HC Deb 06 June 1978 vol 951 cc156-68

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Harper.]

9.52 p.m.

Mr. Sydney Bidwell (Ealing, Southall)

I am grateful for the opportunity to bring before the House the case of the Kassamalis, against whom deportation orders have been issued. It is necessary to spell out in detail the substance of the case, with which my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will be familiar but not necessarily Members of the House.

My hon. Friend knows the kind of constituency that I represent. She knows that many of my constituents are people of Asian origin, having come from the Punjab part of India or, as in this case, from East African States, or from many areas of the New Commonwealth. She knows from my consistent flow of correspondence with her on numerous cases that on some of those cases my view is different from my view on others. It is an unusual step for me to bring before the House in an Adjournment debate any one of these case. This is the first case since my hon. Friend has been Under-Secretary in which I have taken such a step. I have taken this step because three decent people are under serious threat of receiving less than justice from this country, which prides itself so much on its justice.

Mr. Kassamali is 52 years of age. He looks much older. When I saw him I would have taken him for about 65. That may be because of the wear and tear of life, which has not affected me as much as it has apparently affected him.

The Kassamalis have five children. The three elder children are permitted residents of the United Kingdom. They have come here over the years in various ways. Of these, two daughters, not the deportable daughters, are midwifery sisters in a local maternity hospital at Perivale, in Middlesex, which is next to my constituency. All their colleagues think very highly of them, and when I was chatting to one of them last night, I asked her how many babies she thought she had delivered while she had been serving in the National Health Service. She said that the number must run into hundreds. She has been doing a tremendously useful job for us, as has her sister in the same hospital. They are a vital part of the family and have been here since 1971. There is no question of their leaving this country.

The only son works as a computer operator with IBM. His studies here have been financed partly by money given by his father and partly by grants from the Ismali Council. He has been here for many years and holds a British passport. He is not deportable member of the family.

The two younger daughters against whom deportation orders have been issued have been here for a total of six years. They came first as students and got work after that. Although they were not supposed to have been working under British law, it has been relatively easy for many years for overstayers to gain employment in Britain. Perhaps in the distant future, under Common Market arrangements and so on, it will not be so easy for people who have not achieved a right of stay in this country to get employment, but these young women have been working as secretaries and have been doing an important job in the British economy.

These daughters came here as visitors with their mother and father. They were then aged 15 and 18. Having been here for six years, they have grown from girlhood into womanhood. I stress that because I shall quote later from a letter from the Home Secretary who says that he is not prepared to vary or revoke orders against these young women and their parents. I submit that the time factor is the essence of whether their removal from this country would be a profound hardship or not.

One of the daughters has recently got married to a man who has settlement rights in this country, and representations have already been made on her behalf by her husband.

Mr. Kassamali suffers from ill health. I have looked through the history of the case and I find that he has been dangled on a piece of string like a yoyo. It may be argued that, initially, he was the architect of his own misfortunes, but over the years during which I, his solicitor and a councillor for the United Kingdom Immigrants Advisory Service have been taking an interest in the case, he has had every hope, at various stages through our appeals system, that he would get the right of domicile in this country. But it has not come about, and it is necessary to go through that history in order to understand the full substance of the case.

Mohammed Ali Kassamali was born in Bombay, India, in July 1925, the son of a British subject. Mrs. Kassamali was also at the date of her birth the daughter of a British subject. Mr. Kassamali applied for registration himself as a British subject in October 1953.

It being Ten o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Walter Harrison.]

Mr. Bidwell

Mr. Kassamali applied for registration as a British subject in October 1953, and from 1953 to February 1966 he was employed by East African Railways—that is, in Crown service—as a clerk, which provided him with accommodation as part of his job.

In 1962, after Tanzania became independent, Mr. Kassamali was advised by East African Railways that unless he were to renounce his British citizenship he would lose his job and the accommodation. I think that this is very important in understanding the whole sorry background of his circumstances. I bring this debate, but I am a former railway worker and I know all about the tied cottage system and how it affects railway employees in this country.

On 3rd May 1962, under this duress, which is really what it was, Mr. Kassamali renounced his British citizenship and adopted Tanzanian nationality. Mrs. Kassamali also renounced her British citizenship on 2nd May 1963. The purpose of her renunciation was to make it possible for the daughters to be registered as Tanzanian citizens. I understand that that was quite important from the point of view of the daughter's education in Tanzania.

On 31st July 1965 it had become the policy of East African Railways to replace Asian officers by African officers. The House will be familiar with the policies of Africanisation in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, which have been applied with varying degrees of severity. Mr. Kassamali was asked to retire and was given six months' notice. He was also obliged to vacate the accommodation. However, he got some compensation from East African Railways and, with a small loan, was able to buy a plot of land at Iringa, which is a long distance from the capital, I understand, where he built a house consisting of two shops and two flats for the purpose of providing some additional income for him in his old age. But he had to move to Dares-Salaam for work, and he became a social welfare officer for the Ismailia Provincial Council. His house was rented and he used the rent to pay for accommodation while he was resident in the capital. Subsequently the property at Iringa was compulsorily acquired, and from then on he had only his pension from the railways, a very small one indeed, and some income from his work on which to support the family.

The first member of the family to come to the United Kingdom was the son, who trained to be a computer systems analyst. He was then followed by the two elder girls, whom I have mentioned, who are now midwifery sisters, and then the two younger girls came in March 1972 to see their brother and sisters and were granted extension on their stay to pursue courses of study, and subsequently they took up employment.

By this time, Mr. Kassamali considered that the circumstances in Tanzania were such that he had no choice but to try to gain entry to the United Kingdom to join his children. He always considered that, once here, he would be able to sustain application to remain in the United Kingdom because of the fact that in his view, although he had renounced his British citizenship under the conditions I have described, in his mind's eye he was really a British citizen. He had had a British passport. He had been in Crown service, and, of course, he knew that the absence of a British passport would mean that he could not be considered under the United Kingdom entry voucher system, which has applied since the Act of 1968.

Mr. and Mrs. Kassamali then arrived in the United Kingdom as visitors in August 1973, and shortly after they came here they applied for leave to stay permanently. It was their right to apply to stay permanently. It was not unlawful for them to seek to try to stay permanently.

They were brought to me, and when I heard the whole sorry story about the family being split in half and all the background circumstances I was instantly sympathetic. I consider that I and the others who have tried to befriend them in this country have been partly responsible for their continuous stay here. They have done nothing underhand. Everything has been open and above board. None of them has sought to go to ground or to escape British law. They thought that they could fight for the right to stay here, and up to one point it looked as if they would be successful.

During the six years that the younger daughters have been in this country and during the five and a half years or so that the parents have been here, none of them has imposed any burden on the social services. In every way, this entire family is fully able to support itself. All legal remedies have now been exhausted—that is to say, appeals to the Immigration Appeal Tribunal and a hearing before an adjudicator. Representations to the Home Office, which I have been making over a long, period, have also been unsuccessful.

The position of the Home Office is that, although Mr. and Mrs. Kassamali may have been under pressure to renounce their United Kingdom citizenship, their declarations of renunciation were valid. The Home Office therefore considers that the relative bargaining position of East African Railways and Mr. Kassamali at the time of independence was that of equitable parties. That is not true. It is a complete misunderstanding of the position, but that is how the Home Office has viewed it.

This is a question not of pressure but of duress at the material time—indeed, one could argue, of coercion in so far as Mr. Kassamali was concerned. Mr. and Mrs. Kassamali clearly intended settlement from the outset of their arrival in the United Kingdom—and, it is true, to deceive the immigration officer at the point of entry. Mr. Kassamali would admit deception and say that he had no choice in the matter, having regard to all the circumstances of the family and his distrust of the country which had deprived him of his job, his accommodation and his savings.

Although the Home Office appreciates that the Kassamalis face difficulties on their return—if, indeed, they are going to return—those difficulties are not so important as the need to maintain an effective immigration control.

Mr. Kassamali does not know what he will face on his return to Tanzania. He has neither family nor friends there. He has no income except his pension of £191 per annum and he has no accommodation for himself, his wife and daughters. He has little idea what employment he could obtain at his age. It is customary in nationalised enterprises in Tanzania, I understand, for people to retire at around the age of 50. It is difficult enough in this country to obtain employment or reemployment at that age, as every redundant worker knows. The chances of Mr Kassamali doing that in Tanzania are very remote.

If they returned, the chances of Mr. Kassamali seeing his four children again would also be remote. Should those children in due course produce grandchildren, as would be natural, he would have little hope of seeing them either.

The Home Office says that Mr Kassamali's former Crown Service has been taken into account and that this can give him no claim to remain. It does not seem to have been taken into account at all so far as I can tell. Although the two deportable daughters about whom I talked earlier—there is now a question about one of them—who arrived here in March 1972 did not enter Britain illegally—that is, not on a forged passport or by making any other false claim—they do not qualify for the amnesty announced on 29th November 1977.

I point out that, peculiarly enough, that provision applies to those who entered clandestinely or with forged papers. A time factor has been involved in Home Office thinking over the years in regard to work permits, the length of time foreign workers are allowed to work under such permits, and, indeed, whether they need them. This also concerns the length of time in which amnesties are declared and the amount of time people have been in this country, not having achieved a right of abode.

There is an additional worry which Mr. Kassamali has if he is forced to return to Tanzania in these circumstances. He believes that he may risk being imprisoned when he returns, because when he was in that country he gave a bond to the authorities as security in respect of the departure to Iran of a niece who went there to pursue studies and did not return. I understand that in Tanzania that is regarded as a major offence. She went as a medical student and I have a telegram from her verifying this fact.

Those of us who are concerned for this family contend that the compassionate and historic circumstances of the case are such that they do not threaten the maintenance of effective immigration control as a whole. This is an exceptional case, about which I feel most deeply. Those around the Kassamalis also feel deeply. The principles of an effective immigration control would not in any way be vitiated if Mr. and Mrs. Kassamali and their daughter Gulrose were allowed to remain in the United Kingdom. Who knows whether, before my right hon. Friend decides to implement the deportation order, that daughter also—I understand that she is a most attractive young lady—is likely to be married? I believe that the Home Secretary should exercise his discretion in their favour, or at least delay the implementation of the deportation orders until full examination or reconsideration of the case has been made.

I ask my hon. Friend to take note of the fact that I took the unusual course of appealing not only to her from time to time but also to the Home Secretary. I say that despite the letter he sent me on 4th May in which he challenged my assertion about the time factor. My hon. Friend may remember that when I brought a delegation to see her from Ealing, Southall—a friendly delegation, which included representatives of the Ealing, Southall Constituency Labour Party, myself and the general secretary of the Indian Workers Association—we discussed the situation of visitors to this country. We also took a little time to discuss very briefly the thinking of the Home Office when it decides to deport somebody. When I argued the existence of a time factor, the Minister said that that had been taken into account, but that was expressly rejected in the Home Secretary's letter of 4th May. I do not know who wrote that letter, but I reject the surmise on which it was based.

10.14 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Dr. Shirley Summerskill)

I shall try in the time available to give my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Bidwell) as full a reply as possible concerning the case he has raised.

An Asian family named Kassamali were originally allowed to come to this country as visitors and then sought to convert their visit into an indefinite stay. I know that my hon. Friend feels strongly about this case, and I have listened carefully to the points he has made, but I should like to set out some of the facts.

I shall first set out the facts and explain the application of the Immigration Rules. The family comprises parents, a son and four daughters. The son and two of the daughters came here several years ago either to study or to train as nurses and have since been granted resident status, when they could no longer be required to leave the United Kingdom.

In September 1972 one of the two daughters, who is now settled here but who was not at that time, inquired of the Home Office whether dependants' passes could be granted to her parents living in Tanzania with, she said, no one to look after them. In reply she was given general advice that people wishing to come here for such a purpose required entry clearance and should apply in the first instance to the British High Commission in Tanzania for entry certificates.

Under the Immigration Rules elderly parents, of whom at least one is aged 65 or over, could be admitted for settlement if wholly or mainly dependent upon children settled in the United Kingdom who had the means to support their parents. However, Mr. and Mrs. Kassamali were well below the age limits to qualify for this concession and there was no evidence to show that their children, who were then in this country, were in fact settled here.

In March 1972 Mr. and Mrs. Kassamali's remaining two daughters—Qamar and Gulrose—had arrived here from Tanzania for a visit to their brother and sisters. They were allowed by the immigration officer to stay for two months on the express understanding that they did not take employment. Just before the expiry of the period allowed for their visit, their brother called at the Immigration and Nationality Department seeking an extension of his sister's stay in order to undertake O-level studies. This was granted and the girls were given leave to remain until the end of September 1973.

In August 1973 Mr. and Mrs. Kassamali also arrived in the United Kingdom and told the immigration officer that they had come here to visit friends. They made no mention of the fact that all five of their children were already in the country. The immigration officer allowed them entry for one month, subject to a prohibition on their taking employment.

In September 1973 Qamar, one of the two daughters who had arrived in 1972 and whose stay had been extended for studies, asked to be allowed to remain as a junior clerk-typist. Apart from the fact that her conditions of entry expressly forbade her from engaging in any form of employment, the Immigration Rules require a person wishing to take employment in the United Kingdom to have on arrival a work permit issued by the Department of Employment for a specific job. As the girl did not have such a permit, her application was refused in November 1973.

As no application had been forthcoming in respect of Gulrose, the sister who had accompanied her from Tanzania, inquiries were made and it was found that she was already working without permission as a trainee shorthand-typist. A request to extend her stay was also refused in September 1974. Both girls had been given the right of appeal against the decisions—although in the case of the second girl it subsequently transpired that she had no such right in the light of the ruling by the Court of Appeal in 1976 in the case of Subramaniam. They exercised their rights of appeal, and their appeals were dismissed by an independent adjudicator in August 1975.

Meanwhile, their parents had overstayed the period allowed them for their visit and an application for extension of their stay was refused on 31st May 1974. Mr. and Mrs. Kassamali appealed against the refusal to vary their stay on the grounds that Mr. Kassamali had worked for the Crown Agents since 1953 and that he and his wife had earlier been holders of United Kingdom passports and had been persuaded by the needs for safe-guarding their employment in Tanzania to renounce, in 1962 and 1963 respectively, their citizenships of this country in favour of that of Tanzania.

In August 1975 an adjudicator dismissed Mr. and Mrs. Kassamali's appeals against the refusal to extend their stay. They then sought leave to appeal to the Immigration Appeal Tribunal against the adjudicator's finding, but in May 1976 the tribunal ruled by virtue of the Court of Appeal's Subramaniam ruling, to which I have earlier referred, that neither the tribunal nor the adjudicator earlier had any jurisdiction to hear their appeals because their stay in the country had expired before they had sought to extend it.

Mr. Bidwell rose—

Dr. Summerskill

I am sorry not to be able to give way, but I have a lot of important information to give in a short time.

The tribunal said that, as Mr. and Mrs. Kassamali had been given to understand that they had a right of appeal and that this was now denied to them, they might feel that they had been denied natural justice. The vice-president recommended that in the circumstances my right hon. Friend might consider exercising his discretion in their favour outside the Immigration Rules.

It is relevant here to note that as the Court of Appeal had given its ruling only two days before the vice-president of the tribunal was dealing with Mr. and Mrs. Kassamali's application, he did not at that time appreciate the impact or the extent of the court's ruling in terms of numbers. Many hundreds of people were similarly affected. A further point is that he did not consider the merits or otherwise of the appeal before the adjudicator in August 1975. Suffice it to say that the tribunal subsequently made very few similar recommendations.

In the light of the vice-president's observations, however, representations were made to the Home Office by my hon. Friend that Mr. and Mrs. Kassamali had held British passports prior to 1962 and had surrendered their citizenship then only in the interests of keeping their job and accommodation. That employment, however, was terminated in February 1976 as a consequence of the Tanzanian Africanisation policy. Mr. Kassamali then moved to Dar-es-Salaam and found alternative employment with the Ismailia Provincial Council. He resigned from this employment on deciding to come to the United Kingdom on his visit in 1973, which suggests the expectation of never going back.

My hon. Friend claims that after deportation the family would be split. However, I must point out that such a split was caused voluntarily by the family before the parents came over here, when the children left home on their own initiative. I am also advised that the penalty for the offence which Mr. Kassamali is supposed to have committed abroad is unlikely to be anything more than a fine, and I remind my hon. Friend that it is open to a deported person to apply for revocation of the deportation order, when compassionate circumstances would be taken into account.

After reviewing very carefully all aspects of the case again, I wrote and told my hon. Friend on 5th October 1976 that the family would be in no worse position than the many others who were at one time citizens of the United Kingdom and that it would be manifestly unfair to accord to them a privilege denied to others who were prepared to accept the limitations of our immigration control. I regretted that Mr. and Mrs. Kassamali and their two daughters, aged now 24 and 21 respectively, would have to arrange their departure.

My hon. Friend made further representations. When the family made no arrangements to comply with the direction to leave, notice of intention to deport them was served in March 1977. They appealed against those decisions, but these appeals were dismissed by an adjudicator in October last year. In his written determination, the adjudicator commented that any deterioration of their circumstances on their return to Tanzania was largely of their own making and, while he accepted that they might experience some difficulty in resettling themselves in their own country, he did not feel that any compassionate factors outweighed the need to maintain an effective imigration control. Leave to appeal against the adjudicator's findings was refused by the Immigration Appeal Tribunal last November.

My hon. Friend then asked me to exercise discretion in their favour. Given the history of the case and the exhaustive way in which it had been fully considered at each stage over a number of years, I felt unable to accede to his request. When the family still made no move towards leaving the country, deportation orders were made against them on 10th February this year. My hon. Friend then made representations to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary for the exercise of his personal discretion. After reviewing the case very fully yet again, my right hon. Friend could find no grounds to warrant the exercise of discretion.

It is evident that Mr. and Mrs. Kassamali and their two daughters have made a most determined effort to secure settlement in this country for which they do not qualify under the Immigration Rules. In fairness to all who are subject to control and are prepared to abide by the restrictions imposed by it, the control must be seen publicly to be applied equitably to all of them.

Since the deportation orders were made, one of Mr. and Mrs. Kassamali's daughters, Qamar, has married a man who is settled in this country. In these circumstances her position will shortly be reviewed, but otherwise action will now have to be taken to implement the deportation orders against Mr. and Mrs. Kassamali and their remaining daughter, Gulrose.

I appreciate that my hon. Friend has made very strenuous efforts on behalf of his constituents, but I think he will agree, when he reviews the long history of this case, the very many representations which he has made and which have been carefully considered and the appeals which have taken place in front of an independent adjudicator, that the facts of the case make it very difficult for me not to authorise that the deportation should continue.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-five minutes past Ten o'clock.