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Gurkha Settlement Rights

I am suggesting that, given the potential numbers of people who would come here, there would clearly be a major impact, and I would be surprised if such a learned and intelligent gentleman did not understand that. The pensions that are paid to Gurkhas represent a good amount of money in Nepal. It would not be seen as a good amount of money in this country, so there would then be a campaign for pre-1997 Gurkha pensioners to get the same pension as current Gurkhas and, therefore, the rest of the British Army. That would be a significant extra cost as well. So there is another implication of which we need to take account. The fact is that when we agreed the terms and conditions—it took a number of years, as those matters were complex and difficult, and involved a lot of time and effort at the Ministry of Defence, the Home Office and elsewhere—they were widely welcomed by serving Gurkhas because there was a massive change in their circumstances. I announced the change and they were delighted that it was going to happen. We took that decision as a Labour Government, and we should not forget that this Labour Government made that massive change to Gurkha terms and conditions, which has given the best pay and pensions that the Gurkhas have ever had here. On the immigration changes, if I have any criticism of the Home Office, it is that it has perhaps been trying to be too helpful in many ways and has tried to change things to allow more people in. As a result, it gives weight to the argument of those who want more changes to allow more people to have the opportunity to come to this country as well. There would be major implications for housing, jobs, benefits and health support if tens of thousands of people could come here and did so, although we do not know whether they would. That is a major consideration and we need to take account of it. There are significant implications involved with changing the policy. Legally, we must go back to the point I made earlier: the advice I received was that such a change could open the door to many tens of thousands of other people coming to this country and we could not hold the line just for the Gurkhas, however much we may want to do so. In fairness, anyone who has fought for this country would have the same legal right as the Gurkhas. The fact that someone might have fought in the second world war and had in the past a chance to apply to come to this country would not cut much ice because the legal precedent would have been set. That is the key part of this debate.