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Mr. Howard: I agree with my hon. Friend: in the absence of any indication of Labour's attitude to our proposals, that is rapidly becoming the only sensible inference to be drawn.
Mr. Nigel Spearing (Newham, South): Is the Home Secretary aware that, for 40 years before the last war, Select Bill Committees were set up specifically to deal with matters of technical and social complexity? Two Select Committees--Mr. Turton's Committee of 1970-71 and Mr. Williams's Committee of 1977-78-- recommended a procedure similar to the special Bill procedure. Such a procedure would allow alternative methods to those proposed by the Home Secretary to be exercised by those who know and understand.
Would not the desire of both the right hon. and learned Gentleman and the Prime Minister for the matters involved to be dealt with without party controversy be fulfilled only if such a Committee met and took evidence?
Without that opportunity, what the Home Secretary wants--as do I, and as do many other right hon. and hon. Members--would not be seen to be done.
Mr. Howard:
I must confess that I do not recall what was done 40 years before the last war. The fact is, however, that this afternoon the Opposition are demonstrating a readiness to talk about anything and everything except the merits of our proposals. They are serious proposals, and we want a serious response from the Labour party, rather than a series of diversionary tactics.
Mr. Charles Wardle (Bexhill and Battle):
My right hon. and learned Friend's proposals are most welcome, provided that they can deliver practical results. Does he
Mr. Howard:
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work on the 1993 Act, which has helped, although not as much as we had hoped and anticipated, to deal with this problem. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend about the legislation: of course a Bill alone cannot and will not be enough. My hon. Friend asked about resources. He will have heard me say that we are to spend £37 million more over the next three years to ensure that our capacity to deal with applications increases. I shall bear his request for even more resources firmly in mind.
Mr. Piara S. Khabra (Ealing, Southall):
I challenge the Secretary of State's remark that this has no race implications at all. I have been in this country since 1959, and no legislation--
Madam Speaker:
Order. This is a time for questions.
Mr. Khabra:
I will go on to a question.
Madam Speaker:
No, we do not go on to questions: we begin with questions.
Mr. Khabra:
Does the Secretary of State agree that none of the legislation over the past 30 to 40 years has had racial implications for the racial minorities in this country?
Mr. Howard:
I do not think that any of this has racial implications. I say as clearly as I can that this country will not have good race relations unless it also has firm, fair immigration controls. The two are absolutely inseparable. They march together, and we ignore that combination at our peril.
Mr. Roger Gale (North Thanet):
My right hon. and learned Friend will know that those of us who served on the Committee that examined the 1993 Bill are particularly gratified by his efforts to plug the loophole and stop the abuse that has occurred as a result of that legislation through entrants from third countries. Could he reassure those of us who have an interest in the channel ports that the immigration service will have the resources and the powers it needs immediately to return those who seek to abuse our benefits system?
Mr. Howard:
As my hon. Friend knows, I share that concern. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Mr. Wardle), we recently increased resources precisely to achieve the objective that my hon. Friend identifies.
Mr. Greville Janner (Leicester, West):
Is the Minister aware that, as the proud grandson of four people who came to this country from Lithuania and Latvia, I am worried about how the new rules will be applied? The important consideration is not just the rules but the way that they are applied. I wonder whether my grandparents would have been accepted as having a well founded fear of persecution.
Will the Home Secretary please accept the sincerity of those of us who are anxious about the new rules, and look at them to see whether we may not be right in fearing that
their effect could be to allow in terrorists and others who are wealthy and do not need benefit, while excluding the people who really need asylum from their own country?
Mr. Howard:
With great respect to the hon. and learned Gentleman, it is frankly absurd to suggest that anything in these proposals would help to let in terrorists. In the context of well founded claims, I repeat what I said to the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman), who is sitting beside him: that there is nothing in the proposals to change the entitlement of anyone to come to live in this country.
The proposals do not affect the categories of people who are entitled to come to live here: they are designed entirely to deal with and to remedy abuse of our procedures, to deter bogus asylum seekers and illegal immigrants. That is why they deserve support from all parts of the House.
Mr. Hugh Dykes (Harrow, East):
Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that the family origins and background of himself or anyone else have no intrinsic connection with this matter anyway? [Hon. Members:
"Oh, yes it has."] No--although I have the pleasure of having the Home Secretary's mother as a distinguished constituent of mine.
Does he agree, however, that understandable arguments faced thousands of refugees facing horrendous emergency before the war and, in more recent years, Ugandan Asian refugees coming from Idi Amin's tyranny? That is one situation where a large number of people must be helped under emergency provisions, and has nothing to do with the growing number of phoney individual asylum applications that come to all Members of Parliament of all parties at their repeated surgeries, as I know from my experience--and I am sure others do, too.
Will my right hon. and learned Friend confirm that, provided the basis of the application seeks out, supports and succours a genuine refugee and political asylum seeker, the legislation is capable of being considered in a prolonged Standing Committee procedure, as all Bills normally are?
Mr. Howard:
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. He is right about the extent to which this measure can be properly scrutinised in Standing Committee. That will be an important part of the process that will enable to us achieve the highest possible quality in this legislation, so that it will properly do the task that we want it to do.
Mr. James Couchman (Gillingham):
May I assure my right hon. and learned Friend that he has my absolute support on his measures to deter bogus asylum seekers, but, as a former employer, may I express some concern over his expectations of particularly small employers being able to discern whether they are taking on someone who is in fact an illegal immigrant? Will he give us a little more information about what he expects of employers, and will he assure me that he will communicate directly to employers, and not simply through the major employing organisations, what he is expecting of them in trying to discern illegal immigrants?
Mr. Howard:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his support for the asylum provisions in these measures. I note what he says about the employer provisions, and I hope that his concerns will be allayed when he reads the consultation document that I am publishing this afternoon.
Mr. Neil Gerrard (Walthamstow):
How can the Secretary of State claim that his proposal is consistent with the UN convention on refugees, which this country signed, which clearly states that group presumptions affecting a group of people from one country should be made only in emergency, and then only in relation to a positive decision, when it is necessary to accept those people? That is the complete opposite of his proposal, and article 1 of the convention says that it should be applied without discrimination in relation to race, religion and country of origin.
Mr. Howard:
There will certainly be no discrimination of any type in the way in which we apply these provisions. On the convention, as I said in my statement, we will consider each application from any of the countries designated individually and, as I also said in that statement, we are not alone in introducing a designated list: Germany and Holland have recently done exactly the same.
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