Middle East and North Africa

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as deputy leader of Pendle Borough Council, for reasons that will become obvious. The leader of the council and I have issued a welcome on behalf of the people of Pendle for up to 20 families, at present, to come and live in Pendle and we have told the Government that that is the case. My question for the Minister is how many local authorities in England and Wales—or certainly in England—have made an offer to welcome refugees from Syria? I am told that it is quite a few, but I do not know the number. Do the Government have the details of these people and are they communicating positively with them?

I want to talk a little about Syria. The Prime Minister, in one of his statements on refugees from Syria—which have swung from one extreme to another but have included some remarkably silly comments—said about a week ago that our job was to provide jobs and security for people so that they did not need to leave. I think that he has now been to a refugee camp in Jordan and perhaps now understands why people are leaving. It is not about jobs, it is about security.

When Parliament debated whether this country should take part in bombing operations in Syria and the House of Commons voted against it, the suggestion was that we should take military action against the Syrian Government—Assad’s people. Now it seems that the people we are most against in Syria—for very good reason—are those who belong to ISIL, or Daesh, and the debate is whether we want to take part with the Americans in attacking them. The fact is that Syria is being wrecked. When the Prime Minister says that the displaced people he spoke to in the refugee camp in Jordan wanted to go back to Syria, I am sure that that is the case. The question is not whether people want to go back to Syria, it is whether it is possible for them to do so.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, who is not in his place at the moment, talked about the problem of there being two sides in Syria now and that we are against them both. The world is no longer a simple one of goodies and baddies; it is much more complicated than that. I have to say that there are more than two groups in the country, and that is complicating the situation. It used to be said that my enemy’s enemy is my friend, but it is more complex than that in Syria since some of the groups seem to be on the same side as more than one other group and then turn against them. We are not quite sure what is going on.

The Syrian Government have their army based heavily on the Alawite sect, which is Assad’s group. It is said that of the 250,000 men of fighting age in Syria on that side, one-third have already been killed. I do not know if that statistic is true, but that is what is being said. It is certainly true that an increasing number of Alawite people on the coast and in Damascus are leaving Syria, partly because the young men do not want to be called up and partly because they are frightened of the future. The main opponent used to be the Free Syrian Army, which still controls a lot of territory in the north-east and south-east of the country. It was the original opposition and it includes defectors from the Syrian armed forces, but in some areas it is now working with ISIL/Daesh, paving the way for an ISIL takeover. But whatever happens, people are leaving because of the fighting that is going on.

Then there is ISIL/Daesh itself, comprised as we know of hard-line fundamentalists, which now controls about half the area of Syria. It started off by working with the al-Nusra Front, which is an affiliate of al-Qaeda, but now they are fighting each other. So not only are they fighting the Syrian Government, they are fighting each other and probably anyone else who comes along. ISIL is now the strongest opposition group, with its headquarters based in the city of Raqqa in the north. The dilemma the Americans must face, as would we if we were to take part in military combat there, is that if we attack ISIL/Daesh, we help Assad. If we attack Assad’s troops, we help ISIL/Daesh. There appears to be no way through that. The al-Nusra Front, otherwise known as Jabhat al-Nusra, is still active in the same region as the Free Syrian Army. Its troops are fighting each other, ISIL, Hezbollah and others up there. Hezbollah is active in the north-west and controls territory on behalf of Assad, but it has its own agenda, and as we know it will turn on anyone if circumstances change. But whatever happens, Hezbollah is also driving refugees into Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, first, because people do not like the regime and, secondly, because of the violence.

I turn to the Peshmerga Kurds. Two parties have been successfully attacking ISIL in parts of the north. The Turkish Government, who were being urged to join in the military attacks on ISIL, had been conducting bombing raids in Syria, but it seems that for the most part they have actually been bombing the Kurds because that is part of their own domestic dispute. The whole thing is unbelievably complicated. Iran has put troops in on behalf of Assad, allegedly including 15,000 special forces personnel. Russia has an unknown number of people in the country, while Qatar and Saudi Arabia are supporting the rebels.

The country is a shambles, so if people want to know why the problems in Europe are not going to go away and why the refugee camps are going to grow and grow, and why the situation is not going to be solved easily, they have to look at Syria. Somehow all the regional parties, including ourselves, must get together to try and stop the war. I do not think that anyone has the slightest idea of how to do it, so we had better get used to the fact that the stream of refugees coming across Europe will continue. I do not know how many there are at the moment; no one seems to know and there might be half a million on the move in different places. Moreover, as the winter comes, the stream is going to increase.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, so that we can make progress, I think it would be easier if I write to the noble Lord and put a copy of that in the Library.

The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, asked about the structure of the Gold Command team announced today. The Gold Command has been established in the Home Office as a dedicated resource to ensure that commitment to resettlement is fulfilled quickly. It will report to the new Minister for Syrian refugees and will co-ordinate the response across government, the third sector and international agencies.

The noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, said that the Government refused to co-operate with Europe, as did a number of other noble Lords. I repeat that the Government are working very closely with EU partners, through the Commission, the Council and bilaterally. There are very many areas that we agree on and will continue to work together on: securing the external border and establishing hotspots, and providing real help on the ground and practical support to front-line member states. So it is wrong to say that we are not co-operating with Europe. However, we have taken a decision that we will operate our national response in this way. We think that it is the right way to respond to ensure that people are settled and supported in their own country, or in the region near to their country, so that they can then return when the conditions improve.

Somebody asked how the people coming will be accommodated. I remind noble Lords that we have a proud history, over many years, of being able to operate resettlement schemes. We already have established and effective networks to accommodate and support resettled people. However, we recognise that the increase in numbers will require an expansion of current networks and have an impact on local communities and infrastructure. We will need to manage that carefully. That is why it is important that we work with a wide range of partners, including local authorities and civil society organisations, to ensure that people are integrated sensitively into local communities.

My noble friend Lord Crickhowell asked whether the 20,000 figure is a firm target. We have always been very clear that the 20,000 figure is not a target. Resettlement schemes must be designed to respond to need, not to fulfil arbitrary quotas. The figure will always remain under review. We will monitor the situation and do what needs to be done as we see fit.

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords—

[Baroness Verma]

I will just finish this point.

My noble friend also asked what we were doing to support minority groups as we have seen some horrific cases of attacks on Christians and other religious communities by violent extremists, including ISIL. I reassure all noble Lords that all UK-funded assistance is distributed on the basis of need to ensure that civilians are not discriminated against on the grounds of race, religion or ethnicity. We want to prioritise reaching the most vulnerable people across Syria. That includes Christians and those who have suffered from such violence. We will continue to work with the United Nations and the international community to ensure that all minority rights are protected and that our aid reaches those who are in greatest need.

[Lord Greaves]

Does the Minister have an answer to my question about how many local authorities have offered to assist the Government in welcoming refugees?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I remember the question. I will need to go back and source the answer for the noble Lord. At this moment, I suspect that we are working with local authorities and so will not have a precise answer for him, but I promise to take the question back.

The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, asked why we were limiting the expansion to Syrians. It is important to note that by the end of 2014 Syria was the top source country for refugees: one in every four refugees was from Syria. It was right and proper that we focused our efforts there first. The UK has already run many resettlement schemes that do not restrict nationality, such as the Gateway Protection Programme and the Mandate refugee scheme that I mentioned earlier. The noble Lord also asked how the UK was supporting health education and economic opportunities for refugees in the region. UK support in the region is providing medical assistance for refugees in Lebanon. The UK is working alongside the Government to expand the education system to reach thousands of Syrian children and improve basic services. The Prime Minister’s recent announcement will double education support for refugee children over the next three years— £30 million over three years. We will continue to talk to host Governments to expand livelihood opportunities for Syrian refugees.

I was asked about support for the work of the Navy and new naval activity. The Royal Navy has today offered the warship HMS “Richmond”, as has been mentioned by a number of noble Lords, to boost the Government’s efforts to tackle people smuggling in the Mediterranean. It will support a surge of EU activity to tackle people smuggling before the start of winter and we welcome all noble Lords’ support.

I was asked whether there was a buffer zone in Jordan or other neighbouring countries. There is no official buffer zone for Syrians in Jordan. There are processing centres to register all Syrians for these countries.

The noble Lord, Lord Roberts, asked whether those arriving would be allowed to work. Under the scheme, they will be allowed to work and access benefits. They will have a five-year settlement visa and be able to have all the rights that come with that settlement. They will be assisted in the first year by ODA money and will then have access to the benefits and education systems, social services and health services that any British citizen would. That will be available to them.

I was also asked about what we were doing to encourage Gulf states to contribute more to the international response. We have actively engaged with the Gulf states on the humanitarian response in Syria. The Gulf states continue to contribute generously to the UN Syria appeals. Kuwait has hosted three fundraising conferences for the Syrian crisis, raising billions of dollars. This year, some $3.6 billion has been raised at the Kuwait pledging conference.

I have a number of responses to get through but I am fast running out of time. I would like to end by saying that it is really important to recognise that the work that the British Government, the British people and our NGOs are doing is going a long way towards helping to provide support for desperate people, but it is not enough. We need to encourage others to rise to the mark because as we try to build a more stable and prosperous world, there will be greater need. We are leading the international community in our response, but the UK cannot do it alone. Where I have not been able to respond to all the questions that have been put to me, I offer to write. However, as always, we could have taken a lot longer over this debate.