50th Anniversary of the Expulsion of Asians from Uganda

Baroness Donaghy Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Popat, on initiating this debate. He was the first Gujarati to be on the Front Bench for the Conservative Government and was a Minister in BEIS in 2013. He was always courteous and reassured many with his commitment to the statutory national minimum wage. Perhaps he was unduly modest today about his own achievements in his introduction to the debate and in praising everybody else.

It brought back memories when the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark—who is now not in his place—talked about the past immigration Acts. I remember as a student in Durham marching through the streets in 1967 against one of those immigration Acts.

What kind of country were we when the Ugandan Asians arrived? We had 1 million unemployed, two national states of emergencies during the miners’ and dockers’ strikes, extreme violence in Northern Ireland and the suspension of the Northern Ireland Parliament, with William Whitelaw becoming the first Northern Ireland Secretary. The first episodes of “Mastermind”, “Emmerdale Farm” and “I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue” were broadcast. Leeds United was the FA Cup winner; Derby County won the league’s first division and Tottenham Hotspur won the first UEFA Cup, on aggregate over Wolverhampton Wanderers. On the pop scene, number 1 hits included “Amazing Grace”, “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing”, “Without You”, “Vincent” and Donny Osmond’s “Puppy Love”.

In November, two months after most of the Ugandan Asians arrived, the Government, following Anthony Barber’s massive tax and Budget cuts, introduced freezes on pay, prices, dividends and rents to counter inflation, which was around 8.6%. Although the Ugandan Asian community was only a small minority of its population, estimates made at the time indicated that it paid up to 90% of Ugandan tax revenues.

The cruelty of the policy of expulsion can only be imagined. The worst tragedy affected those Ugandan Asian citizens holding Ugandan passports. First, Idi Amin exempted them from expulsion, but later many were expelled anyway; by then, they had been rendered stateless. Blind ideology impoverishes society and the economy of a country. That happened in Uganda. Perhaps Mr Putin should reflect on that in his assault on Ukraine; he should also read the book of the noble Lord, Lord Popat.

What do we learn from these events? First, Britain kept its word and fulfilled its obligations. Secondly, we could act at speed in an emergency. By the end of 1972-73, there were a total of 38,500 Ugandan Asians in Britain; this was achieved in a few short months. I do not think our record on Ukraine has been quite so glowing. Thirdly, there are dangerous parallels between the economic situations of then and now. Fourthly, this country benefits from and is enriched by the skills and hard work of refugees who arrive with nothing and go on to better themselves and improve our society.

The noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, who was on the Government Front Bench during the 40th anniversary of the expulsion, called it

“one of this country’s greatest success stories. Their story is a lesson to us today about the successes of integration”.—[Official Report, 6/12/12; col. 824.]

We also know, of course, that Priti Patel’s family were beneficiaries of the resettlement scheme. I have no doubt that the families faced racism and prejudice during their resettlement and had to overcome huge odds to succeed but succeed they did, displaying amazing resilience.