Humanitarian Crisis in the Mediterranean and Europe

Helen Whately Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

Last week’s heartbreaking images united the country in horror and compassion. I have been deluged with letters and emails from constituents wishing to express their compassion, and I am sure the same is true for all hon. Members. This House has shown an unusual unity on the issue and has brought it on to our agenda for three days in a row. I welcome the tone of the motion tabled by the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) and his support for the Government’s long-term humanitarian commitment. I was rather disappointed that the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) set a contrasting tone and that he feels less pride in Britain’s long-term commitment to humanitarian support for refugees.

Personally, and on behalf of many of my constituents, I welcome the Prime Minister’s commitment to taking in 20,000 more Syrian refugees, on top of the 5,000 already here, and particularly the fact that they will be taken directly from the camps. That gives a safer route for the most vulnerable refugees, who would be unable to make the trek across Europe to Calais.

My constituency, and Kent overall, has felt the consequences of people making that trek across Europe in recent months. In particular, we have seen a large increase in the number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, and they need looking after. Kent County Council has worked extremely hard to find homes for those children, but it has run out of foster homes for them and for local children. Other councils have helped, but not nearly enough. In the coming weeks and months we need the rhetoric from local authority leaders across the country to be matched with action, with them taking in more families and, in particular, more children. I hope that we will now see a nationwide response, and that response needs to be centrally co-ordinated to ensure that those children are given homes across Britain, as the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) suggested.

Although it is wonderful to welcome refugees, there is a cost. Kent County Council has estimated that there is an unfunded cost of £6 million in taking in extra asylum-seeking children this year. That financial burden needs to be shared across the country, not just in the areas that take a greater proportion of refugees. I welcome the proposal to use the foreign aid budget to help contribute to those costs.

[Alison McGovern]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. I think that I am right in saying that the north-west of England has taken the most refugees, so I agree that our job is to ensure that all parts of the country have the resources they need to welcome refugees should they want to.

[Helen Whately]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. She is right that we need not only to welcome refugees in what we say, but to plan how to care for them properly. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer) said, we need to give them the chance of a good life in this country.

As the Opposition parties have recognised, the UK has made a huge contribution to helping refugees through our £1 billion aid commitment, which has not always been as popular as it is now. It is good to see that the country is rallying behind the virtues of making a contribution on that scale. However, we need to make sure that our emotional response to the images of last week does not cloud the reason in our response. I believe very strongly that we should concentrate our help where it can do most good. Most of the 12 million people displaced are still in the region, with 7.6 million in Syria, 1.9 million in Turkey, and 1.1 million in Lebanon. Being in those countries means they are more likely to return home when eventually their homes are safe, and then they will be in a position to help rebuild Syria, so we would be right to focus our aid there.

[Stewart McDonald]

May I make a suggestion that will not cost the Government a single penny? Will the hon. Lady join me in calling on the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who is in his place, to get on the phone to the Saudi Arabian embassy here in the UK and ask that country to start taking some refugees, and Kuwait and Qatar too, because they do not even recognise refugees in their constitution? Many Members have mentioned Lebanon, but it is a fraction of the size of Saudi Arabia, so perhaps the Government could start to look at that side of things as well.

[Helen Whately]

Indeed, the other neighbouring countries, not just Lebanon and Turkey, should be taking refugees. I understand that in fact Saudi Arabia is taking some refugees and that families have invited other families to come and live with them. There may be more happening than we are aware. However, the hon. Gentleman makes an important point.

I want to talk about how our aid could be used in the refugee camps. It is important that it is used not only to provide shelter and food but to make life in those camps bearable. As we have heard, it is far from that now; in fact, many refugees do not even feel safe in them. My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood) described this from the experience of her own visits to refugee camps. We must try to ensure that refugees have some quality of life. I recognise that the Government are doing what they can. A quarter of a million children are benefiting from having support for their education, thanks to our aid. I have read of a figure of £10 million being used specifically for building local capacity and longer-term stability in the region, but that sounds like a rather small share of £1 billion. More must be done to give refugees in the camps a chance to work, to learn and to develop their skills so that they will be able to contribute as and when Syria is safe to return to, and to give them purpose and a sense of hope.

[Martin John Docherty]

The hon. Lady mentions £10 million. Perhaps the Government would take up the point that rather than replacing Trident on the Clyde with £500 million, they should send that money to deal with some of the refugee crisis issues that we are facing.

[Helen Whately]

That is a completely separate debate and it is not appropriate to have it as part of this debate.

The battle against ISIL is ideological as much as military. We absolutely must win hearts and minds. As this is Britain’s largest ever humanitarian effort, it must not just be about providing sanctuary but must also count towards future peace and stability across the region.