UNHCR Syrian Refugees Programme

David Lammy Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I am grateful to be able to contribute to the debate and I congratulate the Secretary of State for International Development, in particular, on the £600 million in aid that she has been able to give to Syria and the region.

My seat of Tottenham can be described as one of the country’s gateway constituencies for people claiming asylum or seeking to immigrate into this country. That has been the case for many hundreds of years and it makes the Tottenham constituency the most diverse three-mile area in Europe, with more than 250 languages spoken. At the corner of my constituency, for example, is the Orthodox Haredi Jewish community, which had to flee parts of eastern Europe because of the pogroms and the awful anti-Semitism displayed in Europe at that time.

Of course, my constituency is also the place to which my family came from the Caribbean, my father arriving in 1956. It took me some time, as the son of immigrants, to understand that some of my classmates at primary school, secondary school and university, were not immigrants, as my parents were. They were refugees, building a life for themselves in this country. Poverty, finding one’s way in a new system and sometimes dislocation are part of that, but they also had deep scars and had suffered deep trauma.

Looking over the four decades of my life, I think particularly of those fleeing Cyprus and this country’s outreach to the Cypriots. I think also of those fleeing Uganda because of Idi Amin’s terrorising and expulsion of Ugandan Asians. I think of the Vietnamese boat people and the Vietnamese I was at secondary school with. Then I think of those who, at about the time I was graduating and onward, came here from Bosnia and Kosovo. In each case, we reached out to those people, in part because of a shared understanding of the importance we must always give to refugee status.

That is scarred on the history of this country, beginning to some extent with the first world war, which we will commemorate later this year, and those who fled Belgium and the lowlands. Then, the second world war brought the holocaust, which we remember this week, and the many millions who fled, some finding refuge in our country. So when we talk about the UNHCR, we talk about a very important institution. Of course I welcome the statement, and I am pleased that we will not divide the House on the motion, but I have reservations about the manner in which we are choosing to exclude ourselves from the UNHCR scheme. There are times when we look to others—recently, in the context of Syria, to China and Russia—to play their part in the international family that is the United Nations. If we then step outside the UN systems, what message does that send?

In evoking the Ugandans, it is important to remember that in 1972, this country took in 25,000 Ugandans. In thinking of Cyprus, we should remember that we took in 50,000 Cypriots. In thinking of the Vietnamese boat people, we recall that we took in 10,000 Vietnamese. In thinking of Kosovo, we remember that we took 10,000 Kosovans into this country. Although we welcome today’s announcement, the way in which we set the language of “several hundred” should be seen in that context.

It would be remiss of me not to say how sad it is that this debate is held against a backdrop of concern in this House about immigration. Refugee status is quite different. The truth is that, because of legislation passed under the previous Government, those coming to this country as refugees now account for only 4.5% of people coming here to make a life for themselves. There is an elephant in the room, but I hope that we will look again at the numbers, because I fear for those who are trying to escape Syria today.