Refugees (Family Reunion) Bill [HL]

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Friday 18th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Hamwee and I have played a relay with Private Members’ Bills on this important subject of refugee family reunion. She has explained the history, going back seven years and now five Bills. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield noted, the sustained interest in this cause should tell the Government something. My noble friend’s expertise and commitment to this cause, and many others in the field of asylum and immigration, have inspired me and continue to do so.

The Bill would address some of the key gaps in eligibility and remove some of the existing barriers to family reunion. Notably, it would enable child refugees to sponsor their close family members—parents and siblings—as well as cautiously expand the range of family members that adult refugees are allowed to sponsor to include siblings, parents and adult dependent children. The core proposition is that families belong together and that we should do what we can to mend the effects of war and persecution that tear them apart. It is simply inhumane to keep families apart.

This Government are, thankfully, committed to the European Convention on Human Rights. What about its Article 8, on the right to family life? What about the Convention on the Rights of the Child? My noble friend Lady Walmsley asked why the Government are not prioritising the best interests of the child.

Family ties are a key reason why people risk their lives on dangerous journeys to reach the UK, so safe and legal family reunion routes provide a vital alternative to life-threatening channel crossings, as the noble Lord, Lord Paddick—still my friend—stressed. Restricting family reunion drives vulnerable women and children into the hands of ruthless people smugglers and traffickers, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, so forcefully reminded us. Family reunion accelerates refugees’ integration in the UK. Permitting a refugee to be with their family will greatly improve their chance of leading a stable and productive life, without threats to their well-being and mental health. Imagine trying to move forward with your life and work while worrying about the safety of family back home.

Family relationships can be key to the psychological recovery of a child refugee. The noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, referred to the grief of the Kindertransport children. As the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, reminded us, family unity may save the public purse; it costs £30,000 a year to look after a child in a residential home or foster care who might be supported by parents and other relatives if they were allowed to come to the UK—memo to Rachel Reeves.

In 2022, the previous Government demonstrated an admirable awareness of how refugees need their families by introducing the Ukraine family scheme, as has already been referred to, which allowed Ukrainians to sponsor a wide range of extended family members. This Bill suggests definitions of family that are not nearly as broad as the Ukraine scheme.

The previous Government defended the ban on child refugees sponsoring their parents or close family members to join them—in which we are an outlier in Europe, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, stressed—by claiming that it would act as a pull factor, encouraging more children to make dangerous journeys to the UK. As the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, and my noble friend Lord Oates cited, in 2016 the EU Committee of this House categorically concluded that there was no evidence provided by EU member states operating the family reunification directive, which permits children to sponsor family members but which the UK declined to opt into, that children had been exploited by being sent ahead for other family members to join them. Its report on child migrants said:

“We received no evidence of families sending children as ‘anchors’ following the implementation of the Family Reunification Directive by other Member States”.


The Home Affairs Select Committee in the other place reached a similar conclusion under the chairmanship of the right honourable Yvette Cooper, now Home Secretary. In any case, the deterrence argument assumes it to be morally as well as legally sound to block the right to family reunification in order to send signals to prospective immigrants to give it up. This is surely not going to be the new Government’s position.

It is important to note that, while the Bill would make a big change for the families able to be safely reunited, the increase in the number of refugee family reunion visas issued would be relatively small. My noble friend answered the noble Lord, Lord Murray, who made an intervention without a speech. The Refugee Council and Safe Passage have estimated that allowing children to sponsor close relatives could result in between 240 and 750 family members being granted visas each year.

Just over two years ago, during Second Reading on a similar Bill that I introduced, there was an important contribution from the then shadow Chief Whip—I will name him—the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, now the actual Chief Whip. He said:

“I support the Bill and hope that we will get a positive response from the Minister … This issue is not going to go away until the Government deal with the question of how we can have proper safe and legal routes and deal with the criminal gangs. This Bill is one attempt to deal with those problems”.—[Official Report, 8/7/2022; col. 1242.]


I rest my case. This remains the case in October 2024. If the new Government are serious about strengthening safe routes, supporting women and children, endorsing family life and tackling the smuggling and trafficking gangs, they will back this Bill. I sincerely hope that the Minister can give us a positive response today to this modest and doable Bill, as my noble friend says.