Immigration (Discharged Gurkhas) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lee of Trafford, for bringing the matter to your Lordships’ attention. As he said, I had the privilege and honour of serving with Gurkhas, as did my father. As a small boy I was brought up as a Gurkha, really, until I was commissioned into the family regiment. We have to make certain that the Gurkhas in the British Army are kept within the military covenant. I said in a defence debate in your Lordships’ House some time ago that I felt that the covenant had been broken. The Minister—the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor—refuted that, but I have felt for some time, although it might be getting a little better now, that all parliamentarians had rather ignored the military covenant and that it had been broken. I have yet to be satisfied that I was wrong. The Gurkhas’ welfare within the covenant has to be looked after; Gurkhas have to be treated like any other soldiers in the British Army. Other nuances have to be noted in the context of Gurkhas within the British Army. Their pensions still have to be looked at once more and resolved. As the noble Lord, Lord Lee of Trafford, said, the Government’s view is that Gurkhas in the old days never looked at living in Great Britain. They simply were not allowed to—it was not even countenanced—so that is a remarkably weak argument on the arbitrary date. Governments can change rulings and law. The right honourable Mr Tony Blair, when he was Prime Minister, bucked and changed the law on proper remuneration for those who had been Far East prisoners of war—some 10,000, rather like the number that we are talking about today. I cannot believe that the cost of that would be much different from the cost anticipated now. I always view with slight concern figures put out by the Government about costs these days. A pinch of salt is sometimes required to approach them; they seem maximised unnecessarily. People underestimate the value of the Gurkha as a citizen—he has much to offer. To start with, he is a man of integrity, compared with the immigrants whom we have allowed in from all sorts of places off the streets—the terrorists, the criminals and the mafia groups that have emerged in our country. We seem to like to have them, but we would be much happier if we had some loyal Gurkhas among us. Their skills are many. They are good farmers in harsh conditions. They are good at transportation. They are engineers. They are also entrepreneurs; some good little Gurkha businesses have been set up in this country, which are doing no harm at all—as opposed to some of the other people who have been let into our country. We should have a good look at the issue. I hope that we will no longer hear from the Minister’s department that we cannot accept the Gurkha because he is not sufficiently British-inclined or knowledgeable about Britain. I consider that a complete insult. If a Gurkha is prepared to die for the people of this nation, he must know quite a lot about them. That argument is a bad move on the part of the immigration department. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Lee of Trafford, and others might consider the odd amendment in Committee, because this case may have the backing of the whole of your Lordships’ House and I believe that it would support such amendments. I hope that the Minister will not think that everything that I have said is bad news for him. Great strides have been made by the Government in the overall move to bring the Gurkha regiments of our Army into and within the military covenant. There have been great advances for Gurkhas, but this has not yet ended. I hope that the Minister might even go back and think again, so that perhaps he will have a different story when we reach Committee.