The hon. Gentleman has missed all our previous proceedings, in which the Home Secretary said that he could not apply that part of the Bill to the Irish. I hope that it does not change the hatred the hon. Gentleman has for the Bill when he finds that the Irish still are to come in free. We on this side welcome his support.

I had not intended to intervene, because we have a large number of very important Amendments to Clause 2. It is on that Clause that we have the best possibility of improving the Bill and making it less harmful to the Commonwealth. We all hope that we can get through Clause 1 very quickly, have a vote on it, and proceed to Clause 2.

I am tempted to intervene because of what the noble Lord the Member for Hertford (Lord Balniel) said. I say this to him in all friendliness and sincerity. I hope that he will not take it amiss. I spent the whole of my time during the Recess travelling in the West Indies to assess the effect of the Bill. I hope that the noble Lord and other hon. Members opposite will take this as a compliment. There has been no greater help, other than the attitude of the Opposition, towards the cause of the Commonwealth in the West Indies in the last few weeks than the strong feelings expressed by a certain number of hon. Members opposite. I have been proud to pay some tribute to them in the West Indies and say that this has shown that there is a deep conscience in these matters, not just on the Labour side of the House of Commons, but on the Conservative side, also.

The hatred, anxiety and deep concern that sprang up in the West Indies over the Bill have been very strongly modified by the strong stand taken not only on this side of the Committee, but by very sincere hon. Members on the Conservative back benches. I disregard the Government in this. I treat them with utter contempt, because I do not think that they ever tried to assess the terrible effects of the Bill. However, a few of us on both sides of the Committee have shown to areas like the West Indies that this deep conscience of the Mother Country runs strong in some of us.

This has had an enormous effect in the West Indies. I "chanced my arm" to say that the effect of the opposition there plus the opposition on both sides of the House of Commons in this country, will be that the Bill will be bound to be interpreted benignly by the Government. I have done my best in those areas by saying, "Do not worry too much. We still hope that tens of thousands of you will get in". It is the spirit of the House of Commons which has done more good out there in these trying days than anything else which could have happened after this dreadful Bill was introduced. I want very sincerely to say to the hon. Member for Hertford and his hon. Friends who have been with us on the Bill that they have done a great deal of good to the Commonwealth in the last few weeks.

As the Home Secretary is now bound to make at least some reply to a very short discussion, I wonder whether he can give us the next stage of the story about the Irish. In the original Bill they were in. On Second Reading, the Home Secretary said that he could not apply it to the Irish; they were out. Later in the debate the Minister of Labour said that they were in. In Committee, the Home Secretary said that they were out again. We have had this game of ins-and-outs, which has done no good for the idea of British legislation during these last few weeks. It has been almost a charade, ending in an attempt by the Attorney-General to put pressure on the Irish Government to introduce legislation, which would, he said, render it unnecessary for us to do anything to restrict the Irish.

Can we know whether this pressure, which has been frankly put by the British Government on the Irish Government, has produced results? Is the Home Secretary now able to say whether the Irish Government will introduce legislation to restrict Commonwealth citizens landing at any of the Irish ports? Does this mean that the Government have finally made a firm decision not to apply the Bill to the Irish? Can we have the next instalment of this very unhappy, and, I would say, legislatively sordid story?

4.30 p.m.

Cannot the Home Secretary take this opportunity—I say this with deep sincerity and no one, I think, doubts my own sincerity about the Bill—to give us information which would do a great deal of good for the Commonwealth? Can he tell us now, and tell the Commonwealth now, the sort of figure that he has in mind for entry in the coming year? This is the crucial issue now.

We have killed the spirit of the Bill. Hon. Members on both sides have managed to do that in recent weeks. The Bill is half dead, as I said in the West Indies. All that we want to know now is: what are the figures? Can the Home Secretary tell us whether he has in mind allowing in 30,000, 40,000, or 50,000 West Indians, plus other figures for other parts of the Commonwealth, and can he say whether the figures for 1959–60 will be taken as reasonable by the Government, that is, about 30,000 to 80,000 Commonwealth immigrants coming in every year?

Is this what the Government hope to see happen in future years as opposed to the high figures, or what they may think were the high figures, in 1961? If he can say something like that, he will have undone some of the harm which this dreadful Bill did when it was first introduced.