Mr. Ramesh Kumar (Hansard, 14 June 1991)

§ Mr. John Gorst (Hendon, North)
In July 1985, 18-year-old Anita Behal was one among thousands of British-born Indian girls to visit the Indian subcontinent, in her case for the first time since she was little more than a child. During the course of her stay she met and fell in love with a handsome 24-year-old Mr. Ramesh Kumar. A whirlwind romance ensued and they quickly became engaged.
Inevitable separations, compounded by ill health and other problems, delayed their eventual marriage by four or five years. Therefore, it was not until 1989 that Anita and Ramesh took their place among the 8,000 people whose applications to join their spouses had been turned down by an adjudicator, who doubted the sincerity of the so-called primary purpose of their marriage. Despite this sad placing in the growing statistics of disappointed newly-marrieds, Anita and Ramesh went ahead with their marriage, which took place about 16 months ago. Now, once again, Ramesh has applied to be with his wife and once again he has been consigned to the swelling ranks of the dismissed cases, subject to appeal.
To Ministers and officials, Anita and Ramesh are, and will remain, mere numbers in the unending battle against the unyielding pressure of immigration statistics. To Ministers, this couple are faceless, inanimate statistics on a sheet of cold white paper and evidence of a satisfactory effort to stem the flowing tide of a perpetual immigration problem. But to people who know the likes of Anita and Ramesh in the flesh it is a different matter altogether.
To those who know them better, the Anitas and Rameshes are bewildered young people with hopes, aspirations and plans for a family life. They have faces that light up with smiles, features that darken with disappointment, minds that are bemused by the misconstruction of their motives. They are real people. Policies are about, and must always be about, real people, not about ministerial statistics.
The purpose behind the debate is to try to bridge a gap that has been allowed to come into existence between policies and people, between a concern for the feelings of ordinary people on the one hand and the convenience of Ministers and the machinery of government on the other. It is common ground between parties on both sides of the House that unrestricted immigration cannot be permitted and that there must be curbs on it, but the means, the procedures by which curbs are implemented, are by no means generally accepted. Accountability has been shuffled away from Ministers. We are now at a point at which a two-tier system is in operation. Bureaucrats have been delegated the power to decide and determine, without political supervision, and quasi-judicial arbitrators either rubber-stamp or rescind these decisions. In 1989, for example, a mere 14 per cent. of appeals were allowed.
If this were a process analagous to the way in which we distance the police and the judiciary from the dangers of political interference, it might be unexceptionable, but it is not in any way like that. The fact is that there is no political accountability for anomalies and irregularities. There is no political inclination to examine or to exercise influence where exceptional or compassionate circumstances arise. 1224 Let me illustrate by reference to the case of Anita and Ramesh—an almost copybook example of passing the buck. Indeed, it is an enduring and archetypal monument to how a bureaucratic no-man's-land can emerge when politicians turn their backs on responsibility for officialdom.
Having learnt that right of residence had been refused to Ramesh, I sought an early meeting with the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Mr. Lennox-Boyd). It was to no avail. By the middle of January,Ramesh had lodged an appeal, but meanwhile I learnt that Anita's supposedly loveless, impermanent marriage had resulted in her becoming pregnant. That factor was deemed to be inadequate and was also ignored. Early in March, Anita was admitted to hospital in Delhi with a threatened miscarriage linked to the health problems that had dogged her visits to India in earlier days. From all sides she was urged to return to London. Again, I sought permission for Ramesh to be with her. Alas, this is when I first entered the twilight fantasy-like world so vividly portrayed by Franz Kafka. This is when the incredible no-man's-land of the Executive opened up before me.
The Home Office could not help: it was a Foreign Office matter. The Foreign Office could not help, even on compassionate grounds, because the "papers" for an appeal had by this time left Delhi. It was out of their hands; it was a matter for the Lord Chancellor, as his Department was responsible for the independent appellate authority. From further inquiries, I established that that paper travel could take weeks rather than days. In the event, the papers took 50 days—seven weeks—to arrive.
I sought a meeting with the Lord Chancellor, whose private office resisted my request—if the papers were still on their way to the independent appellate authority, the matter was not within the Lord Chancellor's responsibility. But I persisted, and an appointment was granted for two weeks later.
In the meantime, the urgent compassionate question foundered in an administrative vacuum—a sort of limbo existence in which decision or action could not be taken by anyone, anywhere, at any level, for an indeterminate period ahead that might be days but could be weeks. I am happy to say that the crisis sorted itself out, but the bleak, heartless, unsatisfactory anomaly remains.
Throughout this case, there could be no clearer indication, no more eloquent illustration, of ministerial indifference that the absence of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary from this debate. As befits one of the most amiable and friendly products of Eton and Oxford, he has never been less than impeccably courteous when I have raised the case with him. Sadly, I must record that his courtesy has been more than surpassed by his readiness to distance himself from the possibilities for constructive intervention.
I must tell the House of one other disturbingly unsatisfactory aspect of the case. From the word go, Anita, with Ramesh, has followed my guidance about immigration procedures punctiliously, painstakingly and to the letter. In the distressing circumstances that I have outlined, the least that I could do was offer to represent Ramesh at his forthcoming appeal. First, however, I felt that I should meet him and satisfy myself of his complete bona fides.
On 16 April, in ample time for the deadline by which he needed to nominate me, I wrote to him in terms that I 1225 hoped would make it clear to the entry clearance officer in Delhi that this would be a purely temporary visit, irrespective of the outcome of any appeal, and that it could, if acceptable, serve a second and compassionate purpose of enabling Ramesh to be present at the birth of his child.
At his request, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary received a copy of the letter. He knew its purpose and I mistakenly assumed that I was receiving his co-operation. He notified me that he would write to me again. Judge, therefore, my surprise when 21 days later a letter from the migration and visa office, 4th floor—written by Miss M.L. Archer, signed somewhat indecipherably by J. Pilmore Bedford, dated 23 May and posted on 4 June, 12 days after it was written—eventually reached me on 5 June.
Judge my disappointment when Miss Archer informed me that Ramesh would not be allowed to come for the birth or to see me, as he might never return to India. I telephoned her, but the only information of substance that I could glean from her was that a Minister should have written a letter to me and that it was a mistake that she had done so.
I tabled a question asking whether Ramesh could have a visa so that I could meet him and whether there was any precedent for preventing Members of Parliament from seeing their constituents' spouses. This Monday, mindful of today's debate, the Minister informed me, cryptically, that he would write to me as soon as possible. Since then, nothing.
Why is the Minister avoiding saying that his office will stop at nothing to ensure that obstacles are put in the way of Ramesh getting the best-informed representation at his appeal? Why must he resort to such specious stratagems? Is it possible that this is merely an extension of the erection of barriers and difficulties that accompanied changes that were made in 1983?
At that time the burden of proof was, for the first time, placed on applicants to prove that entry into the United Kingdom was not the primary purpose of their marriage. With that change, and at a stroke, a foolproof obstacle had been invented. It was a handicap that simple folk would immediately find put them at a disadvantage. Many of those who would be interviewed could clearly be coaxed and beguiled into self-incriminatory statements.
The clever Roedean and Winchester-trained interviewers would thereafter smartly dress up those statements into flaws and discrepancies that disparaged their credibility and for ever ruined their prospect of admission into the United Kingdom. I say for ever because it is clear that once the file has been constructed, it is like a birthmark. It remains like a scar for ever.
As for the Minister's behaviour, I cannot help wondering why he is shirking his responsibility to the House by declining to reply personally to this debate. I have received no indication that pressing ministerial duties are involved in his absence. This is a regrettable and seemingly discourteous way of treating a debate in the House.
As I said, Anita and Ramesh's pleas to be allowed to live together are as yet unresolved. Those problems are embedded in the pipeline awaiting a bureaucratic, paper-based assessment of the genuineness of their 1226 marriage, a marriage which will already have produced its firstborn long before the pipeline will have coughed up its judgment.
This afternoon I do not intend to argue the pros and cons of the individual case. My concern is with the procedures that Parliament has sanctioned and the impact that they can have on the likes of this young father and mother-to-be. I am concerned with the anguished traumas that our procedures can induce, with the callousness to which they can subject mystified and confused young couples, with the hypocritical contradictions that they reveal in public statements, and with the way in which we are ducking our international obligations for the sake of purely administrative convenience.
I question the cost of this slow-moving and expensive system. But, more importantly, I question aspects of a more fundamental nature—its morality, its unfairness and whether it is worthy of a country that used to be proud of the essential decency on which its public policies were felt and believed to be based.
What else is wrong with the immigration procedures? To begin with, they breach the assumption enshrined in the European convention on human rights, article 8 of which states: Everyone has the right to respect his private and family life". Article 12 states: Men and women of marriageable age have the right to marry and found a family. Support for identical sentiments were echoed in an outburst of Victorian-style proportions by the Home Secretary when he was chairman of the party. Family values are the key issue of the 1990s he thundered and, warming to his theme, declared: The erosion of the natural family unit during the past 30 years has created serious consequences for the social and cultural fabric of the nation. Burning with a mounting 19th century zeal, my right hon. Friend announced with all the flamboyance of a born-again Charles Darwin: Nature intended the raising of children to be the work of two people. To round off his incontrovertible thoughts, my right hon. Friend thundered: Not only is it just that fathers should contribute to the upkeep of their children; it is also crucial that we begin to break the culture which views it as acceptable for a man to walk away from the consequences of his own actions". Let us not, as the Government, walk away from the consequences of our immigration legislation. Let us break the culture that views it as acceptable to sunder new-born marriages and separate fathers from new-born children. In short, let us reflect on how British entry clearing officers, serving at the outposts of the former British empire, are being called on to interpret nobly moral and uplifting sentiments that have been strongly endorsed by the former Prime Minister. She said: For our society as a whole, and especially for the children, much depends on the family unit remaining secure and respected. As I have already said, my former constituent Miss Anita Behal fell in love with young Mr. Ramesh Kumar during a lightning visit to the Indian sub-continent. They married, and that should be the end of their story except for me to add that they lived happily ever after. Sadly, that will not be the case. This unresolved matter is the subject of a second appeal and it is unnecessary for me today to go into the merits of the arguments surrounding it.
1227 However, the procedures and their implications are relevant because they run contrary to our international commitments. We are signatories to the European convention on human rights, and if it is objected that these quasi-legal procedures fall outside the convention because they are not formally part of our legal system, such an argument merely reinforces my point. I say merely that in any proper form, they could not have withstood objective scrutiny by the European Court of Human Rights.
I reassert that the procedures are inconsistent with everything that the Conservative Government have said about the sanctity of family life. They are incompatible with practices within the European Community and within our country. Why should husbands from India but not Indian husbands from Canada or Australia have to go through those procedures? British practice should conform to international practice, especially to European Community rules, but it does not. Under European Community law the husband or wife of a citizen of the Community who is working in another Community country has a right of residence with a European Community spouse. That right terminates only if the marriage is dissolved or if the European Community spouse moves to another country. What is so wrong with that system? Surely it is better than ours.
Not the least of my objections to our immigration procedures is the protracted delay involved. The period of separation necessitated at the outset of a marriage is more likely to result in "intervening dislocation" of a marriage than in "intervening devotion". I regard the procedures as a violation of the institution of marriage, irrespective of any merit that they may have in curtailing immigration.
I reiterate the fact that the rules and procedures are not conducive to sound administration, to individual justice or to human happiness. They involve long delays, deep disappointments and untold resentment. The pernicious test of primary purpose combined with its later concomitant—the notion of "intervening devotion"—are presumptuous concepts. They show no regard for the essentially personal and private nature of marriage. The questions that they necessitate in order to enable a largely value judgment to be made of one of the most intimate personal relationships in a human being's life are at best an invasion of privacy and, at worst, a deeply humiliating affront. These procedures do not lend themselves to amendment or revision. The system should be scrapped. It discredits those who conceived it, it injures those who are forced to submit to it and it shames all those who sustain or operate it.

§ The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Douglas Hogg)
I apologise to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, North (Mr. Gorst) for the absence of my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State. He is unavoidably detained and wishes me on his behalf to express his apologies to the House.
I have had the opportunity of looking at the file. I thought that it was prudent to do so before I made a speech. I am indeed struck by the tenacity and vigour with which my hon. Friend has advocated the case of his constituent and her husband. He has written many letters, arranged and had many meetings, given much good advice, offered to represent Mr. Kumar at the appeal 1228 debate, as he said, and initiated the debate this afternoon. I recognise that the events so far have been disappointing, but that should not obscure the conclusion that no constituent could have had a case more energetically advocated than this by my hon. Friend.
One of the advantages of having had a look at the papers is that I have been able to judge the degree of involvement of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State. He has involved himself with the detail of the case. He called for a full report on the facts and studied it. It would be wrong and unjust to him to say that he has been guilty of ministerial indifference. He has taken a real, personal interest in the matter. Knowing my hon. Friend as I do, and having studied the papers as I have, I simply cannot accept the criticisms that my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, North has made of him.
It may be helpful if I give the House some details of the entry clearance applications which Mr. Kumar has made over the past five years and how they have been handled. If I then have time, which I fear I will not, I shall say something about the immigration rules.

§ Mr. Gorst
I have scrupulously avoided going into those details in order not to prejudice the hearing that will subsequently take place. Indeed, I was advised that perhaps the debate should not take place for that reason. Therefore, I am surprised that my hon. and learned Friend should go into such details. Would he reconsider doing so?

§ Mr. Hogg
I shall not say anything that will prejudice the case. I am surprised that my hon. Friend should think otherwise.
Mr. Kumar first applied for settlement entry clearance, as a male fiance at the British high commission in New Delhi on 5 March 1986. His sponsor in the United Kingdom was Miss Bahal, now his wife, who is the constituent of my hon. Friend. Because of the very large number of settlement applications handled, the high commission operates a queueing system for interviews, which are an essential part of the entry clearance process in settlement cases. Mr. Kumar was given an interview date of 17 November 1986. Following this interview, the entry clearance officer was unable to make a decision on the evidence available to him. He, therefore, referred the application to the Home Office with the request that that Department arrange for the sponsor to be interviewed and then decide whether entry clearance should be granted. The Home Office refused the application on 15 October 1987, on the ground that the Home Secretary was not satisfied under the immigration rules that it was not the primary purpose of the proposed marriage to gain admission to the United Kingdom. Mr. Kumar exercised his right to appeal against the Home Office decision to an independent adjudicator of the immigration appellate authorities. That appeal was dismissed on 16 June 1989.
It is open to any applicant who has been refused a visa to reapply at any time. Each application is considered on its merits and in accordance with the immigration rules. Mr. Kumar lodged a second settlement application in February 1990, by when he had married the constituent of my hon. Friend. Following a further interview on 14 December 1990 at the high commission in New Delhi, Mr. Kumar's application was again refused, as the entry clearance officer was still not satisfied that it was not the primary purpose of the marriage to gain admission to the United Kingdom.
1229 My hon. Friend will recall the meeting that he had with my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State on 15 January this year, to discuss the refusal of Mr. Kumar's second settlement entry clearance application. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State explained the reasons for the refusal of entry clearance on primary purpose grounds. A number of discrepancies had emerged at the interview about the circumstances in which the couple had first met and about the marriage ceremony. There was also little evidence of intervening devotion between the time of the first and second applications. My hon. Friend explained that an appeal was the correct way forward and that Mrs. Kumar would have the opportunity to address the adjudicator and put forward any points in support of her husband's application. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State was satisfied that the entry clearance officer had handled the application correctly and in accordance with the rules.
Mr. Kumar lodged an appeal against this second refusal decision with the High Commission on 22 January 1991. When she received this appeal the entry clearance officer reconsidered the application, taking full account of any new evidence or facts which may have come to light, but she was not persuaded to vary her decision. The entry clearance officer therefore sent the appeal, together with an explanatory statement setting out in full her reasons for refusal, to the independent appellate authority on 7 March 1991. A copy of this statement will be sent to the appellant 1230 or to his nominated representative in this country before the appeal hearing, the date and venue for which will be arranged by the appellate authority.
I remind the House that the independent appellate authority, which comes under the aegis of the Lord Chancellor, was set up by Parliament specifically to resolve disputed evidence and claims. It is therefore for the adjudicator to consider the merits of Mr. Kumar's case.
On 9 May 1991, Mr. Kumar lodged a visit visa application to enable him to meet my hon. Friend before the appeal hearing, at which, as my hon. Friend has said, he intends to represent him. In considering Mr. Kumar's application, the entry clearance officer took full account of the fact that Mrs. Kumar is now pregnant, but refused the application because he could not be satisfied, in view of Mr. Kumar's declared intention to settle in this country, that Mr. Kumar was a genuine short-term visitor who would leave the United Kingdom at the end of his permitted stay. He also noted that it is common practice for applicants to represent pregnancy as grounds for compassionate treatment. Although this ground is not ignored, the entry clearance officer is required to consider the application as a whole in the light of the applicant's circumstances and stated future intentions.
As my hon. Friend is aware, it is not a requirement—
The motion having been made after half-past Two o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned at three minutes past Three o'clock.