I beg to move,

That the Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules (H.C., 1982–83, No. 66), a copy of which was laid before this House on 6th December, be disapproved.

I have not selected the amendment on the Order Paper in the name of the hon. Member for Croydon, South (Sir W. Clark).

There has been much speculation whether the Government will be defeated in the vote at the end of the debate. I do not know. It depends on a number of hon. Members on the Government Benches who hold views broadly opposed to my own. I make no attempt to entice them into our Lobby. It is entirely a matter for them.

The Home Secretary will no doubt present himself as a latter-day St. Sebastian with arrows being shot into him from all sides. He is nothing of the sort. Sometimes he is unjustly attacked, but not on this occasion. On this issue he has wobbled all over the road. If he is run down from one side or the other it is entirely his fault.

Let us consider the right hon. Gentleman's history in the matter. First, he allowed a foolish but specific commitment to be put into the 1979 Conservative manifesto. It stated:

"We shall end the concession introduced by the Labour Government in 1974 to husbands and male fiancés."

rose—

That undertaking contradicted wider undertakings given in the same manifesto, notably:

"The rights of all British citizens legally settled here are equal before the law whatever their race, colour or creed. And their opportunities ought to be equal too."

Nevertheless, for largely demagogic reasons, the Conservative Party put the narrower and specific pledge in the manifesto.

The Home Secretary cannot disclaim responsibility for that. He was already deputy leader of the Labour Party—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hooray!"] He was deputy leader of the Conservative Party; he was expecting—indeed, hoping—to be Home Secretary, yet he fully endorsed the pledge. As is sometimes, although by no means always, his wont, he took the course of least resistance.

By December 1979, six months after the election, the right hon. Gentleman was already in trouble. He tried to defend the pledge, but he narrowed it, so that it did not, in effect, apply to white women of British stock. He tried to escape from the difficulty of sexual discrimination by running head on into that of racial discrimination. So much for the wider Conservative commitment to the equality of all British citizens legally settled here.

Next the Government began to run into trouble with the European Commission of Human Rights. [HON. MEMBERS: "Ah!"] I shall be happy to deal with that institution in a moment.

The evidence given to the Select Committee on Home Affairs in 1979–80 by Lord Scarman among others—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"]—strongly suggested that the new rules might, and probably would, be in breach of the convention, although the Select Committee did not pronounce on that. The Government of that day said that they were confident that they could refute the proposition, but their confidence quickly began to ebb when three cases were put before the Commission. Last May the Commission announced that the three cases were admissible. There is little doubt that the Government could not sustain their case before the European Court. No one believes that they would have succeeded.

The response of some Conservative Members is to denounce the convention, the Commission and the court as interfering busybodies, impinging on our national sovereignty. If they can persuade the Government and the House we can come out; we are not locked in.

What would that mean? It would mean that the Government were signalling that they were the first Government since 1951 when we adhered to the convention who could not live with the standards of human liberty that were set. They would be acting uniquely, except for Greece under the Colonels. We world be the only country that resiled from the convention. That would signal equally that we were the only Government out of the 23 who subscribed to it who could not accept the civilised standards that were laid down by the convention. I doubt very much whether that would appeal to the Home Secretary or to many Ministers

Will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House why the European Court seems to have picked on us? Is he aware of the fact that, whereas men can bring women into European countries, in the main women cannot bring their husbands into those countries, but here nearly every husband is allowed to come in?

It is not the court or the Commission that has picked on us. There have been cases at the court. There is a difference in that in nearly all European countries there is a constitutional provision that runs closely alongside that of the European Court. It would be a sensible course, if hon. Members are concerned about sovereignty, to write into our domestic law the provisions of the convention. That would mean two things. First, it would mean that if hon. Members wished to exercise their nationalism, the cases would be heard in the first instance before British judges. Secondly, it would mean that no longer would we be in the unenviable position of having more cases before the court than any other country.

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that rights under convention are broad, so that if we were to incorporate the convention into our municipal law, we would leave to judges the task of formulating basic rights? That must be unacceptable. It is a matter for the House.

It would be entirely for the House to decide whether the basic rights laid down, to which we have subscribed, should be written into British municipal or domestic law. There would be a great deal to be said for that.

The irony is that the Home Secretary, having been pricked into action by the shadow of the European Court, is almost certainly ending up now with provisions that will fall far short of satisfying court, Commission and convention. The right hon. Gentleman got himself into that position by wobbling so much in the autumn. It has been a classic example of getting the worst of both worlds. He has reneged on his foolish manifesto commitment.

I commend to the right hon. Gentleman and to other hon. Members the words of the Lord Chancellor in his Dimbleby lecture, which was a year before one of my Dimbleby lectures. He said:

"But in practice while before the election the manifesto is written rather like the advertisement for a patent medicine, after the election it is treated as a pronouncement from Sinai with every jot and tittle of the unread and often unreadable document reverenced as Holy Writ. The actual situation with which a new government is confronted is often vastly different from what it was imagined to be in opposition, and the measures proposed in the manifesto often include the impossible, the irrelevant and the inappropriate. But it is here that the doctrine of mandate takes over. However small the majority, however ill-advised the promises, however controversial the programme, the party activists, flushed with victory, insistently demand the redemption of all the pledges in the shortest possible time, and they are vociferously supported by the various pressure groups whose collective support has been won by the making of those pledges".

The Lord Chancellor added that that doctrine was profoundly unconstitutional. The Home Secretary should have taken greater courage and fortified himself with the words of his noble Friend. He would have done much better to have done earlier and to do now what he is not doing—what is right, sensible, coherent and defensible. That would be to return to the position of 1974. He should treat men and women wholly equally and allow the right of marriage to go with the right of settlement. The penalties that he pays for doing otherwise are enormous. He offends the rights of citizenship even as capriciously, unfairly and obscurely defined as in the British Nationality Act. He offends against family life; he offends against sexual equality; he offends against racial equality—all for the sake of excluding what? Perhaps 2,000, at most 3,000 people a year. I have never believed in a lax immigration policy.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

I shall not give way.

I could call in aid, if I thought it right—I am not sure that I do—the speech of the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) in the debate in June this year. He said that rules had been more tightly enforced, as far as he could see, under Labour Governments than under Conservative Governments. He paid a rather backhanded compliment to the hon. Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill).

rose—

I am not giving way.

The hon. Member for Halifax was Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department and did a difficult job with great diligence, skill and sympathy. I have never believed in a lax immigration policy. In two periods at the Home Office I tried to apply principles of justice, humanity, consistency and proportion. That is not being done at present. The Home Secretary, in spite of his natural good instincts, has allowed himself by weakness to be pushed away from those principles. By reversing the burden of proof and imposing two-year restrictions, enforceable whatever the cause of the break-up of the marriage—even death—he has produced modifications from his original proposals which, in the words of The Times this morning, are "deplorable". The article stated:

"If at first you cannot appease, try, try and try again."

On top of other weaknesses in the Act or the rules there is the abandonment of jus soli, which has served us without noticeable mischief for centuries past, since the time of Edward III. It has a substantial effect upon children born here. There is the rather ridiculous provision that someone coming to take up a partnership in an American law firm in London has to bring £150,000 with him.

rose—

rose⅀

I am not giving way. There is continuing discrimination and a continuing mixture of sexual and racial discrimination. Let there be no doubt: these proposals are not putting women on an equal basis with men. Let there be no doubt that they are deeply damaging to the interests of people who are settled here, as opposed to citizens. They are treating women who are British by stock differently from those who are British citizens, even under the right hon. Gentleman's own Act. In all those ways, the right hon. Gentleman has produced an unacceptable package.

rose—

No, I shall not give way. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] I have nearly finished. I shall not give way because I have done so three times, and it is right that speeches should be short and that other right hon. and hon. Members should have an opportunity to speak.

In all those ways, the Home Secretary has produced an unacceptable package. He should choose firm ground and stand on it. If it were sensible, fair and just ground, we would support him. So long as he does not choose firm ground, he will be a floating island, and we shall not support him.

Normally, I should not wish to cross swords with one of my predecessors—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] actually, I shall do so—but I have been, as I regard it, provoked. One reason why I normally would not do so, is that a sense of humility should descend on all Home Secretaries if they look at what has happened over the years in dealing with the immigration rules.

The problem started with the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), who imposed stricter controls. In 1974 the matter came before the right hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Jenkins). In between, of course, it is fair to say that my noble Friend Lord Carr lost some immigration rules. There is nothing new in that. He was defeated and had to produce new rules. Then we had the right hon. Member for Hillhead. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Halifax (Dr. Summmerskill) should be careful, because I have some quotations from her that she might not like.

The right hon. Member for Hillhead arrived with a great flourish of trumpets in 1974. He said that there were great difficulties and that he would consider them, and he wondered whether there might not be abuse if he made changes. He thought about the matter for a time and then decided to make the changes. Of course, it was not long—perhaps three years—before he moved to other pastures and his right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Rees), his successor, decided that his proposals had to be restricted, and they were. So let no Home Secretary live in a white sheet. It is an extremely difficult matter and we all know it.

I shall put only one point to the right hon. Member for Hillhead. For him, of all people, to talk about lack of courage and the line of least resistance, in view of what he did when he was deputy leader of the Labour Party on many matters, including Europe and everything else, and for him to lecture me about that is the height of hypocrisy. That is something to which I object. I know exactly what happened. After all, I have been in the House for a long time. So has the right hon. Gentleman. I know what the moves were and all the things that happened, and all the things that went on over Europe. Oh yes. It is no good the right hon. Gentleman sitting there and accusing me of lack of courage.

Will the right hon. Gentleman, whom I am glad to have not provoked but brought into such fine fighting form, tell the House exactly what he thinks I should have done over Europe, beyond leading 68 of my hon. Friends into the Government Lobby and providing a decisive majority in 1971 and then, when I thought that that policy was being contradicted, resigning as deputy leader? When has the right hon. Gentleman ever resigned as deputy leader?

I think that if the record were examined, it would show exactly what the right hon. Gentleman did. If he asks me why I have not resigned as deputy leader of the Conservative Party, I can tell him quite simply that it is because I happen to have the utmost admiration for my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. [Interruption.] My record of support for my party through thick and thin over many years is there for everyone to see. [Interruption.] I will not have it denied, because it is true. However, I have been provoked to move away from the purpose of the debate, and I shall now return to it.

We are dealing with what I accept is a difficult and complex area. I have no illusions. No Home Secretary can ever have any illusions in this connection. Some rough things have been said about me by my predecessors, but I can only say that none of them managed to get away from some of the problems that I face, and it is fair that they should accept that. They can criticise me for what I am doing, and I can criticise them for their actions, but it is fair to say that.

We had a full day's debate on the draft rules that I proposed. Therefore, I shall not make a long speech, and it would be wrong for me to go over all the ground of that debate. It is not unreasonable to say that it is proper to go forward from that.

I hope that the House will consider carefully the options that are available to the Government in making these rules. First, there have to be new rules. I do not think that anyone denies that. The British Nationality Act is a major measure and of great importance. It is a measure which at various stages was ducked by Governments of all parties, including my party, but this Government have now undertaken the task. It is crucial, and I believe that it is important for the future of this country. The Act means that we shall have a new language, a new British citizenship created by it, and changes in the rules are inevitable.

There are widely differing views in the House on the matters that have to be dealt with in the rules. From the debate on the White Paper the Government know that those who are unhappy with our original proposals came to their points of view for wholly differing reasons.

The Government, as any Government would in the circumstances, have given a great deal of thought to the best way forward. The rules now before the House are based on a policy which the Government believe is consistent both with the British Nationality Act, so recently passed by the House, and with the need for firm immigration control. I shall endeavour to explain why the Government believe that that is so and why these rules are the best way forward.

Before coming to the marriage rules I want to refer briefly to the rules applying to children who, although born here, will not be British citizens. The position of those children was settled after considerable debate in the proceedings on the British Nationality Act. I believe that it was right that the Act should provide, as it does, that a child born here should have British citizenship only if either of his parents is a British citizen or is lawfully settled here.

The great majority of children born here will continue to be British citizens. However, significant numbers of children are born in the United Kingdom to parents who are here only temporarily or unlawfully. The Act, and the corresponding rules, will prevent such children from gaining automatically by their birth a permanent right to live in Britain, which, in due course, they could pass on to their children.

This change will prevent a potentially large immigration commitment from building up. [HON. MEMBERS: "How many?"] It will also make it easier to remove parents here unlawfully who have children born in the United Kingdom. Those who want to question this must look at the Green Paper "British Nationality, Law" which was produced by the Labour Government. It said:

"On the whole the Government consider that the simplicity and inclusiveness of the ius soli method outweighs its drawbacks."

That is not a powerful and major conclusion. It is a rather marginal conclusion.

Broadly speaking, the rules that I have made for the immigration control of children who come into this category provide that they will be treated in the same way as their parents. That is fair and easily understood and I believe that the rules will prove much less difficult to operate in practice than some have tried to make out. I am grateful to those of my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Committee on the British Nationality Bill who, believing that this measure was right, strongly supported it. It is part of the Act from which these rules flow, and I believe that they are widely supported.

Let me try to help the House by stating the options that were available to the Government on the admission of husbands and fiancés. We could have retained the effect of the present rules—some of my hon. Friends advocate this—by requiring the woman who sponsored the admission of a husband or fiancé to be a British citizen born in the United Kingdom or to have a parent who is born in the United Kingdom. That, of course, would have distinguished between different British citizen women—those born here or with a parent born here, and those who, having been born elsewhere, are British citizens by registration or naturalisation.

The Government took the view that, having created a British citizenship which is in line with those who belong to Britain, it would be wrong to differentiate in that way. In 1980 a special definition, based on those bore here or with a parent born here, had to be invented. Now that we have the new British citizenship, there is no reason for such a device.

In addition, from the point of view of immigration from the Indian subcontinent, we had to have in mind the diminishing effect of a "born here" requirement. Already, of the Asian girls in the United Kingdom now aged between 10 and 15, about half will be British citizens by birth. For Asian girls under 10 the proportion is about three-quarters. So the effect of distinguishing between British citizen women born here and those not born here is bound to diminish. It will become very small indeed in the future. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why bother?"] That is not for me to argue. I am giving the reason why I believe that it was right to move to the British citizen definition. One reason is that I believe that the "born here" definition will be eroded, and substantially eroded, over a period.

May I pursue the Secretary of State on that point, because I have great respect for his stand on civil liberties? For the sake of a diminishing minority, which will become more and more insignificant, why is he putting Britain's good name in terms of racial equality at risk?

That is a rather extraordinary comment. We are dropping the definition of "born here", which we both think is wrong. Some of my hon. Friends think that I should retain it. However, I believe, and I think that the right hon. Lady believes, that it is wrong and that we should move to the British citizen qualification. That is what I am advocating, so I do not quite understand the right hon. Lady's point.

we are concerned because a man settled here can bring in a woman but a woman settled here cannot bring in a man.

The hon. Gentleman has followed this subject for a long time and he knows that that is inherent in the 1971 Act and everything that flows from it.

That is not true.

That is inherent in the 1971 Act and is still there. To change the provision would require legislation that goes outside the rules, as the hon. Gentleman well knows.

The alternative option was to confine entry to the husbands and male fiancés of British citizen women, whether or not they were born here. That is what we have done. But, at the same time, and since our original proposals, we have considerably strengthened the safeguards to prevent the rules from being used for immigration purposes. The right hon. Member for Hillhead believes that those safeguards are wrong, but they will have a deterrent as well as an actual effect, which together will reduce the number of those who might otherwise have gained settlement.

To what extent will the number of successful applicants be reduced by the application of the safeguards?

I cannot give the precise figure, but I am sure that my hon. Friend, who has studied these issues carefully, will accept that there are two different problems: the number of applicants, and the number of those who are accepted for settlement. I shall deal with some of the effects of the safeguards that were introduced in the 1980 rules. I want to prove that the safeguards had an effect. If they did, any extra safeguards will obviously have a further effect. I hope that I can prove that to my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen).

We are, of course, keeping the three specific tests in the 1980 rules: the marriage must not be primarily for immigration purposes; the couple must have met; and there must be an intention to live together. No one is allowed to stay permanently until checks have been made to ensure that the marriage has taken place and that it continues to exist. There are those who say that to move the safeguard on marriage from one year to two years represents a serious change. I read the debates in which the hon. Member for Halifax rightly defended the contention—as my hon. Friends did—that it was right to have the test after one year.

However, if it is right to have it after one year, there is no reason why there should not be a check after one year, and again after two years. That is a perfectly reasonable strengthening of the safeguards. The hon. Member for Halifax and the Labour Party accepted one year and said, in 1977, that that was necessary. In 1977 the Labour Party said that it was right to reverse what the right hon. Member for Hillhead had done in 1974. If it is right after one year, I cannot see why it is not right after two years. Two years is a perfectly reasonable period. There is no great argument between one and two years.

My right hon. Friend has rightly said that marriages should not be entered into primarily for the purpose of immigration. As I understand, as I have read, as I have been told and as many hon. Members will know, the custom on the Indian subcontinent has been for women to go where the men reside. Would it be the case that any man wishing to come from the Indian subcontinent to the United Kingdom for the purpose of marriage would be doing so primarily for immigration purposes?

If one translated that across the board, not only to the Indian subcontinent but to many other parts of the world, one might have some awkward consequences with regard to people marrying Australians, Canadians, Americans and so on. If one is to take that point of view, one must consider the issue in the round.

As the safeguards have been criticised, I wish to explain, first, what they are, and, secondly, why I believe that it was right to introduce them. First, a decision whether to allow a husband to stay permanently will be taken after two years, instead of after only one year. That is a reasonable strengthening of the safeguards. Some people say that this will not work, that it is bureaucratic and will cause great dificulties. I cannot see the argument that it is right to have it for one year, which all my right and hon. Friends supported in 1980, but that it is suddenly wrong to have it for two years.

If the change from one year to two years is of any significance, it must follow that my right hon. Friend must know how many husbands have been returned when a marriage has broken down within one year. Will he tell the House?

Yes. About 150 in the past year. Secondly, the onus will be on an applicant to show—

I tabled a written question which was answered on 18 November, when it appeared that the information that my right hon. Friend has just given was not available. Perhaps he will explain how that information has become available since 18 November.

I have given the House the best estimate. I thought that that was right. There is no definite figure and that was the best estimate that I could give. As I was asked by my hon. Friend, I thought it reasonable to give the best estimate. That is what I have done and I hope the House will accept it in that spirit.

What percentage of the number of men admitted for marriage is that figure?

I cannot give that figure, but if there is any way of giving it, it will be given before the end of the debate. I doubt whether it can be, and I certainly cannot give it now.

Secondly, the onus will be on an applicant to show that the three specific tests originating in the 1980 rules have been met.

Thirdly, we have provided that when a marriage has broken down within two years, deportation of the husband should be the normal course, regardless of the reasons for the breakdown. I am assailed on the one hand by those who say that these safeguards will have no effect, and on the other by those who say that they are oppressive. Neither view, in my judgment, is correct.

We know from experience of the 1980 rules that the tests introduced then can be applied without being oppressive. I hope that my hon. Friends who question that will remember that they were enthusiastic about the proposals that were introduced in the 1980 rules. If such proposals were reasonable in 1980, why should they not be reasonable in 1982? I do not see the difference.

What has been the result? First, immigration officers in the Indian subcontinent refused entry clearance to over 600 husbands and male fiancés in the 12 months to 30 September 1982. Failure to meet these tests was the reason for refusal in a significant proportion of the cases. Also, we believe that the number of men refused permanent stay as husbands after entry, because of a failure to satisfy the tests, is, as I said to my hon. Friend, likely to be about 150 a year. Those who do not leave voluntarily can be, and are, deported.

There is no reason why the change in the burden of proof in the Indian subcontinent should not help the immigration officer. He has to make his decision on a judgment of the case and I believe that it is reasonable to put it this way. At present the onus is on the officer concerned to have reason for not granting an application. The rules that I have made will, instead, put the onus on an applicant to show that the conditions have been met. I submit that it is reasonable, when the rules confer such an important right, that the man should have to show on the balance of probabilities, which is always the test in these matters, that he qualifies for it. We are conferring on him, as I think the House will accept, an important right.

A couple who have married for genuine reasons and have a subsisting marriage, where the man was not here unlawfully before the marriage, have nothing to fear from these tests. Only those who marry for immigration reasons, who have never met their fiancée or wife, whose marriage has never subsisted or has broken down, or who were here unlawfully when they married, have anything to fear.

The man whose marriage breaks down within two years has no real claim to remain here permanently. The basis of his admission will have ceased to exist. Since the marriage no longer subsists, his return to his own country will not cause unacceptable hardship to his wife, and unless there are exceptional reasons for not doing so I believe it is right to expect him to leave.

What about those who cannot be found?

We have found quite a considerable number. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) is reported to have said that these safeguards go too far and will in practice make it impossible for husbands and male fiancés to join British citizen women. I do not accept that. Of course the safeguards will have an effect; they are intended to do so. But they are not intended to erect, and will not erect, barriers that are impossible for genuine marriages to surmount.

The Home Secretary referred to my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill) and the change to 12 months. On that occasion she told the House that a natural breakdown of marriage within 12 months would not be a cause for allowing people to be sent back. The tribunal took the meaning of the rules to be something quite different, and now adjudicators are told that if there is any breakdown in the marriage the person can be sent back. The right hon. Gentleman has used that argument. In the meantime, there has been a change of emphasis. That is what will happen with his rules. He may mean one thing, but when the rules are interpreted they will be a good deal fiercer than he intends.

If the marriage breaks down, is there any good reason why the person who has come in on that basis should remain in this country? I do not see that there is and that is what I am saying specifically. Why should someone who came here to marry someone in this country stay here and have a job in this country which another person should have if the marriage breaks down?

Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the case of a husband who becomes a father in this country? If the marriage breaks down, he cannot remove the child, who is British. He cannot remove the wife, because she is British. By sending away the father the Home Secretary will be denying that child regular access to his father. Is that not a reason for reconsideration?

That can be argued, but I should have thought that if the marriage had irrevocably broken down and the husband was not staying with the wife or subsisting in the marriage, there would be no reason why, if the wife was taking charge of the child, the husband should not go. The marriage has broken down and the husband has left. It is realistic to say that the husband may have abandoned the whole family. If he has done that, what is the purpose of his staying in the country? I cannot see it.

Does the Home Secretary accept that if a man were kept in the country in the circumstances outlined by my hon. Friend he would at least be responsible by law for keeping the child, whereas if he is deported the British taxpayer will have to support the wife and child?

If there is a good reason for the husband to stay there is discretion within the rules. I do not believe that if a husband has abandoned his family altogether and does not wish—[Interruption.] That is the case. There is discretion. However, if the husband has abandoned his wife and child, there is no reason for him to stay in the country.

The right hon. Gentleman is showing the kind of fascination with his argument of which my right hon. Friend accused him. It is not the case that every husband who decides that he cannot get on with his wife wishes to abandon his child.

Obviously—

What about custody?

The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) has raised a different point. If the husband had custody of the child, the question would be different. I maintain my point that the man who has abandoned his wife and child, should not be allowed to stay in the country. I cannot see the argument for it.

rose—

rose—

I shall give way only once more.

I wish for clarification on one particular point that relates to a constituency case, with real people. A person born in Hong Kong came to this country at the age of nine and has lived here ever since. She was educated here and her parents came here some years before that, although she was not born here. She married a man from Hong Kong and then returned to Hong Kong to meet his family. Subsequently, he has been denied the right to come here. She has a child that is now several months old. Is it not likely that by his decision to force the husband to stay outside, the Home Secretary is endangering a genuine and real marriage? Can the right hon. Gentleman give me an assurance that under his new safeguards that husband will be allowed to join his wife and family?

In all these cases, I simply point out, although many will argue against it, that my right hon. Friend the Minister of State and I have been seen to take a great deal of personal trouble over many of these individual cases.

No.

We have properly exercised our discretion. The right hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) will always say, "No," but we have.

No, each time.

If individual cases are put to me, it is only proper that my right hon. Friend and I should be entitled to look at them on that basis, and we do so.

As I have already said, the rules are an attempt to build solidly on the rights of British citizen women and the need for checks on the use of marriage for immigration purposs. Many hon. Members will be familiar with the difficulty of framing rules that meet those twin objectives. All my predecessors have faced this problem. They have wrestled with it and have sought to find a solution that meets these two criteria.

In 1980 we restricted the category of those who were eligible for admission and created new, more effective safeguards against abuse. Our new rules toughen still further the safeguards against abuse, while bringing the eligibility of the wife into line with our new British citizenship. That is extremely important.

If, as we have done, we pass a British Nationality Act which relates British citizenship to our immigration rules, it is right that we should make a proper start and be seen to be doing so. That is what we are doing, and I ask my hon. Friends to recognise the purpose of that.

There is no question of our going back to the pre-1980 position. That should also be completely understood. In fact, no alternative would escape criticism in some part of the House. I do not know of one. However, I believe—and I stand by it—that what I have sought to do provides the best chance for the House as a whole to secure a lasting answer to this controversial and difficult question on which there are so many conflicting views.

The most charitable thing that can be said of the Home Secretary's speech is that he was making a case that it was impossible coherently to defend. It is inconceivable, apart from the way that he entertained the House for more than 40 minutes, that he should believe that the course he is urging on us is right in principle or in practice. In our view, it is wrong in both particulars, and for that reason we shall vote against the regulations.

The Home Secretary will recall that on 11 November the Opposition abstained on the motion to take note of the revised immigration rules. We did so because we believed that the Government's proposals contained a genuine though limited concession. In the original document, foreign husbands of women who were British by regisration or naturalisation were to be allowed to join their wives in Britain on the same basis as women who were British by birth.

That equality—treating all British women irrespective of how they have achieved their citizenship on exactly the same basis—was a principle that we implemented in Government, campaigned for in Opposition and supported during the test case at the European Commission on Human rights. Indeed, the Home Secretary will recall that after I visited the Commission in June, I said publicly, and was reported as such, that the Government had got themselves into such an impossible position that the Commission would require them to change their mind, and change their mind the Government began to do.

Because of that genuine but limited concession, we abstained on the principal issue when the subject was last discussed. But the rules as they now exist—which, in effect, deny the right of a woman who is British by registration to bring her husband into the country—discriminate cruelly against the black British. It is nonsense to pretend otherwise. Indeed, it is because they discriminate against the black British that so many Conservative Members do not want to see any change in those rules.

Our position is absolutely clear. Husbands of women who are British citizens, however those women achieved their citizenship, should be allowed into this country. Moreover, we believe that husbands of women who have the right of abode in Britain should be granted a parallel right of abode themselves. For all the provocation, pleas and requests, the Home Secretary has not attempted to refute our argument that the fiancés of women should be treated in the same way as the fiancees of men.

During two consecutive debates in the past five weeks, the Home Secretary has continually been asked why women are treated in one way and men are treated in another. He has not yet done the House the courtesy of attempting to explain why he makes that differentiation. It is quite intolerable that, under these rules, or, for that matter, any others, there should be one law for women and another for men. What now operates is a conscious and deliberate discrimination against women.

When we last debated the subject on 11 November, some Conservative Members rejoiced in that discrimination. They said that one of the reasons why they wished the rules to be preserved in their present form was that they did not believe that a British woman should have the same right for her husband to join her as a British man has for his wife to enter Britain. That is absurd and indefensible. We wholly reject it.

If that is absurd and indefensible, may I remind the right hon. Gentleman that that is exactly what his right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) did in 1969?

I can only urge the hon. Gentleman to read the previous rules.

I have.

The two revisions that were made by the right hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Jenkins) and subsequently by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Rees) put men and women on exactly the same footing. It is absurd to suggest that a big difference existed then. Our wish is to return to that previous position—the position that the hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg) opposed if he fought the 1979 general election on the Conservative manifesto. The Conservative manifesto specifically insisted that the Conservative Party, if elected, would reinstate the discrimination that the Labour Party had removed. We shall remove it again when we return to power.

Today's debate has naturally and inevitably revolved round and concentrated on rules governing the entry of husbands and wives to Britain. The Opposition are opposed to other aspects of the immigration regulations as well. We are especially opposed to the provisions concerning dependent relatives, visitors and the system of the assessment evidence. However, it is natural that we concentrate today on the changes that affect wives and husbands—the changes that have been brought about by pressures on the Home Secretary by the Adullamites who sit on the Conservative Back Benches.

What?

The Adullamites—what Mr. John Bright called the disenchanted, the dispossessed and the disgruntled. It seems to be a very fair description of the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook).

The debate revolves round the so-called concession that the Home Secretary announced when we last debated the subject. It is a concession that, in a sense, we are debating today because we believe that it has effectively been removed as a result of the way in which it has been hedged round by obligations and requirements to provide evidence and information which, in most cases, it will be impossible for the applicant to provide.

I was moved by the intervention of the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow), who behaved as I fear many people in Britain will behave if the new rules are adopted. I fear that perhaps even some immigration officers may behave in that way. The hon. Gentleman's assumption was that any husband who wishes to come to Britain would come not for the primary purpose of marriage, but for immigration for its own sake. Because the hon. Gentleman made that assumption, it does not mean that it will not be made by others. Thank heaven, the hon. Gentleman is not typical of British opinion. Nevertheless, I believe that his view will be stared by many people who have the job of implementing the rules. The hon. Gentleman revealed exactly what will happen if the House passes the assumptions that the Home Secretary requires.

The Home Secretary suggested that there will be up to 3,000 applicants a year. Will the right hon. Gentleman say what will be the effect, in his opinion, of the safeguards upon those applications? Does he believe that the number of successful applicants will be cut down to 500 a year? What sort of figure has he in mind?

I do not accept the 3,000 figure. Nor, I suspect, does the Home Secretary. The right hon. Gentleman was not the Home Secretary who made the assessment of 3,000. It was, in my view, made imprudently by the right hon. Member for Hillhead, who talked about a difference of about 2,000 or 3,000. Those are not figures that, in my view, bear much examination. I do not believe that the new regulations will deter applications. I believe that the new regulations will prevent the entry into this country of genuine male fiancés who want to contract genuine marriages.

How many?

I believe that the numbers will be reduced substantially. That is why the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) and those who lurk around him are wrong to attack the Home Secretary. I am perhaps doing my best to support the Home Secretary's case. I can only say, in honesty—slightly mitigated by my distaste at the thought that the hon. Gentleman might be in the same Lobby as myself—that I believe that the Home Secretary's proposal will reduce rather than increase the entry of husbands into this country. If the hon. Gentleman has read the document, he must know that, in one particular, this is true.

If the new requirement to provide information and the movement of the onus of proof are to have any effect, it will bear on a category of persons who were not previously affected. One of our objections is that the new rules will apply not only to women who are British by registration but to women who are British by birth.

Last time we debated these matters, I was speaking, I hope, on behalf of my constituents who are the daughters of citizens of Pakistan who were born in Pakistan and then obtained British citizenship. I am now speaking on behalf of their sisters who were born in the United Kingdom. If they wish to bring foreign husbands into this country, they will be subjected to the same intolerable level of scrutiny as the Home Secretary proposes for everyone. I should have thought that was a conclusive argument to explain why the Home Secretary is tightening, not relaxing, the rules.

I am puzzled, in the light of the totality of what the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) has said previously, why he abstained on the last occasion. If the rules, as originally drafted, were before the House this evening, would he or would he not vote against them?

I would have abstained and I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends would have done the same. I would not have supported the rules in general because of other items within them of which I disapprove. Those items concern dependent relatives, visitors and the normal methods of investigation. I would not have voted against them because they would then have contained a clear concession. The concession has been removed, because it was hedged about by requirements that I have tried to describe. I am conscious that what I say probably helps the Home Secretary in quelling the Tory rebellion. The truth must be told to the Home Secretary and repeated later to the European Commission of Human Rights when the Home Secretary tries to claim that he is responding to the rules laid down for civilised communities.

What the Home Secretary has done can easily be described. The right hon. Gentleman has recognised the theoretical right of foreign husbands to join British wives in this country. In exercising those rights, he has hedged them about with so many requirements and obligations that, in practice, many men who are genuinely and legitimately married to British women will be kept out of this country. These new, harsher requirements of proof and justification will be extended to women who are British by birth, not simply by registration.

A month ago, when we made the complaints, we were thinking only of women who were British by registration. Now the harsher examination is to be extended. A woman contemplating marriage with a foreign fiance will have to prove that she has already met the man she is to marry. That has been the case for some time. She will have to prove that she intends to live with him. That has also been the case for some time. Now, however, she and her intended husband will also have to prove that the marriage has not been contracted primarily for the purposes of immigration. The hon. Member for Northampton, North assumes that that is invariably the case.

How, I wonder, does one prove what it is not one's intention to do? How does one demonstrate that one is not doing something, or that one is doing something, but not for a certain reason? It is absurd to place such an obligation on anyone who is required to give evidence or proof. When the onus of proof is placed on the applicant and the decision yea or nay is left exclusively to the immigration officer, I have to conclude that time after time genuine marriages will be denied proper union because it will be impossible for the applicants to prove what they are required to prove, and the immigration officer will therefore rule against them.

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

I do not think that an intervention from the hon. Gentleman would be enormously rewarding. [Interruption.] However, since the hon. Gentleman is shouting, we will let him shout standing up.

I know that it pains the right hon. Gentleman to let me intervene. I am grateful to him for so graciously giving way. Does he agree that although it may be difficult for the husband to enter this country, it may be quite easy for the wife to join her husband in his country of origin?

That may be so, but I hope that the hon. Gentleman and I are not going to argue about the problems of sexual discrimination. If that is the solution that he urges to our problems, he is conceding, game, set and match, the existence of sexual discrimination, but perhaps that does not bother him.

The onus of proof being what it is, and the requirement of proof being set out as it is by the Home Secretary, many genuine marriages will be prevented from union in the United Kingdom. Conservative Back Benchers, who are so concerned to observe the manifesto commitments on which they fought the election, should remember their commitment to family life. I hope that that meant black family life as well as white family life; Asian family life as well as European family life. Today they are making genuine family life for a large section of the British population a great deal more difficult to achieve.

The second enormity to which I wish to draw the attention of the House concerns the period for which a husband who is allowed to enter this country will be required to wait before his settlement is confirmed. With his normal disingenuity, the Home Secretary said "If one year, why not two? If two years, why not three? If three years, why not five?" We can all say that a period seems reasonable if we do not have to give the reason. Even the Home Secretary must understand, however, that by doubling the waiting period one is doubling the risks and doubling the chance of suffering, as well as increasing the intolerable indignity imposed on the men who live in this semi-world during their probationary years.

I do not believe that this will be a deterrent to applications, because all the evidence suggests that most applicants are genuine. The genuine applicant will not be deterred from applying because of a rule that he will have to go home if he is not married after two years because he believes that he will still be married after that period. Nor will the two-year period deter the bogus applicant. There are very few bogus applicants. The Home Secretary referred to about 150 being sent back after a year—150 out of a total of more than 3,000. That is a trivial number, and it in no way justifies the hardship that will be imposed on the genuine applicants.

I ask the Home Secretary to deal with the question of hardship. In a long debate of this kind, I am sure that the House would gladly give him leave to speak again if he was prepared to answer any of our specific questions.

The right hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead referred to the supposition under the previous rules that if the marriage broke down because the wife died the man would be allowed to remain in this country. Is that supposition to remain? Surely the Home Secretary would not wish to leave any doubt in anyone's mind that if a marriage breaks down simply due to the death of the wife the man would be allowed to remain.

If the Home Secretary cannot answer that question, perhaps he will answer some of the questions about wives and children. So far he has not answered any of them. It is possible that after a man has lived for two years in this country, legally and legitimately, he may have become the father of two children. If, shortly before the two years run out, he does not desert his wife but she deserts him and leaves him with the children, will he be sent home? Surely the Home Secretary can answer that here and now. He should not need time to consider that. Can he not say now that a man in those circumstances will not be sent home? Can he not say, too, that the man will not be sent home if his wife dies?

If the man's wife has died, of course he will not be sent back. The same applies, of course, to the other case to which the right hon. Gentleman referred. Those are not the kind of circumstances to which I referred. I was describing circumstances in which the man deliberately deserts and has no further part in the marriage.

We are making progress. We have categorical answers to two questions. Anyone who has debated with the Home Secretary for two years, as I have, will be thankful at least for that. I concede at once that his answers were humane and proper, and I rejoice and genuinely thank him for giving them, but that is only the beginning of the problem.

Will the Home Secretary put that into the legislation? Why does it not say that the rules will apply only when the husband is, as it were, the guilty party and not when he is the innocent party? Indeed, are we to return to the concept of blame in divorce and separation?

I accept that it would be infinitely better if it were written into the rules. Nevertheless, having persuaded the Home Secretary to put those two propositions on record, I understand the House and every hon. Member to believe, as I do, that not one man in the circumstances that I have described will be sent away from this country. If we have achieved nothing else, we have clarified and made progress on those two points. The Home Secretary will live with that—and rightly so—for as long as he remains Home Secretary.

The two-year period, however, is not my principal concern in terms of the effect on the applicant. As most applicants are genuine, they will assume that they will remain married for the two years and will therefore not be prevented from applying. I am concerned about refusal of entry based on a requirement to produce unobtainable evidence and the discretion being left entirely in the hands of the immigration officer while the applicant has the absolute duty to prove the case. That cannot be right. The rules have been changed in the past five weeks for one simple reason. The Government pretend that it is to avoid evasion but no one ever produces any evidence of evasion. There are many allegations and smears are spread across the immigrant population and their families, but no evidence is produced. The best figure that we have obtained in the House during the past two years is that 150 men were sent back because their marriages broke down within a year. That is 150 men out of more than 3,000. Many of those are not cases of intentional evasion; they concern men who entered into marriage in the genuine belief that it would continue, but who found, to their surprise, that it collapsed after they arrived. The idea of a calculated policy of trying to enter the country through marriage is patent nonsense. Nobody here this evening—

rose—

Of course, the hon. Member for Luton, West (Mr. Carlisle) will claim that he knows of cases where money has changed hands, of bribery and corruption. I hope that he will make such claims outside the House, but the evidence of wholesale evasion does not exist.

The right hon. Gentleman will not forget that the Select Committee that investigated the matter and reported in March 1978 expressed the view that money was changing hands.

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will give me the figures. The only figure that the House has been given is 150 sent back out of 3,000. That does not substantiate the view that mass evasion exist.

The right hon. Gentleman is displaying more ignorance than usual. Evidence does exist. He is living in a fool's paradise. He need only pick up newspapers today in Bombay to see advertisements offering money for such marriages. Before he makes accusations, the right hon. Gentleman should make certain of his facts.

There are two answers to the hon. Gentleman's intervention that I made in the previous debate on the subject, although I cannot remember whether he was present. The truth is that there are very few such marriages these days. If the hon. Gentleman believes the Home Secretary, he will find that he confirms that. Whether the hon. Gentleman likes it or not, he will live in a multiracial society for the rest of his life and he must learn to distinguish between a bogus and an arranged marriage. The two things are not the same. As I understand the Home Secretary, it is not his wish to prevent genuine arranged marriages. I am delighted to see that he concedes that.

If the Home Secretary made a case at all this evening, it is that the reason for the change in immigration rules between 11 November and now is to ensure that the evasion that cannot be quantified does not take place. The Opposition find it impossible to believe that that is the reason for the changes and the hardening of policy. The true reason is that the Home Secretary wishes to placate Back-Bench Members, who will despise him no less because he has capitulated to them. The Home Secretary wishes to take into the Lobby with him those whose views on the matter are—to give him credit—completely different from his. Those Back-Bench Members cannot reconcile allowing even a small additional number of immigrants into this country. To capitulate to those hon. Members is discreditable. To do it in such a way—to argue that the regulations are more moderate and reasonable but then to argue in the next paragraph that, because of the qualifications placed on the regulations, they are more draconian and more easily enforceable is the worst form of double talk that gives politicians a bad name.

We propose to vote against such squalid regulations and to change them as soon as we have the opportunity to do so.

There is no more delicate or dangerous ground that a Home Secretary can traverse than that which we are considering tonight—a change in the immigration rules. If ever Britain has the misfortune to discover its new Home Secretary in the identity of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley), he will also find how difficult it is to deal with such matters in practice.

Each Home Secretary who has had to apply his mind to the problem has come up against what appear at times to be insuperable difficulties. In 1969, the Labour Government introduced an absolute ban on all husbands and fiancés coming from abroad to join women in Britain. In 1974, the right hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Jenkins), when he was Home Secretary, removed that ban. I make no comment on that except to say that when the Conservative Party considered the problem in 1979 before the general election, it promised in its manifesto to restore the ban. The promise was fulfilled in 1980 with the rules that are now in force. It was not an absolute ban like the 1969 Labour ban, but it was qualified. Only women born in Britain or who had one parent who was born in Britain, could bring in husbands or fiancés from abroad.

Tonight we are considering a new set of immigration rules that allow all women who are British citizens, as they will be created on 1 January next year by the British Nationality Act 1981, to bring into Britain their husbands and fiancés, subject to conditions that are much stricter than those imposed in the 1980 rules.

Some of my hon. Friends are worried whether the new rules break the promise that was made before the 1979 general election. I understand my hon. Friends' anxieties when they examine that promise and reflect upon the answer to the question. It would appear, prima facie, that the promise that we made in 1979 has been breached. We must face that fact. If those who are dissatisfied rely on the letter of the promise made, perhaps they have something to sustain their doubts about the new rules. If that were the only consideration that we must take into account, many more Conservative Members would be troubled. However, it is not the only consideration. Another consideration is the British Nationality Act 1981 that comes into force on 1 January next year.

The House will remember that in 1977 the Labour Party produced a Green Paper on British nationality law. That Green Paper stated that the nationality law, as it was founded on the British Nationality Act 1948, was in a state of confusion, that it had failed to reflect the changes in the Commonwealth and to identify those people who had the right to belong to this country, and who say so, to leave this country and return without hindrance.

One of the most significant things said in the Green Paper was that the law under the British Nationality Act 1948 provided no base for solving immigration problems by relating them to citizenship. A study group set up by the Conservative Party to look at the law of nationality came to the conclusion just before the 1979 election that the nationality laws were confused and that there was no means of creating a base in citizenship to solve the immigration problems. We made a promise in the 1979 manifesto that we would introduce a new nationality law.

I do not believe that any political party could constitutionally make a more important promise. I believe that the Act which was the fulfilment of that promise is perhaps the most important Act that has passed through Parliament this century. The Act has two main functions. One is to create a citizenship which will enable us all without difficulty and with certainty to identify ourselves as British citizens. At the moment we are not British citizens. No one is entitled to call himself a British citizen. We are all citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies, as our passports say, although most of us have nothing to do with the colonies. When the new Act comes into force on 1 January 1983 we shall be for the first time British citizens.

When that happens there will be only one class of British citizen. British citizens will not be divided into citizens who are more equal than others. They will all be British citizens, as we said in our manifesto.

If we are to have the new Act, and the benefits that come from it, we must have new immigration rules to match. There cannot be one without the other. One cannot have one's cake and eat it, as some people would like. The spirit of the promise that we made in 1979 shows that there is no difficulty in accepting the rules as they are before the House. I say that for two reasons. First, the rules are far tougher than those we introduced in 1980. Apparently, one of the reasons why the Opposition are voting against them tonight is because of their toughness. During the debate, one has heard from behind or a little to the left, geograpically, that the rules are not tough enough or that they will not work. The Opposition believe that they will work too well and too harshly.

The group of British-born women or women who have one parent born here will increase almost daily. The figures are not easy to come by and if one obtains them they are not easy to analyse. But the group must incease until it becomes nearly as great as the new group of women who are British citizens.

Is my hon. and learned Friend saying that there will be more and more people of Asian or other Commonwealth extraction in this country who are born here?

Yes.

I come to the benefits of the British Nationality Act. We need to control and reduce the number of immigrants coming here. I gained the impression that the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook wished to open the gates. He said that he was speaking for his constituents, but I doubt whether people, for example, from the Indian subcontinent who have settled here and probably become citizens wish to have their position undermined by an uncontrolled flood of people coming here.

The hon. and learned Gentleman demeans himself by making that allegation. What he says is a flagrant misinterpretation of my speech tonight and all my speeches over the past two years inside and outside the House. It is also a flagrant misinterpretation of Labour Party policy.

I am sorry if I have misinterpreted the right hon. Gentleman's view. I am pleased to hear that it is not his view. But he seems to say that he wants more immigrants to come here.

The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) was a member of an Administration that granted two amnesties for illegal immigrants. By definition, that allows in many extra immigrants. The measure probably caused more anxiety among the immigrant population than among the indigenous population.

I shall not lose the thread of my argument by following that point, however important.

Inevitably the British Nationality Act will reduce the number of immigrants coming into the country.

It has nothing to do with it.

I shall tell the hon. Gentleman why. I know that this is something that the hon. Gentleman does not like; nor does his party find it greatly attractive. The British Nationality Act has abandoned the doctrine of jus soli, which means that from 1 January there will be no automatic acquisition of British nationality through birth. That must have its effect eventually and potentially on the number of immigrants who will be in this country. That must be right.

How many?

How long is a piece of string? One cannot begin to quantify that. It is obvious that it must be a considerable number. Far more people will be kept out on that basis than will be let in under the new rules that we are considering. Furthermore, the British Nationality Act enables one to identify far more easily and with more certainty who is a British citizen and who is not, which should help.

It is not fully realised and has never been fully understood that the old law under the 1948 Act, to which we will say goodbye on 1 January, has been responsible for creating the last count of 950 million British subjects throughout the world. The 1948 Act equates the meaning of "British subject" with "Commonwealth citizen". I do not wish to make a false point or to exaggerate, but there can be no doubt that of those 950 million people who can now claim to be British subjects under the present law, there must be many—I could not say how many—who believe that they have, however remotely and tenuously, a claim to come here and ultimately to claim citizenship of this country. There must be many millions who do not even know they are British subjects. That law is antiquated and nonsensical. Of course, that is only one of the reasons why we shall be glad to be rid of it on 1 January.

The Opposition, in voting, as they say they will, against the rules, and any Conservative Member who joins them, will defy the laws of logic by voting against something that they want. I understand that the Opposition want wider rules to allow in more immigrants more easily. Conservative Members want tough and effective safeguards. If they vote against the rules they will vote against both those objectives. If the recent leader in The Times is correct—I think it is—it comes to this: we shall have a new British Nationality Act that creates one form of citizen. Immediately we vote against the rule, we are in danger of creating two types of citizen.

I am following my hon. and learned Friend's argument carefully. I agree with much of it. He said that we made a manifesto commitment about ending the concession. He has also said that we have introduced a new British Nationality Act and that the consequences are that we should have just the one sort of citizen. If we had said in our manifesto that we would suspend the concession made by the Labour Party until we had a new British Nationality Act, many of my colleagues would have gone along with the rules. However, we made a specific commitment that we would end that concession for all time. That overrides the consequences of the Act.

It was obvious that what we did in the 1980 rules was done under the old nationality rules. My hon. Friend knew that, and presumably everyone knew it. Under what law was it done, if not under the old law? We now have a new law.

rose—

Perhaps I might finish this point. If we have a new law, we must have new rules to go with it.

I thank my hon. and learned Friend for giving way. He said a moment ago that under the British Nationality Act there is now to be only one form of British citizen. However, I am sure he realises that there are to be British citizens, British dependent territories citizens, and British overseas citizens. There are also to be persons settled in this country. Surely the answer is that there has been such a history of various waves of immigration into this country, and we have had such a variety of relationships with other countries, that it is not possible to have only one form of citizenship.

If I may say so, with great respect, my hon. Friend is scraping the barrel. He knows full well that the citizenship to which I am referring is citizenship of this country, not of other countries. I am talking exclusively about British citizenship as it affects this country, and of course the rules are linked with that citizenship.

Finally, I come back to the recent leader in the The Times. What is being done, in voting against the rules tonight, is logically absurd and socially pernicious.

When the debate started we were diverted to the question whether the European Court of Human Rights had any right to interfere in the domestic legislation of this country. I was sorry that the right hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Jenkins) appeared to accept that diversion, and even to elaborate on it, because I do not believe that we should concentrate on that matter tonight. I am not particularly worried about what the European Court has said on this matter. I am worried about what this House will do, what this House will express, and its opinion about how we in this country, in our legislation, should treat our own citizens. I am worried about justice, equity and the equal treatment of citizens in this country by this House. I am not bothered about what comes from outside.

There are two major points of principle. First, we are discussing whether British citizens will be treated equally, regardless of sex or colour. Secondly, we are discussing whether, to pander to the unpleasant, xenophobic and sexist prejudices of a few hon. Members, we are to agree to a change in rules which will be oppressive, intolerable and incapable of any objective assessment. That is what is put to us today in the rules, as outlined in this paper, "Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules".

On the first point, the Government are making it quite clear that they still intend to treat a small minority of citizens in this country, the small minority that is both female and black, differently from the rest of the community, and they are prepared to justify that. On that, they will again lose when the matter goes back to the European Court.

In order to pander to only a comparatively few hon. Members we shall bring in rules which will place the burden of proof on the applicant. I do not know how there will be any objective assessment. How will someone who is applying to marry a British inhabitant prove—that is the operative word—that he is not doing it for the primary purpose of immigration? A prejudiced immigration or entry certificate officer, like a few hon. Members, will say that somebody from a different society who has an arranged marriage—I do not hold a brief for arranged marriages but I am not arrogant enough to say that a different society is necessarily a worse one—has it for the primary purpose of immigration. It can easily be seen how people who believe that an arranged marriage is unacceptable would think that it must be for some reason other than a desire to marry that person. There could easily be additional hardship and oppression on people applying to come to Britain.

I shall not pretend—I do not think any hon. Member would—that there are not cases where individuals come into Britain with no intention of a marriage subsisting. There are always people who will operate rules to their advantage. There will always be white, black or brown people who bend the rules to their advantage. There will always be a small proportion of immigrant men who are prepared to exploit a small proportion of women whom they want to marry. However, that does not mean that the House has the moral right to say that the great majority of those who are applying to join the women whom they want to marry or those who are joining women to whom they are already married are not doing so genuinely. Such people already have an intolerable and oppressive weight to bear.

The House should remember that there is a small minority of British citizens who are both black and women who are today watching to see whether the House is prepared to treat them as equal citizens regardless of their sex and colour.

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Miss Wright) criticised some of the safeguards in the revised immigration rules. I share some of those criticisms and shall come to them in due course.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Marshall) on his appointment to the Opposition Front Bench. I believe that he will reply to the debate tonight. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear".]

I wish to explain to the House why I signed the motion in the name of the Leader of the Liberal Party, the right hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. Steel), and why I intend, with regret, to vote against the Government tonight. I did so as a sign of encouragement.

After all, this is the first recorded act of the Liberal Party to oppose a measure the effect of which is to increase immigration from the new Commonwealth and Pakistan. I also signed the right hon. Gentleman's motion because, if carried, it will be incontrovertibly effective, under section 3(2) of the 1971 Act, in preventing the rules from taking effect on 1 January 1983. I did not sign the amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South (Sir W. Clark), because there is an element of doubt in my mind about whether it will achieve its aim.

Much has been said tonight about manifesto commitments. I shall vote against the rules, because our party has made promises in successive manifestos, most notably in 1970 and in 1979, and they have all worn rather thin. I have begun to wonder whether anyone will believe us next time. In 1970 we said that

"there will be no further large-scale permanent immigration from the new Commonwealth."

Since then more than 560,000 immigrants from the new Commonwealth and Pakistan have entered this country legally. Since our manifesto commitment in 1979 more than 100,000 immigrants have entered Britain legally. Such is the betrayal of public confidence and faith.

Some of my hon. Friends are keen to suggest that primary immigration from the new Commonwealth and Pakistan has all but ended. In our last debate on the rules, my hon. Friend the Member for Paddington (Mr. Wheeler) said:

"Immigration from the Indian subcontinent is rapidly coming to an end … primary immigration from the Indian subcontinent is, in effect, over."—[Official Report, 11 November 1982; Vol. 31, c. 727.]

I know that my hon. Friend holds an important position on the specialist Sub-Committee of one of our Select Committees, and therefore we listen carefully to his words, but I wonder whether he was correct.

That statement would be true but for the fact that 40 per cent. of the present figures are accounted for by non-dependants. It would be true but for the fact—as the editorial in "Population Trends No. 30" published only yesterday reveals—that although immigration in 1981 continued to decline from most old and new Commonwealth countries, there was

"a marked increase in immigration from Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka"—

while—

"emigration to new Commonwealth countries fell by 6,000."

That statement would be true but for the fact that the 1982 third quarter figures from the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys for acceptances for settlement on the removal of the time limit record an increase on the 1981 figures from 9,920 to 10,510 for citizens of the new Commonwealth and Pakistan. Within that figure there is a recorded increase for Pakistan from 1,820 to 2,300. Those immigrants all fall into categories in which the Home Secretary has greater use of his discretion.

Many of my right hon. and hon. Friends are even keener to proffer the idea that immigration is down to a trickle. Indeed, the media seem to think the same. That would be true but for the fact that immigration continues from the new Commonwealth and Pakistan at the rate of 30,000 a year, even in 1982. In 1973, the last full year of the previous Conservative Administration, a figure of 32,247 was recorded. This year we are claiming credit because the figure might be just under 30,000, but we are not sure. That is not a significant achievement or an achievement of which we can be proud in view of the manifesto commitments and promises made in 1979.

I have listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman's figures and statistics. Even taking them at their worst, they represent a small proportion of the population of Britain. Small numbers of people, relatively speaking, are coming in. Having given us a catalogue of numbers, will the hon. Gentleman tell us what is wrong with this number of people coming into Britain? Are they bad citizens? Do they not contribute to the country? What is wrong?

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.

The major contribution of the hon. Member for Basildon (Mr. Proctor) shows the depth of bigotry on Conservative Benches which has brought about the changes in the immigration rules that we are debating.

The hon. Gentleman is a good one at that.

The history is worth recalling and I shall recall it for the hon. Member for Croydon, South (Sir W. Clark), who is speaking from a sedentary position. In 1968 the Home Secretary of the day, my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), showed his concern that there was an upsurge of new husbands coming into the country. The figure was 1,676, and about 1,500 came from India. On that basis my right hon. Friend changed the then rules to stop men, coming into the country for marriage save in the most exceptional circumstances, and the immigration appeals tribunals made it pretty certain that those circumstances were very restricted. As a result, from 1969 to 1974 practically no husbands came into the country.

When the Labour Government took office in 1974 there was a massive campaign to get them to reverse the rules. The major part of the concern was expressed by women who were white who wanted to marry men who were white. When we changed the rules, we recognised that though that would be a solace to them there was bound to be an increase in migration from the Indian subcontinent. We warned expressly that that would be so.

When we changed the rules, the Conservative Party did not even trouble to pray against the change. There was no vote or debate because the Conservative Party supported to the full the campaign by women around the country. Had the Tories wanted to pray against the rules, perhaps the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) might have stirred himself to pray, but he did not. The rules went through without opposition, largely because almost every hon. Member thought that the only decent, civilised thing to do was to allow a man to live with his wife wherever the couple wished to live—in the place where the man was born, where the woman was born or in some other place, for example, this country if they had the right of entry.

When we came to that conclusion, I was careful to point out, because I could see what was coming, that there might be a time when we would find the odd case of persons who came here for the purpose of migration and married in a bogus marriage. I said:

"The real test for us as a civilised community is whether we can stand up to the kind of criticism that would then be voiced. If we believed that a change was right and if, in all the circumstances, we concluded that it should take place, a few bad cases should not change our view about the issue on principle, and we would have to be able to stand before our constituents and explain the situation if they wanted us to change the rules back because of one or two bad cases".—[Official Report, 21 June 1974; Vol. 875, c. 940.]

I then got the sack. Within two years of that, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Rees) changed the rules on the basis of those few bad cases.

Even today, when the Administration is trying hard to be stricter than any other Administration about these matters, it can still only find about 150 cases to send back, out of a possible 5,000 men who came here through marriage last year. In those circumstances, it is absurd to argue that because of that number of possible bogus marriages we should change the rules yet again. Nevertheless, The Conservative Party blindly made that promise before the previous general election and tried to carry it out even though there were one or two other proposals in the Home Secretary's Leicester speech that the Government did not quite carry out. It would not be the only part of that speech that the Home Secretary has not carried through, and it would have been easy for him when he came into office and saw reality not to have carried this through. However, the Government did so.

I did not think that the Government could change the rules because I did not think that they could take on the white women's lobby that had so stirred itself in 1974. However, the Government were better than I could have thought. They are not afraid of a bit of racism here and there. They changed the rules so that white women could get their husbands in, but not black or brown women.

As long as the woman here was born here, or was a child of a person born here, the Government were prepared to face any charge of racism. They said that they had justification, but when we on the Select Committee examined the whole question, the Home Office was clear that it could not justify its discrimination although it was clear that there was discrimination.

The moment that the cases went to the European Commission of Human Rights, they were accepted prima facie and the result was that the Home Secretary began to change tack. He has now decided that he will allow couples to come here if the woman is a British citizen.

As the Home Secretary implied, the original rule could not have lasted very long anyway because there would always come a time when most or the women wanting to marry would be women who were born here. The British citizenship provision was simply a step back from that position. I should have been willing to accept that and not to have demurred if British citizenship would mean that most, if not all, of the women who wanted to bring in a husband would be allowed to, even subject to the rather stiffer tests included in the 1981 change of rules. That is not the position, and it is for that reason that the Labour Opposition propose to vote against these rules, even though we may be joined by Conservative Members who take an entirely different view of the rules.

We are doing so for two main reasons. First, if one looks at the migration figures for marriage since 1974, it is perfectly clear that initially half the men coming in were white. There was a reduction in that figure over time, because a backlog had built up from 1969 to 1974. Now, roughly half the men who come here for marriage come from the Indian subcontinent, and most of those come from India. Last year, the figure was about 1,100 out of a total of 2,100 who came from the Indian subcontinent. A further 3,050 came from the New Commonwealth and about 2,480 came from other countries.

If we simply accept the rule about citizenship, many of those Indian fiancés would not be allowed to come. It is not clear what proportion of Indian citizens have taken British citizenship. Most of the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis have, but Indian men would lost their Indian citizenship if they did so. I understand that a considerable number have not taken British citizenship, as a result of which their children would fail if those children had not acquired British citizenship, and perhaps they have not done so.

Secondly, the rules introduced by the Government in 1981, reinforced by the new rules that they are now introducing, are aimed specifically at arranged marriages in the custom of the Indian subcontinent. On this subject, I take issue with my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Miss Wright), who suggested that we should perhaps frown on the practice of the arranged marriage. There are problems with the arranged marriage, and it creates some tension in some parts of the Indian community. The Indian community must consider that matter carefully. However, never in our history have we tried in any way by Government decree to change the custom and cultural pattern of any group of migrants coming into this country. We did not do so with the Jews from Eastern Europe who also used the arranged marriage system, and I do not think that we should do so now.

This will probably change, but at a pace dictated by the people themselves and not by any Government decree. Therefore, I am totally opposed to immigration rules that are simply designed to change the cultural pattern of the Indian subcontinent.

Some of those rules were introduced in 1981 and have been added to. The first rule is that the parties should have met. It may be inconceivable to people from the West that there should be marriage between parties who have not met. Nevertheless, such marriages have been commonplace in the Indian subcontinent. My experience from when I investigated the subject in 1974 was that they were successful. The divorce rate there was much lower than in the West. That is precisely why it is inadvisable for us to judge whether such marriages are unwise. Nevertheless, because the rule has been passed, there are cases—it is difficult to say how many—when refusals are made to applicants from India and Pakistan on that basis alone.

When he is questioned on the subject, the Minister of State says that a couple can meet quite easily if they just make a visit. The difficulty of making a visit is that it is expensive, especially in these straitened times when unemployment is high, especially among minority communities. It is difficult to make a visit and to hold a marriage ceremony.

The second part of the rules was that the marriage should not have been terminated within 12 months. When that original proviso was made by the Labour Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill) said that it would never be intended to send anyone whose marriage had broken down naturally back to their country of origin if there was no question of the marriage being bogus and arranged purely for entry to Britain. Nevertheless, the immigration tribunal interpreted that provision quite differently. It said that it did not matter why the couple were no longer living together but that if they were not living together at the end of 12 months it was right that they should be sent back. They are being sent out in increasing numbers.

Today, the Home Secretary said that there is no difference between one year and two in that respect. On the contrary, there is a doubling of the time in which a marriage may naturally break down. Marriages can and do break down—it is becoming increasingly frequent. In those circumstances, the Home Secretary says that there is no reason why the people concerned should not go back to their country of origin. The reply is that the person has invested more than money in coming to Britain. He has invested emotionally in his expectations of coming to Britain, of beginning a life here, of finding a job and of settling down. If the marriage then breaks down, he will find that on the basis of that marriage breaking down he is to be sent back to his country of origin where he must try to pick up his life again. I have always believed that that was intolerable.

The worst proviso is that about the burden of proof. It seems a small change to say first, that if an applicant wishes to come to Britain, it is for the immigration officer to show on the balance of probabilities that he is within one of the exceptions, and then to say that the onus is on the applicant to prove that he is not within one of the exceptions. That may seem a small change but it is crucial. The burden of proof is what the argument is all about once a person gets in front of the desk of the immigration or the entry certificate officer. That is why, when I was a Minister, I tried to get entry certificate officers to apply the rule—which is the rule of English law—that the burden of proof should be the burden of the balance of probabilities.

It was that, more than anything else, that caused the furore about my visit to the subcontinent which led to a report about the visit being made by some now unknown Foreign Office official that was leaked by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell). The truth is that what had upset the entry certificate officers was reminding them that it was the balance of probabilities that had to apply, not the criminal standard of proof.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for reminding the House of that interesting period. Has he made any calculation of how many extra entrants came into this country as a result of the direction that he gave to the immigration officials?

I shall go over the figures in a moment. I wish to deal first with the point made by the hon. Member for Basildon. The burden of proof and the balance of probabilities are crucial to any assessment whether an applicant is going to get in. It is an immense change to put the burden of proof on the applicant. It is far worse than any other factor introduced into the debate. It is much more likely to lead to a reduction in the number of people who can come. That may please some Conservative Members. It does not please me.

The reason is not that the figures are enormous or that I wish to open the gates wide. The figures have never been enormous. The highest figure occurred in the year immediately following the change of rules when there was something of a pent-up dam and some people took the opportunity to come. The figure was 8,100 from all over the world and 4,496 from the new Commonwealth. The figure dropped to about 3,050 on the last occasion.

The Minister of State told the Select Committee that the figure of 3,050 still consisted roughly of about 80 per cent. of people who were coming under the old rules and who had been delayed in the queue. The other 20 per cent. were new people who had applied since the change of rules in 1981. If that is so, about 700 came under the rules invented by this Government. The Home Secretary has pointed to about 600 who were refused entry in the last year. This means that under the rules introduced in 1981, 700 were allowed to come in and 600 were refused entry. That is the balance on which we are looking for the future.

If we are to continue with the rules invented by this Government, the likelihood is that 50 per cent. of cases will be refused. If that is the case, it is not something that I want to accept. If we were to succeed in defeating the rules tonight, there would be some women who are British citizens, although not born here, who would not then be able to bring in their husbands and who might say: "Why have you done this to me?" The answer is simple.

If we defeat the rules tonight, the Government cannot simply stand there. There is no way in which the Government can simply allow themselves to go on applying the existing rules. There has to be a concession to someone. It has to be a concession either to Conservative Members or to the Opposition. I believe that the concession will be to us. The pressure on the Government was not the British Nationality Act, which could have changed the Immigration Act 1971 and made the position for women exactly the same as that for men. It did not do so because the Government were not interested in making that change. The Government knew at the time the British Nationality Act was going through the House—the Opposition told them so—that it would cause difficulties for their rules on fiancés. The pressure comes from the European Convention on Human Rights.

That is denied.

I know it is denied. But the fact is, that the Government are bound by it unless they wish to withdraw from it. Certainly it must apply because cases have already been taken up under it.

If the Government withdrew from the convention, as they could, little ladies from Salisbury could not bring cases about comprehensive schooling and people from power stations could not use it to challenge closed shop rules, which would certainly upset Conservative Members. Getting out of the convention is not so easy as they imagine. One has to take the rough with the smooth. The rough part for the hon. Member for Basildon is that we cannot get out of our obligation on this. The Select Committee made it perfectly plain, and Lord Scarman and the other witnesses made it plain to the Select Committee that the rules breach the European convention.

The rules breach the convention not only in relation to citizen wives but in relation to settled wives, because under the convention "national" means someone who is settled here. Significantly, of the three cases so far brought and accepted as being within the jurisdiction of the convention, two were citizen wives and one was a settled wife. The Commission has not suggested that there is any difference between the two. The Home Secretary has conceded the case of the citizen wife, but not that of the settled wife, so even if the Government succeeded in getting the rules through the House they would have to come back to make the concession in relation to settled wives.

The Government might just as well face the situation now. About a dozen Conservative Members would like to be minor Enoch Powells—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh"]. They would like to be minor versions of the right hon. Member for Down, South. I was thinking more of the right hon. Gentleman's public persona than of his position in the House. That is the only opposition that the Government have to take on. The rest of us are of one mind. We believe that women who are settled here should be allowed to bring in their husbands.

The numbers involved are minuscule by comparison with the number of people who emigrate every year. In only two years since 1955 have more people entered than left this country. Migration has not caused the problems suggested by Conservative Members. The hon. Member for Basildon should note the highest figures for immigration from the new Commonwealth since 1973. In 1972 the figures were much higher, but the hon. Member for Basildon insists on giving the 1973 figures because he fails to mention what happened in Uganda. In that year, the Government restricted the number of immigrants from the Indian subcontinent in order to take the people from Uganda.

Taking the whole picture, the figures peaked in 1976 and since then have steadily fallen because people can come here only if they have an entitlement under the rules, and the rules are now extremely restrictive. There were two major areas of concession. The first concerned the East African Asians, most of whom have now come—apart from the 20,000 or perhaps only 15,000 living on the Indian subcontinent, on whom the Select Committee recently reported, and they will not be coming.

The second concession concerns the wives and children of men who were settled here a very long time ago. Most of those have come already. The people from India have come, most of those from Pakistan have come and most of those from Bangladesh are now here. The hon. Member for Basildon shakes his head. He had better read the Select Committee report and study the figures.

The only remaining area of migration is that of husbands and wives, and twice as many women as men enter Britain for marriage. Any civilised country would allow a man or a woman to live there if one of its nationals wished to marry and to bring in a husband or wife. As civilised countries do that, we condemn the Soviet Union for not doing it. But the Government are playing the tactics of the Soviet Union by trying to keep out husbands whom they do not like simply because of their colour.

When my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary began his speech this evening, he talked of the difficulty that he faced when drafting the rules. The House should be conscious of the great difficulty that any Home Secretary faces when he drafts such rules, because he must try to accommodate two not wholly compatible considerations. The first consideration is the need to control the flow of immigration into Britain and thus to calm public anxiety. That is perfectly proper. The second consideration is the vital need to ensure that British citizens' rights are protected. Those incompatible considerations inevitably bring about some tension, which is at its highest when we talk about fiancés and husbands.

I have had the pleasure on many previous occasions, and to some extent tonight, of hearing the arguments of my right hon. and hon. Friends who dislike the rules. I understand and entirely sympathise with many of their arguments, but I do not agree with them. I shall try to define my right hon. and hon. Friends' criticisms of the rules. First, they say that the rules are insufficiently tough. Then they say that the rules are unenforceable and that they will take us back to the pre-1979 position, representing a departure from the Conservative Party manifesto of 1979. In every respect, those arguments—however eloquently argued—are wrong.

The first assertion—that the rules, if approved, will take us back to the 1979 position—is wrong. [HON. MEMBERS: "Who said that?"] That argument has been advanced frequently by, for example, my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook).

I have never said anything of the sort.

My hon. Friend misunderstands the effect of what he has been saying. One criticism of the rules is that they take us back to the 1979 position and that they represent a departure from the Conservative Party manifesto. That is a false argument.

No, no, no.

Yes, yes, yes. Before the 1979 general election, women settled in the United Kingdom, irrespective of citizenship and subject to precious few safeguards, and had a right to introduce husbands and fiancés into the United Kingdom. That position has changed radically, because the rules brought forward by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary make it clear that the right depends upon the possession of British citizenship. Furthermore, the right is sheltered by safeguards that are enforceable and correct. Therefore, to suggest that we are simply restoring the status quo ante is not correct.

The second point that is being made by my right hon. and hon. Friends is that the rules represent some departure from the Conservative manifesto.

It does.

No, I do not believe that it does. It is an illusion, and I shall explain why.

Thank you very much, Sir.

I am always gracious to my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen). He is not always gracious to me, but we do our best to be friendly. I am sure that on this occasion he will listen to a contrary view with his customary courtesy.

In the Conservative manifesto of 1979 we said that we would withdraw the concession extended to husbands and fiancés in 1974. That is precisely what we have done. True, we have left the right, but it is a wholly different right. It is a right which depends upon the possession of British citizenship, and, furthermore, it is an entitlement hedged by safeguards. Let me take the argument a little further.

Do.

I am glad to hear the interruption by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South (Sir W. Clark), because these are points that he would do well to consider.

I am listening, as is everyone, with bated breath to the words of wisdom from my hon. Friend. May I suggest to him that arrogance does not, in fact, win arguments. In no circumstances can one ever advance the argument that the new rules conform to the Conservative manifesto pledge.

My hon. Friend did not note or understand the first point that I made. We have given the right to British citizens. That is quite different and distinct from the position that existed in 1979.

I take it further than that. The manifesto contained two other commitments that hon. Members, and particularly my hon. Friends, should bear in mind, in that we said, first, that we would protect the position of British citizens before the law, and, secondly, that we would introduce a British Nationality Act.

A British Nationality Act having been introduced, it is inevitable that we must consider all relevant legislation in the context of that Act. It would be wholly inconsistent to leave in existence a legal framework which is incompatible with that Act. The other arguments that have been put forward by my right hon. and hon. Friends are—

rose—

No, I will not give way to my hon. Friend. He has had ample opportunity in this debate, in the press, and on television and in previous debates, and why should he not, to express his views. He must for the moment allow me to continue.

It is argued by my right hon. and hon. Friends who disagree with them that the rules are unsufficiently tough and unenforceable. However, I have to remind myself, and my hon. Friends will wish to remind themselves, that we are talking about our daughters' rights. The rules apply to everyone. They apply to British citizens resident in this country. That includes my daughter.

When I ask myself, in all conscience, whether I can say that the provisions in the rules, as they touch on my daughter, are insufficiently tough, I reject the proposition.

They are too tough.

That is an argument to which I shall come in a moment. The first proposition is that they are insufficiently tough, and will admit too many people.

It is the categories that let in too many people.

I shall come to that also in a moment, but my hon. Friend must learn that he does not improve his argument by making fairly intelligible observations from a sedentary position. I might add that my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) never improves his argument from a standing position either.

Will my hon. Friend let me try?

My hon. Friend and I have probably spent more time in the Chamber together than any other two hon. Members. I know exactly what he is like. I shall not give way at this juncture.

The criteria are enforceable. Immigration officers are being asked to make a judgment—a finding of fact. That is the process that justices, Revenue officials, Customs officers, policemen and DHSS officials have to make all the time. It is not essentially difficult. If they get it wrong, there is a right of appeal.

If my hon. Friend had sat in on an interrogation conducted by an entry certificate officer in one of the missions of Her Majesty overseas he would know how exceedingly difficult it is to adjudicate on the motivation and purpose of entry.

I have not sat in on such a tribunal, but I have frequently appeared in appeal tribunals where precisely the same judgment is required.

The criteria are enforceable, but that consideration is not my chief objection to my hon. Friends' position. I have great respect and, in many cases, affection for my hon. Friends with whom I disagree on this point, but I ask myself whether their primary objective is acceptable. I start from the premise that no hon. Member would wish to tell his daughter that she did not have the right to bring into the United Kingdom a husband or fiancé of her choice. Can we make a distinction between a Miss Hogg and a Miss Patel? That question is at the core of the argument. If I assert that my daughter should have a right to bring into the United Kingdom a person of her choice, how can I in all conscience deny exactly the same right to another female British citizen born and resident in the United Kingdom who happens to be called Miss Patel?

That is not what is suggested.

Yes, it is. If I acceded to the arguments of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North, I should be making a distinction between female citizens born in the United Kingdom and female British citizens born outside the United Kingdom.

That is different.

No, it is not. If I accepted the argument, I should be making a fundamental distinction which I would have to say was expressed in terms of colour. I will not do it. If a party argues that, in all conscience, it is departing from the traditions of the Conservative Party.

I hope that my hon. Friends consider carefully where they stand before they vote against the rules.

What do the people think?

I am coming to what the people think. It is of critical importance when I deal with the Opposition's argument. Although I do not have much hope at persuading many of my right hon. and hon. Friends, I shall do my best and I hope that we shall join together in friendly discussion—

That is not good enough.

I shall even try to please my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South.

I am no more impressed by the arguments from the Opposition Benches. I listened carefully to what Opposition Members said, expecting that I would find some points of agreement. Their two arguments are essentially these: first, that it is wrong in principle to make a distinction for the purposes of the rules between men and women; and, second, that we should, as a matter of policy, grant the relevant entitlement to all women settled in the United Kingdom. That is the primary case that the Opposition put forward.

I would be infinitely more impressed by those bold words of principle if it had not been for the fact that in 1969 the then Labour Home Secretary, subsequently the last Labour Prime Minister, introduced the 1970 rules. It is interesting to remember that he said:

"it seems that marriage is being used by many young men of working age as a means of entering, working and settling in this country. This abuse of the concession is inconsistent with the general scheme of Commonwealth immigration control."—[Official Report, 30 January 1969, Vol. 776, c. 367.]

The right hon. Gentleman then imposed a ban. What did he do on that occasion? He did two things. He made a distinction between men and women, and he held further that a ban was appropriate because the concession was being abused.

That position is now being denied in most respects by the Opposition. To hear their arguments now and test them against the policy that they implemented when they were in office shows that one should treat their views with some gentle scepticism. However, not merely do I treat the public expression of their views with some gentle scepticism but I think that the Opposition's policy is wrong. It is wrong for this reason. The Labour Party is effectively saying that we should give to female citizens settled in the United Kingdom a largely unfettered right of bringing in their husbands and fiancés. That ignores a deeply rooted anxiety about the level of immigration. That anxiety has been expressed in speeches and sedentary interventions by my right hon. and hon. Friends. I know that it is experienced by many. At a time of high unemployment and real racial tension, it must be an absolute nonsense to advocate measures that would result in a substantial increase in primary immigration that cannot be justified in terms of democratic rights.

One must reconcile two issues—one is democratic rights and the other is the need to control immigration. The criticism of the Opposition is that they do not pay enough attention to the need to control immigration. The criticism of my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South is that he does not pay enough attention to democratic rights. The praise to be given to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is that he has, in this extremely difficult matter, got the balance about right.

I wonder whether my hon. Friend would think it right to rephrase his sentence about whether I pay attention to democratic rights.

I shall not. I do not want to be insulting. I shall put the argument as clearly as possible. We have created a new status of British citizen.

What about the opinion of that British citizen?

I am coming to that point, if my hon. Friend will show a little patience.

We have created a new status of British citizen. We are dealing with the rights of female British citizens. We all accept that the Miss Clarks of the world should have a right to bring in their husbands and fiancés. I am saying that so should Miss Patel, provided that she is a British citizen settled in the United Kingdom. If we deny that proposition, we create two categories of female British citizens, and that is wrong. For that reason, I commend the rules to the House, and I am certain that the vast majority of my constituents will commend me in so doing.

I am tempted to say "Follow that", but I shall not do so.

My principal concern with these rules, especially in relation to marriages, is that they will give entry clearance officers and immigration officers far too wide powers. Many hon. Members have experience of the wide interpretation of powers that immigration officers already exert—at Heathrow, among other places—when people, perfectly reasonably, come into this country, and, on an arbitrary decision of an immigration officer, are denied access to their families and friends—even for a visit—and we have to intervene on their behalf. People come in, cap in hand.

The conditions, as they have been tightened up—I refer, in particular, to paragraph 126, which I am sure all Conservative Members will know; and I do not share the optimism of some hon. Members who have spoken—are so oppressive as to make entry for all but the most resolute impossible. In my opinion, that is the intention. In reality, a two-year qualification will probably mean a three-year or a four-year qualification, if retained in the present form. Fortunately, my marriage has lasted for nearly 22 years, and it is my experience that the first two years of a marriage are the most stressful. I do not see why young people should be subjected to additional stresses, when they are already under stress in cementing a new union and a new family and growing new roots. They are then subjected to bureaucratic stresses which can, and sometimes will, be far above the stress that many of them can stand.

Before I leave that subject, I would thank the Home Secretary for the two assurances that he gave us tonight. There is bound to be considerable concern about the children of marriages that break up, for whatever reason. However, I was appalled to hear that the Home Secretary believes that most marriages break up because husbands abandon their wives. Marriages break up for a variety of tragic reasons, many of them in no way concerned with husbands abandoning their wives. However, I am glad to hear that the Home Secretary has taken on board what hon. Members have said and has given us assurances when children are involved.

The nub of this debate—as it was of our debate on 11 November—is fiancés. We are told that one of the reasons for tightening up is the misuse of the arranged marriage tradition, but we have been given no proof. I asked the Minister of State on 11 November:

"Much capital has been made of the possibility of men entering into arranged marriages primarily as a means of coming to the United Kingdom. What are the figures for the number of marriages so contracted? There is much hearsay on this subject, but I have yet to discover any hard evidence".—[Official Report, 11 November 1982; Vol. 31, c. 732.]

The Minister of State said in winding up that he had been asked a number of questions to which he would reply in writing. So far, I have not been privileged to receive a reply to that question, which was directed specifically to the Minister of State. In fact, it was not until we came here tonight that we got any evidence at all. We find that the number of men sent back because their marriages have not lasted for a year is 150. I am no mathematician, but I work that out to be about 5 per cent. of the estimated figure of 3,000 people coming in.

rose—

I shall not give way just now. Nevertheless, we are still told that fiancés are using the arranged marriage tradition as a way of getting into this country. We still have not been given proof of that. I ask the Minister of State again if he will give us categorical proof that these arranged marriages are being deliberately contracted to bring into this country people who do not genuinely want to make an arranged marriage.

rose—

We now hear of money being advertised in Bombay. Whether we agree with it or not it is a fact that dowries form part of an arranged marriage. They have nothing to do with bogus marriages at all.

The lack of provision for elderly dependent relatives has so far not been mentioned, although it was dealt with in he debate of 11 November. I want to bring to the attention of the House the case of the mother of one of my constituents, Mrs. Soni, about whom I have had correspondence with the Minister. Under the present rules, the adjudicator at her appeal was obliged to deny Mrs. Soni entry into Britain. At the close of his summing-up he said:

"I make this decision with reluctance in view of the past history of this matter. Mr. Wadeson"—

who I presume was the lady's solicitor or lawyer—

"himself mentioned that I might wish to make some recommendation and this I willingly do."

He concluded:

"I have no doubt that there is a strong emotional dependence in this case and in the interest of seeing that justice in its broadest term is done in this case I strongly recommend that the appellant be given leave to enter the United Kingdom to settle by discretionary action outside the Immigration Rules."

I shall not bore the House with the whole of the Minister's letter, but he was unfortunately unable to concur. That lady is still unable to join her family. That is not the only case that I have had. There are elderly relatives in Bangladesh, Pakistan and India whose children are in Britain. They want to see their grandchildren and spend their declining years with their families. That is a perfectly justifiable and honourable wish. Yet the rules make no provision for such people. It is about time the Government considered what they are doing.

rose—

No, I shall not give way.

It saddened me to hear the Home Secretary defending the rules as he did. I had considerable respect and admiration for him before I came to the House and that respect has grown since. In reality, the Home Secretary did not particularly want the rules, any more than did many of his right hon. and hon. Friends. He has been forced into this by the baying of some of the hard-line, Right-wing Conservative Members. The rules have been brought in for the sake of a quiet life. It is on that basis, if on no other, that I shall vote with my hon. Friends on the Liberal and Social Democratic Benches tonight.

This is one of the many occasions in this Parliament when we have the prospect of Labour, Social Democratic and Liberal Members voting together. On this occasion it will be in favour of a more liberal immigration policy.

The speeches from the Front Bench, both above and below the Gangway, were not, if I may say so, particularly distinguished. That of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) reminded me somewhat of a roly-poly pudding. It was superficially attractive perhaps, but stodgy and fundamentally unsatisfying. However, it did at least have one virtue. The right hon. Gentleman has always been consistent in his suggestion that women settled here, with the right of abode in the United Kingdom, but without British nationality, should have the same entitlement to bring in their husbands and fiancés into the United Kingdom as British women. Although that has consistently been his view, I believe it to be wrong, because our primary duty must be towards women who are British nationals.

The right hon. Gentleman also advocated a return to the status quo ante, which, in immigration terms, means to the status quo ante of 1974. That was the year when the Labour Party instituted its provisions for an amnesty for illegal immigrants. The most significant element was not so much what the right hon. Gentleman said, as what he omitted. On this occasion, his speech omitted two significant points: his previous commitment to the repeal of the Immigration Act 1971 on behalf of his party, and—again on behalf of his party— the repeal of the British Nationality Act 1981. If both of those Acts were repealed, effective immigration control and a sound principle of citizenship would be very hard to establish.

The right hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Jenkins) was perhaps more interesting than the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook. He was, indeed, vaguer. It was astonishing that the right hon. Member for Hillhead should ask the House to disapprove of the rules, when he did not suggest anything in their place. That was a fundamental omission. I should have thought that it was incumbent on the right hon. Gentleman, who, after all, moved the motion, to suggest an alternative.

rose—

The right hon. Gentleman did not give way to me. However, I shall give way to him.

I said that the logical, clean, humane and just thing to do was to go back to the 1974 provision, which I introduced.

That is interesting and reaffirms my point that the view of the Labour Party and the Liberal-Social Democratic alliance is identical on this issue. I am sure that the electorate will remember that.

We were allowed a tantalising glimpse behind the veil. It was a veil, because the speech of the right hon. Member for Hillhead was long and contained many abstract nouns—as witnessed by his intervention—but was short on practical prescriptions. He suggested that the jus soli provisions of the British Nationality Act 1981 were wrong. However, the British electorate feel that the children of transient people in this country should not necessarily have British citizenship. The British Nationality Act was right in that regard.

Of course the right hon. Member for Hillhead has the same ideas about settled women as the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook. The right hon. Member for Hillhead and I were away from the House for a similar period of time. His sojourn in Brussels has introduced a somewhat fluffy, insubstantial texture to his arguments. It is rather like an over-rich soufflé.

An amendment stands in the names of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Rippon) and 29 of my hon. Friends. They allege that the revised immigration rules contradict our election pledges. Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg), I understand their view and sympathise with it. However, I remember my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary saying loud and clear before the election that the Conservative Party's aim was to bring immigration control more into line with the right of abode and with citizenship. As a direct result of the British Nationality Act, we have the revised rules.

If my hon. Friends dislike the revised rules, they should have argued more effectively against the British Nationality Act. I was a member of the Standing Committee, but I cannot remember any eloquent or effective arguments from them then. However, in Committee I pressed the point about the fiancés or husbands of British women. Honourably and rightly, my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison), the Minister of State, said that he would think about the matter and return to the House. He has done that with the White Paper, and now with the rules. The most important aspect of the manifesto was the clear exposition, repeated by the right hon. Member for Hillhead, that the rights of all British citizens legally settled here are equal before the law, regardless of their race, sex or creed, and their opportunities should also be equal.

Those are the principles on which I fought my election campaign. There was a codicil about husbands and fiancés, but political parties when they reach office have the responsibility to see whether the entirety of their manifesto pledges and commitments make sense in the cold reality and light of office. We found with the quota that it was not as sensible as we had thought. We made the right decision also about husbands and fiancés.

I have twice argued this year that we should extend to British women not born here or without a parent born here the same entitlement to bring in a husband or fiancé as other British women. If I have a general regret, it is that my 30 recusant hon. Friends who signed the amendment have forced my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to impose upon the first two years of marriage of all British women the Home Office scrutiny which previously was intended only for the first year of marriage of British women who happened not to be born here or happened not to have a parent born here. That is a personal regret, but what is more important is that I genuinely hope that the immigration rules will now meet the stipulations of the European Convention on Human Rights.

I know that a small number of my hon. Friends believe that it is not an important document. I believe that the convention is fundamental to our liberties. It is, after all, a convention signed by all the 21 nations of the Council of Europe. I serve on the Legal Affairs Committee of the Council of Europe under the chairmanship of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Solihull (Mr. Grieve). I could not hold my head high in that Committee if my Government and country were to go against an adjudication of the European Court of Human Rights. The convention distinguishes the democracies, the 21 free countries of Western Europe, from the totalitarian people's democracies of Eastern Europe.

Is not one of the problems of the Court that it gives powers to foreign judges to make laws in the United Kingdom without knowing the social conditions that prevail in the United Kingdom?

It does nothing of the kind. It merely establishes the principles of liberty which are espoused and shared by all the signatory countries. The Court adjudicates purely and simply on that matter. It does not create laws in this country.

The immigration rules will bring our practices more nearly into line with those of other comparable countries, both within the Council of Europe and in the wider world. I shall briefly list those countries which admit foreign husbands of their own nationals. In Europe they are Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Germany. Not all do so as of right. In Belgium, for example, there has to be a work permit. In France, certain countries' nationals need a visa. I have the same information from the Library as my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow). In the wider world the list includes Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. Broadly speaking, we have the developed Western world on our side. The safeguards are extremely strict and the rules should be commended to the House.

The hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson) said that he would not wish to go against decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. He then commended the immigration rules that are under discussion, but that begs the question of the likelihood of the European Court declaring fairly approximately that the practices that are set out in the rules go against the rulings of the Court. If that happens, the hon. Gentleman will be forced to change his views on the rules. For that reason he would be better off voting with Labour Members than with some of his hon. Friends.

In a speech of some force the hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg) said that it was repugnant to him that Miss Hogg, born in Britain and wishing to marry a man from abroad, should be treated differently from Miss Patel, not born in this country but a British citizen. With that view I heartily concur. When he talked about a third lady who was not born here but settled here, he said, "We cannot give her the same rights as Miss Patel or Miss Hogg". He said that that was not possible partly because of something that a Labour Government are alleged to have done some years ago—not a very convincing argument—and partly, I suspect, because the need to keep immigration figures down becomes more important than the principles of justice and democracy. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is not in the Chamber. I think that he spoilt a good speech by descending to an argument that was feeble and contradicted the important point of principle which earlier he had been seeking to establish.

Even before the draft immigration rules came before the House about six weeks ago, many of us were depressed, disappointed and opposed to the immigration rules which had been introduced in 1980 and which are still in force. We took that view for one main reason. Many Conservative Members have been talking about the Conservative Party's manifesto. I have seen copies being read assiduously by Conservative Members this evening. Some of them should have read the section on the importance of family life. That is the section that some Conservative Members appear to have forgotten. Many of us believe that the present rules are damaging because of their adverse effect on family life. They keep families apart, they penalise dependants and they prevent children from being united with their parents.

Six weeks ago we debated the draft immigration rules. The Government said that they would listen to the views of the House. They have listened to the views of only one narrow section of the House. In effect, they have said, "We shall listen to the hard-line Right wingers on our Back Benches and we shall ignore the views of the overwhelming majority in the House, many of whom have expressed disquiet about the rules." The Government have ignored their disquiet.

We have had the sad spectacle this evening of the Home Secretary having the support of very few friends. He has alienated himself from some Labour Members who might have given him guarded support. He has done so because of a shabby effort to appease the handful of Conservative Back Benchers who lack basic humanity and are not prepared to support the modest concession in the rules which the Home Secretary has been urging on the House. It is a modest concession but it has been bitterly opposed by certain Conservative Members. We did not vote against the draft rules six weeks ago because of the concession.

Despite what Home Office Ministers say, the European Commission is the main reason why the concession, as we call it, was introduced into the draft rules. I do not understand why the Home Office is being quite so coy about some of the matters that went before the European Commission, which led to some of the cases being tentatively decided, and to persuading the Government to put their concessions into the immigration rules.

I quote from a document that the Government apparently submitted to the Commission:

"Women are not necessarily bound to compete for employment and are unlikely to be breadwinners. Women as breadwinners are unusual, for society still expects the man to go out to work and the woman to stay at home."

If that is the argument that the Home Office has been and still is using against allowing settled women to have their husbands join them here, we should examine that argument.

Issue 13 of "Social Trends" published yesterday or the day before, quotes from the 1981 labour force survey. It appears to be the contention of the Home Office that women are not breadwinners and by implication it means that women from the Indian subcontinent, above all, are not employed and therefore not earning income.

These statistics show that of all white women, 46 per cent. are said to be economically active, and 40 per cent. of women from the Indian subcontinent go in that category. If one adds to that 40 per cent. the proportion who are in all probability working with their husbands who are self-employed, the figure becomes similar to that for white women. The Home Office has not made a worthwhile case, even though that appears to be the only reason why it is not allowing settled women to bring in their husbands.

The delays experienced at the Home Office end by everybody who applies for citizenship will have an effect on the concessions, if the immigration rules are not rescinded this evening, and on women who apply for citizenship and wish to bring in the men of their choice within a reasonable period.

The delays at the Home Office are a byword for incompetence and inefficiency in dealing with applications for British citizenship. It takes over two years for an application to be processed. For example, an East African Asian woman, who will become a British overseas citizen under the British Nationality Act next month, will have to wait six years and eight months to get her voucher to come here. She will have to wait another five years after coming here before being eligible to apply for citizenship, and another two years before getting it. That is a long time before such a woman can avail herself of the concession.

One or two hon. Members have referred to the problem of children, but nobody has so far drawn attention to the problem of children born to parents who are refugees here. They will be in particular difficulty as they will not have British citizenship, although their parents will have no other country to go to because of their refugee status.

A letter that the Home Office sent out on 7 December this year says:

"Mr. Raison explained in the debate on the White Paper on 11th November why he did not think it would be appropriate to grant children who do not become British citizens indefinite leave to remain. If they were granted it, then after their parents had taken them abroad they would be able to return here in their own right as returning residents. This would cut across the principle that a child ought to remain with his parents. This argument may have less force where the parents are refugees and therefore there is little question of their re-establishing themselves outside the United Kingdom".

When the Home Office say an argument "may have less force", it is really saying that the argument has no validity at all.

The most objectionable aspect of this shabby attempt to appease the Right wing of the Tory party is not the two-year period or the instant liability to deportation to which a husband will be subject, but primarily the shift in the onus of proof. That onus of proof will be damaging because it will hit genuine marriages and put them under scrutiny.

Even in terms of the Home Office argument, there is no need for these extra powers if the aim is solely to identify marriages that are not genuine, because the present immigration rules contain powers to deal with marriages that are in breach of the immigration rules. There has been no evidence from the Home Secretary that these new and draconian measures are necessary.

His argument was, "Well, if one year is all right, why not two years?", and he produced no other evidence. Above all, the onus of proof is the sinister aspect of these regulations. It will affect all women who wish to marry a man from abroad and have him live here.

To subject a marriage to the kind of scrutiny envisaged in the immigration rules will put that marriage under intolerable pressure. Marriages are difficult enough at the best of times—[Interruption.] Conservative Members may laugh, but there is a high divorce rate in the United Kingdom, and marriage is not the easiest of relationships. It will be particularly difficult for people who feel that they will be subject to Home Office scrutiny for two years.

By what standards of justice or humanity is the Home Office now saying, "Prove to us that your marriage is within the immigration rules"? That is a grave departure from the normal traditions operated here as well as from the normal traditions of justice.

The way in which entry certificate and immigration officers subject married couples to interrogation is obnoxious. Last month, an interview took place in Pentonville prison with a man seeking to establish that his relationship was genuine. Two of the questions asked were: "How many times do you make love?", and "Do you give her one every time you see her?" Those questions were asked by a Home Office official, although the point at issue was whether he had a genuine relationship with a woman settled in this country. If that is typical of the way in which Home Office officials ask questions, it augurs ill for the way in which these immigration rules will be applied.

If a young lady in the United Kingdom sets out to marry someone from the Indian subcontinent, whom she has hardly met, it is obvious that that marriage is not taking place on the basis of love. It is obviously not a very convenient arrangement because there are young men in the United Kingdom whom she could marry. Will the interpretation not inevitably be that that marriage is being postulated on the basis of acquiring immigration to the United Kingdom for the young man?

The hon. Gentleman keeps asking that question, and I do not see the purpose of his repeating it to me. He knows perfectly well that there are different religious and cultural traditions from the ones to which he subscribes, and it is perfectly legitimate for some people here to prefer to have their marriages organised or arranged in a way that is traditional to their religion or culture. Evidence suggests that such marriages often last longer than many white ones. I do not see why the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) wants to invest that point with such significance.

I hope most sincerely that the House will reject the immigration rules. I hope that it will do so in the knowledge, belief and confidence that that rejection, will force the Government to introduce a different set of immigration rules that will not include these onerous and unpleasant provisions. They are a blot on British justice and British tradition.

I am sorry that the Government have not heeded the warning that I and my colleagues gave them in the previous debate. We said that we would oppose any further relaxation of the immigration rules.

I am glad that the Minister of State is present, and I am sorry that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is not, but I know that he has attended for a large part of the debate. I have repeatedly made the charge that I am now making against him and the Home Office, and it has not been gainsaid. It is that the Home Office unfortunately seems to be quite blind to the force of public opinion on the subject. Listening to Opposition Members for hour after hour, one is amazed by the thought of what sort of constituents they must have. One wonders whether they would dare make the same type of speech in front of their constituents.

The Home Office is already under fire in some quarters—not always fairly—for weakness about law and order. With regard to the immigration rules, it has utterly rejected the opinions of the ordinary English voter. I still maintain that the Home Office is too ready to listen to middle-class pressure groups such as the pro-women's liberation or the pro-immigrant lobbies and the so-called courts in far away countries when it should go out into the highways and byways of England and listen to the real voice of the people.

Who are the English people who will be affected mainly by the arrival each year of some 3,000 extra men plus an unknown number of their dependants? Who are affected but the English working class who live in our great conurbations? Immigration is a wholly working-class problem. It does not touch the life, for example, of readers of The Guardian and other high-minded intellectuals who tend to live in the more agreeable parts of the country.

I know that my party was once called the stupid party, but from the time of Disraeli at least, when the working class became enfranchised, the Tory Party always cared greatly for the working class and were suspicious—we still are—of the intellectuals. I believe that we are now letting the working class down; and I am deeply ashamed about it.

I wonder how many letters of support hon. Members on either side of the House have had for the relaxation of the rules. I have received none, but I have received a great many letters from all over the United Kingdom—especially England—expressing hostility, sadness and bitterness at the action that we are about to take. I fear that it will cost my party many votes at the next general election.

I do not know how many Indian and Pakistani young men and women who live here are thrilled by the proposed changes. It must make the likelihood of more arranged marriages much greater, apart from the question of fraud. I am sure that some of these women, who have mixed a little in English society, might wish to adopt our marriage customs and choose a husband freely from one of their own community here. These are details. We have heard too much of detail tonight and not enough about the continuing problem of mass immigration.

The Government have broken a special pledge. They have broken faith with their own supporters, particularly their working class supporters. They have broken faith with the people of England as a whole, many of whom voted for them, although they were not Conservatives, because they thought that this Government at last would take a strong stand on immigration. One by one the pledges against further immigration have been withdrawn by the Government. First, there was the financial help, heard about originally in 1970, for those who wanted to return to their homeland. Secondly, there was the quota of those who were to be received here. Thirdly, there was the register of dependants who were still expected to arrive here.

In addition, the harsh, so-called anti-discrimination laws are being upheld with increasing rigour, to the disgust and dismay of the great majority of the English people living in this land. All that we get now from the Home Office are bland and fatuous platitudes. The relaxation of the rules is being undertaken at a time of high and rising unemployment. One can imagine how the news will be received by those English people who are still left in the areas where there is a high concentration of immigrants. They are bound to ask themselves who will be the next for the dole queue. Will it be the new immigrant? Or will the immigrant perhaps replace an Englishman at work? There will not be two jobs available. I find it incredible that this Government who, in other respects—certainly in defence and foreign affairs and in their dealings with our EC partners—have shown such strength in upholding British interests, should be so weak in this vital matter.

Will my hon. Friend give way?

I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me. This has been a long debate. My hon. Friend has not been present for very long.

If hon. Members will imagine for a moment that they are not in this place, not in Westminster and not in Whitehall, but in any ordinary pub, club, shop, house, church or school, who cares about some court in Europe of which few people have heard and which has nothing to do with the EC? Yet this court may decide who should or should not be allowed to come here.

Will my hon. Friend give way?

Order. The hon. Gentleman is not giving way.

People outside the House are sick and tired of hearing humbug from hon. Members about immigration being brought to a halt. It has not, unfortunately, been brought to a halt. In fact, by these measures, it is being increased. These are the views of ordinary voters, as all hon. Members know.

I am not naturally a rebellious person. My record of support for the Prime Minister and the Government is second to none. I hate, therefore, to have to vote against my own Government. As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary knows, I have a high personal regard for him, although we may, from time to time, have had our disagreements. Those things, however, are as nothing to me in my concern as to where my duty lies—my duty to my country, to my constituents and, I believe, to the best and true interests of my party.

Many hon. Members may disagree fundamentally with the remarks of the hon. Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Stokes), but we should applaud the honest and forthright way in which he has expressed an authentic view, which is represented on the Conservative Benches and, indeed, in the country. I take pleasure in congratulating the hon. Gentleman on his honesty and in condemning, to use his own word, the humbug that we have heard from his hon. Friends in their attempts to support the Government.

The speech of the hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg) was more impressive for its entertainment value than for the force of his arguments, and the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson) seemed unclear about his own view. I know of no evidence to suggest that the immigration rules before us will comply with the European Convention on Human Rights. If what the hon.

Member for Ruislip-Northwood said is true, he will find it difficult to hold his head up high when he returns to his committee in Europe.

Will the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that before the October White Paper was published there was very little prospect of the rules meeting the criteria of the European Convention on Human Rights and that I expressed the hope that the revised rules would do so?

I certainly acknowledge that, but the fact remains that the rules before us are racially and sexually discriminatory and thus will not comply with the European Convention on Human Rights. If the hon. Gentleman wants rules that comply with that convention, for which he expressed strong support, despite the views of his colleagues, he should vote against the rules today.

We have seen on the Conservative Benches today a phenomenon often seen on the Opposition Benches—an attempt to reconcile two entirely incompatible views. The Government have got into the hopeless mess described earlier by my right hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Jenkins), because they are trying to bring together two utterly incompatible positions on this issue.

I wish to touch on some of the most objectionable features which will lead us to vote against the rules today. In introducing the rules the Home Secretary described them clearly, but he did not seek in any way to justify the changes introduced since they were published just a few weeks ago. It is extremely hard to see what additional evidence there could be or what representations could have been made to the Government to bring about these changes in such a short time. As other Opposition Members have said, it is clear that the reason for the three changes in the draft rules is simply an attempt to assuage the criticism of Conservative Back Benchers today and on previous occasions. The introduction of the changes makes an already bad situation worse. It is window-dressing for the racist sentiments that have been expressed and which Opposition Members utterly deplore. Not only have the Home Secretary and his colleagues not justified the changes but they have not tried to answer the point that the rules are both racially and sexually discriminatory.

Does the hon. Gentleman really believe that it is window-dressing to prevent persons from taking advantage dishonestly of a change in the rules by entering Britain for marriages of convenience? If that is not window-dressing, I do not know where his criticisms are directed.

Had the hon. and learned Gentleman been here earlier, he would have realised that this great sledgehammer of a proposal is being taken up by the Government to deal with about 150 cases, which was the figure given earlier by the Home Secretary.

The Government are being forced to take action, but not on the basis of the evidence that is before us, and that has been well rehearsed by Opposition Members. I applaud the hon. Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge for his honesty and the forthrightness of his approach, but I fundamentally disagree with him. He talked as though Britain was experiencing massive immigration. That is simply not the case, as Home Office Ministers have told their Back-Bench Members and the country. That is why I referred to the changes in the rules as being window-dressing, pandering to the unnecessary fears raised by racist sentiments and racists in Britain.

I agree with those Opposition Members who have said that the major change since the draft rules were introduced is in the burden of proof. One fears that that change will stop genuine marriages from taking place. It is even worse that the judgment of the entry clearance officer must be exercised on the basis of the evidence that people can give of their intentions. It is impossible to judge people's intentions in such a matter and it is objectionable that a young couple must find evidence of their intentions. That is the most objectionable change, although I do not say that the other changes are not equally bad. The extension of the probationary marriage period to two years simply continues a fairly objectionable system of surveillance that leads inevitably to intrusions into people's privacy and relationships. All hon. Members must disagree with that, no matter what the circumstances may be.

It is regrettable that the Government did not take into account the comments of many hon. Members during our previous debate on the stricter rules on foreign business men coming to Britain. They are the entrepreneurs that Britain needs now to start businesses, to expand businesses and to provide employment.

Although the rules flow from the British Nationality Act 1981 and the reduction of the jus soli principle, they are much more complicated than they need be. The rules will give rise to endless problems with which hon. Members will have to deal at their surgeries. Under the complicated provisions, applications will have to be made by parents of children born in this country who are not entitled, as they used to be, to British citizenship as of right.

I want to refer to what the Home Secretary said about the reasons for the breakdown of marriage. I do not believe that the House should be sanguine and think that we have obtained a concession from the Home Secretary today. I hope that the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) has interpreted the Home Secretary's comments correctly. The rules seem to contradict what the Home Secretary said, because the grounds for deporting a husband whose marriage has broken down are not discretionary, as the Home Secretary seemed to suggest.

Rule 158 says:

"Deportation will normally be the proper course irrespective of the reasons which led to the termination of the marriage or to one of the parties ceasing to intend to live with the other, and irrespective of any period during which he has been resident in the United Kingdom as a husband or fiance."

If "irrespective" means anything, I cannot see how the discretion that the Home Secretary implied was there can exist. I shall be delighted if my interpretation is wrong. However, it creates an uncertainty and I hope that the Minister will clarify the point, because many people will be unsure of their position and about how the rules will be applied.

On previous occasions when rules have been approved by the House, instructions have been issued to immigration officers making it clear that it is not intended that people should be deported, despite what happens at the tribunal, unless they have abused the rules.

It might be helpful if I drew the attention of the hon. Gentleman to rule 156, which makes it clear that the Home Secretary has the power to exercise his discretion in any of these matters. That is what my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary was talking about.

I am grateful to the Minister for that clarification, as will be all the people outside the House to whom the rule will apply. As the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook said, we have made some progress this evening on this if nothing else.

For all the reasons that I and other hon. Members have outlined, we shall seek to defeat the rules to make the Government face the fact that they have not introduced revised immigration rules which will satisfy the European Convention on Human Rights and enable this country to hold its head high, not just in the European Community, but throughout the world.

It is wrong for the Government to exercise discriminatory powers, not just on grounds of sex but on grounds of race. It will be a black mark against this country if the rules are allowed to go through. As the hon. Member for York (Mr. Lyon) said, I am sure that if the Government returned to the House with immigration rules that moved in the direction for which the Opposition have pressed, they would have the support of all Opposition Members and all Conservative Members, except those who are pressing the Government to move in the opposite direction. If the Home Secretary wants a substantial majority, let him return to the House with revised immigration rules which are not discriminatory on grounds of sex or race.

In 1979, I and my hon. Friends made several commitments to the British people. We made a general commitment to end immigration as it had been known in the United Kingdom. We made specific commitments to introduce an annual quota of immigrants and a register of dependants, to provide assistance to those who wished to return to their country of origin, and to end the concession basically to immigrant women to bring in men as further immigrants.

What has happened? There is no quota; there is no register, perhaps rightly. We are fearful of being misrepresented as racist and divisive, so we have not provided assistance for those immigrants who genuinely wish to go home. But we have reversed the concession made by the Labour Government to husbands and fiancés. It now appears that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is embarking on a course of action that would have made the grand old Duke of York seem positive and consistent by comparison. The one commitment that the Government have carried out they are now intent on reversing.

My right hon. Friend will argue that we are not returning to the situation that existed before 1979 and are not giving the right to settled women. How long, Oh! Lord, how long, will it be before the European Court sends shivers down the Home Office's spine and, as night follows day, further concessions are requested of the House?

Had my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg) allowed me to intervene in his speech, I would have pointed out that there is not a great deal of difference between settled women and women with citizenship. They merely have to wait to acquire citizenship and they can then bring in a husband or fiancé. To all intents and purposes, we are returning to the situation that existed before 1979.

I have the greatest respect and affection for my right hon. Friend the Minister of State. We spent many long and hard but agreeable days and nights in Committee on the British Nationality Bill together. He will argue that great safeguards are being introduced. It is not basically the safeguards we are concerned about; we are concerned because a further door is being opened to allow further primary immigration.

Let us look at the safeguards, for what they are worth. Marriage should not be used as the basis for immigration. I do not believe that most of us are against arranged marriages. But it cannot be a love match when a girl marries a man from as far away as the Indian subcontinent whom she does not know. A marriage could better be arranged with a man here. A marriage arranged when the man is thousands of miles away must be primarily for the purpose of immigration.

The marriage must endure for two years. That is objectionable, and in any case it will not work. A man may arrive here for a genuine marriage; it may last for a year and a half, and a child may result. When the marriage breaks up, will the man be dragged, kicking and screaming, across the tarmac at Heathrow airport? Alternatively, if a man purely wishes to gain entry into the United Kingdom, evades the safeguards and has no intention of sustaining the marriage, and if he later disappears into the ethnic underground of Coventry, Birmingham or another of our big cities, how do we find him? Are we going to have dawn swoops by the police to make sure that nobody is overstaying, that nobody has gone through a marriage of convenience and is abusing the rules of marriage? It will not happen. It would be too damaging to race relations.

If these marriages take place when they should not, we are told that people will be deported. My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) and I have asked questions about the numbers of people who have been deported. We have been denied answers until today, and today we have been told that there has been an annual rate of 150. One wonders about the qualities of the answers coming forward now, if it has been impossible to give those answers before. One can only be suspicious that, even with these new rules and these new safeguards, people will not be found and will not be deported from the country.

We have had examples in the past of rules which have been too strict, too Draconian, and quite rightly they have not been applied. It is my sincere belief that, even if we pass these rules tonight, eventually these safeguards will not he used, after a period of time—and some, rightly so.

What other arguments do the Government advance in support of their case? We have heard—not tonight—that there has been a reduction in immigration. So what? Hurrah! We should be grateful for that. That is what we all want. So why should we open the door and allow more primary immigration to take place?

There has been a reduction. The number of dependants in 1979 was 26,600. The number of dependants coming in last year was 23,300. The number of people that came in as husbands and fiancés before we changed the rules was 5,600. If we add those to the figures of last year we get back to a figure that was greater than the figure in 1979.

We have heard the argument advanced of sex equality. The rules are not sex equal. Any of us here who has a son knows that he only has to look at somebody overseas to fancy her and he can bring her in without any trouble whatever. Our daughters are in a completely different situation. They have to go through the whole wretched rigmarole. So the rules are to no extent sex equal.

indicated assent.

I am glad that the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) finds a point of agreement with me. We should mark it down in our diaries. It is the first time that it has happened.

The point was also made that those who have taken British citizenship have made such a massive commitment to Britain that they should all be treated the same. I think that that is a little naive. I am a bit cynical about it. I believe that people who are not British by birth and take British citizenship do it because they perceive that there is some advantage for themselves in so doing. Having given them that advantage, having allowed them to acquire British citizenship, I do not think that it necessarily follows that we should also allow them the ability to bring in other people and give them British citizenship as well. That does not follow at all.

We have also heard the arguments about families. Do we believe in family life? Can we keep married couples apart? As I said in an intervention, families can combine in two directions. They do not all have to come here at the same time.

We have heard the argument advanced about the European Court, about the possibility—even the probability—that it will rule against us. It has not done so yet.

"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

When and if the Court has so decided, we can then take the necessary measures. That could take a certain amount of time. Why do we always seem to be at the receiving end of the European Court?

I have asked my right hon. Friend for information about what happens in other countries, including other countries in Europe. I have had answers back from him. Apparently, in a majority of the dozen or so European and Commonwealth countries whose practices the Government investigated, there is no legal right for women to bring in their husbands to join them. We are in advance of everybody else. We are more liberal than everybody else. Our women who were born here, or whose parents were born here, are permitted, as of right, to bring in their fiancés and husbands, but that does not happen in many European countries, not the ones that the Government have looked at.

I shall go into more detail. My right hon. Friend wrote:

"Our information is that in four countries—Australia, Belgium, Denmark and Germany—a husband 'may' join a wife … In Germany there are certain residential requirements which the wife may have to satisfy. In a further eight countries—Austria, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden and the United States of America—the admission of husbands appeals to be at discretion"—

It is not a right but a discretion. That discretion is—

"subject to more or less stringent conditions. What this may mean in practice seems to vary greatly … In France a husband, as we understand it, is admitted only if special considerations render his exclusion undesirable. Five other countries—Bangladesh, India, Luxembourg, Pakistan and Switzerland—make no general provision for husbands, but they may be admitted in certain circumstances."

I have tried to find out what happens in Pakistan, for example: Marriage is a factor that is taken into account. That is all. We always seem to be the givers. Everyone else always seems to be the taker.

The arguments of the Government, both severally and united, are not satisfactory. We know what has happened. My hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson) advanced the case that some of these things are not practicable and that, when one gets into power, one has to face up to reality. I advance a slightly different case. When one discusses these things, one talks to the people, one knows what is happening and one learns what the people are concerned about and what needs to be done. Unfortunately, after three years in government, stuck away in the ivory tower of the Home Office, surrounded by quango after quango and with the Commission for Racial Equality and the Equal Opportunities Commission coming out of the woodwork, the Government are subjected to a barrage of people who represent absolutely nobody. Unfortunately, the Government have gone in that direction. That is particularly offensive to democracy.

The Opposition will not care to listen to me when I make the following points. There are two social problems, which, if the rules are passed, we shall be afflicted with. Young men will wish to come here for marriage believing that the marriage is genuine. Perhaps they have had to pay to get here. They will arrive and discover that they have been tricked. What will happen to them? What is their sad situation? They will be submitted to blackmail, fear and intimidation.

What about the young girls, not born in this country, but brought up here, aged 16 or 17, whose parents decide that they want to arrange a marriage for them? They may not wish it. How will they tell the entry clearance officer and the immigration officer that they do not wish it when they know that their families want to go ahead? If the marriage is arranged at the age of 16, is not that too young? If we pass the rules, all those young girls, some of whom might be willing, and some of whom will not be willing, will be subject to that great and disturbing pressure at a tender age. It is not fair that we should put them in this position.

Those are my words. Those are the points that I wish to make, but other better and greater people than myself—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—have discussed those matters—

Name them.

If my hon. Friend, who has been making a lot of noise without great effect, will give me a second, I shall do just that.

On 4 December 1979, we debated a similar set of rules—they were better than today's rules. A statement was made that

"What we are discussing is the question of men being able to use a provision in our immigration control which enables them to settle on marriage when they could qualify to come in no other way. We must stop this loophole. The Government have a clear mandate to do so.

I was terribly pleased when my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said that. That mandate still exists today. Later in the same debate my right hon. Friend said:

"We cannot go further and extend the provision to all women who are citizens—this would mean leaving the door open to more primary immigration."

How right my right hon. Friend was then and how right he would be today if he said exactly the same.

In the same debate, my right hon. Friend the Minister of State said:

"we have a particular aim, which is to cut back on primary male immigration."—[Official Report, 4 December 1979; Vol. 975, c. 254–367.]

My right hon. Friend said that then and I am sure that he has not changed his mind. As he has not changed his mind it will be my intention, and that of many of my hon. Friends, to vote against the rules tonight.

I agree with the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) in one respect only, and that is that he is right to say that the Government have gone back on the pledges that they made before the May 1979 general election. Between 1978 and 1979 the Conservative Opposition, led by the present Prime Minister, embarked upon a most cynical and disgusting campaign to play upon people's base fears in an attempt to whip up racial prejudice in Britain and, as a result, to buy votes.

Many Labour Members remember only too well the quite disgraceful interview which the Prime Minister as Leader of the Opposition gave on 31 January 1978 on the "World in Action" programme. She claimed that people feared that they might be rather swamped by people of a different culture. That interview was even worse, because the Prime Minister—I am glad to see the hon. Member for Basildon (Mr. Proctor) nodding in agreement—sought to compete with the National Front for votes. She went on to say that

"some people do not agree with the objectives of the National Front, but they say that at least they are talking about some of the problems".

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that that statement was made just before the Ilford, North by-election, when I was one of the first Conservative Members ever to ask for a National Front march to be banned, and it was?

I am aware that the interview was not long before the Ilford, North by-election. I am also well aware that the remarks of the Prime Minister, then the Leader of the Opposition, provoked a major row in the Conservative Party. Opposition to her was led by the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath), the former Prime Minister.

On 14 February 1978 The Times had a headline:

"Mr. Heath backs 1971 Immigration Act against the Thatcher line."

Whatever the hon. Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Bendall) may have said when he came to the House, the Prime Minister set out to whip up racist fears and to insinuate and suggest to the British public that if they elected a Conservative Government there would be a stop to all kinds of immigration. Indeed, they were egged on in that regard by their lickspittle, the Daily Mail, which, on 13 February 1978 published a front page story saying:

"Immigration: Major Mail poll reveals rising support for the Tories. Maggies's got it right."

[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am glad that the most Right-wing Members of the Conservative Party accept that it was indeed the Prime Minister's intention, and that of most Conservative candidates up and down the land, to insinuate that there would be a major cutback in immigration.

The Conservative candidate for Blackburn even insinuated at the election that all race laws should be scrapped and that wider publicity should be given to the facilities already available for voluntary repatriation. It was said that race relations laws should be scrapped because Parliament cannot control a persons's feelings. Be fore the 1979 general election the Conservative Party embarked on a racist campaign to create fear, both in the white community and in the black Asian community in Britain.

The Government have gone back on those election pledges, not because they have suddenly discovered their moral principle but because of the pressure that has been exerted by hon. Members and by the European Court of Human Rights. However, the problem is that, although there has been pressure from Labour Members and from Europe, there has been a countervailing pressure from the Right wing of the Tory Party. The result of those two different pressures is this mishmash of changes in the immigration rules. Under the guise of reform and relaxation, they will often make the situation much more oppressive for immigrants and their families than it is at present.

The hon. Gentleman really must get his facts right. The European Court has nothing to do with the matter. It has only gone before the Commission and there has been no firm decision.

I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman for that minor correction. However, I do not think that Home Office Ministers would suggest for a moment that pressure from the European Commission had not lead to the change.

Many of the so-called reforms are deeply offensive. There has been a change in the onus of proof. It is a fundamental principle of British justice that a man is innocent until he is proved guilty. Normally, Conservative Members are only too pleased to stand up for the principles of British justice. Although, as all who have had to deal with adjudicators on immigration appeal tribunals know, the system of justice that immigrants have to endure is second rate, it is nevertheless important that the onus of proof should rest, as it were, on the prosecution. However, the onus will now rest on the equivalent of the defendant. A person will have to prove that he intends in good faith to marry someone. It is not for the Home Office to prove the opposite. That change is compounded by what amounts in the body of the rules to a vicious attack on the culture of the Indian and Pakistani communities and on that of the Muslim communities in general, and by a major misunderstanding about the nature of arranged marriages.

It would appear that many Conservative Members believe that arranged marriages are some form of lottery, in which people send off chain letters and by pure chance are ultimately told that they will marry someone, say, from a village in Gujarat. In case Conservative Members do not know, I must tell them that arranged marriages usually involve far more care being taken in the selection of the partner, and discussion and consideration by the individuals involved, than one finds with many marriages in Britain. Is it better for marriages to be arranged, so that both sides have an opportunity to consider the consequences of that marriage, or for marriages to go ahead in Britain that have been conceived as a result of a one-night stand in a bus shelter? I have not heard the hon. Member for Northampton, North suggesting that those marriages should not go ahead.

Would it not be much fairer to Conservative Members to acknowledge that the opposition is not to arranged marriages as such, but to the arrangement of marriages for financial gain?

With respect, that is not what the rules say. The rules also propose that a woman who intends to marry a foreign husband must prove that she has met her husband, intends to live with him and that the marriage is genuine and not for immigration purposes.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, by and large, there is a much lower divorce rate for arranged marriages?

I entirely accept that point, which was also made by my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, South (Mr. Dubs). The Indian and Pakistani communities are much better at preserving family life than is the English community. The divorce rate among the Asian communities is much lower than for the English community. Many Conservative Members do not understand the nature of arranged marriages. They are usually arranged between families that have deep associations that go back for generations. If they understood that, they would understand that there is often no need for the individuals to meet each other before they come to this country.

Another objection to the rules is that they involve an unacceptable degree of surveillance of the immigrant community. All Members who represent areas with Asian or West Indian populations know that they are in practice treated as second-class citizens and, quite contrary to the fantasies of the hon. Member for Northampton, North are logged and recorded by the police in every detail. To impose upon the law-abiding immigrant communities of this country the surveillance of marriage over a period of two years is unacceptable.

I have represented Blackburn since May 1979.

Too long.

It is too short in my view. If I have to face the same Conservative candidate as last time, I shall be here for a long time. I am only sorry that he has not yet been reselected for the position.

Those Members who represent constituencies with Asian communities know that these communities were built up as a result of invitations from people in this country. In Blackburn, as the Blackburn Council of Churches has repeatedly pointed out, local textile employers advertised in newspapers in Pakistan and India for workers to come to Britain to work for low wages on the night shift in the mills and foundries of Blackburn. Having invited them in, we have always had a responsibility to ensure that those communities are treated in the same way as the rest of the country.

I very much regret, first, the way in which, by administrative means as well as by changes in the regulations, the Government have sought to treat the Asian communities as a race apart and have accorded them in practice far fewer rights than are given to English people. Secondly, I regret that when Home Office Ministers, who have never been happy about the racist line taken by the Prime Minister and her Right-wing Friends on the Back Benches, are given an opportunity to change the rules and to introduce some humanity into them to allow women who are settled here to marry men of their choice—a basic and fundamental right—they are so cowardly as to back off from doing so, under pressure from the Right-wing, and bring forward wholly unacceptable regulations.

I hope that all Conservative Members who object to the way in which their Right-wing colleagues are behaving will join us in the Lobby tonight. [Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg) followed the logic of his speech to its conclusion he, too, would join us in the Lobby. I hope that they will all join us in the Lobby to defeat this wretched set of measures and ensure that a better and far more significant set is brought to the House in due course.

I have listened to most of the debate so far and one word that I have not yet heard mentioned is "reassurance". We are discussing the technicalities, the difficulties and the emotional overtones of the rules, but outside the Chamber the people of Britain are interested only in being reassured. When I say the people of Britain, I mean those who are white, black, brown, yellow or whatever colour one cares to name. They want reassurance that we are not going to change our basic character. If a school gets a sudden influx, as happened to me during the war when another school was evacuated on to us, the character of that school changes. I apologise if the lateness of the hour fouled up that statement.

I shall leave my schooldays and move forward. If we can reassure the people—I have said who I mean—that they will not see a change of immensity, we shall have a much more peaceful state of race relations.

The new rules that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is suggesting will not do that. They will be unduly harsh for fiancés who try to prove that they have a genuine marriage in mind. Those who want to feel that no more primary immigration will take place—in my view that is what the last election was all about on the immigration issue—will be given no assurance that another door has not been opened. A further door will be opened if the new rules are accepted, and that will lead to further primary immigration. It is that to which I fundamentally object.

This should not be a matter of scoring party points, an argument about whether the Liberal Party wants to bring in more primary immigrants than the Labour Party or an opportunity to allege that some Conservative Members want to cease immigration for a time. I regret bitterly the fact that we have not gone for the register and quota and sorted out the issue properly. That approach would have given the reassurance that I am seeking. If we had adopted it, we might have made progress. However, the Government chose not to do so. I hope that following the Division the Government will have to think again about the rules. That is why I shall vote against them.

When Britain signed the Helsinki Final Act with the Soviet Union and other countries, there was included in it a reference to making it "easy" for men and women from different countries to join each other in any of the participating countries. When the Soviet Union began creating obstacles to the fulfilment of that part of the Final Act, hon. Members on both sides of the House condemned it for not honouring its signed agreement. It had signed an international agreement and it was not honouring it. We preened ourselves on our rectitude because the Soviets were not fulfilling their obligation. We claimed that we had honoured what we had signed and that they had not.

We signed the European Convention on Human Rights. We were not forced to do so. We did it as free citizens and as a free country. That involves certain obligations. The European Court of Human Rights was set up under the convention, and we promised freely to honour its decisions. This debate is really about whether Britain honours its international obligations even when some people do not like the effects of so doing. If a party makes a promise in its manifesto that goes against Britain's international obligations, it has to break the obligation if it wins the election. The promise in the Conservative Party's manifesto was, wittingly or unwittingly, in contravention of the European convention as the European Court was likely to interpret it. Once that had been inserted into the manifesto, it meant that a future Conservative Government would have to take Britain out of the Convention before they could legally operate the promise about immigration.

The Government had no intention of doing that. Instead, although there was advice to the contrary, on coming into office, the promise, which may have assisted the Tory Party to achieve the size of its majority, was carried out. The Tories must have suspected that its execution could not remain valid for long. It depended on how quickly the Government were taken to the European Court, how delayed the process in that Court would be and how much the Government of Britain could delay a decision in the Court.

If those taking the Government to the Court had delayed, or if the Government could have delayed the processes in the Court beyond the next general election, the Government could have gone to the counrty in a few months' time—perhaps October—and pointed to what they had promised and how they had performed and said that they were still carrying out the pledge. Unfortunately for the Government, what they had promised was not within their power to achieve honourably because of our international obligations, freely entered into. Unfortunately for them too, the cases look like being decided before the next general election.

Quite rightly, the Government do not want to appear to be a pariah. Many countries have signed the European Convention on Human Rights. Why should Britain be the only one to withdraw? The Government could not contemplate that, and Conservative Back Benchers would not want to either. The Government waited and claimed that they had a good answer to the three claims, but they did not. They hung on and on as it became clearer and clearer that these cases would be decided before the general election. Accordingly, instead of taking action after the general election, if they were to win it, the Government have been obliged to take action before.

I accept that Tories may be unhappy, like others, about what they call additional sources of primary immigration. The Government should behave like a proper member of the international community. If they want to have credibility next time they attack countries such as the Soviet Union for not honouring their obligations about the joining of families set out in the Helsinki agreement, they must do something about the new rules that they brought in in 1979 in defiance of our convention obligations. They are moving towards that in these rules. They are not moving far enough, and, in retreat from the Right wing, they are inserting disgraceful items.

Those who bitterly attack the Conservative Government for bringing the rules in must know why the Government have done so. They have done so under threat and because they have some regard for Britain's international name, and because they do not want us to be pilloried in the International Court, and the decision to go against us. That is the whole reason, although they have not had the guts to admit it, why the Government have decided to change tack and return to the position before 1979.

In concession to their Right wing, the Government have increased the period before which a husband can stay here, ostensibly from one to two years. This is not true. The truth is that persons entering this country for marriage have three months entry to start with. If the marriage takes place, they get another 12 months, added on to the three months. Under these rules another 12 months will be added to that, making two years and three months before they can apply for permanent settlement.

We all know that the Home Office is not that fast, and when the application is made after two years, three months under the rules, the Home Office will cause an investigation to be made. It can therefore be argued that probably, at the earliest, no husband will obtain permanent settlement unless he has lived with his wife for two and a half years.

What will happen if the husband is the innocent party? Rule 126(f) means that it does not matter which part intends to live permanently with the other. If the husband says "I love you and I want to carry on living with you", and the wife replies "No", it does not matter. Whichever party says "No", the husband must go.

What happens when there are children? After two and a half years there could be one child, perhaps two, but there is no provision for such marriages. As the rules stand, they will in certain circumstances effectively make British children orphans, because if a man who has been deserted by his wife and is looking after the children is sent back, the children will have to be taken into care.

The Government may say "We are kind people, rely on our discretion", but if they are prepared to make exceptions in cases where a woman deserts and there are children, there is no such provision in the rules.

When the language of the Helsinki Final Act, which in our virtue we nailed on the Russians, is examined, we find that the participating State will examine favourably and

"on the basis of humanitarian considerations"

requests for exit or entry permits from persons who have decided to marry someone from another participating State. However the phrase

"on the basis of humanitarian considerations"

appears nowhere in our rules, although we believe it to be suitable in an international convention that we and 20 other European countries have signed.

A few moments ago the Minister of State intervened, not out of great charity but to draw back from the concession given by the Home Secretary earlier. The Minister of State advised us to look at rule 156 which is headed "Deportation following a conviction". It lists a series of factors that the Home Secretary may take into account.

Rule 158 says that such factors should be taken into account before a decision on deportation is reached. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that under these rules the Government are entitled as of right to remove fathers who are looking after their children. The only possibility of such a father not being removed after desertion by a wife after two years is if the Home Secretary exercises his discretion. It depends on the attitude of the Home Secretary, his officials and the climate of the time. That is exceedingly harsh. We should not be so lacking in humanity in such circumstances as to leave the matter purely to discretion. It is an accumulation of discretion by the Home Secretary on a huge scale.

One of the arguments on the British Nationality Act 1981 was that, to make matters clearer, ministerial discretion should be reduced. There is nothing in the rules that reduces that discretion. It is enormous.

The hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg) said with courage and clarity that the rules will apply to his daughter and to all hon. Members' daughters. If any of our daughters marry, we should not think that their husbands can wander into Britain to join them. An application must be made. If any hon. Member's daughter produces a child and the marriage breaks up, no hon. Member should think that the husband has any right, whatever the colour of his skin, to remain here. The matter will be decided by discretion. Perhaps because our daughters are the daughters of Members of Parliament, everything will be fine, but it is still a matter of discretion.

The hon. Member for Grantham was right. He could not concede a principle that permitted that to happen. I hope that hon. Members will bear that in mind.

Perhaps it would be convenient if I intervened now. The hon. and learned Gentleman has got it wrong. Paragraph 158 says:

"deportation will normally be the proper course irrespective of the reasons which led to the termination of the marriage or to one of the parties ceasing to intend to live with the other."

Those are the factors that apply now. They do not include the existence of a child. We can perfectly well take account of the existence of a child because that is not specified with the other factors. Beyond that, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has discretion under paragraph 156 where it shows quite clearly that compassionate circumstances are included. The hon. and learned Gentleman is barking up the wrong tree.

Perhaps I may draw the Minister of State's attention to the second sentence of paragraph 158. After giving the factors that should be taken into account, it refers explicitly to that class of person. It says:

"Where, however, a man has remained without authorisation who does not qualify for leave under paragraph 126 because the condition in (e) or (f) of that paragraph is not met, deportation will normally be the proper course irrespective of the reasons which led to the termination of the marriage or to one of the parties ceasing to intend to live with the other, and irrespective of the length of any period during which he has been resident in the United Kingdom as a husband or fiancé."

That is perfectly true. Those are the words that I have just quoted. Children of the marriage are not included in those elements. They can be taken into account perfectly well when the consideration of the deportation is made. There is no doubt about that.

The Minister of State is repeating the point that I made. He says they can be taken into account. If he is saying that the future of families with children is tried anywhere other than by vague ministerial discretion, perhaps he will show me where.

In paragraph 156.

The Minister of State repeats that it is paragraph 156. The only reference in paragraph 156 is to domestic circumstances. I can see the word "child" or "children" nowhere. It says:

"the Secretary of State will take into account every relevant factor known to him,"

Everyone, especially lawyers, knows what "take into account" means. It does not mean "I shall do something". It means "I am obliged to consider". What harm is there in being obliged to consider? In future, where there are children, the fact is that there is no statutory protection. There is simply the Home Secretary's discretion.

There is no such statutory protection now.

The proposed rules increase the period before permanent settlement can be granted from a minimum of one year and three months to two years and three months. The extra year means that it is much more likely that families will develop. The Home Secretary stated in reply to a question that 150 males had been removed last year becasue of breakdown of marriage. It should not be imagined that those marriages were bogus. All that the figure means is that there were 150 cases where the husband and wife were not living together, whatever the reason, at the end of 15 months. The longer the period is increased the more chance exists that one will be dealing with children who are British even under the British Nationality Act.

This explains why the Home Secretary, for whom many hon. Members have affection, was looking so miserable. If ever a man with an uneasy conscience was to be seen, it was the Home Secretary during this debate. The right hon. Gentleman knows that what he is doing is exceedingly shabby. I hope that the House will take that into account.

In a debate of this nature, when some of my hon. Friends intend to vote against the Government, there is inevitably a certain amount of breast-beating. It seems that my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) beat his breast so much that he has turned it into pulp. I had thought that my hon. Friend was not present but I see now that he has moved places. I can only hope that his views have also moved.

It is possible, following some speeches, especially from the Conservative Benches, that the rebellion will prove to be less than expected due to a sense of embarrassment. I wish to make it clear to those who will read the debate or who may now be listening to it that the views expressed by some of my hon. Friends do not represent the majority view on the Conservative Benches.

How does my hon. Friend know that?

My hon. Friend the Member for Luton, West (Mr. Carlisle) is more telepathic than I had thought. He anticipates my remarks without knowing what I will say. When my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North says that there is no difference between British citizens and people settled here, he destroys his own argument. My hon. Friend is saying, by natural implication, that there should be no distinction between them. That is precisely what I understand to be one of his objections.

Some arranged marriages may occur for the purposes of immigration. That does not mean that all arranged marriages are for those purposes. My hon. Friends who speak against arranged marriages would, no doubt, have prevented the wives of many monarchs from coming to this country over the last few centuries. My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North would no doubt have stood up in the sixteenth century and told Anne of Cleves that she was coming here primarily for the purposes of immigration.