A letter from the Department of Employment to the Home Office enclosing a list of suggested ‘Red Areas’ where resettlement of Ugandan Asians was to be discouraged. Dated 2nd February 1973. (HO 289/73)
Transcript
DEPARTMENT OF EMPLOYMENT
168 Regent Street, London W1
Telephone 01-437-9088 Ext
A Langdon Esq
Home Office
Kingsgate House
66 Victoria Street
London SW1E 6SS
Your Reference
Our Reference 1/RR139/72
Date: 2nd February 1973
Dear Anthony,
‘RED’ AREAS
Thank you for your letter of 9th January.
As you know, this Department’s list of red areas was draw up on the basis of detailed
Advice from our Regional Controllers and consistent statistical criteria showing the
presence of exceptional concentrations of New Commonwealth immigrants. The list
was deliberately restricted to the areas where pressure was heaviest so as to give us
the greatest possible scope for dispersing the Ugandan Asians over the rest of the
country. This was fully explained in a paper which we circulated to 1C(E) and I assume
from their absence of comment that the Board found our definition acceptable. We on
our side were never consulted on any other list, and as the board has never admitted
its existence, I do not see why it should not be possible to reply to the authorities in
general terms rather than committing itself at this rather late stage to saying that a
given area qualified as ‘red’.
The Board’s interest in the list is in any case now minimal. Their counselling about
areas to be avoided must be largely completed and it is unlikely that they will be
involved in, finding homes for refugees in any of the areas in question. This
Department, however, has still the task of finding work for 5000 refugees, the great
majority of whom are in centres or red areas. This task would be made significantly
harder if we had to take out three areas of substantial size, particularly since they all
have reasonable employment prospects for the Asians. Moreover, there are a
number of other areas, particularly in Greater London, which have much better
claims to special treatment.
In the circumstances, I think it would be best if we agreed to differ. If any of the three
areas were to raise objections, we would propose to invite them to show why they
should be included in a list of places selected because of exceptional current
pressure on housing and school places, bearing in mind the needs of the
resettlement programme.
I have copied this letter to Bryant.
Yours Sincerely,
M W Smart.
cc. Mr Haworth
Mr Knight.