Refugee Family Reunion

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Thursday 20th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for the Western Isles (Angus Brendan MacNeil)—I apologise for not trying to pronounce his constituency, but my linguistic skills are more akin to those of Del Boy. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) on his speech. It takes great courage to speak truth to power and he always does it with such good grace.

I want to speak in favour of the motion. Today is World Refugee Day, and it is important to set out the issues in our history of supporting refugees following the second world war, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned. In my experience, there is not a great deal of understanding about who refugees are, what their background is, why they have come, and so on, and a lot of confusion about refugees and migrants as a whole. Unfortunately, in some cases that has been exploited by some people, who have sought to portray refugees and migrants as a whole as different or “others” or tried to make people afraid of them. Who can forget Nigel Farage’s infamous poster in the 2016 EU referendum, which tried to demonise Syrian refugees who were fleeing for their lives and portray them all as terrorists?

Or who can forget the shameful front pages of too many of our tabloids in the run-up to the referendum, which tried to alienate refugees from the public, or at least their readers? King’s College London has published a report, which I recommend people read, analysing tabloid front pages. Immigration was the second most mentioned issue, with 99 front pages on immigration in the 10 weeks preceding the 2016 EU referendum, 76% of them negative. Hon. Members should please read some excerpts from the report. It is shameful and begs the question of what is happening not just to evidence-based journalism, but to ethical journalism. That is compounded by what we see on social media and the lack of regulation there.

It would be fair to say that some people have raised concerns about immigration. We will all have had issues raised with us on the doorsteps, particularly where there are housing pressures and when other public services such as the NHS and, increasingly, education are in crisis. However, immigration is also raised in areas where there is little diversity or fewer problems with services. That says a lot about how the media have portrayed the issue and how we have failed across the political spectrum to have a debate about immigration, migrants and refugees. We need to acknowledge that and step up to the plate, because we have created a vacuum and been replaced—I am not going to give a certain person the dignity of having his name mentioned in this place, but he was the leader of one party and became the leader of another.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Like my hon. Friend and many other Members, we have a high number of refugees in Coventry. We have experienced problems with people waiting a long time to find out their status. Very often they find out that a family member back home, in the country they are running away from, has been taken ill and do not know where they are. The other major problem is that some refugees spend months or maybe years without a status and unable to work, which creates a terrible situation.

[Debbie Abrahams]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I will come to that issue in a moment.

As leader of his party, that person excelled at pointing the finger at migrants, intentionally misleading the British public about EU citizens, who include the 1.3 million British people exercising their freedom to live and work across the EU, and conflating them with refugees seeking sanctuary in fear for their lives. We must not forget why we had a UN convention, as the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst mentioned, following the second world war, when Jewish people had nowhere to go. We remember what happened there. That person and his kind—I include the current incumbent of the White House in that—repeatedly use inflammatory and demonising language about refugees and migrants that is meant to instil fear. I would argue that large swathes of the print media have enabled that, which is compounded by social media.

I am proud that, in the wake of the second world war, the UK helped to draft, and was one of the first signatories to, the UN convention on refugees, so that anyone, anywhere, could claim refuge from persecution. We believe—I am talking about the people speaking in today’s debate—that most people feel that way too. But for some people, superimposed on top of those feelings are fears about jobs and public services and about difference: “What about my job? Will employers want to pay me less or even replace me? What about my children’s education? Will there be enough school places? Where will they live? What about housing supply?”

We have failed to answer those questions, and we have an obligation to do so. We must respond by engaging in communities to understand the local impacts of migration. We must make sure that communities with migrant populations are appropriately resourced and supported, so that the pressure on services is mitigated, migrant and indigenous communities get to know each other, and employers are prohibited from undercutting wages. Indeed, one issue uncovered prior to the EU referendum that got little coverage was the direct recruitment of people from abroad, which should not be allowed.

I would like to talk about a couple of refugees, Samia and Marzia, and say why they came to the UK and how I got to know them. Samia is a refugee from Syria. I first got to know her when she came to my Oldham office on a Friday night in 2015, saying that she was going to be made homeless. Although she had been granted refugee status fairly quickly, which is not everyone’s experience—I would like to raise that point with the Minister—she was no longer eligible for temporary accommodation because of issues with her residence permit. She could not get the accommodation that she needed and was going to be literally turned out on to the streets.

I pay tribute to my wonderful team. My office deals with a number of immigration and asylum claims, and I cannot speak highly enough of what they do. They sprang into action and managed to get a temporary stay for Samia while her new residence permit was sorted out. While all that was happening, we learned more about why and how Samia had arrived in the UK. She was an architect in Syria and fled her home, which she loves, leaving friends and family, after the bombing started in 2014. She described her fear for life. Unfortunately, she was separated from Samir, her husband. She arrived on her own in the UK and was sent to Oldham, where we met. The next step for us was to find Samir and reunite the family.

I am happy to say that there is a good ending to this story. We were able to find Samir, and this lovely couple, who are both architects, were reunited. They now live in Oxford and are contributing to our economy. We do not hear enough about those kinds of stories or how refugees are a net benefit to this country.

I first met Marzia at an International Women’s Day event in Oldham five years ago. She was a family court judge in the criminal justice system in Afghanistan. She had the temerity to set up education centres for girls, which unfortunately was not very popular with the Taliban. She was targeted by them, and after being run over and spending many weeks in hospital, she was told when finally released that she was going to be killed. She fled Afghanistan in fear for her life and arrived in the UK. Once in the UK, she moved to Oldham—I will say a little about that in a moment. As she told me, at the age of 43, having left her family, friends and career as a professional lawyer, she had to start all over again, learn a new language, which is increasingly difficult with cuts to English classes for speakers of other languages, and find a new identity and purpose.

Marzia said:

“The negative assumptions about me contributed to the deterioration of my mental health. The asylum system is harsh.”

Now Marzia is a British citizen, and I was delighted to be invited to her citizenship ceremony. She works in my office as a caseworker, helping people who were once in her position. Her views on the asylum system are scathing. She says:

“We have had some refugees who have waited 15 years for a decision about their status. Do you think this is right? 15 years in no man’s land… They are expected to learn English in spite of there being no free English classes, to pay for English when you’re not allowed to work and have £5.00 a day to live off.”

In addition to working for me, Marzia speaks about her experiences wherever she can. She has even written a book about not just her life in Afghanistan and the circumstances that led her to leave, but her experience of the asylum system. She wants people to understand the propaganda in the tabloids and increasingly online.

We must remember why the refugee convention exists and think about what we would want if our families were affected. That is why I am calling on the Government to ensure compassion, dignity and humanity in the asylum system; not to let people languish for years in no man’s land without determining their status; to ensure there are funded English classes to help people integrate in their new homes and communities; to enable people to work while they await their status; to support local authorities through a new migrant impact fund to ensure asylum seekers and refugees are properly supported and integrated into their new communities; and especially to fast-track the process of reuniting children with their families. As Marzia says,

“I am a refugee but I am a human being, like you.”