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likely to be refused entry to visit relatives if he is black than if he is white? Despite that statistic, the right of appeal will be taken away by this squalid Bill.Some urgent reforms could have been brought into an asylum Bill if immigration matters are to be included in it. It is not only in other countries that people face violence and oppression. The immigration laws trap many women in violent marital relationships. If the Government wanted to relieve oppression, they could have changed the law to free such women, allowing them to escape without the fear of deportation.
Another omission is any reference to unaccompanied children, a problem that the Government would address if they were truly concerned about genuine refugees. The Bill offers nothing to such children or to the local authorities that are trying to cope with their arrival. The Government have manifestly failed to establish facilities to support them, and have attended only as observers the various meetings set up to try to provide those resources. All that the Bill offers child refugees is the chance to be fingerprinted. My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) outlined the problems that will occur in housing. He mentioned the clause that refers to
"accommodation, however temporary, which it would be reasonable for him to occupy".
I have recently returned from visiting Bosnian refugee camps in Slovenia where I saw some of the former military barracks and prisons in which refugees are temporarily accommodated. Is that the kind of accommodation that would relieve a local authority of the obligation to respond to the needs of refugees within its community? If there is a spare space on a church floor, does that absolve the local authority of any responsibility under the Housing Act 1985? My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow was right to say that the operation of the clause will force local authorities into breaches of the Race Relations Act 1976, and to point out the impact that it will have on black residents as local authorities try to establish whether the people applying for accommodation are asylum seekers. It will introduce the immigration checks and passport controls that he outlined and will bring in a system that is contrary to the code of guidance issued to local authorities and to the statutory code of practice on rented housing. In effect, it is the criminalisation of the black community.
The Bill will also impose a problem for those authorities that are attempting to carry out their housing functions without discrimination. That may not be important to the Westminsters and Tower Hamlets, but it is important to Labour boroughs. This squalid Bill will worsen race relations rather than improve them. Tory Members say that asylum seekers should seek asylum in the countries closest to their country or in the regions from which they come. If that is the Government's policy, they have a responsibility to provide those countries with the resources that will allow them to cope with the influx of immigrants and asylum seekers. For example, in Slovenia, 7 per cent. of the population are refugees from Bosnia and surrounding countries, but the Government are doing nothing to provide support, help or heating for the refugee camps in which people will die this winter.
This squalid Bill does not address the needs of the asylum seekers. It confuses the issue by including immigration matters, and the House should throw it out.
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8.47 pmMr. Mike Gapes (Ilford, South) : In my maiden speech in May, I pledged to fight against the reintroduction of the discriminatory, racist and unjust asylum proposals that had been introduced in the previous Parliament. I regret, having read the Bill in detail, that there are so many bad clauses and ill-thought-out proposals in it. My constituency contains a large number of people whose parents or grandparents came as refugees from Nazi oppression. Had the Bill been enacted then, they would not have been able to seek refuge and safety in Ilford. I am appalled by some of the remarks that I have heard from Tory Members.
This is a strange Bill. There are two aspects to it. Why is it that tucked into the middle of an asylum Bill is clause 9, which removes the right of appeal for visitors? There is no logic in that. I suspect that it is there for the simple reason that some Conservative Members are unable to distinguish between immigration and asylum. Basically, they think that it is all to do with keeping as many foreigners as possible, especially those with black skins, out of the country.
Unfortunately, there is not likely to be a rebellion by Conservative Members. None the less, I appeal to all liberal, fair-minded Conservative Members with a conscience--unfortunately, I can see only three Conservative Members sitting in their places--to vote against the Bill's Second Reading. I am not appealing to the rabid nationalists who, no doubt for their own reasons, will rebel later this week. Instead, I appeal to all Conservative Members with a conscience to join the Opposition when the Division takes place. The Bill is obnoxious and outrageous. It will cause so much suffering to so many people that it must be stopped. There are Kurdish refugees in my constituency with bodies riddled with bullets. They come to see me in wheel-chairs. Some of them have artificial limbs. They were shot up by Saddam Hussein.
A Christian Iraqi--an opponent of Saddam--came to see me a few weeks ago. He has been in the country for four years. He is seeking political asylum and he has been given exceptional leave to remain. He does not know what the future is for his children and their education. Equally, he does not know whether he is able to stay for a long time. He does not know about his home and he has no real security. He is extremely worried. By their actions the Government are increasing the pressures and worries of that man.
Somalis who fled from the civil war and the gangs come to see me. They want family reunion. They know that their relatives are in refugee camps in Ethiopia because they have tracked them down. There are those who know that their brothers and uncles have died but they have been able to make contact with five or six surviving relatives. Some of them have been waiting for one year, one and a half years or two years for the Government to respond, but the Government have now decided to make it far more difficult for relatives to join their families in the United Kingdom.
I would now like to turn to clause 9. Why is the right of appeal being removed by clause 9? A few weeks ago I was contacted by a local councillor in my constituency. He told me about a family that was travelling from India to Canada to visit relatives. The members of the family wanted to stop over in Britain to see their relatives, who live in my constituency. The entry clearance officer in New
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Delhi decided not to allow them to come to this country. I made representations and I was told eventually that the appeal had been allowed. It was too late, however, because the plane on which the members of the family were travelling had already left India. They had to travel on the flight for which they were booked. Under the proposals in the Bill, however, no appeal would be allowed. Even worse, a mark would appear in a passport declaring that entry clearance had been refused.We know what is going on now in the European Community. I am talking about respectable people who have homes and jobs. They merely want to visit their relatives in another country. If there is a mark in a passport stating that the individual cannot come to Britain, that could mean similar marks declaring that they cannot go to France, Italy, Germany or Holland. That is the direction in which the development of common policies within the European Community is taking us.
I am a supporter of Maastricht. I want to see a democratically accountable Europe. At present, we have the worst of all worlds. There is no democratic accountability attached to what immigration Ministers and their civil servants are cooking up because they are operating in an area that is not part of the treaty. Everything is being done in secret. Changes to our rules will make it difficult for people to visit other European countries apart from Britain because immigration officers will apply the rules in that way.
Mr. Bernie Grant : Does my hon. Friend agree that the fact that the Trevi and Schengen groups are trying to introduce common immigration and visa regulations is a reason for voting against the Maastricht treaty?
Mr. Gapes : No. We must work for a more democratic and accountable Community. We must give more powers to this Parliament and the European Parliament so that they can resist bureaucrats, unelected officials and Ministers who choose to hide behind decisions taken in secret by saying that the result is not their responsibility. We must have democratic accountability. Instead, the Government propose that there should be a further erosion of that accountability. As a result, officials in the Home Office, in the immigration and nationality department, in high commissions and in embassies will take decisions in the knowledge that we in this place have no right to make representations. The applicants who they so arbitrarily refuse will have no right of appeal. It is an outrage.
The Bill sets out an entirely unjustified and undemocratic approach and it must be stopped. Only a Government who have been in office too long and who are so arrogant that they feel that there is no need to worry would dare to introduce such proposals. The Government could not care less about the poor grandmothers in India or Pakistan who want to come to this country to see their grandchildren for the first time. They could not care less about people having the right to travel to visit their relatives. They are prepared to trust officials to take decisions without accountability. I ask the House to reject the Bill and everything for which it stands.
8.57 pm
Mr. Jim Cunningham (Coventry, South-East) : I wish to endorse everything that my colleagues have said and to reinforce some of their arguments. I wonder what
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communities within the United Kingdom, many of which have come from abroad and lived here for generations, think of us. They know that whenever there is a political issue the Conservative party uses immigration to make cheap political points. It does so to try to secure the election of a Conservative Government. That is despicable.The Bill must be set against a European background. I am sure that the Government did not meekly accept the Bill that is before us, and we must accept that what is on the statute book is better than that which we have before us this evening. Some of the members of the Council of Ministers have a north and south phobia, and the result is that it rushes into making proposals. That is the background to the Bill. As a result, we have legislation that is based on panic, not justice. We all know what happens when Governments start to panic. After all, we have had a few examples recently.
We are told that the Bill is not racialist. Yet the Government propose a reduction in overseas aid. When the issues of race and the proposed reduction in aid are put together we see exactly where the Bill will take the United Kingdom.
My colleagues and I regard the right of appeal as sacrosanct. Any hon. Member with experience of immigration cases knows that if the right of appeal is removed and the time factors altered an individual can be out of the country within 24 hours. We must reject any curtailment of the right of appeal.
Hon. Members have spoken about the need for an investigation by a parliamentary Committee into the way that the immigration service operates. They have highlighted individual experiences and cited evidence suggesting that the way that the immigration service treats people is suspect. Imagine being someone who comes from a village in the Punjab, with only a simple education, and being confronted by a highly skilled immigration officer whose sole objective is to make it appear that a person is not telling the truth about his reason for wanting entry. That is an issue that needs investigation. The system also tells us that we cannot trust Ministers to consider cases. We can assume only that the immigration officials are carrying out Ministers' instructions.
We must consider the whole context of the Bill against the background of an extremist backlash in Europe. Instead of challenging that backlash, European Governments are backing off and introducing legislation like this Bill. I went around Europe 18 months ago and there were only two countries with any semblance of credibility in their immigration policies--Holland and Britain. Despite all the talk in the other European countries about rights, there are hardly any rights for immigrants, especially black immigrants, whether they come from the Punjab or whether they happen to be Muslims. Those countries are way behind this country in their immigration policies. However, having said that, I do not endorse the Bill. It is a bad Bill and we must reject it. Many of my constituents are extremely uneasy about it because ultimately not only will it put father against son, but brother against sister and child against parents. I hope that hon. Members will reject the Bill.
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9.1 pmMr. Alan Simpson (Nottingham, South) : I am pleased to be called to speak in this debate, not only because I have worked with black and migrant communities in my constituency in Nottingham for 13 years but because of my specific work over the past two years relating to the rising tide or racism that has surfaced throughout Europe. I am concerned that a pattern is emerging of black and migrant communities being blamed for the economic failures of the countries in which they happen to be living. That blaming process is no different here than it is in France, Italy, Germany and the rest of western Europe. It cannot be separated from the arguments about the position of refugees and asylum seekers. There is a serious and sustained attempt to deflect the failures of capitalism, and the Governments who have enthusiastically embraced it, on to those who have been most cruelly exploited by the process and been its primary victims.
One or two Conservative Members have mentioned the increasing number of attacks in Germany and said that it is a consequence of German unification and a policy of letting in all sorts of people. In fact, those attacks are part of a trend of well-established harassment and persecution of Turkish gastarbeiters in Germany, who have been most cruelly exploited. They have been taken there and employed on the most miserable wages and when their tasks have been completed they have been arbitrarily sent back to Turkey. They have also been subject to vicious attacks, which have been happening for more than a decade. The fact that the knowledge of them is only now surfacing does not make them a new feature--the attacks are simply emerging in a more virulent form.
Migrants, asylum seekers and refugees in western Europe are being made the scapegoats for Governments of ill-repute. I was appalled by the comments today of the Secretary of State and some Conservative Members. We witnessed the process known as "blaming the victim"--with the blame for the Government's economic failures being shifted on to the backs of black and migrant communities in Britain. I was amazed at the apparent ease with which Ministers virtually blamed migrants for the fact that my city of Nottingham has not been allowed to build any houses this year and has been allowed to build no more than 50 over the past three years. I presume that, according to the Government, the record number of bankruptcies in Nottingham is also attributable to the migrants who have been admitted into the country. Perhaps they should also be blamed for the record level of house repossessions : in Nottingham, the number has risen by 72 per cent. The truth is that migrants have made little or no contribution to the current problems. At one stage, however, I wondered whether the Government would try to blame migrants and refugees for catastrophes such as the collapse of the pound and the closure of the pits.
Mr. Bernie Grant : They called it Black Wednesday.
Mr. Simpson : They did indeed--and I think that we should take stock of the language that we use to describe the catastrophes into which the Government lead us.
If we examine Britain's real international contribution, it is revealed as abject--miserable. We do not contribute greatly to any alleviation of the sufferings of refugees or asylum seekers. I spent some time in Mozambique and in
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southern Africa, and that brought home to me the real meaning of humanitarian support and the human conscience operating in a day-to-day context.Millions of people are being supported by their neighbours. We talk of the threat to stability and civilisation that is posed by the notion of "swamping" Britain with asylum seekers. Most refugees and asylum seekers, however, are being tended and supported by neighbours who have precious little more to offer. The poorest are supporting the poorest ; the homeless are supporting those without homelands ; those without food are supporting those without families. Yet the fear expressed by Conservative Members today is not much different from the fear expressed some years ago by the then Prime Minister when she talked of being "swamped by an alien culture". Such phrases show that our internationhal record of concern is an illusion. The Bill is a hotch-potch of dubious virtues. It seems to suggest that the House of Commons prefers death to take place on a distant shore : if people are dying somewhere else, at least they are dying out of sight. Perhaps the House also feels better for having brought forward the notion of a permanent exclusion that can be tied around the necks of bona fide visitors. The Bill also moves us towards the criminalisation of children who are to be subjected to arbitrary fingerprinting--the "sus" law for civil war victims, perhaps. Implicit in the Bill is the establishment of a Euro-backlash against migrants and black people. Let us make no bones about it : the powers that a Minister takes tonight will be traded behind closed doors, in card games played by Euro-leaders. Under the Maastricht proposals, rights of scrutiny will be taken away from our Parliament ; they will be traded by Ministers playing with powers whose value amounts to no less than the human rights of migrants and black people.
When I was working in France, a colleague said to me, "Britain does not need Le Pen. He is our problem. You do not need him because your Government are willing to drape themselves in Le Pen's political underwear and they claim to be doing so with dignity and pride." This is a tawdry Bill. I hope that it will be opposed here as vehemently as I know it will be opposed outside in the country. There are communities of black and white people throughout the length and breadth of the land who will not subscribe to the scapegoating process that is written into this Bill. They will not subscribe to the denigration to which black people will be subjected when they try to visit their families.
Let me illustrate how far we have stepped back. Five years ago, we were involved in campaigns in this country to establish the right of family unity. We are now faced with campaigns to try to prevent the exclusion of people from this country. Five years ago, people in Germany talked about the right of settled people to vote. People in Germany today talk about the right of people to stay. We are going backwards at a phenomenal pace. It ill-befits any of us to collude with that process. I hope that all hon. Members with a sense of integrity will join the official Opposition in opposing this shabby Bill tooth and nail.
9.11 pm
Ms. Diane Abbott (Hackney, North and Stoke Newington) : I was not here for the beginning of the debate. I was travelling back from Germany, where I
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heard at first hand of the rising tide of racism and anti-semitism that is going hand in hand with the recession in Europe. The motivation behind the Bill and the way that it is presented to the public is part of that rising tide of racism and anti-semitism. My hon. Friends have made many excellent points about the Bill ; I do not intend to repeat them. One of the most obnoxious aspects of the Bill is the way that it was launched in the run-up to the general election. It was launched on the back of orchestrated articles in the Tory tabloids. Week after week there were articles about the tide of refugees that was going to engulf Europe, in particular the United Kingdom.The way that the Bill was launched and tied in with entirely negative and obnoxious publicity about the threat from refugees and asylum seekers is the key to what the Bill is about. It is not about allaying public fears, or about giving refugees a better and fairer deal. In particular, it is not about giving communities with large numbers of refugees the help and support that they need. It is about playing on the fears of the public.
A Bill that will cause so much misery to so many thousands of genuine asylum seekers and to so many thousands of people who want to visit their families here is supported by Tories who will march through the Lobby in 45 minutes to try to make the Bill law. It is extraordinary that they should have shown such studied indifference to the misery that the legislation will wreak.
The Bill exemplifies the type of Europe that we shall be invited to vote for in 48 hours' time. It is not the type of Europe that I support. It is a fortress Europe, a xenophobic, little Europe. It is a Europe that I and many of my hon. Friends cannot and will not support.
I represent an east London constituency that historically has been a haven for refugees and asylum seekers from all over the world. When the Huguenots came to the east end in the 17th century, there was no talk about economic refugees ; they were seen as people who were fleeing from real fears and who had come here to make a real contribution to this country. When the Jews came to the east end of London from Russia and eastern europe, there was no talk of economic refugees ; they were seen for that they were-- people fleeing from genuine fears, genuine oppression, genuine brutality. But as it suits the Government to discriminate between refugees and asylum seekers according to colour, some refugees and some asylum seekers are now stigmatised as so-called economic refugees.
The problem with immigration, refugees and asylum seekers is that only a small group of Members have broad experience of it and care about it. I would not want the debate to pass without trying to convey to my colleagues and Conservative Members what it means to people whose family members overseas--brothers, aunties, grandmothers and children--save the equivalent of a lifetime's salary to come here for Christmas, a wedding or to see a new grandchild only to receive the sort of treatment that is regularly dished out at Heathrow. Conservative Members cannot understand what it means to come from rural Jamaica or Trinidad--to have saved and come across in one's best suit--only to be treated by immigration officers as some sort of criminal. I have no doubt that the clause on visitors' appeal rights will make the situation worse. Immigration officers are bad enough as it stands, but if they know that people have no right of appeal they will be even more arbitrary, unpleasant and unfair.
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White Europeans living in this country-- Germans, French, Belgians or Dutch--have more rights to see their parents, grandparents or children than black British residents, who may have fought in the war and worked all their lives in this country. That must be unfair and racist.Many of the comments that I intended to make about the Bill have already been made excellently by my colleagues. I feel particularly strongly about the Bill because I represent a wide range of refugees and asylum seekers, from people whose parents came across from Tsarist Russia at the turn of the century to today's Somali and Kurdish refugees. I know that my constituents, across the ethnic range and mix, regard the Bill and the politics that motivate it with much fear. It is playing with black people's family lives. It is playing the racist card and I urge the House to oppose it. 9.16 pm
Mr. Graham Allen (Nottingham, North) : I should comment first on the fact that 27 speeches have been made from the Back Benches. I hope that my colleagues will take Hansard and spread it far and wide, particularly among the black and ethnic communities in Britain, to show where the support for their views and for asylum seekers rests. The debate has shown the concern of the parties. This is probably the fullest that the Conservative Benches have been tonight, whereas it is probably the barest that the Opposition Benches have been
After that education of 27 Back-Bench speeches, one thing is crystal clear : that the Bill does not help, in any shape or form, those who are seeking political asylum, who are fleeing terror and persecution, to whom lip service is paid every night when we see the terrible scenes in Yugoslavia and elsewhere.
The Bill is irrelevant when viewed against the background of those problems. Indeed, it increases the risk that someone who is desperate to escape torture or death in his or her country will be sent back. This is a Bill for domestic consumption, not to help refugees. We must question whether the Bill, even on its own terms, is needed. The former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Mole Valley (Mr. Baker), who unfortunately is not here at the moment, justified the Bill on two grounds- -first, to reduce the number of applications and, secondly, to reduce the backlog of applications. The Government's latest figures blow away both arguments for initiating the Bill. The number of applications is not increasing but declining dramatically. The backlog of applications, far from increasing, has been halted and is now declining steadily as a result of employing an adequate number of staff, which Labour proposed more than a year ago.
For all the bluster about bogus applications, about bogus asylum seekers and about bogus arguments, it is plain that the most bogus thing about the Bill is the Conservative party's attempts to justify it. The Bill is a relic from a previous Administration and fails to address the real problems.
The real problems are the desperate problems facing those who are fleeing persecution. The Conservatives chose to abuse that suffering and to blow up the asylum issue into a pre-election immigration scare. Once again,
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they seek to confuse the two wholly distinct issues of asylum and immigration. They feel obliged to run the Bill again whether it is necessary or not.We are told that the Bill will foster good community relations. Perhaps that is what the Home Secretary's predecessor was doing when he produced headlines such as the famous one in The Sun which read, "No entry". It was one of many put out at the time by the right hon. Member for Mole Valley and his cohorts. I give the Secretary of State the chance to condemn before the House tonight the way in which the Asylum Bill was first used, not to foster good community relations but to play on fears about immigration before the general election. The Home Secretary's reluctance to come to the Dispatch Box may be caused by a spate of similar stories. There are not as many stories as there were, but there is enough evidence in some of the papers that support the Conservative party. There are headlines such as : "Clarke acts to stop phoney refugees flooding into Britain"; and
"Clarke launches new war on the refugees racket".
For all the perfumed phrases about humanitarianism, it is the whiff of racism which lingers around the Bill. Let us hear no more hypocrisy about the worries about the rise of fascism in Europe from the party that has deliberately dragged the asylum issue into the gutter.
The proposals, designed to deter rather than to aid those fleeing persecution who seek a safe haven here, are being recycled, trashing the United Nations convention and the Race Relations Act 1976 along the way. If ever we needed another reason to reconsider the question of a Bill of Rights, this Bill provides it.
The Bill will introduce a fast-track appeals system to eject people from the country within eight days, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) finally got the Home Secretary to admit this afternoon. Taking people's fingerprints and those of their children is a further humiliation. The only other people in our society on whom that humiliation is visited are criminals, as was underlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. Watson). The Bill will remove from asylum seekers the hospitality traditionally shown to guests fleeing persecution. It used to be the case that, in spite of everything else, they had the security of being adequately housed, as my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) and many other hon. Friends put it.
How curious it is that a Government who have no money to build new houses and who are not prepared to release the funds from capital receipts which are tied up in the banks of local authorities can find the money to build 300 extra detention places for asylum seekers. That tells us something about their priorities.
The Bill will make it more difficult for asylum seekers to meet the criteria. There is a fundamental misunderstanding among Home Office Ministers. They believe that coming to the United Kingdom and seeking asylum is akin to a Thomas Cook package. They believe that asylum seekers get off the plane wearing Hawaiian shirts and carry cameras round their necks. They believe that asylum seekers are familiar with all the procedures. That is not the psychology of people fleeing potential death, persecution or torture.
I quote readily from a letter from Amnesty International which highlights one aspect of the rules that
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the Secretary of State proposes to introduce --that the applicant must make a prompt and full disclosure of his or her claim for asylum. Amnesty International says :"Asylum seekers can hardly be expected to know what all material' factors are"
as they arrive in a country totally confused and unfamiliar with the language or how things work at Heathrow.
Mr. Bernie Grant : Is my hon. Friend aware of the very unsatisfactory nature of the interpretation facilities for refugees and asylum seekers? For example, is he aware that a refugee was intimidated by an interpreter who turned out to be one of his torturers? Has my hon. Friend made any representations to the Home Office about drastically improving the way in which translators operate and controlling who they are, how they are chosen and how they are trained?
Mr. Allen : That is one of the main points that we will seek to hammer out in Committee. It will be essential to ensure that adequate interpretation facilities are available if such onerous rules are to be imposed on asylum seekers. On a lighter note, my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr. Grant) had great difficulty in interpreting the Home Secretary's legislation to the Home Secretary himself. If that is the case, how can we expect someone who is unfamiliar with our language or procedures to understand what is going on? The Amnesty International letter continues :
"especially if the person speaks little English and is deeply traumatised by his/her escape and journey. It is normal for refugees to fear officialdom and a person in such a situation cannot be expected to make a full disclosure of his experiences at his first encounter with officials. This is particularly true of those who have been tortured."
A tremendous amount of evidence is available and can be produced in Committee to clarify that point. It is not a matter of stepping off the plane at Castle Donington airport in the east midlands, having arrived back from a Thompson's package holiday. The psychology is completely different and the rules that are to be imposed on asylum seekers are ignorant of that possibility.
Airline check-in staff abroad will continue to have almost the power of life and death over refugees when they decide whether to accept their credentials and documentation. That power is far too extensive and we will return to it in Committee. We will seek to render it a little more harmless.
It can be only with a profound sense of shame that decent people throughout Britain will stand by as the Conservatives welcome the tortured, raped and frightened with a cynical sneer and two fingers. It is the new Clarke doctrine : "Give me your tired, your poor and your huddled masses yearning to breathe free--and I'll give them a fingerprinting and a cardboard box on the Strand."
The Conservatives' overall contribution to the world effort on refugees has been pathetic. It has been matched only by the derisory attempt to "help people in their own countries" with such things as the know-how fund. When the newly liberated of central and eastern Europe cried out for a Marshall plan, they got the red-braced consultants who had created Britain's own economic miracle. That shortsightedness and meanspiritedness have helped to create the human drifts piling up on the EC's eastern border.
History will judge that the Bill was the Conservatives' only response to one of the greatest challenges of our century and perhaps a fitting crown on the British
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presidency of the European Community. Many of the worst features of the changes in the Bill will not be discussed properly by Parliament. Not content with taking the earlier Asylum Bill through 27 hours of Committee without accepting a single amendment, the arrogance of an unchecked Government in Parliament is such that they can reserve from the Bill pages of immigration and asylum rules.The Home Secretary has already turned down the idea of a Special Standing Committee, which could sit before the Committee stage of the Bill and take evidence for one month in public so that we would all be better informed on the real issues. In putting our motion to the vote, we shall make the Home Secretary go public on that denial of democracy.
Potential Committee Members have even been refused a visit to the immigration and nationality department to be briefed before the Committee stage. Of what are the Executive afraid? Just two things--knowledge and the truth.
Our democracy is deeply stained by the Executive's ability to make up their own rules, beyond all but the most nominal democratic vetting in this place. In a week when Members of Parliament from Southend to Stafford will be celebrating our Europeanness, it is clear that Governments ruling the nation states of Europe have played more than a small part in drafting the Bill. Those Governments--many even more laughably unaccountable to their Parliaments than ours--meet in secret to decide our laws and the fate of refugees whom they will never meet. The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) referred to that fact with such venom that I almost thought that he might vote with us on Wednesday to bring down the Government who are perpetrating the things of which he complained. The United Kingdom is not even a member of the Schengen group, yet its footprint lies heavily on the Bill, and it is not even accountable to the European Commission, let alone the European or British Parliaments.
The ad hoc group on immigration is so secretive that its closed nature came as a surprise to the Home Secretary in June, although since that discovery there have not been many changes to make it more open.
The Trevi group is attended by British Ministers, who quaintly feel that Parliament's consent to their activities is given by their placing an answer to a planted written question in Hansard. We should join my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden) and demand that every time the Trevi group meets there should be a statement to the House to tell us what has been decided that affects the people of this country.
That masonic college of European committees is beginning to harmonise our asylum and immigration rights with those of Europe through the Bill. Those harmonisation policies will be voted through tonight by hon. Members who, on another night, will call for Opposition support to defend the myth of British parliamentary sovereignty--xenophobes hiding behind an illusion. In the United Kingdom, we have governmental sovereignty, and it is being used again tonight to build fortress Europe and to pull up the ladder behind the Government. Nowhere is that more evident than in botching immigration provisions and putting them into an asylum Bill.
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The Conservatives are abolishing the right of appeal for visitors and others who are refused entry, as my right hon. and hon. Friends have made clear. Last year, hon. Members from both sides of the House intervened to draw cases to the attention of the Home Secretary. To be fair, many Conservative Members have spoken tonight against the provisions abolishing the right to appeal. Last year, in 1,700 cases from the sub-continent of India alone, an intitial refusal to enter was overturned on appeal. Next year, such people will be denied appeal and will unjustly be denied entry to visit family and friends. When thousands of unjustified refusals are brought to light and corrected by the appeals system, only the Conservatives would think that the answer was to abolish the appeals system, rather than to examine why so many unjust decisions are taken in the first place. Once again, unchecked administrative convenience and unaccountable power are replacing what few checks and balances exist on the side of the individual.We have not adequately tackled the Conservatives' motives in reintroducing the Bill. Yes, it is a concern to deliver the British Parliament to what has been secretly agreed with the Schengen and Trevi groups in Europe. Yes, it is an embarrassed carry-over from a previous era, but that is hardly the real reason. Perhaps those in the Home Office do not quite know what to do with their parliamentary time. A crime every six seconds and a doubling in recorded crime since the Conservatives came to power might not be regarded as priorities, yet KC Plod appears to flex his knees and wag his finger at the infants who drop litter, oblivious to the armed robbery going on behind him.
It could hardly be that the Home Secretary has run out of ideas--he is so full of ideas that he is doing the job of the Chancellor, the President of the Board of Trade and even the Prime Minister. Perhaps here the cynic would find a clue. Every aspirant to the Tory leadership needs to keep the Neanderthal right on board, particularly a Europhiliac like the Home Secretary.
Rather than ditch a Bill that passed its sell-buy date on 9 April, the right hon. and learned Gentleman has tarted it up and thrown it to the rottweilers. Who cares? He has never met those fleeing torture and the death squads--they are not likely to live in Rushcliffe. They are certainly not voters in the election for the next Tory leader. Labour will vote against the Bill's Second Reading. We will seek to neutralise its worst excesses in Committee and in the second Chamber. Secretary of State, it has been in your power to let this Bill lie. You chose to revive it and may God forgive you for its consequences. 9.36 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Charles Wardle) : This has been a wide-ranging, well-informed debate, sometimes passionate, only occasionally truculent and always interesting. It has scanned broad horizons when addressing the migration of peoples far beyond this country. It has also touched on complex technical details when examining our immigration control systems.
This is my first opportunity to congratulate the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) on his new Front-Bench role. Judging by the number of questions for written answer that he has tabled--to which I have replied
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--and by his more than assiduous inquiries of the immigration and nationality department, he must already have an encyclopaedic knowledge of this important subject. But from his remarks this evening I cannot help wondering whether he really can see the wood for the trees--the same may apply to one or two of his colleagues. In the time available I shall attempt to answer as many of the points raised as I can. The Bill reflects the Government's commitment to ensuring that our immigration controls provide a fair and effective response to the changing conditions and worldwide pressures that face us in the 1990s. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) said, it strikes a proper balance between the protection of the rights of the individual on the one hand and the maintenance of an effective immigration control on the other.It may be argued that asylum and immigration are separate issues, but it is clear from experience here, elsewhere in Europe and from further afield that huge numbers of people are now issuing asylum claims as a means of evading immigration control. That was made clear by my hon. Friends the Members for Poole (Mr. Ward), for Chingford (Mr. Duncan-Smith), for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway), for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) and for Thanet, North (Mr. Gale) among others. As the numbers of asylum applications rise, a decreasing proportion have been found to qualify for refugee status within the terms of the United Nations convention. Of the asylum cases decided here in 1980, just 64 per cent. were found to be refugees. Last year the figure was down to 10 per cent. and in Germany it was less than 5 per cent. The common pattern across Europe is of a large majority of applicants continuing to stay on, despite being refused. They manage to do so because, unsurprisingly, they take advantage of delays inherent in determination systems and in the complicated review and appeal procedures after the initial decisions to refuse. Because most applicants succeed in staying on, no matter how flimsy some of their claims are, still more people, quite understandably, are encouraged to try their luck too. The result is a large backlog of cases, which inevitably means that officials are forced to take longer than should be necessary to reach those genuine and often harrowing cases of a well-founded fear of persecution in which the individuals who have suffered deserve support and attention.
I shall deal with as many of the points raised in the debate as possible and try to throw light on some of the issues that caused differences of opinion earlier in the debate. The hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) referred to the power to curtail leave, say, for a student who has applied for and then been refused asylum. Curtailment is not automatic in such cases. The individual factors of each case will be considered. The main intention is to use the power of curtailment in the case of visitors who cannot continue to be treated as tourists after they seek asylum. To exempt other categories such as students under the rules will inevitably encourage exploitation of loopholes. For that reason the rules stand. The Immigration Act 1971 provides a general power to curtail. It is not a novel concept. The provision appears specifically in the Bill because of the telescoping of appeal rights in such cases. I remind the House that every person whose leave is curtailed will have a full right of appeal before removal from Britain.
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The hon. Gentleman also referred to the rules on the determination of asylum applications by groups. The rules are not inconsistent with the 1951 convention. They state clearly that any evidence advanced by an individual to distinguish himself or herself from the group with which he or she arrived will always be taken into consideration. For example, if a coachful of unfounded applicants arrives and an individual does not seek to distinguish himself from the rest, it would be legitimate to refuse him as part of the group without further investigation. It is the responsibility of the individual to make the distinction.Mr. Corbyn : Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Wardle : I will, but the hon. Gentleman will be aware that I want to make some progress. He has already spoken.
Mr. Corbyn : Will the Minister define "a coachful of unfounded applicants" who seek political asylum? We discussed the matter at length in Committee on the previous Bill. What powers and what sense of justice will one have to make blanket decisions in such cases?
Mr. Wardle : It is simply a group of people acting as a group who say that they are refugees and clearly they are not. That is the answer. That makes the point.
I move on to the matter of accelerated procedures. Two time factors appear to cause some confusion. The first time factor is the difference between 48 hours and 10 working days for lodging an appeal. That depends on whether the notice of refusal is served in person--that is the 48-hour deadline--or whether it is served by post. In that case we are talking about 10 working days, which is two weeks in practice.
The other time factor--as I say this I look at the hon. Member for Sedgefield--is the difference between the accelerated procedure at that point for a groundless case and the ordinary procedure. That means that after the appeal has been lodged, it can take a maximum of five days for the appeal to be heard. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton was right earlier, as I am sure Hansard will show. Alternatively, when the application is not dealt with under the accelerated process, it will take up to 13 weeks or three months. I am happy to look further at the wording of the rules to see whether the matter can be spelt out more clearly. The 48-hour rule is aimed primarily at those in detention, in particular those who arrive from safe third countries. Most port applicants will receive refusals by post and be subject to the normal 10-working-day rule. I hope that that clarifies the matter.
Mr. Blair : The matter should be further clarified so that we have it absolutely straight. The Home Secretary said that the 48-hour rule applied only to groundless cases. He has now accepted that that is not the case. In the light of the present exchanges, may we have an undertaking that the legislation will specify that the 48-hour rule, which has been subject to so much criticism from so many groups, will apply only to groundless cases?
Mr. Wardle : There is still some confusion in the mind of the hon. Member for Sedgefield. The 48-hour rule does not apply to all groundless cases. It is intended to apply to people who have arrived at ports and who are held in detention. As I have already said to the hon. Gentleman, we shall consider the matter to see whether the guidelines
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can be made clearer. What my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary said will be borne out with ever- increasing clarity. Fingerprinting is a sensitive issue. However, the process is necessary because a number of those people who arrive at ports and claim asylum do so without documents or with mutilated documents. Therefore, the most straightforward method of establishing identity is fingerprinting. There have been a number of multiple applications for social security by asylum seekers whose cases are being considered and who, under the urgent cases rule, are entitled to apply for personal benefits. Asylum seekers cannot receive income support at the normal rates, but under the urgent cases rule, they can receive 90 per cent. of the normal allowances.There are many instances, to which some allusion has already been made, of asylum applicants submitting more than one bid for social security benefit. One asylum applicant entered the United Kingdom with his wife and two children. Checks in Croydon revealed-- [Interruption.] Opposition Members seem to find the case amusing, but it is an example of the rampant waste of social security benefit through fraud. Checks revealed that there were 54 files, each representing that man and his family, and there are many other such cases.
Immigration department fingerprint records will be held entirely separately from police records. There will be no possibility of trawls being made through the asylum records. The police or Government Departments may legitimately make a specific inquiry of the Home Office about an individual. That inquiry can be answered without giving general access to fingerprint records. Proper confidentiality has always been maintained, and the House should not ignore the fact that the Home Office already holds much confidential information on asylum seekers, and does so securely. Fingerprints are not an unduly sensitive way of increasing the checks on mulitple applications and identity--indeed, they are much less sensitive than some of the details that emerge in other cases.
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