Refugees: UK Government Policy

Debate between Keir Starmer and Bob Stewart

Wednesday 10th February 2016 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairladyship, Mrs Main. [Interruption.] I am taking my lead from the SNP.

This is an important debate. We have had three debates today on aspects of the refugee crisis, which is clearly the issue of our time. I will not take up time by repeating the numbers, because I know the Minister wants to respond to some of the questions that have been put to him. Millions of people have fled Syria, as everybody knows. Millions are registered as asylum seekers in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, and now of course in Greece and Italy. There are millions, taken together. We stand at a moment when the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the EU are calling on the international community for a collective response to a huge crisis. We have not seen a crisis of this size and order for many generations.

I pay tribute to the work of this Minister in particular—the Under-Secretary of State for Refugees—in this field, and to what the Government have done. The steps that have been taken are welcome. However, in 20 years’ time chapters in history books will be written about this moment in world history, in European history and in our own history, and I have concerns that—on reflection and looking back—our response will be judged as reluctant and limited, and in comparison with others not fair and not proportionate.

I just remind hon. Members that, back in January 2014, we agreed only to aid the neighbours of Syria in their efforts but not to have any part in the resettlement scheme at all. That work was extended in 2014 but only in relation to vulnerable persons—broadly speaking, those who had suffered sexual violence and torture—and it was expected that a few hundred people might resettle. Then, in September 2015, there was the resettlement programme for 20,000 Syrians.

Those steps were all welcome, but all of them were, in truth, a response to overwhelming pressure from the public, the media and the Opposition in this House. The same is true in relation to unaccompanied children. There has been a debate about this issue for some weeks. There was a statement just a few weeks ago, but again it was more limited than many of us had hoped for. There is the sense of reluctant and limited steps being taken, welcome though those steps are.

There are a number of questions for the Minister to deal with now and in the coming weeks and months. The first is this: can the hard stop line about Europe really be maintained any more? In other words, can we really say that we have no responsibility to deal with those people who have arrived in Europe and that we simply have to put the burden on the states where they are now, and play no part in relocation? I understand why it is important not to undermine the Dublin III agreement, but on the other hand there are countries that are clearly struggling with the number of people they have, and I wonder whether that hard stop line can be justified for very much longer.

I also raise again the question of unaccompanied children. I listened carefully to what the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) said about this issue, and it is an argument that is made about the influence that our action might have on future action. However, we have to face up to the fact that these children are in Europe right now, unaccompanied, and they are desperate, and the push-pull factors do not apply to them, as others have already said. Also, a number of these children are disappearing. Are we really going to stand here and say that, for fear of what might happen in the future, we will do nothing for them now? I am very uncomfortable that, as a country, that could possibly be our position, and I think that view is shared across the House in different ways and with different forces.

[Bob Stewart]

Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way on that point?

[Keir Starmer]

Of course.

[Bob Stewart]

I will be very quick.

[Bob Stewart]

I will take seconds. Unaccompanied children need to be properly processed, because if we act too fast they might never see their parents or their other relatives again. We have to get that processing right.

[Keir Starmer]

I am grateful for that intervention and I agree.

I will use up my remaining 30 seconds simply to say that whatever processes are applied, either to unaccompanied children or to adult asylum seekers arriving in this country, they have to be better managed than they are now. There are disproportionate burdens in different areas, and we have to address that sooner rather than later. Also, as we debated this morning in relation to accommodation, there are real concerns about the way that services and accommodation are being provided to asylum seekers.

These are big questions, but they are the questions of our time.