Displaced Children

Baroness Morris of Bolton Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morris of Bolton (Con)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the House for allowing me to speak in the gap to ask a specific question, and I promise to be brief. First, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale, on his powerful and moving introduction to this important debate.

In my travels—I declare my interest as the Prime Minister’s trade envoy to Jordan and the Palestinian Territories—I have seen the misery and heartache of children far from home and, too often, alone and frightened. Like the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, I met a young man who survived the horrors of a boat that sank in the Mediterranean only by holding on to the bloated corpse of someone who had died. I can only imagine what those horrors must do to somebody in the future.

However, I have also seen the great things that have happened, especially in education, which is important not just for the future of these children and young people but to bring some form of normality to lives that are far from normal. I pay tribute to all those working so hard to provide education—the NGOs—and particular tribute to all that DfID does, of which we should all be incredibly proud. That is not to say that more cannot always be done.

Many of these young people travel alone, but many are separated from their families as they flee from horror. I cannot imagine what it must be like to lose your child, but to lose them far from home when they are already traumatised must be unbearable. I ask the Minister: what help is given to these parents, themselves vulnerable and seeking refuge, to help find their children?