Refugee Family Reunion

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 20th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is always good to have the opportunity to speak about these matters. I thank the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil)—I hope that is the right pronunciation; I have been practising it for the last 15 minutes. The hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) said she was challenged by it, and so was I. The hon. Gentleman has been a great advocate from the very beginning, and he deserves a lot of credit for his leadership on this matter. He has the support of a movement of MPs from all parties for what he is trying to secure.

I am pleased to see the Minister in her place. Just a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to meet her in my capacity as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief, and we discussed some of the things that her Department is doing. I thank her for the way she responded to the issues we brought to her attention and for what her Department is doing. I also thank her for giving me the opportunity to name some of the refugees whose cases are in the system. All MPs probably take advantage of the opportunity of meeting her to drop into conversation the name of someone whose case we feel should be looked at urgently.

I firmly believe that, as Members of Parliament, we have a solemn duty to be a voice for the voiceless and to speak out for all those who are oppressed, regardless of their nationality, race, colour or creed. For that reason, I am delighted that Members of this House have the opportunity and the privilege to recognise World Refugee Day. This House shines today, and Members’ contributions have been excellent.

We are seeing record levels of displacement globally, with more than 70 million people displaced worldwide—70 million. Sometimes numbers are bandied around, and we do not know how to process them, so let me put it another way. We are dealing with a situation where the entire population of Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland are forced out of their homes. Imagine driving down London’s streets with nobody there—that is what it means.

Something must be done to tackle this situation, and to do that, we need to tackle all the root causes. That is why I would like to discuss one of the biggest drivers of displacement: the persecution of religious and belief minorities and systematic violations of the fundamental right to freedom of religion or belief. I thank the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar for referring to the persecution of Christians. In a report entitled “The Persecution of Christians and Global Displacement”, Open Doors stated that religious persecution was a “dangerously underestimated” factor behind some people’s decision to flee their home. The charity estimated that around half of Syria’s 1.7 million Christians have left their country due to a combination of conflict and religious persecution.

When the Minister and I met a few weeks ago, I mentioned that six Syrian families have been relocated to my constituency of Strangford, and particularly Newtownards. That is an excellent Government scheme, and I commend them for that, but it is only part of the success story. Those families are traumatised and under pressure. They have come to a strange town, and not all of them can speak the language; the children can learn it quickly, but their parents cannot. I met all the families through The Link charity and Strean presbyterian church in Newtownards. It was wonderful to see the community come together through their churches and their faith. These are Christian families who had to leave Syria—some of the 1.7 million people who were displaced—and come to Newtownards. The community got together, with the support of Government, to secure them housing, access to hospital care and education for their children and to try to get them employment. It always encourages me greatly as the Member for Strangford to see just how generous people are when it comes to making things happen.

We see a similar pattern in Iraq, where the numbers of Christians have fallen dramatically due to religious persecution. It is estimated that there were approximately 1.5 million Christians there in 2003, but now numbers are in the hundreds of thousands. The assessment is that there are now approximately 250,000 Christians.

As chair of the all-party group on international freedom of religion or belief, I also speak out on behalf of many non-Christians who fled their homes because it was not possible to practise, change or give up their faith or belief without suffering discrimination or, in many cases, extreme violence. For example, there are an estimated 1.1 million Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh due to displacement by the brutal onslaught of the Burmese military. We have spoken about that in this Chamber before, and it really hurts me—it hurts us all here—when we have to listen to horrific stories of brutality, violence, sexual abuse, physical abuse and the murder of loved ones.

Although there have inevitably been difficulties and tensions, it is deeply humbling to reflect on the kindness with which a country with extremely limited resources such as Bangladesh has welcomed those in desperate need. On this World Refugee Day, I think it is worth asking ourselves: would we have the same courage and would we have the same compassion to do the same? Bangladesh is a very poor country, but it has welcomed those people in—the 1.1 million Rohingya. It is also worth asking ourselves if the UK and the international community truly have done everything in our power to tackle this issue.

Apart from Myanmar and the middle east, there are many other parts of the world where huge numbers have been displaced due to religious persecution. For example, the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria has displaced over 2 million people. For this reason, promoting freedom of religious belief and encouraging peaceful co-existence between different religious communities is vital to any long-term solutions for the refugee crisis.

It is also why policy development for these two areas should not be totally separate; we have to marry those two together. On this point, I would like to congratulate the Home Office—I did it earlier, and I want to reiterate it—on its development of a new training module for asylum caseworkers to help them better assess applications made on the grounds of religion or belief-based persecution. I understand that all caseworkers will have received this training by the end of June—that was confirmed at the meeting—and I commend the Government for their efforts. Let us give credit where credit is due, which I think it is important to do in any debate we have in this House. This is an important step, which I hope will go some way to addressing the disproportionately low numbers of religious or belief minority refugees who have been granted asylum by the United Kingdom.

Figures obtained by the Barnabas Fund under a freedom of information request show that out of some 4,850 Syrian refugees accepted for resettlement by the Home Office in 2017, only 11 were Christian. Again, I would just say that we have over half of them in Newtownards. This is only 0.2% of all the Syrian refugees accepted by the UK. I know that the Government have been very generous, but may I very gently say that I would have liked to see a wee bit more focus on Christian refugees so that they get an equal opportunity of being accepted?

In January, the hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins)—he was in earlier on, but is away just now—and the hon. Members for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) and for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara) visited Lebanon, with the support of Aid to the Church in Need, to investigate why so few religious minority refugees were being referred by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Can the Minister give us some response to that, although it is not her responsibility directly, so that we can hear what discussions have taken place?

Several issues were discussed during the trip, but one of the principal concerns was that there seem to be communication issues between the UNHCR and religious minority refugees. We know that through the all-party group on international freedom of religion or belief, as well as through the Barnabas Fund, Open Doors and Release International, which are all coming back with the same thing. Nearly all the refugees whom the delegation met were unclear about their rights and UNHCR’s available support, leading to a feeling that the UNHCR was not for them—that is very worrying—and that they should seek support elsewhere. The UNHCR has to realise that it is for everyone, and let us make sure that this is rammed home today.

It is important to note that the UNHCR is under enormous pressure, which I understand and respect, and that it is underfunded, which I understand as well, and overworked, so this is not intended as a criticism. I am trying to highlight areas where the United Kingdom and the UNHCR might be able to work together to improve the situation.

I congratulate the Home Office on the 5,806 family reunion visas granted in 2018, and I add my name to the call for the Government to introduce reforms to family reunion rules to ensure that the close relatives of all refugees in the UK have safe and legal pathways to unite with their families in the UK.

The six families that have been integrated among the communities in Newtownards and have done extremely well also have other relatives, as the Minister knows, who are still detained in and unable to get out of Syria. These are family members, so when it comes to the title of this debate—“Refugee family reunion” is what it says up there on the Annunciator and on the Order Papers in front of us—this is about making sure that the families who have also sought asylum can get asylum alongside their families. Every one of us has families, and knows how important it is to have family. Almost the only thing that keeps us sane is our family and it is really good to have that, but how much more so for those refugees to have their families and to have them close.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon]

Some of the Christian Syrian refugees in Newtownards are talented in carpentry and their work is as good as that of any carpenter. The only thing holding them back is their grasp of the language. If they understand the language, they are then able to go on building sites in safety. Language is the thing that opens the door.

[Caroline Nokes]

The hon. Gentleman makes a really important point. Sometimes it is language and sometimes it is the recognition of qualifications. I tell people repeatedly the story of a Syrian refugee in Kent who was qualified as an accountant in Syria, yet can only work as a bookkeeper here. As a Government, we have to be imaginative. Her English was brilliant. She needed not English language lessons, but to be able to upgrade her qualification. It is important that we are creative in finding routes to work.

The hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) gave a very wide-ranging speech and I agreed with much of it. She spoke of the dreadful language use in 2016. I am always reminded of a poster I used to drive past on the A3. I am quite ashamed to repeat the words, but I will do so. It simply said, “The Turks are coming”. I have always sought in this role to be careful and measured about the language I use, and to bring a very human tone to the debate around immigration. It has been an interesting and challenging debate over the past 18 months, but we need to move away from speaking in tabloid headlines.