In September 1981 there came a major reshuffle. In the summer Mark Carlisle had told me that he felt his job was at risk. I was sad for him but it was difficult not to smile at the story he told to justify his pessimism. ‘I was asked to go to No. 10 for breakfast,’ he said. ‘When I got there the PM told me that Keith Joseph would be joining us shortly. I did not like the sound of that because I knew Keith wanted my job. But worse was to follow. I sat at the table where there was a nice bowl of strawberries and was about to tuck in when the PM shouted: ‘No, Mark! Those are for Keith. There are prunes for you on the sideboard.’ ‘I knew then,’ said Mark, ‘that the game was up.’
In another important change in the reshuffle Jim Prior was moved to Northern Ireland, and Norman Tebbit descended on the DE in fighting form. He gave instructions that a special alarm system should be placed in his office because some demonstrators had in the last weeks of Jim’s reign managed to get past the security at the front doors and all the way up to the ministerial floor. A few days passed and Norman realised that, in spite of his orders, nothing had been done. He summoned the man responsible who had the temerity to say that he had decided that the matter of the alarm was not a top priority. Norman’s rage not only terrified the delinquent official, who left shaking like a leaf, but the message that the new Secretary of State was not a man to be trifled with spread through the department like wildfire.
Norman’s time at the DE showed how one man with determination can change the ethos of a whole organisation. What he did in a remarkably short space of time was change the DE from being the apologist of the trade union movement to being its scourge. His mischievous humour at first horrified officials; his blistering attacks on the TUC, the union leaders and all those concerned to look after the one-legged, black lesbian rather than Mr and Mrs Ordinary English caused consternation. But in time officials began to enter in to the spirit of things and even share in a bit of the mischief. We began to work up a really radical new Employment Bill and told the parliamentary draughtsmen that it was going to be called The Extension of the Rights of Employees Bill to emphasise how the rights of ordinary people which had been invaded by the trade unions were now to be restored to them. Devising such a controversial title was quite a good ploy because Whitehall spent so much time thinking of arguments against the proposed name of the Bill they had little energy left to attack the substance. And plenty of substance we were determined there should be, principally the virtual abolition of the closed shop and the removal of nearly all the legal immunities the trade unions had attracted over the years.
Norman and I both quoted with relish the report of the 1903 Royal Commission set up after the Taff Vale judgment. For, with Sidney Webb one of its members, it had strongly urged that trade unions should be liable like everyone else for wrongful acts.
There is no rule of law so elementary, so universal or so indispensable as the rule that a wrongdoer should be made to redress his wrong. If trade unions were exempt from this liability they would be the only exception, and it would then be right that that exemption should be removed.
This fundamental principle was first accepted and then rejected by the Liberal government of 1906. It was high time, in spite of the extension of the immunities by Labour governments in 1965 and 1976, that the principle was reaffirmed.
We were introducing the Bill at just the right time. Unemployment and industrial change had reduced the membership of and weakened the trade unions. The public were fed up with their behaviour and there was no way the Labour Opposition could make the status quo look respectable.
One cause célèbre about this time caused me much embarrassment and Norman much mirth. For years an absurd body created by the DE had been used to help enforce the work permit system. It was called VOCA which I think stood for the Vocal and Orchestral Concert Association. Before I arrived at the DE I had imagined that the work permit system was there to help enforce immigration control and to prevent foreigners coming in to the country and pinching British people’s jobs. Not on your life. The DE considered that the work permit system was there to protect vested interests from competition and, in this instance, to ensure that British people were not able to listen to foreign orchestras.
I was told that VOCA had for long ruled that foreign orchestras should not be allowed to give more than five concerts on a visit and I was therefore advised that the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, which had contracted to give seven performances, was out of order. The necessary work permits could not be issued. I was told that if the permits were issued lasting damage might be done to the BBC Symphony Orchestra and indeed music in Britain would die, and the country would become a cultural desert. In short, civilisation as we knew it would come to an end and posterity would hold the new Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Department of Employment entirely responsible. Could I really take such a burden on my inadequate shoulders? Clearly not. The work permit applications must be refused.
But I had not reckoned with Mr Jasper Parrot (not Carrot), an impresario who was, I suppose, the agent for the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and responsible for arranging the tour. Neither had I reckoned with Mr Parrot’s energetic and persistent MP, Sir Brandon Rhys-Williams.
Brandon and J. Parrot came to see me. I listened patiently but, sticking to my departmental brief, refused to budge. Brandon promptly applied for an adjournment debate and I still refused to budge; and afterwards he and Parrot accosted me in the Central Lobby and complained bitterly about my intransigence.
They demanded to see Norman Tebbit who, having other things on his mind, told them to jump out of the window, or words to that effect. It was not the reply they had expected, and that very evening Brandon, still suffering from the lash of Norman’s tongue, went up to the Prime Minister in the division lobby and in loud and querulous tones complained about (a) the decision and (b) the way he had been treated by Norman. Looked at from Brandon’s point of view there was good news and there was bad news. The bad news was that a whip quickly reported to Norman that Brandon had been sneaking to the PM at which Norman strode across to Brandon, picked him up by the back of his jacket and shook him with some vigour. The good news for Brandon was that his remarks made a great impression on the Prime Minister – so great indeed that the next day she phoned Norman, gave him an enormous rocket and told him that his civil servants and his under-secretary must have been quite mad to refuse the work permits and the decision had to be reversed forthwith. Norman, hooting with laughter, told his private secretary that his mistress’s orders had to be obeyed, but he did not utter a word of complaint to me, or about me to anyone else.
He deserved a present. I bought a large stuffed parrot and numerous coloured hat pins which I proceeded to stick in the bird. I then presented it to Norman who suspended it on a piece of string above his desk where it remained for many months to come. Visitors, high and low, always asked him to explain the parrot which he did with great gusto and in terms which would not have amused its namesake. To this day I do not know whether the pins worked.
On a Friday towards the end of 1981 there was a debate on unemployment on an Opposition motion. Many thought I was crazy to volunteer to reply on behalf of the government, and the Opposition was very cross having expected the government to put up someone from either the Treasury or the Department of Industry. But I did myself a good turn. My speech went down very well and earned me a nice compliment from Jack Weatherill who was in the chair. I wound up in the debate on the second reading of the Employment Bill which contained the Tebbit proposals for reform of trade union law, including the virtual abolition of the closed shop. I was flattered when Cross-Bencher of the Sunday Express wrote, ‘Many Tory MPs rate it one of the most aggressive and intelligent winding up speeches in years’. A friend quipped, ‘If you don’t look out you’re going to get yourself promoted and then you’ll be in a real mess.’
At Christmas 1981 I noticed that Norman was about to go home with not one but two dispatch boxes. I commiserat
ed with him for having so much work to do over the holiday. He looked rather sheepish and opened up the boxes one of which contained a melon and the other smoked salmon.
At about this time I was asked to take part, with Angus Ogilvy and one or two other nobs, in a rather swell event in the City of London. Young people had been invited to show their skill in arts and crafts; and their achievements were laid out for inspection in the Mansion House. This is a cautionary tale and explains why MPs and ministers get pretty angry when told by the press that they are living it rich while poor journalists have to sustain themselves on little but baked beans and beer. We all looked at the entrants and what they had produced, and we dished out the awards. Then it was our turn, and we stepped forward to receive a little thank you for our efforts. Angus Ogilvy was presented with a pretty little silver dish, the next in line a rather fine painting, the third some brass candlesticks. I had not come expecting anything, but I cannot deny that by now my appetite was whetted. I was full of expectations but far too well brought up to show disappointment when I was handed a well-turned bread board.
When I think of 1982 I think of the Falklands, not of my own work in the Department. On the day after the Argentine invasion I, along with a number of other junior ministers, went to the PM’s room in the House of Commons to hear the Prime Minister talk about what had happened and what was to be done; and then on the Saturday the House met for an emergency debate. It was a disaster, with a dreadful speech from John Nott. I travelled back to London on Monday convinced somebody’s head was going to have to roll and, in the event, Peter Carrington, one of the most capable members of the Cabinet and one of the most honourable of men, resigned; as did Humphrey Atkins, the foreign affairs spokesman in the Commons and Richard Luce. John Nott went when the war was over.
The behaviour of the BBC during the Falklands War was appalling. In the country there was a great upsurge of patriotism and pride in the way our forces had responded when called upon to repel aggression, but the BBC and its employees seemed to find such emotions quite incomprehensible. In reply to criticisms that the BBC never referred to ‘our’ forces during the war and seemed to show no particular emotional commitment to them, Mr Richard (later Sir Richard) Francis, managing director, BBC Radio, said the BBC carefully distinguished between ‘Argentine’ and ‘British’ forces, but ‘we [the BBC] have no task force in the South Atlantic; and the BBC has no role to boost the morale of British troops or rally the British people around the flag. The widow of Portsmouth is no different from the widow of Buenos Aires.’
The BBC may have thought it smart and trendy to be uninvolved in the war; but they were entirely out of step with the British people, as were also all too many churchmen. There was no doubt about the pride of the servicemen who attended the service in St Paul’s on Monday 26 July 1982 – pride in a job well done. They had come, I am sure, to thank God for giving us victory, but those responsible for arranging the service could not bear to talk in those terms and had devised a wishy-washy theme of thanks-giving for the cessation of hostilities. When the Church does not reflect the pride and joy of ordinary men and women at a job well done in a righteous cause it cannot be surprised if congregations walk out of the doors.
I got back to London on the first Monday of the New Year and there was a message from Downing Street asking me to ring the Prime Minister. I rang to find that I was to be Minister of State at the Home Office with responsibility for immigration matters, in place of Tim Raison.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Entering the Home Office
On 7 January 1983 The Guardian reported:
Into Mr Raison’s hot spot comes a minister who has travelled fast since joining the government. David Waddington is a barrister and businessman who found no difficulty in facing out Labour indignation at the rising unemployment figures when he served under Mr Tebbit at Employment. A tough and combative parliamentary operator he has clearly been given a flattering promotion.
It was kind of The Guardian to write in those terms, but I was arriving at the Home Office faced with a problem for which there was no solution. In December there had been a Tory backbench rebellion when new immigration rules, making it easier for foreign wives to gain admission to the country, had been thrown out by the House of Commons. The obvious course was to table new rules tightening up the admission criteria, but this had been made more or less impossible by a ruling of the European Court of Human Rights extending the right of a man to bring into the country a foreign wife. So there were difficulties ahead, but I was not fully aware of them when the next morning I arrived at the Home Office in good cheer and ready for action. The correct postal address of the building was 1 Petty France but Willie Whitelaw, the Secretary of State, had soon spotted that to call it that would make us all a laughing stock so it was decided to pretend that it was round the corner and to call it 50 Queen Anne’s Gate. And there at the door of 50 Queen Anne’s Gate I was greeted by Sir Brian Cubbon, the Permanent Secretary, and taken up to see the Secretary of State. Willie, sprawled on a sofa and in an expansive mood, told me what my job was and told me to get on with it.
The next day, at the routine morning meeting, I met my fellow ministers – Paddy Mayhew, the other Minister of State, Rodney Elton, under-secretary in the Lords, and David Mellor, a new under-secretary in the Commons. My place at the table was directly opposite Willie but the view was somewhat obstructed by two ornamental brass prison gates and a clutch of truncheons.
My private secretary and assistant private secretary were both hard workers dealing with the enormous number of immigration cases finding their way to my office. So many indeed were there that the files had to be wheeled in on hospital-style trollies, hundreds at a time. Cases found their way to the minister’s office as a result of what were known as MPs’ representations. Broadly speaking, the minister was not troubled with a case unless an MP had come on the scene at the request of one of his constituents. If an MP had become interested, the case was not dealt with by an official but looked into by the minister personally who then had to write to the MP telling him of his ruling.
A typical case arose in this way. A Pakistani living in Bradford would sponsor a visit to England by some friend or relative. When the friend or relative arrived at Heathrow the Immigration Service had to decide whether he or she was a genuine visitor intending to return home after a short stay in Britain or a would-be immigrant determined to get into Britain and stay in Britain. If the immigration officer, having questioned the person about his or her background and intentions, determined he or she was not a genuine visitor he would refuse entry. The relative would then go to his or her MP and the MP would ring up Heathrow or the Home Office and demand that the person should not be removed back to Pakistan until the MP had made representations on the person’s behalf. The representations were considered by officials who drafted a letter of response for signature by the minister. The minister considered the case and either signed the letter which had been offered up to him or rejected official advice and drafted a different response. All this took many weeks if not months. Sometimes the MP would not take ‘no’ for an answer and either demanded a meeting so that he could argue the case in person or bombarded the minister with letters raising new points and daring the minister to remove the passenger before he had answered all these points in minute detail.
This meant that a person who was clearly not entitled to enter the country was often able to stay for months, and many tried to use the time they had won to make themselves irremovable. Marriage was one obvious method. Another was to get a job and then get a body like the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) to argue that in a matter of months he had made himself entirely indispensable either to the British economy or the race relations industry or both.
There were then all the cases in which people, having been given permission to enter as visitors or having been refused entry as visitors but granted temporary admission, disappeared into the undergrowth. Years later a man would be pic
ked up by the police and then you could be sure it would be argued on his behalf that although he had cheated and lied to get into the country, and had then, by disappearing, cost the taxpayer a mountain of money, he should be allowed to make his home here.
There was then the problem of husbands and wives. Should men settled here be able to import wives? Should wives settled here be able to import husbands? In principle, yes. I would consider it an appalling interference with my daughter’s rights if she was prevented from coming back to England to live here with her Australian husband. But she was born here. She is British. Should someone who is not British have the same rights? And surely, whatever the answer to that question, a person settled here should not be able to use marriage as a mere device to get someone into the country.
We were constantly told that we had to respect the institution of the arranged marriage. If a man wanted to bring a woman into the country for marriage he should be allowed to do so, even if he had never clapped eyes on her, even if he had been paid a substantial sum of money to marry her and thus facilitate her entry. But when it came to an application by an Indian or Pakistani girl in England to bring in an Indian or Pakistani boy and we argued that the custom of the arranged marriage required the woman to go and live in the man’s home not the man to travel half way across the world to come and live with the woman, a completely different set of arguments were paraded. How could the woman, having lived in England for some years, be expected to face the rigours of the Indian climate?
The self-proclaimed experts on these matters, and there were many, insisted that we were grappling with a non-problem. The number of people in Britain whose origins lay in the Indian subcontinent was already very large. In a few years’ time boys and girls who had grown up in Britain would not be looking overseas for partners. They would be marrying those who had been brought up in the same way as themselves. Illiterate peasants from the Punjab would not suit them. All this completely ignored the appallingly low living standards which most people in the Indian subcontinent endured. For them, winning the right to live in Britain was like winning the football pools, and those who had been lucky enough to get to Britain were expected to give their relations back in the subcontinent the chance to enjoy some of the same riches. The custom of the arranged marriage was a ready tool ready to help them carry out this family obligation.
David Waddington Memoirs Page 12