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Gurkha Settlement Rights

I come to this issue as somebody who was a child in the period following the second world war. Pretty well everybody I knew—my father, my mother, uncles, neighbours—served in the armed forces and fought in the war in some capacity. Not many people spoke much about their wartime experience—it was a kind of convention that people did not go on in great detail about what had happened to them. However, one of my clear recollections is the extent to which those who served with Gurkhas were full of praise for their fierceness in battle, their loyalty to the UK and their contribution in the second world war. That is the background to my own sentiments towards the Gurkhas. More recently, I have had some direct experience of Gurkhas. Since the conflict in Iraq began, I have travelled there on three occasions either as Chairman of a Committee, as a guest of the Government or, on one occasion, with my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd). On all those occasions, I encountered Gurkhas who were serving out there, sometimes working in a private capacity for private security companies and in some cases with the armed forces. I have nothing but respect for the Gurkhas. It was for that reason that I joined forces with my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West (Martin Salter) yesterday and tabled an amendment that has attracted the signatures of 70 right hon. and hon. Members, the majority of whom, although not all, are Labour Members, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), the Chairman of the Select Committee on Home Affairs. I have been around the House long enough to know that an amendment tabled by a Back-Bench member of the governing party is unlikely to be selected when the Government and the official Opposition have tabled amendments. However, I thought that it was important to send the Government a message that I, and those who signed the amendment, did not believe that they had given the Gurkhas the honour and recognition that they deserved. In an intervention on my hon. Friend the Minister, I indicated that progress had been made in the past 24 hours. At Prime Minister's questions, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced that the 1,350 cases that are currently in the Home Office will be dealt with by 11 June. He went on to say—my hon. Friend the Minister confirmed this from the Dispatch Box—that the lessons that could be learned from those cases would be examined and a statement made about the outcome of that examination. Shall I use the word "review"? In particular, it was said that there would then be a review of the impact that those findings would have on all cases if the new guidelines were applied. That is basically the point that we had reached at the time of my intervention. Since then, the Home Secretary has written to my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West, a co-signatory of my amendment, and it might help the House if I read out some of the letter. She wrote:""We have committed to reviewing around 1,350 individual cases where there is an outstanding application by 11 June. We will inform the House immediately thereafter of the impact of the guidance on those cases, and the numbers of cases which fell to be granted, the number refused, and the number where we have requested and are still awaiting further information from the applicant. In the light of lessons learned from this we will review carefully what further policy changes may be required. I am happy to confirm that we will begin this work before the summer recess."" Again confirming a point that my hon. Friend the Minister made earlier, she continued:""Subsequent to that, UKBA is required under the immigration rules to consider all the relevant factors of an individual's circumstances to see whether the person should be allowed to stay in the United Kingdom. I cannot foresee circumstances in which these honourable men, who have served the UK so well, would ever be removed from the UK."" Prior to receiving that letter and the developments of the past 24 hours, it had been my intention to abstain on both the Government amendment and the Liberal Democrat motion. In the light of those assurances, I now feel that my party's Government have proved to be an honourable Government, and they are a better Government than they were 24 hours ago for that. I will support them.