50th Anniversary of the Expulsion of Asians from Uganda

Baroness Prashar Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Prashar (CB)]

My Lords, it is an absolute pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, and to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Popat, on securing this debate. I was delighted to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, because what I am going to say will echo some of the points that he made; I was particularly pleased that he mentioned my friend Gerry Wade because, as the noble Lord knows, he did a great deal of work on the ground as a Young Conservative to ensure that the motion was defeated at the Tory party conference.

As we have heard, in August 1972 the Ugandan President, Idi Amin, announced that he was going to ask Britain to take responsibility for all Asians in Uganda who held British passports. He described the Ugandan Asians as economic bloodsuckers, claimed they were sabotaging the country’s economy and gave them only 90 days to leave. It is estimated that, prior to their expulsion, Ugandan Asians were responsible for 90% of Uganda’s tax revenue, so they were very important to Uganda’s economy. The decision to expel Ugandan Asians was intended to give greater economic control to the indigenous population of the country; instead, it contributed to Uganda’s economic decline during the 1970s. It is good to see that bilateral relations are now reversing that trend.

In 1972, approximately 29,000 Ugandan Asians held British passports but those did not give them automatic entry to Britain. Whitehall at that time—I was around it and working with the Race Relations Board—was concerned about a potential shuttlecock situation arising, whereby Ugandan Asians with British passports could be refused entry to Britain yet could not return to their country of origin. A further 20,000 or so Ugandan Asians who had become Ugandan citizens after independence suddenly found themselves stateless. If these British passport-holders were denied entry here, that would have been internationally embarrassing for the United Kingdom.

Politically, as we have heard, the issue of immigration was then controversial, as it is today, and only four years earlier Enoch Powell had made his infamous “Rivers of blood” speech. Also in 1968, we passed the Commonwealth Immigrants Act, which changed the situation as it affected Kenyan Asians. As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said, many in the Conservative Government were ambivalent regarding the Ugandan Asian refugees coming to the UK but, thankfully, Ted Heath and those around him honoured the British Government’s commitment to the Ugandan Asians. It is a credit to the Cabinet then and those who worked with him to have ensured that those commitments were honoured.

The setting up of the Uganda Resettlement Board was a very good thing. As the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, said, it was the first time that a proper settlement board was set up, but I have to tell the House another interesting anecdote about it. As the conciliation officer with the Race Relations Board, I was working with the then chief conciliation officer, John Lyttle. Inevitably we were having some discussions and, as the noble Lord, Lord Bach, said, there was advertising in the Ugandan papers saying, “Do not come to areas where there are already very many immigrants”. There were those who wanted to label them as white and black areas. Although we tried to dissuade them from doing so, at least we persuaded them that they should be described as green and red areas, as opposed to black and white. You can see the kind of thinking that was around at the time. However, as we heard, the Ugandan Resettlement Board was successful and some excellent work was done in settling people, so its work has to be commended.

As we know, after enduring trauma and hardship the Ugandan Asian community has been highly successful. I want to mention Leicester, because I know that its inner city was in a very bad state. It was a rundown place and the injection of the Ugandan Asians revived that city, so that today it is very vibrant. While it is a credit to this country that people have settled well, and that the foresight of some of the enlightened members of the Tory Government allowed this to happen, it is also a credit to the Ugandan Asian community for the contribution it has made. I reinforce the point that while anniversaries are important in recognising what has been achieved, some lessons need to be learned. We need to look at how we treat refugees and stateless people today.