§ 10. Mr. Andrew F. Bennettasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will meet the Commission for Racial Equality to discuss its report on the administration of immigration control.
§ Mr. WaddingtonThe Commission has not asked for such a meeting, but if it were to do so I should be happy to meet it.
§ Mr. BennettAre the Government not appalled by the findings of the report, which make it clear that the administration of immigration control in the country is racist? What are the Government going to do about it?
§ Mr. WaddingtonI am certainly appalled, because the report is disappointing and does not address itself to the real problems with which we are faced. It is absurd that the report should not face 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. This will obviously be reflected in the failure rate.
§ Sir Dudley SmithWill my hon. and learned Friend confirm that there are many genuine immigration cases but that there are also many others where duplicity is practised? Is he aware that many of us feel that the Home Office just about gets it right and, if anything, errs on the side of leniency?
§ Mr. WaddingtonI am grateful for what my hon. Friend has said. I think that our entry clearance officers carry out a difficult job with great expertise. Although, obviously, one wants them to have the best training and one should be considering the quality of training all the time, I am disappointed that so much time is spent by the writers of the report in, for instance, criticising the entry clearance officers for noting in their files remarks which I freely concede are unprofessional but certainly do not warrant stringing up entry clearance officers by their thumbs and flogging them.