House of Commons Hansard Debates for 13 Jun 1990

Mr. Hill : Does my hon. Friend agree that the last thing that the Chinese Government want--my hon. Friend is far closer to the Chinese Government than I could ever be--is to get rid of the people who are making the enterprise culture in Hong Kong work? It is pretty obvious to me that the Chinese Government are looking forward to a wonderful community that will produce vast amounts of money. I do not accept the argument that the more British passports we issue, the more people will be frightened away by a Chinese Government--quite the reverse. The Chinese Government will know that we have hand-picked those people as part of the enterprise culture, and they will do everything in their power to retain them. After all, if Hong Kong is not a thriving port, it is nothing but a little barren rock.

Mr. Adley : My hon. Friend is probably closer to the authorities in Taiwan than I am ever likely to be, but that need not preclude our agreeing from time to time on certain matters.

Mr. Budgen : Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Adley : In a moment. My hon. Friend must let me answer the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. Hill) first, because it is important.

With respect to some of the Ministers, not at the Home Office but at the Foreign Office, one of the problems is that they were not around when the joint agreement of 1984 was being negotiated, let alone the months and years leading up to it when everyone knew that negotiations had to take place and all sorts of silly phrases such as "leaseback" were in the air. My hon. Friend will remember it. It is probably not too indiscreet of me to say now that I wrote my book called "All change, Hong Kong" in 1983 and had copies scrutinised verbatim by both the Foreign Office and the Chinese Government. Things needed to be said at that time which neither Government felt able to say, and I was the fall guy who said them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Test is right : the spirit of the 1984 agreement is that, basically, Chinese pride was deeply wounded by our acquisition of Hong Kong, and the ambition of successive Chinese Governments, many of whom were far more vitriolic about Hong Kong than the Communist Government have been since 1949, was the return of sovereignty. As my hon. Friend said, they wanted sovereignty to be returned but Hong Kong to be left as it was. The Chinese are not altruistic. That is the last thing that one could accuse them of being. They are self-interested, and they want to retain the wealth and the benefits that they receive from Hong Kong. Their desire and that of the British Government to maintain stability is enshrined in the wealth and benefits that come from Hong Kong. Of course, my hon. Friend is right : the last thing that the Chinese wanted to do, or want to do now, is to drive away

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from Hong Kong the very people on whom its prosperity depends. My hon. Friend is perhaps implying that, by this legislation, we are likely to further the departure of people from Hong Kong rather than to still it. I believe that that is the point that my hon. Friend made, and it could well be true.

Mr. Budgen : I wish to take up with my hon. Friend a relevant point. Has not a feature of Hong Kong life since 1984 been the way in which a considerable number of people, without offence to the Chinese authorities, acquired alternative rights of abode in the traditional immigration reception countries of the United States of America, Canada and Australia? Is it not important that the Governor's annual report tells Parliament what is happening about that trend? Many of us fear that, instead of acquiring rights of abode in those countries which have traditionally always welcomed immigrants, people will turn their attention to emigrating to Britain.

Mr. Adley : My hon. Friend has a point. Given the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Test, I suppose that I should have declared my interest as the chairman of the British-Chinese parliamentary group. As a member of the Select Committee on Members' interests, I am not sure whether I should have done that earlier. However, I hope that the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) will not give me too hard a time as I continue my speech.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South-West (Mr. Budgen) has made a valid point. Recently in Hong Kong, discussing among other matters the one that he has just raised, I discovered that the lowest going price for a passport was $HK50,000 for a passport for the Dominican Republic. Perhaps, in the report that the Governor produces to Parliament, he should also produce an annual chart of the going rate for a passport for any given country. There is nothing particularly new about that.

One aspect to which my hon. Friend did not allude but which certainly concerns me--perhaps the Governor could turn his mind to it--is whether, under the Bill, we shall create a market for jobs with British passports. There is a market in just about everything else in Hong Kong, and I cannot see any reason why jobs that carry the likely right to a passport, under the Bill, will not have a price. Personally, I have never discovered anything in Hong Kong that does not have a price.

Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours (Workington) : Does the hon. Gentleman believe that the Chinese authorities would ever know the identities of those who could not manage to secure a right of abode in the United Kingdom?

Mr. Adley : I had not considered that, but it is an interesting question. I do not know, but I suppose that one would have to look into the procedures. The hon. Gentleman should address to the Minister the question whether all the applications will be handled in total secrecy and how that secrecy is to be maintained. The retention of such secrets in a place like Hong Kong may not be easy

Mr. Marlow rose --

Mr. Adley : I am more than happy to give way to my hon. Friend if other hon. Members do not think that I am taking up too much time.

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Mr. Marlow : I believe that the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) was looking at and referring to me when he made his intervention. Whether or not the Chinese authorities come to know about those who will have the right of abode under the provisions of the Bill--and they probably will--what is more important than that--

Mr. Campbell-Savours : That is an assumption that the hon. Gentleman cannot make.

Mr. Marlow : Well, what is more important than that is that those people who do receive the right of abode will go through their lives with the assumption that the Chinese authorities will get to know that information?

Mr. Adley : That is a somewhat esoteric point, which I had not been going to cover and on which I have no information, because there can be no information. That is an additional concern, but I am anxious--

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman (Lancaster) : Will my hon. Friend ask the Minister to assure us on that point, because it is exceedingly important that we know? The Minister is sitting on the Treasury Bench and he should know.

Mr. Adley : I am not joining an attempt to filibuster the Bill. I do not like the Bill-- [Interruption.] I do not wish to be unkind. The House voted to give the Bill its Second Reading and I gather that the mood of the House is to allow the Bill to pass, but I am anxious to put on record some of my thoughts and worries, which should concern other hon. Members, which, I am sure, bother Sir David Wilson and which I hope he will be minded to include in his report. The last two or three points that have been made have related to the sort of place that Hong Kong is. It is a mercurial place, with one of the most irresponsible presses in the free world, for which sensation and rumour are the order of the day.

I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Minister of State is not in his place. When he was last in Hong Kong, having read the South China Morning Post and other newspapers and believed what was in them, he thereupon made a statement about how many passports the French and West German and other Governments would offer the citizens of Hong Kong. I must advise him that it must be quite some time since any Minister from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office can have achieved such a swift response from friendly Governments, remonstrating at what a British Minister had said. Even the Canadian Government were constrained to object to the British Government about what my right hon. Friend the Minister of State had said.

Therefore, I hope that care will now be taken by Ministers and that they will recognise that, although we do not have to like or admire the Chinese, we must recognise the facts of life and that they are there and will assume sovereignty. Their good will and their interpretation of this legislation are of vital importance to the people of Hong Kong. Therefore, the British Government and the Chinese Government must stay in contact. They must talk to each other and keep each other informed of their thinking.

I have expressed in answer to an intervention my fear that the Bill will create a haemorrhage of people from Hong Kong, the very haemorrhage that the Bill is supposed to stem. I hope that I am wrong. In my view, those in Hong Kong who have clamoured for the Bill have

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taken a major step, some wittingly and some unwittingly, to undermine relations between Britain and China over the 1984 agreement. If I may say so, they do not and have not served well those for whom they purport to speak and by whom they have never been elected.

I am extremely concerned about the Bill. I hope that everything that I have said turns out to be entirely wrong. I believe that, in itself, it is an undermining of the 1984 joint agreement, upon which Hong Kong's future undoubtedly ultimately depends.

4.30 pm

Mr. Max Madden (Bradford, West) : First, I welcome the new clause. A number of hon. Members, including myself, urged on Second Reading that an annual report should be presented. I am grateful to the Home Office and to the Government generally for tabling and introducing the new clause. I agree with the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) about its limited purpose and narrow intentions. Nevertheless, it provides an important peg and an opportunity for the House in the years to come, especially between now and 1997, to monitor political events and developments in Hong Kong.

I wish to dwell for a short while on the mechanics of the presentation of the report and the opportunities for the House to perform a monitoring role. The report will be presented to the Secretary of State for the Home Department. We have had an annual debate on Hong Kong over recent years and I assume that the report will be an important part of the papers available to us when we debate Hong Kong in the future.

If the annual report is to be presented to the Secretary of State for the Home Department, it seems that that will not provide the full parliamentary scrutiny that I would like. I suggest that the Government and all the parties represented in the House consider the possibility of setting up a joint committee of the Select Committees on Home Affairs and on Foreign Affairs, which would be charged with the responsibility for monitoring political, social and economic events in Hong Kong. That would enable the Select Committee machinery to produce reports for the information of the House, and would provide the important information that Members will require when they come annually to debate the report that will be presented by the Governor and other matters relating to the affairs of Hong Kong. The Select Committee on Home Affairs will be able to make inquiries about the annual report, but I am concerned that there appears to be no machinery to enable either the Foreign Secretary or the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs to have a locus. The House must do everything in its power to build confidence and try to reinforce confidence in the minds of the people of Hong Kong, who remain extremely anxious about their position during the years before 1997, by creating new extra-governmental institutions that will provide powers and opportunities to hon. Members to express concerns and anxieties as we proceed to 1997. If my suggestions were adopted, we would have a regular and sustained opportunity to ring the alarm bells if hon. Members or Select Committees were alarmed about anything.

The hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley) has great knowledge and experience of Asia, especially China and Hong Kong, and I bow to that experience. I listened

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intently to what he said, and agreed with much of it. However, I must emphasise what has not been emphasised in earlier debates, and certainly not today : the haemorrhage is already here. Every week 1, 000 people are leaving Hong Kong, and recent events have done nothing to strengthen their confidence about their well-being and safety, and that of their families, up to and after 1997.

Mr. Adley : I do not know when the hon. Gentleman last checked the figures, but I did so six or eight weeks ago. In the 10 months after the events of June last year, there was a marginal decrease in the number of people leaving Hong Kong. I hear what he says, but if he checks the facts and figures he may find that the alarming totals of which he has spoken are not borne out in reality.

Mr. Madden : I was in Hong Kong in April, when we were given that figure of 1,000 people a week. I have just consulted my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours)--who was in Hong Kong a fortnight ago--and he has confirmed that that figure is about right. We must not quibble about 100 either way ; we should agree that substantial emigration from Hong Kong is now taking place. The Bill is an attempt to stem that haemorrhage now and in the foreseeable future. It does not serve us well to dwell on the minutiae of the spirit of past agreements between China and Britain when we are dealing with events after 1997.

Mr. Campbell-Savours : To some extent it is not real emigration. Many people are simply trying to establish a right of abode in other countries. Having established that right, they often return to Hong Kong to carry on their business activities. There is a name for those people in Hong Kong--astronauts. In the main, they go to Canada to establish a right of abode--while safeguarding their short-term private interests--and then return to pursue their commercial activities. Their loyalties often remain to the colony, where they want to stay in the long term.

Mr. Madden : My hon. Friend is right. Let me reassure the hon. Member for Christchurch and others that, even if passports giving the right of abode are issued under the legislation--I understand the matter is being dealt with urgently--the first passports are to be issued later this year ; there is no guarantee, and there should be no fear in the minds of hon. Members, that all 50,000 plus their dependants will seek to come to the United Kingdom. In my opinion, and in that of many other people whom I have consulted, not all those entitled to right of abode would wish to exercise that right. They would go to Canada, America, Australia and elsewhere, where they would be admitted.

Mr. Norman Tebbit (Chingford) : The hon. Gentleman said that there was great urgency over the issue of the passports. What is the great urgency?

Mr. Madden : The great urgency stems from the men and women in Hong Kong who still have vivid memories about what happened in mainland China last year and vivid recollections of what has been happening in China during the past 12 months, and they marked that in their tens of thousands in Hong Kong a few days ago. Their anxieties are about whether they will be able to live in peace and security in Hong Kong after 1997 when the sovereignty of Hong Kong is handed to China.

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To pick up the point made by my my hon. Friend the Member for Workington, many of the people who are now seeking to leave Hong Kong are going abroad to obtain the right of settlement and of abode. The only way in which they can qualify for that is to leave Hong Kong to settle temporarily in one of a number of countries to obtain nationality and a right of abode which they will wish to exercise only if life in Hong Kong becomes intolerable after 1997.

Mr. Tebbit : The hon. Gentleman may be using the word "urgency" in an odd sense. He means that the people of Hong Kong are extremely anxious, not that the problem is urgent. As he rightly says, the problem will not arise until 1997, and in the meantime the people of Hong Kong have found another method of dealing with it--establishing a right of abode in other countries. Therefore, the problems cannot be urgent in the sense that some great disaster will befall those people if passports are not issued this year, next year or the year after. In fact, they do not need them until 1997.

Mr. Madden : The right hon. Gentleman is either being particularly obtuse or is seeking to continue his campaign which fizzled out on the night of the Second Reading debate when the votes were counted. The urgency is to get under way the scheme that is enshrined in the Bill and to make the passports available to stop the haemorrhage that is now under way. That is why I say that the matter is urgent. That is the view that I expressed on Second Reading to explain my unwillingness to oppose the Bill even though I recognise its fundamental defects. I abstained on Second Reading and I shall be supporting various amendments tonight, but I will not oppose the Bill on Third Reading.

Sir Nicholas Bonsor (Upminster) : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Adley : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Madden : If I am to fulfil my promise not to detain the House for any length of time I must conclude by welcoming the new clause. I hope that it will be carried. If the Minister intends to reply to the debate, I hope that he will at least say that he is willing to consider my suggestions about the procedures of the House strengthening and reinforcing the confidence that lies at the heart of the Bill and in the minds of the men and women of Hong Kong and perhaps to have further discussion about how they may be fulfilled.

Mr. Tebbit : Before you, Madam Deputy Speaker, came to the Chair, Mr. Speaker was being extraordinarily kind in allowing the debate to run quite wide, I think on the basis that almost anything that might be raised at this stage might go into the Governor's report if such a report were to be made. However, I do not want to take undue advantage of that and at this stage I have only two points to make about the new clause.

I preface my remarks by saying that since the House gave the Bill its Second Reading on the night when 80 members of the governing party either voted against the Bill or deliberately refused to support it, events have moved on a little, particularly in one respect. During that debate--I do not know to what extent it influenced any of my right hon. and hon. Friends --we were told by Ministers that the Chinese Government were not upset by

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the measure and were quite content. The very next day a spokesman for the Chinese Government made it plain, as my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley) said, that the Chinese Government are bitterly opposed to it and regard it as a breach of the accord which was reached between the two Governments, and so it clearly is. Mr. Peter Lloyd indicated dissent.

4.45 pm

Mr. Tebbit : It is no good my hon. Friend shaking his head. The Chinese Government, who are at least as likely to have it right as this Government, regard the measure as a breach of the accord. There is no doubt in my mind that that is so. Certainly it was completely wrong for Ministers to tell the House that the Chinese Government did not regard it as a breach. After all, the only people who can say whether the Chinese Government do or do not regard it as a breach are the Chinese Government themselves, and they made their position plain.

Mr. Adley : My hon. Friend the Minister shakes his head. I think that I can confirm to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) that the Chinese Government consider the measure to be a breach of the agreement, in the spirit and possibly in the letter, and that was why I read out in detail the two memoranda.

Will my right hon. Friend comment on a point on which the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden) would not give way? There is one point that we should put on the record, and it should also be part of the Governor's report, because he is responsible, as her Majesty's Government's representative in Hong Kong, for maintaining that stability.

The hon. Gentleman referred to the thousands of people in Hong Kong who were demonstrating. That is their right. But under the 1984 agreement there is a vital clause of desperate importance to the people of Hong Kong, and that is that, between 1990 and 1997, the Chinese Government will not interfere in the day-to-day running of Hong Kong and meddle in its internal politics. Equally, there is a commitment that the people of Hong Kong will not meddle in the politics of China. The temptation for the latter to do so is immense, but the danger of their doing so is equally immense. Therefore, I hope that my right hon. Friend will agree that within the Governor's report we should have an indication that he is doing his best to make the people of Hong Kong aware of the risk that they run by constantly seeking to have their cake and eat it.

Mr. Tebbit : I am sure that my hon. Friend is right. There is a real risk that, if the Government of China see what they believe to be constant breaches of the accord on what may be broadly called our side--the United Kingdom Government and the Government of Hong Kong--they will not feel unduly bound to stick to it themselves, and that would be a great pity. In the post-war era, every agreement that we have made with the Chinese Government has been kept. They may not have liked it at times and they may have made it plain that they did not like it, but they have stuck to their word. I regret that that Government should now see this Government, of which I

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was a member when the accord was made--the Government whom I support--as being in breach of an accord that has been entered into solemnly.

Mr. Peter Lloyd : I did not intend to intervene in my right hon. Friend's speech, but I must do so to make it clear that the Government are quite certain and know very well that this measure is not in breach of the joint agreement and accord, and a close inspection of the quotations read by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley), which I hope will be reproduced in Hansard, will demonstrate that.

Mr. Tebbit : The Minister gives the Government's view. That is not my view. Perhaps more importantly, it is not the view of the Government of China, altough on Second Reading we were told that it was the view of the Government of China.

Mr. Madden : Before he moves on to other issues, why is the right hon. Gentleman seeking to apologise for that gang of geriatric murderers? Does he not recognise that many people in Hong Kong and elsewhere believe that the massacres which occurred in China last year were an excellent reason why Britain should have called an end to the accords over Hong Kong and 1997? Does he not realise that so many people were outraged by those events that they will dismiss his comments now as an obscene apology for geriatric murderers, who should not be given an inch, and that we should defend the interests of the men and women of Hong Kong in every way that we can?

Mr. Tebbit : I do not wish to provoke the hon. Gentleman into getting to the stage where he is asking my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary to declare war on the Government of China, which would appear to be the logical extension of his remarks. I hope that he is keeping a tally of the number of people who have been shot dead in the present civil disturbances in the Soviet Union, as well as those who were shot dead in the disturbances in Tiananmen square a year or so ago.

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

Mr. Tebbit : May I proceed for a moment? I do not wish to get into a debate with any hon. Member about the regime in China.

Mr. Madden : What about South Africa?

Mr. Tebbit : Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will contain himself for a moment. I do not wish to get into a debate about the communist regime in China. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that I support any communist regimes anywhere in the world, he is looking at the wrong man and the wrong side of the House. However, I do not wish to be distracted further down that road. I want to follow up some of the remarks made by the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden) concerning the impact of the proposed report by the governor and how we would deal with it in the House.

Such a report would be a nice thing to have. It will make a nice piece of work for someone to write an article about in The Times or even talk about on Sky television where perhaps it would get a larger audience--[ Hon. Members :-- "What about the Evening Standard ?"] Yes, even the Evening Standard --there are many newspapers which are well worth reading.

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How will the report be useful to us in the House? Let us suppose that the Governor's report contains material which we regard as a suitable subject not merely for debate but for a critical debate or even for a vote. What would we vote on? What would be the motion? What effect would it have?

Mr. Madden : We could take note.

Mr. Tebbit : Indeed, as the hon. Gentleman says we could have a take -note debate, but that is all that we would be able to do about it.

Although I welcome the new clause, we should not have any misunderstandings that it will make any difference whatsoever to anything that the Governor does in the name of this House, as we have no control over him if we enact the Bill in its present form.

Mr. Budgen : Will my right hon. Friend consider a suggestion for how we might discover the attitude of the Chinese Government? It seems that there have been many suggestions in newsprint about what they believe, and whether the Bill constitutes a breach of the 1984 agreement. If my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State is correct, it is easy for him. Our Government are in constant touch with the Government of China. He could produce a document from the Chinese Government, duly authorised by them explaining that they do not regard the right of entry, which will be granted by the Bill, as in any way a breach of the 1984 agreement. We need not correspond through newsprint. If what my hon. Friend the Under- Secretary says is true, the Chinese Government will be open, and will say so in an official communication.

Mr. Tebbit : I do not want to be taken too far down that line, but it is quite clear that if the Government of China heard the accusations made by their own spokesman in the press saying that the Bill is in breach of the undertaking, naturally, as a Government having friendly relationships with our Government, they would have been the first to make a statement correcting it, and would have sent a telegram to the Foreign Office--I am not sure whether the Foreign Office communicates with the Home Office about such matters--setting the record straight. It could have been laid upon the Table and we would all have been comforted by it.

Mr. Adley rose--

Mr. Tebbit : I really do not want to detain the House over this issue, but I will give way.

Mr. Adley : The hon. Member for Bradford, West made an impassioned denunciation of the old men in Peking, and we all agree that on the Richter scale of beastliness, it would be hard to find anyone who registers more than they do at the moment. But surely that is not the point. Our responsibility is to the people of Hong Kong and to the real world. The Chinese Government are the people with whom we have to deal, like it or not. Of course we all wish that the Government of China were more like the Government of Luxembourg, but they are not and we have to deal with matters as they are.

Mr. Tebbit : That is absolutely true. There is little chance that by berating those old men in this Chamber we will do anything to bring a beneficial change in China. As my hon. Friend says, it will make matters worse.

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One other subject has been mentioned in connection with the amendment which I do not think was covered very well by the Labour amendments which have been selected ; that is the position of people who may become stateless after 1997. I am not clear about the attitude of the Government towards those people. It would be helpful to all of us if the Under-Secretary were to make the Government's stance absolutely clear. Is it that, if any such persons are left stateless after 1997, they will be automatically granted either British citizenship or rights of abode, or do the Government have some other position?

The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) said that many such people had come from the Indian sub-continent. If that is where they came from, they might have a right to return.

Sir Nicholas Bonsor : As I understand the position in regard to people who went to Hong Kong from the Indian sub-continent, they gave up any rights that they might have had to return when they agreed to take British citizenship offered in Hong Kong. I think that it is far from satisfactory that the British Government should now be taking a position whereby those people will be left with no proper passport or home following 1997, unless amendments are made to the Bill.

Mr. Tebbit : My hon. Friend has a good point. If those people were induced by the British Government to go to Hong Kong by the issue of a document which deprived them of their nationality and will prevent them from returning to the countries from whence they came, it seems, even to me --I am not notably soft on immigration issues--that there is a case for saying that they should be found a home. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Under- Secretary can give an estimate of the numbers concerned, and we could deduct that from the numbers which would otherwise be admitted under the provisions of the Bill.

Mr. Peter Lloyd : Those people who are properly resident in Hong Kong can apply for British dependent territory citizenship now. In 1997 British dependent territory citizens of Chinese descent will automatically become Chinese citizens. There is a question mark beside those who are not of Chinese descent. If they do not become Chinese citizens--that is a matter for the Chinese Government--they will be British overseas citizens, carrying a British overseas passport which will enable them to travel round the world to every country where there are residents who hold such passports. They will not have the right of abode in the United Kingdom, but they will have the right of abode in Hong Kong, and that will be guaranteed to them under the joint agreement.

Mr. Tebbit : I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making it clear that they will not be left as flying Dutchmen--perhaps flying Hong Kongmen would be a better expression--for ever circling the world and never being allowed to alight anywhere. If my hon. Friend can assure me that under the terms of the agreement the Chinese Government accept that they will have a right of abode in Hong Kong, it seems to me that there is no need for us to make specific provision for them. In the event of the Chinese Government not carrying out the undertaking, for some reason, there would be an emergency. We could deal with it in the way in which we always deal with emergencies. I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for clearing up that point.

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5 pm

Sir Peter Blaker (Blackpool, South) : I intend to speak on the two subjects raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit). The first related to urgency. I agree with the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden) that the matter is urgent because of the brain drain, which has grown worse, in absolute numbers, compared with a couple of years ago. If one talks to representatives of British companies operating in Hong Kong, or with interests or investments in Hong Kong, it immediately becomes clear that they are beginning to feel the damage that is caused by the acceleration of the brain drain.

I have been told of key managers leaving Hong Kong to go to Australia, Canada and the United States. We are familiar with the recent raid by Qantas Airways in an attempt to take away 250 mechanics from the Hong Kong aircraft engineering industry Fortunately, the raid was unsuccessful, or had very limited success. That is an example of what we shall face in the future if we do not do something about it now. It is essential, therefore, that Parliament should pass the Bill.

The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) referred to the fact that many Hong Kong Chinese go to Canada or other countries to get the right of residence there, either through themselves or their families, and that many of them come back to Hong Kong. I know that many want to return to Hong Kong, but many of them, I fear, having established residence in Canada and having sent their children to school in Canada--for example, in Vancouver, which is a very agreeable city--find it much more difficult to return to Hong Kong and work there than they had expected when they left to go to Canada. We should not be too encouraged about the numbers who return to Hong Kong in those circumstances.

That is why this Bill is important. It provides a passport for 50, 000 heads of families without their having to go and reside in another country for several years, with the consequence that most of them will not return to Hong Kong.

Mr. Marlow : I ask my right hon. Friend to transpose himself and think of himself as a successful Hong Kong Chinese citizen who is quite well-to-do and who has enough money to take his family with him, after having been offered a British passport. If he were to take the view that life after 1997 under a Hong Kong Chinese Government would be unacceptable and not in the best interests of his family, would he wait until 1997, or would he get out now so that he could re-establish himself and his family and his children's education at the first possible opportunity?

Sir Peter Blaker : I should certainly stay. I do not see why my hon. Friend thinks that I would want to exchange 15 per cent. income tax for 40 per cent. income tax, or that I should want to exchange the agreeably warm climate of Hong Kong for the sometimes chilly climate of England. My hon. Friend is right off the rails.

Mr. Campbell-Savours : I refer the hon. Gentleman back to the question of emigration to Canada. The reason why people are going to Canada now and returning in the way that the right hon. Gentleman does not suggest that they are, but which I know they are, is the nature of the

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Canadian scheme. They have to go now. If they had the option of delaying their emigration to Canada, they would surely do so. It is not that they go to Canada uniquely to establish a right of abode ; often they set up businesses in Canada and then return to their businesses in Hong Kong. Frequently those companies intend to trade.

Sir Peter Blaker : I agree with the hon. Gentleman's main point, although our assessment of how many people return to Hong Kong is different.

My second point relates to the Eurasians and Indians in Hong Kong. The Under-Secretary of State knows that I have been in correspondence with my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary on the matter. I do not intend to repeat everything that I set out in that correspondence. It is right, however, that the matter should be raised, since I hope that I shall receive reassurance on the point from my hon. Friend at the end of the debate.

My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has already explained that the people to whom I refer will have neither British passports nor Chinese passports : they will have British national (overseas) or British dependent territories citizen passports. The Eurasians and the Indians are concerned that they will not have a right of abode elsewhere. They fear--whether they are right or wrong I do not say--that after 1997 they will not be so generously treated as they were during the period of British rule.

I have received representations from Mr. Eric Ho, a distinguished former senior civil servant, the president of the Welfare League which looks after the interests of the Eurasians. He refers to the great loyalty to the Crown and to this country of the Eurasians in Hong Kong. He quoted an extract from the dispatch by General Maltby after the capture of Hong Kong by the Japanese in December 1941. General Maltby said :

"In closing my despatch I wish to pay especial tribute to the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps To quote examples seems almost invidious, but I should like to place on record the superb gallantry of No. 3 (Eurasian) Company at Wong Nei Chong Gap".

That is a striking example of the loyalty that the Eurasian population of Hong Kong have always had to this country. Mr. Ho estimates that only 1,000 passports would be required, not for heads of families but for individuals, to provide for the needs of the Eurasian population.

Mr. Adley : Will my right hon. Friend address his mind to a point that keeps worrying me during the debate : that 50,000 passports will largely go to 50,000 influential, articulate people who know their way around? Is my right hon. Friend willing to contemplate the following proposition : if by giving such an advantage to people who are in a position to apply we thereby destroy the atmosphere for the remaining 5 million Hong Kong citizens who are not so articulate and well connected, shall we be serving all the people of Hong Kong well?

Sir Peter Blaker : That is not my assessment of the likely effect on the morale of those who remain in Hong Kong. It is a difficult problem, but I believe that we are right to do what we are planning to do. In my view, it would be possible to put the figure a little higher than 50,000 heads of families, but that proposal is not before us.

Sir Nicholas Bonsor : On Second Reading, my right hon. Friend referred to the Tootal case. He said that it wants to bring 25 heads of household to this country. Given the

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number of managers who are eligible, and given also the number of applicants that there are bound to be, it is most unlikely that all 25 managers will be successful in their applications. How can my right hon. Friend take the view that that will be good for the morale of the Tootal work force, let alone for the work forces of other companies, if that should prove to be divisive? What about the other managers that Tootal has not chosen for selection but who consider that they should be selected? The proposal will be totally divisive when it comes to the management of work forces in Hong Kong. It cannot possibly have the result for which the Government hope.

Sir Peter Blaker : Since the Second Reading debate I have had conversations with Mr. Geoffrey Maddrell, the managing director of Tootal, on that precise point. My hon. Friend is wrong to say that Tootal wants to bring 25 managers to this country. Tootal wants them to stay in Hong Kong, and that is what they want to do ; indeed, most of them are working in south China. However, Mr. Maddrell acknowledged that there would be a problem if all the 25 are unable to obtain passports. Nevertheless, he believes that it is preferable that some of them should obtain passports rather than that none of them should. That, I believe, is a tenable position.

Reverting to the question of the Indians, it has been suggested that they were induced by a former British Government to Hong Kong, but that was not the reality. After the second world war, they made a choice between going for British nationality in Hong Kong or for Indian nationality. The Indian population has played a distinguished role in Hong Kong, particularly in commerce, and has been important to the colony's economy. The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) suggested that there are many thousands of Indians in Hong Kong, but he was overstating the case.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary says in a letter to me :

"If, against all expectations, any solely British national with no claim to Chinese nationality came under severe pressure to leave Hong Kong, the Government of the day would be expected to consider with considerable and particular sympathy their case for admission to the United Kingdom."

He was referring explicitly to the Eurasians, but I believe that he was intending a similar assurance to be given in relation to the Indians. Can my hon. Friend the Minister reaffirm that assurance, and perhaps go further in his response today?

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