David Waddington Memoirs

by David Waddington

  We set off past the police post and the road wound its way up the mountain side via a series of hairpin bends. Soon, however, the ponies had the common sense to realise that a great deal of effort would be saved if they, as it were, ironed out the bends, and, having adopted this course they soon reached the summit. Going up was not too easy for the riders. Coming down was terrifying.

  We returned to our hotel and were told that a rare treat was in store for us. We could watch Gone with the Wind on television. Gilly was delighted. I was nervous. On every previous occasion on which she had watched Gone with the Wind she had become pregnant. But I took the risk, and competing with the spectacle on the screen were Pahalgam’s golden eagles as they swooped down past our bedroom window to forage in the hotel’s rubbish bins.

  We travelled on to Dhaka in Bangladesh. A day or two later we were due to fly up to Sylhet, but at the airport we were told that there was some delay because of the weather and we were two hours late for our planned meeting with Sylhet politicians. The fried eggs cooked for the nine o’clock meeting were waiting for us at eleven and we ate them with a smile. Sylhet is set in splendid countryside with tea gardens spread over the surrounding hills, and it was an important place for us to visit because it was from this part of Bangladesh that very large numbers of people had come to settle in Britain. The region which borders on Assam is a long way from the sea, but for decades men from there had travelled down to ports such as Chittagong and then spent their lives as seamen. This meant that long before air travel and mass immigration the citizens of Sylhet knew a fair amount about the outside world, some of them even having relatives who, having found their way as seamen to British ports, had decided to stay there. So we were there to see our immigration staff up there at work and learn how they investigated doubtful claims to settle in Britain.

  Immigration staff from Dhaka wanted to investigate the case of a woman who was claiming the right to join her father in Britain and we set off across the paddy fields to the village where she lived to try and find out whether she was the daughter of the English resident and, if she was, whether she was a child or an adult and, if an adult, whether she was still single. At the house we were offered various strange drinks which our guides advised us to refuse; and a young boy then shot up a tree and presented us with coconuts which did us all a world of good. We then set off back to Sylhet, the officers armed with copious notes which, together with statements from the man in Britain, they would study before ruling on the case.

  The soil of Bangladesh is very fertile but the rural population is vast and struggles to live above starvation level. The spur to emigrate is therefore obvious, and when we were there every conceivable subterfuge was being used to obtain entry into Britain. Large numbers of demonstrably false applications were refused, but when an application was refused a new application was at once lodged and this meant that the backlog of applications was growing longer and longer. Every effort, therefore, had to be made to root out fraudulent claims in the hope that it might discourage similar fraudulent claims from others.

  I had to make it plain to the press that there was no prospect of our already large staff in Dhaka engaged on the processing of applications being increased even further. It was all very well talking about people having to wait in a queue before their applications to enter Britain were dealt with. We were overwhelmed with cases – a large proportion of which were fraudulent. A typical case was one where a man applied on behalf of someone he claimed to be his son. The son was asked how many brothers and sisters he had and said ‘two’. The man claiming to be the father replied in similar terms but was then confronted with his tax return in which he had set out the names of six children. The man admitted that he had indeed claimed for six children but said he had done so incorrectly and only in order to get a bigger tax allowance. Customers of this type were quite indignant when their immigration applications were turned down, not appearing to realise that having shown themselves to be untruthful in one respect they could hardly complain if people were reluctant to take what they said in another matter at its face value.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  More Home

  Office Tribulations

  Shortly after arriving home I received a notice that as a Minister of State I was entitled to a quarter of buck from the Royal Parks. The buck could be delivered anywhere in the London area but not to Lancashire, so I asked for it to be left at the Home Office so that I could take it home with me on the train at the weekend. On the Friday I gave it to my driver Pearl to put in the car and we set off for Euston. We had not gone far when Pearl began to complain about the smell. She could not see why she should be expected to transport rotting carcasses as well as ministers.

  By this time we were travelling under the bridge at Embankment tube station and, having had enough of the complaints, I told Pearl to stop. I jumped out of the car and, hoping no one was watching, stuffed the haunch of venison into a litter bin attached to a lamp post. We then drove away at top speed. No doubt the parcel was later spotted by a patrolling policeman and its contents reported as a dismembered human corpse.

  In October 1983 came the Party Conference at Blackpool. A motion had been tabled by the Billericay Conservative Association urging the government to ‘end all further permanent immigration from the new commonwealth and Pakistan, to increase financial and material provision for voluntary repatriation and resettlement, and to repeal all race relations legislation so that all United Kingdom citizens are equal before the law’. It was what was called a balloted motion, chosen for debate by the constituency representatives. I was the minister who had to answer on behalf of the government, and clearly it was not going to be an easy occasion with most of those present wanting tougher immigration control.

  Venison Entitlement

  The debate was opened by Harvey Proctor, MP for Billericay, and there were loud cheers when he said: ‘Enough is enough. The provisions of the Immigration Act enabling people to return home should be publicised and improved and generous resettlement grants should be provided. Race relations could be improved at a stroke by the abolition of the Commission for Racial Equality.’ Paul Nischal, the only Asian to speak in the debate, was shouted down and the mood in the hall was unpleasant. After the first few moments, however, my speech was well received. ‘We are indeed all equal before the law,’ I said. ‘We don’t need a motion from Billericay to tell us so. The government is not in the business of telling people who have their homes here, who even have become British Citizens, “You are unwelcome here. Here’s some money. Clear off.”’ I claimed credit for the government’s tightening of immigration control, saying that net immigration from the West Indies had ceased, but an end to all immigration had never been the policy of the Conservative Party and could never be the policy of any government in a free society. I finished by saying that if the conference decided that all legislation underpinning the principle of non-discrimination on grounds of race should be wiped off the statute book it would be sending a message that we no longer believed in a fair and just society.

  The Daily Telegraph reported on 14 October: ‘Far Right routed in heated race debate. The far right had been confident that it would embarrass the government. But by the time Mr David Waddington wound up the debate to a standing ovation, the mood was firmly against Mr Proctor and his supporters.’

  Whatever the mood of the conference I had obviously annoyed some people because for weeks afterwards Gilly, who had stayed up in Lancashire while I went back to work in London, had to put up with threatening phone calls. One night a man called and demanded that I should support the compulsory repatriation of immigrants. ‘If your husband won’t agree,’ he said ‘we’ll send the boys round to break his legs.’ Gilly replied with spirit, ‘I hope you do send the boys round. I’ll enjoy breaking their legs.’ The calls ceased.

  One interesting incident that autumn proved that when it came to scheming, the Home Office had much to learn from the Foreign Office. In train was a large progra
mme to move civil servants out of London to the provinces. At about the same time the Foreign Office, supported by some committee looking into the efficiency of government, suggested that the Home Office should take away from the Foreign Office responsibility for the Passport Office. Not much wrong with that except that when, after the handover, most of the Passport Office was moved out of London, the Foreign Office, by some sleight of hand, treated the movement as fulfilling their obligation to disperse.

  Difficult cases still came across my desk with monotonous regularity. If I had been determined on a quiet life, I could have given way every time an MP had argued that somebody or other should be allowed to stay in Britain. I would have been the darling of The Guardian newspaper. But I never had that ambition, so I struggled on, trying to deal with cases on their merits, with the press always making a fuss if someone was turned down and always remaining entirely silent if someone’s claim was allowed.

  One troublesome case was that of a lady called Afia Begum who, while living in Bangladesh, had agreed to marry a fellow Bangladeshi living in England. Unfortunately, a short time later the man she was to marry died in a fire in London, and Afia was told the sad truth that the visa she had obtained to enter Britain as a fiancée was no longer valid. It seemed rather a harsh ruling until one was brought face to face with the fact that this had been an arranged marriage between total strangers and while she still had a mother, father, brothers and sisters in Bangladesh she had no friends or relatives in Britain to come to. But she thought that, by getting the visa, she had won the prize of a better life in Britain and, determined to try and hang on to the prize, she boarded a plane to London. On her arrival the Immigration Service refused her entry but granted her temporary admission so that she could sort out her affairs with the relatives of the deceased fiancé. That was the signal for the launch of a vociferous campaign on Afia Begum’s behalf, demanding that, although she was neither a bride nor a fiancée, she be given permanent settlement.

  Some of the tactics used by the campaigners were embarrassing and disruptive. Sometimes they were quite amusing. One night I went to a public meeting in Bradford to explain government policy but after each sentence of my speech a line of pretty girls in the middle of a block of seats half way down the hall shot to their feet, each with a placard bearing a letter of Afia Begum’s name. Before anyone could do anything about them they sat down again only to rise once more at my next utterance.

  Afia Begum then disappeared and a body which said it was fighting on her behalf announced that they were protecting her. She was somewhere in London and they would not surrender her until the Home Office announced she could stay the country. After a great deal of time and effort had been expended she was eventually found and returned to her own family in Bangladesh.

  Another Bangladeshi called Mohammed Idrish came to England sponsored by the British Council and began to study for a technical qualification much needed in his own country. After a few months he abandoned his studies and thereby lost his right to stay in Britain. But he then quickly married a girl in the hope that he could stay as a husband. There could be no doubt that that was his motive because he left the girl within three weeks of the ceremony and disappeared. When found a year or so later he said he was doing important voluntary work for the immigrant community and in spite of having cheated the British Council and his own country, not to mention the lady whom he had married, the immigration appeal tribunal gave him leave to remain. I dread to think what sort of message that sent out to others minded to cheat and lie their way into Britain.

  At about this time we took Victoria to Buckingham Palace where she was presented to the Queen. The Queen asked her what she would like to do for a career. Victoria replied that she would like to be a journalist. The Queen commented, ‘I hope you won’t be one of the grumpy ones.’

  When I first arrived in the Home Office I was told I was to be in charge of a Data Protection Bill which was in the legislative programme for that year. There had to be a Bill to bring us in compliance with a 1981 Council of Europe convention on data protection, but the whole concept was still in its infancy and many thought that all we needed to do was follow other European countries and have a short Bill which did no more than put a statutory duty on those holding data to look after it properly. The Home Office, however, had other thoughts. Every company processing or storing personal data would have to register with a new ‘registrar for data protection’, and specific duties placed on the shoulders of those who held data. When the Bill became law I was packed off to Canada with my secretary, Liz Johnstone, to explain to the Canadians what we had been up to and address a conference on data protection in Toronto. I did not think much of Toronto or the conference but enjoyed a visit to the Niagara Falls.

  Very much more important than the Data Protection Act was the Interception of Communications Bill which I helped Leon Brittan to take through the House at about the same time. It put telephone tapping authorised by the Secretary of State on a statutory basis and outlawed telephone interceptions not so authorised; and it was to be the model for later legislation putting the security service on a similar statutory basis. Gerald Kaufman was the shadow Home Secretary and I will long remember the skilful way in which Leon handled him and disarmed Labour opposition to the Bill. ‘One day, Gerald,’ said Leon, ‘you will be occupying the chair in which I am now sitting and bearing the heavy responsibilities I am now bearing; responsibility for the very safety of the nation.’ As Leon spoke you could see Gerald settling back more comfortably into his seat and dreaming he was across the way in Leon’s.

  In October 1984 Gilly and I set off for the Party Conference at Brighton and installed ourselves in the Grand Hotel. Our room was at the back of the second floor. On the Thursday night we went to bed as usual and just after 2.40 a.m. I was awoken by a loud bang. Gilly sat up in bed and said ‘They’ve done it. They’ve bombed the conference centre.’ ‘Nonsense,’ I said, but I went into the bathroom and stood on a chair to look through the window on to the stair well separating the back of the hotel from the front. At that moment there was an enormous crash which I took to be a second explosion but which was in fact part of the building collapsing, and we then hurried out of the room and, along with many others, made for the fire escape. Down in the street and walking along the side of the hotel we could see nothing amiss but when we turned the corner onto the promenade we saw the gaping hole in the front of the building.

  We knew roughly where our friends John and Roberta Wakeham’s bedroom was (or rather where it had been) and feared the worst. There were a number of very shaken people on the promenade including Walter Clegg (the MP for North Fylde) who had suffered minor injuries. Graham Bright, who was then my PPS, came along and said he had a room in a hotel down the road and we could spend the rest of the night there. So to his hotel we went and at about eight o’clock we set about ringing the children.

  Meanwhile, the Prime Minister, having got out of the hotel, had had about an hour-and-a-half’s rest at Lewes Police College before going on the radio to say that the conference was continuing with its business. When it met, John Gummer, Party Chairman, was told that someone had phoned saying there was a bomb in the hall. It was probably a hoax and if it wasn’t there was no hope of clearing the building before the bomb went off, so John sat tight and kept the news to himself.

  When the morning session ended Gilly and I were asked to go behind the platform to see the Prime Minister. I am not sure why but I suppose it was because we were friends of John and Roberta Wakeham and it was thought we might be able to help in some way. The Prime Minister turned to me and said: ‘Three bishops came to see me this morning wanting to pray for me, and they had me down on my knees.’ She then added crossly: ‘As if I had nothing better to do!’ She said that the thought of having to go on to the stage and make her speech was just more than she could bear, but Gordon Reece*, sitting on the arm of her chair, said ‘You know you can do it. When you go onto that platform the whole world will be c
heering you on and willing you to make the greatest speech of your life.’ Willie Whitelaw was there with Celia his wife. There was much talk about who was going to identify Roberta’s body. Celia said ‘Willie is absolutely hopeless at that sort of thing. He can’t possibly go.’ So I drew the short straw and it was agreed that I should go with Bob Boscawen. But that was after Margaret’s speech which was, as we all expected, a tour de force.

  I then went up to the hospital and into intensive care. Margaret Tebbit was lying on her back, looking in terrible shape, but she was conscious and said ‘What about the parrot?’ obviously recalling Norman’s and my private joke at Mr Jasper Parrott’s expense. John Wakeham was further across the room. He was in terrible pain. I did not know whether to tell him about Roberta but he seemed to know she was dead. I went up to see Norman Tebbit who was in another ward upstairs. We had earlier seen him lifted out of the debris left by the blast and you could see then the pain he was enduring. In hospital he told me there was a gap in his side with room for a small suitcase, but he was determined to get down to see Margaret in intensive care as soon as he could persuade the doctors to let him out of bed, and he was down with her the next morning. I then stayed up at the hospital in case John Wakeham wanted anything, but it was not long before the Whips Office moved in in strength, and my services were no longer required.