Ukraine: Refugees

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Wednesday 6th April 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, I have in general given strong support to the Government’s response to Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression against its neighbour, Ukraine, but when it comes to our handling of the massive outflow of refugees, often fleeing for their lives, which I would characterise so far as being somewhere between inadequate and abject, I can only express my great gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, for securing this debate and say how moved I was by the personal experience that she brought to her introduction to the debate—she put forward several points that I will endorse strongly in my remarks. I hope that this debate may perhaps mark a turning point in what has so far been a sorry story, which I hope will improve.

In being so critical, I do not wish to load blame on the noble Lord, Lord Harrington, whose maiden speech later this afternoon we await with interest. Since his belated ministerial appointment, he seems to have struck all the right notes but, alas, there is still a big gap between rhetoric and reality. Not so long ago we were being told by the Government about the benefits of taking back control of our borders from the EU. Well, our control over immigrants from Ukraine, still and always a third country for the EU, was as real when we were in the EU as it is now, but the EU has risen most creditably to the challenge posed by the exodus from Ukraine with its temporary waiver of visas and with wholehearted and massive relief schemes. What have we done? We have issued 50-page forms to be filled in and admitted a mere trickle of refugees. Is this bureaucratic cat’s cradle necessary? Is it even effective? After all, Ireland, as part of the EU, has waived any visa requirement on Ukrainians and since we are in a common travel area with Ireland this would seem to be a rather obvious loophole. Perhaps the Minister will comment on that.

Then there was the issue that has come up several times in Statements on this subject: security. For a considerable time, the Government led us to believe—perhaps they believed it themselves—that our visa requirements were protecting our national security against spies, infiltrators and so on. Then last week the Minister, in what I thought was an extremely frank and helpful clarification, said that it was nothing to do with that at all and that it was about protecting Ukrainian refugees from being preyed on by human traffickers.

That is a worthy objective, but I spoke to Professor Phillimore of the University of Birmingham earlier this week. She leads an important research project dealing with the problems associated with protecting migrants from being preyed on by people traffickers, and she told me categorically that the visa system provides no—I repeat: no—additional protection against those risks. What is needed, she said, is to cut the time the migrants wait in limbo, a point clearly made by the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, because they are extremely vulnerable then. Alas, we are keeping them in limbo for a lot longer than we should. Secondly, she said that we need to strengthen checks on people in this country who are offering them a destination, another point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Helic. Both those points are key and the visa system has nothing to do with them.

Clamping down on traffickers is an objective we share with members of the EU, which are admitting hundreds of thousands while we are admitting hundreds. The best defence against trafficking and modern slavery that we have in these circumstances is the closest possible co-operation with Europol and the law enforcement agencies of the EU member states. Can the Minister tell us whether that co-operation is a living daily reality, or just something we talk about?

It is a frequently repeated truth that the Ukraine crisis has fundamentally changed huge areas of policy across Europe. That is certainly true of the European Union: look at Germany’s commitments on defence spending and arms exports, at the EU’s overall response in cutting its dependence on energy supplies, and at the sanctions packages. But it seems a bit less true here, particularly when it comes to immigrants. The Home Office has yet to shed its “hostile environment” label. What will it take for it to do so?