Unaccompanied Child Refugees

Debate between Stella Creasy and Amber Rudd

Thursday 9th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I know that my hon. Friend cares a lot about this issue, just as I and this Government do. That is why we have made substantial commitments to help children from the region and to help 20,000 Syrians to come over here. I can say that we are transferring 100 people under the Syrian scheme just today. We will continue to step up and show the world that the UK is doing the right thing by helping these families and children.

I disagree with my hon. Friend and some Opposition Members on one thing. At the time of the amendment, it was made perfectly clear that a number needed to be set and that a number would be set. We have stuck to the letter and spirit of the amendment.

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

The Home Secretary says that she has talked to the French authorities and that they want to stop the Dubs scheme. An average of 50 children every day are going back to Calais and the camps. Does the Home Secretary recognise that the policy clearly is not working? What does she think will happen to those kids now that she has closed the door on them?

[Amber Rudd]

I ask the hon. Lady to consider why the children are going back to the camps rather than staying in the centres the French have taken them to in order to process them. Perhaps it is because they think that they will be able to move to the UK. Does that help them? It does not. What will help those children is if they have their claims processed in France, rather than going back to Calais and the mud. I am sure that she would not want that, just as I do not.

Calais

Debate between Stella Creasy and Amber Rudd

Monday 24th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

My hon. Friend is right that we are committed to prioritising the most vulnerable, which means the youngest and minors at risk of sexual exploitation. We will always make sure that we do that. We are putting them at the front of the queue in terms of interviewing. Frankly, these are the ones who are most likely to qualify under the Dubs amendment, where it becomes clear that they are better served by being in the UK.

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

I associate myself with the comments of the new Home Affairs Committee Chair about the progress being made. I want to pick up what the Home Secretary said about the reports from the camp today and the chaos that we are seeing there as it is being closed. I have details with me of 49 children under the age of 13 who the voluntary agencies say could not register at the warehouse today. I would be happy to share those details directly with the Home Secretary and her officials. Will she give me a personal assurance that she will investigate the fate of those 49, including three who are under the age of 11? Will she give an assurance that any child brought here under this legal process will not be put in a detention centre here in the UK?

[Amber Rudd]

I am surprised to hear the hon. Lady talk about a detention centre. We are making sure that all the children who come over here are looked after in a way that we, as a proud and compassionate nation, can rightly call the best way. If she has any additional information, she is welcome to send it to me or to hand it to the Minister for Immigration at the end of this statement. We have 36 staff on the ground who have gone over during the past few weeks specifically to do this. They are engaged with the NGOs as well. There is no “them and us” feeling in the camp. We all have the same aims, and I would ask her to bear that in mind. We want to get the youngest children and the most vulnerable out. There is nothing but good will and good intent on this side to make sure that we can achieve that.

Calais Jungle

Debate between Stella Creasy and Amber Rudd

Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

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

The Home Secretary will be aware that there is a great deal of concern in the House today about the numbers. The voluntary sector has identified for her Department 387 children as being eligible to come here under Dublin III and the Dubs amendment, for example, but there is a wait of more than three months before many can even lodge an asylum claim in France; I do not think the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) is aware of that fact. This country is spending three times as much on building a wall to block those children from coming here as on trying to prevent them from being trafficked. Given the Secretary of State’s welcome commitment to getting things moving, will she reverse that ratio and put more money into the administration needed to process the papers, so that we can get those children out of that hellhole today?

[Amber Rudd]

I understand and share the hon. Lady’s genuine passion and commitment to this subject. However, it is not a lack of finances for dealing with the paperwork that has been slowing things up; this is a question of ensuring that the French engage with us, so that we can commit to getting the numbers through that we want. For instance, we have already referred to the 200 agreed under the Dublin agreement, and to the additional number under the Dubs amendment, but the French have begun to work with us on this only in the past three weeks. They are now focused on wanting us to take children from the camps, because they now want to clear the camps. I can confidently tell the hon. Lady that there will be a remarkable increase in our ability to take those children over and to process their claims, not because of money, but because of the political will to get it done.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Stella Creasy and Amber Rudd

Monday 5th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

My hon. Friend is right to refer to the fine line and to the fact that the camp is a place of terror and danger. We will follow up on our obligations, and as I said in answer to an earlier question, we are now managing to move more quickly. I ask him not to underestimate the difficulty sometimes of dealing with French law and EU law. We cannot simply move in and take action; we must act within the law, which is always in the best interests of the child.

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

I welcome the Home Secretary to her new role. I was in Calais at the weekend for the second time this summer. Both times I met some of the 800 young unaccompanied children in that camp—children who told me that in the many months they have been there they have not spoken to a single Government official. I met a pregnant woman who said that she had tried to claim asylum in France, but the system is so broken that she was told it would be months before they would even begin to process her application. These people are living in hell because of a lack of bureaucracy. My right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) is absolutely right. They need our safeguarding, because they are sleeping in tents with strange men. Will the Home Secretary meet me and other MPs affected by this issue and concerned about it to discuss how we can change that?

[Amber Rudd]

I would point out to the hon. Lady that the French have already dispersed 5,000 people from the camp. The Interior Minister has already said that he has plans to make sure, by the end of the year, that the camp is phased out so that everybody can be rehoused. It is important for the children to know, as the adults know, that they are not forced to come to the UK to find a bed; they can claim asylum in France, and the French Government are willing to do that. The hon. Lady should have a care not to encourage unwittingly the traffickers to bring more children to the camps.