Angus Brendan MacNeil
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(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
I beg to move,
That this House notes that 18 to 24 June is Refugee Week; further notes that many families throughout the world have been torn apart by war and persecution; welcomes the fact that the Refugees (Family Reunion) (No.2) Bill was given its Second Reading without opposition on 16 March 2018; and calls on the Government to support the provisions of that Bill.
It is a great privilege and pleasure to open the debate. I thank its co-sponsors, the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) and the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill). Refugee Week is an important time at which to consider these issues and, indeed, the contribution that refugees make to societies around the world, although many left their own lands in very difficult circumstances. Many, of course, did not want to leave, and many now wish to return home but, sadly, will not realise that dream.
Last night, an event was held at Speaker’s House to mark Refugee Week. Indeed, yesterday was World Refugee Day. It was a fantastic event. The National Theatre, in co-operation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, organised a number of sketches and another performances. The aim was to convey in a more engaging manner, and sometimes with humour, the feelings of refugees and the difficulties that they experience, and the choice that they have had to make to flee their homelands. Celebrities were present, including the actors David Morrissey, Cate Blanchett and Colin Firth—“Colin”, as he is now known to Nikita Harkin from my office, as she had to accompany him to Speaker’s House. It was great to see that people who were probably some of the most fortunate in our global village had the empathy, the social responsibility and the simple concern to give of their time to press the issues of refugees, in particular as UNHCR special ambassadors.
A great point was made by the right hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow), whom Members may well know better as Mr Speaker himself. He observed that the presence of celebrities was invigorating, but also reminded people that there was a “we” as well as a “me” when it came to the issue of refugees in our world. Such events are important, as are debates like this. I know that this debate will be watched by not just many people who work with refugees, but refugees themselves who are looking for hope and some changes, and perhaps some warm words from the Government, which I am sure will come at some stage.
An unprecedented number of people—68.5 million—have been forced to flee from their homes, and 22.5 million of them have become refugees. Amazingly, 50% of those 22.5 million are under the age of 18. I have become more aware of this subject as a result of my private Member’s Bill, the Refugees (Family Reunion) (No. 2) Bill, which had its Second Reading on 16 March. The more one delves into the subject, the more one finds out, although I do not think that anyone—even a refugee—can really be an expert, because everyone has a different story.
The refugees who may be watching the debate should know that they are definitely not alone, and I know that from the organisations that worked on my Bill with me. Jon Featonby of the Red Cross has been fantastic. I am also grateful to James Bulman and Laura Padoan of the UNHCR, Seb Klier of the Refugee Council, Lucy Wake of Amnesty International, and Sam Nadel of Oxfam.
I have mentioned those people as individuals, and also to gain further recognition for their groups. The Red Cross, the UNHCR, the Refugee Council, Amnesty and Oxfam are not just abstract bodies; they are bodies that contain dedicated people who are working very hard to make the lives of others better. I consider that laudable. I wish that I had the abilities, and perhaps the time and the inclination, to do the same. Sometimes in life one thinks to oneself, “There are definitely people who are doing better things with their lives than I am with mine.”
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
I echo the hon. Gentleman’s praise for the people who are making that contribution, but does he recognise that throughout the country, in civil society, a huge body of people are making a contribution in every one of our towns and cities? He will know, I think, that Sheffield was the country’s first city of sanctuary, making the positive statement that we welcome those who flee persecution and war. Does he agree that that sanctuary movement, which has now been taken up by many other towns, can make a very positive statement to refugees?
Angus Brendan MacNeil
That is fantastic, and Sheffield can be very proud. Becoming the first city of sanctuary is one of the proudest badges that any city can wear, and it is something for all other towns and cities to emulate. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the contribution is not made just by organisations, as is clear when we drill down further in society. I think that the hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield), who was present for my Bill’s Second Reading on 16 March, is very pleased by my mentions of her city. The tabloid newspapers often tell us that there is overcrowding in the south-east, or a lack of welcome for refugees, but in fact the people of Canterbury have been very welcoming, which is a great credit to them. However, I am sure that they are not alone. The hon. Gentleman has made a great point about the city of Sheffield. Many people—in charity shops, for instance—are doing whatever they can to make a better life for the refugees who come to the United Kingdom, and that is very welcome.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that organisations such as Bath Welcomes Refugees in my constituency are not only supporting refugees, but raising their profile and our awareness of the terrible fate that many face in countries across the world, and making us more sympathetic to their cause?
Angus Brendan MacNeil
Yes, and the more we are aware of and we see the big tide of support for refugees, the quieter the more mean-minded voices become. I think it was the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Dame Louise Ellman) who mentioned in a previous debate that when we drill down with the public—and engage with and talk to them about refugees, and are not afraid of the arguments—we see that, despite what some in the media would like to say, the public do come on board, and that in fact they are doing that anyway. We need to catch up in our public discourse and debate with what members of the public are doing in Sheffield, in Canterbury, in charity shops in Stornoway, Orkney, Shetland, Land’s End or wherever, or in Ireland and other countries. People are doing this everywhere, and people do have an understanding of, and sympathy towards, refugees.
When I was dealing with my private Member’s Bill, it became clear to me that it gave hope to people, even when it had completed just its first stage in Parliament. That brought home to me the responsibility I had. First, I had to deliver the bad news that we were only through the first stage, because there are many stages for Bills to go through, and that it therefore might not become law. We must still wait for a money resolution. I am sure that the Home Office will be generous and make sure we do have that money resolution, but we must then get the Bill through Committee and guide it through the Lords. There are therefore other steps to take, and in addition to that—this is probably strange for Opposition Members to think about—we do need parliamentary stability, because if we have another election in the next wee while, that private Member’s Bill will be gone, which will affect refugees who are looking for hope.
Angus Brendan MacNeil
Of course there are possible solutions to that, and one of them might come now.
Thangam Debbonaire
I thank the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) for giving way, in part because it gives me an opportunity to practise my pronunciation of his constituency.
Will the hon. Gentleman join me in redoubling efforts to encourage the Minister to commit today to urging her colleagues to bring forward that money resolution? After all, if the Government do not like the Bill, they can always vote it down at a later stage, but to block it due to the lack of a money resolution, particularly in Refugee Week, would feel very frustrating.
Angus Brendan MacNeil
The hon. Lady’s pronunciation of my constituency was excellent. Some Members might feel they are a bit of a refugee in this Parliament when trying to say the name of my constituency, or indeed they might think I am the refugee. Either way, the hon. Lady’s point is absolutely on the money.
I hope that the Home Office will take this point on board. I have had some discussions with Government Whips about the money resolution, and the lights so far have been going green. We have yet to move on to the Home Office itself, but that is coming, and I am hoping for further green lights.
In 2012, legal aid was taken away from refugees, but that did not happen in Scotland. Moreover, if Scotland were independent, I am sure we would be in line with other European countries, and I hope that the UK as it is at the moment ensures that child refuges have the same rights as adult refugees. That is what my private Member’s Bill tries to do. Some Members have expressed a strong concern about children being sent ahead as anchors, but that does not stack up at all, given the rights that adult refugees have anyway and the fact that that does not happen in other European countries. Anyway, who uses members of their family as bargaining chips?
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his speech. He is right to draw attention to children’s rights. Does he agree that we have an absolute obligation to allow children to be reunited and to bring in their parents and family members because we have signed and ratified the UN convention on the rights of the child, which states:
“States Parties shall ensure that a child shall not be separated from his or her parents against their will, except when competent authorities subject to judicial review determine, in accordance with applicable law and procedures, that such separation is necessary for the best interests of the child”?
How can it be in the best interests of a child for them not to be able to bring their parents and other family members to live with them?
Angus Brendan MacNeil
That is absolutely correct; I could not have put it better myself. I thank the hon. Lady, who is co-sponsoring this debate, for that invaluable intervention pointing out our international obligations.
I agree that it is in the best interests of children to be with their parents, and I must make a remark about the utter revulsion and disgust many of us feel about what is happening in the United States of America, with migrant children being taken from their parents. I am at a loss as to whether that is stupidity or evil—I cannot decide which, but it is certainly not a good situation. I think that all of us know that when children are being ripped from their parents in such a way, we do not need quotations. The American Administration have used biblical quotations, but we all know in our hearts that that is wrong. We do not need to quote and counter-quote, and make arguments about this. If those in the Administration of the United States of America do not know in their hearts that there is something very wrong with that, there is something wrong with their moral compass, and I do hope that that all changes.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, and I am sure everybody in the Chamber thinks what has been happening in the US is abhorrent. Would not the best reaction from this Government be to set an example on family reunification, and to take away the threat and anxiety of young people, in particular, who fear being sent out of the country when they approach their 18th birthday? If I was not in the Chamber, I would be at the weekly refugee lunch that Refugees Welcome puts on in Hammersmith. Voluntary organisations are doing a fantastic job, as the hon. Gentleman says, but we need leadership from the Government.
Angus Brendan MacNeil
I thank the hon. Gentleman for missing his lunch to be here. He makes a fantastic point about the fear that people feel. When we speak to and get to know refugees, what we learn can seem almost mundane, given the big picture we are trying to sort out legally, but when we drill down to the personal level, we see that people are not sleeping at night due to fear and worry. Their fear might not even be for themselves; it might, as I know from one case, be fear for a sister in a refugee camp in Sudan. The fear is that the sister will try to do what her brother did and go through the Sahara with people traffickers, when he saw unspeakable things happening to women. The fear is of the sister being so desperate in the refugee camp that she will jump from that frying pan into a very horrible fire.
I have talked about my private Member’s Bill and what an independent Scotland would do, but I hope the Government will take these matters forward in an immigration Bill. It would be to their great credit if they did, and that could mean that my private Member’s Bill would be seen as redundant in the next few months. I know that an immigration Bill is coming. [Interruption.] I see a smile from the Minister. Perhaps it is a rueful smile, but we might see some progress in that Bill. I am sure that the Minister and many members of the Government agree. Indeed, there is now a new broom at the Home Office—we have seen some fantastic things happening.
I give credit where credit is due: the Financial Times pointed out a week last Monday the difficulty in getting doctors to come in, and by the following Friday that seemed to be resolved, much to the benefit of doctors themselves. Everybody in the health service was a winner, and the Government are getting the credit. If we could now also sort out the issue of work visas for crews of fishing boats on the west coast of Scotland, that would be fantastic. Everybody in Scotland wants that to happen; we are just dealing with a person or two in London who does not let it happen, but it is damaging our economy. Interestingly, these migrant workers would not be included in the migration figures, and boats would be back fishing and there would be processing going on. But I digress; that was more of a personal conversation between me and the Minister. Some of my constituents at home will be pleased that I have raised this matter, however, and they will see the link between all these issues.
I know that many Members want to speak, and it was flagged to me that some wanted to intervene—most of them have done so. When working with refugees we become aware of many things, and the point made by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside that I mentioned earlier was very valid: the public are absolutely onside when politicians are courageous enough to make a case, and do not run for the quick populist hit of just talking numbers, but instead start talking about human beings.
I am coming to the end of my remarks, but I want to give the final word to a refugee who recited a poem last night at Speaker’s House. Being from Scotland, and particularly Gaelic Scotland, I know of the poets who have communicated to people in many ways that speech makers and any number of orators cannot. I am thinking back into history of Alasdair mac Mhaighstir, Somhairle Maclean and Iain Lom, who Max Hastings credited as being perhaps the first war journalist ever. Iain Lom was hiding behind a rock at the battle of Inverlochy in 1645 when Alasdair Mac Colla came up and asked what he was doing behind a rock. Iain Lom said, “Well, if I get killed today, who is going to be praising your heroism tomorrow, Alasdair?” There is a great deal to be said for poets generally, but the poet last night absolutely blew my socks off. He was fantastic at communicating his issues among the other refugees I met in Speaker’s House last night. Some of them consider themselves to have been refugees all their lives. I have tried to think of “refugee” as a temporary status before the person becomes a welder—like Yohannes from Canterbury, whom we spoke of on 16 March—a doctor or another productive member of society.
I met a woman from Somalia who, although she was a refugee, dreamed of going home. I asked her whether she would maintain her language skills and pass them on to her children and she said she would, which is a good thing. People in Gaelic Scotland—probably also in Wales and, indeed, in England—are pleased when migrants go off to countries such as Australia and New Zealand and maintain their language skills. We in Gaelic Scotland are very pleased when people come back from Nova Scotia, Ceap Breatainn in particular, and have maintained their languages. If we want that as a set of values for ourselves, surely we could allow, enable and help refugees to maintain their culture and language. Wearing my Chair of the International Trade Committee cap, it is important that we have such skills in the UK going forward, so that when those countries become more prosperous and trade with us, we can trade with them using citizens who still have those language skills.
I want to indulge the House awhile with J. J. Bola’s poem from last night because—with the greatest of respect to today’s speakers—he puts into words what it is like to be a refugee much better than any Member here today could and certainly better than I could. He asked me to point out that he was a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the dictatorship has led to 6 million people being killed and many more displaced. I think he said last night that he arrived in the UK at the age of six. I will finish off with his words because they are worth thinking about. He wrote:
“imagine how it feels to be chased out of home. to have your grip ripped. loosened from your fingertips something you so dearly held on to. like a lovers hand that slips when pulled away you are always reaching.
my father would speak of home. Reaching. speaking of familiar faces. girl next door
who would eventually grow up to be my mother. the fruit seller at the market. the lonely man at the top of the road who nobody spoke to. and our house at the bottom of the street
lit up by a single flickering lamp
where beyond was only darkness. there
they would sit and tell stories
of monsters that lurked and came only at night to catch the children who sat and listened to stories of monsters that lurked.
this is how they lived. each memory buried.
an artefact left to be discovered by archaeologists. the last words on a dying family member’s lips. this was sacred.
not even monsters could taint it.
but there were monsters that came during the day. monsters that tore families apart with their giant hands. and fingers that slept on triggers. the sound of gunshots ripping through the sky became familiar like the tapping of rain fall on a window sill.
monster that would kill and hide behind speeches, suits and ties. monsters that would chase families away forcing them to leave everything behind.
i remember when we first stepped off the plane. everything was foreign.
unfamiliar. Uninviting. even the air in my lungs left me short of breath.
we came here to find refuge. they called us refugees so we hid ourselves in their language until we sounded just like them. changed the way we dressed to look just like them.
made this our home until we lived just like them and began to speak of familiar faces. girl next door who would grow up to be a
mother. the fruit seller at the market.
the lonely man at the top of the road
who nobody spoke to. and our house at the bottom of the street lit up by a single flickering lamp to keep away the darkness.
there we would sit and watch police that lurked and came only at night to arrest the youths who sat and watched police that lurked and came only at night. this is how we lived.
i remember one day i heard them say to me
they come here to take our jobs
they need to go back to where they came from
not knowing that i was one of the ones who came. i told them that a refugee is simply
someone who is trying to make a home.
so next time when you go home, tuck your children in and kiss your families goodnight be glad that the monsters
never came for you.
in their suits and ties.
never came for you.
in the newspapers with the media lies.
never came for you.
that you are not despised.
and know that deep inside the hearts of each and every one of us
we are all always reaching for a place that we can call home.”
Neil O'Brien
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. It is extremely difficult and no one should downplay or minimise the difficulty of the task facing the officials who make these difficult decisions and who are trying to investigate very complicated cases.
My third suggestion for improving the lives of refugees in the UK is to teach them English. When I meet people who have come here as refugees and hear their stories, I am particularly struck by what it is like to arrive in a country where they do not know anyone. It is often a very different culture, and they are navigating quite complicated bureaucracy without speaking any of the language.
I am always amazed and impressed by how quickly some people pick up English, having started with absolutely nothing. I met an amazing Burundian woman the other day at the all-party parliamentary group on loneliness. She talked about her story and spoke in brilliant English, even though only a few short years ago she spoke no English at all. None the less, despite the success of many people in learning English when they come to this country, it can be very isolating and very lonely for those who do not have the language.
The fiscal environment, notwithstanding the welcome investment in the NHS, remains difficult but, working through community and voluntary groups, it need not cost a huge amount to help more people to learn English more quickly. The benefits in creating an integrated society in which more refugees can work and feel that they really belong would be enormous.
The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar quoted a number of excellent Scottish poets. When I meet refugees, I am often struck by the words of Grace Nichols’s poem “Epilogue”:
“I have crossed an ocean
I have lost my tongue
from the root of the old one
a new one has sprung.”
I am always reminded of that poem because it is an incredibly impressive thing to have come to this country with nothing and to have learned a language, which I would struggle to do under ideal conditions. The power of the language to make people feel properly part of this country is very strong.
Angus Brendan MacNeil
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the way he is making the argument for learning the English language. I come from Gaelic Scotland, and Plaid Cymru Members come from Welsh Wales. Rather than the idea that refugees must learn our language because that is what we speak here and they must fit in, the idea of learning our language to stop them feeling isolated and lonely is commendable. I can get behind that idea, rather than demanding that people speak a language that I do not think is one of the original languages of the British Isles, but that is a minor point.
Neil O'Brien
The hon. Gentleman might say he makes a minor point, but it is an entirely fair one. I have been to some of the pubs in his constituency where other languages are spoken, and I certainly did not feel isolated or lonely—in fact, they were extremely sociable and very pleasant places to visit.
On family reunification, this country has a proud record of welcoming persecuted people from all over the world who have come to this country in fear for their lives. I think back to my childhood in Huddersfield: we had Chilean family friends who came to this country because their kind of politics was no longer welcome in Chile. My childhood in Huddersfield was enriched not only because those people had come here and worked hard as social workers but because they brought culturally interesting things to us. Family Christmases in Huddersfield involved empanadas, as well as the traditional turkey roast.
The resettlement schemes in this country have been a success. I have met people who have gone through those schemes, and they have had a much better experience than many people who have gone through the asylum route. We can learn a lot from the success of some of those schemes.
To summarise the current situation, as the hon. Gentleman has approached it, refugees can bring their children here if they are under the age of 18, but adult children are not included. Children under the age of 18 cannot bring their parents here. There are also powers for leave to be granted outside those rules in exceptional circumstances.
I can see the arguments both for and against changing those rules, and it sounds as if Ministers are thinking about it carefully. The question is whether we should go down the route of changing the rules, or whether we should instead use the exceptional circumstances rules in a more generous, more humane way. By way of analogy, I think of the people who are working on the Windrush generation. We need a high-calibre team with enough time to think properly about processing difficult cases. One way or another, the hon. Gentleman raises an important issue. The question is how we solve it.
I am not saying the hon. Gentleman’s idea is necessarily a bad one or the wrong one, but I will rehearse the downsides for a moment because this is a debate. We need to think carefully about whether we would be creating an incentive for young children to be trafficked. He rightly asks: who would use their children as bargaining chips? When people make the argument that the proposed change might lead to more unaccompanied children travelling to the UK irregularly, it is not a criticism of those children’s families, and we do not necessarily know anything about their circumstances. The children might be completely on their own, and it is almost certainly the case that, if they have parents, they will be desperate parents in a warzone who fear for their lives. We need to think about whether the change could lead to children being exploited by unscrupulous people smugglers.
In my own area, I am reminded of the case of Ahmed, a young Afghan boy who, in 2016, saved the lives of some 15 people. He was being smuggled into the UK and he arrived at Leicester Forest East services. He and those 15 people were trapped in an airtight lorry and running out of oxygen, and he had the presence of mind to text a charity, Help Refugees, which had given him a mobile phone. That text saved his life and the lives of those around him. They were much luckier than the 70 people who, just a few months previously, had choked to death at the hands of people smugglers in an airtight lorry in Austria. There are some truly wicked people in the people smuggling racket.
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
It truly is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Harborough (Neil O'Brien), who makes an excellent case for why we should improve the welcome we give refugees. I am glad he feels that way. It was good to hear about the lovely things his constituency organisations are doing to welcome refugees, and I thank him for that. I also thank the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) for bringing us this debate today, in Refugee Week, and for marking the fact that yesterday was World Refugee Day by reading out the moving and beautiful poem that was read by its author, a young refugee, so movingly in Speaker’s House yesterday.
This debate is an opportunity for us to celebrate, welcome and improve the huge contribution that refugees make to this country. My constituency has been particularly enriched by people who have made long and often arduous, dangerous journeys across continents, fleeing war, persecution and other disasters. As chair of the all-party group on refugees, I ask myself every day: what can we do in this place to improve the way this country treats refugees? I know we can do this, and I think it is part of who we are as a country to do better.
As hon. Members will know, we are living through a global migration crisis: 65 million people were forcibly displaced in 2016, through poverty, environmental disaster, war, conflict and persecution. We have moral, as well as legal, obligations to assist, but we currently take only a tiny fraction of those people. Refugee family reunion is one area where we can make a difference. Current laws and international agreements exist to help reunite separated families, but they do not go far enough and leave many refugee families separated by international borders. The Second Reading of the hon. Gentleman’s private Member’s Bill on refugee family reunion, including the right to legal aid, was really significant. The fact that a huge number of MPs turned up to a Friday sitting was a testament to the fact that not only do those MPs, from right across the House, care about refugee rights, but their constituents are also concerned. Our making that difficult decision to be here on a Friday usually has to be done with some level of informed consent, informal or otherwise, from our constituents, whose engagements we may have had to cancel.
Angus Brendan MacNeil
I want, again, to put on the record the fact that we had Members from five political parties coming in on Friday 16 March to support us, which was very much welcomed and appreciated.
Thangam Debbonaire
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. It seems to me that, as he said, this argument is cutting through: someone with confirmed refugee status should be able to live with their family. To be clear, for the record, we are talking about people who have their status settled and want to be with their family. I agree with the points that some Members make about clarifying who is who and whether or not they have a right to be here, but we do have a process and once someone has their status confirmed, they should be allowed to be reunited with their family. I will be working with the hon. Gentleman and others to capitalise on this political and public progress, and push the progress of this Bill and a separate similar Bill in the House of Lords. I look forward to hearing from the Minister, whom I know to be a very honourable woman. I have had meetings with her and was pleased to discuss these matters with her. I hope she can commit today at least to bringing forward the money resolution, so that we can get this Bill moving and at least debate this, to the satisfaction of our constituents as well as Members across the House.
It is a difficult and perhaps tense moment to mention the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, as we have spent a lot of time on it over the past few months. Indeed, I cannot remember a time when we were not debating it, although it now looks like that period is coming to a close. As part of that Bill, I was glad the Government took on a significant part of the amendment from my friend and colleague Lord Alf Dubs, as well as that proposed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper). She proposed additional changes to maintain the current situation in relation to the obligations we have under our membership of the EU and the Dublin III convention. I am not going to go into detail, but I wish to acknowledge that that is a positive step, although it does not remove the need for the private Members’ Bills to make further progress, as those provisions do not contain all that those Bills contain.
I wish to echo what the hon. Member for Harborough has said about the right to work and tentatively suggest to all colleagues that they should remember that refugees come here with skills and want to work. They do not come here to claim benefits. They want to contribute. Every refugee I have ever met has said, “I want to contribute my skills.” They want to be able to work, but, except with specific permission, they are not allowed to until they have been granted asylum by the Home Office. That would be okay, except that the Home Office target to complete asylum decisions within six months is frequently missed. In my case load, for whatever reason—I am prepared to accept there may be good reasons—that target is, unfortunately, more often honoured in the breach than in the observance. It is often missed by months or even years, which means that skilled people are meanwhile left without opportunities to maintain their skills, support their families and contribute to the national and local economy. This also makes it harder for them to integrate when they are eventually given status. As the hon. Gentleman mentioned, they often face restrictions on volunteering. This makes family life harder and makes it particularly difficult for people to get towards the point where they can earn the money they need to reunite their family members and bring their families back together.
Hon. Members may or not be aware that, by contrast, Uganda allows refugees to work immediately, and provides them with land to grow food on and start-up finance to set up their own businesses, if that is what they wish to do. Other countries have also given us useful models. We should at the very least consider a principle of the right to work after six months, which would also encourage the Minister’s Department to end those delays, and the right to volunteer until they can work. I would prefer us to move towards a system where the default setting is the right to work or the right to volunteer, and ideally both. Of course, we need to discuss that and how it would work, but I would like us at least to be considering it as a principle.
There are many other things we can do to improve the way we treat refugees and reunite families, including ending indefinite immigration detention. That is not the subject of this debate, so I am not going to discuss it. We could also restore legal aid, so that refugees can be reunited with their families; prioritise free, high-quality English language teaching; and do more to create safe and legal routes to the UK, with refugee schemes such as the excellent vulnerable persons resettlement scheme. I applaud the Government’s efforts to keep that scheme going and make it is as good as it is, but I would like it to be made easier to make in-country or border applications for asylum and resettlement. Keeping people in refugee camps or on the borders at best leaves people in limbo for years and at worst creates a recruiting ground for people traffickers and people who sexually exploit women. We all want to prevent those dangerous journeys—we share that aim—but the way of preventing them is not by making it harder to claim family reunion; it is by increasing safe and legal routes.
Kwasi Kwarteng
My hon. Friend—my very good friend—is absolutely right, and that shows how complicated and variegated the problem is. In Libya, there are all three: economic migrants, people from sub-Saharan Africa fleeing real persecution outside Libya, and people who are being mercilessly trafficked for gain. It is a complicated picture and it is not easy to say which is which. In some instances, an individual or family might have two or three different reasons why they should leave their home or why they were forced out of their home. It is not particularly helpful to come to this question with a simple, preconceived notion of what a refugee is, what an economic migrant is or what someone who is being trafficked is, because the real world is a lot more complicated than that. We cannot simply put people, families and children in such neatly defined silos. We have to be much more flexible in our approach.
The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar stressed how Britain is very welcoming, but he also mentioned the fact that the climate has been hostile in many instances, particularly in respect of tabloid newspapers. I am not someone openly to praise tabloid newspapers in this country—they have many strengths and many weaknesses—but it is easy in this House to pour scorn on what used to be called the popular press. The tabloids respond to the very real concerns of people throughout the country. If I speak to my constituents in Spelthorne, they express extremely generous sentiments towards genuine refugees, but there is also genuine concern that Britain’s hospitality and generosity can be abused, and it can be abused by some of the unscrupulous traffickers we talked about.
I wish to talk a little more about trafficking, because it is a problem that perhaps absorbs too little attention in this House. I was in Libya a year ago, when I was told that an individual needs to pay $1,000 to be transported from Libya to, in the first instance, Italy, which is the most common country of destination for these migrants. It does not take a mathematician to work out that if each person pays $1,000 to be trafficked, or transported, and there are—I was told—up to something like 1,000 migrants a day in the high season, when trafficking is at its peak the business of trafficking is potentially worth around $1 million a day. Such a huge amount of money that is potentially being distributed, or is part of the revenues of this business, attracts all kinds of people. When I was there, people talked about the Sicilian mafia, various eastern European mafiosi and the Russian mafia. Lots and lots of unscrupulous people are involved in this terrible trafficking.
We must look not only at the political instability and the relative disturbances in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere, but at the sources of the trafficking. We must clamp down on the criminal activities of these gangs, because they are the people who are driving this trade. As the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) suggested, this is a problem that will not go away. I assure the House that, if it does not go away, there will be unscrupulous gangs and criminal elements all over this trafficking and this way of making money. If that is the case, any European Government will have to focus much more closely on stopping the criminality.
When we talk about refugees, we understand the humanitarian concerns of our constituents, but there is another side to this issue. I see the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) shaking his head, but we cannot simply stick our heads in the sand and ignore this terrible trade.
Angus Brendan MacNeil
The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting case. On a wider point of information, I think it was the Swedish academic, Hans Rosling—I might have the name wrong—who pointed out first that the reason why many people go overland is that air transportation is closed to them because of our rules that will send them back again. We have other difficulties and other issues in and among that, so, sometimes, our own policies are actually creating the free market business that he describes of people trafficking at £1,000 a head.
Kwasi Kwarteng
That is a legitimate point, but this trafficking has not come from British policy. I do not think that people who are trafficking Nigerians from the western coast of Libya into Italy, as the first port, are doing so because of the policies of the British Government. I do not really see a direct link. All I am trying to suggest is that there is a far a wider range of problems on which this issue touches.
Stuart C. McDonald
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to flag up the trafficking and criminality. The UK, and the EU generally, have a long way to go to improve their response to that issue, but at the end of the day who are the most desperate to get here? It is the people with close family ties here, who are perhaps the parents of a child who has made it here, or 18 or 19-year-old siblings of children here. They will come here come hell or high water. The issue, then, becomes: are we going to allow them a safe legal route, established under my hon. Friend’s private Member’s Bill or otherwise, or are we going to leave them having ultimately to use these smugglers, traffickers and criminals? By expanding the safe legal routes, we will undermine and tackle the smuggling.
Angus Brendan MacNeil
My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and one I can back up anecdotally. In the debate on 16 March, I mentioned a young man from Canterbury, Yohannes, who I also highlighted earlier. He is worried that his sister in a camp in Sudan might do exactly that and go to the criminals. If we were to provide, through my private Member’s Bill, a safe legal route and a right for her to come, she could fly here in a couple of hours without the danger of what might happen across the Sahara, which we do not want to speak about.
Stuart C. McDonald
That is a perfect example that illustrates the argument very strongly.
If we take the approach that somehow changing the rules will provide an incentive for others to make a dangerous journey, particularly children, we have to examine the ethics of that position. Are we really saying that we are going to do something that is not in a child refugee’s interests—actually harmful to their interests—just to disincentivise other children from making that journey? That is a pretty horrendous ethical argument to propose and dangerous in itself. The key point is that this is about creating safe legal routes that keep people out of the arms of smugglers, rather than forcing them into their arms.
Joanna Cherry
Yes—credit where credit is due. That said, there is a lot more that we could do to help refugees in this country. We have heard some very thoughtful contributions about the pros and cons of doing that. I am very firmly on the side of my hon. Friend, whose Bill is a small step in the right direction, but there is still a lot more to be done.
Earlier, the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) mentioned the size of the displacement problem that the world faces at the moment. The UNHCR reports that the world is witnessing the highest levels of displacement on record, with an unprecedented 68.5 million people forced from their homes around the world. Among those, there are nearly 22.5 million refugees, over half of whom are under the age of 18. European Union statistics show a significant increase in the number of asylum applications over the past few years, and we need only to switch on our televisions every night to see the impact of the refugee crisis on Europe and the European Union.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) said, current rules for family reunion in the United Kingdom are too narrowly drawn, and the private Member’s Bill before this House, and that in the other place promoted by Baroness Hamwee, who I am pleased to call a friend, try to widen eligibility. At the moment, immigration rules state that
“adult refugees in the UK can only be joined by their spouse/partner and their dependent children who are under the age of 18.”
No provision is made for dependants who are over 18 and that can—and has—resulted in, for example, a sole 18-year-old girl who has fled her country being left in a very vulnerable situation in a refugee camp. I urge hon. Members and the Government to support my hon. Friend’s Bill. It is modest but, as the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) said, it will make a significant difference to a number of people.
The Bill would expand the criteria for who qualifies as a family member for the purpose of refugee reunion, so that young people over the age of 18, and elderly parents, can live in safety with their families in the UK. It would also give unaccompanied refugee children in the UK the right to sponsor their close family to come and join them. Importantly, it would reintroduce legal aid so that refugees who have lost everything have the support they need to afford and navigate the complicated process of being reunited with their families. I ask the UK Government to support the Bill and to take a leaf out of Scotland’s book in two respects—first, because we still have legal aid in Scotland for such situations and, secondly, because of our refugee resettlement and integration programme.
I would like briefly to address the “pull or push” argument that has been mentioned this afternoon, because I am aware of two reports that emanate from this House that show no evidence for such a pull factor. The first report was written with the assistance of the Human Trafficking Foundation and published in the House of Lords last summer. It was an independent inquiry into the situation of separated and unaccompanied minors in parts of Europe. If hon. Members look at it, they will see that it found no evidence for the pull factor. Indeed, it referred back to an earlier report that was published by the Lords EU Committee in 2016, which found absolutely no evidence to support the argument for a pull factor. It said that, if there were a pull factor of the kind sometimes posited, one would expect to see evidence of that in other EU member states that participate in the family reunification directive and have more generous family reunion rules than we do. The Lords Committee, and the Human Trafficking Foundation—two separate reports, a year apart—found no evidence to that end. We should therefore proceed on the basis of evidence from reputable reports, rather than the impressions of hon. Members, important as those may be.
It is important that hon. Members visit refugee camps abroad—I visited the camps in Calais and Dunkirk when they still existed, as well as one in Palestine, and I hope to go to Jordan later this year with Lord Dubs. It is important that MPs visit those camps and bring their experiences home, but our experiences and impressions cannot substitute for evidence from careful reports.
The Minister for Immigration (Caroline Nokes)
Let me first congratulate the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) on securing not only the debate—which, during Refugee Week, is very timely—but a Committee stage for his private Member’s Bill. Let me also acknowledge the support from Members on both sides of the House today, and in the other place, for the bringing together of refugee families. I can reassure the House that the Government have listened carefully to the many thoughtful and compassionate contributions that have been made, and will continue to listen. I particularly thank Members for the constructive tone of the debate, which I have found both useful and interesting.
I should acknowledge the work of the non-governmental organisations that are supporting changes in refugee family reunion arrangements. I have met the representatives of several of them over the past few months. I am grateful for their valuable insights, and for the constructive dialogue that they have had with my officials and with me.
During the last few months several Members, including some who are no longer in the Chamber, have beaten a path to my door. Let me take this opportunity to acknowledge their expertise and their keen interest in these issues. The hon. Members for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) and for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) have been particularly assiduous in taking the time to come and speak to me. They have frequently used the opportunity presented by the private Member’s Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar to highlight some of the issues about which they feel most strongly, and they have, of course, given me the chance to reflect.
I fear that the hon. Gentleman has pushed the envelope a bit today. Certainly, by the time he got on to west coast fishing fleets, I was at rather a loss to know what we were actually debating, but I commend him for his ingenuity.
Caroline Nokes
I think it might have been the second time it had cropped up for me this afternoon. However, some important points have been made, and I thank him and my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Neil O'Brien) for their poetic contributions, which brought some real thoughtfulness and passion to the issue.
A number of Members raised the issue of the scheduling of parliamentary business, which is of course a matter for the Leader of the House, but she and I will have taken note of the representations made today.
I want to briefly reflect on some of the comments made about asylum seekers and their ability to work. They are of course allowed to undertake volunteering opportunities, but we must carefully bear it in mind that those voluntary opportunities should not amount to unpaid work or job substitution, because we certainly do not wish to see them taken advantage of by unscrupulous employers. I have heard the concerns of many Members about delays in the asylum system. It is in fact stabilising, but we have an ambitious plan to reduce the number of outstanding decisions and the length of time people wait for a decision, which is very important.
We are on track to resettle 20,000 refugees from Syria and a further 30,000 children and families from the wider middle east and north Africa—MENA—region. Under our resettlement schemes we deliberately target those in the greatest need of assistance, including people requiring urgent medical treatment, survivors of violence and torture, and women and children at risk. We work closely with the UNHCR, as it is best placed to identify people living in formal refugee camps, informal settlements and host communities who would benefit most from resettlement.[Official Report, 5 July 2018, Vol. 644, c. 1MC.]
We are also enabling civil society to play a greater role in refugee resettlement. I was very pleased this Monday to be at the organisation Reset, to which the Government have awarded £1 million of funding to help community groups with sponsorship schemes. I often use the phrase that they are well placed to wrap their arms around resettled families and help them on the road to reintegration. We have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough and others across the House about the importance of integration and of language teaching, and of ensuring that we as a society do more to enable those who have resettled here to integrate. That is very important.
Angus Brendan MacNeil
I thank all the Members who have taken part in today’s debate, which, as the Immigration Minister just said, had a fantastic tone to it. Many great points have been made, so my best advice to people who have missed it is to look at Hansard tomorrow. Fantastic points were made by the hon. Members for Harborough (Neil O’Brien), for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) and for Dudley South (Mike Wood). I note that the hon. Member for Spelthorne was somewhat hesitant, but we can work with hesitancy, and the rest of his speech was supportive, so I thank him for that, as I thank the hon. Members for Harborough and for Dudley South. In fact, I reserve special thanks for those three Government Members, because we will need to find at least eight Conservatives for the Bill Committee. There could be nobody better than those three, so I will be grateful if they want to be on it. Indeed, if anybody else wants to get involved, please get in touch.
There were several great speeches from the Opposition Benches, including from my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald). The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) made a speech that I wished I had made myself, pointing out the 794 children came to this country last year, which is less than the number of Members of the House of Lords. There is an interesting point to be made about that when we talk about pull factors: if the pull factor was a reality, none of those 794 would have come to the United Kingdom, because they would have gone to another country that had rights for child refugees. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) said when so eloquently talking about my modest Bill, the pull factor is not real, as House of Lords reports have pointed out.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East mentioned legal aid, which is actually a minor point because less is spent per capita in Scotland, where people have the right to it, so I think that the right to legal aid could easily be extended to everybody. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) said that if we want to debate this matter further, we must get the Bill into Committee, where we can have a more in-depth debate. I look forward to Members from both sides of the House being on that Committee and to the Government granting the money resolution.
I will leave the last word to J. J. Bola, who summed things up eloquently with the following:
“kiss your families goodnight be glad that the monsters
never came for you.”
I mentioned Iain Lom, the highland poet. Some 372 years have passed since the battle of Inverlochy, but I cannot be confident that descendants of mine will not be refugees at some point over the next 372 years and therefore may need the sort of legal protections that we will be introducing.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House notes that 18 to 24 June is Refugee Week; further notes that many families throughout the world have been torn apart by war and persecution; welcomes the fact that the Refugees (Family Reunion) (No.2) Bill was given its Second Reading without opposition on 16 March 2018; and calls on the Government to support the provisions of that Bill.