HL Deb 14 December 1971 vol 326 cc1100-19

7.59 p.m.

LORD AVEBURY rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they will take, following the recommendation of the European Commission on Human Rights in the case of the United Kingdom passport holders from East Africa, to reach a friendly settlement with the complainants.The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. I apologise for detaining your Lordships at this hour but, if I may, I would start by recapitulating briefly the changes in legislation in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth countries principally concerned which have led to the unhappy plight of the applicants to the European Commission on Human Rights who represent the tip of an iceberg of human misery and destitution. Under the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 a distinction was made, for the first time, between citizens of independent Commonwealth countries and citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies. The groups then remaining exempt from control were: persons born in the United Kingdom; persons who held U.K. passports as opposed to colonial passports and who were citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies, or who held such passports issued in the United Kingdom or in the Republic of Ireland; and persons who were included in the passport of another person who was himself exempt as falling into either of the two previous categories.

In 1965, the Government decided to limit the admission of Commonwealth citizens subject to control, by reducing the number of voucher holders from the previously existing level of 20, 800 under the Act of 1962, to 8, 500 per annum. This cut down not only on the number admitted for employment but also the number of their dependants, and we can see this in the figures issued by the Home Office since then which show a decline from a peak of 61,000 in total admitted in 1967 to about 37,000 in 1970. I would note in passing, my Lords, that during the same period on the official Home Office figures the number of aliens admitted for permanent settlement increased from approximately 18,000 in 1967 to 21,000 in 1970. So it is not the pressure of numbers which has occasioned this fresh legislation and the restrictions imposed by successive Governments.

This 1967 figure I have mentioned included 13, 600 United Kingdom citizens from East Africa who were also passport holders. These were mainly, as we know, from Kenya. In 1967 the Kenya Government passed the Immigration Act and Trade Licensing Act, which had the effect of depriving noncitizens—and those were, of course, mainly non-citizens of Asian origin—of the opportunity of supporting themselves in many categories of employment or independent trading. But the higher rate of immigration during the year 1967 may, according to the experts, have been as much due to the threat of impending British legislation as to the laws that were passed in that year in Kenya itself. And similar legislation was passed in Uganda, in 1969.

Originally, under the 1962 Act which I have mentioned, the United Kingdom passport holders were subject to control because their passports had been issued in a dependent territory. But then, after independence was conferred on those territories, those who did not obtain citizenship of the newly independent country were able to renew their United Kingdom pasports and, by doing so, to obtain exemption from the entry controls into Britain, since a renewed passport was then issued directly by the United Kingdom Government and not by the Government of a Dependency. It was clearly recognised at the time that East African persons who were of Asian descent might wish to continue to exer cise all the rights of United Kingdom citizenship, including the freedom of entry into this country; otherwise there would have been no point in granting them this choice.

I would refer noble Lords to the open letter written by Mr. Macleod to Mr. Duncan Sandys late in the day, just before the 1968 Act was introduced into Parliament, when Mr. Duncan Sandys was considering a Private Member's Bill. Mr. Macleod wrote to him in these terms: Two years after the introduction of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act you introduced the Kenya Independence Bill to the House of Commons. The constitution on which it was founded was detailed and exact. The pro-visions for citizenship and for renunciation were clear. The earlier Act must, of course, have been in your mind. Your Under-Secretary said in the House, after explaining the Bill, There is thus no question of anyone becoming stateless as a result of the Bill's provisions.' The only pressure in the House was for you to widen not restrict the protection given to minorities and you responded.

So that was the view of Mr. Macleod as to the motivation of the British Government at the time of conferring in-dependence on Kenya. There was no question whatsoever that this was in-tended to deprive the United Kingdom citizens of Asian origin who were then resident in Kenya of any of the rights which they had previously enjoyed.

Yet in 1968 the Government, alarmed by the rise in the number of immigrants from East Africa and panicked into action by the racialists who were in full cry at that time, suddenly revoked the right of their own citizens by passing the Commonwealth Immigrants Act of that year. This Act provided that in addition to the qualifications set out in the 1962 Act, it was necessary for a person to show that he was born in the United Kingdom or had a parent or a grandparent who was born in the United Kingdom or had a similar connection by way of naturalisation, registration or adoption. The only loophole then left, which is important in some of the cases we heard before the European Commission, was that certain wives could still obtain exemption for themselves and their children, even when their husbands failed to qualify for free admission. This loop-hole, I understand, has now been stopped up under the 1971 Act, with effect from January 1, 1972.

Apart from that, East African Asians were granted a special quota of 1, 500 vouchers, within the total of 8, 500 which remained unaltered, and that implied an intake of 6,000 to 7,000 persons a year from East Africa as a whole. This figure ought to be compared with the Government's estimate of 200,000 persons of Asian origin resident in East Africa at the time who might have sought entry within a very short time in the absence of any control. I may add that the Kenya Government's estimate of the number in mid-1968 was 100,000, and since then there has been a census in Kenya which shows that the actual number was only 60,000. But no attempt was made officially by the British Government either to establish, by means of detailed surveys in the countries concerned, what the total number was or what percentage of them might have wished to exercise their right of entry in the absence of any controls. So far as I am aware, the only information that we have on this subject is from a survey conducted by Mr. Martin Ennals, the Secretary-General of Amnesty International, who, in a survey of 2,039 heads of households in Kenya, discovered that only 18-2 per cent. of them would have wished to settle permanently in the United Kingdom.

I should add that there has been an increase this year in the number of special vouchers. It was doubled to 3,000 with effect from June 1, and there was also a once-and-for-all increase of 1, 500 during this current year. If you work out the time it is going to take for all the would-be immigrants to be admitted on the basis of the Government figures for 1968—let us say at the rate of 3,000 voucher holders per annum; that means an intake of 13, 500 persons allowing for their families—if there were 200,000 it would take 20 years before all those waiting in the queue were ultimately satisfied. I think the Government's estimate of the size of the queue has been grossly exaggerated, and I should refer here to some figures produced by my honourable friend the Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles in the Sunday Times on May 9, 1971. He showed then, after a visit that he made to Kenya, that there were some-thing like 2,000 waiting to be admitted, and they broke down into the following categories: 650 young people who had left school and found themselves unable to get employment; 350 former traders living on steadily dwindling capital; 200 people with money and skills which could be particularly useful in Britain; 100 widows and 700 persons who had lost their employment. That was the size of the problem.

Now I come to the case which has been presented before the European Commission. As noble Lords will be aware, there were originally 25 cases, to which another six were added later. All these were declared admissible in January, 1971. Of this first and larger group of 25, the majority were the young single men whose case I have already mentioned, and just over half of them had applied for special vouchers before they left Kenya. It is noteworthy that not one of these applicants for special vouchers has been granted such a voucher, no doubt because they did not fall into any of the priority categories which were laid down by the Government; that is to say —and I quote from the Government's memorandum of evidence to the European Commission:

  1. "(a) persons under notice to leave their country of residence by a given date;
  2. (b) persons barred from employment or trading in their country of residence;
  3. (c) persons unable to obtain employment (e.g., school-leavers who have never succeeded in obtaining jobs because of local policies in their country of residence);
  4. (d) persons in economic hardship for other reasons (e.g., deserted wives with young children, retired persons with inadequate pensions);
  5. (e) other persons wishing to migrate. Within categories (a) to (c) priority is given to those suffering economic hardship."

It would be interesting to know how many persons in the countries that we are discussing had their applications accepted under each of these headings, and in India also, since many of the passport holders originally went to India temporarily on the understanding that it would not affect their ultimate right to settle in the United Kingdom. I am not sure how many people actually went to India. I think my honourable friend, in the article to which I am referring, gave an estimate of 6,000 families who went to settle in India at the time in the belief that they would not thereby forfeit any of the rights that they held as United Kingdom passport holders. But when questions were put in another place on this subject at the time of the Statement on increase in the number of vouchers, the Minister responding was extremely vague about the rights of these passport holders. I should be grateful if the noble Lord could clarify their position this evening. The submissions of the Government do not make it clear whether any of the young men concerned in these 31 cases before the European Commission were employed at the time of their departure from East Africa, or whether any of them had been able to get jobs since the time that they left school, but it is a well-known fact that, quite apart from any legislation that may be operative in Kenya and Uganda, school-leavers of the Asian community have the greatest difficulty in obtaining work.

The second important category to which I should like to refer is the group whose wives had already become resident in the United Kingdom, either before the 1968 Act or as exempt persons after the passage of the 1968 Act. Paragraph 41 of the Instructions to immigration Officers says that an entry certificate will be issued to a man to join his wife and family resident in the United Kingdom only if there are special considerations which would render his exclusion un-desirable, such as the degree of hardship the family would suffer if the wife had to live outside the United Kingdom to be with her husband. Yet in no case that I am aware of, apart from these three taken before the European Commission, has the discretion of the Secretary of State been exercised in favour of a husband where the wife's and children's return to East Africa (assuming that they could pay the fare and that the East African country would readmit them, both of which are extremely doubtful) would mean a return to destitution, homelessness and permanent unemployment. I may take as a recent example the case of Mr. Chandrakana P. Joshi, living in Kenya, who applied to come here to join his wife and seven-year-old child, and was refused by the tribunal as recently as December 7. It would appear to me that paragraph 41 of these Regulations is still being interpreted very harshly, except in the few cases where unwelcome publicity is focused on the Home Office.

It would take far too long for me to enter into the cases heard at Strasbourg in any detail. I will just mention the Articles under which these cases were brought: Article 31, protection from de-grading treatment; Article 51, right to security of the person; Article 8, respect for family life; Article 14, protection from discrimination on racial and other grounds. I will only say, in this connection, that the argument before the European Commission frequently de-generated into one of semantics; but I think that the applicants had the better of the case, because when one looks at the first of the Articles that I have men-tioned—what constitutes degrading treat-ment—one can refer, as counsel on behalf of the applicants did, to the definition contained in the Oxford English Diction-ary. "Degrade" is defined there as: to reduce from a higher to a lower rank; to depose from a position of honour or estimation; to lower in the estimation of character or quality".

Sir Dingle Foot also referred to a case that was heard before the Privy Council in 1967, which was an appeal from the courts of Southern Rhodesia, interestingly enough, where counsel for the Crown, Mr. Mervyn Heald, who was acting against the applicants before the European Commission, produced a definition of the word "degrade". He said: 'Degrade' means' lowering in rank, position, reputation or character'.

I think, my Lords, it is undeniable that so far as the 31 applicants are concerned they were lowered in all of these respects by the refusal of the United Kingdom Government to honour the undertakings that were given to them at the time of conferring independence on Kenya.

These complaints were all found to be admissible by January of this year. The Commission considered the written observations in May and held an oral hearing on the merits of the case in September. Under the procedure of the Commission the pleadings are not followed by a judgment. What happens is that an attempt is made to reach a settlement between the parties which is acceptable to both sides. Since the end of September, presumably the Commission has been sounding out the British Government and the complainants to see whether this is possible. I under-stand that discussions have taken place. But I would remind your Lordships that if no agreement can be reached, then the Commission will have power to report the case to the European Court, and the court in turn would have the power to award compensation to the victims of contravention of the treaty and even to require changes in British legislation, domestic legislation, which has given rise to the complaints. In other words, the European Court could require us to rescind Section 1 of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968. Unfortunately there is no time for this stage to be reached, and that is why, after nearly three months, I am asking the Government to give us a progress report this evening.

In my opinion, my Lords, the 1968 Act was one of the shabbiest and most repulsive pieces of legislation ever passed through Parliament; and I think the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, probably agrees with me about that, because he voted against it at the time. Not only have we deprived many thousands of British subjects of their citizenship purely nn grounds of colour, but we have locked them up in our prisons when they were innocent of any offence; we have deprived women and children of the sup-port of their menfolk we have left families to rot in half the cities of Europe; we have treated without compassion or humanity the wretched supplicants before the High Commissions in the East African territories. I sincerely hope that the Government will be able to make an offer which is satisfactory to these particular complainants. But no redress for them could wipe out the stain on our country's honour.

8.20 p.m.

LORD BROCKWAY

My Lords, I do not think that any of us can have listened to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, without a feeling of shame—a feeling of shame because the real issue that is before us when we are considering the results of the Immigration Act 1968 is one of national honour. That shame was felt so deeply during the debate on the Bill that the representatives of this House who have had service in the Commonwealth Department were among those who spoke against the Bill and who voted against it while they were Conservatives. There was the speech of the noble Duke, the Duke of Devonshire; the speech of the noble Marquess, Lord Lansdowne, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, has said, perhaps the least happy person in the House to-night can be Lord Windlesham, who also voted against the Bill. Let me just add this, to be fair: I am perfectly certain that on the Front Benches of the Labour Government who introduced this Bill there was an unhappiness about it as great as the unhappiness on the other side.

The issue then was one of an honourable pledge which we had given to these British Asians in East Africa. We had said to them in the clearest terms: "You will be recognised as British citizens; you will have British passports with all the undertakings given in the name of Her Majesty which are within a British passport: freedom of movement, freedom to come here". I regard it as one of the most shameful periods in our history that when we had given a pledge of national honour in that way we should have betrayed it because of tensions within our own country. I am not saying for a moment that there were not great pressures—perhaps more by public speakers than in public opinion—which sought to restrict the coming to this country of those who were non-whites. But it was a shameful thing that our Government, with the support of a majority both in this House and in another place, should have given way to those kinds of pressures rather than maintaining the national honour of our country in pledges which had been given.

I am not speaking, my Lords, from prejudice in favour of the British Asians concerned. I think they took a wrong decision when the independence of Uganda, of Kenya and of Tanzania was recognised. I spoke in Kenya with my friend, Mrs. Indira Ghandi, now Prime Minister of India, to thousands of Indians in Nairobi, and I said that they should accept the advice of Pandit Nehru, the then Prime Minister, and become citizens of Kenya, where they were resident and where they were devoting their lives. Similarly, when the independence of Uganda was recognised, I met the leaders of the Indian community there and urged the same point. I want to acknowledge that a good deal of blame rests upon the Indian community for not becoming citizens of both Kenya and Uganda and in their failure to integrate themselves with the African majority in those territories. One could go to Kampala or Jinga in Uganda and see streets which were Indian rather than African, with Indian citizens segregated from the Africans. Thdrefore, in my opposition to this Bill when I moved its rejection in this House, and in my attitude now, I am not prejudiced in any sense in favour of the Indians concerned.

My criticism preceding the 1968 Bill was that there had been no proper consultations with the Governments of East Africa or with the Indian populations there. Three years have passed and it would be difficult to describe the conditions of Indians who are now denied, because of their absence of citizenship, the right to trade or the right to work. Go to-day to Kampala or to Jinga and you will see the Indian shops closed and the families who lived above their shops evicted from their accommodation.

We have been extraordinarily foolish, because while we have increased the number who are allowed to come to this country, when they come they will be in a far worse condition to become citizens of this country and to contribute to it than they would have been three years ago. There are many of them who had training, experience and high skills. In three years they have lost much of that capacity. Read the report of Mrs. Mary Dines of her visits—Indian families now in one room, everything having had to be sold; all that is left are mattresses on the floor, a few clothes, some religious symbols, photographs on the wall; utterly destitute, the children no longer able to go to school because of the fees which are charged for pupils; young men who have done no work ever since leaving school. In this House, as in another place, we ought to be measuring legislation by the suffering which it has caused.

I am not pretending that this Act created as much suffering as other instances of legislation. But when to the savage cruelty of making those who sought to come to this country return to Uganda and Kenya—sent back here, sent back there—is added the destitution of thousands of Indians without work, with-out any opportunity to gain a livelihood, reduced to a condition of destitution—this is a cruelty of which we all ought to be ashamed. This is an Act of which the House ought to repent, and ought to repent with the desire to bring in something else.

The Government have now announced that the number of vouchers for these people will be increased from 1, 500 to 3,000 a year. That number is insignificant compared with the need. I find it difficult to estimate the number of British Asians who would desire to come to this country, because those who make applications do not represent them. Many British Asians have given up all hope after months of application. Probably the figure of 50.000 would be an under-estimate—and we are allowing 3,000 of those to whom we have pledged their rights with the British passport to come to this country!

There have been three developments recently which relate closely to the subject. First, the recent immigration Act, to which the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, referred, which has placed more restrictions upon those who desire to come here. The second factor—and this is desperately important—is the cancellation by the Uganda Government of 10,000 applications made over many years by Asians to become citizens of Uganda. Third, and I should like the Minister to make some reference to this, is the definition of citizenship given by the Minister in another place which will relate to entrants to the European Community. Even when they get here these British Asians to whom we are pledged will not merely have to wait the five years through which they must pass to have their nationalisation; they must remain here another five years before they will have any rights as residents in this country to enjoy the free movement into Europe.

LORD AVEBURY

My Lords, would the noble Lord allow me to interrupt? Surely it is still discretionary. The Home Secretary has power to refuse them permanent residence in this country at the end of the five years under the 1971 Immigration Act. It could be that if the Home Secretary did not like their faces they would never become citizens and never have free movement within the E.E.C.

LORD BROCKWAY

My Lords, I am not sure whether it would be due to the fact that the Home Secretary might not like their faces, but clearly what the noble Lord has said adds to the argument that I was trying to make.

The Government are now in this difficult position: the European Commission on Human Rights has considered petitions, and it has decided that there is a prima facie case. With moderation it has proposed friendly discussions with the Government. I wonder whether there is much doubt in the minds of the Government that, purely on the legal grounds of human rights, unless a settlement is reached by the Government with the European Commission, it will go to the superior court. If it goes to the superior court many of those who are familiar with international law and the regulations of the European court, consider it very doubtful indeed whether the decision will go in favour of the Government. There is therefore great pressure upon Her Majesty's Government to take advantage of these friendly discussions to reach some solution of this problem.

I always try at the conclusion of my denunciatory speeches to be constructive. I hope that Her Majesty's Government will immediately begin consultations with the East African Governments, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and also with India, with a view to reaching some accommodation on this issue. I want to suggest something else. In the case where thousands of people feel issues very deeply from their own experience and suffering it is not enough to consult with Governments. The noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, knows from his own experience that the voice of these peoples in this country has been expressed by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants. There have been quite remarkable reports from its Secretary, Mrs. Mary Dines, after visits to Uganda and Kenya. They were factual as well as human in expression. I suggest that Her Majesty's Government would be well advised if they began some consultations with the Joint Council. That would not merely mean direct information of an authoritative kind, but would also mean that the Council would be able to indicate to the Minister the best sources of information from the people themselves in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.

I believe it may be possible if one had such discussions to come to an agreement with Governments and the peoples by which there would be a phased permission of British Asians to come to this country, beginning with those whose condition is most desperate, and passing to those who have the right because we have given our word which they regard as honourable. I hope the Minister will respond to this appeal and take the opportunity of these friendly discussions to reach a solution to this problem.

8.39 p.m.

THE EARL OF ARRAN

My Lords, it had not been my intention to speak and I shall make a very short footnote to the discussions which your Lordships have been having. I am doing so because I had the honour of being a delegate of the British Parliament recently in Vienna at a special meeting of the Council of Europe on the Freedom of the Individual. We did not discuss the matter of the Kenyan Asians because the case was, rightly, regarded as sub judice, but I can tell your Lordships that the atmosphere was heavy with the issue. If no agreement is reached and the case goes to the court, then Her Majesty's Government are likely to be in for a very sticky time. Naturally I cannot speak for the other nations present, but as a reporter, which I am by profession, I got the distinct impression that Britain's honour is regarded as being very much involved.

8.40 p.m.

LORD WINDLESHAM

My Lords, it may be helpful if I begin my reply by explaining the sequence of events so far in respect of the 31 applications by United Kingdom passport holders from East Africa whose cases are currently being considered by the European Commission of Human Rights. The first applications to the Commission were received early in 1970, during the previous Administration, and were made by some 20 persons who had arrived in the United Kingdom for settlement but without first obtaining the necessary special vouchers from our High Commissions in East Africa. As the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, reminded us in asking his Unstarred Question, the system of controlling entry by means of a limited number of vouchers followed on the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968. The level of vouchers from 1968 until earlier this year was set at 1, 500 a year, available to heads of households in East Africa who were United Kingdom passport holders. Together with their dependants, this amounted to about 6,000 individuals per annum, which was roughly comparable in number to those who had come here in 1965 and 1966. By February, 1970, the demand for special quota vouchers greatly exceeded the number of vouchers available. Although no applicant for a special voucher was refused, it was necessary for the British High Commissions to issue these vouchers on a priority basis so that they were given to those who were under the greatest pressure to leave East Africa. This unfortunately meant a long wait for some applicants. The 20 persons to whom I have referred were not among those in the category with the most pressing need for vouchers. They arrived in this country without vouchers, and were being detained here for further consideration of their cases when they sent their petitions to Strasbourg.

LORD AVEBURY

My Lords, I wonder whether I might interrupt. I asked whether these persons might not have been considered as falling under heading (c) of the special priority categories; that is to say, persons unable to obtain employment, in the words of the British Government's statement to the European Commission. And I continue with my quotation: (e.g., school leavers who have never succeeded in obtaining jobs because of local policies in their country of residence). I asked the noble Lord whether he would tell me how many of the 14 people out of the first 25 who applied for vouchers had not been able to obtain any employment since the time they left school.

LORD WINDLESHAM

My Lords, I do not have that information without notice, but what I said was that the demand in February of 1970 for quota vouchers was very extreme indeed. One must remember that this is a situation which has altered very considerably over the period since the 1968 Act. The demand in the first six months of 1970, as measured by people arriving without entry documents, for example, was very much higher than in some other periods, and therefore, although some of these people may or may not have been in the third category, it may have been the case that in the period of months before that the available vouchers had been allocated to people in the first or the second category. But so far as I know, the indi- viduals were not all in the same category. The circumstances were somewhat different. I can look into these cases and give the noble Lord a detailed and written reply.

I was going on to say that they had already been released from detention and admitted to the United Kingdom on a temporary basis by the time the reference by the Commission of Human Rights was received in the United Kingdom. The first duty of the Commission was to seek the observations of the applicants and of the United Kingdom Government with a view to deciding whether or not there were issues to be argued, or, to put it another way, whether or not the cases were admissible. Following written pleadings an oral hearing was held in Strasbourg during 1970 so that the Commission, without assessing the merits one way or the other, could consider this question. It decided that the cases were admissible.

The Commission's next responsibility was to go into the facts by inviting the applicants to submit a memorial, and the United Kingdom Government a counter-memorial, dealing with the points raised in the petitions. In due course an oral hearing was held on the merits of the applications. Before this was held there had been some changes among the petitioners. In the period between the two oral hearings the United Kingdom Government had decided to allow the original applicants to settle here and all restrictions on their stay were removed. When this was done some applicants withdrew their petitions. But further applicants, who had also arrived in the United Kingdom for settlement with-out special vouchers, were joined in the proceedings. The position at the time of the second oral hearing in September of this year was that 31 applications were being considered by the Commission, although by then the persons submitting them had all been accepted in this country for residence. The Commission has not, as yet, adopted a conclusion on the issues considered at the hearing.

The European Convention on Human Rights provides that at this stage the Commission shall place itself at the dis-posal of the parties with a view to securing a friendly settlement. Discussions have taken place in this context, but they are, like the other proceedings before the Commission, of a confidential nature. This is provided for in the Articles of the Convention. I should emphasise that the Commission has still to give an opinion on whether or not there has been any breach of the Convention. Nor has it yet drawn up a report, but if and when it does so this also will be confidential, unless and until it is published by decision of the Committee of Ministers if the issue comes before them. This, too, is in accordance with the provisions of the Convention.

Noble Lords who have spoken in this debate—the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and the noble Lord, Lord Brockway—have understandably gone somewhat wider and raised the general question of the circumstances of the United Kingdom passport holders in East Africa. I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, that the current estimate is now that there are something of the order of 125,000 people holding United Kingdom passports—this means individuals—in the three East African territories. This is, of course, only an estimate.

LORD BROCKWAY

My Lords, does the Minister mean that the 125,000 are those who have expressed a desire to come to this country?

LORD WINDLESHAM

My Lords, the figure of 125,000 refers to our estimate of all holders of United Kingdom pass-ports in those three territories, irrespective of what wishes they may or may not have expressed. This question of the British Asians in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, is one to which the Home Secretary and I have given very close personal attention since we inherited this particular problem when the present Government took office in June, 1970. I have explained my own position here before. I made a fairly full statement on October 11. It is all in Hansard at cols. 247 to 248, and I do not think I need inflict it on your Lordships again now. But the outcome of our consideration has been that after having had useful discussions with the Governments in East Africa, and after paying due regard to community relations in this country, the Government decided to make a substantial change in the special voucher scheme from June 1, 1971, and with effect from that date the number of special vouchers to be issued annually to heads of households has been increased from 1, 500 to 3,000. In addition, there has been a once-and-for-all allocation of 1, 500 vouchers to be spread over a period of six months. The effect of doubling the annual quota is that the rate of entry of voucher holders, together with their dependants, has been raised from about 6,000 to approximately 12,000 a year; and the once-and-for-all allocation of an additional 1, 500 vouchers has enabled our High Commissions to quadruple the rate of arrival during the six months' period.

I can tell your Lordships that these measures have had a marked effect on the waiting list for vouchers. Although fresh applications have continued to come in, the number outstanding has dropped from 8, 655 on January 31 this year to 6,083 by the end of November. This compares with approximately 9,000 12 months before. Not everyone on the waiting list wishes or needs to come here at present: many are still in employment. If we exclude those who are not under notice to leave East Africa and who are not in economic difficulty, the number of people remaining on the list is roughly the equivalent of the new annual quota of 3,000 vouchers, taken together with something under half the once-and-for-all allocation of 1, 500. In other words, it is reasonable to expect these to be admissible to the United Kingdom with their dependants within a period of rather over one year.

I should make clear that this refers only to those people who are in conditions of urgent need; that is, those who have been given notice to leave, or who have been prevented from earning their livelihood or are in conditions of economic hardship. Nor, in the nature of things, can one be certain about fore-casts of this kind. New applications continue to be received and it is significant that they are being made at an in-creased rate since the quota of vouchers was doubled. Some of these will be from people who are under greater pres-sure than some of those who are already on the list. But I hope your Lordships will agree that the position has improved.

May I now deal briefly with one or two of the points which have been made in the course of the short debate. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, asked about United Kingdom passport holders who have gone to East Africa and are now in India. I can confirm that they are eligible for the same vouchers, but of course in many cases the urgency is less than for those who have remained in East Africa.

The noble Lord, Lord Brockway, asked me about the definition of United Kingdom nationals under the E.E.C., following the statement that was made by my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster last week and repeated in this House by my noble friend Lady Tweedsmuir. It happens that there is a Question on this exact subject down for debate in your Lord-ships' House to-morrow, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, and so per-haps I may hold my reply until that time.

The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, is not correct in what he said about citizens from the United Kingdom and Colonies from East Africa who have come to this country with a voucher. He suggested that after a period of five years the Home Secretary would still have discretion as to whether or not they should have free movement of labour conditions. That is not so. Under the Immigration Act 1971 people in that particular category acquire the right of abode automatically after a period of five years. The noble Lord may have had some confusion in his mind with Commonwealth citizens, be-cause it is they who will be registered, at discretion, in the future.

LORD BROCKWAY

My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord, but before he passes from that subject I should like to ask him whether it is the case that an additional five years will be necessary before they have the right to move about Europe.

LORD WINDLESHAM

My Lords, it will be five years from the date of admission if they are admitted for settlement. In Clause 2, as the noble Lord will remember from his close scrutiny and knowledge of the Immigration Act, patriality, the right of abode, is automatically extended to citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies, for ex-ample United Kingdom passport holders, five years after they have been in this country. They cannot be registered as citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies because they already automatically hold that citizenship.

I return now to the subject of the cases before the Commission on Human Rights, the matter raised in the Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury. As I said earlier, the Government are currently engaged in confidential discussions with the Commission, and your Lordships will understand my difficulty in commenting on these discussions while they are in progress or in anticipating their outcome. While proceedings of this sort continue cases are, as the noble Earl, Lord Arran, told us, in a sense sub judice, and this prevents me from discussing the merits of the various arguments which have been deployed; but I hope noble Lords will have found the information which I have given the House this evening helpful as a progress report.

LORD BROCKWAY

My Lords. before the noble Lord sits down may I ask him whether he will take some notice of the suggestions I have made which will not be sub judice, of consultations by Her Majesty's Government with those who are in touch with peoples in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania?

LORD WINDLESHAM

My Lords, the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition is not with us, but as the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, knows, he is extremely vigilant on procedural matters. But if I may just finish my reply by including something which perhaps I should have included in what I had to say, the Government—other Ministers, and myself in particular—are always accessible to the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants. We know of their knowledge and concern in this matter as in other matters concerning the welfare of immigrants, and we are available to them at any time, as indeed we are to anybody else with first-hand knowledge. For example, I was fortunate enough to meet the Reverend David Mason (who I have no doubt is known to the noble Lord, Lord Brockway) both before and after he went recently to East Africa on behalf of the British Council of Churches. But on the substance of the Question the difficulty is that there is a carefully laid I down procedure and we are some way along the various stages. We are currently discussing the matter with the Commission.