Immigration Bill

Keir Starmer Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

The contribution we are making stands in very positive terms compared with what other European partners are doing. This is about identifying the right people to deploy so that we have the best effect, and that is precisely what we are doing.

I am conscious that I have spoken for an extended period, and I want other right hon. and hon. Members to get into the debate. For the reasons I have given, the approach proposed in amendment 87 is not the right one. As the selection of amendments notes, the amendment engages financial privilege, and the Speaker identified some of the issues that that raises in terms of the reasons we give the House of Lords.

Under amendment 87, we could end up relieving pressure on developed countries in Europe that have the means to support children, instead of helping developing countries that are under real pressure and that do not have the capacity to support them. The best answer is upstream intervention before children at risk try to come to Europe.

The Government are committed to making a full contribution to the global refugee crisis, particularly by helping children at risk. We strongly believe that our approach of resettling children at risk and their families directly from the region will have most impact on safeguarding vulnerable children. The significant aid package in Europe, and our practical and logistical assistance to front-line member states to ensure vulnerable children are properly protected wherever they are in Europe, is the correct way to approach this issue.

The UK can be proud of the contribution we are making, which stands comparison with any. We are doing everything we said we would to provide aid and to resettle vulnerable refugees. We are already making a real difference to hundreds of thousands of lives.

I recognise the sincere feelings of those who support amendment 87. We share the objective of identifying and protecting children at risk, but I firmly believe that the approach I have set out provides the best way to support our European partners, help vulnerable refugee children and provide the biggest impact for the contribution this country can make.

[Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

I thank the Labour Peers and the many Cross Benchers who brought these amendments before the House today. The amendments raise important issues, and none more so than amendment 87.

Amendment 87—the so-called Alf Dubs amendment—was tabled by Lord Dubs. As many people know, Lord Dubs arrived in this country in 1939 as an unaccompanied child under the Kindertransport system, so he speaks with particular authority. The vote in the House of Lords was won by 100 votes, reflecting the long campaign to change the position on unaccompanied children in Europe. That campaign has been supported by Members of this House, along with non-governmental organisations and charities. The matter was first raised by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), who put it to the Prime Minister in September 2015. My right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) has continually raised it, and I pay tribute to her work. I also pay tribute to Save the Children for raising this issue so much over the last year.

The issue is comparatively simple to state: hundreds of thousands of families across the world—millions of people in total—are fleeing their homes. The refugee crisis we are witnessing is on a scale we have not seen since the second world war. The Minister spoke of the devastating effect of war on so many people. We have become familiar with the images of families making treacherous journeys—often across the Mediterranean—but I am sure I speak for the whole House when I say we are all still shocked every time we see footage and images of desperate families making those desperate, treacherous journeys.

[Catherine West]

Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that, given the emails and anguish-filled letters we receive as constituency MPs, there seems to be a lack of urgency among Government Members, which, to me, reflects the fact that they are out of touch with how the country really feels about this issue?

[Keir Starmer]

The number of constituents who have contacted me and other Members—I am sure that this is true across the House—about the plight of refugees in the last 12 months has been considerable. Many of those communications—again, I am sure that this is the same for many Members—are individual, rather than part of mass campaigns. These people have real concerns, and they usually say, “What can I do? I don’t think the Government are doing enough. Can I send money or clothes?” Many have said, “Can I take somebody in?” or even, “Can I adopt?” There is therefore a very powerful feeling out there that more needs to be done about refugees.

I have spoken of the hundreds of thousands of families —the millions of people—fleeing their homes.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

My hon. and learned Friend is exactly right. He has been to the camps in France, and I have been to the Calais camp. Much of the help there is given by individual British people who make the journey over or who organise trips, often providing substantial amounts of aid. Our constituents’ view is clear, and the Government would be wise to listen to it this evening.

[Keir Starmer]

I have been to the camps in Calais and Dunkirk, and, like many other people, I was shocked. I have discussed that with the Minister and with the Minister with responsibility for refugees, and what I have tried to get across—this is important in relation to the amendment—is that when I went to Dunkirk, there were 3,000 individuals, including many children, living in a swamp in flimsy tents in the freezing cold. There were eight volunteers doing their level best to help in the camp, but there was not an official in sight, apart from two gendarmes on the gate, and all they were doing was preventing pallets from being brought in. I know things have changed—I did say that when I went, and I have never been slow to acknowledge when steps have been taken—but there needs to be a reality check about the ability of children in those camps and elsewhere to access the advice and help they need to make a claim.

[Mr Burrowes]

I have similarly visited Dunkirk, where I was appalled by the inhumane conditions, and no one should walk by. Does the hon. and learned Gentleman have any details about deliverability if the Dubs amendment is passed? How many unaccompanied minors will come to this country, and when? How will that operate?

[Keir Starmer]

As the hon. Gentleman will have seen, the amendment proposes a scheme for taking children, and that is important. I accept that there needs to be a proper scheme and that things need to be done properly. As with any other scheme, accommodation, schools, healthcare and so on have to be put in place for anybody who arrives. The proposal is therefore for a scheme, rather than just a set number of children without a scheme.

I want to move on. I have described the hundreds of thousands—

[Tom Elliott (Fermanagh and South Tyrone) (UUP)]

Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Keir Starmer]

I will make some progress, if I may, and then I will of course take further interventions.

I have described the situation for millions of families travelling across the world, but we are now dealing with children making such treacherous journeys on their own. It is estimated that there are 26,000 of them in Europe. I met four of them in Glasgow when I visited there. The children—two girls and two boys—were from Iran, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They told me their very powerful stories about their trip across to Europe.

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[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that the story he has recounted gives the lie to or shows the inappropriateness of the Government’s position in that we cannot possibly expect children to be treated the same as adults?

[Keir Starmer]

I would put it this way: in this country, we recognise that children cannot access their rights without significant help and the position is exactly the same in Europe, but such help is not in place and that is not happening. The stories that I heard from the four children in Glasgow were typical of those of the thousands of children who are arriving alone, frightened and with absolutely nothing.

There is the chilling statistic—from my point of view, this is a telling statistic—that 10,000 of those children are thought to be missing. That figure comes from Europol. I have done a lot of work, as I recognise have a lot of other people in the House, to try to combat sexual exploitation and trafficking. There is a shared concern that many of these children will become, if they are not already, victims of sexual exploitation or trafficking. That is the real concern driving Lords amendment 87. It is a small but important contribution to dealing with the refugee crisis, which is testing our humanitarianism.

For my part, I have applauded the Government’s resettlement scheme—I have spent time, both in Glasgow and in Colchester, with Syrian families who have arrived under the scheme—but we simply cannot ignore the children who have arrived in Europe. As has been said, they are right here, right now, and they are in a desperate and vulnerable position. The Government are not saying that nothing needs to be done, or that they are perfectly catered for and are not at risk. The Government recognise that something needs to be done and that they are at risk, but the Government are still resisting Lords amendment 87.

The Minister put this in terms of risk and of not encouraging children to take risks. I want to address what is sometimes expressed as the pull factor absolutely fairly and squarely. The first thing to say is that, on analysis, there is flimsy evidence to support the pull factor one way or the other. The other thing is that any discussion of a pull factor should be held in a vacuum. We have been here before in relation to rescues in the Mediterranean. On one view, people argue that such rescues are a pull factor, but we all recognise that it would be abhorrent to leave people to their fate in the Mediterranean on the simple proposition that rescues might encourage others to cross the sea.

We therefore have to be absolutely honest with ourselves about what we are saying about the pull factor in relation to the 26,000 children, of whom 10,000 are missing. The pull factor argument is that we must abandon them to their fate on the basis of an unproven theory that if we did something by taking them, others might be encouraged to come. In stark terms, that is the pull factor. I reject it, many Members of the House reject it and we should all, rightly, reject it.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I hesitate to intervene on my hon. and learned Friend’s excellent speech, but does he wonder why we did not hear about the pull factor when this country took in 50,000 Ugandans, 30,000 Cypriots or 20,000 Vietnamese? We now have such a situation in Europe. A child died at the Piraeus camp in Greece when I visited just a few weeks. It was absolutely awful. That this Government are really doing what they are doing for the sake of immigration issues is a scandal. Is that not really why we are discussing the pull factor?

[Keir Starmer]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his very powerful intervention, which puts the pull factor in its proper context. The pull factor argument that has been deployed is not attractive in a country that has been as tolerant as this country has in providing support for those fleeing persecution. In the end, the argument boils down to saying that we will leave people to their fate for fear of encouraging others to follow in their footsteps. The Minister talked about distressed people fleeing war-torn zones. That is the context in which the argument is being applied, but this case is worse because the pull factor is being applied to children. The boy I met in Glasgow was 14 when he made his journey, and he is typical of many in that respect.

[Tim Farron]

The hon. and learned Gentleman is being very generous in giving way. On the pull factor, I agree with him that the evidence is at best mixed. In the sense that I found any kind of pull factor in the camps I visited in northern Greece, in the islands or in Calais and in meeting refugees who have been settled in Cologne, it was that Europe is a peaceful, decent, stable place where people can raise their children without fear of their being killed. We should be proud of such a pull factor.

[Keir Starmer]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very powerful point. I know that he has been very supportive of the campaigns in that respect. Certainly, several people I talked to in Calais and Dunkirk—stuck in camps that were appalling when I saw them—spoke in glowing terms about the rule of law and human rights, and our proud tradition in relation to refugees.

I have listened to the Minister. Not only on this occasion but every time that we have debated this, I have applauded and acknowledged the steps that the Government have taken. I accept that any steps taken must be proper steps within a proper scheme so that they work properly. However, not taking the vulnerable children who are in Europe—right here, right now—is simply not good enough.

This afternoon, an email pinged into my inbox from a rabbi in Kentish Town, one of my constituents, which I want to read to the House:

“As the Jewish community celebrates the…Passover, we remember not only our own journey to freedom, but all those who are not free.”

He urged me to support Lords amendment 87 and other amendments. He certainly speaks for many of my other constituents, as I am sure he does for those of many hon. Members from across the House.

Among those on the Opposition Benches, there is strong support for Lords amendment 87. I know and acknowledge the fact that Conservative Members have real concerns, which they have raised repeatedly, about our not taking in this group of vulnerable children who need our help now.

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

I was particularly moved by yesterday’s article by the former Archbishop, Rowan Williams. He compared the action being taken now with how we responded to the plight of children during the second world war. Does my hon. and learned Friend not agree with him that supporting the Dubs amendment

“is an opportunity for us to live up to the best of our tradition in Britain of reaching out a hand to help the most vulnerable”?

[Keir Starmer]

I speak for Members from across the whole House when I say that history will judge how we respond to this historic crisis, which is of proportions that have not been seen since the second world war. This is the challenge of our time, and whether we rise to it or not will be the measure of us. We have the clear evidence of thousands of vulnerable children, and we now need to act to take 3,000, as proposed in the amendment. I say to Conservative Members who have campaigned and spoken out on this that now is the moment to do something about it to make a real difference by voting with us on amendment 87. I urge all Members to do so.

[Jo Cox (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

We have talked a lot about pull factors, but it is worth remembering for a moment the push factors: the children as young as seven who are being forced on to the frontline in Syria, or the children raped in conflicts that are so horrific that aid workers I have worked with over 10 years are telling me that the situation is the most horrendous they have ever witnessed. These are children in Europe right now. I applaud the Government’s record on the humanitarian support they have given to Syrian civilians in the region—in Syria—and some of the efforts we have made in Europe, but tonight is surely the moment that we have to go just that little bit further. I hope my hon. and learned Friend agrees with that point.

[Keir Starmer]

I am grateful for that intervention. It reminds us that applying the “pull factor” argument in relation to refugees is inappropriate because they are, by definition, people who are fleeing persecution across borders and taking journeys that are treacherous and dangerous. When we see families or children making those journeys, we all think of our own families, and think of the circumstances and the desperation that lie behind those desperate acts. In those circumstances, it is of course very important to take into account the push factors.

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

The hon. and learned Gentleman must be aware of the Minister’s statement that we will take more children from in and around Syria. He has been arguing, as have others, about the 3,000 children to be taken from within Europe. Clearly, all of us in this House care very strongly about all vulnerable children caught up in these awful situations. Does he believe that there is a choice between taking one category before the other? Should we be taking more from Syria as well as the 3,000? How would we decide, given our ability properly to look after unaccompanied asylum-seeking children?

[Keir Starmer]

I support the statement that was made last week about up to 3,000 children being taken from the region. However, it should not be an either/or when we have a refugee crisis on a scale not seen since the second world war. This is a limited and proportionate number—3,000 children who are in desperate need in Europe right now. I, for my part, do not subscribe to the categorisation of vulnerability. I think that any child alone, fleeing across a border having made a treacherous journey, is vulnerable wherever they have found themselves. Certainly all the children I have spoken to—those in the camps and those who had made it to this country—were very vulnerable, not only when they started those journeys but when they made them. It is not an either/or.

[Nusrat Ghani]

rose—

[Keir Starmer]

I will give way, but I am conscious that lots of other people want to get in, and by taking interventions I am holding them up.

[Nusrat Ghani]

This is a very sensitive and difficult issue. The hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned vulnerability. Surely the most vulnerable children, families and communities are not those in Europe but those closest to conflicts.

[Keir Starmer]

I am sorry, but I really do not want to go down this path. One of the 10,000 who has disappeared and may be subject to sexual exploitation or trafficking right now is extremely vulnerable, and I am not going to categorise him or her as being any more or any less vulnerable than a child who may be in a camp elsewhere, vulnerable though they are. Hon. Members across the House have approached this with principle and with humanity, and there has been a shared cause of concern in many of the debates we have had. The “pull factor” argument whereby we leave people to their fate lest others follow, or the idea that we categorise the vulnerability of children, are not points well made in a debate that is usually conducted in a framework of real principle.

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[Richard Fuller]

On the absolute ban on the detention of pregnant women, which I support, I am glad that the hon. and learned Gentleman recognises the tremendous change that the Government have made, and are making. Will he reassure me and others that if pregnant women are made a category for exclusion from detention, that will not create a precedent for other groups to have a similar level of exclusion?

[Keir Starmer]

I hope that I made it clear that I support the Government’s changed position and recognise how far they have gone; I simply said that it is not enough. I do not think this sets a precedent. We are talking about a particular group. All those in immigration detention are vulnerable in one way or another, but it has long been recognised that pregnant women are a particularly vulnerable group within that group. This amendment speaks only to them, and therefore should be taken in those terms.

Amendment 60 deals with overseas domestic workers. This is a very important matter because it concerns another very vulnerable group, many of whom are abused by the households who employ them and find it very difficult to escape that abuse. When the Bill that became the Modern Slavery Act 2015 was going through this House, the Government, under pressure, commissioned the Ewins report. That report was clear in its conclusion that overseas domestic workers should be able to change employer and to apply for further leave for up to 30 months, and that they should be informed of their rights. The basis of the amendment is to support the Ewins conclusions. The driving theme behind the report in putting forward those proposals is that Ewins said that they are the only practical way out of abuse for this very vulnerable category of workers. There is more to be done on overseas domestic workers, and amendment 60 addresses a very thin slice of the problems they face. However, I urge all Members to support it.

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

For me, as a parent, the decision on whether to support the amendment made to the Bill in the other place on the resettlement of unaccompanied children in Europe reduces itself to simple questions. If I were separated from my children—if they were destitute in a foreign country, cold, hungry and far away from home—what would I want for them? Would I be content for them to be at risk of violence and exploitation, often sexual in nature, or would I want them to be offered safe haven with the desire that they be looked after and reunited with family members in due course? Those questions are, to my mind, rhetorical. They admit of sure and certain answers. I greatly regret that those are not answers that—with the best of motives, I accept—the Government appear to be willing to give.

Let us, for a moment, leave out of the equation what seems to me to be the grave inconsistency between arguing, on one hand, that the country has a role at the heart of the EU, and yet refusing, on the other, to shoulder the burden of the fact that Europol estimates that 10,000 unaccompanied refugee children went missing in Europe last year after they had been registered with the authorities in the countries in which they found themselves. Let us leave out of the equation the fact that the true number of minors subjected to abuse, exploitation and violence is, self-evidently, far higher. Let us even leave out of the equation the fact that, as the former Archbishop of Canterbury pointed out in a national newspaper over the weekend, doctors report that as many as half of unaccompanied African boys in the EU require treatment for sexually transmitted diseases—diseases almost certainly acquired from sexual exploitation during their passage to Europe. Let us also forget about those children we do not know about who have died cold and lonely deaths in Europe or the Mediterranean, driven from their homes and separated from their parents and loved ones, usually through no fault of their own.

Let the House instead reflect on our history in this, the greatest migration challenge in my lifetime, and on how we have behaved in the past. In that respect, the contribution that this country has always made to doing the right thing—to providing a home for children who have been driven from theirs by war and conflict—is unmatched. Exceptional times call for exceptional measures. That was the case with the Kindertransport programme, which benefited those who would undoubtedly have lost their lives in the holocaust had this country not acted in the run-up to the second world war. It was the case with those who fled Uganda after Idi Amin decided to expel them. It was the case with those who fled Vietnam and Iran in the late 1970s and the early 1980s. But now, apparently, either we should not act or we cannot act, using our heads as well as our hearts; to do so would simply encourage more children to make the dangerous journey to Europe. So says the Minister, and I accept that he has a point. That point does not, however, answer the point that these children are already in Europe, and that they are at risk as I stand here and speak to the House.

I do not doubt for a moment the Minister’s desire, and that of the Government, to do the right thing. I do doubt, based on what I have heard in the House this evening, that that is what we are proposing to do. As I have said, these children are already in Europe. They are alone, and far from their families. They are cold, frightened, hungry and frequently without help or access to those who might help or protect them. Their lives are miserable and brutish, and at least half of them have experienced or seen violence that we can only dream of in our nightmares—or, rather, hope that we do not.

Of course, the announcement last week, welcome as it is, that we will take 3,000 children from Syria and elsewhere who have not already made the dangerous journey to Europe was a good one, in the best traditions of recognising the obligations that this country enjoys in times such as the present—obligations that were recognised in January, and to which the announcement adds. That is no comfort to the children who are already in Europe, who have fled war and conflict that have torn their lives apart, and who need our help now. Those children are in Calais; they are on the Greek-Macedonian border; they are at the Gare du Nord in Paris and Midi station in Brussels; and they are sleeping rough in Berlin, Rome, Skopje and Vienna. Tonight they will sleep in fear, and tomorrow they will wake to the hopelessness to which their position exposes them. Today, in this House, we can do something. We cannot solve all their problems, remove all their troubles, or take from their consciousness the memory of the horrors that they have witnessed and endured, but we can do something.

That something is not to disagree with their Lordships on this amendment. That is the something that I can and will do, by joining the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) in the Opposition Lobby this evening. This is not an easy decision, or one that I have taken lightly, but it is the right decision, made of a conviction that I have reached after searching my conscience, as I pray other right hon. and hon. Members will search theirs. The House should support the Lords in their amendment and vote against the motion to disagree.