| Previous Section | Home Page |
Column 1607
I have received representations from several British companies with business interests in Hong Kong. I shall read a letter from Geoffrey Maddrell, chief executive of the Tootal Group, which I received in November before the Government announced the policy encapsulated in the Bill. He explains the links that his company has with China through Hong Kong. He says :"The total turnover of companies"--
that is in the Tootal Group-- "dependent on supplies out of China is around £75 million this year"--
1989--
"and earns approximately 10 per cent. in pre-tax profit. The continued success of our investment and interest in China depends very largely on our key managers in Hong Kong",
who are working in China supervising Tootal's joint ventures. He continues :
"However, in the current uncertainty surrounding British Government Policy all the senior managers are preparing to emigrate to obtain citizenship of Canada and Australia. They are taking this course of action as an insurance for the future, not because they wish to leave Hong Kong. In consequence, should they be offered right of abode in the UK, it is not their intention to exercise that right." He says later in his letter, and I repeat that it was written before the announcement of the Government's policy :
"Tootal would seek rights of protection for some 25 managers and their families by issuing them with a full British Passport with right of abode in the UK."
I spoke two days ago to Mr. Maddrell to discover his reaction to the Government's policy. He said that his managers are waiting to see whether the Bill is passed. If it is rejected, they will accelerate their attempts to move to Canada or Australia.
Mr. Tebbit rose
Sir Eldon Griffiths (Bury St. Edmunds) rose
Sir Peter Blaker : I am afraid that I do not have time to give way.
That letter shows two things : first, that the few passports that will be given to key people in Hong Kong will make a tremendous difference ; and, secondly--this is the key point--that we are talking not about people who are keen to leave Hong Kong but about people who want to stay there.
7.13 pm
Mr. Peter Shore (Bethnal Green and Stepney) : I agree with the right hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Sir P. Blaker) that all of us may face far heavier obligations and much more difficult problems in 1997 than we face today. We may have to take on far greater obligations to meet a disaster at that time than we are faced with at present.
Nobody can contribute realistically to the debate who is not prepared at least to identify the problem and to seek to remedy it. The problem will be between now and 1997. We are all agreed that there has been a massive loss of confidence in Hong Kong since the events of Tiananmen square. There is a heavy outflow of people who have the skills and responsibilities essential to the successful running of the colony over the next seven years and to its prosperity.
That is the problem. How will we--"prevent" is too strong a word--mitigate or slow the outflow of people from Hong Kong who are necessary to it? I believe that my right hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham,
Column 1608
Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) and for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman), who I understand will wind up the debate, have somewhat misled themselves in their arguments. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sparkbrook said that his solution to the problem is to introduce democracy in Hong Kong. I am very much in favour of that and it is not impossible for Britain to do so--after all, we remain masters of the colony until 1997--but China has issued the Basic Law and everyone in Hong Kong knows that. However far democracy has advanced in Hong Kong, if the Chinese wish to roll it back they have the power to do so. Therefore, unless there is a great change in China, we cannot offer additional confidence to the people of Hong Kong by telling them that a Labour Government will introduce democracy in Hong Kong. It is no way out to say that we shall introduce democracy and restore confidence in Hong Kong between now and 1997. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sparkbrook has misled himself on that point. My right hon. Friend also misled himself on another major point--his assessment of the reaction of other ethnic communities in the United Kingdom to the passing of the Bill. I represent a large ethnic community and I can assure him that no such anxieties have been expressed by my constituents. I am certain that the grievances that my right hon. Friend properly expressed on behalf of the immigrant communities will be dealt with when a Labour Government take office. As my right hon. Friends and I expect that there will be a Labour Government within the next two years, putting right the grievances of the ethnic minorities should not be used as an excuse for denying people in Hong Kong the possibility and prospect of coming to the United Kingdom. My right hon. Friend has misled himself on two quite major matters.I shall deal briefly with the criticisms that have been made of the Bill. It has been said that the scheme is selective, which is so, but is anyone, except the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown), realistically arguing for a general, all-embracing and non-selective United Kingdom scheme? With the exception of the right hon. Member for Yeovil, I have heard no one arguing for that. Critics say that we need different categories for selective admission in addition to those already in the Bill. To some extent, that is so, and I wholly share the views of those who have expressed the unsatisfactory position of the non-ethnic Chinese in China and the need for far stronger guarantees for their future, otherwise they will be citizenless after 1997.
I was glad to hear what the Home Secretary had to say about war widows and other widows, but there are other categories, including students, for whom the Select Committee recommended we should make special provision in assisting them to obtain nationality. I should like to see those categories included.
The categories are no substitute for a scheme to help to stem the exodus of key personnel from Hong Kong. War widows do not help in manning difficult positions in the Hong Kong police force, civil service or business, nor necessarily do ethnic minorities who are unfranchised or denied citizenship. Students certainly cannot assist in that respect. We must return to the main point and say that we must have a scheme to help to stem the exodus of key personnel from Hong Kong.
It has also been said that the proposal is elitist, not merely selective. In a sense, it is because the people concerned are key personnel. However, the House should
Column 1609
bear it in mind that the main categories cited in the Bill and in the supporting papers are very similar to those in the work permit scheme, which we have operated under successive Governments for the past 20 years. I shall read out the list in the latest 1980 edition of the work permit scheme. Whom do we allow in other than relatives--who are a separate matter? We allow in"(a
(those holding recognised professional qualifications ;) (b
(administrative and executive staff ;)
(c
(highly qualified technicians having specialised experience ;) (d
(other key workers with a high or scarce qualification in an industry or occupation requiring specific expert knowledge or skills ;")
Sir Eldon Griffiths : Will the right hon. Gentleman give way? Mr. Shore : I am sorry. I cannot give way because of the time factor.
I do not accept that the scheme can be described as elitist because of the perfectly sensible and open categories that are established. The scheme includes--and we must be clear on the range of people--judges, civil servants, Customs and Excise officials, the fire service, the immigration department, the Independent Commission Against Corruption, the Royal Hong Kong Police, the military garrison, engineers, architects, air traffic controllers, editors, doctors, chemists, midwives, nurses, physiotherapists, teachers and education administrators. Those categories add up to no fewer than 24,000 of the 50,000 promised passports. Many of the remaining 26,000 passports will have to go to managers and executives, but the balance may be wrong and overloaded in favour of those categories. That is a matter to be debated later.
The scheme has a number of obvious defects and some have been well expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden). The lack of review procedure and clause 1(5) are intolerable, as is the lack of help for people who may be in political danger in Hong Kong because of their expression of opposition to the Chinese Government. Such help must be included. There can be no guarantee that the Bill will succeed, but no serious alternative has been proposed. It is essential that the people of Hong Kong should not be given the impression that we have washed our hands of their problems. That would have a disastrous effect on the people there and on the international community, whose help we may need far more in 1997 if the Chinese tear up the joint declaration. For those reasons, I shall not vote against Second Reading and I hope that many of my right hon. and hon. Friends will join me.
7.22 pm
Mr. Nigel Forman (Carshalton and Wallington) : I had prepared some remarks today that sought to expose the rather hollow and internally contradictory nature of the speech by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) on the basis of what he had said before about the Labour Government's contradictory position on the issue. However, it has turned out to be unnecessary for me to make a speech on those lines because the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore) has just made it for me most persuasively. I hope that Opposition Members have listened carefully to what he said. His speech was most persuasive and could be taken as an argument in support of the Bill, although he has said that he intends to abstain.
Column 1610
As we debate the Bill today, people are leaving Hong Kong at the rate of about 1,000 a day and it is important to bear that background in mind. Many are the most able and entrepreneurial people whom the colony badly needs to keep it going as a thriving community. It is, therefore, not a day too soon for the House to be asked to approve the Bill, which has my strong support. It is clear that the Bill's prime purpose is to staunch the outflow of people from Hong Kong and to encourage what the Americans call the "movers and shakers" to remain in the colony until 1997 and, we hope, well beyond that. The Bill will help to do that and it is a necessary confidence-building measure.The upper limit of 50,000, which is on the face of the Bill, is fewer than many in the Hong Kong community would have liked and it is certainly fewer than they argued for originally. However, it is equally far fewer than the number who might have to come here in a future crisis if the policy goes wrong. On the other hand, the figure is many more than some of my right hon. and hon. Friends seem prepared to accept, for the reasons set out so cogently by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit). Ministers may be tempted to feel that they have got it about right as they find themselves between the Scylla and Charybdis of the two positions. I believe that it is the least that we should be offering in the circumstances to the people of Hong Kong and I shall explain why briefly.
First, the Bill is an insurance policy, as many other hon. Members have said, which should give many of the key people the confidence to remain in Hong Kong. That is the cardinal point. Whether it will succeed in that venture is a matter of judgment and cannot be proved at this stage. Secondly, it is only if Britain takes the lead in this way and at least in part fulfils one of its last colonial responsibilities that we shall be able to look to other nations to play a fuller part in any rescue operation that may be needed in the event of the Peking regime reneging on its solemn commitment of 1984. I strongly hope that does not happen, but when one enters the realm of insurance policies, one must guard against all risks and one has to think of the chances of the Government persuading their partner nations such as the United States and those in the Commonwealth and elsewhere to pull their weight in the event of that coming about. Thirdly, the Bill is wholly consistent with the terms of our agreement with the Chinese, which never precluded our right to grant full British citizenship to people in Hong Kong. Fourthly, it can always be argued that any immigration arrangements run the risk of causing bitterness and resentment for some, especially those who cannot fulfil their wishes or who fall just the wrong side of some official dividing line. The point was made by the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney and it is not an adequate argument against having the criteria for selection that are envisaged in the Bill. As the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney said, all such measures from time immemorial have involved a degree of selection and the House must face that reality.
Fifthly, even if as many as 250,000 people, as distinct from passport holders, come from Hong Kong to Britain in the future, I am convinced--and I know that a number of my constituents are convinced--that they would prove to be a great asset to this country. The key point is that as long as the policy works--and I have already said that there can be no certainty that it will work 100 per cent.--these people will remain an asset in Hong Kong and will
Column 1611
be to our own considerable economic and trading benefit, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South (Sir P. Blaker) said.On the other hand, if the policy were not to work as intended and if all those who were entitled to do so came to this country, they would be a great asset to us in due course. All the evidence from the Hong Kong people who are already established in this country--and I remind the House that there are many of them--suggests that would be so. Similar evidence of Asian people who have settled on the Pacific coast of the United States and in Canada corroborates that conclusion. One has only to ask people who know of those circumstances. Asians have solid family lives, they believe in the value of education and getting on, and they tend to be
self-sufficient high achievers. In short, they are exactly the sort of people--and I emphasise this to my right hon. and hon. Friends who may have doubts about the Bill--whom we should welcome if they ever felt the need to come to this country.
The opposition to the Bill is rather shabby. It is disingenuous in the case of the Labour party and distasteful in the case of some of my right hon. and hon. Friends. The Bill is a sensible and timely response to an important problem which is principally the responsibility of this country and this Government. The Bill has my strong support.
7.29 pm
Mr. Andrew Faulds (Warley, East) : Honour is not a common component of political conduct, and in matters to do with nationality and immigration, British Governments over the years have behaved with craven dishonour. This mother of Parliaments--this exemplar of parliamentary democracy--has, over the post-colonial years, evaded and abandoned its responsibilities. It has dishonourably created a series of lesser, second- class nationalities. The French and Portuguese, with the same sort of history, have behaved with much greater rectitude and responsibility.
Now we have come to these convoluted arrangements over Hong Kong. We have a direct responsibility for the people of Hong Kong until 1997, and of the two major parties neither the Government nor the Opposition are facing up honourably to those responsibilities. I grudgingly admit that it is perhaps the Liberal Democrats who are being truest to those responsibilities.
The only just solution would be--and must be--the restoration of full British citizenship to all British nationals in Hong Kong. Then, of course, the scream would go up, helped by some of the more disreputable characters in the House, "You are letting in 3 million Chinese." What a load of rubbish. Of course nothing of the sort would happen. And who in their senses would want to come to Thatcher's Britain, with its inequality, its collapsing public services, its general tattiness--[ Hon. Members :-- "Us."] You fellows cannot get away ; you are stuck here. [ Hon. Members :-- "What are you doing about it?"] I am trying to improve matters ; I usually seek to try to improve the state of Britain.
There is little evidence that many of the 3 million Hong Kong Chinese who hold British passports without right of abode would want to settle in Britain anyway. An opinion poll taken in the colony early last year showed that, of the
Column 1612
38 per cent. who would emigrate given the chance, only 6 per cent. would choose to come to Britain, so the nonsense about 3 million Chinese coming to Britain is easily dismissed. Incidentally, what a shot in the arm an influx of Hong Kongers would give to the tired, underperforming economy of this damaged country.The Bill and the proposed scheme are profoundly unsatisfactory. Their purpose is supposedly to restore confidence in the colony and staunch the flow of emigrants, which reached 50,000 this year. But the arbitrary and limited figure of 50,000 households is a one-off arrangement that does not ensure Britain's continuing commitment to Hong Kongers. In effect, the Government are saying to most of Hong Kong's many millions, "We are concerned only about those of you who are close to us--those of you who work with us, who are successful and whose future we choose to ensure. Come 1997," the message is, "the rest of you can go hang."
That is not a proposition that I am prepared to support. The chosen few will have been nominated within a year or so. Where is the flexibility in the scheme to allow us to deal with changing events in the years up to 1997? Perhaps the Labour party should consider that there is a possibility that a Labour Cabinet and a Labour party conference may have to cope with the unfolding crises in those years.
The scheme should be flexible, and open to review as events develop in China and in Hong Kong, to ensure the healthy functioning of that territory. Anyone whose application for registration under the scheme is turned down will be given no reason for the refusal and will have no possibility of appeal. Absolute discretion is vested in the Home Secretary, and with a Home Secretary of the calibre of the present incumbent--whose premise when he had responsibility for immigration matters was that if immigration control was not hurting, it was not working--that is not a heartening prospect.
The scheme's most damaging flaw is its disregard for the non-Chinese ethnic minorities who have no nationality other than British and who will become stateless after 1997. In all justice, special consideration should have been given to that category in a loading of points. Better still, those people should be given special dispensation to gain full and proper British citizenship. I trust that the Labour party will do that if we come to government. The Opposition's amendment to commit the Bill to a Committee of the whole House I shall, of course, support. But what would we do in government? I was not reassured by the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley). The Chinese have passed the Basic Law, and we should be foolish, if we came to government, to try to reopen that issue.
We shall not be able to increase the number of elected Members in the process of democratisation that we have promised in the Government of Hong Kong before 1997. The Chinese will not budge from the figure of 20 elected Members of the Legislative Council. I hope that we shall be wise enough not to try to stir up difficulties and further damage confidence in the last two or three years of our responsibility by attempting to increase that figure to 40 or 60. The urgent need is to try to maintain confidence and economic performance in Hong Kong now.
So how must I vote? I had hoped that the right hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) would be here. He has pretended some interest in this matter and taken on himself the leadership of the faction in the Tory party that fans every skinhead eruption of racism. His mail bag
Column 1613
which he quoted proves that. For years, his only distinguishing feature has been his viciousness. A character such as he could only have flourished under a Thatcher Administration, with their mean-mindedness, and their lack of concern and conscience. He will vote against the Bill. For all the Bill's inadequacies and selectivity, I shall support the Government tonight, if only personally to cancel out the vote of that disagreeable and non-admirable right hon. Member for Chingford.7.36 pm
Mr. Paul Channon (Southend, West) : As usual, the hon. Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds) has gone over the top. His remarks about my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) were ludicrous, as the House well understands. One may or may not disagree with my right hon. Friend, but he represents a point of view that he is wholly entitled to express.
On the other hand, at least the hon. Member for Warley, East made his position clear. We know where he stands, just as we know where the Liberal Democrats stand, and although I disagree with him, I believe that he has done the House a service in that respect. We must ask the Labour party what it would do. Our debate tonight is being watched not only here but in Hong Kong, and the people of Hong Kong are entitled to know what a Labour Government would do. It is wholly unreasonable for the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) to take refuge in a whole collection of cliche s and weasel words designed to obscure, rather than saying clearly to the people of Hong Kong what the Labour party would do if it won a general election and came to power.
The hon. Member for Warley, East was entirely right about democracy. Of course we should all like to see more democracy in Hong Kong, and that is conceivable ; it is possible that, as the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore) said, we could get a little more democracy, but in view of the Basic Law recently passed in Peking, that seems improbable even if it is worth trying. It is no good building a policy on the flimsy, implausible and improbable assumptions outlined in the speech of the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook.
The right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman), who is not here at present but who will wind up the debate, also has a lot to answer for. Whatever he may or may not have said in Hong Kong, his remarks have been widely misunderstood. I hope that he will speak clearly to the House so that people in Hong Kong, who may have misunderstood his remarks, may know what will happen if the Bill is passed and a Labour Government come to power.
In view of the presence of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow), I should at once declare an interest by saying that, like the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden), I have been to Hong Kong recently. That was well worth doing, because I think that I now have some impression of what the state of opinion in Hong Kong is.
The House must answer two questions. Will the package that the Government propose lead--as many of my hon. Friends believe it will--to large-scale immigration into Britain? The question whether it would matter if it did is a different question altogether. Secondly, will the package actually work in Hong Kong?
Column 1614
In many ways, the package is unfair and flawed, but any package would be unfair and flawed. I do not kow how anyone could devise a package which was not unfair and flawed. I agree with many of the criticisms of the Bill. I agree in particular with the criticisms of clause 1(5) and the fact that there is is no appeal against an arbitrary decision which may mean the difference between a happy and successful life and a life that could be very unhappy indeed. Many small groups will be unfairly treated. I was grateful for the comments by my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary. I would be extremeley grateful if he would consider the position of non-United Kingdom spouses of British citizens. For example, as I understand it, if a British husband was to die in Hong Kong now, his wife would have no right to come to this country. That would be invidious when we consider what would happen in the case of a Hong Kong citizen who is given a passport and whose wife would have automatic right of entry. Many other questions must also be answered later.I believe that the package might work for a while, but I do not have any great confidence in its long-term future. The only important factor that will settle the future of Hong Kong is the attitude of the Chinese Government to what happens in Hong Kong. We do not really know what that attitude is or what it will be after Tiananmen square. Do the Chinese Government still believe that Hong Kong is so valuable to them that it is worth preserving, or do they see it as a hotbed of people trying to intrigue for democracy against the wishes of the Chinese People's Government? That is the great difficulty. If the Chinese position improves, people will stay in Hong Kong. If not, they will go--if not now, then later. I fear that, in many cases, our policy towards Hong Kong is waiting for something to turn up. Perhaps it will and perhaps it will not. We do not know whether the Chinese Government will change before 1997 and, if they do change, whether they will be any better. Some people believe that the Chinese Government will be better, but that is a flimsy basis for policy. The package is designed to make people stay. I believe that people will stay for a few years. Some may stay until 1997 and see what happens. Others will not take that risk ; who can blame them, when the Chinese Government make statements like those that they have made recently?
There is a risk that the package will work for just a short time and that the House will have to return to the issue before 1997. We delude ourselves if we believe that the Bill will be the last word. What we should do about the situation goodness only knows, but I believe that the issue will not go away.
There is some evidence that people will stay for the time being at least. Singapore has offered many places. People are not leaving Hong Kong for Singapore, but they have the security that Singapore provides. I believe that it matters if people leave Hong Kong. A dramatic outflow of skilled people that will weaken the Hong Kong economy is in no one's interests.
Even from narrow British self-interest, that is true, because Hong Kong receives billions of pounds of United Kingdom investment. If we include invisible investments, I suspect that British investment is greater than that of America or Japan. However, the Hong Kong Government have historically always played down our investment, I believe quite wrongly.
I do not believe that people from Hong Kong will come here to stay. The hon. Member for Warley, East referred
Column 1615
to a recent poll that showed that of those Hong Kong citizens who wanted to leave, 4 per cent. wanted to come to Britain, as opposed to 37 per cent. who wanted to go to Canada. I believe that people from Hong Kong may well use us as a staging post.We must ask the Government tonight to tell us more about what other countries are doing in that respect. I agree that we have a British responsibility. However, the issue may become a great international problem. Apart from Singapore and France, which will take a handful, and a few other countries that will take a handful, what countries will help in what might become a serious problem?
The package is flawed, and it can give hon. Members no pleasure. All political parties are in a false position, and we can derive no pleasure from having to debate the Bill today. However, having thought about the issue with much care, I believe that it is worth buying the breathing space that I believe the package will bring. I do not believe that it will lead to large-scale permanent immigration to the United Kingdom, and I believe that those fears have been greatly exaggerated.
The Bill will need amending in Committee or on Report. It is full of holes and that is inevitable in a package of this kind. However, on balance I believe that the House would be wise to accept the Bill. If it does not, the disillusionment in Hong Kong and the skills outflow in the early stages could lead to a situation which might be more serious than it is now in Hong Kong, and one which the House and the people of Hong Kong will come to regret.
7.44 pm
Dr. David Owen (Plymouth, Devonport) : The right hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Channon) is right. The future of Hong Kong will be decided, whether we like it or not, in Peking. How we handle China over the next seven crucial years will be of the utmost importance. I believe that the Foreign Secretary was right to pursue democratisation as far as he did and to accept at this stage that there was no further give in the Chinese position. I do not believe that that necessarily excludes a rather larger number for direct elections in 1995. We should pursue the argument for further democracy.
The Foreign Secretary was right to refuse to accept Chinese statements criticising the granting of passports to a select group of people in Hong Kong. Anyone who has had any passing involvement in Hong Kong, let alone anyone who has held office as Foreign Secretary, knows how delicate is the governance of Hong Kong. That is a quite exceptional colonial responsibility in which confidence is everything. Confidence can disappear literally in a matter of hours. In the negotiations for the agreement, I think at the ninth meeting, the failure to reach an agreed statement between the British and Chinese negotiators, and their refusal to accept the word "constructive", caused a run on the Hong Kong dollar and a serious lack of confidence. The situation is that fragile. If the House was to vote against the Bill tonight, there is no doubt that the run on the dollar overnight--as we now have 24-hour exchanges--would be devastating. Therefore, we must watch everything that we say and do.
Column 1616
I am glad that the right hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) has returned to the Chamber. From time to time I have some affection for the right hon. Gentleman. But, to put it bluntly, his actions over the past few months have had a devastating effect in Hong Kong. If he seeks the highest office in this country--to be Prime Minister- -and he cannot understand the damage that he has caused over the past few months, his chances of ever holding that office have been considerably damaged.The chances of our carrying through the next seven years to a successful transition to China are uncertain and no one can be sure whether we will succeed. However, we must do all in our power to achieve that end. As we are losing key personnel from Hong Kong daily, we must be selective. We must try to help those people who contribute so crucially to the success of Hong Kong as it is at the moment.
If we manage to staunch the flow of those key people, the prosperity for the millions of people in Hong Kong will be enhanced. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) must consider my argument. If we can get it right for the few, we will get it right for the many. However, we will not succeed unless our actions carry conviction in Peking.
That is why I believe that the Prime Minister was absolutely right to talk to and have dinner with the Chinese ambassador. He understands the delicacy of the question and it is important to keep a dialogue going with the Chinese at all costs even when we disagree with them. The Chinese do not mind people who disagree with them. They would prefer open and honest dealing and in the past they have kept all their treaties. There is still a chance of a highly successful transition despite the horror of Tiananmen square. The events in Tiananmen square proved the right hon. Member for Chingford wrong. It is no good quoting manifestos from 1979, 1983 and 1987. Those have been completely blown apart by what happened in Tiananmen square. No one likes waves of immigration. I am sure that no Conservative Member under their Government liked accepting the 28, 000 Ugandan Asians. We all lived through the traumas of the Kenyan Asians in 1968 and the question of restricting Commonwealth immigration in the early 1960s.
It is a delicate and difficult issue. Many hon. Members would like to be more generous about immigration than we know would be acceptable in the country. That is the reality with which we have been grappling in these delicate years.
For us not to respond to a traumatic event such as occurred in Tiananmen square would be dishonourable. That is the argument against those manifestos. Let us assume that those statements were given in good faith. Nevertheless, the statement about "swamping" before the 1979 general election is one reason why the official Labour party is not abstaining tonight, but is voting against the Bill. That statement has caused deep and continuing resentment.
However, we must put such resentments behind us because we are dealing with the position in Hong Kong now. I share much of the criticism that the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook deployed against current immigration policy. There is no doubt that there should be more generosity towards the relatives of immigrants who have already been accepted into full citizenship of this country. It is a scandal that we are not more generous, but
Column 1617
that is no reason for voting against the legislation. Although it is a fair debating point, it is no reason to cause problems in Hong Kong.At this stage, we need to bolster the confidence of the key people in Hong Kong because if they stay, in a year or two years' time, there will be the chance of achieving a better atmosphere in Peking. Just as Tiananmen square was traumatic for us and for Hong Kong, we must accept that it was also traumatic in Peking. The atmosphere there is delicate. However, I believe that we shall find a more responsive attitude in two or three years' time and that the Chinese Government will accept as a fait accompli the decision that we have taken on passports. There is a chance that we shall see greater democratisation, but in the meantime the next few months are crucial.
If we are to gain support from the international community, Britain has to show the lead. It is no use asking other countries to give extra passports to the Hong Kong citizens who work in their national firms. They will not be generous if they see the House of Commons rejecting this Bill. If that is the case, we can forget all about expecting generosity from others. If we are to urge other countries to be more involved and if we are to pave the way for possible greater international response if something went wrong, we must show that we are ready to take our burden and our share.
It is in that spirit that the Social Democratic party will vote for the legislation. We shall vote against the Bill's Committee stage being taken on the Floor of the House because we believe that that is purely and simply a delaying tactic. What is more, we shall vote for the Bill on Third Reading.
7.52 pm
Mr. John Maples (Lewisham, West) : The right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) has focused the attention of the House on the central issue of this debate--the stability and the future stability of Hong Kong. The issue of this debate is not which Hong Kong citizens have the best claim to live in the United Kingdom ; it is how we exercise and discharge our responsibility for the future stability and prosperity of Hong Kong. We are faced with a serious exodus of skilled people from Hong Kong which threatens its stability. I do not know whether our responsibility to do something about that is moral, historic or practical, but we clearly have a responsibility. It is set out in paragraph 4 of the joint declaration, which states that we have a
"responsibility to maintain the continuing prosperity and stability"
of Hong Kong until the middle of 1997.
Apart from the fact that we have that responsibility, we must remember that we have extensive commercial interests in Hong Kong, not only before 1997 but--we hope--afterwards which it is in our interests to protect. China has similar extensive commercial interests. The fact that China has not exercised its practical power to take back Hong Kong in the past 40 years can be related to those extensive commercial interests, and China, too, has obligations. It has the same obligations under the joint declaration.
In such debates, we often lose sight of the fact that the purpose of China's policy is not only to get Hong Kong and Macau back into the Chinese fold--its main target is Taiwan. In the not-too-distant future, China wants to be able to do a similar deal with Taiwan and to bring it back
Column 1618
into a greater China. To do so, China must be able to show the people of Taiwan the successful arrangements that it has made to work in Hong Kong. Therefore, it is in China's interests to honour its agreements and to ensure that it inherits and maintains a prosperous and stable Hong Kong.If we accept that we have an obligation to do something to maintain Hong Kong's stability, the question is, what should we do? I do not believe that it is practical to consider admitting to the United Kingdom either the 3.3 million United Kingdom passport holders or the 5.7 million people who live in Hong Kong. To put it in practical terms, it would amount to 8,000 people per constituency, although those people would not be distributed averagely across the country. That is not a practical proposition and to hold it out as such is irresponsible.
However, we must do something. We cannot simply wash our hands of this and say that we are not prepared to grant any passports. We cannot simply let history take its course. We must do something and that necessarily involves a compromise. I do not know whether the right number is 40,000 or 60,000, but 50,000 seems reasonable. If the worst came to the worst, that would not be an impossible number of people to admit to the United Kingdom. On the whole, they would tend to be extremely useful people. The number is probably sufficient to give the boost to Hong Kong that we want to give.
If we accept that we are to grant a number of passports under 5.7 million, there must be an allocation system which will necessarily be unsatisfactory. If we focus our attention on our purpose of stabilising what is happening in Hong Kong, we must grant those passports to the people whose continued presence in Hong Kong is likely to help to enhance that stability. If we do so, we shall discharge our responsibility in a way that is ultimately seen not as divisive, but as positive. It would give such people an insurance policy.
To those of my right hon. and hon. Friends who say that that insurance policy will not work, I simply say that it is what thousands of Hong Kong citizens have been seeking and acquiring for themselves over the past 10 or 20 years. They have been going to Canada, Australia and the United States, fulfilling their residency requirements, acquiring foreign passports and returning to Hong Kong. We are simply offering to make that facility--that insurance policy--available to them without the need to leave Hong Kong for two or three years.
The opposition to the Government's proposal has fallen into three categories. The Social and Liberal Democrats have taken the principled but thoroughly impractical position that everybody should be admitted. The Labour party has not only been impractical, but thoroughly unprincipled. The right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) has got his party into a box of all or none. The right hon. Member for Birmingham Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley), was not very successful in trying to wriggle out of that box today. The right hon. Member for Gorton has consistently opposed every proposal and whenever the Government have brought this proposal to the House for discussion, he has disparaged and denigrated it, but he has never offered an alternative. He must know that if there were a Labour Government--I am sure that this is recognised by many Opposition Members--they would have to do something similar to what the Government propose. The right hon.
Column 1619
Member for Gorton has sunk to a new low-- even for him--in his cynical and opportunistic exploitation of these events for party political advantage, dangerously regardless of the international consequences. If we ever needed further evidence of how totally unfit he is to be a British Foreign Secretary, we have had it in his contributions to this problem.The more interesting opposition has come from my right hon. and hon. Friends. They circulated a letter to all my right hon. and hon. Friends in which they set out their concerns about the Government's proposal. Basically, they said that they were worried about the future of Hong Kong, but they must realise that the people of Hong Kong want this proposal. They do not regard it as too much--if anything, they regard it as far too little. It is not for us to second-guess what is in their best interests. If they want the provisions, it is not for us to say that they are not good for them. The second point made by my right hon. and hon. Friends is that China will deny its citizenship to United Kingdom passport holders. Although that is what China is saying, I think that it is extremely unlikely that it will do that. The people to whom we will have granted passports will, in the main, be exactly the people whom the People's Republic of China wants and needs to remain in Hong Kong after 1997. Even if that is not the case, those in Hong Kong who have acquired British passports will have a choice between Chinese and British nationality. Even if they chose to retain their British nationality, under the terms of the joint declaration they would continue to have the right to reside in Hong Kong. Again, we should leave that choice to them. It is not for us to make such a choice on their behalf.
The third and perhaps the most serious reservation of my right hon. and hon. Friends is that China will see the provisions as a deliberate attempt to undermine the joint declaration and the stability of Hong Kong. That might be what China is saying, but I cannot believe that that is how China genuinely sees it. Both China and the United Kingdom have an obligation under the joint declaration.
Clearly we are trying to enhance stability, not to undermine it. It is so much in our interests and in the interests of China to maintain stability that I cannot believe that the Chinese will interpret the Bill as undermining the joint declaration. The Chinese have such enormous, overriding interests in the future prosperity of Hong Kong that I do not believe they will see the Bill as undermining our obligations to the future of Hong Kong.
My right hon. and hon. Friends were a little disingenuous in their letter. Their real anxiety--which is a legitimate one--was that the Bill might be seen as a breach of United Kingdom immigration policy. But they must face the fact that this is a unique situation. It is not an immigration problem but a unique colonial inheritance which cannot be solved by granting independence. The problem has been exacerbated in the past year by events in Tiananmen square. We cannot ignore that. People in the United Kingdom will see Hong Kong as a unique case for which we have some responsibility. If that involves one-off granting of British passports to people in Hong Kong, they will accept it as the price that we must pay for that obligation.
| Next Section
| Home Page |