IMMIGRANT WELFARE

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29748, 15 February 1962, Page 14

IMMIGRANT WELFARE

Advisory Body For U.K.

(NXP.A.-R.

LONDON, February 14. The Home Secretary (Mr R. A. Butler), undertook last night to consider setting up a small advisory body to advise the Government on the welfare of Commonwealth immigrants and their assimilation into the British community.

He was speaking in the House of Commons on the Government's Bill to control Commonwealth immigration into Britain.

The Home Secretary said he could refer welfare matters to this body, whose members could go to places and see for themselves what was going on.

Mr Butler said the body he had in mind would not consist of representative interests or countries. It would be independent and impartial and would not deal with individual cases, except insofar as they came into the field of welfare. He offered to "work something out” on these lines. Mr Butler also made it clear that Commonwealth citizens who served, or were wounded or maimed in the last war, or whose parents or families were wounded, maimed or killed in the war would receive sympathetic consideration when they wanted to come to live in Britain.