London, 17 October 1972
Confidential
Immigration and the ‘Old’ Commonwealth
Problem
1. There has recently been correspondence between No 10 Downing Street, the Home Office and the FCO about ‘streaming’ arrangements at UK ports following our entry into the EEC on 1 January 1973. The Home Secretary’s latest proposal is for (in most places) a four gate system (UK, EEC, Commonwealth and other), which would recognise our special relationship both with the EEC and with the Commonwealth. In this correspondence it has been stressed that members of the old Commonwealth would be resentful if their citizens were treated less favourably than EEC nationals at ports of entry.
2. But the question of ‘streaming’ is only one aspect of a wider problem which we face in convincing the old Commonwealth, and in particular Australia, that there is, and will be, no unreasonable discrimination against them in our immigration arrangements. This submission describes the problem, with particular reference to the effect of our entry into the EEC, and suggests how it might be eased.
Argument
3. The new Commonwealth has no doubt long felt that our immigration controls are racially discriminatory. There has also been growing resentment in the old Commonwealth since restrictions were applied to all Commonwealth immigration in 1962, based on the feeling that these restrictions suggest that the old Commonwealth is less British than it used to be.
4. This resentment, especially in Australia, shows signs of building up further as it begins to be realised that once we join the EEC, would-be immigrants from the old Commonwealth will be at a disadvantage compared with their counterparts from the EEC. From next year EEC citizens will be able to come here to seek work without any form of work permit or entry certificate. Commonwealth citizens who want to come here to work, on the other hand, will have to have either a work permit or an entry certificate under the Working Holiday scheme. The contrast between the treatment which will be accorded to EEC and Commonwealth citizens respectively will become plain for all to see when detailed regulations about immigration controls are laid before Parliament in the near future. (These regulations will bring into force the 1971 Immigration Act and will also reflect our obligations over the free movement of labour on entering the EEC.)
5. This contrast is an inevitable consequence of our entry into Europe. In practice we do not expect large numbers of workers from the EEC to want to come here. Nor is there at present any large demand from the old Commonwealth to settle here permanently to work. (Of the 150,000 or so Australians, for example, who come here every year only about 600 come to work permanently, about 40,000 are working holidaymakers and the rest are tourists, business visitors or people coming to retire.) But the difference in principle between EEC and Commonwealth citizens will remain.
6. In addition to this difference in principle there are a number of specific irritants which have given rise to old Commonwealth complaints. The first of these is the detailed questioning on entry of those who arrive here equipped with an entry certificate. This issue has already been taken up with the Home Office as regards Indians. Even there the Home Office case is not strong since their own figures show that only a small percentage of entry certificates issued to Indians should not in fact have been issued. In the case of Australians and New Zealanders the number is likely to be infinitesimal, if not non-existent. With the increasing expertise of our Entry Certificate Officers in posts overseas we are not convinced that there is any longer a case in general for any form of ‘second check’ on arrival in the UK. If the Home Office cannot accept the total abolition of the ‘second check’ we should at least urge that this should in future be confined to visitors from those countries whose record over entry certificates is not good.
7. Secondly, there have been a number of complaints from the old Commonwealth about the apparently arbitrary way in which individual immigration officers decide on the length of time for which passports should be stamped as valid for entry into the UK. Sometimes this is for one month, sometimes for 6 months or even longer. We suggest that the Home Office should be asked to introduce a standard 6 month period in such cases, which would be in line both with the standard 6 month period of validity of an entry certificate and with the period which the Home Secretary proposes to apply to EEC nationals.
8. Thirdly, offence to citizens of the old Commonwealth can be given if the Commonwealth gate at ports of entry is shut temporarily (as seems often to happen) and they are directed instead through the ‘others’ gate. Sir A. Downer mentioned to the Secretary of State yesterday a number of cases in which this had happened to distinguished, pro-British Australians, who had been upset by it. 1 We should continue to impress on the Home Office the desirability of keeping the Commonwealth gate open at all times and should, I suggest, also urge them to issue instructions that if the Commonwealth gate has to be shut temporarily Commonwealth citizens should automatically be re-directed through the UK gate (or through the EEC gate if a four gate system is by then in operation) and not through the ‘others’ gate.
Recommendation
9. Since it is likely that we shall come under increasing pressure about our immigration procedures from the old Commonwealth countries, whose complaints may command considerable sympathy in this country, it is recommended that the Secretary of State should bring the matter to the attention of the Home Secretary and other colleagues and seek their agreement to urgent study of the measures discussed in paras 6 to 8 above. Also I recommend that we should draw attention to the need to consider in advance how best to explain in simple terms our new immigration procedures, resulting from the 1971 Act and EEC entry, and to present these in the most favourable light as far as the Commonwealth is concerned. […]
1 Document 336.
[UKNA: FCO 24/1314]