MR. SERGE DESCUBES (DEPORTATION ORDER) (Hansard, 19 May 1971)

§ Mr. Antony Buck (Colchester)

I am very grateful for the opportunity of raising on the Adjournment the difficult case of a constituent of mine—Mr. Serge Descubes. I make no apology to my hon. Friend the Minister of State, in spite of the fact that he and I were both discussing similar topics—difficult matters of immigration—throughout the whole of last night. I do not apologise to him, but I think that it is unfortunate that I should have to keen him up again now 1423 late at night when we were considering similar matters all night last night.

This important case is concerned with the humanities and with doing what is right to an individual and to his family. Mr. Serge Descubes is aged 32. He was born in St Louis in Mauritius. His father died suddenly of a heart attack when young Descubes was about 16. Young Descubes then left school to support his mother, two brothers and eight-year old sister. He had various semi-skilled jobs and also, I regret to say, periods of unemployment.

In 1962 he married. The first child of his marriage. unfortunately died at the age of eight months, causing the sort of bitter distress which the House will readily be able to understand. In due course Mr. Descubes made an application to become a student nurse at the White Croft Hospital in the Isle of Wight. He was assisted by the church authorities in Port Louis and on 29th September, 1966 arrived in this country and embarked on his nursing studies. On 6th June 1967 Mrs. Descubes arrived with their two children. They now have a family of four.

It was extremely unwise of Mrs. Descubes to join her husband in this country, for the difficulties of keeping a wife and two children on a gross income of £44 a month should have been obvious. But the system was, and, indeed, is, that the family of a student over here are permitted to join him in this country. Mrs. Descubes arrived in June, 1967, and who is to blame her for having joined her husband in that way? Whether it be right to have such a system which allows the family to come and join a student who has an inadequate income is a question which my hon. Friend and I shall, no doubt, discuss on a later occasion during the further progress of the Immigration Bill. But be that as it may.

All went well at first, but accommodation difficulties arose for the family, and in July, 1968 they were given notice to quit their lodgings. In spite of considerable activity, extremely humane activity, on the part of the social agencies in the Isle of Wight, no accommodation could be obtained for the family.

Mr. Descubes, naturally extremely upset and worried about the situation, and, 1424 frankly, it seems, in something of a panic, left the Isle of Wight and went to Grays in Essex, where he and his family were able to stay for a short time with Mrs. Descubes' sister. It is noteworthy that the family were provided with rail travel warrant to take them to Essex by the welfare authorities in the Isle of Wight.

Mrs. Descubes' sister could put them up in Grays for only a short time. There then appeared on the scene, as it were, the local vicar, the Rev. Mr. Thrush, who, I am told, literally found this family sheltering under a wall with nowhere to go. Mrs. Descubes at this time was pregnant with their third child. The vicar—I have talked to him and verified the facts—managed to find them accommodation in a caravan, and for 3½ months that is where they lived.

Mr. Descubes had informed the hospital in the Isle of Wight of what had happened and had obtained from the hospital authorities a letter—I have it here—designed to assist him in obtaining transfer of his student nurse course to another hospital in the Essex area. That is a fact which I have verified since my last interview with my noble Friend the Minister of State. Undoubtedly, the hospital was fully informed of the situation. There is no doubt also—I have verified this—that Mr. Descubes was very keen to get back into nursing straight away. The Rev. Mr. Thrush tells me that he personally took Descubes to various hospitals in the Essex area with a view to his resuming his student training.

However, accommodation difficulties raised their head again. The caravan was not available indefinitely, and, in November, 1968, the Descubes moved to temporary accommodation at Stanway in my constituency. Mr. Descubes and his family were at this time a charge on public funds. His efforts to resume his nursing course having failed, Mr. Descubes took a job with a firm in my constituency, and he was, without doubt, encouraged in adopting that course by the welfare authorities. The family were moved out from the temporary accommodation at Stanway by the Colchester borough authorities and were provided with a council house in May, 1969.

In June, 1969, the Home Office appeared to have become fully alive to the situation, and Mr. Descubes was told 1425 that he must leave the country by the end of July.

On receiving this directive, he came to see me. I made extensive inquiries about his case, and was greatly helped, as always, by Mr. Crayford, the Essex County Council welfare officer. After a short delay while making inquiries, I wrote to the then Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) asking if he could …have a close look at this difficult case, bearing in mind the effect of his —Mr. Descubes'— having four young children. The hon. Gentleman reviewed the case in his usual courteous way, but arrived at the conclusion that Mr. Descubes …must now leave the United Kingdom without further delay if he is unable to show that he has made definite arrangements to resume nursing training. I am satisfied that from then on Mr. Descubes did make renewed efforts to get back into nursing training, and I attempted to assist him. I had further correspondence with the then Minister. The final letter I had from him over this period was dated 24th September, when he reiterated that Mr. Descubes must leave the country without delay if he was unable to resume his nursing training.

My information thereafter was that Mr. Descubes had been successful in getting back into nursing. I thought then that he had become a student nurse, but it transpired that what had happened was that he had been accepted as an assistant nurse by the High Croft Hospital in Birmingham with a view to his becoming a student nurse in due course. I have checked on this. He was in the capacity of an assistant nurse when he was arrested in July, 1970 and brought before the magistrates in August as being—as he was—in breach of his condition of entry, and a recommendation was made for his deportation.

This was not acted on at once. At the beginning of January Mr. Descubes was at last able to get back into student nursing as opposed to assistant nursing, taking up the first vacancy which had come his way, at All Saints Hospital, Birmingham. At about this time the case was referred to me once again. I wrote to my noble 1426 Friend, Lord Windlesham, the Minister of State, about the matter, and was told that the Home Office was …at present making further inquiries to enable a decision to be reached on whether to proceed with his deportation. An appeal was made by Mr. Descubes in which he sought, inter alia, to raise the question of to which country he should be deported. But the tribunal found that there were no grounds for deportation to be to any country other than Mauritius.

I had further correspondence with my noble Friend, with which I will not weary the House, and I had an interview with him on 23rd April, when I made two main points. First, it had been indicated by the Home Office that if Mr. Descubes was able to resume nursing training he would be allowed to stay. Second, Mr. Descubes' deportation would result in a separation of the family, because there is no power to deport a family under those circumstances. Mrs. Descubes, together with her children, was minded—and is still minded—to stay in this country whatever happens to her husband, perhaps surprisingly. That is a matter for another occasion. She is entitled to stay here even though my hon. Friend the Minister may be minded to deport her husband.

My noble Friend rightly pointed out to me that the time lag between the assurance that Mr. Descubes would be allowed to stay if he resumed nursing training and his doing so was considerable, and that assistance would be given to Mrs. Descubes if she changed her mind and eventually decided to return to Mauritius with her husband. He aso stated that there was no evidence that if Mr. Descubes were allowed to stay here he would prove to be a genuine student.

In view of my noble Friend's reaction, which is understandable in many ways, I made further inquiries which involved talking on the telephone to the vicar of Grays, Mr. Thrush, the principal tutor of All Saints Hospital, Birmingham, and the chief nurse in charge of Mr. Descubes' studies. All spoke well of him. It was indicated to me that no doubt was felt by people who knew him far better than I, who had encountered him only at my advice bureau, as to the genuineness of his determination to complete his nursing studies. I reported these matters to my noble Friend in a letter dated 11th May.

1427 I stressed in particular the following matters: it seemed to me that in all the circumstances the case had been made out for Mr. Descubes being allowed to remain in this country. I said that I thought that the case was overwhelming, first, on the humanities of the situation, and, secondly, because it seemed then and it seems to me now that it would be quite wrong for an order made such a long while ago to be enforced at this stage after Mr. Descubes has through his own efforts resumed nursing training; and, by all accounts, this training is proceeding in an exceedingly satisfactory way. This remains the situation.

I hope that in all the circumstances my hon. Friend the Minister of State will take the view that this is a ease in which humanitarian interests should be permitted to prevail, that Mr. Descubes should be allowed to stay in this country so that he can remain with and support, as he is supporting, his family and that he should be permitted to complete his nursing studies. I hope that I shall have a sympathetic reply to the case from my hon. Friend.

§ The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Richard Sharples)

My hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck) has made a strong plea that the Home Secretary should revoke the deportation order he made against Mr. Descubes last October, on the recommendation of the Colchester magistrates' court, which had convicted Mr. Descubes of the offence of failing to comply with his conditions of admission to the United Kingdom. There is not much dispute about the facts of this case. But it may help to put the case in perspective if I outline the circumstances in which Mr. Descubes came to this country.

Mr. Descubes, now aged 32 and a citizen of Mauritius, was admitted to this country on 29th September, 1966, for 12 months as a student nurse for training in the Isle of Wight. On the expiry of that period of 12 months, in September, 1967, he neither left the country nor applied for an extension of stay When he was traced he was no longer in possession of a valid passport. In the meantime, his wife and two children had joined him from Mauritius.

1428 Mr. Descubes had moved from the Isle of Wight to Essex, and the welfare authorities in Essex did what they could to help the family.

My hon. Friend has referred to the correspondence between the welfare department of the Essex County Council and the Home Office. It is, I think, nor without significance that the last letter which the Home Office had, dated 18th April, 1969, from the welfare department of the county council concluded by asking whether there was any likelihood of the family being returned by the Home Office to their native land". It appeared that Mr. Descubes had ceased altogether to be a nursing student and had taken employment, with the firm of Woods of Colchester.

A firmly worded letter was therefore sent to him by the Home Office on 29th May, 1969, with a copy to the area welfare officer, explaining that he had been admitted to the country to undertake a course of full-time studies and could not be allowed to remain here for employment. The letter pointed out that Commonwealth citizens who wished to work in the United Kingdom must be in possession of an employment voucher before they sought to enter this country. Mr. Descubes was asked to make arrangements to leave the country on or before 30th June, 1969.

I do not think it necessary to recount in full the events that followed, except to say that Mr. Descubes did not leave the country. At a later stage the case was put into the hands of the police Mr. Descubes was charged, convicted and recommended by the court for deportation.

The Home Office inquired into what had happened to him since September, 1969. It appeared that he had become unemployed and drawn unemployment benefit, and that he had subsequently moved to Birmingham, where he had obtained a job as a nursing assistant. This was work for which an employment voucher was needed, quite distinct from training as a student nurse.

It appeared that Mr. Descubes realised this since he was, as my hon. Friend has pointed out, making efforts to resume training as a student nurse. He did 1429 not appeal to quarter sessions, as he was entitled to do, against the magistrates' recommendation for deportation. The Home Secretary decided that, in all the circumstances, there were insufficient grounds for not acting on the court's recommendation. He therefore made a deportation order on 14th October last.

The deportation order having been made, Mr. Descubes had a right of appeal to an independent adjudicator on the question of the country to which he should be removed. He exercised that right and appealed to the adjudicator on the ground that he wished to go to Australia rather than to Mauritius. The adjudicator considered the case on 6th January, and decided that there was no evidence that Mr. Descubes would be accepted in Australia. Mr. Descubes was subsequently granted leave to appeal from the adjudicator's decision to the Immigration Appeals Tribunal. The Tribunal heard the appeal on 8th April and dismissed it.

In the meantime, on 4th January, Mr. Descubes succeeded in obtaining a place on a three-year nursing training course at a Birmingham hospital. He is training to become a registered mental nurse and has said that, if he is allowed to remain here, he will complete this course and then take a further two-year course to become a state registered nurse.

My hon. Friend has put forward a strong plea that the deportation order should be revoked. He has said that Mr. Descubes has made persistent efforts to resume nursing training. This may be so, though there is certainly room for difference of opinion as to how persistent these efforts have been. The fact remains, however, that he is now once again training to be a nurse—the purpose for which he was originally admitted.

The General Nursing Council, which had previously recommended against his being accepted for training, has now agreed that he may be accepted, and, as my hon. Friend has told the House, the principal tutor at the hospital and the principal nurse immediately in charge of the course now report that Mr. Descubes is a very satisfactory student and he is described as "dedicated to nursing". My hon. Friend has said that he has himself 1430 cross-examined Mr. Descubes rigorously about this and that it is now—in contrast to the view taken in 1969, and quoted in his letter to the then Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees)—his firm opinion that Mr. Descubes can appropriately be regarded as a genuine student.

My hon. Friend has also drawn attention to the position of Mr. Descubes' family if he is deported. Mrs. Descubes came here from Mauritius in 1967, with two children, in the circumstances my hon. Friend has described. But she was admitted unconditionally. There is, under the present law, no power to require her to leave, and it is quite clear that she is not prepared to go back to Mauritius voluntarily, even if her fare and those of her children—there are now four—were paid out of public funds.

If Mr. Descubes is deported, therefore, his family are likely to remain here; and while his wife should be able to contribute something towards their upkeep it is fairly obvious that they are likely, to a large extent, to be a charge on public funds for some time to come.

We have given very careful consideration to this case of which I know my hon. Friend appreciates the difficulties. We have considered the strong representations made by my hon. Friend. The decision rests on whether or not Mr. Descubes really intends to adhere to the undertaking which he gave when he came here originally. My hon. Friend apparently thinks that he will do so. I must confess that I have my own doubts, but even so I believe that this is an argument on which the balance must be fine.

I believe that the original decision, taken in the light of the information available and the circumstances then prevailing, was absolutely correct. But, in view of the very strong arguments put forward by my hon. Friend, and in particular the hardship which might result for his family, my right hon. Friend has decided that Mr. Descubes should be given the benefit of the doubt. I am therefore glad to tell my hon. Friend that his efforts have been successful and that the deportation order will be revoked.