Mr Charles Fletcher-Cooke: When my right hon. Friend, meets his Highness the Sultan of Brunei later today, will she give him an assurance about the future of the battalion of Gurkhas after final independence in 1983?
Mr Charles Fletcher-Cooke: I accept that the machinery provided here is necessary as a complement to the new clause that we have just passed, but it raises once again the question of the nature of citizenship of British dependent territories; that is to say, whether it is a single citizenship or whether it is 20 or so different citizenships, as described in schedule 6. When the United Kingdom Secretary of State...
Mr Charles Fletcher-Cooke: I am not sure how far the amendment goes. If there are two reasons for refusal, one of which is incompetence in the English or Welsh language, will the amendment require that the language difficulty be stated and that something be added to show that there is another reason, or will the language difficulty be the only reason stated? In the latter instance, the amendment should apply only to...
Mr Charles Fletcher-Cooke: Is not the capital inflow a direct result of raising exchange controls, because it gives the foreign investor confidence that if he puts his money into the country he can get it out if a Labour Government come to office?
Mr Charles Fletcher-Cooke: It is nice to be able to welcome a document from the Home Office. I refer to the review of appeals under the Immigration Act 1961 discussion document which, although coloured blue, is a Green Paper. It was published about Easter. It is a good and liberal document in that it seeks to help those wishing to appeal against immigration decisions by the Home Office. In my experience and that of my...
Mr Charles Fletcher-Cooke: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that there is to be no interference with or reduction in the rights of landowners at Wytch farm and that their present and future interests are fully secured?
Mr Charles Fletcher-Cooke: Has my right hon. Friend any information to give about the results of the Scottish experiments in the tape recording of police interviews which have been taking place now for over two years at Falkirk and in another area? The experiments in Scotland seem to be much further advanced than those in England.
Mr Charles Fletcher-Cooke: Trial by confession—that is to say, trial by self-incrimination—is an abject jurisprudence. It is my contention that too many trials today depend purely on self-incrimination. There are some interesting statistics in the report. They are private and not official statistics. Some of them have been criticised already. I draw attention to two statistics which I regard as very disturbing. On...
Mr Charles Fletcher-Cooke: Yes, I suppose so. It is a practical matter. The police seem to be carrying quite a lot of apparatus around with them already. I am not sure whether they can bear one more addition to the Christmas tree. At any rate, I am grateful for my hon. and learned Friend's intervention. It is a serious point. Even if it cannot be met, it does not seem to be so overwhelming that it should exclude the...
Mr Charles Fletcher-Cooke: There is already editing of the record of interviews between counsel and with the leave of the judge. I see no difference in principle between the editing that is done of written statements and the editing of statements and questions and answers that are recorded by machanical means. There should be, and there is, editing. I shall give an example. Frequently there is inadmissible evidence in...
Mr Charles Fletcher-Cooke: I am very interested in this regulation and this statutory instrument that my hon. and learned Friend says does not matter very much. Since we have no binding agreement, the fact that the obligations are to be forcibly transferred again does not matter, because there are no obligations. Nevertheless there seems to be an obligation in regulation 10(2) which says: Long before a relevant...
Mr Charles Fletcher-Cooke: Both are pretty awful.
Mr Charles Fletcher-Cooke: Will my right hon. Friend consider as a matter of urgency the state of the law of copyright? Does he appreciate that it is now eight years or more since the Whitford committee reported? Is he aware that, since then, there have been various technological developments, particularly in the software programming of computers, which means that this country is losing millions of pounds every year...
Mr Charles Fletcher-Cooke: Why not?
Mr Charles Fletcher-Cooke: Is my hon. and learned Friend aware that the fifth directive, nevertheless, has been much improved by the work of Mr. Amédée Turner, the Member of the European Parliament who is on the Legal Committee? Does he agree that the fifth directive as it now is should be taken seriously by the Government, as it is now a far better answer to the problem than the Bullock report?
Mr Charles Fletcher-Cooke: I congratulate the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) on the care with which he conducted the Committee. I was not there, but I have heard about his conduct not only from members of the Committee but from in and around the Temple and elsewhere. People are full of admiration for the way in which he acted as Chairman in a difficult matter. I shall confine my remarks to clause 14, which...
Mr Charles Fletcher-Cooke: Our manufacturing industries still have a remarkable reputation for quality. There are not as many as there used to be, but there are still many. It is upon their reputation for quality that they depend for their markets. Nobody suggests that if an attack on the quality of its goods were made, perhaps destroying an overnight reputation for quality, that would mean that it could have the...
Mr Charles Fletcher-Cooke: It is not only a writ for judicial review; he can start an action for damages because there is an exception to clause 14(3) where the normal immunity is removed from an action for damages and where the act or omission complained of was done or omitted to be done in bad faith. That applies to an action for damages as much as to a review.
Mr Charles Fletcher-Cooke: It was not the feudal barons, it was the medieval Church.
Mr Charles Fletcher-Cooke: I shall be brief. My hon. Friend the Member for Nantwich (Sir N. Bonsor) has made a very impressive speech, and it would be folly on my part to repeat it. Having given the House the benefit of my thinking on a previous occasion, I make only three short points. My hon. Friend is right to say that if the immunity—which is a large but not total immunity—is given, no doubt for the best of...