Unaccompanied Children (Greece and Italy)
Debate between Diane Abbott and Peter Bone(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Ms Abbott
I agree that this is about asking, particularly post-Brexit, what sort of Britain we are: are we a genuinely outward-looking, internationalist and humanist country, or are we a country that seeks ways to avoid its moral obligations?
I have to begin by acknowledging the investment and exemplary work of Her Majesty’s Government with regard to those refugees who have stayed in camps in the region. I have visited those camps, but this debate is about the Syrian refugee children and others who are in mainland Europe. Some Members and, sadly, the Minister have implied that if we pretend that those tens of thousands of child refugees who are already in Europe somehow do not exist and do not matter, they will disappear.
I must direct the focus of the House to the tens of thousands of refugee children in mainland Europe. I contend that in narrowing the safe and legal routes from Europe for those children, the Government run the risk of acting as a marketing manager for people traffickers. I have visited the camps in France and Greece. These children may be in safe countries, as some Members have said, but they are living in horrible conditions. That is despite the best efforts and the personal kindness of—
Ms Abbott
I have listened with a lot of care to all the speeches by Members on both sides of the House and now I have to make progress in order to leave time for my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South.
I have visited the camps in France and Greece. The children there may be in safe countries, but they are living in horrible conditions. That is despite the fact that so many local people do their best to be kind and helpful. Far from arguing, as some Members in this House have done, that providing more safe and legal routes from Europe is some kind of incentive, as if it is a choice, no one who has visited the camps and informal encampments and looked these families and children in the eye can seriously argue that they have come to Europe on some sort of jaunt and can easily be turned back. Remember that these are families and young people who have risked their lives, who have seen people die crossing the Sahara and who have then risked their lives again crossing the Mediterranean.
Of course it is true that the French Government should have done more in the past. It was because the French were so slow originally to register refugees of all ages that so many set their hearts on the UK, but let us be realistic about the conditions facing refugees in Europe. In Greece, the conditions facing asylum seekers were so dire that as long ago as 2011, the European Court of Human Rights ruled it unlawful to send people back there. Only last year, in December, did the European Commission finally decide that sufficient improvements had been made that other EU member states could start sending people back to Greece.
How far have conditions improved really? I am not so sure that they have. Last month, just weeks after the Commission said it was appropriate to send people to Greece, there were reports that three migrants in an overcrowded camp in Moria on Lesbos had died within 10 days of each other. It is thought that the immediate cause was carbon monoxide poisoning, after men sharing overcrowded tents inhaled toxic fumes from the heaters they had been forced to use in the harsh winter temperatures.
In Italy, where the number of new arrivals reached its highest ever level last year, conditions may have been worse still. Recent measures requiring the Italian authorities to fingerprint new arrivals have led to shocking abuses, according to Amnesty International. It has documented cases of the police using beatings and electric shocks to force compliance from those who are reluctant to have their fingerprints taken. So say that those countries are technically safe, but do not say that the conditions in those countries are acceptable and justify closing off one of the safe, legal routes for children to come from mainland Europe to this country when they have relatives here or other appropriate legal reasons for coming here.
On the question of local government capacity, we have heard that David Simmonds of the Local Government Association says that current Home Office child refugee funding for local councils covers only 15% of the funding costs. That is a serious matter when so many local authorities led by all parties—Labour and Conservative—are under terrible funding pressure. There has been very limited consultation with local authorities. All the evidence suggests that, given more time and appropriate funding, many more councils would step up to provide accommodation for child refugees. An absolute lack of capacity among local authorities simply has not been proven.