Ukraine

Bell Ribeiro-Addy Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab)]

As Russia’s unjustifiable assault continues, it is important that we in the international community do everything in our power to bring this unprovoked invasion to an end. Equally, while we wait for that time, we should be doing all we can to support those most affected—those who are fleeing. We have heard a great deal of criticism of the Government’s response to the Ukrainian refugee crisis. Unfortunately, the overwhelming bulk of that criticism is fully justified. The Government’s response has been late, half-hearted, partial and discriminatory. We can rightly be proud of the response of the British public to the crisis, however. So many of them have opened their hearts and their purses, and now we hear that hundreds of thousands have even offered to open their homes. The response of the Government in no way reflects this generosity of spirit or this international solidarity. Worse, Ministers seem to believe that the appropriate response to justified criticism is to attack, or that the response to serious shortcomings is self-congratulation. It is simply not enough compared with our counterparts across Europe.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), the shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, was right to be critical of the latest Government plan. As she said, it is not a plan but a press release. It is a DIY refugee scheme. I remind Ministers that we are a signatory to international treaties governing the treatment of refugees. None of them states, “You can let in some people who want to come, depending on the generosity of your own citizens.” That is not international law. The legal position is that refugees have the right to seek asylum and that states are obligated to grant it, where appropriate. That does not mean directing people to non-existent processing centres in Calais or to a secretly located centre somewhere in Lille. It does not mean denying refuge to people from a war-torn region because they do not have relatives here. I know the visa scheme has since been extended, but it is a visa scheme, which is not how the asylum system has worked.

I am sorry to say these failings have become customary under this Government and their predecessors. The Government have failed to meet either their legal or moral obligations since they took office in 2010. There have been attempts to push back refugees in the channel, refugees have been kept in buildings that are not fit for habitation and some have contracted serious disease in unsanitary conditions. We have seen others, including British citizens, wrongly deported from this country.

It should never be forgotten that this Government and their predecessors are indelibly stained by the continuing Windrush scandal. They are also yet to provide an adequate response to the many hon. Members who have raised the situation of African and Asian students in Ukraine who face discrimination while fleeing the war. Many might ask what that has to do with us, but this Government would surely like to send a message that no race or nationality is more worthy of safe passage or refuge than any other. The Government’s responses to date are woefully lacking.

Even in the light of all that, the Government persist with their anti-refugee Nationality and Borders Bill. We have to conclude that, like Pavlov’s dog, Ministers’ reflexes take over when they hear the words “migrants” and “refugees,” and their reflexes are distasteful and objectionable. They are not the reflexes of the people of this country, who are empathetic, charitable and giving.

As we have already heard, yesterday we marked eight years since the death of the late, great Tony Benn. Whenever I speak about this Government’s treatment of refugees, I am reminded that he said:

“The way a Government treats refugees is very instructive because it shows you how they would treat the rest of us if they thought they could get away with it.”

My advice to this Government would be to be more like the British people in their treatment of refugees, before the British people see them for who they really are.