Humanitarian Crisis in the Mediterranean and Europe

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Johnson]

I think we are encouraging people by encouraging the people smugglers and human traffickers to allow people to come over to the Mediterranean and be exploited in that way.

The world response to this problem emanated from the picture that we saw. It is probably unprecedented for a picture to change the way the world sees a particular problem. That painful picture of the young boy is testament to the fact that his family, like many others, believed that the only option open to them was to take that ill-fated journey. The message we have to send out from here and from around the world is that it simply does not need to be like that. We do not need to place obligations on refugees to take a hugely dangerous journey, forcing them to pay people traffickers.

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

As the hon. Gentleman may know, one reason why refugees have to take this dangerous overland journey is a European aviation directive which prevents them from flying at a quarter of the cost. The directive means that the criminal gangs will grow, and these people have to cross overseas and are risking their lives. Is there an argument for suspending that directive, with the aim of saving life and ensuring that these people can get to a sanctuary, with the hope of returning to Syria some day? They have to live in order to do that.

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[Keith Vaz]

I agree absolutely. People have those links and they choose to make the journey all the way to Calais because they want to come to the United Kingdom. We should not be in a competition over which country welcomes refugees better than others. As a migrant who came from war-torn Yemen with my two sisters, I think this is the best country in the world. The support and encouragement that Leicester, which is now a mirror of the world, gives to those who come as migrants is second to none, so we do not need to take any lessons from anybody about the way in which migrants are treated, but we need to be cautious about setting our face against sensible measures just because they do not fit a particular norm.

[Mr MacNeil]

The right hon. Gentleman perhaps embodies my point. There is often concern when we think of refugees and migrants arriving, but a short while later they become indispensable within the community and we could not imagine the place we live in without them. He typifies that point.

[Keith Vaz]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right—[Laughter.] We take compliments when they are given. The community has gone around the whole country, whether in Putney, Leeds or the constituency that I cannot pronounce—I will say Banff and Buchan instead —as I have seen from the entries for the Tiffin cup this year, and has contributed so much.

We have a leadership role to play on this issue. The Prime Minister has played an important role. He cares about the migrant community in this country, as I have observed over the last five years—I have attended many functions of the ethnic minority communities with him in that time—but this issue will be a defining moment. Making the pledge to take 20,000 is not the same as receiving 20,000. That is why I go back to what I said at the beginning of my speech. Hard though it is for Ministers to tell officials, we need targets and we need a substantial number coming in by the end of this year, not just for our reputation, but for our conscience and for the wishes of the British people.

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[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I sat through the debates yesterday and today and want to address a number of the points that have come up rather than just rely on some of the helpful and poignant briefings we have received from so many people.

One of the first things I want to do is acknowledge the tenor and content of the speech made by the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) as well as the scope of the motion. Contrary to the attempts by the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) and others to misrepresent it, people need to recognise that the motion clearly listened to the points that many Government Members made in yesterday’s debate, when they said that in all the focus on the refugee crisis as it is manifesting itself in Europe we should not forget the refugee crisis in the camps in some of the countries surrounding Syria or the significant commitment that the Government are making to the efforts to support people affected by conflict in Syria and elsewhere. The motion clearly does that. It attempts to achieve consensus on some of those concerns and on the valid points made by Government Members yesterday.

The most questionable point made by the hon. Member for Gloucester was when he complained that the motion

“calls for a Government report to be laid before the House by 12 October 2015 detailing how that number can be increased”

and stopped there. He forgot to say that the motion continues:

“encompassing refugees already in Europe and including a plan for the remainder of this year to reflect the overwhelming urgency of this humanitarian crisis”.

That is the point. If those of us who have signed the motion had been saying that we wanted to see refugees who are already in Europe admitted as part of the 20,000 the Government are looking to admit over the next few years, Government Members would say that we were trying to deny people in the camps the opportunity to be part of that number. Our concern is not that people who are in the camps should not be admitted—we welcome the Government’s interest, although again we would welcome an increase in the numbers—but that we cannot ignore those who are already in Europe. It was the overtone of disqualification in the Prime Minister’s statement the other day that particularly concerned me.

In the debate yesterday and today, many hon. Members touched on what prompted so many of our constituents to mobilise and get in touch with us. A little over a week after the media were full of the photographs of the Prime Minister on a beach in Cornwall, a different beach photograph emerged in the media. It brought out those words of Seamus Heaney about something having the ability to

“catch the heart off guard and blow it open.”

That is what that photograph of Alan Kurdi did.

We heard the response from so many of our constituents and we know what the response has been internationally, but let us be clear. That photograph stirred our constituents and in turn seemed to spur the Prime Minister into altering his tone, but let us think about another Alan who might arrive on a beach or somewhere else in Europe, having survived his perilous journey, but alone and unaccompanied. What is the message in the Government’s response to that Alan? “He is disqualified. He is outside our consideration.” We even heard from the Prime Minister today that, yes, we do have to take care as to what we do with unaccompanied children and how we treat them, but being careful is no reason not to show them care and consideration, which appears to be the Government’s position. That needs to be revised, improved and altered.

I welcome the fact that the Prime Minister has had his attitudes to this long-running problem reconditioned. Remember, he was one of the leaders at the EU Council who went along with the idea that Operation Mare Nostrum was somehow encouraging people on to the seas. The line back then in autumn 2013 was, “If we run rescue operations, we will only be encouraging more people on to the seas.” At least now, thankfully, we have the Royal Navy, the Irish navy and others helping to rescue, but it took the disasters of April this year to force that rethink. The same caution from the Government Benches that we have heard in the past two days—that we have to be careful not to encourage people to make those perilous journeys—was exactly what was behind the disastrous decision in relation to Operation Mare Nostrum, which did nothing to discourage the perilous journeys and meant that people were not saved and too many lives were lost.

[Mr MacNeil]

The perilous journeys would, of course, be ended if people could fly. Sadly, they cannot because an EU aviation directive prevents that, which means that at four times the cost they are taking those perilous journeys.

[Mark Durkan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point, which is correct. We know from Amnesty and others that a cogent case has been made in relation to a number of deficiencies in the Schengen agreement and the Dublin regulation, which clearly need to be overhauled in the light of recent events.

I agree with so many Government Members on a number of points that they have made, not least the hon. and learned Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer) and the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood). We need to recognise the scale of the whole humanitarian crisis and not concentrate just on those who are arriving in Europe. We have to meet our responsibilities in relation to those who have made it to Europe and in relation to the wider crisis.

The Secretary of State for International Development spoke of her concern not only that other countries were not matching the 0.7% aid target, but that there was a significant shortfall in so many relevant UN appeals. Some of us would say that one of the ways to deal with that is through a global financial transaction tax. Part of the aim of those of us who have supported that idea is precisely to support funding for the sort of international mechanisms and measures that are needed, rather than different UN funds having to busk around different countries trying to gather money for programmes. Although we have heard in these debates about the very good work in the refugee camps and elsewhere that is being funded through DFID and so many NGOs, let us also be clear that UN funding in a number of those camps is being reduced. The level of food aid in some of the camps is being reduced, and education support is not what it should be.

In the previous Parliament the all-party group on protecting children in armed conflict, led by Fiona O’Donnell, produced a report that drew heavily on the lessons being learned from what is happening in Syria, particularly in relation to the millions of children who have had to flee. It noted that when DFID and other organisations respond to such emergencies, in the first order of things little thought is given to education. That might be understandable, but when we consider just how long term many refugee camps have become for other conflicts—look at the Palestinian experience—we see that clearly more needs to be done. The world must respond not only to the immediacy of the refugee crisis, but to the wider lessons about the inadequacy. Obviously the convention on refugees will have to be overhauled, and so many other rules, such as Schengen and Dublin, will have to be revised.

Of course, these islands are outside Schengen. One of the things that I would like to see the UK Government do, along with the Irish Government, is convene a meeting of the British-Irish Council to co-ordinate across the devolved Administrations and with the Irish Government what the response will be across these islands in order to meet our responsibilities for accommodating refugees. That would ensure optimum co-ordination across jurisdictions and between services so that there is no fall-down, breakdown or confusion facing international agencies or domestic charities when it comes to responding. The Government might find, as a result of the information and ideas that would emerge from such collaboration, that they are in a position to reconsider the number of refugees they are taking and the time scale, not least by accommodating some of those who are already in Europe.

Let us be clear that the Government, having previously been averse to engaging with the UNHCR resettlement scheme, and then having been very dilatory in relation to the vulnerable persons scheme, have now moved to strike a tone of some urgency in this regard, but of course limits have been put on it—the Prime Minister appears to have put the guard up on his heart again. The Government must be prepared to do more, but those of us who are criticising them for the number of refugees they will admit or on the time scale must face the wider question about the scale of the problem in the camps, about other conflicts, not least in Sudan and South Sudan, that are driving people into refugee status, and about the need for a much bigger and longer-term response, including proper support for the UN, and a global financial transactions tax would be a good start.

[Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)]

I rise as a member of an Opposition party in this House and in support of a motion that is the collective endeavour of six Opposition parties. I ask the Government Members sitting opposite to consider the approach we are taking this afternoon. It is normally the Opposition’s job to harry and harass the Government, and even to expose and embarrass them, when they get the opportunity to do so. This afternoon we have laid aside those conventions and are not engaging in what is the normal practice in this place.

Instead, we are adopting a different approach. To use an American phrase, we are “reaching out” and trying to find a consensus with Government Members, because on this occasion our desire to see this country make a bigger contribution to the humanitarian effort that is required to face this crisis is greater than our desire to score political points. I ask the Government Members here to reflect on that and consider an appropriate response.

There are now six Conservative Members in attendance, and fewer than 30 have participated over the past four hours. I make that observation not to judge, but to ask them to reflect on whether that is an adequate level of participation and attendance, given the seriousness of the debate. That matters, because when the Division bells ring at 7 o’clock, if 300 of their number come here from their offices and other places in the Palace to vote down the motion in the Lobby, having heard neither the content of the debate, nor the tone with which it has been argued, that will do a disservice to this debate and show contempt for the point we are putting forward. That will reflect very badly on the Government, so I urge Conservative Members not to do that.

There has been much talk about the scale of this crisis, but I still think that many have not quite grasped just what we are dealing with. Since the civil war began in Syria, half the population of 23 million people have had their houses destroyed. Four million of those people are now exiled from their homeland. They are joined by 2.5 million from Iraq, 1.5 million from South Sudan, and many millions of others from other conflicts in the region. There are 9 million people in holding patterns in refugee camps in the middle east. It does not take a mathematician to know that 20,000 can be nothing but a start to tackling that problem, rather than the end point. That is why the motion asks the Government to review that figure, take time and come back in four weeks with a plan to expand it.

Much has been said about the situation in the camps and refugees in Europe; clearly, there is a relationship between the two. The Government are right to consider the question of funding for the camps, because those organising them point to a shortage of funds. There can be no doubt that deteriorating conditions in the camps would be one incentive for people to make the journey into Europe. However, let us not pretend for a moment that well-funded refugee camps in the middle east will be the answer to the crisis that we are facing by itself, because there is a much bigger factor at play that relates to the efficacy of those refugee camps—that is, many of the people who went to them have nowhere to return to. The conflicts that created their situation show no sign of abating. In fact, it is arguable that in some areas, such as Syria, it is going to get worse before it gets better. The homes in which they lived no longer exist. Those communities—those villages and towns—are no longer there. People are now beginning to realise that if they cannot go east they will have to consider going west. That is the powerful driver now at play among the refugee populations in the middle east. Unless we seriously think that the answer to that is to build refugee camps that will hold people for a generation, we need to do an awful lot more thinking about where these people will move on to from the refugee camps.

A lot of people have already taken this decision for themselves. We might well ask what drives a person to take the risks and put themselves and their families into the conditions that we have seen. Why would you even think about getting on a dodgy boat run by a criminal gang where you probably have a one in 20 chance of you and your children drowning en route? Why would you think about being locked into a container and driven for thousands of miles across a continent knowing that you could suffocate in the process? The answer is simple: because the terror in front is not as great as the terror behind. That is why people are driven to take these incredible steps. It is disgraceful for us to get into a situation where our response to the people who have flown that terror and tried to protect their families is to say, “We will not even recognise you in our policy. You stop there, you turn round, and you go back.” As the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) said, that is not an adequate response to the situation. We need a policy that addresses the refugee problem in the round—the people in the camps and the people not in the camps who have now migrated to our continent.

Some Conservative Back Benchers have talked as though the game is to try to prevent the crisis from happening in Europe by containing it in the middle east. I have to say to them that the crisis is already upon us in Europe. It is not only the third of a million people who crossed the Mediterranean this year, but the many hundreds of thousands in the previous few years, that have led us to a situation where we have over 1 million refugees in European Union states looking for a home. It is simply not good enough to turn our back on our European partners and say that we will do nothing about that. We do need to do something about it. I cannot believe that the Prime Minister of this country will go to next week’s meeting of European premiers and say that this country will make no contribution to the plans that Jean-Claude Juncker announced this morning for 120,000 or more permanent resettlements of refugees already within Europe. We have to do something. As I have said, we are not here on this occasion to chastise or berate the Government, but to ask them to take a month to think about this problem and to then come back and lay before this House proper plans to deal with the whole situation.

[Mr MacNeil]

I heard from the Danish ambassador this lunchtime that last year Denmark—a country the size of Scotland—took 13,000 refugees, 4,000 of whom were from Syria. In the context of what the UK is doing, that shows we could do an awful lot more.

[Tommy Sheppard]

I agree completely with my hon. Friend. It is worth noting that we are talking about accepting the equivalent of 0.01% of our population as refugees in the face of this crisis, while 25% of Lebanon’s residents are refugees.

My hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) mentioned Alan Kurdi. That image moved the nation’s heart last weekend and has led to a public change of attitude in this country, which is welcome. I concur with my hon. Friend. Is our response to the people who saw that image on their television screens and in their newspapers to say that if that child had not drowned and had survived that journey, he would not be welcome here? Surely we cannot say such a thing with any decency or absence of shame.

I appeal to the Government to think about the manner in which this debate has been conducted and to reflect on and come back with expanded plans. I think that in doing so they will be commended warmly by the people of this country. I think that all of us have been surprised and humbled by the attitude of ordinary people up and down this country. As of the weekend, in just one council ward in my constituency of Edinburgh East, 27 people—probably the equivalent of more than 100 in the constituency as a whole—have rung up to say that they would house a refugee family in their own home, and that was before anybody even asked them to do that. Imagine what the response would be if the Government, local government, the Churches, political leaders and civic leaders said, “Let us rally as a nation and do something to help these people who are in such dire need.” I think that tens of thousands of our citizens would say that we welcome refugees to our country, city and home.

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[Alex Salmond]

I understand the point, as I heard the counter-arguments from a number of Members with great experience. I heard the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), for example, point out that exactly the same logic was used to withdraw the naval patrols in 2013, resulting in people dying. I heard from people with practical experience. The hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) pointed out that the push of war rather than the pull of the UK is the motivation for people taking the desperate gamble of going across the Mediterranean. In realistic terms, does anyone seriously believe that, given that the German Government’s policy of offering sanctuary to hundreds of thousands of people is in place, others would be motivated if this country were prepared to accept a share of the responsibility? That is an extraordinary argument.

Those on the Conservative Benches should reflect on the speech of the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), which shone out like a beacon among the contributions from Conservative Members. She pointed out from her own experience that the conditions in the camps are also what motivate people to leave—the hopelessness of not having any prospect of returning to Syria or any of the other benighted countries, and the lack of opportunity for education. We heard two statistics. The Secretary of State herself told us that only 37% of the necessary funding was available for the food programme. The Opposition spokesperson pointed out that the food ration had been cut by 50%. The camps cannot be regarded as the only solution to the problem.

[Mr MacNeil]

My right hon. Friend is making a good point about why these people will come and will have to come. As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) said, the terror behind them is so much worse than what is in front of them. With the UK closing the door or being ham-fisted, our European partners have to take more refugees, as we would wrongly pass by on the other side. I urge the UK Government not to do that, but to play their full part and ask, “What more can we do?” as my hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) said in his opening speech.

[Alex Salmond]

I agree with my hon. Friend.

When the Prime Minister goes to the European summit next week, or when he deals with our partners in the United Nations, what position will he adopt in asking others to fulfil their obligations to help support people in the camps in the middle east? Will he approach others by saying, “We’re having nothing to do with our European partners in their programme of resettlement”, or by saying, “We will share that burden and we expect you to share the burden of support for refugees in the camps”? Which position will accord this country the greatest influence and the greatest prospects of success? Surely logic tells us that it is the co-operative position.

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[James Brokenshire]

I say to the hon. Gentleman that we should be proud of this. In his opening speech, he highlighted the real benefit that we as a country should look to—

[Mr MacNeil]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Is it in order to have two classes of partner in the European Union whereby the Government decide that some are major and some are minor?

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I do not need to worry about a point of order on that.