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Lord Selsdon: My Lords, I admit that I have a great interest in migration but not very much interest in immigration. I suppose that I have been a migrant all my life. At the start of the war I was migrated—it was not a positive decision of my own—to the United States. Then I migrated to Canada, then back to London and then to some sort of institution called a prep school. I should declare an interest in that I am a director of one of the construction companies that built the immigration centre at Gatwick—not that there is any relation between the two institutions. I then migrated to another place and then to the Mediterranean as a member of the Navy. Then I migrated back to work in the north-east of England. I suddenly realised that I had never been in one place for more than two years at a time.

Then, one day, I met what became a mentor. I was visiting my mother in Sussex and there in the vegetable garden, which was pretty ropy, was a Worzel Gummidge-like creature—animal or man—picking vegetables. I asked him, "What are you doing?" He said, "I'm picking vegetables for my dinner". I said, "Why are you here?". "Oh", he said, "I come every year". I asked my mother about him and she said, "He's a gentleman of the road". I got to know him quite well and he told me that he made marks on trees and he taught me about insects and other things. I then became fascinated with the migration of toads, butterflies, geese and all God's creatures. I find that migration is healthy and, if I could have my way, everyone would travel free without let or hindrance, wherever it might be on the face of the Earth.
 
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But one day, when my mother had come to London and was trying terribly hard to get Conservatives elected in Westminster, I found a white plastic table and some very ropy chairs outside her house in Tufton Street, which served as a form of Conservative headquarters. I said, "What are you doing?" "Oh", she replied, "the gentlemen are arriving tomorrow". I asked, "What do you mean?", and she said, "The gentlemen of the road". Four or five of them had followed her when she came to London. We discussed, first, whether my noble friend Lord Tugendhat would be a suitable candidate to be elected as Conservative MP for Westminster and then, later, whether the suitable candidate would be my noble friend Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville.

The gentlemen of the road explained to me that they migrated down the Old Kent Road every year to visit the cinque ports in Sussex, where the anti-Papists burnt effigies of the Pope. Then they migrated back to London and went to see their girlfriend Sally. The girlfriend was the Sally Ann—the Salvation Army. I then asked myself what the problem was. Surely people should be allowed to migrate wherever they want. Ultimately, immigration is the problem—that is the let and hindrance.

Perhaps I may refer the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, to a Question that I asked in this House:

"What documentation is acceptable as proof of identity to permit British subjects to travel without let or hindrance within the European Union".

The noble Lord replied that it had to be a passport. I asked whether we could use our parliamentary passes and the noble Lord replied:

"I think that that is a preposterous suggestion because the photo-identity pass does not identify the person concerned. It might state that it is an official document, and the notice to turn it in to a police station if lost is helpful, but what on earth does that really tell anyone? I therefore [cannot] take the suggestion seriously".—[Official Report, 16/5/02; cols. 419–20.]

A year later, I asked the Government whether they would let me know what documentation issued by which government department was proof of identify for what purpose. After about three months, the Government wrote me a nice letter advising me that a passport was acceptable everywhere in the world. However, the Department for Work and Pensions listed 22 separate documents as providing help with proof of identify. I then realised that the problem we have in this country is one of information and recognition.

The passport is, of course, the only true proof of identity and at present our British passports have on the bottom approximately 24 numbers and six letters. That should be enough coding for anything without having to go into biometric details. I then said to myself, "Let's assume that anyone who doesn't have a British passport might be a suspect in the United Kingdom". The Government say that between 72 and 81 per cent of British subjects have passports in the United Kingdom. Effectively that means that over the past 10 years approximately 51 million passports were issued, and passports last for only 10 years. So the difference must be accounted for by foreigners, illegal immigrants or someone else.
 
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Then I wanted to know how many British people there were on the face of the Earth outside the United Kingdom. That, of course, is impossible to determine and so we do not seem to know where our people are. Therefore, surely we should say that everyone is welcome in this country, provided they conform to certain requirements.

When I migrated to Germany to work for a while, I found to my horror that I required a number of documents. First, I had to have an Aufenthaltserlaubnis—that is, a permission to stay—then an Arbeitserlaubnis, which was a permission to work, and then a Gesundheitserlaubnis, which involved stripping naked in front of a rather attractive woman doctor who examined you thoroughly, including taking your blood, and said whether you were healthy and fit. I thought that those principles were fairly simple.

What do you do at a party or gathering where you do not know somebody? You talk to him for a moment, and then you usually say, "I'm terribly sorry, what did you say your name was?". If you are trying to make conversation, the next question you ask is, "Are you married?", "Do you have children?" or, "Where do you live?". In general, those are the only questions that we need to ask people who are entering this country.

I totally object to the whole idea of identity cards. I totally object to driving licences with the extra piece of paper. When I tried to hire a car the other day and found I had not got the extra bit of paper, I could not hire one.

I say to the Minister, who is a pragmatic man, that the simplest thing to do these days is to get rid of all the other documentation and say that a photocopy of the colour page of a passport is all that is needed for proof of identity for British people. We then come to those people who are not British. That is difficult because we have the problem of the Schengen states and who can come in and who cannot. But it would surely be a very simple activity at customs, or whenever, to say to someone who has a passport—they will all carry them—that we do not accept, "Here is a piece of paper that is adequate proof of identity for your stay".

The problem with immigration is that we worry too much. The problem with migration is how long people migrate for. In general, we want people who can be economically helpful to migrate for a while. We know that many of those who come here from some of the poorer countries and work are benefiting their own countries because they export substantial quantities of moneys back home. So the economic argument is obvious: anybody who comes to this country and works is fine.

But then we get to Lunar House. One receives a copy of a letter from a Minister about a friend that states, "We regret to advise you that your great friend, who you have known for many years, is slightly suspect and his presence in the United Kingdom might be prejudicial to good order and public discipline"—I am not sure whether that might be "public discipline and good order". That is what we are concerned about: it is how we identify and keep out those people who may
 
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be dangerous to us in one way or another. But if, in trying to concentrate on that tiny minority, we remove the freedom of the great majority, then we have a problem.

It is interesting that we are a multicultural society but approximately 87 per cent of people outside London and 50 per cent of people in London are white. I am always conscious that one cannot use the words "black" or "white", but when I chaired a government body for sport and recreation, we used to have wonderful discussions about the ethnic differences. One of our black sprinters said, "You know, you never see a black man swimming". I asked why, and he said, "We've got different specific gravity. We've also got longer hamstrings and are thus good at explosive sports".

Over my life, both in this country and around the world, I have learnt more from local people than I have from my own kind. I am grateful for the opportunity to have been an international migrant.

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