Ugandan Asians

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure once again to follow the noble Lord, Lord Singh. I did so a few weeks ago. I speak in this debate for two reasons. The first is that towards the end of March last year, I sat by my noble friend Lord Popat shortly before he made his maiden speech. There was an exchange on the Floor of the House on prayers. I shall never forget it because he said to me, “I can’t say anything because I haven’t made my maiden speech”—and, of course, he could not—“Could you let it be known that those of us who are not Christians but are of other faiths attach great importance to the established church in this country and to the ritual of daily prayers in this Chamber?”. I was very moved by that, and I did indeed quote my noble friend and make those points on the Floor of this House. I was moved by it because it was indicative, in a few sentences, of what the noble Lord, Lord Singh, has just said: the way in which this community has become part of Britain in every possible sense. My noble friend, in his admirable opening speech, made that very plain.

My second reason for wanting to say a few words in this debate is that I was elected to the House of Commons in 1970. I was one of the Conservatives who helped to create the majority for Edward Heath by defeating the late Lady Lee—Jennie Lee, as she then was—in the Cannock constituency. I represented a seat that was adjacent to Wolverhampton. I am proud to say that I was until his dying day a great friend of Enoch Powell. Indeed, I had the privilege of giving the address at his funeral. He was not right on everything but then, nor is anyone else.

I was proud to be in the House of Commons when the Conservative Prime Minister said, “This is our duty. There can be no equivocation. These are British subjects with British passports. They are being expelled from their country which in many cases is the land of their birth. They are entitled to come here and they will be welcome here”. I was one of those Conservative Members who was proud to support a Prime Minister who was doing what was right. Although it was not desperately convenient and there was very understandable concern at the numbers of immigrants coming into this country, here was a special category—a group who did not deserve to suffer from that 1968 Bill of which my noble friend Lord Steel of Aikwood spoke so movingly a few moments ago.

They came here and we all know what has happened since. They integrated into our country. They infused a new life into the economy in many parts of the land. They worked. They prospered. They learnt how to adapt to and adopt British ways. They are a remarkable example to which only one other community can perhaps be compared. They have already been referred to—the Jews who came here, not necessarily expelled, but forced to flee the tyranny of Nazi Germany before the war.

As a very young Member of Parliament I was already aware of what it was like to live in a country where, because of your colour or your religion, you were persecuted. In this context I am delighted that I am to be followed in this debate by my friend—and I use the word very advisedly—the noble Lord, Lord Janner of Braunstone. He and I in 1970—another founder member, the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, is also here—helped to found the Campaign for the Release of Soviet Jewry. They were people in Soviet Russia who were not allowed to worship or to live normal lives but for whom there was an opportunity, if they could get a visa, to get out of the country. The noble Lords, Lord Janner and Lord Dykes, and I and others—I think of our friend Sir Ivan Lawrence who was a Member of Parliament at that time and was part of our group—worked very hard to draw attention to their plight.

That was the underlying reason why, in many ways, I felt that it would be utterly inconsistent and totally wrong, working as we were on that front, to do anything other than give the most unequivocal support to Edward Heath in the difficult but principled stand he took when it came to the Ugandan Asians. Although he is far too modest to say this, my noble friend Lord Popat is a living example of the rightness of that decision. He came to this country, put much into it, prospered as a result—I am delighted to say—and is a valued Member of your Lordships’ House. What greater example can there be of progress from exile—a member of a repudiated and expelled community obtaining a position of leadership and influence in his adopted country, of which he is rightly and so movingly proud?

Over the years, all of us in politics make many, many mistakes. We are all guilty of missing opportunities but in this case the British Government of the day held fast to that which was good. They did not render evil for evil but said “Welcome” and, as a result, they have been richly rewarded. I should like to conclude by echoing the words of my noble friend Lord Steel of Aikwood. It is very splendid that my noble friend Lord Popat has said thank you to this country but we owe a big thank you to him and to his community for all they have done.