Calais

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

My hon. Friend raises such an important point. I know he has done a lot of work in this area. He is absolutely right that there is always a risk to accepting these young women, but it is because they are at risk that we have been so keen to prioritise them. That is why, to protect them from the sort of dangers he sets out, of the nearly 200 people we have taken over the past weekend, nearly a third have been young women. I can reassure him that we will be making constant safeguarding checks. I will write to him more fully to set out exactly what we are doing.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I thank the Home Secretary for her statement and advance sight of it, and for her work in recent days in trying to expedite the response to this crisis. However, we should step up to the mark and challenge the suggestion that human trafficking is the cause and the source of the crisis. Human traffickers are wicked people who exploit a crisis that is global and European.

Specific to Calais, many of the vulnerable children being brought to the UK will have family somewhere, even if they are currently separated. I understand that the United Kingdom is the only European Union country that does not allow unaccompanied children with refugee status the right to sponsor immediate family, including parents, to join them. Given the importance of keeping families together, will the Home Secretary ensure that unaccompanied refugee children are able to sponsor their parents, for the purpose of refugee family reunion, if and when they are found?

[Amber Rudd]

The hon. Gentleman is right that traffickers are a part of the problem, not the whole problem. He and I know, as the whole House does, that there are many reasons why this takes place. It starts with the upstream problem that we are trying to address, supporting African countries where a lot of these refugees are coming from, with other countries internationally. On our immigration policy on asylum, there are no plans to change it.

Calais Jungle

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

We have certainly noticed a significant uplift in the effort, people, time and professional commitment that the French are willing to put in. Because they are moving closer to clearing the camps, they are now very keen to work with us and help us to identify the children whom we can legally take over, and my hon. Friend should be in no doubt that we are working closely with them to ensure that we can do that with all possible speed.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

The Home Secretary has estimated that there are between 600 and 900 unaccompanied children in the camp, and has said that if the United Kingdom were to take 300, that would be “a really good result”. May I just suggest that for the 600 who are left alone and cold in Calais, it will not be “a really good result”? The children who have come here so far have done so mainly as a result of Citizens UK’s safe passage programme, in the absence of any system to implement Dublin in Calais. Will the Home Secretary promise the House that she will step up the efforts? Will she give a number that is credible and also massively ambitious, given the changing circumstances? Will she ensure that, through bloody-minded determination, compassion and urgency, the Government act in line with this country’s values, and give those children sanctuary and refuge?

[Amber Rudd]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s views about the values of this country and the need to look after those children, but I hesitate to give a number, although I am often pressed to do so by various organisations and, indeed, by our French counterparts.

I think that the right way to deal with this is to identify the regulations under which we, as a Government and as a country, have said that the children should come here, and that means Dublin and Dubs. On Dublin, we are making good, fast progress. We expect to receive a list this week, and we will move with all due haste after that. As for Dubs, we hope to ensure that children are held safely—that is exactly what I have been discussing with the French today—so that we can assist with the process. We have not reached a final deal, or arrangement, with the French to process the children and establish the swiftest way for us to assist, but I hope that we shall do so within the next few days.

Immigration Bill

Tim Farron Excerpts

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Monday 9th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

The whole point is that they are in safe countries. The criticism should be levelled not at the British Government, but at other Governments. If the Scottish nationalists wish to take the children in and they have the capacity in Scotland, they should pay for it themselves and not ask the Minister to go to the British Treasury to fund it. Put your money where your mouth is.

I fear that the Lords amendment will send out a very dangerous message. It is also an insulting message to our continental partners, whom we all know, because we see it night after night on our television screens, are wrestling with the consequences of this tragic migration flow into Europe. The Lords amendment sends out a damning message to them that they cannot cope and that their conditions are inadequate to look after vulnerable people.

That is my first point. My second point is this: my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) rightly asked the sanctimonious hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), who is parading his compassion—[Interruption.] We have free speech in this country. My hon. Friend made the point that there is a shortage of 10,000 foster carers in our country to look after our own children in need of foster care.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

No, I will not. The hon. Gentleman does not spend enough time in this Chamber for me to give way to him.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham is right that there is already a demand to look after our own children. As I have told the Prime Minister, in my constituency we do not have the capacity to take any more people and I will not give priority to those from overseas, however tragic, when my own constituents are suffering homelessness and vulnerable children cannot be catered for.

I quite understand the difficult position that my right hon. Friend the Minister has been put in, I suspect by some of my hon. Friends who have felt it necessary to parade their compassion. I do not believe the amendment to be a compassionate move. It sends out a very dangerous signal, encouraging parents to dispose of their children and put them at risk on the high seas, which is deeply dangerous.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Whately]

I am going to be very brief, because others want to speak.

My second point is that we must make absolutely sure that we avoid the pull. I know some Members are sceptical about that, but from my conversations with young men in Calais I am convinced that there is a pull factor, particularly for older teenagers—16, 17 and 18-year-olds. We must not encourage people smugglers to be paid to bring more of those people across Europe, so we must do this in a way that avoids a pull—as is, quite rightly, the plan.

My third and final point is we must make sure that we do it well. The Government are absolutely right to carry this out in consultation with local authorities. I represent a Kent constituency that is managing over 1,000 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and care leavers. It is a huge burden, and very few other local authorities have stepped up to help. I sincerely hope that more local authorities will now take on their fair share. As part of that, let us make sure that we make use of the upsurge in interest in fostering—many people have put forward their names to be foster carers—not only to look after unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and refugees but to provide more homes for British children who are in care.

[Tim Farron]

Seven months ago I used my first Prime Minister’s question as party leader to call on the Prime Minister to give sanctuary to 3,000 unaccompanied refugee children. The campaign has been cross-party and cross-community. Today we celebrate in particular the work of Lord Alf Dubs in pushing his amendment and being so utterly dogged with it. I also pay tribute to the Government’s own Back Benchers, whose compassion and equal doggedness have brought the Government to the brink of this change.

We should understand, however, that although we are finally able to give hope to some of these children and although this is a victory, it is certainly not the end of the story. Even tonight we are hearing from No. 10 that the Government will not take a single one of the refugees for another seven months, will not help children who arrive after the arbitrary date and will not commit to a fixed number.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tim Farron]

I do not have time, sorry.

In January, the Government claimed to be supporting child refugees, and we became optimistic, but then it turned out that that was just a repackaging of existing funds to the region. Last month, the Government said that they would take 3,000 children, and we were ready to cheer, but it turned out that none would be the desperate children alone in the camps in Europe. Last week, on the eve of elections, the Government gave way and said that they would accept the Dubs amendment, but now we discover that although they may have accepted the letter of the amendment they continue to flout its spirit.

With depressing predictability, we again see that the Government view desperate refugees as a media and political management issue, and not as the greatest, cruellest humanitarian disaster to face our continent in 71 years. Better late than never comes to mind, but remember this: in the seven months since we first raised this matter, it is likely that hundreds, if not thousands, of vulnerable children will have joined the 10,000 who have gone missing, into the hands of people traffickers, into forced labour and into child sexual exploitation. It keeps me awake at night that some of the children I met in Lesbos, in northern Greece and in Calais will now, I know, have shared that desperate fate, because of the Government’s prevarication. Now, the clock is ticking. Every week that we delay taking these children, more will disappear into the hands of those who wish to exploit them. The Minister has the blueprint that we produced, together with the help of local authorities of all parties, Save the Children, fostering agencies, and Home for Good. He will see that with sufficient leadership and Government resources, we could take these children pretty much straightaway.

Throughout this ongoing debate, all that has hindered us from doing the right thing as a country is the lack of political will from this Government. Last month, I saw in northern Greece a razor-wire fence on the Macedonian side of the border. It was backed up with tanks every 50 yards, and it was built in 36 hours because when politicians want to do something quickly, they can. This Government could act quickly if only they had the political will.

I do not care whether this counts as a U-turn. As a result of this campaign, many of us know that hundreds, hopefully thousands of children will be granted sanctuary. That is a welcome change of position, but it is clearly not a change of heart. Taking these children is not the best that we can do as a country; it is the least that we can do as a country.

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I am actually quite sad tonight given what I have heard, because there is a clear sense and determination among Labour Members to suggest that the Government have not been doing enough. I spoke to the amendment two weeks ago, and the county of Kent has been rehoming unaccompanied minors and refugees for decades. Kent has been a gateway for people making their way to safety into this country, and this Government, and previous Governments, have been doing their bit.

As I have outlined previously, it is all very well making a simplistic argument—“We’ll just put these young people with foster carers”—but the reality is, as my hon. Friends have said, that we have a shortage of foster carers in this country. What I have found saddest about this whole debate in the weeks leading up to it has been that, week after week, Opposition Members have stood up and spoken about unaccompanied minors. I do not know about them, but I do a hell of a lot of work with looked-after children, and since I have been elected to this House I have not heard Opposition Members stand up and champion the outcomes of young looked-after children in this country. Labour Members have stood up and talked about unaccompanied minors, but they have not made that point.

I have spoken to friends on the continent over this past week, and as has been said, they feel quite depressed about the debates that we have had in this House, the accusations that have been levelled at some countries on the continent, and the fear that this is unsafe. This Government and country are doing enough.

Immigration Bill

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

rose—

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

rose—

[James Brokenshire]

I will if I may finish this point. As I have shown so far, I plan to be generous to all Members during the course of this debate.

No one should be in any doubt about the Government’s clear, ongoing commitment to help those most affected by the migration crisis. The doubling of our aid for the Syrian crisis to £2.3 billion—the largest ever response by this country to a single humanitarian crisis—underlines not just that commitment, but our commitment to act in practical ways to improve the lives of as many people as possible. Hundreds of thousands of people in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Egypt are receiving food, shelter, medical treatment and support as a consequence of the actions of the UK. It is also about hope and opportunity and creating a strong sense of how we can quickly rebuild the lives of those torn apart by the war in Syria. The London conference in February galvanised commitments to create an estimated 1.1 million jobs for those in the region by 2018, and quality education for 1.7 million refugee and vulnerable children by the end of the 2016-17 school year, with equal access for girls and boys.

[Tim Farron]

The Minister is being very generous. He makes the point that action to help those who are stranded in Europe would somehow act as a pull factor. With respect, I think that that view is bogus, not least when we consider that there are four times more refugees in the region. The idea that Europe is the only place to which they are heading is nonsense. Even if one were to accept that, his decision not to accept the Dubs amendment is to ignore the tens of thousands of children who are in Europe now. The reality is that 10,000 have gone missing in the past year. They are in the hands of traffickers now. What will he do to help those children who are here on this continent now?

[James Brokenshire]

I was going to come on to that very point. Let me just say that it is about supporting those front-line member states and our other European partners to stand by their responsibilities. In essence, Europe should be a safe space; it is not a conflict zone. Therefore, we judge that the best way to make a difference and to help the greatest numbers of those in need is to support the majority of refugees to enable them to stay safely in their home region, which is why I made those points about aid and assistance. Where people have made that journey to Europe, we should help our European partners to fulfil their duties to them and to provide support on this issue of family reunification.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Brokenshire]

We are processing 50 cases, 24 of which we have accepted, but a number of those cases are complicated. It is a question of the safeguarding measures that need to be put in place for the children to be reunited with the families who are here. It is therefore more complex than it is sometimes presented. That is not in any way a desire on the part of the Government, or anyone else, to encourage delay. Rather, it is about the normal child safeguarding measures that I think are appropriate. I say to the right hon. Lady and to Citizens UK that if there are cases that can be linked to families here in the UK, get them into the French system. I make that point again and again, because we stand ready to act and to take charge where there are those links, and to see that if there are children in northern France who are separated from family in the UK, action is taken.

Those processes for family reunion are of course in addition to the unaccompanied asylum-seeking children who make their claims in this country. With over 3,000 asylum applications from unaccompanied children last year, I pay tribute to all those local authorities that, despite the unprecedented pressure on their services, are providing support to those young people. At the same time, we need to shut down the illegal migration routes to Europe that are exploited by human traffickers, who encourage people to risk their lives to make perilous journeys. The Government remain of the view that relocation schemes within Europe risk creating unintended consequences or perverse incentives for people to put their lives into the hands of traffickers. Instead, we are committed to providing safe and legal routes for the most vulnerable refugees to resettle in the UK.

The success of the EU-Turkey migration agreement is a vital opportunity to end the misery and lethal risk that smugglers and organised criminals are causing on a daily basis. We have made an offer of UK support to help implement the EU-Turkey migration agreement. We need to close down illegal crossings from Turkey to Greece and tackle migrant flows upstream. We are offering 75 expert personnel to help with the processing and administration of migrants in Greek reception centres, to act as interpreters, to provide medical support and to bolster our existing team assisting the Commission to ensure that there is effective and efficient co-ordination.

Those teams, which are ready to be deployed, will include experts in supporting vulnerable groups, such as unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, and those trained to tackle people trafficking. That will help to ensure that vulnerable people, including children, are identified and can access asylum and support procedures as quickly as possible. That is in addition to the work undertaken by the Anti-Slavery Commissioner, Kevin Hyland, to visit hotspots and assess what more can be done to ensure that unaccompanied children are protected from traffickers.

[Tim Farron]

I want to challenge the notion that the EU-Turkey deal is a success. I was at the Idomeni camp on the Greek-Macedonian border a fortnight ago. The camp is meant to host 300 or 400 people as they pass north towards northern Europe, but there were 25,000 people—there were children there as well—crammed into that small space, and they were absolutely desperate. The reason they are not moving from that place is that they have no trust whatever in the system or in the fact that wherever they are moved to next will not mean deportation out of Europe. The EU-Turkey deal may be great in principle, but in practice it has been stitched up for the benefit and convenience of politicians, not of those desperate people rotting in the camps.

[James Brokenshire]

I attended last week’s Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting in Luxembourg and I spoke to the Greek Minister. He has welcomed the offer of support that I have just set out, in terms of its practical operationalisation to help make things happen at the front end—in the Greek islands and in Greece. I have highlighted the financial and other support we are giving Greece and others to deal with some of these difficult and challenging issues, and we are playing our absolute part to address this issue and to see that the parts of the EU-Turkey deal happen and have the effect we would all want them to.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keir Starmer]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his very powerful intervention, which puts the pull factor in its proper context. The pull factor argument that has been deployed is not attractive in a country that has been as tolerant as this country has in providing support for those fleeing persecution. In the end, the argument boils down to saying that we will leave people to their fate for fear of encouraging others to follow in their footsteps. The Minister talked about distressed people fleeing war-torn zones. That is the context in which the argument is being applied, but this case is worse because the pull factor is being applied to children. The boy I met in Glasgow was 14 when he made his journey, and he is typical of many in that respect.

[Tim Farron]

The hon. and learned Gentleman is being very generous in giving way. On the pull factor, I agree with him that the evidence is at best mixed. In the sense that I found any kind of pull factor in the camps I visited in northern Greece, in the islands or in Calais and in meeting refugees who have been settled in Cologne, it was that Europe is a peaceful, decent, stable place where people can raise their children without fear of their being killed. We should be proud of such a pull factor.

[Keir Starmer]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very powerful point. I know that he has been very supportive of the campaigns in that respect. Certainly, several people I talked to in Calais and Dunkirk—stuck in camps that were appalling when I saw them—spoke in glowing terms about the rule of law and human rights, and our proud tradition in relation to refugees.

I have listened to the Minister. Not only on this occasion but every time that we have debated this, I have applauded and acknowledged the steps that the Government have taken. I accept that any steps taken must be proper steps within a proper scheme so that they work properly. However, not taking the vulnerable children who are in Europe—right here, right now—is simply not good enough.

This afternoon, an email pinged into my inbox from a rabbi in Kentish Town, one of my constituents, which I want to read to the House:

“As the Jewish community celebrates the…Passover, we remember not only our own journey to freedom, but all those who are not free.”

He urged me to support Lords amendment 87 and other amendments. He certainly speaks for many of my other constituents, as I am sure he does for those of many hon. Members from across the House.

Among those on the Opposition Benches, there is strong support for Lords amendment 87. I know and acknowledge the fact that Conservative Members have real concerns, which they have raised repeatedly, about our not taking in this group of vulnerable children who need our help now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Burrowes]

If ever a debate showed the need not to have a time limit, this is it, especially given the complex issues we are dealing with. The issue of human dignity flows through all the amendments under consideration, whether they deal with child refugees in Syria or Europe, or those who have made their way to this country and need appropriate and fair treatment, and whom we must try to avoid detaining for so long.

There is no monopoly on compassion. The House will be dividing on this amendment, and it is not a binary issue about whether or not someone supports or cares for child refugees. I have been a long-standing campaigner for the Government to provide more refuge, and for such assistance to be based not on arbitrary numbers but on vulnerability. I welcome the Government’s move from the 20,000 places announced in September to an additional 3,000 refugees coming from Syria and the region.

As many speeches have highlighted, Europe has the role of providing safety from trafficking, exploitation and abuse—that is distinct from the issue of refuge within Europe. How can we practically deliver that? The number that horrifies me and to which I wish to respond is Europol’s estimate that 10,000 children have gone missing. How can we practically ensure that children do not go missing and that there is safety? The arbitrary figure of 3,000 that has been nobly championed by Lord Dubs—he is watching this debate—has provided a focus for the debate and moved the Government to provide details on the commitment that they made at the end of January.

We must consider the practical issues. Seventy-five experts going to Greece is not a good campaign slogan, but it is important because the practical deliverability of the figure of 3,000 in the amendment must lead to a result that sees experts going to Greece or Calais, and properly processing people and ensuring that there is a reception centre. The Government have committed to that, and it is important to recognise that that will provide safety.

History will judge our response to this crisis tomorrow, next month and next year. This is not the only time that we will call on the Government to provide a compassionate response, and I believe that they have done that today. I welcome the Government’s actions and look for them to go further. I will be supporting the Government. That is a difficult choice because of the passion and emotion around the Dubs amendment. However, I think that the Government are on the road to providing more safety for people in Europe, including with the groundbreaking decision to provide refuge for children at risk, which other countries must follow. I have run out of time so cannot to speak to the other amendments.

[Tim Farron]

Last autumn, I used my first Prime Minister’s questions as party leader to press the Prime Minister to take these 3,000 unaccompanied children—refugees from the camps—in Europe. I had seen the situation for myself in Calais, Lesbos and other places. As we have heard today, something like a third of those unaccompanied children in Europe go missing. They are now in the hands of child traffickers who exploit them and use them in child prostitution.

The Government have done some good over these past few months, much of it under pressure, but, to date, they are utterly and totally stubborn on the matter of helping even a single person, particularly vulnerable children, in Europe.

I was at the Indomeni camp in northern Greece just a couple of weeks ago. It was the saddest of all the visits that I have made, because of the desperation that I saw and because of the number of children living in squalid and unsafe circumstances. These people are at risk, they are alone, and they are scared, and we could help them.

We have had a series of announcements from the Government, but they all missed the point, which is that those children who are most at risk are the ones who are now in the camps in Europe. Making the argument in favour of doing more for refugees and of taking refugees from Europe is difficult when there is a narrative out there that says that most refugees are coming to Europe. That is not true. Perhaps one in five from the region is coming to Europe. People will say that they are not really refugees, but economic migrants. Well, 95% of them are deemed to be refugees by any objective standard. Perhaps that is where the Government’s reluctance comes from. They fear unpopularity, but is this not the time for this Government not to follow, but to lead and to do the right thing? There are always reasons not to do the right thing.

When I was in Greece and Macedonia two weeks ago, a fence had been erected by the Macedonian Government in 36 hours. If a country has the political will, they can do these things. We can take these children. The blueprint that I produced over the past three or four months in consultation with Save the Children, Home for Good and local authorities gives the Government all the ammunition they need to show how they would put such a scheme into practice, and I refer the Minister to that blueprint. We need to stop the excuses and do the right thing.

This is the biggest humanitarian disaster, or crisis, facing Europe since the second world war, and this Government choose to turn their back not just on geo-political reality and on our neighbours, but on the desperate children somehow existing in the camps and in the ditches up and down Europe. This proposal before us today, amendment 87, is not the most we can do; it is the least we can do.

[Heidi Allen]

I wish to speak on the Dubs amendment. May I start by thanking the Minister for Immigration and the Under-Secretary of State for Refugees for their genuine commitment to this cause? I know that, in this matter, they have tried to use both their head and their heart.

Having seen the desperate scenes in the refugees camps in Lesbos and Calais, I have had a very brief window on the world of families fleeing war and persecution, and it is those memories that give me a very, very heavy heart today. Many of us from all parts of the House always felt that our initial offer to resettle 20,000 refugees was not enough. Although our financial aid to the region has been nothing short of heroic, we have sensed that the British people, generous to the end, wanted to offer a home to more. The announcement last week that we would take another 3,000 filled me with renewed pride, not least because we were focusing on children at risk, but when did pride get to feel so numb? It was the dawning realisation that, by focusing on the camps in the region once again, we would be turning our backs on the thousands of unaccompanied children already in Europe. The argument for not helping them has always been the pull factor. If we take them, more will make that perilous journey. I know that the boats are overcrowded and not seaworthy because I saw them.

If the deal between the EU, Turkey and Greece is so fantastic in stopping the tide of daily arrivals, as we are told, then that means that the pull has stopped pulling. That can mean only one thing: these children are trapped. They cannot go forward, and they cannot go back. They are lost in Europe, lost in the chaos, but not, and never, lost on our conscience.

The confirmation that we will send 75 Home Office experts to the Greek islands is very welcome, but it has taken from the announcement in January to achieve that. We call the Greek islands hotspots. There are hotspots all over Europe: hotspots for trafficking, hotspots for abuse and hotspots for child prostitution on the Macedonian border, Italy and on our very own doorstep in Calais.

When part of the jungle was demolished, 120 children went missing. Right now there are 157 lone children with family in the UK, but there are no friendly faces, no child protection and no sign saying, “This way to be looked after.” Children cannot be expected to find the system without help. In one case, an 11-month-old baby separated from its mother was expected to claim asylum in France before any steps could be taken to reunite them—an 11-month-old baby. This is civilized Europe?

I will hear the whole debate. I had planned to abstain in the vote, because I must acknowledge the offer to take 3,000 more, and I would be playing fast and loose with their opportunity for sanctuary if I did not support the Government. But how can I forget the faces of the children I have seen in Europe? Abstention is a pathetic offering, really. Is it enough? Is it good enough?

If the Dubs amendment does not succeed tonight, I urge the Lords to continue fighting with us. We must seek to achieve a compromise amendment; something different, and perhaps less sweeping, but something that—