British Children: Syria

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his points. He is right to say that the UK Government’s approach to this is, I hope, informed by compassion and care for individual cases. Our priority clearly has to be unaccompanied children and orphans, and that is where our attention currently is.

My right hon. Friend has given me a figure—I have to say that I do not recognise that figure—although, of course, we are talking to all the agencies and to those with an influence on the ground, to better understand the situation, and, of course, we will do all we can. The situation is fast-moving, and getting access to camps and people is extremely difficult. The ceasefire that he has spoken of is due to expire tonight, but we hope that it will be sustained. Under those circumstances, of course, all things become possible.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question, and the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) for securing it. His contribution was powerful and it was right. I entirely share his concerns about the dozens of innocent children—many just infants—who are legally British citizens and who find themselves, through no fault of their own, caught up in the latest upsurge in violence around the Daesh detention camps in northern Syria, triggered by the unilateral withdrawal of US troops and the subsequent invasion of the region by Turkey and its mercenary militias. The reckless and treacherous actions of the Trump Administration were always going to have human consequences, including the increased endangerment of the innocent British children living in the detention camps, nearly all of whom have already experienced—as the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden says—huge physical and psychological traumas in their lives because of what they have seen and the conditions in which they have grown up.

It is all very well for some to say that the sins of the father, and in many cases the mother, should be visited on the children, but that is not who we are as a country or a people. Instead, we have a moral and a civic duty to ensure that these British children are brought back to the UK to receive the shelter, care and counselling they need, even if that necessitates bringing back their mothers to face justice in our courts for the crimes they may have committed. If the Minister of State agrees with that, as I hope that he does, I must ask another difficult question, and one with which we need to wrestle.

If we were having this discussion two months ago, we would have been talking about negotiating the repatriation of these children with our Kurdish and American allies. Now, as a result of Donald Trump’s actions, that negotiation will need to involve Assad’s regime, Russia and what are now their Kurdish allies. So I ask the Minister of State, unpalatable as it may be, does the Foreign Office believe that to achieve the repatriation of these children, it will be necessary to restore formal diplomatic relations with the Assad regime, and will that be on a permanent or a temporary basis?

[Dr Murrison]

I completely distance myself from the phrase “sins of the father”. There is no question about this. These are innocent minors; they are vulnerable people and we must do what we can for them. It is entirely wrong to associate them with what their parents may have done. Indeed, we need to ensure—as my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) made very clear in his question—that the cycle does not continue. That is fully understood.

The shadow Secretary of State touched on the legal position of minors who are living in camps with their parents. That brings us to a very difficult area indeed. I am sure that she would not want to trespass too far in that regard, nor would she want to remove children from their parents.

We have been clear about our attitude towards the Assad regime. As the right hon. Lady will be very well aware, the reality is that the Assad regime appears to have permeated most corners of the country now, and we have to think about what that means if we are to pursue our humanitarian goals. I think that most western countries—the telephone conversation I had with the global coalition against Daesh yesterday would certainly indicate this—are trying to work out what we now do when it comes to operating in the new reality, which sadly has been made a great deal worse by the events of the past few days.