Ports of Entry

HC Deb 18 December 1985 vol 89 cc494-507 5.16 am

Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North)

I was about to say that a debate on the treatment of visitors at ports of entry and the rights of Members in this matter is timely, but I can think of nothing that is timely at 5.16 am, except perhaps for breakfast in bed. But the public anxiety that has been increasingly expressed about the way in which the ports of entry system operates, the operation of immigration controls, and what I believe to be a scandalous letter sent by the Minister of State, Home Office, to my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman), who is the shadow Home Secretary, must be answered. It is an indictment of this place that it has taken an Adjournment debate for the matter to be raised and for the Minister to have the opportunity to answer directly in the House the charges that he levelled against hon. Members in that letter.

It is worth recording that the background to this is a continuing process, since at least the 1950s, of increasingly tight immigration controls, increasingly overt racist reasons for those controls being introduced, and increasingly racist pressure in the media to introduce those controls. I am thinking of the atmosphere surrounding the Immigration Act 1962, and the disgrace surrounding the Immigration Act 1968, when the unlamented former right hon. Member for South Down made his notorious speech. Perhaps the most racist of Immigration Acts was the one passed in 1971, which introduced the concept of patriality or non-patriality.

The system of entry clearance for people arriving in Britain, mainly from the subcontinent, was introduced in 1969. It is clear from a briefing paper that was presented to Ministers in 1983, and was leaked and subsequently published in the April 1985 bulletin of the Joint Council for Welfare of Immigrants, that the horrendous queues for interviews in Dacca, Delhi and Islamabad is a deliberate act of immigration policy. It states: The system of queues operates to regulate the flow of immigrants … the number of entry clearance officers … is the primary regulator of the number of husbands, wives, and children, and male fiances admitted from the sub-continent in any one year … Provided the queues do not become too long this form of administrative regulation can continue, but an acknowledged policy of deliberate delay without legislation giving power to impose quotas would run risks in the domestic courts and under the European Convention on Human Rights. That was the secret advice to the Government in 1983, and it has proved to be correct.

It would be helpful if, in his reply to the debate, the Minister gave a clear answer as to what he intends to do about the Commission for Racial Equality report into immigration control. When it came out in February this year, he rushed into print to say: The detailed recommendations in the CRE Report will receive careful study, but it is fundamentally flawed in that throughout it fails to face up to the fact that there is more pressure to emigrate from some countries than from others. To deny this flies in the face of common sense. It is inevitable that more people from some countries will try to enter Britain when not entitled to do so than from others and more will be refused admission. The fact that nationals of Ghana, Morocco and Turkey are more likely to be refused than people from Canada and New Zealand reflects the reality of pressure to emigrate, not a biased system of control. In getting this wrong the Report misrepresents the way the control has to operate. He went on to claim that many of the report's conclusions were unrealistic, and that little attention had been paid to the potential cost in it.

The Minister is clearly speaking for the Government in that quote, and shows clearly that he believes that the problems of immigration should work for the administrative convenience of the Home Office and of politicians such as himself rather than face up to the awful problems that divided families suffer in Bangladesh and many other countries. That should be at the heart of the debate. Within this context, there must be discussion about the number of passengers refused leave to enter the United Kingdom. In 1984, 18,096 were refused, an increase of 23 per cent. over 1983. The Home Office states in the Immigration and Nationality Department report in July this year that that was 0.14 per cent. of the total subject to control. However, if European Community nationals, returning residents, work permit holders and those coming for settlement with entry clearance are excluded, the figure of those excluded nearly doubles, to 0.27 per cent., which is three in every 1,000. For passengers from the sub-continent, the figure is significantly higher—3,891 refused leave to enter in 1984 out of 278,340 arriving for purely temporary purposes, or 14 in every 1,000.

For citizens of Bangladesh coming in at terminal 3, 684 were refused entry in July, August and September this year compared with 72 in the equivalent months in 1984. However, it is difficult to know the accuracy of these figures without knowing the total number admitted through terminal 3 in the equivalent period. The reason for the sharp increase in the number of visitors from Bangladesh appears to be linked to the changes in immigration rules, to which the Government's attitude is disgraceful. They do not appear to have accepted the spirit of the European Court judgment, despite it having been handed down in a clear way after a fair hearing given to the British Government.

The role of Members of Parliament in immigration matters is important, particularly for those who represent constituencies in which a large number of people have their origins in the sub-continent, west Africa or the Caribbean, areas such as those that I represent, or my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Mr. Dubs) and many others of us who represent inner city areas. We represent communities that have origins far from here, and inevitably many people wish to visit. The heartache and despair that the system of controls at ports of entry causes them should not be underestimated, although it is seldom reported in the newspapers.

In 1984 the proportion of passengers from the New Commonwealth and Pakistan who were refused entry was higher than ever. There has always been a significant difference between the proportion of passengers who are nationals of third world countries who are refused entry and the proportion of those from the rich, predominately white countries who are refused entry. For example, in 1984 a passenger from Ghana had a one in 22 chance of being refused, but only one in 8,980 passengers from Canada were refused entry. Between 1979 and 1983, 71 passengers in every thousand who were travelling with New Commonwealth or Pakistan passports were refused entry. In 1984 there was a 32 per cent. increase: 94 in every thousand passengers were refused entry. The figures for the first quarter of 1985 suggest that the increasing trend of refusals has continued.

The role of hon. Members is quite important. An hon. Member has the right to intervene if somebody has been refused admission. He cart place a stop upon removal. After discussion with the private office or with the immigration officials he can secure temporary admission so that a particular person may enter the country. In many cases people want to come to this country only for brief holidays as tourists or to attend weddings. Those are perfectly reasonable, right and proper things to do. I have lost count of the number of times that very respectable, middle aged people have telephoned me in absolute desperation because a long expected brother or sister was being held at the airport, for no apparent reason, and in some cases being treated with no courtesy whatsoever.

In that sense, the role of hon. Members is particularly important. However, hon. Members also have a role to play in supporting asylum and refuge seekers. The reaction of the Government earlier this year—a reaction that continues—to Tamil asylum seekers has caused and is still causing considerable concern. I refer the Minister of State, Home Office to Mr. Poul Hartling's lengthy statement and report that was made earlier this year on behalf of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. It compares the attitude of Europe towards refugees with the attitude of very much poorer third world countries.

One of the underlying issues in this debate is the famous letter that was sent to my right hon. Friend the Member for Gorton on 28 October 1985. It is a six-point letter and in it the Minister of State sets out what he considers to be the problem about the involvement of individual Members of Parliament in immigration cases. First, he wonders whether it is right for hon. Members to ask for a stop to be placed upon the removal of passengers without any inquiries being made into the merits of the case. That is a remarkable statement for any Minister to make. If somebody is to be removed from this country—sometimes with less than six hours notice having been given to the Member of Parliament—there is insufficient time in which to make detailed inquiries One has to form a judgment on the spur of the moment. There is no other way to do it, otherwise that person may, quite wrongly, be removed. What is wrong about it is that only Members of Parliament are able to intervene in such cases. There ought to be an appeals procedure in this country, to deal with that problem—if, indeed, it is a problem.

The Minister's second objection to the involvement of hon. Members in immigration cases is that they may put a stop on a case and then not turn up to make representations. I do not think that this is a particularly common practice. I am certain that there have been occasions when Members of Parliament have placed stops on people to prevent them from being removed from this country but have then been unable to make representations because they have not received the necessary details. I am certain that in most of those cases the individual Member of Parliament informs the Home Office that he no longer wishes to pursue the case. What is particularly scandalous about this letter is that it deliberately raises the ogre of the involvement of Members of Parliament in immigration cases.

The Minister's third objection relates to the allegation that Members of Parliament take up the cases of constituents other than their own. The fourth allegation is that they are involved in the "poaching" of particular cases from other Members of Parliament. There are two answers to those allegations. First, Members of this House are Members of Parliament as a whole. They are dealing with the Executive as a whole. Therefore, they have the right to take up those cases and intervene. Secondly, and of equal importance, it is known that a number of hon. Members refuse to take up immigration cases because they are not prepared to support people who have problems with the immigration authorities.

Some hon. Members refuse to take up immigration cases and some are not prepared to support people who have problems with the immigration authorities. What are constituents supposed to do if their Member of Parliament holds extreme views about the ethnic minorities?

The fifth allegation by the Minister is that hon. Members communicate with people abroad telling them that if they are refused entry they should contact an hon. Member who will take up their case. Since the decision by immigration officers and the Home Office in many cases is so arbitrary, why on earth should not people try to contact an hon. Member? If they do not, they will be sent wrongly and unfairly out of the country. It is essential that we retain that right.

The sixth allegation is that hon. Members have been inviting people to bypass the immigration system. The Minister makes that allegation because he knows what the gutter press will pick up, but he knows that the allegation is incorrect. He knows the work which hon. Members do and he must also know the pressure on hon. Members to deal with immigration matters. I do not know how many staff he has to deal with all his responsibilities, but I am sure that he has many more, in proportion to the number of cases than any hon. Member. I have one full-time assistant and one part-time assistant. Independent advice is given to me by lawyers and the local law centre. Without their support, many cases would not be dealt with. It is disgraceful that when dealing with the Tamil asylum-seekers earlier this year the Minister insisted on the 24-hour representation rule. If he plans the same for people from Bangladesh or anywhere else, he should tell us now, in public, rather than wait for the Christmas recess.

We want an explanation of the Minister's incredible request that the details of cases in which some hon. Members have been involved should be released by him to the public. I have thought about the matter, as have many other hon. Members. It is incredible that the Minister should say that private correspondence concerning intimate details about constituents and other people's family lives should be released for public consumption. That is wrong, and I am totally opposed to it. Such a step would break the confidence between an hon. Member and the people who go to see him.

The visa requirement for people from Sri Lanka is important. Communal problems in Sri Lanka go back many years. They culminated in serious violence in 1983 and enormous fear among the Tamil community between 1983 and early this year. For some extraordinary reason the Government started saying early this year that the situation in Sri Lanka had improved and that some Tamil asylum-seekers wishing to come here were economic, not political, refugees. The Government then said that representations about Tamil arrivals had to be made in 24 hours and imposed visa restrictions on anyone arriving from Sri Lanka. That happened during a bank holiday weekend. The issue was finally debated in the House a couple of months later.

We require to know two things of the Minister. First, will he lift the visa requirement on people leaving Sri Lanka? It is unprecedented to require visas for travel from a Commonwealth country to the United Kingdom. Secondly, are there any plans to introduce visa requirements for people travelling from Bangladesh to this country? We need an answer to that quickly because many people are extremely worried.

Presumably the Minister's concern stems from the fact that the number of representations made by hon. Members about citizens from Bangladesh arriving at terminal 3 was 360 during July, August and September of this year compared with 16 in 1984. That increase is indicative of the way in which many people in Bangladesh—people who have every right to come here under our existing immigration laws to join families—are worried about the present position. The Minister is simply seeking to augment the disgraceful queue in Dacca of people trying to get an interview with the high commission staff, and hence the visa requirements that he is imposing.

I must comment on the way in which the press report immigration matters, and especially their handling of the so-called "immigrant loophole" concerning Bangladesh. The Times on 27 November last, under the headline "MPs move to close immigrant loophole", stated: A legal loophole is allowing Bangladeshi husbands settled in Britain to be joined permanently by two or more wives and all their children from abroad, a Commons inquiry has revealed. Up to 25 per cent. of married women now applying in Bangladesh to be united with their husbands in Britain are, in fact, the men's second wives, MPs were told during a recent fact-finding tour of the Indian subcontinent. The Commons Select Committee which is carrying out an investigation into immigration procedures is almost certain to recommend that the loophole be closed immediately, and the Home Office is likely to agree. Conservative MPs who visited Bangladesh were horrified by what they discovered, and believe, if left unchecked, it will result in a substantial increase in immigration. They alerted Home Office ministers immediately they returned home. A few days later, The Times reported on 3 December a story under the headline "MPs scale down claims on immigrant wives." The story, written by a different reporter, read: 'We have now received the most recent figures, and between January and August 1985. 15 per cent. of applications fell into the "other wives" category, and this would include marriages where the first marriage has ceased through divorce or death,' the chairman of the committee said". The more appalling newspapers in Britain played up a huge story about alleged vast numbers of second wives arriving from Bangladesh as a means of encouraging the Minister to introduce visa requirements for people arriving here from that country. The way in which newspapers report immigration matters is a serious aspect of this whole issue.

If the newspapers and others want to be fair, they should make it clear that the number of refusals of applicants wishing to come here within the existing law is much higher from the Indian subcontinent than from any other part of the world. Hon. Members' rights in this matter are vital. If those rights were curtailed, what resources would those turned back at the airport—often by arbitrary decisions and frequently in conditions of insufficient translation facilities for people whose first language is not English—have?

It is essential for the Minister to withdraw the disgraceful letter that he sent to my right hon. Friend the Member for Gorton and to make it clear that he has no proposals to interfere with the rights of hon. Members to take up immigration cases. Visa requirements applying to people wishing to come here from Sri Lanka must be withdrawn and he must assure us that he has no plans to impose visa requirements on people arriving from Bangladesh or elsewhere.

Newspapers often report immigration matters in an extremely racist way. They give the impression that we should have tight controls, with the atmosphere being difficult for people arriving here from west Africa, the Caribbean and the Indian subcontinent.

The same does not apply to arrivals from Australia, New Zealand, the United States or anywhere else. If visitors from those countries were treated in the way that Bangladeshi arrivals in Britain are treated, there would be an almighty uproar and it would stop immediately. But because those people come from the subcontinent, often poor people coming from poor countries, it is apparently fair game for them to be treated in that way. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some comfort on the matter, although I fear that that is a faint hope.

Those of us who represent inner-city multicultural communities are proud to do so and we feel that the way in which those communities live in fear of the immigration rules and the problems that they suffer because of the way in which those rules operate are disgraceful. It is discriminatory in our society and it is a blot on any form of civilisation. I hope that in his reply the Minister will at least say that the situation will not get worse, although I fear that it might well.

5.40 am

Mr. Alfred Dubs (Battersea)

I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) has managed to secure this debate, because it gives us a chance to raise some of the issues which have been bothering hon. Members for some time. I only regret that at this hour of the morning we do not have the benefit of the presence of as many hon. Members as at a more sensible and civilised hour.

Britain benefits enormously from visitors, and most of us feel that they should be made welcome. In 1984 Britain had nearly 6 million visitors, and of those some 17,300 were refused entry. That represents one in every 446. But we all know that the proportion of refusals is much higher for visitors from the New Commonwealth and Pakistan.

Between 1979 and 1983 there was a refusal rate of 71 in every 1,000. Last year, 1984, that went up by about 32 per cent. So the refusal rate from those countries reached 94 in every 1,000. I visited Heathrow airport to look at these matters a few months ago and every person who was stopped there that morning for further questioning, possibly to be refused—I did not stay long enough to discover that—was non-white.

The report of the Commission for Racial Equality referred to by my hon. Friend a few moments ago gave a lot of evidence as to the nature of the discretion exercised by immigration officers and contained a number of alarming suggestions and evidence that discrimination was taking place at the point of entry to Britain. That is something that many people have known for a long time, but the commission made it pretty clear in its report. I repeat the question asked by my hon. Friend: does the Minister intend to take any action on the many recommendations in that report, or will it be allowed to collect dust on the shelves?

It has long been accepted that hon. Members may seek to prevent the departure of a visitor while representations are made to the Minister. In 1979, of all those who were refused entry 23 per cent. were granted temporary admission, not always by Members of Parliament. We do not know what proportion of temporary admissions were secured by Members of Parliament. Some are granted by officials. But by 1984 the figure had increased to 49 per cent. Again, we do not know how many of those were granted as a result of representations by Members of Parliament.

I managed some time ago to have a discussion with some immigration officers and we were talking about the practice of Members of Parliament making representations on behalf of visitors refused admission. The immigration officer said something which I found rather disturbing, particularly in the context of the letter which the Minister then wrote to my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman). The immigration officer said, "Ah well, we refuse. We know that MPs will make reps. The visitor gets a few weeks while the Minister decides. The Minister then supports our refusal to allow entry, so our position is upheld. The MP has made an impact, the visitor has got here and everybody's satisfied." There is a strong implication that more people are refused because immigration officers know that Members of Parliament are likely to make representations and, as the immigration officer put it, honour is satisfied all round.

Honour is not satisfied all round, because the situation becomes absurd. Of course Members of Parliament will be involved because we believe that some of the refusals are wrong and we want to give our constituents and their families the chance to make visits. If immigration officers act as was suggested to me, there are bound to be even more refusals and Members of Parliament are bound to be involved even more. If immigration officers were more objective in their assessments at Heathrow airport and elsewhere, as the CRE report suggests they should be, Members of Parliament might not be involved so often.

I should like to take this opportunity to express thanks to the staff of the Minister's office, who are not responsible for the policy but have been unfailingly helpful and diligent whenever I have phoned them. I exonerate them entirely from blame for the policies that they are asked to administer and for which, as civil servants, they have no responsibility. Many of my colleagues have had the same experience and we should like to put that tribute to the staff on record.

The Minister of State caused great alarm and consternation when he wrote the letter about the 23 Members of Parliament—the "Waddington 23" as they have come to be known. I wish to ask some questions about that. First, where did he get the list from? The Home Office has said several times that it cannot file individual immigration cases by the name of the Member who raises them. The Minister looks puzzled, but I believe that that is right. How, then, did the Minister obtain that list? Did he simply say, "Dig out some instances so that I car have a go at them," or did the list come from somewhere and, if so, over what period was it compiled?

As the Minister knows, the immigration service union made representations to him, or certainly went public, objecting to the system whereby Members of Parliament made representations and saying that it should be ended. That report from the union executive came out just before the Minister raised the whole matter of Members allegedly abusing the system.

Earlier today the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) received a written answer from the Home Secretary in reply to a question relating to this issue. The question was: what response has been received from those hon. Members referred to in his statement of Tuesday 29 October about representations made by right hon. and hon. Members in immigration cases; and if he will make a statement. I shall not read out the whole answer as it is rather long, but I will refer to some of the points in it because I find it quite disturbing.

The reply mentions that there were 23 Members and then states: Individual replies have been received from 12 hon. Members out of the 23. That related to the possibility of their names being made public.

Many of us discussed some time ago our attitude to publication. We had no objection to publication provided that one condition was met—that there should be a full debate in the House to give all Members whose names would be made public the opportunity to put their side of the case. If we simply agree to the Minister publishing our names, he can make all his criticisms and many of the hon. Members concerned will never have an equal opportunity to reply to the allegations. Thery are fairly serious allegations and any fair-minded observer will see that it is reasonable to agree to publication only on condition that we can have our say. That is perfectly clear, fair and reasonable.

The Home Secretary then talks about holding discussions about the way in which Members of Parliament can make representations in such cases, but he does not say with whom. Is he talking about all 23 hon. Members or about some of them, or is he suggesting a full debate in the House on a Government motion?

The point that alarms me most of all is that the answer states: The aim of these discussions should be to agree upon a Code of Practice which can be applied to the general run of immigration cases and which achieves a sensible balance between the rights and privileges of hon. Members to make representations on behalf of their constituents and so on. That is an extraordinary suggestion—that there should be a code of practice governing the way in which Members of this House act on behalf of their constituents. If the Minister does not have a copy of the answer, I have a spare copy which I shall be happy to give him.

Are we to be told how to act as Members of Parliament on behalf of our constituents? Are we to be told how we shall do our jobs? Will there be codes of practice on how we raise matters relating to housing, social security and so on, or will this code of practice be confined simply to making representations in this area on behalf of our constituents and their families? I hope that there will be an early withdrawal of that suggestion. It is quite objectionable and comes near to being a breach of privilege. As it stands, and following discussions with persons unknown, we shall have foisted upon us a code of practice on how we should do our jobs.

Mr. Corbyn

So far as I am aware, in no other area of a Member of Parliament's work, either at national or local level, is there a code of practice on how that Member of Parliament should represent constituents. Does my hon. Friend agree that, if such a code of practice were introduced, it would be a serious infringment of the right of Members of Parliament to take up the problems of any constituents in future?

Mr. Dubs

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. Had this matter been raised at Question Time, when the House is normally full, there would have been widespread consternation. The Home Secretary is saved from that anger only by the fact that we are discussing the issue at a ridiculous hour of the morning when the House is virtually empty. If the Government wish to limit the rights of Members of Parliament, they are embarking on a serious course, and I advise them not to do so.

The answer also talks about achieving a sensible balance between the rights and privileges of hon. Members to make representations on behalf of their constituents and the need to maintain an efficient and effective immigration control in accordance with the Immigration Act 1971 and the immigration rules which have been endorsed by Parliament". That again seems to be a new concept. We are talking about achieving a balance between our rights as Members of Parliament and the wishes of the Executive in dealing with a particular piece of legislation. It is right that such a balance should be achieved as a result of debate in the House, but it is quite wrong for the Home Secretary to suggest that he will foist this type of balance upon us. This is an attempt to deny hon. Members the traditional rights which for many years they have used on behalf of their constituents. I hope that the Government will abandon that silly idea.

Some wider underlying issues were referred to by my hon. Friend. Why is it that the Minister of State and the Home Secretary do not wish us to proceed as we have done before? We have said on countless occasions that we object to many aspects of the rules under the Immigration Act 1971. We have also said that we object to the way in which discretion is exercised at points of entry to the United Kingdom, as regards those who require entry certificates or visas, where discretion is exercised at High Commissions and other posts abroad.

There was considerable consternation when the Minister imposed visa requirements on people coming from Sri Lanka, mainly as refugees, earlier this year. That was provoked because about 1,200 people arrived in May, and visa requirements were established.

Even more alarming is the clear hint from Ministers that they are considering the imposition of visa requirements on people from other countries, of which Bangladesh is the most obvious. I know that nothing positive has been said, but many of us fear—the question has been raised in the House in the past few days—that a visa requirement will be imposed on people possibly from Bangladesh and other countries and that the decision will be made after the House rises on Friday. If the Minister were to embark on that course, it would have horrific implications for the posts abroad and for people wishing to come here. The Minister knows that people coming here for settlement have to wait two years for their first interview in Dacca and about one year for a first interview in Delhi. It would require an enormous increase in staff at those posts to deal with the large number of visitors from those countries.

Many of us would welcome an increase in staff to reduce the great waiting time that is keeping families divided, but the thought that thousands of normal visitors would have to be processed in that way is not one that anyone can be happy about. It is liable to cause great upset and to prevent many visitors from coming to the United Kingdom. I hope that the Minister will have none of it and that he will not seek to extend the visa requirements to any other Commonwealth country.

As I said earlier, if the Minister wants us to allow our names to be used in relation to the serious allegations that he made about abuse of our position, I hope that he will arrange with the Leader of the House for a full and frank debate. Then our names can be publicised. But all those who have been concerned will go on acting for our constituents in the best way possible. We shall not be deterred by threats or intimidation from the Treasury Bench as to how we should do our job.

We are far more concerned about the rights of our constituents than we are about the niceties of whether the Minister finds the way in which we make our representations somewhat inconvenient for him. I do not want to go into the details of all the so-called abuses, but he is going the wrong path. I hope he will stop this silly nonsense and allow us to continue to make representations on behalf of our constituents in the way that we have always done.

5.58 am

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. David Waddington)

Despite the hour, I am grateful to the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) for raising this matter, because it gives me the opportunity to clear the air a little.

The vast majority of people arriving at our ports of entry pass through immigration control with the minimum of fuss and bother. On average, it takes about a minute to examine a passenger who needs formal leave to enter endorsed in his passport. The vast majority of people are granted leave, as was made clear by the hon. Member for Battersea (Mr. Dubs). I repeat the key figures: in 1984, only 0.14 per cent. of all passengers in the United Kingdom were refused entry. That means that 99.86 per cent. were admitted.

The refusal rates in the case of some nationals were higher than for others, for the obvious reasons that I set out in my reply to the report produced by the Commission for Racial Equality. I do not resile at all from my criticisms of that report, because I think that it is absurd to deny that there is far more pressure to emigrate from some countries than others. It would be amazing if one found the same refusal rates in the case of all nationals and people living in countries where there were very much lower standards of living than in the West. It would be surprising if one found that there was not a greater desire in those countries to beat immigration control than in more prosperous countries than ours.

In 1984 the refusal rate for Ghanaians was 4.3 per cent., which was far higher than any refusal rate for the Indian sub-continent. For Indian nationals, it was 0.9 per cent., for Bangladeshis, 1.7 per cent. and for Pakistanis, 1.3 per cent. That means that, taking the Indian sub-continent as a whole, 99 per cent. of passengers were admitted and 1 per cent. were refused.

Mr. Corbyn

Is the hon. and learned Gentleman talking about all the arrivals from those countries, or about people seeking to settle here to join their families, and so on?

Mr. Waddington

I am talking about all arrivals from those countries.

I am often asked to review refusals as a result of the intervention of hon. Members. When I am asked to review refusals, I write to the Members of Parliament concerned, setting out, if I am upholding the refusal, the reasons for the refusal. I do not think that any impartial observer would say that such letters do not clearly set out why the immigration officer has refused entry and provide evidence that refusals are made lightly and without suspicious circumstances coming to the notice of the immigration officer.

Of those refused entry, a high percentage are granted temporary admission—more than twice as many as during the years of the Labour Government. In 1977—I take that year because the figures are cited in the report by our immigration and nationality department—2,868 passengers were granted temporary admission; in 1984, the figure was 8,527. There was an increase in the number of people granted temporary admission, from 22 per cent. to 47 per cent.

This year we have had problems at Heathrow. At certain times, people arriving at terminal 3 have had to wait far longer than we would have liked before reaching the control. People who have had to go through more than the normal routine check have had to wait much longer than we would have wished for that further examination. There have been a number of reasons for that. There has been, year on year, a considerable increase in traffic—an increase of 10 per cent. this year on 1984. There has been a continuing tendency for the vast majority of flights to arrive between 6 o'clock and 10 o'clock in the morning, which makes life difficult for our staff. From July this year, there was an unprecedented increase in the number of Bangladeshis arriving who clearly were not qualified to enter under the rules. That resulted in 1,003 refusals in July, August, September and October, compared with 109 during the same months in 1984.

No one will say that that increase is due to new criteria being applied by the immigration officers, and no one will say that it is due to nefarious instructions given by myself. There must have been a dramatic change in the character of the traffic. The immigration officers were applying exactly the same rules and the same criteria and finding themselves obliged during those months to refuse entry to 1,003 passengers compared with 109 the previous year.

The increase in refusals, and Members making representations on behalf of those refused entry, has meant that immigration officers have had to be removed from the initial control to do other work which follows the initial refusal of an application by a passenger to enter. I ask hon. Members to bear that in mind. I am not saying that it is the most important factor of all, but we would be foolish if we did not recognise that an increased number of Members' representations as a result of refusals has an effect on the burden of work, and means that immigration officers who could be standing at the desks speeding up the process of clearing passengers through the control are doing other work.

We hope that things will be better this coming year. There is reason to think that the opening of terminal 4 next spring and the new staff provided for the new terminal will bring about an improvement.

I am greatly concerned about the irresponsible statements which are made from time to time about our immigration officers. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Battersea for what he said about the staff in my private office, but I wish that sometimes Labour Members would hand out similar bouquets to immigration officers, who have an extremely difficult job to carry out and who, in my experience, undertake it with great skill and courtesy.

I am not talking only about the allegation of the hon. Member for Islington, North that people are treated with no courtesy whatsoever, although I think that the officers are entitled to resent that sort of comment. I am thinking especially of a disgusting cartoon which appeared in The Guardian the other day, in which an immigration officer was depicted as a Hitler-like bully, complete with toothbrush moustache, about to dish out physical punishment to an Asian couple waiting to be admitted. That cartoon accompanied a letter giving an entirely distorted account of what had happened when two elderly people had arrived at Heathrow. If I were an immigration officer, I would find such attacks on the service, made by what is supposed to be a responsible newspaper, grossly offensive. I know from my own experience that these attacks are unfair.

An entirely false picture has been painted by those who apparently resent immigration control. The speech of the hon. Member for Islington, North suggested that he and those who think like him come close to resenting any immigration control. When I was at Gatwick the other day, one of the things which struck me was how many young girls we have in the service. They do not have toothbrush moustaches like the man depicted in The Guardian cartoon. They are the sort of young people that we are fortunate to have in the public service. The one that I saw the other night would be well known to hon. Members as she was in my private office until recently. Her parents came from Pakistan.

When complaints are made, they are investigated thoroughly, but we do not receive that many. When hon. Members and others take the trouble to go to Heathrow to see what happens, they almost invariably return pleased with what they have seen and ready to admit that standards are high. I hope that we shall lend no support to those who shower abuse on the service, and will tell our constituents that the immigration officers are doing their best to apply rules approved by Parliament, which have not changed towards visitors since a Labour Government were in power.

I also hope that there will be a readier recognition by thinking people that, as an island, we would be very foolish if we did not have firm control at our ports of entry. We can concentrate the control at our ports of entry because we are an island. The alternative of pervasive after-entry control, perhaps with identity cards, is far less attractive.

The comments of the hon. Member for Islington, North about heartache and despair caused by the system of control at the ports of entry should be considered against that background. I repeat that we are fortunate to be an island people and therefore able to concentrate our control at the ports of entry and not have pervasive after-entry control.

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has already answered a quesion about representations by Members of Parliament. He said that we should proceed with discussions to work out a better system. I do not believe that it would be sensible to dwell too long on what has been happening up to now and to debate whether particular practices have been very bad, not so bad or all right. Almost eveyone would agree that the system has not been working as it should. Indeed, in an unguarded moment, the hon. Member for Battersea described as absurd the way in which it worked in one regard. Surely the point is to discuss the arrangements for the future.

A number of helpful suggestions have been made, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will also make some. There is no reason why we should not bring about an improvement that will achieve the right balance between the rights and privileges of hon. Members to make representations and the need to maintain an effective and efficient immigration control in accordance with the Act and the rules.

Mr. Dubs

The Minister said that I had said that the system was absurd, and that I did so in an unguarded moment. It was not that way. He quoted me a little out of context. I said that an immigration officer had once told me that, knowing that Members of Parliament will make representations, immigration officers make refusals, the Members of Parliament make the representations, the visitor is allowed to come into the country and the Minister then upholds the immigration officer's refusal. It is that aspect of the system that I described as absurd.

Mr. Waddington

I am sorry if I misunderstood the hon. Gentleman. However, it is now clear that he thinks that there is a connection between the number of representations made by hon. Members and the number of cases in which immigration officers grant temporary admission. I do not make that connection, but as he is making it we should look at the whole matter to judge whether the system is working properly.

I was asked two questions by the hon. Member for Islington, North that go wide of the debate, but I would not dream of ducking them. He asked about the possibility of visas being imposed on people from Bangladesh. The Government have no immediate plans for changes in the operation of immigration control, but they keep those arrangements, including visa requirements, under continuous examination and would not hestitate to take appropriate action if necessry. In saying that, I say no more than what Governments have said over the years—we should keep the operation of visa control under continuous review so as to meet changing circumstances.

The hon. Gentleman asked when we would lift the visa requirements on Sri Lankans. I am keeping the visa requirement under review, but I have no plans to withdraw it at present.

The hon. Member for Battersea asked me where I had obtained the list of 23 cases. I was aware of some cases where I thought that things had gone seriously wrong and I asked my officials to look through other correspondence and show me other illustrations of what had been occurring.

I hope that I have given some assistance to the House tonight. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Islington, North for enabling me to clear the air on these matters. I hope now that we can soon proceed to useful consultation so that we can make some sense of the system of representations, by Members of Parliament which I freely acknowledge is an admirable institution.

Mr. Corbyn

I asked my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Mr. Dubs) whether he thought that a code of practice would be an infringement of the traditional relationship between Members of Parliament and any public department. Does the Minister accept that discussions of the nature that he is proposing would inevitably lead to the idea of a code of practice, which would inevitably lead to a quantified relationship between Members of Parliament and public Departments, which has never happened in this country and which I hope never will?

Mr. Waddington

Let us see where our discussions lead us. I do not want to be drawn into that at this time because it is sensible for us all to sit down and think about it. I hope that when we come back after Christmas, everyone who has a useful contribution to make will do so, so that we can improve the system to the advantage of all hon. Members.