Commonwealth Immigration Visas

29 Apr 2008
Ms Diane Abbott: The Government pride themselves, particularly under their brilliant new phalanx of Home Office Ministers, on firm and effective immigration control. However, for such control to be acceptable, it has to be fair—and, specifically, it must not be race-based. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell)—he is an hon. Friend—said that we have always had ancestral rights. We have not. I remember with some clarity the patriality clause being introduced, mainly because I used to work for the Home Office. It was brought in when the Government sought to bear down on Commonwealth immigration.

It seems to me that the sweeping away of the clause is long overdue. I do not believe that it would survive legal challenge. If we look at the figures, we will see that in 2004, out of 9,397 visas issued, more than 8,000 were to people from the white Commonwealth, and most of the rest were from Zimbabwe. In 2005, out of 10,143 visas issued, nearly 10,000 were to people from the white Commonwealth; in 2006, out of 9,741 visas, more than 9,000 were to people from the white Commonwealth; and the most recent figures show that out of 8,380 visas issued, 8,083 went to people from the white Commonwealth.

The clause has provided a route by which members of the white Commonwealth gain rights and access that are denied to members of the non-white Commonwealth. It is archaic, but not in the sense that it goes back hundreds of years—it is one of the many indefensible and incoherent aspects of immigration control. I welcome the fact that Ministers, in seeking to revise, improve and make immigration control more coherent, are eliminating the clause. I believe that if persons from the rest of the Commonwealth—Africa, the Caribbean and Asia—realise how disproportionate the figures for the handing out of the visas are, they would understand the nature of the clause.



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