Middle East and North Africa

Baroness Morgan of Ely Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Ely (Lab)]

My Lords, I start by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, on his valedictory speech, and thank him for his four decades of public service to this country. He has made a huge impact on politics in the United Kingdom, and on behalf of the Opposition I would like to wish him very well in his retirement.

The crisis in the Middle East and north Africa has created a humanitarian disaster on the borders of Europe, which has now spread into Europe itself. We know that the conflict in Syria continues to be by far the biggest driver of migration, but the ongoing violence in Afghanistan and human rights abuses in Eritrea mean that 71% of the Mediterranean Sea arrivals are from just three countries. Getting aid into Syria is becoming increasingly difficult, and humanitarian agencies are finding it extremely hard to provide food and basic provisions within this damaged country, so many people have had to move out of their country simply to survive. This situation will become more critical as the winter months come on.

The Minister outlined that in Libya the lack of government and lawlessness has meant that half a million people are using that country as a launch pad to cross the hazardous Mediterranean. Iraq continues in a quagmire of violence, and the situation in Yemen is increasingly desperate. According to the UNHCR, the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide reached 59 million at the end of 2014, the highest level since World War II. So, yes, this is a humanitarian disaster that Europe is having to cope with, but let us not forget that the brunt of migration around the world is borne directly by countries adjacent to the areas of conflict and human rights abuses, many of them desperately poor countries.

While the vast majority of people have stayed in the region, one of the features which distinguishes the current situation from other serious humanitarian crises in the past is that affluent people have been affected by this crisis. Many have the means to pay for their travel and, unfortunately, become subject to the whims and caprices of human traffickers who are exploiting this situation for all it is worth, but it would be wrong to define all those who are travelling as the fittest and wealthiest.

There is no sign in Syria of the causes of this mass exodus stopping. Military intervention would be risky and would throw up all kinds of new and dangerous issues in an extremely complicated environment. There are no simple answers to stopping the number of refugees, and therefore we, in the international community, must accept that we have a moral obligation to support those in desperate need, not just in the immediate region but in Europe and our own country, despite it not being part of the Schengen area.

Nobody can deny the UK Government’s generosity in supporting camps on the border of Syria. We understand that it is far better to help people near the conflict area, thereby preventing dangerous journeys and making it easier for those people to return if things improve. The statistic quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Williams, on the percentage of refugees from Syria being helped in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey is worth repeating; it is 94%. But now that people are on the move, countries on the borders of the EU, such as Greece and Hungary, are under considerable strain. Greece is under profound economic pressure, and it does not seem fair that accident of geography determines how many asylum seekers each nation must bear. In the Greek islands alone, 30,000 people are currently asking for sanctuary and help, including 20,000 on the island of Lesbos—the same number that we are offering to help over the course of five years.

Despite the Government’s generosity to fund camps in the region, their response to the Europe situation has been unacceptable. The fact is that the Government misread the views of the British public on this issue, and a determination to dance to the tune of the anti-immigration lobby has back-fired. The Government are, I know, already working with our European partners to challenge the criminals who are trafficking these people and taking advantage of their desperation, and we need to support Europol and police forces across the EU to do more. How would we co-operate on these issues if we were outside the EU—who knows?

We welcome the deployment of HMS “Richmond” to operations in the Mediterranean, but let us not forget that the work of this vessel will be limited to searching for and seizing smugglers’ vessels. It is not, as a government Minister has emphasised, a passenger-carrying service. In October last year, the Mare Nostrum project was withdrawn by the Italian Government, and the British Government withdrew support for future search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean, claiming, as the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, emphasised, that they simply encouraged more people to attempt the dangerous sea crossing. It was withdrawn, but they still came and are still coming. Desperate people will do desperate things. This was a dreadful decision, and one to which these Benches drew the attention of the House at the time.

Belatedly, in May this year, the Government sent HMS “Bulwark” to rescue desperate people in the Mediterranean, saving 5,000 people. The smaller HMS “Enterprise” was then sent to replace HMS “Bulwark” but, after a month at sea, had not rescued anyone. Will the Minister clarify whether HMS “Enterprise” is still operating in the Mediterranean and, if so, how many people it has rescued? Is she confident that the search and rescue capability—which should be distinguished from the attempt to stop traffickers—is equal to the task of saving lives in the Mediterranean?

We welcome the Prime Minister’s belated decision, following that public outcry, to agree to welcome 20,000 Syrians from the border refugee camps by the end of this Parliament. However, we are welcoming 20,000 over five years, when Germany is on course to host 1 million by the end of the year. That provides some perspective on the challenges that our continental friends are confronting. Some 20,000 people at some point in the future will do nothing to ease the burden that our continental friends are facing today.

It was heartening to hear the Minister state that we need to be part of a comprehensive European solution to this problem, but I am sure that her idea of a comprehensive European solution looks very different from mine. The Government must stop confusing people with talk of Schengen, asylum seekers, refugees and the free movement of people in the EU and all their rights in one breath. All of these are different, and confusing those issues stirs the sensitive immigration debate in a way that is unnecessary. The fact is that these people will try to come to Europe and the UK irrespective of our relationship with the EU. Migrants will gather in Calais in search of a better life on our shores. Desperate people will not wait for the Government to act, and it is in our interests to work in concert with other European member states.

It is clear that the Dublin regulation, the system that prevents asylum application to numerous EU member states, has stalled, and that there are considerable strains on the Schengen open-border system. How can the Government set a cap on the number of asylum seekers coming to this country over five years when they have no idea how the situation will unfold in the next few weeks, let alone the next five years? The time for action and help is now, so why not get on with the job and bring 10,000 people in before Christmas?

A senior UN official has claimed that, if the war continues, 1 million more refugees will find their way to Europe by the end of this year. Ultimately, we will need to find a solution in Syria. We need to increase the diplomatic pressure on Assad, and we need people to feel safe in their country and their region. We know that there are no quick fixes or immediate answers, but some kind of strategy would be a good start.

The issue of immigration is one of the greatest challenges of our time. We must not forget that at one stage or another we were all immigrants to this country. I remember that when I was a little girl our family was asked to take care of a Vietnamese boat family. They came, integrated and contributed in a real way to the economy and to the community. Today’s asylum seekers will do the same. I pay tribute in particular to the moving speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, on this issue.

War and human rights abuses are not the only reasons for people to come to this country, or to move at all. In future years, our response to climate change will come too late to stop extreme flooding and famine. We need a global dialogue on this issue that understands the best thing to do is to address the issue in a multifaceted way, investing in stopping climate change, investing in diplomacy to stop wars and securing safety for people in their home nations where possible. Raiding the development budget this year will only take the Government so far. If we are not fixing issues in developing nations, we will need to fix them here at a great much greater cost. In the long term, it is a false economy to raid the overseas budget.

We have an immediate problem now, though. The situation is urgent; people are dying now. Long-term solutions will not solve this particular problem. The time for talking is over and the time for action is now.

Childcare

Baroness Morgan of Ely Excerpts

Wednesday 5th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

As I mentioned before, we keep under close review what happens in other countries. I remember visiting Leningrad and seeing its universal childcare when I had three children under five; they were in the UCL nursery which meant, in effect, that I had no salary. This is a long-standing problem but we are acutely aware of the importance of high-quality childcare—which I am afraid I did not see in the nurseries I visited in Leningrad—and ensuring that women are able to work.

[Baroness Morgan of Ely (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that childcare costs in this country have rocketed in recent years? Average costs of £7,500 per child per year for a full-time care place is more than most people spend on their mortgages. In some areas such as the West Midlands, there has been a 46% increase in childcare costs in four years. When will the Government get a grip on the situation and ensure that it is financially worth while, particularly for those with no skills, to get back into the workplace?

[Baroness Northover]

I pay tribute to what the previous Government did to try to focus on childcare—they did improve the quantity and quality, but they also increased the cost. In the 2000s, the cost of childcare went up enormously. I am quite encouraged that the cost has stabilised over the past couple of years. There is a difference between England, where the cost is stabilising, and Scotland and Wales, where it is not. I have all the figures here if the noble Baroness wishes to see them. It is encouraging to see that stabilisation. I realise why the previous Government were pressing forward in the way that they were, but there were costs involved in that. We have to make sure that high-quality affordable childcare is available to people.

Children: Affordable Childcare

Baroness Morgan of Ely Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Ely (Lab)]

I begin by thanking my noble friend Lady Massey for securing this important debate on a matter which is having an effect on families up and down the country. I have just returned from two weeks of looking after my 10 year-old and my 12 year-old for the holidays. I am utterly exhausted and have come back to work for a little rest, so I cannot begin to imagine what my noble friend Lady King is going through with her three children and her brand-new baby. I welcome TJ to the world, and I am sure that noble Lords will all join me in congratulating her on the birth of her new child.

I therefore start by paying tribute to all the mums and dads throughout the country and the armies of childminders and pre-school teachers, who are crucial in the early years of a child’s development. Having a child is an expensive business, but under this Government it is a more expensive business than ever. The decision as to whether to stay at home is of course an individual one, and rightly so, but it is based on a number of factors. Today, I fear that that choice is curtailed for many who have often been highly trained and highly educated by the state—people who were making a valuable contribution to the workplace—but for whom the cost of childcare simply does not make it worth their while to go back to work. They drop out of the workforce, they lose their opportunities for promotion and they often lose confidence, and so do not go back into the workforce at the level that they came from.

I reflect on the point made by my noble friend Lady Bakewell about the guilt that mums have to carry when they work. This was brought home to me very clearly when I was an MEP. One day I came home on a beautiful summer’s day, I had my three year-old and one year-old in the garden and I saw a wasp lying on the ground. The wasp was in trouble; he had hurt his wing, or something. I moved the wasp so that my daughter would not put it in her mouth and my son said, “What are you doing?”. I said, “Look, he has hurt his wing”. “Oh yes, he has hurt his wing, he wants his mother”, he said. So I said, “You go and look for his mother”. Two minutes later he came back. He said, “Mum, I have looked everywhere for the wasp’s mother. I think she has gone to work”. That is when you feel bad.

Many people with young families who are already contending with higher fuel bills and transport costs are really struggling now with these rocketing prices—30% up, as we have heard, five times more than pay since the coalition Government came to power. It is worth spelling that out in financial terms. As we have heard, the average cost of a full-time nursery place for a child under two is £11,000, £211 a week. Let us not forget that the average salary in this country is £23,000 before tax, so half the money is supposed to go on childcare. That is double the amount that people spend on a mortgage. That is just for one child. We need women to engage in the workforce to increase economic activity, because this is not just a massive financial burden for parents, it is a burden for the wider economy, which is dragged down by the fact, according to the Resolution Foundation, as we have heard, that fewer women with children work in the UK than in many of our competitor countries. In a survey of mothers carried out for Asda, 70% of stay-at-home mums said that they would like to go back to work but they would be worse off in the current climate because of the cost of childcare.

We need to use the talents of everyone if we are to succeed as an economy and keep social security bills down. Making it easy for women to combine work and family is essential to the nation’s standard of living. The OECD states that there is a need for fertility rates to reach 2.1 births on average if we are to remain economically stable. Studies have proved that women have fewer babies in countries where it is too difficult to combine childcare with work.

In the late 1990s, birth rates in Britain were at an all-time low, with 1.6 babies per woman in 2001, but by 2010, the birth rate had risen to its highest level in 40 years, reaching two per woman. More British-born mothers had more children, in addition to immigrant mothers. Why? Because every signal that the Labour Government sent out was that babies and children are welcome in our society. Government childcare and tax credits were a key factor. Maternity leave doubled under the Labour Government, paternity leave was introduced and mothers were for the first time able to request flexible working hours. Child benefit rose and child tax credits added greatly to family incomes. Childcare costs for the poorest were covered up to 80% by credits, with free nurseries for three and four year-olds and 3,500 Sure Start children centres. Let us not forget that the child trust fund gave new babies a nest egg.

A lot of that has changed. We have recently had a triple whammy combination that has formed a crisis. We have fewer places available, despite an increase in demand, a cut in support to parents and an increase in costs. That has led to an economic burden which, of course, has hit the poorest hardest. As we have heard from my noble friend Lady Prosser, the Government’s cuts have led to the closure of 576 Sure Start Centres, a key plank in giving support to those mothers from the poorest communities.

According to Ofsted, there are 35,000 fewer childcare places, despite the increase in demand. The basic rules of economics suggest that to bring prices down you need to increase supply, but this Government are doing exactly the opposite. There is evidence to suggest that the Government’s proposed agency approach to childminders will push prices up even further. Can the Minister give us a guarantee that it will not?

The squeezed middle are also carrying an enormous burden. The average person earning £23,000 would be left with less than £100 a week to pay for everything, if they had already paid for their essentials of housing, fuel, transport and food—no holidays, no treats and not enough to cover one child’s weekly nursery bill. That is the reality of the working poor; it is the cost of living crisis. If a mother decided to work part-time on an average wage, she would have to work from Monday to Thursday to pay off the weekly childcare cost; it is hardly worth going to work.

The problem does not stop when the child starts school. Many parents are now willing their children to grow up fast and start school to relieve the intense cost pressure. I am one of those mothers who spend half their life trying to organise their children’s pick-ups and drop-offs at pre-school and after-school care. Parents need quality and reasonably priced flexible childcare if they are to manage to hold down a job as well.

The Labour Party recognises that the issue of childcare is fundamental to this cost of living discussion. That is why Labour has a costed pledge, funded by an increase in the bank levy, to extend free childcare for three and four year-olds from 15 to 25 hours per week for working parents of three and four year-olds. In addition, another measure that will have parents up and down the country heaving a sigh of relief is that the Labour Government will introduce a legal guarantee to access to wraparound care from 8 am to 6 pm at primary schools in England—we need to note that that is just for England. This is reinstating a programme that proved successful under the previous Labour Government, whereby, in 2010, 99% of schools in England were providing access to before and after-school childcare. This programme was abandoned by David Cameron, effectively ending that guarantee of a core offer of activities from 8 am until 6 pm for school-age children. Does the Minister regret the decline in wraparound childcare on this Government’s watch? Will Ministers now support Labour’s pledge for a primary childcare guarantee?

There is a proposal from the Government that things will change in 2016 but that is too late for mums and dads of today. What will happen today, tomorrow and the next day? By 2016, their children will be in school and it will be too late. There are three fundamental problems which have been addressed unsatisfactorily by the Government relating to childcare: the costs have gone up, the places have gone down and there have been cuts in support to parents. The Government really need to get a grip on the issue of childcare and demonstrate that they are on the side of children and families. All the current evidence suggests that they are out of touch and have no concept of the difficulties facing families today.