Mr Ivor Richard: I still do not follow what the hon. Gentleman says. With great respect, I think that he is seeking to devise a form of weasel words. He is now saying that the clear pledge given by Lord Windlesham in another place had nothing to do with the status or position of Pakistanis in this country. He is saying that all that statement was designed to do was to deal with their security of tenure in the...
Mr Ivor Richard: I am obliged to my hon. Frienud. He has done his homework better than I have. If it is right in relation to the South Africa Act that a white South African citizen who had been admitted to the United Kingdom was given up to eight years in which to take up an election to become a British subject, but that a coloured Pakistani citizen who has been admitted to this country under precisely the...
Mr Ivor Richard: That is a distinction, but it does not invalidate my point. My point is a simple one—that when Britain faced a similar situation in relation to the status of white South Africans, Her Majesty's Government took one course and gave them up to eight years for the purpose of final registration. When we face the same problem in relation to coloured Pakistanis who are now living in this country,...
Mr Ivor Richard: If that is right, why was it necessary to legislate in the case of South Africa on this precise point?
Mr Ivor Richard: With respect, I understand that the short Bill was a temporary holding Bill. Nevertheless, it was still necessary to legislate when South Africa left the Commonwealth. That is the whole point.
Mr Ivor Richard: I am not making myself clear. I understand the right hon. Gentleman to be arguing that, because Pakistan left the Commonwealth, it ceased to have the meaning that was ascribed to it in the 1948 Act. I am merely asking: if that is so, why was it necessary to legislate on that specific point when South Africa left the Commonwealth? If it did not need the legislation, why did we legislate?
Mr Ivor Richard: Which the right hon. Gentleman says is unnecessary.
Mr Ivor Richard: Will the Minister give way?
Mr Ivor Richard: The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) says that as from 30th January 1972 Pakistanis ceased to be Pakistanis in the true legal sense that they were before that date. The Government have consistently disagreed with his legal interpretation of the effect of Pakistan's leaving the Commonwealth. Nevertheless, I understand that the right hon. Gentleman is arguing that...
Mr Ivor Richard: All the way through this debate the Government have said—and the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West has dissented from the proposition—that the mere fact that Pakistan leaves the Commonwealth does not alter the legal status of Pakistan under the British Nationality Act, 1948, and that therefore Pakistanis post-30th January 1972 means precisely the same as Pakistanis...
Mr Ivor Richard: It is not the date when the legal effects of that decision arise. The Government have said that the effects arise on the passage of the Bill. I agreed with the Minister, but his right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West did not. However, if the legal effects of Pakistan leaving the Commonwealth do not arise until 14th May, why pick 30th January as the operative date?
Mr Ivor Richard: Mr. Richard rose—
Mr Ivor Richard: The Government are getting themselves in the most frightful muddle this evening. I assume that 3rd February 1972 is the date upon which Bangladesh became an independent republic. Is that the significance of the date as it appears in the Bill? I assume that someone on the Treasury Bench will be capable of telling me what is the significance of that date since it appears in about four different...
Mr Ivor Richard: I am much obliged. So the British Government recognised Bangladesh as from 4th February 1972. Prior to that date citizens of Bangladesh were presumably, in British law, citizens of Pakistan. As from 30th January 1972 Pakistan ceased to be a member of the Commonwealth. In the unlikely event that there is someone who would have been a citizen of Bangladesh had he remained there but who came to...
Mr Ivor Richard: Perhaps the House will allow me to say that I should not like the suggestion to be placed on record unanswered that officially, as the Opposition, we did not welcome the accession of Bangladesh to the Commonwealth with great warmth and hope for the future. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wednesbury (Mr. Stonehouse) has not had the advantage of sitting in on our earlier debate today on...
Mr Ivor Richard: Does the Secretary of State agree that, given the present political situation in Rhodesia, this, perhaps, is particularly the time when, far from seeking to weaken sanctions, we should be trying to strengthen them? Is he prepared to consider the possibility, and later make a statement to the House about the effect of his consideration, by such ways as may be open to him—various suggestions...
Mr Ivor Richard: Are the Government seriously saying, in relation to a British subject who has been in prison from 20th February to 9th May, and in respect of whom no charges have been brought, that they have not even seen fit to inquire as to the circumstances—to inquire of a country with whom, apparently, we are just about to celebrate 600 years of closeness and alliance?
Mr Ivor Richard: Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that, so long after the war has finished, it is very wrong that prisoners of war should continue to find themselves being used as political pawns in a diplomatic game in the Indian sub-continent? We have some leverage in the area. I should have thought that the Foreign Office could be a bit firmer than it has been this afternoon.
Mr Ivor Richard: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the proposed line of the West Cross route goes straight through the middle of my constituency, that a large number of my constituents have written to me, and I have written to a large number of Ministers, asking them what is to happen to my constituents? Is he further aware that, if the Government do not disclose the full reasoning behind whatever...
Mr Ivor Richard: Does the Prime Minister recognise that there is widespread concern, which is not confined to one side of the House of Commons, about the recent disclosures in The Guardian? Why on earth will not the Government accept that people would very much like to know precisely the facts about British firms in South Africa and how they treat their African labourers? Why does not the Prime Minister...
