Immigration Rules

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 21 February 1973.

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Photo of Mr Sydney Bidwell Mr Sydney Bidwell , Southall 12:00, 21 February 1973

I thank the hon. Gentleman very much, but he cannot see it properly unless he sees it with me. I think suitable arrangements may be made.

It seems to me that much of the 1971 Act was needless because the Government could have made changes by regulations. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition set up the Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration. It seems to me that that Government and this Government bought a pretty expensive dog, and it seems to me that this Government have bought a dog but want to do the barking themselves. What they should have done was charge the all-party Select Committee, with its collective experiences, its trippings abroad, and seeing the immigration and race relations problems as they affect us here, with the task of going effectively into questions of all immigration, and not only Commonwealth immigration.

My major quarrel with the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West is over his apparent concern about colour. He has, of course, said that he would be equally concerned if there were a big increase of people who were yellow or non-black or non-brown, but he constantly refers to it. I ask him to understand what effect that has on people who are friendly with coloured people, on people who are coloured themselves, and on people who have children. He has talked about the wide-grinning piccaninny. I wonder what effect he thinks that has on, for example, a mixed colour family with a thick-lipped child—the wide-grinning piccaninny about whom he spoke. That is the right hon. Gentleman's disastrous attitude to this problem. He has not got a constructive thought in his head about it. I do not think that many working people, if they are serious and intelligent, are any longer led astray by the right hon. Gentleman. We must get beyond thinking of people as the lumpen proletariat of Marxism.

The Government have made a mess of things. This is not the end of the road. As has been said, we have complicated the matter. We have this great diversity of immigration control affecting different countries. Time does not allow me to go into the control system affecting Canada, Australia and New Zealand. They have different methods. We certainly could not build a reciprocal system with Canada on the basis of patriality.

Australia and New Zealand are openly talking about requiring people emigrating from Britain to those countries taking New Zealand and Australian citizenship. They are proceeding towards the problem which we must necessarily face. We have the historic oddity of having been connected with the Commonwealth. In the Nationality Act 1948, almost starry-eyed, we designated practically the whole Commonwealth as British citizens. We cannot make such people British citizens and then deny them the opportunity of entering this country.

I have always adopted the view that we should exercise a control policy which is seen to be fair. The best way would be to base it on work opportunity here. I do not believe in the kith and kin idea. It can go as far as one generation. However, I do not see why a rogue from Australia should have absolute free entry and unfettered right of settlement here while we are obliged under the rules to turn down worthy people from other parts of the world who are likely to make a great contribution to our economy and society.

The Government have missed out. They stated as a preamble to the 1971 Act that they wanted a situation free of discrimination on the basis of ethnic origin and colour. The Labour Government, in the 1965 and 1968 Race Relations Acts, wished to have a similar situation internally. That cannot be done if it is not seen to be operating on an international scale.

The present rules, which have to be attached to the 1971 Act, do not do that. They cause great anxiety among coloured people here. We are putting new Commonwealth worker entrants non-patrial on the same basis as aliens, despite what the Home Secretary said. It is no wonder that someone at the India High Commission Office, when the 1971 Act was passed, said "Does your Government want coolie labour?" Whether that is correct or not, that is how it is seen by people whose pigment of the skin is different from ours.

The Government have missed out again. They have gone over towards trying to placate the pressures within their own party, which happily the Labour Party does not have in great substance.