VISITORS, SHORT-TERM AND PROSPECTIVE STUDENTS AND THEM DEPENDANTS

HC Deb 11 January 1993 vol 216 cc701-26

Mr. Allen

I beg to move amendment No. 15, in page 6, line 36, leave out from line 36 to line 5 on page 7.

Mr. Deputy Speaker

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 16, in clause 10, page 7, leave out lines 6 to 33, and Government amendments Nos. 36 to 39.

Mr. Allen

It is hard to choose the most obnoxious clause in this Bill, but I suppose that this one would get my vote. In its previous incarnation this Bill was known as the Asylum Bill; it has now turned into the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Bill. Why "Immigration"? My colleagues and I do not believe that immigration matters have any place in an asylum Bill. If the Government were serious about helping people whose desperate plight we outlined so vividly in Committee, they would have introduced measures that related only to political asylum. The Government threw in immigration only in order to make what they see as political capital out of the Bill. This looks more like a ploy to assist the Secretary of State's campaign for the leadership of the Conservative party than a conscious effort to help people seeking political asylum or wanting to visit relatives and friends in this country.

This deliberate confusion is a smokescreen to sell the idea which the Secretary of State tried to sell in his wild contribution on fingerprinting that asylum seeking is somehow linked to the mass immigration policies pursued 30 years ago. He tried to raise the spectre of mass immigration. That pre-election scare is also part of the new ideology which the Secretary of State is using to improve his image with the right wing of the Conservative party.

What worries me most about the Secretary of State's cavalier attitude to civil liberties, in fingerprinting and other matters, is that certain fundamental principles which have long been part of British law are being undermined because there is seen to be political advantage in that. I am thinking particularly of the principle of natural justice. In almost every other walk of life there is a right of appeal. Even a convicted murderer has a right of appeal. A social security claimant who believes that his claim has been wrongly assessed has such a right. For all systems of administration this right offers the possibility of redress when a decision has been wrongly taken. This basic tenet of natural justice has survived intact for several hundred years—until the advent of this Government.

It is a dangerous step to throw away such a principle of natural justice. Today, the right of appeal for people refused applications for visitors visas is being dispensed with. What group will be the next to lose their right of appeal? Let us not forget that this is not a little-used appeal system. Only last year, 1,700 successful appeals were heard from the Indian sub-continent. If a similar number are unjustly refused next year, however, they will not have the chance to put the matter right by appeal because their right to do so will have been abolished. It is argued that many more might have lodged successful appeals had they wished to pursue them.

As the Secretary of State pointed out, in his usual callous manner, at the press conference that launched this Bill, there is no point in giving these people the right of appeal as many of them have now lost their reason for coming to this country because of delays. He took an almost perverse pride in the fact that the weddings, funerals, christenings or religious ceremonies which had provided the original reasons for coming had now taken place—so why give these people the right of appeal? That was the Minister's attitude when he should have been admitting that officers in his charge continually make wrong judgments that require to be put right on appeal. He almost took pride in saying that there was no need for appeals.

9.30 pm

My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden) hit the nail on the head when he spoke about the European dimension. In the harmonisation process, Britain seeks to become the lowest common denominator in the Community. Britain still retains a right of appeal which does not exist in many other countries. In seeking the abolition of the right to have a visitor's visa refusal heard again the Secretary of State is lowering to European level one of the few areas of immigration law in which Britain can take some pride.

Thousands of unjustified refusals are being brought to light and corrected by the appeals system and only Conservatives would think that the answer is to abolish the appeals system rather than to find out why so many appeals go wrong and why so many unjust decisions are taken in the first place. There is a 20 per cent. failure rate by the civil servants. What an outcry there would be if one in five income tax assessments and one in five social security applications were wrong. The right of appeal has brought the problem to light, and rather than abolishing appeals the Secretary of State should find out why the system allows so many wrong decisions to be made in the first place.

We shall later discuss the better training and supervision that is required for officials who take the decisions. Once again it is a question of openness versus secrecy and the way that the Government have pushed the Bill through Committee. When the Trevi group was meeting in the Queen Elizabeth conference centre the Committee was in session. The Committee was not informed about what was going on until we demanded papers from the Trevi meeting. It was almost as if the Trevi group had a life of its own and did not need to worry about what Parliament was deciding.

An example of that is the way in which immigration officers are virtually immune from having their responsibilities scrutinised in this place. Despite my best efforts and those of my hon. Friends, the immigration officers' training manual is not open to public view. On the day that we were debating that and the Trevi group were meeting we were told that there would be a European manual on immigration officers' practice and that it would be publicly available. However, the British manual is not to be seen.

There is no rational justification for removal of the right of appeal against an administrative decision. It will give unfettered powers to civil servants and immigration officials and can only lead to worse decisions since they will not be subject to review by an independent authority. That is exemplified by experience. When the courts decided in 1976 that there was no right of appeal against a refusal to vary leave if the application was made late, more late applications were refused. When the Immigration Act 1988 removed the right of appeal on the merits of people threatened with deportation who had been in the United Kingdom for less than seven years, the number of deportation decisions shot up from 863 in 1987 to 3,440 in 1991. The removal of the right of appeal can therefore be expected to lead to a rise in the number of refusals.

Many refused visitors do not appeal and, of those who do, many more do not pursue their case after the initial anger and humiliation and the need to understand have faded. That makes it clear that the number of people who win such appeals is only a small percentage of those refused wrongly and unjustly. Many more would have been successful had they pursued their case or kept in touch with their representatives and provided documents and information as necessary. There is room for reform of the immigration appeals system to ensure that all cases are heard and decisions are reached more speedily, but this should not be at the expense of justice.

The Home Office reacted to the widespread criticism of this part of the Bill—in Committee and elsewhere—by issuing a press release on 8 December 1992 when the Minister made his response to the Committee. I will not delay the House by describing the pantomime in Committee, when the Minister as the dame was dragged, feigning reluctance, to announce one or two supposed concessions. As I hope to demonstrate, the concessions amounted to nothing.

The Government's response does not meet the main concerns about the loss of the right of appeal. The main proposal is that refused visitors should receive a far more detailed refusal notice, setting out the reasons why a visa had been refused. This might help to explain the thought processes of the entry clearance officer dealing with the case, but may also be intended to pre-empt any application for judicial review of decisions—the only method of challenge remaining open. It was interesting to hear Lord Justice Taylor's remark, in the Dimbleby lecture, that if the due process is not gone through one will necessarily end up with more and more judicial reviews. If the intention is to speed up the process, the exact opposite may occur.

The press release also stated that a previous refusal would not prejudice any subsequent applications. This should be a matter of course. Every application should be considered on its own merits, but it is known that this is not the case. The standard entry application form asks, in question 19: Have you ever been refused a visa or entry clearance at a UK diplomatic mission or Post? It then asks people to complete an additional form if they have been refused. It is clear that the purpose of the question is to enable the entry clearance officer to find any previous papers about the earlier application and to compare them with the present one. It is not unknown for people to be asked whether anything has changed since the previous application and, if they say that it has not, for the application to be refused.

Mr. Keith Vaz (Leicester, East)

Does my hon. Friend agree that the so-called concession that the Under-Secretary announced in Committee, and to which my hon. Friend referred, is only what is happening at the moment? Any constituent can go to his Member of Parliament, who writes to the Foreign Office and gets a detailed response. There is nothing new here.

Mr. Allen

A number of practices set out by the Minister in his press release are already standard. Equally, one does not need an asylum Bill to make the amendments that the Minister announced in Committee. If he wishes to make those amendments, they can be done easily, and with the agreement of many hon. Members on both sides of the House, provided that they are not a substitute for the right of appeal, which is the backdrop for all these matters.

The press release issued by the Minister also sets out the other courses of action that are open to would-be visitors, and my hon. Friends have referred to them. The Home Office also states that the Foreign Office will revise its information leaflets for visitors and will consider a leaflet for sponsors. At present the leaflets are produced only in English and do not explain the pitfalls of immigration rules. It is our view that any leaflet produced should be translated into appropriate languages and should be accessible. They should be widely available, and not only on request, at British posts.

Most seriously, the Home Office press release is exclusively about visitors and visas. It does not mention the other forms of entry clearance, entry certificates, letters of consent, refusals at ports of entry of people who do not require visas or students or prospective students.

The Minister said in Committee that he meant to include all forms of entry clearance, but he said nothing about people who do not require prior entry clearance who are refused at a British port or airport. If the statements in the leaflets do not apply to port refusals, they amount to a further attempt to introduce a universal visa requirement through the back door. If they do not apply to students, there is no justification for this further discrimination against them. It is important that the Home Office provides further clarification.

The clause will hit hard British families—black British families, Asian British families and other British families whose only crime will be the wish to see relatives—parents and grandparents, for example—on occasions such as holidays, religious ceremonies, marriages, christenings and funerals. It is one of the worst parts of an extremely poor Bill and the Opposition will divide the House when the Question is put on the amendment to ensure that the clause is thrown out of the Bill. If that is not done in this place, we hope that the clause will be seriously revised, if not thrown out completely, in the other place.

Mr. Peter Shore (Bethnal Green and Stepney)

Many hon. Members on both sides of the House have a substantial Asian or Commonwealth community residing in their constituencies. Much resentment has been expressed to me—I am sure that this has been the experience of many other Members with such a community—about the clause. It is difficult to understand why it is in the Bill. Such a clause was not in the 1991 Bill. Goodness knows what considerations led the Minister to decide to include it in this measure.

The Minister has not taken aboard sufficiently the fact that settled in our country are hundreds of thousands of people from new Commonwealth countries who are here legitimately. Visitors from those countries have to obtain a visa to come here, and that puts them apart—in a sense it discriminates against them—from others who come to the United Kingdom who are not required to surmount the same hurdles. I talk, of course, of visitors from visa countries and their families who are in this country.

Taking account of that, is it not extraordinary that given the number of appeals—it is not huge in relation to the number of appeals generally that remain outstanding within the system the Minister should ask the House to remove entirely the right of appeal for visitors who have been refused a visa and entry to the United Kingdom?

I take the view that officials are nothing other than people who are trying to do their best in administering our laws. I am not mounting an attack on entry certificate officers, but obviously they are not infallible. Mistakes are made occasionally, and they are duly recorded, as is the number of successful appeals. As my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) said when addressing the House from the Opposition Front Bench, about 1,500 successful appeals were made last year. I think that that is the Minister's own figure. Are we saying that we are not interested in 1,500 examples of injustice that would otherwise be allowed to stand?

Is it not the fact that the availability of appeal is an important element in the decision making of entry certificate officers generally? It is only a back-up power, as it were, but to some extent it enables there to be surveillance of their decision making. It is an important factor in the decisions that they make.

9.45 pm

The Government have made a grave error and I shall explain why. First, I want to emphasise the number of people from visa countries who want to come here simply as visitors for family reasons. Surely families, especially grandparents, have the right to see their children and their children's children. Unlike those of us who have our families of all generations with us in Britain, those families are separated not by 50, 100 or even 300 miles, but by thousands of miles. It requires great effort simply to get to this country. The Minister knows the considerable cost of air fares. For the most part they are poor families—and, quite frankly, their families in this country are often among the lowest paid workers. Those families already have to overcome many obstacles.

There is another point of which I do not think the Minister has taken any account. However, I assure him that it is well understood and resented in our settled immigrant communities. I am referring to the fact that the Minister is actually imposing a double discrimination system—the visa system and the abolition of the right of appeal—at the very moment when the Single European Act has come into force and 300 million Europeans can come to this country at will. They are not required to prove that they will not be a burden on public funds or that there is adequate housing and accommodation for them. They do not have to show that they will stay here for only six months—they can stay here for six years. That is what the Government have granted to 300 million Europeans, very few of whom have the human and family contacts with people in this country that is enjoyed by many of our constituents whose parents and grandparents come from the Indian sub-continent and some of the African Commonwealth nations.

That policy is discrimination. It is granting truly extraordinary rights to millions of Europeans who do not have close family connections with this country, while erecting a new barrier, by abolishing the right of appeal, against the millions of people who have family connections with people who are settled here. The Minister has made an appalling error and I ask him to think carefully about what has been said. The matter was thoroughly turned over in Committee, when the arguments were put very powerfully. I ask him to think about the effect of such a double discrimination on the sentiments and thinking of hundreds and thousands of people in this country who believe—or at least hope—that all political parties are determined to rule and administer our laws in a way that is equitable to all.

Mr. Madden

There is a common view that the clause represents a new and sinister dimension to the Bill that goes well beyond the provisions of the previous Bill. When news of the clause swept through our black and Asian communities there was panic among the Conservative Members who represent some of them. Soon after the Bill had been published and been given its Second Reading, there were newspaper reports that Conservative Members were concerned about the abolition of the right of appeal for those refused a visitor's visa. The reports suggested that those Conservative Members had warned the Government that they could not be certain of their support in the Lobby tonight during Report stage and Third Reading.

We were told that Members of Parliament, including the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Waller)—I am pleased to see him in his place—the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Mrs. Peacock) and eight other Conservative Members were so concerned about the matter that they would not automatically support the Bill.

In Committee, the wriggling and squirming of the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mr. Deva) was a spectacle to behold on almost every occasion that the Committee sat. There were all sorts of gossiping and chats about how the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth and other Conservative Members could be got off the hook on which the Minister and the Home Secretary had put them. There were meetings at the Home Office between those worried Conservative Members and the Minister.

Lo and behold, the day came—and on 8 December, in Committee, the Minister was able to read from a prepared press release that a number of concessions were to be made, which would meet the concerns and worries of the Conservative Members in question—it would be all right, lads and lasses, because they could all vote for clause 9 tonight with a clear conscience.

As you have already heard, Madam Speaker, those concessions do not amount to a row of beans. In reality, if clause 9 becomes law, large numbers of people refused a visit visa will have no remedy. They will be able to write to, or otherwise contact through their sponsors, Members of Parliament—including those worried Conservative Members who had doubts about clause 9 in the first place. We will then be able to write to a Foreign Office Minister responsible for visit visa administration, urging that a person refused permission to visit relatives, to attend a family wedding or funeral, or to visit for some other legitimate purpose should be allowed to do so. No doubt we will receive the same kind of letter that we already receive, expressing regret but saying that there is nothing that the Minister can do and that the applicant will just have to lump it.

At present, such people have a right of appeal—and we heard that a large proportion of those who appeal are successful. That right is of central importance, and it is extremely worrying that the Government are proposing to abolish it—which is triggering in the minds of many black or Asian people in particular concern over further action and whether other rights of appeal might be abolished.

I wonder how many other hon. and right hon. Members shared my concern when I saw tonight the gleam in the eye of the Home Secretary when he was saying how unsatisfactory are photographs as a means of identification. How much longer before a fiance applying to enter this country to be married, or a spouse seeking to join his or her partner in this country, will have to be fingerprinted before applying? How much longer will it be before settlement refusals will no longer be capable of being appealed against?

In Committee, the Minister failed miserably to justify clause 9. He said: With a backlog of 23,000 appeals awaiting hearings by adjudicators, it must be recognised that the system is not delivering a fair, effective and timely remedy either to would-be visitors or to those seeking to settle here. It is necessary to concentrate resources on those cases which vitally affect a person's future. We do not undervalue the importance to many people born or settled here of visits by relatives. We recognise that what we need is to develop measures to ensure that the small proportion of would-be visitors who at present succeed in their appeals are not disadvantaged."—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 8 December 1991; c. 649.] What disingenuous gobbledegook is that?

The Minister was arguing that the inefficiencies of the appellate system, which have created a backlog of 23,000 cases, is the justification for abolishing a longstanding right of appeal.

Mr. Bernie Grant

My hon. Friend speaks of justification. Is he aware that the right of appeal for visitors came about as a result of an initiative by the Wilson Government, and that a commission was set up specifically to examine the way in which new Commonwealth citizens were being treated at our ports of entry? Is it not strange that it takes a commission to establish a right of appeal, and that this Government can destroy that right of appeal at a stroke without even having the courtesy to justify their wish to get rid of it?

Mr. Madden

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. No doubt that is why the director of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, writing to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State on 5 January, said: We must convey the now widespread belief that there can be no rational justification for this proposal"— that is, clause 9. Removal of a right of appeal against an administrative decision, thus giving unfettered power to a civil servant or immigration official, can only lead to more careless decision-making since the officials know that their decisions will not be reviewed by any independent authority. Mr. Moraes continued:

You will already know from the statistics that this removal of an appeal right will disproportionately affect black British people and those settled here, as people from black and third world countries have a much higher chance of refusal. In the new spirit espoused by the Minister in Committee in November, I deliberately delayed writing to him until 17 December about a constituent of mine whose 63–year-old mother wished to come here for medical treatment that she had been advised urgently to undertake when she last visited the country in 1990. She wished to come accompanied by her daughter. Her son, who has lived here for five years, had arranged for private medical treatment to be provided in Bradford; he was already prepared to pay the £2,500 that was required. As a home owner in full-time employment, he was perfectly willing to accommodate his mother and sister during their stay.

I was surprised to receive, on 31 December, a reply from a Foreign Office Minister, who informed me that he, rather than the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Home Department, was responsible for such matters. An official in the migration and visa correspondence unit told me:

Because of the break in diplomatic relations between the United Kingdom and Iraq and the closure of the Embassy in Baghdad, Mrs. A and Miss A have no alternative but to apply for entry clearance at one of our visa-issuing posts outside Iraq. I enclose a list of our visa-issuing posts in Europe which have a waiting time of two weeks or less for non-resident applicants, which I hope your constituent will find helpful. I suggest that Mrs. A and her daughter first telephone or write to the post they choose in order to answer any preliminary enquiries and to book an appointment for a personal interview, which is an essential part of the entry clearance procedure. This will save time and avoid the risk of a wasted journey. That came as very bad news to my constituent, who told me this weekend that there was no European country to which an Iraqi national could obtain a visa within Iraq, and that the nearest place where his mother and sister could obtain a visa was in Jordan. That would involve a 16–hour bus ride, and the lady concerned is now so badly disabled that she is wheelchair bound.

That case clearly illustrates the difficulties that will confront the Minister, and many other Members of Parliament, in the coming months and years if this wretched clause becomes law. My constituent is right to argue that if the Government hold a compassionate view and want to help those who wish to visit this country for medical and other reasons, the information that I have received from the Foreign Office does not reinforce or strengthen any conviction that the public might have about the true intentions of this Government.

Clause 9 is an integral part of this wretched, racist Bill. I hope that Conservative Members who, when it was first announced, were extremely worried about its consequences—

It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

Ordered, That, at this day's sitting, the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Bill may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Robert G. Hughes.]

Bill, not amended (in the Standing Committee), again considered.

Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.

Mr. Madden

Once again I urge those Conservative Members who initially had reservations about the clause to have the courage of their true convictions and to vote against clause 9. We understand that they cannot bring themselves to vote against this wretched Bill, but I urge them to pluck up the courage to vote against the clause. To do so would reinforce whatever reputation they may have for their belief in principles, the right to natural justice and the right of appeal against judicial and quasi-judicial decisions. It would be appreciated by their constituents who, if the clause becomes law, will lose the right to have their relatives and friends visit them in this country, a right that many of them, as British citizens, hold very dear. I hope that the clause will be defeated, that this important right of appeal will be retained and that we shall be able to say to the British people, whatever their race, colour or religion, that we believe that they, as British citizens, are all equal before the law and have the right to appeal against administrative decisions.

Mr. Maclennan

This is undoubtedly one of the most important amendments before the House and it should enjoy the support of hon. Members in all parts of the House. Certainly it should enjoy the support of those who earlier expressed their anxiety about the importation into a Bill, purportedly dealing with asylum matters, of a further measure to clamp down on visitors to this country who are not seeking asylum.

It might tolerably be argued that a Bill to curb asylum seekers will not cause deep public concern. It may be thought that, after the passage of a modest amount of time, anxieties about fingerprinting and people coming from Angola and other countries who have no relatives in this country to welcome and support them when they arrive here will be blocked out and that no problems will arise from the asylum aspects of the Bill. The Government can have no such hope, however, regarding clause 9. It will directly affect the lives of many citizens in this country for many years to come. It will stimulate deep hostility among those who feel themselves to be discriminated against, when members of their families are denied the right to visit them here. Such people cannot experience the support and joy of temporary visits because the Government of the day believe that it is administratively inconvenient properly to scrutinise their applications. That must be bad for race relations in the United Kingdom.

It may be that Governments of different political complexions have felt it necessary to have a firm immigration policy for the benefit of race relations in the United Kingdom. However, that firm policy must be seen to be fair if it is not to exacerbate the ill feeling among minority communities that those who are in the majority are abusing their power to their family disadvantage.

I hope that the Minister will not seek to justify the inclusion of something in this Bill which even the right hon. Member for Mole Valley (Mr. Baker)—stimulated as he was by a desire to split the House on the issue of race before an election—did not think it appropriate to include in his Bill. This nasty inclusion is the creation of someone who postured in the past as a liberal in matters of race. The Home Secretary appeared to relish that reputation. and I will not speculate on why he now chooses to cast off that mantle.

If the House fails tonight to extrude the obnoxious clause from the Bill, I hope that those in another place will examine with particular attention the possibility of restoring what successive Governments accepted as necessary to ensure that applications for visits to the United Kingdom were fairly perused and open to appeal. The obnoxious clause was not included by the Government on a whim in response to pressures from a particular group in society; it was introduced as a result of careful deliberation. It is true that the right of appeal was introduced by a Labour Government, but it was endorsed by Conservative Governments. No political parties were divided on the matter until this Government introduced the amendment.

The Government's method and approach to immigration and race relations are obnoxious because they cause a split in the United Kingdom on not only the grounds of colour but the grounds of party. The Minister must remove the clause and accept the amendment. If he does, he will receive the thanks and appreciation of all hon. Members for having allowed sense to prevail over the corruption of administrative power that has been too long enjoyed.

Mr. Gary Waller (Keighley)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department for listening to the concerns which some of my hon. Friends and I have expressed about clause 9. My hon. Friend listened most courteously. He went away and thought about the issues which we had raised and proposed some changes. I am not critical of the changes. Indeed, I believe that they will help the way in which administrative decisions are made in the future. But they will remain essentially administrative decisions.

I share the anxieties that have already been expressed tonight that there will be no possibility of appeal against administrative decisions which may be wrong because human decisions so often are fallible. One must bear in mind that those decisions are of great significance to many people. It is often difficult for people who have settled in Britain to travel to visit their relatives in their country of origin. People who have settled in Britain often have jobs from which it is difficult for them to spend much time away. Therefore, if a family is to be brought together from time to time, there is no alternative to a journey to Britain by a relative.

Entry clearance officers certainly have difficult decisions to make. The information that they have is often limited. That is why adjudicators are often better placed. They will see the sponsor and perhaps others. As constituency Members we know that, while ultimately it is the intentions of the visitor which are important, the evidence given by sponsors can be absolutely vital. In the communities in Britain, a sponsor would be unlikely to co-operate in a decision to ignore immigration rules because that would do great damage in a close-knit community.

When one reads the adjudicator's decision in the determination of many cases, one appreciates that where successful appeals are made there is often no credible reason for rejecting an application. As we have heard, every year there are 1,500 or so successful appeals. I am not satisfied that, because an applicant will have another opportunity to apply and the evidence will be heard by different entry clearance officers wherever possible, the decision will necessarily be right.

At present, we have a helpful safeguard and I regret that it will be lost in the future. I have had few representations against clause 9. It is not because of the number of representations that I have received that I intend to vote against the Government on amendment No. 15. I intend to vote against the amendment because of my knowledge of such cases as someone who has represented constituents and dealt with such cases for many years.

If the amendment would make it essentially easier for people to overstay illegally or evade the immigration rules, one would have to think carefully about it. However, in my experience the people who appeal do not intend to overstay or evade the immigration rules. They are often people with a good case. It is because those good cases will not have an opportunity to be heard and because administrative decisions will not be overturned where they are weak that I am afraid that I shall have to go into the Opposition Lobby this evening.

Mr. Corbyn

I compliment the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Waller) on what he said and his decision about how to vote this evening. That is a sign that at least some Conservative Members are not prepared to accept what the Government gave as a great retreat as anything more than a figleaf to cover them during the Committee proceedings. The removal of appeal rights for visitors is a disgraceful removal of the right of ordinary people to a proper hearing. It is also the removal of any accountability for public officials who grant or refuse the right of entry clearance or a visitor's visa.

Earlier today, almost 1,000 people almost all of them black—were brought to the House of Commons by the National Black Caucus to lobby against this clause. I pay tribute to the National Black Caucus for doing so, for the spirit and intelligence of its lobby and for everything that it said, because it came directly from the heart.

All hon. Members who represent constituencies that contain many people with families living in the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, the far east and many other parts of the world, are aware of the consequences of the system. To put it in context, last year there were 10,000 appeals against refusals of visits to this country. Those appeals were made by people who arrived in this country, sought entry, were refused and were sent back to the country that they had come from, where they went through the appeals system and 17 per cent. of those appeals were granted. Under the Government's cock-eyed system and by their own admission, 1,700 people were wrongly denied entry to this country.

10.15 pm

The existing appeals system is seriously flawed because the appeal must take place in the country of application. If someone who has saved up a great deal of money to come to this country from Pakistan, Bangladesh, India or the Caribbean is refused admission on arrival and has to return home, although he might win an appeal it is useless if he has spent the best part of a year's wages on the air fare to come here in the first place.

I do not know whether the Minister understands the heartache and misery caused to families who prepare years in advance for a wedding or some other great family occasion, only to find that the grandparents, distant uncles or cousins whom they so desperately wanted to attend are suddenly not allowed to come. Does he understand the humiliation of it? Families preparing for a great family occasion on a Saturday or Sunday often get an anguished call on Wednesday or Thursday the week before from relatives who cannot get permission to come into the country or who have arrived and been sent back. Hon. Members who represent inner-city constituencies regularly experience the hassle of trying to persuade immigration officers that there is some new evidence, or some merit in contacting the Minister's private office and all the rest of it.

The way in which the system operates is wrong and the Minister should not be introducing clause 9 but should accept its removal and should introduce a new clause to allow an in-country right of appeal so that people would not have to suffer the nonsense of being removed from this country and told that they can appeal in the country that they have come from.

Another side to the question is the way in which entry clearance officers at particular British missions abroad will be making the decisions. I have attended interviews for entry clearance for permanent residency and I am sorry to have to say that entry clearance officers indulge in a large degree of subjective decision-making, based on a person's wealth and on what they choose to call the immigration history of the family concerned. Basically, that subjective decision-making means that if one is poor, black and comes from Africa, the Caribbean or south Asia there is a high chance that one will be refused admission to this country for a visit, but if one is white and comes from the United States, South Africa or Australia one is unlikely to be refused admission to this country.

If the present rather inadequate right of appeal is removed, immigration officials will have totally untrammelled power over the lives of many families and the happiness of many people. There will be no accountability. The system is racist because of whom it is directed at and it is flawed in its approach.

I hope that the Minister will understand that the anger outside the House and throughout ethnic communities in this country will not go away, whatever the decision this evening. There will be challenges and I hope that successful amendments will be made to the Bill in the House of Lords and that the decision will be challenged legally by a judicial review. The Minister has not heard the end of it yet.

I also remind the Minister that, although many people are badly treated when they apply to visit this country, British tourists who seek to visit India, Bangladesh or any other country are treated decently by their high commissions and embassies here. The Minister should think about the small rate of refusal for visitors' visas for British tourists who seek to visit those countries. I can imagine the screaming headlines in the Daily Mail if many British people seeking to visit India as tourists were denied entry. I can just imagine the way in which that newspaper would present such stories. Why cannot such papers turn their undoubted propaganda skills round to attack the Government for removing a basic right of appeal against an unjust decision by an unaccountable official?

I ask the Minister to recognise the strength and justice of our case for the removal of clauses 9 and 10 from what is a wholly inadequate Bill in any case.

Mr. Winnick

I wish more Conservative Members other than the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Waller) had spoken against the clause. He rightly said why its inclusion could not be supported and said that he would vote against it. I welcome that decision, but it will be rather unfortunate if he is the only hon. Member on the Conservative Benches so to vote because many people are deeply concerned about the clause. They rightly understand that it represents a form of discrimination against a section of people who will be discriminated basically because they intend to invite here relatives or friends from the West Indies or the Indian sub-continent.

I regret that the Government have decided to include this clause in the Bill. We were not told that that was their intention when the Bill was submitted to the House prior to the general election. I am particularly worried because if the Bill as it now stands is passed, how long will it be, as my hon. Friends have already asked, before other rights of appeal are taken away? Does it mark the beginning of the end of the appeal system?

The appeal system came into existence 22 years last July. I speak with some experience of it, because in the past I represented people, almost on a continuing basis, who appeared before adjudicators. As the Minister knows, one must prove before the adjudicator the relevance of circumstances at the time that the decision was made by an entry clearance officer. It is no use someone coming before an adjudicator and saying that the situation has improved because the appellant has more money than he did when he originally applied to visit this country. The adjudicator must simply decide whether the decision taken by the entry clearance officer at the time was right in law.

One must argue the case on behalf of the appellant to show that the circumstances at the time of the original decision were such that that decision should have been different. The fact is that in nearly 20 per cent. of visitor cases appeals the adjudicators or the immigration appeals tribunal have found that the original decision by the entry clearance officer was wrong. Surely that is a matter of some concern.

Mrs. Roche

Does my hon. Friend agree that another reason for having the appellate system is that it provides a check on the way in which entry clearance officers and immigration officers carry out their functions? That check is important even if those functions are not subject to an appeal. Recently an immigration officer at a port of entry changed his mind on a decision because, as he said frankly to me, he knew that he could not argue his decision on appeal. The mere existence of the appellate system changed his mind. That is why it is so important to keep it.

Mr. Winnick

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If a decision is appealed against, the entry clearance officer must write what is known as an explanatory statement, which can run to eight or 12 pages, and in which he or she must give, at length, the reasons it was decided to refuse the application.

If there is no appeal system for visitors, entry clearance officers know that, however much they believe that they have done their job well, it will not be subject to appeal. At most what will happen is that the Member of Parliament representing the sponsor will write to the Minister. In reply the Minister will probably say—

Mr. Madden

Sod off.

Mr. Winnick

Well, he may not say that as such; he will put it in more dignified terms. He will say that the entry clearance officer considered all the facts and circumstances, came to his or her decision and that he, the Minister, can see no reason for overruling it. The entry clearance officer will know that there will be no adjudicator, no immigration appeals tribunal, no judicial review in certain circumstances, and no High Court case. He will therefore have total power to decide whether a person can come to this country on a short visit. I believe that that is wrong.

My hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr. Grant) referred to the Wilson committee. That committee recommended an appeals system because it believed that if the United Kingdom were to have tight immigration controls, which most of us believe are necessary, there must also be elementary justice and that people who are denied the right to come here should have the right to appeal. That system has operated for some 22 years and if we are to take away certain people's right to appeal, how soon will it be before other rights are also taken away?

Some people may say that few people are involved in sponsoring visitors. That is neither here nor there. Many people invite relatives to this country for perfectly genuine reasons. They want to see their parents or adult children and are willing to make sacrifices so that that close relative can come to the United Kingdom. When the relative from the Indian sub-continent or the West Indies is refused, they believe—rightly or wrongly—that it is because he or she has a black or Asian skin and that, had the person concerned been white, there would have been no trouble. Great harm may come to race relations in this country if people who are settled here, with every right to be here, find that their closest relatives cannot visit them. We are discussing not people coming here to live—that is not the issue—but people who wish to visit. Once they are here as visitors, they have no right to stay. The Minister is not arguing that the appeals system must go because people overstay their visit and go underground. He is nodding in agreement at that.

A fundamental right is being taken away. We shall no doubt lose the vote tonight, especially if only one Conservative Member intends to vote with us. However, the principle is important and I hope that the other place will not reach the same decision as I fear this House will reach tonight. I hope that the other place will recognise that what the Labour party has been saying, supported by the Liberal party and the one Conservative Member, is extremely important and that it will successfully challenge the Government. We shall be unable to do so tonight because, although Conservative Members understand the issue, they fear opposing the Government. They do not have the courage to do so and they are abdicating their responsibility as Members of Parliament.

Ms. Diane Abbott (Hackney, North and Stoke Newington)

I could not let the clause pass without making a few remarks because the Bill will affect so many of my constituents and has the potential to affect many British citizens throughout the country.

We have heard that one Conservative Member will vote against the Bill. Although some Conservative Members may have the excuse of ignorance about the Bill's effects, some of them know only too well the misery, humiliation, financial loss, unfairness and racism that will flow from the Bill. If they march through the Lobbies with the Government tonight, they should look to their consciences.

One of the strengths of the appellate system in relation to visits is the guarantee of fairer decisions by administrators. I worked in the Home Office and I am familiar with the type and grade of official who makes such decisions, and I cannot understand how Ministers think that it is acceptable to remove checks and balances from middle-ranking, often not entirely satisfactorily trained, executive grade officials in the Home Office. They leave relatives of British citizens liable to arbitrary and unfair decisions.

At this late stage I do not expect to change anyone's mind about clauses 9 and 10, but I should like to convey, both to my hon. Friends who may be wondering why we cannot proceed to a vote and Conservative Members who are to vote with the Government what it feels like to be a Jamaican, a Pakistani or a Turk who has lived in the countryside and saved the equivalent of many years' salary to come to this country for a wedding, birthday or christening. In the religions and cultures of such countries, weddings and christenings mean much more than they do to most of us. I want to try to convey to hon. Members what it means to have saved the equivalent of many years' salary, put on one's best clothes, left the Jamaican or Bengali countryside, travelled to a big city in one's own country for the first time and taken an aeroplane to Heathrow only to be humiliated by the sort of treatment that is ritually handed out to black people visiting this country.

10.30 pm

Like many Opposition Members, I have been telephoned at all hours of the night by frantic relatives who, at the last minute, have realised that a loved sister, cousin, grandparent or even parent will not be able to come to a wedding or a christening. It is hard to convey to people who are not familiar with those cultures what such a denial means to the families involved.

It will be starkly obvious to black British citizens whose relatives are unable to visit them for such family occasions that if they were French or German—if they were white —their relatives would be able to visit them without encountering all the hindrances. No other clause in the Bill more clearly reveals the racist nature of immigration control than clause 9, which hits, not those who are coming to settle, but those who genuinely want to visit and who may not have seen their grandchildren, brothers, sisters or other relatives for 10, 20 or 30 years.

The clause is an abuse of the process. It is wholly unjustified. The majority of hon. Members do not understand how much unhappiness, unfairness and wasted money the clause will cause. Anyone in the House who knows, understands and works among those whom the clause will affect cannot, in good conscience, vote for the clauses as they stand.

Mr. Vaz

There is one brave man sitting on the Conservative Benches: the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Waller), who, through his experiences and his daily work dealing with immigration cases, has decided to come to the Chamber today to show his dissent over the Bill's proposals and to vote with the Opposition against the measure.

Clauses 9 and 10 are squalid measures that will hit out at the rights that have, for many years, been accepted as fundamental. Before I entered the House I worked as a lawyer in a law centre in Leicester. When people came to that centre the one guarantee that I could give them when their relatives were refused admission to this country was that they could use the appeal process. That right is to be removed and the one concession that the Minister is proposing to make is an administrative one that already exists.

In Committee—[Interruption.] I am sorry that the Minister does not wish to hear what I have to say because I want to comment directly on his visit to the sub-continent. In his submission to the Committee in which he discussed the administrative changes that he was proposing to introduce, he talked about his visit to the sub-continent. I, too, have visited the sub-continent in the past month and I, too, met the immigration and entry clearance officers whom he met. [Interruption.] He wants to know when and whom I visited. I do not think that the Minister can tell us the name of the First Secretary (Immigration) in Bombay. Can he remember it? It is no use his looking at his officials. Does he know the name of the First Secretary (Immigration) in New Delhi? He does not. I have met Martin Hilson and David O'Rourke and I have discussed with both of them and with other entry clearance officers what the Minister proposes to do by means of this squalid measure. He proposes to put these entry clearance officers in an intolerable position. They are supposed to become judge and jury in both first and second applications.

I looked at the Official Report of the Committee's proceedings to find out whom the Minister consulted before he came to this conclusion. He did not discuss the Bill with the very people who will have to administer its provisions. He said of the system in Committee: I then asked myself what could be done administratively to improve it".—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 8 December 1992; c. 650.] So the Minister consulted himself. Those who daily deal with these cases in Bombay and New Delhi have a wealth of experience and if the Minister would only ask them they would tell him that they will not be able to cope with the number of applications that will be made.

The Minister went on to say that three Members of Parliament came to see him to discuss these matters and at the end of a great struggle and fracas he emerged with these concessions. They represent no more than what already happens. If a person cannot get his or her relative into this country as a visitor, he or she goes to see the relevant Member of Parliament. That Member writes to the migration and visas correspondence unit. That unit then writes to the post abroad and the post abroad writes back setting out reasons. It is not clear how the Minister's proposals differ from what already happens.

The Minister goes on to talk about exceptional and compassionate circumstances. I refer him to the case of the gentleman who came to visit one of my constituents in Leicester. His former wife was dying in the royal infirmary in Leicester. Her last wish was to see her former husband whom she had not seen for several years. I submitted to Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials, the very people to whom the Minister suggests Members of Parliament should write, a doctor's certificate, signed by a consultant at the royal infirmary. It was faxed to the office of the Minister and from there to Bombay. We asked that exceptional and compelling circumstances be considered because the woman in question was dying.

When the visa was refused, I raised the matter with the Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office, who is not here tonight even though these measures touch on his area of responsibility. He refused to overturn the decision. I gave a personal undertaking that if the person was allowed to come here he would return a month later, after he had seen his dying wife and attended her funeral.

In the meantime, the woman died at the royal infirmary—while the administrative procedures on which the Minister wants us to rely were under way. Finally, I went and begged the Under-Secretary of State, in his office, to reconsider the matter and allow the man to come to this country. The Minister refused to make a decision until he had been briefed. He would not accept the personal undertaking of a Member of Parliament and a doctor's certificate. He saw me in the House at 11.30 pm the night before the funeral and on the basis of that meeting he at last overturned the decision of the entry clearance officer.

Is this what Members of Parliament will have to do to get people into this country for exceptional and compassionate reasons?

When in New Delhi I dealt with the case of a gentleman of substantial means—one of the wealthiest industrialists in India. He wanted to send his son to a university in this country and was prepared to pay the full overseas fee of £10,000. He was able to show that this young man had invested £500,000 in this country. The entry clearance officer in New Delhi would not allow that young man to undertake the course of study because he said that the last time that the young man was here he went through the appeal process and therefore manipulated the situation in order to stay longer.

I appealed to the First Secretary (Immigration) in New Delhi and tried to contact the high commissioner, Sir Nicholas Fenn, who was unfortunately suffering from food poisoning that day and was unable to see me. I tried to get through to the deputy high commissioner, but unfortunatley he had gone to Uttar Pradesh and was also unable to see me. I left my discussions with the First Secretary, who would not change his mind. He said that he would look at the case and he discussed it with his officers, but could not overrule the decision.

I gave a personal undertaking. I said, "This gentleman will return to India because his father is a substantial industrialist. He wants to remain in India and does not want to remain in Britain. He is prepared to give our country £10,000 a year in overseas fees." However, the First Secretary (Immigration) would not change his decision. He told me, "This young man has the right of appeal." I said, "That right is to be taken away by the Government." He said, "That does not matter: the right exists at the moment."

I called a press conference to publicise the case in India so that people realised in advance of Prime Minister Major's visit on 26 January how Indian citizens were being treated. Lo and behold, half an hour before my press conference the visa was issued. Those are the lengths to which hon. Members will have to go to get genuine visitors into this country and that is totally unfair.

The procedures outlined by the Minister will not solve the basic problem. During the general election campaign Conservative Members promised people that they would protect their rights, but at the first opportunity they are prepared to renege on those promises. The Minister knows that the legislation will double the workload of every hon. Member who deals with immigration cases, but he has said that he will not restore it because of the backlog of cases.

I shall tell the Minister what happened to me when I went to the immigration appeal tribunal on Thursday. He may not like to hear about it, but he shall. I went to give evidence for a constituent who had been waiting 12 months for a case to be considered. I arrived for the hearing, but the Home Office officer who was to present the case was not there. The appeal could not proceed and the adjudicator had to telephone my office and give me a personal apology because of the way in which the Home Office had operated. Does the Minister want us to place our confidence in people who cannot turn up for agreed engagements?

It is getting late and hon. Members want to vote, but this right is extremely important and we should not be ashamed to stay here for as long as it takes to change the procedures. If the Minister does not change his mind, he will be remembered in the history of immigration law as the Minister who removed the right of appeal and wherever he goes in the country to whatever community event, he will be reminded of that.

Mr. Charles Wardle

Understandably, strong feelings have emerged in the debate. Some hon. Members have spoken with passion and sincerity. However, the debate has not been without some confusion and humbug. I am frequently impressed by the contributions of the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz). If it were not for a trace of self-importance that seems to creep in, he would more frequently advance most impressive arguments.

I will not stand by while any hon. Member seeks to malign officials. It is entirely wrong to name officials who cannot answer back. Some hon. Members said that entry clearance officers treat badly people who apply for visit visas. It has also been suggested that Home Office officials treat people badly and the calibre of immigration officers has been impugned.

There has been confusion. For example, a person from the Indian sub-continent, as the House knows, will require a visa. Therefore, a citizen of that part of the world who has no visa should not travel here without it and would most definitely waste an air fare if he did so. However, if that individual has a proper and valid visa and arrives here having spent the air fare but is refused entry for whatever reason, he will still have a right of appeal because he would have been turned away while he had valid documentation.

Other hon. Members spoke of the Caribbean. As was pointed out in Committee, most of the Caribbean islands are not countries whose nationals require a visa to visit here. Jamaica, which was once my home, has been mentioned. Jamaicans are not visa nationals for the purposes of visits to this country. In 1991, some 26,000 people from Jamaica visited the United Kingdom and just 392 were refused entry. As well as confusion, there has been humbug and not a little scaremongering to boot.

It is worth bearing in mind the fact that in 1991, the last full year for which records are available, some 5,700,000 visitors were welcomed to the country, of which some 400,000 came on short stays, in one capacity or another, from the Indian sub-continent. The confusion and the humbug do not end there. Let us look at applications for 1991, globally, for visa applications. Some 919,000 applications were received, and 91.6 per cent. were successful at the first attempt. Of those refused, 12,300 appeals were made, of which 1,542 were allowed. I agree with Opposition Members that that is 1,542 cases about which one should think long and hard.

We had a little humour and some fun from the hon. Member for Leicester, East—why not—when he spoke about me drawing my own conclusions. The hon. Gentleman told me that he has recently paid another visit to Bombay and Delhi, but he knows that I met every entry clearance officer on post there and listened to their advice. I did the same in Islamabad, Karachi, Colombo and Dakha. When I draw my conclusions, they are based on the research that I have carried out.

Mr. Vaz

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Wardle

I wish to make some progress and the hon. Gentleman had a full go, but as he asks so charmingly, how can I resist his entreaties?

Mr. Vaz

Let me try to be charming again. When the Minister went to see the entry clearance officers and immigration officers, did he discuss the removal of the right of appeal? Did he discuss the implications for their daily workload of removing the right of appeal?

Mr. Wardle

The hon. Gentleman's question is a little disingenuous because, if he had any pretensions to government, he would know full well that no Minister could talk about a Bill that had not been published and presented to Parliament. He will appreciate that the line of inquiries that I followed enabled me to learn a great deal while I was there.

The appeals backlog on immigration cases is about 23,000 and about half those cases involve visas for short-term visits. Opposition Members are right, of course, to say that we should look to staffing, to the calibre and training of our entry clearance officers in posts abroad and to improve the facilities and training of personnel in the Home Office. It is right for me to say that we do all of those things. Why, I wonder, is there humbug when someone makes suggestions which, if implemented, would improve administrative measures? Why should it be said, "That is not a good thing"?

Why not take a hard look at the reality of visit visa appeals, bearing in mind that no other country has quite the same mechanism? It is a creaking, improbable out-of-date appeal mechanism. It seems that its principal justification revolves round sponsors. The person who intends to make the visit will find under the present machinery that the term of his visit has long passed and the purpose of it has eluded him because it takes so long for an appeal to be sorted out. It must make much more sense to take a hard look at the procedures, instead of wallowing in compassion, and to say, "How can we improve the service for anyone who has to apply for a visit visa to come to the United Kingdom; what can we do to serve him or her better?" I assure the House that to leave the current creaking and outmoded appeal mechanism in place will do the applicant no service. It must make more sense to consider the realities and to abolish the appeals that run for so long, and instead to offer a service that will enable the genine visitor—let us bear in mind that there were 5.7 million such visitors in 1991—to continue to enjoy the object of his plans, which is to come to the United Kingdom.

Amendments Nos. 15 and 16—

Ms. Abbott

Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Wardle

Not for the moment—[HoN. MEMBERS: "Give way."] I gave way to hon. Members throughout the consideration of the Bill in Committee and I have done so on the Floor of the House, so why should I make an exception of the hon. Lady, as long as she will be brief?

Ms. Abbott

I listened with great care to the Minister and he has failed to clarify the matter for Opposition Members. Even if there is a creaking right of appeal, how will there be an improvement in the service if we take away people's rights?

Mr. Wardle

People have a right to a decent, well-run service. Instead of indulging in all this compassion, the House should look for effective administrative measures, some of which are listed in the press release. It is a document that won much interest when it was published before Christmas.

Amendments Nos. 15 and 16 would, not surprisingly, delete clauses 9 and 10 from the Bill. Clause 9 amends section 13 of the Immigration Act 1971 to provide that a person shall not be entitled to appeal against the refusal of an entry clearance, or against refusal of leave to enter, if he is seeking to enter the United Kingdom as a visitor, if he is a short-term student on a course of not more than six months duration, if he is a prospective student or is a dependant of a person in one of those categories. Appeals remain in place for someone who is about to be deported or for someone who is seeking to obtain settlement in this country.

Clause 9 is necessary to streamline the appeal system to make it work properly and so to enable it to provide an effective and timely remedy to those to whom I have just referred, who will be challenging decisions which vitally and centrally affect their lives. It is not an attack on the entitlement of people who are settled in this country to have their relatives come here to visit them. Those visitors —genuine visitors will always be welcomed to this country. It is scaremongering to suggest otherwise. The measures that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is putting in place, which were the subject of the press release, will provide a speedier means of having disputed decisions reviewed and treated.

Clause 10 removes the right of appeal against decisions taken on certain specified grounds where the applicant does not meet a mandatory requirement of the immigration rules. It is worth explaining why such appeals cannot succeed at present. Again, there has been confusion. The power of the appellate authorities in determining an appeal are set out in section 19 of the 1971 Act. Subsection (1) provides that an adjudicator shall allow an appeal if he considers that the decision involved was not in accordance with the law or any applicable immigration rules, or, where a decision involved the exercise of a discretion, if he considers that the discretion should have been exercised differently. In all other cases he must dismiss the appeal. Subsection (2) provides that a decision which is in accordance with the immigration rules is not to be treated as involving an exercise of discretion simply because the Secretary of State has declined to depart from the rules.

It is right and necessary that my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State should retain a residual discretion to waive the requirements of the immigration rules in exceptional circumstances as no set of rules can cater for every possible set of circumstances. The flexible use of exceptional leave in asylum cases is the obvious example of the need for that. However, the general expectation in the non-asylum cases with which clause 10 is concerned must be that the immigration rules, which reflect the policy laid down by my right hon. and learned Friend and approved by Parliament, will be applied and that the function of the appellate authorities is simply to ensure that the rules have been applied correctly in individual cases. If the appellate authorities were able to direct the Secretary of State to waive the rules in particular cases, in effect they would be determining immigration policy, which is not their proper function.

Some immigration rules provide for the exercise of discretion—for example, a decision to deport will always be discretionary. Other rules contain requirements that the Secretary of State or the immigration officer has to be satisfied of certain matters that can be tested only in a balance of probabilities, such as a person's intention to leave the United Kingdom at the end of a period of study. In both those cases, there is room for argument as to whether the decision is correct and an appeal may be either allowed or dismissed.

Some rules, however, contain requirements that must be met if the application is to succeed and where the question of whether the requirement is met can be easily determined on the basis of documentary evidence. When an application is refused because such a requirement is not met, the adjudicator has no option but to dismiss the appeal when it eventually comes before him. The existence of a right of appeal in such cases does nothing to redress genuine grievances; it serves only to enable those appellants who have no claim under the immigration rules to remain in this country and to spin out their stay here pursuing hopeless appeals, while delaying the hearing of other appeals that certainly do involve issues of substance. I therefore urge the House to reject amendments Nos. 15 and 16.

Government Amendments Nos. 36 to 39 clarify the types of document that are involved in mandatory refusals for the purpose of clause 10. Those are essential official documents that must be held if an application is to succeed under the relevant immigration rules—entry clearances, passports or other identity documents and work permits. I believe that that clarification will be generally welcomed. I commend the amendments to the House.

Mr. Fraser

Not a word that has been said by the Minister justifies clause 9 being included in the Bill. The clause can be summed up in two words—it stinks. When the Prime Minister was doing his memory lane stuff in Brixton, pointing out where he used to live in Loughborough junction, why did not he point out that we had a great big piece of redundant machinery that gave people rights of appeal which he would remove as soon as he got back into office? When the Home Secretary was going around ethnic constituencies in the midlands and Yorkshire at the time of the general election, why were not people told that there was a piece of creaking machinery that the Government proposed to remove?

Clause 9 is a deceit for the ethnic communities of this country. It breaks a trust. Those people trusted the Government. There used to be a bipartisanship about fairness and decency in appeals on these matters. Clause 9 will split families, prevent reunion in times of joy, prevent visits in times of bereavement and give validity to decisions that often will be based on speculation, not evidence. Clause 9 will give credence to decisions that are often based on speculation, not evidence; and a spurious validity to previous refusals, so that people will have the stigma of an immigration refusal. It will also refuse the right of appeal at the very time that we have citizens charters which are supposed to improve the lot of those who challenge administrative decisions. This exception will remove them.

Most of all, clause 9 will be a stain on the reputation of the Home Secretary who, on the whole, is a man who is aggressive rather than spiteful, tough rather than mean. I believe that he will come to regret this occasion. It will be a stain on the reputation also of the Under-Secretary who, even if we do not agree with him, is generally considered to be fair-minded. It will be a stain on the reputation of this country. Let no one be deceived about the kind of reputation that it will create when people's right of appeal is taken away. There will be a stain also on the reputation of every Conservative Member who votes for clause 9 tonight.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The House divided:Ayes 248, Noes 299.

Division No. 107]	[11.00 pm
AYES
Abbott, Ms Diane	Cohen, Harry
Ainger, Nick	Connarty, Michael
Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)	Cook, Frank (Stockton N)
Allen, Graham	Cook, Robin (Livingston)
Alton, David	Corbett, Robin
Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)	Corbyn, Jeremy
Anderson, Ms Janet (Ros'dale)	Corston, Ms Jean
Armstrong, Hilary	Cousins, Jim
Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy	Cox, Tom
Ashton, Joe	Cryer, Bob
Austin-Walker, John	Cummings, John
Banks, Tony (Newham NW)	Cunliffe, Lawrence
Barnes, Harry	Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE)
Battle, John	Dalyell, Tam
Bayley, Hugh	Darling, Alistair
Beith, Rt Hon A. J.	Davidson, Ian
Bell, Stuart	Davies, Bryan (Oldham C'tral)
Benn, Rt Hon Tony	Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)
Benton, Joe	Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)
Bermingham, Gerald	Davis, Terry (B'ham, H'dge H'l)
Berry, Dr. Roger	Denham, John
Betts, Clive	Dewar, Donald
Blair, Tony	Dixon, Don
Blunkett, David	Dobson, Frank
Boateng, Paul	Donohoe, Brian H.
Boyce, Jimmy	Dowd, Jim
Bradley, Keith	Dunnachie, Jimmy
Bray, Dr Jeremy	Eagle, Ms Angela
Brown, Gordon (Dunfermline E)	Enright, Derek
Brown, N. (N'c'tle upon Tyne E)	Etherington, Bill
Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)	Evans, John (St Helens N)
Burden, Richard	Fatchett, Derek
Byers, Stephen	Faulds, Andrew
Caborn, Richard	Field, Frank (Birkenhead)
Callaghan, Jim	Flynn, Paul
Campbell, Mrs Anne (C'bridge)	Foster, Derek (B'p Auckland)
Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)	Foster, Don (Bath)
Campbell, Ronnie (Blyth V)	Foulkes, George
Canavan, Dennis	Fraser, John
Carlile, Alexander (Montgomry)	Fyfe, Maria
Chisholm, Malcolm	Gapes, Mike
Clapham, Michael	Garrett, John
Clark, Dr David (South Shields)	George, Bruce
Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)	Gerrard, Neil
Clelland, David	Godman, Dr Norman A.
Clwyd, Mrs Ann	Godsiff, Roger
Coffey, Ann	Golding, Mrs Llin

Gordon, Mildred	Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)
Graham, Thomas	Mowlam, Marjorie
Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)	Mudie, George
Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)	Mullin, Chris
Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)	Murphy, Paul
Grocott, Bruce	O'Brien, Michael (N W'kshire)
Gunnell, John	O'Brien, William (Normanton)
Hain, Peter	O'Hara, Edward
Hall, Mike	Olner, William
Hanson, David	O'Neill, Martin
Hardy, Peter	Orme, Rt Hon Stanley
Harman, Ms Harriet	Pendry, Tom
Harvey, Nick	Pickthall, Colin
Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy	Pike, Peter L.
Henderson, Doug	Pope, Greg
Heppell, John	Powell, Ray (Ogmore)
Hill, Keith (Streatham)	Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lew'm E)
Hinchliffe, David	Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)
Home Robertson, John	Prescott, John
Hood, Jimmy	Primarolo, Dawn
Hoon, Geoffrey	Purchase, Ken
Howarth, George (Knowsley N)	Quin, Ms Joyce
Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)	Radice, Giles
Hoyle, Doug	Randall, Stuart
Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)	Redmond, Martin
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)	Reid, Dr John
Hughes, Roy (Newport E)	Robertson, George (Hamilton)
Hughes, Simon (Southwark)	Robinson, Geoffrey (Co'try NW)
Hutton, John	Roche, Mrs. Barbara
Illsley, Eric	Rogers, Allan
Ingram, Adam	Rooker, Jeff
Jackson, Glenda (H'stead)	Rooney, Terry
Jackson, Helen (Shef'ld, H)	Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)
Jamieson, David	Rowlands, Ted
Janner, Greville	Ruddock, Joan
Jones, Barry (Alyn and D'side)	Sedgemore, Brian
Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)	Sheerman, Barry
Jones, Lynne (B'ham S O)	Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert
Jones, Martyn (Clwyd, SW)	Shore, Rt Hon Peter
Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)	Short, Clare
Jowell, Tessa	Simpson, Alan
Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald	Skinner, Dennis
Keen, Alan	Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)
Kennedy, Charles (Ross,C&S)	Smith, C. (Isl'ton S & F'sbury)
Kennedy, Jane (Lpool Brdgn)	Smith, Llew (Blaenau Gwent)
Khabra, Piara S.	Snape, Peter
Kilfoyle, Peter	Soley, Clive
Leighton, Ron	Spearing, Nigel
Lestor, Joan (Eccles)	Squire, Rachel (Dunfermline W)
Lewis, Terry	Steinberg, Gerry
Livingstone, Ken	Stevenson, George
Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)	Stott, Roger
Llwyd, Elfyn	Strang, Dr. Gavin
Lynne, Ms Liz	Straw, Jack
McCartney, Ian	Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)
Macdonald, Calum	Taylor, Matthew (Truro)
McFall, John	Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)
McKelvey, William	Tipping, Paddy
Mackinlay, Andrew	Turner, Dennis
McLeish, Henry	Vaz, Keith
Maclennan, Robert	Walker, Rt Hon Sir Harold
McMaster, Gordon	Wallace, James
McNamara, Kevin	Waller, Gary
McWilliam, John	Walley, Joan
Madden, Max	Wardell, Gareth (Gower)
Mahon, Alice	Wareing, Robert N
Mandelson, Peter	Watson, Mike
Marek, Dr John	Wicks, Malcolm
Marshall, Jim (Leicester, S)	Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Sw'n W)
Martlew, Eric	Williams, Alan W (Carmarthen)
Maxton, John	Winnick, David
Meale, Alan	Worthington, Tony
Michael, Alun	Wray, Jimmy
Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)	Wright, Dr Tony
Milburn, Alan	Young, David (Bolton SE)
Miller, Andrew
Moonie, Dr Lewis	Tellers for the Ayes:
Morgan, Rhodri	Mr. Thomas McAvoy and
Morley, Elliot	Mr. John Spellar.

NOES
Adley, Robert	Duncan-Smith, Iain
Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)	Dunn, Bob
Alexander, Richard	Durant, Sir Anthony
Alison, Rt Hon Michael (Selby)	Dykes, Hugh
Allason, Rupert (Torbay)	Eggar, Tim
Amess, David	Elletson, Harold
Ancram, Michael	Emery, Sir Peter
Arbuthnot, James	Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield)
Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)	Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)
Ashby, David	Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)
Aspinwall, Jack	Evans, Roger (Monmouth)
Atkins, Robert	Evennett, David
Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)	Faber, David
Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)	Fabricant, Michael
Baker, Nicholas (Dorset North)	Fenner, Dame Peggy
Baldry, Tony	Fishburn, Dudley
Banks, Matthew (Southport)	Forman, Nigel
Banks, Robert (Harrogate)	Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)
Bates, Michael	Forsythe, Clifford (Antrim S)
Batiste, Spencer	Forth, Eric
Beggs, Roy	Fox, Dr Liam (Woodspring)
Bellingham, Henry	Fox, Sir Marcus (Shipley)
Bendall, Vivian	Freeman, Roger
Beresford, Sir Paul	French, Douglas
Biffen, Rt Hon John	Gale, Roger
Blackburn, Dr John G.	Gallie, Phil
Bonsor, Sir Nicholas	Gardiner, Sir George
Booth, Hartley	Garnier, Edward
Boswell, Tim	Gill, Christopher
Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)	Gillan, Cheryl
Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia	Goodlad, Rt Hon Alastair
Bowden, Andrew	Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles
Bowis, John	Gorst, John
Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes	Grant, Sir Anthony (Cambs SW)
Brandreth, Gyles	Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)
Brazier, Julian	Greenway, John (Ryedale)
Bright, Graham	Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)
Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thorpes)	Grylls, Sir Michael
Browning, Mrs. Angela	Hague, William
Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)	Hamilton, Rt Hon Archie (Epsom)
Burns, Simon	Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)
Burt, Alistair	Hampson, Dr Keith
Butler, Peter	Hanley, Jeremy
Butterfill, John	Hannam, Sir John
Carlisle, John (Luton North)	Hargreaves, Andrew
Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)	Harris, David
Carrington, Matthew	Haselhurst, Alan
Carttiss, Michael	Hawkins, Nick
Cash, William	Hawksley, Warren
Channon, Rt Hon Paul	Hayes, Jerry
Chaplin, Mrs Judith	Heald, Oliver
Chapman, Sydney	Heathcoat-Amory, David
Churchill, Mr	Hendry, Charles
Clappison, James	Hicks, Robert
Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)	Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.
Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Ruclif)	Hill, James (Southampton Test)
Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey	Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas (G'tham)
Coe, Sebastian	Horam, John
Colvin, Michael	Hordern, Sir Peter
Congdon, David	Howard, Rt Hon Michael
Conway, Derek	Howarth, Alan (Strat'rd-on-A)
Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)	Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)
Coombs, Simon (Swindon)	Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)
Cope, Rt Hon Sir John	Hughes Robert G. (Harrow W)
Cormack, Patrick	Hunt, Rt Hon David (Wirral W)
Couchman, James	Hunter, Andrew
Cran, James	Jack, Michael
Currie, Mrs Edwina (S D'by'ire)	Jackson, Robert (Wantage)
Curry, David (Skipton & Ripon)	Jenkin, Bernard
Davies, Quentin (Stamford)	Jessel, Toby
Davis, David (Boothferry)	Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey
Day, Stephen	Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)
Deva, Nirj Joseph	Jopling, Rt Hon Michael
Devlin, Tim	Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine
Dicks, Terry	Key, Robert
Dorrell, Stephen	Kilfedder, Sir James
Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James	King, Rt Hon Tom
Dover, Den	Knapman, Roger
Duncan, Alan	Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)

Knight, Greg (Derby N)	Norris, Steve
Knight, Dame Jill (Bir'm E'st'n)	Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley
Knox, David	Oppenheim, Phillip
Kynoch, George (Kincardine)	Ottaway, Richard
Lait, Mrs Jacqui	Page, Richard
Lamont, Rt Hon Norman	Paice, James
Lang, Rt Hon Ian	Patnick, Irvine
Lawrence, Sir Ivan	Patten, Rt Hon John
Legg, Barry	Pawsey, James
Leigh, Edward	Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth
Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)	Pickles, Eric
Lidington, David	Porter, Barry (Wirral S)
Lilley, Rt Hon Peter	Porter, David (Waveney)
Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)	Portillo, Rt Hon Michael
Lord, Michael	Powell, William (Corby)
Luff, Peter	Rathbone, Tim
Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas	Redwood, John
MacKay, Andrew	Renton, Rt Hon Tim
Maclean, David	Richards, Rod
McLoughlin, Patrick	Riddick, Graham
McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick	Robathan, Andrew
Madel, David	Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn
Maitland, Lady Olga	Robertson, Raymond (Ab'd'n S)
Malone, Gerald	Robinson, Mark (Somerton)
Mans, Keith	Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)
Marland, Paul	Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent)
Marlow, Tony	Rumbold, Rt Hon Dame Angela
Marshall, John (Hendon S)	Ryder, Rt Hon Richard
Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)	Sackville, Tom
Martin, David (Portsmouth S)	Sainsbury, Rt Hon Tim
Mawhinney, Dr Brian	Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas
Mellor, Rt Hon David	Shaw, David (Dover)
Merchant, Piers	Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)
Milligan, Stephen	Shephard, Rt Hon Gillian
Mills, Iain	Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)
Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)	Skeet, Sir Trevor
Mitchell, Sir David (Hants NW)	Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)
Moate, Roger	Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)
Molyneaux, Rt Hon James	Soames, Nicholas
Monro, Sir Hector	Speed, Sir Keith
Montgomery, Sir Fergus	Spencer, Sir Derek
Moss, Malcolm	Spicer, Sir James (W Dorset)
Needham, Richard	Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)
Nelson, Anthony	Spink, Dr Robert
Neubert, Sir Michael	Spring, Richard
Newton, Rt Hon Tony	Sproat, Iain
Nicholls, Patrick	Squire, Robin (Hornchurch)
Nicholson, David (Taunton)	Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John
Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)	Steen, Anthony

Stephen, Michael	Walker, Bill (N Tayside)
Stern, Michael	Ward, John
Stewart, Allan	Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)
Streeter, Gary	Waterson, Nigel
Sumberg, David	Watts, John
Sweeney, Walter	Wells, Bowen
Sykes, John	Wheeler, Sir John
Tapsell, Sir Peter	Whitney, Ray
Taylor, Ian (Esher)	Whittingdale, John
Taylor, John M. (Solihull)	Widdecombe, Ann
Taylor, Sir Teddy (Southend, E)	Wiggin, Jerry
Temple-Morris, Peter	Wilkinson, John
Thompson, Sir Donald (C'er V)	Willetts, David
Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)	Wilshire, David
Thornton, Sir Malcolm	Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)
Thurnham, Peter	Wolfson, Mark
Townsend, Cyril D. (Bexl'yh'th)	Wood, Timothy
Tracey, Richard	Yeo, Tim
Tredinnick, David	Young, Sir George (Acton)
Trend, Michael
Trotter, Neville	Tellers for the Noes:
Twinn, Dr Ian	Mr. David Lightbown and
Vaughan, Sir Gerard	Mr. Timothy Kirkhope.
Viggers, Peter

Question accordingly negatived.