Syria and the Middle East

Earl of Sandwich Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB)]

My Lords, I agree with a lot of what the noble Lord, Lord Soley, has said, especially about Russia. Syria’s collapse into civil war is the whole world’s concern. This country, having a lot of experience in the Middle East, has played a leading role, not least, as my noble friend Lord Maginnis said, in getting it wrong at least once. My chief concern today is Britain’s reputation not just as a Security Council member but as a host country to refugees from Syria. I offer no political solutions to the crisis itself but I know that, of all people in the world, Lakhdar Brahimi has the qualities and the experience to solve it, and it is hard to imagine anyone else equalling him. I am sure that my noble friend Lord Williams will agree with that because he has already said it. I would only advise Her Majesty’s Government to do their utmost to keep Russia and Iran on side if any progress is to be made. There, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, and my noble friend Lord Wright, who, incidentally, mentioned the important question of the settlements, which is tending to get ignored.

The desperation of Palestinians in the besieged camp of Yarmouk in Damascus has already been mentioned. Access to humanitarian aid is, as always, the vital issue. The international community has failed again to deliver aid where it is needed. Médecins du Monde, Chatham House and others have made practical suggestions for local ceasefires and improved access for the relief agencies through the UN and the ICRC. This remains an important priority for our Government, even if we cannot yet achieve a lasting peace. If the noble Baroness has any detail on that, I would be grateful to hear it. Aid workers are running enormous risks in Syria, and we need to do much more to support them.

We have been generous with humanitarian aid, as we would expect, being one of the world’s foremost aid givers. I do not quarrel with the amount we are giving but I do question our basic philosophy, which is to support the neighbouring countries rather than a wider programme of world involvement and resettlement. At first sight, this policy of supporting the neighbouring countries seems sensible because the ties between Syria and its neighbours are considerable and refuge appeared to be temporary at first. Turkey’s welcome to the earliest refugees in particular stands out as an example. But these neighbours are now stretched to the limit, as we have heard, and as a result the UN is looking to the long term.

Syrians in northern Iraq have already been living in abandoned houses and even animal shelters for two years—up to 20 people per home without proper nutrition. Many who are out of reach of international aid depend on the generosity of their Kurdish hosts where food may be already scarce. A Christian Aid visitor, for example, found refugees crowding around a vehicle carrying trays of cooked rice and chicken, all provided by the local people from their own resources. We tend to forget that in these situations. On top of this many displaced Iraqis are now fleeing northwards to escape newly escalating violence engendered by the al-Qaeda groups and freelance militia, both Sunni and Shia. Lebanon is also carrying a huge burden on top of its own problems. Many Syrians who arrive in Lebanon after long journeys, often without money or possessions, cannot reach UN protection and depend completely on the help of local Orthodox churches and charities which also help with health and education. Refugees who are bombed out of their homes and schools may also need psychosocial support to help them cope with the emotional impact of living through conflict. In Jordan most services to refugees are said to be close to breaking point.

I can well remember the warm reception given in the late 1970s to the Vietnamese boat people after the wars and massacres of the Vietnam War and its aftermath in Indo-China. As a country we responded well to UN and charity appeals and churches and communities all over the UK were alerted. I am sure most of us remember this. I was on the staff of Christian Aid at that time and I recall that thousands of people were accommodated with British families and that it was an efficiently run operation. What a contrast with Syria today. Here we have nearly 2.5 million refugees in four neighbouring countries, many overcrowded and undernourished, and thousands applying for resettlement in Europe. They have little prospect of returning home and yet European countries are not exactly jumping forward with offers. The UNHCR is asking for 30,000 places this year and 100,000 long-term. Our Prime Minister said three weeks ago that we must act urgently but we have negotiated a figure of only 500 out of the 18,800 places offered by 20 countries. Germany alone is said to be receiving 11,000. Here we may remember for a moment Chancellor Merkel’s powerful appeal to European nations to work even more closely together, and this applies to asylum as much as everything else. It is true that in the year up to last September the UK accepted 1,100 Syrians refugees, which is the third highest number after Germany and Sweden, and the Home Secretary says that 3,500 are already in the UK. But none of those was actually invited; they somehow managed to get here after an exhausting journey of weeks or months.

So what has happened since the 1970s? Wars and massacres continue and the suffering and risk from chemical weapons is equally serious, if not more so. Was there anything special about the Vietnam War and Pol Pot’s Cambodia, or about the vulnerability of the Vietnamese who took to sea to persuade us to be more hospitable? Syrian families are, if anything, more easily adaptable to British home life, and their standard of living in many cases was previously comparable to that of many people in the UK. I cannot answer these questions. I know that the level of immigration is now much higher than it was then and that that has affected our sense of hospitality. A combination of migrations from eastern Europe and the troubles of the Middle East and north Africa have generated new fears in the minds of some of us that this country is losing its intrinsic character and culture. These fears, of course, are groundless because we have absorbed migrations over many centuries and indeed we depend on them. None of that should affect our attitude to genuine refugees who are in a quite separate category. They are not deliberately choosing a new life elsewhere but are reluctantly fleeing war, persecution and hunger.

I know that this is not primarily the Minister’s problem but it does belong in our overall response to the crisis in Syria. The only question I would put to her today is about Greece and its frontiers. Are the Government satisfied that the FRONTEX programme, supported by the European Union, is providing a secure border with Turkey? We hear many conflicting stories about that. Would she describe recent reported actions by the Greek Government against the Syrian boat people as refoulement, or as sensible immigration policy?