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5.16 pm
Mr. Roy Hattersley (Birmingham, Sparkbrook): This is a deplorable little Bill, made all the more squalid by the fact that it is generally unnecessary.
I could, were I to take up more of the House's time, make the case for the fact that the Bill is not needed at all. Even those who believe that not to be so will be hard put to explain, if the Government's only intention is to deter bogus asylum seekers from applying and speedily remove them from this country if they have applied to come here, why it is necessary to include the housing clause, the employment clause and the social security clause.
Let us have no doubt about what the social security clauses mean. I have no doubt that, if he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) will discuss that aspect of the Bill--clauses 10 and 12--in some detail, but let it be said at the outset that, as those clauses now stand, everyone who is in the country with leave to remain, be it permanent or temporary, is disqualified from the receipt of benefit.
The Secretary of State may promulgate regulations that then include those people in the benefit provisions, but it will be done by his grace and favour. If the House had any real understanding of the needs of democracy, it would always vote against a Bill about which the Minister virtually says, "What is written in it may be deplorable, but trust me--I will make it less deplorable by administrative means." If I may say so, if I had to trust a Minister to make a Bill less deplorable than the words suggest, the Home Secretary would be the last member of the Government whom I would expect to move in that direction.
I have no doubt that the Government's intentions are political. The peroration, if that is how it should be described, in the Home Secretary's speech, not to mention the interventions of some Conservative Back Benchers, show that the Bill is supposed to improve morale in the Tory party and, as was said by Conservative party briefers, challenge the Labour party and, in so doing, embarrass it.
Let me make my position clear beyond doubt. I should have been embarrassed only if the Labour party had not met the Bill head on, described its inadequacies and stated that it will vote against it at 10 o'clock tonight, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) on doing just that.
I have only one criticism to make of my hon. Friend's speech. He announced, as though it were a surprise to the House, that the Home Secretary was shameless. I should have thought that that was the most established fact in current political understanding. Were that not so, he would not have blandly replied to my right hon. Friend the Member for Gorton and me that we should join the Committee--which I am happy to do--to understand the Bill, because he was unwilling or unable to describe its individual provisions.
I wish specifically to address the Bill's employment provisions. They concern me as, in many ways, they will bear hardest on the black and Asian British--such as my constituents--who are not asylum seekers but who are as British as the Home Secretary and I. Before I turn to that issue, I have two questions about the legislation that I hope the Minister of State will condescend to answer when she replies to the debate.
The first concerns a point that I put to the Home Secretary and which he demonstrated he did not understand in the slightest. Clause 1(2) enables the Home Secretary to remove applicants through the fast-track procedure and to send them to what I shall call a third country so long as there is
But what is meant by the words "no serious risk of persecution"? If a country persecutes only one small tribe does it qualify as a country in which there is general persecution? If a leader of a political party has been assassinated but none of his followers has been killed, does that amount to a serious risk of persecution in a country? It seems as though the Bill has been cobbled together in something like a hurry.
New sub-paragraph (3) states that certain things shall be legal so long as they are done in a way that appears to the Home Secretary--"to him"--to be proper. If ever a clause were designed to save a Minister who is constantly contradicted by judges, it is one that contains the words "appears to him". Anyone who has had anything to do with drafting legislation knows full well that "appears to him" means that the Secretary of State can do whatever he wants and, if he gets it wrong, he cannot be held to account.
I ask the Minister of State a second question, which I hope she will answer when she replies to the debate. Clause 4 makes entry into the United Kingdom by deception a criminal offence. There are no exceptions. Does the Minister not understand that, by the nature of their dilemma, asylum seekers do not go to embassies and high commissions, queue to apply for visas and then write in the appropriate box, "I am applying for entry to the United Kingdom because I am being persecuted by the Government of this country"? If that is to be the invariable rule, many genuine asylum seekers will be prevented from entering this country.
Miss Widdecombe:
Surely the right hon. Gentleman recognises that people who are obliged to leave their countries by deception can be completely honest and say what they are about when they arrive at our ports. In that way, they would enter our country on a clear understanding.
Mr. Hattersley:
That is not what the Bill says. I am hypothesising about a person who may arrive at a port with a visa to which he or she is not entitled. The hon. Lady says that such an applicant could then demonstrate that the visa was obtained deceitfully for a good reason, but she should write that into the Bill because it does not say it at the moment.
In 1934 Mr. Willy Brandt left Germany with a visa to visit Oslo as a student, although he had no place at any educational institution in Norway. The Government of that country--being more progressive than this Government--realised on his arrival that he was a fraudulent applicant, but fortunately they allowed him to remain and to avoid Nazi persecution. In a similar situation, under the terms of the Bill as it now stands, Mr. Willy Brandt or anyone else would not be allowed to enter this country.
Mr. Max Madden (Bradford, West):
Is it not also true that if the sort of people to whom my right hon. Friend
Mr. Hattersley:
My hon. Friend is quite right. It is disturbing to note that Labour Members obviously understand the implications of the Bill far better than Ministers do--or are prepared to say that they do. The Bill does not say that an asylum seeker who deceives the authorities with good reason will gain entry to this country. The hon. Lady must face that fact.
Mr. Stephen:
With respect, it appears that the right hon. Gentleman has not understood the Minister of State's intervention. Clause 4 makes it an offence
Mr. Hattersley:
That is what should occur, but the Bill does not say that. If the hon. Gentleman and I serve on the Committee that considers the Bill, we may move an amendment to the clause to ensure that it does.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney, North and Stoke Newington)
rose--
Mr. Hattersley:
I shall give way once more, but I wish to limit my remarks to about 10 minutes as other hon. Members have done.
Ms Abbott:
Does my right hon. Friend agree that many of the comments of Conservative Members reveal that, unlike Labour Members, they have not dealt with immigration cases and the personal problems that arise from them day in and day out? It is that lack of knowledge--or it is malice--that characterises the legislation.
Mr.ey:
My final and main point illustrates precisely that. I remind the House and the Home Secretary of the undoubted adverse effect that the Bill's employment clause will have on black and Asian British citizens who are not asylum seekers and who were born here or who became British by registration.
Mr. Deva:
We need this Bill now in order to support and engender good race relations in this country.
Mr. Hattersley:
I am more pleased that I gave way to the hon. Gentleman than I first thought as his intervention allows me to make another point. I grow sick of hearing people say that repressive legislation is necessary for good race relations in this country. The constant reiteration of the idea that every immigrant is a problem or a threat is bad for race relations. That is what Bills such as this pretend and that is the impression that they create.
I return to the main point of my speech: the Bill's effect on black and Asian British citizens. The consultation document, which addresses how an employer shall decide whether an applicant is entitled to seek and obtain work, begins by being ambiguous about whether national
insurance numbers are sufficient to prove that point. I hope that the Minister will tell us categorically whether the simple presentation of a national insurance number constitutes proof. Eight other ways in which an employer may determine whether an applicant is genuine or bogus have been suggested. The consultation document states that, having obtained some sort of written information, it is the employer's duty to be convinced that the information is prima facie honest and genuine.
To the Secretary of State, with his vast industrial experience, that may not seem like an immense burden on an employer--and it will not be a burden on employers such as ICI or a nationalised industry. However, black and Asian British people live mostly in areas where there are many small employers. Most of the employers in my constituency run two-man businesses that employ six or eight other men and women. There is now 40 per cent. male unemployment in the northern ward of my constituency--and the figure will be higher among the black and Asian British. Half of the black and Asian British people in the northern ward of my constituency are unemployed. When a small employer places an advertisement in the local newspaper for a couple of labourers, 100 or 200 people apply for the positions. An example may be an engineering, tool-making or metal-bashing firm whose books are probably kept by the wife of the boss. It is the type of firm that the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister are always saying is oppressed by bureaucratic regulation, that tries to get rid of form filling and is worried about authority. That firm will be told, if the Bill becomes law, that it must ensure that the new man or woman whom it takes on is not a bogus asylum seeker or an illegal immigrant.
The boss of the firm will immediately cross out from the list of applicants all the people whom he or she thinks might possibly be bogus asylum seekers or illegal immigrants. The people crossed out will not be called Howard and Hattersley: they will be called Khan and Patel. I do not suggest for a second that in doing so that employer would be intentionally racist. However, he would be doing what so often happens in this country. Without wishing to and almost without knowing, he would be discriminating against one section of the population.
"in general no serious risk of persecution"
in that country. The Home Secretary gave us the examples of France and Germany, and I think that we all agree that there is no serious or general risk of persecution in those countries.
"if, by deception, he obtains or seeks to obtain leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom".
If a person forges some documents--we all accept that he might have to do that in order to get out of his country-- arrives at Heathrow and then says, "These documents are bogus but they had to be forged in order for me to get out; I am a genuine refugee and I seek asylum in this country", how can it be said that that person seeks to enter this country by deception?
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