§ Mr. Alfred Dubs (Battersea, South)I am glad to have this opportunity of talking about delays in this country's immigration and nationality procedures. They are a cause of great concern to many people. They cause much unhappiness and insecurity to numbers of unfortunate people here and on the Indian sub-continent. This is not intended to be an attack on the officials who run the immigration and citizenship services. Many of them have a difficult and highly sensitive job. They have important decisions to make affectng people's lives. Much of the criticism may be unfair if directed simply at the officials themselves. But it is fairly easy to show that the officials lack the resources and operate under difficult immigration rules. Many of the problems should not be laid at their door. They are the political responsibility of Ministers in the appropriate Departments.
I should like to turn first to immigration and deal later with problems concerning delays in nationality. I should like to talk about the position overseas. The queues of people waiting to be interviewed in connection with entry clearances have been getting longer. At the end of 1979, people were having to wait 24 months in Bangladesh and 22 months in Pakistan compared with 20 months and 19 months respectively the previous year. Happily, the queue in New Delhi is shorter, it is curently 10 months, but that is twice as long as the waiting period the previous year. Many of the people in these queues, particularly in Bangladesh and Pakistan, are wives and children. Their waiting time is particularly agonising. In order to speed up the process, additional entry clearance officers—called seasonal reinforcements—are drafted in from time to time. Will there be any such reinforcements during 1980?
I start with the position of United Kingdom passport holders—those normally referred to as East African or Ugandan Asians. There is a quota for them of 5,000 a year. In 1979, fewer than 2,000 in that category were admitted, presumably because of a lack of applications. The sting is that there is an unofficial quota of 500 from India, and that 740 is where people are having to wait so long that children who were under 18 when they first joined the queue have reached their eighteenth birthday and are having to join the list in their own right. That is a particularly unfortunate delay for people who are entitled to enter this country. It has unfortunate effects, particularly on wives and children who are waiting to come in, with all the attendant insecurity involved.
I wish to raise under a number of headings delays in the United Kingdom. The first heading is husbands who have entered this country as fiances and are awaiting permission to work. That takes an average of three to four months and during that time they are not allowed to work and may have to draw supplementary benefits, which may have undesirable effects. The delay is unnecessarily long, particularly as the key decision about their staying here is taken 12 months after the marriage, when the authorities check whether it is a proper one.
I appreciate that the numbers under that heading will decline because of the changes in the immigration rules. We have discussed the changes at length and I do not want to go over them now.
The second category is refugees awaiting asylum in this country. Fortunately, there are not that many, but they have to wait many months, and that causes them great anxiety because they do not know whether they will be allowed to stay. They cannot take work while they are waiting and they may have to depend on supplementary benefits. It is a small number of people, and their happiness would be greatly increased if they did not have to wait so long.
The next group are those who are detained pending a decision on whether they can stay here. In 1979, there were nearly 6,400 such people at Harmondsworth, and others are detained in other places. It would be beneficial to make a greater use of temporary admission rather than locking up these people, particularly as I understand that the rate of absconding among those who are granted temporary admission is low.
Work permit holders are admitted initially for 12 months and they may be given an extension of time for up to three years. In practice, the extensions tend to be given at 12-month intervals, 741 with the result that anyone with a work permit has to keep renewing it, which adds extra pressure on the officials and produces more paperwork. It would be beneficial if that could be eliminated by granting extensions for longer than 12 months after the initial 12 months.
The rules suggest that six months would normally be the appropriate time to allow a visitor to stay in this country, unless an extension is justified by "special reasons". In practice, visitors from almost the whole of Europe, the white Commonwealth and North America are normally given six months, but those from the Indian sub-continent are almost always given shorter periods and they have to apply for an extension of permission to stay. That also causes extra paperwork and puts more pressure on officials.
When interviews with London constituents are to take place in connection with entry clearance and related matters, many of the interviews do not take place in London itself but constituents are asked to travel to Sheerness. If they do not wish to travel, they may have to wait for a long time before they can be interviewed in London. I was surprised to learn those facts from a parliamentary answer.
I understand that there are occasions on which the pressures on immigration officers at Sheerness are so low that they can absorb some of those waiting to be interviewed in London. I was surprised to find that in 1979, out of 2,266 such interviews, 1,653 took place in Sheerness. It is unnecessary to ask people to travel long distances for an interview. It would be easier to draft some of the officials to London. I hope that the Minister will consider that matter to see whether the position can be improved.
I turn to the question of immigration appeals and the time taken in connection with them. There are various stages in appeals connected with immigration procedures. I shall not go through them all in detail. There can be a delay of four or five months in the time taken to prepare an explanatory statement, and it may be up to 15 months in the case of applicants in Bangladesh.
Further long delays occur in listing and hearing cases after explanatory statements have been received. Overseas applicants 742 may have to wait nine months to 12 months. There are even more stages which cause further delay. I understand that the previous Administration intended to recruit more officials as part-time adjudicators. Will the Government say whether they intend to increase the number of adjudicators so that the delays can be reduced?
I turn to the question of nationality. In a speech in Leicester some time ago, the Home Secretary said that he wanted to remove from those who have come to our country in post-war years the label of "immigrant" and to give them their place as full British citizens. We all agree with that sentiment. However, when people wish to take advantage of that opportunity they have to go through a very long waiting period while their applications are dealt with.
There is an infamous letter—I use the word "infamous" advisedly—which comes from the Home Office. It is sent to people who have had to wait a long time and who may have gone so far as to ask what has happened to their application. I shall quote briefly from the letter:
all such applicants are now subject to lengthy delays in the Home Office. These delays range from several months to over two years in some cases before a decision can be taken.The letter continues significantly:Enquiries about the progress of applications (of which there are many) divert the available resources from the work of considering applications and thus even greater delays ensue. It will not therefore be possible to reply to any further enquiries on your application.By any standards, that is a monstrous way for officials to treat individuals who are making applications to a Government Department. There is an implied threat in the letter that if the applicant asks again about why the Home Office is so slow in dealing with the application, the applicant will have to wait even longer and the Home Office will not deal with any further inquiries. That is not the best tradition in which a British Government Department should deal with people who write to it with legitimate inquiries.I appreciate that a slip of paper which accompanies all applications uses the same form of wording. It is an accepted part of the procedures of the Home Office. The result is that the backlog of applications is increasing year by year. In the 743 middle of June 1970, there were 5,500 outstanding applications, and by the middle of 1979 there were 35,500.
I understand that Sir Derek Rayner may be asked to study the workings of the nationality department. Is the Minister able to confirm that? If it is so, will the feeling of consumers of that department be taken into account? Will they have an opportunity to voice their views? Given the delays and the backlog, how long will applicants for entry clearance have to wait? How long will applicants for citizenship have to wait, given the length of delays faced by those who applied some time ago?
We are dealing with the way in which officialdom handles applications from individuals who are beset by uncertainty and anxiety. The individuals might be split from their families because of the slow progress of officialdom and, therefore, they will be unhappy about the long delays caused by the way in which we handle immigration and citizenship procedures. If the Government's intentions are to be taken to heart, I am sure that they will do their utmost to speed up the processes and not use the excuse that lack of money prevents them from improving the position for so many unhappy people.
§ The Minister of State, Home Office, (Mr. Leon Brittan)The original intention was that my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison) should answer the debate. Because of the events in Bristol yesterday, it is right that he should go there. I am, therefore, answering the debate on his behalf.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Battersea, South (Mr. Dubs) for giving me the opportunity to speak about the work of the immigration and nationality department and of the efforts which have been made continuously by officials to deal with the rising tide of correspondence without commensurate increases in staff. First, I shall refer to the sheer volume of work which the department disposes of as efficiently and swiftly as possible in the circumstances. An examination of the scale of work puts the matter in perspective.
The department is currently receiving letters, mostly from the public and their representatives, at a rate of about 750,000 744 a year. About 11,000 come from hon. Members and noble Lords. All such letters are rightly accorded a high degree of priority over other business. Many of the letters enclose passports or other important documents. We receive an average of 5,000 passports a week, although we receive as many as 12,000 a week at peak periods. They need an early acknowledgment.
As hon. Members will be aware, there is a large public inquiry office and an associated telephone inquiry bureau at Croydon. The inquiry office is visited by large numbers of people—currently about 165,000 per year. The numbers calling daily varies from between 400 and 500 to 1,200 at the busiest times of the year. At peak times the facilities are overloaded and, as a result, waiting times increase. None the less, it is accepted that those who call are dealt with in a calm and efficient way, despite the language difficulties that arise from time to time. I think that we can be proud of the efforts that are made.
Against that background, hon. Members will appreciate that delays are bound to occur from time to time. In many areas correspondence awaits attention for a considerable time. I am afraid that, owing to difficulties in matching the numbers of staff with the amount of work, the position has deteriorated and the time needed to reply has increased. Everything possible has been done to improve matters.
I cannot accept that constraints in public expenditure can be airily dismissed in the way in which the hon. Member for Battersea, South seemed to do. The constraints are real. There are limits to the amount of money which can and should be spent on this facility. If the hon. Gentleman seeks to suggest that more money should be spent on it, perhaps he would like to suggest other areas of public expenditure where he recommends cuts.
Turning now to the more specific matters raised by the hon. Gentleman, I ought for the convenience of the House to outline the current position concerning the length of time applicants for our citizenship are having to wait before a decision can be reached on their applications. The average time which applicants for naturalisation and discretionary 745 registration are having to wait is currently 25 months. Applicants for citizenship by registration wait an average of 12 months. There are several different kinds of application for registration. Some require very little in the way of inquiries and consideration and can be completed within three or four months, but others require considerably longer.
The reason why applications for citizenship are taking longer to be processed than has sometimes been the case in the past is that the volume of applications has risen sharply over the last three years —a time when Governments of both political complexions have had to impose economies on the numbers of civil servants. Applications for naturalisation have risen by over 52 per cent. between February 1979 and February 1980 and by over 110 per cent. compared with February 1977. Applications for registration in February this year were 94 per cent. higher than in February last year.
It has been impossible, faced with an increase of this magnitude in the volume of applications, to provide comparable increases in the numbers of civil servants available to undertake the work. Nevertheless, last December my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary was able to announce that there was to be a small increase in the staff of the nationality division. Because of the need to contain public expenditure, the increase will not be as large as we would ideally have wished, but I am sure that it will help.
The hon. Gentleman referred in a disparaging way to a letter which is sent out on occasion and suggested that the notice in that letter in some way threatens applicants that, if they make inquiries, consideration of their own applications will be delayed. Nothing like that is said or implied in that letter or in any of the stock letters or notices. The general point is made that, if inquiries are made and are to be handled, that is bound to add to the total length of time that people have to wait. That is said clearly. In no sense is there any kind of individual threat by implication or directly in any of the letters.
It is regrettable that applicants for our citizenship should have to wait for so long. But it is only fair to point out 746 that very few applicants are seriously inconvenienced by having to wait. Most applicants already have their present national passports and can travel on them if they wish. Only stateless persons have no passports, and there are comparatively few people in that position. In any event, while they are waiting they can obtain Home Office travel documents which are accepted in lieu of passports by most countries.
I ought to outline what steps have been taken to simplify administrative procedures in the interests of speeding up consideration of applications. In the last year those administrative procedures have been simplified and strengthened to good effect. At the end of last year, virtually the same number of staff cleared 7 per cent. more registrations than in 1978 and 30 per cent. more naturalisations than in 1978. But there is a limit to what can be achieved in that way.
The hon. Gentleman also referred to long waiting times for entry clearance in the Indian sub-continent because of the number of applications for settlement made in those countries and the inquiries which have to be made in such cases. I am afraid that the deception practised in a minority of cases means that these must be thorough inquiries, even into cases which turn out to be genuine. Responsibility for administration for the entry clearance arrangements is primarily for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
With the staff available, everything possible is done to keep delays to a minimum—for example, by moving staff to posts where they are needed most. Priority is also given to applications for settlement from the wives of men settled in the United Kingdom when neither spouse has previously been married and any children are under 10 years of age. The waiting time for this priority category in the Indian sub-continent is currently up to three months.
At the end of 1979, the times waited by people interviewed from the main settlement queue—that is, non-priority wives and children, and other dependent relatives—ranged from 10 months to 24 months. The necessary inquiries into applications cannot be dispensed with. Nor are increases in staff likely to be feasible.
The hon. Gentleman referred to refugee and asylum cases. I am afraid that in 747 many of those cases inquiries take a long time, because it is often necessary to make inquiries abroad. Judgments about whether an individual is likely to suffer persecution in another country can be made only after careful assessment. As the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, a wrong decision can have literally fatal consequences for the individual if he is returned. On the other hand, to grant asylum lightly would devalue a status which should be granted only to those genuinely needing it and should not be come generally available as a means of avoiding immigration controls.
Unfortunately, oppressive regimes around the world are creating increased business for the Home Office refugee unit. The Vietnamese boat people are just one example of the problems involved.
The hon. Member also referred to the question of visitors. The position is that visitors who satisfy the requirements of the immigration rules are normally given leave to enter for six months, regardless of their nationality. The rules state that a shorter period should not be imposed unless there are special reasons to justify such a restriction. One such reason is that the case ought to be subject to early review by the Home Office. In such cases the visitor is normally given leave to enter for the period for which he has asked. Each case is considered on its merits. Details of the various periods for which leave is given are not kept, but I think that it can be properly assumed that a very large proportion have been admitted for the normal period of six months.
I turn to the question of delays in the appeals system. Delays exist, and in the main they are caused by a shortage of resources. They occur at two points. The first is in the preparation of the explanatory statement justifying the Government's decision. The second is in the time taken by the appellate authorities to set down the case for hearing.
In the case of the explanatory statements, the Home Office appeals section is currently taking about four to five months to produce statements in cases where the Secretary of State is respondent to the appeal. I think that that is a commendable rate, given the staff reductions that took place on that section ceasing, 748 in 1977, to accept statements for completion on behalf of posts overseas.
The overseas posts where the effect on dependants is potentially most serious are Islamabad and Dacca. My hon. Friend the Minister of State—the Member for Aylesbury—visited those posts last year and noted that all concerned were very alive to the importance of keeping a reasonable balance between, on the one hand, interviewing new applicants and, on the other hand, writing explanatory statements for applicants whose cases had been refused.
Our embassy at Islamabad had the benefit of having the statements written for it by the Home Office until 1977. Since resuming responsibility for its own statements, the time taken has on average not exceeded six months —a rate which compares very favourably with the much longer time taken when the statements were written by the Home Office.
When the cases reach the appellate authorities, there is, of course, a further lapse of time before the appeal can be heard—varying according to the particular case, obviously. It is not surprising that delays vary from centre to centre—three to four months for an appeal to be heard at Harmondsworth, six to seven months at Thanet House in the Strand, 10 to 12 months in Birmingham and Manchester and 12 to 14 months at Leeds. These are, of course, very rough estimates.
I am afraid, however, that, with the present overriding need to curtail public spending, it is not practicable to dispel these delays by pouring more resources into the system. In response to the review by Sir Leo Pliatzky of non-departmental bodies, we are looking at ways of improving efficiency by changing the rules of procedure. We shall shortly appoint more part-time adjudicators. Both those measures are designed to ensure that existing resources—hearing rooms and back-up staff—are used to the maximum advantage.
The hon. Gentleman is concerned about the length of time that people may be kept in detention. Detention may result from the actions of the police on arrest, the courts, the immigration service and the Home Secretary's making of deportation orders. However, I can assure the House that no one is detained for any longer than is necessary to enable any 749 appeal rights to be exhausted, any representations to be considered and the necessary travel arrangements—including the individual's documentation, which can be difficult—to be made. We are keeping the number of people in detention under close review, but the time taken to remove those who are detained varies considerably from case to case, and no meaningful statistics on the subject can be produced.
The hon. Gentleman raised the point that one of the future investigations into Civil Service Departments under the direction of Sir Derek Rayner will deal with the handling of applications for citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies. No doubt the matters raised by the hon. Gentleman in this debate will be taken into consideration during the course of that investigation. I have no doubt that the consumer's voice—as he calls it—will be brought to bear when that investigation proceeds.