Refugees: Mass Displacement

Baroness Hooper Excerpts

Thursday 6th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hooper (Con)]

My Lords, in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for giving us this opportunity to debate what is, and ought to be, a top priority for our national agenda and the global agenda, I also thank him for, and congratulate him on, introducing the debate in his usual well-researched and comprehensive way. I fully support his suggested way forward. I also thank the House of Lords Library for the excellent briefing on which I have relied, since, I must confess, I have not read the full United Nations report.

I wish to concentrate on the second part of the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Alton: the case for an urgent international response to address the root causes of mass displacement. The United Nations’ definition of those root causes is important and broad but does not apparently include the breakdown or failure of proper democratic systems. This has occurred in a number of countries—I cite Venezuela and Haiti as examples, although in the latter country natural disasters have undoubtedly added to the chaos there. If people feel that the rule of law no longer exists and that their vote does not count, they are just as likely to feel they have no future in their home country as someone persecuted for religious or other freedoms.

The other omission is the failure to deal not just with what happens to people when they reach their final destination country but with how they get there. Any international response must include consideration of how people move from A to B. Not everyone can afford to fly; we have witnessed on our television screens, for example, the masses of people moving on foot through central American countries and Mexico towards the United States. I am told that many Africans now cross the Atlantic in order to join those human chains. I know that there are Venezuelans, most of whom have fled to Colombia, and others who have had to make their way through Brazil and Bolivia in order to reach Chile. Some of these people may be classed as economic migrants, but how are the transit countries supposed to distinguish? Therefore, I believe that any international response must take account of the needs of transit countries, to enable them to cope with these influxes. Any international response must take into account the many unaccompanied children and deal with the people traffickers who mislead and exploit vulnerable people.

The movement of peoples is not new. Those of us who have had the privilege of visiting the fantastic museum of anthropology in Mexico City have seen how the Americas were peopled way before 1492 and European colonisation. Modern communications enable us to be immediately more conscious of what is going on. That knowledge must lead us to find some way to improve and resolve these issues throughout the world. It must be a priority for global co-operation. The United Nations is the global organisation we subscribe to in order to preserve world peace and to cope with climate change, pandemics and much more. Can my noble friend the Minister reassure us that the United Kingdom will take the lead in this respect?