HC Deb 15 July 1975 vol 895 cc1463-72

12.53 a.m.

Mr. Paul Hawkins (Norfolk, South West)

I am very glad to catch your eye even at this early hour, Mr. Deputy Speaker, after four unsuccessful attempts at the Ballot. Hon. Members are entitled to ask—and some have asked me—what is behind this debate. Am I moved by colour prejudice? Why should the hon. Member for Norfolk, South-West, who presumably has very few immigrant constituents, want to speak on immigration statistics?

I want to try to answer those questions at the start, then to show the lack of relevant up-to-date statistics, and, finally, to point out the dangerous effect this has on community services and relations. I wish also to urge Her Majesty's Government to obtain at once all necessary information here and overseas, and meanwhile to halt immigration until that information is available and has been digested.

The answers to the questions which I pose are that I have no greater colour prejudice than the average, and less than many. I believe, however, that in England we are highly over-populated, and that if immigrants who are already here find difficulties over schooling, housing and generally being assimilated into the community—as they do—bringing in more immigrants will do great harm to race relationships and lead to coloured people being treated as second-class citizens, which I believe all of us wish to try to avoid.

As to the second question, hon. Members have national responsibilities as well as constituency responsibilities. I believe—and have ever since I have been in the House, since 1964—that this is a dangerous and growing national problem. In addition, I have many constituents, newly arrived in my area over the last few years, from districts where overcrowding is acute, and they themselves do not mince their words as to the dangers and their feelings when they, as they put it, were driven from their own home areas.

No one except the deaf, the blind and the prejudiced can say that there is no problem to solve. One has only to read the papers, walk the streets and watch the classes of schoolchildren. As a nation we have acted as ostriches, pretending that if we shut our eyes this problem would go away. Well, it will not and it does not, and every month it becomes greater. Governments of all hues have acted far too late over this matter. The Conservative Government have been far more aware of the ordinary citizen's point of view, and the Labour and Liberal parties—who seem to be absent entirely—believe that all should be allowed to enter here regardless of the conditions in this country.

For a proper assessment of the problem—it is this that I have raised tonight—we need to know how many of each race are already here, where they are in England, and what their birth rates are. We must know how many people could come here, where they could come from, and what races would come here. Until we obtain these statistics, accurate and up to date, and examine them in relation to the country's housing and unemployment situation, I do not believe that we can devise policies to solve this growing problem, which I believe, is a great danger to the country.

For nearly a year now I have been corresponding with the Office of Population and Censuses, and later with the Home Secretary. I have files of papers, but I am little the wiser at the end of it. Perhaps it is my fault for not being able to read the statistics as they are published, but certainly the information that should be available is not, either as to numbers here, or how many are entitled to come here.

Last summer, I think in August, I was told that it would not be before the end of 1974 that certain information could be extracted from the 1971 Census. I also gather that information obtained in the 1971 Census will not be taken again at the next census. I wonder whether the Minister can confirm or deny this, and let us know whether all the information taken in the 1971 Census will be repeated and, perhaps, expanded.

A letter to me from the Home Office, signed by the Minister of State and dated 13th April, showed, in my opinion, such a lack of urgency and was so unsatisfactory that I decided to ask for this debate. The hon. Gentleman wrote: I remain of the view that the Census provides us. and indeed local authorities, with ample information about the size and distribution of the immigrant communities to allow local assessments of the needs of these communities—And plans to meet those needs—to be considered and drawn up. He went on to deny the need for more details and the regular updating of estimates of those likely to come here.

It must be obvious that figures which are not available until three and a half years after the census and are based only on a 1 per cent. sample are useless to local authorities and Members of Parliament. How they can be of much use to the Home Office, as was said, I do not know. If there is to be no limit on the number entering each year and no requirement for an immigrant to state where he wants to go in England, how are the unfortunate councils, social workers and others to plan ahead?

These council difficulties were highlighted in an article in the Evening News of Monday, 30th June. It was headed: Asian influx is council headache. It described how Wandsworth Council for Community Relations appealed through the hon. Member for Tooting (Mr. Cox) to the Home Secretary, asking him to ensure that the immigration department kept councils better informed about new arrivals. It was the influx of Kenyan Asians which led to this. The reported remarks continued: … unless we are given estimates, we have no way of knowing how many families are coming to the borough and no chance to make arrangements … Three years ago, Wandsworth, at the height of the influx of Ugandan Asians, was declared a "red" area because of the borough's housing and social problems. This is very alarming and proves that my demand for accurate, up-to-date statistics readily available is necessary.

On 25th January 1973, in a statement on immigration my right hon. Friend the former Home Secretary said: Our first responsibility as a Government is for the well-being of all the people in this country. No one should be in any doubt about our determination to discharge that duty through effective control over entry from overseas, through orderly arrangements for those whom we admit, and through the pursuit of positive policies to maintain and improve good community relations."—[Official Report, 25th January 1973; Vol 849, c. 656.] I hope that the Minister of State can assure me that he and the Government also have the interests of all people as their first responsibility. I want to hear whether the hon. Gentleman is aware of the problems, has a plan to tackle them and, as a first step, will provide accurate, up-to-date and understandable statistics, so that Members of Parliament can debate this very important subject and can inform their constituents whether the problem is being tackled properly.

1.5 a.m.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon)

The hon. Member for Norfolk, South-West (Mr. Hawkins) began by saying that he did not wish to introduce any racialist note into the debate. I am afraid that some of his introductory comments verged on that and tended to inflame such feelings. Some of his good points were lost completely in that kind of attitude and also in a misunderstanding of what is the nature of the rights of immigrants to this country.

In a country like Canada it is clear who is a Canadian citizen and who is not. If Canada wishes to accept immigrants it does so according to well-defined tests of the needs of Canada for new immigrants. In this country there has never been a clear definition of who is a British citizen. There will be by the time this Parliament has expired, because the Government intend to introduce such legislation. Until 1948 every person born anywhere in the British Empire was a British subject with complete and unrestricted right of entry to this country. Successive Governments since then have cut down those rights, but many remain. What is left is a residual commitment to people who had established rights at the time when they had some citizenship link with this country.

The two areas of immigration from the new Commonwealth—I noticed that the hon. Gentleman restricted all his remarks to new Commonwealth settlers—are from dependants of those who came here before 1st January 1973 and the East African Asian passport holders to whom we gave a commitment, at the time when East African countries became independent, that we would look after them if there was any difficulty. To those who are citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies in just the same way as the hon. Gentleman and myself, and who hold British passports but are East African Asians, we have said that we shall allow them to come to this country if they obtain a voucher.

We have restricted the number of vouchers issued each year, so that they can come in an orderly way. The last Conservative Government raised the number to 3,500, and we have raised it this year to 5,000. The effect of that is that about 20,000 East African Asians are allowed to come here each year. In addition, in relation to dependants of those who came before 1st January 1973 there is an existing commitment to a substantial number of people who live in India, Pakistan or Bangladesh, mainly the latter two countries. These are allowed to come to this country when they obtain an entry certificate.

There is a substantial delay in getting an entry certificate from one of the high commissions in the sub-continent. That delay under the last Conservative Government had extended to as much as four years before obtaining the first appointment. Often it was a total of seven to eight years before people got an entry voucher. I regard that as totally inhuman. We have done our best to increase the flow of people who have this right—a right preserved by the Conservative Government in their 1971 Act—to be allowed to join their husbands who live here, so that the family can be reunited. It is clear that both commitments are finite. There are only a certain number of East African Asian passport holders and only a certain number of dependants of people living here, necessarily restricted by the number of people who were allowed to come and settle here and work in the period before 1973.

It is not possible to define precisely what that number is. for obvious reasons, because a substantial number came before 1st January 1973, when no counting was done of new Commonwealth citizens who were allowed to enter. We have some estimate, but we have never disclosed what that estimate is, nor did any preceding Government, for obvious reasons.

Of course. not all the people who have this right will come. Apart from the issue of vouchers to passport holders, we do not know how many will be processed in any one year. Last year 21,745 came in from the new Commonwealth. They comprised basically the two categories which I have already indicated. That was a slight drop on the preceding year—the last year of the Conservative Government—when 24,264 came in.

The average over preceding years has been of the order of 40,000. It will probably come back to 40,000 with the increases which we have made this year. But the 40,000 will not be in addition to those who had rights which existed before we came into office. Far from it. It will simply be draining the two pools faster than was otherwise intended. The result will be that when we have dealt with these two residual areas of migration. the problem—if it is a problem—of new Commonwealth immigration will virtually be completed, because the number of new males coming from the new Commonwealth for work was substantially reduced in 1964–65 by the Labour Government Therefore, all that we are now doing is honouring the commitments entered into by two previous Governments. We intend to honour those commitments as quickly as we can.

I turn now to the basic point that the hon. Gentleman wishes to urge upon the Government. He posed the question: if these people come to areas of this country without warning, how can local authorities plan for their reception? Again, the hon. Gentleman misunderstands the nature of our immigration control, as against, say, that of the Canadians. In Canada, as the whole thing is done by quotas, it is possible to define precisely who will come, when, and where they will go. These are people coming with rights. There is no way in which this country can apply to them an obligation to go to a particular area, nor, indeed, to say when and in what numbers they are to come. Therefore, no Government—neither the Conservative nor the preceding Labour Government—have been able to plan with the degree of accuracy that the hon. Gentleman wishes to put upon us now.

It will be possible, in the changed situation which will emerge after we have redefined citizenship and dealt with the two residual areas of migration that we have, to introduce an immigration law which will allow us to do that. Indeed, I hope that we shall be able to do that. We shall then be able to plan and, I hope, prepare the migrant for rehabilitation in this country in a way that we have not been able to do before. But we cannot do it at the moment.

In four or five letters which I have written to the hon. Gentleman over the last six months I have tried to explain this point. I am afraid that I have not entirely succeeded in explaining it to him, but I hope that the House, at any rate, will accept that it is not possible to do what the hon. Gentleman wishes, desirable though it may be, at this stage of our immigration story.

Mr. Hawkins

How many years will it take before the pools are drained?

Mr. Lyon

I have already indicated publicly that it will be possible to end our commitment to East African passport holders, though not to passport holders living in India, by the end of this Parliament. It is not possible to give an accurate prognosis about the other main area of migration—dependants from the Indian sub-continent—because much depends on the speed with which we can process the applications. It is not as clear how many might be involved. I can foresee that within a reasonable period we shall have ended this area of migration.

The census figures give us the only true basis of planning, whatever our social planning. If the hon. Gentleman says that the figures are too outdated for use for immigration, they are too outdated for use for every other purpose. Yet they are the basic source of any planning material—housing, social services, social security, or any other area of social planning. There is no reason, therefore, why we should not use them, recognising the difficulties about updating, as the basis of our planning in relation to migration. Indeed, we do so.

It is possible to obtain from the Census a figure of how many new Commonwealth citizens are here. The 1971 Census indicated that there were about 1,486,000 here at that time, of whom about 1 million were born in the new Commonwealth, the remainder having been born here. Updating that with the figures which we have published about those horn in the United Kingdom, and those who have come here since, as immigrants, the total should be about 1,731,000, of whom about 598,000 were born in this country, which is a little over one-third. A substantial number of those coloured people were born in this country and are therefore as British as the hon. Gentleman or myself. They have the greatest stake in the future, as the new Commonwealth population is comparatively young, without the elderly representatives which the rest of the population have. The proportion of births to the total number of new Commonwealth citizens here is comparatively high. Therefore the population is likely to increase to about three millioin by the middle of the 1980s.

Those people live in a comparatively small number of areas. As they become more familiar with the culture and background of this country, and as discrimination against them ceases, it is likely that they will move from these areas. Therefore, the problem of an intense concentration of new Commonwealth population is peculiar to something like 25 areas of this country, and is likely to exist for another 10 to 15 years, by which time dispersal should have begun in earnest.

We must plan to concentrate our resources into those areas over the coming few years. I am anxious that we should do so. I hope that I have an ally in the hon. Gentleman in seeking to persuade Governments that that is what they should do. I am convinced, as is the hon. Gentleman, that this country will face serious problems unless those difficulties are tackled at an early stage. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman will do a service to race relations by trying to pretend that somehow we can easily dispose of this problem.

There is no quick solution. There are those who have suggested that we should send back the people who have come. As I have indicated, about one-third were born here, and of the other two-thirds a substantial number are now citizens of this country and could not in any sense be sent back, even if any Government were prepared to accept such an inhuman policy.

What is clear is that we now have a multi-racial society and we shall have it for the rest of our history. Therefore, we have to learn how to live as a multi-racial society. That means that we have to give every black person the same rights as every white. We have to create a situation in which he can compete effectively with whites.

Most of the immigrants who have come in the last 20 years have come from relatively poor rural areas, and many of them are illiterate, even in their own language. If they are to compete effectively with those who are living here, even our own indigenous poor, it is essential that they should have given to them substantial resources, in order to bring them up at any rate to that level. That—sometimes called positive discrimination—is not giving anything special. It is merely correcting the disadvantage they suffer. Unless we correct it, there is a serious problem awaiting us—a problem that might be as serious as anything that has occurred in the United States.

It is because I believe passionately that these people have to have fair and equal treatment that I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I shall do all that I can to insist that resources are made available. But at present it is a very difficult area in which to urge that upon government. When resources are available, I hope that the diversion will take place. I think that we have enough statistics to know where the people who need help are. What we need is the political will to ensure that they get it. If the hon. Gentleman's debate has contributed to that end, I am very grateful to him.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjoured accordingly at twenty-two minutes past One o'clock