§ 10.6 pm
§ Mr. Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend)I wish to present a petition on behalf of the friends and supporters of the Bamburac family. It asks the House to ask the Home Secretary to allow the family to stay in Britain, and not to deport them to Croatia. Mr. Bamburac is of Serbian ancestry.
The petition has attracted 1,411 signatures in just over a week. Most of the petitioners are my constituents—friends and neighbours of the Bamburac family. That is clear evidence that the family have settled into the life of our community in Newcastle. They have lived in Newcastle for the past five years; their daughter Sabrina is now 10, and has learnt English with an endearing Geordie accent, made friends, and settled into school. It is Sabrina who makes this case so special. She is an unusually gifted tennis player, with a talent acknowledged in public, nationally, by the Lawn Tennis Association. Her human rights, enabling her to develop that talent in the country that she has made her home, would be cruelly infringed if the family were deported.
§ To lie upon the Table.