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Miss Widdecombe: I ask the Minister to be a little franker--I believe that that is a parliamentary word--in his description of what Steve Norris said. When he used the words "immoral", "disgusting" and "disgraceful", he was referring to the Minister's proposal to introduce a £10,000 bond for people from selected countries. Steve Norris confirmed to me that that was the context of his remarks. Even before the newspaper report, he had already made those comments about the Minister's bond.
Mr. O'Brien: I am appalled that the right hon. Lady stood at the Dispatch Box and made no effort to reassure the Asian people of Britain that she would not seek to restore the primary purpose rule. We now know that she wants to reintroduce that appalling rule.
The Conservative mayoral candidate has not repudiated his remarks in The Times. He said that the Conservative party was proposing to bring back a rule that was enormously offensive. He also said that it was disgusting, immoral and missed the point.
Mr. O'Brien:
The report refers to the right hon. Lady's wish to restore the primary purpose rule. She has had every opportunity to deny that wish. I shall give her another. Will she now tell British-Asian families that, if she got the opportunity--I hope she will not--to restore the primary purpose rule, she would not do it?
Miss Widdecombe:
I can tell families in all parts of the community in Britain that our policies will seek to promote good race relations and tackle all abuses of our immigration or asylum systems. The policies that we shall introduce to tackle those abuses will be announced in due course at an appropriate time, not in response to newspaper reports or mischief from the Minister, who is ruining what was hitherto a sensible debate.
Mr. O'Brien:
Once again, Asian British people will note the right hon. Lady's failure. In The Independent on 25 February, she suggested that it was inconceivable that the Conservative party would not promise at the next election to restore the primary purpose rule. We have given her the opportunity to deny that, but now we know.
Mr. Singh:
Does my hon. Friend agree that the right hon. Lady's comments amount to an accusation that legitimate marriages between people living here and in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are abusive?
Mr. O'Brien:
My hon. Friend is right that the right hon. Lady appears to be besmirching the name of a large number of British Asian families. Will she now--
Miss Widdecombe:
Will the Minister give way?
Mr. O'Brien:
In a moment. Will the right hon. Lady give the commitment that she will not seek to restore the primary purpose rule as Conservative party policy? I ask her once again.
Miss Widdecombe:
I ask the Minister, very straightforwardly--[Hon. Members: "Answer!] No, no. Does he agree with the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh) or will he acknowledge that there is some abuse in respect of using marriage as a way into this country? Is there any abuse or not?
Mr. O'Brien:
The right hon. Lady knows perfectly well that the rules require that marriages be genuine. The primary purpose rule is not about that; it is an anti-family Tory policy.
Fiona Mactaggart:
The provisions to prevent entry through made-up and abusive marriages are powerful, but the primary purpose rule was clearly instituted to prevent genuine marriage in the arranged tradition and therefore discriminated against communities for which that is the way to form families. I urge my hon. Friend to continue to press the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) on this matter because it concerns many Asian families in my constituency.
Mr. O'Brien:
It is clear that for many black and Asian people in Britain--many of whom were born here, as were their parents--some Members of the House have a very long way to go to understand that we need to create a proper multi-racial Britain which is fair, which treats families equally and which does not discriminate against people whose families are perhaps in another part of the world.
Ethnic minorities in this country all too often have to face disproportionate exclusion from many of the better things in British life. They are often disproportionately victims of bad housing and school exclusion and are twice as likely to be unemployed. Their average pay is lower than that of white people, and we will build up problems for the future unless we address discrimination and racism.
Anti-racism is not about helping black and Asian people; it is about our future--white and black. We all live in a multicultural society and we all have a choice: either we make a success of multicultural Britain or we do not. If we fail to address those issues, our children--white and black--will pay the price of that failure. That is why all of us, white and black, have a vested interest in the Bill and in anti-racism. We must make Britain a success as a multicultural society.
The right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald also asked whether the Government have done a U-turn on indirect discrimination. We have not changed our mind
about the desirability of including it in the Bill--we were always in favour of that in principle--but we were concerned about the risks of spurious challenges to Government policy. Having listened carefully to the arguments, we are convinced that the principle of including indirect discrimination outweighs the risks about which we were initially concerned. The Government have been open. We have listened and reflected carefully, which is what the parliamentary process is all about.
Nor have we changed our mind about the need for a positive statutory duty to promote equality. We set out that commitment in our equality statement of 30 November 1999, before the publication of the Bill. What we are doing now is reinforcing that commitment by enshrining the principle in the Bill, leaving room for consultation on how the duty will operate in practice--as promised in our equality statement.
The right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald was worried about the police, and in particular about powers to stop and search. I join her in paying tribute to the police, who do a difficult job. When I was an adviser to the Police Federation, I came to understand very well the difficult work that it does. The Bill will not prevent police officers from carrying out their duties, but it will make it unlawful for them to do so in a manner that discriminates directly on grounds of race.
Section 1 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 requires officers to have reasonable suspicion that an offence has been or may be committed in order to conduct a stop-and-search operation. Under section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, officers must have that reasonable belief. Reasonable grounds for suspicion or belief will depend on the circumstances, but there must be some objective basis. A police officer who goes beyond his powers and stops someone, say, solely on the grounds of race, or otherwise treats someone unfavourably on such grounds, could be challenged on the basis of direct discrimination following the enactment of the Bill.
The Bill will enable discrimination in the use of stop and search to be challenged wherever it is not as a result of the inclusion of indirect discrimination in the Bill. Indirect discrimination is about requirements or conditions with which one racial group is better able to comply than another. In stop and search, no particular requirement or condition is imposed on an individual who is stopped or searched, and, at least, no requirement that cannot be complied with. Indirect discrimination would not apply in that context. The law places the onus on the police officer to have reasonable suspicion or belief to stop and search. Direct discrimination and victimisation, whether witting or unwitting, would apply, and would provide an appropriate remedy.
Probably the best answer to the concerns expressed by the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald came from the right hon. Member for Fareham, who said that it would be wrong for the state, which should protect all its citizens, to be allowed to discriminate, in the person of its police officers, against those citizens when the private sector could not do so.
The Police Federation has come in for criticism on some of the issues, but I join my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and others in saying that Fred Broughton has sought to overcome some of the cautious approach to
race relations that characterised comments by the federation in the past. He wants it to be much more open, and hopes that many future members will be black or Asian. That reflects well on him and on the federation.
The right hon. Member for Fareham said that the police would be harmed if they continued to be outside the Act. I agree: suspicion would continue to multiply. The effectiveness of stop and search, for example, would be discounted when there was no access to the courts if people felt that it was being used inappropriately. I do not think that the extension granted by the Bill will in any way undermine the ability of the police to do their job effectively. Stop and search has already been the subject of criticism.
In my view, the only legitimate route involves sensible court supervision of the way in which things are done. That will help the police to know where they stand with stop and search. As the right hon. Member for Fareham said, it is socially corrosive when individuals have no remedy for a grievance.
The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) said that, before stopping and searching a person, a police officer should ask himself, "Am I doing this for a good cause?" I agree, and I do not think that that applies only to the police. All of us who exercise power in one way or another should ask, "Why are we doing this?". Racism, unwitting or otherwise, undermines the fabric of Britain's multicultural society. I think that the police should join the rest of us in coming within the ambit of the laws that are necessary to protect our society.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West said in a perceptive and well-argued speech, problems can sometimes arise not out of deliberate racism by police officers--in my experience, most police officers are strongly anti-racist--but out of a lack of awareness, an insensitivity that may be unwitting or unintended. In those circumstances, it is right that police officers think carefully about what they do. Our police officers do a wonderful job for us, but, like the rest of us, they have to learn the ways in which to build a stronger multicultural Britain.
On institutional racism, I have already said that there has been some misunderstanding, partly as a result of journalistic licence and the way in which the measure has been presented. We must be clear: most police officers are certainly not racist. However, some institutions may have problems in terms of the way in which they recruit, promote and deal with people who are from ethnic minorities. They should address those issues. In the provision of their services, they may have disproportionately disadvantaged those with whom they are dealing. Those issues should be dealt with. I agree with the hon. Member for Worthing, West, who said that the police are going through a period of change. It is difficult, but in five years' time they will be through it and will be a much better police force as a result.
The right hon. Member for Charnwood raised one important point. He asked whether I agreed that there should be the same law for the public and private sectors. I do not. Laws should be appropriate to the role, the sector and the circumstances. The public sector, for example, should have a duty to promote equality that goes beyond that of the private sector. Broad principles are good,
but they are guides, and should not be applied in all their detail, because they could provide rigidity that does not make for good law making.
Various questions have been raised in relation to immigration rules and the application of those laws, but I will perhaps be able to deal with those in more detail in Committee.
The bond scheme has strong support from many people in the Asian community, including my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West. The aim is to deal only with the difficult marginal cases. No one who gets a visa today should have to pay a bond under the scheme that we propose to introduce.
Britain is a multicultural society. We are not yet a success as a multicultural society; the Stephen Lawrence inquiry teaches us that. The Government are determined to make Britain a beacon to the world as a successful multicultural society. That is a tough challenge for all of us, but it is not an unrealistic challenge because we have come a long way in the past 25 years since the race relations legislation. We benefit from the diversity in our culture and the success of our ethnic minorities in the professions, academia, business and, indeed, politics.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West reminded us, many stories of ethnic minorities in this country are stories of great success. Many ethnic minority people have succeeded and contributed enormously to this country. Britain is stronger because it is a multicultural society, but there is no room for complacency.
There are problems to be resolved, but the Stephen Lawrence case shows that we are prepared to face up to our problems as a mature democracy and to tackle them. As the hon. Member for Aylesbury said, we deserve credit for having come a long way since the race relations legislation. Perhaps some need to come a little further. Perhaps we need to pick up the pace in the next few years on many issues, as the hon. Member for East Antrim (Mr. Beggs) said. We will pick up the pace and move forward on an agenda to create a multicultural Britain. The Bill is part of that strategy and I commend it to the House.
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