Immigration Procedures (Work Permits) (Hansard, 8 June 1981)

§ Mr. Giles Radice (Chester-le-Street)

I am glad to welcome the Minister of State, Home Office to the debate, even if it is to take place at this rather unorthodox hour. I am grateful for the opportunity to raise a matter that is of great importance to my union—the General and Municipal Workers Union—of which I am a sponsored Member, as is my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Cocks). The issue is of importance not only to the General and Municipal Workers Union but to many others. It involves the wider issues of how we administer the immigration laws, how we treat immigrants in Britain, especially Filipinos, and, more especially, the general issue of the maintenance of civil rights and liberties at a difficult time in this country's history.

My interest in the issues that we shall be discussing was aroused by a number of cases relating to Filipino workers that I have raised with the Minister on behalf of my union, as has my right hon. Friend. Many issues arise on the treatment of Filipino workers, some of which were mentioned in an Adjournment debate last year by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Kelvingrove (Mr. Carmichael), especially those relating to the Claveria judgment.

I deal this morning with one issue in particular, namely, references. If my facts are wrong, I hope that the Minister will correct me. Since April 1979, approximately 200 migrant workers, mainly Filipinos, have been threatened with removal because they are alleged to have had false references when they applied for work permits a number of years ago.

The new drive on references by the Home Office is directed for the most part against hotel and catering workers, resident domestic and nursing auxiliaries who have been working in this country to the satisfaction of their employers for a number of years. That is a crucial point.

I hope that the Minister will also comment on another point. I understand that the immigration service is now putting a great deal of public resources and public money into investigating references. Whenever a Filipino who is in this country on a work permit applies to the Home Office, his or her references are investigated both in the United Kingdom and in the Philippines. No one knows where the authorities obtain their information. I should like to hear a little more about that from the Minister.

There have been alarming reports from the Philippines that the British embassy in Manila has been using Filipinos as investigators and informers against their fellow Filipinos in this country. I hope that the Minister will deny that. If he does, the question remains: where do the authorities obtain their information?

Two further questions arise out of that investigating process. What criteria do the authorities use when looking at references? What constitutes proof? In this country there is no proper process of appeal. The only way in which cases can be reviewed at all is through hon. Members bringing them to the notice of the Minister and asking him to review them. I acknowledge the courtesy 243 with which the Minister has treated a number of my approaches on behalf of members of my union and cases of hotel and catering workers that my union has brought to my attention.

A broad judgment about what has happened is that the tough-minded, almost fanatical approach of the authorities today contrasts markedly with the approach taken during the 1970s when most of those workers came into the country. That is a key point. Little or no effort was made at that time to check on references by the British embassy in Manila, or in Britain. I believe that the truth is that at that stage British employers were so eager to get the cheap and dependable Filipino workers into this country that the authorities were prepared to turn a blind eye, even if they might have suspected that some of the references were not all that they seemed to be. At that stage they provided no written information about the work permit regulations with which the Filipino workers had to comply.

This is an important point. We are seeing not the improvement of existing procedures affecting those coming into this country at the moment—there are not people coming in under those categories—but a retrospective zealousness that reveals much about the present British Government's attitude to migrant workers, which is grossly unfair to those workers.

Let me say a word about the role of the employment agencies. Everyone agrees that the agencies—particularly in the Philippines—responsible for recruiting workers were mainly to blame for false references. They made large profits from the traffic in migrant workers and thought nothing of providing false information. On 27 August the Minister wrote to The Sunday Times stating: it is true that the agencies played a large part in providing false information. Many of them were closed down by the Philippine Government. In the Somera case there is evidence that the agencies substituted false for genuine references to make more money. In most cases workers were ignorant of the nature of the references provided by the agencies or the work permit requirements. In some cases they were conned into paying for training courses that were useless in providing qualifications for work permits.

There is dispute about what happened in the past, but there is no doubt that many Filipino workers are paying for their sins, or the sins of others. Having come here to help the British economy and to support their families overseas, men and women who have worked for many years in unpopular jobs are being harassed and, in many cases, deported for breaching a minor regulation.

I suggest three changes substantially to improve the situation. I do not suggest a general amnesty, because I know that the Minister will turn it down flat, as he has on previous occasions. First, I ask for an overhaul of Home Office methods and procedures, including an end to the harassment of the Filipino community and the use of informers in the Philippines. Secondly, it would be a good thing if the Government introduced legislation to reverse the Zamir judgment, so that, where appropriate, blame is placed on the agencies and not on individuals. Thirdly, it is important to set up a proper appeal system, so that we can see the criteria and proof for removal. At present, we have to leave it to the Minister's discretion.

I fully accept that the Minister has been prepared courteously to review individual cases in response to 244 requests from hon. Members and the unions concerned, but I am surprised that he has been associated with such an illiberal and inhumane policy, which is alien to our best traditions. Is it because he is a prisoner of the Conservative Right, or, more charitably, to ward off further immigration legislation that he and his right hon. Friend have been concerned to show that it is possible through existing legislation to take tough action? The second, more charitable interpretation is the one that I would prefer to believe of the Minister.

I hope, however, that now that the Minister has had a night to reconsider his position, in the light of a new day he will tell the House that he has decided to turn over a new leaf and to adopt a more humane policy towards the Filipino migrant workers.

§ The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Timothy Raison)

The hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Radice) has presented the case for not removing certain Filipinos who have been found to be illegal entrants. He spoke particularly about those who came with false work references, although he referred also to the Claveria type of case in which the people concerned came in on the basis that they did not have dependent children when in fact they did. I wish to try to pick up and to meet the points that the hon. Gentleman made. In doing so, I shall refer to both the work reference cases and the Claveria type of case.

I think that it would be as well if, before trying to deal with the points raised by the hon. Gentleman, I said a word about the issue of illegal entry in general. It was originally thought that illegal entry meant only clandestine entry of the sort practised by people who arrived, say, by rowing boat at dead of night on a remote stretch of beach. These were people who knew that they would never be able to satisfy an immigration officer that they should be admitted and therefore resorted to other ways of gaining entry.

However, a series of court judgments beginning in 1976 has extended the definition of illegal entry to include those who are examined on arrival by an immigration officer but who, because they cannot properly qualify for admission under the immigration rules, employ deception in order to gain entry. The courts have held that where entry is gained by material deception, the deception vitiates the original leave to enter and any subsequent permission to remain based on it.

Illegal entry can take many forms, but the two varieties in which Filipinos have been involved arise from the obtaining of work permits by deception.

First, there are the resident domestics, mostly women, who obtained their work permits by deception by falsely representing that they had no children. Because the Department of Employment would not have issued work permits had the existence of children been known, entry obtained on the basis of such a permit was illegal. This was confirmed by the Divisional Court in November 1979 in the case of Mrs. Claveria.

The second type of illegal entry relates to those who obtained work permits on the strength of false references. In a typical case, the work permit applicant presented forged or false references, for example, from a hotel or restaurant stating that he had worked for some years at that establishment when in fact he had not. Because the work permit would not have been issued if the truth had been known, these people, too, are illegal entrants. As such, 245 they are liable to removal. This kind of deception has for many years been treated as illegal entry and is, of course, by no means peculiar to Filipinos.

Removal is not automatic. Every case is fully reviewed and the person involved interviewed. Only then do we take a final decision, and where there are exceptional compassionate circumstances the person is allowed to remain.

The hon. Member was critical of the role played by employment agencies in the Philippines in the deception that was practised and I fully accept that in many cases they played a prominent part in obtaining the work permit or the reference and may well have encouraged people to be less than honest in their dealings with us. It has been claimed on behalf of many of the Claveria women that they were unaware of the rule which said that they could not have a work permit if they had dependent children.

From a strictly legal point of view, it does not matter who practised the deception. The courts have declared that entry obtained by deception is illegal even if the misrepresentation was effected without the person's knowledge. Despite that, I repeat that we have taken great care in examining cases to discover whether the applicants knew at the time that they were committing a deception. This is one of the crucial points that are covered in the interviews carried out by our officers with the groups of people with whom the House is concerned.

The references may well have been provided by employment agencies, but those who have been removed have admitted that they knew of the deception. This is a factor that I have tried to look at very carefully in the cases that have come before me—whether or not the people concerned really knew what they were doing. I accept that they may have been put under pressure by the employment agencies and may well have been given every encouragement to behave in a way that was out of line with the law, but we have always taken the closest interest in the question whether those concerned—Filipinos or anyone else—knew what they were doing.

The hon. Member has questioned whether the standard of proof that we require in establishing that a person is an illegal entrant is high enough. In virtually every case, illegal entry is indisputable. Once it is admitted that the reference is false, or that the domestic worker who claimed to have no children has children, there is no doubt that the entry obtained by that deception is illegal.

The argument is more usually on the extent to which the permit holder was personally responsible for, or sometimes even aware of, the deception. It is, of course, difficult to achieve absolute certainty about interviews which took place many years ago. We could have avoided a lot of difficult casework by standing on the simple legal position that all these people are illegal entrants whether or not they knew what was going on, and by not attempting to make exceptions in favour of those who were genuinely ignorant of all deception. I still believe that it is right in these cases to be more flexible, but this is a concession beyond the law.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned appeal rights. It is true that there is not a right of appeal in this country against illegal entry. There is a right of appeal from the country to which the person concerned would be returned but there is not a right of appeal, as things stand, in this country. The hon. Gentleman probably knows that just before Easter we issued a consultation document about the whole question of appeals. One of the specific points that we 246 made in it was that we see a good case in principle for considering the right of appeal in this country in illegal entry cases. There are practical problems about it, but we understand the point and we have invited comments in response to our document.

I was asked about informers. We do not cultivate informers and we do not expect Filipinos to inform on other members of their community. Nevertheless, we receive unsolicited information from time to time, some of it anonymous and some of it from Filipinos. But if we decide to follow up the information there is no question of our using Filipinos as investigators.

The ways in which cases come to light vary. Most of the Claveria type cases came to notice because the women applied for visas to bring to this country the children who had been declared not to exist when the work permit had been applied for. Sometimes there were substantial numbers of children. Sometimes, in both types of case, the Home Office, as I have said, receives letters suggesting that individuals are illegal entrants. Although we do not cultivate informers, we usually make inquiries if the information contains sufficient detail for an individual to be identified and traced. Sometimes investigation shows that the allegation was unfounded. If investigations lead to the identification of an illegal entrant, removal is effected only after careful investigation.

It would be quite wrong to give the impression that illegal entrants were all Filipinos or that only Filipinos were being removed. Of over 900 illegal entrants removed last year, fewer than 10 per cent. were Filipinos. I am not making moral judgments about these people. Most of them, as is widely agreed, are decent, hardworking people who are trying to make a better life for themselves and their families. If in order to escape from poverty they did not tell the whole truth, or told an untruth, that does not mean that they are necessarily unworthy people. There is no question of sending them back to the Philippines as a punishment or treating them as criminals.

The position is, however, that the admission of these people was gained by deception. Letting them stay is not consistent with a policy of strict control of immigration. The individuals affected who are sent home lose the opportunity of a Western European standard of living.

The main purpose of immigration control is to provide a barrier against people, mostly decent, hardworking people from poor countries, who do not qualify for admission but would like to escape from poverty by coming here. Comparing the position of these people with the position of others who made their applications from the Philippines honestly and openly, the difference is that the former have for several years been able to enjoy the Western European standard of living as a result of the deception and are free to take back with them to their families in their own country any savings which they have made, whereas the honest applicants were refused at the outset.

I am afraid that there is no way in which strict immigration control can avoid frustrating the aspirations of poor people for a better life in this country. Nor can one operate a policy of strict immigration control in principle while making exceptions in favour of any particular group which comes to notice if there would be hardship or poverty if they were not admitted or allowed to remain. Immigration control is not an abstract principle but the total of decisions taken in individual cases.

247 The Home Secretary does not take any pleasure—nor do I—in having to turn people away. We therefore try to carry out our duties by excercising discretion as broadly as is consistent with our overall responsibilities. Of the Claveria cases so far decided, we have accordingly been able to allow 166 to remain while only 94 have had to go.

Those figures show the approach that my right hon. Friend and I bring to individual cases. I am afraid that we do not have separate figures immediately available for the work reference cases to which the hon. Gentleman referred. One reason is that they are not confined to the Philippines. There have been frequent cases from other parts of the world as well, but we have not recorded them separately.

Where there are really compassionate grounds, or any other grounds, for allowing individuals to stay, we are happy to act accordingly. We shall continue to excercise our discretionary powers widely and with compassion.

There are serious objections to creating new offences by passing legislation which applies retrospectively, but that is not the position here. An illegal entrant may be a person who has already entered the country in breach of the laws, and in April 1973 the House of Lords ruled in Azam that the powers to obtain and remove illegal entrants were retrospective.

As far as the Claveria cases are concerned, we have not created any new offence but have received a decision from the courts confirming that certain forms of deception constitute illegal entry. It would be contrary to our commitment to strict control of immigration if people were encouraged to believe that no action would be taken to remove those who gained entry illegally by deception. On the sheer common sense of the matter, it is difficult to deny that deception itself is as much a reason for removal as evasion.

248 The hon. Gentleman asked whether we would end the Zamir policy. I appeared before the Select Committee and discussed this at some length. On that occasion I made it clear that we would not apply the obiter words of Lord Wilberforce in the Zamir judgment in the widest possible way. I said that we were looking for people who could be expected to have known, or who could reasonably have been expected to have known, that they were indulging in some kind of deception.

That seems to be a reasonable interpretation of the law. It certainly disproves the argument that we are going out of our way to chase these people. I assure the hon. Gentleman that as far as the reference cases are concerned it is not our intention to search every nook and cranny to find the kind of people about whom he is understandably concerned.

I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's charge that harassment has taken place. I believe that that is quite unsubstantiated. I do not believe that there is a need for an overhaul of Home Office procedures. As I have said already, there is a case for a change in the appeals procedures, and we shall consider carefully the representations that are made. However, I refute the charge that we are indulging in harassment. I believe that the figures and the way in which we look at these cases individually, with the greatest care and attention, prove that my right hon. Friend and I have carefully taken the humane aspects into account. We always have a very difficult job of balancing the law and immigration policy, on the one hand, with individual requirements on the other. I do not suppose that every hon. Member will say that we necessarily have that right in all cases, but I hope that the House will understand that we have devoted enormous care and attenion to this matter. I believe that we have faced our responsibilities properly.