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Mr. Hattersley : I assure the Home Secretary that there is no disagreement between us on one point. Anyone who marries simply in order to get into this country does not qualify for entry ; the logical debate concerns how it is decided what the reason for the marriage was. What I have asked the Home Secretary to defend, in logic, is a system that allows one human being to judge the mind of another on wholly subjective evidence- -not on the evidence presented to him, as I think the Minister is now pointing out, but on his own subjective judgment.
As the Home Secretary clearly wishes to dispute such points of logic, will he explain the justice, as well as the rationality, of an immigration service that allows a Frenchwoman living in this country to bring in her Madagascan husband, but does not allow an Englishwoman living in this country to bring in her Pakistani husband ? How can the right hon. and learned Gentleman possibly justify that ?
Mr. Clarke : Let me deal with the first question. [Interruption.] The second is an anomaly--the first is easier to deal with--and does not derive from our rules.
I thought that the right hon. Gentleman was close to agreeing with me. We are discussing whether a person has an overwhelming human right to come here--I paraphrase slightly, but this is not a court of law--if his main reason for marrying is to get around the immigration rules. There may be subsidiary reasons, but the main reason--they would not have married except for the fact--is that one wanted to remain here. That is the logical argument for the rules. The right hon. Gentleman was saying that there was no logical argument, and then he asked, "How do you judge that without trying to get into somebody's mind?"
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Throughout the system of law and administration, trying on the evidence to judge somebody else's state of mind frequently has to be subjective.For example, let us consider the case of someone who says that he is coming here as a visitor. He may have some other reason for coming here. A person who asserts that he is coming here as a visitor is sometimes refused because, on the evidence available and in all the circumstances, the immigration officer says, "No. This chap may be coming here partly because he wants to visit English cathedrals or partly because he wants to visit his sick mother, but his main reason is that he does not want to go back when he is finished doing those things. He wishes to come here and settle."
Nobody has ever argued that cases such as that should be refused. All such cases involve difficult judgments about what is someone's intention, in all the circumstances, not just what they say that their intentions are. That is why it is a sensitive matter in which we have to construct careful legislation and have an appeals system, which is what we should be talking about.
Mr. Andrew Hargreaves (Birmingham, Hall Green) : Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?
Mr. Clarke : If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I have already given way far more often on immigration and the primary-purpose rule than I said I would.
Going back to the first and most difficult issue, many points were raised. I reassert that, in the other matters to which I shall refer and steadily work through, my main aim in respect of race relations will be to build upon--[ Hon. Members :-- "What about the second point?"] I obviously look forward to an enlivening and--
Several Hon. Members rose --
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes) : Order. Hon. Members know quite well that, if a Minister does not give way, hon. Members must resume their seat.
Mr. Clarke : I look forward to further debates on immigration. They will obviously be lively, but they make progress. In the past half hour, the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook has conceded that there is logic in the policy behind the primary-purpose rule, and he has at least stepped back to his second point--his lesser point, in my opinion--which is on the difficulties of applying it. We shall return to that matter in due course. We have agreed that the aim in this aspect of race relations is to build upon, help to strengthen further--
Mr. Madden : On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. It may assist you and the House to know that our concern is that the Home Secretary has failed to answer the second part of a two-part question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley). Will the Home Secretary now deal with the matter of a British woman seeking--
Madam Deputy Speaker : Order. The Chair cannot judge how satisfactory a Minister's answers might be, otherwise our proceedings would be endless.
Mr. Clarke : Given that, on the first point, the Opposition have been bowled middle stump, they seem to be extremely anxious to try to scratch around for another one which they know perfectly well derives from Community law and not from British law. I do not think
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that most of the Opposition would wish to fall in line with French or Community practice in many of those race relations matters. They know perfectly well that British race relations law --British immigration law, I dare say--is superior in almost all respects to that on the continent.Mr. Dennis Turner (Wolverhampton, South-East) : Will the Home Secretary give way?
Mr. Clarke : No ; I must move on.
Mr. Turner rose --
Mr. Clarke : No ; I am moving on. The hon. Gentleman may ask me a question some other time, but I am moving on.
Mr. Turner : Will the Home Secretary please give way?
Mr. Clarke : On the question that was--
Madam Deputy Speaker : Order. Secretary of State, would you resume your seat while I am standing, please? I have very recently made the point that if a Minister, or indeed any other hon. Member who has the floor, does not give way, it is his or her right so to do.
Mr. Clarke : I apologise for not sitting down, Madam Deputy Speaker. Your rising is the only thing that gets the hon. Member for Wolverhampon, South-East (Mr. Turner) to sit down.
The question of Muslim schools was also raised. It is simply not the case that education policy in any way discriminates against Muslim schools--of course it does not. I shall explain exactly what the position is. Voluntary -aided schools exist for denominational, confessional education. It is open to anyone who has such a school to maintain it and to anyone to apply to open a new one. In my opinion--I am sure that my opinion is indistinguishable from that of the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook and from that of the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), who speaks on education for the Opposition--it is right that we should defend the right of parents who wish to have access to denominational education, if it can be provided, be they Roman Catholic, Anglican, Jewish, Muslim or of any other religious denomination. That is applied throughout Britain, regardless of religious confession.
It is difficult to open a new voluntary-aided school because of the rules which are applied to all such schools. There have been two Muslim applications in recent years. One was withdrawn. The only one that was turned down was the Islamia school in Brent in north London. It was turned down by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport, who was Secretary of State for Education and Science before me. The criterion applied to that school were exactly the same as those applied to any other school.
The first criteria is whether the school will follow the national curriculum. We must be candid. That is a question that has to be asked in a fair number of the Muslim applications. Although it does not apply to the Brent school, private Muslim schools have sailed near to teaching the female pupils domestic science, Koranic studies and not a lot of other things which should be taught under the national curriculum. It is not discriminatory to insist that the national curriculum should be applied.
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Obviously, the usual judgments are made about whether the school is well run, but the key criterion is whether there is a demand for places in the education authority. For schools of all denominations it has been the practice of the Department of Education for many years to turn down applications for new school places, which would cause an extra burden on public funds and create extra school places, in boroughs or counties where there is already a surplus, which in some cases the local authority is trying to tackle. That is where the Islamia school went down. I will not say any more about it, because it is subject to litigation. I have missed it because the decision was taken before my time and the matter has been before the courts ever since. I have no doubt that my successor is contemplating the advice of the judges to look at the matter again.I know for a fact that the decision of my predecessor was not based on any rule which he would not apply to a Jewish, Catholic or Anglican school. We are talking about the relevance of the surplus places argument in the application for the Islamia school.
Mr. Paul Boateng (Brent, South) : Will the Secretary of State give way ?
Mr. Clarke : I will give way on schools. Then I shall move on to some of the other matters raised by the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook.
Mr. Boateng : The Secretary of State outlined the vacant places criterion and said that Muslim schools or schools of any other denomination are permitted to open only where there are no vacant places. Does that same criterion apply to the imposition of city technology colleges on local education authorities? If not, why not?
Mr. Clarke : That is pure education policy. It has nothing to do with ethnic minority policy. It applies because CTCs-- [Interruption.] I will argue about city technology colleges if it is in order to do so. The criterion is applied because city technology colleges are a valuable acquisition of educational provision in areas, some of which are governed by Labour authorities, where the present level of provision is fairly appalling. CTCs take large numbers of ethnic minority pupils.
To take an obvious example, in Nottingham the CTC is providing educational opportunities to people from deprived parts of that city and especially from ethnic minority families who would not have had those opportunities if the policy of the local Labour council to resist the opening of that CTC had been successful. To that extent, CTCs are relevant to this debate.
It is wrong and positively unhelpful to good race relations for anyone to imply for political reasons, as a few did at the last election, that decisions on Muslim schools are taken according to some criteria which discriminate against Muslims. I gave the go-ahead to a new Jewish voluntary -aided school in north-east London shortly before the election.
Mr. Clarke : I will not comment on that "Ah" from the hon. Gentleman. We take the same view with Jews as with Muslims or Christians.
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Mr. Clarke : Yes, we do. Our discussions on that school were about surplus places in that part of London. A great argument broke out. The applicants had to satisfy me that the school would not provide surplus places before the Jewish school was allowed to go ahead. That remains the rule. Undoubtedly, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education is reflecting on it in his new departmental responsibility in the light of what the judges had to say about the Brent case.The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook rightly raised the issue of jobs, which I believe is at the core of the debate. Discrimination in job opportunities is the greatest handicap that can fall on any community. It can have wider consequences. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that the Government, both under the former Prime Minister and certainly under the present Prime Minister, believe in extending the fullest opportunity equally to every section of the community. We want to open to people from every background equal opportunity to enter any part of the labour market and go right to the top. I do not intend to spend too long on the arguments about finance, but that is one part of the Opposition motion which I challenge.
Mr. Jimmy Boyce (Rotherham) : Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr. Clarke : No. I must get on.
We undoubtedly spend a disproportionate amount of public finance on those parts of urban areas where the ethnic minorities are most strongly concentrated. A lot of that money goes to seeking to redress inequalities of opportunity. It goes further than that. I cannot understand the suggestion in the right hon. Gentleman's motion that ethnic minorities do not receive a fair share of resources. I do not object to spending a slightly disproportionate share of resources in areas where the ethnic minorities tend to be concentrated. Apparently the right hon. Gentleman's basis for saying that the ethnic minorities receive less than their fair share of resources is the changes in local government finance. I strongly disagree. I find the details of local government finance one of the more tedious subjects to debate in the House, but I have to do it on occasions. However, his arguments on local government finance cannot be used on that limb.
All our inner-city policies, which he dismissed as "specific grants", lead to huge sums of public money going to inner city areas, expressly to redress the disadvantages that we are discussing. I was involved in launching the action for cities programme a few years ago. I do not apologise for what the right hon. Gentleman called razzamatazz. We were trying to draw to the attention of the people intended to benefit from the programme what was available to them. We reckon that we have spent about £10 billion across Government Departments on urban and inner-city policies since 1985-86. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment calculates that across Departments expenditure now runs at £4 billion a year on projects of one sort or another. I helped to set up the task forces. We also have the much bigger city action teams. My Department has set up the safer cities programme and there are other initiatives to which I shall refer. We are spending a great deal on redressing the disadvantages.
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To increase job opportunities we need information to identify the problems. Ethnic monitoring has been referred to. I most certainly approve of ethnic monitoring as a means of taking action on discrimination and, indeed, as part of any positive employment policy which a good employer should follow.Mr. Alan Simpson (Nottingham, South) : Will the Secretary of State give way?
Mr. Clarke : When I have finished this part of my speech on ethnic monitoring.
The Government have advocated ethnic monitoring to major employers through the Department of Employment as good practice for many years. I introduced ethnic monitoring into the collection of the unemployment statistics when I was at the Department of Employment in order to provide the statistics which the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook cited. I am glad that he approves of it because at the time there was tremendous opposition from black radical groups who thought that it was a racist measure to count the ethnic origin of the unemployed. We got through all that and people now realise that ethnic monitoring is a positive weapon. It does not give any answers. It does not necessarily say that discrimination is taking place or that disadvantage is suffered. But it causes people to ask the questions once one has monitored the incidence of people from ethnic minorities in different categories. I am in favour of it. Indeed, I introduced it into the Department of Employment and into the national health service. We continue to urge it.
We disagree with the Opposition on the contract compliance which some Labour local authorities wish to write into their municipal contracts, in line with American experience. One could get into a technical debate. I have been involved in putting local labour clauses into inner city projects such as in Handsworth in the city of Birmingham of the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook. But I am not persuaded of the value of the American model of contract compliance. Undoubtedly the Commission for Racial Equality will come back later this year and make proposals. It is interested in the issue. I do not believe that the American experience is all one way. Most hon. Members will support what the right hon. Member and I have just said about the value of ethnic monitoring as a tool to ensure that one does not inadvertently discriminate and to ensure that one knows where one is with one's work force.
It would be a more difficult and dangerous course to go beyond that and to make it a legal requirement to have a target number of people from ethnic backgrounds in the work force. Indeed, that could backfire, contrary to the intentions of those who propose it, because it is damaging to a company's race relations if the white work force believe that the black work force is only there because the law has required their admittance, regardless of suitability for the job, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame A. Rumbold) said in her intervention. That is why I am not in favour of such contract compliance and the CRE will have to argue strongly to move the Government in that direction.
Sir John Wheeler (Westminster, North) : My right hon. and learned Friend will recall that the Select Committee on Home Affairs recommended ethnic monitoring in the civil service, and that has been carried out to good effect. Equally, the Select Committee's study of the American
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experience some years ago confirmed that, broadly speaking, their compliance measures did not work and that there was substantial and wilful evasion. That is why we did not recommend it for this country.Mr. Clarke : I am grateful to my hon. Friend because his Select Committee is a respected cross-party committee. I also studied the situation in the United States again and came to the same conclusion. Some Labour councils
Mr. Simpson : I am grateful to the Secretary of State for allowing me to intervene and I am pleased to hear of his support for ethnic monitoring. Would he recommend it to the district authority that he represents? Can he explain to the House the experience of the black housing association which sought to tackle inner city inequalities by acquiring properties in his constituency? The leader of the housing committee there went on record as saying that he was opposed to the "dumping of dross" in his area. As a result of his interventions and the reallocation of nomination rights to the district housing authority--without ethnic monitoring--none of the families allocated to those properties by the council were black.
Mr. Clarke : That matter is more suitable for an Adjournment debate, or for Nottingham city council or Rushcliffe borough council. The hon. Gentleman knows that I totally disagree with everything that he has just said. It is true that a Nottingham housing association acquired property in my constituency without notifying the local authority that it proposed to do so. The association failed to follow any housing corporation guidelines on how to behave in such a situation. As everyone with experience of inner cities or race relations policy knows, some organisations in the field--in this case it was a black housing association--simply accuse all critics of racialism when the organisation's incompetence, discourtesy and refusal to provide agreements is pointed out. I am glad to say that the matter was to some extent sorted out by the Housing Corporation, but we should not go further into our local battles.
I shall move on to the subject of jobs and the position of ethnic minorities from top to bottom in the employment market. We need to create a society that aims for equality and opportunity. Whether by monitoring or by some other means, we need to consider the opportunities for people to be appointed to influential posts at the top of society.
Mr. David Trimble (Upper Bann) : Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
I agree that our main aim must be to help to strengthen the positive contribution of ethnic minorities to British society, which is already important in business, the professions and many other walks of life. I welcome it and I am keen that that positive contribution should be increased. If we are to strengthen the position of ethnic minorities in this country, it is important for members of minorities to emerge in leading roles in private industry, public service and the professions.
Mr. Trimble rose --
Mr. Clarke : I shall not give way again.
There is a large and successful Asian entrepreneurial and professional middle class. I have watched their emergence in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook. We need a stronger black middle class,
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with more black business and professional people whom able black youngsters could identify with and seek to emulate. I am glad to say that more influential public bodies are including increasing numbers of ethnic minority members. We must increase those numbers, not as a token gesture but because of the personal contribution that the people appointed can make.The number of appointments of justices from the ethnic minority communities has exceeded their proportion in the population age groups from which appointments are usually made, especially in recent years. I am glad to be able to say that the first magistrate of Chinese origin in this country was recently appointed in my constituency.
Many people from all minorities are rising in the professions. We welcome the few Members of Parliament from ethnic minorities, but we are agreed that there are not enough ; all parties want their numbers to increase. Therefore, we must seek to encourage more able members of the ethnic minorities to climb to the top of the ladder, and I am sure that that will happen in time.
Mr. Trimble : Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
Mr. Clarke : I shall not give way. I have given way far too often already, but I apologise to the hon. Gentleman for not having given way to an Ulster Member.
Our aim must eventually be to achieve a position where we cease to comment on the numbers of people from ethnic minorities in leading roles in society because their presence is taken for granted and their influence is assured. Race has no real relevance to someone's position in the sort of society that we wish to be.
We must look again at business and encourage the talent and entrepreneurial flair that exists within ethnic minority businesses, which must be allowed into the mainstream of the economy and encouraged to improve their access to business development services. Small businesses are vital to the growth of our economy and minority-led and other local enterprise agencies, funded under the Home Office ethnic minority business initiative, have shown that there is demand from the expanding ethnic minority business base for support services that acknowledge and are sensitive to their specific needs.
Mr. Trimble : Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way ?
Mr. Clarke : I shall not give way. The ethnic minority business programme, which is not strong in the hon. Gentleman's constituency, is continuing. We must remove the obstacles which can prevent minority businesses from moving into the mainstream of commercial life.
Also, we must continue to improve the targeting of other areas of public expenditure, aimed at addressing the special needs of people from ethnic minorities. That is important, given the large sums of money being spent. Large sums of public money are available, but ill-directed good intentions can pour some of it down the drain. Anyone involved in inner city programmes has seen that happen occasionally. I am not saying that that happens under section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966, but we are studying targeting in that area and shall continue to do so. Under section 11, £129 million will be made available to local authorities in 1992- 93. That is not small money in such an area. We have already made progress in
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revising the criteria for section 11 grants so that work is targeted and expenditure gives value for money. I am studying future policy on the better use of that money.We should find an opportunity at some time--I do not know when--to study the wording of section 11, which gets in the way of many things that people want. We all know that it is confined to local government staff and to the new Commonwealth. One cannot help Vietnamese minorities, for example. One day I hope to have the opportunity to do something about that.
Good progress has been made in that area and in many others, but I am sure that barriers remain to full opportunity for people from ethnic minorities and to a fully integrated society. The most obvious and obnoxious barrier is racial discrimination, and the Government remain committed to eliminating its evils. We demonstrate our commitment by support of the law, and shall continue to do so. Our race relations laws are the most comprehensive in Europe. I do not think that it is xenophobic to say that they are undoubtedly the best in the European Community. As a Government, we work closely with the Commission for Racial Equality in enforcing the law and support it in all its work.
We have done a great deal of work in combating racially targeted crime. Detailed guidance has been issued to the police and other agencies following the initiative of the inter-departmental racial attacks group. Police forces are urged to give priority to incidents of racially motivated crime. I believe that the big increase in the number of incidents reported to the police shows an increased confidence in the ability of the police to respond to those reports. Undoubtedly, we have to continue to attack such crime with vigour. We must also make sure that the community consultation engaged in by the police, which they now perform statutorily, extends to proper consultation with all those groups that it is most difficult to get involved, in particular young people but also people from the ethnic minorities with whom consultation is most important to improve the quality of police work. As I hope that everybody knows, we have been working extremely hard in support of the police authorities to improve recruitment from ethnic minorities. We still have a considerable way to go, but in the past year or two in particular there has been considerable activity to support the recruitment of ethnic minorities. I am glad to say that there are now more than 1, 500 officers from the ethnic minorities in place, and we shall take every action that we can to ensure an increase in the number of good men and women from the ethnic minorities who enter the police service.
I know that people are concerned about racial discrimination in the criminal justice system. A great deal of attention has been paid to the disproportionate number of black and ethnic minority people in prison, the disproportionate number who appear to be prosecuted rather than cautioned, and the disproportionately low numbers in place in the professions and in the administration of the courts. I believe that those statistics do not demonstrate racial bias in the system of administration of justice. Through most of the criminal justice system, there is a much higher proportion of people who are positively hostile to the idea of racial discrimination than there is among the general population.
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There is no point in being complacent. I agree that many sensible people look at the statistics and are concerned that there appears to be discrimination. Therefore, we have done a lot of research. The figures that I could give to the House come out of work in which my Department has been involved, monitoring to ensure that we identify problem areas. This is an area in which I support, among other things, ethnic monitoring of the prison population and of the statistics of those cautioned and prosecuted, and then action to ensure that we do what is necessary.We shall have more information. Only last year, section 95 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991 placed a duty on the Secretary of State to publish regular information concerning the avoidance of discrimination. Those involved in the administration of criminal justice are already under a duty not to discriminate. The publication of information by the Secretary of State is intended to help them to perform this duty effectively. I confirm that the first statistics under section 95 will be published before the end of this year.
Ms. Diane Abbott (Hackney, North and Stoke Newington) : I listened with interest to the Home Secretary's comments about the criminal justice system. If I understood him correctly, he said that he is aware of the figures that show that there is a disproportionate number of black people in prison, that they are more likely to have longer sentences and custodial sentences rather than fines, and so on. However, he said that, despite the evidence of the figures and the wonderful work done by the Home Office research department, he did not believe that those figures showed racial discrimination. If they do not demonstrate institutional racism, what do they demonstrate?
Mr. Clarke : They demonstrate a higher level of contact between ethnic minority people and the legal system. There is more than one side to that problem, which the leaders in the ethnic minority communities must address with the rest of us. I can think of no clear explanation for why the statistics show that a higher proportion of people from the ethnic minorities elect, of their own free will, to go to the Crown court for trial and that a higher proportion of people from the ethnic minorities plead not guilty when they get to court. All these factors are being analysed, and we shall have more information about them. It is noticeable, on those partial statistics, that simply coming to the conclusion that this is all racial discrimination is not enough, and that we have to address ourselves to what other constraints can be placed on a population whose behaviour, sometimes among its younger members, brings it into contact with the law.
Mr. Hargreaves : Will my right hon. and learned Friend confirm the research done by his Department that pinpoints even more closely where, if there is one, the problem may lie in this respect ? The statistics show that females from the ethnic minorities are not involved. Predominantly, the problem is with males. It is only fair to the lady Members of the House to say that this problem is mirrored not just here but by research that has been done by a number of us in the United States, Canada and elsewhere to identify that, if there is a problem, it is among males rather than females. It is to that that we must address ourselves.
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Mr. Clarke : That is also true of crime in general. It is not exclusively a male preserve, but it is heavily a male activity. I apologise for the length of time that I have taken, but I have disappointed more Members by refusing to give way to them than I have pleased by acceding to such a request. I have been drawn, by the speech of the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook and by interventions, into debating a number of subjects that I had not planned to deal with, but that is a good feature of a debate rather than a bad one. We have not had a debate on this subject for a long time and this debate should help us all to underline the fact that the political system is committed to a good system of race relations. We are committed to action, as well as just speeches, to reduce the amount of racial discrimination and to improve the opportunities for those from ethnic minorities.We have a better record than almost any other equivalent country in the western world with a large ethnic minority population. Our political system is responding better to the pressures of this kind than, say, the political system in either France or Germany appears to be. There is no room for complacency. Action and attention to what needs to be done must be kept up. Government, society and the ethnic communities themselves must all take their share of the responsibility for working for positive, good community relations. I hope that our amendment and the debate have made it clear that the Government's commitment to racial opportunity and equal opportunity is beyond doubt and that we have a good record in taking positive steps to achieve that.
5.6 pm
Mr. Robert Maclennan (Caithness and Sutherland) : I was glad to hear that the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) decided, in what is apparently not his final, but perhaps his penultimate, performance as deputy leader of the Labour party, to choose a subject that is known to be close to his heart, both for constituency reasons and for reasons of principle and of intellectual application, shown over the years, to defending the interests of the ethnic minorities. I am bound to say that I did not expect it to be a bipartisan debate, certainly not as the right hon. Gentleman opened it, and he did not disappoint my expectations on that front. It is also a happy coincidence that the Home Secretary has been given an opportunity, so early in the lifetime of this Government, to show us the nature of the man when dealing with what is undoubtedly one of the most difficult and sensitive responsibilities that he will discharge as Home Secretary--relations with the ethnic minorities, the prospect for those who have suffered from discrimination and who are least favoured in too many cases because of their ethnic origin. I no more expected the Home Secretary to be partisan in his approach than I expected the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook to be. It is a worthy aspiration for the House to approach these matters in a bipartisan way, for other countries that have not done so--the Home Secretary spoke, appropriately, of the experience of France and Germany--have found it extremely damaging to race relations.
The Home Secretary's predecessor in that great office of state set an example that I hope that he will not follow.
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Most particularly, during the general election, he gave voice to views about ethnic minorities and immigration that were plainly designed to support the most atavistic impulses in this country and to encourage the belief that only one party would prevent a flood tide of immigrants of black and other colours sweeping across the country.It was a discreditable feature of the general election and it cannot go unremarked in this debate, which follows so hard upon its heels. It was a discreditable fact that a number of newspapers with wide circulations played closely along with the then Home Secretary in that disgraceful campaign. It was disgraceful because of its intellectual dishonesty and because it completely misrepresented the views of the official Labour party and the Liberal Democrats. However, it was also disgraceful because it did nothing to still the anxieties--most of them misplaced--of those in areas where there is a sense that communities are being taken over by people of a different cultural background from that long-established in those communities.
Mr. Kenneth Clarke : My right hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Mr. Baker) is not in the Chamber, so I feel constrained to rise to his defence. I have been checking my recollections with the Minister of State, Home Office and my Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Mr. Oppenheim), and we cannot remember the outrageous remarks that my right hon. Friend was supposed to have made during the election. Before history is rewritten, it is my clear recollection that the Asylum Bill hardly featured in the election campaign from beginning to end, and nor did the issues of immigration and race relations.
Mr. Maclennan : I do not expect that the right hon. and learned Gentleman paid very close attention to what the then Home Secretary said during the election campaign. Let me quote the former Home Secretary. On 5 April, he spoke of the dramatic rise in the vote for the fascist Die Republikaner party in Germany. He said that it was due to one issue :
"That issue was the flood of migrants and would-be asylum seekers whose continuing numbers have aroused public concern. I have warned for many months about this rising tide."
He also spoke of fascists marching in Europe and gave a terrible warning about similar matters. In the context of the headlines that were appearing in many of the newspapers with larger circulations, it is clear from the former Home Secretary's speech, made four days before the election, that he does not view such matters in the same way as, I suspect, the right hon. and learned Gentleman would prefer. I believe that the new Home Secretary is more sensitive about those matters, and that he is a man of rather better taste than his predecessor. His defence of his right hon. Friend is in stark contrast to the stab in the back just delivered by the former Home Secretary to his former Cabinet colleagues on the issue of Maastricht. However, that is not a subject for this debate. I am also glad that the Home Secretary reaffirmed that there is broad agreement in the House about the principle, at least, of how we should seek to govern a multiracial society. He focused his comments on ways and means. It is inevitable that there will be differences about the ways and means of ensuring that we do not create a society that
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encourages or allows discrimination to take place. If we are able to minimise those differences, we will perform a great service. I agree with the Home Secretary that the heart of the debate should be about employment. From the figures that he and his Department, in one of its incarnations, produced on employment, we can see what a stark disadvantage it appears to be to belong to an ethnic minority if one is seeking to get ahead. It is not a matter only of inner-city deprivation, although it is right to mention what is being done about that. Discrimination also applies to those people who have the qualifications, but who are not preferred for jobs for which they are suitable. The figures show that twice as many people from ethnic minorities who have attained higher education are unemployed as those from the ethnic majority. That difference requires the consideration of ways and means.Employment opportunity is not necessarily a matter of public expenditure. If the Home Secretary rejects the contract-compliance suggestions put forward in a number of circles--not only by the official Opposition--it is incumbent upon him to say how he would hope to see changes come about. He spoke convincingly and sincerely about his wish to see important positions in society held by those from ethnic minorities. No doubt he had in mind appointments such as judges or members of quangos. Many of those appointments may be made by members of the Government, and even his Department has in its hand a substantial element of patronage. I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will use it positively to achieve the ends he outlined to ensure that change takes place.
I was interested in what the Home Secretary said about the criminal justice system and his belief, repeated in his response to an intervention from the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms. Abbott), that the figures do not suggest that racial discrimination exists within the system. I acknowledge that the requirement of the law, which he says he supports, as outlined in section 95 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991, is to produce statistical information which may help us to make up our minds on that matter. That requirement has not been on the statute book for very long and it would be difficult for any of us, in the present circumstances, to assert a contrary proposition to that of the Home Secretary. However, I hope that he will have an open mind and that he will not be too firm in his view that there is no evidence of racial discrimination within the criminal justice system.
Many people who have been involved in that system for many years and who have not had the benefit of the statistics that will be forthcoming from his Department feel that racial discrimination exists. There have been ugly incidents--they are well-known in some policing circles--that were clearly racial. I know that the picture is patchy and that some police forces have done a great deal to root out racially-motivated attacks. However, in some areas such attacks are too common, and the figures show that the number is increasing. It is for that reason that the Liberal Democrats have suggested that there should be a specially dedicated squad of policemen to tackle the problem in those areas where it is perceived to be a serious threat.
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The monitoring to be undertaken by the Home Office will be highly important. I am glad that the production of such figures is to be a matter of law, but what the Home Secretary chooses to publish will be a matter for him. We could, therefore, have rather more or less informative figures, depending upon the way in which he approaches the matter. In the spirit of open government, which we have been promised by the Prime Minister, I hope that the Home Secretary will tell us as soon as possible, not necessarily the results of the monitoring, but exactly what will be monitored, so that we can evaluate, even now, whether the process is going along on the right lines.There are some other matters that I wish to raise briefly in my short speech--it must be short because this is a short debate. There is serious concern about housing for ethnic minorities in some parts of the country. The homeless are disproportionately drawn from ethnic minority communities. In the wind-up speech, will the Minister of State tell us how he believes that that problem can best be tackled? I do not disagree with the Home Secretary's comments on education. I share his philosophical view, and that of the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook, that there should be freedom of choice in education. Indeed, the issue is governed by the European Convention on Human Rights. While we can differ on what is desirable for this country, there is a broadly bipartisan view about that.
I should comment on the attack on my party made by the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook when he referred to Tower Hamlets. He knows my political history and is aware that I have never allowed party to stand in the way of judgment about the rights and wrongs of an issue, to the point at which I was driven to leave the Labour party, of which he is a member. So I am not embarrassed by the question he asked, although he thought that I might be. I am exceedingly unhappy about what happened in that case. That local authority suffered appalling pressures, imposed on it by the very policies to which the right hon. Gentleman referred in respect of local government finance.
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