Refugees (Family Reunion) (No.2) Bill

Jeremy Quin Excerpts

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

[David Warburton (Somerton and Frome) (Con)]

It is a privilege and a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil)—[Interruption.] I nailed the pronunciation. I congratulate him on bringing this Bill to the House, and commend him for his moving, persuasive and fascinating speech. I also commend him for building so much support for the Bill. This really is an important debate about an important Bill. The subject is very close to my heart and something about which many of us feel strongly.

Many Members will remember the Dubs amendment to the Immigration Act 2016 that came before the House in April that year. The Dublin regulation said that refugee families had a right to stay together and allowed refugees to join family members who were legally in another country, so that families could be reunited. On the back of that, the Dubs amendment sought to extend that provision to unaccompanied children fleeing war in Syria who were living in the Calais camp at the time and did not have any family here.

I was one of only five Conservative Members to feel sufficiently strongly to support the Dubs amendment and vote against the Government. Just three of us now remain on these Benches, including my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), who is just leaving the Chamber. The pressure that was exerted at the time was enough to persuade the Government subsequently to accept the provisions. I mention all that because I want to emphasise that I have thought about this policy area carefully. We all need to scrutinise it, particularly as the landscape shifts.

I am pleased that this Bill has come before the House for debate, because it is only by exploring these issues that we will, I hope, come to the right conclusions. As we do so, we need to look carefully at the background of the situation today. When we look at the UK’s reaction to the appalling humanitarian crisis in Syria, we can be rather proud of what is unquestionably an impressive record. Almost £2.5 billion in aid has been committed since 2012. That not only represents our largest ever response to a humanitarian crisis, but means that we are second only to the United States in providing support and far ahead of our European neighbours.

That support has been focused on educating refugees who have found themselves in countries such as Jordan and Lebanon, as well as helping them to find jobs. These are big numbers. Over 500,000 children in Syria have been in education thanks to UK aid, and many tens of thousands are enrolled in schools in surrounding countries. When we think about refugees coming to the UK, let us remember that in 2016—at the height of the crisis in the Calais camps—the UK resettled more refugees from outside Europe than any other EU state. Eurostat figures show that over a third of people resettled in the EU actually came to the UK.

In that process, the most vulnerable refugees have been supported through resettlement programmes, which offer safe and legal routes to protection, and are specifically designed to keep families together. Some 20,000 refugees from Syria will have been settled by 2020, and around half of them have already arrived here. I do not want to list endless figures, but over the past five years, nearly 25,000 family reunion visas have been issued, and some 50,000 people have been given protection status in the UK since 2010.

[Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Will he reiterate the point about the refugees whom we are seeking to support? This country has a powerful record of supporting refugees in situ in the region, where they are most vulnerable. It is also the most vulnerable of those whom we are bringing to safety on these shores. Will he address that point?

[David Warburton]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend reads my mind; he has obviously been looking ahead at what I am about to say.

Under current rules, partners who are coming here must rightly show that their relationship predates their exile, that it is ongoing, and that both parties have an intent to continue their relationship here. Children must show that they are related, under 18 years old, unmarried and not living an independent life. Family reunion visas are exempt from some of the usual criteria. There is no need to demonstrate adequate finance to support dependants. Dependants do not have to demonstrate any proficiency in English, and there is no processing charge or immigration health surcharge.

When it comes to other family members—again, quite rightly—exceptions and additional compassionate circumstances can be taken into account. These kinds of exceptions could apply, for example, to help a dependent child over 18 or an unaccompanied child with a relative in the UK.

As the House will know, family reunion can also be enacted through other refugee resettlement schemes. The Mandate and the Gateway schemes offer routes for refugees living overseas to be settled in the UK where this is in their best interests. Both those schemes recognise family ties as part of this calculation. Family links are also one of the grounds for eligibility under the Syrian vulnerable persons resettlement scheme. The children at risk scheme is also helping to resettle up to 3,000 children and their families from the middle east and the north African region over the course of this Parliament.

The key part of looking closely at this area must be to focus on how best we target our responses and our support, as my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin) pointed out. If we change policy here in the UK—if we signal and signpost ourselves as a more open door—how will that influence behaviour and therefore lives? Of course, as we have heard, those facing civil war or persecution have little choice about fleeing their homeland—that is pretty clear—but what follows that? How best can we step in to support them?

--- Later in debate ---

[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss). I congratulate the Bill’s promoter, whose constituency I do not want to offend by trying to pronounce it, on introducing this important Bill on an important issue.

To debate the Bill properly, it is important to look at everything that the Government are already doing to help refugees and those fleeing conflict and persecution, as opposed to considering the Bill in isolation. Context is very important in this case. We have been investing in support for the most vulnerable refugees through resettlement programmes such as those that bring Syrian refugees over to Britain. By 2020, some 20,000 Syrian refugees will have been resettled, and around half have already arrived.

I am incredibly proud to represent Colchester and my residents, who have been so welcoming of those who have made their home in our town. I particularly commend Welcome Refugees Colchester and Fresh Beginnings, which do such great work in my constituency. The UK is settling 3,000 vulnerable children and family members from conflict zones in the middle east and north Africa. That is on top of the unaccompanied child refugees brought over from Europe under the Dubs scheme, which Members will note I supported. Several Members have said that that is not enough, but we should be clear that the Government are playing their part in helping those in need of sanctuary.

In 2016, the UK resettled more refugees from outside Europe than any other EU state. Eurostat figures show that more than a third of people who have been resettled in the EU came to the UK. We need every European country to be play its part. It is long established in the Dublin III regulations that asylum seekers should apply for asylum in the first EU state at which they arrive. I accept that that can be an incredible administrative burden on some nations, so it is right that we do what we can to help.

The Government have committed £3.6 million to help to strengthen co-operation with France on the operation of the Dublin regulation and the development fund. I have no doubt that we will continue to work with other countries to identify projects that support genuine claims through the Dublin process. Those are not the actions of a Government who do not care about refugees. This is about getting the existing regulations working properly.

[Jeremy Quin]

I respect the position that my hon. Friend took on the Dubs amendment when it was debated in this place. I have been pondering the remarks made earlier by the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper): her concern that children in Greece may not be coming to this country because of worries about our rules on whether they can then bring in their parents. That does not change how I think about the Bill, but does my hon. Friend agree that it would be nice to hear the Government’s reaction to that and to establish whether what the right hon. Lady described was the official position of the Government in Greece and Governments elsewhere?

[Will Quince]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I, too, hope that the Minister will answer that specific point when she rises to her feet later in the debate. I agree that that issue potentially needs to be addressed —I might come to it a little later in my relatively brief contribution—but it does not address the fundamental reasoning in relation to supporting, or not supporting, this Bill.

As I have said, this Bill is about both getting the existing regulations working properly—many would say, I think, that they are not working properly at the moment—and ensuring that refugees can be identified, which is the most important thing, and then reunited with their families when they arrive safely in Europe. We do reunite families—that is a very clear point to make. Over the past five years, 24,700 family reunion visas have been issued. Since 2010, 49,830 people have been provided protection status in the UK—a status that means that they are entitled to apply for qualifying family members to join them. Suggestions that our immigration rules somehow prevent families from being together are simply not true.

Of course, the rules allow for a refugee’s partner and dependent children under the age of 18 to come to the UK. Unaccompanied child refugees are not allowed to sponsor applications from family members, yet, importantly, the rules also provide for scope to grant leave outside the rules in exceptional circumstances. That can allow for dependent children over the age of 18 to be reunited with family members in the United Kingdom.