Refugee Crisis in Europe

Debate between Alistair Carmichael and Yvette Cooper

Tuesday 8th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

The Government’s current proposal is to take 20,000 refugees over five years, so we assume that that means 4,000 in the next 12 months. Yes, I am saying that it would be right for Britain to take more than 4,000 in the next 12 months. To be honest, it is very hard to set a number for a whole Parliament, because we do not know what the circumstances will be in future. I think we should start with the number we want to help in the next 12 months, and then keep that continually under review. We may need to help more, and we may be able to help more. We may find other long-term solutions, but we know that that will be hard. We should start with those we can help right now, and that must be more than 4,000.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving way because she has come to the nub of the argument. Is not the distinction between desperate people in one place who have made a journey and desperate people in another place who have yet to make a journey as false as it is offensive? Surely our contribution to helping people who are in need should be based on need, not on a decision that they might have made from sheer desperation.

[Yvette Cooper]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that we need to do both. We cannot simply ignore people who have already fled out of such desperation, been on very difficult journeys and seen many terrible things along the way, including children who have endured all kinds of difficult and degrading treatments, whether at the hands of traffickers or in the form of the abuse they have left behind. We should help them because that is happening on our doorstep: we should be providing help in European countries, as well as in Syria itself, and we need to do so as part of a wider European plan.

We need a bigger plan, and Europe should be part of that plan. We do not have time today to debate a long-term solution for Syria, the military strategy against ISIL or the Government’s current approach to the Assad regime. We urgently need a new diplomatic initiative drawing on all the countries of the region, Russia, Iran, the US and countries from the Gulf and the EU, but no one believes that there is a simple foreign policy or military intervention that will swiftly restore millions of people to their homes.

We need a serious plan to cope with the humanitarian consequences, which could be with us for many years, and a plan for the region and the neighbouring countries of Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, which have shown great generosity. However, as long as the refugees in those countries have no proper homes and no schools for their children and as long as they cannot work and have no hope, they will of course seek sanctuary in European democracies. In effect, we need a Marshall plan for the area to provide the long-term support that we need to provide the stability that we need.