Unaccompanied Child Refugees: Europe

Charlie Elphicke Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Stella Creasy]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Indeed, we have seen many reports that suggest that that is precisely the case. When there is no safe passage, that does not stop people coming here; it means that the only passage available is through the traffickers, which we know is unsafe.

Today’s debate is about asking the Minister to ensure that we are being the best of British and that we keep these children safe, because we have a moral obligation to do so. Indeed, it is in the best of our traditions. We hear that the French police will not allow NGO tents, meaning that many children are sleeping without any form of shelter at all, including unaccompanied children as young as nine. We want to hold the French authorities to account, but we must also hold ourselves to account for what we are doing to help.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a typically powerful speech, as befits an award-winning “Backbencher of the Year”—I congratulate her on that. It is important that we put more pressure on the French authorities to behave properly and treat people well, children in particular.

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[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

Given that I represent Dover, Calais is literally a few short miles across the water. Indeed, I can see Calais from my bedroom window. It is striking, is it not, to think about the conditions there until a year ago? I am delighted by and proud of the campaign that so many of us fought to get the Jungle dismantled. Over time, the numbers there swelled to some 10,000 people. It was a place of appalling squalor, with no sanitation facilities, no running water, no protection from the cold, and nasty, rickety shacks. The Jungle was frankly a lawless place where people traffickers roamed free, exploiting people.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I visited the Jungle at its height. I agree that it was a far from ideal place, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that the conditions in which almost 1,000 refugees are now living around Calais are far worse?

[Charlie Elphicke]

Conditions for anyone who is living outside without food, shelter and water are appalling, but let us remember what the Jungle was like at that time. Ten thousand destitute people lived in a concentrated area. Many of them had been trafficked there by people who were exploiting and preying on them in furtherance of the evil trade of modern slavery, selling the promise of a better life in Britain. In reality, if the traffickers did get them across the border, it almost invariably resulted in them disappearing from view into a life of exploitation, whether working in a nail bar, growing cannabis or being used as a child criminal. We all know that those and other forms of exploitation went on and go on. It is entirely unacceptable.

That was why it was so important to get rid of the Jungle. It was why it was so important that the French authorities were pressed successfully into helping people to get away from Calais into refugee reception centres with food, shelter, water and sanitation, safe from the traffickers who would exploit them and treat them so shockingly.

[Alan Mak (Havant) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a characteristically powerful case. Does he agree that we should commend the efforts of the British police and security services in tracking down and deterring the people traffickers who prey on vulnerable people from Syria and other regions in crisis?

[Charlie Elphicke]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is the central point that I am just coming to.

It was right that we managed to get the Jungle dismantled. It was right that we got so many vulnerable people removed to safer places. It is also right that we have worked tirelessly, on an international basis—Britain, France and countries across Europe—to target the international criminal gangs: the trafficking gangs behind the evil trade of modern slavery and this wicked exploitation.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I dealt with child refugees a long time ago and I have total sympathy for their plight. We have taken about 8,500 people into this country, about half of whom are children. Am I right to assume that all the people who come through that system are tracked, looked after and watched so that they do not just disappear into an underclass?

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[Charlie Elphicke]

I hope that the Minister will address my hon. Friend’s powerful point when he responds to the debate.

We should welcome the fall in the numbers from 10,000 to 1,000, but that is still 1,000 too many. That is why it is right that we keep up pressure on the French Government to do the right thing by acting to ensure that people are not on the streets of Calais. I understand that there are hon. Members who, like me, are deeply concerned about the plight of all refugees across the world. Some 50 million people have been displaced by conflict. We have taken 3,000, but what is the right number of children to take if it is not 3,000? Is it 30,000? Is it 300,000? Should we take all the children from across the whole of Europe or just those who have a connection to Britain?

I think the right policy is that we should do our bit, particularly on reunification. We should hold our heads high for the amount we have been doing across the board, because it is important to remember that we have taken in 20,000 people from Syria directly. That avoids the risk of people making perilous journeys, because many lives have been tragically lost at sea, or as a result of exploitation or mishap, in the journey to Calais. It is also right that we have spent more than £1 billion in aid to provide places of safety close to regions of conflict. It is better to keep people close to their homes and hearts, meaning that they can go home when a conflict ends, rather than in any way to risk incentivising a dangerous journey across the whole of Europe, because we have seen on our television screens how that often ends up in tragedy. We must also remember what we do not see on our television screens: the evil exploitation by traffickers and what they do to these vulnerable and desperate people. That is why I feel so strongly and passionately that we cannot risk a return of the Calais migrant magnet, and that the right thing to do is to help people close to the places of conflict—in theatre. That is why I feel so powerfully that while it is right that we help to do our bit as a country, it is also right that we are strong on Europe and the European Union improving their own border security and the safety of people within their borders. We must make sure that the EU and European countries as a whole do their bit to look after vulnerable people within their borders, as that is their duty and responsibility.

We are doing a lot and we are making a real difference. We have continued to make a real difference across the world. The fact we are helping so much with international aid and development, and in areas close to conflict to keep so many people safe, is something we should be very proud of in this House of Commons. We should also be proud of the work we have done to take vulnerable people into Britain and to reunite families in Britain. If other families can be reunited—if children who have a connection to this country can be brought in, should there be a family in this country with which they should be united—we should do that. There should be a focus on that, so I agree with the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) that we should be looking at reunification of families. However, I do not agree that we can be responsible for all refugees or all children throughout the whole of Europe. We cannot take in every child.

I will tell hon. Members why that is. I get complaints from my constituents in Kent that we have getting on for a quarter of the unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in the whole of this country. My constituents are concerned about the pressure on public services that that creates in Kent. It also constrains provision for other Kent residents, which is why it is important that we maintain a sense of balance and fairness. If we are going to be there to care for and to look after these poor children, it is right that we make sure that they are not just left in the county of Kent; the whole country must do its bit. Councils must be encouraged to do their bit to ensure that children are spread across the whole country and that the burden does not fall disproportionately in places such as Kent, which I represent.