§ 2.47 p.m.
§ [The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress has been made under the extra-statutory arrangements announced in early May to enable the voluntary organisations concerned to assist the dependants of Commonwealth immigrants in Britain to get entry certificates in their countries of origin and before embarkation to the United Kingdom, and how many appeals against the refusal of such entry certificates have been received since those extra-statutory arrangements were instituted.]
§ THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM)My Lords, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, in a Written Answer on July 15 to a Question in another place, announced the appointment of Sir Derek Hilton to inquire into the provision of advice for Commonwealth dependants overseas. It will be open to the voluntary 1073 organisations and anyone else interested in the matter to make their views known to Sir Derek. Three appeals have so far been received.
§ LORD FOOTMy Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord for that Answer. In view of the practice of the Government in recent days of trying to draw up hypothetical timetables for the implementation of Reports, may I ask the noble Lord whether he is able to give any estimate as to when Sir Derek Hilton will make his Report, and when thereafter his Report might be implemented? Further, is it not a fact that the Government have from the beginning recognised that it is essential that these voluntary bodies should be brought in to advise immigrants' dependants upon their rights under these extra-statutory arrangements? Have not the Government repeatedly recognised that it is essential for them to provide financial assistance to those voluntary bodies if they are to carry out that task? Also, have not the Government recognised that it is a matter of great urgency that these extra-statutory arrangements should be brought into effect at the earliest possible date?
§ LORD STONHAMMy Lords, when the Government consulted voluntary organisations we had views expressed, and estimates given, by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, by the Committee on United Kingdom Citizenship and by the International Soviet Social Service of Great Britain. Those views and interests were in many cases dissimilar, and it is this fact that prompted my right honourable friend to ask Sir Derek Hilton to undertake this task, having regard to his great and important experience in East Africa, and having regard also to the fact that we should get a view independent of the Government which would be generally respected. There has otherwise been no movement from the statement that I made from this Bench on behalf of the Government in May. So far as the date is concerned when Sir Derek may be expected to complete and to present his Report, we expect that to be early in September, some six or seven weeks hence.
§ LORD STONHAMYes, my Lords, and I would add that these new arrangements did not start until May 16, so that June was the first full month for entry into this country requiring entry certificates. In the month of June this year there were admitted for settlement at Terminal 3 London Airport 2, 092 immigrants, compared with 3, 138 in the month of June, 1968. As the noble Lord is well aware, at Third Reading—this was before the new procedure was brought in—I mentioned that the number had declined very considerably. So the fact is that there are virtually proportionately as many coming in now under the new arrangements as were coming in under the old before the new ones were introduced. I think that is evidence that they are working, that the advice is being given, and that nobody is being deprived, although understandably they may perhaps be somewhat delayed.
§ LORD FOOTMy Lords, I ask this purely for information and not to harry the Government in any way, but is the noble Lord saying that the voluntary bodies have been provided with financial assistance to enable them to give advice in Pakistan, India, and the Caribbean to these immigrant dependants?
§ LORD STONHAMYes, of course I am aware that this advice is being given, and this is one of the dissimilarities. The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants asked for a grant of some £22, 500 for six months for the provision of advisory services covering India, Pakistan, the West Indies and Guyana, with offices in various towns in this country. The Committee on United Kingdom Citizenship have submitted estimates for the provision of an advisory service with offices in London, Nairobi, Kampala, and Bombay at a cost of £16, 675 a year. These are some of the things that have to be looked into. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary thought that if we had someone with the standing and immediate current and recent experience of Sir Derek Hilton to look into these matters, to talk to these bodies and to advise us, we get an objective view which, as it were, would collect the voices. We want to get it right before the statutory arrangements come in. I am sure I carry the noble Lord with me in this: let us get it right now. Just be patient for another six or seven weeks and we 1075 can then rely on the advice that is given to us.
§ LORD BROCKWAYMy Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether he is aware that all of us, whatever our view about Commonwealth immigrants, wish these new arrangements to be carried out humanely and without cruelty? Is it not the fact that these new arrangements were announced without any provision being made at all for the assistance of the immigrants from India, Pakistan, and other countries to get advice as to how far they should appeal? Is it not a fact that in three months, as my noble friend himself said in reply to me last week, there has been only one applicant? Are we to go through another six or seven weeks before there is machinery by which these wretched people, mothers and dependent children, are to have an opportunity of knowing what their rights are?
§ LORD STONHAMNo, my Lords, it is not right that we have gone three months. The new arrangements started on May 16, and to-day it is July 24; that is somewhat less than three months, in my reckoning. Further, the fact that only three appeals have so far been received is not evidence that the appeals will not come through in sufficient numbers, because all applicants who have been refused have three months in which to appeal, and two of the three appeals have been received only this week. The one case that has been decided came from Ghana, and it was an appeal by a lady who alleged that she was the wife of a gentleman in this country. Apparently the gentleman disputed that, and the lawyer who decided the appeal refused entry. These matters are being considered carefully, and I hope my noble friend will have regard to the figures I have quoted, which prove that under the new system the numbers coming in where entry certificates are compulsory are very little, if any, less than the numbers that were coming in before, when the entry certificates were not compulsory.
§ LORD BROCKWAYMy Lords, does my noble friend see this situation? An illiterate woman and children in a distant village, first having to go to a local district centre to get police permission and then having to go to the centre to get the exit permit, not knowing in the 1076 least what the provisions are and having to wait days and days—often having to sleep on the pavement. Surely Her Majesty's Government can do something to humanise this process?
§ LORD STONHAMMy Lords, I am well aware of these things. Indeed, had I not been aware I should have known from my noble friend, because he has mentioned them on a number of occasions. These conditions are indigenous, as it were, to the countries where so many of the population are illiterate. The point that I am making is that arrangements were existing at the offices of the High Commissioners when we started. We augmented those arrangements for advice immediately, sending very skilled people out from the Home Office to augment that advice, and the fact remains—and I ask my noble friend and your Lordships to accept this—that the numbers coming in are virtually the same since the new arrangements as before. I think that this could be accepted as reasonable evidence that the arrangements are working properly and humanely, and that no one is—or, at least, if any, very few people are—suffering any additional hardship.