HC Deb 15 November 1979 vol 973 cc1490-1
13. Mr. Stoddart

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he has any plans to meet the Equal Opportunities Commission in the near future.

Mr. Whitelaw

I have no present plans for a meeting.

Mr. Stoddart

I rather thought that might be the answer, following yesterday's White Paper. As the Equal Opportunities Commission shares the concern of the Commission for Racial Equality about a virginity test on women immigrants, will the Minister meet the Equal Opportunities Commission and explain why he has blocked its desire to investigate virginity tests and other matters of immigration? Indeed, the Commission is now thinking about going to law.

Mr. Whitelaw

The hon. Gentleman seems to have moved from one Commission to the other. He asked me a question about the Equal Opportunities Commission and moved on to ask a question about the Commission for Racial Equality. I think I must answer the question that he asked in the first instance. I shall, of course, consider any representations from the Equal Opportunities Commission. I have heard its views, and I understand them. I do not have to accept them.

Mr. Michael Brown

Does my right hon. Friend accept that there could be a useful saving of public funds if the whole future of the Equal Opportunities Commission were reconsidered?

Mr. Whitelaw

The Government are committed to the Equal Opportunities Commission; and we shall certainly support its work. I wish to co-operate with the Commission and I am very pleased to do so.

Mr. Christopher Price

Does not the right hon. Gentleman feel that it is important that the Government should not, as it were, be legally exempt from investigations by either the Equal Opportunities Commission or the Commission for Racial Equality, and that they should not be able to hide behind any sort of privilege if they are breaking the principles on which those two Commissions were founded?

Mr. Whitelaw

That sounds like the kind of generality that I could entirely accept.

Mr. Merlyn Rees

Does the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the order I gave for virginity tests to cease in all parts of the world continues and that the Yellow-lees inquiry into medical examinations throughout the world will, in whatever appropriate fashion, be published?

Mr. Whitelaw

I can answer "Yes" to both those questions.