Refugees (Family Reunion) (No.2) Bill

Debate between Catherine West and Chris Law

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 16th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) for sponsoring this most important Bill, and for his excellent and eloquent speech. His remarks were in sharp contrast to those by the hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena), who does not know the difference between a refugee and a migrant, and who clearly has not read the Bill. I also thank many constituents from Dundee who support this Bill, and who have emailed or written to me, and sent me messages on Facebook, in the run-up to this debate.

We face unprecedented times. More than 65 million people around the world have been forced from their homes owing to conflict, persecution, and the effects of climate change. That is the entire population of the United Kingdom. More than 22 million of those people are refugees, and half of them children. Every Member of the House was once a child, so let us keep that at the heart of our debate today. Many of those children have been torn away from their families and are desperate to be reunited with them, but they are being kept apart thanks to bureaucratic hurdles in UK policy.

Make no mistake: the UK Government’s refugee family reunion rules are restrictive and unfair, and refugees who have reached safety in the UK can find it impossible to bring their family members to join them. Currently, the only family members who are allowed to join adult refugees in the UK are someone’s partner and dependent children, but only those under the age of 18. Unaccompanied children granted refugee status have no right to be reunited with their brother or sister, mother or father. That means that family members who have become separated and remain outside the UK are left with the invidious choice of staying in dangerous places or embarking on treacherous, expensive, and unregulated journeys. Only after surviving that journey and reaching European shores does the UK legally recognise someone’s sibling, aunt, uncle or grandparent as a family member with whom they can reunite. Let us not forget that last year more than 3,000 people died making the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean—a disgraceful border that the EU has put up on the shores of northern Africa.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that many excellent volunteers, including from the UK, have joined others in the Mediterranean to assist those people in desperate need? Sometimes that part of the world looks more like a cemetery than somewhere where we are saving lives.

[Chris Law]

I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Lady, and if it had not been for those volunteers, it is likely that the number dying would have been far greater.

Legal aid has not been available for refugee family reunions since 2012, which makes it even more difficult for families to reunite. A recent report by Oxfam and the Refugee Council highlighted the negative effects of those rules on refugee families. Evidence found overwhelmingly that reuniting refugee families gives them the best chance of living settled and fulfilling lives—I am sure no one in this House would not want that. Separation can have a devastating impact on refugees, their recovery from traumatic experiences, and their ability to integrate and adapt to their country of asylum.

This Bill has cross-party support and seeks to do three things. I will describe those things succinctly because some people clearly do not understand what the Bill is about. First, it expands the criteria for who can qualify as a family member, so that young people who have turned 18, and elderly parents, can live in safety with their families in the UK. It will also give unaccompanied refugee children in the UK the right to sponsor their close family, so that they can rebuild their lives together in their new community. Lastly, and simply, it will introduce legal aid, so that refugees who have lost everything can afford to navigate the complicated process of reuniting with their families.

I am proud that Scotland has a long history of welcoming refugees from all over the world. Over the past two years, communities across Scotland have demonstrated their compassion and understanding by welcoming more than 2,000 Syrian refugees, one of whom—Kawa from Afrin—I mentioned in the Chamber on Monday. I heard comments earlier today that refugees are driven by incentive. Well, here is an incentive: on Tuesday that same person, Kawa, heard from his family in Afrin district that both his cousin and uncle have been killed. If that is an incentive, we should recognise that it is one we all share. Such things are why people become refugees in the first place.

We have a welcome saying in Scotland: “We are all Jock Tamson’s bairns,” and I remind the Chamber that Scotland is not full up. At its heart, family reunion is about keeping loved ones together—that simple yearning that we all have to be with our mum, dad, son or daughter. Family reunion is also a safe and legal route to protection that refugees can pursue in order to bring loved ones to the UK. The current UK system for reuniting refugee families is needlessly stacked against those who need it. We need to introduce some humanity into the system, and the Bill does just that.

Last night, after going out for some light refreshment with some of my colleagues, I was on my way back home. I was at Liverpool Street station, and anybody who stops for a moment there will see the bronze statue of Frank Meisler’s Kindertransport children, which is about British values. Some 10,000 children came over here during the second world war, fleeing persecution and terror in Nazi Germany. Today, we are talking about several hundred children—surely we are up to such a job.