Refugees (Family Reunion) (No.2) Bill

Huw Merriman Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 16th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jayawardena]

I respect my right hon. Friend’s contributions and her right to make them to the House, but as she lets me extend my argument, I think she will understand why I have concerns about this process, about the potential use of unscrupulous people traffickers and about some people in this country abusing the rules on refugees, which is wrong and devalues the argument on which we all agree about supporting genuine refugees.

[Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

I speak for the fairies, as far as this is concerned. Logic would dictate that when refugees are coming from war-torn areas, they will do some incredibly desperate things, such as those that my hon. Friend has outlined. I do not think it is for the fairies at all. It is the sad reality of the terrible state of some countries around the world that forces these things to happen.

[Mr Jayawardena]

I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution. I think that he supports my point—[Interruption.] The debate is continuing behind me.

In explaining why I believe that the Bill is misguided, it seems important to discuss the current system that Britain has, as well as the international legal arrangements that underpin it. That history is important to where we are today. Principally, the UK is a party to the UN’s 1951 convention relating to the status of refugees and the 1967 protocol, which expanded coverage to refugees from beyond Europe and beyond those fleeing world war two. While the UN convention recommends that signatories take measures, it is important to note that it does not provide an automatic right to family reunion for refugees.

The convention does, however, recommend that signatories take the necessary measures for the protection of the refugee’s family, which I contend the Government do at present. Further, the Government clearly take more account than the Bill does of the protection of a refugee’s whole family, by reducing the pressures on family members, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) said, to be trafficked or make dangerous journeys—pressures that I believe the Bill could amplify. Thirty years on from the UN convention and 20 years on from the protocol amending it, article 3 of the 1989 UN convention on the rights of the child ensures that the best interests of the child must always be the primary consideration.

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[Anna Soubry]

I could not agree more with the hon. Lady, and there are many such examples.

I went to the Zaatari refugee camp, where I met a 19-year-old who had lived in a tin shed for four years. His father had had his own business in Syria. Again, he scooped up everything and fled, through terror. Meeting this 19-year-old was a genuinely concerning and distressing experience. Where was his hope? He had been there for four years; he did not want to be in that place. He could not work, and although our Government are doing a fine job of providing education for his younger siblings, where was his hope?

The second most striking feature I experienced was the clear desire to go home. They do not want to be living in those conditions; they want to go home—they want to go back to their country, of which they are so proud. We should try to imagine year after year after year seeing the possibility of returning to our home disappearing. These are remarkable people: their hope, their strength, their humanity, and the way they kept themselves together, somehow with a semblance of pride, has never left me.

[Huw Merriman]

I, too, went to Zaatari, and what my right hon. Friend says about the concern that people will eventually lose hope is absolutely right. Things are not easy in Jordan, albeit they could be worse. However, having made that trip, does she perhaps share my genuine concern about the pull factor arguments? [Interruption.] This is a genuine concern that I am asking about.

[Anna Soubry]

I completely understand my hon. Friend’s genuine concern; I just do not believe that there is any evidence to support it. Let us all stop and get real. History tells us: the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) referred to Biblical times, and we have referred to the plight of the Jews in Germany and other countries. As my hon. Friend will understand, these people are living in the most appalling conditions, surrounded by war and terror day after day, month after month, and year after year. To suggest that someone deliberately, cruelly tries to get their child out of that horror in order to follow them is, frankly, as appalling as it is clearly not right; it is verging on madness. People do not do that for that reason. They might well say, “How the hell can I get my child out of here?” because of their love and concern for that child and to try to keep that child safe, just as the Jews did in Germany. Nothing has changed in person-mankind over the centuries: our desire is to keep our children safe, not to use them as a route for our own escape. So let us crush that one. I gently ask where is the evidence of people doing that? It is the last thing genuine refugees would do.

[Anna Soubry]

We are talking about people who are already here and whose status as genuine refugees has already been determined. The idea that there are gangs of people smugglers in Syria going through that desperate warzone and enticing families to put their children into their hands is the stuff of fantasy. [Interruption.] No, it really is the stuff of fantasy.

It behoves on all of us to conduct these important debates on the basis of facts and evidence—and yes, at times, emotion. Look at the problems we have in our country with the lack of understanding. If I may say so, perhaps that has been evident in some of the speeches we have heard today.

If somebody living in very poor circumstances comes to this country, that person is an economic migrant, and that is profoundly different. Even if they enter the country illegally, we can understand why they are coming here. These people come here not to take, but to give. For centuries people have come to this country from other parts of the world because they want to build a better life for themselves and their children. I have always welcomed them, because they contribute by virtue of their immigration status. They are fleeing poverty and come for a better life. They do not expect us to provide for them.

[Huw Merriman]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way again; she is making a heartfelt speech. Perhaps I can articulate the concern here. We hear that the Bill relates only to children who are already here, but my understanding is that it will apply to future child refugees. The concern on the Government Benches is that, as people traffickers take advantage of these changes, more children could be pulled into desperate and evil situations in which they are taken advantage of. Our concern is about welfare, not some of the other points that have been made.

[Anna Soubry]

Again, my hon. Friend misses the point. These are people with the status of refugees; they have been through all the systems and are accepted as genuine refugees. This is just a fake and phoney point that is being put forward.

It says a lot that there is this lack of understanding about the difference between an economic migrant and a refugee. During the referendum debate—I am not going to get into Brexit, Mr Deputy Speaker—people rightly raised the issue of immigration. I remember having a conversation with a constituent who said that she was voting for leave, “because there were too many Muslims in our country.” That is the level of debate in our nation. That is the level of plain misunderstanding and misinformation. That is why this debate is so important.

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[Yvette Cooper]

The right hon. Lady is exactly right. When people have been through such difficult experiences, and lost the home that they all shared, to be separated across the globe is so much harder—and at a time when they need their family the most.

My third response to the pull factor argument is that we are, in effect, saying to people, “You have to suffer more in order to deter others.” We are saying to those who have suffered the most already that they have to suffer more by not being reunited with their families because we are convinced that that might deter some fictional people who we think are going to respond in a particular way, when there is no evidence to show that. When there is real hardship and real hurt for families who are not being reunited, let us not make them suffer more for the sake of deterring others when there is no evidence that that will happen.

[Huw Merriman]

I thank the right hon. Lady for outlining the case against the pull factor. I did not want to be shouted at; I wanted to hear arguments. When I was in Zaatari, there were about 100,000 people in that camp; 56% of the camp population is under 18, and there are about 79 births each week. My concern is that, while the figure may be 1,000 at the moment, as soon as we change our laws and that population, that is when the pull factor could come in. Can she address that concern?

[Yvette Cooper]

I just do not follow the hon. Gentleman’s argument. If he is basically arguing that any kind of family reunion will somehow act as a pull factor and therefore should not happen, that would be an argument for having no family reunion for anybody at all—not for any adult, any husband or any wife. But of course, nobody thinks that. Everybody thinks that family reunion is important and that we must make sure we can keep families together.

[Huw Merriman]

The right hon. Lady is kind to give way again. At the moment, families can come through. My concern is that if we change the law, a brave under-18 will say, “I will take that step, and this law will allow me to bring you with.” That is my concern, with such a large population. Perhaps that clarifies where I was coming from.

[Yvette Cooper]

If the hon. Gentleman was going to make that argument convincingly, he would be making the same argument about the 19-year-old, the 20-year-old, the 30-year-old and the 50-year-old. The problem is the evidence. We must remember that other countries across Europe have these rules about family reunion in place, and we do not see it becoming a pull factor to Hungary, Poland or all sorts of other countries.