Refugee Camps

Debate between Baroness Featherstone and Phillip Lee

Tuesday 22nd July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Lynne Featherstone]

I will try and get through the points that all the Members have raised, and if I have time, I will come back to the hon. Gentleman.

Gaza was mentioned. Currently, only UNRWA, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society have sufficient access even to respond. DFID is funding both UNRWA and the ICRC, and we have increased funding to both in response to the crisis. More than 100,000 people are now taking shelter in schools and communal buildings under the aegis of UNRWA. The Secretary of State announced £2 million of funding yesterday to the flash appeal, which was launched by UNRWA, but it is a moving situation, as I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East appreciates. It is relatively new.

On the Palestinian refugees from Syria, many of them have fled Syria to Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and elsewhere. They receive assistance from UNRWA in Lebanon and Jordan, and from the UNHCR in Egypt, because UNRWA does not have a mandate in Egypt. There are reports that the Palestinian refugees are finding it increasingly difficult to cross the borders out of Syria, which is a cause for concern. The UK has so far provided £25.5 million to UNRWA to assist it in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

[Dr Phillip Lee (Bracknell) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Lynne Featherstone]

I will, because the hon. Gentleman has not spoken.

[Dr Lee]

Has the Minister’s Department made any assessment of the need for additional medical services, particularly in the Zaatari camp in Jordan? I say that in the context of a debate I held a few months ago in the House, which was on a mobile army surgical hospital facility that Britain could build up and deploy in a place such as Zaatari.

[Lynne Featherstone]

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will write to him on that, because it adds a whole new area to the debate and I have only three minutes left.

The gateway protection scheme was mentioned by the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch. We want to focus our assistance on the most vulnerable people, rather than subscribing to a quota scheme. We have a vulnerable persons relocation scheme, which runs in parallel to the UNHCR’s own Syria humanitarian admission programme. We are determined to ensure that our assistance is targeted where it can have the most impact on the most refugees and those at the greatest risk. Our programme focuses on individual cases where evacuation from the region is the only option, and in particular, we are prioritising help for survivors of torture and violence and women and children at risk. The gateway protection scheme is operated by the UK Visas and Immigration partnership, as the hon. Lady knows, because she was a Home Office Minister. That is the Department from which the immigration side comes. It offers a legal route for resettlement for up to 750 refugees to settle in the UK each year.

We continue to be very concerned about the plight of the Syrian refugees. That crisis is not abating, and the UK has been at the forefront of the humanitarian response. The UK’s total funding for Syria and the region is now at £600 million, which is three times the size of its response to any other humanitarian crisis. My fear is that there are protracted crises looming, all coming together at a time when the world’s humanitarian effort is at its greatest, and resources are being severely stretched.

The UK tackles these issues in three ways. The first is at the global level, by providing support to the UNHCR to fulfil its mandate. In 2013, 43 million people relied on UNHCR assistance. We have a strong engagement with the UNHCR and participate in its executive committee. We also provide predictable and flexible global funding that allows the organisation to respond to the most urgent need.

The second way is through engagement on international humanitarian reform and, together with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, international advocacy on the rights of refugee and other vulnerable populations. I can assure hon. Members that there is a real debate—for a long time the humanitarian effort was stuck, but I think that is moving now and the debate is opening up. The third way is at the country level, where the UK is engaged in many of the world’s most severe crises.

Effectively meeting the needs of growing refugee and other forcibly displaced populations is placing ever-increasing demands on stretched host states and the humanitarian system. The majority of those needs are concentrated in protracted crises in fragile and conflicted states. Access is a nightmare in many countries, and the situation is terrible. I appreciate the difference between the camps, but I think it is explicable by the circumstances in which those camps arrive—