Unaccompanied Child Refugees: Europe

Debate between Heidi Allen and Adam Holloway

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

Many of the people in Calais come from war-torn areas such as Syria and Iraq. Indeed, shortly before the general election, I went with my former interpreter to the city of Mosul for about three hours and had a look around. As we approached the city—we were about 20 km away—we saw a great caravan filled with women in black and children. There were very few men. I remember seeing one lady carrying two babies, with a toddler walking behind.

The next day I went to one of the camps, which had taken in an extra 23,000 people in the previous week. The latrines by the entrance, which had been designed to last 17 months, were already overflowing after three weeks. There were many young people there who were in great need. It gives none of us pleasure to see pictures of young people in Calais, or at the edge of the Europe, living in such intense hardship. Of course we must help the young and the vulnerable, but we must not be naive and we must not create pull factors—or what my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) described as migrant magnets.

[Heidi Allen]

While we can all have a debate ad nauseam about pull or push and will never agree on it, at least let us look at some of the places we should be providing under Dubs—I am talking about the 280 places that we have not yet filled.

[Adam Holloway]

Well, yes, I accept that, but we must be careful to do what is right for as many people as possible, rather than for the people who are most visible to us. We should not just do what makes us feel good. We must stop creating a “pull” for people to make these very long journeys.