HC Deb 24 October 1985 vol 84 cc417-8
8. Mr. Torney

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on changes he has introduced regarding representations by hon. Members on immigration cases.

Mr. Waddington

Since my letter to hon. Members in 1983, no major changes have been introduced into the system of dealing with such representations, although in the summer of this year, when we were faced with a very large influx of Tamils, my right hon. and learned Friend the then Home Secretary asked hon. Members to help by making their representations within 24 hours or by agreement as soon as possible thereafter.

Mr. Torney

Is the Minister aware that hon. Members with large numbers of Asians in their constituencies have no need at all to look for cases or to invite cases? Their surgeries are always packed to overflowing and their telephones never stop ringing with calls from Asian people who have been caused considerable hardship by his Department. Is he further aware that there has been some change in allowing Asian women into the country to marry Asian men who are legally here? Why is that, if the hon. and learned Gentleman says that there have been no changes? I have written to him about cases in this category and I am waiting for them to be dealt with. They are cases brought to me by the citizens of Bradford. I did not search for them.

Mr. Waddington

If the hon. Gentleman is referring specifically to wives and financees, presumably he is referring to the change in the rules that took place in July. His question is about the system of representations, and that system has not changed at all. The hon. Gentleman is living in cloud-cuckoo-land if he believes that there is no abuse. I repeat that we never refuse entry to anybody unless there is the clearest evidence that he is not qualified to enter. I invite the hon. Gentleman to read carefully the letters that I sent to him when entry was refused in a particular case by an immigration officer and I upheld that decision.

Sir John Farr

When visitors from the New Commonwealth are allowed in for a limited time, how good is my hon. and learned Friend's monitoring system, and what steps does he take to make sure that those people are sent back and are not allowed to go to ground in some of our inner cities?

Mr. Waddington

The figures that I gave earlier were for those refused entry and later returned abroad. That gives some indication of those returned. I should like our system to be more efficient. At present, those who are refused entry or granted entry for a limited period go on our computer, and if the system works perfectly we should be able to match those who go on to the computer at the beginning with those who leave. We are working to get a more efficient system, but I do not pretend that it is ideal yet.

Mr. Faulds

Would not life be made much easier and pleasanter for certain hon. Members, for the Minister and his staff and for the poor people affected in these cases if he ensured that more appointments were made in his Department to handle such cases, and if more appointments were made in the Foreign Office abroad to handle applications in the countries of origin? Surely the Minister must be aware that the bottlenecks and delays that happen in these cases are entirely due, not to ministerial obfuscation, but to the shortage of staff, abroad and in Britain, to handle these cases?

Mr. Waddington

I remind the hon. Gentleman of the figures that I gave earlier. I want him and other hon. Members to contemplate the enormous burden that has been placed on the immigration and nationality department simply as a result of 4,500 cases—the estimate for 1985 — where hon. Members have intervened or will intervene before the end of the year. That means that 4,500 letters must be written from the Department to hon. Members explaining what has happened in those cases. It does not lie in the mouths of hon. Members to say that there ought to be more staff, unless they are prepared to address themselves to the fact that something is going wrong with the system because some hon. Members are abusing—I am not afraid to use that word—that system.