Immigration Bill

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer]

The number of constituents who have contacted me and other Members—I am sure that this is true across the House—about the plight of refugees in the last 12 months has been considerable. Many of those communications—again, I am sure that this is the same for many Members—are individual, rather than part of mass campaigns. These people have real concerns, and they usually say, “What can I do? I don’t think the Government are doing enough. Can I send money or clothes?” Many have said, “Can I take somebody in?” or even, “Can I adopt?” There is therefore a very powerful feeling out there that more needs to be done about refugees.

I have spoken of the hundreds of thousands of families —the millions of people—fleeing their homes.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

My hon. and learned Friend is exactly right. He has been to the camps in France, and I have been to the Calais camp. Much of the help there is given by individual British people who make the journey over or who organise trips, often providing substantial amounts of aid. Our constituents’ view is clear, and the Government would be wise to listen to it this evening.

[Keir Starmer]

I have been to the camps in Calais and Dunkirk, and, like many other people, I was shocked. I have discussed that with the Minister and with the Minister with responsibility for refugees, and what I have tried to get across—this is important in relation to the amendment—is that when I went to Dunkirk, there were 3,000 individuals, including many children, living in a swamp in flimsy tents in the freezing cold. There were eight volunteers doing their level best to help in the camp, but there was not an official in sight, apart from two gendarmes on the gate, and all they were doing was preventing pallets from being brought in. I know things have changed—I did say that when I went, and I have never been slow to acknowledge when steps have been taken—but there needs to be a reality check about the ability of children in those camps and elsewhere to access the advice and help they need to make a claim.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

The 3,000 figure was proposed by Save the Children, at a time when it thought that 26,000 children in Europe were alone. We now know that the figure is much higher, and that 95,000 children are alone and at risk across Europe. It would be for the Government to work with agencies such as Save the Children to establish the criteria; I think that priority should be given to those with families in Britain who can care for them, but that is something that we can debate.

It is right for us to do our bit to help. Children are sleeping rough tonight because countries across Europe simply do not have the capacity to provide that help. According to UNICEF and Save the Children, 2,000 children are alone in northern Greece, but there are fewer than 500 places for them, and those places are full. In Italy, the agencies found that girls were being exploited by older men, and that half the boys already had sexually transmitted diseases. In Calais, I met 11 and 12-year-olds who were suffering from scabies and bronchitis, and who were sleeping in tents with adult men.

This is the challenge that Europe faces: teenage girls being trafficked into prostitution, teenage boys being abused and raped, children with hypothermia and pneumonia, children who are traumatised because they have lost family along the way, and children who are locked up in detention centres because there are no other places for them to go to—again, often alongside adult men. A Syrian teenager who came to Parliament last week to meet Alf Dubs told me that he had fled the violence and fighting to reach family members who were here in Britain, but the abuse and the suffering that he saw and experienced as a refugee alone in Europe were worse than the violence that he had left behind.

[Andy Slaughter]

As always, my right hon. Friend is speaking passionately. I was at that meeting, and the eyewitness accounts were extremely telling.

Is this not the problem that the Government have tonight? They say that the developed countries of Europe should be able to deal better with refugees, but, as my right hon. Friend has pointed out, those countries are not dealing with it. The fact on the ground, in Calais and in Greece, is that children are at risk and are being brutalised and tormented, in some cases—to their shame—by the authorities who should be looking after them. That, surely, is why we have to do our bit.

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. Let me make my position clear. I think that other countries should be doing more—I think that it is shocking how little child protection the French authorities have put in place around Calais, and that we need countries across Europe to do far more—but how can we urge them to do more if we are refusing to do anything to help and give sanctuary to those child refugees?