Forced Repatriation of Chinese Seamen from Liverpool After World War Two

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(David T.C. Davies.)

It is a privilege to bring forward my first Chamber Adjournment debate on an issue of deep concern to both the long-established Chinese community in Liverpool and constituents of Liverpool, Riverside, as well as many communities across the country. I am really disappointed that I cannot be in the Chamber in person this evening. I tested positive for covid over a week ago, and, sadly, I am still self-isolating.

Liverpool is proud to be the home of the longest- established Chinese community in Europe, connected to Shanghai, Hong Kong and other ports of the far east by Alfred Holt and Company, a shipping line founded in the mid 19th century. The Chinese community grew quickly into thousands and established Chinatown in the heart of the city. The Imperial Arch’s red and gold gateway stands tall today as the largest of its kind in the world outside of China. A thriving community established itself in the heart of Liverpool behind the south docks. Grocery stores, restaurants, lodging houses and The Nook pub were all busy with Chinese seamen on shore leave and the hundreds, then thousands, who settled and made Liverpool their home.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the forced repatriation of thousands of Chinese seamen by the Home Office after the second world war, which left many families abandoned without support and with no idea what happened to their loved ones. I first became aware of this injustice over 15 years ago, after listening to personal testimonies from the descendants on a Radio 4 broadcast. Becoming an MP has provided me with the opportunity to support their fight for justice. This was one of the most nakedly racist actions ever undertaken by the British Government and is a shameful stain on our history, yet many of the actual details and the decisions associated with this atrocity are yet to come to light. The families are still searching for answers; it has never been formally acknowledged, investigated or apologised for.

Many of the deported seamen had served in the allied war effort. They put their lives on the line in enemy waters to support the British war effort in our hour of need by keeping us fed, fuelled and safe. During the war as many as 20,000 Chinese seamen worked in the shipping industry out of the Liverpool docks, and they were treated really badly, only receiving half the basic wages of their British crewmates and on worse terms and conditions. They were not granted the standard £10 a month war risk bonus, and as a reward for their bravery, their families and loved ones received less compensation when they died in battle.

The Liverpool Chinese Seamen’s Union went on strike and eventually won pay increases in 1942, but their battle for full equality continued. The Chinese seamen would be employed working in the most dangerous jobs in the engine rooms and below decks. Thousands gave their lives during the perilous campaign under heavy bombardment from Nazi U-boats. By the end of the second world war, the Home Office estimated that there were around 2,000 decommissioned Chinese seamen. Those who survived the war returned to Liverpool, where many had established relationships with local women. They set up home and started families, but from late 1945, hundreds suddenly disappeared with barely a trace.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) on securing the debate, and on being such a passionate advocate on this issue. I am sure that we all wish her a swift recovery from the coronavirus, although, as we have just seen, covid does not seem to be having too much of an impact on her.

I also think it worth paying tribute to former Members, such as the former Member for Liverpool, Wavertree, Luciana Berger, and the former Member for Liverpool, West Derby, Stephen Twigg, who brought this issue to the attention of my predecessors. While it is right that we discuss it on the 75th anniversary of the deportations, I know this is not the first time it has been raised on the Floor of the House. The hon. Member’s predecessor, the indomitable Bessie Braddock, Member of Parliament for the wonderfully titled constituency Liverpool Exchange, first raised this with the then post-war Labour Government back in 1946. It was with great interest and admiration that I read about Mrs Marion Lee, who in August 1946 helped to create an organisation to campaign for the rights of Chinese seamen’s families, which must have been particularly brave given wider societal attitudes at that time. I also pay tribute, as the hon. Member did, to Peter Foo and others in Liverpool who have campaigned long and hard on this issue in the search for answers about what happened.

I do recognise the strength of feeling on Merseyside about what happened during this post-war period. I hear the hon. Member’s concerns and I will come on to some next steps later. I am glad that she has had a further opportunity to place her views and what happened at that time on record. I am also pleased that our current immigration rules and equalities legislation would preclude this type of behaviour from occurring now. Furthermore, I will ensure that her letter to the Home Secretary is responded to as soon as possible.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) for bringing this historical injustice to the House and her brilliant campaigning on behalf of her constituents. I know it means so much to the east and south-east Asian communities living in the UK now. These Chinese merchant seamen were subjected to the cruellest racism, which we have seen rear its ugly head again during the pandemic. Will the Minister take this opportunity to condemn the anti-Asian racism that we have seen raise its head again during the pandemic, because a historical injustice has taken place and it is time that we learned lessons and actually saw progress on this issue?

I certainly join the hon. Member in condemning those who seek to use any time of crisis as an opportunity to sow division, to exacerbate community relations or to peddle their own brand of prejudice and try to blame others for the situations that we face. Whatever anyone thinks of the decisions of the Chinese Government, that is very different from then seeking to stoke hatred against the people of China and against the many people of Chinese heritage who have made the UK their home, who are British and who are part of our values, and one of our British values should be that we are a welcoming society that looks at people as who they are, not what the colour of their skin is.

The Chinese seamen who had been in the Merchant Navy during the war form part of the vast numbers of people displaced at the end of the conflict. This included members of the armed forces, refugees, prisoners of war and, of course, merchant seamen of all nations. The records relating to the activity that happened 75 years ago are incomplete. I am somewhat reliant on the same archive material that hon. Members and their constituents have access to, given that Home Office documents and records have been moved to the National Archives in Kew. And given the passage of time, people will of course realise that those directly involved clearly no longer work in the Home Office. Many will have died and, even if they are still alive, the youngest that they are likely to be is in their late 90s and probably aged well over 100.

The relevant powers used came from the Essential Work (Merchant Navy) Order, which came into force on 26 May 1941 and was owned by the then Ministry of Labour. The order was made under the Defence (General) Regulations 1939. The Home Office had always left the management and legality of the system to the then major shipping countries. This was not a matter relating to immigration rules as such, given that the modern concept of immigration control would not emerge until some decades later, but one which, according to archived historical records, was discussed by Home Office officials in Whitehall and immigration officers in Liverpool. Having looked at some of those documents, the language used to describe both merchant seamen and their wives in official records is not what would be acceptable today.

I congratulate my good friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson), on securing this very important debate. I would also like to pay tribute to the work of my good comrade, my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen), on this issue. I wonder if the Minister agrees with me that this historic injustice is a blatant form of racism against the Chinese seamen. Would he come forward with a full acknowledgment and apology for this community?

I thank the hon. Member for his comments. It is hard to come to any other conclusion from reading the paperwork of the time, and let us be clear that, at the time, racism was normalised in society. It was still perfectly lawful to deny someone a job based purely on their race or ethnicity, and it is hard to not draw a conclusion from the way people are referred to that it is explicit. They are consistently referred to as “Chinese seamen”, not “unemployed seamen” or “seamen now surplus to requirements”. Consistently through the documents, “Chinese seamen” are talked about. As I touched on, there were wider repatriations going on at the end of the war, but it is very clear to see and, certainly from some of the documents that I have read, the conclusion is inescapable that ethnicity, in terms of being Chinese, was a clear factor in some of the decisions being taken. Some derogatory comments were made against those women who had married. It is hard to believe that those comments would have been made against perhaps, for the sake of argument, American or Canadian seamen who happened to be in Liverpool at the time. I will come on to some of my thoughts on the wider position and potentially what further action we could take later.

We must learn from the past to inform the present. The Home Office has defined and published our vision and mission of creating a safe, fair and prosperous UK, and we have set out our new core values of being a Department that is compassionate, courageous, collaborative and respectful. We recently launched the One Home Office transformation programme as part of the sweeping reforms we are making in the Department. Central to this programme is the transformation of our culture towards a more open and compassionate Department to build the Department into one that the British people look up to and admire.

We are also taking steps to ensure that we consistently involve communities and stakeholders in our policy development by identifying who the stakeholders or impacted groups are across different business areas and then conducting meaningful engagement with those communities. Importantly in relation to this issue, as part of the Home Office comprehensive improvement plan in response to the Windrush lessons learned review, every member of Home Office staff will undertake training on the history of migration and race in the UK so they can better understand the impact of departmental decisions, including when developing and applying immigration policy.