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7.13 pm

Sir Russell Johnston (Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber): Despite the upbeat way in which the Foreign Secretary began this debate, it has been--and cannot be other than--a sombre debate. As the right hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Renton) said, 11 years have passed since the debates on the Hong Kong Bill; one would have thought that that was more than ample time for any differences, ambiguities and uncertainties remaining after the conclusion of the joint agreement to be resolved. Yet fundamental differences persist.

The joint agreement was warmly welcomed when it was made; it was hailed as a remarkable breakthrough, with its concept, as the right hon. Gentleman reminded us, of one country and two systems, and it was greeted in an atmosphere of excited optimism. In a debate in 1984, I said:

"can Britain do anything about making the agreement stick in the spirit as well as the words? . . . As someone said to me in Hong Kong in October"--

that was October 1984--

"'the music is good but the song must be well sung.' In other words, it is the implementation and practice that are important."

That remains the position today. I went on to say:

"I am sure that something can be done."--[Official Report, 5 December 1984; Vol. 69, c. 415.]

I am not so sure now, and time is much shorter.

The omens for the maintenance and extension of democracy, the sustaining of a judiciary independent of government, and the continued operation of a free press and free media are fairly bleak. Those are the crucial characteristics that the joint agreement was thought to conserve and protect; they define the distinctiveness of the system in Hong Kong by contrast with the system in the People's Republic of China.

Reference has already been made by the Foreign Secretary and by the right hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) to Wang Dan, the 26-year-old dissident student imprisoned for 11 years. What were his crimes? They were writing articles in overseas publications criticising the Chinese Government, joining an overseas correspondence course run by the university of California and setting up a mutual aid scheme for dissidents released from gaol.

When the Chinese were criticised by the British, French, Americans and others, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said:

"the trial of Wang Dan is entirely a Chinese legal procedure, carried out in accordance with the law".

I want to couple that quotation with one from the letter circulated to all hon. Members by the Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley), responding to criticisms of Chinese Foreign Minister Qian's interview in The Asian Wall Street Journal. The Minister said that the Government had reminded China of its obligations concerning freedom of speech under the joint agreement. He added:

"Mr. Qian has since said that the rights and freedoms of the Hong Kong people set out in the Basic Law will be protected according to law".

That inspires much less confidence and much more trepidation than it used to.

We must, as most hon. Members have been, be blunt, clear and open about our concerns. I want Britain to leave Hong Kong with honour. We are, after all, delivering a

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large group of people into the hands of those from whom they fled. A member of the LegCo delegation that I met yesterday put it succinctly:

"What the British can do they won't; what they want to do they can't."

We could, of course, have offered the guarantee of British citizenship--and we still could. That would be the ultimate proof of our confidence in the agreement; it would provide security for people in Hong Kong and show China that we accepted our responsibility for them and believed that China would fulfil its accepted obligations. I do not believe that it would lead to a vast influx of Chinese into the country, but it would put enormous pressure on China to make the agreement work.

The Government often preach about morality. The issue of citizenship is a profoundly moral question. It is greatly to the credit of the LegCo delegation led by Emily Lau--whose tenacity in the pursuit of democracy I salute--that despite the passage of 11 years since the agreement left them with a toytown passport which gives them no right of abode outside Hong Kong and subject to the willingness of the Chinese to accept them, it spent much time pleading the cause of the 6,000 or so, mainly Indian, ethnic minority people.

I shall not say much about that, because the matter has been well rehearsed. However, the Foreign Secretary quoted again the Prime Minister's remark to the effect that if they

"come under pressure to leave"

they will be allowed into this country. As the right hon. Member for Livingston said, defining that condition, given the way in which the Home Office deals with refugees, could be a nightmare. The treatment of the families of the Gurkhas who left Hong Kong does not impress in that regard. I warmly welcome the statement of the right hon. Member for Livingston on the ethnic minorities.

I studied the Minister's letter with great care. There was some repetition of it in the Foreign Secretary's speech. The appointment of a provisional legislature has been dealt with already. I welcome the Foreign Secretary's strong condemnation of that proposition. The House's response should encourage him to pursue the issue with vigour. In mentioning that Hong Kong had been accepted into several international organisations, he said that Hong Kong had been accepted in its own right. If the legislature is appointed and not elected, to talk of Hong Kong in "its own right" is meaningless.

I followed with interest the remarks of the right hon. Member for Livingston about the effect of Governor Patten's extension of democracy and the fact that the Chinese were supposed to have felt that it breached their understanding. The Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee seemed not to support that contention. I think that Governor Patten was right. I am not sure what the right hon. Member for Livingston would have done otherwise--apart from nothing, which is not a good idea.

Reference has been made to the fact that perhaps 50 per cent. of the existing Members of LegCo may be persuaded to join the proposed provisional legislature if it comes to pass, but it has been insufficiently stressed that the 50 per cent. who will not join are the democratically elected Members. They will not join because they know that if they did, their future as democratic politicians would be prejudiced.

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What about the international covenants? The Minister's letter states that the Chinese are "actively" considering accession. What evidence is there of that? It would be a considerable advance if they were, but I take leave very much to doubt it. If they were to do that, it would be not only Hong Kong with which they would be concerned, but other parts of China such as Tibet, as the right hon. Member for Mid-Sussex said.

I ask the Minister again to spell out how Britain views her monitoring responsibilities after the handover. The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) mentioned that. There is no mechanism, or proposed mechanism, to deal with it. Perhaps the consulate might be involved. I should like to know.

The Minister says that the United Nations human rights committee has stated that it will accept reporting

"on whatever basis China and Britain agree".

But they have not agreed, although they have had 11 years to do so. What commitment does Britain make to monitor and report to the United Nations? The Minister must answer that.

The Minister rightly said that confidence in Hong Kong has been holding up well. But as one LegCo Member said to me,

"there is a deep sense of resignation. For good or ill we can do nothing: we must be optimistic."

I want to be optimistic, too. I want the transition to go well.

In Chris Patten, we have had in our last Governor our best Governor. But our refusal to guarantee citizenship shames us. Our bystander approach to the erosion of basic elements in the agreement does not do us credit. Hon. Members will have read the trenchant and direct letter from Martin Lee. We still have time to make amends and to go out proudly. I hope that that is what we shall do.

7.25 pm

Sir Patrick Cormack (South Staffordshire): It is always a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber (Sir R. Johnston), with whom I have co-operated on several ventures and with whom I rarely find myself at odds on foreign affairs. I agree strongly with much of what he said. I agree that we have a moral obligation. Moral obligations are real. What is morally wrong is never politically right. I think that we made a mistake in not granting passports. Like the hon. Gentleman, I believe that, far from being faced with an influx of indigent people from the east, we would merely have given due reassurance where it was deserved. We would also have shown China that we truly meant business in every way.

There are things that we could, and should, still do. It is disappointing that the Chamber is so empty, but those hon. Members who are present are deeply committed and concerned. I hope that we can translate that commitment and concern not only beyond today but beyond 30 June 1997.

Extraordinary situations call for extraordinary remedies. It has been said during the debate that we are dealing with an unparalleled and unprecedented situation. As we have a continuing responsibility, which is recognised by the fact that the joint liaison group will

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continue to the year 2000, should we not discover what we can do through the mechanisms at our disposal in the House? Is there not a case for a special Select Committee to continue to monitor what happens in Hong Kong? Would that not be an earnest of our good intentions to our friends from Hong Kong?

I cannot pretend to the long and detailed knowledge of Hong Kong that many hon. Members can bring to the debate. I went there for the first time little more than a month ago. It was a great honour to lead what will be the last Commonwealth Parliamentary Association delegation to Hong Kong. It was an attractive invitation, not least because the week that we went coincided with the Conservative party conference, so I was able to employ myself productively and miss what is not my favourite week of the year.

It was a fascinating experience. I know that the six of us who went--three from each side of the House--were deeply impressed and very moved by what we saw and heard. The vibrancy of the place is quite amazing. Those who have been there know that from experience, while those who have not can only imagine, as I sought to do in the past. Whether one was looking down at the floor of the stock exchange or watching the extraordinary movement of earth to create the new airport, one was aware that one was in a quite amazing place. It really is fantastic, with its innovative skills and the wonderful industry of its people.

We were impressed, too, when we met our former right hon. Friend the Governor, who gave us a good portion of his time. I agree again with the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber that Hong Kong can never have had a better Governor: he has served Hong Kong and his country with immense distinction during the four and a half years that he has been there. Yes, in many ways it was an impossible task, but he has brought to it a determination and a realism that few could have matched. What was noticeable when one talked to people in Hong Kong was that even though some had reservations about some of the Governor's judgments, and it would be idle to pretend that they did not, no one really had a bad word to say for him.

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