Council of Europe

Debate between Lord Coaker and Stella Creasy

Wednesday 18th April 2018 Westminster Hall

[Vernon Coaker]

I could not agree more. The right hon. Lady makes an excellent suggestion. I hope that the Minister can take the idea back and talk to his Whips Office—I am sure that ours will also be agreeable to that. We should all continue to think what more we can do in this country and across Europe to reflect the importance of the work being done. For example, the Minister might like to make a statement to the House after the annual meeting of the Committee of Ministers. I am sure that he would enjoy that.

The truth is that this is important work. To give an example, one of the challenges of our time is the migrant and refugee crisis. Whatever our view on its causes, who is to blame and so on, the Council of Europe reminds us that in the end we are talking about people, in particular children, and that whatever the rights and wrongs of individual foreign policy decisions, it cannot be right that tens of thousands of unaccompanied children are struggling across Europe, often with no prospect of being resettled or relocated.

I went to Jordan recently as part of the Council of Europe delegation. What a phenomenal example Jordan is to the rest of the world in the way it tries to deal with refugee and migrant problems. It is a country of 10 million people. It is not one of the poorest countries in the world, but it is not one of the richest either. Two million of those people are migrants or refugees. I went to the Zaatari refugee camp on the Jordanian-Syrian border, where there are 80,000 people. Hundreds of thousands have been through that camp, which was established in 2012. It is now a small town, as the Minister will know, as I think he has been there as well. The Jordanian people are an example to the rest of us in the way that they have supported the needs of the people in that camp and the rest of the country, and helped them to integrate into their society. They are a reminder and a wake-up call to us all to see children as children, with rights, who need others to speak up for them. It is not their fault that they are fleeing war, that they are unaccompanied or that they do not know where they are going to go. Surely, as the Council of Europe has reminded us time and again, we have a responsibility to stand up, work with them and do what we can.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making a characteristically powerful speech. He and I are both members of the Council of Europe’s Committee on Migration, Refugees and Displaced Persons, and there is no better example of why the Council of Europe is about not just the history of our relationship with Europe, but its future. It behoves every nation to address these challenges. Only by being able to talk to our colleagues in other countries will we ever be able to find solutions. What the Council of Europe and that Committee allows us to do is start that process.