Refugees (Family Reunion) Bill [HL]

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 8th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the gap, and I promise to be brief. I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, who has pioneered so much good work on this subject, and commend the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, for introducing the Bill and being so persistent.

I would like to take everyone back to remember just what it felt like during the pandemic and how we all became conscious of the importance of family. Many people said as we came through it that the one thing they desperately missed was not entertainment or being able to go out but family. Life has changed and attitudes have changed, and many more people now put family ahead of anything else in the way that they approach things. That is what the Bill is about, and we should remember how we felt.

We have shown a degree of compassion over Ukraine, but all too often when refugees arrive in this country there is a feeling that the country is actively hostile to them. There are boys aged 16 to 18—children—who are living in hotels in Kent and elsewhere in the country, and have been there for a long time, where they are effectively under house arrest. That is not what they need; they need to be with their families, and to be able to bring those families in. The Red Cross says that

“family reunion should be a vital, safe and legal way for refugee families to reunite after they have been torn apart by war and persecution”,

but its latest report on the subject concludes that the UK does not provide that.

I ask the Minister to say whether he is confident that the country is doing all it can to provide a safe route for people who have been through the most appalling circumstances. Could he just consider how important family is to those of us who live in a safe environment, and remember that family can be a varied concept and is not necessarily the nuclear family that some are used to? It may involve people who do not sit within the normal categories that we are used to, and we need to be tolerant, understanding and compassionate in bringing in new legislation. I commend the Bill.