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Mr. Straw: As I recall, the Opposition supported that proposal. It is a bit rich of the right hon. Lady to complain about it. She supported almost all our proposals, including abolition of the white list, opposing only the introduction of severe penalties for truck drivers who bring in clandestine immigrants.

Miss Widdecombe: Is it not discriminatory?

Mr. Straw: No, it will not be discriminatory. We are running a pilot scheme before final decisions come to be made about the bond scheme. Wherever we pilot it, it is not discriminatory because it is a pilot.

Miss Widdecombe: Ah. So if the pilot is successful, the £10,000 bond will become universal? Is that right? Is the Home Secretary saying yes to that?

Mr. Straw: I return to the explanation I offered the House on the amendments on immigration. Immigration and asylum law, by definition, distinguishes between

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people of different nationalities, and sometimes ethnic origins, so the Bill contains perfectly sensible savings. That is the answer to the right hon. Lady's question.

Miss Widdecombe: So indirect discrimination will apply to individual immigration officers, but not to Government policy. Okay.

Mr. Simon Hughes: Will the right hon. Lady give way?

Miss Widdecombe: Is the hon. Gentleman speaking for the Government or the Opposition today?

Mr. Hughes: I wish I were in the Government and speaking for them, but that must wait another month or two.

In the interests of trying to resolve an important point, may I say that I have asked myself the question that the right hon. Lady is putting to the Home Secretary, and have concluded that the exemption that allows nationality to be a reason for exemption from indirect and direct discrimination law is the reason why that would be permitted? There may be another issue about whether applying the nationality test might have other indirect consequences, but the white Indian--the Anglo-Saxon Indian--will be discriminated against under the Government's proposals in the same way as an Indian of Asian origin.

Miss Widdecombe: The hon. Gentleman goes a long way to bail out the Home Secretary, and does so with rather greater clarity than the right hon. Gentleman. However, despite what he has said, I am worried. If the Bill will apply to the immigration and asylum system in general, might it not lead to many appeals on grounds of racial discrimination, causing yet more delays in the system and probably increasing even further the famous backlog of asylum cases? Given the enormous pressures that the immigration and nationality directorate is already under, will such a Bill simply make the system even more ineffective?

It is not impossible to imagine a scenario in which almost every legitimate, reasoned decision taken by the IND would be subjected to the appeals process to delay possible removal from the UK rather than because of rational claims of racial discrimination. If that happened, it would undermine legitimate claims of discrimination, and be grossly unfair to those whose claims for asylum are genuine or who have a valid reason for wanting to enter the UK.

Will the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department tell us the estimated increased cost to public authorities and the legal aid budget that will result from the Bill? If he cannot, will he write to me? The Government described the costs as "significant" in the explanatory notes to the Bill, yet they have described calculating any such costs as an "impossible" task. On what basis, therefore, did the Government decide that the costs would be significant, and if that is indeed the case, will departmental budgets be able to cover successfully the significantly increased burden placed on them? Has the Home Secretary undertaken a detailed study of the financial implications of the inclusion of indirect discrimination in the Bill? If he has, may we have the benefit of those calculations?

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Working for better race relations does not have to be restricted to acting sternly against our organisations and institutions, and imposing sanctions and prohibitions. It must be a reasoned and responsible partnership that acts in everybody's interests to ensure that all members of society feel they are treated equally and fairly. We will, therefore, support the Bill at this stage, in the hope that it will improve race relations, but we have a responsibility to ensure that our public services remain effective and efficient, that they are not hampered by spurious legal challenges and that any legislation is implemented with those aims in mind.

I look forward--perhaps a trifle optimistically--to a sensible and careful consideration of all elements contained in the Bill, and I hope that effective and meaningful race relations will result.

2.27 pm

Mr. Piara S. Khabra (Ealing, Southall): I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary on his comprehensive proposals to address racism. I should like to outline how bad race relations were during the 1960s and early 1970s before the passage of the Race Relations Act 1976. Racial discrimination was entrenched in the minds of people who never hesitated to show their feelings in public. In addition, racial violence against individuals was common. I shall give some examples of the sort of treatment that ethnic minorities received in public places at the hands of racists.

In my constituency, in the mid-1960s, public houses used to refuse drinks to non-white customers. That deliberate and naked racism confronted members of the non-white minority. I once went to a public house with a couple of friends, and I asked at the bar for drinks. We were refused by the management, and we faced a barrage of racist insults and physical threats. The same thing happened in other public houses.

I complained to the Race Relations Board, but it had no power to prosecute publicans. It could only investigate, which was not helpful in any way. I emphasise that I regularly receive racist hate mail, both from within this country and from abroad.

After campaigning and lobbying for a long time, I was happy when the Labour Government passed the Race Relations Act 1976; that was a step in the right direction, although it did not have the teeth to bite. The Commission for Racial Equality and local community relations councils were set up under it. However, despite that legislation and extensive campaigning by the CRE, race equality councils, community organisations, trade unions and the Labour party, the practice of racism by individuals, employers and public authorities never stopped. It is time to give further powers to public authorities under race relations legislation to deal with any form of racism.

I welcome the Bill. It is a considerable improvement on the 1976 Act in several respects. I speak as someone who, as a community leader in Southall, was calling for improved race relations in 1976. I gave evidence as to what was needed to the Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration in May 1973. Although we still need to improve outdated legislation, we live in a much more tolerant society than 25 years ago when the 1976 Act was introduced. It is important that new legislation reflect those changes.

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The purpose of the Bill is to extend the 1976 Act to a wide range of the functions of public authorities that are not covered by it. I welcome the extension of the Act to all activities of the police and other bodies that involve direct discrimination or victimisation.

I was pleased that, while the Bill was in the House of Lords, the Government announced their decision


An individual will thus be able to mount a challenge in the courts on those grounds. Ministers, officials, law enforcers and other office holders in public authorities listed in the measure will be subject to that provision.

I welcome especially clauses 1 and 2. Clause 1 introduces new section 19B, which declares unlawful discrimination by public authorities. Subsection (1) makes it unlawful for any public body or office holder


Clause 2 amends section 76 of the 1976 Act, which deals with public appointments. It will bring within the Act Crown appointments and those made by Departments and Ministers. At present, those posts are not protected under the employment provisions of the 1976 Act. Where Crown appointments are dependent on ministerial or departmental recommendations or approvals, the Bill provides that there must be no discrimination at any stage of the process.

In the wake of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, I am pleased that the Metropolitan police are showing a determined effort to cut out racism in their ranks. That will be greatly helped by the recruitment of ethnic minority policemen and women. I am keen to promote police work as a career for the ethnic minority in my constituency.

However, I am a realist. I know that attitudes do not change overnight and that legislative safeguards are necessary. In the long run, I hope that they will not have to be used in cases of racial discrimination--because there will be no such cases.

I welcome the Government's announcement that the Bill will also lay a positive duty on public authorities to promote racial equality. Its operation in practice and its enforcement will be decided after consultation. I am sure that, during the remaining stages of the Bill, the Government will listen carefully to the CRE's proposals for the operation, monitoring and enforcement of that duty, and that they will also take into account proposals made by other interest groups.

I agree with the view expressed by the CRE that the Bill could serve as a tool to expose how racial discrimination by one public authority could lead to discrimination by another. For example, the commission pointed out that, over several years, discriminatory allocation of council housing led to the concentration of ethnic minority tenants on certain sink estates. It would not be surprising to find that, as tenants on such estates, ethnic minority households were also discriminated against by public bodies providing other services, such as education, health or policing.

The Bill would enable such discrimination to be challenged, regardless of whether it occurs directly--on racial grounds--indirectly because of a bad address, or both.

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