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Mr. Corbyn : As one who spoke against the Bill on Second Reading, right through Committee and in today's proceedings, I want to put on record my continuing opposition to the Bill and my contempt for the purpose of it and the way in which the whole thing has been presented.

It has been accompanied, as other hon. Members have said, by a particularly nasty campaign in the popular press, with day-to-day stories of alleged social security fraud, including telephone fraud, with a story one day of excessive numbers of people seeking asylum and, on the next day, a story of multiple asylum applications. Yet at no stage are these stories properly collated or the issues surrounding asylum properly set out. It is part of an attempt to create a fear, a xenophobic attitude in the country, and it has been promoted by the Home Office and, in particular, by the Home Secretary with his disgusting and disgraceful speech to the Tory party conference some months ago.

It is against that background that there is a refusal by the Home Secretary and the media to recognise the real reasons why people seek asylum or the fact that the vast majority of people who have sought and obtained some form of safe haven have not come to western Europe or north America but have been cared for by the poor in the

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poor countries of the world. It is in Mexico, India, Iran and the Sudan that one finds very large numbers of people who have sought asylum, living in awful conditions and with very little help given by the wealthy west.

Yet all these things--the use of the words "flood" and "waves", the supposedly large numbers of asylum seekers trying to get into western Europe--are used to stoke up fears. On the back of this xenophobia, the racists are at work in Europe : there have been 800 attacks on the homes of people in western and eastern Germany who have sought to work there for economic reasons. Racist violence is going on there. There have been attacks on the streets of France. Racist attacks happen once very 30 minutes in this country. That is the agenda of the new Europe. I am not saying that the Bill is entirely related to all that, but the atmosphere surrounding it and the purpose behind its introduction lie in the direction of stoking up racist feelings in this country when we should be heading in the opposite direction. The Bill makes it more difficult for those fleeing from persecution to gain entry into this country. As a result of the Trevi group and the Schengen and Dublin agreements, it is now more difficult to gain entry into western Europe as a whole. Those who readily condemn people who seek political asylum should spare a thought for what those who have suffered from political and social persecution have gone through. They should talk to those who have been tortured in Somalia or Zaire. They should talk to those who fled from the regime of Saddam Hussein--not last year when that was a popular cause because of the Gulf war, but five or 10 years ago when the British Government were happily trading with Saddam Hussein. They should talk to those who have fled from Iran and to those who managed to get out of the national stadium in Chile in 1973 when 20,000 people were killed by that fascist dictatorship--another one that was armed by the British Government.

We need some understanding of what it is like to have to leave one's country, possibly never to return--because that is what seeking political asylum is all about. Our attitude should recognise what we would want for ourselves if we were in the same situation--a place of safety, welcome and understanding. Instead, we offer a limited right of appeal with limited access to social security. We positively refuse to grant such asylum seekers permanent housing.

The Bill will go down in history as one of those nasty reactionary measures introduced by a particularly nasty and reactionary Government who are seeking to run with a nasty tide. We should recognise the victims of persecution not as the cause of a problem, but as the victims of a much wider problem. We should adopt a more welcoming and supportive attitude towards them. The Bill is wholly wrong and inappropriate. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden) rightly said, the Bill is wholly friendless and should be opposed by the House.

10.21 pm

Mr. Darling : Although we have had long discussions on the Bill both in Committee and on the Floor of the House, it would be wrong to let the Bill pass its Third Reading without comment. There is no doubt that the problems of asylum seekers and of the movement of people in Europe

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and elsewhere are real problems, but they need to be tackled rationally instead of being seen as an opportunity to score political advantage.

Hon. Members will remember that the Bill was yet another Tory flagship. The Home Secretary promoted its cause throughout last year--in the House, at the Tory party conference and wherever he could--but he has not even spoken today. It is no coincidence that the same Secretary of State who introduced the poll tax, which is now floundering, has abandoned the central plank of the Bill--the attempt to remove legal aid from those who seek asylum. It is clear from today's debate that legal advice and assistance is here to stay- -at least for the time being. The Government's chosen replacement is now to be broken up because it cannot discharge the task that the Home Secretary was so confident only 11 months ago that it could. The rules that were published at lunch time today have made substantial concessions. I am glad of that and pay tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department who has attempted to fashion a workable Bill out of what started originally as a piece of political rhetoric.

However, the Bill remains ill thought out. It was rushed out in an attempt to gain party advantage, which has failed, rather than being an attempt to tackle the real problem. The Committee and Report stages have effected substantial changes and we understand that more changes are to be proposed in another place. However, the Bill remains fundamentally flawed. I refer especially to the lack of a right of appeal. The clauses that are designed to discourage people from seeking asylum serve no other purpose.

Nothing in the Bill will stop asylum applications. As long as there is conflict and famine throughout the world, people will apply for asylum. The challenge for us is to deal with those applications fairly and thoroughly so that we do not run the risk of sending people back to countries where they may be tortured or face death. The Bill has failed to rise to that challenge. It was designed for entirely the wrong reasons. It has failed to meet the many challenges that it needs to meet. For those reasons, we shall oppose its Third Reading.

10.25 pm

Mr. Peter Lloyd : This is a good and necessary Bill and I reject utterly the inflammatory, indeed palpably ignorant, charge by the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) and other hon. Gentlemen who, like him, have suggested that it is racist. It is designed to give effect to the 1951 United Nations convention in a way that ensures that all those who arrive in the United Kingdom with a well-founded fear of persecution, wherever they come from, will find a safe haven here ; and that those who have no such fear and no other humanitarian or appropriate reason for remaining, wherever they come from, will be obliged to leave.

I urge the House to give the Bill a Third Reading and speed it to the other place.

Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time : The House divided : Ayes 298, Noes 216.

Question accordingly agreed to.

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Division No. 47] [10.25 pm

AYES

Adley, Robert

Alexander, Richard

Alison, Rt Hon Michael

Allason, Rupert

Amess, David

Amos, Alan

Arbuthnot, James

Arnold, Sir Thomas

Ashby, David

Atkins, Robert

Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

Baldry, Tony

Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

Batiste, Spencer

Bellingham, Henry

Bendall, Vivian

Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

Benyon, W.

Biffen, Rt Hon John

Blackburn, Dr John G.

Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Boswell, Tim

Bottomley, Peter

Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

Bowis, John

Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

Brandon-Bravo, Martin

Brazier, Julian

Bright, Graham

Brown, Michael (Brigg & Cl't's)

Browne, John (Winchester)

Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

Budgen, Nicholas

Burns, Simon

Burt, Alistair

Butler, Chris

Butterfill, John

Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Carrington, Matthew

Carttiss, Michael

Cash, William

Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

Channon, Rt Hon Paul

Chapman, Sydney

Churchill, Mr

Clark, Rt Hon Alan (Plymouth)

Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

Clark, Rt Hon Sir William

Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

Colvin, Michael

Conway, Derek

Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

Cope, Rt Hon Sir John

Cormack, Patrick

Couchman, James

Cran, James

Currie, Mrs Edwina

Davies, Q. (Stamf'd & Spald'g)

Day, Stephen

Devlin, Tim

Dickens, Geoffrey

Dorrell, Stephen

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

Dover, Den

Dunn, Bob

Durant, Sir Anthony

Dykes, Hugh

Eggar, Tim

Emery, Sir Peter

Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

Evennett, David

Fallon, Michael

Favell, Tony

Fenner, Dame Peggy

Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

Fishburn, John Dudley

Forman, Nigel

Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

Forth, Eric

Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

Freeman, Roger

French, Douglas

Fry, Peter

Gale, Roger

Gardiner, Sir George

Gill, Christopher

Glyn, Dr Sir Alan

Goodhart, Sir Philip

Goodlad, Rt Hon Alastair

Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

Gorman, Mrs Teresa

Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

Greenway, John (Ryedale)

Gregory, Conal

Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

Grist, Ian

Ground, Patrick

Grylls, Sir Michael

Hague, William

Hamilton, Rt Hon Archie

Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

Hampson, Dr Keith

Hanley, Jeremy

Hannam, Sir John

Hargreaves, A. (B'ham H'll Gr')

Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

Harris, David

Hawkins, Christopher

Hayes, Jerry

Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

Hayward, Robert

Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

Hill, James

Hind, Kenneth

Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

Hordern, Sir Peter

Howarth, Alan (Strat'd-on-A)

Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

Hunt, Rt Hon David

Hunter, Andrew

Irvine, Michael

Jack, Michael

Jackson, Robert

Janman, Tim

Jessel, Toby

Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

Key, Robert

Kilfedder, James

King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

Kirkhope, Timothy

Knapman, Roger

Knight, Greg (Derby North)

Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

Knowles, Michael

Knox, David

Lang, Rt Hon Ian

Latham, Michael

Lawrence, Ivan

Lee, John (Pendle)

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