50th Anniversary of the Expulsion of Asians from Uganda

Baroness Verma Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Gadhia on his current appointments and my noble friend Lord Popat for initiating this very important debate today, and all noble Lords for the wonderful speeches we have heard so far. I contribute as the child of an Indian immigrant who settled in the UK in 1938. My grandfather came here, invited to help rebuild the economy on the Empire scheme, but what he taught us was that we have to help each other. As I was growing up and listening to the environment around me of pure racism and far-right attitudes, it was quite difficult to be a child in the city of Leicester.

I mention Leicester because that was where a large number of the Ugandan Asians came. For me, it was a turning point as a 12 year-old, and I am so thrilled to be sitting next to my noble friend Lord Hunt, who, at that time, was a young Conservative and fought hard to change the rhetoric about the immigrant population of Ugandan Asians coming in. I can tell noble Lords that Leicester did not welcome the immigrant population coming in; it was difficult. They were settled in places that were really condemned as slum areas and there was very little help. But the rhetoric turned, when I was a child, from basic racism every single day to intense racism, and it was really quite horrible. I do not know whether many noble Lords remember an advert that Cadbury brought out, “Cadbury take them and they cover them in chocolate”: that was the chant we used to hear regularly as we walked down the roads of Leicester.

So I hope that a lot of lessons were learned, because the Ugandan Asians who came to Leicester made Leicester one of the most diverse and economically growing cities in the country. We have the Golden Mile, which every year hosts the largest celebration of Diwali outside India. The people that came then as children are now among the top businesspeople and professionals in this country, not just in Leicester. It is a clear lesson for us all that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said, and I think my noble friend Lady Bottomley may have said it, it only takes people to remain silent for evil to prevail.

Following the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, who comes from Wolverhampton, I had the pleasure of standing as a candidate for the Conservative Party in Wolverhampton South West in 2005, which demonstrates how much this country had shifted. I really congratulate my party, the Conservative Party, on the work it has done to ensure, not just in the time of my noble friend Lord Hunt and the Prime Minister of the time, Edward Heath, that this country has given us so many opportunities. It is not bad to generate wealth. I constantly hear this discussion about how rich our new Prime Minister is. We should celebrate the fact that he has made that much wealth from this country, that his family has made wealth. His grandparents live in Leicester; we know them well. His grandmother, of course, is no longer with us, but they were stoic, hard-working people. The principle that was instilled in all of us was to make the country you live and work in your home. We should give credit to those who come and have that.

My grandfather was one of the founders of the Indian Workers’ Association. He worked hard for the interests of working people from the Indian subcontinent. David Cameron made me the first female of south Asian origin to sit on the Benches of this Parliament in 2006. We have a lot to celebrate. My father became a Conservative because of Edward Heath and the work he did to help the Ugandan Asians. This debate is so poignant because the riots in Leicester in recent days demonstrate that if we allow division to happen and that space, that vacuum, to arise, the far right, more than anyone else, will take advantage of it.