Middle East and North Africa

Earl of Sandwich Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB)]

My Lords, I think we have to be grateful to the brave TV camera men and women and reporters who bring this crisis before us every day. Yet the images are so bleak, and the crisis is almost beyond our island imagination. Such a degree of hardship thankfully does not exist in our society. We cannot conceive of a world without anything at all to live on, yet we have to make judgments which we think can somehow change it.

Last week, the Prime Minister announced he would at last increase the numbers of vulnerable Syrians to be resettled. Some of us, along with the Refugee Council and Amnesty, have been pressing the Government for months on this. We were told that, up to March, only a handful, 183, and by June, only 216, had been resettled under this scheme. Media reports undoubtedly changed the Government’s mind, and we now, as a country, have responded modestly to the plight of refugees in the region and to UNHCR’s call for resettlement. I fully endorse what the Minister says about bringing stability to lands in conflict, but the Government’s otherwise welcome Statement failed to address the key question of Europe. As others have said, it is astonishing that we appear to be doing nothing to help thousands of Syrians and others stumbling along railway lines towards us.

One might ask why the UK has decided to stand apart from other member states and always hide behind the Schengen and Dublin agreements. I believe, with the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, that this was in part a soothing message from the Government to some of their Eurosceptic Back-Benchers that, for the moment, they do not want to spell out EU membership too clearly. I fully accept that Europe has not got its act together, largely because of the resistance of eastern European members. Hungary’s use of tear gas and barbed wire is incomprehensible to those who remember 1956, when its own refugees were pouring across the Austrian border. Unfortunately, Mr Orbán does not represent the view of Hungarian people any more than, say, Mr Rosindell reflects his own Front Bench in another place. Monday’s EU meeting at least showed that there is unity among the richer member states—we are meant to be one of those—which will inevitably have to share the responsibility. Much more, however, as has been said, must be done at the United Nations level. I wonder whether fear of numbers lies behind the reaction of some critics and Eurosceptics. The numbers are daunting, but surely there are not so many that they cannot be contained within and around Europe. We have to rely on crude estimates from UNHCR and FRONTEX, but we know they are six-figure numbers. The EU would like us to contribute now. Is that unreasonable?

I recommend doubters to examine the UNHCR list for refugee applications compared with populations in Europe. Sweden tops the list with 7.8 per 1,000 in 2014. Hungary is next, surprisingly, with 4.2, then Germany with 2.1. The UK is way down the list, at 0.5, which means only one refugee applied for asylum for every 2,000 of our citizens. If you compare our total population to recognised refugees, the number is of course lower, and the absorption of an annual 5,000 is barely noticeable. As Hilary Benn said in another place last week:

“The fact that we are not in Schengen does not mean that we should opt out of our responsibility to stand shoulder to shoulder with our European friends and allies in playing our part”.—[Official Report, Commons, 9/9/15; col. 427.]

I assume that that still forms part of Labour’s foreign policy, but we will hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, on that.

It is a pity that Lord Moser is no longer with us to join in this debate. As a teenage refugee himself from Nazi Germany who was cruelly interned here during the war, he said that he discovered his love of numbers by counting his fellow internees. He went on to run the Central Statistical Office and an Oxford college, besides making many contributions to education and music. He is already much missed on these Benches. I also add my own thanks to my friend the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, for bringing good humour to our debates over so many years.

Perhaps the Minister can help us with numbers. She cannot answer for the Home Office but she will know, and the noble Lord, Lord Clinton-Davis, will remember, that this country has already been generous to an earlier generation of boat people, having received more than 24,000 refugees from Vietnam, who were resettled over time by local authorities. My main questions relate to her department. Was DfID fully consulted on the decision to take money out of the aid budget? What will be the consequences for other DfID programmes? As my noble friend Lord Hannay said, why should Syrians be singled out when there are so many other nationalities involved? What about Kurds and Iraqis—indeed, those who come across the Middle East through Libya, Turkey and other countries? What about eastern Europeans? Are Kosovan or Afghan refugees to be treated differently? These are difficult questions but they will have to be answered at some point. The Balkan states are now receiving EU funding but are still dealing with the aftermath of their own civil wars. The Syrians are special now, but other priorities must come up in future.