Clause 51 - Public authorities: general
Equality Bill [Lords]
4:00 pm
Paul Goggins (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Home Office; Wythenshawe and Sale East, Labour)
A warm welcome to you, Mr. Gale. Perhaps I should deal first with subsection (4)(g), because that seems to have struck a chord with the Committee and the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) described it as utterly logical. Of course, the immigration service makes special arrangements for the admission to the United Kingdom of people, such as ministers of religion with particular religious functions, to assist religious communities that need access to such people. We need to be able to admit those people without acting unlawfully. I am pleased at the response of hon. Members of all parties.
Subsection (4)(f) would allow the immigration service to take entry decisions on the ground of public good where a person's religion or beliefs might be a part of the ground for the decision. In each and every case the decision would be an individual one about a specific applicant. There are, clearly, people whose religious views are so extreme that we would not want them to visit the United Kingdom to propagate them. The hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) mentioned the Reverend Moon. His exclusion was on the ground of public order. However, there may be individuals who apply to come to this country and who hold a particular religious belief—for example, that children should renounce their parents—that we find wholly unacceptable, and do not want people to propagate in our communities.
It is difficult to distinguish between holding that religious belief and giving effect to it. Clearly, in making a decision about an individual, the immigration service will want to take account of not just the person's religious belief but its potential impact on vulnerable young people. An exemption to allow the immigration service to act in that way seems fair. The threat that is posed may not be of the scale that we discussed in earlier deliberations, such as terrorism or other wider threats, but the protection of, particularly, the most vulnerable people in the community is important. The immigration service should have a mind to that when making decisions about individuals.
I hope that the hon. Member for Beaconsfield will accept that those are reasonable grounds on which to provide an exemption. If so, he may consider withdrawing his amendment.