slight economic recession which we had. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I thought it as well that I should give the picture to the House so that we can make up our minds in relation to the Bill and the justice of the case. As I said, the drop was attributable in part to the recession here but it was also due to efforts made by other Governments to restrain their emigrants. For example, fairly stringent measures of control have been in force in India and Pakistan for many years past I should like to express—and I hope that this will be carried to these Governments who have tried to help us—the gratitude of Her Majesty's Government for their co-operation. The possibility of similar restrictions in the case of the West Indies has been put to the Governments concerned, but they have felt unable to do more than to ensure that passports are not given to emigrants with serious criminal records, or to old people or to unaccompanied children. Despite the action taken, a rapidly increasing number of immigrants is managing to come here from all these countries. In 1960, the figure rose to 58,000, and in the first ten months of the current year it was 113,000. Of this figure, in the first ten months about 57,000 have come from the West Indies and about 19,000 each from India and Pakistan. The total number of these newer immigrants, including children born to them in this country, is believed to be now at a level of about half-a-million.To get the facts clear, will the Home Secretary give the figure for the annual emigration from this country, so that we have the whole picture?
I have not the figure, but I will make a note for my right hon. Friend who is to wind up the debate. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I do not wish to give an inaccurate figure, but I will see that the correct figure is given in the course of Second Reading.
It is extremely important that as soon as possible the precisely accurate figures for emigration and immigration should be available. Is it not possible—perhaps the Parliamentary Private Secretary is now doing it—for these figures to be produced so that the Home Secretary can give us them in the latter part of his own speech?
I am always ready to suit the convenience of the House and to do what I can, but I do not want to give an inaccurate figure.
While the Home Secretary is looking up the figures, will he also take care to provide the House with figures for the last two or three years of migration from the West Indies of the numbers who have come simply to join their husbands in this country?
That would be a more difficult figure to give. I think that it will be very difficult to give an exact figure of emigration, but I will do my best to meet the request.
rose—
The Opposition Amendment criticises the nature and extent of the consultation which has preceded the decision which we have reached to legislate. In answer to the Amendment, I should like to say that contact on this subject has been maintained in a variety of ways with the Governments concerned and with their Prime Ministers and leaders. Many members of Her Majesty's Government have met many of these distinguished leaders of these nations and we have been in contact for a long time. The Opposition Amendment refers to the expression an "inquiry". All I can say—
On a point of order. The Home Secretary has stated that he cannot give figures about emigration from this country and immigration into this country. He gave me those figures this week and I now have them in my hand. Should he, therefore, withhold them from the House?
Roll in the Common Market and our own people out.
The hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) rose to a point of order, but I do not think that what he said involves a point of order.
A point of honour.
The hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) has the figures in his possession, but I have not.
The Home Secretary gave them to me.
I have had many contacts with the hon. Member. I do not deny that I gave them to him. But I have not them at the moment and I do not propose to give an inaccurate figure.
I have pleasure in handing the figures to the Home Secretary.
Order. There are a large number of hon. Members wishing to take part in the debate. I respectfully remind the House that there is a relation between interventions and the number of hon. Members whom the Chair can call to speak.
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. How is it possible to form a balanced judgment in this matter when we are given only one side of the case?
I will examine the figures which have been given and see that a statement is made on behalf of the Government. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I shall not be rushed by the House into making a statement without proper consideration.
I was saying that the Opposition Amendment refers to the word "inquiry" and I explained that many contacts have been held between members of our Government and Ministers of these other Governments. Not only has there been this contact, but there has been a most heart-searching consideration on our part of what action should be taken. I have reminded the House that the Governments of the West Indies, India and Pakistan did their best to control the flow in 1958 and 1959, and we are deeply grateful for their efforts. In the end, however, their efforts were not sufficient to keep the flow within reasonable bounds. It was only when we realised this that we gradually came to the decision to control immigration. This decision, of course, was our decision, Her Majesty's Government's decision, and we have fully understood the expressions of anxiety and concern which have come from some of the overseas Governments. Directly the decision was taken, my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary informed the Governments of all the territories for which he is responsible. He gave them, in confidence, considerable information about the Government's intention and explain the reasons.At what date?
My right hon. Friend the Commonwealth Secretary took similar action with the Governments of the independent members of the Commonwealth.
At what date?
Since then, consultation has continued. As the Prime Minister said in answer to the question of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition on Tuesday last, consultation goes on all the time. We gave notice some time before we discussed this matter that we proposed to deal with it. Consultation must go on all the time and it cannot be reserved merely for Prime Ministers' conferences.
Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us what the result of the talks was and will he read to the House the protest which was sent by the Prime Minister of the West Indies Federation?
I read the hon. Gentleman's intervention at Question Time last Tuesday. The answer to the hon. Gentleman is that consultations with overseas Governments, whether Commonwealth, Colonial or foreign, must of necessity be private. I cannot publish the text of confidential exchanges between one Government and another.
I have explained, in answering the Opposition Amendment, that these consultations took place from the date, and even from a time before then, when the decision was taken. What I wish to make clear now is that future consultations must go on. We know how valuable the immigrants have been—[HON. MEMBERS: "Humbug."]—and we trust that by close contact with the Governments concerned we can illustrate the spirit in which we mean the Bill to work. I say now, and I am sure that I speak for the whole House, that no one can doubt the value of the contribution which the immigrants have made to our national life. In particular, our hospitals and public transport system would be in difficulties were it not for the services of immigrant workers. I pay a tribute to the courteous and efficient way in which so many of them serve us in our hospitals, buses and railways, restaurants and other branches of essential services. I say that on purpose. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Anyone listening to the interventions from the other side of the House would imagine that there was a question of imposing a total prohibition. This is quite untrue. It is not proposed by the Bill to impose a total prohibition on further immigration. It is proposed simply to control the flow. We must remember that we are working in a period of full employment. It does not take much imagination to realise what might happen if, unfortunately, there should be a recession of trade and immigrants were competing for jobs with other people in this country. In such circumstances, life would be very difficult for the immigrants already here, and the situation would be made very much worse if others con- tinued to flock into this country in unlimited numbers in the hope of finding a job. The strain which such a situation would provoke between immigrants and resident British subjects could well have its effect on Commonwealth relations. The Opposition Amendment is concerned, and rightly concerned, with Commonwealth relations, but I should not wish the House to forget this aspect of the problem.Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
No. I must explain these matters and make my speech to the House so that other hon. Members may take part in the debate.
It cannot be denied that the immigrants who have come to this country in such large numbers have presented the country with an intensified social problem. They tend to settle in communities of their own, with their own mode of life, in big cities. The greater the numbers coming into this country the larger will these communities become and the more difficult will it be to integrate them into our national life. During the debate on the Address, the hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) questioned what had been done to help immigrants. I remind him and the House of the excellent work done by many agencies to promote good relations between immigrants and the people of this country. I refer, in particular, to the Migrants Services Division of the Office of the Commissioner for the West Indies, the welfare officers of the Indian and Pakistan High Commissioners, and the committees set up in many areas under the aegis of local authorities. We welcome the work they have done, but they can deal with limited numbers only, and, if the numbers of new entrants are excessive, their assimilation into our society presents the gravest difficulty, as many hon. Members on both sides of the House have informed me in the course of private conversation. Of course, we are doing our best to improve housing conditions. [HON. MEMBERS: "What?"] This is a matter referred to in the Opposition Amendment. I do not wish to omit from my speech any point made in the Amendment. The Housing Act of this year provided the local authorities with better powers to deal with overcrowding and unsatisfactory accommodation and also helped them financially in rehousing families from overcrowded conditions. Given a too rapid increase in the number of immigrants, there is a real risk that the drive for improved conditions will be defeated by the sheer weight of numbers, and the immigrants will be among those to benefit most if the new powers in fact prove, as we hope, to be effective. I turn now, as is right in a Second Reading speech, to examine the form of the legislation which we propose. Various possibilities were considered by us and rejected. I take, first, a check on accommodation. We do not think that such a control could be operated without intolerable supervision and regimentation. To follow an immigrant moving from place to place in this country would be almost impossible. Also, this would be a power in excess of what we use in dealing with aliens. Therefore, we rejected it. Another suggestion is that immigrants should put down a cash deposit. We do not think that this would be effective. We have, therefore, come to the conclusion that the only practical means of dealing with the situation is to control the incoming numbers on the basis of the issue of employment vouchers. I turn now to the Bill itself to explain what we have in mind. Part I deals with the control of immigration. Part II deals with deportation. Part III deals with supplementary matters. Part I begins by defining in Clause 1 the persons to whom control of immigration is and is not applicable. The objective here is to except from control—and, therefore, to guarantee their continued unrestricted entry into their own country—persons who in common parlance belong to the United Kingdom. This is achieved by excepting, first, persons born in the United Kingdom, and, secondly, persons holding passports issued by the United Kingdom Government. This criterion has been chosen primarily for ease of identification by the immigration officer at the port of entry. He has only to look at the passport to see by what authority it was issued, and the place of birth is shown. The use of such a test will lessen delay at the ports. With these exceptions, Clause 1 applies the power of control to all Commonwealth citizens, a phrase synonymous with British subjects, and also to British-protected persons and citizens of the Irish Republic. Clause 2 gives power to immigration officers to refuse admission to the United Kingdom to any person to whom the Bill applies or to admit him subject to conditions relating to length of stay or his employment or occupation. Under this Clause there are three main categories of immigrants from the Commonwealth who will be granted entry into the United Kingdom. The first category is defined in subsection (2, a); people coming here for the purpose of employment and holding vouchers issued by the Ministry of Labour. These vouchers will be issued to three kinds of applicant; first, those who can satisfy the Ministry of Labour that they have jobs to come to; secondly, those who can satisfy the Ministry that they possess training, skill or technical qualifications which are likely to be useful in this country, and, thirdly those who fall into neither of those categories and vouchers for this third category will be issued on a first-come first-served basis. The Government will decide from time to time how many such vouchers can be issued having gone into all the factors which bear on our capacity to absorb further immigrants without undue stress or strain. The Minister of Labour will be speaking in the debate later and will deal more fully with the voucher system.Will the wives and families of those who are admitted on the ground that they have skill which we require be allowed to come in, in addition to the quota of migrants?
Yes, the wives and children. When we come to the Committee stage we shall have to consider other degrees of relationship, which is always a problem for the immigration service. As I have said, I am able to say "Yes" to the hon. Lady's question.
The second category of immigrants who will be granted entry are those defined in subsection (2, b). That is to say, those who can satisfy the immigration officers that they are in a position to support themselves and their dependents, if any, without working. This will cover not only visitors, including business visitors, but also, for example, retired people who come to live here on pension. The third main category allowed in will be those who are granted entry by the immigration officers under administrative arrangements. Here, there will be a number of people who should be admitted in circumstances other than those defined in subsection (2). I have particularly in mind students, returning residents and wives and dependent children. I am particularly keen to make clear that I have no doubt that students coming, from overseas will be able to come in and enjoy their stay here. These categories are not easily susceptible of legal definition, but I have students particularly in mind. I think that this will be best dealt with at the discretion of the immigration officer, in accordance with general directions which I shall issue from time to time. It is important, therefore, that the House should be seized from the outset with the importance of leaving some discretion to the immigration officer. This discretion is defined in Clause 16 (3) and I can say that our experience of immigration control at the ports and airports enables me to pay a tribute to the fine work of the immigration service of this country. The experience of the aliens administration also shows the need for flexibility in these matters so that instructions can be modified from time to time according to changing circumstances. The Amendment says that the Bill gives excessive discretionary powers to the Executive. It is important to maintain—and we shall no doubt discuss this in the later stages of the Bill—and preserve the constitutional position in which the Secretary of State is answerable to this House for the policy which he administers and the way his agents carry it out. That is the answer to those who claim that. The responsibility should rest with the Secretary of State and he should be answerable to Parliament.Will the general directions the Secretary of State proposes to issue be debatable in this House.
No, Sir, but this House will have ample opportunity of asking questions of the Executive, of Ministers. I think that it would be undesirable to do what the right hon. Gentleman requests in this case, but, in any case, there will be ample opportunity in Committee to explain what the Secretary of State has in mind and the manner in which he proposes to administer this. I shall be glad, at a later stage, to give a description of how we propose to deal with the problem of students.
This is an important point and I should like the Secretary of State to make the position clear. He spoke of these general directions under which the immigration officers are to exercise their discretion. When he says that this is a difficult issue, does he intend to publish the details? Will they be made available to hon. Members, so that they may know what instructions he is giving?
They have never been published in the past, even under the administration of hon. Gentlemen opposite and I think that it would be extremely difficult to concede the right hon. Gentleman's request. I realise that it is a perfectly legitimate request, but I suggest that we discuss the matter at a later stage. I want to make that plain so that when we come to discuss the later stages of the Bill we will know just what we are discussing, where we have agreement and where there is disagreement.
Another feature of Clause 2 (3) gives to immigration officers the overriding power to refuse admission on medical grounds, because of a person's criminal record or for security reasons or if a person seeks to return to this country in contravention of a deportation order. As regards criminal records, admission may be refused to anyone known to have committed any of the crimes listed in the Schedule to the Extradition Acts. They include all serious crimes against the person or property. I need not trouble the House in great detail with Clauses 3, 4 and 5. Clauses 3 and 4 provide the necessary ancillary provisions for the enforcement of the scheme proposed. I would, however, draw the attention of the House to Clause 5, which makes Part I of the Bill a temporary Measure to expire at the end of five years unless continued from time to time for periods not exceeding five years by Order in Council subject to affirmative Resolution of both Houses. In a matter of such importance the Government feel that we should feel our way, not commit ourselves for an indefinite time for such a substantial change in a traditional open door policy. In five years we may find that the economic condition of this country is different. In five years other countries of the Commonwealth may have different economic pressures from the serious ones they have now to make a review of this kind desirable. We may be able to say where we stand in relation to the Common Market and the operation of the Rome Treaty in relation to this country. This is, incidentally, for the time being, why we have decided not to make permanent our aliens legislation. I now turn to the Common Market aspect of this and in view of the remarks made by the Leader of the Opposition on the debate on the Gracious Speech I must say that we do not accept that there is, or that there should be, necessarily any inconsistency between this Measure and the situation which is likely to result if we enter the Common Market. Let us take the present situation under the Treaty of Rome. In June of this year the Council of Ministers approved regulations valid for not more than two years which recognise, subject to certain exceptions, the principle of priority of consideration which should be given to indigenous labour. The Prime Minister, speaking in the House on 2nd August, said:My right hon. Friend then referred to the possibility of measures of administrative control. If one reads Articles 48 and 49 of the Treaty of Rome it would appear that control is possible. Negotiations have not yet properly started and we certainly should not be able to say what the final position is until these negotiations have got a good deal further. It is not for me, in explaining the Bill, to go further into the provisions of the Treaty of Rome, but it is wise to include the provisions of Clause 5, which gives the Bill a temporary character subject to renewal. I wish now to refer to the Irish Republic. There are a great many anomalies connected with our relations with Ireland, one of which is that the citizens of the Republic, although no longer British subjects, possess under Statute all the privileges and obligations of British subjects. Thus the Bill was drafted to cover the citizens of the Irish Republic, and this is the effect of Clause 1 (4). The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), when Home Secretary in the Labour Government, in referring to a particular anomaly, said on 13th July, 1948:"… It is quite unreal to suppose that we could be compelled suddenly to accept a flood of cheap labour, or to alter the basis of our social security overnight."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd August, 1961; Vol. 645, c. 1490.]
Under the shield of that benign advice I propose to proceed with the reasons that have led the Government to certain conclusions. The Government have always realised the very great difficulty there would be in operating the control against the Republic, for practical reasons that I shall explain, and I have always thought that we would not be justified in operating this control unless circumstances compelled us, or compel us to do so. The reasons are as follows. First, the history of previous attempts has left in the minds of all concerned the determination to try to avoid such controls in the future. This was the war-time experience. Secondly, many of those who come from the Republic are seasonal workers who are coming to a job and who would, in any case, be let in under the provisions of the Bill. It is when we come to the difficulties of physical control that we realise the problem, and I must ask the House to follow me in those difficulties. First, if we established a control we should have to operate it against a large number of British citizens who use the Irish ports. I am here supposing that we could control the Eire—that is, the Republic—and Ulster border and limit the problem simply to shiploads from the Republic to the English ports, but all experience and information indicates how very difficult it is to police the Republic-Ulster border and prevent people getting across it either by day or, especially, by night. We are, therefore, forced to the conclusion, as we were in war time and after, that if we are to operate a control against the citizens of the Irish Republic we should have to institute a control within the United Kingdom itself; that is, against Northern Ireland and Belfast. I repeat—against the United Kingdom itself and against United Kingdom citizens. The Government take the view that this would be an intolerable imposition upon British citizens, and would be treated as such. I feel certain that to insist on all passengers from Northern Ireland carrying passports and being subject to examination would present us with a political and practical problem as severe as that which emerges by our decision not to impose control against the citizens of the Republic. We have had discussions on the Bill with the Government of Northern Ireland. Lord Brookeborough said at Stormont, on Tuesday, that he was satisfied that we had taken Northern Ireland's interests fully into account. He has also assured me that any proposal to restrict freedom of travel between Northern Ireland, which is an integral part of the United Kingdom, and the rest of the country would be unacceptable to the Northern Ireland Government. I fully realise, of course, that our decision can be, and may well be, misunderstood—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] The Bill is drafted so that there is no racial discrimination—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—and this decision is not dictated by such considerations—"It is true that this may present anomalies, but in my experience of attempting to deal with the Irish, whether Southern or Northern, if one can do anything at all it is sure to be either by way of creating an anomaly or of recognising one."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th July, 1948; Vol. 453. c. 1112.]
Why was the Clause put in at all?
I am certain that the Government is right to reach this decision in present circumstances. To those who are in doubt, I would say that we reserve the right to impose the control should it be necessary in the future in spite of the difficulties.
A great many suggestions have been put to me by hon. Members for dealing with this problem, while accepting, as many of them do, the difficulties relating to the border and accepting the difficulties relating to imposing a control within the United Kingdom itself. I am examining such problems and schemes, but I cannot give the final answer today as they present very great complications. Meanwhile, Her Majesty's Government have noted the undertaking given by the Foreign Minister of the Irish Republic yesterday that freedom of movement would require the introduction of legislation in the Republic to preserve uniformity of control; and that an early statement would be made. I have, of course, been talking about Part I of the Bill. The hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) asked why we had this provision in the Bill. I must emphasise that Part II of the Bill, which deals with deportation, does apply in full, and will be enforced in proper cases, against citizens of the Irish Republic as against other citizens to whom this Bill applies. This is a new power which otherwise we would not possess. I should like now to deal shortly with Part II of the Bill, as I think that it may command more general assent. We have long been pressed to introduce measures to authorise the deportation of immigrants from the Commonwealth who offend against our laws, and thus give this country the same kind of powers as are possessed by practically every other territory in the Commonwealth. We came to the conclusion that the positive results that would be achieved by such a Measure were not in themselves sufficient to justify legislation for that purpose alone, but now we have decided to seek powers for a general control of immigration we have thought it only right to seek powers also to deport offenders. I think that I need comment only on the special features of this part of the Bill. Clause 6 and subsection (2) of Clause 7 define which persons are and are not liable to deportation. Exemptions from deportation are framed differently from the exemptions from immigration control in Clause 1 because we are here dealing with matters which can be examined by a court, and not with what can be the criterion for a quick decision of an immigration officer. The effect, putting it shortly, is to exempt people connected with the United Kingdom by birth, parentage, naturalization or marriage. We are also dealing with people already in this country, and have thought it right to exempt from deportation any one who has been ordinarily resident throughout the five years before he is convicted. Subject to what I have said, a court may recommend deportation when anyone over 17 is convicted of any offence punishable with imprisonment, and this definition includes all offences about which concern has been expressed. I wish to emphasise that no one may be deported under this Measure unless recommended for deportation by a court. Clause 8 provides that any person recommended for deportation has the right to appeal against that recommendation in the same way as he can appeal against conviction. Clause 9 provides that the recommendation of a court does not automatically lead to deportation; it is left to my discretion, as Home Secretary, whether to carry the recommendation into effect by means of a deportation order. I am satisfied that these powers will be valuable in a comparative limited number of cases. Having had to exercise similar powers over aliens for the last few years, I can say that the number of aliens deported annually is about 100. I come, in conclusion, to Part III, which contains a number of supplemental and consequential provisions which I need not deal with in detail except for Clause 12—The right hon. Gentleman said, I believe, that the administrative decision as to whether immigrants shall or shall not be allowed to enter the country is not the subject of quasi-judicial appeal. Is it within the Home Secretary's recollection that during the war there were aliens tribunals, staffed by lawyers of considerable experience, who decided precisely this question of whether an immigration officer was justified in refusing entry to an alien? If it was possible to operate that during the very difficult period of wartime, why is it impossible to do it with Commonwealth immigrants now?
Our experience of administering immigration up to date is that the freer we leave our immigration officers the better and more successful the administration, subject to the responsibility of the Secretary of State. What I say to the hon. Member, as I said to the right hon. Gentleman, is that this is a matter which we must discuss during the later stages of the Bill. We shall then go into more details, such as the point the hon. Gentleman suggests.
I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would not like to misrepresent the position. Is he or is he not saying that it is impossible for a quasi-judicial body to be set up to which immigrants refused entry would have the right of appeal? Is he seriously saying that? Will he answer "Yes" or "No"?
I did not say that. I simply said that we should consider the hon. Gentleman's suggestion, which has a basis of experience, in the course of the later stages of the Bill. I will undertake to do that. I never said that it was impossible. I never intended to say so, in any event. I am perfectly ready to consider any matter in the later stages of the Bill.
At present, a citizen of any other self-governing Commonwealth country has the right after twelve months' ordinary residence in the United Kingdom to be registered as a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies. Clause 12 raises this period of twelve months to five years. We have been reluctant to make this change, but it is a necessary consequence of the deportation provisions of the Bill. The House may like to know that five years is the period laid down in the equivalent legislation of Canada and Australia. It will be noted that my present discretion to accept less than the prescribed period of residence remains unaltered and this power can be used to prevent the raising of the period to five years operating too harshly in individual cases which deserve special consideration. Particular consideration will be given to persons who have had close contact with the United Kingdom. That sums up the main provisions of the Bill, because the Schedules are largely consequential. It has not surprised me that the Bill excites considerable feeling on both sides of the House. The Government regret having to produce these proposals, but they believe that this Measure is rendered necessary by the course of events. It would have been perfectly easy just to go on watching the situation, but the Government have preferred, admittedly after hesitation, to take a course which is as distasteful to them as it is to many of their critics. We consider this course to be right. I believe that this course is right and will be to the advantage of Commonwealth relations. I believe that if we continue consultation with the Governments overseas we should be able to explain the humane and reasonable manner in which we wish to administer the Bill, and with the help of the House I hope that we can make the Bill a good and a humane instrument for doing a very necessary job. I ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.4.43 p.m.
I beg to move, to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
We have listened to a most extraordinary speech. The Home Secretary in effect, did not attempt to defend the Bill he was introducing. There were two rather amazing passages in his speech. In one he made it clear that he has made up his mind about the Bill without being aware of some of the most significant and important figures. Whether or not he has given them to my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway), he clearly does not have them in his mind. The net figure of migration is the absolutely critical figure in deciding this matter. The Economist Intelligence Unit study on migration from the Commonwealth suggests that the outflow is very much larger than is generally thought. For instance, it is estimated that between 1955 and 1960 no less than 20 per cent. of the West Indians went back. To make up one's mind that this is a desirable Bill without even being aware of the numbers that go back, and, therefore, of the number that stay, is most extraordinary. The other passage which startled me was the right hon. Gentleman's very embarrassed account of why the Government were excluding the Southern Irish from the Bill. He was guilty of an Irish bull himself. He tried to solace some of his own supporters by saying that he would reserve the right to impose restrictions which he had just shown could not possibly be worked under any circumstances. Why did the right hon. Gentleman put this in the Bill in the first place, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) asked? I think I know. He put it in as a sort of fig leaf to preserve his reputation for liberalism. Now he stands revealed before us in his nakedness. He is an advocate now of a Bill which contains bare-faced, open race discrimination. He advocates a Bill into which race discrimination is now written—not only into its spirit and its practice, but into its very letter. The more I have studied the Bill, the more I have come to the conclusion that it is ill-conceived, that it will not work, that it has been hurried, and that it will do irreparable damage to the Commonwealth. The Leader of the House, speaking at the end of the debate on the Gracious Speech, showed himself to be sensitive to the charge that there had been unseemly haste in preparing the Bill. It bears all the marks of being rushed and unconsidered. Why were the Irish provisions put in? Why was not time taken to work out the fact that they could not possibly be made effective? The slightest knowledge and consideration would have shown that the Bill could not be applied to Ireland. It is obvious that the Bill has been enormously hurried from the fact that the provisions concerning Ireland were put in. No time was allowed for an inquiry. The facts simply are not known. The Home Secretary constantly told us, "I do not know the facts. I do not know how many stay. I do not know where they go. We do not even know the total numbers moving about". In its six annual reports the Oversea Migration Board has deplored the absence of decent statistics about emigration and immigration into this country. It has said over and over again in its reports that the figures now in use are almost meaningless and unreal. Our decisions are being taken on this sort of information. There ought to have been an inquiry to tell us the figures involved, how many are re-emigrating, which the right hon. Gentleman does not know, where they are staying, and whether local authorities ought to have better powers to deal with overcrowding. In this vital matter, which is so important that we are taking the Committee stage of the Bill on the Floor of the House, we are in effect, being asked to legislate in the dark. Another example of the way the Bill has been rushed is the fantastic absence of consultation with the rest of the Commonwealth. On this matter the right hon. Gentleman employed the ambiguous language he usually employs when he is highly embarrassed. There ought to have been a Prime Ministers' meeting. At that meeting the question of all barriers to movement in the Commonwealth ought to have been discussed. There are many barriers. I deplore them. I deplore other barriers in the Commonwealth as much as I deplore the Bill. One thing which worries me about the Bill is that we now put ourselves completely out of court when arguing with other Commonwealth countries in favour of removing or reducing the barriers to movement. Even if there were not time for a Prime Ministers' meeting, or if it was difficult to fix the date, there should have been proper consultation. There was none. The Prime Minister made it clear the other day that a week or so before the decision was announced to the Brighton Conference other Commonwealth Governments were informed—not consulted, but just told. They were told at a date which did not leave them time to make any comment at all before the Bill was produced and the decision announced. The Prime Minister of Jamaica learned about this from the Press. I say this to the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations. This is an extraordinary and dangerous doctrine about Commonwealth consultation. The doctrine is, "If you are frightened of criticism, do not consult. Just inform, and give them no time to comment". It is the same thing as was done over Suez. This reduces Commonwealth consultation to a nullity. Yet it is the life-blood of the Commonwealth. When I was Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations we followed the opposite policy. If there was anything which was likely to worry or disturb Commonwealth Governments, we conducted long and early consultation before we came to decisions. This is the only way in which consultation in the Commonwealth can be conducted. What was the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations doing? Was he urging that proper consultation should have been undertaken? Was he overwhelmed and defeated, in which case he should resign? Or was he falling down on his job, in which case he should resign? There could easily have been consultation. There was no need for all this degree of rush, even on the Government's case. They could have left it for a couple of months so that there could have been give and take and movement of opinion. The reason is that the Government are ashamed of what they are doing. They did not want to give time for consultation, and the reason they are ashamed is that this Bill in intention, in fact and now openly, because of what has been done in regard to the Southern Irish, is a Bill based on racial discrimination. In its first form, before the Irish were taken out, the Bill was very careful to cover up this racial discrimination, but this only makes it worse, because a colour bar clothed in hypocrisy provokes even deeper resentment than a straightforward colour bar. How is this going to work?"this House declines to give a Second Reading to a Bill which, without adequate inquiry and without full discussion at a meeting of Commonwealth Prime Ministers, removes from Commonwealth citizens the long standing right of free entry to Britain, and is thus calculated to undermine the unity and strength of the Commonwealth: gives excessive discretionary powers to the executive without any provision for appeals; will be widely regarded as introducing a colour bar into our legislation; and, though providing for health checks and for the deportation of those convicted of certain criminal offences, fails to deal with the deplorable social and housing conditions under which recent Commonwealth immigrants and other subjects of Her Majesty are living."
The right hon. Gentleman is talking about hypocrisy. Did he read the editorial in the Observer on Sunday, a newspaper which I think he supports, which said that it was sheer hypocrisy to pretend that colour is not an important factor?
Of course, I read that article. I hope that the hon. Member for Louth read the article in The Times the other day. In any case, whatever these newspapers are saying, the fact remains that this is a hypocritical Bill. It is clothed and cloaked as if there was no racial discrimination involved. But how does it work?
The right hon. Gentleman very properly gave us an account, in a sort of formal sense, of how the Bill will work, but what will happen in actual fact is this. Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders will encounter for the first time difficulties in coming here—the formalities of getting vouchers and all sorts of new conditions which will take away from them rights as old as the Commonwealth. But Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders will overwhelmingly fall into the acceptable categories. Some coloured immigrants will come in because they have jobs and vouchers. Then we have this quota—first come, first served. It sounds as if there will be no racial discrimination, but everyone knows that the overwhelming majority of those trying to get in on the open quota will be coloured people. The net effect of the Bill is that a negligible number of white people will be kept out and almost all those kept out by the Bill will be coloured people. That is why I say that this is a hypothetical Bill, because that is the intention of it. The exclusion of the Irish makes all this blatant, obvious and undeniable. I doubt, with all the damage the Bill will do in the Commonwealth, whether it will really work or achieve the aim which it is setting out to achieve, because it rests on an economic argument which is completely fallacious, which was echoed by the right hon. Gentlemen. The fact, to which the right hon. Gentleman and many others who support this Bill shut their eyes, is that an expanding economy creates new jobs. In the Birmingham area, between 1955 and 1960, 60,000 new jobs were created. The services in an expanding economy are continually short. There is a shortage of labour on the buses, in the hospitals and of men for the Forces, for which we are recruiting in Jamaica at the very moment that we are discussing this Bill. We could not run the economy without some immigrant labour from some- where. Even this House depends upon coloured labour employed in the Serjeant at Arms Department. Therefore, an expanding economy, even one expanding at the rate laid down by this Government, produces labour scarcity. We have to accept this as a fact of life. There is a direct relation between labour demand and immigration. Ninety-five per cent. of immigrants get jobs quickly. They do not just move about casually. They are able to take a share in the working of our economy. Some widespread fears are, in fact, wholly exaggerated. There was one which the right hon. Gentleman played on. Many people talk about millions of people coming here; he talked about a quarter of the population of the world coming here. But a limit is set on the numbers coming here by the economy itself, by the need of the economy for labour. It is the net figure that matters whether of immigration or migration. I think that the figure is not very great. Some years it is negative; some years it is positive. Another argument used by the right hon. Gentleman, which is fallacious, is the fear of a slump causing tremendous racial troubles. The truth is that there is a fairly quick adaptation of the numbers to the movement of the economy to and fro. The right hon. Gentleman himself gave an example. He said that in 1958–59 the number moving in dropped and the number going out went up, both of coloured immigrants and of Irish, because the economy contracted. If the Government anticipate a catastrophic slump, they had better tell us, because a lot of other things will arise. But, short of that, the ordinary movement back and forth of the economy produces an extremely rapid adaptation of the figures of immigration, including people going back. The truth is that the only way of putting a real ban on immigration is if we are prepared to slow up the economy. We must be told if that is the Government's policy. If not, an expanding economy will suck in the labour from somewhere. Recruitment will be organised in the overseas Commonwealth, with labour exchanges being set up in the West Indies in order to get round the Bill so that people there will get vouchers. The Irish will come in in greater numbers.Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that his argument would be fairer if instead of "expanding economy" he said "inflation", and does he not think that immigration, however, excellent in the long run, in the short run is inflationary?
I must agree that inflation is inflation, but all the rest that the hon. Member has said seems to be poppycock and nonsense and quite irrelevant to what we are discussing.
Of course, labour will come in from the Common Market countries if we go into the Common Market. There are doubts about the meaning of the Treaty of Rome, but it is quite clear that under the Treaty of Rome recruitment of labour in the various Common Market countries will be much easier and we shall move steadily towards freedom of movement. The net effect of all this will be an affront to all Commonwealth countries, whether pre-war or post-war—the whole lot—Australians, Canadians, West Indians and Indians will find that for the first time they are being investigated, detained and having to get vouchers under the discretion of the immigration officers, whereas the Irish and people from the Continent will be able to came in freely, or very much more freely. Soon we shall have to have new notices at our parts. One will say: "British, Irish, German, Italian and French—this way"; and the other will say: "All other aliens and Commonwealth citizens this way."The Times in a weighty leading article came to the conclusion that the Bill would not work in the terms of its own intentions. On 14th November it statedthat is, the Bill—"It is difficult to see how it"—
Much worse than a lot of complicated paperwork is going to result from this Bill. In the same leading article The Times said:"is going to reduce numbers or do much more than introduce a lot of complicated paperwork".
that is, the Bill—"The damage, emotional, economic, and political, which it"—
"is likely to do to the already fragile fabric of the Commonwealth can hardly be exaggerated."
What about the article in the Observer?
Conservatives pride themselves on being the party of the Commonwealth. I am beginning to think that they and the Ministers on the Front Bench do not know the first thing about the Commonwealth today.
One thing which I never forgot when I had some part in dealing with this matter was that, although relationships between people of the white race and other races is a world-wide problem, it is, in a special sense, a peculiar Commonwealth problem. European imperialism imposed a long period of domination by whites over peoples of other colours. Consequently, the struggle for independence imparted a special intensity to the relationships of coloured and white people and conflicts between them, which did not attach to other sorts of racial conflict, to other acts of oppression or other acts of intolerance. The transformation of the Empire into the Commonwealth meant that this special problem was carried over into the Commonwealth, because the essence of the Commonwealth was that we did not terminate our relations with these Colonies but translated them into a continuing relationship between Asian, African and European nations. We must therefore accept—we may sometimes think it not logical—that for some time to come a special tension in relationships between white people and people of other colours will be an integral part of Commonwealth relations. That is why South Africa presented a special, unique problem for the Commonwealth, which went to the root of the nature of the Commonwealth. That is why this Bill goes to the root of the nature of the Commonwealth. That is why it has produced heart-felt, genuine and deeply-felt alarm in many parts of the Commonwealth. There have already been reactions to it, the strongest in the West Indies. Hon. Members on both sides of the House who know the West Indies knew that this would happen. It has happened. Objection has been voiced by Sir Grantley Adams, a man who I have always found to be one of the wisest and ablest leaders in the Commonwealth and deeply attached to the Commonwealth. His words cannot be ignored by anyone who really has the interests of the Commonwealth at heart. India has let it be known that, if the Bill is passed, it will consider introducing equal retaliatory measures. There has been much talk about the lack of reciprocity. I do not like bars to movement anywhere in the Commonwealth. In India there is complete reciprocity. A Briton can go to India as easily as an Indian can come here. He can go there, stay there and work there. There are more Britons in India today than there were before she achieved her independence. Imagine all this being stopped, with vouchers and all sorts of restrictions. The Bill will have a very grave effect on our trade, on our exports, because our people in India are primarily there for trade. It would appear from the timing of the Bill, from the Commonwealth point of view, almost as if the Government have picked the worst possible moment to introduce it. We are at a critical stage in bringing non-racial states in East and Central Africa to independence and self-government. Everything there turns on the tolerance of an African majority for a white minority. To pick this moment to introduce a racially discriminatory Bill into our Commonwealth relations is the height of stupidity. We are at a critical stage in the future of the West Indian Federation. This is also the time when the Common Market, whatever one may think of its merits, has unquestionably introduced doubt and suspicion among the member states of the Commonwealth. To introduce this Bill at this time is really appalling. The Home Secretary made a lot of this being a temporary Bill. But it lasts for five years and can be renewed by order. It is nothing like the Aliens Act, which we discuss year by year and which we discussed last night. It will be intolerable if this House has greater control over and greater influence in regard to restrictions on the entry of aliens than in regard to restrictions on the entry of Commonwealth citizens. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Minister of State, Home Office, was good enough to say yesterday that the debate that we have year by year has a great effect on administration and that it brings about a great improvement in individual cases and in general policy. But we shall not be able to do that with regard to Commonwealth citizens. This must be an annual Bill so that we can discuss and watch it year by year under the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill. Parliament cannot delegate to Ministers so much power and so much discretion over a matter which concerns the Commonwealth and Commonwealth citizens. The heart of our Amendment is that the Government are approaching the wrong problem in the wrong way. Of course, there is a real problem, a problem of social relations, housing, and overcrowding, which produces racial tension. Hon. Members who represent the affected areas—I am in one of them—know that there is deep and genuine feeling on this matter. We have all been told by constituents, "If you had to live in the conditions in which we live your mind might well be changed". I have always thought that there was force in this argument. It is easy to be high-minded from a distance. But Members of Parliament have duties. They have a duty to consider this question in the wider perspective of the Commonwealth and the Common Market. In addition, they have a duty to try to get at what is the real problem and the remedies for it. There are two causes of the real problem. One is what I might call the clotting of the immigrant population, its gathering together in smallish areas of poor housing and high unemployment. The latest figures which I have been able to obtain show that 40 per cent. of the coloured immigrants in this country live in London, 30 per cent. in the West Midlands and 3 per cent. in Scotland. The position is worse than the figures show, because the immigrants are concentrated in small areas within larger conurbations like London and the West Midlands. The second cause of the problem is that, in these areas of clotting population, the creation of new jobs by the expanding economy is outrunning the provision of houses. This is the simple cause, and the results, of course, are appalling. They affect everybody, and not just the coloured immigrants, who live in these places. The thought that in 1961 homelessness should be increasing day by day and week by week in London is appalling, and it is a manifestation of the same basic problem that we have to face concerning the clotting of the immigrant population. The Government are to blame for this situation. The Government have totally failed to relate the increase in the number of jobs to housing. They have totally failed to disperse industry. They have contributed to homelessness and overcrowding by their Rent Act and by cutting back local authority house building. We must get the problem in perspective. It is a very grave problem, but it occurs only in relatively small areas and the Bill is quite irrelevant to the problem; it will do nothing whatever to remedy it. Immigration will go on under it. If we do nothing else but just have this Bill the problem will get steadily worse. I believe that one motive of the Bill is not to achieve very much but to divert anger in the cities from the Government and its policies. A real drive now to start local authority building again and to disperse industry would have a relatively quick effect on this problem and much of the present tension might go rather quickly. There have been other waves of rapid immigration in our time. When I was young in politics, there was a great emigration from Wales. I remember that in Oxford all the things that are said now about immigrants were said about the Welsh. That problem has disappeared, partly through time and partly because great housing estates have been built which have totally changed living conditions. In this respect, there is a point which is constantly overlooked. It is that we cannot build the houses or the roads that we need to get this dispersal, this acceptance of the immigrant population, without immigrant labour. It cannot be done. We do not take any negative view in opposing the Bill. We think that there is a problem and that it should be dealt with. The Government must make much greater efforts to disperse this population. They must support local authorities much more in using their anti-overcrowding powers. They must take active measures to combat the colour bar. This is necessary now in our country because there are some elements that are stirring up race hatred. We should consider legislation to punish deliberate incitement of race hatred. We must certainly have legislation to stop the practice of the colour bar in places to which the public has access. The Government must use their full influence. It is no good the Home Secretary praising the bodies who have helped. What have the Government done to help them? A great deal can be done to help the committees set up by local authorities and others. They need welfare officers and interpreters. We all know that where there is bad behaviour by immigrants, if somebody of their own race and colour goes to them with the authority of being a welfare officer, it is nearly always put right and relations improve immensely. We bitterly oppose the Bill and will resist it. It has been rushed. There has been no inquiry, no consultation with the Commonwealth. It is widely and rightly regarded as introducing a colour bar into our legislation. It will do great harm to the Commonwealth. It is so ill-conceived that it will not achieve even its own mis-begotten purposes. It is a Bill, as the Economist said, that is a ramshackle monstrosity.5.13 p.m.
Mr. Deputy-Speaker—[An HON. MEMBER: "Deputy for Mosley."]—I hope that hon. Members opposite, who are so keen on racial equality, will at least give me the courtesy of a hearing—[An HON. MEMBER: The hon. Member does not deserve it."]—and will give me the sort of hearing that they would demand for anybody speaking from this side who happened to have a black face. [Interruption.]
The right hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker) made three points to which I should like to refer. He said that one of his constituents had told him, "If you lived in a coloured area, you would think differently about this problem". As the House knows, I have been agitating for this type of legislation for ten years. I make no bones about it and I do not apologise for it. I have received thousands of letters from all over the country, mostly from people who live in the areas—Mosley gets thousands of letters. [Interruption.]
Is this the sort of liberty that is given to an Englishman? I have received thousands of letters from people who live in these areas and who are affected by this problem.
Answer them.
I have answered every one. Many of them are from the Brixton area which the hon. Member will not touch. These people show an acute sense of distress because of this problem. The right hon. Member for Smethwick gave not nearly enough attention to the English people in the great cities who are affected by this problem.
The right hon. Gentleman's second point—if I may have his attention for a moment—was that the net migration figures would show in some cases that more people left this country than came to it. That is probably true. The position varies from year to year. What the right hon. Gentleman will agree, however, is that those people leaving this country for other parts of the Commonwealth have to subject themselves to restrictions even greater than those that the Bill will impose. That is a fair point to make. Therefore, it does not seem to me at all unreasonable that we should say to other parts of the Commonwealth that we will exercise the same powers in our own country that they have power to exercise in their countries. I support the Bill wholeheartedly and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary on introducing it. I recognise that this is one of the most momentous decisions that the House will have to take for many a generation, but I believe that it is ten years too late and that it is still inadequate. I think that far greater controls will be necessary before long. As a child, however, I was taught that half a loaf is better than no bread, and I am grateful for small mercies. Why is the Bill necessary? That is the question we must face. [Interruption.] I beg hon. Members opposite to listen. Last week, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was challenged by the Leader of the Opposition for supporting the Bill after the speech which my right hon. Friend had made at the Brighton conference on the brotherhood of man. My right hon. Friend said:the Bill—"I detest the necessity for"—
I am quite aware that the onus rests upon us to prove its necessity. Yesterday, there appeared in the Daily Telegraph what I thought was a rather good letter giving a number of figures which prove beyond doubt that a Bill of this kind was necessary. The right hon. Member for Smethwick simply ignored those figures and the implications behind them. When the Leader of the Opposition winds up the debate from his side of the House, I should like him to face the ugly facts of those figures that were in my letter yesterday in the Daily Telegraph. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]"but I believe it to be necessary."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th November, 1961; Vol. 648, c. 926.]
rose—
Order. If the hon. Member who is speaking does not give way, obviously the hon. Member for Abertillery (Mr. LI. Williams) must resume his seat. I would point out that a large number of hon. Members wish to speak. Possibly, we can have fewer interruptions.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for now giving way. Does he consider it justifiable to use one particular word in the letter to which he has referred, in which he said
Does the hon. Member think that he is entitled to use the word "brother" in that context?" 'Keep out brother' is a statistical necessity"?
That was a quotation from The Times and it was in inverted commas.
rose—
Let me answer one at a time. The right hon. Gentleman had a fair run and was listened to patiently. [HON. MEMBERS: "He was talking sense."] That word came from The Times of London and it was in inverted commas to show that it had been copied from elsewhere. Surely the hon. Gentleman understands that?
rose—
I appeal to hon. Members to let me get on, but I will give way once more.
Does the hon. Member remember the famous words of John Wesley, "The world is my parish"?
That is true. I agree with that, but even in Methodism each man is entitled to settle his own domestic affairs in his own household.
According to our standards.
Every Methodist is entitled to do that. [Interruption.] I was challenged by the hon. Gentleman and I am trying to answer.
Drooling hypocrisy. Keep Christianity out of it.
The question I want to face is, why do immigrants come to this country? Why do they come here? For the simple reason that the standard of living in this country, as I showed in my letter, is so much higher than that they can enjoy in their own country—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why is that?"]—and they will continue to come here whilst our standard of living is so much higher than theirs. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why is that?"] As long as that is true they will come. This is the honey pot to which they will come, so long as there is any honey in the pot.
How much money has the hon. Member in the West Indies?
The equality of brotherhood which hon. Members opposite show astonishes me.
Will the hon. Member say whether he believes in the brotherhood of all men or merely in the brotherhood of white men?
I believe in the brotherhood of all men, and I would not shut out half a dozen members from my own party just because they disagree. [Hon. Members: "What about Nigel Nicolson?"] So far as I know, the Foot family are still white. I think that hon. Gentlemen opposite—[Interruption.] Do let me get on. If I am constantly interrupted I will only take longer, I warn hon. Members. I am trying to answer a question.
We have got to face this. Why is it that they come here? It is because they can have a very much higher standard here than they can in their own country. In Pakistan and India they work harder for a week's wage which is less than they can get here on the dole for doing nothing, and whilst therefore—rose—
I cannot give way again.
Order.
How many unemployed are there there?
How many?
If this is the sort of liberty which we can expect from hon. Gentlemen opposite, God help England if it is controlled by them.
How many? Flow many?
I hope that hon. Members will not keep on shouting out repetitive questions from a sitting position.
I am much obliged to you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I say to hon. Gentlemen this will do them no good. What we are seeing is the sort of liberty which they will leave to us. They believe in the black man having his say, but not the white man.
I claim that control is inevitable because of the attraction of our country to the coloured people because of their immense poverty and their low standard of living. [An HON. MEMBER: "Exploitation."] Shut up.
On a point of order. Is the hon. Member entitled to say "Shut up" when addressing the Chair? Is he not referring to you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, when he says, "Shut up"?
I do not think the hon. Member addressed that remark in substance to me.
I withdraw that remark. But I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition. Does he not think I should have a fair hearing? Is he proud of this sort of thing? [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Smethwick had a fair hearing.
Therefore, I say with certainty, and I do nor apologise for saying it, that this control which I think is inevitable, and I think ought to have come much earlier, has nothing to do with coloured skin at all. It is due entirely to poverty and to numbers. I want to say this to hon. Gentlemen of those immigrants from the coloured part of the Commonwealth. In my opinion, had they faces as white as snow, their great numbers and their great poverty would have made control of their coming into this country Inevitable.rose—
I beg of you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, some protection.
The dilemma facing our country is this, and I put this to the Leader of the Opposition if I can. Either we have got to bring their standards nearer to our standards or we have got to let them drag our standards down to theirs or we have got to have control of immigration, and that is the problem facing us. The New Zealanders, the Australians, the Canadians, are not coming here in great numbers and that has nothing to do with the colour of their skin. They are not coming here because their standard of living is so very much higher than ours, and therefore there is no temptation for them to come. This problem has nothing whatever to do with skin. Therefore, the real test is the overwhelming numbers and the poverty. The right hon. Gentleman made a lot of the question of the open door policy, and it is in the Amendment. The open door policy could have been maintained while only a small trickle such as we had pre-war was coming to our country, but once we had the immense rush, the great crowds that we are getting now, the situation changed. Figures have been given for the first ten months of this year—113,009. [An HON. MEMBER: "How many West Indians?"] It has got to be controlled, and surely if we are going to have control of immigration because of the numbers we are entitled to impose the same quality of control which is imposed upon us if we wish to go to other parts of the Commonwealth. What hon. Gentlemen have got to face is that we have neither the room nor the resources indefinitely to take all who would like to come. That is a fact which has got to be faced. Some day, if it is not done now, we have got to impose some form of restriction, and I think that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition would agree with that. We have not the wealth nor the resources nor the space to take the whole of the coloured Commonwealth members who might want to come here. [HON. MEMBERS: "The Irish?"] I would control the Irish if I could, and I am not so sure that it cannot be done. [HON. MEMBERS: "The Welsh? The Scots?"] There are a good many Welsh Members I should like to send away. I ask hon. Gentlemen to look at another lot of figures the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Smethwick completely ignored. In the last nine years the population of three of our biggest overseas areas, India, Pakistan and Nigeria, has increased by nearly 100 million people. If medical science is going to do for those people—I hope it will—what it has done for us, reduce their infantile mortality rate and extend their life, then their numbers are going to double in a very short time. I challenge any hon. Member opposite to deny that we could not possibly take that increase in population for ever.Are they coming to England?
Of course. Therefore, I say that the sheer weight of numbers—nothing whatever to do with the colour of the skin—is a factor that controls the event and makes it imperative that we should have some form of control.
rose—
No, I cannot give way again. I have given way about six times already, and that is more than the right hon. Gentleman did earlier. If hon. Members want me to give way every time they wish to interrupt and want me to take the whole night to finish my speech, I will do that.
I am saying that in the last ten years, off and on, I have continued to press for four things, some of which are not in the Bill, though I wish they were. I have said that vie should insist on a clean bill of health, a good character, a house to come to and a job to come to. I am sure that most people outside the House feel that these are not unreasonable requirements. The hon. Gentleman quoted The Times and I will, if I may, quote what the Sunday Times said in its editorial. It said:I am not apologising to hon. Members opposite for the record of my party in housing. As compared with what their party did in six years, I am proud of what we have done. To allow an unlimited number of immigrants to come into the country with the housing situation as it is at present is criminal. Therefore, I suggest that we should support the action which my right hon. Friend is taking. The other point made by the hon. Member was that we ought to have consulted the Commonwealth Prime Ministers and obtained their consent before we brought in this legislation. That to me is a fantastic and absurd proposal, for this reason. Australia has one person per square kilometre. We have 301. Australia is determined that not one coloured person shall go into that vast continent. Do hon. Members think that Mr. Menzies would be very pleased to be asked to adjudicate on this situation? What do hon. Members think Mr. Menzies would say to us if we were to say to him, "We want you to come and tell us what we should do"? To take the example of Canada and New Zealand, Canada has two people to the square kilometre and New Zealand has nine. We, as I have said, have 301. Both Canada and New Zealand impose restrictions far greater than those proposed in this Bill. The other countries of the Commonwealth are all exporters of immigrants. They have a vested interest and they, of course, would want us to keep the door open."Nevertheless, race and colour apart, there is a substantial social and economic problem, and it must be faced … the crux is not jobs but homes, and a certified job is no guarantee that the immigrant will not worsen the slum problem."
rose—
The hon. Gentleman is going to tell me that Mr. Manley, with whom he is in very close contact, has said—
I am not going to say anything of the sort. All that I am going to say is this—do we believe in the British Commonwealth or do we not? If we believe in it, then we have a duty to say to Australia and Canada, "You, too, should be taking your share of immigrants from those countries which need emigration." Therefore, it would be a good thing to put them on the spot.
What does the hon. Gentleman think that Canada and Australia would do? It is a futile argument to say that we should go to the Commonwealth Prime Ministers and ask their permission before taking some action to deal with our own domestic affairs. We have a perfect right to decide this matter for ourselves, and I think that the Government are right to do so. For us to go to the West Indies, for example, and say, "Please may we do this?" is surely colonialism in reverse. I wonder what the people of the West Indies would do if we were to say to them, "You must not do this. We shall not allow you."
The hon. Gentleman has a most extraordinary idea about Commonwealth consultation. It is not a question of vetoes but of discussing and talking things over together. That is what the Government did not do.
But even when we have discussed and talked it over with them, we still have to decide for ourselves. The three great white Dominions could not help us because they are against the policy in their own countries. Therefore, they could not say to us, "Do not bring in the Bill." The other Prime Ministers have a vested interest, and, therefore, we surely could not consult with them over this issue.
The right hon. Gentleman said that this immigration labour is necessary to us, that we could not get on without it on the buses, on the underground and in the hospitals. Last June the Economist put it this way. It said:Therefore, the Economist went on to say that we must import the semi-slave, second-class citizens to do the unsavoury jobs which we English are not prepared to do ourselves. I ask the right hon. Gentleman this question, will the immigrants' children who are brought up in this country continue to do our unsavoury jobs for us—"Englishmen find themselves increasingly too fastidious to perform unsavoury or unpopular duties."
They might become stockbrokers.
—or shall we have to continue to bring in more and more of these people to do the unsavoury jobs, or shall we do what the Scots do? We have got to face this problem. Last autumn I went to Scotland for a short holiday. I understand that except for the City of Glasgow practically all the other great cities of Scotland run their hospitals, their buses and their railways themselves. The Scots are a better educated, a prouder and more independent-minded people than the English. It is high time that we learned to do for ourselves what the Scots do for themselves and not to rely on immigrant labour.
I asked the right hon. Member also if he would quote to us what was said in the Observer, but he refused to do so. I wish to remind the House what the Observer, which is regarded as a very liberal-minded paper, said on Sunday, 5th November. It said:The paper added:"To accept all the arguments against the Bill does not demolish the case for some control of immigration … Britain has neither the resources nor the space to go on indefinitely adding to its population, irrespec- tive of whether the increase in population is white or coloured."
Is that what the right hon. Member for Smethwick wants? Finally, the Observer puts this point:"If the door were kept wide open, a time would inevitably come … when we should have a social situation in which any proposal to limit further immigration would have to be fought through in an atmosphere of bitter racial antagonisms."
and then it blames it on me, adding:"The seeds of such a crisis are already present"—
Though I wrote to the editor and asked why views expressed by politicians were repugnant and yet those same views expressed by the editor of the Observer were liberal-minded, he failed to publish that letter. The quotation continues:"not only in the repugnant emotional attitudes of certain politicians".
The right hon. Member for Smethwick knows that this is a fact. He knows that this is the trouble that faces us, and yelling across the Floor of the House will not solve the problem. The Observer adds:"… but also among the workers who are directly involved in the social strains of competing with immigrants for houses, hospital beds and social services."
These are quotations from the liberal-minded Observer, and I plead all that in support of this very moderate Bill. Lastly, I want to ask one question of the Leader of the Opposition to whom I gave notice that I would ask it. A letter was sent on to me, typed on House of Commons paper, from the Parliamentary Labour Party, House of Commons, dated 27th June, 1961. It reads:"Certainly, we want more of all of these; but, again, there is a limit to what is possible. And although race and colour should not complicate these problems, it is hypocrisy to pretend that they do not."
Does that stand, no matter what the conditions may be, for all time?"Dear Mr. Sawyer, Mr. Gaitskell has asked me as Secretary of the Parliamentary Labour Party to thank you for your letter of 25th June. The Labour Party is opposed to the restriction of immigration as every Commonwealth citizen has the right, as a British subject, to enter this country at will."
We are discussing the present time.
This is vital, because the numbers are growing and growing. No matter how they grow, does this still hold true? The letter continues:
Is that still the policy of the Leader of the Opposition, whatever the conditions may be? Is it his policy that there should be unconditional entry into this country from any part of the Commonwealth?"This has been the right of subjects of the Crown for many centuries and the Labour Party has always maintained that it should be unconditional …".
We let them come when we want them to die for us.
This is a vital consideration and I should like the Leader of the Opposition to deal with it when he speaks.
The real way to deal with this problem, which hon. Members have in mind, of the poverty of the coloured people in the Commonwealth is not to bring what is a tiny fraction of them into this country, because a tiny fraction over there is a great flood for us and still leaves them with this basic problem. They have to face poverty and increasing population. Hon. Members should bear in mind that at present basic commodities cost less than since 1946. If we as a country had paid the same terms of trade last year as we would have paid in 1954, then for imports from the coloured Commonwealth, we would have paid between £400 million and £450 million more than we actually did. [HON. MEMBERS: "Tell the Chancellor."] The coloured people would have been that much better off, but we must face it that the English people would have been that much poorer. [An HON. MEMBER: "British people."] The problem is greater in England. These people do not go to Wales or to Scotland. The question that I want to put, therefore, is this. If we are to put into effect the concept of the brotherhood of man—[HON. MEMBERS: "Ah."]—which hon. Members opposite talk about, we shall not do it on the cheap. It will cost us a great deal. We can do it only by paying higher prices for the things which these people produce for us. In the meantime, because of the enormous flood of people wanting to come into this country and because of the tremendous social prob- lems which this is creating in Birmingham, Nottingham, Coventry, Wolverhampton and London, I say that there must be a check, and because of that I gladly support the Bill.The hon. Member did not want to check them when they fought for us.
5.45 p.m.
I was hoping that the hon. Member for Louth (Sir C. Osborne) would be allowed to intervene in the debate, but I had not expected to be so fortunate as to have him intervene so very early. Rightly, the hon. Member claimed at the beginning of his speech that he had agitated for the Bill for the last two years at least, and he was very glad that it had now been brought forward. I ant prepared to credit him with being the true author of the Bill, and I am quite sure that the Government feel not only elated but greatly gratified that they have now adopted the hon. Member's policy.
Incidentally, the hon. Member provided the answer to one assertion that had been made by the Home Secretary. The right hon. Gentleman claimed that it was not the Government's intention in the Bill to make any discrimination oil the ground of colour and that they had no intention whatever of restricting immigration into this country merely because the immigrant had not the same coloured skin as we have. But I had the good fortune the other night to watch television on which there was supposed to be a debate between the hon. Member for Louth and the hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. F. Noel-Baker). The hon. Member for Swindon was doing his best, quite calmly, to state his views about the Bill, but he was interrupted the whole time by hysterical shouts from the hon. Member for Louth of "Do you want this country to be black"? May I pass that on to the Home Secretary and tell him that the author of the Bill intends this to be a Bill discriminating on the ground of colour? To me the Bill is a confession of failure in two important respects. First, there is the failure to tackle the problem which confront these people in their country of origin, and they are people for whom we have been responsible for well over a century. Now when we are handing over self-government to them we are merely leaving them to do the best they can. The Government ought to have shown from the outset foresight, energy and drive in facing what would happen to the people in these territories. Instead, there has been complete failure on the part of the Government to tackle that problem. There has been complete failure to tackle the problem, on this side, of how these people are to be housed when they come here. There has been an admission by the Home Secretary that they have done excellent work and have added to the country's production. There has been an admission that they have replaced people required elsewhere, but then hon. Members like the hon. Member for Louth shout, "But look at the conditions in which they live". Are they to be blamed for that or is the blame on the Government of the day? It seems to me that instead of tackling these two problems with energy, drive and determination, which they ought to have shown, the Government found that this Bill was an easy way out. So that they need not bother any more about these problems, they said "Keep these people out". That has been said at the Dispatch Box by a representative of the "mother" of all these Commonwealth countries. It has been our proud claim that we have been in the position of the "mother country" towards all these others. Now that their people are driven from their homes because they cannot earn a decent living, the "mother" is prepared for the first time to close the door in their faces. Up till now, as the right hon. Gentleman said, the position in the Commonwealth has been—and of this we have boasted throughout the years—that it was the right of any citizen in any part of the Commonwealth—an absolute, undeniable right—to come here and stay here at any time just as easily and readily and with as much right as any of us who were born here. For the first time in the history of the Empire and the Commonwealth that right is to be denied. All that those people are now to get is a permit, which may be given to them or may be refused. I agree that in this respect we have had a unique position in the Common- wealth, and the Commonwealth as a whole is unique, but, as a mother country, we are not alone in giving that right to the people to whom we have been responsible. It is a right which is also accorded by France, and has been throughout, to all the people in the French territories, and it is accorded even now to the Algerians, in spite of all the trouble that France is having in Algiers. A similar position was taken by Holland. We are the first of these three countries to deny that right. The Bill has done more to wreck the Commonwealth than any action ever taken by any Government at any time. After all, the fabric which keeps the Commonwealth together is a very delicate one, and it ought not readily to be interfered with. The Bill will have aroused emotions and social and economic questions and, above all, political questions. Hitherto the Conservative Party has put forward a sort of special claim that the Empire has been its Empire and that the Commonwealth really owed its existence to hon. Members opposite. I have always been in some difficulty in following that argument, for the Conservatives lost the first thirteen colonies we had in North America—and fought them for six solid years, not with our own soldiers but with imported German soldiers. The history of the Tory Party with regard to the Empire is not good. As a result of the policy of the Conservatives in South Africa around the beginning of the century they certainly lost us Cape Colony and Natal. It may be that the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, as we knew them in those days, would have remained separate. At any rate, we always thought that the people of Cape Colony and Natal would regard it as right and proper to be associated with this country. Unfortunately, acts were committed at that time, especially with regard to the concentration camps, which were used for the first time, which will never be forgotten by the people of South Africa. Nevertheless, this Bill has done much more harm than was done by our actions in North America and South Africa. What is more, until the last twelve months or so we heard members of the Conservative Party, including occupants of the Government Front Bench, express anxiety about the composition of the Commonwealth if perchance we join the Common Market. It can at any rate be said about the Government that before they took the first step of beginning negotiations about the Common Market they went out of their way to consult the Commonwealth and obtain its views. They actually sent out Ministers to explain what they intended to do and obtained the views of the Commonwealth. But here is a far more delicate matter. No one was sent out to ask India, Pakistan—with their huge populations and tremendous problems— or the West Indies what they felt about something of this nature. I wonder what answer the Colonial Secretary has sent to the very remarkable telegram from that fine character, Mr. Manley, which contained these words:I should like to know—I am perfectly sure that the House, the country, the West Indies, India and Pakistan would—what answer was sent to that telegram. The right hon. Gentleman and other members of the Government may assert and reassert until they are black in the face that this is not intended as a colour bar, but nobody will believe them. Nobody in India, Pakistan and the West Indies will believe them. Nobody throughout Africa will believe them. What a situation it is when the Government are mistrusted by the countries and peoples for whom we were hitherto responsible! What is more, a great number of people in the United Kingdom will not believe them. There must have been some millions of people—certainly hundreds of thousands—listening to and watching the hon. Member for Louth in his hysterical mood the other night shouting to the hon. Member for Swindon, "Do you want a black country?" I am not surprised that the hon. Member has had thousands of letters. There must be thousands of people who will believe that what he said represents the policy of the Government."This act will be interpreted throughout the world as a failure to face up to the problem of colour presented to England for the first time in history."
Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman believe that we ought to have the right to kick out people like the Messina brothers? I urged at least five years ago that we should have the right to keep out of the country, or to send back to their own countries, criminals of any colour.
The hon. Gentleman has missed the point. I know of no occasion when this country has proved the loser through immigrants coming here. It has always gained through that. I would remind the hon. Member of the great advantages that we derived through the sanctuary that we gave to the Huguenots. It was the same with regard to the Flemish. In introducing the Bill, the Home Secretary commented upon the advantages that we were now getting through having received those very people into this country.
What is more, I claim to be a direct descendant of the original inhabitants of this country, and I have in mind the occasions in 44 B.C., A.D. 500 and A.D. 1066, when many of the ancestors of the right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite came here without asking our permission at all. But I am prepared to admit that this country gained from every one of those invasions. I come to one other matter mentioned by the Home Secretary. He gave the figures for immigrants, and the House was right in demanding the figures for emigrants. Throughout the last three hundred or four hundred years the number of emigrants from this country has far exceeded the immigrants. It has always been my boast that in an amazing period of the last century this country helped to create the strength of the United States, to people Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It was our boast in this country that we were responsible for a quarter of the area of the globe and for one-quarter of its population.Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman admit that those same forces which drove many hundreds of thousands from our shores to those countries are the same forces which compel people to come here from the West Indies?
I was coming to that. The hon. Member is quite right. That is the position. The emigrants were leaving this country because the economic situation here was bad. They went to produce new wealth elsewhere. They were driven out by hunger.
Under Liberal Governments.
I wish the hon. Gentleman would realise that not one of us, whether from Wales or the West Indies, or from anywhere else, wants voluntarily to leave home. We would rather make a decent living at home. I wonder how many hon. Members realise the position of Wales, with its 2½ million population in the thirteen counties between the two World Wars, when 500,000 people could not make a living in Glamorgan and Monmouthshire alone. They had to go elsewhere and they never came back. What would the hon. Member for Louth do? Build a Berlin wall? Would he follow the example of East Germany and say, "You cannot come in or go out"? What kind of policy is that in this modern world, when we are so dependent upon one another?
When the right hon. and learned Gentleman compares the emigration from this country to North America with the immigration to this country in the last few years, he must bear in mind that our emigrants were going to a vast continent, unpopulated and with untold wealth and resources, whereas we are the most densely populated little island in the world.
What happened to the poor Indians who were already there? They were murdered—nearly wiped out of existence. But let me come to the present position of the West Indians. We owe a deeper obligation to these people than to almost any other part of the Commonwealth. Our ancesters took people by force from the West coast and East coast, but in the main from the West coast, of Africa and, under the most cruel conditions, trans-shipped them to the West Indies, where their descendants now live. We thus owe the West Indians a special obligation.
I am proud of the fact that, when this country was bled white in the time of Napoleon, the voice of Wilberforce was heard and this country paid millions of pounds in order to free the slaves. At present, when they are going hungry, they have the hope of a new haven on earth for them in London. They are forbidden now to go to the United States. The door has always been open to them here, but in the moment of want and of hunger the Government are closing the door. The Tory record with regard to Ireland is a disgrace. It is perfectly obvious that the present Government are determined to do something to immigration from Ireland. There was a close association between the two islands before Anglo-Saxon was ever spoken. But there is a terrible tragedy of Ireland. The figures speak for themselves in telling what has happened to Ireland. For a long time the population of England and Wales was roughly about double the population of Ireland. I cite the figures. In 1841 the population of England and Wales was just under 16 million and the population of Ireland was 8,200,000—nearly double that of Scotland. In 1851 the population of England and Wales was up to 18 million while Ireland's was down to 6,500,000. In 1901, the population of England and Wales was 32,500,000, while Ireland's was down to 4,500,000. In the last census, 1961, the population of England and Wales was given as 51¼ million, while that of Ireland—and all these figures include Northern Ireland as well as Eire—was down to 4,300,000. Do the Irishmen want to leave home? I know of no one who is more moved by emotion about his home and the traditions of his country than Irishmen. But the Irish have had to leave home because there was no source of livelihood for them. That is why they come here. They would much prefer to live in their own homes.The Times has always been a very strong supporter of Conservative Governments, but every now and then it turns upon them. In my younger days, another name for The Times, whenever it found itself in opposition to the Government, was the "Thunderer". I pass this advice to the Government: When that moment of opposition arrived and the rumblings of the "Thunderer" were heard, it was the death knell of the Government of the day. Let the Government take heed of The Times leading article yesterday, which said of the Bill:Those who claim to be the protectors of the Commonwealth are tearing its fabric to bits. That is why I strongly oppose this Bill."The damage, emotional, economic, and political, which it is likely to do to the already fragile fabric of Commonwealth can hardly be exaggerated."
Mr. Gurden.
Like the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) I am not happy about this Bill. I value the Commonwealth right of free entry of people and of goods.
On a point of Order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Would you clarify the situation? Did you call me or my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton)?
I called Mr. Gurden.
6.10 p.m.
I apologise to my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton, and I am sure that he will accept the infringement. We have listened to a very interesting address from the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies), but we must all have been surprised that he appeared not to have examined the Bill and not to know as much about it as we had a right to expect. There was an intervention about the Clauses relating to deportation, but we still failed to get the right hon. and learned Gentleman's comments on deportation, which is a very important part of the Bill. Secondly, the right hon. and learned Gentleman made it clear that it was his impression that, to use his words, the doors were to be closed. Anyone reading the Bill must be convinced that the doors are not to be closed to the Commonwealth and that there is plenty of provision to enable many Commonwealth people still to come into this country.
I was considerably confused by the right hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker), although he fairly summed up the problem. He said that the present situation had had an appalling effect upon everybody. That was a fair assumption. He knows full well what the situation is in the West Midlands and certainly in Smethwick. However, I was confused when, having said how damaging the Bill would be, he said that it was quite useless and would not have the desired effect in solving the problem. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman is not in his place to clarify his position and clear the confusion. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary on his courage in introducing the Bill. We all know the difficulties which he has had to face and which he now has to face.rose—
I should be grateful if the hon. Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Denis Howell) could act in a little more civilised way than he appeared to do when my hon. Friend the Member for Louth (Sir C. Osborne) was speaking earlier. I expect that he will want to make a speech, and I promise not to interrupt him.
Will the hon. Member kindly give way for a moment?
The Bill may well prevent an ugly situation in this country.
Will the hon. Member give way?
No.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Gurden) attacked my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Denis Howell) and ought to give way.
I certainly did not attack the hon. Member. I merely implored him to keep his seat and to act in a civilised manner.
On a point of order. Is it in order for an hon. Member to imply that one of my hon. Friends is uncivilised.
I am sorry, but I did not hear the interruption. I was otherwise engaged at the time. One should not call hon. Members uncivilised.
To clear up the matter, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I did not say that anyone was uncivilised.
The Bill may well prevent an ugly situation from arising, although its opponents will say that it would never have happened anyway. Their faces will be saved, but Birmingham M.P.s cannot be insensible of the serious situation which is involved. Others can choose to be blind since they are not in Government and have no responsibility for the ugly situation which could arise. But it is incredibly dirty politics and causes a lot of trouble to accuse those who favour restriction, not only hon. Members but many other people, of being actuated by colour prejudice. I have taken a lot of trouble to see many people who have written to me and I am convinced that they have searched their hearts and their consciences and know exactly what it means to restrict immigration by an Act of Parliament. They quite realise that it will give the coloured man the impression that he is not wanted here. However, use of that sort of argument shows the poverty of the case on the other side. I hope that we shall refrain from retaliation, which could so easily cause so much trouble in a debate of this kind. The many letters which I have received from citizens of Birmingham and other places have shown that people have had a change of mind about this matter, as I have myself, having started on the other side. Six or seven years ago, particularly in Birmingham, immigrants, including coloured immigrants, were being integrated into our society quite happily and quite satisfactorily, with the odd difficulty here and there. Many people were writing to me then saying that we ought not to have control of immigration, and I agreed with them. Now, however, as my right hon. Friend pointed out, the matter has become extremely serious and almost out of hand. I am glad that the right hon. Member for Smethwick did not try to cloak it. [HON. MEMBERS: "Out of hand?"] Hon. Members should see some of the things which go on in Birmingham. They would then think that it was getting out of hand. Certainly the police have more than they can deal with. [HON. MEMBERS: "Not true."] Oh, yes. I am not saying that it is all crime, but I know of cases where the police have been so busy at certain times of night that there has been as much as an hour's delay after the making of a 999 call before they have been able to get out and settle these little brawls which take place, not only among coloured immigrants but certainly among immigrants. Most of the newspapers have been fairly honest about this issue. They have been mostly reliable and the Birmingham newspapers, the Birmingham Post, the Birmingham Mail and the Birmingham Dispatch, have tried to be fair. I do not think, however, that one could say that The Times has been fair. We have had criticism from The Times, and that is understandable. The Times is not sold in the areas of difficulty. The places where immigrants are now living are not the places where The Times is sold to any great extent. The Times is sold in areas where people never see immigrants and do not understand the problem. Perhaps the Daily Telegraph is a little more fair. Some of the television programmes have played to the emotions of certain people and that has been playing with fire. The television people should be a little more responsible. As for racial prejudice, we have to recognise—When the hon. Member referred to television, was he referring to my appearance on television with another hon. Member? Are his strictures directed at me? If so, I should like an opportunity of replying.
No, they are not. I did not even know that the programme had taken place. It was relevant to mention it since it has been pointed out that the television programme arrangers had played to the emotions by choosing certain people and allowing certain things to be said in the programmes which I have seen and which other people have seen. If I said anything which annoyed the hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. F. Noel-Baker), I am sorry. I do not know anything about the programme he mentioned other than I have heard today.
I was about to say that racial prejudice has existed for as far back as we can trace—community prejudice, national and international prejudice between peoples. In our civilisation we expect it slowly to disappear, and it is disappearing. This process cannot be hurried. The situation in the affected areas was all right even eight or ten years ago, but this setback is due to the vast numbers who have suddenly come in. I am sure that I shall be supported by hon. Members representing Birmingham constituencies when I say that at one time it was possible to integrate these people into Birmingham. Some people may think that it is possible to do it even today, but many of us think that this is impossible. This flood of immigrants has set us back considerably. We hear all sorts of stories about how, in the coloured countries, the white man is told to go home, but we here are not allowed to tell the black man to go home. This is the kind of emotion which is worked up by some people, and which is out of proportion to the problem, but it is wrong to accuse people of being immoral because they want a Bill of this sort. I pay tribute to the police and to the people who have had to live in the areas which are most affected. Crimes are not committed only by coloured immigrants, but those that are are out of all proportion to the number of immigrants, and are of the worst kind—murder, rape, bloodshed, theft, dope peddling, sex crimes, and so on.Surely the hon. Gentleman must have read the report of the Chief Constable of Birmingham—it has been quoted by the Home Secretary—in which he said that there was no justification for assuming that there was an increase in crime as a result of immigration?
That statement is not borne out by the figures. In reply to a Question by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr. N. Pannell), the Home Secretary said:
"The number of convictions for living on immoral earnings in the Metropolitan Police District during 1960 was 130."
What about Birmingham?
I was dealing with crime as a whole. The figures for Birmingham are just as bad.
My right hon. Friend continued:There then follows the table, which shows that of the total of 130, 60 were from the United Kingdom, and 70 from other countries."The following table shows the countries of origin of the offenders."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th March, 1961; Vol. 636, c. 145.]
The hon. Gentleman talked about rape, violence, and sexual offences in Birmingham. The figures he has just quoted are of people convicted for living on immoral earnings in London. They are therefore irrelevant. If he is saying that the Chief Constable of Birmingham was lying, he ought to produce the figures for Birmingham to substantiate his claim.
If the hon. Gentleman allows me, I will quote Birmingham cases.
I have here a letter written by a West Indian, to the editor of the Trinidad Guardian. It says:"We are very clever at diplomacy. We extract millions of dollars from Britain and America and we don't even have to show appreciation.
We are 'independent' now … we get our schooling and technical know-how from Britain, Canada and America, yet we are anti-British and anti-American.
We breed like flies, and don't have to bother with marriage and responsibility for the kids.
We send thousands of our offspring to Britain; mostly unskilled and many criminals. Britain takes them all in without restriction, we expect her to take them.
We do not want her people here. Not even will we allow our own kin from the Federation to come here.
We send fruit and other produce to Britain and get better prices than other countries. When we want something more, we yell 'Colonialism', 'Imperialism' and threaten Communism.
We blow a lot of froth about ancient slavery and exploitation of our working people, and they cheer us. We send our Ministers (loaded with spending money) all over the world to mix and talk with important statesmen and they return puffed up with good ideas which they call their own.
We have 'culture' to sell to the world. Our people make a hell of a racket on oil drums and beat lumps of iron. We concoct what we call calypsoes which many people consider utter drivel and often dirty.
We actually have a Colony of our own, but no independence for her is considered. Britain is our 'sucker' and we do not expect her to join any Common Market or in any way help herself (to help us more).
We want the British people to take on double austerity at this time, while we keep our high salaries and comforts. We tried to kick America out, but, if war comes, we want Britain and America to take good care of us …
That letter was written by Bally Seer from the Port-of-Spain. I have been challenged, but the opinions I have expressed are nothing like as severe as those expressed by this coloured person.We are anti-everything European and don't want those foreigners to come here unless they are very rich."
The hon. Gentleman said that the crime rate among immigrants was worse than among the rest of the population. Has his attention been drawn to what his hon. and learned Friend, who is now the Minister of State for the Home Department, said on 17th February? He said:
Does he deny what has been said from the Government Front Bench on this issue?"Taken as a whole, the immigrants appear to be no less law abiding than their neighbours …".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th February, 1961; Vol. 634, c. 2012.]
The hon. Gentleman has changed what I said and made it appear that I used the phrase "crime rate". I did not say that. I said that the proportion of crime was high, and I read the list of crimes committed by immigrants.
I quote a newspaper report of a Birmingham case. When arrested, the man said:"I am an agent for Russia."
Why quote such rubbish?
Because I was talking about crime. This individual inflicted grievous bodily harm on a 53-year-old woman in her home in Trinity Road, Aston, and I could quote many other cases. Another man wielded a chopper, and when the police found him he said, "My sister-in-law put witchcraft on to me to go mad and mash up my life". Those are two cases, but I have many more—
What about Bluebeard and Jack the Ripper?
I shall resist the temptation to go into those questions.
Many hon. Members have said that the problem of housing is the most serious aspect of the immigration problem. Slum clearance was in sight in Birmingham, but now it is not. A tremendous number of new slums have recently been created. It is easy for hon. Members to gibe, but I challenge them to come with me to Birmingham, where I can show them people living in the most appalling circumstances. The right hon. Member for Smethwick agrees with what I am saying on this point. Opponents of the Bill say that the housing problem was with us before the immigrants arrived, but Birmingham's problem has been aggravated to an extent never before known. Slums now exist in hundreds, or perhaps even thousands, where previously they could be measured in dozens. Never was there such filth and such obscenity. The humiliation and degradation of these people are dreadful. That is why I say that it is not only socially but morally right to have this Bill.Landlords take rent from these people.
Only control can stop this. No kind of housing measure or anything we can do in the foreseeable future could fill the bill.
We know that Mr. Norman Manley and others are politicians, and not statesmen. They have to appeal to the electorate, so they cannot collaborate in these matters. We understand that. We have all listened to Mr. Manley putting his case forward. We know his difficulty. We know he wants to be sure that people in his country will support him. Even if we have a conference on the matter he will not be able to tell us that he can agree to control measures. Most of the Commonwealth will accept this Measure with good will, but difficulties will arise with those who have their own problems. We can help in this matter, but only to a very limited extent, because of the problems involved. In time I hope that good feeling will be restored. I believe that it will. But we must make sure the Bill works, otherwise disaster is ahead.6.33 p.m.
The speech to which we have just listened has proved conclusively what is really in the mind of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selley Oak (Mr. Gurden). As in the case of the hon. Member for Louth (Sir C. Osborne), it is a complete hatred of coloured people.
That is just untrue.
The hon. Member for Selly Oak read at great length a letter from a West Indian newspaper. It was supposed to have been written by a West Indian in Trinidad.
On a point of order. Is it in order for the hon. Member to impute such base motives without the slightest proof Mr. Speaker? Am I entitled to ask him to withdraw his remark?
I have not heard any breach of the rules of order.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. In the course of my remarks I hope to prove what I accuse the hon. Member of. The hon. Member for Selly Oak quoted at great length a letter from a West Indian. It may have been written, but I suggest that it was written by an individual who was as much an illustration of the people of the West Indies as the hon. Member is an illustration of the people of this country, or of Birmingham. I cannot hope to follow him in his remarks about Birmingham, but I have hon. Friends who are quite able to deal with every point he has made with regard to that city and its coloured population. If they are successful in catching your eye, Mr. Speaker, I am sure that they will give adequate replies to the hon. Member.
We are often appealed to to speak from the head and not the heart. I confess now, at the beginning of my speech, that it is the heart that is uppermost but it will become patent during my speech that I ant dealing with the head as well. Most of the things I want to say are Inspired by my love of the people of the West Indies. In that respect I feel completely at cross-purposes with the two hon. Members who have addressed the House from the benches opposite tonight. I am not concerned about them. I can afford to treat them with some contempt. My concern is that the Home Secretary has capitulated to the agitation which they have been indulging in during the last few months. I wonder whether at this moment the Home Secretary is proud of the people whom he has allowed to influence him. During the course of his speech on the Address my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) referred to the fact that the hon. Member for Louth had used the words, "This is a white man's country, and I want to keep it white." My right hon. Friend also referred to the fact that Fascist elements in Notting Hill and other places were saying, "Keep Britain white." Is there much difference between those two statements? I wonder whether the Home Secretary is proud that he has been moved by this combination of Tory reactionaries and Fascist thugs, and whether he has been influenced in any way by the sort of people typified by the three young men who were sent to long terms of imprisonment last week for their vicious actions against people whom they did not like, and whom they called the "spades". That has been the form that the agitation has taken, and that is what the Government have fallen for.Does the hon. Member strongly advocate a mixed race in this country?
I shall come to that point in the course of my remarks. I am not concerned to answer the hon. Member now.
I ask the Government whether this is a package deal. It is not without significance that the people who have been agitating for a return of corporal punishment are the people who have been agitating for this kind of legislation. The same people have been saying this on the platform of Tory conferences for a year or two. Are we having this legislation instead of legislation to bring back corporal punishment? I suggest that this is part of a package deal with these agitators, and that the Home Secretary, feeling that he had to give way on something, took the line of least resistance, as a result of which he has introduced the Measure now before us. How proud this liberal-minded and progressive Home Secretary must be on this day in 1961! The right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) quoted part of a telegram sent by Mr. Norman Manley. May I make three quotations from what he said:He went on:"No one can doubt that if the migration had been from countries where the people were of European origin or from Europe itself this sort of legislation would not be coming before the British Parliament."
Finally, he said:"Whatever excuses may be given whatever reason may be put forward to conceal the reality of the matter, the truth is that England has failed the first time it has had to cope with the problem of assimilating a fairly substantial number of persons of different races and colour."
Can this House ignore that kind of statesman—he is a statesman—when he makes a statement of that kind? Does the hon. Member for Selly Oak remember the great speech that Norman Manley delivered on television and radio at the time of the Notting Hill troubles? If ever there was a statesmanlike statement it was the speech he made at that time, when he appealed to his fellow countrymen who were here to become integrated into this society and to become real citizens of Great Britain. That was the statement of a statesman. For the hon. Gentleman to suggest that there is nothing of the statesman in the make-up of Mr. Norman Manley is an offence to a very fine gentleman. I believe that the duty of this House at this time is to bring in the spirit of the Commonwealth. I cannot help but feel, after the speeches we have heard this afternoon, that in spite of the accusations made in the past by hon. Members opposite against hon. Members on this side of the House regarding the breakup of the Commonwealth and the Empire, at 10.15 tonight there will not be any doubt about who are the great supporters and friends of the Commonwealth. May I be forgiven if I concentrate on the West Indies aspect of this situation? The hon. Member for Surbiton (Mr. Fisher) and myself have been cochairmen of a British-Caribbean Association. We have been closely connected with the people of the Caribbean area for many years. May I say in the presence of the hon. Member for Surbiton that it has needed a great deal more courage for him than for me to take the line on the subject that we have taken in the days gone by. I wish to say to him in this House how deeply appreciative I am personally of the courageous line he has taken. Because of my knowledge of these people I find myself speaking in these terms tonight. Why do they come to this country? It has been said once or twice already that it is because of the economic and social conditions which prevail in the West Indies. I have had the joy of visiting those territories. I know the circumstances, economic and social, in which these people live. Therefore, I am not surprised that they desire to lift their living standards and to improve themselves. I am not surprised that they wish to learn trades. It is true to say that nearly all of them hope to return home ultimately, having re-established themselves and taken the opportunity to become able to earn better wages. They believe that their stay in this country will result in their living fuller lives. The second reason why they come is that they are loyal members of the Commonwealth and turn as of right to the mother country to obtain the things which the mother country alone can give them. They are much more loyal members of the Commonwealth than some people whom I have heard express themselves in this Chamber and in other parts of the country. On 30th October of this year, at Oxford, the Commissioner for the West Indies, Mr. Garnet Gordon, said:"This business of race and colour is one of the great issues in the modern world. It is at a crisis. It is at a crucial and possibly decisive stage in modern history. Now a country with the greatest opportunity of making a decisive contribution to its solution has given in."
If this Bill is given a Second Reading, it will be a suggestion from this House that we believe such a thing to be impossible in this country. Is this Her Majesty's Government's act of faith in the future and of confidence in the ideals of Commonwealth? Do Her Majesty's Government believe that the British way of life is threatened by the presence of less than 1 per cent. of coloured immigrants? In answer to his intervention, I say to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr. N. Pannell) that I look forward to a multi-racial society."We know as an interracial and multiracial community, that it is possible for a variety of races to live harmoniously together."
I said mixed society.
I believe it is possible. I go further—although this may be thought an exaggerated statement—and say that world peace will not be assured until everybody in the world is coffee-coloured. We may be getting somewhere when that happens.
The hon. Gentleman has spoken almost entirely about the West Indies. Would he agree that the Commonwealth is indivisible and any restriction imposed on India must apply equally to the West Indies and that we cannot be selective in this matter? Would he address himself, therefore, to the question of the immigration from the immense populations of India and Pakistan which has grown tremendously in recent years?
I apologise to the House. Because I am particularly interested in the West Indies I have been talking about them. What I say about the West Indies is applicable to India and to Pakistan. I have not the fear which hon. Members opposite seem to have that these thousands of thousands and millions of people will come to this country.
They are coming.
Hon. Members opposite have no right to assume that that will happen. It has nothing whatever to do with our present experience.
From 1945 to 1959 there entered into this country 353,000 Irish and 330,000 from the Commonwealth. The increase in the Commonwealth figure in recent days is, in my view, entirely due to the fact that the agitation of hon. Members opposite has brought them here before the door closed—The hon. Member said just now that there was no increase.
The Home Secretary was perfectly right in what he said this afternoon. We cannot stop the Irish immigrants and we have known that all along. The right hon. Gentleman even suggested it during the early stages of the consideration of this Bill.
I will give a much simpler explanation than the right hon. Gentleman gave this afternoon. If three or four boatloads of people from Ireland come to the north-west ports every day, and each person is in possession of a return ticket to Ireland, there is nothing in the world to prevent him from coming in, whether he intends to go back to Ireland or not. Whatever kind of legislation the Government introduce, they would have difficulty in preventing that. So some of us knew that it would be quite impossible to deal with the Irish in this way. It is generally accepted that the influx of white people from the Commonwealth is infinitesimal in comparison with the total amount of immigration. If we rule that out and rule out the Irish, who are left? We have the coloured people from the Commonwealth. The Bill becomes a colour bar Bill from that moment. Any hon. Member who votes for the Second Reading of this Bill—make no mistake—will be voting for a colour bar in this country and this legislation will be based on racial factors alone, in spite of what the right hon. Gentleman said to the effect that it would not be based on racial factors alone. What are the arguments for the Bill? The pre-eminent one is housing. We accept that here lies a great problem in the centres concerned. It is not the immigrants who have caused the housing problem in this country. They have come into a situation in which there was a housing problem. Last week we had a debate on this question during our consideration of the Address in reply to the Gracious Speech. I suggest that the arguments used by my hon. Friends on that occasion blew sky-high any argument that the housing situation is even made worse by the presence of our coloured friends from the Commonwealth. They never jumped the queue; they cannot get on to the housing lists, not having been here long enough.Is the hon. Member suggesting that, however many people come into the country, whether they come from the Commonwealth or anywhere else, that will not eventually worsen the housing situation? Whether they come on to the council queues or not does not make a difference, they are still occupying housing.
That is not the answer. The fact is that there is a great housing problem. In all our great cities, apart from the immigrants, there is a great shortage of housing accommodation. The immigrants are not responsible for it. The Government are responsible for it because they have failed to provide sufficient housing for the people. If the people from the Commonwealth are assisting us—as they are—in our economic situation and by the places they occupy in our economy, they have a right to expect from the Government that they will be properly housed and accommodated in this country.
Would not my hon. Friend agree with the proposition that it is very true that we have a great social problem in housing, but that the obligation under the Bill is that these people have to go where they can get work, yet where the labour shortage is at its worst is where housing conditions are worst?
I am much obliged to my hon. Friend. Of course that is the situation. I hope to say something about the alleviation of that position. Meanwhile, I repeat that the West Indians and other coloured immigrants are in no way responsible for the general housing situation in this country. Can anyone for a moment suggest that the coloured population of ½ million—1 per cent. of our total population—can make this situation as bad as has been suggested in some of the speeches we have heard? One per cent. is an interesting figure, because there is precisely the same percentage of white people in Jamaica.
rose—
I cannot give way any more. Those people who went to the West Indies were not
as are the immigrants to this country. They did very nicely out there. As the House has been reminded, it was we who sent Africans to the West Indies as slaves. Their descendants are coming here in great need and we have no right to resist that immigration to this country. If a West Indian in this country buys a house of twelve rooms and puts thirty people in it, they will be living in very much better conditions than they had in a shanty town on the Spanish Town Road in Jamaica. They will also be living in conditions in which hundreds of English families have been living for many years in our large cities. That shows the extent of the Government's failure. What of employment? We come to the question of the introduction of vouchers. In 1960 236,000 people from the Commonwealth started work in this country. In London Transport at the moment there is an overall staff deficiency of 4,500, 2,000 bus drivers, 1,000 conductors, 200 booking clerks and guards. Two hundred and fifty thousand scheduled miles per week—5 per cent.—are being lost. Underground journeys are being cut by 200 a week. What about our hospitals? If the House will permit me, I shall relate a story which was told by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, Central (Mr. Awbery) at a meeting upstairs the other night. He went into his constituency and one of his white constituents complained that the value of a house he had bought had been reduced by £200 or £300 because some black people had come to live next door. My hon. Friend waited until his constituent had gone into his house and then went next door and rang the bell. A West Indian lady came to the door. He said, "Madam, what do you do? Do you do anything for a living?" She replied, "I am a sister at the Bristol Royal Infirmary." What a comment on our people's attitude to these people that they should suggest that their houses are being reduced in value by £300 because their black brethren have come to live next door. That spirit is being encouraged by hon. Members in this House, two of whom have made speeches in this debate. These are matters we cannot ignore. The staffs of our hospitals are today dependent on black people from various parts of the Commonwealth. I wonder if hon. Members opposite noticed a letter in The Times on 23rd October from Field Marshal Claude Auchinleck. This is what he said:"hewers of wood and drawers of water"
The Prime Minister of Jamaica proudly wears the Military Medal which he won in the First World War. I wish to talk about this subject personally for a few minutes. The hon. Member for Surbiton and I, with others, went to see the Home Secretary on two or three occasions three years ago for the purpose of making suggestions to him on what we thought was becoming a problem. A suggestion we made then was that this was a question of dispersing the coloured people more widely throughout our country. They are seen more in our midst because they are living in what are almost ghettos. They gather together, and some natural resentments arise. I suggested certain things then to the Home Secretary, but nothing has been done. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Creech Jones) tells me that one of his suggestions as Colonial Secretary was put into effect, the result being that a consultative committee was set up consisting of representatives of several of the Ministries—Colonies, Commonwealth, Housing, Labour and the Home Department. The idea was to have general consultations, because immigration affected each of those Departments in some way. My suggestion was that local authorities should be consulted, and that this consultative committee might have its offices at every port of landing. When new immigrants arrived and were asked where they intended to go they might say Notting Hill or Lambeth. They would be told, "Salford"—or "Burton-on-the-Water"—anywhere—"can take you. They can find you a job, and they are prepared to give you some accommodation." I would not mind if that accommodation was, in the first place, the kind that we are now giving to the people from Tristan da Cunha as a first stage towards integration into our general population. I am quite certain that hardly any of these immigrants care two hoots whether they go to Lancashire or London. They would be prepared to take their families to any of our industrial towns and go to work there. How prominently would 200 or 300 families appear in some of our large industrial towns? How beauti- fully three or four families could be integrated into some of our lovely villages, and the village people learn to love them. I believe that is possible, but my suggestion was ignored. There has been a great lack of consultation with the Commonwealth. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Chapman) and I put down an Amendment to the Motion for an Address in reply to the Gracious Speech, regretting that immigration control should have been decided on without the slightest offer of consultation. Two things could have been achieved by such consultation. The Prime Ministers in the other parts of the Commonwealth would have realised our difficulties and problems, and they might then have been persuaded to share the responsibility. In the course of a supplementary question that I addressed to the Prime Minister the other afternoon, I mentioned a letter I had received from Sir Grantley Adams, the Prime Minister of the Federation of the West Indies, part of which I should like to read. Sir Grantley Adams wrote:"During the years … we were building the Empire we depended very largely on 'coloured' manpower to fight battles for us. This manpower was drawn from different parts of the world but chiefly from India. It is from Pakistan and India today that a large proportion of our immigrants come … without the help of these soldiers … the Italians could not have been expelled from Eritrea, Rommel prevented from seizing Egypt or Burma retaken from the Japanese."
"I have never made any secret of my conviction that if this legislation is passed, the whole nature of the Commonwealth, and the respect and affection which its overseas members feel for the mother country, will suffer irreparable harm.
You will, I am sure, wish to know that the Federal Government protested in the strongest terms to Her Majesty's Government when it became known that the intention to introduce legislation would be announced when Parliament reassembled. We were asked by the British Government to keep this intention as strictly confidential until the announcement had been made at Westminster and therefore refrained at the time from publishing the text of our protest, which reads as follows:—
Sir Grantley Adams concludes with the assurance that anything that ensures that being done will be appreciated in the West Indies. It is not housing that is the trouble; it is not employment; it is not health; it is not crime. This matter is not even urgent. It is all colour. What are all we Members of this honourable House? Apart from the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) can any one of us tell what his blood is? Vikings, Saxons, Romans, Picts and Scots, Normans, Flemings, Huguenots, Jews, Germans, Austrians, Poles, Hungarians—all have come in their turn, and we are what we are because they came to us in times of invasion, stress or persecution. They have enriched our culture. They have enriched our economy. Can any hon. Member assert that the contribution of the present newcomers is less than the contribution that was made in days gone by? At this stage, right in the middle of its Second Reading, I pray that this Bill may never be put into effect.'The Federal Government protests most strongly at the proposal to impose restrictions, which will impair continuing Commonwealth good relations, intensify economic and social difficulties in The West Indies caused by population pressure and, whatever assurances are given to the contrary, be regarded by West Indians as based on racial and colour discrimination. The Government asks that Her Majesty's Government defer a final decision until at least the future of the Federation, including external economic assistance for development, has been settled'."
7.7 p.m.
After my own false start some sixty-five minutes ago, Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have heard the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. C. Royle), with whom I find myself in Pertain agreement. As I see it, what we have to settle is whether the problems this Bill is designed to meet will be met by it. To my mind, there are two possible necessities for a Bill of this nature which denies Commonwealth right of free entry, and the first is that our non-indigenous population has grown so great that it constitutes a danger to the community.
The Home Secretary gave a figure of 500,000 for our Commonwealth immigrant population. I thought the figure was 400,000, but no doubt there have been increases which make my figure out of date. There are 400,000 aliens—we get that figure from the Statistical Abstract. I can find no record of the numbers of Irish, but it would probably be fair to say that they number about 500,000 or 600,000—[HON. MEMBERS: "More."] I am speaking of those of Irish nationality. If I included all those who came from Ireland originally, I would have to include myself in that category. It will be seen that there is here a great disparity in numbers. It is the aliens and the Irish at whom we ought to look more than at the Commonwealth citizens. The Commonwealth citizens constitute only about 1 per cent. of the population. The percentages of aliens and Irish are clearly very much greater. It is said that employment is another factor. What are the facts? The Home Secretary told us that 113,000 Commonwealth immigrants have come this year, but there are at present over 300,000 unfilled vacancies. So long as there are 300,000 unfilled vacancies, it cannot be said that there is a necessity for this type of Bill on grounds of employment.rose—
I will give way later. I remind my hon. Friend that the less we interrupt each other the more time there will be for hon. Members to make proper speeches. It is quite clear that this type of Bill is not justified either on grounds of proportion of population or on grounds of employment.
I emphasise, however, that there is a problem, as the hon. Member for Salford, West said. There is the problem of what we call "full employment". Where there is the problem of full employment, unless we are working under a system of very tight Control of Engagement Orders, the position will arise in which there will be more people wanting jobs in a particular town than can be accommodated and looked after. I agree that at the moment there is a concentration of Commonwealth immigrants in certain areas. It would be a very good thing if we could solve that problem. But does the Bill solve it?Is my right hon. Friend aware that unemployment amongst Commonwealth immigrants is now 21,700 as compared with 13,900 three months ago?
It is 5 per cent.
But there are 328,000 unfilled vacancies. When I was Minister of Health, I should very much have liked to have had more and more Commonwealth immigrants to help to solve the problems in the hospitals. What good nurses they are. This is a real problem. I am quite ready to accept the statement of those who come from Birmingham that they have a grievous local problem. If we can help them, let us do so.
But does the Bill help them? After all, it provides, as I understand it—I shall be corrected by the Government spokesman if I am wrong—that anybody who has the offer of employment and the necessary labour voucher will be admitted to this country without question. Is it beyond the wit of man—is it beyond the wit of immigrants—to devise a system of employment agencies and get vast quantities of people over here with offers of employment? I believe it has been done in some countries. The Bill will not stop incursion in a particular area.It will aggravate it.
Of course it will. It will be an invitation to employment agencies to work on this basis. That is what I fear. Birmingham has a problem. It is stupid for us to deny that.
A problem of unemployment?
It has a housing problem and a welfare problem. A migrant population coming in very large numbers presents tremendous problems. Those who have watched the problem in Western Germany in recent years know that. I am anxious that this problem should be dealt with but I am not satisfied that the Bill is the right Measure for doing it.
In particular, I am very worried about the extinction of the right of Commonwealth free entry. I do not believe that this is an issue to be pressed to extreme lengths on Second Reading, with one side wanting to kill the Bill, because there is a problem which we must try to deal with. Parts of the Bill are very good, but I beg the Government to consider carefully whether they ought to refuse admission to any Commonwealth citizen who wants to come to this country. There is a very strong case for saying to any Commonwealth citizen who comes to this country, "Owing to our problems, we must ask you to come subject to certain conditions"—in other words, using the power contained in Clause 2 (1, b) and not the power in Clause 2 (1, a). There is much to be said for the point made by the hon. Member for Salford, West, that it would probably be much better for some immigrants to go to Bourton on the Water or Salford than to Birmingham. That could be a condition which in certain regions my right hon. Friend might insist on. We could also do another thing which other countries often do. They say to an immigrant, "Of course come in, but it will be for a certain period only. We cannot guarantee you the right to stay for all time, but for two or three years you have a perfect right to stay". I ask the Government to consider the advisability of applying those conditions under Clause 2 (1, b). I would include the Irish and make them subject to those conditions because many of the Irish want to come here only for a period. If the Government followed my advice, the Irish could be made subject to this Measure, because what is good for the Commonwealth should be much more so for the Irish. It is quite right that all—Commonwealth and Irish—who because of their character or health are not satisfactory should be excluded. On that there is a measure of agreement on both sides of the House. The West Indies are extremely scrupulous. I was rather distressed that my hon. Friend the Member for Selly Oak quoted a statement from an anonymous letter in some peculiar paper concerning criminals coming in. All the West Indies are scrupulous in ensuring that migrants are of good character. We must ensure that people of bad character are not admitted. We must also ensure that people with bad health are not admitted, because this is extremely important. Again, I should like to see the Irish included as well as the Commonwealth, because as regards health, especially tuberculosis, the Irish are far more likely to cause danger of infection to other people. Part II of the Bill, which deals with deportation, is satisfactory. I have for a long time thought that there should be a power of deportation. It is quite true, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Gurden) said, that some people who have come here from certain Commonwealth countries have committed crimes. If immigrants commit crimes, they should be returned to their own country, because they are abusing the hospitality of the mother country. If the Bill could be refashioned on these lines, I believe that there would be a general measure of agreement in the whole House. I am most reluctant to vote for the Measure in its present form, but if it is not amended in Committee I shall find myself voting against it. However, I have great hopes that we can make it into a reasonable Measure in Committee.7.18 p.m.
I am grateful for the opportunity of speaking for many reasons, not the least of which is that in my public life I have constantly had to deal with this situation. As recently as March of this year it fell to my lot to contest the by-election at Small Heath largely on this issue. Then, as on earlier occasions, I had to consider from what point I, as a public man, should start to formulate my judgment.
What distressed me about the speeches of the hon. Members for Louth (Sir C. Osborne) and Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Gurden) was the complete absence of that sort of basic conviction and premise to their arguments. I am sorry that these two hon. Members are not present in the House at the moment. I found it rather nauseating that these two hon. Members, one of whom is a prominent lay preacher and the other of whom is prominently associated with the Moral Rearmament Association, should speak in the way they did without in any way trying to convince the House of the Christian basis of their argument. I am not able to make such a dichotomy. I hope that the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton), whose speech I did not entirely agree with though I think that he argued it extremely well and ably, will, from the point of view of such a moral premise, forgive me if I do not entirely follow him. In 1953, I happened to be secretary of the city council Labour group in Birmingham, and we were in the majority. We came up against this issue for the first time in Birmingham during the bus strike of that year and it fell to me, with others, to try to solve that situation. It is clear that prejudices are easily aroused. One of my complaints against the Birmingham Conservative Members, who have done a lot of work on this, is that they have not—I am being as charitably disposed towards them as I can—at any time in all these arguments tried to dispel emotions and prejudices by reasoned arguments. Rather have they tended to foster their claims. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak gave no figures of crime. In fact, all the three Conservative Members for Birmingham have spent the whole of the summer going round interviewing people and doing a good job of work, but nothing of the result of their investigations has been published. One of the facts which I understand they found when they went to Winson Green Gaol, which was part of their investigation, was that one-third of the inhabitants happened to be Irish. This is an inconvenient fact, but if we are to deal with this subject on the basis of truth and morality it ought not to have been suppressed.We did not investigate crimes by coloured people and we did not go to that particular gaol, so that the hon. Gentleman's information is quite wrong.
My information is not wrong and I stand by it. Perhaps the hon. Member can tell us what conclusions he reached from visiting magistrates, the Chief Constable and the people in charge of the criminals in Birmingham. I stand by my conviction, and if the hon. Member wants me to give way I will. Apparently, he does not want to speak again.
In 1953 we had to deal with this matter in respect of the Birmingham bus strike. The sudden influx of people from the West Indies into this country in 1953 happened to coincide with the return of a Conservative Government. One of the first things that the Conservative Government did in 1951, when returned to power on a pledge to reduce the cost of living, was to destroy the bulk buying agreements. One of the first agreements destroyed was the bulk buying of sugar from the West Indies. They could not do anything like that without destroying the economy of that country. It is worth pointing out to the Conservative voters of this country that they are now being hoist by their own petard. In Birmingham in 1953, we had West Indians in large numbers on our buses. I was proud of the attitude of the Birmingham public. In 1953 we had a lot of immigrants helping to run the various public services, although they did not happen to be coloured, but they were immigrants none the less, and the people of Birmingham made it clear that they were not having a colour bar and that they were very appreciative of the extremely courteous, kind and efficient way in which the West Indians, in particular, did their work on the public transport in Birmingham. Then I became the Member of Parliament for All Saints. I lost that seat by 20 votes. I am sorry that the hon. Member for All Saints (Mr. Hollingworth) is not in the Chamber. In All Saints, I had 8,000 West Indians and they did not take the interest in public life which I think they ought to have taken, and, inasmuch as they took an interest, I may say that they took the wrong sort of interest. One day I received—and this is an example of the need for good social service—a memorial signed by residents in one or two roads, about 300 people, complaining of the behaviour of the people from the West Indies. This coincided with the Government's Rent Act. These people had gone into large houses in the All Saints division, which had become vacant owing to the Government's Rent Act. This was a byproduct of the Conservative Rent Act, and I can understand the complaint of Birmingham's citizens. I thought that the only way of dealing with this was by reason and argument. I invited every single one of the people who had complained to a meeting. When I got to the meeting I was astounded to find at the door an official of the All Saints' Conservative Party taking the names and addresses of the people going in and telling them who could come in and who could not. I had to tell him that this was my meeting. I had booked the hall and issued the invitations, and he had to desist. Present at the meeting was the present Member for the All Saints division. The West Indians found that they had nowhere to go in Birmingham. I made this complaint to the Socialist city council. The West Indians were not able to express themselves socially. It is not possible to have 30,000 immigrants in the city without giving them a natural outlet for recreation. We dealt with overcrowding and the effect that had on the salvage and sanitary services. At the end of the day, we set up a committee which was composed half of West Indians and half of Birmingham people, and we let it be known in the area that if anyone had a complaint to make, one West Indian and one Birmingham person would investigate that complaint. I hope that the hon. Member for All Saints is listening because in Handsworth, which is part of his constituency, and in Sparkbrook two organisations have been set up to deal with this matter. We found that most of the difficulties of a social nature could be ironed out by talking to people. One of the difficulties is the reserve shown by the people of this nation. When a Birmingham citizen found trouble with one of the immigrants he would not go to his house, knock on the door and say to him, "You are causing a nuisance, please desist." The Government and local authorities could help by giving money for the appointment of trained social science welfare people who could help to eliminate this cause of friction. My experience in All Saints was that a large number of immigrants were persuaded that if they voted for me in 1959 that would be an end to their prosperity, they would lose their jobs and they would all have to go home. As a result of that I lost my seat by twenty votes. In Birmingham, Small Heath, this year I had the same position again. I have never been so nauseated as I was by the campaign of the Conservative Party in the Small Heath by-election. It was shocking and disgraceful. It started on a reasonably high moral tone. It was said, "We are against a colour bar but we are concerned with the social problem and we must try to control immigration." We tried to deal with the problem as best we could by pointing out the value of these people to Birmingham. This campaign ended by an anonymous loudspeaker van and the people being told, "You do not want blacks here, do you?" There was not a single speech made in that by-election by any Conservative speaker of repute dissociating the party from this conduct. It was really disgraceful. It was despicable. I do not wish to over-dramatise the emotional effect that that by-election had on me, but one of my personal troubles was that my father was ill and died eight days before the poll. He had lain desperately ill in a Birmingham hospital and was nursed the whole time, with one or two exceptions, by coloured nurses and sisters. Who am I, or who is any other hon. Member, to deprive the citizens of Birmingham of the great care and devotion which was given to my father? That is the issue that the House has to face today. We cannot dodge it. I agree that there are problems which we ought to tackle as a Commonwealth. Hon. Members opposite have not tackled them as a Commonwealth. There has been no attempt to get other countries in the Commonwealth, notably Australia, New Zealand and Canada, which are not making a full contribution, to do their share. What is the good of a Commonwealth family if we cannot say, "There is a problem and you must make your contribution to it"? That has not been happening. We all know that it is impossible to prevent the Irish from coming here. If we spent twenty-five years trying to stop the I.R.A. getting into Northern Ireland without success, we cannot stop stop them from emigrating overnight to this country. The Irish who come here, and, in many ways, create a worse housing problem than others, are making a considerable contribution to the life of this country. I should like to place one or two facts on record. After the Small Heath by-election I started doing some detailed work in respect of the hospitals and public services of Birmingham. In the Dudley Road Hospital, a hospital of which I am chairman in a group of hospitals, 44 people out of 90, including the supervisory staff in the laundry, are coloured immigrants. If they were prevented from working there, the laundry would have to be shut and, as a result, the hospital would have to close. The turnover figure there is 15 per cent. One of the things which impresses me is the tremendous turnover figures. People do not merely come and stop here. This business about permits is absolute nonsense. A person can have a permit to come here, but for how long can he stay? How long can people keep their jobs? If we try to keep them very long, that is forced labour, and no one would defend that. This is a problem which hospital administrators must face. At Summerfield Hospital, the hospital in which my father lay ill, 34 State-enrolled nurses out of 96 are immigrants. Fourteen porters out of 43 in a turnover of 16 per cent. are immigrants. At Marston Green, a very large hospital, six ward sisters out of 22, with a turnover of 50 per cent., and 47 pupil midwives out of 72, with a turnover of 60 per cent., are immigrants. At Heathfield Road Maternity Hospital, 12 staff midwives out of 13 and 12 pupil midwives out of 18 are immigrants. Fourteen domestics out of 23 are immigrants. At the eye hospital, ten medical staff out of 45 and 27 domestics out of 27 are immigrants. At the skin hospital, 15 members of the nursing staff out of a total of 43 are immigrants. The establishment for the domestic staff is supposed to be 13, but, in fact, there are 14 domestics, all of whom are immigrants. At Hollymoor Hospital, 85 members of the nursing staff out of 400 are immigrants. At the United Birmingham Hospitals, which take the cream of the nursing staff in Birmingham, 147 of the domestics and orderlies out of 429 are immigrants and 82 out of 240 members of the catering staff are immigrants. At All Saints Hospital, there are 336 immigrants on the nursing staff.Is the hon. Gentleman aware that a large number of these nurses are trainees from Nigeria and elsewhere who will return to their own countries after training and therefore are excluded from the provisions of this Bill?
There are some Nigerians, but not a large number. That is an immaterial interruption, anyway. They are immigrants who are making a contribution to British public life.
The House must consider how the people who run the hospitals will be able to do the job without immigrants. The secretary of the United Birmingham Hospitals wrote in a letter to me:One of the things which fascinated me in my correspondence with the people who run the public services, such as transport and salvage, was that I had to send them a second letter, because three-quarters of them did not include the figures of Southern Irish immigrants in the figures which they sent to me. I wrote back to them saying that it would be unthinkable that the British House of Commons would consider this matter on the basis of a colour bar. In order to deal with the matter properly, I asked whether they would let me have the figures for Southern Irish immigrants. Obviously, they knew the Government better than I did. The Midland Red Company cannot give me the figures relating to its Irish employees because it does not keep them—very properly perhaps—but the company has in its employ 311 immigrants, and the number of its Irish employees is fantastically high. Let me read a comment made by the general manager of the Birmingham City Transport undertaking, Mr. W. H. Smith, in a letter to me:"There is no doubt that if immigrant labour was not available the hospitals would experience considerable difficulty in maintaining adequate domestic cleaning and catering services."
That is apart from the number of people from the West Indies, who represent 90 per cent. of the immigrants employed by the undertaking. Almost 25 per cent. of the staff employed on the Birmingham City Transport undertaking are West Indians and 25 per cent, are Irish. Mr. Smith states in another letter:"I would, however, state that in it is estimated that at least 25 per cent. of our total staff on the Engineering and Traffic Divisions are from the Republic of Ireland."
I also have figures here relating to the salvage department of Birmingham and other public works departments, but I shall not bother the House with them. [Interruption.] I can understand the hon. Gentleman not wanting the facts and figures."From the figures which have been supplied you will appreciate that if we had not had the opportunity of employing coloured immigrants our staff shortage would have been more severe and we should have been unable to maintain services, with a detrimental effect on the travelling public."
The hon. Gentleman misheard me. I said, "Do let us have the ones from the salvage department".
In that case, I shall give them to the hon. Gentleman afterwards. I apologise for thinking that he was trying to suppress information. That puts him in a unique category in the Conservative Party. I had hoped that hon. Members opposite would obtain the information before they formed conclusions, but apparently the Conservative Party, or most of its members, with some honourable exceptions, prefers to get information which supports preconceived conclusions. That is not a good way of doing public business.
I have a letter from responsible people in the building industry which states that in civil engineering and building the position would be absolutely catastrophic if it were not for the Irish and immigrants generally employed in it. The letter requests me to ask the Government whether the industry and civil engineering were consulted before the Bill was drafted. Perhaps we might have an answer to that question. Who were consulted about the employment position? I return to the theme with which I started. There is a tremendous housing problem in certain areas, particularly in Birmingham, areas mostly of houses which are in no way controlled. If any city is entitled to say it, we in Birmingham certainly are entitled to tell the Government that they have signally failed to help us over the years in our housing problem. They have aggravated the situation. If they wanted to remove a cause of real friction they would ginger up the Ministry of Housing and Local Government for the provision of housing, not simply for immigrants but for Birmingham people, too. When one meets constituents and argues with them, one finds time and time again that they do not object to people coming because of their colour. Their objection is that the immigrants have preference in getting houses, which, of course, is not the case. Most of the immigrants buy the houses. The problem of bad landlordism, too, applies just as much to immigrants as to the native British population. The housing problem and the general social conditions as a whole can only be solved by constant dedication on the part of the Government to these problems and by the provision of amenities and finance to provide, for example, new towns. I have had to face this issue in Small Heath, All Saints and other places, as other hon. Members from Birmingham have done. It may be that there is some electoral advantage in the position that the Government have adopted. In a Christian country, however, it is not the job of political leadership to decide its first priority on the basis of electoral advantage. The only decent basis for decisions by the Government is that of ethics and morality. The question that was asked 2,000 years ago, which has been ignored on the benches opposite, is as relevant in this context today as when it was asked—"Am I my brother's keeper?" I am delighted that the benches on this side of the House leave no doubt about their affirmative answer to that question. I despair that so many hon. Members opposite tend to ignore the answer to such a basic question.7.42 p.m.
I regret that I am not able to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. D. Howell) through the byways of Birmingham, but perhaps I may congratulate him on making what can fairly be described as two major speeches within twenty-four hours.
My reason for wishing to speak in this debate is threefold. I was the Home Office Minister responsible for immigration policy when this problem first appeared. I suppose that I have more constituents who could be described as immigrants than any other hon. Member—they include a certain number of West Indians—and I am myself part-Australian. On each of those counts, I look at the Bill sadly. At the same time, however, I shall have no hesitation in voting for its Second Reading, which I believe to be right, because I believe that the Bill deals with an essential problem in the only way that it can. The Bill raises wide constitutional issues, and certainly it will have a great social and economic impact on the country. Something more important and deeper than those considerations is, however, involved, and it has been expressed from both sides of the House today. Put in its broadest terms, that consideration amounts to the fact that all arbitrary control of human movement is repugnant to us. We feel that such control derogates from a man's freedom and from his dignity, whatever the colour of his skin. It is sometimes argued that such control can never be accepted. It was argued today by the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies). I am sorry that the right hon. and learned Member is not now in his place. Listening to him, I felt bound to ask myself how it came about that he was not here yesterday afternoon to vote against an Amendment to the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill. Year after year since 1919, aliens legislation has been re-enacted by this House without, I believe, a Division being called against it on any occasion. That legislation and the Orders made under it put all foreigners coming to the United Kingdom under far stricter control than anything which is included in the Bill. The reason why the House has accepted that legislation without opposition is simply that had it not been for the Aliens Order we should have had massive immigration from Europe. Whatever the origin of our aliens legislation, the Aliens Order was used after the war as an instrument to control immigration and for virtually no other purpose. When I say "to control immigration", I mean, in effect, to control it from all possible sources. For the first ten years, perhaps, after the war, immigration from the old countries of the Commonwealth was negligible—indeed, it still is in this context—and there was practically no immigration from the Colonies and from the new countries of the Commonwealth', the reason being that those countries were too far away and those who lived in them were too poor to be able to afford to come here. That system of controlling immigration worked perfectly well until about 1953, when immigration from the Colonies and the new countries of the Commonwealth began. By a freak of history, our immigration legislation has come to discriminate—it discriminates now—against the white people of the world in favour of the black people. Under the present law, without today's Bill, virtually all countries with excessive—I use that word for want of a better one—white populations are, or can be, kept out and certainly are controlled, whereas people from many of the countries with excessive coloured populations are perfectly free to come here. The result has been that the law's accidental preference for coloured people is the principal reason why we have an immigration problem and why that problem, as has been correctly described, has involved a colour question. It is because our existing law is heavily loaded in favour of coloured immigrants as against possible white immigrants. Sooner or later, a revision of our immigration policy on that basis was inevitable. Those who speak more responsibly on the benches opposite have admitted that this afternoon. Sooner or later, it was quite impossible to go on limiting severely those coming in from Europe—Italy, Spain, where you will—and at the same time giving completely free access to those coming from much farther afield. It was quite essential to pass some legislation so as to co-ordinate the sources from which immigrants can come into this country, and as any change in the law necessarily meant that we were going to change from that position I have described, it was necessarily going to appear to be discriminatory against coloured people and that is really the only fact that we have got to face here this afernoon. Hon. Members have built up a tremendously great case, but if they really look at it they will see that any change—and they will admit that a change was necessary if they look into their hearts—could easily be described and will be described as being discriminatory.And correctly described.
In one sense of the word, correctly.
Then it is argued that though it is proper to control immigration as a whole we have a special and overriding obligation to the countries of the Commonwealth. It has been said in various speeches today that we are the Mother Country, and that, I think, really sums up the whole argument. I cordially agree with that sentiment. I believe it to be true. I believe it to be true not only as a matter of sentiment. I believe that the fact that we are the centre of the Commonwealth is a matter of immense political and economic importance to this country as well. For my own part, I have never been impressed by the argument that we ought to do this sort of thing because it is being done by other countries of the Commonwealth. I do not think that that argument is sound at all. Taking the metaphor of the Mother Country further, the obligations of the parents to their child are quite different from the obligations of the child to the parents. The reason why the United Kingdom should have a higher standard of behaviour in this connection—if that is the right expression—is justified not only on moral grounds but also on practical grounds. Not only have we a duty as the Mother Country, we have an interest as the centre of the Commonwealth. I believe firmly that we should act upon that. I think, too, that it is of very great importance to us in our position as the Mother Country to preserve as far as possible the freedom of all the citizens of the different parts of the Commonwealth to come here. I cordially agree with that principle. Now what is this freedom to come here? Because that is a question we have got to ask and Answer in this connection. Going back again to the metaphor of the Mother Country and the case of the parent and child, the child should be free, I believe, to go to its parents' house and to walk in without having to ring the bell. The child should be able to share the food, though possibly making a contribution, and the fireside. But the child is not entitled to come in and turn the parents out of the house. The child is not allowed to come in and should not be allowed to come and take the bathroom door and do things of that kind, and anyone who is faced with this problem in his constituency knows that that is what has happened, and it is that part of this problem we have got to tackle. [HON. MEMBERS: "Take the bathroom door?"] Yes, that is a very common practice. One finds that if people wish to get out others they do not like to share a house with, they remove the bathroom door and make life intolerable for them.We used to hear about the coal in the bath before they came.
I have spoken in metaphor, but I believe I carry the House with me—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, no."]—and I believe that I am not so far from carrying hon. Members on the other side of the House with me. There must be a limit to this obligation on the part of the parent to submit to treatment from the child, but that limit is not only in the interests of the parent himself or herself, but in the interests of the family as a whole, including the children, and there are places in the country where that limit has been reached now and there are places where it will be reached soon, and for that reason I believe that this Bill is necessary. I do not want to take very much longer, but there have been suggestions made that the Bill proposes the wrong method of setting about the problem. The Leader of the House on 31st October, speaking in the debate on the Motion for an Address, questioned whether employment was the proper basis for seeking to control immigration. He suggested that it should
The Opposition Amendment today does not go quite as far as that, 'but it does make some similar suggestion with reference to housing. It is not very clear what it means. If I may say so—I do not want to be controversial—it is, of course, perfectly fair for the Opposition on a controversial Bill to seek to make party capital on an issue of this sort. [HON. MEMBERS: "Not at all."] I am not complaining of that, and we can all have a good time arguing whether the Labour Party or the Conservative Party has the better housing policy, but the more what they say at the moment about the Conservative housing policy is true the worse becomes their case about this Bill, because on any footing whatsoever there is a shortage in this country now of millions of houses. I do not think anyone would put it lower than 4 million, and it has been put as high as 8 million, but on any footing whatsoever, we are not going to overtake that shortage for a great many years to come. Even if we were to double the rate of building, it would still be ten years or so on the most optimistic basis whatever."be dealt with in the matter of housing".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 31st October, 1961; Vol. 648, c. 28.]
And representing an authority which takes the strongest objection to letting the county council do the job for it.
I do not think that even Middlesex County Council could build very many more houses in my constituency unless it does violence to the Green Belt.
I do not want to get involved in this housing question, but when I hear it said we are going to regulate immigration into Hendon by reference to the possibility of housing new immigrants—[HON. MEMBERS: "Who said this?"]—what I want to know is just how many council houses it is proposed be built to house the new immigrants.The hon. Gentleman is under a misapprehension. The Amendment does not say anything like that, nor does it imply that.
The Amendment, I notice, says practically nothing at all, but it does make a suggestion that housing is relevant in this connection whereas employment is not. We have not had an explanation of it. We got none from the Opposition Front Bench.
I am only saying that this suggestion of housing is not the method upon which we can do this. I thought it a good one once. I considered it when I was a Minister, but I am satisfied that it is an impossible method of proceeding. On careful examination I believe that the only method by which we can proceed here is upon the method proposed in the Bill, namely, by virtue of the control exercised by the Minister of Labour in just the same way as it has been done—and was done by the party opposite—in the case of aliens wishing to immigrate into this country.Assuming that there are jobs available and the Ministry of Labour can issue the Necessary passes, do I understand that the hon. Member is perfectly prepared for these persons to be admitted irrespective of the housing situation?
I agree with that, and I agree also that it throws a heavy burden on our housing situation, but at any rate we would not be in the ludicrous position where we have to allot houses out of those available to British subjects, or those who are normally resident here, before people can enter the country at all. The only result of that would be to shut off the stream of immigration altogether.
I am satisfied that the Bill deals with a problem which must be dealt with, and I am satisfied that it deals with it in the most sensible and humane way possible. Although no one will welcome the Bill, I hope that it will not take long to pass through the House. I am satisfied that when it is in operation it will be found to be less harsh than we fear and will prove satisfactory in operation for all concerned.8.3 p.m.
I should like to ask the hon. Member for Hendon (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth) to reflect on the information we were given by the hon. Member for Louth (Sir C. Osborne). He said that there were no coloured immigrants working in Scotland. The reason why there are none is that there is a shortage of employment there. The argument that has been put forward in criticism of the Bill is precisely that. If we have a properly co-ordinated and directed policy of moving opportunities of employment and of housing in the right direction, we shall not have the concentration of population, whether it is immigrant or indigenous, in areas which are already overcrowded.
The complaint which we on this side of the House have been making for a long time is that the Government have failed to tackle that problem, and, because they have failed, we are now faced with congestion in parts of the country and the responsibility for that congestion is being shifted to the immigrants as an alibi so that the Government may evade responsibility for it. Lord North, a very amiable and genial man, almost wrecked our Empire. So will amiable and genial Tories today wreck our new Commonwealth because of lack of imagination and of indifference to the factors involved in this problem. I represent a Lancashire constituency which has no great problem of this kind, but the reason why I intervene in the debate is that I have spent the whole of my political life in Paddington where, when I first went there as a young graduate from Oxford, we had all the problems of migration, the problems of the Irish and of the Welsh coming into areas and creating the same kind of difficulties that we have today. Now there is a considerable incidence of migrant population. I have been for about six years very actively concerned as chairman of a committee in that borough which has been dealing with problems of integration. I am also chairman of a committee under the London Council of Social Service which tries to look at all the problems of immigration within the County of London. I mention that not in any way to obtain a little free advertisement, but to justify myself in criticising the Bill. I am not criticising the Bill from an ivory tower. I am not thinking that all immigrants are good, virtuous people and all the people who have difficulty with immigrants are bad, intolerant and racially prejudiced. I think that the present situation creates a challenge which in a Christian country should be taken up in a Christian way, by welcoming people who are coming into the area and bringing together all members of the community in one body. One's duty is not to try to keep them out but to make some effort to try to bring them together in harmony.I follow what the hon. Member says, and I do not disagree with him. The difficulty that I see with it is that in the last 16 years we have imposed heavy barriers quite deliberately against large numbers of unemployed people in Italy who have been willing to come here and have been well able to do work. From the Christian point of view, why was the hon. Member not willing to do anything about lifting those bans?
I am not averse from raising some of the barriers against the admission of aliens, but I say that our primary responsibility is to the Commonwealth. What horrifies me is the assumption in the speech of the Secretary of State, and in so many speeches delivered today, that now there is no real difference between Commonwealth citizens and foreign people.
indicated dissent.
I am not leaving that point because I wish to evade it. I will come back to it in a moment.
The hon. Member is really being unfair. If he must argue on the basis of Christianity, he must look at an Italian as being as good as anyone else. If he puts his argument on the basis of British citizenship, he must drop the cant about Christianity.
I do not think it cant to recognise that one's responsibilities in this country are for people for whose economic position and, in the case of the West Indies, for whose very existence in that country we are responsible. We as a nation have based an enormous amount of our economy on the fact that the people in the Commonwealth are desperately poor. I would have thought that that increased the obligation to try to do what we can to help in the situation rather than to try to evade our responsibilities by shutting our doors on these people.
I want to look first at some of the practical problems that are involved in this question, but I do not in any way under-estimate the difficulties that are created. Nor do I under-estimate the tensions. Any problem of bringing people together creates tensions and difficulties, but I say that they are exaggerated and distorted. One of our duties is to try to look at facts objectively and find out what they are, rather than to make an exhibition of oneself of the kind that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Gurden) made. In a tense situation of this sort, one must be rigidly careful to be accurate in what one says. What is the employment position? Just as people move to where jobs are in this country, I have no doubt that if we get into a situation of heavy unemployment here, there will in the same way be a natural move on the part of these people back to their countries of origin. We are living today in a world where transport is extremely easy. People do not migrate in a final and irrevocable manner; they now move much more quickly backwards and forwards. We have been told that in 1957 and 1958, when there were economic difficulties here, migration showed itself to be very sensitive to the situation, and I have no doubt that the same sort of thing would happen again. Be that as it may, there cannot be the slightest suggestion at the moment that there is any danger of unemployment among the immigrants or that they are seriously in competition for a limited number of jobs. It is always assumed that if we put off our supply of immigrant labour we shall continue to build the same number of houses without them, but it must be emphasised that large numbers of them are employed in the building industry in the areas where housing is short. If we try to cut off that labour, we shall be in considerable difficulty. I want to illustrate the difficulties which some people have in approaching this problem in a dispassionate way. Not long ago the Daily Telegraph said:"Dole Queue 'a warning sign'
This referred to a report by the St. Marylebone and Paddington Employment Committee. I took the trouble to find out what the situation was. There are a number of unemployed immigrants registered at the Edgware Road Employment Exchange, but they are registered there because they have to register in order to get jobs. One newspaper published a photograph of a number of coloured men squatting in the sunlight in Edgware Road—that must have been a little uncomfortable—outside the employment exchange. The implication was that these were workshy dole consumers. However, it so happened that someone who was interested in the problem had taken the trouble to interview a group of the men, and it was found that in practically every case they had just come to the country and gone straight away to sign on not in order to draw dole but to get a job. If we have a continual flow of people coming into the country and getting work, there is bound to be a "pipeline" through which they are flowing. If we have a fair number of them coming in, this is bound to make the unemployment figure a little misleading. To my very great regret, I found that the St. Marylebone and Paddington Employment Committee had issued a statement calling for the immigration to be stopped on the basis that Britain was faced with the problem of the large-scale immigration of large numbers of unskilled men of low potential, and that this had been done without any appreciation of the fact that this was a "pipeline". I am sure that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour will not mind if I quote what he said in a letter to me:Britain is faced with a problem of large-scale immigration of unskilled workers of low industrial potential …"
That was the tribute paid by the hon. Gentleman—I am sure that it was a perfectly fair and honest one—to the quality of the immigrants. Yet a body like the St. Marylebone and Paddington Employment Committee, which is supposed to be advising dispassionately, can merely add fuel to the flame by creating the impression that a large body of workshy immigrants is coming here. One could quote further examples. There was the exhibition by the hon. Member for Selly Oak, to which I objected at the time. He was asked to justify his allegation that rape and sex crimes were rife in Birmingham. He could quote nothing at all except the figures from London about those living on immoral earnings, which, whatever one may think of that as a method of living, has in most cases nothing to do with rape or violence. I cite that as an illustration of the background of distortion and exaggeration against which the Bill and the allied campaign are being sponsored. According to the Explanatory Memorandum in connection with the Bill, the Government will spend £500,000 on this operation. If they gave that money to the voluntary bodies and local authorities which are trying to wrestle with these problems and integrate the immigrants into the population, I believe that the need for the Bill would disappear, because the need for the Bill, in so far as one exists, is a social one and not an economic one. If the Government would devote half a million pounds to that purpose, they would save a great deal of trouble. I want to touch on the constitutional situation which the Bill presents. I made a statement which was challenged by the hon. Member for Hendon, South, that it was unfair to say that the Government were treating Commonwealth immigrants in exactly the same way as if they were aliens. When the question of appeal arose on Second Reading, the Home Secretary said that we had no appeal under the existing legislation. I thought that that subtly showed the Home Secretary's assumption that what he is dealing with here is what he regards as an alien operation. It is a matter of keeping foreigners out; it is not a matter of having to make, for special and urgent need, exceptional new departures in the case of Commonwealth people. If the Government really want to have some restriction on Commonwealth immigration, which I do not believe is necessary, they ought to do it by starting with a declaration about the right of a Commonwealth citizen to come into this country, subject to certain exclusions. It should not be done the other way round, by denying the right to Commonwealth subjects unless they prove that they come within certain categories. Some of the categories are rather disquieting. I do not like conditions being attached to admission. That will create a kind of second-class citizenship in the Commonwealth. It will mean that a man will be allowed to come here on condition that he works, say, on the buses, or that a woman may come here on condition that she works in a hospital. That will mean that if they wish to do a different type of work they will probably be faced with certain conditions preventing them from changing. That would be absolutely indefensible. A Commonwealth subject who has settled in the country and integrated himself should be treated in exactly the same way as any other member of the community. To suggest that such persons should have attached to them the label "Coloured immigrant under restrictions" is monstrous. I hope that we shall give this matter careful attention in Committee. It seems deplorable to me that the deprivation of the rights of Commonwealth citizens should be the responsibility of an immigration officer and that there should be no opportunity for appeal. There is no analogy with the case of an alien. We cannot repeat too often that we are dealing with Commonwealth citizens. The great danger is that the impression created by this Bill and the attitude that has been taken by hon. Members opposite will be that when the Commonwealth was a matter of flag-wagging, Rudyard Kipling and Empire Day, the Conservatives found it terrific, but once it grew up and became a multi-racial Commonwealth with a majority of coloured people they lost interest because it ceased to have the same romantic appeal to them. For myself, the tradition of the Commonwealth only became interesting when they became part of the tremendous challenge to us to show what we could do to bring together peoples of different races in one great community. If we can preserve the sources of Commonwealth unity we shall have won a race with destiny. Dr. Verwoerd and Sir Roy Welensky must be laughing their heads off. We preach to them about the monstrousness of discrimination against coloured people. But we have 1 per cent. coloured people in our population and they have perhaps 75 million to 2 million. We have the impertinence to point the finger at them and say, "You should learn to live with your brown brothers." We, with our 1 per cent., cannot face up to the change and we are told that we must scuttle the Commonwealth and get rid of sentimentality and the nonsense because, as one hon. Member opposite said, it is all futile. I do not believe that it is futile. Of course, people may feel that they will be able to get a house more easily and that they will not have the noise of steel bands upstairs. I have no doubt that the Bill will be popular with many people, but it will be the greatest retreat from the honour and standing and dignity of this country as head of the Commonwealth that has ever happened. It is a shameful thing that a party which gloried in the sweets of Empire when they were profitable shows that it is hypocritical when it comes to repaying some of the debt that we owe to those countries we have exploited in the past."As you suggest, the unemployment figures quoted are mainly those in the 'pipeline'—that is, fresh arrivals, and those temporarily out of a job. … They are indefatigable job-seekers and do not rely entirely on the employment exchanges to place them."
8.22 p.m.
I was glad to hear the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) stress the need for integration, and I was still more glad when, in the very eloquent closing passages of his speech, he came to describe his Commonwealth philosophy, which is identical with my own. It is on Commonwealth grounds that I oppose the whole underlying idea of this Bill. It is not only because it brings to an end the long tradition of free entry for all Commonwealth citizens, but because I believe it to be quite inimical to our whole concept of a multi-racial Commonwealth.
Here we are, the leaders of the greatest association of nations—many of them coloured—that the world has ever known, legislating against the entry of our own fellow citizens into our own country. In so doing, we must inevitably weaken the rather slender ties which still bind the Commonwealth together. By this Bill, we are cutting yet another Commonwealth cord of unity and cohesion, and doing it at the very moment when our application to join the European Common Market, which I personally support, has nevertheless called in question to, some extent the sincerity of our Commonwealth attachment. Underlying the point made by the hon. Member for Widnes, I would add that it seems strange to me that in Africa we attack apartheid and preach partnership, but in the United Kingdom we are today taking powers to exclude coloured British citizens, which is really a form of apartheid, and are evading our opportunity, that splendid opportunity, to practise partnership and so make our contribution to the improvement of race relations throughout the world. Our words to Africa are inconsistent with our action today in the House of Commons. There probably is not a single hon. Member on either side of the House who does not advocate partnership and good race relations on what one might call the periphery of the Commonwealth. Everybody likes that idea. Yet I suppose that the majority of us will vote tonight against the same principle at the heart and centre of the Commonwealth. It is a strange example to set to our compatriots in Central, East and Southern Africa. The word "coloured" is not mentioned in the Bill, which is to apply to the whole Commonwealth. But would we have had the Bill at all if all the immigrants had been from the older, white Dominions and from Ireland? I doubt it, and so do the West Indians doubt it very much. I do not wonder at their doubt. Whatever the intentions of the Government—and I do not suggest that they are actuated by colour prejudice—the fact is that the Bill's whole impact falls upon the coloured immigrants from the Asian and West Indian countries of the Commonwealth. One hears people say that the reason is that this island is over-populated. But we have been over-populated for the last fifty years or more and there was no question then, when Irish and others came in, of introducing such a Bill as this. The demand was only first raised seven or eight years ago when the West Indians began to arrive. Over the last decade our population has increased by over 2 million, but in the same period the emigration to the Commonwealth has actually exceeded immigration from the Commonwealth. This destroys completely the population argument. I am afraid that the reason for the Bill is the coloured immigration, and in our hearts, on both sides of the House, we know that perfectly well. Until the speech of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary today, we might have justified ourselves by saying that Southern Ireland was included in the Bill, but now one is unable to take refuge in that argument. I do not particularly want to exclude the Southern Irish. I think they make a useful contribution to our economy, mainly with unskilled labour which we need very much. I am not taking a dig at them, and we understand the practical difficulties about including them in the Bill. Indeed, I never thought it possible to include them unless thousands of soldiers manned the Ulster border. Even then one could not have kept them out, and good luck to them. I do not complain. But it seems odd first to include the Irish and then to take them out. It makes the whole thing look a bit "phoney". I cannot understand that in a Bill, which I believe to have been under preparation for some time, this point should have been overlooked. Something might perhaps be achieved to offset the colour discrimination argument, which is justly levelled against the Bill, if the Government could see their way to take over the Race Discrimination Bill which has been introduced into the House year after year by the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway). It is not something which I very much like, for, as a matter of principle, I do not like legislating for a particular category of people, but in the present rather difficult situation in which we find ourselves with this Measure to control immigration, it might have some rather helpful psychological effects. There seem to be five reasons for this immigration Bill, three of them perfectly valid and two not. I want first to deal with the two which are in my opinion not good reasons. The first, to use the words we hear so often, is "the social strains and stresses." In simpler and rather cruder language, that phrase really means colour prejudice. It is strange, that if one accuses someone of not having a sense of humour he is furious, and regards it as the most insulting thing of which one can accuse him. It is the same if he is accused of having a colour prejudice; he will vehemently deny it. But, I fear, in fact, that is the state of mind of many of our fellow countrymen. What worries me is that no serious attempt has been made to educate public opinion on this issue. I agree with the hon. Member for Widnes, who said in effect that we are applying a policy of restriction even before we have seriously tried a policy of integration. That is a legitimate criticism. The second invalid reason is that mentioned many times today, the employment argument, upon which, in fact, the whole structure of the Bill is based. I do not see how it could have been based on anything else and I acknowledge that straight away. However, that is a funny thing on which to base the Bill, because it does not exist. There is no unemployment problem in Britain today and we all know it. The average West Indian immigrant gets a job within three weeks of his arrival and most of them do so within one week. This is not a logical basis. And if there were a recession, even a slight recession such as we had at the end of 1957 and the beginning of 1958, the figures would drop very quickly and dramatically as soon as the immigrants heard that jobs were not so plentiful. That is what happened before and it would act as a corrective again. After all, it must be far nicer to be unemployed in Jamaica, or Trinidad, or Antigua, than to be unemployed in London or Birmingham. If one has the choice, one stays where one is if one's home is in the West Indies. The West Indians come only for jobs and they find them and they make a useful contribution to our economy. That has been stressed again and again. We see them and like them on the London buses and the underground trains. Indeed, there would not be nearly as many buses and trains running but for the West Indian immigrants. In the Westminster Hospital, just across the road, there are more than 100 nurses and ward maids, in the hospital which we in the House use, who come from the West Indies and without whom the hospital could not be efficiently run. There are many houses in this country built with bricks made by migrants' hands. We are told that the British Army is seeking coloured Commonwealth recruits to help to get its strength up to the figure of 165,000 men. So lack of employment is not a valid reason for the Bill. But there are three reasons which seem to be good and which I would like to acknowledge. The first—and this may seem to he a rather material consideration —is that the public obviously wants a Bill of this type. From the Gallup poll of last week, there is no doubt about where the public stands on this issue. I believe that the public is wrong, but I do not think that hon. Members should utterly disregard a strong expression of opinion by 90·3 per cent. of our own electors. It would be rather stupid and unrealistic if we did. The second good reason is that mainly mentioned today—the housing problem. Of course it might be better to build more houses than to accept fewer immigrants. It might be better to employ more Irish and West Indians making bricks and building more houses than to restrict the number of immigrants. That is a passing idea. However, I concede that there is—and we all know it—a housing shortage, and as houses take time to build this in itself constitutes a good reason for at any rate a temporary check on immigration. The third valid reason for the Bill is the steep increase in immigration figures in the last two years. The Government have been beaten by the numbers. When 21,000 came here in 1959, nobody worried very much except my hon. Friend the Member for Louth (Sir C. Osborne) who was already very exercised about it, but last year we had over 50,000, and that was rather a large figure, and we were told today that in the first ten months of this year we have had 112,000 or 113,000, and that is a very large figure indeed. I think that the numbers have been considerably stepped up and exaggerated by the campaign of my hon. Friend the Member for Louth, because they all wondered whether the Government would take his advice, and so they rushed to come here before the Bill, which they feared might be introduced, was in fact introduced.That campaign has been going on for eight years, and I have a Ministerial statement made as long as eight years ago that the Government were on the brink of introducing legislation. Does my hon. Friend think that there have been eight years of anticipatory rush?
No I do not, but I think it will be within the recollection of every hon. Member that the stepping up of this campaign has been very marked in the last year. Every day there have been Questions to the Minister of every Department which could possibly be concerned and debates, and so on. The general tempo has been enormously increased, and this has happened to coincide with the increase in the number of people coming here. I do not think that the two can be utterly disconnected.
The point which I think is possibly more important, and it is one which the Government must take into account, is not so much the actual numbers coming from the West Indies as the potential numbers who could come from the Asian countries of the Commonwealth. Thousands are coming here from the West Indies, but, if they wished to do so, they could come here in their millions from India and Pakistan. That is the only point on which I think I disagree with the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. C. Royle), whom I should like to thank for his most generous remarks about me. We have worked together for a long time on this problem and it has been a very happy partnership. As I say, on this point I do not agree with him. This is a very small island indeed, and we have been told today that the population of the Commonwealth is about one-quarter of that of the world. We could not absorb numbers of that kind, or even a small proportion of them, and that seems to me to be the main justification for the introduction of this Bill. It is also the main reason why I shall not vote against the Bill tonight. On the other hand, I do not suppose that any hon. Member on either side of the House will be surprised to hear that I shall not vote for it. I shall not vote for the Bill for three reasons. First, because it is prejudicial to good race relations, which in my view is one of the great world issues of this decade and of this century. Secondly, because I think it is prejudicial to Commonwealth relations. This point has been made in this debate, and I have in mind The Times leader of Tuesday which said:I am sure that that is true. Norman Manley says that the Commonwealth will never be the same again, and this view is widely held in the West Indies. The hon. Member for Salford, West quoted from a letter from Sir Grantley Adams. I have received the same sort of letter, and was going to make the same sort of quotation. This is what these leaders feel, and we must take account of it. The Bill is damaging to Commonwealth relations. The third reason why I cannot vote for the Bill is because of its repercussions on the West Indies, which, like the hon. Member for Salford, West, I know very well and love very much. No hon. Member who has never been to the Caribbean can have any conception of the gravity of the under-employment and unemployment problem, and how explosive it could become. In Jamaica, 30,000 extra people come on to the labour market every year. Some people say, "Why don't they build some more factories out there and employ these people there instead of having them here?" It is not so simple as that. Secondary industrial development is going well, particularly in Jamaica and Trinidad, where new factories are going up all the time. But I venture to remind the House of some figures I gave when I spoke on the subject last February. The fact is that in Jamaica £2,000 in capital investment is required to provide one job for one man. Multiply that by the 30,000 extra people coming on to the labour market every year, and one arrives at the astronomical requirement of £60 million a year for Jamaica alone. If it is suggested that private industrial development should create work by building factories, the profit potential for that sort of capital investment just does not exist in the Caribbean at present. Although it is a great help to have secondary industrial development, and we must continue to encourage it, we should at the same time realise that it cannot provide the ultimate solution to the problem. There seem to be only two solutions to the problem—the long-term solution of family planning and the short-term one of migration."The damage, emotional, economic and political, which it is likely to do to the already fragile fabric of Commonwealth can hardly be exaggerated."
My hon. Friend has referred to family planning as offering one solution. Can he tell the House what Mr. Manley has done and said about that? That is my main reason for supporting the Bill.
Mr. Manley is very interested in this matter. Clinics have been established in Jamaica, following others already established in Barbados. I do not want to embarrass Mr. Manley, because he is a friend of mine. This subject is political dynamite in the West Indies. I know that he is personally interested in this matter, and I hope that hon. Members will take the point.
It is a difficult problem. The Roman Catholic religion is fairly widespread in the West Indies, and obviously militates against this long-term solution—and the Bill clearly militates against the other short-term solution, which is migration. Inevitably, therefore, we shall see an increase in unemployment and under-employment in the West Indies as a result of the Bill. I have not looked up our own unemployment figure lately, but I suppose that it is about 1½ per cent. In the West Indies it is 15 per cent. or 20 per cent. I remember a quotation from my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister a quarter of a century ago, when he referred to our then serious unemployment problem in England—although it was not nearly so serious as the problem in the Caribbean today—as "inflammable social material at the mercy of a man with a political match to ignite it." By removing the safety valve of migration this Bill could produce another Cuba in the Caribbean. I do not say that it will, but it could happen there if we are not careful. Everything depends upon the way in which the Bill is applied. A great deal is left to the discretion of the Government. For instance, skilled men are to be allowed in. How skilled must they be? The word "skilled" has quite a different meaning in the Caribbean from its meaning in the United Kingdom. If the United Kingdom degree of skill is required very few people will come in under that category. After the skilled people have been allowed in there are those who have prearranged jobs to go to and there is then to be a residuary quota of unskilled workers with no prearranged jobs. There is no indication, even approximately, of the number to be allowed in under the residuary quota. I recognise the need for flexibility, but I should have thought that we ought to have in our minds, and we ought to ask the Government if they have in their mind, an idea of the approximate number to be allowed in under this category. Then there are those with jobs which have been arranged beforehand. How are the jobs to be arranged? I think this quite a difficult and a practical point. There is a danger of privately operated profit-making employment agencies and the setting up of quite a racket in work permits for jobs.It is happening now.
I think that we must ask my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour to be a little more specific about this.
Then there is the health check, presumably at the port of entry. I do not know how that is to be administered. No medical check is of the faintest value unless it is very thorough indeed and conducted by a qualified doctor. If it is to be very thorough, we shall have to have a great many doctors at Southampton and other places, together with equipment. It will take a lot of time, and it seems to me that the migrants will be kept waiting for a very long time. I have absolutely no objection in principle to a health check, but I honestly doubt whether it can be made workable. Nor have I any objection to keeping out convicted criminals. So far as the West Indies are concerned this hardly arises, because they are not allowed to leave the West Indies under the present arrangements. This I know Mr. Norman Manley has already arranged. Nor do I object to the power to deport criminals. They are not very good ambassadors for their own country; although I must say that when I heard my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary say that the Irish would be subject to this deportation order, I could not understand how it is to work; because as soon as a man is deported to Ireland there is nothing to prevent him from taking the next boat back to England. There is one question which I must put to my right hon. Friend. In the event of our entry into the Common Market—I do not think this point has been made yet—who are to have the priority for labour vacancies in the United Kingdom market? Is it to be the Europeans or Commonwealth citizens? Is it to be the Italians or is it to be the West Indians? I think that we are entitled to put that question. Generally speaking, we shall have to look at this Bill very carefully indeed during the Committee stage. I thank the Government sincerely for deciding to take the Committee stage on the Floor of the House. I think it is of great importance. The number of hon. Members desiring to speak reveals the interest which the House takes in this Bill, and very rightly so. But it is drafted very vaguely and will have to be carefully scrutinised. Personally, I wish the Government had never embarked on the Bill at all. I wish they had called a Commonwealth conference and tried first to find a Commonwealth solution. I do not say that they would have succeeded. Other hon. Members have expressed the same view today. I believe in Commonwealth inter-migration. I should like to see in this Commonwealth, if it means anything at all, not only consultation between Governments, not only cross-fertilisation of ideas but an exchange of people. There should be people going to and fro with complete freedom. That. I believe, is what the Commonwealth should really mean. There are the great countries of Canada, Australia and New Zealand desperately in need of manpower. Their integrity is almost threatened because they are under-populated. Certainly their economic advance is seriously delayed for the same reason; so, instead of restricting Commonwealth immigration, I should like to see it extended. Some Commonwealth countries have to export their surplus manpower. Other Commonwealth countries have to import manpower. If the Commonwealth really means anything at all, is it beyond the imagination of man that these countries should get together and work out a solution which would be helpful to us all. That is the approach I should like to see to the whole problem. If we got that, we should be working for the cohesion of the Commonwealth, and at the same time we should be making, I believe, a very real contribution to the improvement of race relations in the world; whereas this Bill, I am sorry to say, makes no contribution whatever to that problem. I am sorry to have to say it, but this is a defeatist Bill which evades the issue of race relations, and, by evading it, seems to imply that there is no solution to it and that therefore we must take avoiding action and opt out of the whole problem. I remember being moved at our annual party conference at Brighton when I heard my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House use these words:I wish he were in his place, because I should like to pay this personal tribute to him. He has himself done more, perhaps, than any other man in public life today to make that belief a reality in Africa. Mr. Julius Nyerere, one of the most remarkable men I have ever met, said of my right hon. Friend:"I believe, quite simply, in the brotherhood of man—men of all races, all colours, all creeds."
I believe that is true, and I think my right hon. Friend was absolutely sincere in his Brighton speech when he talked of the brotherhood of man. I believe in it too, and it is because I believe in it that I cannot vote for this Bill tonight."Mr. Macleod has done more for Britain in Africa than any other person. He has taken away all the African bitterness towards your country."
8.51 p.m.
In the few moments which are left, I hope to make some contribution to this debate. I think many of us on this side of the House felt a little sorry for the Home Secretary, who has proved himself to have such liberal sentiments in many respects and who is helping to put on the Statute Book one of the most illiberal Acts of modern times. I am afraid that he will be remembered more for illiberal acts than for the liberal ones with which he has been associated.
During the debate it was peculiar to notice some of the arguments which have been used. There were arguments used in connection with Birmingham. The hon. Member for Louth (Sir C. Osborne) said that these people will come here because their employment situation is bad, because their earnings are low and because they get better employment here. I always thought private enterprise lauded that sort of sentiment, encouraged people to lift themselves up by their bootstraps, to get on in life and do something by individual effort. That seems something which should be done unless one's colour is rather different from ours. In my constituency we have something of a problem. We hear a great deal about these people getting together and forming colonies, but I do not think there is a city on the Continent which has not an English colony. If one goes to Paris one finds an English colony and one finds the same in Sweden. Most countries have an English colony. This question of getting together is not a matter for denigration. It is a natural sort of thing for people of like language and like views. What we have not done is to give immigrants facilities to get together decently. That is where we have failed in our lob. That is something to which we should pay more attention. The Government have shuffled this off and tried to get away with it by saying that we should keep people out. In the last analysis, it has become quite clear that this is a colour bar. It is a bar designed particularly against West Indians, Indians and Pakistanis. There was a great shout when this Measure was first talked about that when it was introduced it would be found to be acting against all immigrants and not a colour bar. It would be against those from Southern Ireland. Now we have had the admission that it cannot be applied to those from Southern Ireland and—let us face it—the Government do not want it to apply to those from Southern Ireland. They want it to apply to coloured people whom they think cause the difficulty of the position in which we are. A great deal has been said about employment in this country. It is admitted on all sides that coloured people who have come from the Commonwealth have made a great contribution towards keeping this country going. If in this country we are to encourage everyone to become a white-collared worker we have to get someone to do the other work. Hon. Members opposite might think of that aspect and not play down the menial jobs as though they were something undesirable. I am very grateful for some of the work that is being done by these people in my own area, much of which has been of considerable help to the economy. The coloured population in my constituency consists, in the main, of Indian workers. Generally speaking, they are decent, law-abiding citizens. The amount of crime amongst them may not be much less than it is among our own people, but it is certainly no greater. They do not appear in court more often than do members of our white population. They appear there occasionally, of course, and, when they do, it is usually for the same kind of petty offences with which our own people are charged. They certainly do not appear in any of the great crimes. I have heard it suggested, although I have no particular knowledge of this, that a certain number of these people are immoral, that they are living on immoral earnings. I certainly have no objection to deporting people who live on immoral earnings, but I think that in some cases the trouble is that the coloured people are not quite clever enough to cover these things up, because it is also the fact that there are those in the white community who live on immoral earnings. People tell me, "I have bought a house. The people next door have moved away. The landlord has sold to the highest bidder, and it is an Indian family. I now have about twenty people living next door—just look at what is happening to my property". Incidentally, it is quite difficult to get numbers. When I ask, "Are your neighbours awkward or difficult?" the normal answer is, "Oh no, they are all right, but if I want to sell my house later the value will be depressed because these Indians are living next door". That is an entirely unsocial approach, of course, but I must say on behalf of those constituents who complain in this way that they make it perfectly plain—and I believe them—that they have no colour bar as such. The real bar here is that these coloured people are taking facilities to which our own people think that they are entitled. That is not quite the attitude to be encouraged in the Commonwealth. If we are to deal with it as a Commonwealth we must look to interchange in the Commonwealth. We have to remember that, whatever the colour of their skins, these people are members of the British Commonwealth, and the fact that the Government have chosen this moment to strike a blow at the Commonwealth—as it will be regarded—is one of the worst things that could happen at present. We are at present negotiating to enter the Common Market, and it might be said that difficulties will arise in regard to exchange of labour within the Common Market if Commonwealth people are able to come freely here. We might be asked to curb the flow in order to play our part under the Treaty of Rome. That would all fit in very nicely. There was certainly no urgency about the subject until we had the Tory Party Conference at Brighton. The fact is that we need this labour just as much now as when it first began to come here. Let us look at what we then did. Organisations went to Jamaica telling the people there what a fine life there was in this country for them. It was not, in the first place, a question of the coloured immigrants coming here willy-nilly; they were recruited by our own industry which could not otherwise get the labour it needed. Now we are throwing it back in their teeth. No Government tried more to regulate its emigration than did India. I do not know whether we helped the Indian Government particularly in that respect—I do not think that we did—but if there was one country with which we could have discussed what could be done to strengthen its method of controlling emigration and our of controlling immigration, it was India. Instead of that, the whole problem is thrown back at them, as it is with the other Commonwealth countries. It is inevitable that when one or two coloured workers come here they first bring over their families. They find that there is work here for someone else, so they bring over their friends. That all helps to start it off. The Government have done nothing to deal with the social problem that has been created by immigration. On that they stand condemned. Trying to get out of it by introducing a Bill with a view to trying to get public support for their failure to do a duty which they should have carried out is one of the most serious accusations that can be laid against them at present. I can only hope that something will happen and that the Government will be out of office before the Bill gets through.9.0 p.m.
The hon. Member for Louth (Sir C. Osborne) described this occasion as a momentous one. It is momentous, but to this side of the House it is not only momentous—it is tragic. Perhaps the only redeeming feature is that hon. Members opposite, as well as hon. Members on this side, have been decidedly gloomy during the course of the debate. I do not think they were gloomy because the two opening speeches were in such marked contrast to one another—the unconvincing and almost pathetic performance of the Home Secretary, and the entirely devastating reply of my right hon. Friend the Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker). It was not that which caused them to feel so depressed. I think it was the realisation, as they thought about the problem and as the debate went on, that this is a very sad day for the Commonwealth.
One of the remarkable features about the Home Secretary's speech was his complete failure to give any convincing explanation as to why the Government have brought in the Bill at this moment. A number of different arguments have been put forward, both by him and by other hon. Members. The first argument is that we cannot afford to allow the open door to the Commonwealth because we must think of all the people who might come in. This is an argument that the hon. Member for Louth has used on many occasions. He usually gives us some figures. On one occasion he said, "If it goes on like this in two decades there will be another 6 million of them here". Today he did not quote figures. He used the general argument. He said, "It will always happen because we are so much better off than they are. Because we are better off than they are they will come in their floods to enjoy the higher living standards which we have here". The Home Secretary went one better. He talked about a quarter of the globe being able to come in. I wonder if the Home Secretary and the hon. Member for Louth have realised that the situation which they describe so vividly existed in 1900, in 1910, in 1920, in 1930 and in 1940. But the arguments were not used then. A different picture was painted then. We were proud then—or they at least were proud, and very frequently made it plain—that such a large part of the map of the world was painted red. Now they look upon it as an embarrassment to be got rid of as quickly as possible. In all those years—1910, 1920, 1930—although they could have come they did not. Was it because their standard of living was better than ours, or not greatly inferior to ours? It was appallingly low, so it could not have been that. There was another reason for it. The simple reason was that there were no jobs available for them to come to. The movement which we have been experiencing in the last few years is a reflection of the full employment which, in the main, since the war we in this country have enjoyed. In other words, these people have come here because they were wanted. The hon. Member for Louth couples with this argument the question, "Are you prepared to say that under no conditions will you ever wish to close this door? Even if 50 million Indians were to come into this country, would you say, 'Let them all come'?" This is an old trick. It is the kind of question which is unreal and irrelevant. [HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense."] I am answering the case and I will answer it in more than one way. It is very like the question which has often been put to me by other hon. Members about the position of this country in relation to N.A.T.O. They say, "Are you sure you will always remain in N.A.T.O. whatever the circumstances?" When I say that I am not, they are a little apt to claim, "That means you want to go out now ". It is the exact parallel. The question is not whether if 50 million Indians came here we should be able to maintain the open door; the question now is whether this Bill should be passed into law or not. It is an unreal question for another reason. It is an unreal question because, in fact, the rate of immigrants into this country is closely related and, in my view at any rate, will always be closely related, to the rate of economic absorption. This point was made very well by my right hon. Friend. There has been, over the years, if the hon. Gentleman cares to consult the figures, an almost precise correlation between the movement in the numbers of unfilled vacancies, that is to say, employers wanting labour, and the immigration figures. As the number of unfilled vacancies goes down, the immigration figures go down, and as the number of unfilled vacancies rises, the immigration figures go up. It is, in my opinion, an utter and complete myth that there is the slightest danger or prospect of millions and millions of brown and black people coming to this country. Anyone who is trying to put that across is only trying to frighten people into believing that. I do not doubt that the hon. Member for Louth will say, "They come here; they are out of work; they are living on public assistance". Are they? He has said it on occasions. This is a very important point. How many of them are unemployed?—[An HON. MEMBER: "Twenty-one thousand."]—5 per cent., according to the Home Secretary, which is rather higher than our figure and that is not surprising as they are immigrants. It is not very surprising, if people come here to look for jobs and find jobs, that, nevertheless, in the process there is a somewhat higher level of unemployment. If the hon. Gentleman looked for the figures of unemployment among unskilled workers he would also find it higher than the figure of unemployment among skilled workers. As to the number on public assistance, perhaps the Minister of Labour will tell us the figures. I think that we ought to know them. Have we a great pool of coloured immigrants living on the State and doing nothing? The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that this is not true. Ninety-five per cent. at least of the people who came in last year, of the 113,000 we are told about, have jobs, are wanted—that is the same thing is it not?—and are working for us in hospitals, on trains, on buses, in factories and in this Parliamentary building. Are they depriving our people of jabs? Can anyone say that? Of course not. Perhaps the Minister of Labour can tell us whether there is any sign whatever in present circumstances that the immigrants have been pushing British people out of work. Why do the Government want to keep them out? Of course, the Home Secretary realises that the sort of arguments of which I have been disposing do not go very far, so he thinks of something else. He says, "Think of the danger of recession ahead", and then proceeds to argue for the urgency of this Bill. Is it as close as that? Has he so little faith in his right hon. and learned Friend, one of his numerous successors at the Treasury; or perhaps does he trust him to create unemployment? Does he really imagine that there is a serious danger of unemployment? If there is, does he think that the number of people that we let in now when we need them will greatly affect the amount of unemployment when it comes? There is not the slightest evidence that this was ever the case. Can the right hon. Gentleman show me that with a larger working population we have a larger rate of unemployment? Of course we do not. Everyone knows that we have a far smaller rate of unemployment than we ever had with a smaller population before the war. In fact, there is not the slightest doubt that there is no danger here. As I have said, the movement of immigration is closely related to the movement of unfilled vacancies. If we were to run into a recession, we should find the immigration drying up extremely quickly. Of course, we have had some other ideas put forward and they are related to what is in the Bill. It is said, "Keep them out because they are all diseased". I am bound to say that that is not put forward here, but we know that that is the sort of thing which is said. [HON. MEMBERS: "It has been put forward here."] Yes, I know. The hon. Member for Louth once spoke about leprosy. The Government can hardly plead that the Bill is a necessity unless they choose to throw over the Minister of State, Home Office. On 17th February, in, I think, the only long debate that we have had on this subject for some time, the hon. and learned Gentleman made it very plain what the position was. He said:We can therefore dispose of that argument. Then there was the danger of crime. One hon. Member this afternoon spoke in vivid terms about the murders and rapes and everything else in these communities. But again apparently that is not the view of the Government. It was not the view last February of the Minister of State. He said:"The danger to the nation's health from the presence of large numbers of Commonwealth immigrants is, so far, not serious. … I am advised by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health that there is no reason to think that, to any large extent, immigrants from the Commonwealth bring diseases into this country, or constitute a danger to public health"—
What then is the reason for the Bill? The immigrants are healthy, law-abiding, and are at work. They are helping us. Why then do the Government wish to keep them out? We all know the answer. It is because they are coloured and because in consequence of this there is a fear of racial disorder and friction. This is the real question. Why do we have so much hypocrisy about it? Why do we not face up to the matter? There is a problem here. None of us has ever denied that. There are social problems and an appalling housing problem. We concede the existence of these problems in certain areas, but we do not believe for one moment that this Bill is the way to handle them. We do not believe that the Bill is justified by the facts. We think that probably it will not work at all. But at the same time we think that it will do irreparable harm to the Commonwealth. As the right hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) said, the introduction of this Bill as a method of dealing with the problems of racial friction arising from 400,000 or even 500,000 coloured immigrants in this country is an appalling confession of failure by the Government. It will be a confession of failure by all of us if we allow this Bill to go through. It means, in effect, that Great Britain is saying to the world that we cannot absorb or integrate with our community more than 1 per cent. of the population. We had better stop throwing stones at the Southern States. One would have supposed that before coming to this fateful decision the Government would have had a full inquiry into the facts and figures. They have not done so. We have not even been given the net migration figures. I am amazed that the Home Secretary came down to the House without them. We are left in a state of complete confusion as to exactly what has been happening. We were told not long ago that it was difficult to get the figures. It would be interesting to know how they are compiled. It is fair to ask how many of the 100,000 who came in last year were wives and children. Why cannot we be told? It is fair to ask also most emphatically whether the statisticians have taken into account the emigration of coloured people back to the places from which they came. Certainly it is astonishing that a decision of this kind should have been made without all those figures having been put firmly before us. The next question is why the Government assume that this rate of immigration will necessarily continue. Is it not clear from past experience that the rate varies a good deal from year to year? We know that from 1955 to 1958, there was a decline, a sharp one as it happened. There has been a rise in the last two years. I should think it likely that quite apart from anything that the Government would do, there would be a further decline. I admit that this is closely related to the Government's economic policy, but since they are busy slowing up industrial expansion I should have thought it almost certain to happen. Then, there is the question of the timing of this decision. The Home Secretary spoke of long and anxious consideration and all the heart searching that went on. The Leader of the House said:"The existence of unassimilated communities living in their own enclaves—if that is the right word—is to be deplored, but there is so far no evidence that they breed crime or, in general, have a bad effect on public order. … Taken as a whole, the immigrants appear to be no less law abiding than their neighbours, …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th February, 1961; Vol. 634, c. 2011–2.]
Years? When did he begin? When the right hon. Gentleman was taking years to decide it, did he think of the effects of the Rent Act upon the housing situation? Did he think of the effects of the cuts in housing subsidies and of the fact that municipal housing was falling to about half of what it had been? Did he make representations about this? The right hon. Gentleman was Colonial Secretary for a large part of that time. Did he press for anything to be done to avoid the racial friction? We never heard about it if he did. Why was there no proper inquiry? If the Government thought about it years ago, how is it that no full public inquiry was ever made? This would have been the easiest thing to do. I suggest to the Government that they would have done well to put upon such an inquiry representatives of the Commonwealth and to have seen what was happening, the state of the problem and how big it was. Nothing happened. The Leader of the House went on to say:"We have taken years to decide it."
I do not know which figures he meant—"I came to the conclusion in the spring of this year, looking at those figures"—
I suppose that the Home Secretary came to the same conclusion at the same time. I wonder whether he thought about the Irish problem then. I wonder whether he was aware that it was a difficult problem. It is difficult to believe that he did not, because in that same debate the Minister of State made it plain that we could not control immigration from Ireland, yet we were treated to the pretence that it could be done, which is torn aside only at the last minute this afternoon. Last spring, when the Leader of the House came to this conclusion, there was a conference of Commonwealth Prime Ministers. Why was not the matter discussed there? If the right hon. Gentleman was coming to this conclusion, why did he not insist upon it? He was Colonial Secretary. Why did not the Home Secretary ask the Conference? If they were thinking about it, planning it, sheer honesty, I should have thought, would have obliged them to put it on the agenda of the Prime Ministers' Conference. And why now this extraordinary haste, having spent all these years on it? It is frankly discourteous treatment of those two greatest friends of this country, Mr. Norman Manley and Sir Grantley Adams. If I were Colonial Secretary I should be ashamed of what has happened so far as those men are concerned. As for the Bill, I do not propose to waste much time on it tonight. There will be opportunities later. But, of course, with the Irish out all pretence has gone. It is a plain anti-Commonwealth Measure in theory and it is a plain anti-colour Measure in practice. The real point, however, is this. Will it work? What is its object? To stop people coming here if they cannot get jobs so that they are not left unemployed? But the Government would let in those who are wanted. If that is the case they would have let in those who came last year, would they not? If that is the case, of course, they would have done nothing to solve the problem of racial conflict—[HON. MEMBERS: "Or housing."]—or housing or any of the social difficulties. If, on the other hand, the idea is to keep them out even if they are really wanted here, then what are the Government doing to help the expansion of our economy? Goodness me, the shortage of labour is serious enough even with these immigrants—in, for instance, London Transport. Today one can see notices up in the Tube stations about booking-offices closed because they have nobody to service them. If we are now going to stop people coming in even when we want them, all I can say is that it is about the most crazy kind of Conservative economic planning I can ever remember. They may say, "No, we are going to let them in, let them in as they came in last year. There is no need to worry about it if they have got jobs." There is a very big difference, because, of course, it is one thing to come here, look around, and get a job; it is another thing to get a job before ever one leaves one's own country. This is what we want to know about. Let the Minister of Labour tell us. But I am telling him that if he is, in fact, going to let everybody in who when he gets here can find a job, he is not really lifting a finger to solve the basic problem at all. All he is doing is giving the Commonwealth a disastrous impression without, as I said, solving anything."that it was no longer possible to avoid such legislation."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th November, 1961; Vol. 648, c. 926.]
The right hon. Gentleman is doing it.
I want to say a word about the effect in the Commonwealth. First of all, it has been said, we should build up the economy in the West Indies. Certainly. But the Home Secretary himself has pointed to the cost—£2,000 per factory employee of investment. I think he got it from the hon. Member for Surbiton (Mr. Fisher). I do not question the figures. He says it is too much.
Let us just consider what is to happen if we do keep them out. They are not a very large area in terms of population—about 3 million—but they are an area of very heavy unemployment. Apart from Jamaica, where it is heavy, it is 20 per cent. even in Trinidad, which is the most prosperous of the islands, and from 19 per cent. to 23 per cent. in Barbados. The Government are throwing their unemployed back on them, are they not? It cannot be denied. They are still our Colonies. We are responsible for them, and they think of themselves, as anybody who has been there knows, as British people. Oh, yes, they do. It is rather moving. I found when I was there that they look on us as the Mother Country in a very real sense—[An HON. MEMBER: "As they have a right to."]—as they have a right to—because of their history, as has been said this afternoon and before, a history of British merchants collecting their ancestors from Africa as slaves and taking them over there and treating them in a way I think none of us would approve of. I do not know whether any other hon. Member will agree with me, but I felt when I was in Jamaica even now the melancholy consequences of the history of that island. They have some of the finest Commonwealth leaders we can ever hope to have in the men I have mentioned. Let us not overlook the possibility that if we do this thing Castroism may spread. That is a very real prospect. It may be said. "The open door does not matter as much as all that. Other people have after all, closed the doors and therefore why do we not do the same?" To that I simply say that we are the mother country and we ought not to forget it. It is worth adding that the two countries which will be most affected by this Measure, Jamaica and India, do not at present impose any restrictions on immigrants from the United Kingdom. There is, however, something deeper. The Commonwealth at the moment is going through a very difficult phase. There is the reaction to the Common Market. There is the race problem in Central Africa. There are the new Commonwealth countries reaching their independence. All these things create problems. Some of us, recognising that it is precarious, nevertheless hope that the Commonwealth will survive and mean something. Perhaps the main reason why we hope so is that it is a multi-racial society and its first principle is non-discrimination in race relations. We think that is important, because when we look back for a moment it is fair to say that the whole future of the world will probably depend on whether people of different colours can live in harmony with each other. Therefore, this Measure as now put forward strikes at the very root of this principle. It is no part of our case to pretend that any amount of immigration of people of different colour and social customs and language does not present problems, though I urge that we should beware of exaggerations here. Do the Government deal with it by seeking to combat social evils, by building more houses and enforcing laws against overcrowding, by using every educational means at their disposal to create tolerance and mutual understanding, and by emphasising to our own people the value of these immigrants and setting their face firmly against all forms of racial intolerance and discrimination? That is what we believe, and that is what I hope the Government believe, but it is not what is implied in the Bill. Indeed, there is no shred of evidence that the Government have even seriously tried to go along this course and make a proper inquiry into the nature of this problem. They have yielded to the crudest clamour, "Keep them out". It may be said that this is the wish of the nation, though I would beware of over-simplifying questions in Gallup Polls when all the implications are not explained to those who are answering. But, even if this were the case, I do not believe it to be our duty merely to follow what we are convinced are wrong and dangerous views. Even the Government, to their credit, resisted in one particular sphere this kind of situation when they refused the reintroduction of flogging. It was very greatly to their credit, but equally I could have wished that their courage had extended a little further. It has been said that the test of a civilised country is how it treats its Jews. I would extend that and say that the test of a civilised country is how it behaves to all its citizens of different race, religion and colour. By that test this Bill fails, and that is fundamentally why we deplore it. Of course, there are some people who will be glad. I have no doubt that there will be some Fascists who will claim this as the first victory they have ever won. I am sure that the Nationalists in South Africa will be rubbing their hands and saying, "You see, even the British are beginning to learn at last." The hon. Member for Louth and the hon. Member for Liverpool, Kirk-dale (Mr. N. Pannell) can be proud; they have done this. I do not know whether other hon. Members opposite are pleased to be associated with this victory. I wonder what the Government really feel about this, too. Of course, they can vote the Bill through; they have the numbers. But I wonder whether when they go home tonight they will feel that they have really done something which is good. There are three Ministers at least who should feel some sense of shame. There is the Home Secretary, who at least at one time had a reputation for being relatively liberal in his attitude. There is also the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, who should be representing our friends in the Commonwealth in this matter—if he is not, of course, too absorbed with trying to drag us into the Common Market. There is also, perhaps most important of all, the Leader of the House. I am bound to say that the behaviour of these last two right hon. Gentlemen has been a bitter disappointment to us. I tell them frankly that they had built up for themselves on this side of the House a very substantial reputation for courage and fair play. We admired what one of the right hon. Gentleman said in the famous South Africa debate, and we admired what this right hon. Gentleman did when he was Colonial Secretary; but it is all the worse when people on whom one relies let one down. Those right hon. Gentlemen could between them have stopped the Bill. A joint representation backed by the threat of resignation would have prevented the Bill, but they had not the courage to do that. Even so, I beg the Government now, at this last minute, to drop this miserable, shameful, shabby Bill. Let them think, consult and inquire before they deal another deadly blow at the Commonwealth.9.32 p.m.
rose—[Interruption.]
Order. It is the practice of the House to accord a fair hearing. Mr. Hare.
It would seem that the Opposition may not be very receptive to what I have to say.
We have listened to a speech by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition which was both eloquent and emotional. [HON. MEMBERS: "And logical."] I think that none of us would doubt the absolute sincerity of what he felt and how he expressed it, but I wonder whether eloquence and emotion on this !very painful and difficult issue really serve the interests of the Labour Party or the Commonwealth or the nation as a whole. I think that the right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that the Government and others who are prepared to support the Bill do so as an unpleasant duty in the face of facts which to them are unanswerable. In answering the debate, I shall try to concentrate on whether the facts justify the need for action, and, if so, whether the action contemplated is as fair and just as can be devised. At the beginning of the debate, the right hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker), and other hon. Gentlemen who followed him, did not seem to be quite clear about the actual immigration figures. I think it would be useful to the House if I started by putting the figures before it and by repeating some of the things which my right hon. Friend said. In 1959, the net intake of immigrants—the number of people who came to this country less the number who left—from the West Indies, India, Pakistan, Cyprus and, to a lesser extent, from Africa, Aden and Hong Kong, was 21,000. In 1960, this net figure rose to 58,000. In the first ten months of 1961, the figure was 113,000. That shows the rate of growth. Those are net figures. It is not easy to give absolutely accurate figures for the Commonwealth as a whole, but the Overseas Migration Board do attempt to give the best answer possible, showing the balance of migration into and out of this country in respect of all parts of the world, including not only Commonwealth citizens but also aliens. If hon. Members will look at the Sixth Report of the Board, in December, 1960, they will see the following figures. In 1957 there was a net outward balance of 72,000. In 1958 this changed to a net inward balance of 45,000. In 1959 the inward balance was 44,000, and in 1960 it was almost doubled to 82,000. The corresponding figures for 1961 are of course not yet available, but they will be very much more than that.Would the right hon. Gentleman also be honest enough to say that the Board, earlier in its Report, says that none of these figures is very reliable.
The right hon. Gentleman will do me the courtesy of recalling that I said that these figures were tentative. I said that it was difficult to be accurate.
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Home Office, on 3rd November, supplied me with the following figures? Between 1952 and 1959, emigration from the Commonwealth to the United Kingdom was 481,710, while emigration from the United Kingdom to the Commonwealth was 911,897.
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman does not want to mislead the House. In that document it was made clear that the only figures given in it related to long sea passages. It did not give the figures of those coming into this country by other means.
rose—
I cannot give way.
rose—
Order. If the Minister does not give way, the hon. Member must not remain on his feet.
It would be helpful to the House if I dealt with the arrangements we have in mind for the issue of vouchers. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said that I would try to deal with this matter, and a number of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen who have spoken have not quite understood what we intend to do about it. As my right hon. Friend explained, the basic feature of the Government's scheme for controlling immigration is that all Commonwealth citizens who wish to come to this country to obtain a job will be required to obtain a voucher from the Ministry of Labour.
Applications for vouchers will fall into three categories. First there will be those who can show that they have a genuine job to come to. Secondly, those who possess training, skill or educational qualifications likely to be useful in this country. Thirdly, there will be those who do not fall into either of the first two categories—the unskilled and unqualified who have not got a skill or a specific job to come to. We intend to deal with these categories in the following way, and it is important that the House should realise this. We shall issue vouchers to all Commonwealth citizens who have a firm and genuine offer of employment in this country. Our present intention is that the employer who wants to employ a named person in a Commonwealth country will give particulars to my Department. Then, through the Employment Exchange Service, we shall seek any necessary confirmation that a real job is available for that person.rose—
I cannot give way. I have a lot to say.
rose—
Give way.
Provided we are satisfied that the vacancy is genuine, we shall issue a voucher.
The second category consists of people who possess training, skill, or professional qualifications likely to be useful in this country. It will be for the Government to decide from time to time, in the light of employment prospects and needs in this country, what kinds of skill or other qualifications will be covered. This has been made known in Commonwealth countries, with whom we are maintaining consultation. We have to take account of the needs of Commonwealth countries as well as our own requirements. I think the House will agree that it would be quite wrong to try to lure away people with skills of which those countries are in urgent need. We are also working out with them the best way of handling this type of application. Subject to consultation, obvious examples of the type of skilled people who would come into this country under that category would be people who qualify as trained nurses, draughtsmen, carpenters, bricklayers, and so on, to whose contribution to our economy everyone has paid tribute. An important question which presents itself is how we check that applicants possess the skills or qualifications which they claim. Here, again, we are consulting the other Governments. We do not want elaborate administrative controls or documentation beyond what is strictly necessary to prevent abuse. Our aim is to devise systems suitable to the circumstances in different countries. Some of these Governments already have arrangements for dealing with emigration, and although these have not been completely successful, they provide some experience on which future co-operation can be based. The third category of applicants consists of people wishing to come and work here but having neither a skill nor a definite job to come to. These people, who are the majority, will apply direct to my Department for vouchers. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where?"] The Ministry of Labour, London. The Government's plan is that these will be issued on a first come, first served basis in the numbers which the Government from time to time consider right. That is to say, applications will be dealt with and vouchers issued in the order in which they are received. It is very important that it should be done fairly and the principle of first come, first served has been adopted because we believe this to be the fair way of handling these applications. We shall have to watch how it operates in practice. We shall be in constant touch with Commonwealth Governments about all these matters. The important thing is that the scheme is flexible. If at any time changes are necessary to achieve our object of dealing fairly with applicants from all countries, they will, of course, be made. What is vital is that there should be the fullest consultation with other Commonwealth countries and a willingness to learn from experience. Notwithstanding that they are coming here to work, certain persons will not require vouchers—for instance, student employees who do not receive salaries, self-employed persons and businessmen coming here on business visits, or to set up a business. We shall be explaining the details in due course. In considering the whole subject, we should not forget our obligations towards the immigrants themselves. I think that this has happened in the debate. I have explained to the House this steeply rising curve which has been so marked in the last three years. I do not think that it would be right for us to sit back and allow Commonwealth citizens to come into this country in vastly increased numbers unless we are satisfied that reasonable living conditions are available for them. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition and the right hon. Member for Smethwick appeared to give the impression that there was no difficulty for these people in finding the jobs that they need. I think they know that the number of coloured immigrants unemployed on 7th November was 21,712. The House should know that this is just about double the figure for November last year, and, in fact, represents the highest number of unemployed there has ever been among coloured Commonwealth immigrants. If this continuous rise in immigration which we have seen in the last three years goes on, it is clear that the number of unemployed will be very considerably increased. As every hon. Member knows only too well, the immigrants tend to congregate in the same areas, and only too often, because these are the areas where most of the jobs are available, there is a considerable shortage of houses. No Government, and I do not believe any local authority, would wish to be put in the position of having to rehouse newcomers at the expense of our citizens who would normally benefit from our slum clearance programme. There have been cracks about our failure to deal with the problem of providing houses. In ten years we have built 3 million houses. We have launched a shim clearance programme about which hon. Gentlemen opposite did nothing, and we are clearing slum houses at the rate of 70,000 a year.rose—
Order. If the Minister does not give way, the right hon. Gentleman must resume his seat.
What proposals are there in the Bill to help the housing situation about which the right hon. Gentleman has been talking?
As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the Government have been responsible for the largest housing programme ever put into effect in this country.
I am sure that the right hon. Member for Smethwick did not want to be unfair about this, but he gave the impression that under this Bill Commonwealth citizens would be treated worse than Germans and other aliens. This delusion has been shared by a number of quite responsible newspapers, even The Times. This is absolutely untrue. I hope the House is able to hear me. Commonwealth citizens who have skills or a job to go to will be allowed in here freely. Aliens, on the other hand, may come in only if they have a job to go to for which a British worker is not available. There is, therefore, a complete differentiation. Commonwealth citizens who come in under category 3, which I described, will be free to seek jobs wherever they wish. This privilege is not available to aliens. Therefore, there has been a vast amount of exaggeration, perhaps because some hon. Members who have made these observations have not informed themselves of the provisions of the Bill. My right hon. Friend made quite clear what the position would be in relation to the Common Market, and I do not wish to repeat what he has already said. A great deal of interest was inevitably concentrated on the position of the Irish Republic. I would like the House to consider, first, the dilemma in which the Government were placed in this matter. It was a very similar dilemma to that with which the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) and Lord Attlee were faced in 1948, with regard to the British Nationality Act. It would have been possible for us to have excluded the Irish Republic from the Bill, but we rejected this course for the obvious reason that it would have put the citizens of the Republic in a more favourable position than those of New Zealand, Ghana, Canada or Jamaica. Equally, it is virtually impossible to police the Eire-Ulster border, to have detailed controls on the ports between England and Ireland, and, in particular, to make United Kingdom citizens carry passports and be subject to control checks. Nevertheless, the Government take note of the view which has been put forward sincerely by hon. Members on both sides today, that whatever difficulties there may be some method should be found which would not distinguish the citizens of the Republic of Ireland so sharply from the others affected by the Bill. Various possibilities have been put to my right hon. Friend, and he will consider them. In reply to the points raised by the right hon. Member for Smethwick and the right hon. Member for Leeds, South, I say that the Bill is not—and was never conceived as—a Bill based on racial discrimination. In spite of the difficulties and illogicalities of the Irish situation, if it should prove possible to find a practical way to deal with this problem we shall do so. There has been a great deal of comment upon the lack of Commonwealth consultation. Notice of our intention to proceed in this matter was given to all members of the Commonwealth. Consultations have been concentrated on matters of broad outline, but that is only the beginning. We have already begun to seek the views of Commonwealth Governments on the more detailed matters which form the contents of the Bill. So far as those aspects of the Bill which affect my Ministry are concerned, those consultations will continue for so long as the Bill is on the Statute Book. I wish these consultations to become closer and closer, because by working together we can do much to preserve the interests not only of ourselves but of our fellow members of the Commonwealth. I am grateful to the House for having given me rather a good hearing. I have tried to give in some detail the figures which some hon. Members felt were lacking, and I have also tried to give the House a picture of the way in which the employment voucher scheme will be operated. We want to have a flexible scheme. We want something that is as fair as possible. [Interruptions.]Order, I dare say that this debate is being considered quite widely round the Commonwealth. I hope that the House will not think it consistent with its dignity that its proceedings should be interrupted by disorderly singing.
As I was saying, I think that we want to have a scheme which is flexible and which can be adapted in the light of experience and of changing circumstances as we find them. We shall certainly do all we can to achieve this.
As I said at the beginning, it is not pleasant to have to introduce this Bill. The Government dislike, but in our opinion must face, the conclusion that we have at last been forced to reach—the conclusion that we can no longer keep the fine tradition of an open door into this country for all Commonwealth citizens in whatever numbers they may come. But, in all honesty, the decision is really no more than a matter of timing. The rate of inflow in the last two years has been increasing very rapidly. It is a matter of opinion—I am not going to argue it—whether it has already gone beyond what we can properly manage. But it is surely not a matter of opinion, it is a plain fact, that we could not possibly absorb into this country all who might decide to come here from the Commonwealth. It may be argued that the rate of inflow will not go on increasing as it has done in the last two years. Of course, no one can be sure about this, although there seems little reason to expect a fall. Whatever one's view on that the Government would surely have been wrong to gamble on such a possibility and to refrain from taking the powers in this Bill. Merely to wait for difficulties to accumulate, to wait until the need for action had become apparent to all, would certainly have made the job of the Government easier. But it would have done no good to our own people, no good to the immigrants themselves, no good to relations with the Commonwealth. It would have been an abdication of responsibility. All the facts make it clear that the Government of this country must at some time be armed with the powers given by
Division No. 7.]
| AYES
| [9.58 p.m.
|
| Agnew, Sir Peter | Cordeaux, Lt.-col. J. K. | Grimston, Sir Robert |
| Aitken, W. T. | Cordle, John | Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G. |
| Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.) | Corfield, F. V. | Gurden, Harold |
| Allason, James | Costain, A. P. | Hall, John (Wycombe) |
| Arbuthnot, John | Coulson, J. M. | Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough) |
| Ashton, Sir Hubert | Courtney, Cdr. Anthony | Hare, Rt. Hon. John |
| Atkins, Humphrey | Craddock, Sir Beresford | Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.) |
| Balniel, Lord | Critchley, Julian | Harris, Reader (Heston) |
| Barber, Anthony | Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. Sir Oliver | Harrison, Brian (Maldon) |
| Barlow, Sir John | Crowder, F. P. | Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd) |
| Barter, John | Cunningham, Knox | Harvie Anderson, Miss |
| Batsford, Brian | Curran, Charles | Hastings, Stephen |
| Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton | Currie, G. B. H. | Hay, John |
| Bell, Ronald | Dalkeith, Earl of | Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel |
| Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos & Fhm) | Dance, James | Hendry, Forbes |
| Berkeley, Humphry | d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry | Hicks Beach, Maj. W. |
| Bidgood, John C. | Deedes, W. F. | Hiley, Joseph |
| Biffen, John | de Ferranti, Basil | Hill, Dr. Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton) |
| Biggs-Davison, John | Digby, Simon Wingfield | Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe) |
| Bingham, R. M. | Doughty, Charles | Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk) |
| Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel | Drayson, G. B. | Hirst, Geoffrey |
| Bishop, F. P. | du Cann, Edward | Holland, Philip |
| Bossom, Clive | Duncan, Sir James | Hollingworth, John |
| Bourne-Arton, A. | Eccles, Rt. Hon. Sir David | Hope, Rt. Hon. Lord John |
| Box, Donald | Eden, John | Hopkins, Alan |
| Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. John | Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton) | Hornby, R. P. |
| Boyle, Sir Edward | Elliott,R.W.(Nwcstle-upon-Tyne,N.) | Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Dame P. |
| Brewis, John | Emery, Peter | Howard, Hon. G. R. (St. Ives) |
| Bromley-Davenport,Lt.-Col.Sir Walter | Errington, Sir Eric | Howard, John (Southampton, Test) |
| Brooman-White, R. | Farey-Jones, F. W. | Hughes Hallett, vice-Admiral John |
| Brown, Alan (Tottenham) | Farr, John | Hughes-Young, Michael |
| Browne, Percy (Torrington) | Finlay, Graeme | Hulbert, Sir Norman |
| Bryan, Paul | Fletcher-Cooke, Charles | Hutchison, Michael Clark |
| Buck, Antony | Forrest, George | Iremonger, T. L. |
| Bullard, Denys | Foster, John | Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye) |
| Bullus, Wing Commander Eric | Fraser, Hn. Hugh (Stafford & Stone) | Jennings, J. C. |
| Burden, F. A. | Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton) | Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle) |
| Butcher, Sir Herbert | Freeth, Denzil | Johnson, Eric (Blackley) |
| Butler, Rt.Hn.R.A.(Saffron Walden) | Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D. | Johnson Smith, Geoffrey |
| Campbell, Sir David (Belfast, S.) | Gammans, Lady | Joseph, Sir Keith |
| Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn) | ||
| Carr, Compton (Barons Court) | Gibson-Watt, David | Kaberry, Sir Donald |
| Carr, Robert (Mitcham) | Gilmour, Sir John | Kerans, Cdr. J. S. |
| Cary, Sir Robert | Glover, Sir Douglas | Kerby, Capt. Henry |
| Channon, H. P. G. | Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham) | Kerr, Sir Hamilton |
| Chataway, Christopher | Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.) | Kitson, Timothy |
| Chichester-Clark, R. | Goodhart, Philip | Lancaster, Col. C. G. |
| Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.) | Goodhew, Victor | Leather, E. H. C. |
| Clark, William (Nottingham, S.) | Gough, Frederick | Leavey, J. A. |
| Cleaver, Leonard | Grant, Rt. Hon. William | Leburn, Gilmour |
| Cole, Norman | Grant-Ferris, Wg Cdr. D. | Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry |
| Cooper, A. E. | Green, Alan | Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland) |
| Cooper-Key, Sir Neill | Gresham Cooke, R. | Lilley, F. J. P. |
the Bill to regulate the size of the inflow we receive. I think that the Government have been right not to shirk a responsibility, however distasteful, and to present this Bill.
Resign.
rose—
Mrs. Castle.
rose in his place, and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
Question put, That the Question be now put:—
The House divided: Ayes 283, Noes 200.
| Lindsay, Martin | Page, Graham (Crosby) | Speir, Rupert |
| Linstead, Sir Hugh | Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale) | Stevens, Geoffrey |
| Longbottom, Charles | Partridge, E. | Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.) |
| Longden, Gilbert | Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe) | Stodart, J. A. |
| Loveys, Walter H. | Percival, Ian | Storey, Sir Samuel |
| Low, Rt. Hon. Sir Toby | Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth | Studholme, Sir Henry |
| Lucas, Sir Jocelyn | Pike, Miss Mervyn | Tapsell, Peter |
| Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh | Pilkington, Sir Richard | Taylor, F. (M'ch'ter & Moss Side) |
| McAdden, Stephen | Pitman, Sir James | Teeling, William |
| MacArthur, Ian | Pitt, Miss Edith | Temple, John M. |
| McLaren, Martin | Pott, Percivall | Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret |
| McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia | Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch | Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury) |
| Maclay, Rt. Hon. John | Price, David (Eastleigh) | Thompson, Richard (Croydon, S.) |
| Maclean, SirFitzroy(Bute&N,Ayrs.) | Price, H. A. (Lewisham, W.) | Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin |
| Macleod, Rt. Hn. Ialn (Enfield, W.) | Prior, J. M. L. | Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.) |
| McMaster, Stanley R. | Profumo, Rt. Hon. John | Turner, Colin |
| Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries) | Proudfoot, Wilfred | Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H. |
| Maitland, Sir John | Pym, Francis | van Straubenzee, W. R. |
| Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R. | Quennell, Miss J. M. | Vane, W. M. F. |
| Marlowe, Anthony | Ramsden, James | Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John |
| Marshall, Douglas | Rawlinson, Peter | Viewers, Miss Joan |
| Marten, Neil | Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin | Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis |
| Mathew, Robert (Honiton) | Renton, David | Walder, David |
| Matthews, Gordon (Meridan) | Ridley, Hon. Nicholas | Walker, Peter |
| Maudling, Rt. Hon. Reginald | Ridsdale, Julian | Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir Derek |
| Mawby, Ray | Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley) | Wall, Patrick |
| Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J. | Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.) | Ward, Dame Irene |
| Mills, Stratum | Roots, William | Watkinson, Rt. Hon. Harold |
| Montgomery, Fergus | Ropner, Cot. Sir Leonard | Webster, David |
| More, Jasper (Ludlow) | Royle, Anthony (Richmond, Surrey) | Wells, John (Maidstone) |
| Morgan, William | Russell, Ronald | Whitelaw, William |
| Morrison, John | St. Clair, M. | Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro) |
| Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles | Sandys, Rt. Hon. Duncan | Wise, A. R. |
| Neave, Airey | Scott-Hopkins, James | Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick |
| Nicholson, Sir Godfrey | Seymour, Leslie | Wood, Rt. Hon. Richard |
| Noble, Michael | Sharples, Richard | Woodhouse, C. M. |
| Nugent, Sir Richard | Shepherd, William | Woodnutt, Mark |
| Oakshott, Sir Hendrie | Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir Jocelyn | Woollam, John |
| Orr, Capt. L. P. S. | Skeet, T. H. H. | Worsley, Marcus |
| Orr-Ewing, C. Ian | Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'd & Chiswick) | Yates, William (The Wrekin) |
| Osborn, John (Hallam) | Smyth, Brig. Sir John (Norwood) | |
| Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth) | Soames, Rt. Hon. Christopher | TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
|
| Page, John (Harrow, West) | Spearman, Sir Alexander | Mr. Edward Wakefield and |
| Colonel Sir Harwood Harrison. |
NOES
| ||
| Abse, Leo | Diamond, John | Herbison, Miss Margaret |
| Ainsley, William | Dodds, Norman | Hill, J. (Midlothian) |
| Albu, Austen | Donnelly, Desmond | Hilton, A. V. |
| Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.) | Driberg, Tom | Houghton, Douglas |
| Allen, Scholefield (Crewe) | Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John | Howell, Denis (Small Heath) |
| Bacon, Miss Alice | Ede, Rt. Hon. c. | Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire) |
| Baird, John | Edelman, Maurice | Hunter, A. E. |
| Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J. | Edwards, Robert (Bilston) | Hynd, H. (Accrington) |
| Benson, Sir George | Edwards, Walter (Stepney) | Hynd, John (Attercliffe) |
| Blackburn, F. | Evans, Albert | Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill) |
| Blyton, William | Fernyhough, E. | Irving, Sydney (Dartford) |
| Bowden, Herbert W. (Leics, S.W.) | Finch, Harold | Janner, Sir Barnett |
| Bowen, Roderic (Cardigan) | Fitch, Alan | Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas |
| Bowles, Frank | Fletcher, Eric | Jeger, George |
| Boyden, James | Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale) | Jenkins, Roy (Stechford) |
| Braddock, Mrs. E. M. | Forman, J. c. | Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.) |
| Brockway, A. Fenner | Jones, Rt. Hn. A. Creech(Wakefield) | |
| Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper) | Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton) | Jones, Dan (Burnley) |
| Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.) | Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. Hugh | Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.) |
| Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green) | Caipern, sir Myer | Jones, Jack (Rotherham) |
| Callaghan, James | George, Lady Megan Lloyd (Crmrthn) | Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham) |
| Castle, Mrs. Barbara | Ginsburg, David | Jones, T. W. (Merioneth) |
| Chapman, Donald | Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C. | Kelley, Richard |
| Chetwynd, George | Gourlay, Harry | Kenyon, Clifford |
| Cliffe. Michael | Greenwood, Anthony | Key, Rt. Hon. C. W. |
| Collick, Percy | Grey, Charles | King, Dr. Horace |
| Craddock, George (Bradford, S.) | Griffiths, David (Rother Valley) | Lawson, George |
| Crosland, Anthony | Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly) | Lee, Frederick (Newton) |
| Crossman, R. H. S. | Gunter, Ray | Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock) |
| Cullen, Mrs. Alice | Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.) | Lever, Harold (Cheetham) |
| Darling, George | Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Coine Valley) | Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.) |
| Davies,Rt.Hn.Clement(Montgomery) | Hamilton, William (West Fife) | Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson |
| Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.) | Harman, William | MacColl, James |
| Davies, Harold (Leek) | Hart, Mrs. Judith | McInnes, James |
| Deer, George | Hayman, F. H. | McKay, John (Wallsend) |
| Delargy, Hugh | Healey, Denis | Mackie, John (Enfield, East) |
| Dempsey, James | Henderson,Rt.Hn.Arthur(Rwly Regis) | McLeavy, Frank |
| MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles) | Plummer, Sir Leslie | Strauss, Rt. Hon. G. R. (Vauxhall) |
| MaePherson, Malcolm (Stirling) | Popplewell, Ernest | Stross,Dr.Barnett(Stoke-on-Trent,C.) |
| Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg) | Prentice, R. E. | Swingler, Stephen |
| Mallalieu, J.P.W. (Huddersfield, E.) | Price, J. T. (Westhoughton) | Symonds, J. B. |
| Mapp, Charles | Probert, Arthur | Taylor, John (West Lothian) |
| Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A. | Pursey, Cmdr. Harry | Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.) |
| Marsh, Richard | Randall, Harry | Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline) |
| Mayhew, Christopher | Redhead, E. C. | Thornton, Ernest |
| Mellish, R. J. | Reid, William | Thorpe, Jeremy |
| Mendelson, J. J. | Reynolds, G. W. | Wainwright, Edwin |
| Millan, Bruce | Rhodes, H. | Warbey, William |
| Milne, Edward J. | Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon) | Weitzman, David |
| Mitchison, G. R. | Robertson, John (Paisley) | Wells, Percy (Faversham) |
| Monslow, Walter | Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.) | Wells, William (Walsall, N.) |
| Moody, A. S. | Ross, William | White, Mrs. Eirene |
| Morris, John | Royle, Charles (Salford, West) | Whitlock, William |
| Moyle, Arthur | Shinwell, Rt. Hon E. | Wigg, George |
| Mulley, Frederick | Short, Edward | Wilcock, Group Capt. C. A. B. |
| Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon) | Silverman, Julius (Aston) | Wilkins, W. A. |
| Noel-Baker,Rt. Hn.Philip(Derby,S.) | Silverman, Sydney (Nelson) | Willey, Frederick |
| Oliver, G. H. | skeffington, Arthur | Williams, LI. (Abertillery) |
| Oram, A. E. | Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.) | Williams, W. R. (Openshaw) |
| Owen, Will | Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield) | Williams, W.T. (Warrington) |
| Padley, W. E. | Small, William | Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton) |
| Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.) | Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.) | Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A. |
| Pargiter, G. A. | Sorensen, R. W. | Woof, Robert |
| Parker, John | Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank | Yates, Victor (Ladywood) |
| Paton, John | Spriggs, Leslie | Zilliacos, K. |
| pavitt, Laurence | Stewart, Michael (Fulham) | |
| Peart, Frederick | Stonehouse, John | TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
|
| Pentland, Norman | Stones, William | Mr. Cronin and Mr. Ifor, Davies, |
Question put accordingly, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question:—
Division No. 8.]
| AYES
| [10.10 p.m.
|
| Agnew, Sir Peter | Cary, Sir Robert | Foster, John |
| Aitken, W. T. | Channon, H. P. G. | Fraser, Hn. Hugh (Stafford & Stone) |
| Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.) | Chataway, Christopher | Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton) |
| Allason, James | Chichester-Clark, R. | Freeth, Denzil |
| Arbuthnot, John | Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.) | Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D. |
| Ashton, Sir Hubert | Clark, William (Nottingham, S.) | Gammans, Lady |
| Atkins, Humphrey | Cleaver, Leonard | Gibson-Watt, David |
| Barber, Anthony | Cole, Norman | Gilmour, Sir John |
| Barlow, Sir John | Cooper, A. E. | Glover, Sir Douglas |
| Barter, John | Cooper-Key, Sir Neill | Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham) |
| Batsford, Brian | Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K. | Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.) |
| Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton | Cordle, John | Goodhart, Philip |
| Bell, Ronald | Corfield, F. V. | Goodhew, Victor |
| Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos & Fhm) | Costaln, A. P. | Gough, Frederick |
| Berkeley, Humphry | Coulson, J. M. | Grant, Rt. Hon. William |
| Bidgood, John C. | Courtney, Cdr. Anthony | Grant-Ferris, Wg Cdr. R. |
| Biffen, John | Craddock, Sir Beresford | Green, Alan |
| Biggs-Davison, John | Critchley, Julian | Gresham Cooke, R. |
| Bingham, R. M. | Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. Sir Oliver | Grimston, Sir Robert |
| Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel | Crowder, F. P. | Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G. |
| Bishop, F. P. | Cunningham, Knox | Gurden, Harold |
| Black, Sir Cyril | Curran, Charles | Hall, John (Wycombe) |
| Bossom, Clive | Currie, G. B. H. | Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough) |
| Bourne-Arton, A. | Dalkeith, Earl of | Hare, Rt. Hon. John |
| Box, Donald | Dance, James | Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.) |
| Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. John | d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry | Harris, Reader (Heston) |
| Boyle, Sir Edward | Deedes, W. F. | Harrison, Brian (Maidon) |
| Brawis, John | de Ferranti, Basil | Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd) |
| Bromley-Davestport,Lt.-Col.Sir walter | Digby, Simon Wingfield | Harvie Anderson, Miss |
| Brooman-White, R. | Doughty, Charles | Hastings, Stephen |
| Brown, Alan (Tottenham) | Drayson, G. B. | Hay, John |
| Browne, Percy (Torrington) | du Cann, Edward | Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel |
| Bryan, Paul | Eccies, Rt. Hon. Sir David | Hendry, Forbes |
| Buck, Antony | Eden, John | Hicks Beach, Maj. W. |
| Bullard, Denys | Elliot, Capt. Waiter (Carshalton) | Hiley, Joseph |
| Bullus, Wing Commander Eric | Elliott,R.W.(Nwcstle-upon-Tyne,N.) | Hill, Dr. Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton) |
| Burden, F. A. | Emery, Peter | Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe) |
| Butcher, Sir Herbert | Errington, Sir Eric | Hill, J. E. B. (Norfolk) |
| Butler, Rt.Hn.R.A.(Saffron Walden) | Farey-Jones, F. W. | Hirst, Geoffrey |
| Campbell, Sir David (Belfast, S.) | Farr, John | Holland, Philip |
| Campbell, Cordon (Moray & Nairn) | Finlay, Graeme | Hollingworth, John |
| Carr, Compton (Barons Court) | Fletcher-Cooke, Charles | Hope, Rt. Hon. Lord John |
| Carr, Robert (Mitcham) | Forrest, George | Hopkins, Alan |
The House divided: Ayes 284, Noes 200.
| Hornby, R. P. | Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J. | Shepherd, William |
| Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Dame | Mills, Stratton | Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir Jocelyn |
| Howard, Hon. G. R. (St. Ives) | Montgomery, Fergus | Skeet, T. H. H. |
| Howard, John (Southampton, Test) | More, Jasper (Ludlow) | Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'rd & Chiswick) |
| Hughes Halett, Vice-Admiral John | Morgan, William | Smyth, Brig. Sir John (Norwood) |
| Hughes-Young, Michael | Morrison, John | Soames, Rt. Hon. Christopher |
| Hulbert, Sir Norman | Mort-Radclyffe, Sir Charles | Spearman, Sir Alexander |
| Hutchison, Michael Clark | Neave, Airey | Speir, Rupert |
| Iremonger, T. L. | Nicholson, Sir Godfrey | Stevens, Geoffrey |
| Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye) | Noble, Michael | Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.) |
| Jennings, J. C. | Nugent, Sir Richard | Stodart, J. A. |
| Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle) | Oakshott, Sir Hendrie | Storey, Sir Samuel |
| Johnson, Eric (Blackley) | ||
| Johnson Smith, Geoffrey | Orr, Capt. L. P. S. | Studholme, Sir Henry |
| Joseph, Sir Keith | Orr-Ewing, C. Ian | Tapsell, Peter |
| Kaberry, Sir Donald | Osborn, John (Hallam) | Taylor, F. (M'ch'ter & Moss Side) |
| Kerans, Cdr. J. S. | Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth) | Teeling, William |
| Kerby, Capt. Henry | Page, John (Harrow, West) | Temple, John M. |
| Kerr, Sir Hamilton | Page, Graham (Crosby) | Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret |
| Kitson, Timothy | Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale) | Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury) |
| Lancaster, Col. C. G. | Partridge, E. | Thompson, Kenneth (Walton) |
| Leather, E. H. C. | Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd) | Thompson, Richard (Croydon, S.) |
| Leavey, J. A. | Percival, Ian | Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin |
| Leburn, Gilmour | Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth | Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.) |
| Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry | Pike, Miss Mervyn | Turner, Colin |
| Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland) | Pilkington, Sir Richard | Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H. |
| Lilley, F. J. P. | Pitman, Sir James | van Straubenzee, W. R. |
| Lindsay, Martin | Pitt, Miss Edith | Vane, W. M. F. |
| Linstead, Sir Hugh | Pott, Percivall | Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John |
| Longbottom, Charles | Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch | Vickers, Miss Joan |
| Longden, Gilbert | Price, David (Eastleigh) | vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis |
| Loveys, waiter H. | Price, H. A. (Lewisham, w.) | Walder, David |
| Low, Rt. Hon. Sir Toby | Prior, J. M. L. | Walker, Peter |
| Lucas, Sir Jocelyn | Profumo, Rt. Hon. John | Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir Derek |
| Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh | proudfoot, Wilfred | Wall, Patrick |
| McAdden, Stephen | Pym, Francis | Ward, Dame Irene |
| MacArthur, Ian | Quennell, Miss J. M. | Watkinson, Rt. Hon. Harold |
| McLaren, Martin | Ramsden, James | Webster, David |
| McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia | Rawlinson, Peter | Wells, John (Maidstone) |
| Maclay, Rt. Hon. John | Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin | Whitelaw, William |
| Maclean,SirFitzroy(Bute&N.Ayrs.) | Renton, David | Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro) |
| McLean, Neil (Inverness) | Ridley, Hon. Nicholas | Wise, A. R. |
| Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.) | Ridsdale, Julian | Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick |
| McMaster, Stanley R. | Roberts, Sir peter (Heeley) | Wood, Rt. Hon. Richard |
| Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries) | Robinson, sir Roland (Blackpool, S.) | Woodhouse, C. M. |
| Maitland, Sir John | Roots, William | Woodnutt, Mark |
| Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R. | Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard | Woollam, John |
| Marlowe, Anthony | Royle, Anthony (Richmond, Surrey) | Worsley, Marcus |
| Marshall, Douglas | Russell, Ronald | Yates, William (The Wrekin) |
| Marten, Neil | St. Clair, M. | |
| Mathew, Robert (Honiton) | Sandys, Rt. Hon. Duncan | TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
|
| Matthews, Gordon (Meriden) | Scott-Hopkins, James | Mr. Edward Wakefield and |
| Maudling, Rt. Hon. Reginald | Seymour, Leslie | Sir Harwood Harrison |
| Mawby, Ray | Sharples, Richard |
NOES
| ||
| Abse, Leo | Crosland, Anthony | Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. Hugh |
| Alnsley, William | Crossman, R. H. S. | Galpern, Sir Myer |
| Albu, Austen | Cullen, Mrs. Alice | George,LadyMeganLloyd(Crmrthn) |
| Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.) | Darling, George | Ginsburg, David |
| Aden, Scholefield (Crewe) | Davies,Rt.Hn.Clement(Montgomery) | Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C. |
| Bacon, Miss Alice | Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.) | Gourlay, Harry |
| Baird, John | Davies, Harold (Leek) | Greenwood, Anthony |
| Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J. | Deer, George | Grey, Charles |
| Benson, Sir George | Delargy, Hugh | Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly) |
| Blackburn, F. | Dempsey, James | Griffiths, W. (Exchange) |
| Blyton, William | Diamond, John | Gunter, Ray |
| Bowden, Herbert W. (Leics, S.W.) | Dodds, Norman | Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.) |
| Bowen, Roderic (Cardigan) | Donnelly, Desmond | Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley) |
| Bowles, Frank | Driberg, Tom | Hamilton, William (West Fife) |
| Boyden, James | Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John | Hannan, William |
| Braddock, Mrs. E. M. | Ede, Rt. Hon. C. | Hart, Mrs. Judith |
| Brockway, A. Fenner | Edelman, Maurice | Hayman, F. H. |
| Healey, Denis | ||
| Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Bolper) | Edwards, Robert (Bilston) | Henderson, Rt.Hn.Arthur(RwlyRegis) |
| Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.) | Edwards, Walter (Stepney) | Herbison, Miss Margaret |
| Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green) | Evans, Albert | Hill, J. (Midlothian) |
| Caliaghan, James | Fernyhough, E. | Hilton, A. V. |
| Castle, Mrs. Barbara | Finch, Harold | Houghton, Douglas |
| Chapman, Donald | Fitch, Alan | Howell, Denis (Small Heath) |
| Chetwynd, George | Fletcher, Eric | Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire) |
| Cliffe, Michael | Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale) | Hunter, A. E. |
| Collick, Percy | Forman, J. C. | Hynd, H. (Accrington) |
| Craddock, George (Bradford, S.) | Frater, Thomas (Hamilton) | Hynd, John (Attercliffe) |
| Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill) | Mitchison, G. R. | Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.) |
| Irving, Sydney (Dartford) | Monslow, Walter | Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield) |
| Janner, Sir Barnett | Moody, A. S. | Small, William |
| Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas | Morris, John | Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.) |
| Jeger, George | Moyle, Arthur | Sorensen, R. W. |
| Jenkins, Roy (Stechford) | Mulley, Frederick | Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank |
| Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.) | Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon) | Spriggs, Leslie |
| Jones, Rt. Hn. A. Creech(Wakefield) | Noel-Baker,Rt.Hn.Philip(Derby,S.) | Stewart, Michael (Fulham) |
| Jones, Dan (Burnley) | Oliver, G. H. | Stonehouse, John |
| Jones, Elwyn (west Ham, s.) | Oram, A. E. | Stones, William |
| Jones, Jack (Rotherham) | Owen, Will | Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Vauxhall) |
| Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham) | Padley, W. E. | Stross, Dr. Barnett(Stoke-on-Trent,C.) |
| Jones, T. W. (Merioneth) | Parnell, Charles (Leeds, W.) | Swingler, Stephen |
| Kelley, Richard | Pargiter, G. A. | Symonds, J. B. |
| Kenyon, Clifford | Parker, John | Taylor, John (West Lothian) |
| Key, Rt. Hon. C. W. | Paton, John | Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.) |
| King, Dr. Horace | Pavitt, Laurence | Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline) |
| Lawson, George | Peart, Frederick | Thornton, Ernest |
| Lee, Frederick (Newton) | Pentland, Norman | Thorpe, Jeremy |
| Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock) | Plummer, sir Leslie | Wainwright, Edwin |
| Lever, Harold (Cheetham) | Popplewell, Ernest | Warbey, William |
| Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.) | Prentice, R. E. | Weitzman, David |
| Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson | Price, J. T. (Westhoughton) | Wells, Percy (Faversham) |
| MacColl, James | Probert, Arthur | Wells, William (walsall, N.) |
| McInnes, James | Pursey, Cmdr. Harry | White, Mrs. Eirene |
| McKay, John (Wallsend) | Randall, Harry | Whitlock, William |
| Mackie, John (Enfield, East) | Redhead, E. c. | Wigg, George |
| McLeavy, Frank | Reid, William | Wilcock, Group Capt. C. A. B. |
| MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles) | Reynolds, G. W. | Wilkins, W. A. |
| MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling) | Rhodes, H. | Willey, Frederick |
| Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg) | Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon) | Williams, LI. (Abertillery) |
| Mallalieu, J.P.W.(Huddersfield, E.) | Robertson, John (Paisley) | Williams, W. R. (Openshaw) |
| Mapp, Charles | Robinson, Kenneth (St. Panoras, N.) | Williams, W. T. (Warrington) |
| Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A. | Ross, William | Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton) |
| Marsh, Richard | Royle, Charles (Salford, West) | Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A. |
| Mayhew, Christopher | Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E. | Woof, Robert |
| Mellish, R. J. | Short, Edward | Yates, Victor (Ladywood) |
| Mendelson, J. J. | Silverman, Julius (Aston) | Zilliacus, K. |
| Millan, Bruce | Silverman, Sydney (Nelson) | |
| Milne, Edward J. | Skeffington, Arthur | TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
|
| Mr. Cronin and Mr. Ifor Davies. |
Bill read a Second time.
Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[ Mr. Whitelaw.]
Committee Tomorrow.
Commonwealth Immigrants Money
[ Queen's Recommendation signified.]
Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 84 ( Money Committees).
[Sir GORDON TOUCHE in the Chair]
Division No. 9.
| AYES
| [10.22 p.m.
|
| Agnew, Sir Peter | Bingham, R. M. | Butcher, Sir Herbert |
| Aitken, W. T. | Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel | Butler, Rt.Hn.R.A.(Saffron walden) |
| Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.) | Bishop, F. P. | Campbell, Sir David (Belfast, S.) |
| Allason, James | Black, Sir Cyril | Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn) |
| Arbuthnot, John | Bossom, Clive | Carr, Compton (Barons Court) |
| Ashton, Sir Hubert | Bourne-Arton, A. | Carr, Robert (Mitcham) |
| Atkins, Humphrey | Box, Donald | Cary, Sir Robert |
| Barber, Anthony | Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. John | Channon, H. P. G. |
| Barlow, Sir John | Boyle, Sir Edward | Chataway, Christopher |
| Barter, John | Brewis, John | Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.) |
| Batsford, Brian | Brooman-White, R. | Clark, William (Nottingham, S.) |
| Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton | Brown, Alan (Tottenham) | Cleaver, Leonard |
| Bell, Ronald | Browne, Percy (Torrington) | Cole, Norman |
| Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos & Fhm) | Bryan, Paul | Cooper, A. E. |
| Berkeley, Humphry | Buck, Antony | Cooper-Key, Sir Neill |
| Bidgood, John C. | Bullard, Denys | Cordeaux, Lt-Col. J. K. |
| Biffen, John | Bullus, Wing Commander Eric | Cordle, John |
| Biggs-Davison, John | Burden, F. A. | Corfield, F. V. |
Motion made, and Question put:—
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make temporary provision for controlling the immigration into the United Kingdom of Commonwealth citizens and to authorise the deportation from the United Kingdom of certain Commonwealth citizens convicted of offences and recommended by the court for deportation, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any expenses incurred for the purposes of that Act by the Secretary of State, the Minister of Labour or the Minister of Health.—[Mr. R. A. Butler.]
The Committee divided: Ayes 275, Noes 195.
| Costain, A. P. | Hughes-Young, Michael | Price, David (Eastleigh) |
| Coulson, J. M. | Hulbert, Sir Norman | Price, H. A. (Lewisham, W.) |
| Courtney, Cdr. Anthony | Hutchison, Michael Clark | Prior, J. M. L. |
| Craddock, Sir Beresford | Iremonger, T. L. | Profumo, Rt- Hon. John |
| Critchley, Julian | Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye) | Proudfoot, Wilfred |
| Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. Sir Oliver | Jennings, J. C. | Pym, Francis |
| Crowder, F. P. | Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle) | Quennell, Miss J. M. |
| Cunningham, Knox | Johnson, Eric (Blackley) | Ramsden, James |
| Curran, Charles | Johnson Smith, Geoffrey | Rawlinson, Peter |
| Currie, G. B. H. | Joseph, Sir Keith | Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin |
| Dalkeith, Earl of | Kaberry, Sir Donald | Renton, David |
| Dance, James | Kerans, Cdr. J. S. | Ridley, Hon. Nicholas |
| d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry | Kerby, Capt. Henry | Ridsdale, Julian |
| Deedes, W. F. | Kitson, Timothy | Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley) |
| de Ferranti, Basil | Leather, E. H. C. | Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.) |
| Digby, Simon Wingfield | Leavey, J. A. | Roots, William |
| Doughty, Charles | Leburn, Gilmour | Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard |
| Drayson, G. B. | Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry | Royle, Anthony (Richmond, Surrey) |
| du Cann, Edward | Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland) | Russell, Ronald |
| Eccles, Rt. Hon. Sir David | Lilley, F. J. P. | St. Clair, M. |
| Eden, John | Lindsay, Martin | Sandys, Rt. Hon. Duncan |
| Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton) | Linestead, Sir Hugh | Scott-Hopkins, James |
| Elliott, R. W.(Nwestle-upon-Tyne, N.) | Longbottom, Charles | Seymour, Leslie |
| Emery, Peter | Longden, Gilbert | Sharples, Richard |
| Errington, Sir Eric | Loveys, Walter H. | Shepherd, William |
| Farey-Jones, F. W. | Low, Rt. Hon. Sir Toby | Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir Jocelyn |
| Farr, John | Lucas, Sir Jocelyn | Skeet, T. H. H. |
| Finlay, Graeme | Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh | Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'd & Chiswick) |
| Fletcher-Cooke, Charles | McAdden, Stephen | Smyth, Brig. Sir John (Norwood) |
| Forrest, George | MacArthur, Ian | Soames, Rt. Hon. Christopher |
| Foster, John | McLaren, Martin | Spearman, Sir Alexander |
| Fraser, Hn. Hugh (Stafford & Stone) | McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia | Speir, Rupert |
| Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton) | Maclay, Rt. Hon. John | Stevens, Geoffrey |
| Freeth, Denzil | Maclean, SirFitzroy (Bute & N. Ayrs.) | Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.) |
| Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D. | McLean, Neil (Inverness) | Stodart, J. A. |
| Gammans, Lady | Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W | Storey, Sir Samuel |
| Gibson-Watt, David | McMaster, Stanley R. | Studholme, Sir Henry |
| Gilmour, Sir John | Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries) | Tapsell, Peter |
| Glover, Sir Douglas | Maitland, Sir John | Taylor, F. (M'ch'ter & Moss Side) |
| Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham) | Manningham-Butler, Rt. Hn. Sir R | Teeling, William |
| Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.) | Marlowe, Anthony | Temple, John M. |
| Goodhart, Philip | Marshall, Douglas | Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret |
| Goodhew, Victor | Marten, Neil | Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury) |
| Cough, Frederick | Mathew, Robert (Honiton) | Thompson, Kenneth (Walton) |
| Grant, Rt. Hon. William | Matthews, Gordon (Meriden) | Thompson, Richard (Croydon, S.) |
| Grat-Ferris, Wg Cdr. R. | Maudling, Rt. Hon. Reginald | Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin |
| Green, Alan | Mawby, Ray | Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.) |
| Gresham Cooke, R. | Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J. | Turner, Colin |
| Grimston, Sir Robert | Mills, Stratton | Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H. |
| Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G. | Montgomery, Fergus | van Straubenzee, W. R. |
| Gurden, Harold | More, Jasper (Ludlow) | Vane, W. M. F. |
| Hall, John (Wycombe) | Morgan, William | Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John |
| Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough) | Morrison, John | Vickers, Miss Joan |
| Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis | ||
| Hare, Rt. Hon. John | Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles | Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.) |
| Harris, Reader (Helton) | Neave, Airey | Walder, David |
| Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye) | Walker, Peter | |
| Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere(Macclesf'd) | Nugent, Sir Richard | Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir Derek |
| Hastings, Stephen | Oakshott, Sir Hendrie | Wall, Patrick |
| Hay, John | Orr, Capt. L. P. S. | Ward, Dame Irene |
| Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel | Orr-Ewing, C. Ian | Watkinson, Rt. Hon. Harold |
| Hendry, Forbes | Osborn, John (Hallam) | Webster, David |
| Hicks Beach, Maj. W. | Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth) | Wells, John (Maidstone) |
| Hiley, Joseph | Page, John (Harrow, West) | Whitelaw, William |
| Hill, Dr. Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton) | Page, Graham (Crosby) | Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro) |
| Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe) | Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale) | Wise, A. R. |
| Hirst, Geoffrey | Partridge, E. | Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick |
| Holland, Philip | Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe) | Wood, Rt. Hon. Richard |
| Hollingworth, John | Percival, Ian | Woodhouse, C. M. |
| Hope, Rt. Hon. Lord John | Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth | Woodnutt, Mark |
| Hopkins, Alan | Pike, Miss Mervyn | Worsley, Marcus |
| Hornby, R. P. | Pilkington, Sir Richard | Yates, William (The Wrekin) |
| Homsby-Smith, Rt- Hon. Dame P. | Pitman, Sir James | |
| Howard, Hon. G. R. (St. Ives) | Pitt, Miss Edith | TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
|
| Howard, John (Southampton, Test) | Pott, Percivall | Mr. J. E. B. Hill and |
| Hughes-Hallett, Vice-Admiral John | Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch | Mr. Chichester-Clark. |
NOES
| ||
| Abse, Leo | Bacon, Miss Alice | Bowden, Herbert W. (Leics, S.W.) |
| Ainsley, William | Baird, John | Bowen, Roderic (Cardigan) |
| Albu, Austen | Benson, Sir George | Bowles, Frank |
| Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.) | Blackburn, F. | Boyden, James |
| Alien, Scholefield (Crewe) | Blyton, William | Braddock, Mrs. E. M. |
| Brockway, A. Fenner | Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire) | Peart, Frederick |
| Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper) | Hunter, A. E. | Pentland, Norman |
| Butter, Herbert (Hackney, C.) | Hynd, H. (Accrington) | Plummer, Sir Leslie |
| Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green) | Hynd, John (Attercliffe) | Popplewell, Ernest |
| Callaghan, James | Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill) | Prentice, R. E. |
| Castle, Mrs. Barbara | Irving, Sydney (Dartford) | Price, J. T. (westhoughton) |
| Chapman, Donald | Janner, Sir Barnett | Probert, Arthur |
| Chetwynd, George | Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas | Pursey, Cmdr. Harry |
| Cliffe, Michael | Jeger, George | Randall, Harry |
| Collick, Percy | Jenkins, Roy (Stechford) | Redhead, E. C. |
| Craddock, George (Bradford, S.) | Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.) | Reid, William |
| Crosland, Anthony | Jones, Rt. Hn. A. Creech(Wakefield) | Reynolds, G. W. |
| Crossman, R. H. S. | Rhodes, H. | |
| Jones, Dan (Burnley) | Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon) | |
| Cullen, Mrs. Alice | Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.) | Robertson, John (paisley) |
| Darling, George | Jones, Jack (Rotherham) | Robinson Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.) |
| Davies,Rt.Hn.Clement(Montgomery) | Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham) | Ross, William |
| Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.) | Jones, T. W. (Merioneth) | |
| Davies, Harold (Leek) | Royle, Charles (Salford, west) | |
| Deer, George | Kelley, Richard | Short Edward |
| Delargy, Hugh | Kenyon, Clifford | Silverman, Julius (Aston) |
| Dempsey, James | Key, Rt. Hon. C. W. | Silverman, Sydney (Nelson) |
| Diamond, John | King, Dr. Horace | Skeffington, Arthur |
| Dodds, Norman | Lawson, George | Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.) |
| Donnelly, Desmond | Lee, Frederick (Newton) | Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield) |
| Driberg, Tom | Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock) | Small, William |
| Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John | Lever, Harold (Cheetham) | Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.) |
| Ede, Rt. Hon. C. | Lewis, Arthur (west Ham, N.) | Sorensen, R. W. |
| Edelman, Maurice | Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson | Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank |
| Edwards, Robert (Bilston) | MacColl, James | Spriggs, Leslie |
| Edwards, Walter (Stepney) | McInnes, James | Stewart, Michael (Fulham) |
| Evans, Albert | McKay, John (Wallsend) | Stonehouse, John |
| Fernyhough, E. | Mackie, John (Enfield, East) | Stones, William |
| Finch, Harold | McLeavy, Frank | Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Vauxhall) |
| Fitch, Alan | MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles) | Stross,Dr.Barnett(Stoke-on-Trent,C.) |
| Fletcher, Eric | MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling) | Swingler, Stephen |
| Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale) | Mallalieu E. L. (Brigg) | Symonds, J. B. |
| Forman, J. C. | Mallalieu, J. P. W.(Huddersfield.E.) | Taylor, John (West Lothian) |
| Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton) | Mapp, Charles | Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.) |
| Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. Hugh | Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A. | Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline) |
| Galpern, sir Myer | Marsh, Richard | Thornton, Ernest |
| George, LadyMeganLloyd(Crmrthn) | Mellish, R.J. | Thorpe, Jeremy |
| Ginsburg, David | Mendelson, J. J. | Wainwright, Edwin |
| Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C. | Millan, Bruce | Warbey, William |
| Gourlay, Harry | Milne, Edward J. | Weitzman, David |
| Greenwood, Anthony | Mitchison, G. R. | Wells, Percy (Faversham) |
| Grey, Charles | Monslow, walter | Wells, William (Walsall, N.) |
| Griffiths, W. (Exchange) | Moody, A. S. | White, Mrs. Eirene |
| Gunter, Ray | Morris, John | Whitlock, William |
| Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.) | Moyle, Arthur | Wigg, George |
| Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley) | Mulley, Frederick | Wilcock, Group Capt. C. A. B. |
| Hamilton, William (West Fife) | Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon) | Wilkins, W. A. |
| Hannan, William | Noel-Baker,Rt.Hn.Philip(Derby,S.) | Willey, Frederick |
| Hart, Mrs. Judith | Oliver, G. H. | Williams, Ll. (Abertillery) |
| Hayman, F. H. | Oram, A. E. | Williams, W. R. (Openshaw) |
| Healey, Denis | Owen, Will | Williams, W. T. (Warrington) |
| Henderson,Rt. Hn. Arthur(RwlyRegis) | Padley, W. E. | Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton) |
| Herbison, Miss Margaret | Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.) | Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A. |
| Hill, J. (Midlothian) | Pargiter, G. A. | Woof, Robert |
| Hilton, A. V. | Parker, John | Yates, Victor (Ladywood) |
| Houghton, Douglas | Paton, John | |
| Howell, Denis (Small Heath) | Pavitt, Laurence | TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
|
| Mr. Cronin and Mr. Ifor Davies. |
Resolution to be reported. |
Report to be received Tomorrow. |
Sunday Cinematograph Entertainments
Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, extending Section 1 of the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932, to the Urban District of Oswaldtwistle [copy laid before the House, 7th November], approved.—[ Mr. Renton.]
Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, extending Section 1 of the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932, to the Rural District of Camelford [copy laid before the House, 7th November], approved.—[ Mr. Renton.]
Order made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, extending Section 1 of the Sunday Entertainments Act, 1932, to the Rural District of West Dean [copy laid before the House, 7th November], approved.—[ Mr. Renton.]
Sea Fish Industry Money
Resolution reported,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make further provision, by way of financial assistance and otherwise, with respect to the white fish and herring industries, to make further provision for the regulation of fishing for, and the landing of, sea-fish, and with respect to shellfish, and for other purposes, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament—(a) of any expenditure incurred by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food or the Secretary of State under the provisions of that Act relating respectively to shellfish and to the repayment of grants made by or on behalf of the Government of the Isle of Man, and (b) of any increase attributable to that Act in the sums payable out of moneys provided by Parliament under any other Act.
Resolution agreed to.
Ways And Means 14Th November
Sea Fish Industry
Resolution reported,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make further provision, by way of financial assistance and otherwise, with respect to the white fish and herring industries, to make further provision for the regulation of fishing for, and the landing of, seafish, and with respect to shellfish, and for other purposes, it is expedient to provide for the payment into the Exchequer—(a) of any receipts of the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food or the Secretary of State in pursuance of that Act or of any order made under the White Fish and Herring Industries Act, 1948, as modified by that Act, and of any sums received by that Minister or the Secretary of State by way of interest on, or repayment of, loans made under the last-mentioned Act; (b) of any increase attributable to the said Act of the present Session in the sums payable into the Exchequer under any other Act.
Resolution agreed to.
British Army (The Late Captain M M Martin)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[ Mr. Whitelaw.]
10.34 p.m.
It is a matter of some concern to me that on this, the fourth occasion on which I have had the privilege of addressing the House, I should find it necessary to bring before the House a matter concerning which I believe the Government, in the guise of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for War, have arrived at a bad, stern and unbending determination.
This determination relates to the case of the late Captain Michael Maurice Martin, Royal Artillery, whose home was in my constituency. Captain Martin was an officer of great ability. It is, I think, universally recognised by those who knew him and served with him that he was an officer who, but for his untimely death, would have had the prospect of a truly brilliant military career. Captain Martin was posted to Cyprus at the beginning of 1959 and he served there until August of that year, when on the 6th he was admitted to hospital suffering from poliomyelitis. I ask the House to note the date—6th August, 1959. Here there arises the first question with which I should like my hon. Friend to deal. This officer had not been immunised against poliomyelitis when he went to Cyprus, and he still had not been immunised when he contracted it. I have been informed by my hon. Friend that at the beginning of 1959 supplies of vaccine had been made available through the Ministry of Health, so that by early 1959 immunisation was provided for officers and men and their families and dependents provided they were not over the age of 25. Captain Martin was 29 when he contracted polio. It may be of considerable significance that within a matter of days of his contracting the disease the whole Cyprus garrison was being immunised against it. It is notorious that the incidence of polio is far more considerable in the Mediterranean islands than in this country or in other parts of Europe. Surely the proper course was to ensure that all those who were serving abroad in places where the incidence of polio was high were immunised as a first priority, whatever their ages, and it is of significance that directly after this most unfortunate officer contracted polio everybody in Cyprus was immunised. Be that as it may, Captain Martin contracted polio and entered hospital on 6th August, 1959, and became desperately ill. He was totally paralysed within a short while. I understand that he was totally paralysed save for a finger. His father, Canon Martin, a clergyman of the Church of England, was flown with great expedition and appropriateness to Cyprus and arrived there on about 9th August. In spite of the fact that Captain Martin was given the most elaborate treatment—and I have no quarrel with this aspect of the case, quite the reverse—his condition continued to deteriorate, and it was clear from the first that he was unlikely, to say the least, to be fit for military service again. In the first week of September Captain Martin and his father were flown back to this country. At about this time, in addition to this disease, he contracted a virulent form of pneumonia. By December, 1959, the War Office is on record as saying that this man would never be fit for military service again, and it was at about this time that the War Office apparently arrived at the determination not to invalid Captain Martin out of the service. This is another matter with which I ask my hon. Friend to deal. Why was Canon Martin, this man's father, never con- sulted about this decision that Captain Martin should not be invalided out, even though it was known full well that he would never be able to resume full service as an active officer? Canon Martin was not consulted, despite the fact that he was the one person who was able to be in close harmony and contact with his son. Had he been consulted, his advice would have been that Captain Martin should be invalided out at an early date, because one of the matters which was concerning this desperately ill officer was his financial security. Had he been invalided out and received the capital increments, he would have had a greater sense of security which would have comforted him in what turned out to be his last months. But the decision was not, apparently, made for him to be invalided out of the Service, and his father was not consulted. In April, 1960, Captain Martin's mother was told by the specialist in charge of his case that he was a dying man and that it was remarkable how at this time he was succeeding in hanging on to life. Still no determination to invalid him out of the Service and no consultation. Eventually, in June, the determination was made that he should be invalided out and he was informed, in so far as he was in a condition to take it in, that he was to be invalided out with effect from 6th August, after 28 days terminal leave and 28 days invalid leave. That may well have been an arbitrary date, because the House will note that it was precisely one year from the day on which he entered hospital. On 28th July he died. Had he lived another nine days he would have been entitled to a terminal grant of £735 and to a resettlement grant of £500. I would emphasise that at the time of his death he had concluded his terminal leave and was on the last few days of his invalid leave. But, in spite of the fact that his terminal leave had been concluded, the War Office and my hon. Friend refuse to make any payment at all even though had he lived for another nine days he would have been entitled to both sums. In spite of the fact that the terminal leave was over the War Office will make no payment of the terminal grant, nor will they make any concession by way of giving an ex gratia payment to this man's estate. In my submission this is nonsense. As I said at the beginning of my speech, it is a bad determination. The War Office is in need of recruits and it is its bounden duty, in my view, to set the very highest standards as an employer. There is not a single firm in my constituency which, in circumstances similar to those which I have outlined, would not have made at least a gesture. It is this sort of inflexibility which does such grave harm to the Service to which all of us are devoted. In conclusion, I wish to emphasise the following factors and ask my hon. Friend to deal with them. First, why was Captain Martin not immunised against poliomyelitis? Troops keeping law and order in the more remote islands, it might be thought, should have full protection against any health hazards. Secondly, why was Captain Martin's father not consulted about the determination that his son's invaliding out should be deferred? Thirdly, why was the decision still deferred when it was known that Captain Martin was a dying man? Fourthly, why in all humanity has no concession been made by the War Office concerning this man? I hope that my hon. Friend will not advance the argument that to allow this would be to set a precedent—that this would be the thin end of the wedge. What is needed is some degree of humanity and flexibility in dealing with a problem of this kind. Until we have a degree of flexibility a proper view of the Army will not be taken by people who are contemplating joining it. Those who sit on this side of the House will support the Government in "pauses" of an economic nature if they are in the interests of the community. What no one will support, in my humble submission, is a "pause" in humanity, and there is a lack of humanity about this decision. Even at this late hour I hope that my hon. Friend will see fit to make a concession in this matter, or will persuade any mean men at the Treasury to make a concession, if the Treasury is involved.10.46 p.m.
I should like to begin by thanking my hon. Friend not only for the clear way in which he has made his points tonight but for his help, throughout this difficult case, in seeking to make clear the issues. His predecessor, now Lord Alport, first raised this case with me, and I know that he felt strongly about it. I am sure that he would feel very gratified at the perseverance with which my hon. Friend has pursued the matter to the end. I should also like to thank Canon Martin, who was good enough to come to see me with my hon. Friend, for his assistance in discussions which, of their very nature, must have been extremely painful to him.
I hope to cover all the points raised by my hon. Friend. What has bedevilled this case almost above all other issues is the question of the hard-seeming nine days. Normally, a Service man is in, valided out of the Army as soon as hi is declared unfit for further service, but the War Office and the other Service Departments have a discretion, which they use, to defer invaliding for a period of up to four months after a man has been declared unfit, if the knowledge that he is to be invalided might have such a profound psychological effect on him as to prejudice his chances of recovery, or if the patient's expectation of life is very short and the act of invaliding at the normal time would hasten his death. The medical authorities must, for obvious reasons, not give any indication of the course that they have recommended to the patient himself. In the case of Captain Martin the War Office decided that his retirement should be deferred for a period of up to four months. He was notified that he would be retired on 6th August, after completing the normal 56 days invaliding and terminal leave. But on 28th July, just over a week before the date on which he was to retire, Captain Martin died. Shortly after his son had been notified of the date of his retirement Canon Martin wrote to the Army Pensions Office asking, on his son's behalf, what award he would be due to receive on retirement, and he was told that on his retirement on 6th August his son would receive retired pay of £245 a year, a terminal grant, and a resettlement grant, to which my hon. Friend has already referred. But, as things turned out, because Captain Martin died nine days before the date of his retirement, and because no terminal benefits are payable to an officer until he actually does retire, no payment was due to the deceased officer's estate. Canon Martin has said that the Army medical authorities ought to have consulted him or his son before they decided to defer his son's invaliding. He says that his son knew soon after he came back to England that he had no hope of going back to active service, and in fact that he was making plans for his retirement. Canon Martin thinks that if the Army doctors had consulted him or his son and had explained the financial situation, they would have decided that the balance of advantage lay in invaliding Captain Martin without further delay, so that he might draw what are technically called his non-effective benefits—retirement pay, terminal and resettlement grants, and so on. My hon Friend said that had Captain Martin been invalided he would have had a greater sense of financial security. Canon Martin feels that it would have made no difference to his son's expectatation of life had he been told soon after the medical board that he was to be invalided out. The action of the War Office in deferring this invaliding, on this view, means that his son's estate has lost a substantial sum which his son would have got on retirement and it is felt that the estate should at least receive an ex gratia payment in recognition of this. First, I should like to deal with the question of whether the decision to defer Captain Martin's invaliding was right and whether he or his father, or both, ought to have been consulted before it was taken. I am quite clear that the duty must lie upon the War Office and our medical advisers to decide whether a soldier should be invalided out or not. It would be quite wrong to pass on the responsibility for so agonising a decision to someone who is bound to be a very sick man, or indeed to his family of a man who is suffering from a severe illness. These things certainly look different in retrospect, but it would not be reasonable to discuss with a sick man, or with his family, what the financial situation might be if the date of his invaliding was either brought forward or deferred in the context of the position before or after his death. I am certain that this is a job for the Army doctors and that their duty in coming to their recommendation is to the patient himself and to his interests. I do not believe that they can be expected to take into account the fact that if the patient dies while still in the Service, his estate will lose the lump sum benefits due to him on his retirement. They would not do it, and I do not believe that it would be right to ask them to do it.Would not my hon. Friend agree that here what was being taken was a psychological decision to help this man and that the best person to have given advice would have been his father? Is he aware that the doctors have considered that they had in mind his financial interests as well at that time, and that it did not rest entirely on the medical position?
In my next remarks I shall come to the point of what aspect the doctors were considering, including the financial one, in the best interests of Captain Martin. In considering Captain Martin's prospects, the doctors had to look at them as they were at the time when they took their decision and it seems to me quite clear that the decision at which they arrived was in fact to his advantage. Leaving on one side the medical and psychological reasons which prompted the decision on his deferment, what was decided enabled Captain Martin to stay on full pay for four extra months and had he not died he would have received a slightly higher pension as well as larger lump sum benefits. But as we now know, he died and none of this happened.
Once he had died the whole position was altered, and we have the justice and injustice of this decision being looked at not from the point of view of Captain Martin, as it was our duty to look at it at the time when the material decisions were taken, but from the point of view of his estate, that is, from the point of view of his father and mother, and what their position would be. That is another matter. While it is true that the arrangements which were made turned out not to be to the advantage of his estate, that is to say, of his father, and while we certainly have a responsibility for the interests not only of Service men but also of their widows and their children, the fact is that we do not recognise a similar responsibility toward the beneficiaries of a Service man's estate, and I am afraid the plain fact is that I cannot accept that we should do so. My hon. Friend has suggested that we might make some payment to Captain Martin's estate on the ground that our deferment of his invaliding worked out at the end to the disadvantage of the estate. I must ask my hon. Friend and the House to face what the consequences of this would be, because it raises very important considerations of fairness and equity. Whenever a man is seriously ill we have to review the question of invaliding and to take a decision upon it. If we choose the course of action that turns out to be less advantageous to a man's estate—and we sometimes do—we cannot then make payments as if we had chosen the more advantageous course. If we did we should find ourselves paying the lump sum terminal benefits in every case where a Service man dies after an illness that lasted long enough for the question of invaliding him to be considered. But, unfortunately, there are other soldiers who die whilst serving whose estates get nothing in the way of these benefits. There are those, for example, who die instantaneously or after an illness which does not last long enough for the question of invaliding to come up. In those circumstances, there would be no provision for any payment to the estate and I cannot but feel that such an arrangement would be illogical, unfair and indefensible. My hon. Friend asked me to deal with the question of why Captain Martin was not immunised against polio. There was at that time no general immunisation against polio in the Army in that area, but this has since been introduced. The Army received supplies of vaccine which were made available through Ministry of Health sources. By early 1959 we were able to offer protection to officers and men and their families up to the age of 25, but, as my hon. Friend has said, Captain Martin at that time was 29. According to my information, it was not until October, 1959—two months after he had been struck down with polio—that we had enough vaccine to be able to offer immunisation against polio to all serving officers and men whatever their age. As the House knows, shortages of vaccine have also affected the extent to which people in civilian life could be offered immunisation. I could not accept that the Army was negligent in not offering immunisation to all Service personnel earlier than it did. The fact is that, as with the civilian population, so with the serving men, the basis on which immunisation has been available has been dependent upon supplies of vaccine. My hon. Friend asked me why, since Captain Martin ended his terminal leave and was on invaliding leave when he died, terminal benefits could not be paid to his estate. On the question of payment of terminal benefits, there is no significance in distinguishing between invaliding leave and terminal leave. The 28 days' terminal leave is a period on full pay which helps the officer to resettle himself in civilian life. The officer who is retired because of ill-health needs longer to resettle than the officer who retires at the end of his service, so we give the former an extra 28 days' leave. In each case the officer's retirement does not have effect until he has finished all his leave on full pay and we cannot give him terminal benefits until he has in fact retired and ceased to draw full pay. My hon. Friend raised the question of Captain Martin's retirement being unusually delayed. As I explained earlier, retirement may be delayed for a period up to four months beyond the date when an officer would be due to retire under normal rules. But the normal rules do not specify exactly how long it must be after the first onset of the illness before the officer is retired, so we cannot give an exact date for the end of deferment. This, I think, explains the point about why Captain Martin's term happened to fall on 6th August. What happens is that an officer or man undergoing treatment is boarded five months after his first absence from duty. The board has first to be assembled, and may well take place a week or so after the five months have elapsed, following which the proceedings are sent to the War Office for confirmation. If invaliding is recommended, the papers are seen by the various branches concerned and after confirmation by the War Office, the Service man is notified. Invaliding and terminal leave then begin, and the officer or man is retired 56 days from the date on which he is notified. It will, I think, be obvious to the House and to my hon. Friend that when a Service man's retirement on medical grounds is delayed the delay is not normally the subject of criticism, because it operates to his own advantage. It would be wrong, I think, to restrict this very humane provision for deferring the date of invaliding simply because it might, as it did in the present case, work against the beneficiaries of the man's estate. I have tried as best I can to cover all the points raised, either by my hon. Friend tonight, or by Canon Martin in correspondence in this very sad case. I can only conclude by saying that although I sympathise very much with Canon Martin—and it seems all the harder since it was only those nine days which made so much difference—I have not been able to make out a case for exceptional payment to his son's estate.11.2 p.m.
The Minister has made a careful and detailed reply, yet I think that there must be one or two hon. Members who cannot help feeling a little unhappy about the whole matter. I do not think that we would doubt that the Army authorities acted in good faith, but it is important that the Army should not only act in good faith but should be seen to act in good faith, and be beyond suspicion in such a matter as this.
If an extremely delicate decision like this has to be taken, is it quite impossible, in such a special case, to make reference to some other party—perhaps an independent party of some kind, or one of a judicial kind, so that if something like this happens the Army will be quite cleared in everyone's eyes from all suspicion that it has not acted with complete impartiality towards the Service man?I appreciate the impression that the hon. Gentleman has received on hearing this case for the first time in detail, and I understand why he received that impression. I can only say that as this is a complicated case and as the implications take a little grasping—with no disrespect to the hon. Gentleman—I hope that he will study carefully what I have tried to say tonight, and at least give me and my right hon. Friend the benefit of the doubt as to having ourselves gone into this with immense care, sympathy and consideration.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at three minutes past Eleven o'clock.