Immigration

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 9:52 pm on 15 December 1982.

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Photo of Mr Harvey Proctor Mr Harvey Proctor , Basildon 9:52, 15 December 1982

The hon. Member for East Kilbride (Dr. Miller) speaks for a Scottish constituency which has still to feel the full impact of the immigration which has hit the inner cities of England. It is a question of numbers. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to tell his constituents that it is not unreasonable to have taken 560,000 people from the new Commonwealth and Pakistan since 1970, he should talk to some of my right hon. and hon. Friends who represent constituencies which have been seriously affected by this problem. In saying that I make no criticism of any individual immigrant from the new Commonwealth and Pakistan. If I had been in their position I, too, would probably have come to Britain. The blame rests not with the immigrants nor with the indigenous community, which has been incredibly tolerant. The criticism is of successive politicians of both parties during the past 30 years. That is where the criticism should correctly remain.

I do not share the view of some of my hon. Friends that somehow immigration from the new Commonwealth and Pakistan will end. A large resident ethnic community here will act as a magnet for further immigration far into the future. Without a change in the law with regard to dependants, that prospect is inevitable. Although I would vote for such an amendment to the law, given that immigrants can be reunited in their own countries as well as in the United Kingdom, unfortunately I do not see such a change at the moment commending the support of Parliament.

The growth of the new Commonwealth and Pakistan population is ever upwards, reinforced by natural increase to a greater degree as each year passes—more than 100,000 in 1981. About 2,500 to 3,000 more immigrants, as proposed, plus dependants, might seem inconsequential to Members on the Opposition Benches and perhaps to some Members on the Conservative Benches, but if the rules increased the inflow by one, I should feel obliged to vote against them.

Much has been said about the safeguards. In response to the pressure, trite and meaningless safeguards may fool some right hon. and hon. Members, but I doubt whether they will impress the ordinary voter, especially in marginal inner city constituencies.

I believe that we see in the safeguards the classic example of a multiracial society leading towards authoritarian rules and regulations and an over-mighty Government. Anxious as ever to ensure the support of right hon. and hon. Members, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has instead ensured that he will tread a bed of thorns, for so draconian, so authoritarian, so ill-considered and so blatantly discriminatory are these safeguards that he will encounter the wrath, condemnation and howls of anguish of every civil rights and women's group that is going. Moreover, he will doubtless find himself in the dock of the European Court of Human Rights still more often in future than he has in the past.

It is one thing to be liberal or to be conservative in the tightness of controls—my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Fylde (Mr. Gardner) talked about toughness—and quite another to be unfair and unjust, and we shall reap the consequences of these temporary expediencies.

At a time when we are facing a breakdown of law, order and authority, it is hardly helpful to the encouragement of good race relations to put still greater strain on the tensions that are to be found in our society, especially in inner city areas where immigrant communities are concentrated.

I do not believe that these rules have the support of the British people. They are demonstrably detrimental to British interests. They will undermine our self-confidence and our identity. They are a disgrace, and the betrayal of our promises is a greater disgrace. Such disgrace deserves defeat.