MINOR AMENDMENTS (Hansard, 16 February 1988)

§ Mr. Randall
Opposition Members fully support the amendment because, essentially, it is the amendment that we tabled in Committee. We claim full credit for it and expect all hon. Members to support it.

§ Mr. Renton
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
The Bill has now been considered fully in the House. In Committee alone, some 62 hours were spent examining its provisions in detail. That reflects the importance that the House rightly attaches to immigration matters. It also reflects the loquacity of the Opposition. On one occasion, they spent two hours complaining that the telephone number at the Home Office had been changed. That showed their determination to waste the Committee's valuable time rather than get down to the important matters of immigration policy that concern us all.
On the whole, the Committee was very amicable in its approach to the problems. I am pleased that — as the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Randall) said — we were able to accept on the last morning an Opposition amendment to substitute the word "six" for the word "three". It was an important amendment, and I am pleased that, in the typically moderate manner that characterised Conservative Members' conduct throughout the proceedings in Committee, we were able to agree with the Opposition on this matter.
As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and I have said, the Bill does not make major alterations to the structure of immigration control. The Immigration Act 1971 will continue to provide the overall framework within which immigration control will operate, but the Bill does make important changes, and it is therefore right that it should have been subjected to close scrutiny.
The Bill has stood up to that scrutiny very well. I do not propose to take up the time of the House by rehearsing in detail its contents and the effect of its provisions. Hon. Members who served for 62 hours on the Committee will be well aware of its detail. I see my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Hargreaves) nodding in approval.
889 I shall mention briefly the parts of the Bill that will have perhaps the greatest impact in improving the fair and efficient working of immigration control. Clause 1, which repeals section 1(5) of the 1971 Act, will make control fairer by removing the discriminatory advantage that the 1971 Act confers on just one group of people —Commonwealth male citizens who were settled here before 1 January 1973.
Clause 3, by making universal the wholly sensible requirement that people claiming the right of abode in this country should establish that right from abroad before travelling here, will close an avenue of possible abuse and will therefore be fairer to all those who wish to come here.
Clause 4 will enable action to be taken more effectively against overstayers and those who breach the conditions of their leave. In effect, clause 5 will ensure that prosecution action can be taken against those who knowingly remain in this country after their leave has expired. As the Committee found, those are wholly reasonable provisions. They protect the interests of those who are already lawfully settled here, while being fair to those who wish to come here from overseas. Their intentions and effects have been examined thoroughly in the House, and they now go forward for further scrutiny in another place.

§ Mr. Dave Nellist (Coventry, South-East)
I understand that earlier the Minister referred to the mountain of almost 250,000 applications for registration under the various nationality proposals and that he made an announcement about the redeployment of staff to deal with that. In the past hour, I have received a written reply from the Minister, in which he refuses to give the grounds that will be considered acceptable to justify a late application for registration as a British citizen made by Commonwealth and Irish citizens resident in the United Kingdom since 1 January 1973.
The Minister says that the circumstances of each case will be considered. Will he explain what those circumstances are, so that Members of Parliament and bodies such as the Coventry community relations council can advise people whether a late application is likely to be heard by his Department? The answer that I have received today, like those that other hon. Members have received in recent weeks, leave us in the dark.

§ Mr. Renton
I cannot take that intervention from the hon. Gentleman. He did not serve on the Committee and he was not present during the debate. To go on Third Reading into the detailed circumstances in which every application for variation of leave will be considered at Lunar house would be a terrible waste of time. I have given the hon. Gentleman a written answer to his point about the circumstances in which late applications will be considered. If the hon. Gentleman has not been sent a copy of it, I shall ensure that he is sent one.

§ Mr. Nellist
I have it here.

§ Mr. Renton
That gives the hon. Gentleman the answer that he requires. I shall mention briefly two subjects and then broaden my remarks before concluding. Although, strictly speaking, they are not relevant to the Bill, I hope that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, will allow me to do so, because they have been the subject of comment by, and interest among, hon. Members in recent months.

§ Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd)
I must remind the Minister that Third Reading is very narrow. What he has to say must be confined to the Bill.

§ Mr. Renton
I shall try you out, Madam Deputy Speaker, and hope that you will forgive me. If you do not, I shall move on immediately.

§ Madam Deputy Speaker
I do not forgive easily.

§ Mr. Renton
The two issues are Members' representations in immigration cases and DNA testing. As hon. Members will know, these matters were discussed at length in Committee.

§ Madam Deputy Speaker
In that case, it is part of the debate on the Bill.

§ Mr. Renton
You are generous, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I am sure that your decision will be welcomed by hon. Members.
The House will recall that we are reviewing the system by which hon. Members can make representations. I mentioned this earlier in answer to a query from the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick). The review is not yet complete, and I do not wish to anticipate what we shall put forward by way of detailed proposals. However, I should stress that we shall not take any action without full consultation. It will be some little time before the review is completed, but we shall bring our proposals before the House at the earliest possible date, and I remind the House that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has already confirmed that there will be an opportunity for a debate.

§ Mr. Winnick
With regard to hon. Members' representations, is the Minister saying that that review could lead to the rights of hon. Members to make representations being undermined?

§ Mr. Renton
No. The hon. Gentleman cannot lead me down that path. I said clearly that I did not want to anticipate what we would put forward by way of detailed proposals. It would be wrong for the hon. Gentleman to ask me to do so by giving hypothetical answers in response to one particular category of proposals or another. The hon. Gentleman will have to be patient.
Hon. Members will be pleased to know that the report of the DNA pilot trial that we have been running has been drafted. I do not want to say anything yet about its conclusions, because we are consulting the scientists who have been concerned with the trials to ensure that the report—this will be of particular interest to the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz)—is accurate and complete. The report will be published as soon as possible after those consultations.

§ Mr. Madden
Will the Minister confirm a recent parliamentary answer from the Attorney-General, in which he made it clear that legal aid is available to cover the costs of DNA applications where the issue of a relationship is central to the application, and that guidance has been issued to local legal aid committees in the hope that they will adopt a consistent approach in this matter?

§ Mr. Renton
It is not for me to confirm an answer given by my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General. I have seen that answer, and if the hon. Gentleman wishes to query any detail of it, doubtless he will do so by writing to my right hon. and learned Friend.
891 The Labour party has consistently tried to make a major issue out of the Bill.

§ Mr. Vaz
It is a major issue.

§ Mr. Renton
I disagree with the hon. Gentleman. It started with the excessive denunciations of the Bill by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) on Second Reading, and it continued for 62 hours in Committee. We heard the cries of the hon. Member for Leicester, East, who is always seeking publicity and headlines in the Asian Times, that the prime purpose of the Bill—I remember the headline well—was "to divide families". To that was added the implication of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Randall) that we were completely removing the right in all appeals to argue on compassionate grounds. Much though I enjoyed listening to the hon. Gentleman in Committee, he often showed an astounding lack of comprehension of the Bill. Labour's determination to make a major issue out of this surprised me.
When most people see a bonfire smouldering in a potentially dangerous spot, they tend to run to it with a bucket of water, but on immigration issues Labour Members approach the bonfire with a large can of paraffin. Unfortunately, on their way, they usually trip on some great rock of misunderstanding or lack of comprehension and spill the paraffin on the ground. That is just as well, because if they reached the bonfire with their load of fuel they could and would cause a lot of damage.
Labour's whole approach has been foolish and wrong. It has been foolish, because no one should approach race relations other than with great care, having first thought the matter through very carefully—

§ Mr. Vaz
The hon. Gentleman should know.

§ Mr. Renton
I do know. That is why I say that no one should approach the subject without thinking carefully what is the wise minimum that can be said that will enhance the stability of our mixed community.
Race relations are calm in Britain at the moment—thank God for that. They were not an issue at the last election, and the Government have embarked on many positive steps to improve the integration of the ethnic minority into our community, not least in the difficult inner-city areas. To mention only a few examples, we are continuing to support the work of the Commission for Racial Equality in countering unlawful discrimination with an £11 million grant in 1987–88. We are providing grants to local authorities, under section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966, to meet special needs. Ten thousand posts that are currently funded, mainly in education, cost the taxpayer £100 million. The police force is—I hope— becoming more responsive and representative. There are now more than 1,000 ethnic minority officers, and vigorous action has been taken to combat racial attacks, and to improve training in community and race relations. That is all as it should be, and the Home Office, in which I am a Minister, will continue to do its best to achieve greater harmony.
If people keep crying, "Racist, racist," often and long enough, someone will believe them. That works to the benefit of no sensible person, yet the speeches of the hon. Members for Bradford, North (Mr. Wall) and for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden) in Committee harked on the racist theme and, in the process, served the interests of 892 no one who believes in good community relations. Opposition Members lectured us in Committee, saving that only they knew the minds of the ethnic minority and that we did not — a presumptuous and self-seeking attitude. How did they use their knowledge? They sought to destroy stability, to arouse disharmony and to excite fear by attributing all sorts of changes to the Bill that it did not contain.
I am pleased to see the hon. Members for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms. Abbott) and for Leicester, East in their places tonight. I had thought that they would bring an insight to our discussions, but they did not. The hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington declaimed to the Committee, not from the head, but from the stomach, the seat of all passion; but passion is not the best emotion for the sensible consideration of race relations. Calm, shrewd judgment and wisdom are needed. The hon. Member for Leicester, East, a solicitor who specialises in immigration cases, might have given us—I thought—those qualities, but he did not either. From him we heard long-winded exaggeration and torrents of hyperbole that drowned us in a mixture of boredom and nausea.
The Labour party was foolish and wrong, because, as the Home Secretary has said all along, this is a modest Bill —no more and no less. It reinforces our immigration code in a few areas in which gaps have appeared since the 1971 Act. The ethnic minority in Britain—

§ Mr. Sydney Bidwell (Ealing, Southall)
rose—

§ Mr. Renton
I am coming to the end of my remarks, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will have a chance to speak later, if he catches your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker.
The ethnic minority in Britain have much to fear from the Labour party, with its ill-thought-out promises completely to repeal the Immigration Act 1971 and the British Nationality Act 1981. Opposition Members have never given any thought—[Interruption.] I am glad that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West is waking up. They have never given any thought to the effect that repeal of those important measures would have on race relations in Britain or on the greatly increased numbers that would then come for primary settlement in this country.

§ Mr. Bidwell
rose—

§ Mr. Renton
Despite what Opposition Members have said, the ethnic minority have nothing to fear from the Bill. Stopping abuse of our immigration system will lead to better and more harmonious community relations, because no one, whatever his background or racial origins, likes to see evaders who are illegally here getting away with their evasion. I commend the Bill to the House.

§ Mr. Randall
One thing has been clear on Second Reading and in Committee: there is uncertainty about why the Government have introduced the Bill, which is restrictive. Essentially, it has to do with taking rights from people. The scope of the restrictions is considerable, and I shall briefly summarise them.
Clause 1 is about the breaking of a promise made by a Tory Government in 1971. It will have the serious effect of preventing the reunification of families. From now on, 893 I do not see how the Government can claim to be called the party of the family. The Government's actions in this clause can only be described as anti-family.
For example, as a result of clause 3, children will lose their chance to be present at an appeal in the United Kingdom when they wish to exercise their rights to settle here and there is dispute about their relationship with their parents. Much of the anguish experienced by some of those people could be overcome if the Government stopped dragging their feet over their decision to introduce DNA testing, which can prove family relationships and which should be free of charge, particularly for poor families.
We are emphatically opposed to clause 4 and believe that the Government should have withdrawn it. It will remove the appeal procedures that take compassionate circumstances into account when those who have overstayed are to be deported. The Labour party does not condone breaking the law, but it is vital for hon. Members to recognise that overstaying can happen for all sorts of technical and seemingly trivial reasons, sometimes outside the control of the person concerned.
For instance, a student may become an overstayer because his college registrar persistently fails to deal appropriately with certain forms and documentation to do with the student's courses, in conjunction with the Home Office. Deportation is such a serious matter that, before it happens, the merits of a case should be considered in an appeal procedure. However, the Government have decided to strip people of these fundamental appeal rights, and we deplore that.
In clause 5, the Government have decided to use the unnecessarily heavy-handed approach of the criminal law to deport overstayers, rather than the perfectly adequate and effective administrative procedures that are currently in force. Clearly, there is a serious risk that race relations —especially in our inner cities—could be impaired by the unnecessary use of the police in deportation cases. The police are already overstretched, attempting to deal with the record levels of crime that have arisen under this Government, without having also to become involved in immigration control. It is wrong and unnecessary for the Government to have recourse to the criminal law in this way.
Why have the Government introduced this unnecessary and highly restrictive Bill? They have two motives. During the general election last year, the Tory Party decided to play the race card in an attempt to save the rapidly sinking Conservative candidate for Newcastle upon Tyne, Central, Mr. Piers Merchant. As we know, Mr. Merchant lost his seat and the Tory party was landed with a number of commitments, which essentially meant placing restrictions on black people and their families.
The emphasis on polygamous marriages during the election campaign—there are only about 20 cases a year —was one element of the Tory party's obscene tactics. The Government are now expected to deliver a Bill that meets the commitments made during the election campaign, but which will do nothing for race relations. Clearly, the Bill is a wasted opportunity.
The second Government motive is to reduce the administrative burden in the immigration and nationality department, at a time when the demand for its services is growing. Currently there is an administrative shambles at 894 Lunar house, Croydon, with roughly 200,000 unopened letters. Those received in November 1987 are only now being opened. The Minister has told us of some of his plans to deal with that absurd situation, but it is remarkable that he failed to take action before to prevent that chaos arising. He should have pre-empted the demands that arose as a result of the registration system and its deadline of 31 December 1987. That failure makes the Minister look quite inept.
The Government's obsession with cutting public expenditure means that the Home Office is attempting to tackle the chronic problems at Lunar house with what could be called "efficiency improvements". Such measures require the staff to do less work on certain types of case, and that is achieved by removing fundamental rights—for example, the appeal rights that we discussed earlier. Those rights have been taken away from immigrants or would-be immigrants. Clearly, one way of protecting those rights would be to provide more building space and staff at Lunar house, but that would cost money.
I believe that a parallel can be drawn between the National Health Service crisis and the administrative crisis that exists at Lunar house. In the NHS, services are being withdrawn from some of our hospitals because there are not enough nurses, as a result of cash shortages, to provide them. The consequence is hardship or, in some cases, death. The evidence from our hospitals unequivocally demonstrates that problem.
Cash shortages in the immigration service also mean insufficient staff and other resources to cope with the current work load. As a consequence, the Government are reducing vital services, and that in turn is causing delay, worry, stress and hardship for immigrants and their families.
It is clear that the Government's second motive is to reduce service levels to the users to save money, irrespective of the effect on families and individuals. That is a ruthless and inhumane strategy and it deserves total condemnation. That policy shows—as in the case of the NHS — that the Government have no scruples in attaching greater value to money rather than to the wellbeing of people. For that reason, the Labour party strongly condemns the Bill.
The Government's credibility on improving the cost-effectiveness of the administration of the immigration service must surely come into question when one considers the visa system that was introduced in 1986. On that occasion, the Home Secretary said: Changes have been made … because of the pressure on Heathrow airport in particular … changes will improve conditions for all passengers arriving at our ports and for all those in this country who come to greet them.—[Official Report, 27 October 1986; Vol. 103, c. 86, 91.] It is clear that the Home Office has failed— the blame must rest with the Minister — to meet its objectives. There are still serious delays at our ports, especially for non-British and non-EEC passengers. Indeed, serious delays are still being encountered at Heathrow.
One objective of the visa system was to improve things for visitors to our country. However, it should be noted that there has been no improvement in the condition of detainees at Heathrow. People are having to sleep on benches or on the floor, without food, blankets or even drinks. Reports suggest that some immigration officers are so appalled by the treatment of detainees that they pay for 895 tea and sandwiches out of their own pockets. In 1987, one of the detainees who was kept in such unacceptable conditions was a pregnant woman.
That is a disgraceful way in which to treat visitors to our country. It shows that the Government's attempt to contain staff costs as a result of efficiency improvements has, at best, resulted in no improvement in service levels for visitors to this country and those people who go to Heathrow to greet them.

§ Mr. Renton
The hon. Gentleman is always extremely critical of our decision to introduce the visa system for five countries a year ago. If he were ever in office, would he cancel that system?

§ Mr. Randall
I believe that the Minister has completely missed the point—

§ Mr. Renton
Answer the question.

§ Mr. Randall
I am. The fact is that the visa system had the aim of improving the services for visitors to this country with regard to delays and detention conditions. However, I have reports from the Home Office that show that those conditions have not been improved satisfactorily. We must consider the treatment of people and how their treatment reflects on the credibility of the Minister. The Minister has missed the point— I am talking about the administration of his Department.
If the introduction of the visa system is anything to go by, it is difficult to feel confident in the Minister's ability to resolve the administrative crisis in the immigration service. There is an obvious mismatch between the demands on that service and the resources needed to meet them.
About a week ago, the House debated the latest changes in the immigration rules. The main purpose of those changes was to reduce the work load at Lunar house for particular types of case work—for example, foreign nationals wishing to extend their stay in the United Kingdom. Although I said then that I accepted that some of those changes were welcome, it is a matter of considerable concern that the so-called "improvements" in cost-effectiveness could result in a deterioration of services for some visitors.
The new rules state that, on arriving in this country, all visitors will be granted the right to remain for six months. However, it is important to note that many people currently entering the country as visitors are granted a two or three-month stay because immigration officers are suspicious about their motives, but do not have the information needed to substantiate their suspicions. According to the new rules, such suspicious people will now be granted six months leave to remain in this country. However, what happens to those people in practice is unclear. The discretion available to an immigration officer to deal with such cases will be included in the manual "Instructions to Immigration Officers", which, as we know, is unpublished.
We are extremely worried that many of those so-called "suspicious" people will be refused entry altogether by immigration officers. I hope that the Minister can allay our fears. If such refusals were to take place —in our debate, the Minister said nothing to suggest that that would not happen, although I asked him to do so—it would be another example of how the Government's 896 efforts to contain costs will result in a deterioration in the service levels for the users, in this case visitors to this country.
That worries Opposition Members. I should be grateful if the Minister will tell the House what discretionary powers he intends to grant to immigration officers through the "Instructions to Immigration Officers" manual to refuse entry to those suspicious people, and whether he expects the number of people refused entry to increase. I hope that the Minister will answer that question.
The Government are making continuing efforts to reduce the rights of Members of Parliament in immigration cases, which the Government clearly view as extra work for the Home Office. Unquestionably, Members of Parliament play a vital role in protecting the interests of constituents and their families. I should like to make it absolutely clear that Opposition Members will strenuously oppose any further attempts by the Government to reduce the influence of Members of Parliament in immigration cases. Clearly, if the Government were to get their way, there would be a serious deterioration in the services provided to immigrants by the Home Office through Members of Parliament. I hope that the Minister will comment on the latest position with regard to the Government's discussions and considerations.
On the face of it, there would appear to be no reason for the Government to restrict the intervention of Members of Parliament in immigration cases, except for the cost of servicing the inquiries of Members of Parliament. The service is so important to our constituents and to their families, and adequate resources must be provided so that the Home Office can deal with that vital work.
In conclusion, the structure of this highly restrictive Bill has been influenced, among other things, by the totally inadequate administrative systems—not the people, but the systems—at Lunar house and in other parts of the Home Office. Those inadequacies are related to the fact that there are insufficient staff and other resources available to cope with the demand. The current situation at Lunar house proves that beyond any reasonable doubt. Clearly, the root cause is the Government's obsession with reducing the levels of public expenditure, irrespective of the effect of that policy on people and families.
However, there are other considerations. The Government showed their attitude towards black people during the general election. That attitude, which has manifested itself in the Bill, was condemned by the British Council of Churches, black Church leaders and the Quakers. When I asked the British Council of Churches for a theological statement on the immigration policy in Britain, it referred me to Leviticus 19: 34: When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. The stranger who sojourns with you shall be to you a native among you, and you shall love him as yourself for you too were strangers, when you were in the land of Egypt. The Bill should have emerged from such a basis. Instead, we have something different.
The British Council of Churches seems to sum up the Conservative Government's attitude to immigration in its letter to me when it referred to the Prime Minister's predilection for the good Samaritan. The letter said: a Government supporter coming down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho would presumably have asked the beaten man if he was an overstayer seeking the right to remain in the 897 country on compassionate grounds. Had he answered yes, he would no doubt have been rolled off the road down into the ditch; or if he were seeking to bring his wife and children in from another country, he would have been denied all assistance because of the drain on public funds—less of a problem if he died. That is what the British Council of Churches think, about the Bill. For those reasons, the Labour party will be voting against this dreadful Bill tonight.

§ Mr. Michael Jack (Fylde)
I shall not detain the House for long. As my hon. Friend the Minister said, we have already spent 62 hours considering the Bill in detail in Committee.
I start by taking great exception to the words used by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Randall). I strongly resent being tarred as a racist, which was the import of his remarks.

§ Mr. Randall
I never used the word "racist" in the whole of the Committee proceedings or in today's debate. I said that the Government have played the race card. All hon. Members know that the Government played the race card during the general election. One has only to look at the newspaper reports to see the way in which polygamy was pressed during the later stages of the election campaign.

§ Mr. Jack
I thank the hon. Member for slightly clarifying the situation.

§ Mr. Renton
In regard to the word "polygamy", my hon. Friend will remember, as I do with pain, that Opposition Members debated polygamous marriages for six hours, but failed to vote on the relevant clause. That is a typical example of their determination to waste time.

§ Mr. Jack
I accept my hon. Friend's point. I shall make some remarks about polygamy in a moment. I thank the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West for at least clarifying the words that he used. Many Conservative Members would take exception to his remarks, as we have great concern about race relations and harmony between ethnic groups in Britain. I hope that the hon. Gentleman was not suggesting that one letter in the general election campaign tars the entire Conservative membership with the same brush.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on the way in which he conducted the Bill and I compliment him on his humour and patience. Indeed, it was with great patience that we had to listen to many of the comments from Opposition Members.
On the issue that Opposition Members put to the House, I live next to Preston, where there is an immigrant community, from which I have received no representations whatever on the matters contained in the Bill. I made inquiries because hon. Members representing constituencies which do not have large numbers of immigrants within their boundaries, have been chastised and told that we do not know or care about these issues. I made inquiries about whether it was a local issue. I was put firmly in my place by those involved in race relations in Preston, who told me that the Bill was not an issue; it had not been discussed, nor had it appeared in the local newspapers. I was available for comment and nobody came to see me.
We have heard a great deal about the operation of the visa system. I note from a letter that I received from the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth 898 Office—an interesting letter dated 11 January that was sent to a number of hon. Members. On the subject of visas and their operation, the Minister drew my attention to the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants' report "Out of Sight". The letter states that that report acknowledges the success of our aim to provide a quick service for the majority of applicants. It goes on: Ministerial colleagues and officials visiting the Indian Sub-Continent have heard expressions of general satisfaction with the new visa regimes and a recognition that for bona fide travellers it offers a good service and a trouble-free passage through immigration formalities on arrival. That underwrites the effectiveness which is demonstrated by one figure for the period 1 November 1986 to 31 October 1987 when in Islamabad, 31,950 visa applications were received and 24,340 visas were issued — a considerable amount of work most effectively and efficiently done.
I comment on the Bill from the background of a constituency which does not have a large immigrant population. I make that point specifically because some Opposition Members, for good reasons, have approached this subject with something akin to tunnel vision. They have not seen the wider issues and concerns of those who live in areas without large-scale immigrant population.
Much of the Bill has to do with tolerance and good race relations. In many clauses and many ways it seeks to tighten and amend the law and certain regulations where they have been abused or found wanting. The Bill will do much to reassure people that their concerns have been properly addressed.
There is a real worry about people who come to Britain without the necessary bona fide credentials. It may surprise Opposition Members to know that, despite the Bill, some people in Britain still feel that our regulations are extremely lax. [Interruption.] If hon. Members want to contribute, I am sure that they will be able to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Many people do not understand the enormous range of opportunities that exist for various forms of appeal and our immigration facilities. For them, somebody either has the right to come here or not. It may interest hon. Members to know that, in the course of reviewing clause 1, and some other clauses, I made some inquiries about how other countries view their visas. It may surprise Opposition Members to hear that Britain is extremely tolerant and fair and that our waiting lists are short.

§ Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North)
If entering Britain is as easy and fair as the hon. Gentleman thinks, why did the family of a constituent of mine have to wait 12 years for entry clearance to come to this country from Bangladesh as perfectly legal immigrants and dependants of my constituent? They have suffered the most appalling indignity, family disunity and poverty as a result of the Home Office's inefficiency and incompetence and its deliberately understaffing the High Commission in Dhaka to reduce the number of people who come here.

§ Mr. Jack
That is an individual interpretation of the situation. Had the hon. Gentleman been present in Committee for our debate on this subject, he would have found such an accusation thoroughly repudiated, particularly by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond 899 and Barnes (Mr. Hanley) who had visited the Indian subcontinent and had reported to us on the improved situation in the various queues that he had seen. Therefore, I cannot accept the hon. Gentleman's point.
I have here the United States' official visa bulletin dated January 1988. I recommend that Opposition Members should read that document, because they will find that, in certain cases, unless application has been made before 1971, certain categories will not be able to enter the United States. That is not the case in Britain.

§ Mr. Hanley
Does my hon. Friend agree that, should America relax those visa requirements, it would be as a tribute to our own strong system of immigration control?

§ Mr. Jack
I accept that valid point.
A similar situation also applies to appeals. I checked whether the United States, Australia and Canada had any form of compassionate appeal. When it came to technical infringements of their immigration regulations, I was staggered to find that the decision was either yes or no. In other words, a person who transgressed the regulations left, and, once having left, could not reapply to enter the United States for five years. I make these points because they put the Bill in perspective. We are not imposing such draconian measures on appeals and visas as already exist in other countries.
Polygamy is not acknowleged by the majority of people in Britain. They will be extremely pleased that this minor measure has been included. The length of the debate that we had to suffer on this matter in Committee was a great surprise, since the Opposition then agreed.
Overstaying is dealt with in clause 5. Many people in Britain will not understand that, before this Bill, the law gave little opportunity to prosecute those who were found to have overstayed in Britain. They will have been profoundly worried by some of the implications of stories appearing in The Sunday Times this weekend about people who were clearly here on some dubious pretext in pursuit of some kind of college education. Whatever the reason for such people being induced to come here, such stories undermine confidence in our immigration policies. Our measures on overstaying seek to plug that important gap.
There is much in a Library note on overstaying which underpins my support for clause 1. It refers to the evasion of immigration control printed as an annex to the Commission for Racial Equality's report on immigration control procedures in 1985.

§ Mr. Corbyn
rose—

§ Mr. Jack
I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman. I have some information to give and only a little time in which to give it.

§ Mr. Corbyn
rose—

§ Mr. Jack
If the hon. Gentleman wishes to contribute to the debate, I am sure that he will have an adequate opportunity to do so.
The report to which I referred said: Overstaying constitutes a greater problem than illegal entry because of the large number of people involved. Clause 5 seeks to address and tighten the legal loopholes on overstaying.
I have a relatively simple view of the matter. Someone who comes to Britain must abide by our regulations. It is not just a matter of coming here for six or 12 months and then finding some way around the regulations. The Bill 900 makes it relatively easy for those with bona fide reasons to come to Britain for various lengths of time, but it tries to tighten up on those who seek to abuse our regulations.
The tightening-up measures in the Bill will do much to reassure the bulk of the British people that the Conservative party takes immigration control seriously, but couples that with a deep concern for good-quality race relations.

§ Mr. Sydney Bidwell (Ealing, Southall)
I shall be brief because I know that my hon. Friends want to have a good innings, having sat patiently through the Committee stage of the Bill. I was unable to serve on that Committee, and I apologise to the House for not having been present earlier. It was because I was engaged in other parliamentary duties. Many of us suffer from the fact that we have to be in two places at the same time.
At this late stage of the Bill, I want to reflect on some of its provisions, because I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Randall) that it seems to have had something to do with the general election. As I said on Second Reading, in order to secure a majority in Parliament, the Tories had to try to make out that they would do much better on immigration control. They tried to make out that they would be much tougher on immigration control — which meant keeping black people out of Britain—than a Labour Administration would be. That has been underscored, and it is right that it should have been.
Secondly, what is proposed is intertwined with the mess that the Home Office has got into administratively. It has not been prepared to employ sufficient additional staff to overcome that difficulty, and things are still in a mess.
The rules that followed the 1971 Act are of extreme importance and are debated in the House from time to time. They have for a long time been much too harshly drawn. The immigration Minister, because that is what he is, is not, he tells me, also the race relations Minister. It is a matter of some consequence that the two jobs in the Home Office seem to have been separated. I assumed in the Second Reading debate that the hon. Gentleman was the race relations Minister as well as the immigration Minister. All through the years, those two jobs have been intertwined, because they are, in conscience and in administration, inseparable.
The immigration Minister is thus now protected from having to visit from time to time the areas that are most concerned with these problems. He goes to the Indian subcontinent, and I do not know whether he also goes to the West Indies and Africa, and he would gain from such experiences, but he is not able to gain from visiting the areas most concerned. Former Ministers, whether Labour or Tory, have so gained. It was because I wanted to question him on the separation of the duties that I sought to intervene in his speech—and he can intervene now, if he so wishes.
I will tell the hon. Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack) why the attitude to which he referred exists in the black community in Britain. The mood is that this is the Tories at it again. They expect to get harsher immigration restrictions from the Tories. That is why, by and large, they vote Labour at general elections.
There is no reason why the present immigration Minister should go down this road. He could emerge as the most humane and the sanest immigration Minister of all 901 time. I believe that he is a man who is capable of listening, and above all of listening to me, a Member with the experience that I have had over the years. I pay tribute to the Home Office staff for the co-operation that I have always had from them. I hardly miss an opportunity of saying that, because I think that I owe it to them. Their courteous attitude to me is something that I cherish. They have been of enormous assistance to me over the years, and I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House will agree about that.
In the light of these additional restrictions on immigration and the removal of the differences between those who came after the operation of the 1971 Act in 1973, and those who were here before that, and in the light of the visa restriction on visitors, which is a harsher control than hitherto because it has cut out the temporary admissions that hon. Members were able to arrange, I do not believe that everything in the garden is lovely. There have been many refusals to grant visas for visits to this country, and there have been special pleadings through me and others to the control overseas. Once that decision is made, appeals are invited, but if someone wishes to visit Britain for family purposes, or even to play Kabbodi in a tournament here, and a blank refusal has been given in Delhi, it is not much good appealing when the appeal will be heard long after the application and when the tournament is over. The appeal system has not coped with the consequences of the restrictions imposed overseas.
We need more flexibility. We were challenged to say that we would remove this element of immigration control. I do not know whether we would, but we would certainly go very deeply into the administration of the whole system. The present system is very rough justice and, if we could achieve justice only by chucking out the visa system altogether, we would do so.
Our policy is to review substantially the British Nationality Act 1981, which took away the right of children born in this country whose parents were not British citizens automatically to be regarded as British citizens. There was no need at all for that, and as a result of one of the hon. Gentleman's predecessors going to Southall that was to some extent mitigated. That is the sort of thing that the hon. Gentleman will be missing. As a consequence of that visit, a change was made for children who were resident in Britain, regardless of the status of parents, and that still prevails as far as I know.
The Minister could have come to the House and said that there was such a terrible mess in the Home Office that he wanted to cut down the administrative activities; that they had promised in the election that they would be tougher than a Labour Government but that he would look again at the immigration rules. We have not finished with him yet. He is going to come back and tell us how they propose to change the immigration rules. We shall be looking anxiously for the details of that.
One thing that the Minister could do is relax the restrictions on the widow who wants to come to Britain to join her offspring, on the grounds that she is emotionally attached to her children and grandchildren here, instead of applying the harsh rule that she has a close relative to turn to and is not wholly dependent on her offspring in this country. He could ease that considerably, and he would be the pin-up boy in the areas affected by these problems.
902 I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman wants to be a good immigration Minister. When his colleague at the Home Office comes to areas such as mine to have a powwow and go into the realities of these matters, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will come along as well. He will not get eggs chucked at him, as immigration Ministers are said to have had in other areas. He will get a constructive agenda for the discussion of the nitty-gritty matters that could not be sewn up in the 1971 Act.
The rules need continuous review, especially over the $64,000 question of husbands and wives and their purpose in wanting to come here. There are women now waiting for their husbands to join them, or perhaps they are over in India with their husbands who are trying to get them back here to settle, as is their right. This is what the Government's policy is supposed to be about, and it is what the European convention on human rights is supposed to be about.
Even when a child is born to a couple, it is still said that their marriage was one of convenience. All marriages are a matter of convenience. My marriage was a matter of convenience. What is a marriage of convenience? A marriage is an agreement between two people, and they have to see each other, but that is not enough. There may be a delicate balance as to whether the young man or woman wants to come to Britain simply for economic purposes after the marriage, but that should be good enough and the rules should be changed accordingly. I give the Minister those two tips so that he may be seen in a better light than at present in the eyes of the black community.

§ Mr. Jacques Arnold (Gravesham)
I speak in support of the Bill because it represents an intention to tighten the regulations on immigration and to ease the considerable pressure on Lunar house. I represent 7,000 Sikh constituents in Gravesend and Northfleet. Every week at my surgeries I come across cases involving immigration and I deal with them as any other Member would. Some cases cause considerable concern and it is clear that the regulations must be improved. The Bill represents improvement, but at each stage of the recent improvement we have had the same scaremongering from Labour Members, which worries vulnerable people in the community.
I refer to a case in point. The Government wisely introduced visas for visitors from India and elsewhere, in the light of the terrible scenes that used to occur at Heathrow, where people came to this country from India and elsewhere to visit their families and did not know until they got here whether they would be admitted. This put unreasonable strain on the traveller and on my constituents who went to meet their families, so the Government sensibly arranged for the clearances to be done in India through the visa system.
How was the new regulation received by Opposition Members? I noticed that when the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Randall) was asked whether Labour would repeal the visa requirement, he wriggled on the hook and did not give a clear answer. Opposition Members are concerned only to cash in and play on the fears of people.
The House should be told how the visa operation is progressing. I quote from a report of the community relations officer in my borough, a Sikh gentleman who is 903 also a Labour councillor, by the name of Mr. Gurdev Singh Talwar. He travelled to New Delhi and visited the high commission to see how the issuing of visas was being handled. Councillor Talwar said: I went there to find out for myself how the new regulations were working. I was sceptical before my visit, but now I think everything is being done fairly. He said that while at the high commission he sat in on interviews, and added: I was quite satisfied with the treatment given to the applicants. That is from a Labour councillor who is concerned with the real issues affecting the Sikh community in my town. That contrasts remarkably with the emotive claptrap and the kind of comment I heard earlier from Labour Members.

§ Mr. Madden
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, since the introduction of visas more than 1,000 men, women and children per month have had their visas refused and that, if they choose to appeal against refusal, they must wait 12 months for an appeal? Has he had representations from his constituents, as I have had from mine, about the unfair way in which the visa regime is working?

§ Mr. Arnold
For the information of the hon. Gentleman, I can do no more than quote from Labour Councillor Talwar, who looked at the number of visa applications processed and the number refused—looked at the facts and figures—and said: That's certainly less than under the old regulations.

§ Mr. Madden
That is not true.

§ Mr. Arnold
This comes from a Labour councillor who is concerned with community relations. If the hon. Gentleman says that that is untrue, perhaps he can sort out another internecine dispute within the Labour party. I am concerned that the immigration controls, which we all accept must be tightly exercised, should be exercised in a humane manner and must be brought up to date. That is what the Bill attempts to do.

§ Mr. Vaz
I am grateful for the opportunity to address the House on the issue. I have the good fortune of having spent nearly 62 hours in Committee, watching the Minister sitting across the table with a smile like an operation stretch mark, waiting to stab the black and Asian communities in the back with further legislation designed to damage relations between the black and white communities.
Conservative Members opposite have spoken of compassion. All Labour Members who have spoken against the Bill have argued on the ground of compassion that the Bill should be amended substantially.

§ Mr. Hanley
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

§ Mr. Vaz
No, I will not give way.
We face the intellectual inflexibility of the Minister and some of his silent colleagues. The hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley) had a habit of jumping up and down in Committee and claimed that he was an expert on race relations because he once visited Bangladesh and he was able to speak with some authority on the needs of the black and Asian communities.
The Bill will not, as the Minister says it will, foster good relations between the communities. It will damage 904 relations, specifically between black and Asian communities and the police. The front line in immigration matters is not Karachi, Dhaka, Calcutta, Bombay or Nairobi; the front line in immigration control has become Coventry, Southall, Bradford, Birmingham, Leicester and London. Family after family come to our surgeries every week and show us that the existing immigration rules and legislation are racist and unfair.
The Bill seeks to limit and restrict the rights of black and Asian people and to truncate the rights of appeal. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Randall) today and previously has highlighted the various clauses of the Bill. It goes beyond the rights that are described. Clause 1 goes beyond restricting rights of appeal and breaks a promise made in 1971 by a previous Conservative Government, a promise that was accepted by successive Labour and Conservative Governments. It affects especially, but not exclusively, the Bangladeshi community in Britain and, because of the crisis in local government and the pressure on housing and local government expenditure, it removes the possibility of men settled here bringing in wives and children from abroad.
Clause 3 removes further rights. Clause 5 makes the offence of overstaying a continuing offence, thus involving the police yet again in immigration control. Clause 4 imposes an arbitrary restriction and time limit of seven years. We were not clear why the Government had introduced that seven-year limit. The hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes told us that it was because of the legislation relating to limitation—

§ Mr. Hanley
I did not.

§ Mr. Vaz
—but, of course, the Minister was able to rebuke him on that occasion, as he did on previous occasions.

§ Mr. Hanley
rose—

§ Mr. Vaz
The purpose of legislation was to alter the decision made by members of the Court of Appeal and the other place in a number of immigration cases. It was referred to in an interview which the Minister gave to The Guardian the week before Second Reading, when he described the Bill as an attempt to close loopholes and to stop judicial activism. The Bill sought to reverse the decision of the Court of Appeal and the other place in such cases as Grant v. Borg.
In the schedules, we find new provisions which will mean that people who apply for indefinite leave to remain in this country will for the first time be charged a fee. Those who have experience of dealing with immigration cases will know that it requires only one letter to be sent to Lunar house. The Government are proposing to add to the £6 million profit that they have made on previous nationality and citizenship matters by charging people.
All the appeals to the Minister from organisations outside the House to try to change or amend the provisions of the Bill fell on deaf ears. Appeals have been made by the United Kingdom Immigrants Advisory Service, the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, the Immigration Law Practitioners Association and members of the World Council of Churches. A special delegation of black Church leaders went to see the Minister and were treated by him in a patronising way. Other organisations, numerous trade unions and individuals have written to the Minister to complain about the legislation.
905 The legislation will seek to divide families. It will prevent the unity of families. Those who come to me and to my hon. Friends to complain about the unfairness of the immigration legislation will know what it is like to be caught in the spider's web of immigration control. Organisations in Leicester, such as the Asian Youth Project, Belgrave Bheano, the Self-Help Project, Leicester rights centre and the Highfields advice centre, deal hourly, daily, weekly and monthly with those immigration matters. A constituent of mine, Mrs. Joghirs, has been waiting nine years to be reunited with her husband. It is a long delay when it takes nine years to be reunited with one's family.
In his speech on one of the previous clauses, the Minister made great play of my visit to Lunar house, and said that I arrived 45 minutes late. I wish to correct him, because that is yet another fact that he has got hopelessly wrong. I arrived at 10.30 am last Monday morning, having got up at 4.30 am and driven from Leicester to go to Healthrow airport, where I met members of the immigration service, who told me unanimously that they needed more members of staff at terminal 4.
I arrived at Lunar house to view some of the 200,000 unopened letters which arrive at the rate of 2,000 a week. I saw extraordinary shortages of staff. Out of a full staffing complement of 66, only 30 people were present that morning. Out of the 22 people who should have been answering telephone calls in the public inquiry office, only 11 people were present that day. Out of the 26 people who were sitting in the public inquiry office, not one was able to speak Punjabi or Urdu. That is the state of the crisis at Lunar house.
We should make one point clear. We are in no way criticising members of staff at Lunar house or in the immigration service. They are working under intolerable conditions which have been created by Government policies and the bad management of one person — the Minister on the Treasury Bench. If the Minister had any decency he would resign. If any other Department of Government had 200,000 unopened letters, I think the Minister would have proffered his resignation.

§ Mr. Renton
rose—

§ Mr. Vaz
I will give way when I have finished this point.

Hon. Members
Give way.

§ Mr. Renton
rose—

§ Mr. Vaz
I will give way in a moment. I do not know why the Minister is getting so excited.
The Minister has talked about the waste of taxpayers' money on me being shown round Lunar house. I am a Member of Parliament who has dealt with over 2,000 immigration cases since my election. The Minister recently went to the sub-continent. The cost of his trip was £10,600. I think that the exependiture involved in one morning on one person being shown round Lunar house by one official is quite proper for a Member of Parliament who deals with the number of immigration cases that I deal with.

§ Mr. Renton
For the record, the timetable that I have from Lunar house of the hon. Gentleman's visit is that he arrived at 10.45 am, 45 minutes late and not 30 minutes late; perhaps his watch was wrong. He departed at 2.20 906 pm. During that time he spent one and a half hours at a local engagement. The time spent in Lunar house was two hours five minutes precisely.
The question I should like to ask him is: what does he think he achieved? All the figures that he has given about unopened letters have been dealt with already by me in answers to questions. When he came to see me at the Home Office the next day, why did he not discuss the problems and suggest solutions rather than run off to tell his story to The Independent as quickly as he could?

§ Mr. Vaz
The Minister has a nerve to tell us that we have not raised these matters before. We have raised them every day in Committee. We have proffered examples. My hon. Friends the Members for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden), for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms. Abbott) and I have come forward with solutions, but he chose not to take those solutions.
Four days after I went to Lunar house and released my findings to the press, the Minister got on his broomstick and went from Queen Anne's gate to Croydon, where he had discussions with the unions. [Interruption.] I am delighted that, four days after my well-publicised visit to Croydon, the Minister made a visit himself to meet the unions and to come up with his proposals. It is important to show the Minister — —[Interruption.] The Minister should not interrupt so much; he should listen to what I am saying, and I will explain why his proposals will not work.
The Minister tells me that the crisis occurred at Lunar house because he was so successful; he was the victim of his own success and his own public relations exercise. He says that because, the week before the deadline on 31 December, he made a broadcast, which we heard on Radio Leicester, urging people to apply for citizenship, and everyone decided to apply.
I can tell the Minister something that he has not told the House: there are 72,000 passports in Lunar house at present. He nods his head. I am surprised that when he went to Croydon he did not get that information from the officials. Perhaps they were terrified of him. I asked this very question of the officials; I asked, "How many passports do you estimate are at Lunar House?" Their estimate, which they have not told the Minister, was 72,000. Therefore, 72,000 people have been waiting for their passports to be returned by the Minister.
The Minister came to the House, not before time, and apologised for the delay. He agreed that the delay was unacceptable. He said that the work load had risen because of his marvellous public relations. He proposes that there will be an emergency deployment of 160 members of staff—that is, 160 members of the existing staff. On Monday morning of last week, the head of the post room was in negotiation with the trade union for three and one half hours; I do not know whether the Minister knows that. When the Minister went to Croydon on Friday, I am sure that he spoke to officials and to members of the trade unions.
The proposals of the officials to send back the 72,000 passports and to acknowledge the receipt of 200,000 letters will cause further delay for people, because the Home Office is not even considering photocopying the passports before they are sent back. That will mean that, at a later date, Home Office officials must write back to applicants and those seeking a variation of leave, to ask for the passports to be returned. That will certainly create further 907 delays. I hope that the Minister will take this suggestion back to his officials, that those passports are photocopied before they are sent back to people, and kept in appropriate places in Lunar house.
The second suggestion I have to make is that, instead of redeploying staff, the Minister should take on additional staff immediately. One way to ensure that this mail was opened would have been to send some of these hard-working officials, whose time he has wasted tonight sitting in this useless Report stage, back to Lunar house today. If they had been sent back there today, each of them would have been able to open at least 1,000 letters over these six hours of debate.
Not only that but, in relation to a question I raised earlier but which was not answered by the Minister, at 7 o'clock tonight in Leicester there was a meeting of five of the most senior Home Office officials from Lunar house, who were meeting community organisations. Neither myself, the Member of Parliament for Leicester, East nor my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Marshall) who is sitting in the Chamber, nor my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leicester, West (Mr. Janner) was informed of this visit by Home Office officials.
It was only after I tabled a Question on 9 February that, two days later, a letter arrived from the Minister informing me that the officials were to visit Leicester the next day. The parliamentary Question was replied to on Monday 15 February, and the meeting was tonight. How was it possible for my colleagues and myself to be in Leicester to hear what the Home Office officials say, when we are supposed to be here in the House opposing this squalid legislation?
If those five officials, instead of being sent to Leicester, were added to the nine officials who are sitting here, and sent to Lunar house in Croydon, that would be one way to solve the crisis of understaffing at Lunar house.

§ Mr. Renton
rose—

§ Mr. Vaz
No, the Minister can take up this point in his wind-up. He will have plenty of time.

§ Mr. Renton
rose—

§ Mr. Vaz
I will not give way.
When the Minister spoke earlier, he gave us no new information about the way in which representations by Members of Parliament operated. All he said was that he was seeking consultation.
I will give way to the Minister in a minute if he hangs on, when I have developed this point. I would like the Minister to tell us in his wind-up speech, if he is proposing to wind up, why Members of Parliament who represent areas such as Leicester, London, Birmingham, Bradford, Coventry, Manchester and Glasgow, who take up many immigration cases, are not being consulted about these new proposals. The Minister may grimace, but I have not received a letter from the Minister asking my views about representations in immigration cases. I will give way to the Minister now.

§ Mr. Renton
The hon. Member is not yet speaking for the Opposition on immigration matters. That may be his ambition, but he is not yet in that position.
My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has written to the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) on this matter. I believe that the right 908 hon. Member for Sparkbrook still speaks for the Opposition on immigration matters. Perhaps he will give a copy of his letter to the hon. Member for Leicester, East.
On the hon. Gentleman's specific point about advising him about Home Office officials visiting Leicester. I know very well that I signed that letter to him and to other hon. Members representing Leicester constituencies on Thursday 11 February. We did not know until Thursday that the debate was to be today. I wrote to the hon Member on 11 February. I should have thought that he would congratulate the Home Office on sending senior officials to Leicester, as they have been to Blackburn, to explain to his community leaders what is happening about the Immigration Bill. The Home Office officials are there at the invitation of Leicester county council.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Paul Dean)
Order. This Third Reading debate lends itself to fairly wide discussion, but I should like to hear a little more about the Bill.

§ Mr. Vaz
I am only introducing matters in the same way that the Minister did when he moved the Third Reading. His point is wholly frivolous. The meeting was planned two months ago. It was planned because Home Office officials wrote to the county council two months ago and requested a visit to Leicester. My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, South and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leicester, West and I were not informed until 12 February. The letter was signed 11 February, and received the following day. My parliamentary question was put down on 9 February, when I requested information on why the meeting was taking place without the Members being informed. Before the Minister comes back to the House with the details of his consultation, the Opposition would like to see a list of the individuals and organisations whom he will be consulting.
I am pleased that the Minister has now accepted that the DNA report is completed, and Opposition Members would like to pay tribute to the work of Doctor Alec Jeffreys from Leicester university, who pioneered the scheme. I hope that the Minister will not come to us at a later date and cast doubt on the authenticity or the authority of the report, because Opposition Members believe that it should be accepted. I also believe that the test should be made freely available, and that the cost of £105 is absurdly high.
In conclusion, let me say that the Opposition Members who sat on the Immigration Bill Committee realise one thing—

§ Mr. Renton
It was a waste of time.

§ Mr. Vaz
The Minister says that it was a waste of time. I believe that immigration issues are of great importance to many people in this country. However, we cannot see a single clause or even sentence in the Bill that will relieve the hardship and misery of the many thousands who wait in queues—not just those waiting for applications in this country, but those who are confined to the misery of a queue in Karachi, Dhaka, Bombay and Calcutta.
The Minister now has his one opportunity to say firmly that he will withdraw the Bill. Otherwise, he will have the greif and misery of millions of people on his conscience for the rest of his life.

§ Mr. Hanley
I merely want to put on record three or four facts that the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. 909 Vaz) would not allow me to mention in the middle of his speech. The gross discourtesy with which he refused to allow me to intervene was not something that I should like people to imitate, either inside or outside the House. It is sad that someone who, as we know, has better manners was so frightened and shaky that he had to deny me the chance of making a comment during his speech.
The hon. Gentleman said that immigration law was, by its very nature, racist. He said that the Conservative Government, in the way that they have introduced changes to immigration law since 1979, were also racist. But how can a Government be racist when since they came to office they have allowed in, for permanent settlement, more than 600,000 people, over half of whom have come from the Indian sub-continent? How can a Government be racist when, since 1979, they have allowed in more than 25,000 refugees—and, of course, 20,000 Vietnamese boat people?
This cannot be a racist Government. True racism is choosing to exploit race for one's own purposes. [HON. MEMBERS: "For political purposes."] For political purposes— indeed. Racism is choosing to manufacture fears where they do not naturally exist. It is true racism to use those from a particular racial background for political purposes, and to whip up their anxieties to manufacture —as the hon. Member for Leicester, East has shown today—fears based not on a law that is ultra-restrictive and aimed specifically at people of a particular colour, but on a minor administrative law tightening loopholes that have been exploited by those who, I should have thought, have caused as much shame to the hon. Gentleman as to others in the House.
Too many people try to exploit immigration. As I have said, more than 600,000 people have patiently applied to settle in this country by using the immigration rules that were set down by the party of the hon. Member for Leicester, East when in government, and by our own Government. However, there are those who cannot bear to wait and who decide to push ahead. Many are helped by those who exploit them financially and mercilessly, as I have seen in Bangladesh. I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman would have more respect for a law that has been democratically passed by this Parliament, but no, he looks for loopholes so that they can be exploited. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will live to regret that. One day, in some far distant future, he might have some responsibility for immigration in this country—although I doubt it—and perhaps he will then live to regret some of the words that he has used tonight.
Good race relations are essential. Firm immigration control is a part of society's framework that leads to good race relations. Unrestricted immigration will lead to bad race relations. I hope that the hon. Member for Leicester, East, and his hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms. Abbott), who made long contributions in Committee, will realise that there is considerable passion, concern and affection for those in our community who make up our multiracial state.
We believe that orderly immigration is essential for an orderly society. The Labour party—especially some of its newer and younger Members—seems to think that exploiting the race issue will bring them favour. It will not do so, even among the communities that they claim to represent. Let them listen to their wiser brethren, and 910 perhaps eventually they will understand that playing the race game for political purposes is cheap, cynical and disgraceful.

§ Ms. Diane Abbott (Hackney, North and Stoke Newington)
The Minister accused me of speaking on this subject, and specifically on the Bill, with passion. He made that accusation as if it was entirely negative. I advise him that I plead guilty, and I hope that I will always speak with passion in this House on issues about which I feel strongly. That is what my constituents, both black and white, would expect.
Conservative Members have implied that the number of hours that we spent on the Bill in Committee was, in some sense, a waste of time. I beg to differ. Although it is a relatively short Bill, it will have wide-ranging effects on the civil liberties of thousands of people. My hon. Friends believe that it was right to spend as much time on the Bill as we did.
I wish to pick up two specific points that the Minister made. He started by saying that the intention of the Bill was to make control fairer. I cannot see how that will happen. Hon. Members have referred—as I do—to the plight of the Bengali community in Tower Hamlets. This is the single largest community that will be affected by clause 1, which takes away rights that were promised to Commonwealth citizens way back in 1971. The Minister knows perfectly well that the Bengali community is the largest single community that is still attempting to reunite its families.
When the Bill becomes law, the Bengali community and other affected groups will find that the promise that was made to them by successive Conservative Governments and their Ministers that they could bring in their families without let or hindrance will be taken away. They will find themselves in double jeopardy. They cannot bring their families in unless they can provide housing, but they cannot get local authority housing because their families are not with them. I suggest to the Minister that to the average Bengali resident of Tower Hamlets it is not at all clear how the Bill will make immigration control fairer. On the contrary, it will inevitably lead to separated families.
The Minister talked about the Bill protecting the rights of people who are already here. On the contrary, in many instances all that the Bill will do is take away peoples' rights. The Minister talked about the Bill making controls fairer, yet the Bill will put overstayers in double jeopardy. [Interruption.] Anyone in the Gallery listening to Conservative Members' comments would believe that the Government had no recourse against overstayers. That is quite wrong. There are already clear and effective administrative procedures for deporting overstayers. By adding a criminal sanction to the administrative procedures that already exist, overstayers are being put in double jeopardy quite unnecessarily.
The Bill is supposed to make control fairer. One of its most unfortunate aspects — as my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz) and I said in Committee—is that in certain cases it will limit the right of appeal. I realise that to the Minister and Conservative Members anything that my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East and I say about immigration is in some sense invalid. Perhaps the 1957 Franks report will carry 911 some credibility with Conservative Members, and I therefore quote what that report said about the right of appeal: The existence of a right of appeal is salutary and makes for right adjudication. The Wilson committee report of 1967 said: It is fundamentally wrong and inconsistent with the rule of law that power to take decisions affecting a man's whole future should be vested in officers of the executive from whose findings there was no appeal. Conservative Members may sneer at my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East and me when we raise these matters, but they have been fundamental matters of public procedure for many many years and the limitation of the right of appeal is just one of the issues on which the Bill ought to give right-thinking people cause for concern, and just one of the ways in which we believe that, far from making control fairer, the Bill will make control less fair.

§ Mr. Renton
rose—

§ Ms. Abbott
If the Minister will allow me, I shall develop my argument.
The Minister claimed for the Bill that, as well as making control fairer, it would enhance stability and the hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley) talked very generally about immigration controls promoting good race relations. I put it to the Minister that the Bill will not enhance stability. Quite apart from the general atmosphere of uncertainty that it will create, there is the specific question of the way in which it will widen the role of the police in immigration control. By virtue of the clause that makes overstaying a criminal offence for all time, the Government are necessarily extending the role of the police in immigration control.
I am aware that what my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East and I say on this matter carries no credibility with Conservative Members. I would hope that what William Whitelaw, the then Home Secretary, said in 1980 carries at least a little credibility with them. He said: The enforcement of the immigration laws is among the most delicate of the tasks which the police have to perform. The 1984–85 report of the Select Committee on Home Affairs said: The involvement of the police in the administration of immigration control has sometimes harmed their relationship with ethnic minorities". The Commission for Racial Equality has said: The police should not participate in immigration control work as a matter of routine. Public policy in the early 1980s was moving away from the routine involvement of the police in immigration control because it was recognised that it did nothing for community relations. By criminalising overstayers, the Government are widening the role of the police in immigration control. We believe that that is not in the interests of stability in the community. The Government have ample administrative sanctions against overstayers. Day in and day out, my constituents are caught in that net. There is no need for these criminalising provisions. Their wider ramifications for community relations give us cause for concern.
The Minister accused us, with more vehemence than he showed in Committee, of exciting fear and promoting disharmony. Perhaps it would help him if I explained what excites fear and promotes disharmony. What excites fear and promotes disharmony among my constituents is the case of Marion Gaima. She has been in this country since 1973, she is aged nearly 40, she is frightened to return to 912 her country of birth for political reasons, she has twice had the police knock at her door, and twice she has spent time in police cells, accused of overstaying. For many months she has lived in fear of her future and the threat of deportation. That is what excites fear and promotes disharmony.
I should tell the Government that what most excited fear and promoted disharmony in the early 1980s were fishing raids on factories, shops and restaurants, when dozens of black people were taken away, but in the end perhaps a handful of overstayers were found. People had their homes raided in the middle of the night. It was those midnight fishing raids that excited fear and promoted disharmony. Even without this criminalising clause in the Bill, my constituents are stopped in the streets or while driving their cars and asked for their passports. When they visit hospitals for treatment, they are asked for their passports. That is what excites fear and promotes disharmony.
Every week in my surgery, I see constituents whose elderly relatives are humiliated at Heathrow and Gatwick when they try to come here for a holiday. The atmosphere surrounding registration for nationality and all the problems and troubles connected with it—many of my constituents had to get forms and find the money to register—excites fear and promotes disharmony.
In 1987 Conservative Members returned from the subcontinent and said that 25 per cent. of wives seeking entry to this country were polygamous wives. That matter made the front page of The Times, but later those Members had to retract that remark. We have now found that there are about only 20 cases per year of polygamous wives trying to enter this country. Such ill-considered remarks promote fear.
The casual remarks of the Prime Minister about swamping excites fear and promotes disharmony. The proposals that are being introduced to limit the rights of Members of Parliament to speak and act for their constituents will promote fear. Many Opposition Members can speak —

§ Mr. Hanley
rose—

§ Ms. Abbott
With the greatest respect, I have sat through the entire debate without speaking. The hon. Gentleman has spoken many times, and he must allow me to develop my point.
The Minister spoke of inciting fear and disharmony, and I was trying to tell him that it is not I, or my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East, or Opposition Members, who promote fear and disharmony. It is the nature and implementation of our immigration legislation, and the atmosphere created by the remarks of some Conservative Members—

§ Mr. Renton
rose—

§ Ms. Abbott
If the Minister will only allow me—

§ Mr. Renton
rose—

§ Ms. Abbott
I would dearly love to give way, but I have sat through the entire debate and I wish to draw my remarks to a close.

§ Mr. Renton
Will the hon. Lady give way?

§ Mr. Heffer
On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have been sitting here watching the Minister's behaviour. If all Tory Ministers were to act in the way that he has acted this evening, they would be an utter disgrace.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
I suggest that the hon. Gentleman leaves that to the Chair.

§ Ms. Abbott
The Minister has accused us of creating fear and disharmony. We beg to differ. We are merely trying to act as responsible representatives should and reflect the genuine fears of our constituents. The Minister has claimed that the Bill will bring about no major changes, but we believe that the Bill, and its legacy if it becomes law, will mean that British residents who happen to be black will have fewer rights than EEC nationals to bring in their children, parents and grandparents.
The Minister referred to the contributions of my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East and myself in Committee. To give him credit, he did so with only the merest hint of condescension in his voice. We plead guilty to feeling strongly about immigration and to being new hon. Members. However, we believe that history will show that it was no bad thing that the Committee that examined the Bill for so many hours genuinely reflected, for the first time, our multiracial community.
We have been accused of tunnel vision and, explicitly and implicitly, of reflecting the views only of black and ethnic minority people. Opposition Members think that immigration control is not a matter only for black and ethnic minority residents of this country—or only for white residents. The nature, implementation and administration of immigration control is a matter for anyone who is concerned about fairness, justice and equity in public administration. It was in the spirit of concern for fairness, justice and equity that we kept the Minister and Conservative Members considering the Bill for so many hours and came here to fight on Third Reading. We do not apologise for our passion, because if the issues that the Bill covers are not worth being passionate about, few issues that come before the House are.

§ Mr. Andrew Hargreaves (Birmingham, Hall Green)
I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in the debate. I must admit that, after listening to Opposition Members rehearse the same arguments time and again for 62 hours, it is difficult to remember exactly what we are discussing. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms. Abbott) for referring to equity, and I am particularly keen to dwell on that notion.
I believe that remarks made on both sides of the House about fear and disharmony are not beneficial to immigration matters and are certainly not beneficial to race relations. I believe that it was positively harmful to racial harmony when the Leader of the Opposition said, in India, that he would repeal the Immigration Act 1971.
I hope that Opposition Members — I especially address this remark to the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden)—will remember that DNA testing is- not in any way a carte blanche entry system that will enhance their political positions. They should not use DNA testing for that purpose. Such testing can prove extremely harmful to family relationships in ethnic communities—I ask them please to be aware of that. I make the same appeal to my hon. Friends.
I have had a number of representations on this subject and it is distinctly clear, especially among the Asian community, that the test is something to which they do not look forward. It needs careful treatment and I beg Opposition Members to remember that fact and to 914 remember that serious family consequences may ensue if it is mishandled. That matter was aired at length in Committee, so I will not detain the House by discussing it further.

§ Mr. Jim Marshall
rose—

§ Mr. Hargreaves
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will have a chance to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, later.
In the interests of racial harmony, I also hope that Opposition Members remember that Conservative Members, including those of us who served on the Committee and who listened to the arguments put forward by Opposition Members, also represent the interests of true racial harmony. No matter what the disparity which may exist between the numbers of immigrants whom we may represent, Opposition Members must not instantly dismiss what we say as either meaningless or unrepresentative. Conservative Members who served on that Committee, as well as others of my hon. Friends, care very greatly about racial harmony in this country. Therefore, we ask the Opposition to take our remarks seriously. I support the Bill.

§ Mr. Pat Wall (Bradford, North)
The Bill is unnecessary. It does not arise from any great social upheaval or any threat of mass immigration to this country. It would appear to follow proposals made by senior Home Office civil servants some years ago. In essence, it serves much the same purpose for immigration as the think tank conducted by the present Secretary of State for the Environment when he was considering trade unions.
Most of the Bill's provisions affect a relatively small number of people and therefore its harshness is particularly repugnant. However, it affects a substantial number of people in relation to the abolition of the right of men, settled here before January 1973, to bring their wives and children to this country without first having to satisfy the various marriage tests, including the notorious primary purpose test, and the various accommodation and needs tests.
The Bill arises from the Government's peculiarly warped attitude to sexual equality or, indeed, to any form of equality. The Government were brought before the European Court of Human Rights for discrimination against women in the provisions of the Immigration Act 1971. The Bill, instead of giving women the same rights as men, brings men down to the same level suffered by women. On shift work and night work in industry, the Government take the opposite tack, but with a similar result. Women have been brought up to the same level of exploitation as men regarding such work. No doubt in future the Government will equalise the retirement age at 65 on the grounds of equality.
As has been pointed out, the last major influx of immigrants into Britain were Bangladeshis who arrived in the 1970s, fell victims to the recession of 1974–5, and suffered even more from the worse recession in 1981–82. They did not come here in the same way as earlier immigrants, who were enticed here as a source of cheap labour at at time of full employment and relative boom. They came during a recession in which they suffered greatly.
That meant that it was much harder for them to gather together the material needs to bring their wives and 915 children to settle in Britain than it was for the people who arrived in more prosperous times. They have had to compete for jobs in a declining market in the manufacturing industry, heavy industry and certain sections of plublic service. As they were the last major group to come here, their mastery of English is less good and that has made it even more difficult for them to compete for jobs.
I share with my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden) the representation of an area in the city of Bradford called Manningham. A housing survey was conducted by the Bangladeshi youth organisation on the Cornwall road area in my constituency. The housing needs of Asian residents in Manningham are entirely relevant to the Bill as it relates to the repeal of section 1(5) of the 1971 Act.
A higher proportion of Bangladeshis than other ethnic groups have not been able to bring their wives and children to Britain because they have lacked the economic means to do so. Home Office figures show that in 1986, 30 per cent. of wives given entry clearance to come to Britain were coming to live with people who came from India before 1973. The comparable figure for Pakistan was 55 per cent. and for Bangladesh was 70 per cent.
If the Bill is passed, unlike Common Market citizens who have no such tests and old Commonwealth citizens including white South Africans who rarely suffer such tests, all new Commonwealth citizens and citizens of Pakistan will have to satisfy the accommodation and needs test. That is discrimination on the basis of colour, class and material wealth. The poorest male immigrants take the longest to bring over their wives and children, and they will suffer most through the repeal of section 1(5). They are most likely to fail the needs and accommodation tests, and they and their families will be permanently divided.
I should like to quote one section from Manningham housing report: The existence of owner occupation cannot be taken as an indication of high standards of housing or indeed wealth. Owner-occupation has become the only alternative to over-occupied scarce rented housing. In order to meet the economic burdens of mortgage repayments and housing maintenance, the sharing arrangements by large Asian families alleviates to some degree the serious level of poverty. High percentages of home ownership have therefore been achieved by economies of scale in the presence of relatively larger numbers of persons per house. The cost of homeownership in social terms is revealed by cramped and severely overcrowded conditions within the Asian community. The largely held assumption of home ownership being linked to prosperity is therefore deceptive. Whilst there undoubtedly exists a greater inclination and desire for owner-occupied housing within the Asian community, the availability of large rented houses is non-existent. In that survey, out of 772 people old enough to take up employment, only 117 were employed. In large numbers of extended family houses, no person had a job, and in the vast majority, only one person had a job. That happened against a background in the city of Bradford of a backlog of £60 million in housing repairs and cuts in housing improvement grants which has meant that in the past few years, 10,000 people have been refused those grants.
Those are not the clever schoolboy words, jokes and remarks of Conservative Members. This is the real world in which Asian working people in Bradford live. They have appalling housing conditions with little chance of a job. They are directly affected by the Bill because they have virtually no chance of bringing their children and wives to Britain to unite their families.
916 The removal of the right of appeal for overstayers, whether they deliberately flout the immigration laws or overstay or because they face severe domestic or personal problems, is a draconian and inhuman act. Overstaying is a summary offence and summary offences attract only moderate penalties under our law. The maximum penalty is usually six months in gaol and a relatively limited fine.
Deportation is much more serious than six months in gaol or a fine. Deportation means the break-up of families, losing a job, depriving children of a parent, and, for refugees and those seeking political asylum, it can mean imprisonment, torture and death. Therefore, our consistent demand on Second Reading and in Committee for an independent system of adjudication and appeal for deportation cases is a most modest, reasonable and humane demand. The Minister's refusal to accept that demand is a real condemnation of the Bill.
I want to add one point to those made so clearly by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms. Abbott). There will be police intervention because of the criminalisation of overstayers. One would think that the Scarman report on the Brixton riots had never been written. To return to a situation where people can be stopped in the street on the basis that they are overstayers or illegal immigrants will create enormous problems for Britain's black community. Anyone who is really serious about race relations will have to think about that.
My hon. Friend is right. We are moving towards the pass laws so hated in South Africa. People already have to produce their passports in hospitals or in DHSS offices. They will now have to carry them everywhere in case they are stopped in the pub, the club, the street or their place of worship by the police for questioning about whether they are illegal immigrants or overstayers. That is exactly the same situation as in South Africa at present.
The only liberal, reasonable part of the Bill is the clause that deals with the Common Market. It gives 230 million citizens in the EEC the right to come here freely, to bring their spouses, their children, their parents, their grandparents, and, in some cases, their grandchildren. It gives them the right to take a job without restriction, to use our social services without restriction and to set up in business without the sort of financial penalties imposed on Asian business men coming to Britain. I welcome that— I am no little Englander; I believe in internationalism—but that is a sharp contrast to the position of black people coming to Britain.
When the first immigrants were attracted and enticed to Britain, it was in the hope that they would provide a source of cheap labour in heavy industry, manufacturing and the public services at a time of full employment. The economy has now moved away from those industries and that is why black unemployment is twice the average level of unemployment in Britain. We have now moved more into service industries.
I predict that the rights of Common Market citizens will mean that the Portuguese, Spaniards and Greeks, who earn even less than British workers, may well be attracted to Britain's hotels, restaurants and service industry. Anti-trade union employers in those industries may hope that they will provide another source of cheap labour. If they come, they will learn, like the Caribbean and Indian subcontinent workers who came here in the past, how to join trade unions and how to fight.
917 I will make another prediction. If the Conservatives are faced with electoral defeat in the future, there will be a new immigration Bill, an anti-EEC bill aimed at those workers, because that is precisely the role that the Tory party has played in immigration throughout its history.

§ Mr. Alun Michael (Cardiff, South and Penarth)
I confess to some trepidation in speaking from the Dispatch Box for the first time, but I have no such doubts about the need to speak out vigorously against a Bill that will do enormous damage to family life, community relations in the United Kingdom and Britain's reputation abroad as a country which values justice and humanity.
In Committee, Opposition Members sought earnestly, repeatedly and at length even to persuade the Minister of the damage that the Bill will do if it becomes law. We have tried again tonight, and hon. Members who were not in the Committee will now appreciate the contrast between the points made by Opposition Members, based on considerable practical experience, and the bureaucratic incantations with which the Minister has replied.
Tonight, in opening the debate, the hon. Gentleman sought to insult my hon. Friends in order again to avoid the real issues at stake in the discussion of the Bill. Simple logic has exposed the Bill as a hollow sham. On the one hand, the Minister has told us that it is a simple, modest measure that will have minimal impact on genuine applicants. On the other hand, the Government have pushed it through with a vigour that owes more to the electoral calculations of Conservative Central Office last May and June than to knowledge and experience of immigration practice. The hon. Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack) cannot dissociate himself from those electoral calculations as he tried to do tonight except by voting against the Bill, and I hope that he will do that.
We believe that the numbers involved as a result of the Bill may be small, but the damage to family life for those involved and to community relations generally will be enormous. The questions are simple.
The first is how, in any logical sense, it can be compassionate or humane to extend the separation of families as the Bill will do. I received a letter, as many of us in the Opposition do today, saying, on behalf of the family concerned: Please will you help this family and rescue them from worry and despair. They want to be back together again as a family. That is just one example, but the Minister today has been anecdotal as well, and it is an example of the sort of thing that has been brought up by Opposition Members continually in Committee. My hon. Friends the Members for Bradford, North (Mr. Wall), for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden), for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz) and for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms. Abbott) have given example after example which one would have expected to persuade the Minister, had he been willing to respond to the arguments being put forward.
The Minister sought tonight to lecture us on community relations, but how can it help community relations to make it more difficult for families to be reunited? The Minister has claimed that the Bill will help community relations. This week I spoke to the community relations people in my constituency and they responded 918 with disbelief, disquiet and anger that the Minister should make such a suggestion. On the other hand, the Minister has produced no evidence at all for his contention that community relations will be helped.
The anger of the Opposition and the anger in the immigrant communities is based on knowledge and experience. If right hon. and hon. Members doubt me, I suggest that they listen instead to the voice of the British Council of Churches as quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Randall). The Minister doubted the authenticity of that voice, so a group of distinguished black Church leaders met him and have raised their voices passionately in opposition to the Bill, but in tones of reasonableness and patience. He has not listened to them either.
Will the Government listen to no one who seeks to help by trying to remove their blinkers on this Bill? Compassion has been talked of a great deal in Committee and today. I am sure that the Minister is compassionate when circumstances allow him to be himself, but he has sought to tell us that the removal of statutory appeal rights will do no damage because appellate authorities would draw his attention to any compassionate grounds so that he could consider them. He has repeated that argument today.
On this matter he will not listen to Labour Members, who pointed out that the appellate authorities are ruled out of making such considerations and that they stick to the rules and refuse to hear argument on compassionate grounds. They say that they do not have to pass on compassionate grounds to the Minister, and the chief appellate officer thinks that they should not do so in any event.