Refugees (Family Reunion) (No.2) Bill

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 16th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I found out the other day from the House of Commons Library that there is a shortage of welders in the United Kingdom. I can see the puzzlement on your face already, Mr Speaker, as to where I am going with welders in relation to family reunion, but please bear with me—as I am sure you will. I mention this because I met an apprentice welder the other day, a 19-year-old who lives in Canterbury in Kent, a place described as the garden of England. Canterbury is a beautiful, historical town; I once visited it, and I can attest to that.

Our welding apprentice is doing very well in college; he is working at level 2 and spends a day a week in Dover with a welding company. He is a focused young man; he is motivated and is looking forward to the future. He is an asset to the community and a help to his neighbours, a burden on no one; he is polite, he is funny. This welding apprentice is also multilingual; he speaks four languages, and efficiently. I am not sure if that is the norm for welders, but I know cousins of mine who are welders who can speak at least two languages, and bilingual welders seems to the norm in my constituency. This individual is certainly doing better than that, however. He has a great future ahead of him, especially as the average age of welders in the UK is 55 and EngineeringUK says the UK has a chronic shortage of skills in engineering, particularly welding.

This young man has a fascinating backstory. Yohannes’ journey to Canterbury was a long one, as before he moved to Canterbury and became a welder he was a refugee. He escaped Eritrea at the age of 16 to avoid conscription to the brutal military, which could have no time limits, and after going to Sudan where he spent a while with his uncle, he moved through the Sahara—a fortnight in a lorry and a fortnight in a pick-up—to Tripoli in Libya. He told me that the pick-up was so tightly packed that if anybody fell out, the danger was they would be left behind by the people-smugglers—and the prognosis for those left behind in the Sahara desert would not be great. On that journey in the desert the authority were the people-traffickers with the guns, and he said some bad things happened to girls; I will leave that there.

From Tripoli he boarded a boat—a jalba as he called it in one of his languages. One of the four languages he speaks is obviously English, and he is also fluent in Arabic, Aramaic and his native Tigrinya, and jalba is the Eritrean word for boat. They sailed for two days from Libya before being picked up by a bigger boat—a mercab, the Tigrinya word for a larger ship, in this case an Italian naval ship, which, happily, took them to Italy. One of the benefits of speaking to Yohannes is that at least I have picked up two words of another language. Everybody was very happy when they arrived in Italy after crossing the Sahara and the Mediterranean. They were taken to a reception centre and given plenty of food. That was the first part of his journey.

From the reception centre he travelled to Rome and spent two weeks living at a railway station before moving through France to the famous Calais jungle, where he lived with other Eritreans for a while. He told me that in the jungle there could be tensions between different communities: Eritreans in one place, Syrians in another, and whoever else in another group. Obviously, people were quite stressed in such a situation.

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman very much for the story he is telling about this remarkable young man. It reminds me very much of a young woman I worked with at the Children’s Society nearly a decade ago, who was separated from her mother on a journey here, and whose mother, sadly, died before she could see her again. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that these incredible young people deserve so much better than these avoidable rules that cause so much human misery, and will he urge other Members when they think about how they are going to vote today to think of those young people and do the right thing?

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, which succinctly sums up what I have to say in a rather long speech. I suspect a number of Members will want to make interventions, and that is welcome, because testaments and points like those the hon. Lady has made are very welcome.

Eventually, Yohannes made it across the English channel in the back of a refrigerated lorry. Things were fine until somebody switched off the refrigeration system; being a tight, insulated space with 24 people in it, it became very hot. One of them had a mobile phone and eventually contacted the emergency services. They did not know where they were, but the phone’s GPS system located them.

At that time—in December 2016—they made the news. Luckily, none of them were in any way badly medically affected by the experience. They were taken to a reception centre in Kent, before Yohannes found his way to Canterbury, where he lived in communal accommodation with other refugees. Over time in Canterbury some people who had volunteered to help at a refugee charity got to know Yohannes, and he lives with one of them at the moment.

It seems that Canterbury is quite the place. It is not the stereotype we are given to believe by many in the newspapers, of people struggling and complaining about migrants and refugees. In Canterbury, people seem to be very welcome. There is a big Eritrean community in Canterbury, which of course Yohannes gravitated towards. Canterbury can be proud of the way it has treated and looked after refugees.

[Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend is making an exceptionally powerful and compelling speech. Does he agree that his friend Yohannes is one in a long line of refugees from places including Germany, Hungary and Iraq who have made a significant economic and other contribution to society across the UK?

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

That is absolutely correct, and I am making this speech because, unfortunately, some people look at this issue in terms of pounds, shillings and pence. We should look first at the humanity, but certainly in terms of pounds, shillings and pence, we should note that Yohannes, at 19, with his drive and ambition, is certainly going to achieve an awful lot more than he already has.

[Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we should focus on our common humanity? In January, I presented a petition from two of my primary schools, St Patrick’s and Symington. Their pupils had done a project putting themselves in the position of child refugees. They had drawn little suitcases with what they would take—what was most precious to them. What struck me was that in every suitcase was a photograph of their family. We should be doing the same as that, and if we are a bit too old to imagine ourselves as children, we should imagine the help and support we would wish someone to give our children if they were in this circumstance.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

My hon. Friend makes a compelling point. We could think about our children and grandchildren, and we can look back at our own history. My background is highlands Scottish and Irish, and in the last century highlands Scots and Irish were certainly in need of help from many people as they were pushed and moved across areas of the world.

I was talking about Canterbury and saying it can be proud: the people of Canterbury can hold their heads up high.

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)]

I just want to thank the hon. Gentleman for mentioning my fantastic constituency and all the wonderful refugee charities that are there.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The hon. Lady is very welcome, and she is welcome, too, to intervene again if I make any further mention of Canterbury.

I was also given a blog from one corner of the United Kingdom that highlights the experience of refugees in the UK, including Northern Ireland, and other places. When we get beyond the headlines and down into people’s experience, as my hon. Friend for North Ayrshire—

[Dr Whitford]

Central Ayrshire.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I am sorry that I cannot pronounce Central Ayrshire, but in my own constituency of Na h-Eileanan an Iar—

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Certainly.

[Anna Soubry]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on both his Bill and his powerful speech. Does he agree that the key word here is “refugee”? Everybody forgets what and who a refugee is; this is somebody who is fleeing a place they love—their home. They do not want to leave it, but circumstances, that we cannot even begin to imagine, mean they literally grasp the first things that come to hand and flee their home looking for a place of refuge.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The right hon. Lady is absolutely correct. Later I will quote from a speech that my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee West (Chris Law) made on 22 February, in which he made exactly that point. We must remember why people become refugees and travel here. I thank the right hon. Lady for her support, along with the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), who I think is a distant cousin—I do not want to land him in any more trouble.

[Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has brought forward this Bill, which follows the Bill introduced in the other place by my noble Friend Baroness Hamwee. If the Government tell us today that the Bill would provide a pull factor, we should vote against them for that reason alone, because the reality, as the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) said, is that people become refugees because of the push factor. We have to support these people, who are fleeing appalling conditions.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I have seen a blog post from the Government, under the headline “Bill to reunite refugees with families will make their lives harder”, which is Orwellian doublespeak of the worst kind. Hopefully the Government will think again about the words they have chosen. My hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) made that point well when she talked about the photograph.

[Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing forward this important Bill. Governments are often constrained because they think that the public are hostile to family reunions and to having more immigrants, but the reality is that once they know the details of the circumstances those individuals are fleeing, their attitude towards them becomes very positive. There are many examples of the public in Liverpool rallying around refugees when there are threats to remove them.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I thank the hon. Lady for making that stellar point. She is absolutely correct. We know that from our own experience here, because often we change our minds when we start to understand a little more. The public do the same as their representatives.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman—my fellow bilingual island MP—on bringing forward the Bill. He used the powerful word “motivation” in his opening remarks. When we see refugees without their families, either in camps or processing centres, we can see the loneliness etched on their faces. When we see them together as a family unit, we see why they are motivated and why they contribute so positively to our communities.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. While I was listening to Yohannes’ story on Wednesday, I was certain that I would not have had the motivation at age 19, or probably at any age, to cross the Sahara over four weeks, on two different forms of transport, and then to cross the Mediterranean in uncertain circumstances. That was his first time on a boat. I can recall my first time on a boat, and it was certainly not a pleasant experience.

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

Will my honourable cousin give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Nepotism looms large in this place.

[Robert Neill]

There is compelling evidence that diasporas enrich all parts of countries, and indeed Chambers. Probably every Member of this House has had the good fortune to go to a higher education institution, including some very distinguished ones, and every one of those, in every part of the UK, has at some point or other been enriched by academics who arrived in this country as refugees, whether fleeing the Nazis, communism or other regimes. We should remember the contribution that they have made, from which all of us have benefited, directly or indirectly.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

My honourable cousin makes a fantastic point. We have to see this in multi-dimensions, because seeing somebody as just a refugee in the here and now, so not as an academic or a welder, will lead us down a narrow and sterile path.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing forward the Bill. He mentioned the connection between his constituency and Ireland, and our families share a similar history. He talked about the lessons to be learnt from the experience of the community in Canterbury, which is shared by that of West Dunbartonshire, where over the past two and a half years we have accepted 40 refugee families, who are adding to the diversity, the economy and the long-term sustainability of the entire UK. This is a positive thing and Government Members should vote for it.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I absolutely agree. Also, I can assure the hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) that mention of Canterbury by Scottish National party Members is in no way politically aggressive.

[Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

The Bill has widespread support in our communities across the United Kingdom. Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating the inspirational young people of the rights respecting group at Hermitage Academy in Helensburgh, who have been campaigning on this issue for months? Their petition has now been signed by 1,100 people in the town. When they deliver the petition to Parliament, which they will do soon, will he join me in welcoming them?

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

It would be a privilege to meet the young people of Hermitage Academy, because what they have done will help inform our thinking here.

Yohannes is getting on with life in Canterbury. He has a good group of friends and he supports Manchester United—I will leave that there, given that he does not support the mighty Glasgow Celtic. In Na h-Eileanan an Iar—moving from Canterbury to somewhere that is easier to pronounce—we are fortunate enough to have a young man called Anas, who is 17 and from Syria. He has written a blog that has come to my attention. I think it is worth giving voice to what he has written:

“From the time when I have been told I have to travel to Stornoway, the first thing that came to my mind was “where is that?” Then they told me it is in Scotland. Well, all I know about Scotland is that it is a part of the UK and it is so cold there”—

He comes from Syria, so he probably does find it cold. He continues:

“I didn’t even think that Stornoway is on an island in the middle of the Atlantic!

Lots of things started coming to me, bad ideas, about how the people will be there, what the houses look like and even how the people look. For me it was an unknown place. I wasn’t worried about the language—I already have some English and it will improve by practising with the people.”

Given what he has written, I think his English is very good. He goes on:

“The most important thing I was thinking about is how people will deal with me with my family, especially the women in my family, because they wear the Hijab and it is something strange for the people where I am going to...

What I thought about people here is that everyone will just be looking after himself, and nobody cares about the rest. I was completely wrong. Now I have to say sorry to them about how I was thinking about them before.

The thing that surprised me most is the charity shops and events, and even the small shops have at least one box for charity. People here deal with volunteering as part of their duties. For a while I thought they got paid for that, but all I know is that it is a priority for them! I asked myself how they do this, and the only answer I got is that they feel for each other, and they love to do things for others just for ‘thank you.’

In general, I like it here. It is an island in the middle of the sea, but at least you can feel the life here. You can be like anyone here. What do you need more when an old man asking you, ‘Where are you from?’ And after you answer he starts telling you, ‘You are very welcome in my city. We are so sorry about what’s happening there. What can I do for you? Please ask for help when you need it.’ Unfortunately, I didn’t realise that before.

The rule they follow is, ‘humanity first.’”

We see that in Canterbury, Liverpool, Argyll, Central Ayrshire and a number of other places.

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

I commend my hon. Friend for bringing forward the Bill, and for the way he is introducing it. I am incredibly proud that in my constituency we have been able to welcome a number of refugee families from Syria. Can he provide some reassurance to those who have had to flee violence from close family members that the Bill will not have an impact on their safety?

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Absolutely. The Bill would enable refugees here to sponsor their family members. They would be the actors and they would choose who would come.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

I think that the way the hon. Gentleman has brought the element of humanity into this debate is very important. I listened to the words of his constituent about how he felt in anticipation of his first visit to Stornoway. I have to say that the first time I visited Stornoway I felt much the same, and for the most part my misgivings were ill-founded. The stories that we are hearing from different parts of the country—I have had similar experiences in my constituency—should surely give some succour to those Members who are thinking about supporting the Bill but are perhaps concerned about how that will be seen. There is a positive political advantage for those who are prepared to support the Bill, so nobody should be afraid of it.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct about that, and I hope we see him in Stornoway sooner rather than later.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his work on this Bill, but I would not want him to leave Carmarthenshire out of his list. Will he join me in congratulating the Plaid Cymru-run Carmarthenshire County Council—the council in Wales that has rehoused the largest number of refugees by a country mile in our country?

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I am pleased to join the hon. Gentleman in congratulating Carmarthenshire’s council, which brings me neatly on to Aberdeenshire Council, as I was going to mention that, too. Apparently, a lot of Syrians are watching this debate in Aberdeenshire today, so let me say hello to them. I am told they are watching this on Facebook, with their hearts in their mouths. Aberdeenshire Council needs to be congratulated, because, on a cross-party basis, its councillors have unanimously and publicly given their support to this Bill. So I thank the Tory, Labour, Liberal, Green, Independent and SNP councillors of Aberdeenshire Council, who have all united today to support the legislation.

The thing about this Bill is that it could have been introduced by any Member in this House. It was conceived by a partnership of good samaritan organisations: the British Red Cross, Oxfam, the Refugee Council, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and Amnesty International, to name but some. The Bill has the support of MPs from seven political parties: the Conservatives, Labour, the SNP, the Democratic Unionist party, the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the Green party. I thank hon. Members from across the House who have co-sponsored the Bill.

This Bill should not be about party politics or about red, blue, yellow and so on; it is about compassion and, as the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) said a few moments ago, humanity.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

First, let me say that I enjoy a sail to Stornoway. May I also say that this debate comes 46 years after my wife and I took a refugee family into our house? This past week our family and theirs had a lovely get together. What I have not yet heard from the hon. Gentleman, or from the good samaritan organisations, is the number of people who would be eligible under the Bill who are not already eligible.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman asks a good question. From the information I have directly, I can tell him that a number of years ago we would have been talking about 400, but with the increase in refugees the number who would be helped is probably between 800 and 1,000 at the moment. It is not a huge number. I commend him for what he has done to help refugees in the past. He sees the benefits of that today in his personal life, and there are a number of similar examples of that from across the world.

This Bill merely takes the UK into line with the rest of Europe. If I have any criticism of what I am trying to achieve, it is that my Bill is so small and unspectacular—so much so that we should have no problem in passing it. Someone would have to have a very hard heart or an empathy bypass not to want to ensure that the limited measures I ask for today become law. May I say how grateful I am for the support of people who have done well in life yet have made it their concern and business to use their position to help the least well-off in the world? Some are celebrities—actors and actresses, and pop stars—who have used their position to highlight this Bill and given their time very freely.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the support he has gathered for his Bill and on the powerful speech he is making. He talks about those supporting others who are vulnerable in our community. A refugee family in my constituency have come to Livingston, made it their home and set up a business, which reclaims leather sofas and turns them into shoes and bags, and is now supporting and employing disabled people in the West Lothian and Livingston area. These are exactly the kind of people we want to welcome to our communities—those who come and make the fabric of our society richer.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Absolutely. This is also a loss for the host countries from which these people have had to flee, often in the most desperate of circumstances.

As well as pop stars and celebrities, it is mostly decent members of the public who have been writing to us, as the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) pointed out. They can conceive of the enormity of what refugees, or people fleeing to safety, have had to go through, and in their droves they have been very supportive.

Often as Members of Parliament, we have to consider issues that require us to put ourselves in the shoes of those whose experiences are dissimilar to our own, which puts our ability to empathise to great test. At first glance, the subject of the Bill may seem as though it is going to ask us to go to similar lengths. How can we, sitting here in this old royal palace in the heart of London, begin to know what it is like to be a refugee who has fled the guns of Assad, crossed dangerous seas with their life in the hands of unscrupulous smugglers and then faced a gruelling, adversarial asylum system? How can we know what it is like to be a 17-year-old from Eritrea who has escaped his homeland because he did not want to end up like his older brother—murdered because he did not want to be forcibly conscripted, indefinitely, into the army? I do not know, but I know that I do not want to know and I certainly do not want many other people to know in future.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

I am here to support the hon. Gentleman’s Bill wholeheartedly, on behalf of many of my constituents—of all political persuasions—in Cardiff Central, a city of sanctuary, who have written to me about it. I do not have any concerns about the Bill, but if any Members do, I hope they will leave them until Committee and support the Bill today.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The hon. Lady makes a fantastic point. It is to Committee that people should take their concerns, because the concerns will be minor. If concerns are in any way major, they will be able to be addressed properly in Committee.

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making many valid points. Like everybody in this House, I have been lobbied on this Bill by constituents—both for and against. It is important that we keep the right tone here; accusing people of an “empathy bypass” because they have a different understanding or different belief about the best way of helping people is probably something we can avoid in this debate. If we do that, we will have a great degree of support for the end goals.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Let us hope we see that support coming to fruition, and I look forward to seeing the hon. Gentleman with us in the Lobby at some stage today—we would be grateful for that. There can indeed be many ways of approaching things and perhaps all of us need to learn a bit more about the subject, in all manner of ways. But it is very difficult to be arguing against enabling people to leave a refugee camp to join family and relatives.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

First, I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on introducing this Bill. Does he agree that as one of the wealthiest countries, we have the capacity to support these people, who are in desperate need, and that what we lack is the political will? That will was demonstrated so well by my predecessor Lord Alf Dubs, who secured the amendment that forced the Government to allow 3,000 unaccompanied child refugees in.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The hon. Lady is absolutely correct about that. Sometimes our thinking is limited and we think, “Whoah—3,000 people seems like a lot! If they were all in my front room, what would that all mean?” In a country of 65 million people, this is a drop in the ocean. Given the skills shortages we have and some of the people we could be taking in, it is in our interests to do exactly this. That is especially true at a time when there are more refugees in the world than at any point since the end of the second world war. How can we comprehend their lives, stories and tragedies, and make sense collectively of all those statistics? This is hard to fathom when we start to think of numbers like 3,000.

But today’s Bill is not principally about refugees. It is certainly not about immigration, and in a way it is not even about the war in Syria or human rights abuses in Eritrea. First and foremost, it is about family—something that each and every one of us will recognise. As my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire said, this is about the photograph in the suitcase that the children thought they would want to bring with them if they were refugees. No matter how families argue, fight and disagree with one another, they belong together. They should certainly not be forced to part. This is not an immigration issue; it is a protection issue, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee West said in a debate in Westminster Hall on 22 February.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Gentleman on introducing this Bill. I absolutely support it, as I represent a community that has many, many refugees. Many of us have listened over the years to the holocaust memorial events and heard the stories of the elderly people, as they are now, who came over on the Kindertransport and so on. We have heard the stories of those who survived without their families and how traumatic that was. I am sure the hon. Gentleman has heard, as I have, the stories of those who were able to be connected with their families or some family members after the war and how much of a difference that made. How can one not link those two sets of stories?

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The hon. Lady is absolutely correct. When we look at history with the benefit of hindsight, we think, “Why didn’t we do more at the time?” There is a little nervousness at the moment of doing, but when it is done people are eternally grateful—and it is not just about those who have been saved: those who have done the saving can look at themselves in the mirror with a lot more pride than they otherwise could.

The Bill is about families who have been torn apart by war and persecution and who long to be reunited but cannot be because of the current rules. It is about families who face the invidious decision of whether to stay separated or to undertake potentially dangerous journeys across land, desert and sea to be together again. Nobody would want female members of their family to be tempted to cross the Sahara with people traffickers.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

UNICEF reports that a majority of unaccompanied child migrants have been subjected to sexual abuse on their journey to the UK. We have an obligation as a country to support young people who are going through the most appalling times.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. There is a judgment call about how much we talk about that: it happens, but for many people watching the debate it might be a bit too close to home. As legislators, we have to bear that in mind when we make decisions about refugees.

Currently, adults who have been recognised as refugees in the UK are able to sponsor their spouse or partner, as well as children under the age of 18, to join them in the UK. We have to thank successive Governments for that, because it is a good thing. We are not here just to say what the Government are not doing, because they are doing a lot—but that is only one side of the coin. By the very nature of their being close relatives of refugees, those family members often live in extremely dangerous circumstances. We are looking to address the other side of the coin so that under-18s can sponsor and bring in family members as over-18s can. We want to get families together in both directions.

In recent weeks, the British Red Cross has helped to reunite two Syrian couples. The wives had been living in Afrin. Imagine the moment of elation when the loved ones were finally reunited in the UK; just hours before, they had been separated by thousands of miles and hundreds of bombs. Refugee family reunion is truly life-changing, which is why so many refugees and people who have moved to this country—welders or whatever—are watching this debate, because the Bill would change their lives.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that legal aid is not available for refugee family reunion cases? When the changes were made to legal aid, it was anticipated that there would be around £450 million of savings. In 2016, there were actually £950 million of savings. Could some of that half a billion be used for these cases?

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The hon. Lady makes a good argument about the pounds, shillings and pence that will inevitably come up. She has dealt with that very well.

I am aware that quite a lot of Members wish to speak and that I have not made an awful lot of progress in the past 25 minutes because I have taken a number of interventions. If Members wish to intervene, I appeal to them to think about it and to do so sparingly, as there will be other speakers on whom to intervene. We want to make progress on this Bill and get on to the Bills of other Members.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I might be a long-lost relative from Somerset, connected somehow, Mr Speaker.

Is it not right that the Lord Chancellor is undertaking a review of legal aid reforms that will include legal aid for immigration cases? The Government are already taking that on board and these matters could well be included in that review.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Legal aid is already available in Scotland. I am glad to hear what the hon. Lady says, but the approaches are not mutually exclusive. If she welcomes that review, she should certainly welcome the Bill. I will personally escort her through the Lobby later, if need be.

The Bill would allow loved ones to be together, and clause 1 does just that. It asks that a statement of changes to the immigration rules be laid before both Houses, setting out the rules for refugee family reunion. In responses to debates on family reunion in both this Chamber and the Lords, Ministers have expressed their belief that the immigration rules are the best place for these provisions, rather than primary legislation. The Bill acknowledges that, which is why it operates in this way. The Minister may say that I am still attempting to use primary legislation to amend the rules, but as she is aware, there is no other way for a non-Minister to effect a change to those rules. If, however, the Minister would like to intervene to say that the Bill is unnecessary and that those sitting on the Treasury Bench plan to bring forward a statement of changes to reflect its provisions, I will gladly give way.

Clause 1 sets out the relationships that would be covered by refugee family reunion. It includes those who already have a right and expands that in several important ways. There is a very long list of relationships that I could have put in the Bill. Right hon. and hon. Members could probably spend the entire debate thinking of distant relatives who, had we been forced to leave our homes and communities because of a vicious, deadly conflict, we would like to think we could bring with us to safety, but I have focused on some of the most egregious examples that are not covered by the existing rules.

As I explained earlier, under the existing rules, a parent who has been recognised as a refugee in the UK can sponsor their children under the age of 18 to join them, but if their child has turned 18, they are not automatically eligible. Muhammed is a former lawyer from Syria. He arrived in the UK and was recognised as a refugee after applying for asylum. He immediately began the process of applying for family reunion so that his wife Amal and their children could live with him in safety in the United Kingdom. Devastatingly, the family were forced to leave behind their two eldest children, a son and a daughter, because they were over 18. Muhammed told the British Red Cross:

“We are a very close family; our bonds are very special…My little kids ask me every day: ‘Baba, what happened with Kusai and Athar? When will they join us? When will we see them and talk to them?’ I truly have no idea and don’t know what to tell them.”

The Minister may argue that the Government have recognised that children in such circumstances should be eligible, and point to the family reunion guidance that was updated in summer 2016. That guidance provided clearer direction to Home Office caseworkers on the types of cases in which family reunion may be granted in exceptional circumstances. At the top of the list are cases in which children over the age of 18 are still dependent on their parents. Despite those changes, though, we learned last year that in the first nine months of 2017, only 49 people were granted family reunion in exceptional circumstances. My Bill would move that group of children into the main body of the rules. If the Government accept the principle that such children should be eligible to be reunited, as they do in the guidance, I hope that they will support at least that element of the Bill.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his Bill, which I support wholeheartedly. He reminds me of a story that Oxfam told me about a gentleman called Tarek, whose son Kawa was left behind in Turkey while the entire family was resettled here in the UK. Kawa was the main breadwinner of that family. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it will be helpful to the integration of the families into UK society if we bring their children home?

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Absolutely. Everybody will be a winner if the unnecessary bureaucracy that has been created around this issue is removed, or at least redesigned to help people rather than hinder them. The hon. Lady makes a good point.

I hope that the Government can at least support the provisions on dependent children, because bringing such young people firmly within the rules would have a number of benefits. First, it would give those families that apply to be reunited more certainty that they are eligible. There is no separate family reunion application to be reunited outside of the rules, only the main refugee family application form. The family then has to rely on caseworkers seeing that there are exceptional circumstances and applying their discretion.

For those families who are able to reunite under the discretionary element of the rules, there are further problems when the family member arrives in the UK. Under the main family reunion rules, family members who come to the UK get the same type of leave as the relative they are joining. That means that they are granted five years’ leave to stay in the UK and are then able to access support to help the family to rebuild their lives together, including to ensure that they have suitable housing and enough financial assistance to help them to integrate into their new homes.

Family members reunited outside the rules do not get the same type of leave. They will usually be granted 33 months’ leave to stay and may be subject to restrictions to which someone with refugee status is not, including their not having recourse to public funds.

They face a longer path to resettlement than the family members they are joining. Without support, they can find themselves living in overcrowded accommodation or experiencing homelessness. Therefore, after having quite a traumatic back story, they can find that their current story can be quite difficult as well.

The Bill would allow refugee children to sponsor their closest family members to join them. The UK is one of only two countries in the EU that does not allow children who have been recognised as refugees to have any family reunion rights. That is the crux of the matter, and it is something that we have to change. That is a small piece of what the Bill does. As I said earlier, no, we are not doing enough, but at least we are doing that.

While most countries in the EU are signed up to the family reunion directive, which expressly grants separated children family reunion rights, the UK, along with Denmark and Ireland, did not opt into that directive. However, Ireland amended domestic legislation to allow children to be reunited with their parents and siblings; the UK did not. As a result, the children whom the UK Government recognise as being in need of international protection, accepting that it is unsafe for them to return home, are kept apart from their parents. Young boys and girls, many of whom will have faced untold horrors after fleeing their homes, are left without those who are best placed to support them.

[Sir Edward Davey]

The hon. Gentleman makes a really important point about how other European countries regard this problem. I think that he is saying that every other European country bar Denmark believes that a child refugee should have the right to have their family come and join them in that country. Any argument that the Government make today is an argument that is not accepted in Germany, in France, in Spain, in Italy and in every other European country. Why should the argument be different for the UK?

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The right hon. Gentleman raises an important point. Some people feel—it is an excuse, actually—that the Bill, if passed, would encourage people to send their children first. I will deal with that point later, but if that was true, it would be happening in all those other countries. Therefore, it is not true at all. Some also throw up the legal aid argument. Legal aid is available in Scotland, so if legal aid was the point, all the refugees of England and Wales would be going to Scotland. People settle in a place for a whole variety of personal or community reasons. Therefore, these things are not primary pushers, but would help refugees in places where they settle, and help all those around them as well.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his important speech. Is he aware that this issue is cited in some areas as the reason why Italy and Greece are not placing children and child refugees in the UK as part of the Dubs amendment? Those countries are concerned that while the children would be able to be reunited with their family in any other country in Europe, that would not be possible in the United Kingdom. Some 240 places offered by local authorities are empty as a result, and we are not filling those Dubs places because there is such a gap between the UK’s position and that of the rest of Europe.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her intervention; I was not aware of that point. It is absolutely fascinating to hear that other countries choose not to send these children to the UK. If they are doing so out of common decency and in the best interests of those children, because they know that they cannot be reunited with their families, that makes it even more imperative that the UK plays its international role so that people in Greece and Italy can look to the UK as being as good as any other country. Surely, as the legislators of the principal UK Parliament, we should be changing the law to make sure that that happens.

One of the children affected by the rules is Tesfa, who grew up in Eritrea. As he got older, he feared being forced into Eritrea’s brutal and endless military service. In 2010, his brother was taken by soldiers, and the family never heard from him again. Then, when Tesfa was 16, soldiers came to his school; Tesfa never returned home. Without telling his family, he fled Eritrea. He did not know where he planned to go—this is the point about legal aid or whatever—but he had to keep moving. He passed through Sudan and Libya, went over the Mediterranean, and found himself, eventually, in the United Kingdom. After applying for asylum, he was recognised as a refugee, and eventually—after well over a year—he was able to speak to his mother. Imagine that at the age of 16. However, he was unable to be reunited with his family in Britain. The UK has offered him a new home, but what home can a young man have without his family? Amnesty, which is compiling a report on this, told me that one refugee said, “A refugee without a family is like a body without a soul.” That quote will be in the Amnesty report—a plug for Amnesty there.

The Government have previously asserted that allowing children to sponsor their family members to join them would result in families sending their children to the UK so that they could then act as sponsors. During a debate on family reunion in the House of Lords before Christmas, numerous peers rose to take on this argument—I congratulate them on doing so. They cited what Mr Justice McCloskey stated in the upper tribunal:

“there is no evidence underlying it”,

with

“‘it’ being the pull factor”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 15 December 2017; Vol. 787, c. 1777-78.]

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, who is better known for drafting article 50, was one of those peers who forcefully took on the Government’s argument. He described as a “strange, sick, Swiftian joke” the Government’s implication that families in countries such as Syria, Libya, Eritrea or the Sudan would sit down together and make the cold calculation that they would send a child on a journey across land and sea that might take several years, putting their lives at risk, to secure a right to bring the rest of the family to join them. It is very difficult to disagree with the noble Lord about that.

The Government have recognised these children as refugees. They must be congratulated on that, but they must take it further. There is no special definition of refugee that a child has to meet that is different from that for an adult. Children have to pass the same test. If they are recognised as refugees, it is because they have a need for international protection. It is therefore surely only right that these children are able to be with their family members, as adult refugees would be, which would correct a situation that the Home Affairs Committee has described as “perverse”.

On the other side of the coin, the Bill would allow refugee children to sponsor their parents and unmarried siblings under the age of 25 to join them. I can already guess what the reply to that point in the Minister’s brief will be, but I urge her not to read it. I urge her not to assert that parents would callously send their children on life-threatening journeys just so that they could later join them. If that were true, they would be going to other countries anyway, but that is not happening. I urge her instead to recognise that children are better off with their parents and those who will support them, and to bring the UK into line with the vast majority of the rest of Europe so that people resettling refugees in Greece and Italy can have trust and faith in the United Kingdom.

I do not want to pre-empt the Minister too much, but she might well argue that provisions elsewhere in the immigration rules allow a wider group of family members to be reunited. She might say that they are to be found in part 8 and appendix FM of the immigration rules, meaning that the Bill is not needed. However, as she is aware, those routes do not cover all the family relationships that I have described and nor are they accessible for refugees. The application alone costs several hundred pounds, and family members in the UK must show that they can financially support their relative. For refugees, who often have very few resources after escaping with what they have on their backs, those barriers will be impossible to overcome.

Clause 1 also gives the Home Secretary a discretionary power to grant family reunion applications in circumstances over and above those that I have just described. It may be that such an action is in the best interests of a child, because a family member is living in precarious circumstances, be that as a result of an emotional, psychological, physical or financial dependency, or as she may otherwise see fit.

I take this opportunity to thank the refugee team at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, which emailed me the other afternoon to say:

“Our NHS Trust supports the mental health of young refugees through our child and adolescent mental health service. The refugee team here, with the support of Chief Executive Paul Jenkins, wished to convey their support for your private Member’s Bill.”

I thank all those working at the sharp end with refugees who have taken the time in their busy lives to be aware of what is going on in Parliament and to write an email of support.

Family reunion is primarily about bringing families back together, but it should also be seen as a safe and legal route for refugees to escape dangerous circumstances. Last month, the Home Secretary celebrated the fact that the UK had reached the halfway point in resettling 20,000 refugees from the Syrian conflict. That is to be commended. Family reunion should act as a complement to that and the UK’s other resettlement programmes.

Although for the purposes of family reunion it is only the relative in the UK who needs to have been officially recognised as a refugee, the Home Office’s immigration statistics show that the beneficiaries of family reunion are often the most vulnerable. In 2017, most family reunion visas were issued to people from Eritrea, Iran, Sudan and Syria. Some 95% of those who came to the UK were under the age of 18 and/or female. Despite the global refugee crisis—the worst since world war two—very few refugees ever find themselves in the UK. Indeed, in recent years, the number of people applying for asylum in the UK has fallen. Some 86% of refugees live in the world’s poorest countries, not the richest ones. Expanding the refugee family rules would mean that more refugees are able to find safety in the UK to our benefit, as well as theirs.

While it is all well and good for families to have a right to family reunion, it is worthless if they are unable to access that right. This is what clause 2 of my Bill is about. It would amend the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 to make civil legal aid available for family reunion applications. Prior to the passing of that Act, legal assistance had been available. With its removal, even those families who are eligible to be reunited face significant hurdles in being able to navigate the process.

The British Red Cross set out in its report “Not So Straightforward” the many bureaucratic and practical barriers that families face. At a recent event in Parliament hosted by the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, MPs heard at first hand about the impact that not having legal aid can have. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will remember Sarah Foster, a caseworker at the British Red Cross, who said that a good solicitor for a family reunion application would cost at least £500. Meeting such costs can prove near impossible for refugees who have been unable to work while awaiting a decision on their asylum application. Sarah told us that families resort to borrowing from friends, taking out loans from unscrupulous lenders or living on virtually nothing to afford the support that they need to make their family reunion application viable.

As I am sure the hon. Gentleman will also remember, Sarah told us of one applicant she met in a supermarket. He had been recognised as a refugee, but had seven children living destitute abroad. In his shopping basket were packets of 10p noodles, which he planned to live on for the next few weeks so that he could save up for the legal costs of applying to bring his children to safety. This is the situation that we are dealing with and that too many people are facing.

I will wind up my speech by thanking the British Red Cross, the UN Refugee Agency, the Refugee Council, Amnesty International and Oxfam for their support in helping the Bill to reach this point, and particularly the extremely brilliant help of Jon Featonby. I also thank the many other charities, organisations and supporters who have been in touch; those who work every day to help refugees; Baroness Hamwee, who is working on these issues in the House of Lords; the NHS refugee team; and Reverend Steve Tinning at Leigh Road Baptist Church, who is a landlord to a Syrian refugee family in Kent, and was one of the first people to get in touch with me to ask how he could help.

There has been tremendous help and support for this Bill from across the United Kingdom. People want to do the right thing. It is incumbent on the House of Commons to ensure that the right thing happens. I hope that hon. Members will today ensure that, at the very least, this Bill progresses to the next stage.

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[David Warburton]

No, I am not entirely comfortable with that. We need to look closely at how the Dubs scheme is now being run and what has happened to it since the Government accepted the amendment, because it has not necessarily been fully adopted, and councils have not taken it on in the way that they perhaps should have done.

I am not sure that secondary movements really do improve lives. There are examples that we can look at. In 2015, Germany’s asylum seeker intake increased by 155% as a result of people reacting specifically to policy change. Interestingly, more than 20% of the people who sought asylum in Germany that year were from the Balkan countries, which have been conflict-free for more than 20 years, so those people were not seeking refuge—they were seeking opportunity.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Just to be clear, what we are doing is putting under-18s in the same category as over-18s. They are already here and we are just giving them the right to family life. If we ask the refugees who are watching us today, they will say that that is what they want. They are people like us and that is what they want to make their lives better. Some would argue that under-18s need their family even more than over-18s. We give this right to the over-18s, and we should give it to the under-18s who are here.

[David Warburton]

As I am sure no one would disagree, it would only be in the interests of people traffickers—no one else—for children to be encouraged to leave their families and undertake perilous, difficult, dangerous journeys in the hope that their relatives might be able to join them in future; and how much worse if they found themselves forced to do that?

My experience in chairing the inquiry by the all-party parliamentary group on the British Council into resilience to extremism in north Africa and the middle east has shown clearly that there are an appalling number of criminal gangs looking to exploit vulnerable people in the region. Our role must be first to provide support in the region, upholding, for all the reasons we have heard, the principle that those who need international protection should be able to claim it in the first safe country they reach.

--- Later in debate ---

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

If the hon. Gentleman has doubts, the best place to take them is to Committee. I will happily escort him through the Lobby, when we vote on the Bill. We can discuss this in Committee, and I am sure he will allow those doubts to be raised there.

[Mr Jayawardena]

The hon. Gentleman escorts me all around the world as we build positive trade relationships with our friends around the world. I will talk about some of that, and perhaps we can continue to agree on that, rather than on the substance of the Bill.

First, let us consider what the Bill asks. It aims to require the Home Secretary within six months to widen immigration rules and grant visas to a wide range of relatives. I contend that making it easier for a parent to join a child refugee could incentivise families to send their child ahead on a perilous journey, often in the hands of unscrupulous people traffickers.

The Bill would also amend the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, to extend legal aid to family reunion applications, but this is taxpayers’ money, and we must therefore be very responsible in how we spend it. The Bill makes no mention of how to encourage integration, how to provide education or how to offer other opportunities to refugees; nor does it make any attempt to tackle the situations that people are fleeing. Rather, it simply accepts that that will continue to be the case.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jayawardena]

No. I must make some progress.

The UK’s commitments under international law—

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman’s speech is not addressing the Bill. The people covered by the Bill are already here. This is another problem.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

That is not a point of order. The hon. Gentleman will continue his speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna Soubry]

Again, my hon. Friend misses the point. These are people with the status of refugees; they have been through all the systems and are accepted as genuine refugees. This is just a fake and phoney point that is being put forward.

It says a lot that there is this lack of understanding about the difference between an economic migrant and a refugee. During the referendum debate—I am not going to get into Brexit, Mr Deputy Speaker—people rightly raised the issue of immigration. I remember having a conversation with a constituent who said that she was voting for leave, “because there were too many Muslims in our country.” That is the level of debate in our nation. That is the level of plain misunderstanding and misinformation. That is why this debate is so important.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

If there was any truth in the idea that people are being sent ahead to act as an anchor, surely it would be the adult who would go, because it is the adult who would have the legal right to be here. We know from the adult experience—and we are trying to equalise the law for the child experience—that this is nonsense. As the right hon. Lady says, it is fantasy. Nobody wakes up one morning and decides to become a refugee; it is the circumstances and situation around them that force them to go, whether they are an adult or a child.

[Anna Soubry]

Let me bring my remarks to a conclusion, Mr Deputy Speaker. Of course I agree with everything the hon. Gentleman has said; he is absolutely right on this. Hon. Members have nothing to fear in this Bill. It is the right thing to do, legally and morally. Even if they cannot vote for the Bill, I ask them to abstain. But they can go better than that, and I ask them to support this excellent piece of legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. To be honest, it is hard for anybody to navigate our immigration system or asylum system, but for someone who is trying to pull together their family and has been through very difficult circumstances, not being able to get any kind of legal aid makes it so much harder.

The next argument that people use is to say that this is going to create a pull factor, and that it will somehow make things much worse. There are three strong responses to that. First, as the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) argued, this is only about those who have already demonstrated that they meet all the criteria for being refugees. There are tests in the system already. They have shown that they have been fleeing persecution or conflict, and it is now simply about their ability to reunite with their family. Many of them have come through the legal resettlement process that the Government have rightly brought in and extended, and that we all support.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

rose—

[Yvette Cooper]

I give way to the hon. Gentleman, who has done so much work to bring this Bill to the House.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The right hon. Lady has demolished the pull factor argument. The person has to be a refugee already, so the pull argument is dead, according to her point. I thank her for that.

[Yvette Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman is exactly right. I pay huge tribute to the work he has been doing.

Secondly, the current system encourages trafficking. It encourages illegal routes and dangerous routes because there is not a safe and legal route for people to travel on. The concern of the family I spoke to whose daughter is in Lebanon—this was some time ago—was that they were going to face a choice about whether to try and find a route through with smugglers or with traffickers to get her reunited with them because they did not have a legal route. The problem is that we are already driving people into the arms of traffickers and exploitation, and we should not do that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Tomlinson]

My right hon. Friend pulls a slight face, but I think there are legitimate concerns and I will address them as briefly as possible.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

We have to understand and be very clear that the pull factor cannot happen, because the person has to be deemed to be a refugee. All we are doing is giving under-18s in general the same rights as adults. If the pull factor is anywhere, it is with adults who can come legally, but the pull factor just does not and will not exist—the hon. Gentleman has to move away from it—because the person has to be a refugee. The Bill applies only to refugees and the Government will grant that.

[Michael Tomlinson]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point, which is similar to that made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), which I answered. I still want to address the concern, because people have raised it with me.