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Mr. Piara S. Khabra (Ealing, Southall): Does my hon. Friend accept that the Indian Government have set up a human rights commission that has greater powers to investigate cases of torture? In my opinion, that represents an advance in the protection of human rights in India, particularly in Kashmir.
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Mr. Straw: I accept that the Indian Government, certainly under Narasihma Rao, have made some moves towards ensuring that allegations of torture in Kashmir are properly investigated. As a good friend of India, when I
met Narasihma Rao four years ago, I said that the Indian Government's reputation had been damaged by their refusal to allow outsiders, including the United Nations rapporteur, to visit that country.
Ms Liz Lynne (Rochdale): Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, because of the terrible human rights record in Indian Kashmir, India should not be on the white list? If he were Home Secretary, would India be on that white list?
Mr. Straw: This is not a reproach, but merely an observation. Had the hon. Lady been here at the start of my speech, she would have heard me say that no country would be on the white list. Let me make it absolutely clear that we do not accept the principle of a white list. We believe that it would be far more trouble than it was worth in practical terms. We also consider it unprincipled and we shall not operate it. Meanwhile, our amendment would moderate its effect.
Today is the last day for the House to debate the Bill. It is the worst, least justified measure before Parliament this Session. It comes only two years after the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Act 1993, in respect of which the former Minister, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Mr. Wardle) said:
We all know the real motive behind the Bill, because the cat was let out of the bag in September 1995 by Mr. Andrew Lansley, former head of research at Conservative central office and now a Conservative candidate for a Cambridge constituency. He said:
Mrs. Ann Winterton (Congleton):
I shall detain the House only briefly, but I should like to speak to amendment (b), in my name and those of hon. Members on both sides of the House.
The amendment seeks to clarify the position with regard to involuntary abortion and sterilisation. There was a very good and thorough debate in another place on Report, on an amendment moved by my noble Friend Lord Ashbourne, and many who spoke in that debate felt that amending the definition of torture was a more appropriate way of protecting the victims of enforced abortion.
During her speech on Report in another place, the Minister of State, my noble Friend Baroness Blatch, in an attempt to say that the Chinese Government did not support coercion, quoted the country reports on human rights practices for 1995. Those reports are submitted
annually by the US State Department to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House of Representatives Committee on International Relations. What my noble Friend did not say is clear from a letter sent last year to the House of Representatives Appropriation Committee by a distinguished expert on China, Mr. Stephen W. Mosher, stating:
Civilisations can be judged by how they treat women, children, old people and strangers. Vulnerable people bring out the kindness and the cruelty in every society. One such cruelty is enforced abortion.
I was gratified to read the comments of my noble Friend the Minister of State, who said that the Government would not remove a pregnant woman in circumstances where there was a likelihood that she would be subject to enforced abortion, until after the birth of the child. What would happen after the child was born? Would that woman then be deported? If so, she would face a great many dangers. If she were deported to China, she would be charged--and most likely convicted--with having an illegal child. She would then be forcibly sterilised and fined three or four times the annual wage in China. If she were unable to pay, her house would be demolished.
My noble Friend Baroness Blatch is honourable in her intentions, and I had no doubt whatever as to her sincerity when she said in another place that she would never return a pregnant woman. Unfortunately, future Ministers may not be as sympathetic; that is why I feel it so necessary that the amendment should be included in the Bill as a safeguard.
Miss Widdecombe:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has raised an extremely important issue. She knows that I respect her amendment, although I am unable to accept it. Let me put her mind at rest on the point that she has just raised.
When considering whether to return anybody, of course we would consider the predicament that such an individual would then face. If the danger were limited purely to forcible abortion--and that was the only
danger--there would be no impediment to returning the woman after the birth of her child. But if she were to face further dangers of the sort outlined by my hon. Friend, that would create a different set of merits under which the case would be considered. We would not return someone to those dangers.
Mrs. Winterton:
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for those reassurances. The only problem is that many reassurances given to the House in the past have not been kept. That is why I had hoped that the Government--who are opposed to enforced abortion--would accept this minor clarifying amendment. It rather disappoints me to hear that my hon. Friend will not do so.
Mr. Alton:
I warmly agree with the hon. Member for Congleton (Mrs. Winterton), to whom I wish to make two points. First, a woman who presented herself to the Beijing embassy could say that she wanted to seek asylum in the United Kingdom by virtue of her second pregnancy, as she was facing an enforced abortion. In that case, the issue should not arise of whether she would be returned after the birth of her child. But would she be admitted to this country as an asylum seeker at that stage because of her pregnancy? Secondly, what are the implications for all the women in Hong Kong, which will return to communist Chinese rule a year from now?
Mrs. Winterton:
The hon. Gentleman raises two extremely valid points, and I am sure that the House will have taken note of them. There is no doubt that practices in China and Hong Kong--when it rejoins mainland China--will not necessarily be ones that we would consider right and proper, and we shall have no jurisdiction over them whatever.
The House may be interested to know that the matter of enforced abortion was considered recently by the European Parliament--hardly a Conservative institution. An amendment to the budget was passed at a plenary session on 24 May this year to ensure that
"It is important to make sure that the Asylum Act, which has only been in place for two years, works before we rush through a future piece of legislation."
However, Ministers have sought to rush through the legislation without effective scrutiny in a Special Standing Committee, as we proposed.
"Immigration, an issue we raised successfully in 1992 and again in the 1994 European election campaign, played particularly well in the tabloids and has more potential to hurt."
That is the motive behind the Bill. Everything that has occurred since has confirmed Mr. Lansley's chilling admission that the measure is about the use of the race card. I am pleased to say, however, that at least the British people have seen through the moral barrenness and practical vacuity of the measure, and the Government have not achieved the political support that they intended.
"the Government"--
of China--
"blames instances of coercion on 'overzealous local officials' and asserts that such officials are punished as soon as their crimes are detected. None of the above claims are true . . . none of the provincial family planning regulations adopted since 1979 warns against coercion or specifies penalties for guilty officials. No case of an official being punished for using coercion has ever been cited in the media, although many cases of officials being punished for failing to meet their targets or quotas have appeared. Family planning workers are judged by their party superiors solely on the basis of how well they succeed in holding down the birth rate . . . All other considerations--including questions of coercion--are secondary."
My office recently received a letter from Maggie Wynne, director of the House pro-life caucus, to whom I pay tribute for her dedicated work. She tells me that in 1992 the People's Republic of China passed a law that laid down:
"A man may not divorce a woman who is required by law to terminate her pregnancy for at least six months."
No requirement could be so heartless. What happens if the woman refuses to have an abortion? On that, the law is silent. I presume that the man can then divorce her--if so, then so much for equality.
"Community assistance shall not be granted to any country . . . which permits or encourages coerced abortion, forced sterilisation or infanticide as a means of controlling population growth".
Miss Emma Nicholson:
I fully support everything that the hon. Lady is saying. Will she expand her remarks to include the dreadful horror of genital mutilation that women face in some countries, forcing them to seek asylum? What are her comments on that?
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