House of Commons Hansard Debates for 4 Apr 1990

Mr. Ashdown : I am sorry to intervene so early in the right hon. Gentleman's speech, but he has asked me a question. I said that the defeat of the Bill tonight would amount to a betrayal--a betrayal which the right hon. Gentleman seems to be prepared not only to join, but lead.

Mr. Tebbit : I understood that, but would it constitute a betrayal if the Bill were defeated on Third Reading? If that is so, the right hon. Gentleman will not vote against it on Third Reading whether it is amended or not.

Mr. Ashdown : It would be a betrayal if it was defeated tonight.

Mr. Tebbit : Oh! It would amount to a betrayal tonight only, so when we come to Third Reading it will be "Not tonight Josephine.". I can see why the right hon. Gentleman said he was standing on principle, unlike the Labour party.

Mr. Adley : Does my right hon. Friend agree that, in view of what the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) has just said, an hour in politics is a long time as far as the Liberal party is concerned?

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Mr. Tebbit : My hon. Friend is right, and that is particularly true of a Liberal speech lasting an hour.

The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) was asked on several occasions by the right hon. Member for Yeovil how many Hong Kong Chinese the Labour party would admit. I do not believe that the right hon. Member for Yeovil got a clear answer, but I can give him that answer in the words of the Labour party as written to a gentleman from Plymouth in a letter dated June 1987. One will appreciate that it has something to do with general election politics. The letter was from Mr. Bert Clough of the policy briefing unit of the Labour party on whose notepaper it was written. He thanked the gentleman from Plymouth for his letter concerning Hong Kong and said :

"Neil Kinnock has asked me to reply on his behalf.

Under our proposals British citizens in Hong Kong would become citizens of the British Dependent Territories. This would give them a meaningful citizenship with the right to enter, reside and work in Hong Kong but not the right to enter the UK."

The answer to the question posed by the right hon. Member for Yeovil about how many Hong Kong Chinese the Labour party would admit is simple--it is none. That was the Labour party's proposal at the time of the general election, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley) has already observed, an hour in politics can be a long time and 18 months can be even longer. The Labour party is saying to one group of people that it would admit lots and lots of them, but to another that it would not admit any at all. In other words, it is traditional two-faced politics. I shall not go in for any humbug or evasion.

The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook should know more about the Bill that he is opposing. When one of my hon. Friends sought to intervene the right hon. Gentleman said that he would let him intervene if my hon. Friend could state the five criteria to be used for admission. I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that there are seven criteria--[ Hon. Members :-- "Where is he?"] I know where he has gone. He has gone to get a copy of the Bill to read it.

Although tonight there are clearly two groups of people--one, sadly, my right hon. Friends in the Government and one, the Labour party--who are intent on breaking their election commitment, I am intent on keeping mine. I welcome much of what my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary said today. Certainly no one knows more about immigration than him, which raises a most interesting point. I think that my right hon. and learned Friend said that this was not an immigration Bill. If it is not, it would perhaps have been better if my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary had taken charge of it rather than lumber the poor, unfortunate Home Secretary, who normally deals with immigration rather than foreign affairs matters. I think that I have my right hon. and learned Friend's support on that, at least, today.

My right hon. and learned Friend made a good speech, but it was not quite good enough. I do not believe that he had his heart in his own case at all times. I would not go all the way with the right hon. Member for Yeovil, but if 50,000 would offer a good measure of security, would not 60,000 offer 20 per cent. more, and would not 100,000 double the security? My right hon. and learned Friend says no, but I do not believe that he has confidence in the Bill.

I have one question for my right hon. and learned Friend which arises from his speech. He said that the Bill,

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if enacted, would do the work intended by section 4(5) of the British Nationality Act 1981. If that Act is not to be used, will it be repealed if the Bill is enacted?

Mr. Waddington : I must assure my right hon. Friend that I said nothing of the sort. I referred to the fact that it would replace the undertakings that we were prepared to give, and in some cases had already given, to those in sensitive occupations. At no time did I deal with section 4(5), which could not be used to fulfil the Bill's purpose because it deals only with the public sector and those who are servants of the Hong Kong Government.

Mr. Tebbit : I understand what my right hon. and learned Friend says, but, as I understand it, the Bill includes all those who would be included in section 4(5) of the British Nationality Act. So that section of the Act is no longer needed and could be repealed as it would perhaps be better as part of the Bill. We should not have two pieces of legislation covering exactly the same point.

Mr. Waddington : With respect to my right hon. Friend, section 4(5) does not deal just with Hong Kong.

Mr. Tebbit : Now we have the point--section 4(5) has a much broader application.

Mr. Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton) : The Home Secretary's intervention appears to go back on what he said in response to the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook). When the hon. Member for Orpington asked about section 4(5) of the British Nationality Act, the Home Secretary said that it was subsumed within the Bill. Therefore, the right hon. Gentleman is forcing the Home Secretary to admit either that he misinformed the House when the hon. Member for Orpington questioned him or he is misinforming the House now.

Mr. Tebbit : The right hon. Gentleman is over-excited and a little slow to take the point. As I understand it, my right hon. and learned Friend said that the Bill subsumed it in relation only to Hong Kong obligations, and he wished section 4(5) to remain to use for purposes other than Hong Kong. I believe that that is correct, but if I have not put it correctly, no doubt my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary will put it right later.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary also said that there was no point in taking steps that would come to a dead end in 1997--I think those were his words--in relation to an accelerated process of democracy which would be unacceptable to the Chinese authorities. My right hon. and learned Friend nods, and I think that that is right. As the Chinese Government have said that they will recognise the passports that would be issued under the Bill for the use of, for example, entry or exit from Hong Kong, is not the Bill also proposing a dead end? Many Conservative Members are concerned about that.

I agree with the Bill's aims, which are to stabilise the position in Hong Kong and ensure its continuing prosperity so that it will be an asset to China in 1997.

I agreed with much of what my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) said about the need for the future of Hong Kong to be secured through the relationship between Great Britain and China. That is the only conceivable way in which it can be assured. I shared everyone's emotions on seeing the film of the massacre in Tiananmen square, but in the real world we must assess what can be done in the future as well as

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express our regrets about what has happened in the past. It is pretty certain that more people have died in civil disturbances in Russia under Mr. Gorbachev than died in Tiananmen square. Perhaps Mr. Gorbachev has a better public relations agency than Peking. I agree that we must avoid, not encourage, further large-scale immigration into the United Kingdom. Above all, I welcome the fact that the Bill offers the protection of the right of abode here to those who would be most at risk, on political grounds, after 1997. My difference with the Government is that I believe that the Bill will fail on three counts out of four. There is no difference between any of us about the need to offer the security of a home here to those Hong Kong Chinese who served the Crown, police or judiciary, or might otherwise be at risk, if the mood of China was difficult after the takeover in 1977. [ Hon. Members :-- "How many?"] I understand that there will probably be about 5,000 or so, but it is a matter not of numbers, but of principle. We should stand on principle. I am standing on the principle on which I have stood for many years. Those people would not be those who, when they come from Vietnam, are known in Hong Kong as economic migrants, but true seekers of political asylum.

I am also concerned about the fate of Asians of Indian descent who are likely to become stateless and possibly refugees. They are clearly not Chinese or British, but Indians. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary will intervene most strongly on their behalf with the Government of India to ensure that India undertakes its obligation towards its peoples who have been residing in Hong Kong.

I said that the Bill would fail in its major purpose, and I shall explain why. It is clear that the Chinese Government regard the Bill as incompatible with the spirit, if not the letter, of the accord. They have no use for the concept of dual loyalties and expect the people of Hong Kong to be Chinese and loyal to China. Clearly, the swearing of allegiance to the Queen and taking up of British nationality are either cynical charades performed for personal gain or require true allegiance to the United Kingdom, not China. In addition, as I understand it, China does not appreciate the almost fruitless efforts of my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, to persuade other countries to denude Hong Kong of its key people before 1997.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary may not recollect that a man cannot have two masters, but the Chinese certainly do. Therefore, after 1997, they will discriminate against the holders of British passports. What is more, the Hong Kong Chinese know that, too, and for them the British passport is not an inducement to stay beyond 1997, but a ticket to a new life elsewhere, either here, on the continent or wherever. What is more, the sooner the passports are issued, the sooner the 50,000 heads of families--by definition, the key people needed to be kept in Hong Kong--will leave.

What then? Will we be asked to provide for another 50,000, at least to keep the second eleven in position in Hong Kong? We all sympathise very much with the wish of Hong Kong Chinese to remain, if they had their choice, under the British flag in Hong Kong rather than under communist rule, but that option is not open to them. Their future as Chinese is in China, if Hong Kong is to have a future.

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My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary made much of our debt of honour to the people of Hong Kong. I accept that debt in respect of those who might be at risk after 1997 because they have served the Crown, but have we a debt of honour to those who have served themselves? Are they not economic migrants no different from the Vietnamese whom Hong Kong is unwilling to accept? What about the debt of honour to the British people? Are not pledges made, not once but four or five times, also matters of honour? As far as I know, none of the people of Hong Kong was enticed there by agents of the Crown, or offered passports to go there ; nor was there any doubt that, come 1997, it was certain that all but a tiny part of the colony would revert to China, and there was a clear expectation that the colony would do so, too.

Before I turn to immigration policy and my objections to the Bill on that ground, I want to make two other points about its drafting--first, on clause 1(5). That was the clause to which the right hon. Members for Yeovil and for Sparkbrook took such exception. It is an effort to judge-proof the Bill. If it is believed that this clause would actually stick in British law, it is a great pity that it was not put into some of our local government legislation. Secondly, I welcome the fact that for the first time an immigration measure has been drafted to admit only those likely to be of discernible benefit to our economy as opposed to a liability to our taxpayers. That concept deserves rather wider application, but I am amazed by the extent to which the issue of United Kingdom passports should be delegated to persons not under any direct control of this House, who cannot be called to account in the House under any circumstances.

I turn now to immigration policy. For good reason, the Conservative election manifesto of February 1974 said this :

"We have provided the country with the necessary means for preventing any further large scale permanent immigration and also with important new powers for preventing illegal immigrants the number of new immigrants admitted in 1973 was the lowest since control was first introduced by the previous Conservative Government more than a decade ago ... We intend that this decline shall continue".

A year later, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister became leader of the Conservative party, and in September 1976 an elector in Northamptonshire wrote to her about immigration and received a letter from her private office from which I shall quote the relevant sentence :

"The last Conservative Government brought in the Immigration Act which from January 1973 stopped nearly all permanent immigration--with two clear exceptions (namely dependants and certain United Kingdom passport holders) We believe that the numbers coming in must be restricted to the absolute minimum consistent with these undertakings".

In 1979 , my right hon. Friend won the general election, campaigning then, as she has done since, for the strictest possible controls. In 1987, the pledge was repeated in full knowledge of the implication of the Hong Kong accord, in the following words in the party's manifesto. They are familiar to me more than to others in the House as I had something to do with the manifesto :

"Immigration for settlement is now at its lowest level since control of Commonwealth immigration first began in 1962 we will tighten the existing law to ensure that control over settlement becomes even more effective".

Those pledges were made because these islands of ours are already overcrowded and they were made in the belief that great waves of immigration by people who do not share

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our culture, language or rules of social conduct and who, in many cases, owe no allegiance to our country, were and are destabilising factors in society.

During the Salman Rushdie affair, some who have lived here for years under the protection of the Crown and holding British passports clearly showed their contempt for our society and our laws. It became clear to many people that a dual system was operating in this country under which people who had been clearly seen inciting others to murder were not brought to book. I shall not rehearse all those arguments ; I merely state that if we are not to see social upheaval arising from religious, cultural and ethnic differences, we have more than enough to do to integrate existing communities into British society without adding to that burden or exacerbating existing problems.

The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook referred to one of my views : how can I explain to my constituents of Indian, Pakistani or Singhalese origin that we have no room here for their families to join them but we have room for 250,000 Chinese?

Mr. Waddington : No Conservative Member has said that there is no room for the families of those who are settled here. The immigration rules give them the right to bring in their families and I pointed out in my speech how great a proportion of total immigration into this country such people constitute.

Mr. Tebbit : My right hon. and learned Friend says that there is room for them, but not just yet. If he believed that there was room, he would increase the resources available to process their applications, but I know that that is not being done--

Mr. Patrick Cormack (Staffordshire, South) : Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Tebbit : No, if my hon. Friend will forgive me.

I will not take any stick from Opposition Members over the processing of applications, because the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook was critical of the fact that almost 20 years after the Ugandan Asians came here there were some people who, although they appeared to have been entitled to come here, were still kicking around the world without visas-- [Interruption.] I remind the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman), who has just spoken from a sedentary position, that there was a Labour Government in the intervening period. What happened to the vouchers then? Why were they not honoured by the Labour Home Secretary when he was in power? The Opposition have no right to enter the debate with words of that kind.

Mr. Cormack : Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Tebbit : I would rather not.

We all know what our constituents feel about this Bill. According to my secretary, I have received more than 10,000 letters on this issue--

Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) : What, all from Chingford?

Mr. Tebbit : --so I have some idea of how other hon. Members' constituents feel, too. I have received 10,000 letters from all over the country, including, I suspect, some from Opposition Members' constituents.

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A recent poll in The Independent on Sunday showed opinion to be split about 65 per cent. to 25 per cent. against the Government's proposals. Only 11 per cent. of the electors say that the Government should admit more Hong Kong Chinese, and by 84 per cent. to 13 per cent. the people of Britain say that there should be tighter restrictions on immigration. I might add that a rather higher percentage of Liberal Democrat supporters believe that than do supporters of the Labour party, which must be a great comfort to the right hon. Member for Yeovil.

I end by addressing a few remarks to some of my right hon. and hon. Friends. The poll that I mentioned also showed that no fewer than 59 per cent. of the electorate declared themselves "don't knows" when asked which of the parties had the best policy on immigration. They are confused and bitterly disappointed by the Government's policy U-turn--

Mr. Cormack : And my right hon. Friend is responsible for that.

Mr. Tebbit : --which they say, by 13 per cent. to 1 per cent., will make them less rather than more inclined to vote Conservative. My hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack) must recognise that since I made my views known in public immediately after the issue arose in the House of Commons I have given no television interviews or written any articles about it. The issue will be decided here tonight, not out there in the country. [Interruption.] I have sought to show what the state of opinion is out there and I believe that we should listen to that opinion, but I did not seek to cause that opinion to be made. It was there.

Mr. Cormack : My right hon. Friend knows full well that he has been portrayed throughout the country as the leader of this so-called revolt tonight. He knows jolly well that there has been no U-turn by the Government. As a former chairman of the Conservative party, he knows that manifestos cannot be cast in stone and that circumstances sometimes oblige Governments to change. He has done a grave disservice to the party which in the past he has served so well.

Mr. Tebbit : I did not want my hon. Friend to establish in the minds of many more people the enormous influence which he seems to think that I have. If he believes that I have created this wave of opinion in a matter of a few weeks, he must think that I am one of the most powerful politicians in Britain, and certainly that I have a much better rapport with public opinion than he has. I cannot imagine that he would ever be able to move public opinion to the extent that he has ascribed to me.

I agree with my hon. Friend. There are occasions when Governments have to say that, for good reason, they cannot deliver what was in their manifesto. But this is not a good reason. All the circumstances were envisaged when the manifesto was written and we should remain firm on it.

That is perhaps even more relevant. I had not expected to have the pleasure of hearing my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath), but my mind went back to November 1972 when he introduced legislation to provide for state control of prices and incomes. It was a deeply unpopular Bill. It broke a clear and specific election pledge and it flew in the face of Conservative beliefs. My right hon. Friend believed that that Bill was in the interests of the country at that time.

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In their hearts, a clear majority of Conservative Back-Benchers knew that the Bill was wrong. We should have defeated it on Second Reading, but the Government were unpopular and the Whips argued that the Prime Minister's authority and position would be seriously damaged if there was a revolt against the Bill. The Labour party, which has always hankered after such controls, did, of course, vote against the Bill. I was one of those who was persuaded, against his judgment, to vote for it. In February 1974, the Government were trapped by a miners' dispute which they could not settle without breaking their own prices and incomes laws.

So I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends whether they will make the mistake that I made in 1972. What would the Conservative party Whips be saying if this had been a Labour Government's proposal? Would we be supporting it in breach of our election commitments? If we would have voted against a Labour Hong Kong Bill, why should we vote for it just because it is brought forward by a Conservative Government? [Interruption.] A voice says, "What about the poll tax?" That was in the Conservative party manifesto and I have voted for it at every turn.

I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to vote against the Government tonight with a heavy heart. In 20 years in the House I have never yet voted against my party Whips.

Mr Cormack : Really?

Mr. Tebbit : Yes, really. My hon. Friend has a more vigorous record in voting against the Government than I have.

Tonight I have had to choose between the Government and the Whips on the one hand and my party and its clear commitment to the voters who elected them to office on the other. That is why I will oppose the Bill tonight and stand by my commitment to the electors which I made in 1987.

Several Hon. Members rose --

Mr. Speaker : Order. Before I call the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden), I should make plain that I have not selected for debate the amendment in his name and the names of his hon. Friends because it is beyond the scope of the Bill. He may draw attention to it in his speech without speaking to it.

6.44 pm

Mr. Max Madden (Bradford, West) : Whenever the right hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) seeks to persuade us that he is standing on principle, I--and, I suspect, some of the troops whom he is seeking to lead into the Lobby against the Government tonight--rush for cover.

I represent a constituency a third of whose inhabitants are of Asian origin. One of my endearing memories of the right hon. Gentleman as chairman of the Conservative party is the regular visits that he made to my city and other cities like it seeking to persuade black and Asian British citizens that the Conservative party was anxious to secure their electoral support and in government was doing everything possible to sustain and nurture the prosperity of black and Asian communities in Britain.

The right hon. Gentleman's speech tonight was in sharp contradiction to the statements that he made as chairman of the Conservative party on these matters and to the statements that he has made in recent weeks and months as we approached the debate on the Bill.

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I thought that I heard gasps around the Chamber when the right hon. Gentleman sought to persuade us that he was not the leader of the campaign within the Conservative party against the Bill. Could I have been wrong? An avalanche of propaganda has been generated by the right hon. Gentleman seeking to persuade the British public that an army of Conservative Members of Parliament were anxious to follow him into the Lobby tonight to vote against the Bill.

Mr. Tebbit : First, I find nothing inconsistent between what I have said as chairman of the Conservative party, Secretary of State or in any other office that I have held, and what I have said this evening. As I said this evening, I believe strongly in the integration of immigrant communities into our country. That is the only way forward. New waves of immigration will hold back that process and that is one of the principal reasons why I am against new waves of immigration. Secondly, with regard to generating waves of publicity, I should tell the hon. Gentleman that I have one employee only, a secretary, and that if she and I between us could have generated all the publicity, my goodness me, we should take over Conservative central office and do its work more cheaply than it is doing it at the moment.

Mr. Madden : I thought that the right hon. Gentleman did take over Conservative central office on one occasion, and I do not want to speculate on why he no longer holds that office.

But the campaign that I still believe the right hon. Gentleman has been orchestrating during recent weeks and months has fundamentally changed in character during that period. Initially, he sought to oppose the Bill on straight immigration grounds. Subsequently, he sought to argue that he was against the Bill because it would upset all those people in Hong Kong who would not be eligible for British passports.

The right hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. Nor can he conceal the fact that large numbers of people will shortly be eligible to come into Britain. We hear very little from the right hon. Gentleman or his acolytes about the 300 million EEC nationals who, after 1992, will be able to enter Britain and seek employment without a work permit. They will be able to establish businesses without any evidence of funds. They will also be able to bring their spouses, children aged up to 21, parents and grandparents.

Mr. Hugh Dykes (Harrow, East) : In this case I do not agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) about the fundamentals of the Bill. Does the hon. Gentleman agree, however, that there is a big difference between the European Community's reciprocal rights of residence, work and abode and the right of immigration into a country?

Mr. Madden : What I will say is that most of these people will be white. That is why we do not hear very much from the right hon. Member for Chingford or his supporters about the 500,000 citizens of Macau who have been given a right of abode by the Portuguese Government, and who can also enter the United Kingdom after 1992 under the same rules. We do not hear anything from the right hon. Gentleman or his supporters about the 1 million British citizens in South Africa who could also come into this country without difficulty in the near future, or about the 8 million to 9 million British citizens in the old

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Commonwealth who have the right of abode and could enter. Between 300 million and 400 million people could flood into the United Kingdom in the foreseeable future, but we hear nothing about that from Conservative Members, especially the supporters of the right hon. Member for Chingford.

I must declare an interest : I was invited to Hong Kong last week by the Hong Kong Government. It was a valuable opportunity for me to have discussions with a large number of individuals and organisations between the publication of the Bill and this debate. Hon. Members from both sides of the House were also present, and I am sure that we all found the visit helpful.

It was clear to us that the vast majority of people in Hong Kong regard the Bill, and the scheme to allow just 50,000 heads of household to have British citizenship and the right of abode here, as a complete and utter irrelevance.

The vast majority of Hong Kong people do not want to leave Hong Kong, which they regard as their home. Many do not want to come here because they cannot afford to leave ; the option of emigration is not theirs because they have not the money to exercise it. However, large numbers--1,000 a week--are now leaving, and that exodus is a potential threat to the viability of the Hong Kong economy. We need to consider what action needs to be taken now to stem it, and that is what the Bill is all about.

We hear much about democracy and the lack of it. If there is any blame for the absence of democracy in Hong Kong, I suggest that the accusing finger should be pointed at successive Governments of both political persuasions, spanning more than a century. For 150 years, Britain has administered Hong Kong--some say paternalistically ; many would say in a most authoritarian way. If any criticism is to be made about the absence of democracy and the lack of enthusiasm for it among the Hong Kong people, surely the blame lies squarely with those Governments, but I question whether such an absence of democracy is a modern reality in China.

On our visit, we were shown photographs of the1 million people in Hong Kong who came out on the streets before the Tiananmen square massacre to show their solidarity with the people of China--their relatives, their friends and their own people. They came out on to the streets to demonstrate their solidarity with the movement towards democracy, and stood in silent empathy and solidarity with the Chinese people. The massacre of 4 June had an enormous impact on the Hong Kong people. For months afterwards, they wore black armbands to show their solidarity, and their disgust with the actions of the Chinese Government. Even now, armies of Chinese police, agents and others are scouring the campuses of China to try to identify those who were active in the democracy movement, especially its leaders. Every day 75 refugees go legally from China into Hong Kong ; more than 100 seek to enter it illegally, and many who are detected are sent back. I plead with the House to understand that democracy is an extremely fragile entity in Hong Kong, and I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) that we must do more to ensure that it progresses.

When my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) replies to the debate,

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I should like to hear what the next Labour Government would do to ensure that there is one person, one vote--full democracy--in Hong Kong before 1997, when the Chinese take over. If our claims to support the extension of democracy are to be credible, or to command support in Hong Kong and in Britain, we must spell out clearly whether we would take unilateral action to ensure that that full democracy was introduced in Hong Kong before 1997. We must have firm and clear assurances about the methods by which we would seek to do that. Few of the people to whom I spoke in Hong Kong last week, from the governor down, gave any hint or made any suggestion that the Chinese Government are any more amenable now to progress towards full democracy in Hong Kong than they have been in recent years since the negotiations took place.

We all recognise that there are major defects in the Bill. In my view--and in that of other hon. Members who would have wished to support the amendment--the figure in the Bill should be removed : such matters should be dealt with on the principle of fairness and justice. However, once we enter the numbers game, we are inevitably in the business of arbitrary and highly subjective criteria, which in this case are totally secret. There will inevitably be divisiveness if people do not know the basis on which the selection is made. A fundamental reform must include the right of appeal for those people who are refused British citizenship and the right of abode here. Surely basic justice demands such a right of appeal. One of the long-standing grievances of the British Nationality Act 1981 is that people are given no explanation of why their application has been refused, and they have no right of appeal against that refusal. We must remove the nonsense of the 500 top business men who will be invited by the governor to apply : that is wholly unacceptable, and should be deleted. We should also snuff out the proposal--still lingering on--that would effectively enable British companies to nominate people to become British citizens. That is wholly unacceptable and undemocratic. I hope that the Minister will make it clear that that scheme is dead and buried, and will not be revived. We need to protect and safeguard political activists who have been in the vanguard of building democracy in Hong Kong and who are totally excluded from the scheme. We also need to ensure that there are genuine provisions for public service and local government workers. At the moment, there are no provisions whatever for social workers, who are leaving Hong Kong in large numbers and who are vital for the future of Hong Kong. Of course we need to ensure that those who are entitled to a British passport are not cash- limited by that arbitrary figure of 50,000.

Many in Hong Kong obviously consider British passports as an insurance policy ; however, people are leaving Hong Kong for various reasons. There are those who are leaving to improve their economic prospects. Others are leaving because they are desperately worried about the safety of their families. Others are leaving, particularly for Canada, Australia, America and Singapore, to secure an overseas passport, and they have to live in those countries for two or three years to get the necessary residential qualifications.

The brightest and the best in Hong Kong do not want to come to Britain. Many of those who want to emigrate are not seeking to come to Britain. They do not see their future here, but they want an insurance policy. I hope that

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we shall make proper safeguards for the non -Chinese ethnic minorities. I am totally dissatisfied with the assurances given so far by the Home Secretary. I should like to see much better safeguards for the non-British spouses of British citizens in Hong Kong.

I urge the House to understand that it is not just a matter of insurance policies. The most important aspect of giving British citizenship to the largest possible number of people in Hong Kong is to place an effective sanction and to put effective pressure on the Chinese Government so that they know that, if they treat Hong Kong badly and unfairly after 1997, a significant number of Hong Kong British citizens will be able to vote with their feet and leave Hong Kong safely and in an orderly fashion.

That is what the Bill is all about. It is a totally inadequate and defective measure. It represents a shoddy and shabby compromise of a debt of honour to a country from which we have derived enormous economic benefits over 150 years to people who thought they were British citizens and who look to Britain as their home and to Parliament as their House of Commons and their democratic defence. It is a shoddy and inadequate Bill.

I shall abstain tonight and I shall seek with others to improve the Bill in the ways that I have suggested. I urge those who seek to demolish the Bill for motives which many of them do not have the guts to articulate publicly to think very carefully indeed. Not only are they playing with the lives of many in Hong Kong : they are playing with the destiny of that country and the relationship of Britain with mainland China.

I agree with the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) that that is an important matter. If we seek further to appease China, the plight of the people of Hong Kong, with or without democracy, will be extremely difficult up to and after 1997. Let us agree that the Bill is of modest help. Let us seek to improve it and, above all, let us remember that the best interests of the men, women and children of Hong Kong lie in offering British citizenship and the right of abode. The vast majority do not wish to exercise that option, but they need our reassurance and commitment. The Bill goes a little way towards offering that commitment and protection.

Several Hon. Members rose --

Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd) : Speeches between now and 9 o'clock are limited to 10 minutes.

7.4 pm

Sir Peter Blaker (Blackpool, South) : The hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden) made some good points, but I disagree with the view that a faster pace towards democracy is the answer to the problem which the Bill seeks to address. Indeed, if a faster pace towards democracy were to lead to confrontation with Peking, confidence in Hong Kong would be weakened rather than strengthened.

I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) has left the Chamber. His speech set a new record for prevarication and obfuscation. So far as I could make any sense of what he said about granting passports or the right of abode to Hong Kong Chinese, it appeared that fewer passports would be granted but there would be more rights of abode granted to people from the Caribbean and south Asia. There is an

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important distinction between those groups. The people from Hong Kong would not want to come here whereas the others would come here at once.

The House knows of my lifelong interest in Hong Kong. For the past 20 years I have had no financial interests there, but I have a deep political interest in doing what we can to perpetuate the amazing success that Hong Kong has achieved. The rejection of the Bill would be damaging to Hong Kong and the United Kingdom. The Hong Kong brain drain would certainly accelerate and there would be a decline in the economy. Other countries such as Canada and Australia are not worried about inviting people from Hong Kong who are of great merit or importance to Hong Kong to emigrate to those countries.

Nor should we be worried about the fact that those to whom passports will be granted are the people who are most important to Hong Kong. If the Bill were rejected, more raids would be made by other countries on the skilled people of Hong Kong. Recently, a United States medical centre wrote to all 74 radiographers in Hong Kong inviting them to join that organisation and offering them help in obtaining United States passports. Qantas sent recruiters to Hong Kong to lure away several hundred mechanics from the Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering company. Fortunately, those efforts met with little success, but such attempts would be accelerated if the Bill were rejected. Other countries would increase their quotas for immigration from Hong Kong in the misguided view that that would help.

The Bill is a credit to Her Majesty's Government, especially the new concept that selected people from Hong Kong would be able to get United Kingdom passports without having to spend several years working here first, thus damaging Hong Kong's prospects.

The rejection of the Bill would also be damaging to the United Kingdom. It would certainly damage our reputation for fulfilling our obligations. I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends will attach importance to that. It would damage our economy. Our visible and invisible exports to Hong Kong represent more than £2 billion a year. If the Hong Kong economy is damaged, those exports will suffer. The total net assets of companies in Hong Kong controlled from the United Kingdom are £6 billion. The gross stock market value of British-owned, controlled or managed companies in Hong Kong is £19 billion and those companies would suffer. If sufficient damage is done to the economy of Hong Kong, that will reduce the value of Hong Kong to China, and the economic value of Hong Kong to China is its most important safeguard.

I believe that the Chinese intend to observe the joint declaration and agreement of 1984, but I profoundly believe that a bit of Chinese self- interest is a better guarantee still. As long as Hong Kong continues to carry one third of China's foreign trade, and to account for one third of China's foreign exchange earnings and for two thirds of the value of foreign investment in China, that is a good safeguard that China will observe the joint declaration.

By damaging confidence and the economy in Hong Kong, rejection of the Bill would increase the possibility that we might see what the governor described as the "Armageddon" scenario. There might be a flood of refugees from Hong Kong whom we would be obliged to do our best to take, and we might be obliged to take more than those for whom the Bill provides passports.

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