Unaccompanied Child Refugees: Europe

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

Given that I represent Dover, Calais is literally a few short miles across the water. Indeed, I can see Calais from my bedroom window. It is striking, is it not, to think about the conditions there until a year ago? I am delighted by and proud of the campaign that so many of us fought to get the Jungle dismantled. Over time, the numbers there swelled to some 10,000 people. It was a place of appalling squalor, with no sanitation facilities, no running water, no protection from the cold, and nasty, rickety shacks. The Jungle was frankly a lawless place where people traffickers roamed free, exploiting people.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I visited the Jungle at its height. I agree that it was a far from ideal place, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that the conditions in which almost 1,000 refugees are now living around Calais are far worse?

[Charlie Elphicke]

Conditions for anyone who is living outside without food, shelter and water are appalling, but let us remember what the Jungle was like at that time. Ten thousand destitute people lived in a concentrated area. Many of them had been trafficked there by people who were exploiting and preying on them in furtherance of the evil trade of modern slavery, selling the promise of a better life in Britain. In reality, if the traffickers did get them across the border, it almost invariably resulted in them disappearing from view into a life of exploitation, whether working in a nail bar, growing cannabis or being used as a child criminal. We all know that those and other forms of exploitation went on and go on. It is entirely unacceptable.

That was why it was so important to get rid of the Jungle. It was why it was so important that the French authorities were pressed successfully into helping people to get away from Calais into refugee reception centres with food, shelter, water and sanitation, safe from the traffickers who would exploit them and treat them so shockingly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I have had the opportunity to visit the refugees in Calais on two very different occasions. In December 2015, I went there with a group of local paramedics who were giving up their time voluntarily to provide medical assistance when the Jungle camp was at its height. Just two months ago, with Safe Passage UK and Hammersmith and Fulham Refugees Welcome, my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), the hon. Member for Crawley (Henry Smith) and I went over and had a look at what has happened since the camp was demolished about a year ago.

I do not pretend that the situation in Calais is the most dramatic or the worst situation for refugees fearing persecution, but it is on our doorstep. Almost overwhelmingly, the people in and around Calais are there either because they believe that they have a right to come to the UK or they have a particular reason for wanting to come to the UK. The situation is emblematic of many of the other problems that we have.

We have heard two different interpretations of what the Jungle camp was like. One is that it was a place of utter despair, lawlessness, violence and brutality; and the other is that it was a rather thriving environment with shops, restaurants, churches, mosques and theatres. The answer is that both are true. We saw the extraordinary resourcefulness of the people there, as well as the risks that they were up against. Now it is just scrubland, but around the port of Calais about 1,000 people, including about 200 children, are sleeping rough. A number of those children have rights under Dublin III, and some would qualify as Dubs children.

Having Lord Dubs as a constituent in Hammersmith and Fulham is a source of great pride for us. It also keeps me on my toes on this matter, as one can imagine. The situation is more brutal than it was two years ago. There are no facilities for the people there now. There is a concerted campaign, as is well documented by the authorities, to drive people away using very brutal tactics. I would like the Minister to comment on whether any UK money is going in to support the riot police and the oppression that is going on there.

We now have an opportunity to say what we are going to do—not only while we are in the EU, but if we leave the EU—to honour the conditions of Dublin III and honour the obligations given to Lord Dubs. At a lobby last week, I was able to meet some of the children who came over last year, many of whom are in my constituency. I am a governor at a school that has many asylum-seeking refugee children who are doing extremely well. Some of them fear being deported back when they are 18. I ask the Minister to comment on that as well. I say in the meantime that this country had clear obligations, and we should be proud to fulfil them.