Strong Opposition To Migration Bill

Press, Volume C, Issue 29673, 17 November 1961, Page 15

Strong Opposition To Migration Bill

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) LONDON, November 16. Britain’s Labour Opposition will make an all-out attack on the Government’s Commonwealth Immigration Bill today, when the bill comes up for its second reading.

The Opposition will introduce an amendment which says the bill will be “widely regarded as introducing colour bar” into British legislation. It will ask the House to reject the bill until adequate inquiry is made and a full discussion is held at a meeting of Commonwealth Prime Ministers. Labour’s hostility to the bill sharpened yesterday when it became clear after a meeting of Conservative members that the Government despaired of being able to apply the proposed controls to workers from the Irish Republic. The restrictions would thus apply almost entirely to coloured immigrants from the West Indies, India. Pakistan. West Africa and elsewhere. Those Labour members who were only lukewarm in their opposition are said to have rallied strongly, now that it looks likely the restrictions will not be applicable to Irish Republic immigrants. The bill will enable the

Government to control the flow of people from Commonwealth countries and empower Law Courts to send home immigrants guilty of serious crimes, if they wish. The bill, as it stands, will not keep out anyone who has a job to go to, who is selfsupporting. who possesses certain skills or is a bona fide student. But others outside these categories can be regulated by the Minister of Labour according to Britain’s need for workers at any given time. The Labour amendment says the House should decline a second reading “to a measure which removes from Commonwealth citizens the long-standing right of free entry into Britain. “It gives excessive discretionary power to the Executive without any provision for appeals and it will be widely regarded as introducing a colour bar into our legislation. “It fails to deal with the deplorable social and housing conditions under which recent Commonwealth immigrants and other subjects of Her Majesty are living.”