MISS LUTCHMEE ATCHANNA (Hansard, 20 July 1962)

§ Mr. A. Fenner Brockway (Eton and Slough)
When it appeared this morning that the debates today might not last until 4.30, I gave notice to the Home Secretary that I would wish, if the opportunity arose, to draw attention to another case of deportation which has just occurred.
Yesterday in the House I think more honest and spontaneous indignation was expressed about an action of the Home Office than I have seen ever since the case of Joaquim Perez-Selles, which I 918 raised. He was a stowaway and a political refugee from Spain. The case I want to raise this afternoon is of a different character from the one which my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) raised yesterday. I will say only that many of us are very grateful to the Leader of the House for having given us the opportunity to raise the matter again on Monday, despite the Home Secretary's firm refusal yesterday to reconsider it.
The case which I am raising this afternoon is different, but it shows an equal lack of humanity and an equal lack of compassion and will make the same kind of deplonable impression on the world of our inhospitality and absence of generosity as the case before the House yesterday.
Last Monday, I received a cable from Durban in South Africa in the following terms: My daughter Lutchmee Atchanna being held by your immigration. Your immigration wants to send her back to South Africa by July 19th. Your urgent intervention desired. She will explain full story about her position. Letter following. A. Reddy. On receiving that cablegram I immediately made inquiries and obtained the assistance of legal friends who not only contacted the Home Office but sought to find this girl who was to be returned to South Africa by 19th July. They reported to me the same afternoon that the girl had already been sent back to South Africa—I do not have the date before me, but it was several days earlier.

§ The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke)
It was on 12th July.

§ Mr. Brockway
A considerable period earlier.
They discovered that this girl had come from South Africa for surgical treatment in this country. She had burns on her face and her neck and needed plastic surgery, no medical treatment adequate to her injuries being available in South Africa.
The Home Office informed those who inquired on my behalf that she was being returned to South Africa because she. did not have funds available to remain in this country. I have since received a letter from the girl's father which reached me yesterday and of 919 which I have informed the Home Secretary. He said that he provided her with £60 in cash to enter the country and undertook that further amounts of cash would be forwarded to her each month so that she might remain here during her period of treatment. That information I have sent to the Home Office.
Unless the Home Office can disprove the truth of that statement of the girl's parent—that she had £60 with her and his pledge that he would maintain her each month while she was here—I can hardly imagine a more inhuman case than to return to her country a girl in need of medical treatment available only in this country.
It is possible that because of the new Health Service regulations the sum of £60 with which this girl arrived in this country would have been inadequate for the costly operation necessary for plastic surgery. If this girl had money when she arrived, but the sum was insufficient to meet the costs of the operation, she should have at least been allowed stay here, and a communication sent to her parent in Durban pointing out the cost of any operation that might be necessary. That is the least that the Home Office could have done.
I come now to a second point, and I admit that it is a new one. If the Home Office had any humanity, it would not in a case like this simply say that there is a regulation laying down that the person concerned must have sufficient money for an operation. It would not merely say that this girl had only £60, the operation would cost £100, and that therefore she must be returned to her own country. If the Home Office had any humanity, in a case like this it would endeavour to find people who would be prepared to assist the girl. This case was reported in the Press last week, and people wrote to me saying that they would be prepared to contribute towards the maintenance of this girl.
I am not suggesting that the Home Office should communicate with me in all oases of this kind, but there are African and South African associations which would have been only too ready to act in this case. A humane Home Secretary, when dealing with a girl who has been sent here to receive medical treatment would, instead of returning 920 her to the Republic of South Africa, try to find people in this country who could and would assist her. I make the suggestion which has not been made in the past, that when cases of this kind occur every effort should be made to find people who are prepared to assist.
My last point is this. The girl was sent back before 19th July, the date on which she was originally due to leave, because of an unexpected vacancy on a ship. She was sent back before we could intervene and do anything to help. I therefore make this suggestion to the Home Office. If the parent is able to say, as I believe he would have done if a communication had been sent to him in the first instance, that he would meet the costs of the operation, the Home Office should agree to the girl returning and undergoing the necessary operation.
This country used to have a reputation for its generosity and humane hospitality not only to political refugees but to all those in need. It would be difficult to find someone in greater need than this girl who has suffered these dreadful injuries. It distresses me that in recent years the reputation of this House and of this country has suffered in its treatment of those who come to us for help and succour.

§ The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke)
No one could have listened unmoved to the plea of the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brookway), but I hope, before I have concluded, to persuade him that he is quite wrong in thinking that the various officers of the Home Office who have looked most carefully into this case have not acted with the humanity with which he appealed to them to act.
There must be rules—I think the hon. Member himself would admit that—and the first rule that we have to administer in the case of aliens—and, of course, this lady is an alien, and no hon. Members of this House were keener to make it quite clear that South Africa was a foreign country than were hon. Members apposite—as under the Aliens Order, Article 4 (1, a), which is in the following terms: Except with the authority of the Secretary of State, an immigration officer shall not grant 921 leave to an alien to land in the United Kingdom unless the alien (a) is in a position to support herself and her dependants (if any) in the United Kingdom … It follows, as a corollary of that, although it is not always realised, particularly on the benches behind me, that aliens are not normally allowed to enter the United Kingdom for the sole purpose of obtaining free medical treatment. Nor are they normally admitted if they are not in a position to support themselves. Although that may occasionally work great hardship, in fact we could not administer this country at all if we were not to erect a barrier against the floods of people who seek to come here, particularly aliens, in the way they do.
The short history of this case—and I shall be brief, as the hon. Gentleman himself said that I had not had a tremendous amount of notice that he was to raise this matter today—is this. This girl, Lutchmee Atchanna, is a 23-year-old South African woman of Indian stock, with a badly scarred and disfigured face. She arrived at Southampton on 6th July with £23 and no return ticket. She said that she intended to stay here for about four months and to obtain surgical treatment for her disfigurement. She was immediately examined by the port medical officer, who reported that she was not a sick person and not in need of any immediate treatment. He advised that she would require four or more surgical operations to restore her facial appearance to normal, and that the cost of this would be very considerable indeed.
This lady at first told the immigration officer that her father would send the money when the cost of her treatment was known, and that she thought he had about £200 available. She produced no evidence or any undertaking such as the hon. Member has mentioned. She said that her father was a cabinet-maker earning £4 15s. a week. At a later interview, four days later—because, as the House will hear, we did not have the inhumanity to return her immediately without further inquiries—on 10th July, she admitted that there was no money immediately available. It is clear that Miss Atchanna, with only £23 and no work permit or return ticket, had been led to believe by others that she could obtain free treatment under the National Health Service. She said that she would 922 pay if she had to, but although she received an offer of free accommodation in this country, no financial assistance was available to her here, and no further funds were coming from home.
At first she said that she would stay with a cousin named Pothiah, whose address she gave but whose Christian name she did not know. She said that he would arrange for hospital treatment and, in common with her other relatives, would help to pay for it. As a result of that information, the Home Office thought that it should try to help this Lady and it made contact with Mr. Pothiah, who said that he was not Miss Atchanna's cousin, nor, indeed, any blood relation of hers. He was unable to help bar in any way, financially or otherwise.
Then we tried again. Miss Atchanna gave the name and address of Mr. Appanna, and claimed that he had advised her that if she could come to the United Kingdom and pay some insurance contributions she would be entitled to free surgical treatment. Mr. and Mrs. Appanna were contacted, with some difficulty, by the officials of the Home Office. They said that they were not reflated to Miss Atchanna, except possibly by marriage. They thought that Mr. Pothiah, to whom I have already referred, had made ail the necessary arrangements for Miss Atchanna's stay.
Mrs. Appanna later called at the Immigration Department of the Home Office in London and the officials at the Home Office tried to see if there were some way in which they could sponsor Miss Atchanna so as to enable her to stay here. Mrs. Appanna said that all she could do—and it was very generous of her to do it—was to offer Miss Atchanna free accommodation. But she was adamant that neither she nor her husband was able to assist financially in this very expensive facial surgery that Miss Atchanna was seeking.
Then we also made some more inquiries and Mr. and Mrs. Naidoo and Mr. and Mrs. Naik were interviewed. They interested themselves in the case, but only to the extent of saying that they were acquaintances of Miss Atchanna and had intended to meet her at Waterloo, but could not do moire than wish her wall. They could make no offer of financial or any other assistance.
923 As I said, at the second interview, on 10th July, Miss Atchanna had told the immigration officer that it was the consensus of opinion among her family in South Africa that she could get the facial surgery here free, and that she should come to try to get it, and if she failed to get it free her relatives would club together to help. She said that she would try to work, but she was not in possession of a Ministry of Labour permit which, as is known, is an essential for an alien to be granted residence.
Miss Atchanna was permitted to communicate with the South African authorities in London, but the consul informed the district immigration inspector at Southampton that he was aware of the facts of her case and had advised her that she must abide by the immigration officer's decision. So, in spite of the many attempts by hard-pressed officiate of the Home Office to help this lady, it was clear that she did not have the money and that there was no concrete evidence that she could get the money for these four or more very elaborate facial operations, which are no doubt most desirable but are in no sense urgent.
Unless we abrogate the rule that no immigration officer shall grant leave to an alien to land unless the alien is in a position to support herself, and that aliens are not normally allowed to enter the United Kingdom for the sole purpose of obtaining free medical treatment, it is clear that Miss Atchanna does not qualify. But it is equally clear, and I readily give this undertaking to the hon. Member—

§ Mr. Fletcher-Cooke
I readily give this undertaking to the hon. Gentleman that if in the future Miss Atchanna can produce sufficiently reliable evidence, or, better still, the money itself with which 924 to support herself and to pay for the plastic surgery which she desires, there will, as far as I know, be no objection whatever to her coming to this country for the purpose of obtaining an operation which it is said she cannot obtain nearer home. Of course, if she can fulfil the qualifications, mostly financial, then she shall certainly be admitted for that purpose.
However, from the appearance of Miss Atchanna, with no return ticket and only £23 and with the whole story of the following up at great difficulty—.but with some humanity, in spite of what the hon. Gentleman said—by the Home Office officials into the various names of possible sponsors and helpers in this country, I think, I must say that we must have better evidence that Miss Atchanna will be able to pay for the operation and support herself in the course of so doing.

§ Mr. Brockway
If this girl had £23 and had to remain in this country for several days while inquiries were made, was permission given to her to get in touch with her father and to inquire from him whether in this situation he would provide the necessary money to enable his daughter to remain in this country and have her operation?

§ Mr. Fletcher-Cooke
No obstacle whatever was put in the way of this lady communicating with her father or, for that matter, with anyone else. But Durban is a long way away, and I am not sure that it is the duty of the British taxpayer to pay for the communications of people who arrive in this country from Durban.

§ Mr. Brockway
She had the money.

§ Mr. Fletcher-Cooke
As I have said, no obstacle was put in the way of this lady spending the money on communicating with her father. Indeed, we facilitated in every way communication with people whose names she gave and whom she thought might help.