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2.12 pm
Dr. Ashok Kumar (Middlesbrough, South and Cleveland, East): I agree with some of the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten). I agree with his concern about the House's long hours--working, as he said, until 2 am or 3 am--which certainly do not deliver better government. I do not agree with everything that he said, but I agree with some of the sentiments that he expressed. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will reply to them.
I should like to raise an issue only briefly, although it is very important issue for one of my constituents--Mr. Whittaker, of Guisborough, which is a market town
in my constituency. He is one of a number of now elderly gentlemen who served this country in uniform in a now largely forgotten episode. He served, between 1952 and 1955, as a corporal in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, based in Abusultan. I should like to concentrate on the circumstances in which he served this country, and on the national service men who served in Egypt and the canal zone between 1950 and 1955.Their service was largely overshadowed by the fact that, at the same time, the Korean war was raging, and, later, by the wars in Malaya and Borneo and the onset of the Suez crisis. I shall not attempt to argue against, or to justify, their presence in Egypt. They were there as a result of the colonial past meshing with the need to protect something that--in the days when there was still an east of Suez dimension to defence and trade policy--was regarded as a key strategic asset: the Suez canal. The bases were established to protect the canal.
As I said, Mr. Whittaker and his colleagues were national service men, and they probably hoped that their three years in that role would be quiet ones--spent square-bashing or potato-peeling in Aldershot or Catterick. Instead, the then Egyptian Government's abrogation of treaties made between Egypt and the United Kingdom--because of disagreement over management of the canal, and the rise of Nasser's young officers group--resulted in political tension spilling over into riots and guerrilla activity. That activity was intense, involving pitched battles and, sometimes, an armoured response.
In January 1952, for example, C company of the 1st Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers had to storm a police barracks in Ishmaelia. Under intense sniper fire, they had to have the support of Centurion tanks from the 4th Royal Tank Regiment, which had to shell the complex. Five British service men were killed in that one episode.
Similar incidents occurred across the canal zone and throughout the complex of British forces bases in the country. Military historians have argued that the intensity of the conflict mirrored the conflict in Palestine--where, some years before, British troops again had to hold the line.
The incidents were, sadly and inevitably, not without casualties. Officially, it is estimated that 55 to 60 British service men were killed by enemy action. The total death loss, however, was far higher. The Suez veterans group estimates that the total number of service dead reached more than 300, with many deaths being caused by accidents, handling live ordinance or mine clearing.
I am speaking in this debate for a simple reason: unbelievably, despite this history, those deaths and the fact that Mr. Whittaker and his colleagues were conscripts in what was essentially a war zone, they have never received official acknowledgement of their service and bravery by the award of the General Service Medal.
I understand that the reason for not making the award was that, in 1952, the Army Council did not consider the canal zone to be a fully fledged active service area. The council's judgment, however, was made in that period and without the benefit of historical oversight, and that view was contradicted by later military judgments, after the Army had had to respond to events as they unfolded. The contradiction has been admitted.
In a letter from the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy (Dr. Moonie)--who was replying to my request for the award of the General Service Medal to Mr. Whittaker and his comrades--I was told:
- I am aware that service personnel were on declared active service during the certain periods whilst in the Canal Zone.
- members of the Armed Forces who serve in Northern Ireland are eligible for the General Service Medal with clasp Northern Ireland.
- never been formally placed on active service.
Let us consider other post-war flashpoints in which British service men have been involved, such as: Kenya, where 10 service men were killed; Malaya, where 509 were killed; Palestine, where 223 were killed; Cyprus, where 73 were killed; the 1956 Suez invasion, in which 12 were killed; Borneo, where 79 were killed; and Aden, where 24 were killed. All those operations were seen as eligible for award of the General Service Medal, and the officers and men who fought in those campaigns can wear their medal ribbons with great pride. Mr. Whittaker and his colleagues are not being allowed to do the same.
I think that it is a matter of total oversight. I believe that the omission is morally wrong. I realise that the line taken by the Ministry of Defence is that the issue has been reviewed, and reviewed by senior military advisers, but those advisers saw no reason to dissent from the Army Council view that contemporary judgment is sounder than retrospective judgment. I beg to disagree with them: I believe that retrospective judgment often is better than contemporary judgment. Retrospective judgment allows for comparison and for historical oversight--which includes matters such as the campaigns that I have listed.
There is a view--to which I do not necessarily subscribe--that the 1952 decision, in the context of that time, was perhaps militarily and politically expedient. It is time for the Ministry of Defence to do some serious research into the reasons for that decision and for all the papers to be produced.
One issue above all should be looked at. I have been told that the one person who, above all others, should have been listened to--the then commander in chief of British forces in the middle east, General Sir Brian Robertson--was of the firm opinion that service men in the canal zone should qualify for the general service medal. The issue should be cleared up once and for all. If General Robertson made such a view clear in correspondence, it alters the entire picture and my constituent, Mr. Whittaker, and his colleagues should get the official recognition that they so richly deserve.
Finally, I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to ask the Ministry of Defence to unlock and dust down the archive files from the Army's historical branch and to undertake a full review. I am not alone in making this request. My hon. Friends the Members for Wentworth (Mr. Healey) and for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) have also
raised the issue of justice for canal zone veterans. I am sure that my hon. Friend agrees that we all want this historical injustice to be rectified. I urge him to speak to the Ministry of Defence and press as strongly as he can for the changes that I have asked for. Thank you for allowing me to raise this important issue, Mr. Deputy Speaker.2.21 pm
Mr. David Atkinson (Bournemouth, East): On Wednesday 12 April, I sought to catch your eye to speak in the debate on asylum seekers, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I failed to do so. I am glad that I failed, because I can now add to what I had proposed to say on that occasion to reflect an alarming situation concerning asylum seekers in my constituency and elsewhere in Bournemouth.
At least 10 per cent. of asylum seekers in this country come from countries that are free of persecution. They have minimal grounds for seeking asylum, and instead of a lengthy period awaiting assessment of their claim, followed by a further period for appeal, they should have the fastest of fast-track procedures consistent with international law. There continues to be a case for maintaining a white list of safe countries from which any asylum seekers would more appropriately receive automatic detention.
I am referring to member states of the Council of Europe. The citizens of most of those countries enjoy the best human rights protection in the world. I am pleased to see the hon. Member for Keighley (Mrs. Cryer) in the Chamber. Like me, she is an active member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The human rights protection in member states is legally provided for by the European convention on human rights, which all member states have to ratify and which is enforced by the findings of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which Governments and member states are obliged to honour. Most member states have adopted the convention as part of their domestic law, as we are now doing.
A majority of member states have signed and are ratifying the torture convention, the European social charter, the European cultural convention and the new framework convention on the protection of national minorities. It is therefore reasonable to start from the premise that those who seek asylum on the grounds of a well-founded fear of persecution from member states of the Council of Europe are the least likely to have a case. Our procedures should reflect that.
I exclude from my arguments those who come from the former Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union, whose recent and current ethnic conflicts provide justifiable grounds for the fear of persecution. However, most of those countries have yet to join the Council of Europe.
Last year, there were 10,000 applications from Council of Europe member states--3,000 more than the previous year. That figure does not include dependants, so the real figure is much higher. The applications come from citizens of Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, the Czech and Slovak Republics, Turkey and other member states. It may not be widely appreciated that each of those countries is subject to a procedure that monitors in the greatest detail the commitments and obligations that they have entered into upon accession to the Council of Europe. That monitoring is done by the Parliamentary Assembly, through its monitoring committee, and separately by the Committee of Ministers.
Apart from the regular fact-finding visits of the rapporteurs, those procedures take the fullest account of reports and submissions from Human Rights Watch, the Helsinki Foundation, Amnesty International, Christian Solidarity Worldwide and other non-governmental organisations, including those in the countries concerned. There is no doubt that there is no persecution in Poland, Hungary, Romania, the Czech and Slovak Republics or Bulgaria, and there are very few grounds for their citizens to seek asylum elsewhere, yet they represent 10 per cent. of the total coming to this country--7,000 last year--costing local authorities £30 million, which is equivalent to nearly 1,000 new police officers.
The Government should introduce the most efficient procedures possible to deal with asylum seekers from Council of Europe member states, in which, as our embassies will confirm, there is no persecution. That should also apply to the backlog of those already here from those countries.
Before someone reminds me, I am aware that there are a lot of dissatisfied Romas--or gypsies--in many of those countries, who complain about police brutality and harassment, the hostility of those who live in their neighbourhoods and an inability to assert their cultural identity. However, those are not grounds for seeking asylum, or for being accepted as seekers of asylum.
The House may be aware that the issue of the failure of Governments to protect their gypsy citizens is awaiting a ruling in the other place, in response to the appeal of a Slovakian gypsy, Mr. Milan Horrath, who arrived here in 1997 seeking asylum for himself and his family. He claimed persecution not by the state that he had left, but by skinhead thugs.
If the House of Lords supported the argument of the Refugee Legal Centre, which is backing Mr. Horrath's appeal, that someone who is threatened with being beaten or killed by skinheads can be a refugee, it would open the floodgates to such claimants. If that happened, I hope that the Government would urgently pursue the issue in the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, because there would be many member states that were, in effect, violating the European convention on human rights, and against whom appropriate action would need to be taken, as well as many other member states that would need to be prepared for many more seekers of asylum.
I conclude by describing what is happening in one road in my constituency on the way to the Southbourne Overcliff and beach. The road contains 17 hotels and guest houses among its 79 households, as well as three houses in multiple occupation--HMOs.
A couple of weeks ago, a resident from the road shared with me at my surgery her concerns about what has been happening since those HMOs started accommodating asylum seekers. She told me that the atmosphere has changed for residents and visitors, who are mainly young families, from one of tranquillity, relaxation and contentment to one of threats, fear and alarm. That has been confirmed by many other residents who have phoned my office during the past two weeks, at my suggestion, to share their concerns.
The picture is the same for all of them. Residents are being woken up or kept awake during the night by loud music, shouting, drinking, partying and cars revving and
screeching at all hours. During the day, men, many of whom have mobile phones--my constituents do not know how they can afford them--stand around leering at passers-by, especially young women. There are tales of drinking, shouting and spitting, and of residents having to walk through sick and urine. Windows in the street have been broken by stone-throwers and boarded up.Many cars are parked on the street; they are old, battered and wrecked--many are without road tax, and, presumably, are also uninsured. If they were abandoned, no one could tell. There is also a report of someone being taken out of one of the HMOs in a body bag.
My constituents are feeling threatened. They can see in their street a decline into seediness and squalor. They fear not just the anti-social behaviour of their new neighbours, but the crime that might just follow. They do not complain for fear of being branded racist, or worse, of being accused of retaliation.
Those who run the 17 hotels and guest houses have every reason to fear that their businesses and livelihoods are now at very real risk. Their regular clientele, built up over years, can be lost through one bad experience. Passing trade will pass on. People's livelihoods are now at risk.
It is understood that Bournemouth has taken more than 300 asylum seekers in a number of hotels and HMOs used by Kent and the London boroughs. Two weeks ago my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill) and I received a letter from the chairman of the Bournemouth tourism advisory board, Councillor Jacky Harris, emphasising that while Bournemouth wants to play its part in the national dispersal scheme, it is essential for the council to have local control of where asylum seekers are accommodated; it is essential for them and for the community.
It is particularly crucial that nothing is done to discourage visitors and holiday makers from coming to the hotels and guest houses in the designated tourism core planning zones in seaside resorts such as ours where the local economy and jobs rely on tourism.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West--who wishes to be associated with these remarks--and I have made representations along those lines to the Minister of State, Home Office, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche). I was not encouraged by her reply to me on 18 May, telling me that there is no requirement for one local authority to notify another before placing asylum seekers in accommodation in another local authority area. That has to be changed. Local authorities--particularly those such as Bournemouth, which rely on tourism--must have control over the location of HMOs that take in asylum seekers.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West and I will now write to the Prime Minister, seeking his personal interest and intervention. Last October, we in Bournemouth welcomed the Prime Minister and his party conference and we were pleased to do so. However, they may not return if they find that their hotels and guest houses are in the same streets as HMOs whose residents are behaving as I have described today.
I look forward to the Minister's response to my constituents' concerns.
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