Immigration Bill

Debate between Earl of Sandwich and Baroness Neuberger

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB)]

My Lords, I can see the point of the Government’s plan to collect child refugees from the Middle East, but the thousands of children who were seen on our television screens in October and November last year were already in Europe. The impression at the moment is that the Government are refusing to respond to what has become a public demand. I strongly support the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. This is not just an emotional issue; it is a case of practicality. The Government are talking about an admirable resettlement scheme, but, except in the case of family reunion, they are ignoring unaccompanied minors and ignoring this plea.

[Baroness Neuberger (LD)]

My Lords, I support this excellent amendment. This is the least that we can do. As the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and my noble friend Lord Roberts said, there is a huge groundswell of support to bring some of these children—as many as we can—into this country. It is enormously important to get those children out of there, particularly out of Calais and Dunkirk.

I have to declare a couple of interests. I am rabbi of West London Synagogue, which runs a drop-in for asylum seekers and asylum-seeking families, and we have a lot of volunteers who have been going to Calais and Dunkirk. What they say about the situation of those children and the degree of risk to them and the appalling circumstances in which they live is truly ghastly.

I am also a trustee of the Walter and Liesel Schwab Charitable Trust, which was set up in memory of my parents. My mother came as a refugee. She was a domestic servant when her younger brother was still at school. His teacher rang her from Germany and said, “You have to get your brother out of here”. So my uncle came as a semi-unaccompanied refugee and was looked after by the most wonderful foster parents, who responded to general appeals for foster parents. They came forward, took him in and looked after him for months until my mother could cope.

It is ironic that we have been holding these Committee stage debates on the Immigration Bill around the time of Holocaust Memorial Day, when we have been saying “never again” and have been remembering the Kindertransport and the refugees who came. When one looks back on those speeches, as the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, did, on the whole you think a lot of the parliamentarians in 1938 and 1939 were truly wonderful people. However, I want to mention Eleanor Rathbone who is something of a heroine of mine. She also helped my grandparents, who also got out just before the beginning of the war. She said that our being so slow in taking action—in a slightly different area—was the equivalent of saying:

“’We are very sorry for all the people who are in danger of being drowned by this flood, and we will do our best to rescue them, but, mind, we must use nothing but teacups to bale out the flood’”.—[Official Report, Commons, 31/1/1939; col. 151.]

The trouble is that we have been so slow and are taking such very small actions. Three thousand is the very least we can do. We should go to Italy or to Greece and see the huge numbers who are there and then ask ourselves whether 3,000 unaccompanied children on top of the 20,000 who the Government have already said they will take is really too many. I hope the Government will accept this amendment.