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Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman : In answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Channon) the Minister appeared to say that this would not apply to widows who had another citizenship. What will happen to someone who has children at school in this country and who has had no connection with Indonesia, Thailand or wherever? He or she will be cut off and stranded.

Mr. Lloyd : If such people have another citizenship, they will have that connection. As I told my right hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West, that is a point which my right hon. and learned Friend and I want to look at again. I have been trying to make it clear that the assurance that my right hon. and learned Friend has given applies only to whose who have no citizenship other than British dependent territories or Hong Kong--and hence

Chinese--citizenship.

Mr. Marlow : The intention behind the Bill is to anchor people in Hong Kong, and the intention of the new clause is to anchor some worthy but potentially unfortunate people in Hong Kong. If people are given their British citizenship now, they know they have it, and whatever else happens, they will be able to use it. But if a spouse were to die after 1997, when a Chinese regime was running the country, they might fear some difficulty in acquiring British citizenship at that stage. Thus the desire of the Government and of my right hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Channon) to anchor these people in Hong Kong will not be achieved unless the new clause is accepted.

Mr. Lloyd : If I understand my hon. Friend aright, my answer is that there is no limit to my right hon. and learned Friend's assurance : it will apply up to and after 1997.

Mr. Wells : Just for the sake of clarity, will my hon. Friend reiterate that this will not apply in other dependent territories, of which there are quite a few in the Caribbean?

Mr. Lloyd : It applies only to Hong Kong, for which we make this exception because we understand the worries of expatriates in the colony who fear that their wives may be stranded there after 1997. Hong Kong is a special case in that respect. I could not concede the earlier amendments

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because I do not believe that Hong Kong can be described as a special case before 1997, in respect of living British expatriates and their wives.

Mr. Tebbit : I ask my hon. Friend to contemplate the arguments that he has been deploying this evening. In response to many points put to him, he has argued that the Bill is designed not to bring immigrants to the United Kingdom but to give them an assurance that will obviate the necessity for them to come here. But on this particular point, my hon. Friend says that we cannot give these people the assurance of a British passport while they are still in Hong Kong ; we must make them come to Britain and live here for three years before they can apply to get one.

Does not my hon. Friend realise that, with each word he has said while defending himself against the reasonable points put to him today, he has hammered another intellectual nail into the shabby coffin of this rotten Bill?

Mr. Lloyd : Of course I do not accept that. British expatriates, confident in their British citizenship, are not in the same position as those who are not British citizens but will become so under this Bill. I recognise that the Bill, in granting immediate access to British citizenship to the spouses of the 50,000 key persons, would be treating them more favourably than the spouses of other British citizens, but it is inherent in our proposals that the beneficiaries of the Bill will receive favoured treatment.

11 pm

I can appreciate the understandable irritation of British citizens with non -British wives that the normal rules should continue to apply to their wives when there is an express service for the spouses of those chosen under the selection scheme, but the House will be familiar with the justification for it. I have said several times this evening, and it was said in Committee and on Second Reading, that the Bill is an exceptional measure directed at a specific group of people, who by definition are essential to Hong Kong and are leaving in large numbers. Those people, unlike the spouses of existing British citizens, have no well established route to the United Kingdom or anywhere else. We feel that a different approach is justified.

If spouses and existing children are excluded from the assurance package, as proposed in some of the amendments, some recipients would still feel the need to emigrate to secure the position of their families. Some of the amendments make illogical suggestions that would drive away those whom we wish to remain in Hong Kong. The rules applying to the non-British wives of expatriates would not do that.

Mr. Norris : Will my hon. Friend confirm that it is clearly implied in the scheme for 200,000 passports that it would not be enough to grant only the head of household a British passport and expect the rest of the family to rely on the rules that he has outlined as they apply to non- British spouses, and that that rule will apply to one category of people-- those who are now British citizens? If that is indeed the Government's position, it is extraordinarily anomalous.

Mr. Lloyd : It is not extraordinarily anomalous because, as I said earlier, the expatriate British citizen will have the confidence of the British citizenship with which he was born and the knowledge that British citizens, as long as they satisfy the normal immigration rules, can bring their

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wives here. There is no such confidence among people who have been given citizenship under the scheme, and to protect the investment that we are making in them, we are extending it beyond the normal rules to their wives and children.

Even my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Norris) would accept that, although those who obtain British citizenship through the selection scheme could, like a British expatriate, bring their wives under the same terms, it does not apply to children who have been born to them when they were not British citizens. Somehow we must deal with that. The good sense of what we are proposing is to make a clean sweep, to enable them to be confident that their family has British citizenship, and to give them the confidence they need to remain in Hong Kong.

The Government are approaching this logically. The under-age children of people who obtain British citizenship through the selection route would, unless citizenship were granted to their families at the same time, be tempted to move here to ensure that their children earn British citizenship by being here for sufficient time before they reach the age of 18. After 18, under our normal rules, they would not be eligible.

Mr. Marlow : Will my hon. Friend make the position tatally clear to the House? There are two gentleman, one of whom is a British citizen with a non-British wife and the other, who will be given one of these passports by the Governor and will become a British citizen, who also has a non-British wife. Both couples have no children. Is my hon. Friend saying that the wife of the first gentleman will not automatically become a British citizen, whereas the wife of the second gentleman will automatically become a British citizen?

Mr. Lloyd : My hon. Friend has followed the argument reasonably well and I am glad that he has been able to demonstrate that fact. I said--my hon. Friend did not repeat this part of the argument--that this legislation is a special enactment for a unique set of circumstances. It cannot follow our normal nationality rules, and that is why it is different. The same rules apply to people in Hong Kong who have been born British citizens and have moved abroad as apply to those who live in Borneo, Indonesia and the United States. I do not believe that the case has been made for treating them differently. I am afraid that I must therefore urge the House to reject the new clause.

Mr. Channon : I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister and my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary for receiving the deputation. It was very helpful, and my hon. Friend will have been made aware of the worries that still exist in Hong Kong. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his remarks about widows, which may foreshadow some concessions.

I think that I carry the House with me when I say that no hon. Member supports the Government's view on spouses. On the Conservative Benches, those who support the Bill and those who are against it are against him. Everyone on the Opposition Benches--Labour Members and the Social and Liberal Democrats--is against him. I shall be surprised if this matter is not fully debated in another place.

My hon. Friend said that this was a unique set of circumstances which justifies the wives of these people getting passports too. I claim that it is a unique set of

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circumstances for British citizens and their non-British spouses. I have failed to convince my hon. Friend, which places me in a difficulty. I have no particular desire to divide the House or rebel against the Government, but I am in the hands of the House. If hon. Members wish to press the motion to a Division, I shall join them. Question put, That the clause be now read a Second time :-- The House divided : Ayes 98, Noes 253.

Division No. 232] [11.07 pm

AYES

Abbott, Ms Diane

Alton, David

Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

Beckett, Margaret

Bermingham, Gerald

Bevan, David Gilroy

Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

Budgen, Nicholas

Butcher, John

Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

Campbell-Savours, D. N.

Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

Carr, Michael

Channon, Rt Hon Paul

Clelland, David

Clwyd, Mrs Ann

Cryer, Bob

Cunliffe, Lawrence

Dalyell, Tam

Darling, Alistair

Dewar, Donald

Dixon, Don

Dunnachie, Jimmy

Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

Fearn, Ronald

Fisher, Mark

Flynn, Paul

Foot, Rt Hon Michael

Foster, Derek

Foulkes, George

Fraser, John

Gill, Christopher

Godman, Dr Norman A.

Golding, Mrs Llin

Gorman, Mrs Teresa

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

Heal, Mrs Sylvia

Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

Howells, Geraint

Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

Janman, Tim

Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

Kennedy, Charles

Kirkwood, Archy

Leighton, Ron

Livsey, Richard

Loyden, Eddie

McAvoy, Thomas

Macdonald, Calum A.

McFall, John

McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

Maclennan, Robert

Madden, Max

Mahon, Mrs Alice

Marek, Dr John

Marlow, Tony

Marshall, David (Shettleston)

Michael, Alun

Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

Murphy, Paul

Nellist, Dave

Parry, Robert

Patchett, Terry

Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

Quin, Ms Joyce

Robertson, George

Rogers, Allan

Rooker, Jeff

Rowlands, Ted

Sedgemore, Brian

Skinner, Dennis

Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

Spearing, Nigel

Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

Strang, Gavin

Taylor, Rt Hon J. D. (S'ford)

Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

Townend, John (Bridlington)

Turner, Dennis

Wallace, James

Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

Wareing, Robert N.

Watson, Mike (Glasgow, C)

Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)

Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

Winnick, David

Winterton, Mrs Ann

Winterton, Nicholas

Wise, Mrs Audrey

Young, David (Bolton SE)

Tellers for the Ayes :

Mr. Rhodri Morgan and

Mr. John Hume Robertson.

NOES

Alexander, Richard

Alison, Rt Hon Michael

Allason, Rupert

Amess, David

Arbuthnot, James

Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

Ashby, David

Atkins, Robert

Atkinson, David

Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

Baldry, Tony

Batiste, Spencer

Bellingham, Henry

Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

Benyon, W.

Blackburn, Dr John G.

Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Boswell, Tim

Bottomley, Peter

Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

Bowden, A (Brighton K'pto'n)

Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

Bowis, John

Brandon-Bravo, Martin

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