Refugee Communities: Covid-19

David Simmonds Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger) for his contribution, which I think reflected a high degree of consensus on many of these issues across the Chamber, and was certainly seeking consensus on those issues where we all very much agree. I would like to spend my time focusing in particular on the impact that covid has had on three groups of vulnerable people for whom we have a particular responsibility. Those are people who have a no recourse to public funds status attached to their presence in the United Kingdom, refugee children and the people who are waiting for the recommencement—or perhaps hoping in the future for the commencement—of the new global resettlement schemes that we know are in progress at the moment.

Starting with those with no recourse to public funds, this has been the subject of a good deal of debate in Westminster recently. While there is a high degree of recognition that the NRPF status is an answer to retaining public confidence that people are not coming to the United Kingdom simply to access benefits and welfare support, in a time when there is a national crisis, as there is at the moment, it presents some particular challenges. When we begin to look beneath the surface of how the policy is operating in practice, we see the suggestion that it may be time for a reconsideration of the way we apply that policy.

We heard from the Minister during a Westminster Hall debate on this topic that, on average, 90% of requests to remove NRPF status are agreed by the Home Office and that they are agreed very quickly—generally, within a period of 28 days. I recognise that the NRPF status is complicated. For example, many people come to the UK on working visas with NRPF as a part of that. People who come as investors can be very wealthy individuals who are unlikely to face destitution, but the fact is that in the event that people face destitution, local authorities have a duty to step in and to provide financial support. Clearly, we are kidding ourselves in this place if we think that NRPF status means that there is no cost to the British taxpayer in providing that support, and we need to consider whether it is in the interests of the welfare of families who may be facing destitution as a result of that status to allow time for a reconsideration in line with what the day-to-day real practice of the Home Office has been in supporting this particular group.

Moving on to the question of refugee children, my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes is absolutely spot-on in identifying that the UK has a very honourable and long-standing record when it comes to supporting refugee children. Since 2015, the numbers coming into the care of local authorities in England has, on average, doubled. There has been a very significant rise. A lot of the political debate has focused on those referred to in the Dubs amendment, but of course the practical experience of local authorities that have been accommodating young people is that that status, clearly defined as it appears to be in the Westminster political debate, is often illusory. Young people are brought to the United Kingdom on the basis that they have a family connection here, but if that individual is not in a position to take parental responsibility under the terms of the Children Act 1989, we are moving that child from the care system of one country into the care system of the United Kingdom, so it is not in practice a process that is largely about family reunion. That is less than one in 10 of the children who are affected.

[Hannah Bardell]

The point the hon. Gentleman makes about taking children from one care system to another seems slightly inappropriate—more than slightly inappropriate—given that we are talking about countries, by and large, that are war-torn and do not even have the basic structures of health and social care, never mind a childcare system. I think it is important that we focus on the reality of the many families who are displaced and what they are leaving, and the fact that they are not necessarily coming to the UK or other western countries out of choice, but out of desperation.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Simmonds]

The hon. Member makes a very good point about the context of many refugee children who come to the United Kingdom, but of course it is not a point that is relevant in the context of Dubs, which is what I was speaking about. The point of the Dubs amendment is that it committed the Government of the UK to go to other countries in Europe and identify children in those countries who are unaccompanied and bring them into our care. They were already, in the terms of the Dublin agreement, in a country that was defined as safe, whatever the circumstances that may have pertained before they left the country that they had been in before that had led to their becoming a refugee.

I would like, however, to highlight a particular concern. The UK’s response in respect of refugee children, commendably, has been the national transfer scheme. We recognise that, under the Children Act 1989, a child who is unaccompanied in the UK, by operation of law, becomes the responsibility of the local authority where they are. Local authorities such as Kent, my local authority of Hillingdon and Harrow next door have taken in significant numbers of children, and other local authorities around the country have stepped up to say that they would be willing to offer places to support those young people as well.

There has been a good deal of debate about the remarks made by some concerning activist lawyers, but it has been brought to my attention that a number of those young people awaiting transfer to other local authorities that are willing to take them in order to create more capacity for the United Kingdom to support refugee children are being advised—legally speaking this is absolutely correct—that they are within their rights to refuse to move. It would be really helpful if Ministers gave some attention to how we can ensure that the national transfer scheme can do its job effectively.

Additional funding has been provided so that young people can be supported by local authorities that are not the ports of entry, but if young people are being told that they should refuse to co-operate with the process, the system will gum up and we will lose the capacity we have to provide that support. That is a genuine concern. Those lawyers are acting entirely within their rights, but none the less it calls into question our ability to provide the most effective support we can and increase our capacity to take in more refugee children.

On the vulnerable persons relocation scheme and where it goes next as a global relocation scheme, my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes made the robust point that many of us are waiting to hear what the new scheme will look like when it comes into operation. I heard an announcement that we were beginning plans to resume the VPRS—the Syrian resettlement scheme—because there are already a number of families identified for that safe, legal route to come to the United Kingdom who, because of covid, have not been able to make the journey here. I very much welcome the news that we will see those moves resuming. The UNHCR describes that resettlement scheme as the global “gold standard”, and two former Prime Ministers and the current one do deserve credit for maintaining a life-changing route into the United Kingdom that satisfies that standard of being safe and legal.

While the UK remains the biggest donor outside the United States on resettlement and aid efforts, access to that safe and legal route is incredibly important. Therefore, like my hon. Friend, I would welcome hearing from the Minister when we might expect that programme to commence to ensure that we continue our commendable and honourable efforts on refugee resettlement in the global covid crisis.