Gurkhas' champion

On Sunday 3 May Andrew Marr interviewed Joanna Lumley, Actress and Keith Vaz, MP on the Gurkha Justice Campaign

Please note 'The Andrew Marr Show ' must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.

Joanna Lumley takes up the Gurkha kukri for her beloved regiment.

Joanna Lumley and Keith Vaz MP

ANDREW MARR:

Well there's no doubt who was Woman of the Week. Anyone who heard her bloodcurdling rendition of the Gurkha war cry will have realised that Purdy is back. Joanna Lumley described the vote in parliament in support of the Gurkhas as "a victory for democracy", and she's here now with Keith Vaz, Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee and the Leader of the Labour rebels on this subject. Welcome to you both.

JOANNA LUMLEY:

Thank you.

ANDREW MARR:

Joanna Lumley, first of all tell us why this has been so important to you? It goes back to your father, I think.

JOANNA LUMLEY:

It does. I'm a daughter of the Regiment. My father was a regular soldier and he was with the 6th Gurkha Rifles - my little regimental badge there - which meant that that's why I was born in India, because he was serving out there; and that's why also I spent my childhood in Hong Kong and Malaysia - because the Gurkhas were sent there.

Joanna Lumley

ANDREW MARR:

And he owed his life, I think, to a Gurkha, did he?

JOANNA LUMLEY:

Yes. Well I mean it was that general section. There were two VC's won in the most ghastly fighting. This was up … He was a Chindit as well, which is sort of the precursor to the SAS. Dropped behind the enemy lines and daddy's regiment, the 6th Gurkha Rifles were there as well. And Tul Bahadar Pun and Michael Ormond were both awarded VC's for this horrifying but brilliantly brave action.

ANDREW MARR:

Were you surprised by the lack of response because this was not a campaign the government was exactly unaware of? I mean you were contacting ministers and so on the whole time.

JOANNA LUMLEY:

Well indeed, because the High Court had overturned the ruling that Gurkhas who retired post-1997 could stay but the ones who retired before that couldn't stay, and the High Court found that to be unlawful and asked the government to change it. The government was supposed to have changed it and have revised, looked at all the applications the Gurkhas have made, 1350 applications to remain in this country or to enter this country, and they didn't do it, so the High Court had to order them again. And so all through this, we were writing to the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary and meeting with them, so they knew about it all.

ANDREW MARR:

Keith Vaz, you were one of the leaders of the Labour rebels who defeated the government on this matter and, therefore, partly responsible for a catastrophic week for the government. Any regrets at all?

Keith Vaz MP

KEITH VAZ:

Not at all. I want to pay tribute to Joanna and the Gurkha campaign because this was a grassroots campaign that went beyond party politics. This was an all party initiative and what they managed to do was to take an issue and make it mainstream. I was surprised at the vote. I was not surprised at the fact that parliament was exercised about this because the select committee had actually looked at this matter last November. I had written to the immigration minister six months ago - Joanna's campaign had started many months before that - so the government had an opportunity to resolve these matters because they had actually done some very good things as far as Gurkhas are concerned. In 2004, they changed the rules to allow Gurkhas to stay, but it was the fact that they didn't go that step further, which is all that Joanna and her campaigners wanted.

ANDREW MARR:

In your view, is it now inevitable that the government's going to have to give the Gurkhas what they've asked for?

KEITH VAZ:

Well I don't want to prejudge the hearing on Tuesday because of course Joanna is going to be one of our witnesses. We will look at what the government's going to say. I think there's an opportunity on Tuesday for both the Minister for Immigration and the Minister of Defence to come up with a new proposal. They realise the will of parliament. I mean parliament is quite clear on this. There's a lot of Labour MPs who abstained, so this issue is not going to go away. Joanna will be giving evidence with the Gurkhas. Ministers have an opportunity to first of all deal with all the outstanding cases, which they've promised to do by the end of May, and then formulate a new policy. But I think what parliament will not accept is the same policy again. We will have…They will have to react …

ANDREW MARR:

(over) They'll have to come back with something.

KEITH VAZ:

… to exactly what's happened as far as the vote is concerned. So it wasn't a vote against Gordon Brown. This was a vote in favour of a particular change of policy that provides justice for the Gurkhas.

ANDREW MARR:

And yet how does this happen? I mean you say it's not a vote against Gordon Brown, but you know ministers were hardly unaware of the arguments. They could see all the motions. They knew what public opinion was. How did this government get itself in this mess?

KEITH VAZ:

Well I think it wasn't well handled, and partly it was because the campaign was very, very successful and therefore they thought it was not a mainstream campaign. But I think they shouldn't have changed the policy in the middle of the debate.

ANDREW MARR:

Right.

KEITH VAZ:

Sending a letter out to members of parliament as the minister is speaking is not the best way to do it.

ANDREW MARR:

Joanna, there are some people who say, "Yes, the Gurkhas are very, very brave and have been very brave and stood by this country, but nonetheless bringing all of them here with their families is enormously expensive". That's what the Prime Minister said and at least one of the columnists … Dominic Lawson in today's papers is saying actually they knew what they were getting into. They signed up. They were mercenaries. Let's not be so sentimental.

JOANNA LUMLEY:

Well two things. First of all, they wouldn't all come here. They just want the right to come here. As one of them said to me on Wednesday, "Britain is our … would be our second home, but always our first love". They have an extraordinary love for this country, which I think we in our sort of new cynical way, can't really remember how much they love the Queen. They absolutely love her. They reckon this country is the business. They just want to be able to come here maybe for medical treatment, which is not very good in Nepal. They want to be able to come and work here - that's the important thing. Send money back to Nepal. So the idea that Nepal is somehow going to be poorer for Gurkhas coming here is in fact the exact opposite.

KEITH VAZ:

Absolutely.

JOANNA LUMLEY:

Always they want to go and retire back in Nepal. So this is just the right to enter maybe to school their children here, maybe for medical treatment, for whatever it is. And they wouldn't all come with all their families and come and live here because they don't want to.

ANDREW MARR:

And what makes this different? A lot of people are against immigration and more immigration, but feel that this is, what - a sort of debt of honour, a blood debt of some kind that makes it different?

JOANNA LUMLEY:

Well it's extraordinary because even when the minister was saying figures of 100,000, which is sort off the Richter scale, mad, but people were saying, "100,000, 200,000 - bring them in because the Gurkhas is who we want". The 6,000 who've settled here already, Keith, have fitted in so well. They're so well loved in the community.

ANDREW MARR:

And you won't give up until the Gurkhas have got full justice. How many do you think eventually will settle here?

JOANNA LUMLEY:

Well they were told in October 2006 that that was their last chance to apply, and 1350 have applied. So I don't know where these massive figures have ever come from.

KEITH VAZ:

We need to be very careful about these figures, such as the billions that it will cost. I think somebody said it would cost 1.5 billion. Nobody actually knows. What we do know is that 1500 or so have applied. What we also know is they're not going to be removed. So in a sense, why even consider the case once you've had a commitment of that kind? And I think that there's a lot of these figures being bandied about. Nobody knows precisely what's going to happen.

ANDREW MARR:

Well a story that will continue to develop next week. For now both, thank you very much indeed.

INTERVIEW ENDS

Please note "The Andrew Marr Show" must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.

NB: This transcript was typed from a recording and not copied from an original script.

Because of the possibility of mis-hearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, the BBC cannot vouch for its accuracy

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