§ 59. Mr. K. Robinsonasked the Minister of Health if he has any statement to make concerning the problem of persons from abroad taking up residence in this country while suffering from active tuberculosis.
§ Mr. Iain MacleodThe Central Health Services Council have recommended that appropriate action be taken to ensure that those seeking work in this country from abroad shall be free from infectious tuberculosis. The Standing Tuberculosis Advisory Committee, on the other hand, have expressed the view that the position does not indicate a serious menace to the health of the country. Special inquiries that have been made suggest that the number of those entering with active tuberculosis is very small indeed. Only about three out of each 1,000 occupied T.B. beds in England and Wales were occupied by temporary residents during the preceding 12 months who were thought to have active T.B. on arrival. Of this very small number, the majority are Commonwealth citizens or citizens or the Republic of Ireland, over whose entry into the United Kingdom there is no statutory control.
As regards the minority who are foreigners coming from abroad, as workers or otherwise, I have decided, after consultation with my right hon. and learned Friends the Home Secretary and the Minister of Labour, that the establishment of a health check sufficiently thorough to ensure that tuberculous foreigners were denied entry to the United Kingdom would involve the imposition of fresh restrictions quite out of proportion to the danger to public health.